Sweet Potato Almond Butter Muffins

I got out my jar of Almond Butter again to try another recipe from the 19 New Recipes to Make with a Jar of Almond Butter list I found a few months ago from which I made the Almond Butter Banana Oatmeal Smoothie. I'd been intrigued by the muffins, and with the weather getting a bit cooler I was prepared to do some baking. I also had a lot of time for baking over the past weekend, as we rented a beach house and since James didn't return from a trip to Brazil until Sunday I had Friday evening and all day Saturday for baking. I made a few changes to the recipe, so mine was not vegan. For starters I used a  real egg, rather than a flax seed substitute. I have tried flax seed as an alternative when baking, and it worked out well, but I just took what was easiest when I packed up food for the weekend, and I was already bringing eggs. I also used regular milk instead of almond milk. The recipe calls for oat flour and whole wheat pastry flour, but since I noticed some unused almond flour in our cupboard when I was packing I decided to just try baking with that instead. I used allspice in place of cinnamon. The recipe was easy to follow, even given that I was in an unfamiliar kitchen, and I was working with some substitutions. The muffins were really tasty. The only sweetener, was 1/3 c. of brown sugar, so all the other flavors were evident, and the almond butter gave it a wonderful creamy texture, though they didn't rise as much they might have with a grain-based flour.

Turkey Reuben

One of James' favorite sandwiches is the Reuben - pastrami, Swiss, sauerkraut,  and 1000 island dressing on rye. He orders it almost anytime we are in a restaurant that has it on the menu. Pam is not fond of pastrami, nor 'kraut and therefore does not share James's affinity for said sandwich. She does however enjoy a similar sandwich made with turkey and cole slaw (the Turkey Reuben, also known as the "Rachel"). We were invited to a cookout on Sunday and told the hosts on Friday that we would bring something made with ingredients from our farm box, which we would be picking up on Saturday. Saturday's bounty included a head of cabbage, so James made some of the tasty lime cole slaw he made for my birthday last year. We had some slaw left over after the cookout so Pam got a bee in her bonnet about making Rachel sandwiches. We seldom would have reason to eat 1000 island dressing, so we didn't want to buy a whole bottle to make the sandwiches. Fortunately it was pretty easy to make a small quantity using roughly equal parts mayonnaise, ketchup, and pickle relish.

To prepare the sandwiches Pam heated the indispensable cast-iron griddle, and melted some butter onto it. Meanwhile she spread some mayo on each of four slices of marble rye bread,and placed the slices mayo-side down onto the griddle. Next she spread a bit of the dressing onto two of the slices, and put a slice of Provolone cheese, and two slices of turkey onto the other slices. Once the cheese had melted a bit she put a spoonful of slaw on top of the slices with the dressing. The turkey/cheese slice was then paced on top of the dressing/slaw slice and the sandwich was removed from the griddle, sliced, and served. These were just as good as anything we've been served in a restaurant, especially when paired with some ice-cold home brew.

L.O.V.E. the Fruit

Where wine- and music-lovers gather

This one will be short and sweet. Well, short and sweet and tangy. One of the things we most enjoy about South Shore summers is the picnics we take nearly every Friday evening to the Sunset Music series at Westport Rivers. It is a great way to begin a weekend, bringing food (some great food is also for sale there), enjoying the wine and beer for sale there, listening to live music, and supporting a family business that is deeply dedicated to the protection of coastal open space.

We decided to include a fruit salad in the picnic we would share with friends who were meeting us at the vineyard. I cut up some strawberries, a banana, some apples, and a mango -- and put them all in the fridge to chill. I was not quite sure what to do about a dressing. A salad like this needs some kind of acid -- perhaps lime juice -- to deter browning, and something for sweetness as well. I had a few ideas, but decided to wait until Pam got home in case she could come up with something better.

And indeed she did. She went immediately to our Treasure Island (the kitchen island that contains all manner of potions and libations, from Triple Sec to infused olive oils), looking for just the right vinegar. That's right ... readers of this blog will know that we are smitten with L.O.V.E. -- a small business operated by a fellow UMBC graduate that introduced us to the magic of infused oils and balsamics a few years ago.

In this case, ripe peach white balsamic was the perfect dressing for the fruit I had prepared. The result was gobsmacking!

Cooking in the Car

Although it was published -- by Miramax Books, of all things -- almost 20 years ago, we only recently learned that Laura Esquivel has a cookbook. We have cooked so many great things from her novel that an actual cookbook is very promising indeed!

I learned of the book when showing the film version of Like Water for Chocolate to my Geography of Latin America class this summer. Searching for other books by the author whose work inspired the movie, I found An Appetite for Passion.  (Note: IMDb users have given this film only 7.3/10 stars, proving that there is an exception to the general idea that crowds get things right. But I digress.)

We have loved Como Agua and its food since we saw the film in its original art-house run. Pam even participated in a class about the book and its food at our church back in Tucson, and a few years ago incorporated the food into her university Spanish class. The results of this creative undergraduate-research experience are on the CAPCR blog she created with her students, and which we consult frequently.

For this project, Esquivel collaborated with cookbook author John Willoughby and translator Margaret Sayers Peden to put together a volume dedicated to the enjoyment of food with all the senses.

So much for the appetizer -- on to the main course! For our first foray into this volume, Pam suggested a salmon dish, and since I was headed out for my weekly "whaling" voyage in New Bedford, I knew it would be convenient for me to pick up something fresh at Kyler's. I had also come to the market prepared, because I had read the recipe carefully before setting out. I don't always remember to do this, but this story is a lesson in why it is a good idea.

The recipe entitled Marinated Salmon with Warm Leek-Ginger Vinaigrette calls for imbuing the salmon with ginger in two stages, implied by the title. It is to marinate in a concoction of ginger, garlic, soy sauce, orange juice and brown sugar for 2-4 hours before broiling. For the broiling itself, it is to be coated with a vinaigrette -- more like a relish -- of ginger, shallots, leeks, lime, vinegar and soy. (See page 44 of the book for all the details.) Based on this description, I selected a wild-caught salmon with a gamy flavor that would stand up to the ginger. Knowing that we would not be eating until midnight if I followed the recipe after getting home, I prepared the marinade and vinaigrette beforehand, and brought the former to the fishmonger, along with a glass dish and the cooler I always bring. It was then a simple matter to put the fish in the marinade right there in the parking lot, so it could meld while I rowed and drove. When I got home, I put the vinaigrette on, and we enjoyed this along with some home-brewed pale ale and a delicious salad Pam had prepared.

What our "prep kitchen" looked like 187,000 miles ago.
Our 2004 LW300 may have been the very last wagon
sold by Saturn in southern New England.

The results: extraordinarily delicious! The whole family enjoyed this, and Pam found the one leftover fillet to be even more delicious two days later. The recipe calls for far more vinaigrette than is actually needed, so I am saving that for use with chicken in the next couple of days. I think it will be fabulous.

The introduction to this recipe describes the global infatuation with ginger and its association with passion, fecundity, and Paradise. It also makes for a simply delicious dinner.

Patty Pan Potatoes -- Day 2

We often remember the wisdom of Mrs. Poole once said on Valerie, mac & cheese is best on the third day ... with milk. (Quote is inexact, as this show predates social media, so I would have to watch the whole series to figure out exactly what she said.) We can picture her saying this -- and hear Edie McClurg's distinctive voice in our heads -- any time we have a simple dish that seems to improve with a little melding. The most recent example was this evening's side dish of roasted potatoes and squash, which I prepared last night to go along with some fresh salmon.

Putting the kitsch in our kitchen

I had prepared this because I was going whaling for the evening; and would be bringing back a late dinner from Kyler's Seafood. Since I had some leisure in the afternoon, I wanted to prepare a side dish that would require minimal effort from Pam. At this time of year, we also endeavor to use something from our farm share every day, and so far all we had used was the veggies from leftover ratatatatouille. With the bounty of vegetables coming in from Colchester Neighborhood Farm this time of year, we need to do something original every day! It is one of the challenges but also one of the chief benefits of eating locally -- readjusting our food calendar to include more of what is available nearby at any given time of the year.

What came to mind was a simple modification to an old standard of mine -- in fact, when Pam suggested blogging about it this evening, I was confused, because I hardly think of this as a "recipe" at all, much less a "nueva receta." But I do not think I have posted this handy dish before, and certainly not the modification.  I started with a few small potatoes, partly peeling each with our handy monkey peeler. (We usually refrain from peeling potatoes, and if we do, we usually remove only about half the skin.) I then peeled a patty pan (UFO) squash, and diced both to about half-inch cubes.

I put all of this in a casserole dish and added a generous dollop of olive oil and thoroughly dusted the vegetables with paprika (lots and lots), oregano, and pepper. I mixed it all thoroughly and left it for Pam to bake (about 375 for close to an hour) in time for my arrival with the fish, which I simply pan-fried with lime-infused oil and Old Bay. It was very good, served with our home-vinted Gewurztraminer.

But none of this is what inspired us to write this up. It was this evening, when we were putting together a quick dinner of organic hamburgers that we realized this would be a good side. I reheated the roasted potatoes and squash in the indispensable cast-iron skillet, alongside the patties (which included a healthy dose of Worcestershire sauce). The result was simply amazing -- overnight the olive oil had worked its Mrs. Poole magic on the vegetables, and refrying them worked just beautifully. (We did not, as we sometimes do, top this with plain yogurt.) This evening's pairing also worked very well -- our home-brewed Chinook pale ale.

Pancake Bush

When I got home yesterday afternoon, I was proud to find that our daughter and a visiting friend had made themselves a brunch of pancakes. We do not keep a lot of "food" in the house, though we keep a lot of "ingredients" and fortunately Paloma has been raised to know what to do with them. Our indispensable Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison (aka Hayes-Boh Family Bible) was on the counter, opened to the page that is the basis of my James' Famous Pancakes (Readers of this blog will know that we have a favorite approach and many other quite-nice pancake recipes.)

For breakfast this morning, I offered to make pancakes, using the batter leftover from the efforts of our young chefs the day before as a starting point. There was not enough for the whole family and guest, so I augmented it with the ingredients from my own version of the recipe. This time I used 1/2 cup whole-wheat flour and 1 cup all-purpose, as I sometimes do. I used a spatula to alternate dry and wet ingredients (yogurt, vanilla, milk) and beat in one egg and a little canola oil.

Then came the fun part. Last year I had planted a blackberry bush, and in recent weeks had noticed it already starting to bear fruit. I had nibbled a few directly from the bush, and decided it was time to cook with them. We also had a few blueberries on hand and some butterscotch chips. Rather than mixing in any of these ingredients, I simply scattered them onto individual pancakes, so that we ended up with three different choices, all of which proved to be quite popular, especially when served with warmed, genuine maple syrup.

The blackberries were so big that I had to press them down a bit into the cooking pancakes.

Texican Squash

We are deep into our CSA season when we try to use something each day from the box. Part of our pick up last Saturday was one yellow squash. We have a favorite yellow squash casserole, but I decided to try something new with it this time. I found the Texican Squash recipe at Allrecipes.com. It looked simple enough, and we had everything else needed to make it. I made a few substitutions - using crumbly Mexican farmer's cheese in place of Monterrey jack, and a chopped fresh jalepeño pepper in place of the canned chili peppers. I also noticed that the recipe did not call for onions, and this just seemed wrong, so I added a small chopped onion.

This has a good "zing", though my daughter didn't care much for it (at least she tried it).

I noticed today that the picture on the website has it topped with salsa. When we had the leftovers for lunch, we tried it that way. It is definitely better with the salsa!