Archives for November 2012

Happy Thanksgiving!

November 22, 2012 by Erica

Happy Turkey Day! Well, more like Vegan Stuffing and Pie Day around here. Doesn’t have quite the same ring to it, but sounds delicious nonetheless!

This afternoon Nate and I are heading up to Park City for a Thanksgiving dinner with friends. We’re actually doing it at the house where my friend Kate house-sits. That might sound odd, BUT we all have tiny apartments, and this house has a gorgeous kitchen with two ovens. No-brainer! There are only six of us, but we are making TONS of food. I can’t wait. I’m bringing lots of tupperware for leftovers!

So far I’m right on track with my big list of dishes to prepare. The pumpkin pie was made on Tuesday night, apple pie and beet hummus last night (the vegan apple pie was a minor disaster… I won’t know how bad until we actually eat it), and stuffing, vegan gravy, rolls and sweet potatoes will be made today. Now you know what I’ll be doing all morning!

Today, like every day of my life, I have a lot to be thankful for. Loving and supportive parents, the sweetest sisters a girl could ask for, and amazing friends. My wonderful boyfriend, who makes me laugh every day, and the opportunity to experience beautiful new places in our country with him. I’m also thankful to have a job that pays the bills and even allows me to buy twice as many groceries as I really should! And I’m thankful for the opportunity to write here and share my ridiculous passion for food with others who feel the same way.

I’m missing my parents and sisters today. Not only do I miss my mom’s cooking, I miss all being together in my parents’ big house. I don’t think I realized that as my sisters and I grew older, we might permanently settle far away from each other. Caitlin and Alban are both in North Carolina, and I’m out here in Utah. Sometimes I ask myself what I’m doing so far away from them! I still have my fingers crossed that someday we’ll all live in the same town and have our babies play in the bathtub together.

In the meantime, I’m looking forward to Christmas, when my whole family will pile into my parents’ house, drive each other crazy for a week, and finally escape back to our respective states! :)

This Thanksgiving, as I’m not travelling, I have a whole four-day weekend to cook, ski with friends, catch up on my reading, and just generally fulfill my weekday fantasy of curling up on the couch in the middle of the day. With enormous tupperwares of Thanksgiving leftovers… yum.

Happy Thanksgiving – enjoy the time with family and friends!

Mexican Butternut Squash Soup

November 21, 2012 by Erica

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. Do you know what you’re eating?

Not for dinner, silly. What kind of question is that? If you’re like me, you’ve been dreaming about Thanksgiving dinner for the past two weeks. I have lists made, not only of the dishes I’m making and the groceries that I (still – eek!) have to buy, but of when I should prepare what. Organization is kind of my thing.

Anyway, no, I’m not asking if you’ve given any thought to your Thanksgiving dinner, because I’m sure you have. I’m talking about lunch, the oft-forgotten Thanksgiving meal. If you’re eating dinner around noon, you can obviously forego lunch. But if you eat Thanksgiving dinner around 3:00 or 4:00, as my family typically does, you might find yourself in the kitchen come 1:00, trying to put together a sandwich or salad out of scraps from the fridge. It’s kind of weird to realize that in the frenzy of dinner planning, you’ve totally forgotten to plan a lunch… especially if you have holiday house guests. You don’t want anyone going hungry!

Luckily, my mom is always prepared (in this situation, as well as most others). Her solution is soup.

Soup for Thanksgiving lunch – it’s perfect! It’s autumnal and comforting, but not too filling, so you’ll still be able to stuff yourself in a few hours. Mom likes to serve her lunchtime soup in big mugs, although you can feel free to use a bowl.

This soup has a butternut squash base and uses chipotle chiles in adobo sauce for a nice little Mexican kick. Top with cilantro and a squeeze of lime, and you have the perfect light but satisfying lunch.

Mexican Butternut Squash Soup

Hands-on time

15 mins

Cook time

55 mins

Total time

1 hour 10 mins

Author: Coffee & Quinoa

Yields: 6-8

Ingredients

1 medium-sized butternut squash, peeled and chopped
1 yellow onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 carrots, diced
2 stalks celery, chopped
5 cups vegetable broth
1 bay leaf
2 chipotle chiles in adobo sauce (or more if you’d like it spicy!)
2 tsp cumin
½ tsp coriander
½ cup non-dairy milk (I used regular unsweetened almond milk)
cilantro, for serving
lime wedges, for serving

Instructions

First, chop all vegetables. To make the butternut squash easier to peel and chop, consider piercing it several times with a sharp knife and nuking for 2 minutes or so. This softens the skin and makes it just that much less likely that you’ll cut your finger off!
Heat a bit of olive oil in a soup pot over medium heat. Add the onion and saute 2-3 minutes. Add the garlic and saute another 2-3 minutes, until the onion is softened and beginning to brown.
Add the rest of the vegetables (squash, carrots and celery), vegetable broth, and bay leaf. Simmer until vegetables are tender and starting to get mushy, about 45-50 minutes.
While soup is simmering, chop chiles, cilantro and lime wedges.
Remove bay leaf from the soup. (If you don’t, it’s no big deal. I actually forgot and it turned out fine!) Add chopped chiles and puree until smooth using an immersion blender. (If you don’t have an immersion blender, you can transfer the soup in batches to a blender and then into another pot or a bowl.)
Stir in cumin, coriander, and milk.Taste and adjust seasonings - you can add more chiles if you’d like it spicier!
Serve hot. Garnish with chopped cilantro and a squeeze of lime juice.

Notes

Adapted from http://www.anothermarvelousmeal.com/2011/10/mexican-spiced-butternut-squash-soup.html

Tuesday Book Review: The Hunger Games

November 20, 2012 by Erica

Well, I didn’t get any recommendations after my last book review.

Although Mom did inform me that she wrote her high school senior thesis on East of Eden.

I’m thinking that no one writes their senior thesis on The Hunger Games. Actually, I take that back – I’m sure that in my old high school alone, dozens of kids have written their thesis on The Hunger Games in the past few years. I hope their teachers are trying to make them write about John Steinbeck instead.

But let me back up, because I’m making it sound like I hated this book. Quite the opposite: I can’t wait to read Catching Fire.

I know that I’m late to the party. I was late to the vampire party, too. And the quidditch party. And I’m holding out on that shades of grey party for as long as I possibly can.

And that’s exactly why it’s 2012 and I’m reading The Hunger Games for the first time: I’ve been holding out. It’s very similar to what I did with the Twilight books, except that I never intended to read Twilight. But then I was driven to distraction alone in Nate’s apartment during my first week in Utah, having already finished every other book on his roommate’s shelf, and finally picked up Twilight. Oh well, I thought, it will keep me entertained. And did it EVER. I spent the next few weeks plowing through all four books, wondering why I had looked down my nose at them for so long.

I read The Hunger Games in exactly 5 elliptical sessions plus one session of eating 3 pieces of cake. Typical.

If you’re one of the last people on earth to read this book, let me tell you the premise: It is set in a somewhat post-apocalyptic America, call Panem, where every year a boy and a girl from each district are chosen by lottery to fight to the death with teenagers from the other districts. Katniss Everdeen, the main character, volunteers for the Hunger Games in place of her younger sister, whose number is drawn. Being a small and underfed girl, she is at a disadvantage against better-fed teenagers from other districts who have trained for the Games their whole lives. The book chronicles her fight, with many nail-biting moments, a love triangle, cliff-hanging chapter endings, and everything else you would expect from this type of preteen drama.

I once heard this type of fantasy novel described as a world that makes you want to buy real estate. And that’s exactly how The Hunger Games is. Suzanne Collins builds a world that hooks you in and keeps you turning the page. It’s the literary equivalent of “Call Me Maybe” – it may not be a masterpiece in the traditional sense of the word, but you can’t help but love it, and you have to admire the talent that could come up with something so catchy.

So that’s my deep reflection on The Hunger Games. It’s a guilty pleasure read that I thoroughly enjoyed. If you’re like I was and think it’s not worth reading, think again. Serve yourself 3 pieces of cake and get into it!

Weekend + Gluten-Free Cranberry-Orange Walnut Tart

November 19, 2012 by Erica

What a great weekend! I am so tired.

I said that I just wanted to sleep this weekend. But it turns out there was a lot of other stuff I wanted to do, too! So now I’m drinking green tea, hoping it will keep me up long enough to finish this post before I faceplant into my pillow.

Friday night was relatively uneventful. My cousin is in town to audition for the symphony, so once she got in on Friday, we went to dinner at a Middle Eastern restaurant in town. After dinner, it was pie baking time! I wanted to bring two pies to a Thanksgiving dinner party on Saturday night, so I had to get started. First up: a cranberry-orange walnut tart.

This tart was yummy, and believe it or not, gluten-free! I’ll give the recipe below. I’m eating a leftover slice right now!

Making one pie was all I could handle on Friday, so we called it an early night. Saturday we were up early for brunch at Caffe Niche, followed by more pie-baking!

I really liked this pear frangipane tart. I’ll give the recipe if anyone wants to see it, but I didn’t modify it at all from the original.

Saturday afternoon, we also did a bit of Salt Lake City sight seeing. Then we headed over to our friends Matt and Alex’s for a fancy Thanksgiving dinner party. Just look at what they turned their living room into!

They had more than 20 people to a sit-down dinner. Alex is super crafty, and made us each a personalized clay charm for our wine glass! She also did the beautiful table decorations.

We ate way too much, of course. There was also some wine involved!

Yum.

We had such a great time with friends Saturday night – thanks Alex and Matt! It made a little hard to get up Sunday morning to go up to Snowbird. Luckily, we made it!

It was my first day out this year, and happily, the snow was good! It was actually snowing quite hard in the afternoon. It made for tough visibility, but a few good runs!

I had meant to get some powder skis for this season (my second winter in the West!), but I haven’t gotten around to it yet. I also never got around to getting the skis I do own tuned up. They literally had cobwebs on them when I took them out of our storage shed this morning. It made for a pretty sloppy day. But I can’t lie… it’s the skier, not the skis, that has some cobwebs to clear! Hopefully I’ll get out more this year than last, and improve a bit more.

My partner in crime. How cute is he?

Pete and Suzanne made me jealous with their bright-colored ski pants. I think I may need to get some…

And we ended the day with beer and nachos up at Alta.

So I’m now realizing that my weekend could be summarized into “eating, skiing, and more eating.” Yep. Pretty ideal, if you ask me. Let’s do it again next weekend!

Anyway, speaking of eating, let me get back to the cranberry-orange tart.

I didn’t actually mean to make this gluten-free, but it ended up that way, so I’ll take it! This tart has a crust made almost entirely out of walnuts, filled with a cranberry-orange mixture. It’s kind of like eating cranberry sauce out of a nutty crust, to be honest. It’s a pretty basic pie and is not too sweet, so it would make a good end to a rich, filling meal. Leftovers would also make a great breakfast the next day – a time-honored Foulser family tradition. :)

If you’ve never made a nut pie crust before, I highly recommend it. It’s much easier than rolling out a traditional pie crust and adds extra flavor. As a bonus, it’s a really easy way to go gluten-free. I’ve tried making regular pie crust before with gluten-free flour mixes, and never had very good results. So if you’re baking with a gluten-free family member or friend in mind, give it a try. The walnut one below could be filled with chocolate or any number of other fillings. I might use it for a pumpkin pie on Thursday.

5.0 from 1 reviews

Gluten-Free Cranberry-Orange Walnut Tart

Hands-on time

10 mins

Cook time

30 mins

Total time

40 mins

Author: Coffee & Quinoa

Yields: 10

Ingredients

For the crust:
3 cups walnut halves
1 Tbsp canola oil
3 Tbsp maple syrup
⅛ tsp salt
For the filling:
juice of 1 orange
2 1/2 Tbsp cornstarch
1 (12-ounce) package fresh cranberries
½ cup maple syrup
1/4 cup orange marmalade
1 Tbsp grated orange rind
2 Tbsp chopped walnuts, toasted, plus extra for topping (optional)

Instructions

Pre-heat oven to 325 degrees.
In a food processor, process 3 cups walnuts to a find crumb. Remove to a bowl and mix with remaining crust ingredients. Mixture should hold together when pinched between two fingers, but not be too wet. Add some extra ground walnuts if it seems too wet, or a bit more maple syrup if it doesn't hold together.
Press into a tart or pie pan, taking care to press some up against the sides to hold in the filling. Bake for 10 minutes, remove and let cool on a wire rack before filling.
Increase oven temperature to 350. In a saucepan (without heat yet), whisk together orange juice and cornstarch. Now add the remaining filling ingredients. Heat over medium, stirring, until mixture is thick. This will take only a few minutes.
Spread evenly into prepared crust. Bake at 350 for 20-30 minutes, until crust is golden brown. Remove to wire rack and let cool completely before serving. Optionally, top with additional toasted walnuts once cool.

Notes

Filling adapted from http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/cranberry-orange-tart-10000000522224/

Farro Risotto with Butternut Squash and Kale

November 16, 2012 by Erica

Happy Friday! Do you need the weekend as much as I do?

Last weekend, I had a whole list of things to cook and bake. I woke up early on Saturday morning energized to get started, and just kept going all weekend. As much fun as it was to try out a bunch of new dishes, I don’t think this weekend will be like that. I just want to sleep! And ski. Oh yeah… and bake some pies for a Thanksgiving dinner party I’m going to on Saturday night. OK, so maybe it will be a liiiiittle bit like last weekend.

With any luck, I’ll have some pie recipes to share with you next week. For today, I have this risotto, which was part of last weekend’s craziness. Nate says it’s a keeper, and I have to agree with him, seeing as I ate about two servings worth of samples as I stood over the stove.

I was pretty scared of risotto after my last attempt, on Valentine’s Day, left me a hot sweaty mess after stirring the stuff for about an hour longer than the recipe called for. Not very romantic, especially since I was pretty grumpy by the time it was done. It was also a farro risotto… the stuff just would not cook! Nate’s mom pointed out to me that I should use pearled farro, which cooks a lot more quickly. Make sure you use that here to reduce the time you spend stirring! I found a package of it in Whole Foods near the rice (although they didn’t have it in bulk).

I am all about easy cooking (very little patience over here). So if I can make risotto and not be be swearing by the end… trust me, you can, too!

For this risotto, the squash and kale are cooked separately (this could even be done ahead of time) and then added at the end. The farro, onion, and garlic are simmered with white wine and vegetable broth. I tend to favor a “stir once or twice and then just stay in the vicinity” technique rather than constant stirring. That way I don’t go crazy, and I even get some dishes washed while I cook.

There is a fair amount of olive oil and vegan butter going on here. So it’s definitely a treat, but a tasty one worth having once in a while!

5.0 from 1 reviews

Farro Risotto with Butternut Squash and Kale

Hands-on time

15 mins

Cook time

65 mins

Total time

1 hour 20 mins

Author: Coffee & Quinoa

Yields: 4 as an entree

Ingredients

3 Tbsp vegan butter, divided (I used Earth Balance)
1 medium butternut squash, chopped into 1/2 inch cubes
large bunch of kale (I used curly), stems removed, leaves torn into 2-inch pieces
3 Tbsp olive oil, divided
1 1/2 cups pearled farro (can use regular farro but cooking time will double)
1 sweet onion, diced
3 large or 4 small cloves garlic, minced
1 cup dry white wine
4 cups vegetable stock, warmed (you may use slightly more or less depending on cooking time)

Instructions

First, roast the squash. (You can do this step ahead of time and keep roasted squash in the fridge.) Preheat oven to 375 degrees. On a foil-lined baking sheet, toss the cubed butternut squash with 1 Tbsp olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Roast about 35 minutes, until squash is tender, stirring 2-3 times in the process to cook evenly.
Next, toast the farro. Heat remaining olive oil in a large oven-proof skillet over medium-high heat. Add farro and toss to coat. Toast the farro about 1-2 minutes in the pan (you will hear it start to sizzle), then transfer to the oven (still at 375) to finish toasting for about 6 more minutes. Stir once after 3 minutes. The farro won't look toasted, but it will start to smell a bit toasted and will be sizzling. Remove the farro to a bowl and wipe out your skillet.
Now we’ll actually cook the risotto. In the same skillet, melt 2 Tbsp vegan butter over medium-high heat. Once hot, add the onion and saute until translucent, about 5 minutes. Stir in garlic and cook about 2 minutes more. Now add 1/2 cup of the wine and increase heat to high to deglaze the pan. Stir once or twice, reduce heat to medium, and let simmer until the wine is almost evaporated, about 2-3 minutes.
Add farro and about 1/2 cup of vegetable stock to the skillet. Stir and let simmer until almost all liquid is absorbed. Continue doing this, alternating veg stock with the rest of the white wine, until your farro is tender, about 20 minutes.
Meanwhile, cook your kale by sauteing with a small amount of water, tossing continuously, until bright green, about 30 seconds. Run under cold water until cool, then set aside.
Once farro is tender, stir in remaining Tbsp vegan butter, squash, and kale. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve hot!

Notes

Adapted from Bon Appetit magazine via http://iheartyum.com/main-course/farro-risotto-with-butternut-squash-and-kale/

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