Ypsi Cooks

The day before Thanksgiving we woke with a lonely cup of pumpkin puree in the fridge and cookies on our mind. Tom left for work at 7, and minutes later the kids and I went to work on pumpkin cranberry chocolate-chip cookies. While these cookies are so just-barely-sweet they might not qualify as actual cookies, they are tasty little morsels, more sweet than savory, so “cookies” they remain. Not only are they relatively healthy, they are quick and easy. We had the cookies out of the oven and everything cleaned up by 8. Even with the kids “help.” These are a perfect snack for these funny days where you're going to dinner a little later than usual and you need a little (delicious) bite to tide the kids (read: you) over. The key to their chocolaty-ness while maintaining a vague healthiness* is mini chocolate chips. You can use much less and still get that yummy chocolatey taste! “Read more” for the recipe.

*Yes, I know, chocolate is good for you, but the sugar, fat and other stuff they put in chocolate chips isn't.If you don't like the idea of oatmeal in your cookies (it certainly adds texture, which might not be what you want), add it to the liquids and let it soak for about a 1/2 hour to soften before mixing with the rest of the dry stuff or trade the cup of oats for 3/4 cup white whole wheat flour. Also, some chopped nuts in this would be lovely.

Pumpkin-Cranberry-Chocolate Chip “Cookies”

3/4 cup white whole wheat flour
1 cup old fashioned oats
1/2 t cinnamon
1/4 t ginger
pinch nutmeg
pinch salt
1/4 t baking soda

1 cup pumpkin puree (You can probably use up to 2 if you've got more left over, but you might want to up the spices and honey a bit.)
2 T melted butter
1 egg
1 t vanilla
2 heaping T honey
1/4 cup dried cranberries
1/4 c mini chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350*. Line 2 baking sheets with silicon sheets or parchment. Mix the dry, mix the wet (including the berries and chips), mix them together. Put tablespoonfuls on the silicon, a bit apart (they don't spread too much). Bake about 12 min, rotating mid-way through cooking.

It is important to let them cool before eating. For some reason, the sweetness does not come through when they're hot.

We've been doing some great cooking, but it's been tough to tear myself away from school work (as teacher and student) and family life to write about it.But I want to… so many delicious things to share. Reading this blog (and having the laundry put away at 11:00 on a Saturday morning) got me a little inspired. So here goes.

We've been using this bread dough for a while now (having created our own whole grain version before their new book Healthy Bread in 5 Min a Day came out) to make naan, pizza, sticky buns, and, of course, bread.

I just joined a group that will be baking through the book, and I am really looking forward to it!

We also canned some applesauce, in a crockpot, no sugar necessary. For applesauce (with an optional twist) and apple sticky buns click read more.
Apple Sticky Buns [Using 1 1/2 lbs of the Artesian bread in 5 Whole Grain Master Recipe (I replace some of the white flour with random grains: steel cut or rolled oats, brown rice flour, etc. I always replace by weight. 1 cup of flour is about 5 oz., so I just set my container on the scale and start dumpin. It couldn't be simpler).]

Caramel Topping:
5 T butter, room temp
1/4 t salt
1/3 c. sugar
1 T blackstrap molasses
Pecans

Filling:
5 apples, thinly sliced (I leave the peel on, but love peel on apples)
3 T butter
3 T sugar
1 t cinnamon
1/4 t nutmeg
1/4 t ginger
pinch of salt
pinch of cloves or black pepper

For the topping, cream all ingredients except pecans until fluffy (2-3 min), spread into an 8×8 pan and press in pecans (20-30 or so)

For the filling, saute the apples in butter. As they begin to soften add all other ingredients until approximately pie filling-ish (or a little less).
As the apples cook, roll out 1 1/2 lbs of dough (I do this on one of my silpats that is about 12×18 ish. I find that seems to be a good size).
Spread the apple filling (add some chopped pecans or walnuts if you're really nutty) over all the dough except the far edge so you can get a good seal). Roll it up and seal it along the long edge. Cut into 9 equal pieces and place on top of the caramel topping with the swirl showing.
Let rise for 1 1/2 hours. (For breakfast, we make the rolls the night before, put them in the fridge, and pull them out as soon as the first little one crawls into our bed in the morning). There will be some rise, but not as much as with regular, kneaded dough.
Bake at 350 for 45-50 min (I put the buns in a cold oven and set the time for 50). Let cool 5-10 min. Turn out onto a lovely platter and serve.

Crockpot Apple Sauce: core, peel and chop 25 or so mixed apples. Place in crock pot, put the lid on and cook on high for 2-3 hours. Add 1/4 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp ginger, 3/4-1 tsp of cinnamon & the juice of 1/2 a lemon. Mash it all together with a potato masher and enjoy! ***if you're looking for something a little different, but not TOO weird, change the cinnamon to 1/2 t, and add 1/2 t Chinese Five Spice. Trust me.

read this on a blog I just found. As I've been buying up new size 4 clothing (!!! I NEVER thought I could even be a 4) people have been asking how I've gotten “so skinny.” Eating well and only (mostly) when I'm hungry. Pollan says: Eat food, mostly plants, not a lot. Well, I've got 2 out of 3 down and it seems to be working. In any case, the research says there's something to it:

“[Harvard economist David] Cutler and his colleagues …surveyed cooking patterns across several cultures and found that obesity rates are inversely correlated with the amount of time spent on food preparation. The more time a nation devotes to food preparation at home, the lower its rate of obesity. In fact, the amount of time spent cooking predicts obesity rates more reliably than female participation in the labor force or income. Other research supports the idea that cooking is a better predictor of a healthful diet than social class: a 1992 study in The Journal of the American Dietetic Association found that poor women who routinely cooked were more likely to eat a more healthful diet than well-to-do women who did not. So cooking matters — a lot. Which when you think about it, should come as no surprise. When we let corporations do the cooking, they’re bound to go heavy on sugar, fat and salt; these are three tastes we’re hard-wired to like, which happen to be dirt cheap to add and do a good job masking the shortcomings of processed food. And if you make special-occasion foods cheap and easy enough to eat every day, we will eat them every day. The time and work involved in cooking, as well as the delay in gratification built into the process, served as an important check on our appetite. Now that check is gone, and we’re struggling to deal with the consequences.” –Michael Pollan, “Out of the Kitchen, on to the Couch” New York Times Magazine, July 29, 2009.

As for a cooking update: I'm in the process of perfecting my chocolate (w/ secret squash) muffins, and that should be posted soon. But really we've just been trying to use up or preserve our glut of EVERYTHING! Eggplants, tomatoes, carrots, beets, cabbage, kale (of course), herbs, now the leeks are coming in… Right now I'm plotting an eggplant, kale, carrot curry. I'l let you know how it turns out.

Eli loves “green sauce” (pesto) and requested it for dinner the other night. Well, we didn't have much basil, but did have some cooked kale hanging out in the fridge. As I pondered making a faux pesto I remembered ricotta cheese being added to the light pesto recipe form Cook's Illustrated “Best Light Recipes.” I also happened to have about 8 oz. of ricotta that needed using. With all that in mind I set out to make a “green sauce” to empty my fridge and delight our taste buds. The result? Success. We used leftovers to spread on bread, topped it with cheese and popped it under the broiler for a few min. The rest we took with us on our weekend with our foodie friends, and a few didn't even realize there was green stuff in there that wasn't basil. One friend scoffed at the title pesto, but all seemed satiated with the delicious, nutritious, aptly titled “basil spread.”Basil Spread

The easiest way to do this is to start the water boiling for the pasta, salt it, add the kale leaves (get going on the garlic), pull them out 3 min later, drain, and add to the food processor.
This can be made with a knife on a cutting board, adding the ingredients in the same order, chopping furiously between additions, but it will never be quite as saucy. Literally and figuratively.

Several blacnched kale leaves (or other greens) (Maybe 3/4-1 cup washed, cooked & chopped)
A few small handfuls of basil (because that's all I had)
Dried basil
2 cloves of garlic
Olive oil
1/4 c. ricotta
Parmesan Cheese
Nuts (about 1/3 cup)(I usually let Eli choose, but I must say I'm partial to walnuts)
Salt & Pepper

In a food processor, process the garlic until finely minced. If there's time, let that sit for a little while to oxidize. Add greens & pulse until chopped. Add fresh basil and pulse some more until chopped and incorporated. Remove lid and drizzle with a little olive oil, drop on ricotta, and a few shakes of dried basil. Process until almost desired consistency. Add parmesan, nuts, salt and pepper to taste, then process until you think it's done. Enjoy on pasta, bread, crackers, veggies…

My friend blogged about a Michel Pollan article about food rules. The article talks about how many cultures have different idioms for not eating to much, and eating a great variety of foods.
One “rule” I like a lot is “Eat food, mostly plants.” That is of course referring to real food substances not bad imitations.
I like to make sure the meat I eat is treated as it ought: fed appropriate things and allowed to live as nature intended.
In eating, I strive for nourishing, affordable, sustainable and delicious. But most of all, I think gratitude is really important, whether it be to the soil, the farmer, the store clerk, the seed seller, or God. I had help getting the food, so I try to take a moment to be thankful before eating it. And in my busy life, find a few deep breaths before I begin really help me pay attention, and that attention in turn (usually) helps the food taste better, and I consume less of it. What are some of your food rules? If you post to Pollan's article, would you copy the post and add it here?
Thanks.

I happened to post my facebook status as saying I had just processed some of our kale. Who knew that would draw the most response I think I've ever gotten (both online & in person, to boot). To process kale, or any greens for freezing, I pull the leaves off starting at the root end in order to discard most of the tough stem (I once saw instructions for cutting out the tough stem and was blown away by its major over-complication of a simple task. It is SO easy to just grab and pull, at least the red russian variety we grow). Then soak the leaves in order to clean them. Not that they really seem to need it, but I do it anyway. (I just have a big bowl of H2O in the sink where I swish each small batch, then let them sit in there for a min or 2.) Then they go into my big stock pot 2/3 full of boiling water, a little salt and about a tsp of baking soda (helps soften the kale). After 2-3 min (I occasionally plunge them down), I pull them out with tongs and put them in a colander sitting on a bowl that I've placed right by the stove. I repeat that process with a new batch, and while the new batch cooks, I transfer the original batch to the cutting board, let it cool a bit, then chop it up, squeeze out some of the excess water and put it in the container to freeze it.
In short: 1. Wash. 2. Boil. 3. Drain. 4. Chop.5. Squeeze. 6. Contain.
While it seems like a long process, it's really not, since each step only takes a few min at most. This morning I had kale in each phase, and I just kept making laps around the kitchen, and it went fairly smoothly, even with the interruptions of two small people.

But here's the real question: what to do with it once it is processed?1. Make veggie cake (see May 2009).
2. Make Quick-a-veggie-dillas (see previous post).
3. Add it to your tomato sauce in lasagna (or in your anything).
4. Stir the kale, finely chopped, in with bulgar and some other veggies and/or herbs & dome dressing (try cooked sweet potato, or parsley & tomatoes in a tabbuleh like incarnation, or feta, beets, cukes, bannana pepper for a greek salad type thing). These are most delightful summer salads.

For un-cooked kale:
5. Cook chopped bacon in a pan until rather cripsy. Remove the bacon to a paper towel to drain. Leave in as much of the bacon fat as appropriate. Add some minced garlic and cook for just a moment. Add *fresh* chopped kale (w/o the stem) and cook until soft (you may want to add a smidge of water and lid it for a bit). Put this on top of corn-pancakes, toast and cream cheese, pasta, whatever, and top with the crispy bacon! Oh, try a little avocado with this, too (esp with the toast and cream cheese). Sour cream and salsa with the pancakes. Cream, garlic and fresh chopped tomatoes with the pasta, maybe a little parmesan or blue cheese, too.

Since I've been home for the summer I think the kids and I have had quesadillas a few dozen times. They're so good and easy, and we can pack in a lot of nutrients. What goes in our quesadillas? Greens. We always have some greens on hand, if not in the freezer or fridge, at least in the garden. Also beans and cheese, and sometimes corn, onion (caramelized or otherwise), garlic, brown rice, salsa and/or red pepper spread. The key is to mush the beans with all the other ingredients we're using except cheese, then spread it on 1/2 a tortilla (we use whole grain), sprinkle with cheese and heat on one side until crisp, flip, remove from heat when second side is crispy, cut into wedges and serve. This with a piece of fruit is about as good as it gets for lunch, and also makes a great dinner. I've been known to make it more Italian-esque, using cannellini beans, red onion, mozzarella or provolone, greens, and Trader Joe's red pepper & eggplant spread. Not only is this a great way to cover all the basic food groups, it's good for using up little bits of leftovers, and a wonderful medium for improvisation. Plus, both the kids DEVOUR these. You wouldn't think a 1-year-old could eat her weight in “quesadillas,” but she can. And another thing. In these hotter days of summer, cook them on the grill: they get especially crispy and are down-right delicious. Happy munching!

It's been hot, sticky and hot. We were going to have dinner with Tom's family and I thought we should bring dessert. I've had my eye on this S'more Chocolate Pudding for a few weeks now. I made vanilla pudding over the weekend for Peanut butter Banana Cream Pie, and it was a lot of stirring over a hot stove. Not exactly something I wanted to do in this weather. But the vanilla pudding had some microwave directions: stir and heat a little, then repeat. A lot. I figured I could do the same homemade pudding. I checked around on the internet and found some recipes that sounded good, and easy, and had good reviews, so I compared and combined as I saw fit. I tasted the pudding as it was beginning to thicken up and it was quite good even without the chocolate and vanilla. I poured it into a lovely glass bowl (a gift from my mother-in-law) layered with the graham crackers and marshmallows (note: they float, don't try to layer them IN the pudding). It looked quite lovely and tasted delicious.
Tom's “Uncle” declared it one of the best desserts he's ever had (!). Tom's brother, who is not the biggest chocolate fan, thought it would be good as a cake “frosting.” It could be like a lazy Boston Cream Pie where the chocolate and cream are all mixed together and poured over the top of a lovely yellow cake. I on the other hand think it would be great as a dip for some strawberries, or any of those other fruits that taste great with chocolate. Really, the possibilities are endless. Make some this weekend. I doubt you'll be disappointed.Easy Chocolate Pudding
Serves 6 (or a few more, especially if you use any of the additions listed below, many more if using as aforementioned fruit dip)

1/4 c corn starch
1/4 cup cocoa
1/3 cup sugar (a little heaping)
pinch of salt
***
3 cups milk
1/4 cup powdered milk if using skim
4 oz chopped dark chocolate (2 oz or even none if you're hoping for something more along the line of boxed pudding mix)
1 t vanilla

Whisk the first 4 ingredients in a large, microwave safe bowl. Slowly whisk in the milk. Microwave for 3 min, then stir. Continue microwaving, 1 minute at a time, stirring (it seems wise to scrape the sides) throughly in between. When the mixture is thickened and holds to a spoon, slowly whisk in the chocolate, stirring until melted, then whisk in the vanilla. Pour into individual cups & cover with plastic wrap (the wrap should be touching the pudding if you don't like skin, at the top of the container if you do). Chill for about 3 hours. The pudding will set up considerably.
If you're like me and you decide you want to serve it from one large bowl, allow MUCH more chilling time.

Alternatively, use the stove, but follow the same process, stirring regularly.

For S'more Rocky Road Pudding

1 recipe Easy Chocolate Pudding
4 oz graham crackers (or Trader Joe's Cinnamon Cat Cookies, or vanilla wafers, or animal crackers…)
1 tbsp melted butter
Mini marshmallows
Almonds

In a food processor, use short pulses to break up the cookies. Once mostly broken up, pulverize until a fairly even crumb. Add butter and mix for a few more seconds until even. Pour half the pudding into the cups, top with crumb mixture, top with the remaining pudding, (chill for a few minutes before adding the second layer of pudding if you're serving in a clear dish) and top the whole thing with marshmallows and chopped nuts. Chill as above.

I like speed and cool temperatures to accompany my food preparation in the summer. A few days ago I went out to weed, but before doing so, I started some bulgar wheat soaking. Bulgar doesn't take long to cook in the first place, but I figure cutting 15 min down to 5 is nice, so there it was. When I came in, it had doubled in size and absorbed most of the water. I looked at it, and it was beautifully fluffy. A little research taught me that since it is cooked during processing, bulgar does not require a second cooking at home: a good soak will do it. I did 1 1/2 cups of bulgar, 2 1/2 cups of water and a little salt (1/2 tsp). Mine soaked for about 2 hours, but less might do it, especially if the water is hot. It is great in tabbouleh, but really can be used almost anywhere you would use quinoia, rice, couscous, etc. We mixed it with sweet potato cubes, garlic & vinegar seasoned kale, and a nice dressing. It was delicious with almonds sprinkled on top. Or use it in place of pasta in a veggie pasta salad. The style will be a very different, but still delicious, and all without turning on the stove.

I love looking out our living room window: the snap peas are climbing their fences (Eli runs outsde to pick them daily), the lettuce is in its multicolored glory, the spinach is going great guns and right outside the window grows our beautiful, burgundy peonies. They're perfect. But there are only so many meals one can create out of lettuce, spinach and kale (we have yet to have enough peas left over after garden consumption to actually have them with a meal). With the help of Lynn Rosetto Casper's How to Eat Supper, I have hit upon something our garden can provide us these days. While our basil plants are just a few inches tall, we've had chives since April. Chopping the chives with garlic, salt and pepper combines the flavors in a really delightful way, and allowing spinach to wilt in the heat of the pan & drained pasta really makes it “meltingly” soft. I really hadn't understood that term before today when I bit into lunch and found the spinach, well, melting.As is the case with this type of dish, measurments are approximate and eyeballing makes sense: this dish is mostly art, very little (if any) science.

3 cloves garlic
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp freshly ground pepper
3/4-1 cup snipped chives (1/4-1/2″ length will do just fine)
1/2 cup pistachios (walnuts, almonds and pine nuts would also work well)
olive oil
1 loosely packed salad spinner of spinach (4-6 cups??) coarsly chopped/torn
parmesan or asiago for shredding on top
(the first time I made this I did a slightly smaller amount of chives and one cube of basil pesto)
1 lb of pasta (we used a large penne) (12oz will do, but all the pasta we buy is 1 lb bag so it never makes any sense to me to make any less)

Put salt and pepper on the cutting board and smash the garlic with the side of a knife. Coarsely mince the garlic, add the chives and continue to mince until rather fine. Add the nuts and coarsely chop. Drizzle with olive oil and chop/fold a little more.

In the mean time, boil and salt the water to cook the pasta. Add the pasta and cook al dente. Reserve 1/2 cup cooking liquid and drain the pasta. Immediately add the chive pesto and spinach to the hot pan, stir allowing the residual heat to mellow the garlic and gently wilt the spinach. Add the pasta back to the pot and stir adding any necessary liquid. Add salt, pepper and olive oil to taste. Serve with cheese.

Some variations I might try:
Serve with slices of salami
Put 3 oz of cream cheese and 1/4 cup of cooking liquid (reserve 1 cup) in the pot while pasta drains. Mix on low heat until smooth. Remove from heat and add the pesto. Stir until starting to wilt, then add the pasta and stir some more.

Alternatively, food process or blend the pesto ingredients in the same order.