As Good as Chocolate?!

I heart asparagus. I heart asparagus as much as I heart chocolate. There, I said it. I eat asparagus almost as often as I eat chocolate but not quite as often, mostly because I don't have to wash chocolate. I just peel back the foil, break off a chunk and instantly have heaven on my tongue. Oh but with asparagus, there's all that drudgery of washing it and snapping off the woody stems. (Insert big sigh here.) But, I soldier on because it's so damn good....oh ya, and nutritious.

Ya know what else I heart? Garlic. Namely roasted garlic. I go through binges when I eat so much that there is no chance in hell that I will be approached by vampires...or single men...or anyone with a nose. I once ate so many Garlic Smashed Potatoes in the span of two days that a friend said I reminder him of Charlie Brown's pal, Pig Pen. Just as Pig Pen has an halo of dust around him, I had a very noticeable aura of roasted garlic following me. If you didn't know, when you eat garlic the scent "follows" you for days because garlic's sulfur compounds enter your blood stream and exudes from your lungs and pores. Oh well. I think there are much worse things to smell like.

So what happens when I combine two of my favorite foods? Double Roasted Garlic Asparagus Fabulocity. How's that for a name? Hope you enjoy this super delish, super easy dish which, in my not so humble opinion, is as good as candy...namely high quality, dark chocolate candy. Enjoy, garlic lovers and suck it vampires (pun intended)!

Double Roasted Garlic Asparagus Fabulocity

(Disclaimer, this recipe is a non-recipe because I didn't really pay attention to amounts or cooking times. Deal with it...it's called real cooking.)

Find yourself a big clove or garlic. Not Elephant Garlic, but just a big, fresh head of standard garlic. Cut off the top. Liberally pour EVOO over it, wrap it in foil and throw it in a 425 degree oven for a while. I don't how long exactly, maybe an hour or so, until you peek inside the foil and see that the individual cloves are all brown and caramelized and gooey and beautiful.

Refrigerate the clove until firm, as the cloves will be easier to remove from their individual husks. Once chilled, squeeze each individual clove from it's papery casing - squeezing out every last morsel of the roasted, golden goodness. Smash it with a fork, and whisk it with the juice of two small lemons, a shot of good quality balsamic vinegar and enough EVOO to form the consistency of ketchup.

Suffer through the laborious drudgery of washing your big ol' bunch of asparagus and snapping off the woody stems at the point where they naturally snap. Wait where is that oh-so-easy-to-eat-chocolate again? No, no, eat your veggies!! Lay your dried asparagus spears in a single line on a roasting pan or glass casserole dish and spoon the roasted garlic mixture over the top of the asparagus. Toss it well with your hands until each spear is lovingly and evenly coated. The amount of roasted garlic mixture made with this non-recipe will make enough to use for several batches of asparagus and I plan to try it on Yukon Gold Potatoes, which I'll roast, as well. Doesn't that sound yummy, too?

Roast the asparagus in a 425 degree oven until done. I never pay attention to how long this takes. Maybe 30 minutes. I depends on whether you're using an aluminum roasting pan or a glass casserole dish, but it seems to be about 30 minutes. About 5 minutes before the asparagus is done, spoon a little more of the roasted garlic mixture over the asparagus and mix well, so you have a little bit of the mix that doesn't completely cook into into the stalks.

Once plated, hit it with some sea salt. Enjoy and try your damnedest to not lick the plate...or go ahead and like the plate, I won't tell anyone!

Afterthoughts: I just made the most fabulous pasta dish with this golden, garlic goodness mixture. I sauteed some shallots in butter until crispy and set them aside. I then sauteed up some fresh baby spinach and drained the spinach with some cooked, brown rice pasta. Once well drained, I threw those two ingredients back into the saute pan, added the crispy shallots and sun-dried tomatoes and some of the roasted garlic fabulousness and gently tossed it and heated it through. Once plated, I sprinkled in with a little truffle salt. Ahhhhh.........

Chewy, Gooey , Protein-Packed Nutty Buddies

Do you love fruit and nut bars like Caveman Bars or Glenny's? Do you hate paying an average of $2.00 for less than two ounces of gooey, chewy, protein-packed goodness? Ya, me too.

The solution, of course, make your own! I tinkered in the kitchen today after returning from the gym (insert self-aggrandizing pat on the back here) and am pleased with what I concocted. My recipe didn't create a bar as firm as my favorites mentioned above, so I'll keep playing with the consistency but in the mean time these are a quick, easy, delish and much more cost effective alternative.

Nutty Buddies
1 cup of chopped nuts - I used raw cashews and raw slivered almonds
1 cup of dried fruit - I used tart cherries
1/2 cup rice crispy style cereal - I used Barbara's Organic, Gluten-free, Brown Rice Crisps
3 TBL toasted coconut - I used medium flaked, organic coconut. Not the sugar coated yuckiness you find in baking isle but unadulterated, plain, flaked coconut that I toasted in a 300 degree oven for a few minutes
3 TBL raw sunflower seeds
3 TBL sesame seeds
3 Three-finger pinches of sea salt
1/8 cup of your favorite no-sugar-added nut butter
1/8 cup honey
1/8 cup Lundberg Sweet Dreams Brown Rice Syrup - This is great in any recipe that calls for (the evil) corn syrup

Combine the dry ingredients. Combine the honey and brown rice syrup in a small bowl and pour over the dry ingredients. Add the nut butter and mix by hand until everything is well incorporated.

Cut a piece of wax or parchment paper to fit in the bottom and sides of an 8" square pan or an 8" bread pan if you want thicker bars. Press the Nutty Buddies mixture in the bar and refrigerate overnight. I keep the mix in the fridge and just cut off small portions as desired, as the ingredients hold together best when refrigerated. Have fun with the recipe, as it lends itself to all sorts of tweaking. Play with different fruit and nut combos and various nuts butters. Next time I want to try almond butter and small, dark chocolate chunks, as I think that would be a great addition to the tart cherries I used this time. In my kitchen, dark chocolate is considered a health food because it contains antioxidants! :0) Enjoy!

Snow Day Soup!

I woke up to big, beautiful, sexy snowflakes this morning. We don't get those too often in Seattle. I should have just put on some mellow music and enjoyed the view out my window but I made the mistake of turning on the television to a barrage of newscasts interrupting regular programming - newscasts repeating the terms "treacherous" and "Thanksgiving Week Blizzard 2010" and images of abandoned cars because we had 2" of snow on the highways.

I've gotta say, this amuses a Wisconsin girl to no end. Oh Seattle, you don't know "treacherous" weather until you're a 16 year old, newbie driver driving in several feet of blinding, blowing snow with the temps far below zero...and it's MAY! Those, you Washington weather wimps, are treacherous weather conditions.

So in order to stay off the road and away from the crazies who think they know how to drive in snow but really don't, I put on my red and white polka dotted puddle jumpers (which occasionally double as snow boots) and walked to the store for "provisions". I fired up the bread machine and made a loaf of my tried and true gluten-free bread and pulled out the stockpot to make some soup. It's a tasty, vegetarian, dairy-free, gluten-free, little diddy that was easy and fast! Enjoy!

Zingy Red Lentil and Coconut Milk Snow Day Soup

4 shallots, chopped

2 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped

5 Roma tomatoes

1 cup red lentils, rinsed and drained

3 cups veggie broth

3/4 cup light coconut milk

Juice of one large lime

1/2 tsp ground turmeric

1 tsp ground cumin

2"-3" piece of cinnamon stick

6 cardamom pods

Salt and pepper to taste

Enough EVOO or butter to brown the shallots and garlic

A few tablespoons of medium flaked coconut (Not the sugar coated yuckiness you find in baking isle but unadulterated, plain, flaked coconut)

In a small saute pan, brown the shallots in butter or EVOO (your choice) until golden and caramelized. Transfer to a bowl and set aside. Add the chopped garlic and cook until soft and ever so slightly golden. Don't overcook the garlic or it will taste bitter. Add a few tablespoons of the veggie broth to deglaze the pan, scraping up all the tasty brown bits and transfer the browned bits, garlic and caramelized shallots to a stockpot. Don't cook the shallots in the stockpot you'll make the soup in as doing so won't result in nicely browned and caramelized shallots. In such a deep pot, you'll actually be steaming the shallots and they won't truly brown.

Add the the remaining broth, along with the chopped tomatoes, lime juice, lentils and spices. Bring to a boil then reduce the heat, cover and allow the soup to simmer for about 20 minutes or until the lentils are soft.

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees, as you'll be toasting the coconut to sprinkle on top of the soup upon serving.

Remove the cardamom pods and cinnamon stick from the soup and discard. Transfer the soup to a blender or food processor and puree until it's almost completely smooth. An immersion blender used right in the stockpot works well (and means less dishes to wash!) but be forewarned that the turmeric will stain your immersion blender, making it a lovely shade of bright yellowish-green. It may stain a clear, plastic food processor bowl, too. If this bugs you, the glass pitcher of a blender would be your best best choice to not end up with a turmeric-stained appliance.

Stir in the coconut milk, return the mixture to the pot if you pureed it in a blender or food processor and turn the burner to very low, just high enough to heat the soup through again. As the soup warms, sprinkle the coconut onto a baking sheet and spread evenly. Toast the coconut until brown, about 3-4 minutes.

Ladle the soup into bowls, top with the toasted coconut and dig in!

Afterthoughts: The 3/4 cup of light coconut milk is about half of a 14 ounce can. I like to heat the leftover milk with almond milk, a little cane sugar and good quality, dutch-processed, unsweetened cocoa to make rich, decadent and dairy-free hot chocolate!

Bite into Bliss

How do I say this without sounding cocky? I think I've concocted one of the most amazing, gluten-free baked good in the history of gluten-free baked goods. Obnoxious? Full of myself? Ya, ya, I've heard it before and besides, I've been called worse.

Gluten-free baked goods are often dry and crumbly, but not these moist, tender lovelies. Mexican chocolate, browned butter, cinnamon, sugar. Have I got your attention yet? Make them for yourself and then tell me they aren't pretty damn fab and worthy of such bragging.

Mexican Chocolate and Browned Butter Bliss Cakes

2 cups brown rice flour

1/3 cup tapioca starch

2/3 cup potato starch

1 teaspoon xanthan gum

1 tablespoon gluten-free baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

8 grated tablespoons of Abuelita Mexican Chocolate

1 cup sugar

1 stick butter, softened

2 eggs

1 cup whole milk

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Combine all the dry ingredients, except for the grated Mexican Chocolate and set aside. Cream the butter and sugar and add the eggs one at a time. Add the dry ingredient mixture a third at a time, adding one third of the milk between each addition until all ingredients are just barely incorporated. Mix in the Abuelita by hand until well incorporated.

Spoon the batter into muffin pans and bake for 20 minutes. I use silicone muffin pans, so I don't need to butter the pans, but buttering metal pans would likely be necessary and you may need to adjust the baking time with metal pans. Cakes are done when an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

Here's where it really gets interesting....

While the cakes are baking, mix 1 cup of sugar with 1 tablespoon of cinnamon in a small bowl and set aside. Melt 1 stick of butter over medium heat until it starts to turn golden brown. Be careful because the point in which it's lovely, fragrant and has a slightly nutty, rich flavor and is just starting to brown and the point in which it starts to burn is mere seconds apart, so don't walk away from the stove! Set your browned butter aside.

Once the cakes are baked and cool enough to release from the pan and handle, dip them in the melted, browned butter and then roll them in the cinnamon sugar mixture. Eat them while they're still warm and then die and go to heaven. Yes, they are that good. Makes 16 blissful bundles of fabulousness.

Afterthoughts: These really are best served warm, so dip them in the butter and roll in the cinnamon sugar mixture just before serving. If you're not serving them straight from the oven, wrap the naked cakes in foil and reheat them in the oven for a few minutes. Make the browned butter as needed and dip the warm cakes in the cinnamon sugar mixture right before serving.

Oooh la la!

A few months ago, I started a cooking group with some fabulous foodie friends. We rotate homes, meeting once a month, to feast on amazing dishes based on a theme. So far the themes have been Chinese New Year, North African Cuisine, Childhood Favorites and World Cup Soccer. Say what? Soccer? We're a creative bunch...the idea was to choose a dish from one of the teams in the playoffs. Germany, Italy, Japan, France and the U.S. were represented.

I was Team France. We were encouraged to wear soccer jerseys or at least don the team colors. I showed up in a French maid's outfit. Yes, I'm that kind of girl. ;0)

My culinary contribution was chocolate crepes filled with strawberries. I bought a wonderful, 8", blue steel crepe pan and perfected a great gluten-free recipe. The base is buckwheat flour. While buckwheat sounds like something we groovy gluten-intolerant people shouldn't eat, it's actually not related to wheat at all. It's a pseudocereal in the family of amaranth and the much loved (at least in my kitchen) quinoa.

That pan has been getting a lot of use in the last week...chocolate crepes for breakfast, lunch, dinner. Oooh la la, indeed!

Chocolate Crepes with Grand Marnier Strawberries and Vanilla Whipped Cream

Grand Marnier Strawberries (aka Boozey Berries)

Wash, dry and chop at least a pound of strawberries. This will be enough for about six 8" crepes. Put them in a bowl and sprinkle them with about a tablespoon of sugar. This is called mascerating and the sugar will mix with the juice from the berries and create a very flavorful strawberry, simple syrup. If you have Grand Marnier in the house, reduce the sugar by about half and pour in a splash or two of the Grand Marnier onto the strawberries and mix well. If you don't have Grand Marnier in the house, put on your shoes, go to the liquor store and buy some. ;0) Set the berries aside to mascerate at room temperature for at least an hour.

Crepe Recipe

2 eggs

2 cups whole milk

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

1/2 cup (minus 3 tablespoons) buckwheat flour

3 tablespoons good quality dutch processed dark cocoa

4 teaspoons pure cane sugar

Whisk the ingredients together, cover and let the mixture rest in the refrigerator for at least fifteen minutes.

Vanilla Whipped Cream

Whip the heavy whipping cream with good quality vanilla and a little sugar, both to taste. Did you know that if you chill your mixer bowl and beaters or wire whisk attachment in the freezer before use, you'll get a stiffer whipped cream?

Once the berries are nice and syrupy and the crepe mixture has rested a bit in the fridge, stir the mixture well before use. Brush your crepe pan with oil. Grapeseed oil is perfect for crepes because it has a high smoke point and you need the pan good and hot. Also, grapeseed oil is virtually flavorless. Olive oil wouldn't be a wise choice for a sweet dessert crepe like this because of its strong flavor. It could work for a savory crepe but may smoke, so grapeseed oil is my favorite all purpose oil.

Set your burner on medium and after a few minutes if a few drops of water sizzle when dropped on the pan, you're good to go. For an 8" pan, you need exactly 4 tablespoons of crepe mixture for a crepe that's not too thin or too thick but, as Goldilocks said, just right. Play around with the utensils in your kitchen beforehand to find a small ladle or tiny sauce pitcher or such that can hold 4 tablespoons, as you'll want to pour that amount in all at once and quickly swirl the pan for even coverage. Keep the pan on medium heat and don't walk away from the stove. Once the edges start to firm up and get crispy (after approximately two minutes) you'll want to carefully flip the crepe by using a small spatula to pry the crepe up a small section at a time. Cooking time really varies by stove and you'll get the hang of it, even if you botch up the first crepe or two. The recipe makes at least 10 or 12 crepes, so you have plenty to experiment with.

Fill the crepes with your wonderful, syrupy, boozey strawberries and top with whipped cream. A drizzle of chocolate sauce across the top wouldn't hurt either. Bon appetit!

Afterthoughts: The crepe mixture will keep in the fridge for two to three days in a covered, airtight container. The mascerated strawberries breakdown after several hours and get mushy. Pick up an extra pound of berries and prepare as detailed above right before use or try raspberries or some other fabulous concoction to go with the second round of crepes.

Spoiled

We're spoiled here in the Northwest. We have an abundance of amazing farmer's markets, great restaurants (including gluten free, vegan, organic, etc.) trendsetting food-based businesses (Fran's Smoked Salt Caramels get their props in this month's issue of Martha Stewart Living) and we have an abundance of fresh seafood options at the ready. Spoiled, indeed.

Tonight I whipped up one of my favorite seafood dishes, Sea Scallops with Capers. I made a simple salad of wild greens and baby spinach with sliced almonds and dried cranberries. A little goat or blue cheese would have been a nice compliment but I didn't have any in the house. The star of that salad, however, was a delicious vinaigrette made with my favorite flavored balsamic.

The balsamic is Tart Cherry Zinfandel Balsamic from Earth and Vine Provisions and I picked it up at one of our local wineries. Oh yeah, we're ridiculously spoiled with a lot of those in the Washington State area, as well. I love this balsamic whisked with olive oil for a simple and highly flavorful vinaigrette.

Finally, complimenting the cooking and dining experience this evening was Diana Krall's The Look of Love.

Sea Scallops with Capers

3/4 pound fresh or frozen scallops (About 10-12 medium to large scallops)

2 tablespoons butter

1 large shallot, chopped

1 cup dry white wine

The zest of one large lemon

The juice of half of one large lemon

2 heaping tablespoons of capers, rinsed
Sea salt
Grapeseed oil

When choosing scallops, choose the pinker ones. Those are the female scallops and they're sweeter and tastier. Once again, females are just better. Also, buy dry-packed scallops, as they don't have phosphate added. Rinse the scallops, dry them very well and set aside. In a saute pan, melt the butter over medium heat and saute the shallots until just before they start to brown. Add the wine, lemon zest, lemon juice and capers. Reduce the heat a bit and simmer until the wine cooks off and the sauce thickens, about 6 to 7 minutes. If the sauce isn't as thick as you'd like, go ahead add a little more butter...it's only better, after all!

You'll be cooking your scallops in a separate saute pan, or a cast iron pan if you have one. Be sure your scallops are completely dry and salt them with sea salt. Coat the pan with grapeseed oil. You don't need too much oil, just one generous coating on the pan will suffice. I like grapeseed oil as it's a flavorless, neutral oil and it has a high smoke point, making it perfect for searing scallops at high heat. Set your burner to high heat and once your oil is hot, add the scallops - flat side down. Be careful, as the oil will "pop", so long sleeves are wise. Don't crowd the scallops in the pan and cook them for 2 minutes on the first side. Don't do anything during those two minutes...don't move the scallops in the pan, don't peek to see if they're getting a nice sear, don't answer the phone...just be patient! After two minutes, flip them over gently with tongs and cook them for just 30 seconds on the second side. Immediately plate them and spoon the sauce over the scallops and dig in!

Afterthoughts: Note that the photo above does not show the scallops with the lovely sear you'll achieve if you follow the directions above. That's because I updated the instructions after I took a class in which I learned how to perfectly sear scallops after I posted this recipe, so I know that next time I make this dish , it will be even better now that I've perfected my technique for cooking scallops correctly!

I'm a Throwback

No, I'm not talking catch and release fishing...or dating. Dating in Seattle is a lot like catch and release fishing - dating the ones your girlfriends "threw back" or accidentally going out with a guy you've gone out with before and had long since forgotten. But you really don't want to get me started on that.

I'm talking eras. I think I'm a throwback to another era, and I've often thought I was born a few decades too late. I love all things retro. I drool over women's fashions and accessories from the 40's, 50's and 60's. In college, Patty (my BFF at the time) and I would search Goodwill and St. Vincent DePaul secondhand stores for these treasures and we readily found them. If it was good enough for the Go-Go's, it was good enough for us. That should give you a hint of how very long ago I was in college. This was before dressing vintage was the trend and I was also, uh um, more petite in college. Weren't we all? And I wasn't in love with food back then the way I am now. Well, everything is a trade-off and besides these days it's harder to find clothes of those eras easily and on the cheap and if you do, they are really teeny tiny! I think the normal-sized girls wore the hell out of their clothes in the 40's, 50's and 60's.

Old Mason jars of buttons and marbles make me happy. My classic Schwinn makes me happy. There are times this very independent, single, city girl wishes she could transport herself back in time to a small town when life was much simpler and everyone knew their neighbors (and liked them). Throw in a big flower and veggie garden, a hubby, a few kids, a few of animals and an old, creaky, sunny, farmhouse with a big porch and I'm in heaven...canning, baking, crafting, chasing kidlets all day.

Ok, back to reality. I can still transport myself in time once in a while, as I did on a recent lazy, Sunday morning. I whipped up a batch of cornbread muffins. As I mentioned in my previous post, music that fits the mood normally accompanies my baking adventures. That morning a collection of torch songs from Ella, Patsy, Judy, Lena and their gal pals seemed most fitting.

So, I hope you'll transport yourself back to a simpler place and time with an old school favorite, updated to be gluten-free, of course. For full classic effect, be sure to eat these muffins hot out of the oven with butter and a drizzle of honey.

Cornbread Muffins
1 cup buttermilk

1 egg
1/4 cup canola oil

1/4 cup pure maple syrup

1 cup medium grind cornmeal

1 cup brown rice flower

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon gluten-free baking soda

1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

3 tablespoons raw cane sugar
1 and 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon (optional)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Combine the wet ingredients in one bowl and the dry in another. Mix each set of ingredients until well combined. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients in two batches, mixing well to incorporate after each addition.

Spoon mixture into muffin pans. I use silicone muffin pans, so I don't use non-stick spray or muffin papers. One or the other is likely necessary for conventional pans or your muffins will stick. I love all my silicone bakeware and highly recommend it for avid bakers. Bake 19 minutes or until golden. Oddly, this recipe only makes 10-11 muffins. What is that, the baker's anti-dozen? Oh well.

Afterthoughts: I've read that corn is the most genetically modified crop in the U.S. (followed by soy and rice), so I always try to buy organic corn products. The bulk section in health food stores is a good place to find this. This is also the best place to find xanthan gum, which is essential for gluten-free baking. Xanthan gum is made by fermenting corn sugar with a microbial. It's used extensively in the food industry to make products thicker and it's a common ingredient in gluten-free recipes because it binds ingredients together. It is expensive and most recipes call for small amounts, so I always buy a small amount as needed from the bulk section.

I've made these muffins with and without the cinnamon and enjoyed them both times. The first batch, without the cinnamon, was paired with a friend's pot of homemade turkey chili for a party. Next time, I think I'll try the recipe with the cinnamon again, fresh blueberries folded into the batter and a topping of melted butter and sprinkling of chopped pecans. I like this recipe because you can play around with it, adding green chilies and cheddar for savory muffins or any other exotic mix-ins you come up with. The buttermilk makes the muffins really moist and light, even up against medium grind cornmeal and brown rice flour.