I've mentioned a few times that leftovers from your veggie preppin' can make a fine fine broth. This is true. Making veggie scrap broth eases the guilt for those of us who don't/can't compost, squeezes the last bit of flavor and nutrition out of your produce, and puts your neglected freezer to good use.
You will need:
a freezer
a freezer-friendly gallon bag or tub
veggie scrap consciousness
a pasta pot; bonus points if it comes with a pasta colander
As you peel potatoes & carrots & parsnips and onions & etc, add the peels & leftover bits to the freezer container. When you have a 1/2 gallon's worth or so, dump into the pasta colander, slip the colander into the pasta pot, and cover with water. Bring to a boil, then simmer covered for at least 20 minutes but longer = more flavor melding. Lift colander from pot, drain a moment, then dump the thoroughly used-up veggie scraps. Ta-da.
If you don't have an immediate use for the broth, save space in your fridge by continuing to simmer the broth until it is reduced to a reasonable amount. I keep mine in small jar marked "veggie boullion," then measure out a Tb or two per cup of water to re-constitute the broth. If you don't get to it in the first week, better freeze it for laters.
Items for an especially tasty broth:
-herb stems like thyme. sage, parsely, savory, tarragon, etc. Easy on the sorrell/rosemary, a little goes along way.
-potato peels. The Vegetarian Epicure swears by them, and claims you can make a highly satisfying broth from those alone. Avoid green skin, that's poison!
-mushroom stems. A way into the the depth of flavor meat broth's enjoy. Folks from the Fungus Fair inform me mushrooms impart anticarcinogenic properties. Thanks, mushrooms!
-stems from your sauteeing greens. Kale, chard, collards, etc. Go easy on the beet greens--their high sugar content means too many of them make the soup too sweet.
-artichoke leaves & middles. But not the stems. They are too bitter.
-onion ends & skins
-celery bottoms and leaves
-the afroementioned carrot/parsnip peels
-tart apple peels & cores. What? Like the beet green stems, go easy on them. But don't knock 'em. The tart apples will counteract the utter vegginess of your broth, and since apples impart a lot of pectin for jams & jellies, I have a crackpot theory that they improve the velvetiness of broth. That they are the vegetarian's equivalent of broken bones and marrow, which thicken meat broths.
Avoid things you wouldn't cook anyway, like the green potato peels/bitter artichoke stems mentioned above, but also the green parts of leeks (they turn the soup sour--some say the same is true for green onions) and the leaves from rhubarb. Poison! Poison!
Happy soup season!
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Winter means citrus
...and specifically, those California Cuties clementines that take over the stores around here. They are snack-sized, easy to peel and sweet sweet sweet. I usually eat three at a time as a tv-watching alternative to popcorn. They are like candy, and it only takes a little to turn them into fancy dessert for entertaining. I bought a kit of the ingredients as a birthday present for my friend Tim, who doesn't eat sugar (but has a sweet tooth):
-peel a bunch of clementines. Get the little extra white strings off, if you can.
-arrange them on a plate or entertainment platter (blue tones offset the orange)
-put your thumb over the opening of a bottle of orange blossom water and sprinkle over the smiles. Just enough to moisten them. I found orange blossom water at the middle eastern market in San Luis Obispo, back in the SLO days, but since then I've found it at the natural foods store.
-if you are okay with sugar, sprinkle powdered sugar over the clementine smiles. I get an even sprinkling by pouring the sugar into a sieve or mesh strainer, then tapping the side of the sieve as I move it over the smiles.
-do the same with powdered cinnamon.
That's it! The platter looks festive, it smells great, and it's equally well received at potlucks, holiday parties, or by the coterie of regulars who come over for a casual night of cards.
-peel a bunch of clementines. Get the little extra white strings off, if you can.
-arrange them on a plate or entertainment platter (blue tones offset the orange)
-put your thumb over the opening of a bottle of orange blossom water and sprinkle over the smiles. Just enough to moisten them. I found orange blossom water at the middle eastern market in San Luis Obispo, back in the SLO days, but since then I've found it at the natural foods store.
-if you are okay with sugar, sprinkle powdered sugar over the clementine smiles. I get an even sprinkling by pouring the sugar into a sieve or mesh strainer, then tapping the side of the sieve as I move it over the smiles.
-do the same with powdered cinnamon.
That's it! The platter looks festive, it smells great, and it's equally well received at potlucks, holiday parties, or by the coterie of regulars who come over for a casual night of cards.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Food Prep Miscellany
Wutt?? How did I forget about my cookin' jones/this blog? Uh. I went away to Seattle for Thanksgiving, and after being hosted for a great meal/macking on the leftovers for the rest of the weekend, I have just sorta coasted on a tryptophan coma (MYTH) ever since.
Still, I have made a few things & can report on them.
For one thing, I advised my rat sitter that she could make quick & easy popcorn in the microwave without using microwave popcorn. This is true. My old housemate Keri discovered this as a neglected & hungry youth after school, and experimented till she got it right for the benefit of all of us. Her formula:
-lunch bag
-3T popcorn
-2:30 minutes on high in the microwave. (I sometimes go 2:45)
Ta daa. And you can reuse the bag--the cleaner your microwave is, and by the way, clean out your microwave (gross), the more you can reuse it before the old food stains make it spotty.
Now you can butter your popcorn with less guilt, right, because so far this is a fat-free food (and we can't have that). The marketers of coconut have successfully reached my local natural food stores, so now their shelves are stocked with coconut water drinks and coconut oil. "Why are you talking about this now? We were just getting to the good butter part!" Because they got to me, too: "Better for you [less bad for you] than butter." So I scoop out a Tb or 2 out of the jar, put it into a li'l microwave dish, maybe with some garam masala spice or Chinese five-spice, because I am that gourmet, or, for you spice babies, cinnamon, and melt it 30 seconds on high for over the popcorn.
Or try:
-olive oil heated with dried oregano
-butter heated with crushed garlic
(same thing, 30 seconds on high)
-brown sage butter (see the soup recipe a couple posts back)
Also, I live in Hippytown USA, so I am obliged to sprinkle nutritional yeast flakes over the popcorn too. Fortunately it is very damn tasty, so I can recommend it to you.
I make popcorn for myself a few times a week for watching Netflix on my laptop in bed.
I am not a single sad sack
I am not a single sad sack
I am not a single sad sack
excuse me.
Also, for Make Good Thanksgiving with my Mom, who does not live in Seattle, I contributed the following Roasted Beet Salad:
Get together two bunches of fresh beets on their greens. About 6 beets total. If you are feeling fancy, get a red beet bunch and a golden/striped beet bunch. You won't use the greens till later in the week for yourself, but look who is a smart shopper? You are! (You can slow-cook sliced leeks over med-low heat in olive oil, then add chopped beet greens & cover till they are the wiltiest. Meanwhile, heat oven to 300 and dry roast some shelled pumpkin seeds for 10-15 minutes on a baking sheet till hear you hear them pop. Remove & observed their puffed-up light & crispy goodness. Once the beet greens are respectably limp, turn off the heat & kill the pan with some splooshes of balsamic vinegar & s&p to taste. Stir in crumbled goat cheese or feta, sprinkle in the pumpkin seeds, and serve warm or room temp. Our beet dish will incorporate these same ingredients.)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
-Peel the beets, & chop into 3/4-to-1-inch chunks. Toss in a bowl with a little bit of olive oil & salt & pepper, and set aside.
-Slice a couple leeks and a fennel bulb , and spread out along the bottom of an olive-oiled baking pan. I used a 9x9, it was plenty big.
-put the shiny beet chunks on top, and bake for mmm, 30 minutes or so before checking on them and tossing every ten minutes till a fork goes easily through a beet chunk.
-while beets are still hot, sprinkle in balsamic vinegar to taste, and if you have the feathery parts of the fennel, mince some of that up & toss it in, too.
-while beets are cooling, roast some pumpkin seeds (see parenthetical, above). When they have cooled and the beets are room temp, toss them in with some crumbled goat cheese or feta. Then go wow your mom.
Also:
My rat sitter left some zucchini in the fridge, so tonight I sliced them into centimeter-thick chunks on the bias, drizzled a TB of olive oil into the bottom of that 9x9, and spread the slices out in a single layer. Then I turned them all over so there was olive oil on both sides, salted & peppered them, and put them in a 375 degree oven for 10-15 minutes. Then I turned the slices over again, sprinkled with shredded Parmesan cheese, and returned to the oven for 10 more minutes or so. If all goes well, as it did for me, you will have savory zucchini chips that are chewy-crisp golden on the outside, melty on the inside. I put them into sammiches or over quinoa with some kind of goopus.
Goopus like mole negro. Get one of those jars of the stuff in the "Hispanic Foods" aisle*, a quart of broth, an extra Tb of powdered unsweetened chocolate, and half a banana. Heat the jar contents in the broth and smoosh it around till you have a smooth consistency, then blender with the extra chocolate & half banana. Serve over roasted veg, nopales, or the traditional chicken.
*don't make it from scratch--at least, don't start the project when you are already hungry. A college pal & I tried to make it from Diane Kennedy's recipe in advance of our post-graduation trip to Oaxaca. We were confounded by the 30 ingredients (half a slice of french bread? Five almonds? Really? WTF?) and neglected to properly secure the blender lid, so instead of eating in 15 minutes like we thought we were going to, we were swabbing brown shloop off the walls 90 minutes later and still hadn't eaten UGH. Treat yourself better!
Still, I have made a few things & can report on them.
For one thing, I advised my rat sitter that she could make quick & easy popcorn in the microwave without using microwave popcorn. This is true. My old housemate Keri discovered this as a neglected & hungry youth after school, and experimented till she got it right for the benefit of all of us. Her formula:
-lunch bag
-3T popcorn
-2:30 minutes on high in the microwave. (I sometimes go 2:45)
Ta daa. And you can reuse the bag--the cleaner your microwave is, and by the way, clean out your microwave (gross), the more you can reuse it before the old food stains make it spotty.
Now you can butter your popcorn with less guilt, right, because so far this is a fat-free food (and we can't have that). The marketers of coconut have successfully reached my local natural food stores, so now their shelves are stocked with coconut water drinks and coconut oil. "Why are you talking about this now? We were just getting to the good butter part!" Because they got to me, too: "Better for you [less bad for you] than butter." So I scoop out a Tb or 2 out of the jar, put it into a li'l microwave dish, maybe with some garam masala spice or Chinese five-spice, because I am that gourmet, or, for you spice babies, cinnamon, and melt it 30 seconds on high for over the popcorn.
Or try:
-olive oil heated with dried oregano
-butter heated with crushed garlic
(same thing, 30 seconds on high)
-brown sage butter (see the soup recipe a couple posts back)
Also, I live in Hippytown USA, so I am obliged to sprinkle nutritional yeast flakes over the popcorn too. Fortunately it is very damn tasty, so I can recommend it to you.
I make popcorn for myself a few times a week for watching Netflix on my laptop in bed.
I am not a single sad sack
I am not a single sad sack
I am not a single sad sack
excuse me.
Also, for Make Good Thanksgiving with my Mom, who does not live in Seattle, I contributed the following Roasted Beet Salad:
Get together two bunches of fresh beets on their greens. About 6 beets total. If you are feeling fancy, get a red beet bunch and a golden/striped beet bunch. You won't use the greens till later in the week for yourself, but look who is a smart shopper? You are! (You can slow-cook sliced leeks over med-low heat in olive oil, then add chopped beet greens & cover till they are the wiltiest. Meanwhile, heat oven to 300 and dry roast some shelled pumpkin seeds for 10-15 minutes on a baking sheet till hear you hear them pop. Remove & observed their puffed-up light & crispy goodness. Once the beet greens are respectably limp, turn off the heat & kill the pan with some splooshes of balsamic vinegar & s&p to taste. Stir in crumbled goat cheese or feta, sprinkle in the pumpkin seeds, and serve warm or room temp. Our beet dish will incorporate these same ingredients.)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
-Peel the beets, & chop into 3/4-to-1-inch chunks. Toss in a bowl with a little bit of olive oil & salt & pepper, and set aside.
-Slice a couple leeks and a fennel bulb , and spread out along the bottom of an olive-oiled baking pan. I used a 9x9, it was plenty big.
-put the shiny beet chunks on top, and bake for mmm, 30 minutes or so before checking on them and tossing every ten minutes till a fork goes easily through a beet chunk.
-while beets are still hot, sprinkle in balsamic vinegar to taste, and if you have the feathery parts of the fennel, mince some of that up & toss it in, too.
-while beets are cooling, roast some pumpkin seeds (see parenthetical, above). When they have cooled and the beets are room temp, toss them in with some crumbled goat cheese or feta. Then go wow your mom.
Also:
My rat sitter left some zucchini in the fridge, so tonight I sliced them into centimeter-thick chunks on the bias, drizzled a TB of olive oil into the bottom of that 9x9, and spread the slices out in a single layer. Then I turned them all over so there was olive oil on both sides, salted & peppered them, and put them in a 375 degree oven for 10-15 minutes. Then I turned the slices over again, sprinkled with shredded Parmesan cheese, and returned to the oven for 10 more minutes or so. If all goes well, as it did for me, you will have savory zucchini chips that are chewy-crisp golden on the outside, melty on the inside. I put them into sammiches or over quinoa with some kind of goopus.
Goopus like mole negro. Get one of those jars of the stuff in the "Hispanic Foods" aisle*, a quart of broth, an extra Tb of powdered unsweetened chocolate, and half a banana. Heat the jar contents in the broth and smoosh it around till you have a smooth consistency, then blender with the extra chocolate & half banana. Serve over roasted veg, nopales, or the traditional chicken.
*don't make it from scratch--at least, don't start the project when you are already hungry. A college pal & I tried to make it from Diane Kennedy's recipe in advance of our post-graduation trip to Oaxaca. We were confounded by the 30 ingredients (half a slice of french bread? Five almonds? Really? WTF?) and neglected to properly secure the blender lid, so instead of eating in 15 minutes like we thought we were going to, we were swabbing brown shloop off the walls 90 minutes later and still hadn't eaten UGH. Treat yourself better!
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