Breakfast Bites

Sometimes a little advance effort has a big pay-off. That’s most certainly the case with breakfast — the last thing most of us want to do first thing in the morning is spend a lot of time preparing/scrounging for something to eat. Specifically, something that will taste good, be healthy, and be satisfying enough to last until lunch. All three of those conditions are impossible to fulfill — although those with a sweet tooth would probably argue that the “tastes good” criteria would be met — with what you’ll find in the cereal aisle or the reduced-fat dairy section in most supermarkets. (Also known as the Aisle of Sugar and the Section of Sugar departments.)

If you’re willing to spend a little time making these breakfast bites while you listen to your favorite podcast, though, you won’t face a first-thing-in-the-morning crisis. With three kinds of whole grains, two seeds, eggs, extra-virgin olive oil, and natural sweeteners in the form of raisins and dates, these little guys taste great, are healthy, and won’t leave you hungry by 10 a.m. Plus, they’re bite-size and highly portable. How convenient is that?

Breakfast Bites
Makes approximately 60 bites.

1/4 cup sunflower seeds, coarsely ground in a food processor
1/4 cup pumpkin seeds, coarsely ground in a food processor
1/4 cup teff flour*
3/4 cup sorghum flour*
3/4 cup brown rice flour*
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 cup date sugar
1/2 cup raisins
3 eggs, separated
1/4 tsp. cream of tartar
1 tsp. vanilla
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
Powdered sucanat for rolling (optional)

Preheat oven to 350F and cover 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. In a large bowl, whisk together seeds, flours, cinnamon, baking powder, and date sugar. Stir in raisins, separating them by hand if they’re clumping together.

Crack the egg whites into a large bowl and put the yolks in another large bowl. Whip the whites with the cream of tartar — since the cream of tartar is acidic, it helps set the whites faster — until you have almost-stiff peaks (the kind that very slowly and gently starts to fall over after you’ve lifted up the beater).

Using the same beater, whip the yolks with the vanilla and oil until the mixture is frothy and thick. Stir the dry ingredients into the yolks. The dough will be dry, but that’s okay — you still have to fold in the whites. After you’ve folded them in with a spatula, start rolling the dough into 1″ balls and placing them on the baking sheets. I find that the easiest way to do that is pinch the dough together, use your fingertips to form it into a rough ball, and then give it a little finishing “polish” roll in the palm of your hand.

Bake for 12 minutes until bottoms are golden brown. If you like, roll the hot-out-of-the-oven balls in powdered sucanat to give them a little more sweetness. I do like to roll them, so I bake the bites in 2 batches — that way, I can get the first batch sucanat-ed while they’re still hot. Let bites cool completely before storing them in an airtight container.

Enjoy!

* These are gluten-free flours. If you’d rather make a wheat-based version, use an equivalent of kamut, spelt, and/or whole-wheat flour.

Sunflower & Sesame Kale Chips

Kale chips seem to be the Hot Food Thing right now…and they’ve also been on my personal Obsessed with These Yummies list for the last two years. I’m always on the lookout for an ever-tastier chip. Last weekend, I found inspiration for my quest in the form of a side order of onion rings at The Raw Cafe in Detroit. Whatever blend of nuts and spices those crispy puppies were dredged in was culinary nirvana!

I decided to make a batch of kale chips using what I thought was on the onions: sesame, sunflower, nutritional yeast, tamari, and dried herbs. I think I’ve hit the nail at least somewhat on the head here. Or leaf, as it may be. If you happen to try those onion rings and figure out a way to reverse engineer them, by all means please let me know! Together, we’ll crack the code.

Sunflower & Sesame Kale Chips

The amount of seasoning will depend on how much kale you have, so it’s best to keep these general proportions in mind and tailor them to your needs. First, preheat the oven to 325F and cover 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. Rinse kale, whack dry against the edge of the sink (water pretty much bounces off those crinkly leaves), and rip tough ribs away from each leaf. Tear the leaves into small pieces and place in a large bowl.

To make the seasoning, grind equal parts sunflower seeds and sesame seeds (either seed/both seeds can be raw or toasted) with a hearty dash of dried Italian herbs. Add a heaping spoonful of nutritional yeast — it should be about half the amount of the seeds. For example, if you use 2 T. each of the seeds, use 1 T. of the yeast (along with a big dash of herbs). Drizzle kale lightly with tamari*/soy sauce and mix well with the ground seeds. The goal is to have just enough tamari to make the leaves a little bit wet so that the seeds will stick. Too wet, and leaves will never get crispy in the oven.

Spread chips out on baking sheets so that none overlap and bake for 25 minutes or until chips are crispy and starting to turn brown. Eat immediately. You’ll probably wish you had more.

Enjoy!

* Be sure to use wheat-free tamari if you’re making gluten-free chips.

Mediterranean Lamb Pizza with Roasted Red Pepper Sauce

If pizza had originated in Morocco rather than Italy, I have a sneaking suspicion that lamb would have been the meat of choice, not pepperoni. (Or perhaps pepperoni made with lamb. Hint, hint… I can only hope the American Lamb Board is reading this!) And perhaps the sauce would have been been made the way I made this one — with roasted red peppers instead of tomatoes. It’s a fun twist on the traditional marinara staple, plus it’s a handy way to go tomato-free if tomatoes aren’t on your dinner guest’s list of favorite foods. You could, of course, go with a combo sauce if you’d like. If you’re feeling particularly brave and happen to have some spicy Moroccan harissa on hand, you can include that, too.

I opted to maintain the Mediterranean attitude by topping the pie with goat’s-milk feta and rosemary-scented asiago cheese. (Sartori produces a sublime version of the latter, made with grass-fed milk and copious amounts of dried rosemary.) You could stick with the tried-and-true mozzarella, but if you’re going to go with generous amounts of herbed sauce and flavorful ground lamb, you might as well enjoy a cheese that makes it presence known.

Mediterranean Lamb Pizza with Roasted Red Pepper Sauce

1 pizza crust (store-bought or this easy whole-grain and gluten-free crust recipe)

For the sauce:
1 medium onion, chopped (1/2 of the onion reserved for the lamb topping)
4 cloves garlic, chopped
16 oz. (1 pound) of roasted peppers, either jarred (drained weight, not the total contents weight — just be sure to DRAIN THE PEPPERS BEFORE USING!) or home-roasted, run through a food processor until fairly smooth
2 tsp. dried oregano
1 tsp. dried parsley
1 tsp. dried mint
Sprinkling of crushed red pepper flakes

For the lamb topping:
1 lb. ground lamb, preferably pastured
The reserved onion from the sauce
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1 tsp. dried oregano
1 tsp. dried parsley
1 tsp. dried mint

Cheeses: about 1 cup of grated/crumbled goat’s- or sheep’s-milk feta AND/OR asiago (I used Sartori’s rosemary-scented asiago)

Prepare crust according to recipe (or package directions if store-bought). To make the sauce, heat a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil over medium heat for 1 minute and then add onions. Sautée, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes or until onions are starting to turn translucent. Add garlic and reduce heat to medium-low. Continue to cook for another 2 minutes or until garlic is fragrant. Add remaining sauce ingredients and allow sauce to simmer gently for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Reduce heat to low if the sauce starts to boil.

Meanwhile, heat the lamb over medium heat in a different pan. Cook for 2 minutes, stirring often to break apart meat, until lamb is starting to brown slightly. Add onions and cook for another 3 minutes or until the lamb is mostly no longer pink. Stir in garlic and herbs and reduce heat to low. Cook for another 2 minutes or until lamb is browned. Drain.

By now, the pizza crust should be ready to top and the sauce should be simmered. Make sure the oven is at 375F. Spoon sauce onto the pre-baked crust and spread evenly out to the edges. Add meat, spooning it on evenly, and then scatter cheese on top of the meat.

Bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until sauce is bubbling and cheese is melting and starting to turn golden brown. Use a pizza wheel or the tip of a sharp knife to cut the pizza into 8 slices. Serve and enjoy!

Ricotta Poppyseed Muffin

Ricotta cheese is like a reversible coat: it has two distinct sides and both are equally appealing. Ricotta salata (or “salted ricotta”) is a hard, aged cheese that is lovely for grating and garnishing; it reminds me a lot of Parmesan. Fresh ricotta, on the other hand, is creamy and sweet and tastes like summer. Its texture reminds me a little bit of whipped cream cheese, except that ricotta made with fresh milk is incredibly lush and has none of the vaguely plastic flavor/texture of commercial cream cheese.

Seeing as fresh ricotta manages to be delightfully dense-textured and airy at the same time, I figured a heaping dollop of it would make baked goods more moist and fluffy. (Not to mention more nutritious and tasty.) I’m happy to report that my hunch was right — these muffins had a nice golden crust on the outside but were tongue-pleasingly delicate on the inside. The poppyseeds added a nice contrasting crunch.

Should you happen to get your hands on a nice tub of fresh ricotta and already have baked goods on hand, you can use the ricotta as a spread, too, just as you would butter or cream cheese. You could even slather a knifeful of ricotta onto a savory sandwich to add a whole new kind of creaminess.

Ricotta Poppyseed Muffins
Makes a baker’s dozen.

1 cup sorghum flour*
1 cup millet OR brown rice flour*
1 T. baking powder
Pinch sea salt
1/4 to 1/2 cup poppyseeds (OR chia seeds OR chopped nuts OR chopped sunflower/pumpkin seeds; the idea here is to include a crunchy accent)
1 cup fresh ricotta cheese (if you can’t find this, use full-fat cottage cheese that you’ve run through a processor/blender)
4 eggs, preferably from pastured hens
1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup almond oil OR extra-virgin olive oil
2 tsp. vanilla

Preheat oven to 375F and line a muffin tray with paper cups. I find that the parchment-style cups made by If You Care work BY FAR the best.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flours, baking powder, seeds, and salt. In a medium bowl, whisk together the ricotta, eggs, honey, oil, and vanilla. Scoop the liquid ingredients into the dry ones and whisk well to combine. If you’re using wheat flour, stir with a spoon until barely blended.

Pour into the waiting tins and bake for 18 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Top baked muffins with additional ricotta and honey if you’d like.

Enjoy!

* These are gluten-free flours. If you’d prefer to make wheat-based muffins, use a total of 2 cups of spelt, kamut, and/or whole-wheat flour.

Pumpkin Walnut Bread

What’s in your freezer pantry? The space adjoining your fridge is just as useful and important as your cupboard shelves. Stashing away frozen fruits and veggies is a great way to make sure you always have a good stock of otherwise-perishable ingredients on hand, plus it’s far more tasty and economical to freeze your own leftover dinners rather than buying prefabricated frozen meals. (And just think: if you only scrawl the date and not the contents onto your leftovers, you can give yourself a happy culinary surprise at a later date. You’re guaranteed to like what you’re getting because you already enjoyed it the first time around — it’s like going to your favorite restaurant and telling the waiter “Surprise me!”)

One of the best ingredients to keep in the freezer is nuts. While chestnuts and almonds have a relatively low fat content and are therefore less perishable than other nuts, richer nuts like walnuts and pecans and pine nuts can turn rancid in just a month or two when stored at room temp.  The fact that walnuts and pecans are often sold in pieces or halves — i.e., their protective outer skins have been breached — makes them even more prone to rancidity. If you store the more delicate varieties of nuts in the freezer, though, they’ll easily last a year. (Side note: always store nut butters in the fridge! Cool temps will keep them fresher, and they’ll still be spreadable straight out of the fridge.)

This hearty breakfast quick bread takes advantage of the natural affinity pumpkin has for walnuts. If you’d like even more walnut flavor, feel free to dry-toast the walnuts in a pan over medium-low heat for about 4 minutes or until the they’re fragrant and browning before adding them to the batter.

I like to amp up the walnut aspect by drizzling some unrefined walnut oil onto my slices when I enjoy the baked bread. (Since walnut oil is primarily an polyunsaturated fat, it should NOT be heated and is therefore NOT suitable for baking. It is, however, fabulous when whisked into dressings and/or drizzled over finished dishes. It’s also a good source of omega-3 fats.)

Pumpkin Walnut Bread

3/4 cup brown rice flour*
3/4 cup sorghum OR millet flour*
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. baking powder
1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. allspice
1/4 tsp. cloves
1/2 tsp. coriander (optional, but a nice background flavor)
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (toasted if you like)
1/2 cup whole milk, preferably from grass-fed cows
3 eggs, preferably from pastured hens
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 cup maple syrup
1 cup puréed pumpkin (either homemade or canned)

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease a 9×5 glass loaf pan by either rubbing its sides with butter or extra-virgin olive oil.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flours, baking soda and powder, spices, and walnuts. In another bowl, whisk together the remaining ingredients. Pour the liquid mixture into the flour mixture and whisk well to combine.

Pour the batter into the greased loaf pan and bake for 1 hour or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. I usually flip on the oven light to peek at the loaf at the 55-minute mark just to do a quick visual check. If the center still looks soggy and un-set, let it go another 10 minutes before doing a toothpick test. If it’s set and slightly domed, do the toothpick test right away.

Let bread cool on a wire rack for at least 15 minutes before cutting into it. Bread will keep for several days at room temp in the cool winter months, but if it’s summertime or you keep your house toasty warm in the winter, you might want to pop the bread into the fridge to prolong its life. I prefer to leave mine out since the fridge has a tendency to suck the moisture out of baked goods and make them a bit dry. (And I am too thrifty to heat the house past 68F in the winter.)

Enjoy!

* These are gluten-free flours. If you’d prefer to make a wheat-based version, use a total of 1 1/2 cups spelt, kamut, and/or whole-wheat flour.

Crustless Pecan Pie

What do chestnuts, pecans, beech nuts, and hickory nuts all have in common? They’re all native to North America. While beech nuts and hickory nuts are hard to find since they’re usually foraged rather than farmed, chestnuts and pecans are relatively plentiful. Roasted chestnuts are especially findable around the holidays. (Although this Flourless Chocolate Chestnut Cake is delicious any time of the year.) Pecans, on the other hand, are findable year-round.

Where chestnuts are starchy and dry in nature — which makes them excellent in baked goods when dried and ground into flour — pecans are rich and buttery. That satisfying flavor and the high protein/fat content of pecans makes them an ideal ingredient for breakfasts that’ll stick with you all the way to lunch. (As opposed to sugary, refined cereals that will leave you feeling hungry and irritable by mid-morning and will have you reaching for more sugary junk to make it to lunch time. Break the cycle deliciously!)

Soaking the pecans, draining them, and then roasting them overnight will make them insanely buttery-tasting and isn’t very much work seeing as all of those steps are pretty passive: once you have the nuts situated, they can simply do their thing. But you can pan-toast the pecans at the last minute, too, if you want to skip the overnight soak. I think it’s much easier to do hands-off activities like soaking and roasting rather than pay-attention activities like toasting in a pan. (The more oily and buttery the nut, the more likely it is to over-toast and wind up burnt.) How you deal with your nuts is up to you.

Crustless Pecan Pie

8 oz. raw pecan halves (6 oz. or even 4 oz. would also work; I happen to be a nut about pecans and wanted to make a very pecan-y pecan pie)
1 T. sea salt (which sounds like a lot, but you’ll wind up rinsing most of it away)
6 dates, pitted and chopped
1/4 cup maple syrup
4 T. butter (half a stick), preferably from grass-fed cows
3 eggs, preferably from pastured hens
2 tsp. vanilla

The night before, place the pecans and salt in a small bowl and add enough cold water to cover the nuts. Leave them sit out on the counter overnight. The following day, rinse well and let drain for at least 5 minutes. Preheat oven to 200F. Spread the drained pecans out on a rimmed baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes or until the pecans are dry and brittle and break apart easily. (When they start to smell magnificently of roasting nuts, start checking them. This is the most enchanting scent ever — not even baking bread can beat it!) When the pecans are done, increase the heat to 350F.

Get out a 9″ glass pie pan. Place the dates, maple syrup, and butter in a small saucepan and heat over medium-low until the butter is melted. Raise the heat up a notch or two until the mixture is gently bubbling. Let simmer for 3 minutes, then remove from heat and whisk in eggs and vanilla. Whisk in the pecans. You can hand-break them into smaller bits or you can leave them as whole halves. I like the texture and look of the halves, so I do my best to keep them intact.

Pour the batter into the ungreased pie pan and bake for 30 minutes at 350F. Let baked pie cool at least 15 minutes before cutting into it. Leftover pie can be refrigerated for up to 5 days.

Talk about the most lush breakfast imaginable! Especially when you consider that if you serve it in 4 generous portions (one-quarter of the pie makes a lasts-well-until-lunch breakfast), each portion only has 1 T. of maple syrup and 1 T. of butter. It doesn’t take much to play up pecans!

Enjoy!

Spiced Sorghum & Yogurt Cake

What’s a grain, a flour, and a sweetener? Hint: it used to be a popular foodstuff in the U.S. back in the pioneer days, and it’s still popular in African and Indian dishes. You can make beer out of it, too. It has more fiber (and iron) than and nearly as much protein as soy and wheat. And it’s gluten-free!

I’m talking about sorghum. It’s my #1 go-to flour — I like it even better than brown rice flour — and I often include whole sorghum grains in my main dishes. Sorghum syrup tastes a lot like blackstrap molasses and is fun to bake with; sorghum-based beers are tasty, too. The U.S. still grows plenty of sorghum, but most of it is used as animal fodder rather than as food for humans. What a shame! It’s nutty and chewy and is lovely tossed with a simple drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil and a shake or two of sea salt. It’s true that it takes a good 50 minutes to cook — sorghum is a hardy grain — but you can cook a big potful of it and keep it in the fridge for up to a week, dipping into it whenever you want cereal or a hearty grain-based meal.

This recipe makes use of both sorghum flour and sorghum syrup. The former is getting easier and easier to find in grocery stores (health food stores, ethnic stores catering to African and Indian clientele, and well-stocked stores like Whole Foods almost always offer sorghum flour), but sorghum syrup is  a bit trickier to find…although it is quite popular in the southern states. If you can’t find the syrup, feel free to substitute blackstrap molasses.

Spiced Sorghum & Yogurt Cake
This recipe makes a cake big enough to serve ten people. Since it isn’t overly sweet and also packs a ton of whole grains and whole-milk dairy products, I like to have it for breakfast.

3/4 cup sorghum flour*
3/4 cup brown rice flour*
1/2 cup teff flour*
1 tsp. baking soda
1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. allspice
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 tsp. sea salt
1 stick (8 T.) butter, preferably from grass-fed cows (Kerrygold and Organic Valley are great choices), softened
1/2 cup sucanat
2 eggs, preferably from pastured hens
1/2 cup whole-milk Greek yogurt
1/2 cup sorghum syrup OR blackstrap molasses
3/4 cup buttermilk, preferably from grass-fed cows (you can make your own last-minute buttermilk by filling the 3/4 cup just shy with whole milk and then squeezing in enough fresh lemon juice to finish filling the measuring cup; let stand for 10 minutes before using)
Raspberries for garnish (optional)

Preheat oven to 325F. Grease the bottom and sides of a 10″ springform pan. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flours, baking soda, spices, and salt. In a large bowl, beat the butter for at least 2 minutes. Beat in sucanat, mixing for another full minute. (The creamier and more aerated the butter is, the fluffier the final cake will be.) Beat in eggs until well-blended, then beat in yogurt and sorghum syrup.

Add half of the flour and mix well, then add half of the buttermilk and mix well. Repeat with remaining halves. If you’re making a gluten-free cake, you can beat these in with your mixers; if you’re making a wheat-based cake, stir them in with a spoon. (If there’s gluten involved, you don’t want to overdevelop it and make your cake tough. No need to worry about that with gluten-free baking.)

Pour into the springform pan and bake for 40 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. (This may take 50 minutes, but you want to check it at 40 so that you don’t risk overbaking it and drying it out.) Garnish with raspberries — or any kind of berries — if you like. You could top it with a dollop of yogurt, too.

Enjoy!

* These are gluten-free flours. If you’d rather make a wheat-based version, use a total of 2 cups of spelt, kamut, and/or whole-wheat flours.

Blackberry Surprise Muffins

February may have turned into April overnight (44F? Weather gods, what is going on??), but there’s still enough of a chill in the air to warrant baking muffins. Especially whole-grain muffins with a jammy surprise inside. I opted for locally made, naturally sweetened blackberry jam for this batch; next time I might go for raspberry or cherry. That’s the great thing about making “surprise” muffins: as long as you can come up with different treats to tuck inside the batter, you can keep reinventing your recipes! Other fun surprises include dollops of nut butter and chunks of dark chocolate.

If you are going for a jammy surprise, though, make sure to pick an all-fruit jam, not one that has a bunch of added sugar and/or high-fructose corn syrup. Always, always read the ingredients label! You can save yourself a lot of headache and heartache by skipping all of the misleading claims and marketing flimflam on the front of any given package and going right to the ingredients label. If you don’t like what you see there, put it back and go on to the next brand…and possibly the next one…until you find an appealing list of ingredients.

Blackberry Surprise Muffins

3/4 cup brown rice flour*
3/4 cup sorghum OR millet flour*
1/2 cup almond flour (I run sliced almonds through a coffee grinder until I have flour; this is a far more affordable — and tastier! — way to enjoy almond flour)
1 T. baking powder
Dash of sea salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
2 eggs, preferably from pastured hens
1 cup whole milk, preferably from grass-fed cows, OR coconut, grain, or nut milk
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 tsp. vanilla
Blackberry jam

Preheat oven to 375F and line a muffin tin with paper cups. This recipe tends to make at least a baker’s dozen, so you may need to line a few openings in a second tin. Get out a small spoon to use for scooping the jam into the muffins right before you pop them into the oven.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flours, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. In a smaller bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, maple syrup, oil, and vanilla. Whisk the wet ingredients into the dry ones.

Promptly fill each cup in the full 12-cup tin halfway with batter. (If you are using aluminum-free baking powder — which I always do — time is of the essence since the powder will immediately start to react when mixed with liquid. Now is not the time to tarry!) Use your tiny spoon to scoop a dollop of jam into each muffin. Add a little more batter to each cup, enough to cover the jam and fill the cup 3/4 full. If you still have some batter, make another 3 or 4 muffins in the second tin.

Bake for 20 minutes or until the muffins are turning golden on top and a toothpick inserted along the side comes out clean. (If you poke the center of the muffin, you’ll hit the jam and the toothpick will come out sticky.) Let cool for at least 10 minutes before biting into your surprise.

Enjoy!

* These are gluten-free flours. If you’d rather make wheat-based muffins, use a total of 1 1/2 cups spelt, kamut, or whole-wheat flours. You could replace the almond flour with wheat, too, but the nuttiness of the almonds is a nice compliment to the tart-sweetness of the blackberry jam.

Savory Artichoke Custard

If you’re in the mood for an unadorned artichoke, nothing beats a freshly steamed one, but if you want to make a dish featuring artichokes as the main ingredient, the canned route suddenly gets a whole lot more appealing. To make this savory baked custard — which is fantastic for either breakfast or lunch — all you need to do is blend some drained canned artichoke hearts in a food processor with the other four ingredients, pop it in the oven, and wait 25 minutes.

If you’d rather make a soft artichoke dip to accompany crackers or raw sliced veggies, omit the eggs and the baking and simply serve the blended artichokes, cheese, Greek yogurt, and garlic. Talk about an easy appetizer!

Savory Artichoke Custard (or Dip)

5 cloves garlic, chopped
14 oz. can of artichoke hearts, drained
1/2 cup plain whole-milk Greek yogurt
2 eggs, preferably from pastured hens*
3 oz. aged hard cheese such as Parmesan, preferably from grass-fed cows, grated (I used Sartori’s basil & olive oil asiago cheese; Sartori is a fantastic American cheesemaker with an impressive array of traditional-Italian-relocated-to-modern-day-Wisconsin selections)

Preheat oven to 400F. Sautée the garlic in a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil over medium-low heat for 3 minutes or until garlic is just beginning to turn golden brown. Immediately transfer to food processor and add remaining ingredients. Process in spurts until well-blended, using a spatula to occasionally scrape down the sides of the bowl.

* Note: if you’d rather make a dip than a custard, omit the eggs, skip the oven preheating, and stop here. Serve dip in a pretty bowl.

Scoop the mixture into a 9″ glass pie pan and bake for 25 minutes or until custard is set and the edges are turning brown. Let cool for at least 5 minutes before serving. Leftover custard can be refrigerated for 5 days…and makes a very satisfying instant breakfast!

Enjoy!

Baked Potato "Cake"

If you have a bit of spare time and a sacrificial kitchen towel*, making a baked potato cake — which can be turned into the world’s tastiest hash browns if you have leftovers! — is a fun way to prepare potatoes. All you need is butter, salt and pepper, and baking/starchy potatoes. (As opposed to waxy potatoes, which aren’t quite starchy enough to do the job here, especially since we’re leaving the skins on.) It’s also quite helpful to have a oven-safe wire rack and a plate that will fit over the top of a 9″ skillet. You can bake the cake directly on a covered baking sheet rather than on a wire rack, but going the rack route will make for a crispier cake.

The flipping part is a little bit tricky, but just remember this: you can’t go wrong with potatoes and butter. Even if you wind up with a smashed cake rather than a flipped one, it’ll still taste delicious.

* I say “sacrificial” because the pigments/antioxidants in the potato will turn the towel black. It’s a fascinating process to watch, actually — when you first squeeze the grated potato in the towel, the towel acquires a brownish hue, but as the pigments oxidize, the brown becomes dark brown and finally almost black. Washing out the towel in running water will turn it grey. Potato-scented grey. So be sure to use a towel you don’t care about…or use one you’ve been wanting to make a potato-scented grey. I’ve designated my sacrificial towel as a potato-twisting towel and plan to re-use it accordingly.

Baked Potato “Cake”

Butter, preferably from grass-fed cows
1 baking potato (the Idaho variety generally works out to be 3/4 to 1 lb. per potato), scrubbed but not peeled
1 sacrificial kitchen towel
Salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 425F. Cover a baking sheet with aluminum foil and top with a wire rack. If you’re going to put the cake directly on the sheet, cover it with parchment paper. Melt about 1 T. butter in a 9″ nonstick skillet over low heat.

Grate the potato with a cheese grater, piling the potato onto the sacrificial towel as you go. Wrap the grated potato securely into the center of the towel, then hold it above the sink and twist it as hard as you can. You should see plenty of juice trickle out. Scrape the grated potato into a large mixing bowl. Stir in melted butter and a generous helping of salt and pepper.

Melt another tablespoon of butter in the 9″ skillet. Add the potato, pressing down gently but firmly with a heat-proof spatula to smooth out your cake. Increase heat to medium-high and cook for 3 minutes or until the underside looks brown when you use the spatula to gently pull up a side so that you can peek underneath.

Take the skillet over to the counter and put a large plate on top of it. Invert the skillet quickly — but securely! — so that the cake drops onto the plate. Slide the cake back into the skillet, return to heat, and cook for another 3 minutes.

Slide the cake onto the wire rack/sheet and bake for 10 minutes. Remove and let cool for at least 5 minutes before shifting/cutting the cake. (The cake will harden into place as it cools.) If you used a rack, place a clean large plate over the cake and flip it over. If the cake sticks to the rack, use your fingers to gently press the cake down and away from the rack, poking your fingers into the space between the bars and gradually working the cake free from the rack. (Starch sticks; that’s why the cake sticks together to begin with.)

Serve immediately, either plain or topped. Yummy pairings include smoked salmon and whole-milk Greek yogurt with a dill garnish (a Russian approach) as well as black beans, corn, and Cheddar cheese (a Mexican approach). Leftover “slices” can be kept for up to 4 days in the fridge. Just sauté them in butter for a few minutes over medium heat, and you’ll have the most amazing hash browns you’ve ever tasted. Even die-hard fast food lovers would have to admit that your potatoes beat the heck outta those McDonald’s fries that people say they like so much.

Incidentally, ever looked at the ingredient list on those fries? Here it is, direct from the McD’s website: “Potatoes, vegetable oil (canola oil, hydrogenated soybean oil, natural beef flavor [wheat and milk derivatives]*, citric acid [preservative]), dextrose, sodium acid pyrophosphate (maintain color), salt. Prepared in vegetable oil (Canola oil, corn oil, soybean oil, hydrogenated soybean oil with TBHQ and citric acid added to preserve freshness). Dimethylpolysiloxane added as an antifoaming agent.” Note the hydrogenated oil (a.k.a. trans fat) and wheat and milk derivatives.

All your potatoes have is potatoes (with skins!), butter, salt, and pepper.

Enjoy!

Breakfast Lemon Squares

Lemons are lovely, especially when you pair them with oats and almonds and eggs and call them breakfast. Baked goods (or leftover pancakes) are my favorite things to have for weekday breakfasts since they require zero work first thing in the morning. Fifteen minutes of effort once or twice a week can provide you with hearty, healthy breakfasts that will make you want to get out of bed so you can enjoy them!

Muffins are my go-to standard — they’re endlessly versatile, and you can make a batch of 12 in less time than it would take to go to the store to buy “enriched” stripped-out bagels that will give you an ill-advised sugar rush and then leave you hungry an hour after you’ve eaten them — but this time I decided to revamp an old sugary favorite to come up with a new lightly sweetened and highly nutritious breakfast: the beloved lemon square. Here, almonds, oats, and sorghum have replaced refined flour, and the tartness of the lemon is offset by a touch of honey. You might just want to double the recipe and make a 9″x13″ rather than an 8″x8″!

Breakfast Lemon Squares
Makes an 8″x8″ pan, or double the recipe for a 9″x13″ pan.

1/2 stick butter, preferably from grass-fed cows, melted (Kerrygold is a great choice)
1/2 cup oat flour (be sure to use gluten-free oats if you want a gluten-free breakfast; I run my g-f rolled oats through my coffee grinder to make my own flour)
1/2 cup almond flour (that same coffee grinder sure comes in handy for turning sliced almonds into fresh almond flour)
2 T. powdered sucanat (the coffee grinder strikes again!)
1/2 cup sorghum OR millet OR brown rice flour*, divided
3 eggs, preferably from pastured hens
1/2 cup honey
Zest of 1 lemon, preferably organic since you’re using the zest
1/4 c. lemon juice (1 organic lemon tends to give you 1/4 cup juice)
1/2 tsp. baking soda

Preheat oven to 325F and get out an 8″x8″ glass pan. Melt the butter in a small pot over low heat, then pour into a medium mixing bowl and mix well with the oat and almond flours and the powdered sucanat. Add 1/4 cup sorghum flour and stir until well-blended, using your hands to to mix if you like. (Butter is a great skin moisturizer!) Press into the bottom of the glass pan. Bake for 20 minutes.

While the crust is baking, whisk together the eggs, honey, lemon zest and juice, and the remaining 1/4 cup sorghum flour. When the 20 minutes is up and you pull out the crust, whisk the baking soda into the egg mixture and quickly pour it onto the crust. (The baking soda will start to react with the lemon juice immediately, so you want to wait until the last possible second to complete your topping.)

Put the squares back into the oven and bake for another 25 minutes or until the top is turning a light golden brown and you can see dimples forming on the surface. These lightly sweetened squares make a great breakfast, or serve them with fresh fruit and/or ice cream and a drizzle of honey for dessert.

Enjoy!

* This is a gluten-free flour. If you’d rather make a wheat-based version, use kamut, spelt, or whole-wheat flour in place of the sorghum.

Tuna & Spinach Pizza

Happy New Year, everybody! I thought I’d start off 2012 by breaking an established culinary tradition: pizza toppings. Don’t get me wrong — I love mushroom and (pastured) pepperoni as much as the next guy — but I also enjoy venturing into off-the-spun-dough territory. I first had Thunfisch (tuna fish) pizza in Germany and have been making in my own kitchen ever since.

Before you start thinking that’s just too weird (“Tuna fish on pizza?”), let me remind you about the hallowed American lunch known as the tuna fish melt. This is essentially the same thing, except you’re adding a zesty tomato sauce and are eating the tuna on triangular wedges of crust rather than squared-off toast. And you’re including spinach. All in all, putting tuna fish on pizza makes for a heartier, more satisfying meal. For pizza lovers, it’s a chance to try something new; for folks wanting to upgrade the health quotient of their meals, this is a great way to add natural omega-3s to your dinner in the form of tuna + spinach. (On a whole-grain crust, of course.) I’m a member of both camps — upgraded meals always involve better flavor, too.

Tuna & Spinach Pizza
Makes one 12″ round pizza; feel free to double the recipe to make two pizzas if you have two pans.

For the crust:
1 heaping teaspoon yeast
1/2 cup + 1 T. fairly warm water (not scorching hot, but pretty hot from the tap)
1 1/2 tsp. sea salt
1/2 cup corn flour* (not starch!)
1/2 cup brown rice flour*
1/2 cup chickpea flour*
1/2 cup potato flour* (not starch!)
Up to 1/2 cup whole milk, preferably from grass-fed cows

For the toppings:
Pizza or spaghetti sauce, homemade or store-bought (if using store-bought, try to find one that contains extra-virgin olive oil rather than soybean or canola or any other type of oil; the latter will almost certainly be highly refined and probably also GMO)
Canned tuna fish
Baby spinach leaves
Onion, sliced thin
Shredded cheese of your choice (think of what you like with a tuna melt; I prefer Gruyere, Parmesan, or any other hard, aged cheeses)

Preheat oven to 425F. Combine yeast and water in a large mixing bowl and let sit for 5 minutes. The yeast should bubble and create a light foam on top of the water as it comes to life. In another bowl, whisk together the salt and the flours. Use extra-virgin olive oil to thoroughly grease a 12″ round pizza pan. I like to use the type that’s aerated — i.e., has little holes in the bottom. That seems to create a thin, crisp crust. (European pizzas have very thin, crisp crusts, especially compared to doughy American crusts.)

Stir the flours into the yeast. Add the milk, starting with 1/4 cup and adding a bit more if the dough is too dry and crumbly. I find that 1/2 cup works out perfectly if I use the four specific flours I listed. You’ll probably need to mix the dough with your hands towards the end to wind up with a not-too-dry, not-too-wet ball. No need to let your dough rise since you’re going for a thin crust; you’ll still get a pleasantly yeasty taste without the rising time.

Press the dough evenly into the greased pan and bake for 15 minutes or until the edges are golden brown. Pull out of the oven, let cool for 5 minutes, and top with your toppings. Begin with the sauce, add everything except the cheese, and end by covering everything in a good layer of cheese. Reduce heat to 375F and bake for 10 minutes or until the cheese is melting and turning golden brown.

Enjoy!

* These are gluten-free flours. If you don’t have all four of them, just be sure to use a total of 2 cups of flour. The potato flour is highly absorbent, so if you don’t use any potato flour, only use 1/2 cup of water (omit the tablespoon). If you would prefer to make a wheat-based version, use a total of 2 cups of spelt, kamut, or whole-wheat flour.

Whipped Pumpkin Cream

Nothing adds an easy touch of elegance to holiday desserts like freshly whipped cream. (Skip the aerosol can!) Be sure to chill your beaters and bowl before whipping away, either by putting them in the fridge for a good 30 minutes or by popping them into the freezer for a quick 10. I like to sweeten my cream by drizzling in a little bit of maple syrup before I begin to whip; sometimes I add a bit of vanilla or almond extract for flavor, too.

The key to lush whipped cream is choosing lush cream to begin with. Ideally, you want cream from grass-fed cows — it has a richer, fuller taste and a lighter, fluffier texture — and cream that has not been UHT pasteurized. UHT means “ultra-high temperature,” which in turn means that the cream will be difficult to whip since it’s been thoroughly cooked and in the process has lost a great deal of its natural thickness and ability to hold that thickness when whipped. (Whipping simply incorporates air into the cream. The fat in the cream stiffens around the air pockets and holds itself up to create the fluff effect. Cold fat is stiffer than room-temp fat, which is why using chilled equipment and chilled cream is so important.) Take a look at the ingredient list on UHT whipping cream — you’ll see that it’s been thickened with carrageenan, gums, and other stabilizers to recreate the thick texture the cream has lost through having been overheated. Not exactly an ideal scenario.

I’m in a cowshare program*, which means that I can order fresh raw cream directly from my farmer. It’s a lovely pale yellow color (the cows eat grass and the orange-hued beta carotene in the grass shows through in the milk) and whips to fluffy peaks in less than a minute. If you live in a state like California that allows retail sale of raw dairy products, by all means go for the raw cream. If you live in a state like Michigan that allows cowshare programs, join one! If you simply can’t find raw cream, try to find whipping cream that isn’t UHT.

Note: if you want to whip cream, you need whipping cream! The other types — coffee cream, light cream, even light whipping cream — don’t have enough fat in them to whip, particularly not when they’ve lost so much of their natural texture through pasteurization.

Pumpkin Whipped Cream
This amount is enough to serve 2 people; double, triple, or quadruple as necessary to suit the number of guests.

1/4 cup whipping cream
1 T. maple syrup
1/2 tsp. vanilla OR almond OR hazelnut extract (optional, but adds a nice flavor dimension)
1/4 cup puréed pumpkin (canned is fine, or you can roast your own and then put the cooked flesh through a food processor with a splash or two of water to make your own fresh purée)

Chill your beaters and bowl for at least 30 minutes in the fridge or 10 in the freezer. Pour the cream, syrup, and extract into the chilled bowl and whip at the highest speed until the cream has gone from liquid to a fluffy consistency. If you’re lucky enough to be using raw cream, you’ll be done in less than a minute. If you’re stuck on the opposite end of the spectrum and are using UHT cream, this could take three or four minutes. Either way, if the cream starts to take on a grainy look, STOP! You’re about to make butter.

Fold in the pumpkin with a spatula, occasionally turning the bowl and scraping the sides as you carefully lift and tuck the pumpkin into the cream. Raw whipped cream is very stable and can handle a fair amount of pumpkin; UHT cream collapses quite easily.

Serve the cream atop cake (here I spooned it onto pumpkin bread and had it for breakfast), as a dip for fresh fruit (apples and pears are especially nice), or as a treat all by itself. Feel free to sprinkle on some spices for additional flavor and as a garnish.

Enjoy!

* To find cowshare programs in Metro Detroit, check out my Local Farms & Markets list; to find them across the nation, check out sites like www.eatwild.com and www.localharvest.org.

Triple Chocolate Brownies

The holidays are upon us, so let’s bake some chocolate treats! And when I say chocolate, I mean serious chocolate: choose bars that are at least 75% cocoa, don’t oversweeten your baked goods (traditional recipes are so sugar-shocked that you can typically cut the amount by 50% and get a much tastier result), stick with whole grains (not only are they a better nutritional bet, they compliment the rich flavor of dark chocolate), and feel free to double or triple up on your chocolate by including chocolate in all its glorious forms (nibs, powder, bars, you name it).

Holiday bakers, preheat your ovens!

Triple Chocolate Brownies

About 4 ounces of dark chocolate, at least 75% dark (Lindt comes in 3.5 ounce bars, so I usually use one of those)
1/2 cup sorghum or brown rice flour* (I like to split them 50/50 and use 1/4 cup of each)
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (I prefer non-Dutched/non-alkalized, but that’s up to you)
2 tsp. baking powder
Dash of sea salt
1/4 cup cocoa nibs (optional, but does provide a delightful crunch)
4 eggs, preferably from pastured hens
3/4 cup to 1 cup sucanat, depending on how sweet you like your brownies
1 tsp. vanilla
1/4 cup unrefined hazelnut OR unrefined almond OR extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 cup maple syrup (optional)

Grease an 8X8 glass baking pan and set aside. Preheat oven to 350F. Set a small saucepan on the stove and break the chocolate bar(s) into it. Heat over the lowest setting until the chocolate pieces have almost melted, gently tilting the pot back and forth once in a while to facilitate the melting process. Pull it off the stove when there are a few bumps remaining and whisk chocolate until all is melted. (If you leave it on the stove long enough for every bit to melt completely, you might scorch it.)

In a medium bowl, whisk flour(s), cocoa powder, baking powder, salt, and nibs. In a larger bowl, whisk the eggs vigorously until they’re foamy. Whisk in the sucanat, the vanilla, and the oil. Carefully add the melted chocolate and whisk again until smooth. Stir in the flour mixture. At this point, I like to taste the batter to judge its sweetness level. (I start with less sweetener and work my way up.) Disclaimer: I trust my eggs and don’t mind eating them raw. You may or may not feel the same way. If I want my brownies a bit sweeter, I add another 1/4 cup of sucanat and take it from 3/4 of a cup to one full cup.

Scoop batter into prepared glass pan and smooth the top. Another fun way to sweeten your brownies is to use less sucanat off the bat (the 3/4 cup) and then pour 1/4 cup of maple syrup over the tops of the brownies right before you bake them. This results in very moist brownie tops that make for an interesting anti-crust: moist, soft, and sweet rather than hard, crisp, and savory.

Bake brownies 30 to 35 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Serve brownies just as they are or with some fresh fruit. If you’d like to make an easy and elegant sauce for them, gently heat naturally sweetened jam until it’s free-flowing, then drizzle it over individual brownies. I love to do that with local-fruit jams made with cherries and raspberries.

* These are gluten-free flours. If you would prefer to make a wheat-based version, use an equivalent amount of spelt, kamut, or whole-wheat flour.

Enjoy!

Baked Mochi

For all those gluten-free folks who miss puff pastries and croissants and eclairs, baked mochi is a culinary godsend. For wheat-eating folks who love trying new things and are endlessly curious about food, baked mochi is a fun treat. For folks who love mochi in its more common forms — like ice cream and sweet cakes — baked mochi is  a happy discovery.

Baked mochi (or, better said, bake-able mochi; it comes in flat squares that you bake in your own oven) has been on my foodie wishlist ever since I came across a mention of it in Terry Walter’s latest cookbook. I’d given up on finding it, though…but then spotted a package in the freezer section at Natural Food Patch. It’s as wonderful as I’d hoped it would be! Thanks to the natural stickiness of the short-grain brown rice used to make it (also called “sticky rice”), when you cut the mochi into little squares and then bake it, the water in it turns to steam and creates puffy layers as it’s trying to escape from its sticky confines.

This is exactly what happens in flaky wheat-based pastries like croissants: the water content of the butter turns to steam and pushes up against the gluten-containing wheat dough as it escapes, the elastic gluten strands flex upwards (rather than tear apart and fall back down), and the heat of the oven causes a crust to form and locks the pushed-up layers into place. Until I made baked mochi, I’d thought this process couldn’t be replicated without gluten or a mouthful of unpronounceable chemicals. I am so glad I was wrong!

Seeing as mochi is simply rice and water, the resulting puffy squares don’t have a strong taste. (Nor does an unflavored croissant.) But that mildness coupled with a puffy, crispy, pull-apart texture is what makes these little squares ideal for pairing with simple seasonings like unrefined oils and spice blends: one of my favorite things to do with them is dip them into or drizzle them with full-flavored oils like unrefined almond or extra-virgin olive oil. Or you can sprinkle them with a pinch of sea salt and a dash of chili powder for a savory snack. Or dip them into honey with a hint of cinnamon stirred into it for a sweet treat. Or even pull a few squares apart slightly and spoon a little jam or hummus or salsa into them. Serve them alongside a meal in place of bread, use them to make bread puddings, fill them with cream cheese and dip them in marinara sauce to make tiny pizzas. The possibilities are endless!

Can you tell that baked mochi is my new favorite thing? All you have to do is cut the large square of mochi into small 1″ or 2″ squares, then bake on a bare baking sheet for about 12 minutes at 450F. So simple! The hardest part is waiting for the oven to warm up.

Enjoy!