Buckwheat Crepes with Chocolate Yogurt

One of the many beauties of crepes is that you can fill them with whatever you like, whether that’s sweet or savory or something in between. And by varying the kind of flour you use to make the crepes themselves, you can tweak their base flavor to suit your mood. Want a nutty, rich-tasting crepe? Use teff, buckwheat, or chestnut flour. How about a mild crepe that would work with any filling? Try brown rice, sorghum, millet, or corn flour. For a decidedly savory crepe, go with chickpea or potato flour. In a chocolate kind of mood? Use unsweetened cocoa powder as one of your flours…and maybe throw in some coconut, too. Mesquite flour lends crepes a caramel flair; plantain has a hint of the tropics. Your options are endless.

Although I often make savory crepes intended for lunch wraps and chutney roll-ups, I made these for breakfast and filled them with chocolate yogurt and some blackberry jam. The whole-grain-ness of the crepe + the protein-rich whole-milk yogurt makes for a deliciously satisfying breakfast…and you can make both elements ahead of time and simply roll them at the last minute. Quick breakfasts can be classy and easy!

Buckwheat Crepes with Chocolate Yogurt
This crepe recipe makes about 12 crepes; the yogurt is enough for 2 servings. Feel free to downsize the crepe portions or upsize the yogurt portions as desired. I like to make a full batch of the crepes so that I have some leftovers to enjoy however I like.

For the crepes:
1/2 cup brown rice flour*
1/2 cup buckwheat flour*
1 1/2 cups whole milk, preferably from grass-fed cows
2 eggs, preferably from pastured hens
Dash of sea salt
Butter or ghee for cooking the crepes, preferably from grass-fed cows

For the chocolate yogurt:
1/2 cup whole-milk plain Greek yogurt (Fage is my favorite)
2 T. unsweetened cocoa powder
1 T. maple syrup

To make the crepes, whisk all of the ingredients together in a large mixing bowl. Get out a (or two or three) 7″ nonstick crepe pan and place a dab of butter in the pan. Heat over medium heat — I go with mark 4 out of 10 on my electric burners — until butter has melted and is sizzling. Pour in 1/4 cup of the crepe batter and cook for 2-3 minutes or until crepe is set on top and browned on the bottom. Use a heatproof spatula to flip over the crepe and cook the second side for another minute or two or until equally browned. If you’re adventurous, by all means go ahead and flip that sucker up into the air to turn it over. Just don’t do that directly over the burner! It’s much easier to rescue a misdirected crepe from a cool element than a hot burner.

Place the cooked crepe on a wire rack. (If you put it on a plate, it’ll collect condensation and get soggy.) Make a second crepe in the same pan using the same technique. I find that I have to put a fresh dab of butter into my crepe pan every other crepe to keep them from sticking. Leftover crepes can be stacked in a sealed container and refrigerated for a week.

To make the yogurt, use a fork to thoroughly mix the ingredients in a bowl. Leftover yogurt can be kept up until the “expires by” date on the original package.

When you’re ready to assemble your chocolate-filled crepe, just spoon some yogurt onto the center of the crepe, roll up, and enjoy!

* These are gluten-free flours. If you’d prefer to make wheat-based crepes, substitute 1 total cup of spelt, kamut, and/or whole-wheat flours for the brown rice and buckwheat.

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!

Mexican Red Bean Dip

Sometimes recipes develop out of necessity. This dip, for example, happened because I was out of chickpeas. (Not sure if there’s been a massive chickpea crop failure or Metro Detroit is in a chickpea feeding frenzy right now, but lately I’ve had a heckuva time finding my favorite brand of canned chickpeas!) I was out of every variety of beans, actually, except for one lone can of small red beans and two of black beans. I opted for red since I figured they’d be milder and creamier than the black beans and would create a smoothly spiceable dip — my original intent had been to make hummus.

Seeing as hummus consists of chickpeas, garlic, lemon, tahini (sesame paste), and sometimes cumin, I opted to include garlic and cumin in my red bean dip. I skipped the tahini, though — I went with a Mexican rather than Middle Eastern spice palette — and used the liquid in the can to make the dip smooth and creamy. Eden sells their beans in BPA-free cans and sticks to a simple formula of beans + sea salt + pinch of seaweed, so there’s no need to drain the beans and ditch the juice. Another way to add a creamy dimension to the dip would be to blend in half a peeled avocado, but my avocado inventory was the same as my chickpea inventory: zero. Nor did I have any whole-milk yogurt on hand. (Yes, I went shopping the  next day and restocked my pantry and fridge.)

Mexican Red Bean Dip

1 small onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, chopped
15 oz. small red beans, preferably Eden brand, liquid reserved
1 T. or more chili powder (my favorite is Spice Hunter’s blend)
1/2 tsp. or more cumin
1 tsp. sea salt
Whole-grain crackers or bread for dipping (pictured: Mary’s Gone Crackers, which are whole-grain and gluten-free and quite delicious)

Drizzle a splash of extra-virgin olive oil in a medium skillet and sautée onions over medium heat for 5 minutes or until onions are translucent and just beginning to brown. Stir in garlic and reduce heat to medium-low. Continue to cook for another 3 minutes or until garlic is soft and fragrant.

Add beans and cooked onions and garlic to a food processor. Blend for about 30 seconds. Add spices and salt and briefly blend again. Scrape down the sides of the processor bowl and trickle in a tablespoon or two of the reserved bean liquid. Blend dip until smooth, trickling in a little more liquid if you’d like the dip to be creamier. (Or you could add half a peeled avocado or a dollop or two of whole-milk Greek yogurt if you have either of those on hand.) Taste and add more spice/salt as necessary, blending again every time you add seasonings.

Dip can be eaten right away or refrigerated for a week.

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.

Mexican Pozole

Who says you can’t have a fiesta in the wintertime? (Especially when it’s 48F outside. It’s like spring in the winter!) Unlike mexicanized restaurant food in the U.S., actual food in Mexico is fresh, vibrant, and light in a satisfying and hearty kind of way. Case in point: a crisp, refreshing version of pozole, served with Applegate pastured bacon and Greek yogurt as toppings. I added chayote squash and navy beans, too — I like having something to chew on in my soups — but as long as you include hominy and chili powder in your batch, you’ll capture the essence of pozole.

Pozole
Makes enough for 4 hearty servings, especially if you include all of the toppings.

1 small onion, chopped
5 cloves garlic, chopped
2 cups chicken broth
28 oz. can of tomatoes
15 oz. can of navy beans (my favorite brand of beans is Eden)
1 T. chili powder (I adore chili powder from Spice Hunter)
1 chayote squash, peeled, spongy core removed, flesh cut into 1″ cubes (optional, but adds to the Latin flair of the dish); if you can’t find chayote, opt for sweet potato
15 oz. can of hominy (I prefer yellow, but white works, too)

Optional toppings:
Cooked bacon from pastured hogs (see the Baked Bacon post for tips on finding and preparing top-quality bacon)
Whole-milk Greek yogurt
Chopped cilantro
Lime wedges
Thinly sliced cabbage
Chopped avocado

Drizzle a splash of extra-virgin olive oil into a large soup pot. Add onions and sautée over medium heat for 5 minutes or until the onions are soft but not yet brown. Add garlic, reduce heat to medium-low, and cook for another 2 minutes or until garlic is fragrant and soft. Pour in chicken broth, 1 cup of water, the tomatoes, and the beans. (Seeing as Eden beans are canned in BPA-free cans with sea salt and a pinch of seaweed, I add the contents of the entire can.) Stir in the chili powder and bring to a boil.

Add the chayote/sweet potato, reduce heat to a gentle simmer, and let the squash cook for 10 minutes. Poke a piece to see if it has reached its desired tenderness. (I like mine a bit chewy.) If you’d like to add more chili powder or a dash of sea salt, now’s a good time to do that, too.

Stir in hominy, simmer for another minute to heat everything through, and serve. Garnish with any or all of the optional toppings. Leftover pozole can be refrigerated for up to 5 days — like all tomato-based soups and sauces, the flavor deepens upon standing. You may like it even better the next day.

Enjoy!

DIY Tapas Plate

It’s Monday, it’s lunchtime, and you’re lunch-less and hungry. Odds are, you’re stuck going to the nearest faux-healthy restaurant. (Ever looked at the ingredients in a Panera sandwich? If you print out what’s in the Turkey Artichoke Panini, it’ll take up almost a full 8 1/2″ x 11″ page. But hey, I guess that’s better than Jimmy John’s — they refuse to disclose what’s in their sandwiches. If anyone ever does succeed in breaching their corporate “we won’t tell you what you’re eating” wall, I’d love to hear about it.)

While you might be up the prandial creek without a fork on Monday, take heart! The rest of the week can be much tastier and healthier. All you’ll need to do clean out your fridge, pantry, and fruit bowl by enjoying a midday assortment of odds and ends. If you were in Spain, you’d be calling the idea tapas; if you were in Greece, you’d be lunching on mezze. And your truly tasty and healthy meal will cost you under $10 (mine was $5).  So don’t be afraid to explore the corners of your fridge!

Suggestions for your Tapas Plate

Fruit
Cheese, preferably made from grass-fed milk
Nuts
Olives
Deli meats from pastured animals (such as Applegate Farms and Niman Ranch products)
Hard-boiled eggs
Pickles
Whole-grain bread
Any leftovers that need to be eaten

Remember, simplicity is your most delicious ingredient! Not throwing away money is probably the second most delicious one…which is what you’ll achieve by tossing some tasty leftovers into a bag and taking them to work with you rather than throwing them away and going out to eat.

For this plate, I went with what I had on hand:

Wedge of Prairie Fruits Moonglo raw goat cheese $2.10
Wedge of ricotta salata cheese made of sheep’s milk (I love cheeses made with sheep and goat milk) $1.00, garnished with sweet paprika
Satsuma mandarin orange $0.58
Half an organic Gala apple $0.30
Olives $1.36
For the heck of it, I threw in an anchovy-wrapped caper $0.20

Total: a very delicious $5.54 (Prairie Fruits cheeses are amazing!)

In other words, an adult version of Lunchables…except much more health- and cost-effective.

Enjoy exploring your fridge and cupboards!

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.

(Mayo-Free) Deviled Eggs

As their name implies, this classic appetizer can be devilishly delicious or hellishly horrid. It all depends on the quality of the three main ingredients: the pickles, the mustard, and most importantly the eggs. I also prefer to make deviled eggs sans mayonnaise or with homemade mayonnaise — the jiggly white stuff you buy in the store has zero resemblance to actual fresh mayonnaise. (The latter ought to be egg yolk whisked with unrefined oil and a splash of lemon juice or vinegar. Simple, delicious, and versatile; add a knifetip of minced garlic, and you have aioli.) When I made these eggs, I opted for the easy route and drizzled in just enough extra-virgin olive oil to create a spoonable consistency.

Deviled eggs are ideal party appetizers since you can prepare them a day ahead and unveil them as soon as the first guest walks in. And leftover eggs make a fantastic breakfast!

(Mayo-Free) Deviled Eggs
This makes enough for 8 deviled egg halves. Feel free to double or triple the recipe as needed.

4 eggs, preferably from pastured hens
3-4 dill pickle spears (I adore McClure’s Garlic & Dill pickles, so I always use those), minced
1 T. capers
1/2 tsp. to 3/4 tsp. mustard, depending on how hot your mustard is and how much you like mustard (I prefer German-style mustard that’s smooth and medium-spicy)
Juice of 1/4 lemon
Extra-virgin olive oil
Sweet paprika for garnishing

Place the eggs in a medium pot and fill the pot halfway with water. Cover the pot, put it on the stove over high heat, and keep an ear perked for the sound of the lid starting to rattle as the water comes to a boil. As soon as you hear that, turn the heat down to medium, keep covered, and simmer the eggs for 10 minutes. You may wish to add a splash of vinegar to reduce the likelihood of the eggs getting foamy and boiling over. (I skip the vinegar and take my chances.)

When the 10 minutes are up, put the pot in the sink and run cold water into it until you can comfortably reach into the water. Hold the eggs against the pot while you pour out all of the water. Refill with ice-cold water and let the eggs sit in the water until they’re cool enough to touch. Cooling them promptly and thoroughly will prevent the yolks from discoloring. At this point, you can dry them off and keep them in a bowl in the fridge for a week if you like — hard-boiled eggs come in quite handy.

Lightly tap the eggs on a hard surface and then peel off the shells. (Note: if the shells are difficult to peel away, congratulations! You have very fresh eggs indeed.) Cut each egg in half the long way and pop the yolk into a mixing bowl. Mash the yolks with a fork until fluffy, then stir in pickles, capers, mustard, and lemon juice. Taste a bit to see if you’d like to add more mustard or lemon juice. Drizzle in just enough oil to make the mixture spoonable.

Arrange the egg white halves on a nice plate, fill each one with the yolk filling, and sprinkle paprika over the tops as garnish.

Enjoy!

Quick Creamed Spinach Pasta

Seeing as the Big Day is nearly here and everyone is rushing around like mad to get their holiday errands done, I thought I’d post a get-done-quick recipe that you can whip up to impress your guests (or yourself). The ingredients range from non-perishable to not-too-perishable and are simple enough to keep on hand. After all, who doesn’t like cheesy pasta and creamy spinach?

Quick Creamed Spinach Pasta
Figure on using about 2 ounces of pasta, 4 to 8 ounces of spinach (I like a lot of spinach), and about 2 ounces of cheese per person.

Whole-grain spaghetti of your choice
Frozen spinach, thawed and squeezed dry (I run hot water over mine, squeeze the heck out of it, and let it sit in a colander for a few minutes)
Creamy, spreadable, herbed/garlicky cheese such as Boursin
Dash of ground nutmeg
Dash of sea salt

Cook pasta according to package directions and drain well. Toss pasta with remaining ingredients and place over medium-low heat for a minute or two to heat everything through. Told you it was easy! (Not to mention creamy and lush thanks to the Boursin.) If you’d like to make your pasta look extra-Christmasy, top with halved and bright-red cherry tomatoes.

Enjoy!

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!

Tortilla Pizzas

Here’s a truth that’s inconvenient for the dinner-in-a-sack industry but is great for the rest of us: fast food doesn’t have to be junk food. You’ve probably already got a lot of tasty quick meals loitering about in your kitchen, from canned beans that can be made into hearty salads to canned squash or pumpkin that can be fried into patties to an assortment of cheese, nuts, and fruits that can easily comprise a meal.

Or if you have some corn tortillas and some salsa and cheese, you can pop it all into the toaster oven to make savory Mexican-style pizzas. After I took this picture, I decided to make the pizzas into calzones by carefully turning one of the pizzas over and pressing it onto the other one. Crusty outsides, gooey insides…so much tastier than a $5 pizza that’s more like cardboard than food. And you’ll be enjoying your mini pizzas in a lot less time than it takes to drive up to the nearest dinner-in-a-sack outlet, too.

Tortilla Pizzas

Corn tortillas
Fresh salsa, either homemade or store-bought (I adore Garden Fresh salsas, although I added extra chopped cilantro to the one I used since I think you can pretty much never have too much cilantro)
Cheddar, Monterey Jack, or Colby cheese, preferably made with grass-fed milk (I opted for Farm Country White Cheddar), grated

If you’re using crisp tortillas, there’s no need to heat them first, but if you’re using frozen or not-so-crisp tortillas, you’ll need to dry-toast them in skillets over medium heat for 4 minutes — flipping halfway through — or until they start to turn golden-brown around the edges. I stash my Whole Life whole-grain corn tortillas in the freezer and heat them individually as needed.

Place the crisp tortillas on a foil- or parchment-lined baking sheet or toaster oven tray. Spoon some salsa onto each tortilla and sprinkle on some grated cheese. If you’re using a toaster oven, bake for about 10 minutes at 300F or until the cheese bubbles; if you’re using a conventional oven, go with 10 minutes at 350F. (The smaller interior of the toaster oven means it’ll heat much more quickly.)

Enjoy!

Cranberry Ice Cream with Cranberry, Apple & Orange Chutney

I don’t have many fancy gadgets in the kitchen — sous-vide cooking and flavored foams just seem like too much work to me — but I consider my ice cream maker to be an indispensable culinary aid. Ditto for my blender. If you have those two kitchen helpers, making ice cream becomes ridiculously easy. Not only can you upgrade your ice cream by using high-quality ingredients (dairy from grass-fed cows, natural sweeteners, etc.), you can let your imagination run wild and you can make whatever flavor you want. Avocado and coconut? Done. Creamed corn with cinnamon? Sure. The scoop is yours.

Seeing as Thanksgiving is just around the corner and ’tis the season for every market to showcase cranberries in all their crimson glory, I thought I’d give cranberry ice cream a shot. And because I had the delicious joy of sampling ice cream made with blackberries and buttermilk when I was in Germany earlier this year, I decided that I’d use a similar approach for this batch. (Tip for travelers: if you are in Konstanz, visit the Aran coffeehouse + ice cream shop!! The Touch of Singapore restaurant is another must-taste destination in Konstanz.)

You can serve the ice cream all on its own or you can serve it with the chutney as I’ve done here. Or serve the chutney all on its own — I originally came up with the chutney because I wanted to serve a tastier and healthier version of the time-honored but sugar-drenched cranberry & orange dish that’s typically offered at the Thanksgiving table. Rather than white sugar, this chutney features apples, ginger, and a touch of honey.

Cranberry Ice Cream with Cranberry, Apple & Orange Chutney

For the ice cream:
1 1/2 cups buttermilk, preferably from grass-fed cows
4 egg yolks that you don’t mind eating raw (I always stick with eggs from pastured hens)
1 cup fresh or frozen cranberries
1/2 cup maple syrup
1 tsp. almond OR vanilla extract

For the chutney:
12 oz. fresh or frozen cranberries
1 large apple, chopped
1 seedless orange, peeled and split into segments
1 tsp. ginger
1 to 2 T. honey or to taste
Apple cider (optional)

To make the ice cream, place all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth. Pour into an ice cream maker and follow manufacturer instructions.

To make the chutney, place all ingredients in a medium pot and simmer over medium-low heat for 20 minutes or until thickened, stirring and smashing the chutney occasionally to help the orange segments release their juice and the apples and cranberries release their pectin. (Pectin thickens as it cooks.) Add another drizzle of honey or a splash of cider if you’d like your chutney to be sweeter. Serve with the ice cream, on its own, or even on a cheese plate or with a helping of turkey or chicken.

Enjoy!

Peanut-Mesquite Muffins

Now that summer has given way to leaf-strewn fall, the idea of going outside to grill something for dinner has gotten a lot less appealing. So much for mesquite-laced, smoky veggies and meats. (And fruits, too. Ever tried grilled pineapple? Sublime!) Seems like that signature mesquite flavor is only available during the summer months.

…Or maybe it isn’t. It turns out that the same tree that yields mesquite wood for the grill also bears a fruit that can be dried out and ground into flour. Like the smoke given off by the burning mesquite wood, mesquite flour carries a hint of caramel smokiness. It hangs somewhere between sweet and earthy and will probably make you think of campfires. The assertive flavor of mesquite fits best with other assertive flavors: chocolate, peanut, coffee. It’s also one of North America’s indigenous edibles — long before European settlers arrived, Native American tribes were enjoying both the culinary and utilitarian aspects of mesquite trees.

The only downside about mesquite flour is that it’s tricky to find unless you live in Arizona or New Mexico. You can order it online, though, from places like http://www.nutsonline.com/ and http://www.mesquiteflour.com/. And if worst comes to worst and you simply don’t have any way to get your hands on mesquite but still want to make these Peanut Muffins, you can use teff or buckwheat flour instead — those are also nutty, dark, rich flours and pair well with peanut. That plus a little maple syrup drizzled onto the muffins before serving would mimic a little bit of mesquite’s caramel-esque tinge.

Peanut-Mesquite Muffins
Makes 12 muffins.

1 cup peanut flour OR 1 cup sorghum flour*
1/2 cup brown rice flour*
1/2 cup mesquite flour OR 1/2 cup buckwheat flour OR 1/2 cup teff flour*
1/2 cup rolled oats (be sure to get gluten-free oats if you’re baking gluten-free muffins)
1 T. baking powder
Dash of sea salt
1/2 cup date sugar
1/2 cup palm sugar OR sucanat
1 1/4 cups whole milk, preferably from grass-fed cows (if you live in Metro Detroit, you’re lucky — we have Calder’s)
2 eggs, preferably from pastured hens
1 tsp. vanilla
1/3 cup unrefined peanut oil OR extra-virgin olive oil

Two notes before we begin:

- If you don’t have date sugar and/or you want your muffins to be sweeter, use 1 cup sucanat instead of splitting it with date sugar. (Date sugar is less sweet than sucanat; both are granulated, not liquid.) -

- If you don’t have peanut flour, use the sorghum flour instead, and substitute 1/4 cup peanut butter for one of the eggs. Having 1 egg + 1/4 cup peanut butter will give you plenty of peanut flavor in addition to helping the muffins stick together. -

Preheat oven to 375F and line a muffin tin with paper cups.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flours, oats, baking powder, and salt. In another large bowl, whisk together the remaining ingredients. Stir the liquid portion into the flour mixture until well-blended. (I like to use a whisk, although this technique is much more effective for gluten-free batters than wheat-based ones — the wheat is more difficult to stir because of its gluten-thickened texture.)

Quickly spoon the batter into the waiting cups and bake for 22 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

Enjoy!

* These are gluten-free flours. If you wish to make wheat-based muffins, substitute spelt, kamut, or whole-wheat flour for the peanut/sorghum and brown rice flours.