making Stone Soup

I volunteered to make the Stone Soup at Stearns Farm today. This meant I would be preparing food mostly outdoors in 40 degree overcast weather with only cold water available from an outdoor faucet and only a
small plug-in electric
burner. And I had to get
most of the ingredients
from the seconds and left-
overs in the farm's root
cellar. But I came prepared
with a bag of red lentils, a
can of black beans, and my
bottle of liquid hickory smoke to add just a touch of something different for the farm staff.

All the soups at the farm
are vegetarian, usually
vegan, so this was a piece
of cake for me. What wasn't
a piece of cake was the fact
that I wanted to bring a
little something extra to
accompany the soup...which was a good thing, because they were out of bread. BUT the farmer has recently switched to a gluten-free diet, AND I didn't want to exclude anyone that might happen to be anti-soy. SO whatever I made had to be vegan, gluten-free, and soy-free.

So before I left for the farm
in the morning I whipped
up what I hoped would be
a decent batch of muffins.
No wheat flour. No Earth
Balance margarine. None of
my usual crutches.


I had just broken down
most of our jack o' lantern
pumpkins, including one
pie pumpkin from the
farm. It was already in
the fridge cut, steamed,
and ready for use. So
pumpkin muffins they
would be!

I sub-
bed
coco-
nut
oil &
maple
syrup
for my
usual
melted
marg-
arine.
This
res-
ulted
in a
slightly
greasy
exteri-
ior to
the
muffins,
but the flavour was absolutely fantastic, so I think it's worth posting the recipe of my crazy concoction. The kids and my husband tested them first and absolutely loved them. They commented on the different texture (since they're used to wheat) but kept asking for more since they tasted so good.

Gluten-Free Pumpkin Muffins

2/3 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup unrefined coconut oil
1/4 cup maple syrup
2 T. Ener-G egg replacer powder + 4 T. warm water
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups pumpkin or other winter squash, peeled, cut & steamed
1/2 cup tapioca flour
1/2 cup quinoa flour
1/2 cup glutinous rice flour (otherwise known as "mochiko", or sweet rice flour, available at most asian markets)
1/4 cup organic cornmeal
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
3/4 cup walnuts, roughly chopped
1 T. vegan cane sugar for garnish
spray olive oil for muffins tins

In a large bowl, mix first 3 ingredients. Then prepare egg replacer, whisking with a fork until frothy, and add to bowl along with the vanilla. Stir well.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Puree the steamed pumpkin (or mash very well) and add to bowl, stirring to combine. Add the next 9 (dry) ingredients. Mix well. Add the walnuts (or your nut of choice).
Spray mini muffin tins with olive oil. This recipe made 30 mini-muffins so plan accordingly.
Fill muffin tins with batter just up to the top. Sprinkle a little sugar over each. Bake for 18 minutes.

soup at sunset

Talk about photographically challenged--morning pics in the dark rain, dinner pics as the sun was setting. Plus we were low on groceries...

Ryan
& AJ's
lunches:
honey-
dew
melon;
mixed
nuts;
apple-
sauce
cook-
ies;
rice
w/goma
shio;
broc-
coli.

Tonight
is movie
night
at the
elem-
entary school. The boys have a choice of Toy Story 3 or the Karate Kid.

Dinner
was a
yummy
soup
full of
farm
veg-
gies
and
beans.
On the
side I
made
some
rose-
mary
bread-
sticks
and
pepper-
oni
bread
twists.

White Bean, Cabbage & Celery Soup

2 T. olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
2 large carrots, chopped
1/2 cup celery, chopped
1 vegetable bouillon cube
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. black pepper
1/2 cup celeriac (celery root), peeled & chopped
1 large potato, peeled & chopped
1 cup tomatoes, chopped
1 cup cabbage, roughly chopped in bite-sized wedges
1/2 tsp. liquid smoke
1 can (15.5 oz.) cannellini beans (or other white beans)
1/2 cup celery leaves
1/2 tsp. marjoram
water to fill pot

Add first 6 ingredients to a soup pot. Saute over medium-low heat until veggies are tender. Add next 4 ingredients plus water to fill the pot three-quarters full. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium and cook 20 minutes. Add cabbage & liquid smoke. Cook another 20 minutes. Add remaining ingredients and cook another 10-20 minutes. Remove from heat and allow to cool for a few minutes. Remove about 2 cups of the soup and puree (or use an immersion blender briefly) and return to pot. Stir and serve.

Pepperoni Bread Twists

1 batch of my pizza dough
for dummies
1/2 a package of veggie
pepperoni
kosher salt
garlic powder
dried oregano
olive oil

First make the pizza dough and allow to rise. (I like to let it rise for an hour, knead it for 1 minute and cover again, let it rise for another hour, then use.)
Break dough into 8 pieces. Flour your work surface or use your hands to roll and stretch the dough into long thin pieces about 1 foot long each. Two at a time, place the ropes of dough down next to each other. Place 2 pieces of veggie pepperoni on the dough every 2-3 inches, twisting the other piece of dough around and over the top of the pepperoni. Repeat 3 times for each foot-long pair of dough. Then cut into 3 equal sections and place on a baking sheet. Repeat until you have 12 bread twists. Brush tops with olive oil, then sprinkle with a little salt, garlic powder & dried oregano. Bake at 350 degrees 15 minutes for scrumptious soft bread twists.

You can also use this same exact process to make rosemary breadsticks. Just create 8 long dough ropes, brush with olive oil, and sprinkle with a little garlic powder and some chopped rosemary & kosher salt. Then bake 15-20 minutes. Yum!

lots of

Every season brings its bounty. Apples are done, and cool weather greens are thriving. Up at the CSA, I can still pick plenty even though our summer share is officially over. Many herbs don't mind the dropping temps, and cover crops often produce their own treat. Dada worked at the farm yesterday harvesting carrots & leeks for the upcoming winter shares...






















Maia and Nate ate a few
dozen raw pea shoots
from the cover crops.
Then we joined the day's
farm staff for soup and
sides. I brought along
extras for the kids. And
we made applesauce
oatmeal cookies from our
dwindling local apple supply.

I had made a whole lot
of applesauce, and I
needed to do something
else with it. It just felt
like a cookie day. And
my recipe created 3-4
dozen cookies, enough
to share at the farm as
well as pack for snacks and lunches the next day.Ryan & AJ's lunches: Toy Story pasta & broccoli w/Daiya cheese; honeydew melon; applesauce oatmeal cookie; baby carrots; cucumber slices.

Maia's lunch: Toy Story pasta w/broccoli & Daiya cheese; applesauce oatmeal cookie; honeydew melon.

Applesauce Oatmeal Cookies

1 stick Earth Balance, melted
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup applesauce (if it's fresh and hot it creates a caramel texture when mixed with the sugars)
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups flour
3/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
2 cups quick oats

Melt margarine and mix well with the sugars. Add applesauce & vanilla and mix again. Add the next 6 (dry) ingredients and mix well. Add the oats last, stirring to combine.
Preheat oven to 325 degrees (actually just between 325 and 350 would be ideal...depends on how accurate your oven is).
Lightly spray/grease 2 cookie sheets. Drop a dozen blobs of dough on each sheet. Bake 12-14 minutes. Remove with a spatula to cool on a wire rack. Repeat once more with remaining dough.

sweet potatoes!

The day started with frost and leaves falling like snow, but ended sunny and crisp. I turned local apple slices into "leaves" for the boys...
Ryan & AJ's lunches: Tofurky & vegetable rollups on flax lavash wraps; apple slices; peanuts.

We had lots of sweet potatoes from our last farm share, so I used them in two recipes tonight...sweet potato fries, and in burgers. I had leftover rice in the rice cooker so it all just came together with whatever I had...Sweet Potato & Bean Burgers

1 1/4 cups chopped raw sweet potato
1 small onion
3-4 garlic cloves
1 small poblano pepper, chopped (about 1/4 cup)
1 tsp. salt
1 can (15.5 oz.) black beans, rinsed & drained
3/4 cup cooked rice
2 T. olive oil
1 tsp. ground cumin
1-2 sage leaves, chopped (about 1 tsp.)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a food processor, finely chop sweet potatoes, onion, garlic & poblano pepper. Add remaining ingredients and process until well combined.
Spray a baking sheet with olive oil. Plop a handful of burger mix into your palm and form it loosely in a burger shape, then schlep it onto the baking sheet! Bake 35 minutes, carefully flip over with spatula, then bake another 15-20 minutes until crisp on the outside.


Pea Tendrils & Carrots

1-2 T. olive or canola oil
1/3 of a vegetable bouillon cube (or use vegetable broth instead of water below)
3 cloves garlic, chopped
2 large carrots, peeled & shaved into thin strips
4 cups (a few large handfuls) pea tendrils
1/3 cup water
2-3 T. white wine
1 T. fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped

In a large pot or saute pan, heat oil over medium heat. Add garlic & bouillon. Mash bouillon & cook for about 30 seconds. Add carrots, pea tendrils & water. Stir and cover for about 2 minutes. Remove cover, add wine & parsley. Cook, stirring occasionally for another 2 minutes. Remove from heat & serve.

almost a holiday

This year the public schools in our town declared Election Day a school holiday, mostly to avoid tip-toeing around the voters at the schools. But the younger kids go to preschool in an adjacent town where schools were open, so it was sort of a half holiday here. Maia was the only one needing a packed lunch.

Maia's lunch: honeydew melon flowers; grilled nutritional yeast cheez sandwich circles; gherkin pickles; carrot matchsticks wrapped in cucumber; roasted butternut squash seeds; steamed broccoli.

Last night at sunset I went up to the CSA to pick pea tendrils from the cover crops. There were two deer watching me from a distance, but you can't really see them in the picture unless you know they're there.
A third mobile greenhouse
has been added this fall to
increase and lengthen the
winter share production.
Instead of weekly pickups,
the winter shares are monthly
from November through
March. Only two months of
the year now that we won't
be receiving local produce!
Hopefully what I dry or freeze
will take us through until June.

Today's lunch...
Pea Tendril & Sausage Pasta

1 T. Earth Balance
1 T. olive oil
3 cloves garlic, chopped
2 Tofurky Italian sausages, sliced
4 cups pea tendrils (a few heaping handfuls)
1/2 cup vegetable broth (or water + 1/2 a bouillon cube)
salt & pepper to taste
1/4 cup white wine
pasta, cooked and drained

In a large skillet or pot, heat Earth Balance and olive oil and add garlic & sausage. Cook, stirring occasionally over medium-low heat until sausage has browned. Add pea tendrils and broth, salt & pepper. When pea tendrils have wilted, add white wine. Cook for a couple more minutes, adding more broth or pasta cooking water if necessary so the sauce isn't dry. Toss with cooked pasta.

Hayride

Whether you're in apple country or not, this drink really hits the spot after some outdoor fun or a cold autumn evening. No, this is NOT for the kids!! Send them to bed or something first!

(So
tell
me,
hon-
estly,
this
is an
iPhone
pic...
can
you
put
up
with
it 'til
I can
get a
new
camera?
How
about
if I
prom-
ise to post plenty of yummy recipes during Vegan Mofo this month?)
Here's my recipe for this amazing drink...

Hayride
1 cup warm apple cider
1/2 oz. cranberry juice (NOT juice cocktail!! I buy the R.W.Knudsen Just Cranberry at Trader Joe's for this)
1/2 oz. Goldschlagger
1 oz. vodka

Stir. Enjoy responsibly.
My husband drinks what I refer to as "girl drinks", and I'm the half Russian vodka expert. But he will drink this happily and calls it dangerous because he can hardly taste the alcohol. Really, this is so yummy. But you can always cut the amount of vodka in half if you are so inclined.
I garnished this with a striped apple slice. If you're going to serve these to guests and need to prep the apples ahead of time, make sure to bathe them in lemon water for a few minutes to prevent them from browning.

You can also dust them with
a little cinnamon if you'd like.
(Goldschlagger is a cinnamon
liqueur with flecks of gold in
it, imparting a lovely warm
cinnamon taste to the drink.)

Don't worry if you don't have
any fancy drink-making
paraphernalia, you could just
nuke a mug of cider and stir
in the rest of the ingredients.
I love this handy "mini measure" cup that's the size of a shot glass. Perfect for measuring and mixing small amounts, especially liquids. You can buy these at most kitchen stores.

But is this liquor vegan, you ask? Well yes, and I know because there's an app for that! I love the "Is Your Liquor Vegan?" app for my phone...along with two similar apps for beer and wine. Add the "Mixology" app and you have everything you need for vegan happy hour. Right?

Now of course I had to make
one of these for lunch in order
to get good light for the picture,
so I had some local roasted
butternut squash, parsnips,
sweet potatoes & leeks with
thyme to accompany it, along
with a local apple from Autumn
Hills Orchard and some
peanut butter.

Now that's a proper Vegan Mofo
kickoff!

Halloween leftovers

So I didn't post lunches at the end of last week. Why? Because I broke my camera. Well, that's the short story.
Long story is...friday AJ brought home some sort of slime in a bag from a Halloween party. He made a whoopie cushion out of this slime and repetitively demanded that Dada come see it. Dada was playing Magic online. Therefore no one was coming to look at his whoopie cushion, and he was going to repeat his request until I lost my hearing. So with wet hands from loading the dishwasher I grabbed my camera and went into the other room to take a picture of it so he would move on to something else. And I slipped, dropped the camera, and it bounced a few times with the lense exposed before coming to rest under the dining room table. I picked it up. I took a picture. And it was a blurry mess. The lense was ruined, and would probably cost more than the price of the camera to fix. I wrestled the lense closed and dejectedly went back to the dishes, knowing that...

TODAY IS THE FIRST DAY OF VEGAN MOFO 2010!!!#%@!!

What to do. First I said a bunch of nasty words. Then I moped. Then I managed to successfully unload the pictures that were still on the camera. I contemplated dropping from Vegan Mofo. But no, I don't give up. Even if I had to post the entire month using embarrassing photos from my iPhone, typing on a screen
the size of my palm or syncing
my phone nightly, I would still
post. But regardless, my grand November welcome would be postponed while I figured out how to proceed.

So I may post twice today while I play with crappy 3G iPhone photographs, but this first post is just the leftovers, which always taste better the next day (or three), right??

Ryan
& AJ's
lunch:
steamed
broc-
coli;
owl
face
eng-
lish
muffin
pizzas;
roasted
pump-
kin
seeds;
peach
slices;
mini
Luna
bars.


And thursday's lunches...
Ryan & AJ's lunches: mashed potato/turnip/celeriac "eyeballs" w/black olives; meatless meatballs; carrot sticks; gherkin pickle; cucumber wedges.

Maia's lunch: mashed potato/turnip/celeriac; snap peas; meatless meatball; carrot sticks; sliced black olives.

And friday's hummus dippables lunches...
Ryan
& AJ's
lunches:
waffle
pret-
zels;
hummus;
cucu-
mber
slices;
pickle;
mixed
nuts;
baby
carrots;
pita
chips.






And October is not complete without the obligatory Halloween pics...












Maia the kangaroo "rabbit".













Trying to get 4 kids to stand together and pose for a picture is like trying to teach a cat to fetch...but anyhow, here they are in costume...
Much better luck with the jack o' lanterns sitting still for a photo last night...