Cooking from one ingredient items, Week 4!

So I made two recipes from the site this week, again!

http://www.oneingredientchef.com/sweet-potato-shepherds-pie/
I have made this with my brother a few times but usually throw some meat down as an additional bottom layer so my father and him will eat it. But this time I stayed true to the recipe. Besides switching out sweet potatoes for white sweet potatoes (because they were on hand). This made the dish a little bit milder and look more like normal shepherds pie. But without the meat, I think it was actually better. Much lighter so it drew out the flavor of the lentils and tomato.

http://www.oneingredientchef.com/vegan-meat-sauce/
So for this one, it is quick to make if you have the burgers on hand, which I usually don't. I just go with BeyondMeat's beef instead: quick and easy. And decently priced if fake meat is your thing and you buy in bulk from Organic Food Depot. http://beyondmeat.com/



In more exciting adventures, played with my Kitchen Aid this week to make lamb merguez sausage then grilled it with the waffle iron, which worked better than the time with the bean hash. Didn't look too much like sausage when it came out, but tasted excellent and was properly crisped. I then quickly roasted onions and garlic with the waffle iron and threw them on my homemade chips for nachos for Game of Thrones: Nachos of Black and White!
Black = chocolate with coffee cashew cream with craisins
White = mango salsa, roasted beans, cilantro, onions, and garlic

http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2013/08/homemade-merguez-sausage-recipe.html
http://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-detail.asp?recipe=778811

Cooking from one ingredient items, Week 3!

So this week was a quick recipe, the "8-Minute Black Bean Soup"
http://www.oneingredientchef.com/black-bean-soup/ but the name is a bit misleading, takes a bit longer than 8 minutes to make and less than 8 minutes to eat!
However, it is a quick and light dish, with no oil, sautee, and minimal cutting involved. His ingredients are as follows:

Ingredients:

• 2 15 oz cans of black beans
• 1/4 cup vegetable broth (or water)
• 1 large roma tomato
• 2 green onions, sliced
• 2 tablespoons cilantro
• 1 clove of garlic

• 1 lime, juice
• Pinch of salt
• 1/2 teaspoon cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon coriander
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1/2 avocado (optional)

I went on the edge and used green lentils (dried) instead of black beans since I am a fan of the crunchier texture. Also probably why it took longer than 8 minutes. Also used a (preserved) lemon due to lack of limes, which would have been better. I was also heavy on the spices since I think Sriracha is sweet: I would follow his suggested amounts.

But if you were being true to the recipe, only 3 things to cut so it really is a breeze. Because there is no frying/oil/cheese/meat involved, the dish is very light and fresh. If you want something with more 'umami', just add what you feel to the recipe. I would probably go with something on the lighter end like a white fish, but follow your heart!

In other news, Sentara Cafeteria has this cute little display! They did eventually add some greens to it but aren't selling it at this time. However, they promise me a "farmer's market" at some point this Spring from local farmers. Hopefully this comes to fruit so it saves me trips to the grocery store!

Cooking from one ingredient items, Week 2!

So as stated, this week was breakfast week, which I always skipped. Except for the one day I made cookies for that evening and enjoyed the dough. But all from one ingredients!

The one recipe I did try for brinner last night was: http://www.oneingredientchef.com/waffle-hashbrowns/

Didn’t have a green bell pepper on hand though so substituted chipotles, jalapenos, and beets instead. I like spicy and bright colors, so worked for me. The hash mix was pretty easy to assemble but I had misgiving about putting it in the Belgian waffle iron, which I had never used before (main reason I was going with this recipe). So threw the ‘batter’ in, which obviously didn’t spread too well so I had to spread it with a bit of pressure and crossed my fingers it would hold well. It didn’t. But after removing the hash from the non-stick iron, I disguised the destroyed ‘waffle’ with an avocado, celery root (also ironed!), parsley, and lemon. I think it looks presentable. And tasted delicious.

After re-reading the post, was drawn to a helpful line: “NOTE: as readers have suggested, adding 1-2 tablespoons of whole wheat flour to the mixture before cooking will result in waffles that are much easier to remove in one piece. Thanks, guys!” May actually be worth trying again with this advice!

My other cooking adventure for the week was making a few dishes for my dogs second birthday. Cooked him up collard greens, heart tartare, and heart jerky (with my new dehydrator!). Needless to say, I really just wanted to continue testing out pork heart. Knowing this isn’t most people’s cup of tea, if you are curious about tartare, check out this article: https://food52.com/blog/12354-how-to-make-steak-tartare-at-home for a quick history lesson! Not too surprisingly, Beau and the other dogs happily ate everything and so did I!

Because someone asked me about hard to find products in Norfolk, I get most of my ‘eccentric’ ingredients/brands from organic food depot: https://www.organicfooddepot.com/ where I order stuff online from a wide selection and it gets delivered to their store on 20^th and Granby (at very good prices).

Quick reminder that we have a brunch next Sunday at Pendulum and it will only be $5 for FiM members! RSVP here: https://docs.google.com/a/email.wm.edu/spreadsheets/d/1lzJni0xj8E1jfMSK2UXOpRjLhV_cOmUvJ_stCkhvSZU/edit#gid=220842482

Cooking from one ingredient items, Week 1!

So for my posts initially, I will be following a course I bullied my mom into doing: http://oneingredientcourse.com/. If you want to follow the 8 week program, let me know and I will get you my account info!

I have been following his blog for a few years (http://www.oneingredientchef.com/) and really like the philosophy the author ascribes to: cook all your foods from one ingredient (vegan) items. Sometimes I follow his recipe then replace tofu with chicken… But anyhow: following this blog is a good way to get familiar with fresh, ‘real’, food and learN interesting new ways to prepare it. Check it out and try some of the other recipes I don’t cover!

So for week 1, we had two assignments: read the label of food in the grocery store for 20 minutes, which I do neurotically anyhow. Fun to see if I can figure out what most of the ingredients are for on the list. Good way to appreciate cooking things yourself when you see how intimidatingly long the ingredient lists all too often are.

The second was to make 2 one ingredient dishes, so when my parents came to visit this weekend for Easter, we made the two of them together:

http://www.oneingredientchef.com/aloo-gobi-pies/

Basically a shepherd’s pie with an Indian vegan spin, it involves making a masala paste, sautéing cauliflower in it then layering mashed potatoes on top. I didn’t have any potatoes on hand so I grabbed other white root vegetables: celery root and turnips, for the mash instead. Which worked out well: both have light flavors that added a bit of a fresh, peppery touch to this dish. Though I think potatoes would have been easier. My one big complaint is that this dish took three separate cooking steps: make the masala cauliflower, make the mashed potatoes, assemble them together then bake. I really like the flavor of the masala cauliflower but if I was pressed for time (the norm), I would drop the mashed potatoes and make the cauliflower sauté but use store-bought masala spice blend. Same flavor, not quite as fun, but so much quicker!

http://www.oneingredientchef.com/one-ingredient-ice-cream/

So I am sure a lot of you have made banana ice cream before (aka blend a frozen banana). So have I. And although the texture may be creamy, eating just bananas that are overripe and too sweet for me is not my favorite. I also happened to have a frozen orange and an overripe plantain chilling around in the freezer. So I  used those, threw in 1tsp of vanilla extract, 2tbsp almond milk, pinch of ginger, and 1 tbsp pistachio oil. Any oil adds the ever important fat to the ice ‘cream’ and helps. And then I blended it together. Then most importantly to add some character: crushed up a bar of dark chocolate and threw that in there too. Cause that tends to make most things better. I forgot to take a picture of the final product, was otherwise distracted…

But you can see the remains in the blender!

Next week is breakfast week with the challenge of doing a one-ingredient breakfast every day. Which will be easy: I don’t usually eat breakfast…