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:
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!
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…
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