Corn Casserole

This is really yummy... but not the best for you. A million hugs to the one who can replicate this exact taste and texture without the lard ridden muffin mix and other not some healthy stuff...

http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,1977,FOOD_9936_29065,00.html

Working with coconut shavings...

If you like our coconut cream pie or the fig quinoa listed below, you might wish that there were one ingredient that was easier to get a hold of. Both call for freshly shaven coconut, and this is a pain to make. It is such a great ingredient though, so I must show you a good way to make it rather than showing you alternatives.

Introducing the kudkuran... a dangerous torture device from the Philippines. It is a small bench that you innocently sit upon and then BANG! out of nowhere comes a razor sharp blade between your legs. I was trying to find a picture to prove to you that they exist, but alas, in this information age, you can not google a single one. This is likely because they don't want you to know they exist... kind of like booby traps - they wouldn't be of much use if people knew where they were. You've got to believe me though. Half my family comes from there. I've seen these things myself.

In any case, though sitting on one of these things is still a bit scary even for a seasoned pro, if you know what you're doing the kudkuran can also be a very handy coconut shaver. And, if you set aside a few hours and you have enough free freezer space, you can buy several coconuts at one time, shave them all, and measure out one cup per ziplock bag and freeze them. If you do that, the coconut cream pie changes from a very arduous task to a wonderfully quick and easy last minute desert for when unexpected company come demanding to be impressed by your culinary skills.

Easy quick yummy 3 course asian dinner in (almost) one pan!

I just made up all these tonight, and they were soooo good!

Fig Quinoa
Sesame Pineapple Soybeans
Peanut Salad

Fig Quinoa Ingredients:
1 cup dry quinoa, prepared
3 tbsp. sesame seeds
generous portion of: garlic powder, dry powdered ginger, black pepper
2 tbsp. soy sauce
1/2 cup coconut shavings
A dozen dried figs (from your local Pakistani grocer)

Sesame Pineapple Soybeans Ingredients:
Sesame Oil
small can pinapple chunks
bag of soy beans

Peanut Salad Dressing Portions
1/2 peanut butter
1/6 rice wine
1/6peanut oil
1/6 cider vinegar
...and salt, pepper, and dry powdered ginger to taste


Make 1 cup of dry quinoa according to package directions. Use the same pot to boil the dried figs, until they're soft and mushy. Meanwhile, in a small pan, fry up sesame seeds on high heat until browned (don't let smoke too long!) Place seeds on the less waxy side of wax paper, fold it over, and roll over it with a rolling pin so they're all crushed. Add to the finished quinoa, but don't bother stirring in yet. In the same small pan, put the pepper, ginger, garlic, and soy sauce. stir until smooth, and then chop finely and add the figs and let sizzle for a little bit on high heat as you add the coconut shreds. When everything is stirred together evenly, add to the quinoa and stir.

In the same pan, add the sesame oil, pineapple, and soybeans. Simmer until juice is reduced somewhat and beans are cooked enough. Drain remaining juice.

In a small jar (I used a baby food jar) mix the salad dressing. Pour over salad and you're done!

Sprout and Carrot Pitas

Stuff a pita with:

colby cheese
sprouts
shredded carrot
miracle whip (salad dressing)
tomatoes

Don't be skimpy on the sprouts and carrots!

Thanks Kieran! So good!

Veggie Ruben Sandwiches

cheese (swiss is best)
sauerkraut
slices of tempeh
goddess dressing
bread

Make open faced sandwiches in this order, and put in the oven till the cheese is melted.

So easy, and so yummy! Thanks Nik!

So good rice dish...

2 tbsp olive oil
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 hot peppers, minced
1 onion, minced
1 pack of fresh mushrooms, sliced in half
1 can stewed tomatoes, drained
1 can black olives, drained
1 can whole kernel corn, drained
1 can black beans, drained and rinced
1/2 cup red wine
at least 3 tbsp pecorino romano cheese
3 tsp rosemary
pepper to taste
1/2 to 1 tbsp olive/rosemary seasoning*
1 cup dry brown rice, cooked

Fry garlic, peppers, and onions in a large pan for a few minutes. Add mushrooms and fry until the juices start to go loose. Add stewed tomatoes, olives, corn, black beans, and wine, and simmer for a few minutes, but not beyond the desired "cookedness" of the ingredients added thus far. I like to have the mushrooms still have a bit of their initial crunch. At this point, thoroughly drain all the juices from the dish into the pan you have been cooking it in, and set the solids aside. Make sure that you really have all the juices in the pan and that they are not collecting at the bottom of the dish of solids you have set aside. Now add the romano, rosemary, pepper, and olive/rosemary seasoning to the liquid and simmer for a really long time until it has become such a thick gravy that you can't imagine it settling at the bottom of the dish, but rather sticking evenly to everything.

If the rice you've cooked is dry:

Just stir the gravy and the rice into the dish and you're done.

If the rice you've cooked is too moist,

Stir the gravy into the dish, fry the rice for a little bit, and then add that too.

Why? Because you don't want the rice to just be a contribution to an overall mushy consistency that shouldn't be there in the first taste. They should add a consistency and taste of their own.


*About the Olive/Rosemary Seasoning: You could fly to South Africa to get some... or imitate it by mixing some of the following ingredients. Its worth making and having on hand for this any many other dishes, even though some of the ingredients are a little less easy to find. We use it on everything... to top boiled eggs or cottage cheese... but it has many other functions. Its sooo good. Here are the ingredients in the order listed on the bottle:

Sea salt, Bread-crumbs, Sun-dried olives, Rosemary, Garlic, Cane sugar, Dried Lemon, Flavourants (too bad), Herbs (what herbs?), Andti-caking Agent (too bad again), and Spices (what spices?)

So as you see there is a lot of guess work to do to imitate this... so you're better off flying to South Africa to buy some. Its worth it. But wait! I just found a place you can buy it online!!! Click here! That's exciting... I thought we'd be done with it for good until the next time we went to South Africa. They've got a bunch of other grocery items there also that are making me miss my home!

Yummy Chutney

The idea for this one is stolen from the ingredients list for Wild Thymes Mango Papaya Chutney, which you can find at your grocery store. Put all of these ingredients into a slow cooker, and let it go on medium heat for a long time:

Mangoes, Apples, Sugar, Pineapple, Oranges, Onions, Cider Vinagar, Garlic, Ginger, Papaya, Raisins, Jalapeno Peppers, Lemons, Red Bell Peppers, Coconut, Spices, Lime Juice

So that is the ingredients list for this. The further down the list, the less quantity. As for the spices, I don't know what they are, but to get you thinking, here are the spices for Tofu Bobotie from P. 32 of Sundays at the Moosewood, an excellent cookbook!
Cumin, Coriander, Fennel, Cloves, Cinnamon, Turmeric, Black Pepper.

If I get a chance to try this out, I'll edit this posting. If you try it first, let me know how it turned out!

Liberian Ginger Beer

Haven't tried this yet, but for the novelty, this sounds interesting...

Ingredients

25 pieces ginger
2 pineapples, unpeeled and cut into pieces
2 teaspoons yeast
1 gallon water
3½ cups molasses

1. Beat ginger pieces in a large kettle until soft.
2. Add pineapple and yeast.
3. Boil water and pour into ginger mixture. Let stand overnight.
4. Strain, and add the molasses.
5. Chill and serve.

Old Fashioned Coconut Cream Pie

Here's another one we can't take credit for. make sure to read all the comments on the recipe, or just take the recipe below the link, which is what we took out of all the comments...

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Old-Fashioned-Coconut-Cream-Pie/Detail.aspx

1 1/2 cups half-and-half

1 1/2 cups coconut milk
2 eggs
3/4 cup white sugar
1/2 cup corn starch
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup shredded fresh coconut
1 teaspoon coconut (or vanilla) extract
1 (9 inch) pie shell, baked
1 cup frozen whipped topping, thawed

Directions:

1. Mix the first five ingredients together in a big pyrex bowl, and stir (with a whisk) until it is well mixed. 
2. Put the bowl covered in the microwave for two minutes, then stir.
3. Repeat step 2 until you notice it begin to thicken (may take longer than you think, but this is still quicker than doing it on the stove!) 
4. Stir the thickened coconut mix and continue cooking in the microwave for shorter periods of time (40 seconds, 30 seconds, 20 seconds...) until it reaches the desired thickness for pie filling. Try to imagine it being thick enough to not make the crust go soggy! 
5. Mix in half of the coconut shavings and let cool in the fridge.
6. Spread the other half out over an un-greased pan and toast in the oven or toaster oven. Watch carefully, it tends to go from not toasted to burnt rather quickly! 
7. When the filling is cool, layer it in the pie like so:

Toasted Coconut
Whipped Topping
Coconut Custard
Whipped Topping
Coconut Custard
Pie Crust

Enjoy!

Tsatsiki

I could copy and paste this recipe from its source, but you'd miss out on all the helpful feedback from others who have tried this great recipe Phil and Becky told us about. And I want to give credit where credit is due, so go to the following site:

http://www.cookingforengineers.com/recipe/188/Anghelikas-Tsatsiki-Tzatziki

Andy’s Purple Egg Pepper Plant Pitas

Cooking wine
Romano/parmesan cheese
Fresh mozzarella
Butter
Salt
Pepper
Basil
1 Purple/Green Pepper
1 Green Hot Peepper
1 Pale Yellow Hot Pepper
6 Small white and purple eggplants
2 handfuls of pre-peeled carrots – shredded
5 cloves of garlic
1 onion
1 beefsteak tomato

Directions:

1. Cook onions and garlic in wok on high heat with a third stick of butter. 
2. Before the butter starts burning add some cooking wine. 
3. Add generous portion of salt and pepper. 
4. Once ingredients thus far get softer, add carrots, stir, then add peppers. 
5. Cook till the peppers are close to soft, or till the juice is mostly cooked away, then set aside and clean out wok. 
6. Put a quarter stick of butter in with some cooking wine, a fair amount of basil, and the eggplant and cover wok as it simmers and steams. Open to stir occasionally. 
7. I put the tomatoes (and some more cooking wine) in when I started noticing the bottom of the pan was getting coated and starting to burn, but you might want to avoid that problem. 
8. Once the eggplant looks soft enough, and a fair amount of the juice has cooked away, add the onion pepper carrot mix into the wok and stir. 
9. An orange sauce is now developing in the bottom, so add a fair amount of Romano to thicken it. 
10. You can add some fresh mozzarella too. 
11. Once the mixture is thick enough, turn off the wok and stuff the gunk into some pitas and eat it before the pitas get soggy. Mmmm…

I tried this with asparigus and that was also good.

Greekish Quinoa Pitas

Onions

Spinach

Corn

Quinoa

Vegan Bullion cube

Pitas

Tsatsiki (see separate recipe)

Directions:

1. Get some quinoa cooking in the rice cooker (2:1 ratio).
2. Stir in a bullion cube.
3. While that's cooking, fry up the onions, add the spinach, add the corn, and when that's done, add the quinoa.
4. Let cool, then put in pitas, leaving a little room at the top to drizzle on some tsatsiki.

Yumm!