Hazelnut Encrusted Tofu

One rainy day at Kings Valley Gardens we spent an afternoon sitting in the hoop house cracking hazelnuts (otherwise known as filberts, I am unsure what, if any, the difference is). The hazelnuts had been gleaned the year before from a nearby hazelnut orchard. I love hazelnuts and for my designated cooking night (we take turns) I wanted to feature them. I had heard of people encrusting various things with them, and tofu seemed like the only available thing to encrust. I was really happy with how the meal turned out and I know others liked it because a repeat was requested the next week. 

In a past post I mentioned including more recipes that actually fit the name of the blog and were cheap, quick and local. This meal fits the bill... but only if you have hazelnuts and strawberries that you grew/gleaned. I am guessing this is a relatively small portion of the population. If hazelnuts are too expensive or not available you could use any nut you have on hand. The strawberry sauce was delicious but if it's not strawberry season the tofu would be good on its own, or I would probably eat it with catsup. 

The hoop house where we sit on rainy days to crack nuts

The hoop house where we sit on rainy days to crack nuts

The full menu that I served the was:

Hazelnut Encrusted Tofu

Strawberry Merlot Sauce

Macerated Kale Salad

Quinoa 

For the tofu:

1 container tofu

1/2 cup hazelnuts

1/2 cup flour (I used brown rice flour to make it gluten free)

pinch of salt and pepper

1 egg (you could leave out the egg to make it vegan, but the coating may not stick quite as well)

1 tbsp stone ground mustard

1 tbsp tamari

1 tbsp honey

Hazelnut encrusted tofu, strawberry wine sauce, quinoa, and macerated kale salad

If you are doing the full suggested menu start the salad first (scroll down for the recipe)

Tofu Directions

Pre heat oven to 400 degrees and grease a large cookie sheet.

At Kings Valley I was introduced to using frozen tofu which I would recommend, but fresh will also work well. To freeze tofu start by slicing it into 1/4 inch pieces. Drain as much water as possible and then simply store it in the freezer. The defrosted tofu will be much more spongy than its fresh counterpart. If you froze tofu a couple of days/weeks/months ago you will need to remember to get it out of the freezer the day before you want to make this dish (probably obvious, but you never know). 

Hazelnut encrusted tofu, strawberry wine sauce, quinoa,
and macerated kale salad

If using fresh tofu start by slicing the it into 1/4 inch slices, or whatever shape you want. We did some "nuggets" and they turned out really well.

Blend/process the nuts, flour, and salt/pepper until everything is a fine powder. Pour this coating mixture into a small bowl. Mix the remaining ingredients (egg through honey) in a second small bowl. Dip each slice of tofu into the egg mixture and then the nut mixture and lay it on the prepared cookie sheet. Repeat with all available tofu. 

Cook tofu in 400 degree oven for 15 minutes, flip, and cook for an additional 15 minutes. 

Sauce Directions

Once the tofu was in the oven I started the sauce. For the sauce I simply cooked 2 cups of strawberries and one cup of red wine (in this case merlot) on simmer for about 5 minutes and then mashed the strawberries with a fork. 

Salad and Quinoa 

Do the salad FIRST so that the kale has time to marinate which makes it more tender. This salad is also delicious the next day, when it has had even longer to marinate. I just tour up a large bowl of clean fresh kale and tossed it with about 1/2 cup of garlic salad dressing (which I will post the recipe for next week) but you could use any dressing you like. You may want to start with a smaller amount of salad dressing and continue adding dressing until the kale leaves seem evenly coated.

I used a pressure cooker for the quinoa. The pressure cooker makes is very quick so you can start this after prepping the sauce. I put

• 5 cups water
• 4 cups quinoa

in the pressure cooker and turned the burner on to high. When the pressure cooker reached pressure, on mine this is marked by the gauge on the top rocking back and forth, I immediately turned it off and let it sit. If the pressure cooker is not ready to open when you want to eat run it under cold water for 30 to 60 seconds and the pressure should drop.

This was a lovely summer meal. I look forward to experimenting more with nut encrusted tofu and varying the flavors to match the season. I think walnuts and maple would lend themselves to an autumn dish...

Planning Ahead

Planning Ahead

A couple of months ago I read the book Plenty by Alisa Smith and J.B. Mackinnon about a couple in Vancouver, BC who ate only food grown within 100 mi. for a year. I highly recommend it. While I am not ready to banish coffee, cocoa, and bananas (among other things) from my diet it was inspirational to see that it is possible, even in a small apartment in a big city. The authors included good tips and information about how they accomplished their goal. 

Bread requires planning ahead and setting aside a
couple of hours

One of the things that stood out to me was how much planning the project took. This is something that's kind of hard for me as I am still getting used to not moving every 6 to 9 months and the idea that I might someday have a garden that I plant asparagus in (asparagus requires waiting three years before you actually get to eat any). Smith and Mackinnon had to can much of their food and stored things like onions, squash, potatoes and nuts so they would have something to eat in the winter. 

Minneapolis has a great local food scene, and several wonderful food co-ops that source a lot of local food. BUT almost all of this delicious local food disappeared from grocery shelves at some point in the winter. At some point beginning around February I noticed that Shaun and I were a) spending a lot more money on produce and b) eating more exotic things (like bananas) and fewer organic items. You might say, "well, you live in Minnesota, I've heard it's an icy tundra covered by 12 feet of snow for 6 months out of the year. Of course there is no local produce in the winter".  That was more or less what I though as well, and then I found Featherstone Farm. 

Gardening requires starting seeds weeks in advance, and
preparing your soil (among other things)

Featherstone Farm is a certified organic, family farm, and they offer a Winter CSA! In Minnesota! They deliver to several places in the Twin Cities, Rochester, and a couple of other places. A friend of mine got the Winter CSA last year and highly recommended it. Another particularly great thing about Featherstone was that they offered multiple payment options. You can pay the whole amount upfront or you can pay in four installments. The installment plan is great since Shaun and I are WWOOFing all summer we have a very tight budget, but spreading the payments out means we're able to make most of them when we start working again in the fall. Installments also mean that you can use SNAP (formally Food Stamps) to pay for a CSA more easily since you don't have to use more than your entire month's benefit to pay for the CSA one month. 

Thus far Featherstone is the only winter CSA I have found, and last year they sold out and I wanted to make sure we signed up early. So Shaun and I planned ahead and are looking forward to being able to source at least some of our produce locally this winter! I'll be sure to share some of the recipes we develop here.

Making jam requires harvesting fresh fruit and not eating it
all at once :)

In addition to signing up for a CSA I have come up with a couple of other goals that require planning ahead that I think will help me more locally sourced and sustainable food this year.

• Sign up for CSA (check)
• Purchase Staples in bulk - tentative list of staples to be purchase in bulk:
• hard red wheat berries
• barley
• oats
• chickpeas
• black beans
• kidney beans
• Can tomatoes (I am thinking 52 jars but that may be a stretch as I have never done tomatoes)
• Make meal plans at the beginning of each week
• Give up the clothes dryer
• Ask farmers market growers about their practices - I like to think that all of the growers at the farmers market use more or less organic methods, but I know this isn't true. I need to do some research as to what types of methods I really don't want to support, a certain chemical for example, or if they spray after the plant has fruited, and come to the market prepared with specific questions.

Can you think of any other ways that I can use planning ahead to eat more locally and sustainably grown produce?

Floral Salad

So, in naming my blog "cheap, quick, local" I fully intended to focus on really quick meals made with inexpensive seasonal ingredients. I have realized (and written about) the fact that most of these recipes are not particularly "quick". I really like to cook, and spend over an hour most days in the kitchen.

Here is an idea for jazzing up a summer salad that is actually really really fast. Just add flowers. In addition to fresh, local, organic lettuce harvested minutes before this picture was taken at Kings Valley Gardens we added Day Lilies and Calendula petals. I have eaten pansies before and, to be honest, don't find them particularly tasty. The Day Lilies have a really delicate and subtly sweet flavor. They don't just look pretty (although they do look very pretty) They really improve the salad. And if you have Day Lilies growing in your garden they take all of about 30 seconds to add to a salad. See! Cheap, quick AND local!... If you have Day Lilies... I will work on some ideas that fit the bill and don't require specialty products.

Savory Blueberry Sauce

Lentil Walnut loaf, asparagus, and savory blueberry sauce

Shaun was making dinner one evening a couple of days ago and John, one of the farmers, challenged him to a kumquat sauce. Shaun had his hands pretty full with a lovely dinner, but I decided to take up the challenge. There are no kumquats growing at Kings Valley (or anywhere in Oregon as far as I know) but as I have mentioned, Kings Valley Gardens has some of the best blueberries in all of oregon, and they have a lot of them! 


The full meal was:
Lentil Walnut Loaf
Roasted Asparagus
Blueberry Sauce
Blueberry "Cheesecake"


We got the recipe for the Lentil Walnut Loaf from Angela Liddon at Oh She Glows. I think this is the third time we made it (including one time for Shaun's parents who are fairly dedicated carnivores) and there are a lot of steps, but an amazing result.

To roast asparagus: Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Wash asparagus and cut the tough ends off. Some people say you should only eat asparagus the width of your pinky - I think they are crazy. After eating roughly one ton of asparagus, because when it's in season it's in SEASON, I would say the thick spears are every bit as delicious as the pencil thin ones, plus they are bigger! Anyway, thick or thin, you sill want to cut the ends off. Spread a couple of tablespoons of oil on a cookie sheet and lay asparagus in a single layer. Cook for 8 minutes.

Blueberry Sauce
1/4 onion chopped
1 tbsp oil (or enough to keep the onion from sticking)
2 cups blueberries (I used frozen but I don't think it matters)
1 tbsp dried tarragon
salt and pepper to taste

Saute onion in oil using a small sauce pan. Add all other ingredients and simmer for 5 to 10 minutes or sauce has thickened to your desired consistency.

This meal is best consumed outside by candlelight :)

Formal Submission for the Blueberry Dessert Research Institute

Enjoying a "sweet" blueberry dessert by candle light -
sorry it's hard to see the actual dessert. I will have to make
another one and take a better picture

 Kings Valley Gardens has about a 1/2 acre of blueberries. This equates to a lot of blueberries… and blueberry desserts. Past WWOOFers formed the Blueberry Dessert Research Institute to document their experimentation with… blueberry desserts (kind of self explanatory). Apparently the past favorite was a blueberry bar.

I wanted to do something kind of like a cheesecake, or a blueberry cream pie. But we eat primarily the food grown on the farm and this food is primarily vegan. Coming up with a way to make the dessert creamy was going to be a challenge. One of the people living here is also gluten intolerant and does not eat much refined sugar so I wanted to make sure that she would be able to enjoy the pie as well. I have seen several recipes for vegan cheesecake using either tofu or cashews. The tofu available had been previously frozen which is awesome for stir fry but means that it is more spongy and less creamy. Cashews are really expensive. 

So what do we have plenty of that is kind of creamy?… Beans! When I worked at the county health department one if the WIC recipes we gave clients was for a low fat pecan pie featuring pinto beans so I knew there was a precedent for a sweet bean pie. After some quick googling I found a white bean pie recipe to serve as inspiration (though I think I tweaked it enough that it can be considered original). 

Blueberry "Cheesecake"

dairy, egg, gluten, and refined sugar free

Makes about 8 servings

Crust

I got the crust from This Rawsome Vegan Life

1 cup nuts (I used walnuts)

1 cup dried fruits (usually dates but I used dried plums from the farm)

1 Tbsp water (if necessary)

Blueberries from Kings Valley Gardens, Oregon

Cheesecake Filling

3 cups cooked white beans (it helps if they are very well cooked to the point that they are disintegrating)

1/2 cup honey

1 tsp vanilla extract

3 Tbsp fresh grated ginger

pinch of salt

Blueberry Topping

1 1/2 cups blueberries, fresh or frozen

1/4 cup water

pinch of salt

2 Tbsp Corn Starch or arrow root powder

Equipment: Food Processor OR Blender 8 inch cake pan OR 9 inch pie plate OR spring form pan

To Assemble

Crust: Process nuts in blender or food processor until they are a coarse powder. Remove and place in the baking dish that you chose (pie plate, spring form etc.). Process dried fruit until it is a paste. I had to add the tbsp of water to get this to work, but if you are using a more moist fruit such as a date water may not be necessary. You may also be able to process the nuts and the dried fruit at the same time. The blender I was using is kind of old and I was worried that the fruit would gum it up and the nuts wouldn't get chopped fine enough. Mix fruit paste and nuts with your fingers, you can do this directly in the baking dish. Press crust mixture into the bottom of your baking dish.

Blueberry Topping: Put blueberries and water in a small sauce pan. Sprinkle corn starch over the blueberries and stir with a whisk or form to prevent lumps. Simmer until the blueberries start to break down. You may need to add more water if it seems like the blueberries are sticking to the bottom of the pan. You want a thick sauce at the end. This will take about 5 min. if using fresh berries, and a little longer if you are using frozen. If the sauce does not thicken you can add more corn starch.

Creamy Filling: Blend all ingredients and pour into prepared crust (if you have extra filling save it to eat as "pudding" . 

Pour blueberry topping over the creamy filling. If you have extra save to eat with the "pudding". 

Refrigerate pie for at least an hour

I was kind of surprised at how well this pie turned out.  It opened up a whole new world of creamy pie possibilities.  Plus it's healthy enough that you can eat it for breakfast without any guilt (I often eat pie for breakfast, but this one's probably a better breakfast than most). We couldn't decide if it beats blueberry bars, but I did get points for originality :)

New and Improved How to Make Bread for a Crowd

My last post talked about bread making, but I realized did not give very good job of actually describing "how to make bread for a crowd", though it did have some lovely pictures of Shaun kneading bread with his feet (which is the key). I figured most people only want to make one or two loaves at a time, but just in case... I spoke with Andrea, the farmer at Kings Valley Gardens, about posting her recipe on my blog and she was OK with it (she's awesome). So here it is:

Basic Whole Wheat Bread
Makes about 10 loaves

5 cups luke warm water (about the 103 degrees, or baby's bath water)
1/4 cup active fry yeast
5 Tbsp Sugar

Combine above ingredients in a medium sized bowl, cover with a towel and allow to sit for 10 minutes in a warm spot. We leave ours in the hoop house, but you could also set it beside a heater, or just turn the oven on for a couple of minutes (2) and then turn it off. This is the "proof"

After you have your proof combine the following ingredients in a large, clean container (we used a 5 gallon bucket)

1 cup sugar
10 cups lukewarm water
1 cup canola oil
3 Tbsp salt
1 quart millet
1 quart buckwheat
1 quart sunflower seeds
the "proof"

Once you have mixed the above ingredients begin adding 26 to 32 cups of flour. Add the flour a couple of cups at a time and mix until it is combined. It is helpful to have one person mixing and one person adding flour as you eventually have to use your hands to mix and they will quickly become covered in dough. When you can no longer stir the additional flour in with a spoon, begin using your hands to incorporate it. You want the dough to reach a consistency where it no longer seems wet and does not cling to your hands as readily.

Turn the dough onto a clean lightly floured board and knead (with your feet!) for 15 minutes. To knead with your feet it is helpful to have someone help you. First, wash your feet very well. Second stomp the dough out until it is flat. The person helping should then fold it back into a tight square and you can stomp it down again. Repeat for 15 minutes.

Coat the bucket, or other large container, with oil and place the dough back in it. The person with clean feet should stomp the dough down in the bucket for a minute or so. Cover the bucket with a towel and allow to rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk (about an hour).

Dump the dough back onto the clean, floured board (add some more flour) and begin cutting off chunks that are about the size of a loaf of bread. Knead each chunk for a couple of minutes and then shape it into a loaf. Place each "loaf" into a greased loaf pan, or if you are making round loaves, onto a greased cookie tray. Place all of the loaves (about 10) into the oven and turn it on warm for 2 minutes then turn the oven off. Allow the bread to rise for about 30 minutes and then...

Turn the oven to 350 degrees and bake for 50 to 60 minutes. You may want to switch the loaves between the bottom and top racks about half way through.

At Kings Valley Gardens 10 loaves of bread seems to last for two weeks to a month (depending on how many WWOOFers are here and how much they like bread). We freeze the bread in two layers of plastic (trash can bags work well) and then take a loaf out to thaw when we are running low. Fresh bread goes bad kind of quickly in my experience so it is important to eat it quickly (and usually not that difficult)

mmm, I can actually smell fresh bread baking right now! and it is one of the most wonderful scents in the world.

How to Make Bread for a Crowd

10 lovely, local, loaves of bread fresh out of the oven

NOTE: This article includes a recipe for making two loaves, for a more detailed description of making bread for a "crowd" look here.

So apparently the secret to making bread for a crowd is... knead it with your feet. Something I recently learned about bread making is that it is the gluten that allows it to rise. Wheat gluten looks kind of like long viscous strands (appetizing right?). Anyway, these strands form kind of a net and trap the air bubbles that the yeast give off as they eat sugar and poop gas (again, super appetizing).

The gluten also provides structure as the bread rises. Whole wheat flower has less gluten than white flower so that's why 100% whole wheat loves are often really dense. When I first learned this I started adding vital wheat gluten, which is what's used to make seitan. This works pretty well. I even more recently learned that kneading bread is what helps the gluten develop, so instead of adding extra gluten, you can also knead for longer. If you are making 10 loaves at a time, which is the way we roll at Kings Valley Gardens, kneading takes a toll on your wrists and hands. Kneading with your feet helps you avoid this trouble, and is novel enough that it remains fun for the full 15 minutes required to develop the gluten. Shaun was selected for the actual kneading as he had by far the biggest feet (size 13) and don't worry he washed them very well!

10 lovely, local, loaves, in the oven

Living in Minnesota we have no problem accessing wheat and whole wheat flour that was grown within a couple of hours of the Twin Cities. Usually our flour comes from Whole Grain Milling. It is not so easy on the Willamette Valley (where we are WWOOFing for the summer). In the past a great deal of grain was grown here, but more recently farmers have switched to grass seed. Thanks in part to work done by the Bean and Grain Project there has been some return to grain cops in the area. The flour we used for this bread was grown down the road near Corvallis.

The recipe that Andrea uses at Kings Valley is Adapted from May All be Fed, Diet for a New World by Tom Robbins. I am using his recipe (and slightly adapting it myself) since I figure not everyone wants to make 10 loaves at a time? And because Andrea is working on a cook book and I don't want to give away any of her secrets. You can just multiply the recipe by 4 if you are trying to bake for a crowd.

Ocean's Bobs of Love Bread

(Makes Two Loaves)

Shaun using his big feet to knead

1 cup like warm water

2 1/2 teaspoons or 1 package active dry yeast

1/4 cup honey

1/4 cup canola or safflower oil

2 tsp salt

6 to 7 cups whole wheat flour

1/4 cup sunflower seeds

1/4 cup millet

Oil for brushing the loaves

Mix water, yeast and honey and let stand about 5 minutes (the yeast should be dissolved and kind of foamy). Add two cups of the flouer and all other ingredients. Continue adding the flour until you have a fairly stiff dough. Sprinkle some flour on your work surface and knead the bread for 15 minutes or until the texture is similar to an air lobe (as someone once told me). 

Shaping the dough into loaves

If you are going to knead with your feet it is helpful to have someone help you by folding the dough over before you stomp it down. If you are kneading with your hands start with a ball and press it down with the heel of your han, fold it over and press it down again. Repeat as necessary. 

After you are done kneading place the dough in a bowl and cover it lightly with a towel. Place the bowl in a somewhat warm area where it will not be disturbed. I usually put it a turned off oven. Wait for about an hour and a half until the dough has doubled in size. Knead it again for 10 to 15 minutes and then shape into loaves. Let the loaves rise for another hour or so and bake them at 350 degrees for 40 to 50 minutes.