Salmon 'Patties' + simple cole slaw

1 egg
12 oz canned Alaskan salmon
1 tsp dijion mustard
1 heaping tbspn chopped dill
1 tbspn capers
1/4 c ground oats (oat flour)
S & P

Mix well, shape into patties (like miniature burgers) and cook in a frying pan on low-medium until slightly crispy and hot throughout.

chopped green cabbage
lime juice
chopped dill
sprinkle of salt

Mix to desired taste and volume of cabbage. I think we used about 1/4 head of green cabbage, with the juice of 1 lime, and about 2 tablespoons of chopped dill.

Borscht!

Made in honor of the opening ceremonies in Sochi of course. The recipe is from the NYTimes, with very minor adjustments. I omitted the celery root because I couldn't find it at the grocery store, and I over-chopped the cabbage in the food processor. Next time, I'd roughly chop it by hand to make larger pieces.

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/1998/01/28/dining/versatile-borscht-humble-no-more.html

Recipe:

VEGETARIAN BORSCHT

Total time: 1 hour 45 minutes

1 ounce dried porcini mushrooms

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

1/2 pound white mushrooms, wiped clean and sliced 1/4-inch thick

1 large onion, cut into 1/4-inch dice

10 small or 7 to 8 medium beets, peeled, quartered and cut across into 1/4-inch slices; if the beet greens look nice, use half, and cut across in narrow strips

2 medium carrots, peeled and cut across into 1/4-inch rounds

1 medium parsnip, peeled and cut across into 1/4-inch rounds

1 very small or 1/2 medium celery root, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch cubes

3 medium baking potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch cubes

1/2 small white cabbage, shredded

3 large cloves garlic, smashed, peeled and very finely chopped

3 tablespoons tomato paste

1 medium bunch dill, coarsely chopped

4 tablespoons sugar

1/2 cup cider vinegar

2 tablespoons kosher salt

Freshly ground black pepper to taste

For the garnish:

Coarsely chopped dill

Sour cream.

1. Soak the dried mushrooms in 1 cup warm water for 15 minutes. Drain and squeeze out the excess liquid. Strain all the soaking liquid through a coffee filter or cloth. Reserve the liquid (there should be 1 cup) and the mushrooms separately.

2. In a tall, narrow stockpot, warm the oil over medium heat. Stir in the fresh mushrooms, and cook, stirring occasionally, for 4 minutes. Stir in the onions, and cook, stirring occasionally, for 8 minutes.

3. Add the beets, carrots, parsnips, celery root, 8 cups water and the mushroom soaking liquid. Bring to a boil. Lower the heat, and simmer for 5 minutes. Stir in the potatoes, cabbage, garlic, and if using, the beet greens. Dissolve the tomato paste in 1/2 cup of the liquid, and stir back into the soup. Return to a boil. Lower the heat, and simmer for 5 minutes. Stir in the soaked dried mushrooms, and simmer for 5 minutes or until all the vegetables are tender.

4. Remove from the heat. Stir in the dill, sugar, vinegar, salt and pepper. Pass around bowls of the chopped dill and sour cream for garnish.

FOCS Flat Bread

What does the FOCS say? Flax Onion Cumin Spelt, in a flat bread, that's what. Another variation of non-wheat-gluten (spelt does have some glutinous protein, though) flat bread like the herbed almond flax flat bread.

I've been playing with the basic proportions of this bread: ~2 parts seed/nut meal to 1 part flour. This recipe adds a little more flour, and so has a breadier texture. Increase the seed/nut to flour ratio and the bread gets heartier and more crumbly. In any case, it's really good as base for open face sandwich type stuffs.

1 c golden flax meal
1/2 c spelt flour
2 t baking powder
1 t ground cumin
1/2 t salt
1/4 t ground black pepper
1 green onion stalk, chopped into 1/8" discs
2 T olive oil
2 eggs

~1/2 c water

1. Preheat oven to 350F
2. Mix dry ingredients thoroughly in a bowl
3. Mix wet ingredients except water thoroughly in a different bowl
4. Mix wet ingredients into dry ingredients, mix the mix until mixed
5. Adding a little (~2-3 Tablespoons) water at a time, mix until the batter is about the consistency of a thick pancake batter
6. Sprinkle a little course salt on top if you so desire
7. Grease or cooking spray a loaf pan, add batter
8. Let bake for about 20-30 minutes*

* I originally used a toothpick to check for doneness. This isn't a great way, apparently, because the toothpick came out clean and yet the bread was not done on the inside. 30 minutes tops should be good enough.

Baked Bean-tils or Sloopy Lentils

I'm not exactly sure how to classify this dish, but think cooked lentils with a BBQ twist:

0.5 tablespoon coconut oil
1 red onion, chopped
3 sticks of celery chopped
1.5 cups dry green lentils (green lentils are important, red ones will turn to mush when simmered)
14.5 oz diced tomatoes
14.5 oz crushed tomatoes
2 cups water
dash of liquid smoke
0.5 teaspoon of chipotle powder
0.5 teaspoon of smoked paprika

Saute the red onion an celery in the coconut oil, 5-7 minutes. Add spices and simmer another minute longer. Add lentils, tomato, and water and simmer for 30-40 minutes depending on how mushy you want the lentils.

Serve open-faced over bread or rolls.

If you want to make it more BBQ-y, I'd add some molasses and a pinch of cinnamon to the mix. As we did it this time, the dish was dominated by a tomato+pepper flavor and wasn't quite BBQ.

Herbed almond flax flat bread

I've been flirting with gluten-free cooking recently. There seems to be mounting evidence that gluten can cause ill health effects, and the elimination of wheat gluten can improve health in everything from obesity and diabetes to migraines to female infertility (reference: google.com, sorry I'm feeling lazy right now). Whether or not these health effects are directly related to wheat gluten the protein or the multitudes of American foods that are based primarily on wheat is impossible to tell, since you cannot have non-gluten wheat (yet). My gut feeling, and the general sentiment it seems, is that elimination of wheat gluten leads to eating habit changes that improve health. It's also somewhat interesting and refreshing to cook with different ingredients like flax meal and almond flour. Thus, today's flirting took the form of an herbed almond flax flat bread with quick pickled radish for garnish. The bread was really flavorful and had a nice bready texture, and it is amazing how well quick-pickling works to add that special pickly something to vegetables in just about 20 minutes. If nothing else, it's a quick, easy, and tasty snack.

For flatbread

2/3 c golden flax meal
1/3 c almond flour
1 1/2 t baking powder
1 T fresh rosemary, finely chopped
1 T dried sage
1 T grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 t salt
3 T olive oil
2 eggs
approx. 1/3 c water

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F
2. Grease a 5x9 bread pan with olive oil *
3. Mix all dry ingredients in a bowl
4. Combine olive oil and eggs in separate bowl, whisk to mix
5. The batter will be too thick to pour - add a little water at a time and mix, repeating if necessary until batter can be poured into the bread pan without much scraping. I had to add about 1/3 c of water.
6. Pour batter into pan, place in oven for 20 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean

Adapted from http://glutenfreeeasily.com/golden-flax-bread-grainfree-gf/.

For quick pickled radishes

2 small radishes, sliced into thin disks

1 t salt

1/2 t apple cider vinegar

1/4 t honey

dried dill weed to taste

1. Rinse sliced radishes in a bowl/colander, drain
2. Coat slices with salt, make sure all sides are completely covered
3. Let rest for 15-20 minutes
4. Rinse off salt with cold water - radishes should be limp now - and drain
5. In a small prep bowl, add vinegar, honey, and dill, and mix
6. Add radishes to the vinegar mixture, coat, and let sit for a few minutes

Quick pickle method taken from Mark Bittman's How To Cook Everything, which I highly recommend.

Mo' Egg Cups

This time with tasty cheese from central bottle (Andrew picked it out when I said I needed it to go with eggs!)

1.5 cups cooked brown rice
3 eggs, gently scrambled
~6 oz of the awesome cheese
a splash of milk (we used almond milk)

~1 teaspoon dried paprika
sprinkle of dried tarragon
dash of fresh ground pepper
dash of salt

Bake in foil+paper muffin wrappers @ 400 for 23 minutes (the extra cheese took longer to cook). Makes 8 muffins.
(per muffin)
Cals: 147
Carbs: 9 grams
Fat: 8 grams
Protein: 8 grams
Fiber: 1
Iron: 3%

Coconut hemp heart granola

Jen and I were at the grocery store looking for granola. The 'good' stuff (organic yada yada) is really expensive - $6-7 for 8 oz or something. It got me wondering why granola is so expensive? Maybe it's hard to make? Maybe the raw materials are expensive? Maybe you need expensive granola certification from the National Granola Council to make it, or the Granola Police come and rain granola justice down on you and your extended family? I decided to risk it.

We liked the sound of an online recipe we found and adapted it so we didn't have to cook any quinoa. Warning: this stuff is pretty calorie dense (700/cup ≈ a chipotle burrito), so don't go nuts, no pun intended, speaking of which, I would probably use fewer walnuts next time, they're everyhwar).

So, ok, we used a lot of expensive ingredients to make it (nuts, dried fruit, etc). I'm going to ignore that and not do the full cost calculation for this recipe per ounce, and complain again that I still don't know why granola is so expensive. I plan on making it regularly from now on.

Coconut hemp heart granola

1/2 cup hemp hearts
1 cup raw walnut halves, chopped
1/2 cup raw sliced almonds
1/2 cup raw pumpkin seeds
1/4 cup golden flax meal*
1 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup dried cranberries

1/2 cup dried blueberries
1/2 cup golden raisins
1/2 cup shredded unsweetened coconut
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon sea salt

1/4 cup coconut oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup agave nectar

* The original recipe calls for whole flax seeds. The nutrients in whole flax seeds are not easily accessible to our bodies because the seed shell protects them, using flax meal makes the full nutrient content available. If you have whole flax seeds, and a spice grinder (or a mortar and pestle if you have lots of arm and time available), you can just grind them.

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees
2. In a large bowl, mix all the dry ingredients together
3. I mixed the wet ingredients in a liquid measuring cup, whisked to mix
4. Pour wet ingredients on dry ingredients, mix well
5. Spread on an ungreased rimmed baking sheet in an even layer
6. Bake for 30 minutes
7. Take out of oven, eat some because it's delicious warm
8. Let dry completely before storing in an airtight container

The granola after it's out of the oven, use a spatula to break it up after it dries a bit

Adapted from http://www.loveandzest.com/2014/01/coconut-quinoa-granola.html.