Zucchini Umami Recipe

I love having homemade condiments that you can grab out of the fridge and put on top of your main dish or side dish. They’re those things that elevate a meal just that extra bit, personalizing it to your taste. Sometimes these extras are not just about flavor, but also nutrition. Enter “zucchini-umami”, a ground nut and seed mix that adds some zipidity doo dah to your meals. It’s got walnuts, sesame seeds and salt, but it’s not quite Japanese gomashio or Egyptian dukkah. It’s just something I whipped together from the ingredients in my kitchen.

Ingredients:

Note: It’s very important all these ingredients are fresh.

¼ c lightly toasted walnuts

1/8 c toasted sesame seeds

3 tbsp ground flax

2 tbs black sesame seeds

3 tbs kale chips

salt if needed, to taste

Instructions:

Put the kale chips and walnuts in a blender and blitz just until ground. Spoon into a medium sized bowl with the other ingredients and mix until evenly combined. Add salt to taste. You could make several versions of this with different spices and then have a little tray of condiments for your table to satisfy every picky eater in the family.  Today I sprinkled it over the egg salad I made which I ate with potato flatbread, aka lefse. I also added some radicchio thinnings for a bit of green garnish.

It’s best if this is stored in a jar in the fridge to keep the oily ingredients fresh. Why zucchini umami? Well, as my oldest friends know, my first performance persona was called “Zucchini Mama”, so it’s a play on that. You could put it on a zucchini dish or anything your like!

Putting the Fun in Funnel Cakes!

Putting the Fun in Funnel Cakes

Why not try something you’ve never made before? Something that has a “special occasion” feel to it? The only time I’ve had funnel cakes in at the Main Street Car Free Day Festival. They were made to order and served piping hot with icing sugar sprinkled on top. What are funnel cakes? Basically just pancake batter dripped into an inch of hot oil and fried on either side. You put the batter into a standard kitchen funnel and swirl it round and round until it forms a lacy cake. It’s fun and delicious and if you have teenagers at home, this is a good special occasion treat for them to learn how to make. It’s also easier to make with two people, so good for developing cooperation skills in the kitchen. It’s messy, kinda goofy and fun!!

Start with a small batch first, to get the hand of it, and then double it once you’ve got the confidence.

You’ll need a small frying pan that you can put about an inch of oil inside for frying.

Ingredients:

1 egg

½ cup milk (I used milky masala chai I had in the fridge)

2/3 cup water

½ tsp vanilla

1 ½ c AP flour

1/8 c sugar

1 ½ tsp baking powder

¼ tsp salt

¼ tsp ground cardamon seeds

Sunflower oil for frying.

Mix the dry ingredients and wet ingredients in separate bowls and then mix together until combined.

Heat the oil until a drop of batter fries and turns golden.

Here’s the fun part: Take a half cup measure and fill it with batter. Have your assistant hold the funnel and put their finger under the bottom to plug the hole. Put the batter in the funnel. Your assistant will then carefully unplug the hole over the middle of the pan and start swirling the batter around and around to make a lacy cake. 

When it’s golden and stiff use a slotted spoon to turn it over to fry the other side. Lift out and drain on paper towels. If the batter seems too thick to drop, add a bit more water. If it’s too thin, add a bit of flour.

Serve warm with icing sugar mixed with cardamon powder. Enjoy!

Economiyake

I am finding great comfort in repetitive tasks. Sorting and editing photos, washing the dishes, weeding and making many many pancakes. It started with crêpes. One of the last foods I ate before the lockdown was a delicious crêpe at the Vancouver Farmer's market. I recreated that experience and its flavors over and over again as if I thought it would make some kind of magic that would turn back time. Then I switched to a Japanese vegetable pancake called okonomiyake. My pancakes are based on the traditional recipe, which varies from region to region. The great thing about okonomiyaki is that it’s a great way to use up stuff in your fridge and you can overcome boredom by making it with different vegetables every time.  So I've started calling my recipe 'economiyake'.

The trick is getting the ration of batter to veg right. Start with a lot of batter and a few veg and then work your way up to having more veg in the ratio. That way you’ll learn to eyeball it and improvise after many many days of making economiyake.

There are local culinary artists making really cook ferments these days and they make okonomiyaki zippy and tasty. I used this spicy red cabbage, butternut curry kraut and this pickled kohlrabi. I 've also added some chopped mshrooms, onions and brussel sprouts which I just sautéed with a bit of salt in olive oil. I've also used nettles, asparagus, and dandelion greens. Have fun and mix it up!

You know how hard it is to find flour right now--well you can experiment using different kinds of flour in this recipe. I have used wheat, spelt, buckwheat and chickpea flower. This way you also get different nutrients in your diet. This recipe makes four small pancakes. You can easily double or triple it.

1/4 c unbleached white flour
1/4 c stone ground spelt
a bit of salt or soya sauce or liquid from ferments
1/2 c water
1 beaten egg
about 1/8 cup chopped veg

Mix the dry ingredients and then add the wet ingredients, but not the veggies.  Make sure the pancake batter is evenly mixed and then stir in the veg. When you spoon the batter onto the hot, oiled pan, spread the veggies out evenly so they cook through.

 Flip over and cook the other side.

The two sauces you serve on top are mayo and a kind of ketchup. Right now I'm using chipotle mayo for some extra spice. To make the ketchup, I just mix a tiny dollop of Worcestershire sauce into a couple tbs of ketchup. Sometimes I add chili sauce for some heat. The final garnish is ribbons of nori which I simply cut up with kitchen scissors.

I usually drink kombucha with this in the morning and for an afternoon snack. This morning I put some mozzarella on top and I must say, it was a guilty pleasure I enjoyed thoroughly. Try something new and cook up some economiyake today!

For another great idea, check out author Hiromi Goto's instruction on how to make homemade onigiri.

And check out her wonderful web site!

An Aromatic Apple Tart

Hope you are keeping well in these times of social isolation. I hope that through this blog I can reach out to an audience and we can engage in some projects together from a safe distance! Sewing, gardening, and cooking are all on the agenda so I hope you can connect with us in this way. And boy, am I ever missing connecting with friends, family, students, colleagues and other community members. Social media has played an important part of feeling like I'm still connected to local and global community. So let's get started!!!!

First we bake.

A Rustic Apple Tart

We are adjusting to life in the time of Corona.  Everyone has ways of getting through the days of careful isolation. Some people are cleaning, organizing, alphabetizing. Others are exercising, binge watching, and cocooning. Some folks are getting outdoors to escape and find solace in nature. How are you coping? I am gardening and baking. I have waged battle on the weeds in my back yard and attack them with renewed fury every day. It’s satisfying and cathartic. And every day I make comfort food: crêpes, soup, and pies.

The pie quest began on pi day, the day when nerdy folks celebrate the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. You know, the 3.14 etc etc etc. I saw someone make a really lovely pie on social media. His name is Jeff, and he has awesome pie crust skills. (I, on the other hand, have terrible fancy crust skills, so beginners can use this recipe too.)  He inspired me to clean out some of last summer’s fruit from the freezer and made something comforting and fun. Which I did. But today, I've got to use some apples that are getting a bit mealy.

My piecrust recipe is simple and basic:

1      1 cup unbleached white flour

1/8  c stone ground spelt flour

½ tsp salt

½ cup cold butter, cut into 1 cm cubes

After you’ve mixed the dry ingredients, cut in the butt and mix until it is in pea-sized pieces. (I actually use my hands for this, but real chefs use pastry cutters.) Now add the water and stir with a fork until it’s well mixed. See if it’s too wet or dry and add a bit more flour or water accordingly. Now get your hands in there and combine the dough until it is a nice firm ball. Work it as little as possible. Once you’ve done this a few times, you get a sense of when it’s right. Then pop this in a bowl in the fridge with a tea towel on top.

Now you deal with the fruit. You can use just about any fruit to make a rustic tart. Berries are easiest because they don’t require prep. You can add sugar to taste. I try to put in just enough to make the flavor of the fruit sing. As I was using apples, I cored them using a device my mom gave me one Christmas. It’s one of the few single task kitchen gadgets that’s worth the cupboard space. It cores the apple and sliced it so you can easily peel the slices. You may prefer just doing that with a paring knife. I used six medium apples. I sliced the apples into smaller piece, but you can leave them in slices if you like. This recipe is very forgiving and easy to customize. I mixed the apples with 3 tbs sugar, 1 sp cinnamon and ½ tsp ground cardamon.

Preheat the over to 400 Degrees F.

Now it’s time to flour the surface of your counter and roll out the dough. I use the stone-ground spelt because then the dough picks up a nice grainy texture. Just keep rolling it out in a rough circle and don’t worry about the oddly shaped edge. Once the dough is 1/8 of an inch thick, get your pan and lay in out on top. (You can fold the dough gently to transfer it. I use a round “pizza stone” because it bakes nice and evenly.  I spread 2 tbs of the spelt flour onto the middle of the crust to soak up some of the apple juices as the tart bakes.

So I’m not fancy, I just pour the apple bits in the middle of the crust and spread them out to a desired thickness, eyeballing the edges of the crust which your are going to fold up and over the fruit. You can pull it right together or leave a large opening in the middle—just experiment and see which style you prefer.

Put the pie in the oven and bake at 400 degrees F for 15 minutes, then turn the oven down to 350 F and bake for an additional 30-35 minutes.

You’ll smell that classic scent of sugary cinnamon goodness when the pie is ready. Just check to see if the crust is browned to your liking and then take the pie out and let it cool for ten to fifteen minutes before you serve it. When I was growing up, mom always served apple pie with vanilla ice cream. I like it with whipped cream and a hot cup of black tea. This pie also goes great with masala chai.

You could also use this idea to make savoury pies as well—the kind of clean-out the fridge pie where you can transform leftover steamed veggies into a savoury rustic tart. Our family is transitioning to going vegan, so in the coming days I’ll try some alternative recipe, but this one is my current go-to standard.

I would love it if you would share what recipes are getting you through the days of isolation and would love to connect and perhaps make a recipe book from people’s contributions. Then when the quarantine is lifted, we could have a potluck!!!

You can e-mail me beespeaker(at)gmail(dot)com or just put a link to your own social media posts about what you’re making and baking. I am @beespeaker on Instagram.

Bee well!