zucchini cupcakes with cream cheese frosting

Certain people don't like zucchini, ahem, Eric. No matter how well I saute it in awesome flavors, he scrunches up his face. I mean, its fine, but when zucchini is in season, zucchini is in season. To make sure that he eats his share of zucchini, I put it into bread and cupcakes that he loves. Sucker!

Serving Size: 12 cupcakes

Cupcake Ingredients:
adapted from "vegan cupcakes take over the world" carrot cake cupcakes
1 1/2 c. shredded zucchini (or summer squash)
1 1/2 c. all-purpose flour
3/4 t. baking soda
1/4 t. baking powder
1/4 t. salt
1/4 t. ground cinnamon
2/3 c. sugar
1/3 c. canola oil
1/3 c. yogurt (optionally vegan)
1 t. vanilla

Cream Cheese Frosting Ingredients:
1/4 c. cream cheese (optionally vegan)
1/8 c. margarine
1 cups powdered sugar
1/2 t. vanilla

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Mix the dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon). Mix the wet ingredients (sugar, canola oil, yogurt, vanilla). Add the dry ingredients to the wet and stir until just combined. Fold in the shredded zucchini. Distribute the cupcake batter into cupcake liners in a muffin tin. Bake for 25 minutes. Let the cupcakes cool before frosting.

While the cupcakes are in the oven, use a mixer to whip together the margarine and cream cheese for the frosting. Slowly mix in the powdered sugar and finally the vanilla. Voila, you have frosting! Refrigerate the frosting until the cupcakes are ready to be frosted.

inarizushi

We tried making inarizushi from scratch the other day. Ok, so, we didn't make the tofu from scratch...yet--that will be a future endeavor. But, I wanted to try making the aburaage at home. So, while we were deep frying some zucchini, I tossed in some slices of tofu, then deep fried them again at a higher temperature, rinsed them in hot water, cut slits, and stuffed the tiny pockets with as much sushi rice (rice vinegar, salt, and sugar) as I could cram in there. More detailed directions can be found at Shizuoka Gourmet. Next time I make these, I'd try larger slices of tofu. I think the tofu that comes in a more oblong shape, with a square cross-section would result in nice sized aburaage. These bite-sized inarizushis were great for snacking though...even cold!

peach canning

We got 20 pounds of seconds peaches for $20 from Ela Family Farms at the farmers market yesterday (as well as strawberries, tomatoes, and basil!). We loaded up my panniers and headed home to start canning. This was our first time canning peaches so we wanted to try a few different recipes to see which we prefer.

With 15 pounds of peaches, we made:

• 3 pints whole peach halves in apple juice
• 4 pints peach butter (pureed with 2 c. sugar)
• 5 pints stewed peaches (no added sugar)

We're also going to freeze some peach halves for smoothies, and we saved some to eat fresh of course.

Traditional canning recipes tend to be super heavy on the sugar, so we wanted to try some no/low sugar recipes. I'm interested in learning how to get pectin naturally--for example, from crab apples--but for now we'll enjoy peach butter instead of jam on our toast.

We previewed the peach butter on pancakes this morning and it was delicious!

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from Bicycle Forest

peanut coconut sauce

This peanut coconut sauce is great for those days when it's too hot to cook (or when you're too lazy to cook). It is also a great way to celebrate fresh broccoli. I followed a recipe from Vegetarian Planet by Didi Emmons that includes peanut butter, coconut milk, chopped peanuts, soy sauce, rice vinegar, ginger and garlic.

eggplant lasagna

If you ever need to cook for lots of people with diets ranging from open to selective, try this lasagna. Even people picky about eating only familiar "American" food should find some comfort in this dish, even though it is vegetarian. Use whatever veggies are in season or available (eggplant, steamed kale, brocoli, mushrooms). We chose eggplant because it just debuted at the farmer's market, but beware that there are people with eggplant allergies. For your vegans or those with lactose sensitivity you can used crumbled tofu or mashed white beans in place of ricotta cheese. To cater to the soy-phobics, I used mashed white beans. For the gluten-free people, I used gluten-free rice lasagna noodles instead of standard lasagna noodles. Yes, I know, that is a lot of substitutions, but it still tastes damned good!

Serving Size: 6

Ingredients:
6 oven-ready, gluten-free rice lasagna noodles

Roasted Eggplant Ingredients:
4 c. eggplants, diced
1/2 c. water
1 T. olive oil
1/2 t. basil
1/2 t. oregano
1/2 t. salt

Pasta Sauce Ingredients:
2 c. chunky tomato sauce
1 c. onion, diced
3 cloves garlic
1 T. honey (or sugar for the super strict vegans)
1 T. olive oil
1 t. basil
1 t. oregano
1/2 t. salt

Mashed White Bean Ingredients:
1 c. white beans, cooked
2 T. lemon juice
1 T. olive oil
1 t. oregano
1 t. salt

In a 9x9 baking dish, mix the eggplant ingredients. Bake at 450 degrees for 15 minutes. Stir half way through. When it's done, remove the eggplant from the 9x9 baking dish so you can use it again.

Meanwhile, get the pasta sauce started by sauteing onions in olive oil, basil, oregano, and salt. When the onions are translucent, add the garlic and let it cook another minute. Then add the chunky tomato sauce and honey. Let it simmer.

Mash the cooked white beans with lemon juice, olive oil, oregano and salt.

Layer the pasta, pasta sauce, eggplants and mashed white beans in the 9x9 baking dish. Cover and bake at 350 degrees for 60 minutes.

potatoes and green beans in a mushroom gravy

Yay! A cold front came through Boulder! High of 67 and low of 49. Time for some kitchen intensive comfort food!

Serving Size: 6

Ingredients:
4 c. potatoes, diced
2 c. green beans, sliced into 1" segments
2 c. carrots, sliced into half circles
1 lb. tofu, pressed, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
salt and black pepper to taste
canola oil

Gravy Ingredients:
2 c. white button mushrooms, sliced
1 medium onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 c. water
2 T. canola oil
2 T. white miso
1 T. tahini
1 T. apple cider vinegar
1/2 t. thyme
salt and black pepper to taste

Cook the potatoes with a little canola oil and salt and pepper in a frying pan with a cover over medium heat for about 30 minutes. Stir them occasionally. Add a clove of minced garlic near the end when the potatoes are starting to turn golden brown. While the potatoes are cooking, saute the onion, mushrooms, and garlic in a little canola oil and salt. When the mushroom and onions are done cooking, set them aside for gravy making.

Reuse the mushroom/onion pan to steam the carrots and green beans in a splash of water over medium heat. Set them aside when they are cooked (not mushy). Reuse the frying pan again to cook the tofu in some canola oil and salt.

Onto gravy making! Grab half of the cooked mushroom, onion, garlic mixture and combine them with the remaining gravy ingredients. Use a blender to make a smooth gravy. Add the remaining mushroom, onion, garlic mixture to the gravy.

Mix everything together and eat! If you're feeling extra ambitious you could throw it all into a pie crust and you'll have a veggie pot pie. Or you could make some biscuits! Mmmm biscuits...

tofu documentary

I really recommend watching "Discover China: A Tale of Tofu." You will be shocked and amazed. Did they really just make those pure white blocks of bean curd in a traditional dirt-floor house in China? Did they just say "plaster of Paris"? Was plain tofu really not enough? How have I never ever heard of all the crazy variations of tofu - black tofu, fuzzy tofu, blood tofu??

For serious, rent it.

turnip chips

Turnips can be transformed into a salty snack perfect for porch sitting and beer drinking.

Ingredients:
turnips, sliced thin
olive oil
salt

Toss the turnip slices in olive oil and salt. Spread them out on a baking sheet and bake for around 20 minutes on a middle rack at 450 degrees. Flip the chips half way through. The turnip chips will turn golden brown at different times. Check on them often and remove the golden chips as they are ready.

To brighten up the snack, you can serve it with a refreshing dip like yogurt and green onions.

hard apple cider

Our apartment is a-bubbling with the sounds of fermentation! A while ago, organic apple cider was on sale at the grocery store--packaged in big glass gallon jugs, perfect for brewing hard apple cider. I finally got around to starting it the other day.

I loosely followed this recipe. Usually we use honey when making wine/mead, but I decided to try sugar this time. In my opinion, everything but the sugar and the yeast is optional: I omitted the pectic enzyme and yeast energizer because those didn't come with our garage sale'd brewing kit. I did use the optional campden tablet--it kills any wild strains of yeast and reduces the chance of having potentially good or bad "off flavors." Campden tablets can also be used to de-chlorinate tap water. If you do use a campden tablet or other sulphite, it may be a good idea to wait 24 hours before pitching the yeast.

I poured some cider out of each jug so that they didn't foam up into the airlock, but it happened anyway, so I had to stir down the bubbles a couple times. I'm going to try ice distilling one jug into applejack and maybe make the other one a sweet hard cider with bubbles.

Oh, leave a comment if you have a good recipe for ginger beer or root beet--I'd love to try those out. Maybe I'll try making the famous D 'n' B--Dandelion and Burdock--there sure is a surplus of those two plants! I could go for a cold crisp Cel-Ray too. So much to do--let the fermentation begin!