flakey biscuits

kris and i started doing friday night breakfast for dinner (ok so this is only the second time, but there are many more to come!) and tonight was biscuits and gravy. oh biscuits how i love them. they're flakey, they're buttery and they're so easy you can whip them up to accompany a week day meal. everyone should have a simple biscuit recipe on hand, this is mine. it's a super simple recipe that you could easily dress up by adding herbs and spices should you wish. oh and if you're curious, we made the mushroom gravy from vegan brunch. yum.

flakey biscuits
ingredients:
1 1/2 cup nondairy milk (i've used soy and almond and both worked great)
1 tsp. apple cider vinegar
4 cups flour
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 cup cold margarine
1/2 cup cold shortening

preheat oven to 375. in a small bowl mix together milk and vinegar and set aside to curdle.

in a large bowl mix flour, salt, baking power and baking soda. add the margarine and shortening in small clumps and cut into to flour mixture until it resembles coarse crumbs.

make a well in center and add milk. use your hands to mix the dry ingredients into the wet (it's more fun with your hands) the dough should be sticky (add more milk/flour if needed). turn onto a well floured surface and fold dough into itself a few times. roll out to 1 1/2 inch thickness and cut with a biscuit cutter/cookie cutter/drinking glass/what have you.

place on an ungreased cookie sheet and brush the tops with milk.

bake 12-14 minutes until golden.

bonus! if you don't want to eat all of these at once you will be happy to know that they freeze, pre-baked, really well. you'll just have to add a few minutes to the cooking time and you can have fresh biscuits all week!

-d

padron peppers

one of my favorite nibbles that has started showing up on more and more bar menus lately is shishito peppers, gently pan fried and tossed with salt. it's a light little munch that packs a lot of flavor. the other day while cruising through the farmers market i saw a stand with a basket overflowing with little green peppers. i know they weren't shishito but i thought they looked like they'd do the trick for making a home recreation. i'm not entirely sure what kind of pepper i bought but i predict padron and i'm sticking to it...i'm even so confidently calling this entry "padron peppers." so there ya go. now obviously i wouldn't go so far as to demand that you track down the same mystery peppers that i did but what you are going for is a small pepper (one bite is awesome, two bites tops) that is on the milder side with just a bit of kick when you eat the seeds.

this is a really simple snack, appetizer, whatever you want, to whip up. all you do is heat a bit of olive oil in a pan, throw in some salt and cook the peppers until they begin so soften and blister; just a few minutes. i let mine go a bit too long but they were still yummy. toss with a little more salt if needed and eat warm.

-d

eating and drinking ourselves through europe

kris and i recently* returned from a 10 day european vacation where we ate tons of falafel, drank a lot of beer and filled in the other parts with various delicious nibbles and drinks. i started writing this post and quickly realized that, at the rate i was going, it was going to be very long and very rambly and nobody wants that.

so in attempt number two i give you the highlights, as short and sweet as i can.

our first stop, brussels, was all about frites and beer.


we went to the cantillon brewery, if you like sour beer buy this stuff if you get the chance

it's really easy to do day trips from brussels. we went to cologne one day and tested out a couple of pretzels. the real winner was the walnut bread though.


after a few more days exploring brussels and day trips to ghent and lille we took off for amsterdam. kris and i love falafel and were on a mission to find the best that amsterdam had to offer. after 5 falafels in 4 days (with one day off) it came to a toss up between maoz and sonny. both places had fantastic toppings bars so that you could load up your falafel to your liking.


and certainly you didn't expect us to go through an entire trip without seeking out bagels. bagels & beans in amsterdam is surprisingly delicious!

a few more yummy things to leave you with:




*ok so it's been over a month. i've been a bit slow getting this post together.

-d

monster cabbage

who can resist a 6 pound cabbage at the grocery store? apparently not me and kris. this cabbage is so big it wouldn't fit in the drawer of the fridge. we had to do some rearranging.

it's bigger than your head!


basketball anyone?

now we wouldn't buy* this thing without a plan (that would just be silly). so what's in store for this beast of a cabbage?
today - slaw to accompany tacos
tomorrow - the best cabbage salad ever
thursday - hot and cold sesame noodles

will it be enough to finish the cabbage? we shall seeeeeeee......

*and speaking of the buying....we had a pleasant surprise when we looked at our receipt and noticed that the cashier guy thought it was a head of lettuce....and only charged us $1.99. what a bargain!

-d

sweet potato quesadillas

kris and i recently got back from a really fun jam packed trip to europe. i have tons of photos that i need to get online and one (or two) big travel/food posts to write. but since we have been go-go-going nonstop since we got back home a week ago the thought of doing that right now is a bit daunting. so, while that project is in the works i give you sweet potato quesadillas to hold you over in the meantime.

but make no mistake, this is no gotta-post-something-and-this-will-have-to-do recipe. these are awesome! they are a snap to make, can be tweaked in so many ways and i believe will be a hit even with those who normally go for the cheesy quesadillas. it all started when i bought sweet potatoes for a side dish one night, chopped 'em up and roasted them with garlic, salt and pepper, and finished it off with a squeeze of lime and cilantro (chopped, don't squeeze it, silly). it was so yummy and kris had the great idea to turn it into a quesadilla filling (a little twist on the yuca tortillas from veganomicon if that means anything to you). we topped ours with tomatoes, hot sauce and avocado but the possiblities are endless. next time i want to make cashew sour cream to dollop on top. and maybe a little cabbage slaw.

sweet potato quesadillas

ingredients:

sweet potatoes, sliced into 1/2 inch-ish rounds

garlic, roughly chopped*

olive oil

salt and pepper

juice of 1 lime

handful cilantro, chopped

your favorite tortillas**

super simple here....toss the sliced sweet potatoes and garlic with olive oil, salt and pepper and roast at 375 until the potatoes are tender. transfer to a bowl and mash until no big potato chunks are left. add lime juice and cilantro to taste along with more salt and pepper if needed.

when your potato mixture is absolutely delicious, heat a pan on the stove and add a tortilla. let it heat up a bit then dollop the potatoes onto the tortilla spreading the filling to the edges, and top with another tortilla. when the bottom tortilla is browned flip the whole thing over and brown the other side. remove, top with toppings and enjoy!

*you want to leave the pieces of garlic fairly large so that they roast and crisp up but don't burn

**we found really yummy chipotle flavored ones

-d

sf street food festival

this past weekend was the san francisco street food festival. kris and i headed over to the four blocks crammed with food trucks and restaurant stands to have ourselves a nibble-y grazing lunch.

we got down there pretty early and it was already getting packed with some crazy long lines. there were tons of food options but when you cut that down to only the vegetarian ones and then even more to vegan options, our choices were pretty much made for us. which is fine by me cause i would have felt overwhelmed otherwise....and probably would not have been able to walk home from being so full (and yes, we still have to wear coats in august...unless you're super tough like that red shirt dude).

our first stop was aziza which also happens to be one of our favorite restaurants. we got a little cup of spicy roasted chickpeas (yum!) and a super refreshing mint lime (i think) soda (which was really more like tea). off to a good start!

next we ran into a whole foods make-your-own trail mix table. we stuffed our little bags with banana chips, almonds, pumpkin seeds and cashews. didn't eat them yet though....they're coming with us on the long plane ride to europe later this week (thanks whole foods!).

the next stop was the highlight for me. several months ago erin sent me an article about a falafel truck called liba in the bay area. besides having supposedly amazing falafel they also have a toppings bar. sadly, i never made the trip to try one. but on saturday there they were! and no line....what's wrong with people?! anyway, the falafels were, in fact, amazing. i might go so far as to say they are the best in san francisco. they even come close to the falafel at l'as du falafel in paris which is incredible. perfectly crunchy on the outside and nice and light on the inside...mmmm. our only regret is that we only go the taster and not the sandwich.

the good news is that they are now downtown some days so we will definitely get these for lunch and soon!

our last stop was tacos.

i really should have written about (and probably eaten) this before the falafel because it is a tough act to follow. i've seen this truck around but never stopped before. it wasn't amazing but it was definitely tasty. the green salsa was actually super yummy!

and that concluded our street food tasting. it was a lot of fun and i look forward to going back next year.....and getting liba falafel asap!

-d

tagine cooking

my mom sent kris a tagine for his birthday which means, really, she sent us a tagine. we have several tagines hanging around, like these cuties for salt and pepper...

or these for bracelets

but i'm so happy to finally have one for cooking!

after going through the seasoning process of soaking (in which we learned it's extremely difficult to form a water tight seal over our kitchen sink drain) and then baking the empty tagine this beauty was ready to cook us some dinner!

we made this on a sunday night because, i'm not sure why, i thought it was going to take a long time to cook. but with about 5 minutes of chopping prep and 30 minutes-ish of cooking this would make an awesome weeknight dinner! we usually have farmer's market veggie medley dinners on tuesday but i predict a chunk of those dinners are going to end up in the tagine now. tagine tuesdays! i like it.

i looked at recipes as guidelines but didn't really end up following any of them exactly. what i took away from my brief research is that tagine cooking is pretty forgiving and if you fill it up with things that you like you're going to end up with an end result that you love. one thing i'll remember for next time is to add a bit more seasoning than i think it'll need. oh and one more thing, if i was doing this combination again (or any where one vegetable is likely to cook much faster than another) i would add the potatoes and then maybe halfway through add the zucchini because the poor zucs were a little too cooked i think....still yummy....but not perfect. i must say though, for a first attempt at tagine cooking this turned out great! here's what we put in ours:

moroccan tagine

ingredients:

2 cups water

potatoes, chopped

zucchini, chopped
tomato, chopped
onion, chopped

green olives, pitted

dried apricots, chopped

toasted almonds

cous cous

moroccan spice mix*

place the water in the tagine and sprinkle some spices on top (i'd say i put 1-2 tablespoons) chop up the potatoes, zucchini, tomato, onion, olives and apricots and place in the tagine. sprinkle some more spice mixture on top. here it is all ready to go....

put the lid on and cook on medium low heat for about 30 minutes until potatoes are tender and the water in the bottom has thickened and turned a bit saucey. serve over cous cous and top with toasted almond slivers. like this!

*i know, having this already on hand this made it almost too easy. if you don't have a premade moroccan spice mix here's what's in it: cumin, coriander, parsley, chili, cinnamon, turmeric, ginger, nutmeg, cloves, cardamom, sugar, salt and pepper and orange oil. so basically throw in a little of nearly every spice you have.

-d