Confetti Coleslaw

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I know summer is not far off when I begin thinking about making coleslaw. Once I make it, I'm doomed. I could eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Come to think of it, I have. And as a snack in between. There's something about the combination of fresh crisp cabbage, sweet carrots and this incredible buttermilk dressing that I can't seem to get enough of.

The inspiration for the dressing comes from Kalyn's Buttermilk Dressing that she used on her coleslaw last summer. I've made a few changes to suit my whimsy, but the credit really goes to Kalyn.

Confetti Coleslaw

Inspired by Kalyn's Buttermilk Dressing

Ingredients:

Slaw

1 medium head green cabbage

1 medium head red cabbage

6 carrots

1 cup (heaping) frozen peas per bowl of slaw

1 cup lightly toasted pecan pieces

Dressing

1 cup buttermilk

2 cups Vegenaise

3 tablespoons cider vinegar

3 tablespoons lemon juice

1 teaspoon wasabi powder

3/4 teaspoon celery salt

3/4 teaspoon onion powder

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

pinch kosher salt

1 packet Splenda

Preparation:

For the dressing, combine all the ingredients in a large glass measuring cup and whisk until blended. Taste and adjust seasonings and refrigerate until ready to use. This will keep in the fridge for several days, covered.

For the slaw, remove any limp outer leaves from the cabbages, slice them in half and cut out the core. Cut the coreless cabbages into wedges small enough to fit through the feed tube of a food processor. Fit the food processor with a slicing blade and process all the cabbage, emptying the contents into a large bowl when necessary.

Peel the carrots and snip the ends. Fit the grating blade into the food processor and push the carrots through the feed tube until they've all been grated.

Combine the carrots and the cabbages and mix well.

This makes a lot of slaw so I package about half of it into a gallon-size zip top bag and put it in the crisper of the fridge to use later. It will keep this way for about 4 days.

Toss about 1 1/2 cups of the dressing with 1/2 of the cole slaw. Chill in the fridge for at least 4 hours in a sealed container, turning it from time to time to evenly distribute the dressing. About 1/2 hour before serving, add a cupful of frozen peas and toss well to mix. The peas will have defrosted by the time the salad is served. Lightly toasted pecans, added just before serving adds a nutty crunch factor. Too bad my pecan container was empty this time!

Cook's Notes:

Vegenaise. Bless the Follow Your Heart people for coming up with a mayonnaise substitute that tastes wonderful! Made without eggs, you'd think it would taste just awful but it doesn't. I prefer it to mayonnaise now and am delighted that it's full of good omega 3's. Check their site out for yourself.

Copyright © 2005-2007, Christine Cooks. All rights reserved

A Mother Of A Bean

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Up until recently, I'd never been much of a bean person. I actually can't remember my mother ever cooking a pot of beans. Maybe that's where my indifference came from.

Not that I've never cooked beans before. In the 70s and early 80s when I decided to be vegetarian and Molly Katzen came out with the Moosewood Cookbook, I made her Black Bean Soup a lot. Over the years, though, my bean cooking had fallen off to just short of never.

These days, however, with all the attention on getting one's fiber, eating more whole grains, beans, etc., I've re-examined my ho-hum attitude toward the lowly bean.

Did you know that beans are a high fiber, complex carbohydrate, low glycemic food that are high in B vitamins and many minerals? Or that Beans have been shown to lower cholesterol, prevent diabetes, and lower the risk of colon cancer when eaten as part of a regular diet regimen? Neither did I until I did some research.

And if health factors alone were not enough to get me on the bean wagon, discovering Rancho Gordo has also helped to renew my interest. Steve Sando is so enthusiastic about his beans he practically could make a convert out of anybody. Including me. Here is my most recent purchase of a trio of beans from the man himself: Good Mother Stallard, Black Valentine and Marrow.

These beans are clean, people! No dust, no rocks. And I found just one bean that wasn't absolutely perfect. How many of you can say that about your store-bought beans?

Firmly on that bean wagon now, this morning I began with the Good Mother Stallard: A swirl of purplish burgundy on a creamy background encases this sturdy, plump bean which holds its shape even after cooking. The taste is nutty and earthy, the mouthfeel creamy and smooth. This is a bean to dress simply so its lovely flavor and texture are not muddled. And please don't throw out the cooking liquid. It's pure gold.

Cooked with fresh (or dried) bay leaves (I'm so lucky to have a bay tree growing outside my kitchen door!) and a covering of cold water, the finished beans needed nothing more than a drizzle of olive oil, some lemon zest and a sprinkling of Maldon Sea Salt to make my eyes light up and my tongue do its happy dance.

A quick rinse under cold water and these were ready to soak. A 6-hour soak was all they needed.

They cooked to a perfect consistency in less than 1 hour.

There's no particular recipe here. I simply did the following:
Rinse the dry beans under cold water.
Place them in a large pot and cover with cold, fresh water. Throw in 3 fresh or dried bay leaves. DO NOT salt the water. This will retard the cooking of the beans and you'll end up with hard rocks. Ditto on using stock. Just use plain, cold water and you'll be rewarded.

Place the pot over high heat and bring to a boil. When a boil is reached, lower the flame to maintain a simmer, on my stove, that was low.

Allow the beans to simmer until they've reached the consistency you desire. These were well cooked in just under 1 hour. In fact, I may have overcooked them just a teeny bit.

Remove the pan from the heat and drain the beans, saving the pot liquid! The liquid these beans make, in and of itself, is worth it. Use the liquid for soups, stews, or to add back into the beans if you wish.

Discard the bay leaves.

To achieve the finished dish (photo at top of page), drizzle beans with good, extra-virgin olive oil, a teaspoon of fresh lemon zest (go ahead, squirt in some juice if you want) and a sprinkling of good sea salt. Serve warm or at room temperature.

This is my entry for Weekend Herb Blogging. My post is not really about an herb per se, but WHB includes plants, veggies, and fruits as well. Plus, I'm so excited about beans, I simply must share.

Weekend Herb Blogging is the brainchild of my blogger buddy Kalyn of Kalyn's Kitchen and is being hosted this week by Ellie of Kitchen Wench, way down in Australia. To read about WHB and how to join in, please click here. Ellie should have her round-up posted on Monday. I can't wait to read all the entries!

Copyright © 2005-2007, Christine Cooks. All rights reserved

Chipotle Vanilla Ice Cream

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Take a bite. Go ahead. The first thing that hits your palate is vanilla, engaging both your nose and your tongue with its lovely perfume. Then cold. Sweet. A little crunch of chocolate. Suddenly, as the ice cream melts and reaches the back of your tongue, a bloom of smokey, hot, red jalapeno pepper fills your mouth.

What? You don't like your ice cream spicy hot?

Take heart, O timid one. Tempered by the cold and sweetness, the bloom is fleeting, gone all too soon. Did it really happen? That's when you take another bite. Then another. Then another...

Mr. CC's eyes got very big after his first taste. This is always a good sign. As a slow grin spread across his face, I knew I'd hit the bull's eye.

Hornitas in Estes Park, CO

So, the sisters and nieces were sitting around in Di's (the youngest sister) house in Colorado talking about Ann's (the middle niece) upcoming @%#*!th birthday (we're not allowed to say it out loud) and blow-the-doors-off-bash she's going to throw. Amidst the talk, margaritas and ginger-mint snaps (Ann's creation - hopefully she'll share the recipe), we were cooking up a somewhat Mexican influenced dinner for Kelly (the youngest niece) whose 18th birthday was on that very day.

While charring red bell, poblano and jalapeno peppers for the myriad dishes on the menu that night, which I will talk about in another post, I idly wondered about combining chipotles and vanilla in an ice cream custard. The more I thought about it the more I liked the idea and told Ann that, if successful, I'd bring the ice cream to her birthday bash.

I'm happy to report that this concoction is as delightful as I'd hoped and then some. Excellent on its own, a scoop would be an elegant partner to a sweetly-filled empanada (south american filled pastry turnover), my sis Cynthia's specialty.

As I'm wont to do, I made the ice cream low fat and sugar-free. The chocolate walked on stage as I was freezing the custard last night. Giving a slight curtsey it pleaded, "Use me, please!" How could I say no? Feel free to use all the cream, eggs and sugar you wish, but this is quite delicious as I've made it here and way easier on your heart.

Chipotle Vanilla Ice Cream
Christine's original recipe
Ingredients:
2 cups 2% milk
1 large chipotle chile in adobo sauce
1/4 teaspoon adobo sauce
1/2 vanilla bean
3/4 cup Splenda granular
1 cup egg substitute such as Lucerne's Best of the Egg (found at Safeway)
1 12-ounce can fat free evaporated milk
1 ounce chopped or shaved bitter-sweet chocolate

Preparation:

Combine the milk, chipotle chile, adobo sauce, vanilla bean and Splenda in a saucepan, whisking gently to incorporate the Splenda.

Place over low heat and bring to a simmer, whisking constantly. It's okay for the chile to break apart during this process as it will infuse the milk with its smokey heat.

Remove the pan from the heat and slowly whisk in the egg substitute until fully combined.

Return the pan to low heat and cook, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens and coats the back of a spoon. Take care that the eggs don't curdle.

Remove from the heat again and allow to cool for 5 minutes before stirring in the fat free evaporated milk.

Pour the mixture through a fine mesh strainer into a clean glass container.

Scrape the seeds from the vanilla pod into the mixture, stir to blend and refrigerate for at least 6 hours, or overnight, until thoroughly chilled.

Freeze in your ice cream maker following the manufacturer's directions. Add the chopped chocolate when the custard has become semi-frozen.

Ann, you find the ice cream maker and I'll figure out how to get the custard to Oakland.

Cook's Notes:

We girls cooked up a storm while in Colorado and I'm hoping to get a few of those recipes posted here soon.

Copyright © 2005-2007, Christine Cooks. All rights reserved

Welcome Simona!

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Dear food blogger buddies,

It gives me great pleasure to introduce my friend Simona to the blogging community. About to relocate from the Bay Area to the North Coast (yay!), Simona is a food writer, chocolate lover (her home town is Perugia, Italy) and new blogger.

Simona's blog, Briciole, has links to her lovely writing and features an "idiosyncratic and opinionated dictionary of Italian words related to food." I don't speak Italian, but as near as I can determine, Briciole may mean "meatballs". Simona, please correct me if I'm wrong.

Please check out her blog and give her a hearty welcome!

Copyright © 2005-2007, Christine Cooks. All rights reserved

Downtime

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Silence is never golden when it comes to blogging and I've been silent too long. I'm catching up with my other life for a bit. You know, the one that makes a salary, digs in the garden, does the laundry. That one. More posts and food are on the way.

Here's a gorgeous stone church my sisters, nieces and I saw while driving through the Rockies last week. Was it just last week? Time goes by so fast these days. Hola Hornitas! I love you all.

Copyright © 2005-2007, Christine Cooks. All rights reserved

Campari Tomatoes: Good For Breakfast

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Just a few weeks ago I could walk into my local Safeway and pick up any number of boxes of small-but-mighty, juicy, sweet Campari tomatoes. I discovered the taste of these babies some time ago and knew they were exemplary grocery store tomatoes. No cardboard taste here. I also knew that not many people knew what I knew.

Now, thanks to Ruth Reichl, who wrote about them in May 3rd's Gourmet Weekly, I'm lucky to find a mere box or two. And there's always someone else eyeing the very boxes that I'm eyeing.

Lucky for me, this time I got to them first. And no one was hurt.

This time.

These are US grown, pesticide-free tomatoes. Packed with antioxidents, they'll do your heart good. If the news hasn't hit your area yet, get down to the grocery store and pick up as many boxes as you can carry. Then run for your life.

Campari tomatoes are perfect on a BLT (until, of course, the heirlooms come in), in a fresh tomato sauce, or with your scrambled egg breakfast.

Bon Appetit!

Copyright © 2005-2007, Christine Cooks. All rights reserved

The Way I Roast Garlic

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My boys love roasted garlic. When they're in my kitchen, they can hardly wait for the garlic to come out of the oven before they start picking the soft caramelized, succulent cloves from their skins. Didn't used to be that way. They had to grow a bit, develop a keener sense of taste. But now, if Mr CC and I want some garlic for ourselves when the boys are around, I have to be sure to roast a lot and even then there's no guarantee.

So this post is for my boys: The way I roast garlic. Make your own! Just kidding.

Heat the oven to 350 degrees.

Take several heads of garlic and, using your fingers, peel the skins away to where they're just covering the cloves and keeping the heads together.

Laying a head on its side, cut the tops of the cloves off with a sharp knife. Trim the tips from the lower cloves with a small sharp knife.

Place the head in a small, lidded casserole and drizzle generously with olive oil.

Sprinkle with kosher salt, cover with the lid and roast in the oven for about 45 minutes or until golden brown and soft.

To make enough for a crowd. Follow the above directions and place the prepared heads in a large baking pan that has been drizzled with olive oil.

Continue with more olive oil and kosher salt then cover the pan tightly with foil and roast per the above directions.

Another very nice way to do the for-a-crowd method is to lay herbs in the bottom of the pan and place the garlic heads on top of them. I've used sage, rosemary, thyme and bay leaves. You can use your imagination. Just be sure to use hardy herbs as soft ones will burn in the oven.

Cook's Notes:

The sweet little garlic roaster came to us as a gift from our friend Luis. It's made in Mexico.

I'm going to be gone for a few days. The sisters and nieces are meeting in Colorado for our annual Hornitas-fest. I'll tell you about it when I return.

Copyright © 2005-2007, Christine Cooks. All rights reserved