About damn time we talked about tofu here, isn’t it? I mean, right up top there, it says “vegetarian, whole foods, and local foods recipes.” And yet, it’s taken all these months for humble tofu to even get a mention. Let’s rectify that now.

You can do this tofu roasted in a sesame and soy marinade in bite-sized pieces or in planks for sandwiches. Chewy and salty, with that smoky depth sesame lends, this roasted tofu is pretty irresistible. I have to forcefully resist just snacking on it as is until it’s all gone, it’s that good. Toss the bits into salads, or fried rice, or whatever strikes your fancy.

why should i care about bean curd?

Tofu’s the much-maligned vegetarian staple, inexorably linked with dirty hippies and horribly inappropriate preparations. Let’s run down some objections to tofu and then airily explain them away.

It’s a brick! That’s unnatural. I don’t eat square foods.

True, tofu often comes in blocks. However, it’s pretty natural. It’s just a solid form of soy milk, a liquid that comes from processing soybeans. I would say the technical term, that it’s coagulated soy milk, but that will probably just drive you further away. Chinese folks have been eating it for a few thousand years.

Tofu has no taste.

Absolutely true. Plain tofu has very little flavor. You know what’s neat about a food that has no taste? It becomes a vehicle for any flavor you want to attach to it. Tofu will soak up anything you add to it, be it soy sauce in a stir fry or honey in a smoothie.

Tofu triggers my texture issues.

Many people don’t like the silky, slightly gelatinous feel of tofu in its natural or slightly cooked state. While I’ve grown to kind of like that, I prefer to prepare tofu in ways that change that natural texture. Frozen and thawed tofu takes on a chewy, slightly spongy texture reminiscent of ground beef. I like to crumble thawed frozen tofu into stir fries, for instance. Silken tofus are used in desserts or blended into thick drinks, and have a smooth, creamy texture.

Tofu is too hard to prepare.

Some preparations are extra work; others, like tossing thawed frozen tofu crumbles into a stir fry, are effortless. This roasted tofu here is the same procedure as making roasted vegetables and yields yummy bites great for salads or sandwiches.

Thus ends the tofu lecture. I promise I’ll never do it again.

pressing tofu

I learned this method of pressing tofu (to get the excess liquid out) from Jenne Lemlin’s Vegetarian Classics: 300 Essential and Easy Recipes for Every Meal, which also happens to be the book I adapted this roasted tofu recipe from.

It’s way quicker than the “put a heavy book on top of it to press it for several hours” method you’ve probably heard of.

Here’s what you do:

Cut the block of tofu into slices the width you plan to cook. If cubing for a stir fry, this will be about half an inch. For the roasted tofu, I like making it in little chiclet-sized squares, so I cut it about a quarter-inch thick.

Put the slices on a paper towel or lint-free towel, then either put another paper towel on top or fold the cloth towel over, and press gently on the tofu pieces to release their liquid. Do this again, if you like, moving the tofu to a dry towel for the repeat.

That’s pretty much it. You can press again after cutting up the tofu into smaller pieces if you want it super dry. I’m really happy with this method of pressing tofu. It’s quick and not messy.

roasted tofu

Adapted from Vegetarian Classics: 300 Essential and Easy Recipes for Every Meal by Jeanne Lemlin.

oven: 450 degrees
prep: 40 minutes
cooking time: 25–30 minutes

1 (14 to 16 ounce) block of extra-firm tofu
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1½ tablespoons tamari or soy sauce
1 tablespoon rice vinegar

Cut tofu into ¼-inch slices. Lay out slices on a towel (lint-free cloth or paper), fold over or put another towel on top, and press gently on the tofu to get the liquid out. Repeat using dry area of the towel. Cut pressed tofu slices into ½-inch squares for bite-sized roasted tofu. If you’d like slabs to put in sandwiches, leave as is.

In a shallow dish such as a pie plate, whisk together the sesame oil, soy sauce, and rice vinegar. Add the cut up tofu, and with a wide spatula, gently mix to coat the tofu pieces with the mixture.

Marinate 30 minutes. Letting it sit out is fine. If you’re going to let it marinate longer (up to 24 hours), cover and refrigerate. Note: I’ve tried this with a 30-minute marinade and 24 hours. I preferred the tofu that had been marinated 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 450 degrees near end of marinating time.

Spread the marinated tofu pieces on a baking sheet and cook for 25-30 minutes, flipping once halfway through.

Note: If you can limit yourself to about 90g (just under a serving), this is a 100-calorie snack food.

© Amy for Shiny Cooking, 2010. | Permalink | 7 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: tofu

okay, fine, “macarons”

Well, en français they’re called macarons. Silly Frenchies. Macarons were October’s Daring Bakers Challenge. I filled them with lime-colored peppermint buttercream, and decided they looked like little hamburgers, and since it’s that time of the year, they’re now officially Halloween Boo-Burgers. Yay!

The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.

I must be a real hick, because I’ve participated in Daring Bakers challenges two months now, and I’d never heard of either month’s baked good. Vols-au-vent? Macarons? Double-you-tee-eff, mate?

Turns out macarons aren’t those coconut cookie things. They’re simple-looking cookies made of almond flour and powdered sugar folded into egg whites that have been beaten into a meringue and slightly sweetened with granulated sugar. As a result, they’re kind of nutty and kind of sweet, but not overly so. A perfect macaron will have a thin crunchy outside, chewy inside, and crunchy “feet” at the base.

It’s quite easy to become obsessed with achieving the perfect feet.

Word among the Daring Bakers was that this particular macaron recipe was a bit finicky. My first attempt, plain macarons, came out pretty well….

So I decided to try a cocoa-flavored version. Oops! That didn’t work out very well. They did get a thumbs-up from everyone who tried them. I told them they didn’t have to be nice. They said they actually really liked them. I was meh about the whole deal.

the traveling macarons

The macarons and I went with Linda this evening to see local bluegrass superstars The Doodads.

We met up with Debi and several of her family and friends.

See the macarons on the table? That’s my excuse for these two pics.

the nitty gritty

Back to basics. Each of these attempts I made using a scaled-down one egg white version of the recipe. I was just too scared to try more; I’d read too many disaster stories. Since I needed to beat only one egg white, my stand mixer was overkill, and its whisk attachment wouldn’t even be able to do the job properly as it doesn’t touch the bottom of the bowl. It was time to break out the trusty old hand mixer. I hadn’t used it in years. Good thing the pack rat in me made me keep it, eh?

Old egg whites are supposedly better. That egg white has been sitting on the counter for two days, covered in a paper towel secured with a rubber band. Then you have the powdered sugar and almond flour, sifted together. And the teensy bit of granulated sugar the one egg white recipe requires (a bit over a teaspoon).

That egg white sure got a lot bigger! Hey, is that meringue too wussy? I think I’m scared of overbeating.

Now this next pic is from the cocoa disaster, but I wanted to show you what folding in the dry ingredients looks like, and the gooey final product.

Shh, I know, I told you the cocoa ones came out badly. That’s still how the dough is supposed to look. Both my successful batches were just like that.

If you don’t have a squeezy pastry bag, just put a plastic bag in a glass and fold the edges over, and put your batter in that. Then snip off a corner of the baggie to squeeze through.

Just out of the oven.

macarons

Recipe adapted from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern. Directions are as provided by Daring Bakers. Have 5-6 of these for a 100-calorie snack.

prep: 20 minutes
bake: 5 minutes, then 7-8 minutes, approximately 13 minutes total
servings: varies by size of macaron; 1-inch (tiny!) macarons will yield 2 dozen per egg white in the recipe
oven: 200 degrees, then 375 degrees

Full recipe:


Confectioners’ (Icing) sugar: 2 ¼ cups (225 g, 8 oz.)

Almond flour: 2 cups (190 g, 6.7 oz.)

Granulated sugar: 2 tablespoons (25 g , .88 oz.)

Egg whites: 5 (Have at room temperature)

1 Egg White version:

Confectioners’ (Icing) sugar: 7 tablespoons (1.6 oz.)

Almond flour: 1/4 cup + 2-1/2 tablespoons (1.3 oz.)

Granulated sugar: 1-1/4 teaspoons (0.2 oz.)

Egg whites: 1 (Have at room temperature)

2 Egg Whites version:


Confectioners’ (Icing) sugar: 2 ¼ cups (3.2 oz.)

Almond flour: 3/4 cup + 2-1/2 tablespoons (2.7 oz.)

Granulated sugar: 2-1/2 teaspoons (0.35 oz.)

Egg whites: 2 (Have at room temperature)

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 200°F (93°C). Combine the confectioners’ sugar and almond flour in a medium bowl. If grinding your own nuts, combine nuts and a cup of confectioners’ sugar in the bowl of a food processor and grind until nuts are very fine and powdery.


2. Beat the egg whites in the clean dry bowl of a stand mixer until they hold soft peaks. Slowly add the granulated sugar and beat until the mixture holds stiff peaks.


3. Sift a third of the almond flour mixture into the meringue and fold gently to combine. If you are planning on adding zest or other flavorings to the batter, now is the time. Sift in the remaining almond flour in two batches. Be gentle! Don’t overfold, but fully incorporate your ingredients.


4. Spoon the mixture into a pastry bag fitted with a plain half-inch tip (Ateco #806). You can also use a Ziploc bag with a corner cut off. It’s easiest to fill your bag if you stand it up in a tall glass and fold the top down before spooning in the batter.


5. Pipe one-inch-sized (2.5 cm) mounds of batter onto baking sheets lined with nonstick liners (or parchment paper).


6. Bake the macaroon for 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and raise the temperature to 375°F (190°C). Once the oven is up to temperature, put the pans back in the oven and bake for an additional 7 to 8 minutes, or lightly colored.


7. Cool on a rack before filling.

© Amy for Shiny Cooking, 2009. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: almonds, eggs

Here’s a great way to use up Italian prune plums you may have lingering in the fridge. Sweetened just a bit and roasted in the oven, their flavor is intensified, and the plums create a rich, tart sauce. Caramelized Italian plums make a great topping — spoon them on ice cream, pound cake, or rice pudding.

Don’t get me wrong. Prune plums are best eaten straight. In fact, before this fall, I’d never cooked with them. But, after pruning away the black knot fungus that had been choking my two plum trees last year, we wound up with a pretty good yield this year. And eventually I shoved a few dozen plums in a plastic grocery bag in the back of the fridge.

Since I’ve never caramelized/roasted plums before, what gave me the idea? Well, before I did this, I made a kind of craptacular plum tart. The plums tasted really good cooked, but the skins were an off-putting texture to have in a dessert, and kind of wrecked it overall. Which is why you haven’t heard a peep about the plum tart here until now.

So…why not roast just the plums, and see what happens? I poked around online a bit looking for some basic structure — oven temp, time, etc. — and stumbled across a Martha Stewart recipe that was just what I was looking for.

Oh, plus, I really needed to think up a sweet vols-au-vent filling, and I had a bunch of prune plums withering away in the fridge.

When I first prepared my prune plums this way, caramelizing them for the vols-au-vent filling, I had a pleasant surprise: when I took the plums out of the oven, the skins had separated from the flesh, and were easily picked off. Now you get the plum flavor without the texture conflict of the skin!

The picture of the plums in the pan is a half recipe. Use a cookie sheet, or half-sheet pan when making the full recipe.

caramelized italian plums

prep: 10 minutes
oven time: 15-20 minutes
to table: 30 minutes
servings: 4 to 6
oven temp: 400 degrees

Adapted from Martha Stewart’s “Roasted Italian Plums” recipe.

1-1/2 pounds Italian prune plums
1 tablespoon butter
2 tablespoons sugar

Slice the plums in half and remove the pits. The pits should come out very easily. If they do not, the plums aren’t ripe enough. Put the plums in a medium bowl.

In a custard cup or other small, microwaveable dish, melt the butter. Stir in the sugar and add to the bowl of plums. Mix well, coating the plums with the butter and sugar mixture.

Place plums face down on a cookie sheet or other large, flat pan with sides. No need for parchment or greasing; they won’t stick to the pan. Bake in 400 degree oven for 15 to 20 minutes.

Pull out the pan, and tug on one of the skins. It should come away from the flesh fairly easily. If it doesn’t, roast the plums a few minutes longer. You don’t want to have to mess around with pliers and a spoon like I had to last time when they weren’t done quite enough.

When done, either let the plums cool a bit and remove the skins with your fingers, or, if you just can’t wait, use tongs.

Store in a covered container in the refrigerator. Be sure to scrape all the juices into the container as well — they’re the best part.

Consider caramelized prune plums as a chunky sort of fruit sauce. It’s good on ice cream, pound cake, with rice pudding, and should be pretty awesome stirred into plain or vanilla yogurt.

Or just eat them plain for an under 100 calorie snack. At 85 calories a serving, you could add 3 almonds to get some protein (okay, a teensy bit of protein) with it and still remain at 100 calories.

It was also good with lemon curd in the vols-au-vent.

© Amy for Shiny Cooking, 2009. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: plums

Here’s one amazing thing to do with leftover scraps of puff pastry: make mini palmiers. A good idea for snacks for a crowd. They’ll go fast, though!

Warning: drunken post ahead

My cousin Tone is in town, and he brought a big ass RV and several other modes of transportation with him. I countted five: the RV, the pickup, motorcycle, 4-wheeler and…kayak.

He’s set up house across the driveway. Yay.

He’s from Texas, like his mom —my aunt — who paradoxically was originally from right here. Like, right in this house. The oldest of my paternal triumvirant, Geriann, is his mom, and okay, this is getting both involved and a bit pedantic.

He came over tonight and we played 500 rummy. Four times. He completely, totally obliterated my ass the first two times. He played it a bit gin rummy style, holding things back to kick my ass, playing mind games, and so forth.

I fixed that right quick

Here, have some Wal-Mart wine, Tone.

Did you know that Wal-Mart, like Trader Joe’s, has a house brand of wine that will blow you away? In fact, I think the Wal-Mart brand is even better. It must be, because I’m having to spell-check this very carefully, and I don’t get this buzzed unless the alcohol is very good.

Wal-Mart markets two (at least) wonderful varieties under the Oak Leaf label: cabernet sauvignon and sauvignon blanc. Since I’m partial to reds, I buy the cabernet quite often. It used to be $2.97, and therefore comparable to two-buck chuck. I think it’s better. They just raised it — today— to $3.49, but I still think it’s a steal.

And I’m not some rube. I’ve had some very good wines in my day. This compares.

The first two games of rummy he smoked my ass. However, he was drinking this lovely cabernet the whole time, and by the third game I was able to smoke him, 605 to 390. Yay! I have to say he was a good foil; I’d never played 500 rummy with someone who played so strategically.

And man that was hard to spell.

Ultimately, we went through 2 and a half bottles of Wal-Mart cabernet. He is going to go buy more tomorrow if he knows what is good for him.

As for snacks, we began by stabbing, literally, at a pink brandywine. My tomatoes just succumbed to late blight, and I’m pulling all the tomatoes off the vines. It is very sad, and let us all share a moment of silence for them. He loved it; it was nearly as flavorful as my previous crop of pink brandywines, which means very smoky and rich.

A bit afterwards, in the third game actually — coincidentally, the one where I smoked him — he got peckish again. The cad.

how dare he get peckish

I had a smallish pat of scraps of homemade puff pastry in the fridge, and I whipped it out, sprinkled some cinnamon sugar on it, and made a bit over a dozen mini palmiers from it.

He snarfed them.

Granted, anything puff pastry is going to be melt-in-your-mouth delicious, but include cinnamon sugar and you have little bursts of melty spiciness.

P.S. Did I mention I won the third game? Yeah, the one where the mini palmiers came out.

Song for this recipe: Carrion by British Sea Power.

mini palmiers

oven: 400 degrees

You might not use all of the cinnamon sugar mixture. Simply follow the recipe and sprinkle the cinnamon sugar in a thin, but complete, layer over the rolled puff pastry. Do not ball puff pastry scraps. Instead, stack them before rolling again. They will not rise as much as the original puff pastry, but they work excellently in recipes like these palmiers.

leftover scraps of puff pastry dough
3 tablespoons white granulated sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Mix sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl.

With a rolling pin, roll the stacked puff pastry scraps in a rectangle roughly 1/16 of an inch thick.

Sprinkle cinnamon sugar in a thin layer over the rolled puff pastry, covering it completely.

With your hands, roll one side of the sugared puff pastry to the middle of the rectangle. Repeat on the opposite side.

With a sharp knife or pastry scraper, cut the rolled pastry in 1/8 of an inch wide increments. You now have your raw mini palmiers!

Place the mini palmiers on a parchment paper-covered baking sheet. Leave ample space between them; they may still expand quite a bit as they bake.

Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes, or until very lightly browned.

© Amy for Shiny Cooking, 2009. | Permalink | Leave a comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: ap flour, cinnamon

Want an easy, colorful, summery, fancy-schmancy looking appetizer to serve guests? These little fellas fit the bill, the bright crunch of juicy tomato mingling with sweet basil and fresh mozzarella, all drizzled with balsamic vinaigrette.

There. The food porn description is out of the way.

We threw a surprise party for Mom Saturday. As I apparently noted several times near the end of the night, it was a smashing success. Why several times? Seems I got drunk off my ass by the end. As planned. It wasn’t an accident ffs.

Look at that awesome cake Stacy’s mom made for the surprise party

People kept asking ahead of time how surprisey it was going to be. I briefly wondered at the wisdom of shocking someone with a history of heart problems, and laconically waved those concerns aside. “Not much, I think,” I told them. “We’re doing family pictures right before the party, and we expect people will begin showing up and we’ll be setting up right in front of her.”

Thanks to the big ass house, though, we were able to pull off a complete surprise. While the final pictures were being shot in the living room, Jennifer and I rushed off to the family room to get tables and chairs out and set out the cake. By the time we led Mom to the family room, most of the partygoers had arrived, and wound up giving her a proper “Surprise!” shout.

Oh, my point? One of the things I made was caprese skewers. I also made corn and crab dip. Crap. It’s gone. I didn’t get pics of it. Oh well, caprese skewers will do for now.

P.S. two to three of these is a 100-calorie snack. Believe me, you won’t have a chance to get your hands on more. Go for three. The calorie listing includes all of the balsamic vinaigrette, and I only wound up using about half of it.

caprese skewers

These appetizers may be served up to 3 hours after assembling. Do not refrigerate after putting them together. Simply cover with plastic wrap on their serving plate until it’s time to serve. Adapted from Cocktail Food: 50 Finger Foods with Attitude, by Mary Corpening Barber and Sara Corpening Whiteford.

1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper, divided
1/8 teaspoon kosher salt
4 ounces fresh mozzarella
24 grape tomatoes
24 small to medium leaves of fresh basil
24 toothpicks or 5-inch bamboo skewers

Soak toothpicks or skewers in water. This will keep them from splintering when assembling the skewers.

Cut the mozzarella into 24 1/2-inch cubes. In a small bowl, toss with the 1 teaspoon of olive oil and 1/8 teaspoon of the pepper. Set aside to allow the mozzarella to absorb the flavors.

In another small bowl, whisk together balsamic vinegar, remaining 1 tablespoon of olive oil, 1/8 teaspoon pepper, and the kosher salt. This is the vinaigrette you’ll be brushing on the skewers, once assembled. If you’re using regular salt, begin with a little less, say, a pinch, and work up from there. I found that the fresh mozzarella I bought was already well-salted, so it didn’t need much more.

Time to put caprese skewers together!

1. Slide 1 grape tomato onto a toothpick or skewer.
2. Fold 1 basil leaf in half; pierce with skewer and slide up to the tomato.
3. Poke 1 mozzarella cube onto the skewer.
4. Repeat 23 more times.

Lay out the assembled skewers on a nice plate. It helps to lean them against one another at a 30 degree angle or so — makes it easier for people to grab them. Once laid out, brush them with the balsamic vinaigrette, and serve.

Variations: Try them without the balsamic vinaigrette. The vinaigrette adds a lot of “pop” to the skewers, but I kind of like the homey taste of tomato/basil/mozzarella/oil/pepper all on its own too. It depends on the tastes of your guests, or what you’re serving, I suppose.

© Amy for Shiny Cooking, 2009. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: basil, mozzarella, tomato

Oh my. The garden asplode. Zucchini, broccoli, carrots, green beans, broccoli. And the broccoli isn’t sporting those horribly invisible green worms yet. I think.

There’s still lettuce and peas, though that’s ending now that hot temps have arrived, and cucumbers coming along, and some poblanos that are looking mighty big, and swiss chard with leaves 2 feet long, I kid you not.

Not to mention dill.

I haven’t felt much like cooking the veggies yet, so I mixed up this dill dip that I love. Did I mention there’s dill in the garden too? Oh, I did. Guess what, it’s a perennial if you let it be so. Well, it’ll die away completely in the fall. But it’ll drop a zillion seeds, all of which will come right on up the next spring. So now there’s a loosely-defined “dill section” in the garden. Get some dill seed or plants for yourself, and you too can effortlessly have fresh dill from spring to fall, every year.

ha ha, she said “dip”

This dill dip is polite, yet ruthlessly efficient at what it does — delicately seasoned with a bit of parsley and a touch of seasoned salt and onion warming the background, it’s a dip where the freshness of dill dominates. I just consumed 1 large zucchini, 2 small carrots, and a good number of broccoli florets thanks to this dip. Go veggies!

the best dill dip evar

Of course this is best with fresh dill and parsley, but you can use dried in a pinch. Use 1-1/2 tablespoons dried dill, and for parsley use 1/2 a tablespoon.

prep: 10 minutes
to table: 40 minutes (let it chill, the longer the better)
servings: 16

1 cup sour cream
1 cup mayonnaise
1-1/2 tablespoons minced onion
1 teaspoon seasoned salt
1-1/2 tablespoons fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped finely
4-1/2 tablespoons fresh dill, chopped finely

In a medium bowl, stir together the sour cream, mayonnaise, onion, seasoned salt, parsley, and dill. Mix well. Chill at least 30 minutes to allow flavors to mingle.

© Amy for Shiny Cooking, 2009. | Permalink | 8 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: dill

Check out this awesome bowl Dad found under the house.

Under the house, you say? Why yes, under the house. Why do you ask?

Oh, you didn’t know. My house got a new foundation this spring.

Wow, those plum blossoms in the background sure look pretty.

So yesterday Dad, his cousin, and the guy who works with him were putting new beams under the house. At one point I was out in garden, valiantly hacking at the giant weeds with a hoe, when Dad called out, “Amy…I found something for you!”

Great, I said to myself. Probably a burlap sack he wants me to turn into a dress. Sorry, family joke.

It was actually the little white bowl above, caked in dirt. It had no chips and cleaned up nicely.

get to the currant sorbet already

Isn’t that currant sorbet a lovely shade of pink? It’s super refreshing on a hot summer day, and a whiff of summer in the dead of winter. If you can get your hands on some red currants, make some currant juice and get this sorbet into your freezer posthaste.

The inherent sweetness of the berries can vary. The main liquid/sweetening agent in this sorbet is a simple syrup. Simple syrup is traditionally just a 1:1 ratio of water and sugar, heated until it forms a clear liquid. In fact, simple syrup can be used in all sorts of sorbets. If you find the sorbet a little tart, try increasing the simple syrup to 3/4 cup water and 3/4 cup granulated sugar.

News flash! This currant sorbet recipe is now entered in the Ice Cream Social Challenge, hosted by ScottySnacks, SavortheThyme and Tangled Noodle. It runs through July, so I’ll let know how it goes and if there is adulation or raucous booing to be had.

currant sorbet

Adapted from a recipe by Delicious Days.

prep: 10 minutes
freeze: several hours
servings: 5
special equipment: food processor or blender

1/2 cup water
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 cup red currant juice
1 tablespoon orange juice
1 teaspoon lime juice

In a small saucepan, bring water and sugar to a boil. Lower heat and simmer until sugar is dissolved, a minute or two. Remove from heat and allow to cool completely. Guess what? You just made a simple syrup.

Combine currant juice, orange juice, and lime juice. Add the cooled simple syrup. Freeze several hours.

Once the sorbet is frozen, it will be dark red, with a coarse texture from large water crystals. Scoop the sorbet into a food processor or blender (food processor will work better), and allow to soften a few minutes. Whirl the currant sorbet until smooth and pink, then store in the freezer. This technique will lend the sorbet a perfect texture, like store-bought.

© Amy for Shiny Cooking, 2009. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: red currants

Ignore the “gluten-free” in the title. These are not some saintly cardboardy cookie things.

And I’m really not trying to be All About Baking here. Honestly.

And I’m not trying to be all health nut vegetarian gluten-free, either. FSM knows I’m a crappy vegetarian and an even more piss-poor health nut.

But you know what? These cookies are really good. I don’t even care that as far as cookies go, they are on the saintly side. They’re vegan. They’re whole grain. They even have ground flax seed.

These cookies have no right to be as yummy as they are. They should taste like nice healthy cardboard, but instead they have some kind of awesome nutty oaty crunchy thing going on.

I ran across them a while back when I didn’t have eggs, and I didn’t have the time or the patience to wait for butter to soften, but wanted chocolate chip cookies. You know when that is. At night, in winter, when some horrid wind is howling outside and PMS is prodding you to find something sweet and chocolate now or it’s going to get really cranky and take you along with it.

Oh, look. I had a helper. This is why these cookies happened today. Little voices.

“AUNT AMY, CAN WE MAKE COOKIES? I WANT TO MAKE COOKIES. LET’S MAKE COOKIES. I WANT TO HELP. I CAN HELP. LET ME POUR THAT IN. I DIDN’T SPILL IT ON PURPOSE. I DON’T KNOW HOW THE DOUGH GOT ON THE FLOOR. THIS LOOKS FUNNY. HOW CAN YOU MAKE COOKIES WITHOUT BUTTER?”

Let’s see. These chocolate chip cookies bake pretty flat. They aren’t fluffsters. They are also better crunchy; when you bake them til they are medium brown. They’re good with nuts but I also think they’re good without nuts, which is rare — I tend to prefer nuts in my chocolate chip cookies. The recipe only makes about 18 cookies, so double it up if you want lots.

To be sure about the gluten-free-ness, make sure to use gluten-free vanilla, and check your canola oil and oats. Oats are naturally gluten-free but apparently some cross-contamination can occur or something in processing bla bla.

gluten-free chocolate chip cookies

Two notes: One, if you don’t have flax seed and soy milk, replace those two ingredients with one egg. That’s basically what the ground flax seed and soy milk are standing in for. Two, I make my own oat flour. Run regular or quick oats through the food processor for about 30 seconds, until a floury consistency. Store unusued oat flour in an airtight container.

I’ve only ever made these with homemade oat flour, and it’s nowhere near as fine a consistency as a store-bought flour would be, so the cookies have a kind of nutty oat crunch to them. If you make them with some fancy oat flour, let me know how they turn out in comparison.

prep: 15 minutes
into your mouths: 40 minutes
servings: 18 cookies
oven: 375 degrees, bake 10-12 minutes

1-3/4 cups oat flour (see notes)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon ground flax seed
1/4 cup soy milk
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar, lightly packed
1/3 cup walnut oil or canola oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

In a large bowl, mix together oat flour, soda, and salt.

In a small bowl, whisk together ground flax seed and soymilk. Stir in white and brown sugars. Add walnut or canola oil and vanilla and whisk together until the mixture is emulsified (the oil is no longer separate).

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, and stir until moistened. Fold in chocolate chips and nuts, if desired.

Scoop onto cookie sheet. I use a medium size cookie scoop. Bake at 375 degrees for 10-12 minutes. Let cool for 2 minutes, then transfer to wire rack to cool. If you let them sit on the pans too long, they’ll be really hard to get off.

© Amy for Shiny Cooking, 2009. | Permalink | 6 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: chocolate, oats