Alfalfa Sprouts

I made my own sprouts, you guys! It is so easy. Let me tell you about how I did it.

I put two tablespoons of alfalfa seed in a jar (in retrospect, this was WAY too much. Not only did I end up having to split the crop into three different jars as they grew, but now I have way more sprouts then I can actually eat on my own) with 8 tablespoons of water. General rule is 4 times as much water as you have seeds. Cover the jar with some cheese cloth or stocking material and soak the seeds overnight.


After 8-12 hours, drain and rinse the seeds, roll the jar around a little to get the seeds evenly spread out, and place the jar kind of on its side and sort of upside down in a dish (it will sort of leak water so you want to make sure you have something to catch the water with).

Rinse and drain the seeds a few times each day for 5-6 days. Use high water pressure to keep the sprouts loose, or you can take them out of the jar when it's starting to look kind of crowded in there and break them up by hand. You may end up having to transfer some to new jars because there isn't enough room for all the sprouts to grow together. Eventually your jar will look like this:


And then you can take them out of the jar and eat them! Yum! You can also de-hull your sprouts, which this website is really great at explaining.

Vegetarian Minestrone

Mmm, soup. I recently lost my soup pot, which I found to be a major tragedy, but I finally got around to getting a new one. You guys, this pot is huge and awesome! I love it. So, now I'm making soup. This is based off a soup on allrecipes.

Ingredients
1 tbsp butter
2 garlic cloves, diced
1/2 or 1 whole onion, chopped
4 cups vegetable stock, or 2 cups stock and 2 cups water (or the water you just boiled a bunch of corn in, if you're me) - you may need up to 5 more cups depending on how watery you like your soup.
1 (14.5 ounce) can diced tomatoes
1 large potato, cubed
2 carrots, chopped
2 tablespoons Italian seasoning
1 (15 ounce) can kidney beans
3 cups fresh corn kernels
1 large zucchini, sliced
2 cups uncooked pasta of your choice
A couple dollops of salsa
Cheese to taste (parmesan or other yummy distinctively-flavored cheese)


Process
1. Melt butter in your awesome soup pot (if you don't have an awesome soup pot, what are you waiting for?)
2. Saute garlic for a second then add onions and saute until they smell awesome (this is the best part of cooking anyway, right?)
3. Add stock, tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, seasoning
4. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes.
5. Add corn, zucchini, beans, and pasta, and simmer for another 10-15 minutes until the veggies are tender.


Yay for easy soups! Yay for SF being cold enough in the summer for me to want to make soup! Haha.

Sweet Corn

I now have a 16 quart stock pot, so I made a LOT of corn.


That's all.

Veggie Deep Dish

So as I mentioned before, I have a springform pan now - and this means, I can make deep dish pizza. Last night, I did! It was, I have to tell you, really awesome.

I found this recipe for deep dish and followed it pretty closely. I also used the bread & honey pizza dough recipe that I love, but tweaked it a little (not too successfully, unfortunately. Oh well).

You Need
For the crust:
1 cup warm water
1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
1 (1/4 oz) packet of active dry yeast (the book says "not the rapid-rise stuff!" but that's what I used and it was fine.)
2 tablespoons olive oil (and more for drizzling)
3 cups flour (I used 1/2 cup cornmeal, 1 1/2 cups bread flour, and 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour. It was kind of a Frankenstein's Monster, and was kind of the wrong consistency, but tasted yummy)
1 teaspoon salt

For the innards
1 (28-ounce) can crushed or diced tomatoes (the chunkier the better)
2 tablespoons tomato paste
2 tablespoons red wine
2 teaspoons Italian seasoning or 2 tablespoons fresh, chopped Italian herbs
1 1/2 teaspoons dried onion (I used fresh)
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 medium zucchini
1 bell pepper
½ teaspoon salt
Fresh ground pepper to taste
Throw some smoked paprika in there if you have it. Duh.

Cheese
2 cups shredded/grated mozzarella
2 TBSP parmesan or romano cheese

You Do
Preheat oven to 400.

Crust
Make your pizza dough (using b & h's instructions). Give yourself enough time; this will take at least an hour, and ideally a few hours. You definitely don't need as much of it as the recipe gives you; I used all of it and it was too crusty. I'd guess probably 3/4 of the ball you end up with should do the trick, but I'll get back to you when I try it again. Anyway, take your springform pan and pour a TBSP of olive oil in the center. Place your dough in the middle of the pan and press it down with your fingers toward the edges and about halfway up the sides. Prick it with a fork. Bake the crust for 10 minutes, then remove from the oven.


Innards
Saute your garlic and onion, add your zukes and pepps, saute for a bit. Then add all the other jazz, bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for about 10 minutes.

Puttin' it all together
Take your pre-cooked-a-little-bit crust and layer 1 cup of mozzarella on the bottom. Add as much of the sauce as will fit, like so:


... then throw the rest of the cheese on top (including the parm/romano) and dust with some oregano. Bake for 35-40 minutes, rotating every 15. The pizza is done when the crust is browned and the cheese is bubbly and delicious-looking.


I invited some friends over, so I really had to be successful, or they would have been angry and hungry. Luckily, they were pleased:

Sweet Potato Fries

Super super easy. It'll take you about half an hour, maybe a bit more.

You need
Sweet potatoes or yams
Olive oil
Basil
Salt
Pepper
Cardamom
Cinnamon
Cloves
Paprika
Cayenne
2 garlic cloves

You Do
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line a baking sheet with tin foil and set aside.

Slice up your potatoes or yams into fry-shaped wedges. Put em in a big bowl with a healthy amount of olive oil and diced garlic. Add spices with abandon, giving the cayenne, salt and paprika the most shakes and the cardamom the fewest. Stir around until wedges are well-coated with spices.

Transfer the wedges to your lined baking sheet and spread out into 1 even layer. Bake for 30-ish minutes, turning once to make sure they cook evenly.

Devour!

I maked a cake

I made a cake! I'm really proud of myself. Making cakes isn't something I really do, mostly because I usually lack the proper equipment. But! Last week I bought a springform pan from Sur La Table and this weekend set about making this cake. The only thing I did differently was substitute all-purpose flour for 1/2 whole wheat pastry flour and 1/2 bread flour. I like that combo, even if it's something I came up with out of necessity rather than any kind of baking genius.

You Need
1 small to medium orange
1 lemon
6 ounces raw almonds
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 Tbsp. baking powder
4 large eggs, ideally at room temperature
½ tsp. table salt
1 ½ cups sugar
2/3 cup olive oil
Confectioners’ sugar, for serving

You Do
... Follow Orangette's instructions. I'm too lazy to write them all out. I'll just say - watch when you pour the olive oil in, you will get these really cool batter caverns that close up after a few seconds.


Oh my god also the wiki article I linked to up there just taught me I can use this pan for PIZZA MAKING. Little Star, get ready for some competition.

Corn muffins

I made corn muffins! Yum. I did a bit of experimenting on these, which was fun and successful! Yay.

I started with this recipe and did some substitutions based on what I had around. They were great!

You Need
1 cup cornmeal
1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 cup bread flour (I used the pastry and bread flours because I didn't have any all-purpose flour. Feel free to use 1 cup of all-purpose if you prefer.)
1/3 cup honey
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg, beaten
1/4 cup walnut oil
1 cup plain yogurt

You do
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F, butter your muffin tins. Mix your dry ingredients together, add your wet ingredients. Mix everything together nicely, then spoon into muffin tinnies. Bake for 15-20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in a muffin comes out clean.

I think I had to cook these for a little while longer because of the yogurt - play it by ear. Since I used honey instead of sugar, these were more like cornbread muffins than regular corn muffins; sweet-tooth-people may want to add more honey (or just use sugar).