Homemade Veggie Burgers! mmm....

 

There are a good few things I want to write about, but since a number of people have been asking me about this particular topic lately, I'll go with it!

A bit of background: I've been a vegetarian for 18 or 19 years now, and I take care to make sure that I have enough protein in my diet, as it can be easy for a veg to overlook.  A lot of vegetarians just grab for their jar of peanut butter (if they live in the US), a block of cheese, or a can of beans and call it a day.

But... why do that when you can make something that is more balanced, tasty, AND easy?  Veggie burgers are the staple of many veggie diets, but generally they are the type that are in a box in the frozen food isle.  Even if you go to a nice restaurant and order a veggie burger, it is...well, always from my experience....from a box in the freezer.  It never occurred to me that veggie burgers were something that normal people could make at home, until my husband got me a really great book, Veggie Burgers Every Which Way, by Lukas Volger. I have to admit, I am terrible about following recipes.  I generally just look at one to get inspiration, and then go my own way.  I followed some recipes in this book the first few times, but now that I just make 'em up as I go, and they turn out great.  I really do recommend this book, though.

A note on beans: Yeah, you can used canned beans, but they are generally loaded with preservatives and just aren't as tasty as the real thing.  The 'real thing' is easy, you just have to think of it in advance.  Before you go to bed, put some dried beans in a bowl, cover with water, and leave them there for 12 hours, plus or minus whatever time is convenient to you.  Rinse and then put in a pot and cover with fresh water and simmer til done.  Time will depend on the bean.  They are so much tastier this way.  And cheaper. 

Ok, so here is the 'Easy Bean Burger' recipe at the beginning of his book, slightly adapted.  It really is easy! And tasty! And versatile! You can also make them into tiny patties to put on a salad, which is fun.  And you can wrap up uncooked burgers and stick them in the freezer for up to 2 months. 


Easy Bean Burger
1 1/2 cups cooked beans
2 beaten eggs
1/2 cup roughly chopped fresh parsley
1/4 grated parmesan
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
1/2 teaspoons salt
14 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
squeeze of fresh lemon juice
3/4 cup tasted bread crumbs (plus more if needed)
2 Tbs olive oil
(Optional tasty things to add in: chopped fresh sage, pesto, chopped sun dried tomatoes, chopped walnuts, etc)
**if you don't have all of these ingredients, don't worry.  The necessary ingredients are the beans, eggs, salt & pepper, bread crumbs, oil... but it is better with the other things.

-Preheat oven to 375 F
-Mash the beans in a bowl, and fold in all ingredients except for bread crumbs.  Then add bread crumbs, and add more if it is too loose.  It should be nice and wet.  Let sit for 5 minutes or so for the crumbs to soak up extra moisture.  Shape into 4 patties (or more, if you want mini burgers).
-In an oven safe skillet (like cast iron pan), heat oil over medium-high heat.  Add patties and cook until browned on each side, which should take 5-10 minutes total.  Transfer the pan to the oven and bake 12-15 minutes more until the burgers are firm and cooked through.  (if you don't have an oven safe skillet, cook over heat in whatever you have, and then cook in the oven on something that can go in the oven, like a cookie sheet or aluminum foil.

Serve however you want! I like to make my own buns (so easy! Get that book I told you about for the recipe.  Or just make normal bread, using half whole wheat, and form into balls, and use an eggwash to make seeds or whatever you want on top to stick) and also to make my own baked french fries and pickled red onions. 

No-Knead Bread

I know that this is so 2006, and it's been written about probably ten thousand times, but it's so good and simple that I must also contribute to the plethora of blog posts about this magnificent bread.

No-knead bread hit the mainstream audience in November 2006 with this article in the NY Times.  It was a baking sensation that overtook the nation, as much as home baked goods can.  Foodies everywhere were talking about it.  I heard about it, and was curious, but never  tried it or made it until this past week.  To put it simply, it blew me away and I'm obsessed with it.  I'm also in the process of making my third loaf in one week!  I'm not someone who is generally a 'bread eater', as most bread isn't worth eating in my opinion.  I am in love with the wonderful fermented breads made in France, but that's about it.  My bread's got to be fermented, take multiple days to make, have a chewy crumb and rustic thick crust,  or I generally won't touch it.  However, I usually don't take the time to make this sort of bread at home, so I usually go breadless.  Unfortunately, in this part of Italy, the bread generally...well, sucks.  Italians, at least around here, treat bread simply as a utensil to mop up the juice on their plates and to push food on their forks. 

I think the no-knead revolution has just hit Italy, though.  It's similar to a ciabatta, but possibly tastier.  It is also easier to make.  Last night we had a small dinner party at our house, and the three guests gobbled up the whole loaf and all requested the recipe, which I then had to translate into the metric system.

It's an extraordinarily simple process, and the only important piece of kitchen equipment is something like a Le Creuset, or any other heavy pot (cast iron, terra cotta, etc) with a good lid. However, since we will be heating it up to a high temp, to be on the safe side you might want to unscrew your lid handle and stuff the hole with a piece of aluminum. 

  You add your 4 ingredients together in a big bowl:
3 cups flour
1 1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp yeast
1 5/8 cups water
 (later you will need a little corn meal, wheat bran, polenta, or something like this)

It will be a wet, shaggy mess.  Then you cover it, leave it in a warm-ish place, and let it sit undisturbed for about 18 hours.  It will grow into a significantly larger wet mess, dotted with bubbles, emitting a nice yeasty smell even though hardly any yeast is used.

After the 18 or so hours are up and it looks all bubbly and ooey gooey like the photo above, flour a work surface and gently pour your dough onto it.  Sprinkle dough with a little flour, and fold it in on itself one or two times.  Cover and let it sit for 15 minutes.

Very quickly form it into a ball, only using enough flour to keep it from sticking to your fingers.  However, I found that it doesn't want to be a ball, it wants to be a sticky blog.  Anyhow, make it as ball like as possible, and place the goopy mess on a tea towel (or as we say in the US, dish towel, although it doesn't sound as nice) that has been coated with your cornmeal/polenta/wheat bran/something like that, UGLY side down.  Or, shall I say, uglier side down.  Sprinkle some more of whatever you used (l like using mill ground cornmeal or polenta) and cover with another tea towel.  Leave it for 2 hours.  It'll rise some, as bread is prone to do.

30 minutes before your rise is up (which is 1 1/2 hours after it started on its second rise), stick your pot with its lid on in an oven preheated to 450 degrees Fahrenheit. 

CAREFULLY take it out after that time is up, and dump your dough into the hot pot so that it is 'ugly side up' AKA seam side up.  Trust me, it will make end up beautiful.  Wiggle the pot back and forth a little to make sure dough gets evenly distributed.  Cover with the lid and stick it in the oven for 30 minutes.  Then, take off the lid and cook for another 15 minutes or so until it is a lovely golden brown.  Dump it out of your pot and let it cool on a wire rack before eating.

It is delish.  Now it is time for me to prepare batch #3 for its second rising! 

 See how lovely it is?  It's turning me into a bread-lover, and will probably make me fat from carb-overload

 Nice crumb inside resulting from the day of letting it ferment... yum!


The reason you need this pot is so that bread has a shape (otherwise it will turn into a long flat blob), and most importantly, to develop a good crust.  Because the dough is so moist, when it cooks it gives off a lot of steam.  Cooking it in a hot, lidded pot is basically like cooking it in a tiny steam-injected oven, which means that you get a fantastic texture and taste out of your crust. 

Pie, the mysterious food art

Pie making is truly an art.
A 'good' pie tastes good and looks good. An utterly fantastic pie that makes your toes curl and moans escape your throat has so much more. Not only are the innards tasty and cooked/prepared to perfection, but they use fresh, seasonal ingredients, and are a combination of simplicity and some sort of unexpected 'wow' factor. The crust must be tender, yet flaky (even the bottom), a perfect light golden brown, and beautifully crafted. It should be so beautiful that you can't bear to cut into it, but the tendrils of eau d'pie wafting towards your nostrils make it so that you MUST try it, and once you do, you want to devour the whole thing in one sitting, but devour it slowly, so as to appreciate all of these elements which make the pie so perfect.

I usually don't have the energy, unless it is for a special occasion, to attempt to make a supremely fantastic pie. I usually settle for 'damn good'. I constantly have people asking me to reveal my secrets of pie making... but here's the thing. They aren't secrets. I'm happy to share everything I know.

First, I will post a few pictures of what I think are some extraordinary pies, some made my me, and some not. Most of not all of the photos come from my family's annual Pie Party, which is probably the best event in the world.

Anyone who knows her, will tell you, but Brookes Wolfe makes a killer pie, and she can make the most beautiful crusts imaginable.  Not only does she have some gorgeous leaf action going on, but she has a rope edge on it, which is hard to do.  I think the innards were trusty combo of apples and berries, which you can never go wrong with.

One of my pies.  If I recall correctly, it was a lemon-lavender-raspberry pie with a berry and rosewater glaze, with a leaf crust edge and crystallized calendula flowers. 

David the Baker's 'Upside down chicken pie'.  It was a combination of beautiful and terrifying.  From what I understand, it was delicious, even with the claws leering at you (I'm a vegetarian, so I didn't try it).  He butchered the chicken himself, made an interesting crust, and had extreme shock value to make this pie memorable.

A beautiful creation from my mom, Barbara Swell.  You can probably see where I learned to do the leaves from! This was a roasted veggie pie, and it was a combo of beautiful and wonderfully tasty.

Another of my mom's pies.  while it might not be a show-stopper in appearance, it is by far the best thing I ever ever tasted in my entire life.  It was a blackberry pie with a layer of dark chocolate on the bottom.  When I ate it, I shouted out 'OH MOMMA!', and that's what this kind of pie is called now.  Holy crap, you can't imagine how amazing this was.  An unexpected twist on a traditional pie, that adds to the flavor, and makes it so incredible that you scream out for it when you sleep... that's what I'm talking about.

Thanksgiving is coming up, and that means pumpkin pie for most folks. It's not a show stopping pie, but it certainly goes into the 'damn good' category, especially when you make it will a real pumpkin, as opposed to the canned variety. I'll start you off with a recipe for that (don't worry, by the end of this post you'll be able to make a stellar crust as well!). This page in my recipe book is covered with so many spills of all of the ingredients that the pages stick together and it's hardly legible anymore. It's that trusty of a pumpkin pie recipe. I swear by it.  The difference between this and most other pumpkin pie recipes is that it only has one egg, so it is denser and not eggy.

Mrs. Painter's Pumpkin Pie
from: The Lost Art of Pie Making Made Easy, by Barbara Swell

1 1/2 cup pumpkin puree
1 1/3 cup evaporated milk (I use whole milk and it's just fine)
1 egg
3/4 cup brown sugar
pinch salt
1 Tbs. flour
1 tsp each cinnamon and ginger
dash of freshly grated nutmeg.

Mix all ingredients well, and pour into an unbaked pie shell. Bake in a 350 degree oven on the bottom rack for about 45 minutes or until the middle is firm. Cover the edges with foil if needed to keep from over-browning."

You know when this is done when you wiggle it a big and the middle doesn't slosh. This is one of those pies best eaten once it's been cooled off, and preferably refrigerated. The crust has a tendency to finish before the insides, so pay close attention once you hit the 1/2 hour mark, remember that foil is your friend to keep crusts from burning!

Pumpkin pie I made yesterday cooling on the windowsill


Now, for the crust...

Many folks have fear of crust. And I don't fault them for it, because a good pie crust is a tricky thing, and there are a lot of terrible crusts out there. But there are some fantastic ones out there as well, and that's what I'm going to write about now. Some people like to make different types of crusts for different pies, but for most pies I use the same basic recipe, as it works well for just about everything. It's how I learned to make it from my momma, the undisputed Queen of Pie, and it's won me 'best crust' in the giant pie contest nearly every year.

First, a couple of things that will help you, before giving you the recipe:
1) Use good ingredients. That should be obvious, but if you use discount flour and discount butter, it's not going to be good. If you want good pie, use good ingredients.
2) Keep your ingredients (especially butter) very very COLD. I can't emphasize enough how important this is.
3) Work the dough as little as possible.

Ok, so now for your ingredients. This is enough for a 1 crust pie that fits in a 9" pie pan. If you need a 2 crust pie, just double the recipe. I don't measure exactly, as I eyeball it all, but this is theoretically what I am doing:

1 cup white, unbleached all purpose flour (King Arthur brand is reliable)
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp sugar
very small amount of baking powder (little less than 1/4 tsp)
5 3/4 Tbs very cold unsalted butter
small bowl of ice water with a juice of half a lemon squeezed into it (you'll use about 5 Tbs of this water)

Mix dry ingredients together. Some folks say sift, but to be honest, I've never sifted anything in my life and it all turns out just fine. Cut your butter into cubes (approx 1/2 inch), and using a pastry cutter, fork or tips (seriously! only the tips!) of your fingers cut in half of the butter, until it is like course crumbs. This step makes it tender. Then cut in the rest of the butter, until it is the size of small peas. That makes it flaky. Get your icy lemony water, and stir in the water one tablespoon at a time. Stir it with a fork, and it's done when it BARELY holds together when you squeeze it. Don't you dare make a wet dough, because it will be nasty if you do that. It will seem kind of dry, but as long as it barely sticks together, it's fine. At this point there is an optional step, which I'm not sure if I can describe, and feel free to skip. There's a French name for this technique, but I haven't a clue how to spell it, just how to do it. I quickly form the dough into a ball (don't touch it too much, you'll melt the butter!), and then I put it on a slightly floured surface and using the heel of my hand, I push it down hard into the ball of dough and push it away. This helps with the flakiness. Then I form it into a flattened ball.

However, you can skip that if it seems too much, and you can go ahead and make your dough into a flattened ball. It shouldn't be more than an inch thick. Wrap well in plastic wrap, and put it in the fridge. It needs to rest for an absolute minimum of a half an hour, but several hours or even overnight is ideal. The resting period of the dough in the refrigerator is important.

When you are ready, take out your dough, flour a surface, and get out your pie plate and rolling pin. When rolling out a pie crust, you want to roll in a way so that you are pushing out from the middle of the dough. I never ever bring my rolling pin to the edge of the dough, as it isn't necessary, and will only screw you up. After ever roll or two, it's good to pick up and rotate the dough a quarter of a turn, and make sure it's not getting sticky from butter melting on the top or bottom. Don't over-flour, as it will make your crust bitter, but flour enough it keep it from sticking. Roll until it is about 1 1/2 inches larger than the top of your pie pan all the way around.

Carefully lay your crust into your pie pan, so that it sets nicely in there. Use a knife to cut off the jagged bits over the edge, or the parts where it is too big. You want about an inch or a bit less of 'over hang'. You are going to tuck this behind the crust, so that you have a nice rounded edge along the rim of the pie plate. Got it?

Now, to 'pretty-fy' it. There are a number of things to do, but I'll tell you the simplest ways. If you are lazy or frightened, you can take a fork and gently press down the edges along the rim of the pie plate. I personally find this ugly, but some folks like it. OR you can do the following: With your right hand, hold out your thumb and first finger so that there is about a centimeter's space between them, and hold out your first finger on your left hand so that it is pointing into the space between the fingers you are holding out on your right hand. Having your fingers out like this, go to your crust, with those right two fingers on the outside of the top edge, and your left finger on the inside. Bring these fingers together, so that your left finger basically pushes the dough into the little space created by your two fingers on your right hand. Then, do this to all of the pie. Voila, it is beautiful!

                                          (image from http://localfoods.about.com)

At this point, I like to cover it with plastic wrap and let it refrigerate for another 15 minutes or so. If you will be blind baking, you need to poke holes in the bottom with a fork. Otherwise, use as the recipe says.

If any of this isn't clear, let me know and I'll try to clarify.  If you know someone who is a good pie baker, it's best to learn from them, as making pie is an art best learned from another.  If not, try anyways and you can always ask me for advice!

As my mom wrote in her book that I reference above, "Pie has intrigue. Pie is adventure, mystery, romance, and love."  What more could you want in life than that?

Baking Pies and Bagels and How a Mountain Medicine Man Cured Me

Ok, first comes food, because, well, I love food. Since the Palindrome party a week ago, I've been on a big of a baking kick. I baked...5? pies this week. And bagels. Yes, bagels! I think maybe when I am homesick I want to bake food that reminds me of home. Do you know they don't have bagels over here in Italy? They haven't even heard of them. So, like pie, I made it my mission this week to introduce the Italians to yet another delicious American baked good. I think next on my list will be peanut butter cookies and banana bread.

Here is the requested picture of the lemon cake pie. Now, it isn't such a beautiful looking pie, but it sure is delicious. Somehow, the ingredients separate in the oven so that there is a creme resembling lemon curd in pretty much every way (yum!), and on the top is a fluffy lemon cake. Gianluca has declared it is his favorite pie in the world, which he generally declares for every pie, but I think that he really means it for this one.



I also discovered a fantastic kind of cheese I didn't know about before in a local cheese shop. It is made from cow milk and apparently it spends some of its life maturing in hay. You are supposed to cook it up in a skillet.... i did this with wedges of it, warming it up on both sides until the outside began to caramelize and the inside was gooey and warm, and ate it with a nice salad, OHHH BOY was it good.

In that same cheese shop, I found some very tasty smoked scamorza. It's like a slightly aged, drier mozzarella than is usually found here, and it is shaped kind of like a pear and is amazing. It is also eaten after being cooked a little bit on both sides (after it is sliced). I made a tasty dinner of quinoa and vegetable stuffed peppers topped with some of this delicious cheese, and with a balsamic reduction.



Now for the bagels! I, like most Americans, like bagels. However, I also grew up hearing stories from my grandfather about the bagels of his childhood in Queens, New York. He is a first generation American, with Orthodox Jew parents from Eastern Europe. Naturally they lived in a community of Jews after arriving in NYC, and when my grandaddy was a child he would go walk and get the bagels on a regular basis. Apparently there were old Russian guys making these bagels in underground bakeries, the same way these same men made them back in the Old World. And, from what I've heard, the bagels were absolutely divine, and my grandaddy says that he's never had bagels since that could remotely approach their quality. It seems that when these old bagel makers passed on, their secrets died with them. So it has become one of my grandaddy's current missions in life to rediscover their secrets and bring kickass bagels back to the world. I think he's got it down, and he recently gave the recipe to me. I made these divine little breads and my goodness, they were amazing. I took a bite, and closed my eyes in my Alpine kitchen, and for a moment felt like I was back home.

Here is the recipe, as my grandaddy wrote it... they aren't so difficult to make, and they are far better than anything you could possibly buy in a shop nowadays.

2 cups warm water
one packet of active yeast or 2 1/2 teaspoons
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 tablespoons barley malt ( preferred) or sugar
1 table spoon salt
6 to 8 cups bread flour

Add yeast to warm water and stir to dissolve
add oil, malt or sugar
add flour and salt and stir till comes away from side of bowl.
knead 12 to 15 minutes and add flour as needed, bagels do best with stiff dough
so work in flour till stiff. knead until dough is smooth
place dough in oiled bowl and let rise till doubled in warm place
Prepare oiled baking sheet with cornmeal
punch dough down. divide into 3 pieces and then each piece into 4 pieces (total of 12 pieces
roll each piece between fingers into a rope and then around fingers to produce donut shape.
place on baking sheet. spray lightly with oil and let rise till puffy ( 30 minutes+)

boiling
Place 2 to 3 quarts water in a pan and add one tablespoon barley malt or sugar bring water to boil
dunk 2 to 3 bagels at time into the water. time 30 seconds per side and remove with slotted spoon and place back on sheet. The longer they are in water the more chewy they will be.
brush with beaten egg and then add toppings (caraway seed, poppy seed, sesame seed, and a little kosher salt
bake at 450 degrees with steam (add ice cubes to pan on bottom of oven) for about 20 minutes then remove sheet
turn bagels over and bake for an additional 5 to 10 minutes till brown or till they appear done.

to make onion bagels add one cup of diced onions during kneading

_____________________________________
OK, enough of food. Before I write about how this mountain guy cured me, you gotta know about the weather here. We got about a foot of snow the other day, and even when it stopped snowing, a fog had descended and I couldn't see very far, except to see that there was a lot of snow. And because it doesn't look like it... the photograph below is the driveway!




Then, the next morning (which would be yesterday) I woke up and looked out the bedroom window and had to cover my eyes immediately because it was so BRIGHT! Crystal clear blue skies, and the towering and sharply angled Alps were glistening as if made of diamonds. I've never seen anything so bright in my life, it was incredible. To see something so bright, and a clear blue sky, is amazing after weeks of the world looking entirely like I am viewing an old black and white film, or on a good day, with everything in muted sepia tones. No colors...don't get me wrong, it is simply gorgeous here, even when everything is in shades of white, black, gray, and the occasion brown tone. Beautiful in a devastatingly austere and overwhelming and gorgeous way.



__________________________________
One of the things I love so much about living in another culture is just how different it can be sometimes. I know that sounds obvious, but it can really change your perspective on things. An experience I had yesterday was.... well, an experience. One I wasn't expecting. Because who expects to be sitting around with no pants on in a stranger's apartment with your family around you?

What led to this was an injured hip. Gianluca and I were on holiday in the Canary Islands a few weeks ago (an escape to warm weather!), and we decided to go for a run. I used to be quite the runner, but not in about 9 years, but I am still reasonably fit. I was enjoying the run so much that perhaps I overdid it (running 10 km or so), considering that I haven't gone on a run that long in... erm... not sure how many years, but closer to 10 than 5. And, you guessed it, I ended up injured. So, for the past two weeks I have been hobbling around like a little old lady who needs a hip replacement. I told Gianluca I wanted to go to a doctor, and he said, 'ok, I know someone we can go to.' I thought that meant a doctor, but no, no it wasn't. A few days ago I found out that this 'someone' was an ex-construction worker who has no medical degree, or any formal training, who you just go to in his apartment and he 'fixes' you. This sounded horribly suspicious to me, and being in the medical profession myself and not being someone to just trust anyone to try to fix me, I was NOT happy to hear that this, and not a doctor, was the plan.

But, Gianluca insisted, and we made an agreement that if this guy couldn't make me feel better (and I was certain he couldn't), I would then go to a normal doctor, with normal medical training. So, with this agreement, I reluctantly hobbled to Dominico the Healer's apartment on the outskirts of Aosta with Gianluca and his sister Valeria. A very short, very round, very gray haired man with very few teeth greeted us kindly at the door, along with his equally friendly wife. They had a smallish apartment with worn furnishings and and depictions of Jesus and various saints were peering down at us from the walls and cabinets, as the five of us crowded into the sitting room. He worked on Valeria first, to fix her leg circulation, and then it was my turn. In Italian he told me to take off my pants and lie down on the little couch. This seemed like a very particular, and somewhat sketchy, thing to in an older stranger's living room, but considering that there were five of us in the room, I figured I was safe. I did as he said, and he declared that my problem wasn't my hip, at all. It was my knee and my back. he poked at my knee and rubbed some blue stuff into it and said that there was a block in my knee and that it was now better. He then prodded at my lower back and said my back was crooked, and apparently he fixed that, too, though I didn't feel him to anything. He rubbed some more blue stuff on my leg and moved my leg around some, and said I was healed and if I took it easy for a couple of days, I'd be perfectly fine. I was inwardly rolling my eyes, thinking 'yeah, right. I've been in excrutiating pain for more than two weeks... no way that prodding and rubbing a little bit at my knee and back is going to make me feel better.' Then I stood up. And there was no pain. NO PAIN! He actually fixed me. He honest to God fixed me. I don't know how, but I can now walk without help, and even my back feels better. I can walk normally. On the walk back to the car, which I did unassisted, Gianluca explained to me that Dominico has a gift that is passed through his family's blood, every other generation. It has been this way for a long, long time. Dominico was the next in line for 'the gift' after his grandfather. The gift of being able to feel where people need help, to be able to heal with his hands, and a natural strong intuition about the human body. He learned healing techniques from his grandfather as well, but most of it he was just born with.

I'm a natural skeptic; I'm a physicist, a scientist. I don't generally believe things that I can't find proof of, and I am not the type of person to place the well being of my body into the hands of an old carpenter. But I'm telling you, the next time I have something wrong with me, I'm going to see Dominico first, because that man has some magic in him.