Wondering what these two photos have to do with each other? Well, read on…
It seems for the past couple of weeks, I’ve been cooking up a storm with not too many good results. I’m a little apprehensive to share this info as most foodie bloggers are not writing about their flops. It’s not that I’m trying to set a new trend here… I’m just looking for sympathy. It was a tough week in the kitchen. Here’s a short list of some of the things that I tried:
Nearly Raw Ginger-Curried Butternut Soup (served warm)
Raw Corn Chowder (served warm)
Live Mu Shu Vegetables with Live Thai Red Curry Sauce
Raw Macadamia-Fudge Brownies
Raw Portobello Mushroom and Spinach Quiche
Blue-Green Smoothie (made with Blue Green Algae)
Spinach and Pine Nut Hummus with Olives (made with sprouted garbanzos)
All of these dishes fell short of deliciousness in my opinion. In most cases, I followed the recipes closely and did not make any ingredient substitutions. I don’t fault the recipes, rather little maneuvers on my part that may have set the dish awry and in some cases like the smoothie, brownie, chowder and quiche.. though the final product came out just fine… the texture or taste just wasn’t my favorite — nor my husbands. I can always tell when he really likes a recipe as there is a lot of noise at the bottom of the plate as he tries to scrape off every delicious drop. Not much scraping going on with any of these dishes, although because we had no other sweets in the house — he did manage the brownies alright.
Ok – so let me bore you with some of the minor details of what may have gone wrong…
In the case of the hummus, I never made it past sprouting the garbanzos. Truly, sprouting is a new new thing to me and I need to learn a little bit more and maybe get some containers to aid the process. The book I was using said that the garbanzos needed 3-4 days to sprout after an 8-12 hour soak. Well by day 2 of sprouting, though the garbanzos had sprouted nicely, the stench from them was horrible! I tried rinsing and draining throughout the day but decided to throw them in the compost later as the smell was overwhelmingly bad.
Lesson? Read up on sprouting. Though it is good to keep sprouts out of the sun, maybe covering them with a towel does not allow enough airflow to prevent gases from overwhelming the kitchen. Be sure to rinse and drain on day 1 after soaking. Do this every 12 hours — don’t miss a cycle!
In the case of the Mu Shu… a fizzle… I was so anxious to try this dish that I used a mango in the sauce that may have been a little too under ripe. This left the sauce tasting like it was lacking something… probably the sweetness from the mango.
Lesson? Be patient. Wait until you have all the right ingredients. Fruits are tastier when they are ripe… and they will the dishes you put them in tastier.
As for the Butternut soup, I love how the recipe begins with steaming the squash and then adds the rest of the main ingredients (onion, garlic, ginger, chili pepper and apple) to the hot water leftover in the pot after steaming. In this way, the smaller ingredients lightly stew, nothing gets overcooked, less enzymes are destroyed and hopefully more nutrition is preserved… oh- and it simplifies the whole soup making process. Spice-wise however, the entire pot came out waaaay too spicy… and I like a little spicy. Was it the chopped chili pepper, the 4 tablespoons of minced ginger or the teaspoon of fresh black pepper? I’d have to re-make the soup to be able to figure this one out. My bet is on the black pepper, believe it or not.
Lesson? Taste as you go… especially if it calls for spices that create heat or if it is not a tried and true recipe and you have all the proportions figured out for your own tastes.
Which brings me back to the photos… you see I’m feeling a whole lot better having divulged my flounderings in the kitchen to you. Both photos illustrate two main ingredients (red lentils & maca powder ) of two recipes that I tried that did come out DELICIOUS! They were posted by bloggers both of whom have wonderful web sites filled with amazing recipes. Check them out and see the recipe for a photo of the final dish… but I’m warning you now… you will be set into a trance just like me and have to try the recipe right away.
The first recipe is for Coconut Red Lentil Soup from 101 Cookbooks. This is one of those soups I can see making again and again and again. If I were stuck on a deserted island and could make one dish… I would highly consider this one to be THE dish. DELICIOUS!
The second recipe is Maca Maca Bars from Bittersweet. These bars surprised me, as I’m not a huge fan of maca but I loved the texture which is like a nice chewy peanutbutter cookie… and combined with coconut oil and mac nuts makes for DELICIOUS!
Just a few notes on ingredients. I substituted vegetable oil for butter in the Coconut Red Lentil Soup to make it vegan and Vanilla Soy and Raw Cider Vinegar for the Coconut Kefir in the Maca Maca Bars.
As for me I’m back trying new things in the kitchen looking for deliciousness. Here’s a short list of what I’m working on now:
Live Garden Burgers dehydrating
Almond butter cookies dehydrating
Orange-Cranberry-Almond Granola dehydrating
Wild Rice – sprouting for Wild Rice Salad
Rye Berries – sprouting for Living Rye Bread
Almonds – soaking for Raw Garlic Aioli Sauce (for burgers)
Bon Appetite everyone! Enjoy your fizzles, flops and flounderings in the kitchen!
I love it! Makes me sit back and think of our fizzles and flops. My personal big flop lately was Matthew Kenney’s Coconut wrappers; yet his chili recipe is amazing are we right?!??!
We made some garden burgers recently that were kind of plain as well (Broccoli Squash) but definitely edible. We’re usually pretty good at tasting as we go but this one proved you right there…we were kind of hurrying.
So the food is good, but not perfect though we did make Seaweed stuffed Portobello for dinner, then Mexi Brown Flax crackers, Pumpkin bread wraps, Raw Sour cream and another batch of “the” Chili. So we were quite spent. Goes to show how much of our energy or love appears in our final result… Have a GREAT day!
I didn’t have any luck with sprouting rice either, I’ll come back to see how yours went for sure
We had a similar discussion this morning; the fact that our recipes are most successful when we are “in the moment” while in the kitchen. It was 11:00 last night and we were still up making food to take to Costa Mesa for David Wolfe’s Longevity Conference this weekend. We were NOT in the moment
Damon – thanks for your comments. I envy that you and Toni are going to DW’s Longevity Conference! I hear what you’re saying… maybe I need to practice being in the moment while cooking… rather than just mechanically following a recipe, only to end up with a flop… cooking in the moment then, not only will the experience of preparing be more satisfying but so will the food! As for sprouting, my rye berries came out beautifully. Unfortunately, I just spread the batter a little too thin on the paraflexx sheet so that I got rye crisp crackers instead of rye “bread” — but they are tasty nonetheless. I’m making a little progress with my sprouting and will post my learnings. I even started another jar of garbanzos sprouting… first day after soak and no nasty smells yet
Lastly, the Raw Garlic Aioli Sauce that I made for my burgers was divine and I think it could make any hum drum garden burger tastier. Will share the recipe soon! All the best!
I make raw hummus all the time. The recipe is on my blog- in January I think. I soak garbanzo beans for 24 hours and then bag and freeze. The freezing breaks down the cell walls I think. When I want hummus I take out the beans and rinse under warm water to break them up. I throw in the food processor- I throw in sesame seeds, part of a red pepper, garlic, cumin, salt, lemon juice, and some olive oil! yummy!
Debra – thanks for the info on freezing garbanzos! I’ll have to try this and will check out your blog for more. BTW… I am 1 of 7 kreative kids and I admire you for serving vegan/raw food to your family because I have a notion of the work involved on getting that much grub on the table for all! I found my love of cooking while growing up — so often at the side of my mother in the kitchen.
You are welcome and thank you for your kind words. I am fortunate that my teens help me with the cooking and preparations. Even then it is still some work to keep up. This is certainly not as easy as pouring a bowl of cereal, popping something in the micro or eating tv dinners but it is so worth it!
So cool….I’m going next door to soak some garbanzos now. Thanks all!