Un-potato Latkes and Olive Oil Cake

Immediately following Thanksgiving is Hanukah, the festival of miracles and light.  Try this riff on the classic potato latke, using parsnips and fennel.  Then, drop the doughnuts. Instead, top off the celebration with olive oil cake, adapted from the beautiful whole-grain bakebook by Kim Boyce, Good to the Grain.

Un-potato Latkes

Makes 10-15 latkes

INgredients

3 medium-large parsnips

3/4 fennel bulb, with leaves

¼ cup spelt flour

pinch of sea salt

½ cup safflower or grape seed oil for frying

Clean parsnips by removing any white “hairs” and rinsing well.  Rinse fennel.

Using a handheld grater, grate the parsnips using the side that will produce the chunkiest parsnip pieces.

Rinse the grater and then grate the fennel on the same size.

Place the grated parsnip and fennel in a glass or ceramic bowl. Optional: add one Tblspn chopped fennel leaves.

Add a large pinch of sea salt.  Optional: add freshly ground pepper.

Sprinkle the spelt flour over the vegetables and toss the mixture together.

Heat a large skillet over medium heat. Add 4-5 Tablespoons of the oil, so it covers the bottom of the pan.

Form latkes by squeezing the mixture in your hands.

Place them in the pan (you can fry 3 or 4 latkes at once, depending on the size of your skillet.)

When the edges begin to brown (after 3-5 minutes), use a stainless steel spatula to flip the latke and flatten it into the pan (this will help keep it whole).  Cook the second side for about the same amount of time.

Remove from pan and dredge on a brown paper bag.

Add oil to the skillet as needed. The latkes will cook faster and faster as the pan gets hotter.

Serve with fresh sliced pears or fresh applesauce (see my very simple recipe posted here last December: https://theingredients.wordpress.com/2009/12/17/potato-free-hanukah/).

Olive Oil Cake

Adapted from Kim Boyce

Serves 8

INgredients

Olive oil for pan

DRY

¾ cup spelt flour

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour

¾ cup unrefined sugar

1 ½ tsp. baking powder

¾ tsp coarse sea salt

WET

3 large eggs

1 cup olive oil

¾ cup whole milk

1 ½ Tblsp fresh rosemary, finely chopped

5 oz bittersweet chocolate with no sugar added, cut into ½ inch pieces

Preheat oven to 350. Place rack in middle of oven.

Brush olive oil onto bottom and sides of a 9-½ inch fluted tart pan.

Mix dry ingredients in a large bowl and set aside.

In another large bowl, whisk eggs.

Add olive oil, milk and rosemary. Whisk again.

Fold wet ingredients into dry ingredients, gently mixing until combined. Stir in chocolate pieces.

Pour batter into pan, spreading it evenly and smoothing top.

Bake for about 40 minutes, until top is domed, golden brown and

darker around the edges. A fork or toothpick should come out clean.

Cake can be eaten warm or cool.

Happy Hanukah!

-Nancy

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Healthy Halloween 2

One year ago in our first week of blogging, we posted “Healthy Halloween,” a piece on alternative, healthier treat options. One Halloween, hundreds of – almost a thousand! – meals and tens of holidays later, my priorities have shifted. I am, of course, still focused on finding alternatives to high-sugar, high-fructose corn syrup-infused candy. But I am also thinking about how to cut down on individual plastic packaging while honoring safety and hygiene considerations.  And let’s not forget about the sheer waste quotient of this holiday: candy that gets thrown out, wrappers that are not properly disposed of, and much more.

So, when the trick-or-treaters knock, consider offering these options for a healthy, more sustainable Halloween 2010:

Unusual thick-skinned fruits. Think lychee nuts, kumquats, clementines and kiwi.  No individual wrapping or bags necessary: drop them straight into trick-or-treaters’ bags.

DIY mini dried fruit skewers. These are done on toothpicks rather than full-length skewers. Offer trays of dried apricots, mango, papaya, figs and cherries: invite the children in to Make Their Own.

Juice boxes. Choose organic juice, fruit-infused water or coconut water packaged in paper containers and you’ve given the trick-or-treaters something to wash down – er, flush out – all those sweet treats.

Fresh-popped organic popcorn and/or popcorn necklaces.  Paige suggested popcorn last year: it is evergreen.  And if your children are crafty, they can string the popcorn into edible necklaces or bracelets.  How to: Use a large-eyed needle with untreated thread or fine twine to “sew” the string through the center of each popped kernel.

Fresh roasted pumpkin seeds.  ‘Tis the season.  Keyword here is “fresh”. Pour them into a (lined) freshly carved pumpkin outfitted with a scoop and call it a night.

Did I mention that my older daughter is planning to dress up as a refrigerator this year?

Happy Healthy Halloween!

-Nancy

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Nancy’s IN/OUTgredients

Clink

8 September 2010

INgredients

Pomegranates Pomegranates ripen as Rosh Hashana approaches.

I took this picture in the Golan last week as the pomegranates were almost ready to be picked. They are eaten on the New Year as a symbol of righteousness and fertility.

Here is one of my favorite dishes using crisp, juicy pomegranate seeds.

Pink Quinoa Pomegranate Salad

serves 8

1 cup light quinoa, soaked and rinsed well

3 whole beets, boiled in 4 cups water; retain bright red cooking water and chop one beet into small cubes (save the others for later use)

1 bunch Italian parsley, finely chopped

3-4 garlic cloves, chopped and sauteed in olive oil

1 medium-sized cucumber, chopped into small cubes

seeds of one fresh pomegranate, removed by scoring skin with a knife, separating seeds from peel and white pulp membrane

sea salt and olive oil to taste

In a medium-sized saucepan place the quinoa and 2 1/2 cups of the reserved beet water with a pinch of sea salt. Bring to a boil and then lower the flame and cover the pot. Cook for 15-18 minutes, until quinoa has absorbed the beet water and is a pinkish color.  Allow to cool. You can also cook the quinoa a day in advance and refrigerate overnight.

In a large bowl, place one third of the cooked, cooled quinoa. Add about a third of the chopped beets, garlic, parsley and cucumber; toss.  Cover with another third of the quinoa; add another third of the beets, garlic, parsley and cucumber and toss again. Repeat a third time until all quinoa and vegetables are mixed together in the bowl.

Add most of the pomegranate seeds and toss into the mixture.  Sprinkle sea salt and drizzle olive oil on top. Top with remaining pomegranate seeds and serve.

OUTgredients

Blueberries, blackberries, raspberries These mid-summer crops are done in the northeast

Wishing you all a fresh beginning and a sweet New Year!

-Nancy

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Nancy’s IN/OUTgredients

July 26, 2010

INgredients

Cucumbers: Pickle. Them. Now

Blueberries, blackberries, raspberries:  Eat them raw. Fold them into pancakes.  Make berry muffins.

OUTgredients

Doritos: below, a passage from Aimee Bender’s new novel  The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake,

about a nine-year-old girl who can taste the provenance of each ingredient in food, as well as the emotional status of the preparer(s):

What is good about a Dorito, I said, in full voice, is that I’m not supposed to pay attention to it. As soon as I do, it tastes like every other ordinary chip.  But if I stop paying attention, it becomes the most delicious thing in the world.

I popped open a supersize bag—my one prop—and passed it around the room. Instructed everyone to take a chip.

Bite in! I said.

The sound of crackling. Eliza giggled in the back. Her parents did not allow her to eat Doritos. I was her drug dealer, in this way.

See? I said. What does it taste like?

A Dorito, said a smartass in the front row.

Cheese, said someone else.

Really? I said.

They concentrated on their chips. That good dust stuff, said someone else. Exactly,  I said. That good dust stuff.

What I taste, I said, reading from my page, is what I remember from my last Dorito, plus the chemicals that are kind of like that taste, and then my zoned-out mind that doesn’t really care what it actually tastes like. Remembering, chemicals, zoning. It is a magical combo. All these parts form together to make a flavor sensation trick that makes me want to eat the whole bag and then maybe another bag.

Do you have another bag? Asked a skateboard guy, licking his fingers.

No, I said. In conclusion, I said, a Dorito asks nothing of you, which is its great gift. It only asks that you are not there.

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Nancy’s IN/OUTgredients

Ramps

12 May 2010

William Spear, a macrobiotic teacher and feng shui master says, “We live in a toxic soup.”

Eat these detoxifying spring vegetables to begin to swim out.

INgredients

Asparagus – one of the few vegetables that is a perennial, they are a good source of dietary fiber, vitamin B6, calcium, magnesium and zinc.

Radishes – dissolve accumulated fats in the body and are a good source of calcium. Plant the seeds and in 3-4 weeks you’ll have ready-to-eat radishes.

Ramps – wild leeks with a sweeter, milder taste than scallions; they add flavor to a spring broth.

OUTgredients

Pears – been there, done that

Tomatoes – way too early for fresh, local tomatoes

Winter squash – is a dense food best eaten in fall and winter

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