Kale, White Bean & Rice Stew with Sweet Potato Biscuits

I made the Kale, White Bean, and Rice Stew from Appetite for Reduction this weekend. The original version called for quinoa, but my local grocery didn't have any. I had some cooked brown rice in the fridge so just threw it in at the end. This "stew" was just okay. (Its broth was very thin, so I'd call it a soup.) The spice blend--crushed fennel, marjoram, thyme, and rosemary--gave just a hint of flavor. The soup bordered on bland, so I added some balsamic vinegar for a bit more flavor. The kale, parsnips, carrots, and potatoes didn't add much on their own. Even cannellini beans, which I usually think are pretty tasty with just a bit of oil and some salt and pepper, didn't come through and save this soup. This soup just didn't do it for me!

What redeemed the soup, however, are the Sweet Potato Drop Biscuits also from Appetite for Reduction I made to go with the soup. These slightly sweet and savory biscuits are wonderful. And they were so quick and easy to make! You just take a cup of mashed sweet potato, mix it with canola oil, maple syrup, apple cider vinegar, and salt, and sift in flour, baking powder, and nutmeg. Then you drop them onto a baking sheet, and in about 15 minutes you have really awesome biscuits. They went great with the soup, but I'd make these again to eat by themselves. Someone posted the recipe on this blog.

Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies & Pumpkin Bread

I wanted to use up the can of pumpkin puree I used for the Pumpkin and Shiitake Risotto with Crispy Sage so I made two treats this past weekend, both Happy Herbivore recipes.

The first was Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies (recipe here; I omitted the raisins). I've made these before and love them. They have a great pumpkin spice taste and are moist and, with more than 2.5 grams of protein in a cookie, are also filling. Most of the batch is in my freezer to tide me over this fall until I start my holiday cookie baking.

I also made the Pumpkin Bread (recipe here), which I hadn't made before. It was also super quick to mix, and the bread turned out really moist and delicious. I've been eating it for breakfast spread with peanut butter.

Whole Wheat Beer Bread

I haven't been cooking because of a renovation project of the third floor of my house. After three weeks of work, the contractors have put in new drywall, added a storage closet, added electrical, did HVAC work, enclosed ductwork, added a space for a bar area, and added trim.Now it's our turn. This weekend we need to clean, prime, and paint all the surfaces. Not only is it a huge pain, but it leaves little time for cooking.

We started spackling on Friday night, and I forgot to mix up the dough for the whole-wheat no-knead bread I make every week. On Saturday morning, I was breadless--my equivalent to not having air or water.

So I made Vegan Whole Wheat Beer Bread from the Happy Herbivore website. I had no idea how it would turn out. I don't even like beer.

It was the quickest, easiest bread imaginable. You combine whole wheat flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder with 12 ounces of beer (I used oatmeal stout). It's done in an hour.

It was awesome!!! The outside was crispy and inside was chewy with a great texture. It tasted delicious--not at all like beer and with just a hint of sweetness. I also loved that it used no oil and slid right out of the pan.

I ate it with some low-fat spicy hummus I made for snacks during the day, and it was just perfect. I'll definitely make this bread again.

5 Ingredients & 5 Minutes to Homemade Bread

I haven't bought bread in nine weeks. Instead I make Mark Bittman's delicious and super-easy no-knead whole-wheat bread from The Food Matters Cook Book every week. I shared the recipe here and calculated that I save $16.34 by making it here. But what I haven't said is how ridiculously easy it is to make and how wonderful it tastes.

There are five ingredients: whole-wheat flour, instant yeast, salt, water, and olive oil.It takes about five minutes of active time to make. You dump the dry ingredients in a big bowl, add about two cups of water, and mix it until a wet batter with the consistency of pancake batter forms.Next you put plastic wrap over the bowl and let it sit for a minimum of 12 hours but as long as 24 hours. It's easy to incorporate this into my week. Every Friday night, whether I'm staying in or going out for a night on the town (which usually means my husband and I going to Target), I always mix up the dough. The next morning, the dough has puffed up with little bubbles in it.Next I get the loaf pan ready. It's really important to coat it with cooking spray and add one tablespoon of olive oil, coating the entire pan really well. I tried to make it lower fat by using less oil, and the bread stuck to the pan and ripped apart when I pried it out. Then I coat a spatula with cooking spray, transfer the dough to a loaf pan, and gently press the dough into the pan.Next I add one more tablespoon of olive oil to the top and spread it around with the spatula until the top is completely coated with oil.
Then I stick it in a warm place (I heat my oven to warm and then turn it off) and let it rise for one hour. The dough will rise to the top of the pan or just slightly above.The last step is to bake it in a 350-degree oven for 45 minutes. It's always done perfectly in that time. Then, I just flip it upside down so it slides out and let it cool on a wire rack.The inside is chewy and hearty, and the outside is crunchy. It's perfect. The taste is rich and full of flavor. It's truly the best testing whole-wheat bread I've ever had, though that could be because it's fresh and homemade. It's also very filling. Many mornings I have a toasted slice with peanut butter and jelly plus a soymilk-flax seed-fruit smoothie, and it keeps me full until lunch. It freezes well too--neither texture nor taste suffer.

If you want fresh, homemade, delicious, easy-to-make, healthy bread every week, I highly recommend this recipe!

Sesame Pita Pockets

I love all Mark Bittman's bread recipes in the Food Matters Cook Book. I make his no-knead, whole-wheat bread every week and have also made pizza dough and flatbread. They're all wonderful. Today I made his Sesame Pita Pockets for the second time.

They're not hard to make, just time-intensive because you need to let the dough rise a total of three times before baking. And, of course, there's the rolling out part of it. But it's worth it. They're so fresh and good. Something in the dough made of whole-wheat flour, all-purpose flour, instant yeast, salt, olive oil, and molasses makes them puff up while cooking so you can actually cut them open and have pocket pita.The recipe makes 12, and they freeze well, so it's easy to have homemade pitas on hand.I had them with Veganomicon Cauliflower Hummus. Delicious!

Veganomicon Review: Sun-Dried Tomato Dip

Quick and easy to make and absolutely delicious, this dip was perfect Super Bowl food. It uses only a few ingredients: almonds processed to a powder, sun-dried tomatoes plumped up with boiling water, garlic, lemon juice, and salt. The consistency was nearly-creamy and spreadable. Omnivore husband really liked it too. I'll definitely make this again whenever I want a quick, easy, and yummy appetizer.

I served it with whole-wheat baguette bread I made yesterday. Two thumbs up!

Baking (and not kneading) Bread

Until I got the Food Matters Cook Book by Mark Bittman, I made my own bread maybe like five times in my life. In the book, Bittman gives numerous no-knead recipes for bread, baguettes, pizza dough, pitas, flatbread, etc. His 2006 New York Times article talked about the no-knead secrets of a New York baker, Jim Lahey. He posted a recipe for no-knead bread he adapted from Lahey's techniques. It became a huge phenomenon, and Bittman revamped the recipe a few times, posting recipes for Faster No-Knead Bread and Fast No-Knead Whole Wheat Bread. His recipe for Whole Wheat Bread in the Food Matters Cook Book that I posted is slightly different from those but has the same idea: mix a few ingredients in a bowl, let it sit for 12 hours, pour it into a bread pan, let it rise, then bake it.

I have made it every single week since the first time I made it. I mix up the dough on Friday night, let it sit overnight, and have fresh-baked bread by Noon on Saturday to last me the week. The texture is perfect--crunchy on the outside, chewy and hearty on the inside. It tastes amazing. And it saves me money. $7 of ingredients will make six loaves of this homemade bread. My preferred whole-wheat bread at the grocery store is $3.89 a loaf--$23.34 for six loaves. So, I'm saving $16.34.Yesterday I also made Bittman's recipe for Mostly Whole-Wheat Baguettes. I've made them twice before; they were good but tasted just like bread. This time I must have done it right: they tasted exactly like baguettes. They were soooo good that I couldn't stop myself from immediately eating one whole loaf of the four I made. These don't look like much, but they were delicious.Lesson learned: baking my own bread using Bittman's simple recipes is the only way to go!

No-Knead Whole Wheat Bread

This recipe from The Food Matters Cook Book by Mark Bittman has only a few ingredients, doesn't require kneading, and is really easy. It has a crunchy exterior and soft, chewy, hearty inside. Very good.Real Whole Wheat Bread
Makes one 9-inch loaf

Ingredients

• 3 cups whole wheat flour
• 1/2 teaspoon instant yeast (increase to 1 1/2 teaspoons and reduce the first rise to 2 hours and the second rise to 1 hour)
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 2 tablespoons olive oil or vegetable oil (Note: Bittman loves his oil. Me, not so much. I reduced it to just 1 tablespoon, and it came out just fine.)

Instructions

1. Combine the flour, yeast, and salt in a large bowl. Add 1 1/2 cups water and stir until blended; the dough should be quite wet, almost like a batter (add more water if it seems dry). Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it rest in a warm place for at least 12 (or up to 24) hours. Use more instant yeast to reduce the rise time (see above). The dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles.
2. Use some of the oil to grease a 9X5-inch loaf pan. Scoop the dough into the pan and use a rubber spatula to gently settle it in evenly. Brush or drizzle with the remaining oil. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise until doubled, an hour or 2 depending on the warmth of your kitchen. (It won't reach the top of the pan, or will just barely.)
3. Heat the oven to 350 degrees F and bake until deeply brown and hollow-sounding when tapped, about 45 minutes.

WeightWatchers PointsPlus: 4 for 9 1-inch slices (per recipe); if you reduce the oil to 1 tbsp and slice thinner, likely 3

Easy Whole Grain Flatbread

This recipe is from The Food Matters Cook Book by Mark Bittman, who says, "The amount of oil you need depends on your pan. With a well-seasoned cast-iron (or nonstick) skillet, use just 2 tablespoons oil; with seasoned steel, try 3 tablespoons; for stainless steel, you'll be safest with all 4." I used 2 tablespoons and a nonstick 10-inch pie pan and thought it was too much oil. I will try it again with just 1.

I didn't have rosemary and just used the onions. It was really good (especially with the Red Beans and Rice), but I think it would be much better with rosemary. Bittman has ideas for additional ingredients to add--I've noted them here.

The flatbread was very easy and good but I thought it was too oily. I'll make it again with less oil and try other ingredients.

Easy Whole Grain Flatbread
Serves 4-8

Ingredients

• 1 cup whole wheat flour, cornmeal (fine or medium grind), or chickpea flour, or a combination (I used whole wheat)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 to 4 tablespoons olive oil
• 1/2 large onion, halved and thinly sliced, optional
• 1 tablespoon fresh rosemary leaves, optional

Instructions

1. Put the flour in a bowl and add salt. Slowly add 1 1/4 cups water, whisking to eliminate lumps. The batter should be the consistency of thin pancake batter. If it's not, whisk up to another 1/4 cup water into the mixture, 1 tablespoon at a time. Cover with a towle and let sit while the oven heats, or as long as 12 hours.
2. When ready to bake, heat the oven to 400 degrees F. Put the oil in a 12-inch rimmed pizza pan or skillet and put in the heated oven. Wait a couple minutes for the oil to get hot but not smoking; the oil is ready when you just start to smell it. Carefully remove the pan. Add the onion and rosemary if you're using them and give them a little stir. Pour in the batter, gently swirl the pan to distribute the oil, and return the skillet to the oven.
3. Bake until the flatbread is well browned, firm, and crisp around the edges, about 45 minutes. (It will release easily from the pan when it's done.) Let it rest for a couple minutes before cutting it into wedges or squares.

Additional Ingredients to Try

• Cumin, garam masala, or curry powder, up to 2 teaspoons, in Step 2 after the oil is hot.
• Chopped scallions, up to 1 cup, in Step 2 after the oil is hot.
• Grated or minced ginger, up to 2 tablespons, in Step 2 after the oil is hot.
• Minced garlic or chopped fresh chiles, as much as you like, in Step 2 after the oil is hot.
• Grated citrus zest, up to 2 tablespoons, mixed directly into the batter in Step 1.
• Maple syrup, up to 1/4 cup, mixed directly into the batter in Step 1.
• Seeds; shredded, unsweetened coconut; or chopped nuts, up to 1/2 cup, in Step 2 after the oil is hot.
• Soy sauce, in place of up to 1/4 cup of the water, mixed directly into the batter in Step 1.

Weight Watchers PointsPlus: Using 2 tablespoons oil, 2 PointsPlus for 8 servings.