Nom Nom Gnome: Acar Salad

When I started this blog four years ago, I aspired to become a famous food blogger. These days, I mostly aspire to eat actual food occasionally.

Sometimes I make something that turns out well, though, and now that I have an Ipad I can easily take pictures of it. Thus, I give you the inaugural post of Nom Nom Gnome - food that I think is tasty, fun, and probably almost always simple.

This is an Acar salad. Basically, it's the side salad that they serve at Spice Island Tea House:

2 C thinly sliced cabbage
1/2 C thinly sliced carrot
1/2 C thinly sliced onion
1/2 C small chunks of cucumber
(I like mine peeled and seeded)

1/4 C white or rice vinegar
1/4 C water
2 T sugar
pinch of salt
dash of hot sauce (optional)

Basically, you mix all that together and chill it for at least an hour. Yumm. I like it straight out of the bowl, and also as a sandwich topping.

ETA: The second time I made this salad, I used raw cider vinegar, purple cabbage, and honey instead of sugar. That works, too!

chocolate!!!

i recently had the opportunity, through blake makes, to get free amano chocolate for review in my blog. here are the results:

we tried three flavors of chocolate. all of them were 70% cacao, rich and mildly sweet. the difference between the flavors is the source of beans. surprisingly, each of the flavors did have a unique taste, and i was able to distinguish between them in a blind taste test.

madagascar: the literature amano sent says that this chocolate has "hints of citrus". that means it's sour, which i don't really like in a chocolate. i didn't finish my portion of this bar, although i probably will if it's still around some day when we don't have any other chocolate.

cuyagua: they say that this bar has "notes of spice". i can see this -- it's a little like a chili flavored chocolate, only much, much less so. actually this was the chocolatiest tasting of the three, and would make a great every day chocolate if you don't mind paying seven dollars for a two ounce bar.

ocumare: this one has "hints of plums and other red fruit". this was interesting, and surprisingly true, although another way of describing the particularly fruity notes involved might be that it tasted a little like cold blood. delicious cold blood. this was my favorite of the three; it was definitely a unique tasting experience.

i liked two of the three flavors a lot, though i'm not switching from my current standby of sirius 70%, which is both sweet and dark and tastes something like condensed fudgy pudding with mild "notes of spice." at three dollars for a seven ounce bar, it's hard to beat.

the fulfillment of another lifelong dream: vegan monkey bread

ladies, gentlemen, etc, this is monkey bread! i once had a children's microwave cookbook containing a similar recipe, and pretty much ever since i have been attempting to replicate my blissful monkeybread experiences. this one is naturally leavened. i think i am getting closer to my perfect base recipes for naturally leavened regular and rich doughs.

how i made this:

1 1/2 C natural leaven ("sourdough") starter
1 egg (probably optional)
1/4 C oil
1/4 C sugar
1 t salt
2 1/2 C or so flour

1/2 C oil
1 C sugar
1 t molasses
1 t cinnamon
1/4 t salt

1/4 C dried cherries or raisins (optional)
1/4 C pecans (optional)

mix egg, oil, sugar and salt. combine with starter. mix in enough flour to make a kneadable dough. knead for five minutes or more, preferably until smooth. let rise 2 hours or more, though with the natural leavening it won't look like it's rising much. knead a few more times, roll into 1" balls. dip each ball in oil, then in cinnamon sugar mixture and put in an oiled loaf pan, interspersing occasionally with fruit and/or nuts. sprinkle on any leftover sugar mixture. bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. (actually ours was a little undercooked in the middle, it's supposed to be gooey but maybe not that gooey. cooking at 400 degrees and/or for 35-40 minutes might help)

i also think a vegan version without the egg would probably work, because bread doesn't really need egg to hold together.

edit: uh oh, there should have been a second rising in there. after making the sugar-coated loaf, allow it to rise for 1 hour or more before baking.

Young coconut

this isn't really a food that we made, per se, but it's another that i'm really glad to have discovered. a young coconut is full of particularly delicious coconut water (just hack into the top with a heavy knife), and the flesh is extremely soft and tasty (you can scrape it out with a spoon).

river shoes

our floor is not completely smooth, and river crawls around on it like crazy, so his feet were getting kind of scratched up. we decided that was a good enough reason to get him his first pair of shoes. the thrift store didn't have anything appropriate, so we went to babyland. babyland had a lot of robeez and the like and we almost gave in because, ok, they are pretty cool, but we generally try not to buy leather.

at first they insisted that they only had leather shoes, and then finally someone said "well, we do have these...". now river is ready for burning man.

today i'm posting this red lentil soup for the no croutons required spicy soup blog event.

we got kind of hooked on this stuff when we were travelling in turkey. in its simplest incarnation, red lentil soup is red lentils boiled with water (2 C lentils to 6-8 C water makes a nice soup) about 20 minutes or until the lentils stop being crunchy and start to dissolve. serve it with lemon juice, salt and hot red pepper flakes (and a basket of fresh bread, if you want to do it like they do in turkey)

if you want to change it up a little, try some of the following:

make the soup with broth instead of water
start the soup with sauteed garlic or onions
add 1 T cumin powder and 1 t garlic powder
use cider vinegar instead of lemon
add raw chopped bell peppers or onion
reduce the water to 4 C and serve lentils over rice or vegetables

we eat this all the time, partly because it's so cheap and easy, but it's also pretty addictive.

bread experiment #1

so, i would really like to learn to make better bread. we currently have a cool rise "sourdough" culture from gem cultures, which is interesting because it works like a sourdough but actually doesn't have a sour flavor. this is good for me, because i don't like sour bread much. the recipe suggests minimal kneading and little time overall, and we've been making white or whole wheat versions several times per week since we got it. it is easy, tasty, and sliceable, but it's very dense. i want to learn to make bread with a lighter texture, and also a much bigger variety of styles.

i finally broke down and got the book of the moment, and i'm excited about trying a lot of these types of bread-- if possible, though, i would like to convert the recipes from dry yeast to sourdough starter. i might also try some other more traditional styles of bread involving more kneading.

todays attempt was a normal white sourdough loaf, except that i had the mixer knead it for about twenty minutes. then i used some tricks from my new book, cranking up the oven to 450 and putting a pan of water in with the bread. the crust did get nice and crunchy and the texture was very smooth, but it was still really dense. i wonder if i need more yeast, more sugar, more or less rising time or a different flour to water ratio? i certainly need to remember to slit the top, because this loaf ended up with an enormous air bubble in the top (see hole in the picture).

Vegan cheeseball

in honor of finding a few extra copies of veganisn't, here is a recipe for vegan cheeze ball. no, it's not exactly like cheese, but it is damn good with crackers.








1 block extra firm, non-silken tofu
1 C nutritional yeast flakes
1 C cashews and/or almonds
1 C pecans
2 t garlic powder
1 t lemon juice
1 t vinegar
1 t salt

pulverize the cashews or almonds in a food processor. when they are finely ground, add everything else except the pecans, and keep processing until everything becomes a paste and starts to ball up. chop the pecans. make the paste into a ball or log shape, and roll in the pecans pieces. serve with crackers or something to spread it on. (it's also good with a splash of red wine or a few drops of liquid smoke for a slightly different flavor.)

if you want a copy of veganisn't, see the new etsy shop feature on the right side of my blog.

Nata de Coco (a Very Odd Food)

i know i have written about this before, but i think now that i have photos it deserves another mention. this is nata de coco, possibly the strangest food on the planet. these little cubes are translucent, opalescent, and depending on how you bite them, strangely chewy or explosively juicy.

i first tasted nata de coco in japan, where i assumed due to being unable to read the package that it was some type of strange fruit. years later, i found a can in my asian grocery store. apparently it is fermented coconut water (although the taste is amazingly light and sweet for a fermented food), and a traditional food of the phillipines. it is now used in a variety of asian foods, from thai or vietnamese sweet coconut soup to japanese or chinese shaved ice sundaes.

i would love to try to make some, partly because i'm sick of these tiny cubes and would like to bite into a chunk of nata de coco about the size of my fist. unfortunately i've been completely unable to find any recipes or sources for the culture involved, which is probably the secret because my can lists the ingredients as coconut water gel, sugar and citric acid. i try to force this food on people pretty much every chance i get, because it is so weird and, i think, good. if your asian grocery store is open, you should go get some right now (get the plain flavor unless you like fake fruit).

burnt almond cupcakes

i first discovered this concept when james brought home a box of unwanted pastries he found; a few were bites of light, fluffy cake with light, fluffy frosting, stuffed with creamy pudding and covered with sweet, crunchy almond slivers. i didn't expect to encounter them again, until a few months later when i saw an item with a similar description on a restaurant menu and had to give it a try. it was called burnt almond torte.

i didn't understand the name because the almonds didn't seem burnt at all, or even heavily toasted. that is, until i tried to make it myself. i think a more accurate name would be "you will burn the almonds torte". the almonds ended up a little smokier than i intended and the cake itself wasn't the best ever, but it was pretty good for a first try (and a vegan one, at that).

anyway, here is how my cupcakes worked: i used the white cupcake recipe from vegan cupcakes take over the world, poked a hole in them and piped in some simple custard made from soy milk. then we spread them with a layer of a basic oil and powdered sugar frosting (because i wasn't feeling ambitious enough to really recreate the fluffy frosting on the original) and a sprinkling of almond slices coated with melted sugar (this was the hard part. you have to stir the almonds in over the heat or the syrup will solidify instantly, which we learned the hard way).

incidentally, i learned while researching this recipe that a prantl's, a bakery in pittsburgh is famous for this type of cake. who knows, maybe that was where my original inspiration came from.

besides living in our new place, we are cooking in our new kitchen! these muffins are nothing too special (the vegan oatmeal muffin recipe i posted in my old journal, made with raisins, pecans and chocolate chips, served with some fancy pants cultured butter from pastured cows that we decided to try this week) but they are very exciting to me because i really missed actually cooking while we were living in our tent. hopefully there will be more impressive culinary feats to come later this week...


...in the meantime, here is river in his bear suit. this has got to be one of my all time favorite outfits of his.

vegan cookbooks

today i am posting my favorite cookbooks. i have a lot of cookbooks, and they are pretty much vegan, because that is how i mostly cook. vegan cookbooks can be a real quagmire, so i hope this list is useful.

the new farm vegetarian cookbook is probably the classic vegan cookbook (as far as i know it was the first to use nutritional yeast as a cheese substitute), and it is a great first cookbook for new vegans or people just learning to cook. it is not a convenience cookbook in that it includes making staples like bread and tofu from scratch, but a lot of the meal recipes are extremely simple and/or quick. plus, it's pretty comprehensive for such a small book, including breakfasts, dinners, snacks, desserts and so on.

the new whole foods encyclopedia is not really a cookbook, but it can introduce you to lots of new ingredients and give tips on how best to use them. it's a surprisingly interesting read and a great reference.

millennium and the voluptuous vegan are my inspirational cookbooks. they are both too complicated for daily use, but the recipes are amazing. millenium is the most involved (recipes include saffron lasagnette with white bean and seitan sausage ragout and baklava with pomegranate sorbet), and it has beautiful photos. the voluptuous vegan is slightly more accessible (for example, hot and sour soup with dumplings and a really good pecan pumpkin pie); i actually make recipes from it occasionally.

tofu cookery is pretty much what it sounds like. this book taught me how to cook with and not resent tofu. it's not exactly health food by today's standards, as many of the recipes use plenty of salt, sugar and oil, but it's good.

vegan cupcakes take over the world. ok, yeah, these cupcakes are actually really good. nothing too earth-shattering, but the recipes are solid (or even better, fluffy), and there are lots of interesting ideas. good for serving to people who think they hate all vegan food.

so, in case anyone has any leftover pumpkin from last week, i decided to post one of my favorite recipes ever, slightly adapted from an old cookbook my mom used to have. these pumpkin muffins/cupcakes with peanut butter frosting are sweet, moist, fluffy, and strangely addictive.

1 C cooked or canned pumpkin
1/2 C oil
1/2 C maple syrup or honey
1/2 C water
1 3/4 C flour
1 T cornstarch or egg replacer
1 t baking soda
1 t baking powder
1 t cinnamon
1/2 t salt
1/2 t nutmeg

1/2 C or so peanut butter
maple syrup or honey to taste
pinch of salt

mix wet ingredients, mix dry ingredients and combine. bake 20-25 minutes at 350, in a greased or papered muffin pan. sweeten and salt peanut butter to taste, then thin with a little oil or soy milk if it's hard to spread. frost when cool. makes about 12.

Veganisn't

I'm posting these Veganisn't cookbook zines we made a while ago to my Etsy account, so i figured i would stick the picture up here too.

On the right is my favorite page, which is a fold out "how to make something out of anything" chart.

awesome vegan almond butter brownies

i've finally found a recipe for vegan brownies that doesn't taste like a chocolate sponge! it's adapted from the vegan brownies recipe at allrecipes.



1 C melted coconut oil
1 C water
1 t almond extract
2 C sugar
2 C flour
3/4 C cocoa powder
1 t baking powder
1 t salt
1/2 C almond butter

preheat the oven to 350. mix the oil, water, extract and sugar. mix the flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt in another bowl. oil a 9"x13" pan or two 8" or 9" rounds. combine the wet and dry ingredients and pour into the pan(s). dot the almond butter over the surface of the brownie and then swirl a knife through the batter in a spiral and/or criss-cross pattern to make a marbled effect. bake for about 30 minutes, then cool. these are mushy when hot but have a dense, fudgey texture when cool.

and of course, you can do them without the almond butter and with any flavor of extract.