Raw Hummus

1 1/2 cup sprouted chickpeas
1 cup soaked almonds*
juice of two lemons or limes (more if desired)
1/2 to 3/4 cup raw tahini*
1/3 bunch cilantro
3 or 4 cloves of garlic
1/2 tsp coarse Celtic sea salt
about 1/2 cup of water
drizzle of olive oil

*Raw nuts have become problematic ever since the big salmonella epidemic a few years ago. It is still possible to buy truly raw almonds, but they will cost you an arm and a leg. Most of the time what you will find in bulk bins are "pasteurized raw," which obviously aren't really raw and won't sprout. It's still recommended to soak them before eating. Raw tahini has only recently come back on the market after many years.
In your blender or food processor, combine all the ingredients except the water and olive oil. Drizzle in water as needed to keep the mixture soft enough to blend, and finish with a splash of good olive oil. Serve garnished with a dusting of paprika and a swirl of olive oil.

Broth

Almost any cookbook I've ever loved, starting with Betty Crocker and with no end in sight, has a dead spot in it.
I always skipped the broth and stock chapter. First of all, who has time? Second, why waste all those veggies making broth? Just eat 'em! And third, who in the world wants to go to the trouble of making a recipe for broth? No one will ever know you did it!

Just heave a bouillon cube into that puppy and get on with your day.

But lately, following a difficult encounter with the flu, I embarked on an immune building project. There are many immune enhancing foods. While I'm sick, or if I feel run down, I like to make Medicine Soup, which incorporates some of the most potent: shiitakes, seaweed, miso, and garlic. It's a mushroomy, brothy, garlicky, miso soup with plenty of vegetables and sea veggies. It all starts with shiitake mushroom stems. Not only are shiitakes delicious, they also have profound immune building benefits. Most of the good stuff is in their stems, and can be extracted by simmering gently. In other words, by making broth.

I'd stem the shiitakes, set the caps aside and simmer the stems. You can do this while you're making dinner--it takes very little attention. I was on a mission to rebuild my immune system by eating shiitakes and/or their broth every day. Before long I was throwing in a nice piece of kombu, some wilty carrots, the butt end of a head of celery. Then I recalled something Anna Thomas said about garlic skins making the most flavorful broth--so in they went. Onions skins, potato peelings, zucchini trimmings, the tough parts of the collards, the seedy hearts of bell peppers, those little tiny garlic cloves that are too small to peel. Squishy tomatoes, wilted lettuce, a dried up half an onion you forgot about. If it's not actually spoiled, you can chuck it into the broth. (The only downside is that the chickens aren't getting as many scraps as they used to!) Add a pinch of Celtic sea salt and a spoonful of apple cider vinegar to help dissolve minerals into the water.

If you end up with a lot of broth, you can strain it into jars & freeze it. Just a cup or two will almost magically enhance the flavor of your next stew, soup, pot of beans. Or you can keep simmering, reduce it down, and thicken it for gravy. As the weeks go by I find myself tossing new things into the broth like a handful of crab boil, or a thumb of ginger, or a spoonful of peppercorns. And I honestly can't believe how much better things taste with homemade stock.

Medicine Soup
1 largish onion, sliced
4 cups assorted vegetables like broccoli, carrots, rhutabaga, beets, zucchini, potatoes, corn, greens, etc (really whatever you like)
a 3- inch piece of kombu or a small handful of your favorite seaweed
some grated fresh ginger
6-8 cups of water, broth, or any combination thereof

Saute the onion until browned in healthy oil of your choice (coconut is excellent). If using Shiitake caps add them now & saute a few minutes to bring out their flavor. Add veggies and broth and simmer until they are just tender. Remove soup from heat.

Mix 3 tbsp miso ( I love chickpea miso--it's creamy and mild, and not soy) with a little cool water to make it liquid. Wait until soup has cooled slightly before you stir in the miso--it's a living probiotic food and you don't want to kill it.
Before serving, to each bowl add one or two cloves of crushed raw, garlic and a dash of Sriracha if you like it.

Almond and Artichoke Pesto

Technically, pesto is olive oil, pine nuts, basil, garlic and maybe a little parmesan. I didn't have all that stuff, so I winged this. We ate it tonight, rolled up in Belgiosio's Mozzarella Roll with a few capers and a bit of kalamata olive spread, accompanied by toasty bread and a great big salad.


Almond and Artichoke Pesto
1 cup whole raw almonds
2 tbsp pine nuts
1/2 cup artichoke hearts (about 6 small)
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 bunch of fresh parsley
2 or 3 cloves of garlic
1 tbsp fresh oregano leaves
1 1/2 tbsp white balsamic vinegar (or lemon juice)
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
a grind of black pepper

Grind all ingredients to a paste in a food processor. If possible, allow to cool and thicken overnight before using to stuff the cheese roll.

Banana Rum Spice Cake

BANANA RUM SPICE CAKE

Sift together in a bowl:
1 cup quinoa flour
1 1/2 cups all purpose gluten free flour
1/2 cup walnuts halves
3 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp allspice
Whirl in a blender until smooth:
3 eggs
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup coconut oil
3-4 bananas
1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Rub the inside of a spring form or bundt cake pan with coconut oil.
When oven is hot, add the banana mixture into the flour bowl and stir batter just enough to combine ingredients. Pour the batter into cake pan and bake for 50 minutes.
If using a bundt pan, top off the cake by mixing a little sugar with some chopped walnuts and lining the pan with them.

Rum sauce:
Just before the cake is done, combine 1/2 cup butter or coconut oil, 1/2 cup brown sugar, and 1/4 cup water. Bring to low boil and simmer on low for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and add 1/2 cup dark rum (spiced rum is extra delicious). Test cake for doneness and remove from the oven. With a toothpick, poke holes all over the top of the cake. Spoon the rum sauce slowly over the cake, allowing it time to soak in.
Decorate with coconut and/or a little cinnamon glaze. Best if you can let it sit 24 hours before serving.

Thanksgiving

There are religious holidays, and cultural holidays. Thanksgiving is one of the latter, though certainly celebrated with fervor. There is a school of thought--and they are not wrong--which holds that there is nothing to be celebrated in the story of the first Thanksgiving. It's a dreadful tale of starvation, trust misplaced, and the tenuous beginnings of the European genocide of the First Nations. Instead of being gluttons, we should fast and be ashamed.
I think that view is entirely true.
But it's not the whole truth of the holiday.
I'm white--or largely so, as far as anyone knows, anyway--and I am grateful and pleased to live here, where I live, in this beautiful sacred place. Without that first year, the mythical pilgrims and Indians sitting down together in peace and plenty, mayhap I wouldn't be here. Perhaps my soul would be in Scotland, and just as thrilled with my lot there!
Still, I am a creature of THIS land. It is my home. If it were mine to do, I like to think I would not be one who passed out smallpox blankets or massacred villages or drove whole peoples out of their ancestral lands or spared no effort to obliterate their language and sacred beliefs. That my family and the First People communities near us would be friendly, learn from each other.
We saw a little of this conundrum expressed in Cozumel. In the town center, there is a sculpture.
Two figures stand before a replica of a Mayan Temple: a conquistador, and a Mayan woman with a baby. The people of Cozumel are Mestizo. Those figures are their ancestral parents. Whatever passed during conquest--and as we know, it was no prettier than what transpired in North America--the people have chosen to forgive it, to love themselves despite their origin.
For our holiday this year, we had some of our bests friends over. This year, they learned a bitter and difficult truth about their health. We are grateful for their continued presence in our lives and it was lovely to feast with them!
Here, in humility, gratitude, and celebration of this beautiful Land and our beloved friends and family, are the dishes we ate this year for Thanksgiving.

Veggie tray with dill dip
Stuffed Portobellos with Cheese and Walnuts
mashed potatoes
garlic butter
gravy
spicy mixed greens salad
cranberry and pine nut vinaigrette
pumpkin cheescake

Christmas menu:
Quorn roast with vegetables in gravy
Green beans with slow-roasted tomatoes and dill
Greek salad
Apple cranberry crumble

New Year's Eve and Day
Layered bean dip with fresh veggies and cheese
Spicy-sweet blackeyed peas
Dandelion greens with Potatoes (see video)
cornbread

Thanksgiving, Solstice, and New Year's

Working as I do in a grocery store--one which is particularly focused on real ingredients instead of mixes or boxed dinners--the entire Fall is one long series of Feasts. We begin to prepare for Thanksgiving the moment Halloween is over; we stock loads of flour, sugar, oils, shortening, nuts, honey, cheeses, spices, oh the spices! This year alone during the feast season we sold more than 50 pound of beautiful, fragrant Vietnamese cinnamon. Turkeys, tofurkeys, hams, greens, sweet potatoes, marshmallows, cranberries dried, fresh, frozen--pies and roasts for those who can't cook their own, bread, rolls, yeast, potatoes, the year's first citrus comes in; eggnog, cream, coffee, Beaujolais Nouveau.We do more business on the day before Thanksgiving than any other day of the year. After Thanksgiving, the Christmas preparations begin, and we have to be on our game for that since Christmas is celebrated with parties for weeks in advance. Now the focus is on baking: cookies, candy. Christmas dinner is a goose or a roast beast, a seitan roast or my favorite this year, a Quorn roast in gravy. The weather is really cold now so everyone wants hot tea, mulled cider, spiced wine, hot toddy. It's a month-long marathon of keeping up with work parties, houses full of relatives, exhausted shoppers. And in Florida, the heart of winter is one of our finest times for local vegetables. Collards, mustards, lettuce, spinach, greens of every variety; sugar snap peas, cilantro, and fresh green onions. No sooner have we made it through Yule when it is the New Year, and time for blackeyed peas for luck, greens for money, macaroni and cheese because it's delicious. Wine, bubbly, sparkling juices, and mixers of any ilk. Chips, dips, cheese trays, veggie plates--people are tired now, and full, and the New Year's eve party is for drinking not eating, though the groceries still fly out the door in eagerly laden carts.
So here, with a full helping of happy memories and tangential musings, are the dishes I made to celebrate the 2010 Feasting Season.

Yogurt-leavened Blue Corn Cakes

1 /12 cups blue corn meal
2 cups boiling water
1/4 cup live-cultured yogurt
1 tbsp sugar (optional)
2 tbsp olive or other oil
2 eggs
1 1/2 cup all purpose flour, blended with
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
Additions (choose one or two):
1 cup corn kernels
1 cup grated cheese
1/2 cup hemp, pumpkin, or sunflower seeds
1/4 cup flax or chia meal (replace equal amount flour)
minced onion, jalapenos


In the morning, whisk the boiling water into the cornmeal. Let cool until just warm, then stir in the yogurt. Let stand in a warm place, covered with a clean towel, until supper time.
Mixture should become slightly bubbly. When it's time to cook, whisk in two eggs, the oil, youradditions, and the all purpose flour, working quickly to retain fluffiness.
Cook as regular cornbread, or prepare as griddle cakes.