Chocolate Vanilla Birthday Cake

This week, both my husband and I celebrated our birthdays. For four days, he and I are the same age...until his birthday rolls around. This means that we often celebrate our birthdays together. 

Last year, I made a Lemon-Raspberry Plate Trifle that went horribly wrong. This year I made a chocolate vanilla cake that turned out much better than the trifle, albeit a little dry. I included the recipe nonetheless, but I think it needs a little tweaking. Does anyone know how to make a dry cake moist? Do I just add more water before baking it?

This week we also got a box of veggies from our CSA! Starting in the bottom left we received green and yellow beans, rainbow chard, arugula, GIGANTIC carrots, white onions, fresh garlic, cauliflower, cucumbers (including a lemon cucumber!), egyptian spinach, and an assortment of summer squash.

I've never heard of egyptian spinach before. According to my CSA, it has 19 times the nutrients of regular spinach! It looks different from spinach, but my CSA recommends using it like spinach. I'm going to try it in my green monster tomorrow morning. I may be running circles around my co-workers as a result of its unbelievable nutritional profile!

Our box also contained some new potatoes! I haven't made any of my Fabulous Potato Salad this year, so I am excited to make some this week with these really fresh potatoes.

Like most places in the United States this week, we were in the middle of a heat wave. Amazingly on Wednesday, my home town of Moorhead, MN was the hottest place ON EARTH! I still can't believe it. We were up there last weekend for the Fargo Street Fair and the Clay County Fair.

I always think of trains when I think of Fargo/Moorhead. :) 

In addition to fair-ing it up for our birthdays, we went to a Trampled by Turtles outdoor concert last night in Minneapolis. Outdoor concerts are fantastic when the weather is good, which it was for most of it. It did need to get cut short because of some pesky lightning... 

I am determined to figure out a way to make this cake more moist, because I really liked the chocolate and vanilla flavors. I would also change how I did the frosting. I liked the buttercream layer of frosting inbetween the cake layers. However, instead of buttercream on top too, I would just add a plethora of fresh fruit. Strawberries were great. Raspberries and blueberries would also be divine.

Chocolate Vanilla Cake

12 servings, 60 minutes (plus more for cooling and decorating)

1 vanilla bean

1/2 cup boiling water

1 cup cake flour

3/4 cup cocoa powder

1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

4 large eggs, separated

1 1/4 cups sugar

1/4 cup canola oil

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease two 8- or 9-inch cake pans.
2. Trim the ends off of the vanilla bean and finely mince the whole bean. Add to the boiling water and let steep while you prepare the remaining ingredients.
3. In a small bowl, combine flower, cocoa, baking powder, and salt.
4. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites to stiff peaks.
5. In a third bowl, add the yolks, sugar, oil, vanilla extract, and vanilla bean and steeping water. Beat until creamy. Mix in the dry ingredients until smooth. Fold in the egg whites gently, but thoroughly.
6. Pour batter into prepared pans and bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out cleanly. Let cool for a few minutes before removing from the pans. Let cool completely before decorating.

Print this recipe. From How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman.

Creamy Tomato Soup

One of the things I love most about food is that it can evoke unexpected emotions. Has this ever happened to you? Sometimes when I'm cooking, I'll smell something and suddenly I'm transported to my grandparent's farm. Other times, just the flavors themselves seem to emit a time of the year, for example the recently discovered cucumber discs with cheese taste just like Summer. 

This weekend, my husband and I went to my parents' house for a visit. For one of the meals, several of my extended family members joined us. I cooked up my newly discovered chile-cornmeal crusted tofu (and some had chicken, which the meat-eaters thought was excellent) slathered with pumpkin seed mole sauce. It was one of those meals that just fell together naturally. Had I planned it more overtly, I don't think it would have been nearly as good. 

Ayurvedic cooking believes that when you cook, your emotions get infused with the food and can enhance or hinder the flavors. I know it sounds strange, but I was in harmony with my cooking of this meal, and I remember sitting at the table and feeling a strong sense of connectedness with the others at the table. I was not only feeding my body, but also feeding my soul. 

We devoured every bite of food on the table.

This Creamy Tomato Soup recipe evokes pure comfort. The "creaminess" comes from tofu, not cream. This is the first time I used tofu in my soup to add a cream factor, and I must admit I was a little nervous as to how it would affect the flavor. Cream and tofu do not taste the same; however, the do add they same texture. Because both have a very mild flavor, the difference in the flavor of this soup is also very small.

Plus, adding tofu instead of cream greatly improves nutritional profile of the soup:

• Calories: 207 (Tofu) vs. 302 (Cream)
• Total Fat: 11.7 (Tofu) vs. 24.3 (Cream)
• Saturated Fat: 1.6 (Tofu) vs. 10.4 (Cream)
• Cholesterol: 0 (Tofu) vs. 54.3 (Cream)
• Protein: 7.4 (Tofu) vs. 4.6 (Cream)

This idea of infusing our food with food for our souls was also explored in a book I recently finished called The Love Goddess' Cooking School by Melissa Senate. In this book, the main character teaches cooking classes using her grandmother's recipes. The unique thing about the recipes is that they all have ingredients like "one wish" or "one sad thought" or "one happy thought" in addition to the regular ingredients. While it was a fictional story (and a bit of a fluffy read), there is some truth to how the quality of a dish can be influenced by our state of mind when cooking it.

Creamy Tomato Soup

3-4 servings, 40 minutes

2 tablespoons olive oil, divided

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 small onion, chopped (about 1/2 cup)

1 fennel bulb, chopped

1 28 ounce can fire roasted tomatoes

1 handful fresh parsley, minced

8 ounces (1/2 package) soft silken tofu

Salt and pepper to taste

1 hopeful thought

1. In a large sauce pan, head 1 tablespoon of the oil over medium-high heat. Add the garlic, onion, and fennel. Let cook, stirring occasionally, for about 5 minutes or until soft and fragrant. 
2. Add the tomatoes and parsley. Let flavors meld for at least 15 minutes.
3. Stir in the silken tofu. Then, using an immersion blender, blend until creamy smooth.
4. Add salt and pepper to taste. Leftovers taste fantastic too!

Print this recipe.

Grilled Chile-Cornmeal Crusted Tofu

I often get asked the question "What do vegetarians grill?" True, grilling has a heavy emphasis on meat. However, the most recent issue of Vegetarian Times had an entire section on grilling ideas. While it is always easy to grab a frozen veggie burger to add to the grill, that usually isn't the most tasty option. Vegetarian cooking isn't about finding meat substitutes; it's about changing the emphasis from meat to veggies. Therefore, vegetarian grilling almost always starts with fresh vegetables.

We got a CSA box this week full of fantastic fresh veggies and three cheeses. Pictured above, starting with the bag in the lower left corner is snow peas, sweetheart cabbage, fennel, carrots, white cipollini onions, fresh garlic, mini red romaine, arugula, and broccoli.

We also got some zucchini and cucumbers! My favorites!

These were new to me and actually new to our farm too. They are radish seed pods and have a really strong radish flavor that mellows when cooked. So, I decided to add these to a summer stir fry.

I didn't care for them in this stir fry. The texture of the tips were woody and thus hard to chew, and the radish flavor did nothing for this dish. I ended up leaving them on my plate. My husband liked it. I still have a few fresh pods left, so I'm going to try a different method of cooking them and see if I like them better next time.

We also got three cheeses in our CSA: Monterey Jack, Cheddar with Ramps (my absolute favorite cheese!), and labneh, which was a new cheese to us. It is a sheeps milk cheese that tastes a lot like yogurt and has the consistency of cream cheese. In fact, it's quite sour and inspired my new favorite appetizer: cucumbers with labneh and dill weed.

You've probably had cucumbers in a creamy dill sauce before. I love the flavors but I usually don't go to the trouble of making it. Labneh is tangy and sour and when spread onto the cucumbers, tastes just like cucumbers and cream. It's pretty much amazing. So amazing that I had to go out and buy more cucumbers because we ate all of our CSA ones already. If you can get your hands on some labneh, do it!

Back to grilling. I've grilled a lot of food before. It all was just OK. Not great, but still edible. Except for this grilled meal. It still makes my mouth water. If you make none of my recipes, you must make this tofu. Even if you hate tofu, this will change your life (or at least your opinion of tofu).

Grilled pineapple is fantastic. It's even better when you marinate it in 6 tablespoons tequila, 3 tablespoons agave nectar, and 1 tablespoon lime juice for a couple of hours before grilling...just sayin'... 

A couple recipes inspired what I'm calling Upside Down Grilled Caesar Salad. Drizzle some lemon juice and oil over hearts of romaine and grill for a few minutes on each side; coarsely chop it. Toast or grill some crusty French bread. Drizzle some vegetarian Caesar salad dressing over the bread. (Veganomican has a fantastic Caesar salad dressing recipe.) Top with the grilled romaine, shaved parmesan cheese, and enjoy warm. 

The star of the meal was by far the Chile-Cornmeal Crusted Tofu drizzled with Pumpkin Seed Mole. This mole is so good you will want to put it on everything, or at least corn flavored things... 

For dessert, we finished off a chocolate truffle cake I had made a few days ago and served it with homemade strawberry-rhubarb jam I got from a co-worker. It was even better with some whipped cream, but after a bad experience with whipped cream earlier this week, I skipped the whipped cream. If you want to see beautiful pictures of the cake and get it's amazingly simple recipe, visit 101 Cookbooks (linked above). 

Pumpkin Seed Mole

about 2 cups (which is a lot!), 20 minutes

1 cup raw pumpkin seeds

1/8 teaspoon freshly cracked pepper

1 cup fresh cilantro

1 cup fresh parsley

1 cup salsa verde (choose a brand with as few ingredients as possible or just used canned tomatillos)

1 white cipollini onion, green part only (or use scallions)

1 sweetheart cabbage leaf (or use 2 leafs of romaine)

1 clove garlic, chopped

1/4 cup olive oil

1. Toast the pumpkin seeds lightly over medium heat in a skillet. They will pop and crackle. When they have a strong toasted aroma (about 3 minutes), add them to the food processor with the pepper. Grind to a fine powder, stirring occasionally for a more even grinding.
2. Add the rest of the ingredients, except the olive oil, to the food processor and blend until thick and creamy. 
3. Add the olive oil and blend for another 30 seconds or until the ingredients are well incorporated. Add salt to taste. Serve warm or cold.

Chile-Cornmeal Crusted Tofu

4 servings, 40 minutes

1 lb extra firm tofu

1 cup milk

2 tablespoons cornstarch

1 cup cornmeal

1 tablespoon chile powder

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1/8 teaspoon cayenne

Zest of 1 lime

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1. Drain the tofu. Wrap in a couple towels or napkins and place a heavy can or jar on top to press it. After 20 minutes, unwrap it and slice it into 8 rectangles.
2. Meanwhile, in a shallow container (a sandwich saver works great here), mix together the milk and cornstarch. Set aside. In another shallow container, mix together the rest of the ingredients and set aside. 
3. Dip each slice of pressed tofu into the milk mixture, then into the cornmeal mixture, and set on a baking sheet.
4. If grilling, preheat grill to medium-high. Brush the grill with oil and set tofu on the grill. Cook for about 10 minutes on each side. If baking, preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Spray each side of tofu with oil (brushing oil will not work). Bake on each side for about 12 minutes. Serve each slice of tofu with a tablespoon (or more) of the mole.

Print these recipes. Adapted from Veganomicon by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero

Garlic Scape Soup

We finally have warm, sunny weather, and... I decide to make soup. (Sounds strange - even to me!) To be fair, this is a light soup and makes a perfect lunch when pared with a mixed greens salad. 

I've been waiting to make this soup since I bought Super Natural Cooking last fall. Garlic scapes are only around for a week or two in the Spring... and since our Spring has been so cold and wet, they only just arrived! 

I love the hot summer sun. I feel energized and excited about so many things. Plus, I start to crave really simple, fresh foods. I had the most fantastic summer salad today at Kings Wine Bar that was mixed greens, strawberries, blackberries, and walnuts tossed in a light vinaigrette with a couple thin slices of brie on the side. Simple and divine. 

At a recent party, I brought some really simple appetizers. One version had a mint leaf, cucumber, green olive, and marinated feta on the spear. These were good, but not great. And they were a pain. The feta cheese was perpetually crumbling off of its spear. They were more trouble than they were worth.

The caprese salad on a spear, on the other hand, was fantastic and super easy. In a bowl, I added an equal number of fresh mozzarella mini balls, cherry tomatoes, and basil leaves. I drizzled in some olive oil and sprinkled in salt and pepper. After tossing well to coat all the ingredients, I threaded one basil leaf, one tomato, and one mozzarella ball onto a spear. Done and delicious.

This Garlic Scape Soup echos the simple and easy theme. And it can easily be made vegan by omitting the optional dash of cream. The soup will still dazzle your taste buds. 

Garlic scapes are part of the same garlic plant that produces garlic bulbs. Most gardeners cut off the garlic scape because then the plant can focus on growing awesome garlic. Garlic scapes are much more mild than garlic cloves and have an amazing fresh flavor that the cloves lack. If you see them at your farmer's market, scoop them up! You won't be disappointed. 

Garlic Scape Soup

4 servings, 35 minutes

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

1 dozen garlic scapes, chopped

2 medium russet potatoes, scrubbed and cubed

2 1/2 cups water

1 vegetable bouillon cube (I used Rapunzel's No Salt Added)

1 handful spinach

1/4 lemon

salt and pepper to taste

2 tablespoons (or a splash) of heavy cream (optional)

1. Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the garlic scapes and cook for a couple of minutes. Add the potatoes, water, and bouillon cube. Bring to a boil and stir to dissolve the bouillon cube. Reduce heat to a simmer and cook, covered, for about 20 minutes, or until the potatoes are cooked.
2. Add the spinach to the pot, but don't stir it in. Cover again and let the spinach steam for a couple of minutes. When the spinach is wilted, stir into the soup.
3. Puree the soup using a hand blender until blissfully smooth. We don't want chunks in this soup.
4. Stir in the juice from the lemon, salt, pepper, and cream (if using). Taste, and add more salt and pepper until the flavors shine. Enjoy! (Try to save some for the next day - the soup gets even better!)

Print this recipe. Adapted from Super Natural Cooking by Heidi Swanson.