Kitchen Experiments

I have some great memories as a kid of concocting food in the kitchen. I'm not sure where my mom was at the time, although I do know that she approved, but I remember mixing all kinds of ingredients together and feeding them to my little sister. Most of it I think was edible, all of it was fun, and I have always thought fondly of those early kitchen experiments as the beginning of my love of cooking and as one of the primary reasons for my comfort and freedom with all things culinary. 

My son is nearing 7 years old, and he has been cooking with me in our home kitchen since he could stand up. Usually he lends a hand with some baking on a weekend morning, challah dough for shabbat, peeling carrots for a snack or some other small tasks here and there. Recently however he has started asking for little bits of ingredients or a small portion of a meal we are preparing to make an "experiment" of his own. On one occasion he took a ball of pie dough scraps, rolled them in a ball, stuffed with a few chocolate chips and topped with sprinkles and baked it in a lovely silver muffin paper. Another experiment was creating some sushi rolls from a handful of rice left in the rice cooker, a carrot and the last piece of nori. And yet another was tofu marinated with orange zest, sesame oil, salt, garlic powder, and OJ, seared until brown. I don't know that he particularly loved eating any of these food experiments nearly as much as he enjoyed making them, but the pride that he displayed in the process and the final creation were fabulous, and I can't help but feel that I am nurturing a very healthy love of cooking for at at least one more generation.

 Marinated and seared tofu:

 

The Proud boy with his creation:

Carrot sushi roll:

 Pie dough creation and pie:

A few nights ago I managed to get the two kids to lend a hand in making dinner. My son peeled and chopped carrots and potatoes, and my daughter (nearly 3) cut celery and potatoes with a fairly sharp butter knife. Lending a hand with the cooking certainly got them more excited about dinner and I got to be with them rather than trying to occupy them in the other room so I could cook. Please forgive the quality of these pictures. I don't have good lighting for evening photography, but just couldn't resist posting this. Happy cooking and eating!

Any luck cooking with kids? please share!

Food Coops Over the Years

Photo credit: Dave Robbins Photography

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. Between the work I am doing as the Chair of the New Haven Food Policy Council, and my new paid work helping to get a new grocery store and food coop in New Haven, CT : Elm City Market off the ground, I've been more than busy. And, let's not forget the family: many sick days and snow days. It's been a full month and there are more than a few half written blog posts awaiting my attention. While I try and find time to finish those I thought I'd share a few links to some food coops that I have either been a member of or have shopped at over the years.

I grew up lending a hand at the original New Haven Food Coop when I was a kid in the 70's and 80's, until it closed and turned into a Meat Market and Hostess outlet (no joke!). When I was in College in the early 90's at Sarah Lawrence, I moved to Brooklyn to dance and teach and joined the Park Slope Food Coop, a fairly unique food coop, one of the few left where a monthly work shift is required of all members and only members are allowed to shop at the store. I loved being part of this coop, and many years later when my son was born, my husband got a job there as one of the few paid employees, so we felt even more a part of it. There was a window of time in the late 90's when I lived in Boston, and I joined and shopped at the Harvest Coop in Cambridge and in Jamaica Plain, MA. This coop was more of a standard small grocery store open to the public where anyone could shop but members had special benefits and discounts.

You may have heard me say more than once that my life revolves around food, and I do mean this literally. When I travel or spend any time in another city or town one of the first things I do is go in search of a grocery store, food market or food coop to explore. I love wandering the aisles noticing the familiar and the unexpected. What little gems might be waiting to be discovered on high up shelf,  in a prepared food case, or on a market table. As a child of the 70's, raised at least partially in a fairly alternative hippy community, I find visiting food coops particularly interesting. Many of them still around today were born of that era; natural food stores with a crunchy granola style and explicit social and communal missions. Some of them have survived, evolving in some ways, but holding onto their roots, others have closed and other new coops have been inspired by these older markets but try to create something new and more contemporary. Some of the new food coops strive to have an affordable mix of natural and conventional foods to help them appeal to a wider audience, many are open to the public: to members and non-members alike, and, all of them are striving to create a member owned independent grocery store in the face of huge corporate expansion.

For me, being part of a food coop has allowed me to have an even deeper connection to the source of my food and involvement in the community I live in. It just feels different to shop in a grocery store that you are a member/owner of. When there is a spill on the floor, I care more about helping to clean it up; if the item I am looking for is always out of stock I am more likely to talk to the manager rather than just buy it at a different store; if the store is doing particularly well or poorly, I feel proud or concerned. In other words, when I'm a member of a food coop, I'm invested in more ways than one, and this helps me and the store, so it is a win win situation.

Here are links to some of the food coops I have been a member at or shopped at over the years:

Park Slope Food Coop Brooklyn, NY 
Harvest Coop Cambridge and Boston, MA
Rainbow Coop San Francisco, CA
Flatbush food coop, Brooklyn, NY
East End Coop, Pittsburgh, PA
Brattleboro food coop Brattleboro, VT
River Valley Market, Northampton, MA

A few other coops of interest:
City Market, Burlington, VT
Willimantic Food Coop Willamantic,CT

Have you been a member at a food coop or shopped at one? 

Please share your thoughts below!

Black Beans and Sneaky Greens

So, finally here it is, the long awaited recipe for Black Beans with Sneaky Greens. This is a great versatile recipe. It is easy and very inexpensive to throw together a big pot of flavorful beans that can be served as a soup, in tacos, with arepas, over rice with a fried egg, or add some diced tomato and hot pepper to spice it up a bit. Cooked beans freeze well, so if you make a large pot full, try freezing a few portions for a quick weeknight meal in the future.

Black Beans with Sneaky Greens *

2 large onion or 4 cups coarsely chopped

8 cloves garlic peeled

1 1/2 tablespoon salt

3 tablespoons oil

16 cups water

4 cups dried black beans

4 cups finely chopped kale, collards or spinach (large stems removed)

1. In a blender or food processor, puree onions, garlic, oil and salt.
2. In a medium soup pot over medium-low heat, saute the onion and garlic mixture until very fragrant and no longer raw smelling, about 15 minutes. Stir occasionally and be careful not to brown.
3. Rinse beans and add to the pot along with the water.
4. Simmer beans for 3 hours or until tender and the sauce has thickened. If it is very thick and the beans are still firm, add water. If the sauce is still thin but beans are tender, continue to simmer on very low heat until sauce has thickened. Stir occasionally to ensure that the beans do not stick to the bottom of the pan and burn. Once the beans are tender and the sauce thickened, add the chopped greens and simmer till tender, about 20 minutes for kale or collards, 4 minutes for spinach. Adjust seasoning with salt and pepper and serve.

*You do not need to soak the beans ahead of time to make this dish, and the taste improves when the beans are made a day or so ahead of time.

To make Tacos:

6" soft tortillas (flour or corn)

plain low fat yogurt

shredded lettuce

optional additions: hot sauce, onions, mojo sauce, grated cheese, salsa

1. Warm tortillas
2. Top with beans, yogurt and lettuce
3. Enjoy

Quick and delicious condiment

I often make a quick and flavorful onion hot sauce to accompany my tacos: finely dice a small onion, squeeze the juice of one lime on top (or a few tablespoons of white vinegar if you don't have a lime), add a sprinkle of salt and sugar and some hot pepper, (either diced fresh pepper, red pepper flakes or a squeeze of hot sauce). Mix and let sit for 10 minutes to soften the onion. Spoon over tacos as desired. 

Here are some dishes I have made over this year clockwise from top left:

burrito with lime and hot sauce, arepas with lettuce and beans (this actually got a fried egg on to before it was eaten), garlic and kale rice topped with black beans and cheddar, broiled and then spooned over a roasted half of a poblano pepper.

 Are you cooking with beans these days? Please share your favorite dishes by commenting below!

Kid approved, Black Beans with Sneaky Greens!

The day before Christmas Break I visited Edgewood School in New Haven, CT to try out my Black Beans and Sneaky Greens recipe at lunch and see what the kids thought. My son goes to school there, so it was fun to see some kids that I know and ask them and others for their opinions on the recipe. I submitted this recipe to the USDA healthy kids recipe contest, part of Michelle Obama's Let's Move campaign together with the New Haven Public School's Food Service Director, Tim Cipriano and a team of parents and students.  Over all, the beans were a big hit, especially when we served then in a soft taco tortilla with some yogurt and lettuce. The kids didn't know it but I'd cooked a whole bunch of kale into the beans (hence the name "sneaky greens"), so they got a double dose of veggies!

Full Disclosure: the "cream" so many kids said they liked was low fat plain yogurt. The "chip" that some kids had was a triangle of whole wheat flour tortilla toasted with nothing on it. The beans were cooked with lots of garlic and onion so they were very flavorful.

Check out their comments:

Recipe coming soon.......

The Best Apple Cake I've Ever Had

Crumbs. That's all that was left of this cake by the time I found my camera. While digging through my freezer in search of bits of food I might turn into a meal last week, I discovered a bag of ground pecans mixed with spices from a nut crust I made a while back. It was dated 2007 which was shocking, but I tasted the nuts and they didn't smell or taste rancid, so I immediately started devising how many recipes I could make from this beautiful gift from my freezer. It is beyond me how I could have forgotten about such a cherished and expensive ingredient as pecans. All I can think is that it was meant to be just so that I would discover this wonderful cake!

Apple cakes are standard fair with Eastern European Jewish Grandmas, so needless to say I've eaten quite a few of them. They are simple, easy cakes to make, and since they are made with oil, rather than butter, they are moist and stay that way for many days. I have a few apple cake recipes that I use but I have never loved any of them that much. Last week while flipping through my binder of recipes I've clipped out of magazines or newspapers over the years I spotted one from the NY Times (also from 2007, I think it really was meant to be). The recipe, Teddie's Apple Cake was first printed in the Times in 1973 (the year of my birth). The picture was enticing, and I knew it could handle an extra cup or so of ground nuts, so I set off baking.
 

I altered the recipe a bit, adding some whole spelt flour, cardamom, a little less sugar and a few other things. The cake had a wonderful crispy but light sugary crust and a deliciously spiced tender crumb. I have been on a long and strong baking kick over the past few weeks, I promise some good savory foods soon, but for now, enjoy just one more sweet this holiday season.  Happy New Year!

The Best Apple Cake

adjusted from the original Teddie's Apple Cake

Butter for greasing the pan

2 cups all purpose flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 1/2 cups oil

1 cup sugar

3/4 cup light brown sugar packed

3 eggs

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

3/4 teaspoon ground cardamom

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon vanilla

3 cups apples, pealed, cored and cut in thick slices or 3/4-inch cubes

1 to 2 cups chopped or coarsely ground nuts (walnuts or pecans are best)

1/2 cup currants or raisins

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour a 9-inch tube pan. Beat the oil and sugar together in a mixer (fitted with a paddle attachment) while assembling the remaining ingredients. After about 5 minutes, add the eggs and beat until the mixture is creamy.
2.  Sift together 3 cups of flour, the salt, cinnamon, cardamom and baking soda. Stir into the batter. Add the vanilla, apples, nuts and raisins and stir until combined. 
3. Transfer the mixture to the prepared pan. Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in the pan before turning out. Serve at room temperature.

tube pan for the apple cake

Have you had any great baking successes lately? Please share!

Cardamom Bread

This time of year always gets me thinking about culture, traditions and naturally, religion. Between my husband and I, our ancestry represents more than a few nationalities and ethnicities. Me: Dutch, Polish, Hungarian and Romanian, all Jewish. Him: African, Cherokee, Mic Mac, Irish and Swedish. And, we practice two religions in our home, Judaism, and Ifa, the traditional religion of the Yoruba people (Nigeria) and we celebrate Xmas with our extended families. All of this to say that there is a lot going on in our home in December, and while we make sense of it, it involves a lot of different traditions and foods. 

The first year I went to celebrate Xmas with my Husband's many aunts, where the predominant cultural influence is Swedish, I was overjoyed by the abundance of cookies. Seriously, there were endless tins of cookies, and not your usual American varieties. Their family is spread out around the country, so we don't get to have many cookie filled Christmases with them (sad!). Last year we joined some of his family in Brooklyn and tried to recreate a little Swedish joy, hence the lovely cardamom bread above.

As a Jewish girl, I have never wanted to have a Christmas tree in my home, or celebrate the holiday in my home. However, I did grow up celebrating Christmas at my father's house where my step mother is Christian,  and the holiday was an entirely secular event. I felt fortunate as an American kid to be able to celebrate the holiday, it was magical and amazing, but I never did feel that it was my own. Now as a parent, I struggle to communicate this to my own children. They are grounded and find joy in Judaism and the Yoruba tradition, but when Xmas rolls around it is hard to understand why we don't celebrate it in our home, but do go to visit some of their grandparents to celebrate with them. I enjoy helping to make the holiday special with our extended family, and of course helping with the cooking is my easiest entry point. As for the baking, it doesn't hurt that I happen to LOVE cardamom as well, and it is a staple in Swedish sweets.

Cardamom bread is a wonderful Swedish breakfast treat, and while this bread looks complicated, it is really very easy to make. Once again, I modified my basic Challah recipe to make another baked good, so maybe this is really a little bit of a Jewish bread too (Ha!).

Swedish Cardamom Bread

1 1/3 cups warm water (or milk for a richer bread)
2 tablespoons yeast
1 cup sugar, honey or agave
3/4 cup oil or melted butter
5 eggs
1 tablespoon salt
5-6 cups flour (part whole wheat or whole spelt is fine)
2 teaspoons cardamom ground, (black seeds ground, or whole green pods ground and sifted to equal 2 teaspoons) 

sugar, jam, or almond paste for filling
1 egg beaten for brushing the bread
2 tablespoons sugar for topping the bread

1. Pour warm water or milk into a large bowl. Add sugar or other sweetener and yeast, mix and let sit for 1 minute or until the yeast foams up. 
2. Stir in 2 cups of flour, the eggs, oil/butter and cardamom. Mix to combine. If using a stand mixer, knead this mixture with the dough hook attachment, adding the rest of the flour a cup at a time, and the salt towards the end of the flour. If mixing by hand, use a spoon to mix as long as you are able, and then turn the dough onto a floured work surface and knead until the dough is smooth and no longer sticky. Your finished dough should be very smooth, and only slightly tacky, but not sticky. Set the dough in an oiled bowl and cover the bowl with a cloth and put it in a warm place to rise, until doubled in size, about 1.5 hours.
3. Gently turn the dough out onto a floured work surface. Poke the dough down with your finger tips and then give it a few kneads. Let the dough rest for 2 minutes. Roll the dough into a large rectangle using a rolling pin till it is 1-inch thick and about the size of a cookie sheet, 11"x15".
4. Place the dough onto a lined sheet pan with the short end facing you. Spread sugar laced with orange zest or vanilla down the center 1/3 of the dough. You can also use almond paste or jam. Cut 1-inch diagonal slits down both sides of the filling as shown. Starting at the end of the dough that is furthest from you fold one piece from each side in to the center, alternating left and right. Press each strip firmly together in the center to secure it. Cover the bread with a towel and let rise again until doubled in size. Preheat oven to 350. Brush the finished bread with a beaten egg and sprinkle with sugar. Bake until golden brown and the bottom sounds hollow when tapped, about 40-50 minutes.

Enjoy, and have a wonderful holiday season whatever traditions you may or may not be celebrating. Life is not always so simple, but bread is, and it just happens to taste good too. 

Please share any thoughts below!

Apple Crisp with Cider, Spices and Prunes

If you have a sweet tooth like me, or are just around tons of holiday cookies and candies at this time of year, you might be looking for a sweet treat right about now that doesn't leave you feeling comatose or like you've got high fructose corn syrup coursing through your veins. This fruit crisp uses lots of seasonal fruit and only a small amount of added sweetener. I have been making apple crisps for years, and we eat them for dessert with cream, breakfast with yogurt, or straight up for a snack. This crisp turned out better than any I'd made before and the two key elements that I think made it so good are cider and prunes (think dried plums not your grandma's source of fiber); and the apple cider, which is the only sweetener on the fruit, making and the prunes plump during cooking and adding a richness and note of complexity to the apples.

Apple Crisp with Cider, Spices and Prunes

Fruit:

Apples about 10 apples, or enough to fill a 9x13 baking dish

1 1/2  Cups Prunes, whole pitted

2 Cinnamon sticks (or 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon)

5 Cardamom pods (or 1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom)

1 1/2 Cups apple cider

2 Tablespoons butter (optional)

Crisp Topping:

4 Cups oats (I used 3 cups quick oats and 1 cup rolled oats)

1 Cup brown sugar (or honey, maple syrup, agave, molasses or fruit juice concentrate)

3/4 Cups oil

1/3 Cup apple cider

1 teaspoon Cinnamon

1 teaspoon salt

1. Peel and cut apples into 1 inch cubes or 1/2 inch thick slices. Put apples, prunes, cinnamon sticks, cardamom pods and cider in a 9x13inch baking dish. dot with butter if you are using it.
2. In a separate bowl, combine all of the ingredients for the crisp topping. Pile the mixture on top of the fruit and bake in a preheated 350 degree oven until the cider is bubbling rapidly, the fruit is very tender and the crisp topping is nicely browned. If your topping gets too dark but the fruit needs to cook more, drape a piece of foil over the top until it is done.

Note: If you are trying to limit the fat in your diet, you can replace some of the oil with cider. Once you get the hang of it, you can make this type of topping without measuring; use whatever sweetener you like and combine the ingredients and to taste, making adjustments until you have a moist delicious mixture that looks like this:

The cider cooks into the fruit sweetening the apples and plumping the prunes.

This crisp is wonderful alone or paired with a drizzle of milk or cream, yogurt or ice cream. We ate this for dessert, breakfast and snack (not all on the same day) and it was a nice way to satisfy our cravings for sweets without too much sugar.

Do you have a great fruit based recipe? 

Feel free to share ideas by leaving a comment below.

Tagan's Kitchen Turns One!

As I was plowing my way through Thanksgiving and glancing at photographs of food from last year, it dawned on me that it was exactly one year ago that I started this blog. It is exciting to think that in these digital "pages" there is an entire year of food, thoughts, creativity, cooking and activism. It has been a very full year with some major accomplishments and a lot of hard work.  There are links below to many of the exciting events of the year; I traveled to the White House for Michelle Obama's launch of Chefs Move to Schools, I now chair the New Haven Food Policy Council where we are working on many policy issues that affect our local food system, New Haven Cooks/Cocina New Haven was published and is now being distributed for free to low income families and individuals in the city, Tagan's Kitchen is featured in the New Haven Register's Community Media lab, I created a new sustainable food menu for a local cafe, and I get to work with and go to lots of meetings with great community folks trying to start urban farms, improve kid's exposure to food and agriculture, and improve access to good fresh food by creating a new food coop.  It is almost comical to think of doing all of this and being an engaged and caring spouse and parent of two kids. Modern life is challenging to say the least. This year has been a thrilling and sometimes rough ride, but the food movement is surging ahead and I am trying to ride the wave and find a little balance along the way.

I started Tagan's Kitchen - the blog so that I could have a public place to express my own ideas and thoughts on food. For me it is more like an art project or journal than a media venue. When I say that my life revolves around food, I truly mean it; so, having a place to post photos and thoughts about food is more of a gift for me than work. While it is a challenge sometimes to find the time to put a blog post together, the joy I feel in completing a post and then sharing it with all of you is enormous! Thank you all for your heartfelt comments and support both on the blog, on facebook, by email and in person. I am so happy that you take pleasure in reading and cooking from this blog. Please continue to share your thoughts and comments, by doing so you are helping to create a community centered around food, and it is delicious!

To support Tagan's Kitchen, please post your comments or thoughts at the end of blog posts and share the blog with friends and colleagues. Many thanks!!! 

Here are a few highlights from the first year of Tagan's Kitchen:

Cookbook published: 
New Haven Cooks - cookbook published and on sale! February 2010
 
New Haven Cooks/Cocina New Haven is available online at CitySeed.org or in person at the CitySeed Farmers' Markets.

Recipes:
Burgers with Sneaky Greens
Spiced Curry Rice
Rosemary Brown Sugar Chicken or Tofu
Red Lentil Soup with Greens
Latkes (potato pancakes)
Buttermilk Muffins
Peach Raspberry Pie
Blueberry Lemon Verbena Ice Cream

Thoughts on Food:
Candy - the enticement of sweets and old-time candies
Food Activism  - the busy life
Strawberry picking - Pick Your Own
Creating a new sustainable food menu for a local cafe - Blue State Coffee
Peanut butter balls and a family sweet tooth
 The Dirty Dozen - pesticides on produce

Travel:
Visit to the White House - Chefs Move to Schools
Amsterdam - a trip back in time with my Oma (grandmother) for a Holocaust memorial
Brooklyn playground and Atlantic ave
Dance Camp - where I first started cooking, many many years ago

Gardens and Farms
Building Raised Garden Beds - a detailed explanation 
A reality check from Farmer Dan - a farmer with a great farm and great humor
The Massaro Community Farm - a cool new farm, and judging a condiment contest
A Farm in the City - Common Ground High School
Cooking from the Backyard Garden - quick pickle

Thank you all for your enthusiasm and support this year! 

I hope you will continue to join me on the 

adventures in food that lie ahead! 

Many Thanks and Happy Cooking! -Tagan