Currently cooking from Cook This Now by Melissa Clark

I have been trying to write this blog post for a week now. I wanted to find a way to make this dish sound sexy and appealing, but I’ve come to the conclusion that lentils are neither sexy nor appealing. They are filling, nutritious and, in this case, quite delicious. Solid, but not sexy.

You start out by softening scallions, garlic and curry powder in butter until the scallions have softened. Next you stir in tomato paste and lentils and cook for a few more minutes before adding fresh (or, in my case, diced, canned) tomatoes, salt and enough water to cover everything. This mixture simmers for about 40 minutes until the lentils are tender. The dish is served with a dollop of sour cream or yogurt and a little trick that Clark just barely mentions in the headnotes. As the lentils are simmering, you take flaked, unsweetened coconut, salt and mustard seeds and toast them on the stovetop. This sweet, salty, crunchy  mixture gets sprinkled over the lentils right before serving.

If you maneuver your spoon just right, you get a mouthful of the tender-but-toothsome spicy lentils with a little bit of the cooling yogurt and a salty crunch from the topping. Put all that together and you get sexy lentils.

If you can, try to use the green lentils, rather than the brown or the red ones. The red ones will turn into mush, and the brown ones will break down too much. The green lentils stay just a little bit firm and separate, almost beady. And don’t leave out the topping. This really was the star of the recipe, and I found myself using it with rice and salads. In fact, I liked eating it by the spoonful straight out of the jar.

Currently cooking from Cook This Now by Melissa Clark

I was looking for something to serve underneath those lemony, garlicky chicken drumsticks, and I thought this might work well. I was hoping for an alternative that could stand in for brown rice (my go-to grain), but I ended up not liking this very much.

You start off by simmering barley until it is almost tender, then adding grated carrots. Once everything is tender, you drain any remaining water and stir in olive oil, chopped scallions, Parmesan cheese and salt and pepper.

I thought the dish was very, very bland, even with the scallions and the cheese. I ended up adding lemon juice to perk up the flavor, and I could have added more cheese (but I had already washed the grater, and I was feeling too lazy to wash it again).

Remember this post a couple of weeks ago? Well, ever since then, I’ve been beating my head against a wall called Lemon-Poppyseed Muffins. And the wall has been winning.

From the first time I made these muffins, I thought they had promise, but also some problems. I thought the lemon flavor was overpowered by the other ingredients. I though they weren’t sweet enough, that they didn’t have enough rise and that they were too crumbly. So I made batch after batch, trying different combinations of ingredients. I compared recipes from other cookbooks and consulted one of the best scientific baking tomes of late, Bakewise by Shirley  O. Corriher.

In the end, I got the lemon flavor where I wanted it by increasing the lemon juice and brushing the hot muffins with sweetened lemon juice. The leavening problem was solved by drastically reducing the amount of leavening that the original recipe called for, and using all baking soda. Substituting a half of a cup of all-purpose flour for a half of a cup of spelt flour made the muffins lighter and less crumbly.

Because I made so many changes to the recipe, I’ve decided to go ahead and post my version after the jump.

Lemon-Poppyseed Muffins
Adapted from Whole Grains Every Day, Every Way by Lorna Sass.

1 1/2 cups of spelt flour
1/2 cup of all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tbs of poppyseeds
1/2 tsp of baking soda
3/4 tsp of salt
2 large eggs
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
6 tbs melted butter
Zest from 2 lemons
3 tbs fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the glaze: Juice of one lemon sweetened with powdered sugar to taste.

Place a baking rack in the upper third of the oven and preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Grease a standard 12-muffin pan with cooking spray.

In a food processor, combine brown sugar, granulated sugar and lemon zest. Process until everything is well combined and there are no large pieces of zest visible. The mixture should smell strongly of lemon. If you don’t have a food processor, use your fingers to mix the sugars and lemon zest. Rub the mixture with your fingers until the zest releases its oils into the sugar.

In a large bowl, combine the spelt flour, all-purpose flour, poppyseeds, baking soda and salt. Mix well.

In a medium bowl, lightly whisk the eggs. Whisk in the buttermilk, sugar mixture, lemon juice, melted butter and vanilla. The liquid may look lumpy or curdled, but that’s okay.

Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Mix quickly, but gently, until there are no streaks of flour. Don’t overmix; the batter will be lumpy. Fill the muffin cups almost full (I use an ice cream scoop) and immediately put the pan into the oven. Bake for 11-13 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of one of the muffins comes out clean.

While the muffins are baking, take the juice of one lemon and mix in powdered sugar to taste. The amount will vary depending on how sour the lemon juice is. I usually add between 1 and 2 tablespoons of powdered sugar. I like my juice on the tangy side; you can make it as sweet as you want by adding more sugar.

As soon as you remove the muffins from the oven, brush the tops with the sweetened lemon juice using a pastry brush. Let the muffins cool for 5-10 minutes before turning them out on a rack.

Every quinoa recipe I’ve made out of this book seems to include corn. Maybe it’s like Sass said – these two new world ingredients just seem made for each other. Whatever the case may be, they do taste wonderful together. And this soup is primarily corn and quinoa, with a bit of shrimp and red pepper thrown in for color and texture.

Currently cooking out of Whole Grains Every Day, Every Way by Lorna Sass

See those sad little hockey pucks? Those are my second attempt at Sass’ cornmeal biscuits using the modified recipe I found on her website. Alas, they weren’t much better than my first try.

Flat as the biscuits were, they were pretty tasty slathered with butter and raspberry jam. Still, I think I’ll hang up my cornmeal biscuit apron and move onto other things.

Chocolate things.

Currently cooking out of Whole Grains Every Day, Every Way by Lorna Sass.

I first heard about quinoa a couple of years ago. At the time, it was really hard to find and I soon gave up looking for it. These, days, however, it’s easily found in the natural foods section of most grocery stores. Quinoa was a major protein source for the Incas and is often called a “super grain” because it contains all of the essential amino acids the body needs. It is a tiny, round grain and pops when you bite it. I find quinoa to be fairly neutral tasting, and I prefer to use it like rice. The standard method of cooking it is to boil the grain like pasta, until it is tender. Then drain and use.

One note about quinoa – It is covered with a very bitter substance that must be rinsed off before cooking. I usually rinse the grains for 3-4 minutes under running water.

So, on to the recipe. It was good. The quinoa tossed with the roasted red pepper dressing was light and flavorful and I really liked the addition of corn to it. I can see making this salad during the summer with fresh, grilled corn and maybe some fresh basil. In fact, this salad could easily stand on it’s own, without the meat.

The pork chops are rubbed with a mixture of olive oil, chili powder, garlic, cinnamon and salt before pan frying. The spice rub nicely complimented the pork and wasn’t overpowering. Again, I’d like to try grilling the pork chops.

Currently cooking out of Whole Grains Every Day, Every Way by Lorna Sass.

The picture I had in my head of this dish was nothing like it turned out to be. I was imagining a creamy, warm, white liquid in which black grains of rice floated. What I got was black. Black liquid, black rice, etc. Looking back over the recipe, I’m not sure where I got the idea that black rice woudn’t turn everything it cooks in black. I mean, Sass even says that in the headnotes to the recipe. Yes, I am a dork.

But, despite looking like black maggots floating in black ink (now there’s an image for you), this was really very tasty. Sometimes I find rice puddings to be boring and one dimensional. This was neither, and, as a bonus, it turned my tongue purple. Now how many rice puddings can say they do that!

The recipe itself is very easy. You boil black rice until tender, add in a can of coconut milk (I used the light stuff) and some sugar and boil until the liquid is reduced. I topped mine with almonds and mandarin oranges, but next time I’m going to try whipped cream or coconut ice cream.

Currently cooking out of Whole Grains Every Day, Every Way by Lorna Sass.

Over the past year, Bryan and I have become flank steak aficionados. We tend to eat it at least several times a month. It takes well to marinades or rubs, cooks up in a flash and is delicious cooked on the grill, the stovetop or under the broiler. And I always have a bag of brown rice in the cupboard. In fact, except for the meat, I had everything in the house needed for this recipe.

The brown rice salad consists of brown rice (duh!), cucumber and carrots with a dressing of peanut butter, rice vinegar, soy sauce and sesame oil. At first, I was afraid the peanut butter would be overpowering, but it wasn’t. In fact, we could hardly taste it. The dressing needed a little more acidity, so next time, I’ll up either the rice vinegar or add some lemon juice to it.

The flank steak was delicious, although the marinade was pretty tame. It added a little bit of flavor, but not a whole lot. I marinated the meat for about 6 hours, so next time I’ll try marinating it overnight.

Unfortunately, the pictures don’t do the dish justice. It was delicious and healthy and something I’ll definitely make again.

Currently cooking from Whole Grains, Every Day, Every Way by Lorna Sass.

I only have few food dislikes. I hate liver (and am too old to be told it is steak, mom!) and I hate oatmeal. I dislike liver because of the taste. My dislike of oatmeal, however, all comes down to texture. I don’t care how good it tastes, it’s like eating snot – slimy, mucousy, stringy snot!

Sass has several recipes for breakfast oatmeal in her book, but I’m not going to try any of them. Why not? See the above paragraph. Instead, I’m going to tell you how I cook oatmeal. It may be a little strange, but it delivers oatmeal that is snot-free. For you oatmeal purists, you may want to stop reading now.

The first thing I do is use steel-cut oats. They may take a little longer to cook, but they retain their grainness. So, take a big pot and fill it with water (I never measure how much water, but it is probably about 2 or 3 quarts. Bring that water to a boil, add some salt and then add about 2 cups of steel-cut oats. Boil the oats until they are tender, usually about 15-20 minutes. Then (and here’s the strange part), drain the oats and rinse them in hot water until there is no sign of mucous. You should be left with distinct grains that don’t look or feel gummy. Drain well. 

I usually eat these oats reheated and topped with yogurt, fruit and almonds. If I’m not feeling the sweet, I’ll top them with some butter and salt and pepper.

I’ll never make a good southern gal. I can’t make biscuits to save my life, which is a shame, because they are easy, delicious and make a great side to just about every meal. And with some jam or jelly, they can double as dessert. 

But, alas, my biscuits tend to fall flat. Or tough. Or tasteless. You get the idea, I’m sure. 

My problems with this recipe started as soon as I added the wet (buttermilk and an egg) to the dry ingredients (cornmeal, spelt flour and leavening). According to the recipe, I was to mix the wet and dry, then turn it out onto the counter and knead the dough until it was smooth. Hah! This was no dough; this was muffin batter. There was no way I was going to be able to knead it, because it was just too wet, so I settled for patting it into a circle. I was able to cut out the biscuits with a biscuit cutter and get them transferred to my cookie sheet with only minimal distortion. I plopped them in the oven and waited, not really expecting much.

Well, ten minutes later I had round pucks. They didn’t rise like traditional biscuits, but they didn’t spread out nearly as much as I thought they would. I decided to serve them anyway with the soup I had made (Bryan, bless his heart, will try anything. Once.).

The biscuits weren’t bad, once we split them open and slathered on the butter. They tasted like cornbread (the southern kind, not the sweet, cakey northern kind). I thought they needed more salt, more sugar, more flavor. But adding some jam really helped. To be fair, Sass recommends serving these with sage butter.

I don’t know if I’ll try this recipe again. I’m confused why my dough was so different from Sass’. I don’t think I measured wrong. If I do, though, I’ll increase the salt and sugar maybe add some other herbs. 

Are you wondering why there aren’t any pictures? I’m finding out that photographing grains is hard. Most things just look gray or brown and these biscuits were no different. Sass says they are a pale yellow and her picture shows a tall, pale yellow biscuit. Mine were dingy gray from the spelt flour.

Note: After a little internet research, I discovered Sass’ website which, coincidentally, had the recipe for these biscuits. On her website, she says to add 1/3 cup of buttermilk first, and then add more if needed. The book calls for 1 cup. Armed with that knowledge, I might give these another try this week.