A Delicious Spot to Be In

There are so many delicious places to be in Buffalo, even in February. I'm waiting for the last day of January to release me into my February obsession with songwriting; at midnight, I begin writing 14 songs in only 28 days. This is my third year as a FAWMer, http://www.fawm.org, and this year, I've set myself a harder challenge... I'm doing it twice over! So instead of a song every other day, I have to write one every day of February.

I might not cook much.

But it's good to know I have places like Amy's, Falafel House, Mike's Subs, Avenue Pizza & Lake Effect Diner very nearby. I can get more than just a cheese sandwich at any of these restaurants, and that makes me happy. I can go up to Plaka on Delaware for garden souvlaki. Or order from Jacobi's, Mamma Mia's, TC Jr.s. Or send the hubby-man down Sheridan to The Buffalo Tap Room, Mariposa's, Anderson's. This is luxury, to me, and I intend to make use of it while I'm writing 28 songs this month.

Of course, I'll still be responsible for making lots of breakfasts, not to mention setting up the man with his lunch. Mornings will be simple: oatmeal in the crockpot, Almond Joy Cream of Wheat, buckwheat pancakes... I vary the toppings on our hot wholegrain cereals everyday so we don't get bored with them. The other day, bereft of fresh fruit, I decided to mimic my favorite cheap candy bar, and that's how we ended up with bowls of Creamy Wheat topped with almonds, mini chocolate chips and shredded coconut. Yes, it was good. Anytime you can have chocolate with breakfast and still have some nutrition in there, it's very good.

Chances are, halfway into Feb., we'll be craving chili, soups, casseroles, and all the home-cooked favorites, so don't count me out yet. Do share your own favorite places to catch a meal, though. I'm saving up ideas for when a friend visits from Indy this Spring, and I'm looking to branch out of my own neighborhood, tasty as it is.
Peace, Mari

Why Pick Up A Pizza...

When you can make it at home in the same amount of time?

This has been a crazy week in more ways than one. I need a good carbo slump tonight.

Forgive the lack of recipes-- I'll make it up to you, promise. This is a veg-filled soysage masterpiece; it's out of the oven by now, and it's delicious.

A Toad in the Hole is worth two in the garden...

MMM.

and a piece, ready for syrup...

From "The Splendid Spoonful," by Barbara Lauterbach, adapted** to veg by ME; variations, also by me.

TOAD IN THE HOLE


1 C AP/unbleached flour

1/2 tsp salt

2 large eggs, lightly beaten

1 1/4 C whole milk ( or soymilk, which works sooo wonderfully, or almond milk, which works but doesn't rise as high and light; 1/2 & 1/2 is excellent, too)

freshly ground black pepper

12 oz. link breakfast soysage, or 3/4 package Gimme Lean sausage style, rolled into link shapes, or small patties

2 Tbsp canola or olive oil

warm syrup & Frank's hot sauce, for serving

In a medium bowl, sift the flour and salt together. Make a well in the center and pour the eggs in the well. Stir in the milk in a slow, steady stream, beginning in the center and gradually working in all the flour from the sides.
When the mixture is well-blended, add pepper to taste and strain through a sieve into a bowl or large measuring cup.

LET REST for 30 minutes.

Place oven rack in middle of oven and preheat to 475 degrees F.

Add the oil to a 9x11-inch baking pan (I use my 10-inch iron skilllet, it's perfect!) and place the pan in the preheated oven. When the fat is very hot but not smoking, place sausages in pan and pour batter over. Return pan to oven and reduce heat to 425 F.

Bake the custard for 25-30 minutes, until puffy and golden brown. Cut into squares, (for us, four triangle portions) including some "toads" in each portion. Serve immediately with warmed maple syrup, or for Mari, hot sauce.

This couldn't be easier, takes almost no prep time, and uses pantry ingredients and not a lot of added fat. Nothing better in front of a fire with some coffee, syrup and hot sauce. Very satisfying: it's a cold weather staple around here.

**The original recipe uses meat breakfast sausages or British bangers that are basically parboiled before using.

Two frequent variations-- and their variations!

Chocolate Mandarin or Cherry-Chocolate

Follow above recipe, subbing 3 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder for an equal amount of flour, and adding 1 Tbsp vanilla sugar or regular sugar and few drops vanilla.
Drain a small can of mandarin oranges OR tart cherries in syrup, reserving syrup/juices from fruit, and use 1 C fruit, or a lttle more, in place of sausages. Right before pouring batter over fruit, fold in 1/3 C chocolate chips, if desired. Bake as usual.
While custard is baking, add 1 C water and 2 tsp cornstarch (dissolved in the water) to reserved juices in small saucepan, stir and simmer until thickened to a nice syrupy consistency. Serve this sauce instead of maple syrup.

Apple Cinnamon

Peel and chunk 1-2 small apples and saute in butter with cinnamon and a sprinkle of sugar till soft. Place in bottom of pan instead of sausages in key recipe. Add a dash each of cinnamon and ginger, and 1 tbsp sugar, to batter as well. Bake as usual. If desired, you can add a handful of butterscotch chips or cinnamon chips with this one-- but thoroughly grease your baking pan first, use the oil but don't preheat pan, as batter sticks a little with this one. It still comes out well!


Eat something goood today! Peace, Mari

Ghosts of an Appetite

You’ll never hear me stop complaining about Indianapolis; what a bad place to be a food lover, with it’s tight-assed feel and omnipresent burger chains; but now that we’re back in WNY for the known and unknown future, I can admit it: there are a few places I miss, and some of them are even restaurants.

I miss my frequent mornings at Patachou having the Omelet of the Day with my pal Abby, a big glass of cold tomato juice with a slice of lemon and a giant bowl-sized mug of good coffee to round things out. We’re talking a fluffy 3 egg omelet with several delicious filling ingredients, like spinach, tomato and feta, or swiss, onion and whole grain mustard; along with several slices of fresh, heavily buttered toast and a cup of their perfectly simple fruit salad, for about $7.50. Somehow Patachou could always get decent strawberries, even in February. It’s a big meal, and we couldn’t finish it most times.

I miss my nights of hiking the canal or bar-hopping with Mike that wound up by hitting Paco’s in Broad Ripple at 2 am for a quesadilla. At Paco’s, (long since gone), they’d grill a huge flour tortilla and fill it to bursting with rice, cheese, jalapenos and sometimes olives, then throw in salsa. They had a wall of hot sauce, and I’d always choose 3, a sweet one like the hot banana ketchup Jufran, a very spicy one like Melinda’s, and maybe a vinegary one that reminded me of Frank’s. For $2 flat, it was a meal. Mike usually had two.

Don’t I miss running into Meijer’s grocery store for a loaf of bread and a bottle of wine, or the Georgetown Market where you could by honey, maple syrup, shampoo and natural detergent in bulk as well as nuts, grains, cereals, flours, beans? They had a little café too, and once in a while I’d treat myself to one of their expensive, tasty vegan cookies or tarts.

And let’s not leave out the Cornerstone Café on 54th and College, home of Black Thunder coffee-- a potent, raise-the-dead brew. The service was friendly and deadly slow, but the coffee rocked and the menu was full of fresh and comforting goodies for everyone. It was a funky little student neighborhood hangout sporting mismatched couches and a slow hippie vibe before it’s makeover, when it went all dark wood chic NYC on me. Loved it both ways. However often I stopped going there, because my life and schedule had changed, I always drifted back. My veghead sister and her husband visiting from Amherst adored it too, and we have great memories of the meal we shared in a window seat, sunlight pouring over the edge of the high-set veined glass window down onto our table.

You’ll notice, none of these places I’m swooning over is a 5 star destination restaurant or precious little upscale bistro. Thing is, each of them somehow correlated to a place back here in WNY; to places I felt at home. It’s hard to get that feeling in a different city, different region of the country than you grew up in, and when you find it, even a tiny piece, you hold on. The place becomes your haven, and like Norm on Cheers, you know you belong when you walk in the door.

So Patachou and the Cornerstone may have started out subbing for Amy’s and the Juicery and Preservation Hall & all the Greek diners Indy doesn’t really have, but their particular rhythms and vibes got to me, and I’ve been casting about for replacements. Without the right people, it’s slow. But I lucked out, in moving into a neighborhood with Premier’s adjoined Liquor & Gourmet stores, with myriad Greek diners not to mention Mike’s Subs, and just a cool fifteen minute drive away from Amy’s… and I’ve found new spots to “claim,” like Reid’s and Condrell’s and Star of India, and old spots I’m closer to now-- Kosta’s redo, Frank’s Sunny Italy, Lone Star Fajita Grill, Gramma Mora’s. Just thinking about Lone Star’s guaco taco gives me insane cravings…

There is one old haunt I didn’t mention, a place that was central to my life in Indy for years and years, a place so piled with memory & importance, I don’t know where to begin… guess I’ll leave The Aristocrat Pub for another post.

Barbecued Spam and Other Childhood Traumas...

My late sister Linda, or Lynne as we called her, was a decent cook and baker for most of her life. She did tend to use too many convenience foods, but having 4 children by the age of 28 will do that. Her sons and I still joke about her famous Barbecued Spam, a thrifty dinner that the kids liked. Simple dish, with a salt content that could fill the daily sodium needs of a small army per slice: Cut a can of Spam in thick slices, put it in a small baking dish, pour bottled Barbecue Sauce over, and bake till hot and bubbly. You can even add a chopped green pepper in there. Truth is, as a teen I liked it too. (I was a salt freak then). Scarily, I can still taste it, just now, having called it to mind. It’s rich with memory and chemicals, painfully salty.

Her better dishes were based on fresh, real foods-- chili sauce she made in the summer, sometimes, to go with hot dogs; full of peppers, sweet and sharp and perfect. I still crave it with a soydog now and then. And Lynne’s was the only apple pie I really enjoyed at all until I started making my own. Double crusted and heavy on the cinnamon, she used shortening to get a flaky textured crust instead of the butter I use for mine. She’d make two instead of one, and never bitch about rolling out the way I did when I first tried pastry-making. She baked most of the cakes we ate for years, and I hated her too sweet frosting but loved the cakes. Her iced tea was the best, to me that’s what iced tea is-- a strong black concentrate, sweetened with at least 1 C sugar and lightened with cold water and many lemon or orange slices. I remember figuring out for myself that she used 12-14 teabags to make a gallon’s worth of tea-- she was still alive when I started trying to copy her method, and I tasted hers and mine and finally knew I’d gotten it right. Of course, my other sisters and my nieces all think they do it right too, but their’s is too weak. Good, but not like Linda’s. I’m making a pitcher of it now, to help soothe my sore throat. And I’m thinking about making a version of her best, most loved recipe in our family, Lynne’s 6-hour Beans.

These are the only baked beans in the world, to me. Tangy, super tangy, and more flavor in every bite that anything not fried in bacon fat can be. Unlike most baked beans, they don’t rely on pork for their flavor, although she would usually throw in something porky, like bacon; but it wasn’t a key component. The acidic tang of tomatoes balanced by chili-flavored spices and sweetened just a bit, not like canned versions, is the big taste profile of this dish. It cooks in the oven for a full six hours at 350 F, and after years of experimenting I can tell you that long bake is essential-- the beans gather more flavor than you can possibly believe, caramelizing and getting just barely saucy in the process.

Lynne always used a pound of navy beans, soaked overnight and then cooked for one hour in water to cover, before draining and tossing them in the oven with the rest of the ingredients to let the flavors soak in slowly. I often use black turtle beans, though, because they’re prettier and I like their taste better. They take well to this treatment. As for the rest of the recipe, it’s tough to communicate without giving you a spoonful to judge by first. When I asked her what went into the beans for baking, she said: Throw everything you can think of in there. That helps!

What I saw her use, and know from my palate is needed is: lots of good canned tomato, preferably puree or crushed; some molasses and/or brown sugar (but not too much!) and even a bit of maple if you like; chili powder, cumin, and cayenne; onions, chopped fine; a little garlic (fresh for me, dried for her); prepared mustard and/or barbecue sauce; I throw in some hickory smoke drops or cooked soy bacon for smokiness, and vinegar towards the end to help the acid balance if needed. Salt as little as possible. Keep them covered at first if you like, but at least a couple hours uncovered-- they will need more tomatoes, in the form of crushed or ketchup added, and maybe a little water so they don’t dry out, but at the end, they should be just barely ensconced in a little bit of thickened sauce. So tangy delicious every spoonful gets eaten. If I start the process tonight, they’ll be done for dinner tomorrow, and I can share leftovers with the fam for Monday night’s Baked Potato bar. If I think they deserve it.

A little view from my back door; our ailing shed in the low winter sun.

Hot Friday, cool knitting.

Today I can’t get excited about food too much, ’cause I went grocery shopping. At Target. At the request of the hubby-man, who likes to go there and check out the Star Wars toys. I blew out my enthusiasm before 2pm, after a great knitting club/class at Brighton Place, where I learned to cast on-- again. [Knitting Club is free and informal, and takes place on Fridays at 10am or Tuesdays at 6pm. The regulars are more than pleasant and knowledgeable. All skill levels welcome.]

So tonight it’s an old standby for us, tacos with some fajita-style veggies, and Meyer lemon salsa. The taco fillings are simple- -broccoli, garlic, zucchini and peppers sliced thin and cooked on a fairly hot griddle (no oil needed) so they get cooked through but still retain a bit of crunch, and fat-free refried beans. It’s easier to find FF than vegetarian refried beans in a can and they’re still safe for us, although I rarely buy them. But there they were, in front of me, cheap and easy, so I didn’t resist this time. Even with 3 cups of cooked lentils in the fridge-- sometimes, temptation is too much, but at least I’m only tempted by overly salty convenience stuff once in a while. Well, maybe other temptations make their way behind my eyelids, but this is a food blog, so let’s keep it clean.

It’s too cold out this week not to eat a hot meal, and when I say hot I mean spicy! I love Frank’s, ’natch, but also Melinda’s, our own local Koop’s made and bottled right on Richmond Avenue, and in summertime I buy plums or peaches or nectarines and make my own fruity habanero sauce. I’m testing out a vegan Worcestershire, too, as soon as I can retrieve my block of tamarind paste from where it’s stuck in the lazy-susan shelf under my kitchen counter. Speaking of hot vegetarian, don’t you wish we had Biker Billy Cooks with Fire on local TV or the Food Network? If you don’t know him, find out. He’s raucous fun, never backs down, and has had his own vegetarian cooking show for more than a decade. Would be wonderful if the powers that be gave a rat’s bum and put up some serious veg cooking shows that aren’t beginner only… I might even start watching TV again.

Anyway, the night approaches, and the lemon salsa* needs making… and tomorrow I’ve promised myself to take down the sparse Yule decorations still cluttering up the house. Have a hot night. Peace, Mari

Oh, I've included the link to the original recipe for the lemon salsa, by Nigella Lawson, despite it's use in a fish dish. We like it with lots of things other than fish, and make it mild or spicy as needed. Tonight, switching out regular lemons for Meyer lemons that were graciously gifted to me from a friend in San Diego, and using just fresh parsley and dried dill as herbs, with maybe a dash of crushed red pepper for heat. I like a recipe that is flexible!

What kind of veghead are you?

There are at last count three vegetarians in my local family. We're not too spread out right now (in Buffalo, Amherst & Kenmore) but interestingly, each of us has lived in another state or country at some point-- unlike the balance of my immediate fam and their own fams. I think that speaks to the questing nature of the average veghead here. You have to be ready to explore a little bit, just to survive in wing city.

Then again, something about WNY, beyond family ties, brings you back. It's the wealth of diversity in the food & the seasons, it's the artisitic vibe, the relatively cheap cost of living. It's neighborhoods made out of mostly houses with sidewalks people actually use. It's Hertel Avenue and The Broadway Market and Elmwood and UB's South Campus area and Black Rock & Riverside and the Fillmore area and Parkside & the Delaware & Cazenovia Parks and places I don't even know; yet. Who needs to be an adventurer when you can get a different style of pizza from a different pizzeria delivered everyday for two weeks if you want without repeating? This is a great place to be a food lover, no matter what you crave, just about.

My niece loves Japanese and Thai food, Vietnamese food; she makes it herself more often than not, and believe me, her recipe for soy caramel is to die for. My older sister goes in for baked mac-n-cheese, grilling, and comfort type foods. I do soups, salads, breads, Mediterraean food, baked pastas, burrito bars, sloppy lentil sandwiches, gourmet stuff when I can, new stuff all the time.

We all get together, 12 of us or more that are local here and that can make it, most Monday nights, for what we call Family Dinner. It's a big group to feed, so the host (a revolving honor) decides the main, and what else they'll make, and each of the other family units pitch in, bringing the wine, salad or the bread; my Mom, luckily for us all, often does the dessert. (She's an ever-evolving rock your socks off baker). It's a vegetarian meal 98% of the time, and veg based the rest.

Over the last three years of my particpation in this ritual, which is pretty close in effect to my childhood dinner memories, I've seen the differences in how my sister, my niece & I express our veg-ness. We're lucky to have a family that has learned to appreciate our foodways, I think, but then there used to be 5 veggies, not 3. Another sister, another niece, both have gone through changes in life & love that took them back to meat, but they still cook for us gladly and well.

My niece L. has been vegetarian her whole life, and she is completely relaxed in her attitudes because of that. But she still doesn't eat as wide a range of veg as me. She's a student of international cuisine, a burgeoning foodie and a damn good cook, and someday there won't be any vegetable she hates. Maybe.

My sister is more strident than L. or I, though she's mellowed in her approach. Possibly because none of us feels embattled in our little circle, and that helps-- true support, instead of lip-service tolerance, is a subtle source of strength. And we all know however widespread vegetarianism really is, a large part of our county here views us as weirdos for not crunching bones and tearing flesh.

I just like to feed people, try new things, and serve a meal that makes everybody happier and feeling good in all ways possible through the plate. I've never gone around talking about Vegism much, but I have changed a few people's minds about how we eat by feeding them. That's my way, and it's not the only way at all. I came to this through health needs first, and have grown into the wider set of reasons gradually. My approach to vegetarianism comes secondary to my whole food philosophy: boiled down, it's Pleasure and Nurture. I love that I get to feed my big family nutritious, interesting food that they openly appreciate. It's a kick you can't really get if you don't cook.

This coming Monday, we're hosting; I'll be doing a baked potato bar, with several toppings and a veg side or salad. It's going to be festive, I hope, in the middle of our coldest snowiest part of the year. A little spot of warmth. And I don't have to argue about the food or the political/spiritual ideas behind it, just cook and share and enjoy. Lucky me.
What kind of veghead are you, and who has your back? Anybody? I hope so.

BTW, I'd love to hear about your favorite vegetarian meals and foods, whether you're veghead or not. And how your path of eating is progressing. Keep warm, & thanks for reading.