nuts

Vegan miso tahini walnut carrots on Just Bento

maki — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 21:03:16 +0100

I know that a lot more people read Just Hungry than read Just Bento (and I know a lot read both - thank you!) Most recipes are posted here, but when there is a recipe that works especially well in a bento lunch, I post it on the bento site.

These miso-tahini-walnut topped baked carrots are great for bento, but are really even nicer warm out of the oven. And I think the world needs more tasty vegan protein recipes. So in case you don’t read Just Bento, but you are vegetarian/vegan (and this is dairy free and all that, could be made gluten-free quite easily by choosing the right miso…only nut allergy people wouldn’t benefit) head on over to Just Bento and check it out. Another one that is very bento-suitable that you might like is shio kombu or kombu no tsukudani, kombu seaweed cooked in soy sauce…I know several people have asked me for a recipe…well, there it is, right there!

Tapenade with walnuts

maki — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 14:19:00 +0200

Regular readers of this site may wonder about the lack of recipes recently. Truth is, I haven't been doing much real cooking lately, as in taking out the pots and pans and turning on the heat. While summer here in Switzerland is quite tolerable due to cool mornings and evenings, during the day the temperature does reach the 30s celsius which isn't too nice since, as with most Swiss houses, we don't have air conditioning. Besides, even if you do have air conditioning or cool evenings, there are so many other things to do during the summer that cooking becomes a low priority, doesn't it?

Short of eating out every meal, I like to make things that take minimal preparation that we can just nibble on. Tartines with simple spreads are a perfect example. In case you are unfamiliar with tartines, they are basically just baguettes or French bread or any kind of good bread with a crusty crust, sliced quite thinly and then topped with something tasty. If you prefer to take your culinary vocabulary from Italy you would call them bruschetta.

Here's some just spread with store-bought paté and runny cheese.

And here are some spread with a tapenade with chopped walnuts. The tapenade is the only thing I cooked, if you can call it that. The only heat involved was for roasting the walnuts briefly in a dry pan for a bit. Then it was all just whizzed in the food processor. This particular combination of flavors was inspired by a similar tapenade that we got at the market in Nyons in Provence. When I eat this, I'm transported back there in spirit.

The key to tapenade is to have really good ingredients. If you are in the States or anywhere else where you can get those awful canned olives that taste like burned plastic, please do not use them. Get good cured olives from a reputable source. I prefer crinkly oil-cured olives from Provence, but Italian, Spanish or Greek olives will do too - taste and compare. This is also the time to pull out your best cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil.

I have omitted the usual anchovies from this tapenade since I wanted a clean olive and walnut flavor, but you can add anchovies if you really love them. I also grate the garlic so that you don't get little garlic bits.

Black olive tapenade with walnuts

Approximately 2 cups of pitted black olives, oil cured preferred
1/2 cup walnut halves
2 garlic cloves
Approximately 1/2 cup cold pressed extra virgin olive oil
1 Tbs. lemon juice

Equipment needed: a food processor

To pit the olives, put them in a plastic bag, spread them over a chopping board and smack them with the side of a heavy kitchen knife. The pits should come out relatively easily. Or, use a cherry/olive pitter.

Toss the walnuts in a dry frying pan over medium heat until they start to smell toasty. Take off the heat and let cool.

Peel the garlic cloves and grate them to a pulp with a fine grater. (Yes, your fingers will smell garlicky afterwards. If you do not love this, you may want a garlic press. I don't own one.)

Place the walnuts in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse until they are relatively finely chopped. Take out.

Put the olives in the food processor. Process until finely chopped. Then, with the machine running, add the olive oil slowly through the feed tube until it forms a fairly smooth yet thick paste.

Add the grated garlic and lemon juice, and add the chopped walnuts, and pulse until mixed. You don't want the walnuts to become a powder since the contrast in textures makes it interesting.

Taste and adjust with salt/pepper only if needed. Spread on bread slices, or use as a dip.

Covered, this keeps for about a week in the refrigerator (but it probably won't last that long).

Double chocolate pecan brownie

maki — Tue, 01 Mar 2005 01:15:04 +0100

For Oscar night, I made these dense brownies. They disappeared very fast. The "double chocolate" part comes from the fact that there are two whole 100 gram (or 3 1/2 oz.) dark chocolate bars in it.

This is an extremely easy recipe. I don't even bother to chop the pecans with a knife; I just bash them in the bag. Same with the chocolate. For this reason, this would be a really fun thing for kids to make I think.

You can use chocolate chips instead of the bashed up chocolate bars, but I do like having some big chunks in there. The chunks melt while baking, and stay melted within the brownie, forming gooey pockets of pure chocolate. Also, the key to this brownie is to have the meanest, darkest chocolate you can stand.

You can substitute walnuts for the pecans.

Double Chocolate Pecan Brownies

2 100g / 3 1/2 oz. dark chocolate bars, with a high cacao content (70% and higher makes for a really intense experience)
3 large eggs
125g / 4 oz (1 stick) of unsalted butter
1/4 cup plain flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder
150g / about 4 oz pecan halves (about 1 cup)
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar
Equipment: a 9 x 9 inch or 25 x 25cm cake/brownie pan

Preheat the oven to 160 ° C / about 350 ° F. Line your brownie pan with a silicon baking sheet or butter and flour it.

Bash the chocolate bars, still in their wrappers, hard against a counter top or table until they are in small pieces. If the wrapper breaks, put the chocolate in a plastic bag and bang away. Bash the pecans in the same way. You want the nuts to be fairly chunky still, not pulverized.

Melt the butter and one of the chocolate bars over a low heat, stirring, until completely melted. In the meantime, combine the flour, cocoa and salt. Add this to the melted butter and chocolate. Add the sugars and blend well. Take off the heat and allow to cool a bit.

Add the eggs and mix well until combined. Stir in the pecans and the rest of the chocolate, and pour the batter into the brownie pan, and bake for about 40 minutes.

Let cool and cut into 16 squares.

Chocolate chip and almond cookies

maki — Mon, 12 Apr 2004 11:24:00 +0200

The usual image of homebaked chocolate chip cookies, at least in the U.S., is that of large, thick cookies with a soft, rather gooey center. The soft and gooey texture is so desired by many people that commercial cookie manufacturers even manage to maintain that in cookies that have been on the shelf for months. This to me seems very wrong. And, I don't think that gooey-soft necessarily indicates a good quality chocolate chip cookie either.

Sure, when you take the cookies out of the oven and eat them right away, they are sort of gooey and soft. But once they cool down, I prefer them to be rather crispy, even lacy, and delicate. For this reason I add a bit more butter than is normal in the traditional Toll House type of chocolate chip cookie. This makes the dough spread out more during baking, making the cookies thinner. Using slivered almonds instead of chunky nuts also makes them lighter and crispier.

If you prefer the gooey type of cookie though, use more flour or less butter.

I also use raw (light brown) granulated sugar instead of the fluffy dense brown sugar used in the traditional recipe. This is mainly because we can't get that "packed" sort of soft brown sugar here. Also, the dark brown sugar has a very pronounced molasses-like taste to me, which I don't think really fits for this cookie.

These are very adult chocolate chip cookies, because of the almonds and the dark chocolate chips. Of course kids love them also. I made these with the lemon bars in the preceeding recipe and meringue kisses for Easter, and boy were they popular.

Chocolate chip and almond cookies

2 cups of all-purpose or cake flour
250g or 1 cup plus 2 Tbs of unsalted butter
3/4 cup white granulated sugar
3/4 cup raw (light brown) granulated sugar
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
2 large eggs
1 cup slivered almonds
3 100g / 3.5 oz bars darkest chocolate

Preheat the oven to 170°C /375° F.

Chop up the chocolate into chunks. Note I do not use ready-made chocolate chips, because I really want the darkest possible chocolate here, and they don't make really dark chocolate chips.

Toast the slivered almonds in the oven or in a dry frying pan until light brown. Let cool.

Cream together the softened unsalted butter and the sugars until the sugar is totally incorporated. Add the baking soda, salt and flour, and mix. Add the eggs and the vanilla. Mix well but don't overknead.

Stir in the chocolate chunks and the almonds.

Drop onto ungreased baking sheets with a spoon, or make balls with your hands and place these. Space them out well because they will spread quite a bit. Bake for about 20 minutes - you may have to rotate the pans, unless you have a convection oven. You want the cookies to a medium brown, as in the picture.

Cool the cookies on racks, after sampling one or two of course.