Puffed rice bars | Mexican Vegan dinner

Another bake sale in support of Pigs Peace Sanctuary is happening tomorrow at Sidecar vegan store in Seattle, and I just finished making a batch of puffed rice bars. I'm debating baking a load of carrot cupcakes but I'm not feeling quite in the mood. We'll see.

Many years ago in a tai chi class, I watched a video of street vendors in China making puffed rice squares. They boiled syrup, stirred in puffed rice, peanuts, dried fruit and I don't remember what else, and after pressing the mixture into pans, cut it into squares and sold it to eager customers. Something about the look of those bars caught my imagination, and as soon as I got home, I tried to create something similar. The tai chi teacher said that the syrup reminded her of barley malt syrup, so that's what I started with. I've made many variations of these over the years, but this is the basic recipe I started with. Gooey, crunchy, toasty and sweet with hints of salt from the peanuts, these make a great snack or dessert.

Barley malt is less sweet than other sweeteners such as maple syrup or agave, or even brown rice syrup, so if you like things on the sweet side, you might want to combine different ones to get the right balance. Or add 1/2 to 1 cup of sugar to the syrup before you cook it. The bars are plenty sweet for me.



Puffed rice bars

• 6 cups puffed brown rice cereal (I used Nature's Path organic rice puffs)
• 1 cup raw sunflower seeds, toasted in a pan
• 1 cup raisins
• 1 cup peanuts, roasted and salted
• 1-1/4 cups barley malt
• 1/2 cup peanut butter
• 2 teaspoons vanilla

1. In a 425˚ oven, toast the cereal in a large pan for 8 minutes, stirring once or twice. This isn't essential but it intensifies the flavor.
2. Toast the sunflower seeds in a heavy pan on the stove until fragrant and golden.
3. In a large bowl, combine the cereal, sunflower seeds, raisins and peanuts, and mix well, distributing the ingredients evenly. It helps to use your hands.
   
4. Heat the syrup in a 1-1/2 quart pot over low-medium heat, stirring constantly. The syrup will start to bubble and foam. Adjust the heat if necessary so the syrup doesn't overflow. Cook and stir for 7 minutes, then add the peanut butter and stir until completely melted, about a minute more.
5. Turn off the heat and stir in the vanilla.
6. Pour the hot syrup mixture over the cereal mixture and quickly and thoroughly combine with a wooden spoon until all the cereal mix is completely coated.
7. Press into a lightly oiled 10-1/2 x 15-1/2 inch pan, using the spoon. The mixture will cool quickly. Using wet hands, press it down into the pan, making it even and compact.
8. Cool in the refrigerator for 15 minutes, then cut into pieces with a serrated knife or a pizza cutter.
9. For best results store in the freezer or refrigerator. The bars soften at room temperature.
   
10. I cut mine into 24 rectangles.
    

Notes: (1) You can use a different size pan. (2) I discovered I was out of raisins so I cut up dates. I may also have cut up a mini Lara apple pie bar because cutting dates is so slow. (3) Sometimes I make these with crispy brown rice instead of puffed, for a different texture. (4) Make them with brown rice syrup for gluten-free. (5) Don't try to clean up with cold water; it will harden the syrup. Use warm or hot water.

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Monthly vegan dining event
We once again attended the monthly dinner sponsored by Vegetarians of Washington. This month's dinner was catered by Bonnie and Ray Parton of Lucky Palate catering and food delivery service. They served a colorful and delicious vegan Mexican meal. Bonnie said she's always willing to provide recipes, and I may take her up on her offer.





The menu: tortilla chips and salsa, Mexican squash casserole, black bean chili, Mexican roasted vegetables, red and white quinoa with collards, paella with Field Roast and red beans, spicy chipotle corn, flour and corn tortillas, strawberry crumble bar.

If you live in the Seattle area, consider coming to one of these events — you don't have to be vegan or vegetarian, though the food always is vegan. Bring containers with you if you come, there are always lots of leftovers to take home!

Indian dinner | Kasha varniskes | Bye bye summer | Spam

Samosas, Basmati rice, and whole wheat roti

Last night we attended the monthly dinner sponsored by Vegetarians of Washington. Each month a vegetarian dinner is catered by a different Seattle area restaurant. The dinners are always vegan, but the diners are a very diverse group that includes eaters of all ages, occupations and dietary persuasions. Last night we had a great time with a particularly congenial group of people, and we all enjoyed an Indian meal presented by Pabla Indian Cuisine, with restaurants in Renton and Issaquah.


Kabli Channa (Punjabi style garbanzo beans)


Mixed vegetable curry


Aloo gobi (spiced potatoes and cauliflower)

In addition to the foods pictured above, we also had rice pudding for dessert, and received Nature's Path Peanut Choco chewy granola bars as an extra treat.

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Kasha and bow-ties



In my last post I displayed a photo of kasha and bowties (kasha varnishkes) made with shiitake dashi, shiitake mushrooms* and miso, promising a recipe. I'm posting a recipe with less exotic ingredients, instead, and a note on using shiitakes. For one thing, I'm out of dried shiitakes and need to make a trip to our favorite Asian market to restock our supplies. Instead of trekking down to the International District, my husband headed to the closest supermarket to purchase fresh mushrooms and raw, hulled buckwheat groats.*

As I have written in an earlier post, "traditionally, in Russia, kasha means porridge and can be made from any whole grain or combination of grains. To me, it means buckwheat groats, and kasha varnishkes is buckwheat and noodles, specifically bowtie noodles. Kasha varnishkes is a traditional comfort food brought to America by Russian Jewish immigrants.

Buckwheat is actually the seed of a fruit, not a grain. (You can read all about buckwheat and its possible appropriateness in gluten-free diets here.) It is very nutritious, delicious and quick cooking. Hulled, raw buckwheat is called buckwheat groats, and that's what I'm starting with in this recipe. After it's toasted it's called kasha."



Kasha and bow-ties

• 8 to 10 ounce package bow-tie pasta (or other small pasta or flat noodle)
• 1 cup raw, hulled buckwheat groats*
• 2 tablespoons oil
  
• 1 onion, finely chopped (about 1 to 1-1/4 cups)
• 4 ounces fresh mushrooms, sliced (about 8 or 9 mushrooms or 2 heaping cups)
• 1 clove garlic, minced
  
• 1-1/2 cups hot water
  
• 1/4 cup warm water
• 2 teaspoon tamari (or soy sauce)
• 1/2 teaspoon brown rice vinegar
• 1 teaspoon evaporated cane juice (natural sugar)
• heaping 1/2 cup minced parsley

1. Cook the pasta, drain, (toss with 1 teaspoon of oil if desired) and set aside.
2. In a large, heavy, dry pan such as cast iron, toast the buckwheat until fragrant (about 4 to 5 minutes) stirring continually.
   
3. Add the oil to the pan then add the onions and mushrooms. Cook and stir until the onions begin to soften (about 5 minutes).
4. Stir in the garlic and a pinch of salt (less then 1/8 teaspoon). Cook and stir for about a minute.
   
5. Add the 1-1/2 cups of hot water to the pan slowly. Bring to a boil, turn the heat to simmer, and cover the pan. Cook until the buckwheat is tender and dry. (about 12 to 15 minutes)
6. Meanwhile, add the tamari to the warm water. Add the sugar and vinegar and stir to dissolve sugar.
7. When the buckwheat is tender, mix in the noodles. Stir in the tamari mixture.
8. Stir in the parsley, reserving some for a garnish. Grind black pepper over the kasha. Taste for salt and add more if necessary. Serves 4 to 6.

*If you can only find toasted buckwheat groats, you can skip the pan toasting and start cooking the kasha at step 3. Warm the oil in the pan, then add the onion, mushrooms and toasted buckwheat to the pan together.



*You can also make this with dried shiitake mushrooms and mushroom broth. Soak 8 to 10 dried mushrooms in 2 cups of warm (not hot) water in a bowl for at least an hour, or until soft. Squeeze out the mushrooms into the bowl, remove the stems and slice the mushrooms. Add enough water to the broth, if necessary, to make 1-1/2 cups. Make the recipe using the shiitakes and broth instead of the fresh mushrooms and water.

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Bye bye, summer


Spider web-draped still-green tomatoes and a lone pepper from our tabletop garden.

With fall officially here, there's no choice but to bid summer a sad goodbye. I'm not one of those people who can't wait for the cool, damp, RAINY days of fall. (Oh wait, wasn't "cool, rainy" supposed to be a description of winter? Or was that spring? Or maybe even a good part of this past summer, here in the PNW?) Cool-rainy is not my favorite type of weather (and thank heavens I spent the summer in the blazing Midwest where I soaked up heat like a sponge) so I hate to see summer — even a less-than-perfect summer — end. I like soup, and and other cold-weather foods like kasha, as much as anyone, but I like sunshine more. Come back, sun come back. Sigh.

I photographed some of the "end of summer" herbs and veggies growing at our house and around the neighborhood. You can see a lone Asian pear in our tree. When we went out to gather the fruit the other day, there was another couple happily picking them all. We asked if they could leave a few for us since it was our tree (we're living in the house and paying rent!) and they informed us the house's owner said they could pick the pears. They carted off all the reachable fruit, and that was that. We're not very argumentative and don't like to cause trouble with the neighbors, so we let it go. But we were a little sad.


An Asian pear beckoning from our tree.


The last sprays of fennel withering in a neighbor's garden.

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Spam, anyone?

Every blog gets spammed, and this blog is no exception, but it's been getting a lot of crazy spam lately, and I thought I'd print a few of the messages (though not the links) for you to admire. I'm leaving out the male-enhancement spam and the totally unintelligible stuff, and just including a sampling of the "jokes" and "friendly messages" I receive. Blogger has been doing a good job of filtering this stuff out so it almost never makes it to the comments section. Only I see it, but really, I wanted to share. So here are five examples of the weird spam this blog attracts, with the types of links in brackets.

1. well, it suppose to be in 3D. Can I download and watch? Will it show normally? [no links]

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Eggy tofu, avocado and tomato on toast. Sourdough bread was better.