Don’t sleep on this delicious, versatile snack/breakfast/garnish.
Look, I’m not gonna say that this is the best thing you’ll put in your mouth all week. I don’t know how you live your life. But if you want a strong contender for that title, this crispy quinoa granola is it.
Packed with protein, filling, slightly sweet, salty, versatile AF. As at home on top of a curried squash soup as it is in a vat of that extra fatty Scandinavian yogurt. Excellent with plain old (non-dairy) milk or eaten dry out of a coffee mug with a spoon as you lie in bed watching cooking shows. #AskMeHowIKnow
Take 30 minutes (largely hands-off) and make yourself happy. You’ll be glad you did.
Crispy Quinoa Granola
(makes about four cups)
Nuts, seeds, and fruit can be subbed in any combination you like. Just keep amounts the same and you’re all good.
Ingredients
1 cup almonds, chopped
1 1/2 cups uncooked quinoa
1 cup pumpkin seeds (I used salted)
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup honey (see Recipe Notes)
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup dried fruit (I used cranberries)
Method
Preheat oven to 300 and line a large rimmed baking tray with parchment paper.
Combine almonds, quinoa, pumpkin seeds, and salt in a large bowl and stir to combine.
Add honey and oil and mix completely. Pour onto baking tray and spread evenly. Use two baking sheets if the mix is more than 1/4″ thick.
Now the fun part, where you need be mildly diligent. Cook for a total of 25 minutes on 300, stirring every 8 minutes or so, then turn the oven temperature up to 350 and cook for another 5 to 10 minutes, stirring every couple of minutes.
Be careful here. Your quinoa will go from a lovely brown to a charred cinder very quickly.
When the quinoa is a nice deep brown, remove from oven. I like to take it off the baking sheet (still on parchment) and set it on my cool marble counters to cool completely.
DO NOT SAMPLE WHEN HOT. The quinoa will cling to your fingertips and lips and burn the shit out of you. Be patient.
Store in an airtight container. This might last longer than a week, but I doubt I will try that out.
Recipe Notes
If you are eliminating added sugar, you can use apple cider syrup instead of honey. Reduce any quantity of apple cider (not juice) by half and use that instead of honey. You can also substitute maple syrup here. If you like a slightly clumpy, sticky granola, honey is your best bet.
The picture above is made with almonds and cranberries. I can imagine that cashew/apricot and walnut/cherry would be delicious.
This is unspiced, but I also imagine that cinnamon would do well here.
Crabcake egg rolls in collaboration with spicy pineapple dipping sauce. And yes, my crabcake recipe is the best one. #IYDKNYK
Collaboration is a funny thing. Everyone claims to want to do it, but in reality, the bare fact of working with another person to create something together is infinitely challenging. This applies to everything from creative work to child-rearing; it seems as if in collaboration, there is always the potential for someone to feel like they have not been heard, respected, or valued in a partnership.
KWeeks and I are trying to feel our way into creative collaboration. It makes sense that this is a step we would take. Even if our respective creative practices are quite different, many of our sensibilities align, and where they don’t it’s possible to find some fertile ground.
Our first “collaboration,” of sorts, was building a camping platform in New Brunswick, Canada – a bit of a struggle until we figured out that one person needed to be in charge each day. In the end, the final product is something we are both proud of, even if the road to it was sometimes rough.
And now we are feeling our way towards a new collaboration, a creative one, that is embryonic and still being negotiated and not even more than something ethereal. It feels good to think this way, in love and creative partnership with my person. I am most grounded when I have found a home in someone, and KWeeks feels like that.
The idea of “home” comes up frequently in our conversations. KWeeks isn’t exactly nomadic, but he has managed to move at specific times in his life in a way that prevented him from ever feeling too attached to one place.
I, on the other hand, spent the first 25 years of my life in Maryland. I camped every summer in Assateague and roamed the mountains in western Maryland for my formative years. I am attached to this region in a way that is cellular, and much of this is grounded in food of this region, particularly the beautiful swimmers – Maryland blue crab.
It has been two years since I have had crab, and those who know know that fall crab is the best, fatter than the lean crabs of spring and early summer. Years ago, right around this time, I did what was long overdue and created my own crabcake recipe in the form of Maryland Crabcakes With Green Papaya, Carrot, and Jicama Slaw With Pineapple Vinaigrette.
This past weekend, KWeeks and I had a brief sojourn at John Cage Memorial Park in Chance, Maryland, continuing to feel our way towards a potential collaborative project. We picked up two pounds of jumbo lump crab from a roadside stand called How Sweet It Is on the way home, and this recipe is a result of that sweet, delectable bounty from the Chesapeake.
Eating these crabcake egg rolls is a bit like coming home for me – sweet, fresh crab barely held together with minimal binding and just a hint of Old Bay, wrapped in a gluten-free rice wrapper and fried. The spicy sweetness of pineapple and chili complement the crab and the crispy wrapper.
Ultimately, the goal in this life (and the search for home in food, in people, and in place) seems best summed up in a quote from John cage himself:
“Our intention is to affirm this life, not to bring order out of chaos, nor to suggest improvements in creation, but simply to wake up to the very life we’re living, which is so excellent once one gets one’s mind and desires out of its way and lets it act of its own accord.”
Crabcake Egg Rolls With Spicy Pineapple Sauce
(makes 10 spring rolls)
Khristian – not a native Marylander but a smart man nonetheless – reminds me that your crabcakes are only as good as your crab. Make every effort to find local crab, caught in the Bay and picked on the Shore. You’ll be very glad you did.
Ingredients
2 teaspoon Old Bay
¼ cup chopped fresh parsley
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 slice bread without crusts, torn into small bits (see Recipe Notes)
1 tablespoon mayonnaise
1 egg
1 pound jumbo lump crab
10 spring roll wrappers (rice)
½ cup fresh pineapple
½ cup chili garlic sauce (see Recipe Notes)
¼ cup water
Method
Start with the crabcake mixture. You can make this a day ahead if you like, but fresh is best.
Combine Old Bay, parsley, mustard, bread, mayonnaise, and egg in a large bowl. Stir well to combine.
Add crabmeat and mix with your hands very, very gently until the mixture is completely combined. Keep in ‘fridge until ready to make the spring rolls.
For the sauce, combine fresh pineapple, chili sauce, and water in a saucepan. Heat to a simmer, then pop in a blender and blend until smooth. Set aside.
There are multiple ways to fry these. If you have one of those countertop fryers, have at it, and follow the directions for that.
I used a wide, straight-sided saucepan and about two inches of oil. If you are following this method, use a splatter guard, and heat your oil to 350 degrees before you fry.
While your oil is heating, prepare the spring rolls.
FULL DISCLOSURE: My technique SUCKS. It’s ok, because I don’t do this very often (fried or unfried spring rolls), but the more you do it, the better your results will be. So practice by making lots and lots of these.
Grab a wide bowl of hot water. Place the spring roll wrapper in the hot water until it softens – probably not more than 30 seconds. Lay the wrapper on a flat surface, and spoon a generous two tablespoons of the crab just inside the edge closest to you. Roll away from yourself once, fold in the sides, then continue rolling. Tight spring rolls = less chance of bursting and more even browning.
Keep rolling until all the crab is used. Don’t let the spring rolls touch each other while they wait for the frying pan – they will stick and tear each other and then you’ll just have to eat crabcakes.
When your oil is ready, slip spring rolls into their bath, only as many as you can fry at once without them touching. Fry for about five to seven minutes total – until the outside is golden brown.
Remove to a plate covered with paper towels and allow to drain.
Serve HOT, with spicy pineapple sauce on the side.
Recipe Notes
Real Maryland crabcakes use white bread or saltines as a binder. I am a born-and-bred Marylander who happens to be gluten-free, so I used gluten-free bread, and it worked just fine.
You could definitely get high-tech and make your own chili garlic sauce. I chose to leave that to the professionals and used Huy Fong Chili Garlic Sauce, which is delicious and perfect.
A long soak – the first stage of bitter orange marmalade.
In the alley behind KWeeks’s house there are three Poncirus trifoliata trees. Known more commonly as bitter orange, hardy orange, or sticky orange, it grows well even in cold climates, hardy to -10F.
Which means that these trees, neglected and largely left untended, are perfect for Baltimore, itself often neglected.
I had an entire blog idea in my head for this, but I completely forgot it before I wrote it down. It was a good one, though, genius level, in fact. You’ll just have to take my word for it.
So instead I will share an article I read this week in The Guardian, an article that gives me hope for the future (which is challenging to come by. Hope for the future, not articles from The Guardian.).
Evanston, Illinois, one of the most segregated places in the U.S., has become the first in this country (the world?) to begin the formal process of reparations for slavery.
You should really read the whole article and the story of Robin Rue Simmons and what inspired this transformative, reparative act, but in a nutshell, the city is providing grants to BIPOC people who wish to buy a home (along with support for renovating it) and making plans to build a new school in Ward Five, a historically-Black neighborhood that has never had a school.
They are funding these grants and the school with taxes from the cannabis industry, attempting to re-distribute wealth from a predominantly white-owned business sector that has, again, historically incarcerated Black folks for the very thing that white people are making money off of now (growing and selling weed).
When I read this, I fired off emails to Brandon Scott, Baltimore’s presumptive Democratic mayor, and Larry Hogan, our Republican governor with a history of hating Baltimore. I suggested they work together to legalize recreational cannabis and to put this type of restorative justice in place for the state of Maryland.
Rather than pay developers to tear down entire city blocks and then gentrify the shit out of them so that Black folks can no longer afford to live in their own neighborhoods, let’s lift up those same folks and get them started building generational wealth.
Let’s build/remodel/equip world-class schools and community centers in those same neighborhoods to educate our kids for free – fulfilling the promise of public schools (access to a high-quality, free education).
And let’s open up the cannabis industry in Maryland to BIPOC instead of reserving it for white wealth. This should, of course, come with commuted jail sentences (and an expunged record) for all people currently in jail for cannabis offenses. Full stop.
I have only gotten a form letter back from Hogan and the same from Brandon Scott (his at least said his staff will review my email; Hogan’s basically said, “Thanks for writing.”).
In the meantime, I shook the hell out of those bitter orange trees until the walnut-sized, fuzzy fruits dropped to the ground (mind the two-inch-long spiky thorns as you grab the tree). Their juice is mouth-puckeringly tart, and each tiny fruit has about 146 million seeds. On top of all that, some part of them when you squeeze them for juice is sticky – so sticky that I had to put my cutting board and good knives through the dishwasher to clean them off.
But the effort was worth it. This bitter orange marmalade takes two days to make and rewards the long-suffering with a bright, clean, tart/bitter/sweet spread. I imagine that it will be incredible on a cream scone with a generous slathering of clotted cream or extra-rich butter (cream cheese in a pinch).
I have five pints of this and will hoard it like it’s the last jam on earth, but I can see it making its way into a Victoria sandwich over the winter. If you have a bitter orange in your neighborhood, I highly suggest you shake the tree when it begins to lose its leaves and cover your head for the bitter oranges you shake loose.
Bitter Orange Marmalade
This recipe makes five pints total; I used half-pint jars because I never quite make it through an entire pint of any kind of jam. Know going in that the residue from these oranges is very, very annoyingly sticky. It will all be fine.
Ingredients
1 1/4 pound bitter oranges, well-washed
4 1/4 cups water
1 1/4 pounds sugar
Method
This bitter orange marmalade takes two days to make, and the first day is the soak.
Juice all of the oranges, and then strain the juice into a large jar with a lid. It’s okay if some of the pulp gets into the juice, but your don’t want the seeds in there.
Remove some of the pith – the white part inside the bitter orange – from the orange peel, but don’t be too precious about it. The pith is what helps the marmalade set.
Slice the peel into thin strips and place in the jar with the juice. Add water, stir, then let sit on the counter for 24 hours.
The next day, dump the juice, peels, and water into a large pot, cover, and bring to a low boil for about an hour and a half (or until the peels become translucent and soft). Your house will smell like bitters – antiseptic and pungent – so be warned but don’t worry. This goes away.
Add sugar and stir to dissolve. Bring the mixture back to a low boil, and simmer, uncovered, for about 40 minutes or until the marmalade sets.
Pro-tip: to test the set of the bitter orange marmalade, chill a small plate in the freezer, then spoon some hot marmalade onto the plate. Let cool for a few minutes, then run your finger through the marmalade. If it runs quickly back together, keep cooking. If the marmalade sea remains parted, it’s ready to can.
You can put this in a jar and keep it in the ‘fridge if you’ll eat it all in two weeks or so. Otherwise, plan to can in a water bath. SO EASY.
Bring a large pot of water to boil. Once the water is boiling, sterilize clean canning jars (with fresh lids) but dipping into the water and allowing them to boil for a few minutes. Dip the fresh lids in the water (and any ladles or funnels you’ll use to can. Success = properly sterilized jars).
When the bitter orange marmalade is ready, ladle into prepared jars (a funnel helps), leaving about 1/4 – 1/2″ at the top. Screw lids on loosely. If you don’t have one of those bright green canning baskets that make it easy to put jars in boiling water, sink a dish towel into the bottom of the boiling water so the jars don’t rattle as they boil.
Place jars in boiling water, making sure the water covers the lids by at least 1″.
Boil for 10-15 minutes (longer at higher altitudes), then carefully remove jars and place on a towel on the counter. Leave them completely alone for 24 hours.
You will know you have successfully processed your marmalade when you hear the satisfying “pop” of the center lid being sucked down. If you don’t hear it after 24 hours, press in the center of the lid. If there is some give, then it did not seal. You can attempt to re-process in a clean jar with a fresh lid, or you can put in the ‘fridge and eat the jam in yogurt, on oatmeal, with scones – anywhere you want some interesting, citrus-y goodness.
This unassuming little dish holds a tiny cloud of heaven: basil cashew cream sauce.
There is something incredibly comforting about a warm bowl of food. Since it seems we are living in season 4 of The Handmaid’s Tale, we need comfort and care now more than ever. Enter basil cashew cream sauce.
This sauce takes advantage of the late summer flush of basil on my back porch; it’s also vegan and packed with protein (hello, cashews!). If you don’t have basil, you can skip it or try some parsley or other mixed herbs.
Feed yourself (and your people) with love. And for fuck’s sake, VOTE.
Riced Cauliflower With Basil Cashew Cream Sauce And Pretty Much Anything Else You Want
You can make every component of this meal on a Sunday and have dinner on the table in 15 minutes any night of the week.
Ingredients
1 cup cashews
Boiling water
7 tablespoons water (ish. Maybe more, maybe less)
3 tablespoons lemon juice (ish. Also, see Recipe Notes)
Fresh basil leaves (a nice bunch – maybe an ounce or so)
1 head of cauliflower
2 tablespoons olive oil or ghee
Other stuff (see Recipe Notes)
Method
Place cashews in a jar with a lid and cover with boiling water. Let stand for at least 30 minutes (an hour or more is ok), then drain and rinse and put in a food processor.
Add water, lemon juice, and basil and process until everything is light and creamy and pourable. You may use more or less water and lemon juice to get the consistency you want.
The amount of basil you add depends on your taste and what you have. I like a bright, fresh, herbaceous sauce, so I added lots more than most people, but this isn’t pesto. You want to allow the subtle cashew flavor to come through, too. So add and taste and be judicious.
Also add salt and pepper to taste, then blend once more before putting in the ‘fridge. This sauce will last a couple of days chilled, more if you don’t add basil and just process with water and lemon. If you are using the sauce right away, no need to refrigerate.
Rice your entire head of cauliflower. This is most easily done in a food processor with a shredding disk, but you can also grate on a box grater or chop the shit out of it until the cauliflower is approximately the size of – wait for it – rice. You can also buy pre-riced cauliflower.
You’ll need two heaping cups for this recipe (one per person, with some leftovers). Pack the rest into two-cup servings in Ziploc bags and toss in the freezer for easy meals later.
Heat the olive oil in a large skillet, then add the cauliflower. Season with salt and pepper. You may need to add a little bit of water if the cauliflower absorbs the oil, but that’s ok. Cook the cauliflower on medium heat for about five minutes.
And here is where things get interesting. You can roast veggies separately and then add to the cauliflower and top with sauce. You can steam kale or other fall bitter greens in the pan with the cauliflower, then add cashew sauce and mix together (not pretty but YUM). You can use anything that you love in a bowl of food and bring it all together with the basil cashew cream sauce.
So. Freaking. Delicious.
Recipe Notes
This might seem a little thing, but when I first used this, I tossed a section of preserved lemon in the processor instead of lemon juice, and I also used stock instead of water. I had both of these things lying around. If you do, too, I encourage you to use those substitutions for a richer, more complex experience.
When it comes to “other stuff,” the sky is the limit. This is great with leftover (or freshly roasted) veg, grilled meat, or all on its own. You can really add what you like or what’s left in your ‘fridge (hopefully they are the same thing).
Glossy, delicious, vegan, and sugar-free (with no artificial sugar, either). Truth.
Friends, if you are even a semi-regular reader of this blog, you know that the above headline for this recipe is an anomaly here.
I am a HUGE FAN of sugar. I like it in all of its forms.
I like it in the form of a big piece of cake, balanced on my chest as I lie in the bed and watch TV.
I like it in the form of empty wrappers of Dove dark chocolates, the ones that I used to hand out at the end of my yin classes at Yoga Tree.
I love drippy ice cream cones, cheesecake, caramel apples, scones, muffins, pies.
Watermelon and fresh peaches.
I. Love. Sugar. ALL OF IT.
So imagine my surprise as I find myself in week three of a seasonal Renewal with my good friend Martha at Full Moon Acupuncture with nary a fine grain of sugar anywhere.
THREE WEEKS. I have not had sugar for THREE WEEKS. I haven’t cheated (which I think is stupid language to begin with. “Cheat days” and “cheating” are, in general, ridiculous constructs when it comes to food, and I do not in any way, shape, or form condone the use of them. I use it here to indicate that I have, against all odds, stuck with the program and eliminated all processed foods, including sugars in all forms, for a period that will last four weeks-ish. But I digress.)
Thankfully, and speaking of Weeks, my particular friend KWeeks had a birthday October 1st, and it is traditional for the birthday people in my life to get the dinner and the dessert of their choice on their day. KWeeks has simple taste, so dinner was (for him) French lentils over cornbread and topped with a fried egg.
TRUST ME. This is rustic and delicious. But I couldn’t eat it. See referenced Renewal above. And it’s hard to not share a meal on the birthday of someone you love.
He doesn’t have much of a sweet tooth, but I thought perhaps I could make something sweet that we could both eat.
Enter the vegan, sugar-free mixed berry tart.
Apple syrup made from 100% cold-pressed apple cider provides the sweet, and the gluten-free crust is six simple ingredients: walnuts, almonds, oats, salt, coconut oil, and apple syrup. Technically the oats are not allowed in the Renewal (no grains), but everything else is so damn good for you it doesn’t seem to matter.
It’s pretty, and it’s festive, and it gets real close to satisfying my (still) voracious appetite for sugar.
Vegan (Sugar-free) Mixed Berry Tart
KWeeks and I ate about half of this on his birthday and then shared the rest with his vegan co-workers at The Friends School of Baltimore. They have not been the beneficiaries of my baking, ever, and I am glad to finally be able to have something to share with them.
Ingredients
80 grams almonds (about 2/3 cup)
80 grams walnuts (about 2/3 cup)
70 grams oats (you guessed it: about 2/3 cup)
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons coconut oil
1/4 cup + 3 tablespoons apple syrup (divided)
1/2 cup lemon juice/water combo
1/2 teaspoon agar
3 cups chopped fruit of your choice (see Recipe Notes)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Method
Preheat oven to 350. Use cooking spray to grease a 9″ tart pan with removable bottom (you can use butter if you don’t want to keep it vegan) and set aside.
Place almonds, walnuts, oats, and salt in a food processor, and pulse to chop fine.
Add coconut oil and 3 tablespoons of your apple syrup and pulse until the mixture begins to come together. Dump into your tart pan and press into an even layer along the bottom and the sides.
Bake until brown and the bottom is firm (between 15 and 20 minutes). If the edges of the crust begin to burn, pull the tart out of the oven and place aluminum foil strips over the edges, then replace and finish. Remove to a wire rack and cool completely while you make the filling (the ‘fridge is great for a quick chill).
To make the filling, place 1/4 cup apple syrup and the 1/2 cup of lemon juice/water combo in a saucepan with the agar. Whisk to combine, and bring just to a boil.
Add the fruit and stir. Warm the fruit (especially if it’s frozen), then add to the chilled tart crust. Place back in the ‘fridge and allow to chill for at least three hours.
Serve with vegan whipped cream, or ice cream, or plain for breakfast. Just as you like.
Recipe Notes
Apple syrup is a delicious way to add sweetness to desserts (or yogurt or granola or whatever) without adding sugar. Well, ok, technically it’s fruit sugar, which the body does still recognize as sugar, but it’s not processed to within an inch of its life. Essentially, you are taking pure apple cider (NOT juice) and boiling it down until it reduces by half. I make this in two-cup batches, so I start with four cups of apple cider. Bring to a medium boil (not a simmer, but not too rolling either). Boil until the cider is reduced by half. If you want it to be even sweeter, keep going and reduce it even more.
Any fruit works here, fresh or frozen. I have used fresh and frozen blueberries, cherries, and nectarines in my tests, and they have all been delicious. You can also switch up the extracts if you like and use an almond extract, but use just 1/4 teaspoon if you do that.
