Now bring us some figgy pudding...

Okay, it isn't figgy pudding, but it's close.

Most people who have listened to Christmas songs throughout their life have heard of Christmas pudding. It's one of those old-timey things like caroling and those pictures of you in a snowman sweater when you were seven years old. However, I doubt most people have a tradition for Christmas pudding that extends beyond that absurd line in "We Wish You a Merry Christmas". But then again, not everyone has an awesome Canadian grandmother.

Every year for Christmas, my grandmother whips up a suet pudding for each of her children's families in her tiny kitchen in Anaheim. About midway through December, the pudding arrives in a tin with terrifying pictures of teddy bears or gaudy lights and we all rejoice. Really, it doesn't feel like the holiday season unless there is a suet pudding on the counter.

However, this year my grandmother was too busy to make puddings for all of us, so I was charged with making the one for my family. And surprisingly, it was fairly simple. Flour, bread crumbs, dried fruit, spices, milk, molasses, and of course suet. What's suet you ask? Well, it's the fat that surrounds a cow's kidneys. They don't stock this next to the hamburger meat at the supermarket, but luckily my Dad was able to score some at the local butchery (the aptly named Blood Farm) and brought me home a bag of the stuff. I was then charged with cutting it up, because Blood Farm wouldn't grind it for fear of gumming up their machines.

I never expected there to be so much connective tissue holding that stuff together. And surprisingly, it wasn't wiggly or squishy in any way. It was the same consistency as when you try to use butter straight out of the fridge without letting it thaw first. After I had cut the block of fat into manageable chunks, it went through the food processor to chop it up even further. The result was what can only be described as pink snow:

That was another surprise. It didn't put up a fight while I was chopping. I've met strawberries that were more resistant to the whirling blades of death. Now that that step was over with, it was just a question of combining the ingredients as you would with any cake recipe. The batter was very thick, like a mix between regular cake batter and bread dough, which I then scooped into my mom's pudding steamer.

I put a pyrex bowl at the bottom of our stew pot and nestled the steamer inside. I then popped on the lid (well, rested the lid on top. I have no idea how to lock the thing...) and filled up the pot halfway with water so that it was halfway up the steamer. Then I set it to boil for two hours and let the steam work its magic.

A steamed pudding is hard to describe. It's not at all like Jell-o pudding (that's more of a thick custard). Rather, it's more like  a dense, sticky bread. Well, at least this one is. My mother's lemon pudding (which I hope to get for my birthday next week!) has more of a consistency somewhere between angel food cake and pound cake. Then it's slathered with lemon curd and swimming in vanilla custard. Mmmmmmmm.

Now that this Christmas pudding is done, all that's left is to put on the sauce: a half stick of butter, a quarter cup of brown sugar, a little bit of vanilla, and (if you're my mom) rum.

Okay, it's not a picture out of a magazine. But hey, after waiting all year for this, I don't care how it looks!

Mantra time

For all intents and purposes, I am home for the holidays! However, now all the fears that I had going into this semester about changing my diet have become a reality. At school, really I don't eat that much. That's because everything I do eat I either have to cook or have enough of it lying around so that I can grab a quick stack. Sadly, I never seem to have a snack surplus. How, I am home in the land of plenty where there are lots of things to eat, but not enough food. 

This is where the food mantra comes in. "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." A couple of months ago I read In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan and that was really the takeaway message. If you can find a copy and have a couple hours to read it (it's fairly short), I highly recommend it.

The "Eat food"  idea is that you shouldn't eat anything that your ancestor wouldn't recognize as food. The first clue is to look at the ingredients. For bread, is it flour, water, yeast, and salt? Or is it packed full of iron, calcium, riboflavin, etc? If your great-great grandmother wouldn't recognize the ingredients as food (or if you don't, for that matter), by Pollan's logic you shouldn't eat it. Why make bread sexier by adding iron and calcium when you can eat some broccoli along with your sandwich?

Okay, by reading labels over the past year I think I've gotten fairly good at determining if something is "natural" or "safe" to eat. If it has "natural flavors" I generally put it down, so I think I'll be able to spot "food" this break. As for the "not too much" part, that's going to be hard. I tend to eat a lot, especially if its food I really like. And of course, Christmas means Christmas food. Even before I went gluten/casein/corn/soy free at school I would go on a Christmas binge because I couldn't get tree-shaped butter cookies with green icing any other time of the year. I think I might be in trouble.

Luckily, my body has become accustomed to working on less food. So far this break as well as during the Thanksgiving break I stuffed myself to the point of shame and being downright uncomfortable. I say this is lucky because it means that I can work on listening to my stomach and gauging when I am full and should stop eating. If that means that I only eat two dinner rolls instead of three, so be it. I can ask my mom to make them again if I really liked them or I can make them myself. Plus, by committing to eating only "food", I can cut down on what I am actually putting in my mouth.

The "mostly plants" part of the mantra is going to be extremely hard. When I got home yesterday, I looked in the vegetable drawer and found it stocked with potatoes and not much else. I know we have bags of frozen peas and corn in the freezer and maybe a bag of baby carrots tucked behind one of the potato sacks, but that isn't a whole lot. There is maybe two onions and a single head of garlic in the house. My boyfriend and I usually use that much every time we cook dinner. I see no cabbage, no parsnips, and no full-length carrots! My world is upside down! Well, at least the potatoes mean that I can make a batch of home fries if I ever need a snack. And because I would actually have to make them  means that I won't be mindlessly grazing. I think I might have to ask my mom to throw some more veggies in our meals too. Also, she needs to pick up some more onions.

So what's my progress so far? Well, yesterday I won't count because I had one foot in Amherst and the other back home and during the drive I was eating leftover Chinese food out of a container I was holding between my knees. I got orange beef (aka deep-fried candy meat) all over my pants. So today I decided to make myself an egg in a basket (for those who don't know, you cut a whole in a piece of toast, drop the egg inside, and fry it). I didn't check the bread, but it probably wasn't exactly food. Damn. I used canola oil as the frying medium, and that is usually genetically modified. Double damn. The "butter" I put on the bread to make it extra crispy was actually Benecol light, which is various vegetable oils solidified, colored yellow, and flavored to taste like butter. Well, at least the egg was natural, right? Well, it was pure white, all the eggs in the carton were uniform, and they each had a little breast cancer support ribbon stamped on them. I'm in trouble, aren't I? Well, at least the only bad thing about the Greek yoghurt I had after that was that it had natural vanilla flavor....

I can't really avoid the bread issue unless mom makes her own bread, which might happen soon. And all of the eggs at the supermarket are going to be uniform and have some sort of stamp, so I'll have to live with that. I don't know what other oil to use because olive oil won't taste right (believe me) and the only other oil we have is corn oil, which would be out of the frying pan and into the gas burner. I can at least avoid the Benecol. In fact, I wanted to use butter for breakfast but I didn't take it out of the refrigerator in time. I was worried that the oil would start smoking so I had to butter my bread quickly with a butter-like substance. I'm trying!

Cake

Since today was my boyfriend's birthday, I decided to be awesome and make him a birthday cake using this recipe. It turned out great and was super easy to make, however it wasn't without drama.

My original plan had been to use both regular dark chocolate and some flavored with espresso for more of a dark and exotic taste. Going into Whole Foods, my standards for chocolate were high: obviously allergen-free, fair-trade, and organic if possible. A word to the wise, fair-trade and organic do not always mean safe. There is one company in particular I was looking for, Taza, because they meet all of the requirements and are also locally produced in Massachusetts. Alas, there was none to be seen. Every other bar of chocolate I looked at had soy or milk in it. I stood forlorn in the aisle, banging my head against the shelves looking for inspiration. Eventually I found a bag of Enjoy Life chocolate chips, which are made in a dedicated allergen-free facility, however I had to let go of my stipulation of the chocolate being fair-trade or organic. One down, one to go.

Next I looked for some cocoa to use. Once again, everything had soy lecithin in it. Everything. I ended up buying a canister of Ghirardelli unsweetened cocoa, but decided against using it because it is made on the same equipment that makes soy products and is made in a facility that processes milk. So much for my dream of hot cocoa this winter.

What am I going to do with you? 

Then there was peripheral drama because I had no idea what to bake the cake in, considering that college students aren't in the habit of carrying tart tins to school. And then my boyfriend and I weren't able to get eggs this weekend, so my roommate saved the day by getting me six aluminum pie tins and a half-dozen eggs when she went home. I owe her big time. The pie tin worked out great because the cake got some nice scallopy edges on it!

Isn't it purdy? Om nom nom....

As for the actual cake making process, it went swimmingly. I substituted the butter with coconut oil, which adds a little extra flavor, and used almond milk instead of regular. Because I couldn't use the cocoa, I added a half cup of rice flour to thicken things up a bit. So technically, this wasn't a flourless chocolate cake. But whatever. I also never used any vanilla extract. I didn't want to buy a bottle because it gets pretty expensive and I don't think I'd use it for much else. I was tempted to go for the vanilla almond milk, but the "natural flavors" listed on the package turned me off. In the end, safety is safety when it comes to my boyfriend's diet and I figured that with the coconut flavor I could let it slide. I also didn't use the salt, but heck, it was only 1/4 teaspoon.

All in all, the cake was delicious and went fast. It packs a lot of flavor even though its only a couple inches high. If you have a 10 oz bag of chocolate chips laying around the house, I highly recommend that you give this a try!

Quit bashing my national dish

I'm tired of everyone bashing the haggis. Often when I Google the recipe, I come up with snarky sarcastic websites that give you the directions and then usually say something like "serve with a glass of whiskey so that you can actually eat the stuff!". Even Alton Brown, Food Network Chef and new darling of Concord Grape Juice, ends his recipe with "Serve with mashed turnips and potatoes, if you serve it at all!"

Well excuuuuuuuuse me!

What is haggis you may ask? In basic terms, a sausage. Albeit a large, football sized sausage, but a sausage none the less. However it gets a bad rap because the contents are a sheep's pluck (heart, liver, lungs, and tongue) and is cooked in the sheep's stomach. Sure, organ meat isn't everyone's cup of tea, but sausage is traditionally made from various "bits" of animals. Want to know what makes the casing of a sausage crisp when you cook it? That would be the small intestine that the filling is pressed into.

Haggis and other types of sausage were a great way to use up the nutritious organs of animals before they went bad (the pluck got it's name this way, because these organs were the first to be "plucked" from the carcass). They were a cheap way to make sure that  you were using all of the animal while getting a hearty meal.

I am determined that some day I will make haggis. In fact, I hope it will happen this year. There is a man at the farmer's market who sells sheep, lamb, and goat meat and I think sometime I'll ask if he could hold the pluck and stomach for me. There is a lot of prep time involved, because you have to soak the stomach overnight, cook the organs, and then boil the mixture in the stomach for three hours. However, apart from butchering the various organs (which I have minimal experience with), it's pretty much just waiting for it to be done. Plus, I think I can just use ground beef instead of suet, because for some reason suet seems to be extremely hard to come by in these modern times. I am so becoming a butcher's best friend in the future.

And if I decide to go all out Burns Supper, I am so reciting "Address to a Haggis" and ceremonially stabbing the haggis. It's hard to memorize poems with a Scottish accent, though.

(image from here)

Better late than....

Back in May, I emailed Larry and Luna's Coconut Bliss about the origin of the xanthan gum in some of their flavors like the chocolate almond brownie and ginger snap. I got a reply saying that they would look into the xanthan gum issue because they get their brownie and cookie base from another company. Alas, the xanthan gum is indeed made from corn. However, it is extremely comforting to know that my email was not lost in the void of customer questions. I had been wondering if I would get a response for a while, and just when I had given up hope the reply appeared in my inbox.

For anyone who still hasn't tried Coconut Bliss, please do so. It's amazing.

Clean out the fridge soup

The other day was the day that we pick up a fresh load of (free!) veggies from a local farm, which means that we have to make room for them. How? By eating last week's veggies of course! Our freezer is packed with peppers and kale, and the vegetable crisper had some hot peppers and leeks going mushy. Plus, there was a surplus of potatoes. So I figured I'd just throw it all in a pot and see what happened. The result? Potato and leek soup crossed with kale soup! YUMMMMMMY!

This actually tasted like kale soup, and I think it's a good substitute for vegetarian/vegan crowd. Since kale soup has sausage in it, that's obviously out. However, the potato added a similar texture (biting into something that isn't kale) and the hot pepper added the spice round in the hot Italian sausage we usually get. Curious? Here's the recipe!

Clean out the Fridge Soup (Vegetarian Kale soup)

Olive oil

Kale: not just an alien, it's an amazing leafy green!

1-2 stalks leeks (or one large onion), chopped into 1/2 inch pieces
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 hot pepper, chopped into small-ish pieces
2 bell peppers, chopped into 1/2 inch pieces
2-3 medium potatoes, cut into 1 inch pieces
1 can red kidney beans
1 Tbsp. dried basil
1/2 tsp. chili powder
Salt and pepper to taste
1-1 1/2 cups loosely chopped kale

Coat the bottom of a soup pot with olive oil and heat. Add leeks (or onions, if using) and cook until soft, then add garlic. Let cook 1-2 minutes until the garlic starts to cook a little, then add the hot and bell pepper. Cook until slightly soft and add potato, kidney beans, basil, chili powder, salt, and pepper. Pour in enough water to cover the vegetables by a half inch. Let soup simmer until potatoes are almost done and add kale. When potatoes are tender, serve it up and enjoy!

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This is sort of a hodgepodge soup recipe, however it had a striking resemblance to kale soup when we ate it. I supposed if you wanted to, you could substitute chicken or vegetable stock for the water if you wanted a little extra flavor, but I thought it was just fine on its own. If you want it less spicy you can use less chili powder, or if you wanted it spicier you could even add another hot pepper (for the original, we used one and a half to get them out of the crisper). All in all, this soup was hot, tasty, and perfect for the cooling October weather. Plus, it was super easy.

(image from here)

Procrastination station!

While in the midst of trying to figure out how exactly to do my Linguistics homework, I started looking up recipes to give my mind a break. Well, truthfully I started looking up Russian pelmeni (they look so yummy!) and then got sidetracked. But I digress.

I realized that being both gluten and casein free is hard. Like, really hard. At least for me, because every recipe I know from my mom's cooking has butter or some kind of dairy. In fact, I'm finding being casein-free harder than going gluten-free. Now that I'm more familiar with baking and cooking with rice flour, I'm starting to get a handle on the addition of xanthan gum and other additives. I have a lot to learn, but I think with some experimentation I can convert wheat flour recipes to gluten-free. Plus, with this recipe I found for wonton wrappers, the pelmeni will be close behind! YAY!

However, what about my old friend butter? For most of the recipes that have required a solid lipid substance, coconut oil has been the prime candidate. However, I'm not sure if coconut oil would work exactly the same for things like toffee, and then there's the taste. There are some recipes that I can't imagine without the creamy, slightly salty taste of butter. Alright, so I won't make them. Or I could use a substitute like the casein-free ghee we found a while ago, but I'm still very skeptical.  Having butter without casein sounds to me like saying "It's snow, but without the frozen water crystals" or "It's Hitler, but without the genocide". It's so integral to how I perceive the object that I can't see how ghee could exist without the casein.

I'm mostly surprised because it suddenly hit me how many restrictions we have when looking for recipes. For instance, on the Gluten Free on a Shoestring website recipe page, especially the dessert section, there are so many recipes that still have butter or cornmeal. It just narrows the playing field a little more. However, there is an upside. This leaves room for experimentation. Maybe almond meal instead of cornmeal, or maybe we could find ways around using butter by taking the basic idea of the recipe but tweaking it a bit. You would have no idea how many recipes say they require butter but then only use it for caramelizing onions or a small amount of frying. We could always use oil, especially safflower oil, which tastes slightly buttery on its own.

Despite the fact that eating gluten/casein/soy/and corn free can get hard sometimes, we still have a bunch of recipes to work with. For instance, tonight we're having leftovers from the BEST SHEPARD'S PIE WE'VE MADE YET! I can't tell if it was the extra veggies, the garlic in the mashed potatoes, the tomato, or the half pound of bacon, but it's delicious. Personally, I think it was the bacon.

(image from here)