Fresh Cooked Edamame

As I was perusing the gorgeous displays at the Durham Farmer's Market today, I lingered at Piedmont Biofarm ... and discovered some fresh edamame. I've made it before, but this time I decided to research recipes to see if I could recreate the yummy experience of the edamame at Dashi.

This wasn't Dashi's, but it was QUITE DELICIOUS!

I couldn't find one, so I made up one, which I'll gladly reproduce and source here.

Stephanie’s Fresh Edamame

• Sprinkle edamame generously with salt, rub vigorously, and let stand 15 minutes.
• Bring a large pot of well-salted water to a boil, add the beans and boil over high heat for 5 to 6 minutes.
• Don't cover the pot or the beans will lose their bright green color.

Drain cooked edamame in a colander and pat dry.

In same pot … heat:

• Teaspoon of sesame seeds for 30 seconds, then add: 

• 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) or sesame oil
• 2 cubes frozen garlic (or 2 teaspoons if you use fresh; I used Trader Joe's frozen for this quick meal)
• 1 teaspoon red pepper paste (or equal measure of your favorite red pepper flakes
• 2 T soy sauce
• Smidge of fresh ginger

Cook for ~3 minutes

Add edamame to the sauce and toss; heat until edamame is warm



First part (i.e., tossing the edamame with salt & letting it sit for 15 minutes)
c.1997, M.S. Milliken & S. Feniger, all rights reserved, at http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/edamame-cooked-fresh-soybeans-recipe.html
Read more at:

Second Part adapted from:
Chili Garlic Edamame Recipe | Cooking with Coley http://cookingwithcoley.com/chili-garlic-edamame-recipe/

Ginger snaps!

As I do every year, I made a ginormous batch of ginger snaps. My work, spouse's work, our fridge ... so many reasons to have ginger snaps!

The cookies taste best after a day or two, and they freeze beautifully!

The wet stuff: eggs, butter, molasses, vanilla.	The dry stuff: flour and four tablespoons of ginger powder (and a few other things).
The dough is very sticky!
Lots of little dots on the baking pan turn into ...	Lots of ginger snaps!

Check out the recipe on Evernote.

Christmas Soup

This recipe for Pasta e Fagioli (Pasta and Bean Soup) from ChefMD looks like Christmas! The look is entirely coincidental, but I'm glad for a holiday-looking soup all the same. 

Yesterday, I listened to a People's Pharmacy® interview with ChefMD, aka Dr. John La Puma called Healthy Holiday Feasts. I'd heard them talk to him before, but this time I was inspired to check out the recipes on ChefMD.com. Many look quite tasty!

Substitutions
This recipe calls for fennel, which wasn't available at the store yesterday, so I substituted an onion instead. I used Bionaturae's whole wheat macaroni, as that was the smallest pasta I had. On the show, Dr. La Puma talked about using "reduced sodium spicy vegetable juice" which I also didn't have; I used a double can of fire-roasted tomatoes with their juice. I also didn't have peas, so I used string beans.

Tomatoes + string beans + navy beans = Christmas soup!

Musical Accompaniment
Pink Martini's Joy to The World.

Chocolate Mooncakes (Gluten-free). Or, Recipes on the Blog!

I've been cooking & posting photos / recipes to my Facebook page for a while now. That turns out to be satisfying because my friends post comments ... but ultimately is unsatisfying because I can't easily refer people to my baked kale recipe or my spicy Thai slaw recipe.

I got a suggestion (or two) to start a blog ... but hey, I already have a blog, and it's not being used. So ... I'm planning to post some recipes here, in addition to the occasional post about teaching or librarianing or cognitive sciencing.

Chocolate Mooncakes

First up: Chocolate Mooncakes (Gluten Free). or, Black bean, gluten-free brownies. I wanted a relatively healthy and wheat-free baked good to take to various holiday events -- but it had to taste good first. So I scoured the interwebs for black bean brownie recipes & settled on Eat Good 4 Life: Dark chocolate and black bean brownies.

The recipe calls for many of the usual brownie ingredients, such as eggs, sugar, and vanilla.

Variations: I am not a big brownie baker, so I was less familiar with the chocolate aspect. The recipe calls for dark cocoa powder, but since I didn't know if I was going to like these (and thus make them again), I didn't want to buy a lot of cocoa powder. So I bought a single-serving packet of sipping cocoa. I used Whole Foods semi-sweet chocolate chips for the toppings. I also substituted (and toasted) pecans instead of chopped walnuts, just because I'm in the south.

I was flummoxed at the notion of buying instant coffee -- all I could think of was Sanka, and I didn't know where I might big a jar of Sanka these days. While I didn't look hard, I still didn't find any instant coffee, and so I thought I would do without. Then I remembered that Starbucks is making instant coffee, so I bought a three-pack of their coffee-flavored instant coffee.  (I didn't buy their flavored mochas, nor their Christmas blend.)

The cool thing about this recipe, and this is not a variation, but is, imho, A Good Thing, is the use of a can of black beans instead of flour. The texture is not quite brownie-like, but as my friend Tomasa said, is more like a Chinese mooncake. Actually, according to Wikipedia, this is nothing like a typical Chinese mooncake, but it's more like a mooncake than a brownie, so I'm sticking with the name.

If you're gluten-free, or just want to try a brownie variation, I recommend these.