guest blogger (mama, of course): another recipe for granola freaks with aarp cards

Homemade granola: why bother? Of course, at this point in my life, that’s my reaction to the idea of any homemade food. I’m officially done with cooking. But thirty years ago I was the cookingest girl in the feminist book group, the bakingest mom in the La Leche League. I had a baby food grinder and an electric yogurt maker. I grew sprouts in my kitchen window. No kidding.

And once in a while, even now, I get the urge to open the door of one of my ovens (I have three – which is a lot of ovens for somebody who doesn’t cook any more), pull out all the pots and pans I store in there, and see if it still works. I’m especially prone to that impulse when the weather turns cool and crisp and the only available outdoor activity is raking. Just because I’m over cooking doesn’t mean I’m into manual labor.

Which is how I ended up last weekend making six pounds of granola and five loaves of dense hippie-style multi-grain high protein bread while Clare’s daddy filled a 4’ x 10’ compost bin with shredded leaves.

Both of those recipes date from those halcyon days of yore when medical science told us that vegetarians had to eat complementary amino acids at each meal or risk kwashiorkor. So your granola had almonds and grains and nonfat dry milk and coconut and lots of oil and honey. And your bread had sunflower seeds and wheat germ and rice flour and cornmeal and soy flour and you slathered it with gobs of cream cheese and jam. And your burrito had beans and brown rice and a sky high pile of shredded cheddar. And your dessert had carob and wheat germ and almonds and butter and brown sugar with whipped cream on top. Because that was healthy eating.
Maybe I’ll write down the hippie bread recipe some day. It’s really good, if you don’t mind the fact that a paper-thin slice has the heft and texture of a roofing shingle and counts as three Weight Watchers points. We weren’t on Weight Watchers back then. We were on the Scarsdale diet or drinking Metrecal.

This is definitely the grooviest granola you ever finished a pound of when you were high and got the munchies. At least, that’s what people said at the time, through the haze, as they crawled around on the floor to find the rest of their clothes. Not me. I never ate more than half a cup at the most. On top of a big bowl of ice cream. While sober as a judge. SweartoGod.
The recipe’s coming soon. Two things first.

Thing one: For as long as I’ve been making this granola I told people it was from a magazine column by Julia Child. But when I looked up the recipe in my big box of magazine recipes from the 70s, 80s, 90s, and early 00s (an interesting archeological expedition, about which I’ll write some other time), the clipping doesn’t have Julia’s name anywhere on it. The headline is, “Another Recipe for Granola Freaks” and the text reads, “This one comes from Marilyn D. in San Francisco, who says it makes the best mixture she’s ever tasted, so much so that she is quite willing to ignore the cost both monetarily and calorifically.” It sounds like something Julia would say, and I swear Julia had a regular column in one of the mainstream women’s magazines back then (McCall’s? Redbook? Good Housekeeping?), but I can’t prove it from this clipping.

Thing two: The granola has morphed over the years to the point that Marilyn D. might not recognize it. I use half as much oil as the original recipe and I cut out the coconut altogether to eliminate saturated fat. Instead of a whole cup of honey, I sweeten it with apple cider and a little molasses. I add flax meal because it’s supposed to lower your cholesterol, and I leave out the salt because I have high blood pressure. So I guess that makes this

Another Recipe for Granola Freaks with AARP Cards

Ingredients

• 5 cups old fashioned rolled oats
• 1 cup sliced almonds
• 1 cup sunflower seeds
• ½ cup freshly ground flax seeds
• ½ cup wheat germ
• 1 cup Grape Nuts
• ½ cup powdered skim milk (optional if you’re vegan)
• ½ cup canola oil
• ¼ cup molasses
• 1 cup apple cider
• ½ cup dark, seedless raisins

Prep

• Throw all the dry ingredients into a huge bowl.
• Stir together the oil, molasses and cider in a separate bowl and pour over.
• Mix thoroughly.
• If you want clumps and clusters, you’ll need more oil and more molasses. My way, the granola is drier and less clumpy. You can double or triple or quadruple the recipe if you have a big enough tub to mix it in and enough pans to spread it out in for baking. And three ovens.

Actual Cooking

• Spread into a 13 x 9 inch baking pan.
• Bake at 350 degrees, about 40 to 45 minutes.
• Stir every 10 minutes, adding the raisins in the last 10 minutes of baking.
• Remove from oven; cool.
• If you want to blow your friends’ minds the next time they get the munchies, add about a cup of chocolate chips when it’s ALMOST cool. They’ll melt just a little and ramp up the deliciousness significantly.
• Store in an airtight container.

I usually mix an ounce or so of granola with some nonfat plain Greek yogurt for a total of 180 calories (140 per ounce for the granola) and lots of energy to start my day. We didn’t have Greek yogurt back when I began making this granola. Well, I guess the Greeks had it, but where I come from we didn’t. Instead, we had to take the yogurt out of the electric yogurt maker (they still make them: http://www.vmc-health.com/index2.htm ) and let it drain through a tea strainer lined with cheesecloth overnight. Because life was hard back then. Nasty, brutish, and covered in sesame tahini.

black bean quesadillas

originally i planned a pumpkin quesadilla out of last month's bon appetit but that seemed like a lot of work for a dish that might go over like a lead balloon and since we served five (FIVE!) kinds of beer and only two were less than 6% abv, i kinda wanted to make sure people ate up.

(what did we do before trader joe's?)

ingredients:

• shredded cheese blend of your preference (or you could, like, shred some cheese yourself)
• roasted green chilis
• tortillas (um, 8? i think i made 8.)
• one white onion, diced
• one can of black beans, rinsed
• spray oil

prep:

• dice onion
• make sure you have everything ready, this goes fast

actual cooking:

• preheat crepe pan (or flat-bottomed frying pan) to medium
  

• spray lightly with oil
  
  

• add tortilla
  

• spread chilis
  
  
  

• add a handful of beans
  

• and some onions
  

• and a handful of cheese-- don't skimp on the cheese!
  

• flip over the empty half and press down
• cover and allow to cook until melty and delicious
  
  

(ali & alex agree, augustus is nearly as delicious as black bean quesadillas.)

frou-frou grilled cheese with bacon, apples and onions

is it fair to try to re-create at home something amazing you had at a restaurant? because i'm obsessed with "the harvest" grilled cheese from house in media. so, umm, i tried to make it at home with some (read: huge) success.

ingredients:

• 3 5x5 ciabatta rolls (i actually used 1 1/2 5x10s from trader joe's)
• 4 ounces sharp cheddar, sliced
• one apple, peeled and shaved into strips
• bacon, ummm, i think it was like 1/2 a pound?
• 1 medium sweet onion, sliced and sauteed in the nearly-clean bacon pan (oh, yeah)
• butter for greasing OR a panini press

prep:

• make your ingredients look like this:

(cooked but not ALL THE WAY to the point of crispiness)

actual cooking:

• put one side of the bread face-up on a lightly buttered largish frying pan or griddle
  

• add cheese, apples, onions, bacon and a little more cheese

• put the top on and press down
  

(maybe put a preheated cast-iron skillet on top. maybe. but best to slightly grease the bottom first. trust me.)

• cook until the cheese is ooey-gooey, or toss it in the oven after a brief grilling so it gets melty while you make the next one. NOM.

meatloaf for comfort

i've tried a few different methods for meatloaf (my mother-in-law does hers in a crockpot, i think my mom used to-- or still does-- add beans, mainly i just try to copy other people's recipes while dumbing them down to half-assed when at all possible.) and this is by far the easiest and best. it'so easy, in fact, that i made it last night after i had surgery on my arm. okay, THAT was a shameless, exaggerated ploy for sympathy. ihad an out-patient procedure at my dermatologist's office, but STILL. it huuuuuuuuurts.

ahem. meatloaf. i meant to make-ahead this one but after seeing saw vi on sunday i was reall in no mood to handle raw meat.

ingredients:

• ground beef (or "meatloaf meat") about 1 pound for every 4 people
• 1/2 a can of tomato paste for every pound of meat
• 1/2 a white onion for ever pound of meat
• 1/2 tsp italian seasoning for every pound of meat
• 1/2 tsp salt for every pound of meat
• 1 egg for every pound of meat

prep:

• dice onion in about 1/2 inch chunks
• preheat oven to 350*

actual cooking:

• combine ingredients (i use a mixer, ina garten uses a fork, you can feel free to use your hands, but, gag.)
• (if your meat is very, very lean, lightly grease the bottom of your small roasting pan)
• form into a loaf, wider than it is high
• bake for an hour

tres leches cake

oh, god, i've been planning, organizing, cooking and blogging these TWO meals for weeks. will anyone blame me if i just link to pioneer woman's recipe for tres leches cake? because it's the recipe i used, right up until i was supposed to make my own whipped cream. frosting that cake was the last thing i had to do in a fooding process that involved two spreadsheets, four grocery stores, a fish milkshake, inhaling mccormick's barbecue seasoning, hands and eyes burning with chili juice, a five am trip to a diner i'm still recovering from, ingredients i'd never heard of and a five-gallon spring mix salad i forgot to serve. so i used a can of whipped cream. sue me.

on that note: daddy.

ceviche

holy shit i fed my family raw fish. no kidding.

okay, it's chemically cooked or whatever but this is a big step for me: i touched it. to be perfectly honest, i was near tears the entire time, but uncle jim came through big time for me because the stuff still had skin and that was really more than i was prepared to handle. by the way, bill suggests that it is perhaps not encouraging to say things like, "i can't believe that's food" to the people you're cooking for. noted.

ingredients:

• 1 cup fresh key lime juice from fresh key limes that you juiced (or that your husband and brother juiced)
• 2/3 cup clam juice (from a bottle, THANK GOD)
• 1/3 cup chopped celery
• 1 cup matchstick-sized strips red onion
• 1 1/2 tbs fresh ginger (peeled)
• 1 garlic clove, peeled
• 1 1/2 pounds cubed mahi mahi, tilapia or chilean sea bass fillet
• 6 tbs fresh cilantro
• 2 tsp salt
• 2 minced aji chilis

prep work:

• juice key limes
• chop & measure everything
• peel, cube and mince
• seriously, everything

actual cooking (eh, it's relative):

• toss lime juice, clam juice, celery, a bit of red onion, the ginger and the garlic in the blender
• add a small handful of fish (1/2 cupish), 4 tbs cilantro & 1 1/2 tsp salt
• puree. a lot.
• strain the world's grossest milkshake into a glass bowl, pressing down on solids
• add the remaining fish, cilantro, salt, chili and red onion
• cover and chill for 2 hours, stirring occasionally

this recipe is both easier and harder than it looks. frankly, it's a whole hell of a lot of prep work, but then, it just sort of... happens. the fish was visibly cooked within an hour in the juice. (it was opaque, that's how we knew.)

i hope at this point columbus was turning little flip-flops in his grave. otherwise all my hard work and squeeming was for naught.

lomo saltado

more from our ironic columbus day peruvian feast...


ingredients:

• 3 pounds frozen french fries
• 2 lbs beef tenderloin (i bought "stir fry beef" in strips)
• 2 tsp ground cumin
• pinch of cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
• oil for stir frying
• 1 Tbs. minced garlic
• 1-2 thai red chile or fresno chili, seeded and finely minced (i could find neither so i settled for anaheim chilis-- that's near fresno, right?)
• salt
• 1 tsp red wine vinegar
• 2 medium red onions, halved lengthwise and sliced crosswise ½ inch thick
• 1 ½ lb plum tomatoes halved, seeded and cut into sixths
• 3 aji peppers, seeded and finely sliced
• 6 tbs soy sauce
• 4 tbs freshly chopped cilantro
• (steamed white rice on the side. yes, seriously, fries AND rice.)
  

prep:

• bake fries according to package directions, keep warm in the oven
• chop & measure everything
• toss beef with pepper, cinnamon, cumin and 1 tbs soy sauce

actual cooking:

• over medium heat, in your largest frying pan or wok, heat oil to cover the bottom
• saute garlic and chili for 2 minutes
• add beef and turn heat up to high
• season with salt and remove to a large casserole
• stir fry onion
• add salt & pepper
• add some vinegar and fry until evaporated, then repeat
• remove onion to casserole with beef
• repeat vinegar thing with tomatoes
• return beef and all to the pan
• add ajies and remaining soy sauce
• add cilantro and toss
• serve over fries (with rice)
  

leonardo celebrates columbus day with lomos saltado, pappas rellenas, sea bass ceviche and an inca cola or four. and promises that the meal reminded him of when he was "a wee baby."