Vegan Vietnamese Spring Rolls

This summer Mo and I craved these spring rolls and walked for two hours to get the rice paper. Unlike Thai spring rolls, which are fried, these are light and refreshing. They can take a while to prepare, but if you can cook the tofu ahead of time it goes much quicker. The only specialty food involved is rice paper, which I've found at both international food shops and Whole Foods. Rice noodles also might be a bit tricky, but I haven't usually had a problem finding them. The rice paper I use comes in a package like this:
Ingredients:
Tofu (extra firm)
Vegetable oil
Fresh mint
Fresh cilantro
Rice noodles
Rice paper

For dipping sauce:
Natural peanut butter
Hoisin sauce

Instructions:
1. Place the tofu between a few layers of paper or cloth kitchen towels, and put a heavy-ish weight on top to squeeze out water. Once the tofu is no longer soaking wet, lay it face-down on the counter and cut through the middle, as if you are cutting a thick slice of bread into two pieces to make a sandwich. Saute/fry these tofu slices in the vegetable oil, and then cut into strips:
2. Cook the rice noodles, following the directions on the package (this should be very quick, don't let them overcook). When the noodles are done, you can save the water for the rice paper by pouring it into a separate bowl.
3. Wash the cilantro and mint, pick the leaves off of the stems, and allow to dry (or blot, if you're impatient).
4. Now you have all of the ingredients ready, and you can begin to assemble the spring rolls. If the water from the rice noodles is too hot to touch, pour some of it off and add cold water. Take a piece of rice paper, and dip it into the water, getting the entire surface wet. It can still be a little stiff when you pull it out and put it onto the dish you will use for rolling.
5. Place a small amount of noodles, a piece of tofu,
some cilantro, and some mint near the edge closest to you.6. Fold the edge up and over the insides,fold in the two sides, and roll tightly forward.
7. One down, 19 to go! If the spring roll seems like it is bulging out, try using less of the rice noodles in each roll. 8. Once you have a platter of spring rolls, it's time to make the sauce. Spoon about a third of a cup of peanut butter into a pan, add about two tablespoons of water, and turn on a low flame. Stir in hoisin to taste.

Essentially you can put anything you want in these spring rolls. I've had a version with basil, lettuce, and carrot strips, and my dad is itching to try shrimp instead of tofu. If you have little kiddos in the kitchen they can get the mint and cilantro ready, which is a big help. I find making the rolls a lot of fun, especially when I sample the wares.

Fresh eggs

It was a full house for Thanksgiving, with 18 adults, one 3 year old, and a set of 7 month old twins, so most of us slept at one of the local bed and breakfasts. The couple whose house we stayed at kept six chickens, and the fresh eggs were put to good use. I'll be honest and tell you that I couldn't taste a difference without having a normal egg for comparison, but they were quite tasty. On Saturday my mom and I went to help collect eggs.

Bizarre knot

I've come across this kind of knot in Noro before, but this surprised me. The Rowan cotton has so far seemed predictable and uniform. I wonder what made this skein different. There were a few other small problems around this point, but this was the only one I thought looked interesting.

Bread!

Another loaf! I made it a few days ago, so we've actually eaten all of it already.

It's strange being able to see exactly how much yarn is left before the scarf is done by folding it at the join.

I think my next project will be a sweater. A strong contender is Sesame at Magknits. I also may have found a pattern for the cabled sweater I'd like to do. Jenna Adorno, who has had designs published by Knitty, has a photo on her website of the Close Cable Cardigan by Vogue.

Baklava

The baking holiday is over. All ovens are now open for business.

When Mo and I eat out, we are most likely to end up at the local Moroccan restaurant. We especially love their mint tea and sweet nut-based desserts. A while ago we brought my parents and Mo's sister to the restaurant for tea. Tea eventually led to two rounds of dessert, and my father proclaiming, "These people really know their nuts. You know? They really know their nuts."

It's true. They do know their nuts. I don't know why I though baklava was supposed to be made with pistachios, but the walnut baklava at Amanouz has completely won me over. The last few times we ate there, though, they've been out of baklava. In addition to sampling some of the other desserts, we decided to fill the void by trying to make our own. The recipe we followed says we have to leave it out for 24 hours, and so far we've done a pretty good job of keeping it intact. One thing I like about phyllo dough is that no one can tell if you sneak a layer off the top.

Now that I've worked with phyllo dough, I'm less intimidated by the idea of making hojaldres. My grandmother has made them a few times and I cannot convey to you how delicious spinach becomes when encased in phyllo dough with sesame seeds. I think I'll see if we can set up a cooking date while I'm at home.

Temporary Baking Deferment

As the weather is expected to be Wicked Hot for a while, I have declared a Baking Holiday. The oven will remain closed and no dough will be withdrawn from a heated oven until temperatures return to normal. Fortunately for you, gentle reader, I forgot to post a picture of this semolina loaf which I made last week. It was delicious. It was so delicious, in fact, that we got carried away while eating, and I didn't get a picture of the first loaf. But this is the second:

The loudest loaf

I have never been aware of this before, but when I took this loaf out of the oven it sounded like a bowl of Rice Krispies. I've never read anything about this happening, and I certainly don't remember another loaf sounding like that. The noises have stopped (for now!) but I'm still curious about what was going on. I like how the slashes turned out. I'm curious about how it would have looked if I had steamed the oven.

I made this following the recipe for Pain Ordinaire, except I substituted in a half cup of semolina flour. I spent a lot of time in the kitchen today; I also mixed up a starter a semolina recipe, and "old dough" for a sourdough. The semolina is next on my list of breads, so the faux-old dough is in the freezer. I'm not exactly sure from the recipe, but I think the sourdough needs a starter in addition to the dough pieces, so I should mix that up as we eat through the semolina. This crackling beauty should be gone fairly soon, as Mo and I are bringing it to a potluck.

Sandcastle cake

This weekend a friend of ours had a birthday party. I was visiting my brother up at camp in the Adirondacks, but I helped Mo make a sandcastle cake to take to the party. Don't be fooled by the clean table top in the background, the entire kitchen was absolutely covered in graham cracker crumbs. And yes, that chocolate teddy bear is about to be eaten by a shark.

French toast

A fitting end for a fine loaf. The bizarre looking black things are local black rasberries. I guess from the picture they look like blackberries, but up close they look like discolored rasberries. We tried them plain and they didn't have much flavor, but I liked the subtle hint of berry they added with the french toast and syrup. I could taste the berry a lot more than the cinnamon and vanilla in the french toast, although Mo assures me that the taste was there.

Sandwich Bread, round 2

Two weeks ago Mo and I made a command performance for Gaby's son E. and his friends from summer daycare. They walked and got pulled in a buggy over to one of the gardens where the interns work, and after E. gave rowdy introductions we took a quick tour around the formal garden before settling down for lunch. A few of the kids were very young, but for the most part they were about three years old. One of the older kids, N., has apparently been tricking his friends into believing that he doesn't like to eat his sandwiches. (I say friends instead of teachers because everyone is refered to as a friend. It is adorable and makes them sound like Quakers.) N. admitted that sometimes he likes to pretend, and this time he managed to eat everything but the crust of his sandwich. So was there a difference between this sandwich and every sandwich he'd gotten before? Earlier that morning his mother had specifically reminded him that he'd been given a special mushy sandwich.

I made another loaf of sandwich bread last night, and N. would be pleased. It's the perfect loaf for a mushy sandwich like peanut butter and jelly, with a thin crust and a moist interior, but it holds up well to toasting. After having a slice with cream cheese and jam, I toasted a piece and melted some Gruyère on top. Delicious, and accompanied perfectly by cherry tomatoes.

It doesn't look as pretty as the last loaf, but I think it's closer to what the recipe intended.


This time it actually only baked for the requisite 35 minutes (Mo was an absolute sweetheart and took care of the baking end of things), but I handled it more than I would have liked while getting it into the bread pan, and it had to wait longer than specified during its second rise. By the time it got in the oven it had poofed over the top, which is why it has a collapsed section near the middle. Unlike the last loaf, it wasn't that I forgot about the bread as much as I was unwilling to stand in front of a hot oven while cooking dinner. No sandwiches for lunch today, as we have last night's dinner to finish off, but when we get home I will definitely make another piece of toast with cheese.

Bread update

Dry. Very dry. And only 26 hours after being taken out of the oven, so clearly that extra half hour of baking had some effect. We stored it cut side down, and it can't get much more humid, so it was definitely the baking time. Fortunately some cream cheese and rasberry jam took care of the dryness, and now there's only one piece left. Such a cute sized loaf! I haven't baked bread in a pan for a long time. It might have been a Victorian Milk Bread from Ultimate Bread by Eric Treuille and Ursula Ferrigno, although I'm not altogether sure.

Sandwich bread and unfinished bear

As you can see, I forgot to take a picture before we started eating. The recipe was from the back of our 10 lb bag of King Arthur flour, and it came out pretty well. I'm surprised they don't have the recipe in the huge Baker's Companion cookbook. When we're done with the flour I think I'll clip the recipe and add it in. It seemed like an unusual recipe to me, as they have you knead on a lightly greased surface instead of a lightly floured surface, but in the Baker's Companion they come across as very much against adding extra flour. It was far to sticky for my liking, so added a small handful anyway.

Mo and I were watching a movie, and I accidently let it cook for nearly an hour instead of the 35 minutes they recommend, but it still wasn't burned. The crust is probably a bit thicker than intended, but it's still delicious and perfect for sandwiches. What I like most about this recipe is that the bread only has to rise for an hour before being shaped, and then it sits for an hour, and then it only bakes for a half hour. As long as you are paying attention, that is. The difference between a one hour and two hour initial rise is huge, at least in my eyes. I know that bread develops a better flavor if you leave it to rise for longer, but having a backup recipe is nice. The potato bread we made several times earlier in the summer became a full afternoon's project, whereas this recipe was possible to start with dinner in order to have a loaf ready in the morning for lunch. Our sandwiches, by the way, have chicken with melted mozzarella and homemade pesto, heavy on the garlic. I can't wait.

This is what the teddy bear looks like right now. Pretty tiny, no? The arm isn't attached yet, since I haven't actually finished it, but I'm stuck at the end of the first arm. The instructions say to graft together the remaining five stitches, which I've never done before. Mo found me an article that explains how to do it, but the article is insistant that there are an even number of stitches. I decided that fudging on the instructions for something I've never done before should wait until I could give it my full attention. I also don't know if I have a tapestry needle, so this teddy bear might end up with pointed arms instead of an invisible seam. I'm excited that even with this small project I've already learned an increase method, and I could potentially learn a joining method that at present looks entirely baffling.

Mushroom hunting

Mo and I had a delicious dinner tonight. Chicken with garlic, onion, and wild black trumpet mushrooms. Black trumpets which we picked ourselves earlier today. Don't worry, we didn't just decide to raid the backyard.

This whole expedition began to take shape a few weeks ago. One of the Botanic Garden interns (coincidentally also named Stef) works closely with Elaine, whose job is to manage the botanic collection. They went out to a bog nearby in order to collect seeds, and in a deli afterwards they ran into two men who were also drenched to the waist, from fly fishing. Michael asked if they had been stealing orchids, and eventually during all the talk about plants it came out that Elaine is originally from Michigan and that the only thing she misses is being able to find morels.

Michael, on the other hand, grew up in Massachusetts and has been picking mushrooms since he was four years old. He started going on trips with his mother, and now he sells mushrooms to many upscale local restaurants. He has been on several forays with the national mushroom association, and one year won the grand prize for his discoveries. Elaine was in luck, because Michael offered to take Elaine on a tour of local edible mushrooms. He even obtained permission from a fellow mushroom hunter for Elaine to visit a prolific black trumpet population. He and his mushroom enthusiast friend had discovered the black trumpet spot together, and guarded it carefully ever since.

Neither of them were interested in sharing that spot with half a dozen new mushroom eaters, so Michael took the interns (and me) to a nearby spot where he had never been, but suspected there would be black trumpets. The first few hours we didn't find any. During our break for lunch Michael shared with us some black trumpets he had cooked the night before and brought from home. Fortunately we found a few small patches of black trumpets when we started to look in the afternoon. The best part is that the black trumpets are distinctive, and nothing else would be mistaken for one, so we can look for them on our own.