Hello, Neighbor…(White Chocolate Coconut Cookies and Granola)

When I was young, I hoped and prayed for great neighbors. My criteria were simple:

They needed to:

• have kids—preferably male and female— my age.
• be from far-off countries that intrigued me (Russia).

This combination seemed incredibly realistic to me at the time. My optimism never wavered.  And yet, I was continuously disappointed by newly-weds and babies.

Unfortunately, not much has changed in ten years (neighbor wise, at least). Last fall, the apartment adjacent to me was occupied by someone rather unsocial. Last spring, it was unoccupied. The apartments across from me? Oh, I don’t know. Red? Ryan? Was that his name again?

This year I have decided to make an effort to get to know my neighbors. The best way? Gifts of food, obvs. To be more specific, cookies and granola.

White Chocolate Coconut Cookies, adapted from Neiman Marcus cookbook.

• ½ cup butter
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 cup light brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 cups flour
• 1 tsp salt
• ¼ tsp baking powder
• ¾ cup coconut
• 1 ½ cup white chocolate chips

Beat butter and sugar. Add Eggs and vanilla and beat some more. Eat some dough. Add flour mixture. Add coconut and chips. Eat some dough. Drop dough by rounded tablespoon on a greased baking sheet and bake at 300° F for about 18 minutes for a chewy cookie. Yes, slow cooking is the key to greatness.

Liz's KitchenAid purrs

…While you have the oven on even though it is 100° outside, you may as well cook some more things!

Brianna’s Granola

• 3 cups whole oats
• 1 ½ cups mixed, salted nuts, chopped
• 1 cup coconut
• ¼ cup vegetable oil
• ½  to ¾ cup Skippy peanut butter or combination of peanut butter and nutella (which apparently isn’t vegetarian….oof) Once I used Peanut Butter & Co.’s White Chocolate Peanut Butter and it made the best-flavored granola. EVER. You can get the stuff at Central Market. 

Toss oats, nuts, and coconut. Heat peanut butter and oil together and pour over dry mixture. Taste it. If it is not sweet enough, add some honey. If it is too dry, add something like peanut butter, oil, or honey. Adding more peanut butter will make the granola stick together, while adding oil will just make it more likely to separate (or potentially burn— don’t add too much). Cook at 350° F for about 20-30 minutes or until browned evenly. Toss every five minutes to ensure that your granola does not burn! I don’t add honey or sugar to my granola anymore because I eat it with vanilla yogurt and bananas and find that sweet enough. As always, I encourage you to make this your own. Feel free to throw extra ingredients into your granola. It is difficult to mess it it up.

I only had almonds this time...trust me on the salted mixed nuts though

I live by my own rules: found some large sunflower seeds and threw them in the mix

As you can see, this granola is not very clumpy. If you want a more clustered granola, make the mix stickier with peanut butter or honey before baking

breakfast

Dear neighbor,

I like that you ate one of my cookies while we stood in your doorway and chatted. How shocking it was that your apartment actually looks just like mine. I guess it’s ok that you’re not  exactly my age nor are you from a foreign country. I think we’ll get along splendidly regardless.

B.

With that, I leave you in your apartment, in your house. Ball’s  in your court. Go meet your neighbor.

Stuffed Red Peppers

I never let my schooling interfere with my education. — Mark Twain

I am still alive. Better yet, still cooking. This summer was busy—nothing like what I thought it would be and everything that I needed it to be. It was the first summer in four years in which I didn’t get my passport stamped. The first summer I lived alone. The first summer I worked sixty hours a week and spent the majority of my time talking about literature with sixth graders (or doing the bernie with my co-workers). I learned patience. I also perfected a stuffed red pepper recipe. That’s probably all you want to hear about.

This summer I almost never wanted to eat carbs, and the mere thought of it made me feel like my stomach was uncomfortably expanding and I might need to lie down. This is strange because I love carbs.  Although cold weather stimulates the appetite, one’s metabolism doesn’t slow during the summer so I’m not exactly sure why I feel this way. Apparently the human body is complex. Whatever. Maybe I’m just getting older. Maybe I ate enough carbs for the rest of my life when I lived in Italy last summer. Regardless, I generally only want to eat fruits, veggies, and eggs when it is 105 degrees outside. These stuffed red peppers fit that bill.

I have since modified the original recipe, but I first saw it on this blog I used to follow. You can use green peppers instead of red, but they are not as good because the red peppers have a nice sweetness to them. There are of course several other modifications you can make: black beans instead of chickpeas, chopped carrots for grated, rice in place of quinoa. However, I have tried all of those combos, and this is the recipe to success.

Stuffed Red Peppers:

• red peppers (this recipe fills five peppers, but remaining filling can be used for enchiladas or just be eaten plain)
• half of an onion, chopped
• five gloves of garlic, minced
• 1-14oz can diced tomatoes
• 5 oz baby spinach (I use fresh and just chop it, but you can use frozen)
• 1-14oz can garbanzo beans (you could substitute black beans if you prefer them)
• 2 large carrots, grated (you could just chop them if you want a more coarse filling)
• ½ cup quinoa
• ½ cup salsa
• pepper
• 2 slices smoked gouda cheese (or whatever you’ve got in your fridge)

Note: this is Jenny's Le Cruset, not mine, unfortunately...

Sauté onions and garlic. Add diced tomatoes and let simmer. Add spinach and let cook for a couple minutes. Then add chickpeas, grated carrot, quinoa, and salsa. Season with pepper or whatever else you like. Let cook for 15 minutes or until the quinoa is tender. Add cheese. Stuff filling into whole peppers or pepper halves, and cook at 375 for 40 minutes or until the peppers are tender and charred.

I need to start taking more photos. Someone recently pointed out that my counter tops are the same (or at least very similar to SmittenKitchen’s). Win.

much love and please feed yourself and other people,

B.

“Damn Good” Peanut Butter Cookies

When my parents started dating, my mom had her best friend come over to her apartment and prepare dinner and then leave right before my dad arrived, in hopes of impressing him with pretend culinary finesse. She was finally caught when my dad was late for dinner–she left the pasta boiling in a pot because she was under the impression that they could stay in the hot water for an infinite amount of time. The colander showed no mercy, but my Italian father who likes his pasta al dente did, and their relationship built on lies flourished.

The point is that my mom does not cook. There are a few dishes that she has perfected, but to her the kitchen is like a foreign land where she does not speak the language. My father was the one who let me stand on my step stool and help him cook when I was five and too short for my eyes to even grace the magic happening on the kitchen counter. He was the one who taught me to make rice krispie treats, which became a staple of my adolescent diet. But peanut butter cookies were always our favorite, and we were picky about them.  That gross dollop of jelly or a Hershey’s Kiss never appeared in the center of our peanut butter cookies. No no no. If made right, they could and can stand alone.

My dad used to make these cookies with vegetable shortening, but I have since abolished that because I don’t want to die early. Because he’s fifty and gripes about how eating sugar makes him feel like crap, he doesn’t make them much anymore, but I have since adapted this Neiman Marcus’ recipe to my liking.

Peanut Butter Cookies:

Beat the following in a (Kitchen Aid) mixer:

1 1/4 cups butter

1 cup brown sugar

1 1/4 cups granulated white sugar

1 1/2 cups Skippy All Natural Creamy Peanut Butter (please please don’t use peanut butter with hydrogenated oils in it)

Add and beat for a minute or until fluffy:

1tsp. vanilla

2 eggs

Sift together and then add, beating only until the flour is mixed into the butter mixture:

2 ¾ cups flour

¼ tsp. baking soda

½ tsp. sea/Kosher salt

Scoop with an ice cream scooper or cookie scooper onto a greased pan. Make the cookies a big, rounded tablespoon.  Dip fork in sugar then make two hash marks on cookie. Dip fork in sugar again and make a hash mark perpendicular to the other two. Bake at 300 degrees Fahrenheit for 18-22 minutes. Bake 18 minutes for chewy cookies, 20 for crispy on edges and chewy in the center, 22 for crispy cookies. Keep your eye on ‘em. Please use a cooling rack.

To the man who (with inspiration from an Athens feta package) created the Spinach, Tomato, and Feta pasta that has made me friends in college and has now become a treasured recipe to those friends (you know who you are); to the man who walks into the kitchen after I have destroyed it and says, “Wow…only I could have taught you how to do that”; to the man who taught me that nothing can be perfect, but it can be pretty damn good. Happy Father’s Day, Steven.

Our kitchen in Japan was tiny! Also, we still have that colander.

Chickpea Yogurt Salad and Moroccan Raw Carrot Salad

Very rarely do I find myself free of commitments, and the illegible scribbles in my agenda are a constant reminder that time is not my own. But yesterday after my last final of my second year of college, I found myself entirely free of the expectations of school. This fact was initially alarming to me—WHAT DO I DO?! Of course, that feeling only lasted for a second. What do I do? Revel in the freedom.

With that being said, I have a list in my phone entitled “Dates,” and it consists of a list of people whom I’ve been wanting to hang out with for quite awhile. My good friend and one of the leaders of my Missional Community, Emily, is on that list–we have been trying to cook together for the entire spring semester! Yesterday it finally happened. I made chickpea yogurt salad and she made socca and a Moroccan salad consisting of roasted peppers and tomatoes. The result was beautiful, and we serenaded another friend, Tammie (also on my list!) with our vegetarian delights. I encourage you to look up socca; Emily informed me that it’s just street food in Paris! Put me on a plane to France, please. Here’s a little bit of info I just found for ya: http://www.davidlebovitz.com/2009/06/socca-enfin/

Emily's use of space in her house is enchanting. I love the stacking above the sink.

^Main ingredient of the socca. Bob's = good stuff all the time

I’m going to provide you with the recipe for the chickpea salad and another salad that I made last night. When I go on trips, I try to leave my refrigerator empty, (I hope all of you do the same) and since I’m embarking on a road trip to Colorado with three of my closest friends, I felt the need to use everything in my fridge, which essentially equated to searching for  a use for the 1lb bag of baby carrots that I had. Oof. Cue Moroccan Raw Carrot Salad. It makes for a great side or topping to another salad, and the cinnamon paprika combo is repeatedly surprising and fantastic. Although I don’t have many good photos of it, the chickpea salad was phenomenal and I recommend you make it soon.

Here are the loose guidelines to the recipes, but I’m also providing the links to where I found them if you want to be more precise or just desire to surf 101 cookbooks (because that’s always fun).

Chickpea Yogurt Salad 

http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/panfried-chickpea-salad-recipe.html

Sautee in pan for 7-10 minutes or until the chickpeas are browned:

Olive oil or butter

1 can chickpeas

I stalk of a leek, chopped and washed

Let cool in fridge while you prepare the dressing:

~1/3 cup yogurt (I used a thick Greek yogurt)

fresh lemon juice from half a lemon (or zest from a lemon)

1 ½ tsp. curry powder

Once chickpeas are cooled, add the following to the salad and then follow it with the dressing. Enjoy!

~1/2 cup cilantro (if you don’t like cilantro, maybe try parsley)

~1/2 cup chopped red onions (you could also sauté these with the chickpeas. If you only have yellow onions, I would definitely sauté them)

Leeks are an enigma to me. Emily instructed me on how to wash them (cut first, then soak), and apparently she learned from her French host a couple years ago. They eat a lot of leeks, ok?

Everyday of my life please.

Moroccan Raw Carrot Salad (note: this is pretty zesty) http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Moroccan-Raw-Carrot-Salad-231922

Mix the following:

~1lb carrots, grated

~1/4 cup chopped cilantro

After mixing the following dressing, then add it to the carrot mixture (add dressing gradually so that you don’t overdo it. Also, don’t use baby carrots like I did. Grating those things is a nightmare. I only did so because I felt like I needed to use them).

1/4 cup olive oil

3  TBS lemon juice

1/4 cup chopped cilantro or parsley

1/2 tsp. cumin (I used curry powder)

1/4 tsp cinnamon (SO good in the final product)

2 cloves garlic, minced

pinch of salt

Grating 1lb of baby carrots is actually painful.

Just ate some with my favorite grilled cheese veggie sandwich.

So I’m leaving in a couple hours, and I actually need to pack… See you in a couple weeks! Enjoy the start of summer, B.

Black Bean Mango Salad

I don’t know if I’ve ever told you, but I love being a vegetarian. I delight in the challenge of being more creative in the kitchen, and as silly as this sounds, I feel as if I have reclaimed fruits and vegetables since I stopped eating meat last September . I’ve simply never felt better in my life. Maybe this healthfulness is just a result of the Texas sun causing me to release an excessive amount of endorphins. My friend Lorraine who goes to school in Massachusetts (automatic credibility no?) is apparently studying the effects of weather on people’s level of happiness in her psychology class, and she has come to some cynical conclusions about the Northeast.  But I am not convinced that the endorphins deserve the credit for this glee…

What it is, my friends, is the salad. The Summer Salad. It’s everything you have ever wanted and with some adventure, even more. It is mango and black beans, couscous and chickpeas, tabbouleh,  feta and tomato with balsamic vinegar, grapes over romaine with vinaigrette, fill in the blank, whatever  combo you desire to combat this heat.

My parents go through food phases; when they like something they can’t seem to get enough of it. A couple years ago, when I thought the combination of mangoes and black beans was disgusting, they started making this salad every week of the summer.  Thankfully, my taste buds are now capable of appreciating its greatness. As always, I encourage you to be innovative and bold with the ingredients and measurements. If you want to throw in some lime or orange juice, go for it! In fact, please go wild.

Black Bean Mango Salad:

1 can black beans

2 mangoes

some chopped onion (I think red onions would be great, but I used the onions from Mr. Lake’s garden—see previous post), maybe a handful

¼ of jalapeño, chopped

some chopped cilantro (equal part to the onion. Also, my parents use mint instead of cilantro. Cilantro was 27 cents at HEB so I am not complaining.)

splash of lemon juice, freshly squeezed if possible

Combine all of the above and refrigerate. My friend Kelsey enjoyed the bowl of this that I food pushed on her. She said it is capable of satisfying a Chipotle craving, which I will certainly take as a compliment. The salad can be eaten plain, but it could also serve as a dip for chips/crackers, topping to a lettuce salad, or even as filling to a wrap.

Enjoy all the summer fruits while they are in season! I love strawberries and grapefruit, but mangoes might be my favorite. They are incredibly stubborn and messy, and I don’t even try to discern the shape of the seed–it’s a total mystery!  Well, in reality, I do try, every time. I eat as much of the mango from around the seed while the juices are flowing all over my hands…but I never make any progress.  That’s definitely not something that I do in public. Also, I may have used a cheese slicer to peel my mangoes.

See below. Would you laugh at me if I admit that I got really excited when I realized that these spring onions I pulled from a garden are really these onions seen on my cutting board? Comment here if super markets have screwed you up too.

In-Laws Imminent!

eeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I want you all to really understand the perspectives captured in this engagement. The two photos below show it pretty well. Anna had no idea that all the people she loves most were standing ten yards behind her. Creepy? maybe. Brilliant and just what she wanted? yes. When Nathan turned her around after the proposal, she died with excitement! A special thanks goes out to David’s girlfriend, Emilee Wuebben, for taking the first photo shown and the one below on the left. Since she had never met Anna before, we sent her down to take up some up close and incognito shots. Success!

Where do I begin? The above captures something that I wouldn’t be able to tell you with words. I cannot believe my brother Nathan is going to get married! I never cease to be astonished at how quickly time is passing by–Nathan, the nemesis of my childhood, the immature boy who used to fart in my face, the moody teenager who used to make us all listen to 99.5 rock music on the way to school when he got his license, ENGAGED! It was a beautiful scene to behold, and although when I was growing up the idea of having a sister gave me nightmares, I think I am ready now. The first thing I told Anna was, “I am so excited that you’re going to be my sister!” She already has two older sisters, but apparently she’s always wanted  a younger one. Lucky us. We were unintentionally wearing the same color on Thursday night–I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen at the wedding  ;)

The rest of the weekend that I spent with my parents passed pretty quietly. I wanted to make some peanut butter cookies for Easter and give you all the recipe, but that just didn’t happen. Today my mom and dad and I met up with the Lakes again for Easter celebrations. Their family is huge! Anna is one of six kids and she already has seven nieces and nephews. They take up an entire pew at church, which is a beautiful thing to behold. Since they have several generations present, for Easter they have both a kid and adult Easter egg hunt!! The kids consist of the grandchildren while the adults consist of the Lake’s children who range from age 14-30 ish. I participated in the adult hunt this year, and let me assure you, it is fierce. The stakes are considerably high considering that the golden egg has $50 in it (Nathan got it during his first adult hunt two years ago. I think that’s when Anna knew he was the one. survival of the fittest is hot). I love the hustle and bustle of a full house of people, laughing adults and playful children. Before leaving, Mr. Lake showed me the garden that he and his wife started a couple years ago. They grow green onions, tomatoes, peppers, squash, green beans, corn, and potatoes. In-laws have never looked so good before.

I love this photo. What should I do with these beautiful green onions?! Any recipe suggestions?

Happy Easter everyone! Because Christ was resurrected on this third day, we can believe in Philippians 1:21 with confidence:

“For to me life is Christ and to die is gain.” 

much love, B.

Quinoa and Tofu Pesto Salad

When I first started bonafoodie, my brother David asked me, “Are you even qualified to write a food blog?”

Instead of being offended I promptly retorted, “um, you don’t have to be qualified to start a blog.” That’s defense at it’s best, bloggers. I let all of you down.

But really, blogging–especially food blogging– is meant to be experimental. I promised you that I would explore vegetarian cuisine, and that’s exactly what I did tonight when I decided to opt out of my optional philosophy paper that is “due” tomorrow. Ohhappyday. My first confession in regards to this recipe is that I have absolutely no idea how to make quinoa, and to put it eloquently, I think I screwed it up. This honestly doesn’t come as a surprise to me because I am similarly incapable of making rice. I should have seen the failure coming.

I think I put too much water in my quinoa. Additionally, I simmered it with a lid on top of the pot when maybe I should have just left it uncovered? So it came out too moist and therefore more like a conglomerate …Please just tell me how to make quinoa correctly. The pesto touch was delightful though, and if I hadn’t have messed up the quinoa, I think I would have enjoyed the final product more. If anything, reading Heidi’s recipe and commentary on how to make true Italian pesto (her recipe is linked through the quinoa/tofu recipe) made this experiment worth it. Recipe is from 101 Cookbooks: http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/heathers-quinoa-recipe.html.

hand-chopping--Heidis secret to great pesto. I can eat this stuff plain. basil and garlicky goodness...

looks safe enough

mushy quinoa. hmmm

what the heck am I doing?!?

so it was good, but I couldnt stop thinking about how much I love pesto and should have just eaten a ton of spaghetti con pesto. Im trying to be protein conscious.

If you didn’t notice, I have outdoor furniture! Humidity level  and allergens fueling my congestion are 200%, but I can’t be bothered k? In addition to this great news about not sitting on concrete, there are two noteworthy Austin mentions that I’d like to share with you.

1.) The gorgeous (yet unidentified) pink and white flowers that are currently blooming. In my Women’s Autobiographical Writing Class we recently read Journal of a Solitude by May Sarton, and it deeply affected me. Not only did Sarton get me thinking about the importance of solitude in an individual’s life but she places an interesting and heavy emphasis on the idea of growth and aging. Flowers are historically (and in my opinion strictly) associated with the feminine. In her memoir, Sarton discusses the beauty of growth and her realizations of death and mortality. Through all of it, the flower becomes not simply a symbol of femininity but a reminder of the ephemeral nature of life. I just can’t shut up about Sarton.

 

2.) Quack’s. http://www.quacksbakery.com/ After 6:30 p.m. all of their breakfast pasties become 2 for 1. I would put exclamation points, but it would only encourage grabbing your car/bike keys and going there now, which, honestly, is exactly what you should do. Last Saturday, I got a cinnamon roll that was as light and airy as a popover and a pecan pull apart that was comparable to monkey bread. Other options included spice cake, tarts, various muffins. I don’t have pictures of my choices because I don’t carry a camera around. Clearly I am unqualified to have a blog, David.

More to come later friends! I think I am going to stop denying my deep cravings for Italian food and just return to the days that I spent in Italy when all I ate was carbs, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. My poop was really weird at that time in my life. TMI? No way. This is a special week (surprises in store!) so I’ll touch back with you soon.

“When I am alone the flowers are really seen; I can pay attention to them. They are felt as presences. Without them I would die. Why do I say that? Partly because they change before my eyes. They live and die in a few days; they keep me closely in touch with process, with growth, and also with dying. I am floated on their moments.” –May Sarton

Look at the flowers. Contemplate life.  -B.