Heating Control

Pantry Staples

One of the old episodes that's not showing up on the podcast feed. Reupload.

Curry Leaves

There's been a lot of questions about curry leaves coming up as of late. I figured now is as good a time as any to answer them.

Daal

As promised, here's the written instructions for the basic daal tarka: http://goonswithspoons.com/Daal_Tarka

The thing about daal is that there are so many different types out there that it's impossible to pin it down to one technique or recipe. I tried to give  general overview here about the regionality of daal, and how it generally works for most people. I ended up rambling a lot.

There's an excellent article (with pictures) about daal written here:

http://indiaphile.info/guide-indian-lentils/

It gives cooking times and ideas of what to do with the various daal we use.

Fat Free :(

In response to Margie, I've made a new episode, discussing fat free cooking. It's been difficult but I'm glad I tried it.

Visiting another podcast

The day before recording my own podcast, I was a guest on the Which Side podcast, with Jordan and Jeremy. They're a couple of activists working towards human and animal rights (whoo!) who host a show where they have a chat to people they want to hang out with. Instead of the bog standard stifling interview format, it's more of a free-flowing conversation. Of course, whenever I'm in the room (virtually or otherwise) the talk turns to food rather quickly.

Here's where you can find the link to the show, or just search for Which Side on the Podcast directory of your choice, and they'll be there.

http://whichsidepodcast.com/dino-sarma-weierman/

Tell them Dino sent you.

Cooking cheap greens

It's FINALLY hit above the freezing temperature here in New York, so I'm not as bummed out about cooking as I've been; the really cold weather makes it difficult to get up the motivation to do very much at all. To celebrate, I've put up a new podcast episode! Feel free to give it a listen.

Thanksgiving

Hi all! Today we're going into the foods you can make at Thanksgiving, whether you take it with you, make it for your own home, or suggest it to others.

Mashed Potatoes
5 lbs potatoes, boiled until tender
2 cups coconut milk (full fat)
Salt & Pepper to taste

Boil the potatoes until tender. Mash them up slightly, until it's where you want it. Add the coconut milk, a little at a time, until it's as much as you like. Taste for seasoning. Season as desired.

Butternut Squash
Cut the butternut squash in half, lengthwise. Place it on a parchment, foil, wax paper, or silicon baking mat lined baking sheet. Set the oven to 350F. Bake for 45 minutes - 2 hours (depending on how long it takes you to remember that you have butternut squash in there. You don't need to preheat the oven.

Brussels Sprouts
1 lb Brussels sprouts
3 TB vegetable oil
3 tsp seasonings of your choice: sage, rosemary, cumin, coriander, fennel seed, garam masala, caraway seed (crushed), thyme (mix the seasonings in whatever combination you want)
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper

Remove the stem ends of the sprouts. Toss in oil, and sprinkle on the seasonings. Toss to combine. Bake on a parchment lined sheet for 45 minutes.

Storing kale

Today in the podcast, I talk about how to store kale.

Breading without eggs

Today, we tackle the question of how to get a breading onto a thing without using eggs. Hopefully this helps some of you out.

Snacks

Very short one today, because about 1/2 way into the recording, my head started pounding in screaming pain. Apologies. Going to go lie down. I didn't want to deny you the dubious joy of listening to me ramble.

Podcast Episode 4: Sick food

Today, I'm not feeling well at all, so I ramble on about food to make when you're feeling sickly.




Cabbage Soup
1 1/2 lbs cabbage, chopped
1 TB canola oil
1 tsp cumin seed
1 tsp sesame seed
1 large onion, diced
1 green chilie pepper, chopped (with or without seeds)
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
2 litres water, boiling
3 TB grated ginger

In a deep pot, add the oil, and heat it over high heat. Add the cumin seeds and sesame seeds. When they pop, add the chilie pepper and onion. Stir well until the onions are softened. Add turmeric powder, and stir through. Add the cabbage, and stir-fry for around 10 seconds or so. Add the water, and bring to a boil. Add the ginger. Continue to boil until the cabbage is the desired tenderness.

Variations
- To thicken, blend in a blender: 1 cup of cooked rice, and 1 cup of the broth from the soup (if cabbage comes along for the ride with the broth, it's OK). Add 2 - 3 cups of cooked rice to the pot, and bring to the boil.
- 3 - 5 cloves of chopped garlic, added in with the onions would not go amiss!
- If you have the energy to do so, some frozen peas are a lovely addition (add in the last minute of cooking)

4th of July, Salads, Mayo, Dressings

Videos from my cooking demo in Madison, WI.






Soy Milk Mayo
1/3 cup Soy Milk
3/4 tsp cider or distilled vinegar
2/3 cup canola oil
Salt, to taste
Seasonings, to taste

In the blending container, add the soy milk and vinegar, and mix with an immersion blender. Add the canola oil, and make a plunging motion with it to get all the ingredients emulsified.

Fat Free Chickpea Dressing
1 16-oz can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 ½ TB sweet white miso (chickpea miso is fine too)
4 TB nutritional yeast
1 ½ tsp garlic powder
1 tsp onion powder (I prefer granulated onion powder, but use whatever you like)
2 tsp cheap yellow mustard
¼ cup lemon juice OR 2 TB cider vinegar
Salt, to taste
3 cups water, reserved

In the jar of a blender, combine the chickpeas, miso, nutritional yeast, garlic powder, onion powder, lemon juice, mustard, and salt. Add about 1 ½ cups of the reserved water, and blend on high. Continue adding water as needed, until the chickpeas are all ground to a puree.

If you'd like to email me (either in a text email, or to send a voice recording that you want me to play on the next episode), send an email to altveg at me dot com.

Oils

Today, we discuss oils. Cooking oils, finishing oils, and oily oils. Give it a listen here if you'd like, or subscribe in iTunes to get the episode on your iDevices.

Quick Guest-Pleasing Pantry Staples

There's a few things that I like to keep on hand at all times, in case of unexpected visitors (or, in some cases, visitors that I forgot we're having). Today's podcast explores that.

Veganacious Interview

A few weeks ago, the lovely Barbara Degrande asked me to be on her show, Veganacious. We didn't strictly talk about food (although there was gratuitous food chat going on). She had to spend a fair bit of time editing the thing, because we both got so caught up in having our conversation, that we lost track of time, and the thing ended up rambling and roaming a lot.
Download here!

Christy Interview

Christy Morgan, the author of The Blissful Chef, did an interview with me a few months back. Unfortunately, I was stupid, and uploaded it to my website holder. Which I lost access to. Which I then had no backup of, because I'm dumb.

Then, she graciously agreed to do a do-over. This is the do-over. However, after editing it, and fixing it, the program crashed, and I lost my work.

Rather than shoot something, and delay this any further, I decided to just upload the raw files, and the hell with editing, because this interview seems to be cursed or something. Either way, enjoy the interview! You can find Christy on Twitter and Facebook and G+.

Download the interview here, or download it on iTunes.

Beginner cooking, Pasta

Today, we discuss beginner's recipes. Specifically, we attack pasta. When you're making pasta, I find that it's good to make a sauce while you're waiting for the pasta water to come to a boil.

Garlic and Herb Sauce

3 or 4 TB olive oil

1 TB Italian seasoning (or, a combination of dried basil, dried oregano, dried marjoram, and dried thyme)

1 head of garlic, peeled and chopped

1 bunch of parsley, chopped finely

1/4 cup of pasta cooking water

Few pinches of red chile flakes

Heat the oil over medium low heat, and add the garlic and herbs. When the garlic is soft, add the fresh parsley, pasta water, and the (optional) red chile flakes. Turn off the heat, and wait for the pasta to finish cooking. Toss through with about 1 lb of cooked pasta of your choice.

This works really well with any kind of additions, like leftover veg (kale, broccoli rabe, etc), capers, olives, or beans. It's also a pretty basic starting point for if expanding into tomato sauces, etc., because once you master garlic and herbs, the sky is the limit!

Soup

In today's podcast (rebroadcast of an old episode) we talk about soup. There's a bunch of stuff to cover, so this spans more than one episode. Thanks go out to Steve Day for sending me the old episodes that he had saved on his computer. Since these were his favourite episodes, I figured I'd start here.

In other words, anyone who is already reading my blog will be able to get my podcasts directly through this blog, rather than having to go to a separate site. :)