Category: Food

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I neglect soybeans myself. I go for months without cooking any, and then suddenly I realize that I’m out of them. Most recently I was reminded of soybeans by this piece in the Washington Post on the environmental impact of foods: Which food is better for the planet? Nothing ranks better than soy.

Something like 80 percent of the world’s soybeans are used to feed farm animals, then the animals are eaten. Obviously that’s not a very green way to use soybeans. It’s much healthier — and better for the planet — to just eat the soybeans, even if the soybeans have been processed into something like tofu.

But cooked soybeans are not nearly as boring as we might think. Like tofu, it’s all about what you do with them. Soybeans can be rush-cooked in a pressure cooker, but the tastiest way to cook them, by far, is in a slow cooker (or Crockpot, as we call them in the U.S.). Soybeans smell surprisingly meaty and appetizing when cooked in a slow cooker. They turn out nice and brown, and they have the magical property of amplifying whatever seasonings you use. When cooking them in a slow cooker, I first soak them for about 12 hours. Then I change the water and cook them on low for about 12 hours. Adjust the amount of water you use so that, when the beans are done, they are just barely covered, or not quite covered, with water. The cooking water will thicken and add to the flavor. The cooked beans will easily keep for five to seven days in the refrigerator.

For burgers, mash the beans with a fork. I like to use a small amount of a large variety of seasonings so that no one flavor takes over — salt, garlic powder, brewer’s yeast, sage, Liquid Smoke, toasted sesame oil, tomato paste, pepper paste, Trader Joe’s mushroom umami seasoning, a touch of Worcestershire. Gluten flour is the perfect binder. Add a little cooked brown rice to improve the bite, or, better yet, cooked barley. The burgers will fry up in olive oil nice and brown and tasty.

Soybeans ought to be cheap. Right now, they’re not. Whole Foods used to sell them in bulk. But the last time I tried to buy soybeans at Whole Foods they didn’t have any anywhere in the store! Amazon has them, but good organic soybeans are more expensive than they ought to be. Still, I’d bet a dollar that even kids would love well seasoned soybean burgers.

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I Googled for a recipe for barley brownies and found quite a good one. The recipe uses apple sauce instead of eggs. It’s a vegan recipe, but I substituted butter for margarine and milk for the water. Pumpkin sauce is not something I have very often, so I substituted more apple sauce for the pumpkin sauce. These are very good brownies. Barley flour’s nutty taste is perfect for brownies. I buy organic hulled barley from Amazon and grind the flour myself.

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Bread casserole doesn’t sound very nutritious or low-ish carb. But it can be.

I used a food processor to coarsely chop the bread. Then, also in the food processor, I minced onion, parsley, spinach, celery, and an apple. The cheese, grated, is part cheddar and part Gruyère. The walnuts are partly pieces and partly halves. I did not add any liquid, though I wish I had used two or more apples instead of one. I moistened it with olive oil. It’s seasoned with sage and rosemary. The darker and heavier the bread the better. This was my barley-whole wheat bread, which was two days old.

It occurred to me that I could make a very good dessert-style bread pudding with minced apples and the same kind of bread, seasoned with cinnamon. I’ll do that next time I have two-day-old barley bread.

I grind hulled barley and wheat berries to make my own flour for this bread. It’s half barley, half wheat, plus water, salt, and yeast. I make this bread fairly often because the guilt factor is low. I’m always amazed at what a tasty grain barley is. For flour, I use hulled barley as opposed to pearl barley.

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After five or six days of cold, rainy weather, it was time to give the clover sprouts a rest and have some proper comfort food. The Roquefort & carrot pie was inspired by the recipe for blue cheese and leek tartlets in The Complete Irish Pub Cookbook.

The idea of rolling walnuts into the pie crust is brilliant. I had bought leeks for this pie, but I had already used the leeks in soup. Roquefort, though, is well compatible with most winter vegetables, so I used carrots. Next time I use cheese in a pie, though, I think I’ll choose a more versatile melting cheese such as Gruyère.

Don’t forget the ale.

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Last week, the Washington Post’s food section had a recipe for vegetarian mushroom Wellington. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Today was a cold day, a good day for making puff pastry and for using the oven. So I did it.

As always with recipes, I borrowed the concept and modified it to suit my own taste. Chestnuts didn’t sound nearly as good to me as walnuts. The Post’s recipe calls for bread crumbs in the filling, which I thought was a poor idea because there already are enough carbs in the crust. I made up the difference with peas and carrots. And I seasoned it with a touch of sage and mace rather than the herbs that the Post’s recipe calls for. The Post’s recipe uses large slices of portobello mushrooms, I assume to resemble slices of beef. Instead, I chopped the roasted mushrooms coarsely and mixed them in with the rest of the filling.

The Post’s recipe also calls for store-bought puff pastry. What would be the fun in that, even if I could find it? Adventure in the kitchen means making puff pastry every now and then. I used half butter and half olive oil, which works great. As long as you keep the dough cold and there are some butter bits in it, the pastry will turn out fine.

I’ve written here before about how all forms of pie are magical. I thought a lot about that while I was making mushroom Wellington. Partly, pies are comfort food. Pies are ancient, going back to the Middle Ages and no doubt beyond. And covered pies, or pies enclosed in a crust, have the same kind of appeal as a nicely wrapped present. You get to open it to see what’s inside.

You’ll probably need to make some thin brown gravy to moisten this dish. And you’ll need some ale.