Baked Zucchini Chips

These chips took a lot of time and effort for so little reward. Although, now I can say that I ate two zucchinis in five minutes. I'll need a lot more trays, oven racks, or a food dehydrator to do this recipe again. My all-time favorite way to eat zucchini is breaded and deep fried. 

Zucchini chips: slice, place, bake!

Preheat oven to 225 degrees F.

Ingredients

organic zucchinis, as many as will fit in the palm of your hand
a pinch of salt, less than 1/4 tsp
1 tbsp olive oil

Directions

Use the cutting blade disc with the food processor, this is faster and easier than using a mandoline slicer. The only advantage the mandoline has over the food processor is the width size of the vegetable.

On a parchment paper-lined baking tray, place zucchini rounds side by side until the tray is full. Repeat with other trays. Use a pastry brush to brush each round with a little bit of olive oil. Sprinkle salt on top, if you want. You can always add more salt after these finish baking.

If your oven heats evenly, you shouldn't need to rotate the trays.

Bake for two hours, or until everything looks dry and lightly browned. Use a spatula to remove the chips from the trays to a plate or airtight container, should the chips actually last that long.

Kitchen Notes: Game Day Eats

Thinking about what to make before game day? You'll probably want to start with the easy stuff. Appetizers that people will enjoy and not make a mess as you are heating up the grill for the heavier stuff. Many of these recipes can all be done a day ahead. I'd put the potstickers into the oven on a baking tray to reheat them all up. Maybe 5-10 mins at 400 degrees F would suffice to get them extra crispy.

Here are a few ideas from this blog:

Sauces & Dips

No Mayonnaise Green Onion Sour Cream Dip
Edamame Pesto - good with crackers and sturdier chips
Fresh Salsa - just omit the canning part of the recipe

Appetizers

Pumpkin Fried Rice
Roast Duck Wings
Potstickers
Roasted Shrimp with Honey-Ginger
Soft Pretzels
Sweet Potato Fries
Baked Nachos with Black Beans and Cheese
Easy Kale Chips

Salads

Moroccan Couscous Salad
Quinoa Salad
Spinach and Strawberry Salad

Beverages

Ginger Beer - start this at least 3 days before game day. It's not quite alcoholic nor is it a soft beverage. It's somewhere in between those two. Use your best judgement if children are around.

Edamame Pesto

I really thought I was going to make pea pesto today from Giada de Laurentiis' recipe. Sadly, I ate the last bag of frozen peas and didn't remind myself to buy more. But, what else is green and comes in a pod...? Edamame, the sexy name for soybeans. Per cup, edamame has about 17 grams of protein vs organic green peas which have 4 grams of protein per 2/3 cup (if you were looking at a Trader Joe's package). These pair well with the multiseed flatbread crackers that Trader Joe's also carries. One day, I'll figure out the ratio of seeds on top and make these myself. Onto the recipe...

Ingredients for edamame pesto

Ingredients

1 lb edamame in-shell, cooked then unshelled
1/2 c grated Parmesan cheese
2-3 tbsp olive oil
1-2 garlic cloves, peeled and minced
1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1/2 tsp kosher salt, or to taste

Directions

1. In the bowl of a food processor, pulse together edamame, cheese, and garlic.

2. While running, drizzle in olive oil, salt and black pepper until well combined. Less than a minute.

3. Scoop everything out into a small bowl.

Makes almost 2 cups.

Spreadable Edamame Pesto

Faux "Cheddar" Cheese aka Coconut Cheese

One of the most dangerous things to have in the pantry is all the ingredients for an experiment. Cost-wise, it isn't any cheaper than buying a gallon of milk on sale; but it does make a lot more of that cheesy substance. The coagulation is achieved by using agar agar, a vegetarian gelatin derived from seaweed; and also tapioca starch, which helps with the thickening. Before I added turmeric powder as a colorant, it tasted a tad on the salty side and had the consistency of a molten cheese sauce.

Coconut Cheese Ingredients

Also, the agar agar that I bought from Fubonn came in a two-pack of moulded agar agar bars. I used one and ground it into flakes using a mini food prep.

Coconut cheese in a parchment lined loaf pan,
looks ominous...

Since coconut oil is a solid at room temperature, as the coconut cheese cools, it will firm up. If I stick it into the refrigerator overnight, I might just be able to slice or grate it like a normal block of cheese. 

Ingredients

2 cans (800ml) coconut cream (70% or more coconut milk)
3 tbsp agar flakes
1/2 tsp cider vinegar
4 tbsp tapioca starch
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp sea salt (more than this is too much)
1/4 c nutritional yeast flakes
1/2 tsp turmeric powder (optional, for color) doesn't help the taste

Directions

1. In a large pot, bring coconut milk to a boil. Add vinegar, agar flakes, and salt. Boil gently for 15 minutes until the agar dissolves completely.

2. Whisk in the remainder of the ingredients, one at a time, until everything is well combined. I put in the starch all at once and it clumped up immediately. Maybe next time I should just sprinkle and whisk it in. Cook for another 8-10 minutes.

3. Remove from heat and pour into either a greased glass bowl or a parchment paper-lined loaf pan.

4. Let cool for a few hours. It will set at room temperature. If you would like it to be firmer, for grating or slicing, put it into the fridge overnight.

Recipe ratio from All the Cooks.

[update] 2015-01-29: Well, 2 tsp of sea salt was too much. This batch made 1 lb 7 oz of faux cheese. It is so salty, I'm thinking of reheating it with some potatoes. Refrigeration did not help the consistency. It's like cutting through soft tofu. Definitely cannot "shred" it with a grater. Spreads easily.

Ginger Beer

After the disastrous episode of making hard cider from scratch (came out tasting flat and very, very dry), I thought I would try my hand at making some ginger beer. I hope there is still some oomph left in the leftover champagne yeast. It's been lurking in a ziplocked bag in the fridge for about a year. This batch will presumably make 2 liters, which is good since I have two one-liter flip-top glass bottles.

If everything goes right, ginger beer in 2-3 days.

The ingredient ratio comes from The Roasted Root. 

Ingredients

1/4 c fresh ginger, peeled and grated
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
1/4 c fresh lemon juice (1-2 lemons)
1 c cane sugar (add additional 1/4 c sugar if you enjoy a sweeter ginger beer)
1 tsp active dry yeast or champagne yeast
4 cups of filtered water + 5 cups of cold filtered water
One 2-liter plastic bottle with a screw top or a 1-gallon carboy with an S-curve airlock

Directions

Start by adding ginger, cream of tartar, and lemon juice to an 8-quart stock pot. 

Add 4 cups of chlorine-free filtered water. Bring to a boil and add sugar. Boil until sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat and add remaining 5 cups of chlorine-free filtered water.

Wait until the liquid temperature is between 75-100 degrees F. Then, add the yeast and stir.

Cover and let rest in a dark place for 3 hours. I just covered the pot with its lid and stuck it into the oven. Seems dark enough in there.

Use a fine strainer and pour liquid into a 5-quart bowl, to remove the small bits of ginger.

Use a funnel to fill the carboy. Fill airlock with water and attach to carboy. Place carboy in a dark, warm room.

Wait 2 days (sweeter), or 3 days (drier).

Once the beer has finished brewing (e.g., airlock stops releasing CO2), transfer to glass bottles with flip-top lids and store in the refrigerator. This slows the fermentation process and be careful when opening the bottles.