herbes de provence biscuits with raspberry sauce

I awoke this morning wanting something really, really yummy to eat. I know; shocking, huh? I had just finished my box of cereal a couple days ago, so my usual grain and yogurt wasn't an option. On a whim, I visited Green Kitchen Stories. It's always such a pretty blog. So fresh! So colorful!

I was hit with an immediate need for biscuits.

Biscuits and I don't have the best history. We get along fine when I'm making them out of, erm, Bisquick. But whenever I've tried to make them from scratch, they end up like hockey pucks. Or kind of good, but certainly not melt-in-your-mouth delicious like when I eat them at certain restaurants.

I don't know. This recipe, which comes from Coco of Roost but was featured on Green Kitchen Stories, sounded too easy to pass up. I'd had a little bag of almond flour languishing in the freezer for far too long, so I figured at worst I'd end up with inedible biscuits and more room in my freezer. Needless to say, I made 'em. I replaced the rosemary with herbes de Provence and used olive oil instead of grape seed oil. Less than an hour later, I was pulling delicately golden, ever-so-slightly fluffy, herb-scented biscuits from the oven. By far the best biscuits I've ever made. I couldn't believe they used almond (instead of wheat) flour.

I highly recommend these. Especially if you suck at making biscuits as much as I do.

Herbes de Provence Almond Meal Biscuits
Adapted from Roost, by way of Green Kitchen Stories
Makes 7 or 8 large biscuits


2 1/2 cups almond flour, plus 1/2 cup for dusting dough
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 cup olive oil
2 eggs
1 Tb. honey
1/2 Tb. herbes de Provence

Oh! I nearly forgot. Raspberry sauce. Yes.

My friend Rachel visited recently and fell madly in love with this raspberry sauce that I make. It barely seemed fair, as it's the second easiest recipe ever. (The first being this one.) She took it back home with her to Seattle, and I hear she's now converting more devotees to the beguiling tartness of this multi-purpose sauce.

Just a few ideas: I like to spoon this over Dutch babies. It foils their richness nicely. I also love love love it with plain yogurt and granola. It's great with oatmeal, and I like to spread it on toast and, clearly, biscuits. Go crazy.

Raspberry Sauce


Some frozen raspberries (half a package or so)
1 Tb. honey (or to taste)
Some citrus zest if you're feeling fancy

Put the berries in a small saucepan on low. Stir them as they defrost and soften. Once defrosted, add the honey and stir. Add the zest now if you're into that sort of thing. Allow berries to simmer slightly for a few minutes, and add more honey as needed. Crush any intact berries with a wooden spoon. Pour into a bowl to serve, or let cool and put in the refrigerator for later.

inclusive eating

I love a good, quality food challenge. Give me someone who's vegan, I'll want to whip her up a nice veggie meal. Somebody who doesn't eat sugar? Lemme at 'er, I'll show her the culinary time of her life. And then there are those of you who are sensitive to wheat, have Celiac disease, or just generally eschew gluten for any number of reasons. The number of you grows every day. More and more, people are realizing that their bodies might just not be meant to process gluten, especially when it's in the hearty wheats found throughout the United States. You should know that you're not alone. As those of you diagnosed with gluten and wheat sensitivities pop up, excellent resources appear every day to help you sort out your particular situation. Many of these resources will teach you to embrace life within your newly configured parameters, whatever they may be. They will teach you to be good to your body and to listen to it, and by listening to it and feeling it, to come to love it.

To pay attention to the way your body feels, to honor that, and to respect what it needs, is an act of subversion. Our society rewards bodies that fit a predetermined (and almost always unattainable) mold and normalizes the belief that one way of moving one's body and feeding it is superior to all others. The problem is this: Mainstream ways of eating are not conducive to the health and happiness of the vast majority of people in our culture. And in order to eat against the grain, you've got to be very brave and very strong.

Today I would like to gently remind you that our bodies, like our personalities, are all different. As my first grade teacher, Mrs. Rice, said, "We are each like snowflakes. No two of us are alike."

It has taken me a very long time to be able to say all of this to you. In fact, it has taken approximately 24 years of life, about three years of gender studies classes, and countless articles and books read that focused largely on food and bodies and their intersections in our lives.

What I'm trying to say is that if you've recently realized that you need or want to change the way you eat, you might be overwhelmed. You might feel alone and even afraid and like nothing in this culture of ours is going to help you attain health. So take a moment. Breathe. I am here, digging through resources and finding ways to eat and live that include you. And you, and you, and you. Adriana's here, too. And I'll bet that if you sit down for a chat with a really good friend, the kind who is always available for midnight talks and movie nights, that she or he will be there for you, too.

This recipe is another one for peanut butter cookies. I do realize that I posted a similar recipe a few weeks ago. But that one was for the vegans out there, and this one is for the gluten-free folks. Even if you have no food allergies and don't know anyone who does, I urge you to try recipes such as these, to see what you think.

-Kylie

Little Peanut Butter Cookies

Adapted from Shauna James Ahern

1 cup natural peanut butter (creamy or chunky, though I used chunky)
1 cup sucanat

1 teaspoon

1 egg

1/4 cup white sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. With a sturdy wooden spoon, cream the peanut butter and sucanat in a bowl. Stir in the baking powder, then the egg. Stir until it is well combined.

With clean hands, roll a ball of dough about the diameter of a quarter. Roll the ball in white sugar, then set it on a baking sheet covered with parchment. Repeat until you fill the cookie sheet (about 24 should fit on one sheet, depending on size).

With the back of a fork, gently press down on the cookies twice to form the signature peanut butter cookie crosshatch.

Bake them on an upper rack in the oven for 9 to 10 minutes. You'll want to be careful not to overbake them. The undersides should just be getting slightly brown when they are done. Pull out the baking sheet and let the cookies rest on it 5 to 10 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.

Makes about 30 itty bitty cookies.

P.S. Today's post is for all of you with special dietary needs. It is also for the incredible bloggers, especially Shauna James Ahern of Gluten-Free Girl, who act as resources as readers learn how to eat and live healthfully, happily and inclusively.

meeting my rock star

Like many people out in the Land of Food Blogs, I made sure to catch Molly Wizenberg of Orangette during her recent book tour. For the record, everything you've read is true. She's as sweet as her writing. Getting to see her in person was a bittersweet experience for me. Her blog has come to symbolize so much of what I love and long for about Seattle: Its nerdy chic; flourishing DIY ethos; blindingly gray afternoon light (that Molly captures so eloquently in her photographs); and subtle, fresh food. As I clumsily attempted to tell her within ten seconds how much her writing means to me, I realized that me getting to meet Molly was much like Mary getting to meet Gwen Stefani. Or my friend Terra getting to meet George Stephanopoulos. Or my mom getting to meet Melissa Etheridge. Needless to say, I don't think I conveyed to her how very fantastic I think she is. That's okay. I've gotten to spend some time with her book, and that's nearly as good.

I purchased Molly's book as a gift to my mom, but it's been getting quite a bit of use before even reaching its intended owner. (Mom; I hope you'll forgive a couple of olive oil and/or batter splatters. Consider them a reminder of how much I love you). Each story is a confession, a small part of Molly that she has packaged for her readers to share. The accompanying recipes are treasures. Sometimes odd and always incredibly delicious, Molly presents them carefully and at the perfect moments within her gentle narrative. 

This weekend, searching for a special breakfast to prepare for some vegan, gluten-free friends, I decided to pull together a sort of vegan rice pudding with stewed prunes on top. I know you don't think it sounds good, but it was. It really, really was. I stewed the prunes the night before, which took all of two minutes, and I whipped up the pudding in the morning with leftover rice from dinner. Lucky me, there are still plenty of prunes left over in the fridge, and I've been savoring them for the last few days. Even if you don't think you like prunes, I think you should try these. They are so good, so simple, and yet so decadent.

-Kylie

Vegan Coconut Rice Pudding With Stewed Prunes

Stewed Prunes

Adapted from Molly Wizenberg's A Homemade Life

1 orange, preferable seedless

1 pound pitted prunes

1 cinnamon stick

Cut the orange in half from stem to tip, then slice it into six sections (including peel), picking out any seeds. Put orange slices in a medium saucepan with prunes and cinnamon stick, and add water just to cover. Place over medium heat, bring to a gentle simmer and cook, adjusting the heat as needed so that the liquid barely trembles, for 30 to 45 minutes, or until the prunes are tender, the orange sections are soft and glassy, and the liquid in the pan is slightly syrupy. Remove the cinnamon stick and orange sections, cool (if you want to) and serve. You can also let the prunes cool to room temperature and then store them in a sealed container in the refrigerator for up to a week. 

Coconut Rice Pudding

4 cups of leftover rice (any type, though I used jasmine)

1 16 oz. can of coconut milk

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1/4 tsp. cardamom

1 tsp. agave nectar or honey

In a small saucepan, combine rice and coconut milk. Stir until any clumps of rice break up and it is warmed through. Add cinnamon, cardamom, and agave or honey. Serve topped with rice milk and stewed prunes.

breakfast for a sunshiney day

New York weather sometimes feels miraculous. 

Just this week, it snowed eight inches in one night, and we trudged to the subway through fluff that reached well above our ankles. Today, most of us got on our jackets, went outside, turned right around, and came back in to shed them. It's warm out. It isn't just warm like put-on-a-sweatshirt-and-sit-outside-the-coffee-shop-shivering-in-the-sunshine warm. It's wear-your-t-shirt-and-jeans-and-bask-as-it-warms-your-face warm. It's the kind of warm that made me take a run around Prospect Park this morning instead of going to the gym as I had planned. I smiled as I stepped outside and walked down the stoop into a world that was a little different than yesterday's. In this sunny world of spring, there are young families strolling with their babies and confused toddlers, couples holding hands as they listen to music on shared iPod earphones, and very old men and women who have lived in the neighborhood for years. They walk slowly and let others pass them. They've walked these streets enough times to know that the sunshine feels best when one soaks in it at one's own pace.

This sunshiney day is the perfect time to try making millet porridge, if you haven't done so already. I've been experimenting with millet a lot over the past week or so, and I've wanted to share it with you. I prepared it in my rice cooker, and it turned out perfectly. You can also make it on the stove; I just didn't because I nearly burned my favorite pot to its death trying to make rice a few weeks ago. The night I made the millet, I ate it with a soupy green curry. And then there were leftovers.

When millet is prepared, it begs for a liquid to moisten it. The cooked grain itself has a nutty scent that reminds me of nutmeg. Milk, cream, or coconut milk complement it beautifully. Once you combine the grain with some type of milk, you can make endless additions to the cereal. I simply grated on some cinnamon and nutmeg and then pinched in a few drops of stevia. However, I think it would transport you to Fantasy Breakfast Land if you added any or all of the following: Apple sauce, chopped dates and pecans, dried cranberries and apricots, rehydrated raisins, fresh strawberries, citrus zest, agave nectar, raw honey, bee pollen, good preserves, sliced almonds, vanilla extract, pumpkin seeks, flax seeds, lavender blossoms, flax seeds...

Are you still there? Phew; I went off on a tangent there. Glad I didn't lose you. My point is, you can do a lot with this. You could also make it into a savory breakfast, or add an egg as I did for some more protein. 

One of the reasons millet appeals to me so very much is that it is gluten-free. It has been around for thousands of years (literally), a staple in many Indian, Russian, and African cuisines. It grows easily on soil that is bereft of nutrients, making it ideal to feed those living in arid climates. And it is free of gluten, meaning that those with wheat sensitivity or gluten allergies can eat it safely. As a flour, millet lends baked goods a tender crumb, though it doesn't allow them to rise. This makes it an excellent base for flatbreads. And so the recipe I present below is both gluten-free and vegan. While I eat nearly everything and have few food aversions, I know that many of you out there must be careful. And if you're unable to eat refined sugars and want to sweeten this up, try it with stevia as I did. 

Millet Porridge

Makes 4 servings

1 cup dry millet

2 cups coconut milk

Pinch of cinnamon and nutmeg, or other garnish of your choice

Step 1 (Rice Cooker Method): Rinse millet in a colander. Place it in rice cooker with three cups of water. Let the rice cooker do its magic, and proceed to step 2.

Step 1 (Stovetop Method): Rinse millet in a colander. Boil three cups of water, add millet, and return to a simmer. Cover and allow to simmer slightly for about 25 minutes, or until water has absorbed. Be careful that you keep the heat low enough that the grain doesn't burn onto the bottom of the pan (trust me). 

Step 2: Mix cooked millet with coconut milk in saucepan. Whisk together until porridge has warmed. Add your chosen garnish and mix it in, or spoon the porridge into bowls and sprinkle on top. 

-Kylie