The other day I posted a roasted ratatouille recipe I adapted from Chocolate & Zucchini. This prompted Tim to ask: “isn’t that copyright infringement”?
Huh. Call me a crap creative, but that thought had not occurred to me. “Naaaah,” I said. I altered the ingredients and directions slightly, plus I gave credit to C&Z. So what’s the problem?
I brushed it off until today when I wanted to post the Mediterranean Chickpea Salad recipe from the New York Times but couldn’t help but feel haunted by the question…
“Am I stealing this recipe?”
The short answer is “no”. Here’s what U.S. copyright law says about recipes:
Mere listings of ingredients as in recipes, formulas, compounds, or prescriptions are not subject to copyright protection. However, when a recipe or formula is accompanied by substantial literary expression in the form of an explanation or directions, or when there is a combination of recipes, as in a cookbook, there may be a basis for copyright protection.
So a recipe is not an invention unless it accompanies a fair amount of “literary” prose around it. While that may be true, there’s still the matter of etiquette. The International Association of Culinary Professionals focusses on giving credit where credit is due.
The association advises using the words “adapted from,” “based on” or “inspired by,” depending on how much a recipe has been revised. (”Adapted from” is the phrasing favored by The Washington Post and many other newspaper food sections, which, along with culinary instructors, enjoy “fair use” of someone’s creation for the purpose of teaching, news reporting, scholarship or research.) The only time a recipe should be printed without attribution, the association contends, is when it has been changed so substantially that it no longer resembles its source. [Can a Recipe be Stolen?, The Washington Post]
Before I knew any of this, I was already giving credit to my recipe sources. It just feels like the right thing to do. Blogging is sharing, isn’t it? Were someone to post a recipe that I published, I don’t think I’d mind (though I might be a bit cheesed off if they didn’t credit me!). How do you feel about sharing recipes?
Yeah but what about those chickpeas?
Right. So I made the Mediterranean Chickpea Salad recently posted on the New York Times. It’s good. Real good. From the cumin-spiced dressing to the sweet tomatoes to the crunchy red pepper and savory olives. I like to add cucumber because I simply love the combination of chickpeas, cucumber and tomato. I skipped the yogurt from the original recipe which didn’t take away from its goodness. The feta is essential, however. When the salad is tossed, most of the feta dissolves into the dressing, making it super creamy and delicious.
The salad gets better after a day or two of marinating. And for you working-world folks, this salad is great for packed lunches!
Mediterranean Chickpea Salad
Adapted from The New York Times.
Serves 4
- 2 (15-ounce) cans chick peas, drained and rinsed
- 1/4 cucumber, cubed
- 1/4 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley
- 1 small red bell pepper, chopped
- 2 medium tomatoes, diced
- 4 green onions, sliced
- 6 kalamata olives, pitted and sliced
- 1 ounce feta cheese, crumbled
To make the dressing:
- 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
- 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
- 1 small garlic clove, minced
- 1/4 teaspoon cumin seeds, lightly toasted and crushed or coarsely ground
- Salt and freshly ground pepper
- 4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Toss together the salad ingredients. Whisk together the lemon juice, vinegar, garlic, cumin seeds, salt, pepper, olive oil. Toss with the chickpeas.
Crossposted to SmarterFitter.com
Tis the season of eggplant, zucchini, peppers and tomato. What better way to enjoy them all at once than in a delicious ratatouille!
Ratatouille is traditionally made by cooking all of the vegetables separately. I’m sure the results are fantastic, but who has that many pots? Never mind the time! Screw it - why not chuck all the veggies in the oven with some herbs and olive oil and PRESTO! Easy ratatouille with a blackened bonus. This stuff is good hot or cold and it only gets better with time. You can use leftover ratatouille in sandwiches, as pizza topping, in a salad, with pasta, or on its own. I love it with polenta and a simple green salad. Add a few chickpeas and you’ve got a well-rounded meal on your hands (or in your tummy). Good stuff.
I borrow my technique from the ever-talented Clotilde at Chocolate & Zucchini.
Roasted Ratatouille
This is even better with fresh rosemary and thyme - use 2 sprigs rosemary and 3 sprigs thyme.
- 2 onions, sliced
- 2 cloves garlic, sliced
- 1 eggplant, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
- 1 zucchini, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
- 2 green peppers, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
- 16 cherry tomatoes
- 1 tsp dried rosemary
- 2 tsp dried thyme
- salt, pepper
- olive oil
Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F).
Combine the vegetables, herbs and a liberal dose of salt and pepper in an oven-proof dish. Drizzle with olive oil (about 2 Tbsp) and toss to ensure an even coating.
Cover the dish with foil and bake for 45 minutes. At this point the vegetables should be cooked but not colored, and there should be cooking juices at the bottom of the pan.
Remove the foil and bake for another 30 to 45 minutes, until the cooking juices have evaporated and the vegetables start to blacken.
Serve hot or cold.
Crossposted to SmarterFitter.com
Purists in the audience will think that a Reuben just isn’t a Reuben without pastrami, swiss cheese, or Thousand Island Dressing. Well you can’t get any of those ingredients in London and, chances are, I wouldn’t eat them anyway. In my eyes, the sauerkraut makes the Reuben, and until yesterday I would have said that rye bread does, too. But my latest sandwich creation proved otherwise.
I only had some leftover chive bread to work with, baked using 101 Cookbook’s cornbread recipe (which tasted little like corn but a lot like chive, hence my terminology). The oniony flavor of the bread turned out to be surprisingly good with the smokey tempeh and saurkraut.
In place of Thousand Island Dressing, I use avocado and tomato. In place of pastrami, I use tempeh, cooked according to Your Vegan Mom’s Smokey Tempeh Slices recipe (found thanks to Veggie Meal Plans). Her recipe calls for less tempeh and no marinating. I doubled the tempeh and marinated it over night, which was delicious, but if you don’t have my kind of food-obsessed foresight, marinating is not necessary according to her original recipe.
You’ll notice from the picture that I also use lettuce leaves for the top slice of bread. This is optional, and not really encouraged. I do it because I’m small and really don’t need two hearty slices of bread (especially when having soup with the meal!). But you normal-sized people should add a second slice to the deck and eat the sandwich like it was intended.
The recipe makes enough tempeh for a few sandwiches and the leftovers are great for quick sandwiches - perfect for packed lunches!
Tempeh Reuben Sandwich
You don’t need to marinate the tempeh over night but it does add to the flavor. Mayo is also quite good in place of the avocado.
2 Tbsp soy sauce
1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 Tbsp maple syrup
1/4 tsp liquid smoke
1/4 cup water
1 8 oz. package tempeh, sliced thinly
olive oil
saurkraut
avocado, sliced
tomato, sliced
salt and pepper
lettuce
nice bread
- Combine the soy sauce, balsamic, maple syrup, liquid smoke and water in a shallow dish. Add the tempeh slices and marinate for as long as you can be bothered.
- Heat a little olive oil in a nonstick pan.
- Add the tempeh slices and pour the marinate on top. Simmer until the liquid has reduced. Brown the tempeh on both sides.
- While the tempeh is cooking, heat up the saurkraut and toast some bread.
- Top the bread with avocado, tomato, salt and pepper, saurkraut, as much tempeh as you can handle, and a little lettuce.
- Eat and enjoy!
Crossposted to SmarterFitter.com
We all know that protein is important, especially for active folks trying to put on a little muscle. For vegetarians like me, this is a little tricky - many of the foods we eat don’t contain complete proteins. That is, beans and whole grains may contain lots of amino acids, but on their own, they don’t contain enough of the right amino acids to form a complete protein (you can read more about this in Nutrition by The American Dietetic Association). As a result, I usually try to balance my meals with grains and beans so I’m sure to maximize the protein punch!
Most recently, I’ve been doing this with pasta. There’s no meal like a pasta meal that cries CARB FEST. But you can easily turn pasta into a more well-rounded meal by simply adding a few beans. Pasta is actually high in the amino acids methionine and cysteine, but low in lysine. Legumes such as kidney beans, however, are low in methionine and cysteine, but high in lysine. Put the two together and you get a complete protein. Science!
Adding beans to pasta is as easy as, well, simply adding beans to pasta. Beans compliment most sauces just as well as pasta, but some combinations work better than others. Here are my preferences:
- Chickpeas or kidney beans with tomato sauce
- White beans or chickpeas with pesto sauce
- White beans or broad beans with garlic and olive oil
I’m not even going to touch alfredo (some foods you just shouldn’t mess with).
Here’s the recipe for the meal I had this evening (pictured above - it inspired me to write this post). Pesto linguine with chickpeas and arugula. YUM! I served this with a tomato, cucumber and red onion salad with balsamic vinaigrette. Bliss, I tell you. Pure comfort.
Pesto Linguine With Chickpeas and Arugula
Serves one 5ft tall shortcake
50 grams dry linguine
100 grams cooked chickpeas
2 Tbsp pesto
1 Tbsp parmesan
1 Tbsp toasted pine nuts
1 large handful arugula (aka rocket)
Cook the pasta and heat up the beans. Toss together with the pesto. Pile on a plate and top with arugula, pine nuts and parmesan. Serve with a nice glass of red wine.
Per serving: 455 Calories; 19g Protein; 12g fat; 67g Carbohydrate
I don’t usually make desserts, so this season’s blackberry glut has been a challenge for me. I’m not a fan of sugary-sweet “treats”, and blackberries require a fair bit of sugar to bring out their flavor. I’m also suspicious of most dessert recipes, which often taste too sweet for my liking. Is this an American thing? Has our reliance on corn syrup acted as a kind of “sugar heroine”, forcing us to use even more sugar in our recipes to obtain the intended effect? Case in point: I recently made a rhubarb pie from a recipe at allrecipes.com. The recipe came with 4.5 stars and loads of great reviews, but my friends and I in London all agreed with the result: it was so sugary that we couldn’t even taste the rhubarb. Such a shame! I definitely don’t want my blackberries to share the same fate.
That’s when I came across this recipe for Blackberry Slump, what BBC Food calls “an American version of a blackberry cobbler”. I’m not exactly sure what makes this an “American version”, because it isn’t made with the usual flour-based cobbler top. Instead, the pastry is made with polenta, a very coarse corn meal, and toasted hazelnuts, both of which give the cobbler a wonderful texture. Think cornbread soaked up with sweet delicious berry juice.
And what about those berries? Guess what - not too sweet! This recipe uses mainly peaches and their juice to sweeten the blackberries. The fruits compliment each other well without turning into one contiguous mass of fruit mush - both the peaches and the blackberries retained their unique delicious flavors. I cooked these as individual portions in my new little ramekins. They freeze well this way and can be easily reheated in the oven.
The only thing I change from the original recipe is the ratio of cobbler to fruit. The BBC Recipe results in a one-to-one cobbler to fruit ratio. I prefer more fruit, so am providing the recipe here with only half the cobbler topping. Of course, you could always double the fruit instead and have plenty of leftovers for later. =)
The ultimate way to eat this dessert is with vanilla ice cream. Mmm. Vegans in the audience, I’d be curious to know how a vegan cobbler top would work, replacing the butter with oil and the milk with soy milk. Any takers?
Blackberry Slump
The original recipe on BBC Food uses twice as much cobbler topping. I thought this was too much so halved the amount here. Feel free to adjust the proportions of both to suit your tastes!
INGREDIENTS
550g blackberries
411g can peach slices in fruit juice drained and 5 tbsp juice reserved
2 tbsp caster sugar
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tbsp lemon juice
FOR THE TOPPING
75g polenta
88g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
13g butter plus extra for greasing
1 tbsp caster sugar
25g hazelnuts skinned, toasted and chopped
100ml milk
- Heat oven to 375F/190C/fan 170C/gas 5. Lightly butter a 1.7 litre ovenproof shallow dish. Spread blackberries and drained peach slices in the bottom of the dish. Mix together the caster sugar and cinnamon, then sprinkle over the top and pour over the lemon juice and the reserved juice from the peaches. Bake, uncovered, for 10 mins until the juices begin to run. Remove the dish from the oven and set aside.
- To make the topping, sift the polenta, flour, baking powder and a pinch of salt into a bowl. Rub in the butter with your fingertips until the mixture is the consistency of breadcrumbs. Add the sugar and toasted nuts and mix well, then stir in the milk to make a soft, sticky dough.
- Increase oven temperature to 430F/220C/fan 200C/gas 7. Drop spoonfuls of the dough over the top of the berries, then return to the oven for 15 mins until the topping is golden brown. Serve hot with cream, custard or ice cream.
Crossposted to SmarterFitter.com
I’m not 100% vegan, though the more I learn, the more I think that it may be the life for me. Lately, I’ve been experimenting with vegan desserts. I want to make yummy animal-free desserts made of whole food that’s as good to eat as it is to think. No funny stuff like food coloring or margarine or additives (to me this defeats part of the purpose of going vegan). No, I want to understand all of the ingredients I put in my desserts.
My first attempt at a vegan pumpkin pie was a bit of a failure, and my most recent attempt at a lemon-blackberry tart received mixed reviews. Despite all this, one recipe has been loved by all: the oat-nut crust from the Whole Food Bible.
This crust is like an oatmeal cookie in crust form. It smells delicious and tastes good by itself (this is a good thing, especially if what you put in the crust doesn’t turn out as yummy as you had hoped!).
Vegan Oat-Nut Pie Crust
Makes one 9-inch pie crust
1/2 cup whole almonds
1/2 cup whole walnuts or pecans
1 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
Pinch of sea salt
3 Tbsp canola oil
3 Tbsp maple syrup
1 Tbsp vanilla extract
- Preheat the oven to 350 F / 180 C.
- Bake the almonds and walnuts or pecans on separate baking sheets until they are fragrant and toasted: about 8 minutes for pecans or walnuts, 10 minutes for almonds. Remove from oven and set aside to cool. Raise the oven temperature to 375 F / 190 C.
- Grind the oats in a blender or food processor until they become coarse meal. Empty into a large mixing bowl.
- Grind the almonds and walnuts or pecans into a coarse meal and add to the oats, along with the flour and salt.
- In a small bowl, whip together the oil, maple syrup, and vanilla. Add to the oat-nut mixture and mix well. Allow the mixture to sit for 10 minutes in the refrigerator.
- With cold, wet hands, press the crust mixture into a well-oiled tart or pie pan. Bake for 10 to 15 minutes, or until golden brown.
Crossposted to SmarterFitter.com
Published on April 20, 2008
in food.
I like my dals with something refreshing on the side. Lately, I’m all about this salad, adapted from Das Sreedharan’s “The New Taste of India”, a fantastic cookbook filled with delicious vegetarian recipes from Southern India.
The salad takes a bit of chopping, but it’s totally worth it, both for its flavor, and for the rave reviews it gets everytime I serve it.
Indian Cucumber and Coconut Salad
For the salad:
1 cucumber, peeled and finely chopped
2 Tbsp desiccated coconut (or more to taste)
1 carrot, finely chopped
1 tomato, finely chopped
1 fresh green chilli, finely chopped
a small bunch of fresh cilantro (i.e. coriander), finely chopped
salt
For the dressing:
2 tsp olive oil
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 dried red chilli, halved
1/2 tsp asafoetida
~10 dried curry leaves
juice from half a lemon
- Place all the salad ingredients in a bowl and set aside in the fridge.
- Put the oil in a large frying pan with the mustard seeds, cumin seeds, red chilli, asafoetida and curry leaves. Turn the heat up to medium and wait for the seeds to start sizzling and smelling delicious.
- When the mustard seeds begin to pop, pour the oil and seeds over the salad. Add the lemon juice and some salt to taste and mix thoroughly. If you can wait, cool in the fridge before serving.
Crossposted to SmarterFitter.com
Published on March 9, 2008
in food.
Tim and I both agree that this is the best batch of no knead bread ever to emerge from our oven. It’s a perfect balance of sunflower seeds, flax seeds, white and whole wheat flour. The nuttiness of the seeds and whole wheat is buttery and wonderful. The white flour gives the bread a spongy lightness. But everything really comes together with the crust. I coat the entire dough ball in olive oil (a delicious trick I discovered accidentally and is much more effective than Jim Lahey’s cornmeal technique) then sprinkle on a generous dose of sesame seeds.
Seeded Whole Wheat No Knead Bread
300g white flour
170g whole wheat flour
1/4 cup sunflower seeds
1/4 cup flax seeds
1/4 teaspoon instant yeast
13g salt
olive oil
sesame seeds
- In a large bowl combine flour, seeds, yeast and salt. Add 350 grams of water and stir. Add more water a little bit at a time and stir until the dough has the consistency of a shaggy ball. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap. Let the dough rest in a warm place for at least 12 hours, preferably closer to 24. The dough is ready when it’s about double in size and spotted with big bubbles.
- Give the counter top and your hands a generous sprinkle of flour. Turn the dough onto the counter. Pull the dough at either end to form a strip. Fold this strip into thirds (like a business letter). Give the dough a quarter turn and fold in thirds again. I’ll refer to these folds as “seams”, i.e., “right now your dough is on the counter, seam side up.” Cover with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.
- Oil a large bowl with olive oil. Lightly dust the dough ball with flour and put it into the bowl seam side down. Cover with the plastic wrap and let sit for 2-3 hours. The dough is ready when it has more than doubled in size.
- Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When the dough is ready, remove the HOT pot and pour in a bit of olive oil. Swirl it around so that oil covers the entire inside of the pot. Now, take the bowl containing the dough and quickly turn it upside down over the pot so that the dough falls in seam side up. Cover the pot with a lid and bake for 40 minutes. Then remove the lid and bake another 5 or so minutes, until the loaf is browned and the sesame seeds are toasted. Cool on a rack at least 45 minutes before slicing.
Crossposted to SmarterFitter.com
When I made the list of High Protein Vegan Foods, tempeh stood out as most mysterious. I mean, what is it? The dense speckled brick looks more like a diseased internal organ than food. But in fact, tempeh IS food, and a highly nutritious, protein-rich food at that.
Like tofu, tempeh is made from soybeans. However, unlike tofu, which is made from soy milk, tempeh is made from whole soybeans, fermented through a natural culturing process that binds the beans into a cake. Because tempeh retains the whole bean, it is higher in protein and fiber than tofu.
My easy tempeh recipe is an evolution of my Auntie Jo’s sloppy joes, a quintessential American food for sure, traditionally made with ground beef, onions, tomato sauce, and bbq seasoning, then slopped on a bun and eaten with lots of napkins. You don’t need to make this with tempeh - my mom makes hers with MorningStar Farms soy crumbles. I tend to prefer cooking with unadulterated whole ingredients and the tempeh does a nice job of crumbling into the sauce and soaking in the flavors.
The hardest part about this recipe is finding vegan bbq sauce; many sauces contain Worchestershire sauce (i.e. anchovies), honey, and dubious processed ingredients. The only bottled vegan bbq sauce I’m aware of is Annie’s Naturals BBQ Sauce. Of course, you can always make your own, which would make this recipe less easy, but probably much tastier!
Tempeh Sloppy Joes
serves 4
200g tempeh, roughly crumbled
100g bbq sauce
1 tbsp olive oil
2 sticks celery, finely chopped
1/2 green bell pepper, finely chopped
1 onion, finely chopped
1/2 can of stewed tomatoes
A dash or two of liquid smoke
salt to taste
- Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan
- Add the onion, celery and green pepper and sauté until tender
- Add remaining ingredients and simmer for 15 minutes or more (the longer the better, the tempeh will crumble more as it cooks)
- Serve on hamburger buns with lettuce, tomato and sliced onion (if desired). Or, for a tidier sandwich, stuff it in a pita, or wrap it in a tortilla!
Per serving: 200 Calories (kcal); 9g Total Fat; 11g Protein; 22g Carbohydrate
Per serving (with whole grain bun): 310 Calories; 12g Total Fat; 15g Protein; 41g Carbohydrates
Approximate total cost of preparation, including buns: £6.30 (£1.60 per serving)
Nutrition information derived from the USDA food database.
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