world's best panini.

On Saturday, T and I decided it was time for Bella to have an afternoon out of the storage cabinet.  Bella is my panini maker, by the way. She is great but doesn't get used enough.  This needs to change.

Meet Bella!

Ever since I had a turkey, pear panani at my favorite coffee shop, Allister Deacon's (in Wausau), I have been dying to recreate it.  After a quick stop at the CoOp, we threw together these killer pear, turkey, cheese,almond, cranberry paninis.  Whew, that's a mouthful.  If I had to make a list of my favorite sandwiches, this would be at the very top of the list.  Holy heaven, they were out of this world.

I forgot to take a picture before sampling mine.
Truth: I didn't forget, I couldn't wait to try it. 

Turkey, Pear, Muenster Panini
Small amount of butter to coat the sides of the bread that will touch the griddle
Whole Wheat bread
Sliced Turkey Breast
Light Mayonnaise
Dijon Mustard
Handful of spinach or arugula
1 bosc pear, thinly sliced
Sliver almonds
Dried cranberries
Muenster cheese

I'm not going to write out directions for how to make this sandwich.  It's pretty obvious. If you don't have a panini maker, you can use a panini grill pan.  If you don't have one of those, use the pan you usually make grilled cheese in :)

T devouring his

Ginger Baked Tofu with Soba Noodles

This weekend was filled with good friends, good food and good music. To document the good fantastic food, I created one long post with three recipes, but decided it was recipe and picture overload. WHOAH, we don't want that.  Instead, I will post a series of recipes and pictures from this past weekend through the coming days.
On Thursday, I used a recipe I found in the CoOp weekly ad for the base of a soba noodle dish, that I whipped up without a real recipe.  After finding the ginger tofu recipe, I spent most of the week pondering what else I could add in with the tofu to make it a meal.   For months I have been dying to try soba noodles and these seemed to be just the ticket for the tofu.  Soba noodles are made from buckwheat flour which make them high in protein (10 grams/serving) and whole-wheat.  WIN-WIN!  I have never baked tofu.  I usually fry it in olive oil on the stove and couldn't wait to try baking it.
I also added in some sauteed asparagus, red and yellow peppers carrots and topped it off with slivered almonds. To my surprse (I don't have much experience with japanese/stir fry/noodle dishes) it was delicious and will definetely give me reason to experiment more with these types of dishes.

Please pardon the formatting of this recipe, I'm not used to writing up my own :)

First, I made this tofu:

Ginger Baked Tofu (recipe from People's Food CoOp)

1 pound extra firm tofu, cut into 1/2 inch cubes

1/4 cup sesame oil

1 tablespoon minced garlic (I used 4 cloves)

1/3 cup tamari (soy sauce)

1/3 cup Mirin (sweetened rice wine, I used riesling wine and it was perfect)

1/4 cup maple syrup

2 tablespoons freshly minced ginder

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Place tofu cubes in an oven-safe pan that has a rim on it.  Brush the tofu with the sesame oil and bake for 30 minutes, flipping each piece over after 15 minutes.  Drain any excess oil from the pan.  

Mix together the remaining ingredients in a small bowl and pour over tofu.  Cook for another 20-25 minutes, or until the tofu is firm and the sauce has reduced.  

While the tofu was baking, I cooked the soba noodles on the stove and sauteed a bunch of aspargus, the red and yellow pepper and carrots in some extra virgin olive oil.  The tofu recipe makes an abundance of the ginger sauce; when the tofu was done baking I simply mixed everything together in a large pan.  There was enough sauce to cover the noodles.  Slivered almonds added the perfect crunch.  I was hesitant to post a picture with this recipe, as it is difficult to make brown soba noodles in a dish with poor nighttime lighting look appealing....but I hate when recipes don't include some type of picture.  So, here it is.  I promise it tastes better than this photo makes it look!

weekend visitor.

As many of you know, this is my first year living alone.  Most of the time, it works out extremely well.  I love my tiny place, which is commonly referred to as the cottage.  I enjoy coming home to a quiet apartment, where I can have peace and quiet while studying.  My daily schedule is so busy that I would not be a very good roommate and I just don't want to be the bad roommate.
There is however, one major complaint I have: eating meals alone.  Growing up, food often brought my family together.  We shared the majority of weeknight and weekend meals together, talking about the ups and downs of our work, school and sports.   Even now, when I journey home, most of our time is spent together in the kitchen preparing food.  My love of cooking and baking has not changed,  but it just is not as much fun when you make a fantastic meal and sit down to eat it by yourself.  For me, one of the best things about cooking is sharing my creations with others.
This past weekend, my Mama come over for a visit.  We always have such a great time together,  exploring the CoOp, going for coffee, visiting our favorite downtown shops and of course, cooking some great meals.  It's weekends like this that make me wonder if I will move back to be near to my family when I finally finish school.  I never, ever thought those words would escape my mouth, but it's impossible not to think about it when some of my best friends happen to be my family.
On Friday night, we decided to try a recipe that I stumbled upon last week: Quinoa Salad with Roasted Beets, Chick Peas and Orange (from a fabulous website I discovered: www. glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com). This salad was colorful, packed with protein and made a large enough batch to be packed in some of my lunches for during the week.  The best part though? Sharing this meal with someone. 

Quinoa Salad with Roasted Beets, Chick Peas and Orange
Ingredients:
3 cups cooked quinoa 
2 beets, trimmed and quartered
Olive oil
Sea salt
1/4 cup fruity olive oil
1/4 cup fresh squeezed orange juice
2 teaspoons organic gluten-free tamari sauce
1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar or rice vinegar
1 tablespoon organic raw agave nectar or local honey
1 cup drained rinsed chick peas
2 big handfuls of baby spinach leaves
Sea salt and ground pepper, to taste
1 fresh orange, peeled, trimmed, cut into bite sized pieces

Preheat the oven to 375ºF.  While the quinoa is cooking, roast the beets in a medium size roasting pan, by combining the beets with a drizzle of olive oil and sprinkle of sea salt. Place the pan in the center of the oven and roast until the beets are tender (roughly 45 minutes). Remove the beets from the hot pan and set them aside to cool. When cool enough to handle, rub off the skin. Cut the beets into bite sized pieces. 
***To save on time, I pealed the beets, cut them into bite-size pieces and boiled them on the stove.  This worked well and I would recommend it if short on time!

To make the dressing, combine the olive oil, orange juice, GF tamari, vinegar, and agave in a glass measuring cup and whisk. Set aside.

Combine the warm, cooked quinoa in a mixing bowl with the chick peas and baby spinach leaves. Pour in the salad dressing and toss lightly. Season with sea salt and pepper, to taste.
Gently add in the cut up roasted beets and fresh orange pieces. Do not over mix or your entire salad will turn beet red. I think it's more attractive to keep the staining to a minimum.

Serve with a sprinkle of fresh goat cheese, or slivered almonds, if desired.
Serves 4.

Ginger cookies to the rescue.

Something rather strange happened over the past two weeks...I didn't bake a single thing. Yes, you read that correctly, NO BAKING.  Second semester came out of nowhere and seemed to knock me off the face of the earth for a while.  Many exciting things have occurred, one of them being the start of my first practicum in school psychology!  Two days a week, I drive to Westby and work under the district's school psychologist.  I have only been there three days, but I can already tell how much I love the school and the staff.  I have soooooo very much to learn in the next few years but cannot wait to begin working in my very own school.  I had never been to Westby prior to last week and really had no idea what to expect from a town of 2000 that is nestled back in the bluffs.  Although the town is extremely small and I cannot see myself every moving to a place such as this, it has many things I am dying to check out.  The town has strong Norwegian ties which became evident when I drove down Main Street (pretty much the only busy street in the town) and saw the Uff-Dah Mart, Borgens Cafe and Ole & Lena's Kaffe Haus. Hello Norway! I hope to take my Mother there when she visits me in a few weeks so we can spend an afternoon uncovering some of the Norwegian treasures in this small town.  I will be sure to fill you in on what we discover...
Okay, back to baking.  Due to my schedule, I did not have any time to bake which, more importantly, means I didn't have any baked goods to eat.  If you know anything about me, you know that this is the equivalent of a small crisis.  T came to visit this weekend and noticed the lack of baked goods in my kitchen...and decided we need to fix this problem at once.  We paged through Heidi's cookbook and could not resist making her Ginger cookies.  These cookies are somewhere along the lines of a molasses cookie, but with the lovely addition of fresh ginger, bright apricot pieces and freshly shaved chocolate.  Rolled in large grain raw sugar, they twinkle in the sunlight and pair perfectly with a warm cup of tea.

While the dough was chilling, we played cribbage and decided to start an official score card to track our wins.  Ever since he returned from the trail, T has been smokin me in cribbage....so I find it necessary to inform you that I finally won a game.  The official score is 1-0.

Ginger Cookies (Heidi Swanson, Super Natural Everyday)

1/2 cup large-grain raw sugar
6 ounces bittersweet chocolate
2 cups spelt or whole wheat pastry flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon fine-grain sea salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, cut into small cubes
1/4 cup unsulphured blackstrap molasses
2/3 cup fine-grain natural cane sugar
2 tablespoons peeled and grated fresh ginger
1 large egg, well beaten
1 cup plump dried apricots, finely chopped

Directions: Put the large-grain sugar in a small bowl.  Chop the chocolate into small pieces, more like shavings.  In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, ground ginger and salt.  Heat the butter in a saucepan until it is just barely melted.  Stir in the molasses, fine-grain sugar, and fresh ginger.  The mixture should be warm, but not hot at this point.  If it is hot to the touch let it cool a bit, then whisk in the egg.  Pour this mixture over the flour mixture and add the apricots.  Stir until barely combined.  Stir in the chocolate.  Chill for about 30 minutes (or long enough to play a game of cribbage!) long enough to let the dough firm up a bit.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees with rack sin the top and bottom third of the oven.  Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
Scoop out the dough in exact, level tablespoons.  The tear those pieces of dough in two and roll each piece into a ball.  Grab a small handful of the large-grained sugar and roll each ball between your palms to heavily coat the outside with sugar.  Place the cookies a few inches apart on the prepared baking sheet.  Bake the cookies, two sheets at a time, for 7 to 10 mints, until cookies puff up, darken a bit, are fragrant and crack.

We used Ghiradelli Bittersweet Choclate...perfect choice.

Rolled in large grain sugar, ready for the oven.

Perfectly cracked ginger cookies!