Urban Food Forest

Seattle is growing a food forest where people are encouraged to come and forage as they wish. What an interesting concept, and a great way to connect people to their food.

• Do you think it will work for Seattle? 
• Will people become overzealous and take more than they need - perhaps to freeze or preserve it, or even simply to resell it at a profit?
• Would something like this work in your neighborhood, town, or city? Why or why not?

Spent Grain BBQ Burgers

Just found this link via the homebrewing community at reddit, and can't wait to try it: spent grain burgers. 


What are spent grains, you ask? The stuff left over from brewing beer! 


The full URL: http://brooklynbrewshop.com/themash/spent-grain-burgers/ 

I [love] t o F U ...

I heart tofu hearts.

Food bloggers really love Valentine's Day - all the sumptuous desserts. Valentine's Day is the first big food occasion since Thanksgiving / Hanukkah / Christmas / New Year's Eve, so after a bit of a break, bloggers are ready to go. Flirty appetizers! Sensual flavors and textures! Sumptuous desserts!

Valentine's Day isn't really my holiday. No, I'm a Halloween girl, myself.

So today, friends, I simply pass along cuteness from our friends at Tofu X-press: http://bit.ly/zrEI6r. These hearts are adorable, plus you get to use those cookie cutters your mom/aunt/grandma gave you that you don't use as often as you should. 

This isn't a recipe as much as an idea, but you can tailor it to your heart's desire own liking. If you don't have a tofu press, just slice the tofu as thin as you'd like, and then press the tofu between towels before continuing. But you should really get a tofu press. Why don't you have one yet?

I made these with a small heart-shaped cutter (Pampered Chef, "Creative Cutters Set" item 1095), which gave me 28 hearts total out of a "standard" water-packed tofu block. 

First I pressed my tofu, then I sliced it horizontally to make two large slabs. I cut out the hearts with the little "cookie cutter", and then I cut each heart in half again horizontally, making two hearts from each. (Why do it this way, you ask? Too hard to evenly cut the original block of tofu into four thin slabs). Some of them I marinated in a lime-soy mixture and then tossed with a chili rub, and some of them I marinated in a ginger-garlic-soy mixture and then topped with sweet Thai chili sauce. And some of them, I didn't top at all. I put them on a well-oiled cookie sheet, and baked them in the oven at 300F for an hour. Adorable!

I'll do these again and again for different holidays and with different flavor combinations, with different shapes. They were sturdy, easy, and made good finger food.

Artisana's Raw Coconut Butter

Artisana Raw 100% Coconut Butter

I happened to be chatting with the manager at my local Hy-Vee Health Market while browsing through the peanut butter, and she called my attention to Artisana's Raw Coconut Butter. At first, I misunderstood it to be coconut oil. It was pricey at $12 per jar, but the she said it was a special order for another customer, who had reported that it's like peanut butter - only made of coconut flesh. Well, I love coconut, and I love nut butters, so I had to try it.


As you can see, it appears crumbly coming out of the jar. Imagine a dry, unsweetened peanut butter: rather than being buttery, it feels more starchy, yet strangely velvety in the mouth due to the coconut oils. (However, 2 TBS comes in at only 2 net carbs, if one is counting such things, because of the fiber content.)


It's intriguing. 


I went to the Artisana website to look for recipes, and though I have some ideas for what I might do with it, I can't stop eating it right out of the jar, a teaspoon at a time. It seems decadent to eat it that way. Something about the texture and mouthfeel just fascinate me. It's not overly sweet, and it's not overly coconutty.


I'll continue to splurge on this--it's really quite tasty. I'm hoping I can make the jar last the rest of the month, but I may end up using it as a dessert ingredient, or incorporating it into a Thai or Indian sauce. 

Here's an awesome link, on how to store various produce for freshness, in a greener way (i.e., less plastic). 


Thanks to WashingtonGreenGrocer.com !

Woebber's Sweet & Spicy Mustard

Woebber's Sweet & Spicy Mustard. We love it so much, we sometimes eat it with a spoon.

Its ideal companion is Yves The Good Dog, the best-tasting veggie dog we've been able to find, so far.

Pair it all with a bit of sauerkraut, and you're in convenience-food heaven.