Welcome to my cooking blog!

It's no secret to anyone who knows me that I love to cook. (It's no secret to anyone who lays eyes on me that I also love to eat, but that's another matter.) And people like my food, and I don't think they're just saying that so as not to hurt my feelings, because otherwise they would not eat as much of it as they do.

So I thought I'd start a blog about the food I like to cook. I hope to include stories about cooking experiences, and of course, recipes.

Now, let me tell you about recipes. There are people who only cook out of cookbooks, and who carefully measure each ingredient, and who will simply not attempt a dish if they are out of one of the ingredients demanded in the recipe, no matter how insignificant or easily substituted that ingredient is. I am not one of those people. I like cooking to be an expression of creativity. So when I use a recipe, I like to think of the recipe as a guideline, not a taskmaster.

This approach to cooking makes it difficult for me when people ask me for my recipe for something. More often than not, I've either modified whatever recipe I've used, or I haven't used a recipe at all. In either case, I certainly haven't measured things exactly, so telling someone else how much I've used is difficult. Nevertheless, I'm going to attempt to write down the recipes as I recall them. This blog is actually part of that exercise - that way, if I make something I really like, I'll write down what I did right away, and then (it is to be hoped) be able to reproduce the same dish later.

I do have quite a collection of cookbooks, but there are five that I return to over and over. Here is a list, and a brief description of what I like about each one:

Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle, and Simone Beck - Besides being the inspiration for the book and movie "Julie and Julia," this cookbook is a classic which showed Americans that they could produce classic French cooking right in their own kitchens. Its recipes are sometimes impossibly complicated, and use scandalous amounts of butter and cream, but if I am looking to make a dish to really impress, this is the book that I use. My favorite recipe from this cookbook: Garlic Mashed Potatoes.


The Classic Italian Cookbook by Marcella Hazan - What I love about this cookbook is the author's obvious love for food, and the simple joys of preparing it and sharing it. She concentrates on Northern Italian cuisine, which is much less about heavy tomato sauces (and which virtually never uses oregano), and more about simple, fresh food prepared well. Plus, she taught me that bechamel sauce is not French in origin, but Italian! My favorite recipe from this cookbook: Pork loin braised in milk.


The Joy of Cooking by Irma S. Rombauer and Marion Rombauer Becker - I like this cookbook because it is a basic reference. You can find nearly anything in it. My favorite recipe from this cookbook: Lemon Sponge Custard.


Mennonite Community Cookbook by Mary Emma Showalter - I love this cookbook because it captures my Mennonite heritage. The author wrote this book as a master's thesis, I believe, compiling recipes from Mennonite communities all over North America. While the book is showing its age (it was originally published in 1950), it's still a great resource for many traditional Mennonite dishes, such as shoo-fly pie and chow-chow. My favorite recipe from this cookbook: Rhubarb conserve.


More with Less by Doris Janzen Longacre - I love this cookbook because it changed the way I think about being more conscious of responsible, sustainable ways of eating, and also because of the international flavor of the cookbook. It, too, is a compilation of recipes sent in by Mennonites from all over, but this time, it used recipes for dishes that these Mennonites had encountered in their travels and missions around the world. My favorite recipe from this cookbook: Middle Eastern lentil soup.


And now, in the spirit of More with Less, I give you my recipe for Vegetarian Chili. I'm not a vegetarian at all, but I was inspired to make this by some vegetarians I was working with recently, and I honestly like it just as much as chili with meat.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups dried beans (I used small red beans)
1 1/2 lbs. tofu (the soft kind)
2 T. chili powder
1 tsp. cumin seeds
1 tsp. coriander seeds
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp. salt
2 medium diced onions
2 T. olive oil
1 or 2 finely chopped jalapeno peppers (or 5 or 6 small chilis) - depends on how hot you like your chili
1 large (796 ml or 27 oz) can tomatoes
1 can corn niblets (or 1 cup frozen corn niblets, or one cup of fresh corn)

Put the tofu into a mixing bowl. Crush the cumin and coriander seeds in a mortar and pestle, or grind them in a coffee grinder. Sprinkle the chili powder, minced garlic, cumin, and coriander onto the tofu, and work them all into the tofu with a potato masher. Cover, and put in the refrigerator overnight.

Cover the beans with about 5 cups of water, and let soak overnight.

The next day, bring the beans to a boil, and let them simmer slowly until tender. How long will depend on how big the beans are - smaller beans will cook faster; large beans like kidney beans could take up to 3 hours.

In a big Dutch oven on medium-high heat, add the olive oil, and saute the onions and the jalapeno or chili peppers until the onions are translucent. Add the tofu and salt, and saute for a few minutes. Next, add the beans, along with the water they have been cooking in. Now add the tomatoes. If you are using whole tomatoes, chop them up roughly before adding them with all their juice; if you are using pureed tomatoes, just dump the whole can into the chili.

Let the chili simmer for a half hour or more, until all the flavors are married together. Just before serving, add in the corn. Thicken with a little cornstarch dissolved in some water, if desired.

Serve piping hot with warm corn tortillas. (I buy my corn tortillas at the Chinese supermarket around the corner from my house. Go figure.)

Well, that's my first post, folks! Please let me know how you like my blog by leaving comments!