Love Them Apples

I fell head over heels at the farmers market and spent a near fortune on portobello mushrooms a few weeks ago. We filled our bags with springtime as we emptied our pockets. Artichokes, asparagus, carrots of all colors, and of course portobellos. And let me tell you, it was all worth every dollar.

Time stood still that Sunday afternoon when I took the ‘bellos out of the oven. Bad*ss Bassman and I hovered over them, glancing at our watches. Was it too early for dinner..? Too late for lunch..? Did we make an extra for us or were they all going in boxes for clients…?

Oh dear, I haven’t mentioned the clients, have I?  

Well of course no couple in their right mind buys $50 of mushrooms for themselves. Not even on a beautiful Saturday morning under the influence of Springtime.  Not even with visions of cashew cheese and caramelized onions. Not even straight from the farmer.

Let me ‘splain. 

No, there is too much. Let me sum up.

Last summer a woman I barely knew called me about a woman I’ve still never met. It was this very blog that sparked the call. That Bad*ss Bassman and I were surrounded by packing boxes and logistics galore due to our moving into a new house that very week made no difference. That it’d been years since I’d cooked for anyone other than my family or a small gathering of friends made no difference. That the woman who called raving about my cooking had never actually tasted a thing I’d made also, well, you understand.  

What did matter is that I’ve always had a hard time saying no, especially when food is the topic. 

One conversation led to another —  I’ll spare you the details since they are better over a bottle of wine — and suddenly Love Them Apples was born. Not this blog, of course. I mean, Love Them Apples, the weekly business of cooking farm-fresh, organic, vegan meals for busy families and individuals.

We moved into our new house around the July 1st, and since last August Bad*ss Bassman and I have been planning, shopping, cooking, and chopping every weekend. Our first weekly client was the woman I’ve still never met and her family of 4. Bad*ss Bassman took on the role of delivery man and week by week, as I posted what we were cooking for that Monday, more and more people requested deliveries.

By Thanksgiving we were getting special requests for pecan pies and red velvet cakes. We  catered a few holiday parties. A few yoga teachers inquired about cooking for their retreats. And every weekend our kitchen was a whirlwind of locally-grown seasonal produce and melting chocolate.

It was a crazy busy autumn and by 10pm New Years Eve we were fast asleep on the couch. Bassman woke me when he heard midnight celebration shots being fired, just to kiss me into 2012. Then we fell back asleep.

It’s been 10 months since LTA began and it still surprises me the way Bad*ss Bassman and I were blown off on a tangent from left field. See what happens when you stand in a kitchen with a hot oven for 10 months? Your metaphors get mixed.

Fast forward to the ‘shrooms. O.M.J.  (Remember this post? I asked Little E what this stands for - she replied in a voice that had duh all over it, “Oh My Gosh” but I still get a little giggle out of it because really it must stand for Oh My Josh.) 

Growing up, one of our multigenerational family dinner favorites was tuna casserole. It was the recipe relic from the ’50s, the kind that calls for a can of Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup in the mix. I’m not sure that using a can of pre-made anything should really be justified in a recipe, but back then it wasn’t the sodium or processed food content that bothered me. What bothered me were the little bits of mushroom (honestly, they looked more like boogers) that infiltrated my favorite dinner. I’d beg my grandmother to make this dish, but every time I would rake through my plate and dig out each little mushroom bit like the hated little grub worm it probably was. They wouldn’t keep me from my casserole - or even second helpings - but they did slow down the process somewhat. 

In my teen years I announced to my family that I was becoming vegetarian and discovered that mushrooms were the official stand-in for steak. I would have nothing of them, and declared them my Mortal Enemy. 

Somewhere in my late 20’s I made peace with them - as long as they were cooked. I never truly loved them as I love, say, mangoes, but over the years I’ve started craving them a bit. Every so often. Just a little. Like a few weeks ago.

And then THESE portobellos walked into my life. Holy macaroni. I am a changed woman. To be perfectly honest, I’d put these ports on the menu thinking other folks would enjoy them, and maybe I’d get a bite somewhere. I truly wasn’t expecting them to send me over the moon. I’m just not the kind of girl who goes head over heels for portobellos. Or at least, I wasn’t. Everything is changed now. EVERYTHING.

One of our clients sent me a note the day after Bassman dropped off the LTA delivery. She wrote,  ”that cashew cheese stuffed portobello mushroom was the best darn mushroom I’ve ever had!” Now, usually I’m hyper-critical about everything I make, and often it’s near impossible for me to truly hear a compliment, but that one I heard.

Because I knew it was true. 

Now, friends, don’t be alarmed at the steps or the time-frame of the recipe. Most of the time is spent letting the marinade do its magic. I’ll tell you what you should do:

This Saturday morning kiss your sweetheart, have a cup of coffee, a bowl of granola with the last of the strawberries, and then grab a couple of canvas shopping bags. Head out with your sweetheart to your local farmers market. Meander. Sample. Touch. Buy something weird and ask the farmer or your fellow marketeers how you should prepare it. Then head over to the mushroom vendor and get yourself some portobellos. Don’t worry, you won’t spend nearly what we did. Pick up a ton of strawberries to get you through the week, and then make your way home. 

When you get home, let your sweetheart put away the strawberries and fiddleheads. Meanwhile clean your mushrooms, make the marinade, and then stick it all in the fridge for tomorrow or dinner later. Easy, right?

That evening or the next day, set the onions to cook in one pan while you do the mushrooms in the other. Pre-heat the oven. Make the cashew cheese. Flip the mushrooms, stir the onions. Grease a baking sheet. Set the mushrooms on the sheet, fill with the cheese, stir the onions in the pan, stick the sheet in the oven. Go kiss your sweetheart again. In 30 minutes the shrooms will be done and ready to top with the onions. Dinner is served! 

CASHEW CHEESE-STUFFED PORTOBELLO

to serve 4

DAY 1 timing: 10 minutes hands-on, overnight to marinate

DAY 2 timing: 30 minutes hands-on, total cooking time 1 hour

PORTOBELLO MARINADE

Ingredients:

4 Portobello mushrooms

1/2 c balsamic vinegar

1/2 c soy sauce

1/2 c water

 a grind or two of black pepper

a few sprigs of fresh thyme

a few sprigs of fresh rosemary

Take off the stem off the portobellos, careful to leave the bellows. With a damp cloth, gently wipe the smooth top of the mushroom cap.

Place all four mushrooms in a baking dish (they can overlap) so that the bellows are face-up. 

Whisk the rest of the ingredients together in a bowl. Pour the marinade evenly over the mushrooms.

Cover the dish and refrigerate overnight or for a few hours…  

The Next Day… (or a few hours later)…

Start caramelizing your onions first. The longer and slower they cook, the sweeter they will be. Personally I’d probably leave them on till the mushrooms come out of the oven. 

CARAMELIZED ONIONS

Ingredients:

1 medium onion, sliced thin

2 Tablespoons cooking oil

Heat the oil in a pan on med-low heat. Add the sliced onions and stir to coat with the oil. Let them just do their thing, but remember to stir them every so often. If they start to stick, you can add a little water to the bottom of the pan to de-glaze them. 

While the onions are cooking, take the mushrooms out of the fridge. 

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees.

Let the onions cook for a long time till they are soft and brown, then remove from the heat. 

COOK THE MUSHROOMS

Heat a large pan on the stove top over a medium flame. My 12” cast-iron pan is large enough for all 4 mushrooms, but you can do 2 at a time if you need to.

Lightly coat the bottom of the pan with a neutral cooking oil (vegetable, grapeseed, canola, safflower, etc). Add the mushrooms plus half of the marinade. Let cook till the sides are wilting (about 7-10 minutes), and then flip. Add the rest of the marinade and cook till the mushroom is soft. Add water to the pan as needed.

CASHEW CHEESE

Ingredients:

1 cup raw cashews

1-2 lemons, juiced

2 garlic cloves, minced

salt / pepper to taste

Place cashews, lemon juice, and garlic in a blender. Add water to the top of the cashews. Blend for about 6 minutes - really - or till its very smooth. Add a little more water if needed. It will firm up when it’s baked, but you don’t want it to be watery. Season with salt / pepper. 

BAKE THE MUSHROOMS

Lay the mushrooms top-down on the baking sheet. Carefully spoon 2 Tablespoons of the cashew cheese on the center of each mushroom. Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes or until the cheese is firm.

When they’re done, top each mushroom with some of the caramelized onions. Grate a little pepper on top.

Option - sprinkle with fresh chopped thyme and cracked red pepper. 

Voila! 

Enjoy! 

xoxo, Arielle. 

PS - interested in knowing more about Love Them Apples, our little cooking biz? Say hi to us over at the facebook page - www.facebook.com/ourhearttoyourtable ! We post weekly menus and interesting foodie articles. If you live in the Los Angeles San Fernando Valley area and are interested in a delivery, shoot me a note either here or on facebook! 

In our home, bedtime is one of the most treasured times of day. I’ve never once heard the E’s cry about “Brush teeth - time for bed!” and usually they beat us up to the Birdsnest - their hidden room at the top of the secret staircase with the birdseye view of our backyard. By the time Bad*ss Bassman and I climb up the narrow stairs (followed sometimes by Squigs and MeowMeow), the girls are either already curled up with books or Little E is rolling around in a gigglefest while Big E knots up her hair for morning curls.

Almost every night is the same. The girls wrestle a bit, get the last of the giggles out and then settle on their respective beds. I pull out the book. Right now we’re on the fifth in the Little House On The Prairie series. We read a chapter a night - sometimes two - and then Bad*ss Bassman turns out the lights, puts on the same sleepytime lullaby they’ve heard since babyhood, and we each give the girls plenty of snuggles. After that, Bad*ss Bassman goes downstairs and I sit with the girls chatting for a few minutes while we admire the moon.

About a month ago, after Bassman went downstairs, the E’s started asking me for tales of my childhood. First they wanted to know about my 5th grade fashion, so I told them about ’80s stirrup pants and oversized button down shirts. Then they wanted to know if I ever made mudpies, so I told them about the Indian clay in the ditch by my childhood house. Last week they wanted to know about my best day EVER (!), so I told them about the day I spent with my grandparents on the Florida panhandle, and how the next day my new little brother was born.

The past few nights the E’s have been asking about my saddest memories. I told them about the very last time I sat on my great-grandfather Papa’s knee, just before he died. The next night I told them about my first turtle, Sammy Green, and how he slowly stopped moving until the day we buried him. Last night I told them about how my gumsole shoes tripped me up on the driveway a few weeks before elementary school began, and that one of the school boys teased me about the scabs on my face from the fall. They loved that one, and shared their own woeful tales of falls and scabs.

It’s been difficult to reach back in time for these stories, especially to find them in words, not just collages of imagery. I’ve got to find a way to translate pictures and emotions of my past into words that can be told, stories that can be understood. The E’s questions are a gift to me. I am remembering. I am fashioning the collages into stories. And joyfully, the E’s are sharing their own stories.

The E’s aren’t yet interested in my teenage years - perhaps by the time they get to that age themselves they will have lost interest in hearing my stories anyway. But last week I caught a glance of myself in the mirror just as Bassman and I were bundling up for a chilly Sunday evening stroll. Funny thing - it turns out I’m still wearing the same scarf I’ve worn since high school. I’d found it back sometime Freshman or Sophomore year on a day of rummaging through my parents’ old things in the attic. And I’m still wearing - now only on rare wintery days - a long black coat. 

So strange to realize…

Back in high school the long black coat was unfashionable in an artsy sort of way, a bit goth, a bit Pretty In Pink. In my 20’s a different-yet-similar coat was professional for my first office jobs. Now in SoCal this coat - frayed at the bottom edge, seams taken in, buttons resewn,  - is just practical since I haven’t bought a new coat in the five years I’ve been in LA.

Catching that glimpse of myself, in light of all these childhood stories of the past, was a bit of a treasure. I remembered something. 

Yes, this is who you are, who you have always been. 

I was in high school during the Exxon Valdez disaster. That may have been the first time I was truly struck by the dichotomy of rejoicing in the life this planet holds and the ecological disasters we humans create in search of wealth. That crime against nature sparked a passion in me. In those years my family lived in a house in the woods on the edge of a lake, with deer and birds, tall birch trees, blackberries in the spring, chipmunks. As little as I felt in the world, I wanted to do my part. Author Anne Lamott would say that I took it Bird By Bird.

It’s more like I took it Can by Can. 

I started picking up cans. Recycling them. Passionately cleaning up my high school grounds, putting trash and recyclables in their place. I tried not to consume any food that came individually wrapped. I became vegetarian, argued with my dad about the pros/cons of nuclear power, channeled what I thought was the spirit of the ’60s, tried to step as kindly as I could. My compassion for the prosperity of nature without the touch of mankind (manunkind, I wondered) was sprouting.

So here we are now. Cloth napkins. CSA subscription. Vegan blog. 

But the thing is, I am not always “good”. I’ve struggled with this part. Where does compassion for the world I live in meet compassion for my own human inconsistencies? My tastes and curiosity get the better of me. When times are stressful I forget to compost. I take long showers. I strive towards a vegan diet, and then sometimes am seduced by a farmer’s market cheese stand sampling. And, despite all controversies that have somewhat limited my consumption of them, I have a weakness for bananas. 

So, here is my guilty pleasure and I want to share it with you, in full awareness. It’s rare these days that we have excess bananas laying around, over-ripe and ready for baking, but perhaps sometime in the coming months it will happen for you or me. And perhaps you will, instead of tossing them out, discover some chocolate in the cabinet. Perhaps you will have a picnic upcoming, or a neighbor who needs a pick-me-up, or you simply have a cup of warm beverage that needs a nibble of banana and chocolate for utter, guiltless, completion.

CHOCOLATE CHUNK BANANA BREAD (Vegan!) 

Makes 2 loaves 

Ingredients

2 cups whole wheat flour

2 cups all-purpose flour (I always recommend King Arthur’s unbleached AP)

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup white sugar (I use unbleached organic)

1 cup Earth Balance butter substitute (or, use 1/2 cup Earth Balance and 1/3 cup applesauce)

6 ripe bananas

1/2 cup unsweetened soy milk + 2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 cup dark chocolate, roughly chopped

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease and flour the bottom and sides of 2 loaf pans (8 x 4 or 9 x 5) and set aside.  

In a small bowl, stir the soy milk and cider vinegar together. Let sit while you do the rest.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the first five ingredients in list (flours, baking soda, salt, spice). Whisk together so they’re nicely combined. 

In a separate bowl, cream together both sugars and Earth Balance (or Earth balance + applesauce). Add the bananas, soy milk mixture and vanilla. Mix well. Don’t worry if this wet mixture, once combined, is not emulsified - it will all come together just fine.

Add the dry ingredients into the wet. Mix well until uniform (careful not to overmix!) and then fold in the chopped chocolate. 

Pour into prepared pans. Bake at 350 F for 60-75 minutes. Test for doneness with a toothpick - when inserted in the center, it should pull out clean. 
 

Enjoy, dear readers. Do let me know if you try this one out! 

xoxo, Arielle