The No Flour, No Sugar* Cookie

I stared at this cookie recipe, perplexed and intrigued. No flour. No sugar. No eggs. No butter. I've dabbled in vegan baking before, but I can't recall coming across a recipe that also cut out both flour and sugar. Dr. Gott would be impressed.

I don't have anything against flour and sugar - I will forever and always enjoy real bread, coffee ice cream, and campfire marshmallows - but I could definitely benefit from replacing some white flour and processed sugar with healthier whole food options. With leftover popcorn on hand, I made a batch, took a tentative bite, and you know what? They are pretty darn good. Think chewy granola bites. 

*Ok, but full disclosure: there is some dark chocolate in these.

Obviously chocolate has sugar, but I am unapologetic about it (chocolate has antioxidants!). If you truly want to eat clean with these, substitute with vegan sugar-free chocolate chips, or some chopped dates, or just omit the chocolate all together. The cookie "dough" is still flour- and sugar-free, sweetened by banana puree and held together with oats and almond meal.

Like other vegan cookie recipes I've tried, this cookie dough is loose, not creamy like your grandma's chocolate chip cookie dough, but it will stick together when you shape the cookies. Whatever shape you form the dough into will basically be how your cookie will look after its baked, so if you want slightly flattened cookies, shape the dough like that.

The baking trifecta of flour, sugar and butter still have a place in my kitchen, but I have a feeling I'll be making these sweet little bites more often as well. 

Happy baking!

The No Flour, No Sugar Cookie

Called "Carnival Cookies" in Heidi Swanson's cookbook, Super Natural Every Day - and she claims it is one of her most popular recipes ever. Feel free to replace the peanuts with almonds, pecans, maybe even sunflower seeds, although I'd reduce it down to 1/2 c. for sun seeds.

3 large bananas, well-mashed

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1/4 c. coconut oil, barely warmed so it is 1/4 c. of liquid, not solid

1 and 1/2 c. rolled oats (aka old-fashioned oats)

1/2 c. almond meal*

1 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. fine-grain sea salt

2/3 c. shelled unsalted peanuts

1 c. dark chocolate chips or chopped bittersweet chocolate

1 and 1/2 c. unsalted popcorn 

In a large bowl, combine bananas, vanilla, and coconut oil. Set aside. In another bowl, mix together oats, almond meal, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir until combined. Fold in peanuts and chocolate, then fold in the popcorn. Firmly shape small balls with your hands, about 1 heaping tablespoon each, and place them on baking sheets. 

Bake at 350 degrees for 14-17 minutes until the bottoms are deeply golden. Remove from oven and allow cookies to cool on the cookie sheet on a wire rack. 

*To make almond meal, throw a hearty handful of almonds in your blender or food processor until it is mostly powdery (a few larger almond pieces are ok). Don't process too long, or you'll end up with almond butter. If you have extra almond meal, stir it into oatmeal or add it to your morning smoothie. 

A Simple Egg Salad

Last Friday afternoon, I walked into my office with a towering stack of five full egg cartons in my arms. Having just come from my Friday farm egg pick-up, and knowing my car was a little too warm to keep them for the afternoon, I carefully set them down near the a/c vent to keep until I went home.

My sweet co-worker DeAnne did a double take. 

"So, what's with the eggs?" 

"Oh, my friend Steph raises chickens, so I buy eggs from her." 

"What are you going to do with all those eggs?"

"Eat them!" 

"Really? You eat that many eggs?" 

Looking down at my dozens of gorgeous brown, blue-green and white eggs, and considering the massive empty carton collection I just passed along to Steph, I realized, yes, we do eat A LOT of eggs. But they are incredibly versatile. Egg drop soup. Huevos rancheros. Spaghetti alla carbonara. Burgers with a fried egg on top. Plus, they are inexpensive even when buying the best right off the farm (re: I'm cheap), offer plenty of protein and some satiating fat (re: I'm hungry), and are easy-peasy to make (re: I'm lazy). So as a cheap, hungry, lazy person, yes, I love me some eggs. But no egg white omelets please - for me, that's a pointless waste of a perfectly good yolk, and really, yolks are delicious. I guess that makes me a cheap, hungry, lazy person with a discriminating palate?

How do we end up eating so many eggs? We often have a jar of pickled eggs in the fridge. Hard-boiled eggs are an easy snack for Ben. About once a week we're eating eggs for dinner, whether as a frittata or scrambled with rice and spinach, or fried to top off a big bowl of stir-fry. Even on weekdays I'll occasionally make eggs-in-a-frame for breakfast, and for lunch I often crave egg salad.

I've made egg salad so many times that I no longer reference a recipe for it. I rely on my egg salad instinct, and it's always a little different based on what I have on hand. For the record, here's my basic egg salad recipe. Lately I've preferred fresh lemon juice over vinegar, but sometimes I'll use vinegar instead. Sometimes I leave out the mustard, or use a different type of mustard. Sometimes I add a tiny pinch of sugar. Sometimes I may skip the vinegar and chop in pickles instead. Sometimes I'm feeling the need to add a little garlic. Sometimes I want some crunch and add celery. 

Egg salad: an artist's canvas. 

A Simple Egg Salad

My two favorite egg salad recipes come from Better Homes & Gardens Cookbook and Super Natural Every Day. I think of this as a mash-up of the two, with lots of potential for variation. 

4 hard-boiled eggs, peeled and roughly chopped

2 Tbls. mayo, plain yogurt, veganaise or a mixture of those (for me, a little mayo and a little yogurt mixed together is perfect)

1 Tbls. chopped chives or scallions

A squeeze of lemon juice or a splash of white vinegar 

Salt and freshly ground pepper

Other optional add-ins: chopped celery, chopped pickles, about 1 tsp. mustard, a small pinch of sugar, a small amount of crushed garlic (or a touch of the garlic juice that you find in jars of pre-chopped garlic)

Combine the mayo, lemon juice, chives, and pinch of salt and freshly ground pepper. Add in chopped eggs and stir with fork, mashing the eggs as you go to desired consistency. Taste and add more seasoning or mayo as needed. Serve on toast or with Wasa crackers. 

Tuna (or Walleye) Noodle Casserole

Out on the porch on an unseasonably warm spring evening, eating casserole.  It doesn't get more Midwestern than this.

We spent the weekend building new garden beds. A trip to Menards for lumber and peat moss, a trip to my parents' house to borrow the trailer, a trip to the landfill for a massive amount of black dirt for $5 - the definition of dirt cheap, it appears - and finally planting on Sunday. The peas, carrots, cabbage, beets, butternut squash, spinach, chard, kale, lettuce, turnips, and kohlrabi are all nestled in their garden beds.  The cucumbers, tomatoes, basil, rosemary, sage, sugar pumpkins, jack-o-lantern pumpkins, corn, and sunflowers will be planted soon. I still need to transplant our raspberries and rhubarb. 

Oh, and our CSA share will be starting soon too.

It's a lot of fruit and veg for our small family. But I can't help myself - spring is a time of optimism and hope. I want sunflowers towering in a sunny greeting to me and my neighbors every morning, and fresh lettuce in the salad bowl every evening. I want a freezer stocked with pesto and a cupboard full of pickles. I have visions of a pantry lined with jars of homemade salsa and sauerkraut, carrots and squash stored away for winter, pumpkin seeds toasting in the oven, rosemary scenting the sauce of autumn's first pheasant. 

Entrusting that the miracles of the earth will provide once again this year, those tiny seeds harnessing the sun, water and soil to fulfill their vegetable destiny, the bounty of summer will be upon us soon.  However, for the moment, with the brown dirt of our garden beds quiet and bare for the moment, I dig in the pantry and freezer and make casserole with what we have on hand, knowing that an abundance of garden freshness is just around the corner. 

Tuna (or Walleye) Noodle Casserole

Adapted from January 2013 Food & Wine Magazine. I love casserole, the classic throw-everything-in-and-bake-it-until-bubbly dish, and this is a quality recipe, with a béchamel base and toasty buttery breadcrumbs on top. Instead of tuna, I subbed in our canned walleye, but as I've never met anyone outside my family tree with canned walleye, you can go ahead and use tuna. If you need to impress your friends with your tuna noodle casserole, just call it cassoulet - but then again, if you need to impress your friends, I kindly suggest you find new friends. 

12 ounces rotini pasta

4 Tbls. butter

1 medium onion, finely chopped

2 Tbls. all-purpose flour

3 cups whole milk or half-and-half

1 and 1/2 cups frozen peas

3/4 cup piquillo peppers, sliced (look for them near the roasted red peppers in the pickle aisle)

1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

One 6-ounce can solid white tuna in oil, drained and flaked

Salt and freshly ground pepper

1/2 cup breadcrumbs

Preheat the oven to 450°. Cook the pasta in a large pot of boiling salted water until al dente. Drain.

Meanwhile, in a Dutch oven or other oven-safe pot, melt 3 tablespoons of the butter. Add the onion and cook over high heat, stirring, until softened, about 3 minutes. Add the flour and cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Add the milk and bring to a boil. Cook the sauce over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, until thickened, about 3 minutes.

Add the pasta, peas, sliced piquillo peppers, Parmesan cheese and tuna and season with salt and pepper; mix together.

In a small skillet, melt the remaining 1 tablespoon of butter. Add the breadcrumbs and cook over moderate heat, stirring, until golden, about 1 minute. Sprinkle the crumbs over the casserole and bake for 10 minutes or until bubbling. Serve right away.

No Hungry Kids - a Fundraiser Follow-Up

I have a fear of asking people for money. I didn't realize it until I started this fundraiser for Great Plains Food Bank. When it came to fundraising, my usual m.o. was to write out a check and call it done. Or buy food. I'm a sucker for Girl Scout cookies, Boy Scout popcorn, and the Pizza Corner frozen pizzas that NoDak students sell for fundraisers.

However, I asked you to donate to a worthy cause, and I didn't even have any cookies to sell you. I just made my case for one of my favorite charities the only way I knew how - by blogging. I was nervous about it. I'd never asked you to do anything other than maybe try a divine rhubarb crisp recipe, and I was unsure of what would happen, if I'd even make my simple goal to raise $300 in donations.

To my astonishment, many of you opened your hearts (and your pockets) and gave whatever you could. $5 here, $20 there, but every dollar you donated along with the fundraising efforts of my friend Petra added up to big dollars. $1,677 to be exact, demolishing my small $300 goal.

Petra and I present a check for $1,677 to Renee and Mike of Great Plains Food Bank

I was astounded. I was excited. And yeah, maybe I cried.

I understand that $1,677 isn't a cure-all, but it's part of the solution to fine-tune our food distribution system to ensure there is not one child waking up this morning wondering where they will find food today, perhaps sitting distractedly in a classroom waiting for their only meal at school lunch. If nothing else, this experience reminded me of a simple truth: we are stronger together than apart. Like the fibers of a rope, bees in a hive or musicians in a symphony, our influence and power to do good, affect change and become the best we can be grows exponentially when we connect with others, participate in our communities, actively support one another and cheer each other on to pursue our passions.

It's all part of living a meaningful life, and I sincerely thank you for reminding me of that.

PS - for more information on hunger in America, check out the documentary A Place At The Table. Screenings are happening all across the US now.

Three Days, $300 to Stop Hunger in North Dakota

After five years of blogging in this little space, I'm still constantly amazed by our bounty. The overflowing gardens that are a mainstay in our communities. The streams and fields burgeoning with fish and game. The endless multi-colored fields of flax, wheat and corn. The cattle grazing behind barbed wire fences along every rural highway and byway. The fully stocked supermarket shelves with variety that astounds.

Yet, people go hungry. 

Last year I had the opportunity to listen to the director of the Great Plains Food Bank talk about hunger in North Dakota. It was an eye-opener.

- 1 in 11 North Dakotans don't get enough to eat. 40% of those people are children.

- Food pantries originally designed for emergency food supplies are now supplementing the diets of our low-income population on an ongoing basis.

- An aging population brings an increased risk of food insecurity for the elderly. 

It's time to help, and here's my idea. If you donate to Great Plains Food Bank over the next three days through May 1, I'll match it. Thanks to the Center of Technology and Business Women's Leadership Program and my own personal funds, I'll match your donation, up to $300 accumulative total, and my goal is to use every dollar of that to match yours. Together, we'd raise $600.

$1 = 4 meals.

$600 = 2,400 meals. 

To donate, click here and in the donation form in the company match line, enter "Rhubarb" to get the match. That's it. Every dollar helps!

The Great Plains Food Bank is pretty awesome. Based in Fargo, they have developed a logistical system in cooperation with local supermarkets that collects food that would've otherwise been wasted and redistributes it across the state. This includes perishables like fruits and vegetables. Last year, they distributed 11 MILLION pounds of food around the state, stocking pantries in both cities and rural areas. 

I've think of a teacher friend right here in Bismarck, who tells me of children in her class who only get meals at school (in shoes and pants that are too small for them, asking to take off their shoes because their feet hurt), and the internal crisis she felt when their school's weekend Backpacks for Kids food supply program was discontinued. 

I think of my grandpa, who was grateful for Meals on Wheels and would only eat half of the modest meal for lunch, saving the other half for dinner, and wonder how many other elderly depend on food services for their daily bread. 

I think of the food pantry across the street from an office I used to work at, watching the Great Plains Food Bank truck pull up and bring not only canned goods, but fresh produce - lettuce, apples, carrots - week after week.  Occasionally I would notice the people walking in. I'll admit I thought people with food insecurity would be visibly hungry, skinny and weak. But I've learned that our hunger issues are more subtle, quiet, hidden, but always just underneath the surface. Single mothers may have enough food to get them through the first three weeks of the month, but run out of cash that last week with their rent due soon. Children may have food resources on the weekdays, but not the weekends. Elderly can get a meal at their community center, but may have empty cupboards at home.

We can help. 30 people donating $10 and we're there! 

To donate, click here and in the donation form in the company match line, enter "Rhubarb" to get the match through May 1. 

And thank you, thank you, thank you.

Easy Eggs Benedict

This is the moment you want to be in North Dakota.

We've been cooped up for six months, bundled under thermals, sweaters, coats, scarves, hats, gloves, and often big bulky snow boots, just our pink noses poking out, scurrying from our pre-warmed-with-car-starter vehicles to the nearest heated office building before going home to our heated garage and sitting by our gas fireplaces, complaining that, OMG, it is so freaking cold out. And let's not talk about all the mornings that started with an involuntary shoveling workout, mm-k?



But now, right now, is our moment of exhilaration, our moment of glory as the wonders of a North Dakota spring/summer begin. The thermometer says 72 degrees. The snow banks have been reduced to small slushy piles on the curbs. The birds - oh the birds! - they shatter winter's icy silence with their pretty little chirps, startling you with their song that you didn't realize you missed so much until now.

Of course, everyone is outside. People cancel their gym memberships and Netflix subscriptions because, well, who goes to the gym or stays in and watches movies in the summer? However, we don't just sit outside or stroll. We find projects. We build garden boxes. We wash windows. We walk the dog. I came home yesterday and found my husband in the driveway, building some contraption that might have been a goose blind or his attempt at a homemade camp cot, I'm not sure which, but it was his way of being outside on a perfect spring evening.

With spring comes rhubarb, strawberries, chives, fresh eggs, and of course, asparagus. This morning, while the birds chirped through my open kitchen window - yes, finally, throw open the windows! - I made these easy eggs Benedict with pile of asparagus, took a luscious bite, and officially welcomed spring and all its wonder.

Easy Eggs Benedict
This serves two (well, two plus a toddler of us), so size up accordingly for your family. Adapted from Family Circle magazine.

2 English muffins, toasted and buttered
4 eggs, plus 1 yolk
8 oz. asparagus, trimmed
Fresh lemon juice
Kosher salt or sea salt
Small pinch cayenne pepper
2 Tbls. butter
Chopped parsley

Fill a large flat-bottomed pot or pan with about 2" of water. Bring to a boil. Add asparagus and cook up to 2 mins, until crisp tender (don't overcook!). Remove asparagus with a slotted spoon, toss with 1 tsp. lemon juice, sprinkle lightly with salt, and set aside.

In the same pot with the same water, reduce heat to a simmer. Crack the four eggs and gently let them slip into the water one by one. Poach eggs 3-4 mins or until whites are set (yolks will still be somewhat runny). Remove with slotted spoon to a paper towel-lined plate.

While eggs are cooking, place egg yolk, 1 tsp. lemon juice, and a sprinkle of salt and cayenne in a blender; process until combined. Melt butter in a cup; let cool slightly, then slowly stream melted butter into blender while running; the hollandaise sauce should thicken immediately.

To serve, place two toasted and buttered English muffin halves on a plate, top each muffin half with a poached egg, sprinkle a little salt on each egg, drizzle with hollandaise sauce, sprinkle with parsley and serve with asparagus on the side.