Tag Archive: Figs

1. Full

   September 10, 2012 8:01 am 41 Comments

   

   We’re scraping together some semblances of rhythm and routine around these parts. Week to week, there is almost nothing that resembles our old life in San Diego let alone the day we cut a check for the new lease. I just rolled the dice in June and haven’t stopped throwing them up to the sky since. There have been a few Sunday mornings reading the Times, cutting out articles that inspire over a hearty breakfast and a few cups of coffee, but haven’t exactly found that same sort of grounding consistency of days past that puts our souls at ease. No complaints, none at all. Just an observation. All summer long we’ve bounced around the country and this new place rounding up jobs and memories. Not busy, just full. I might be maxing out on stimulation here, the months of activity and new-ness since our move is starting to catch up with me I think. I feel it in my knees. I see it under my eyes. I anticipate (I hope) that when Autumn arrives at the end of the month we will have found or created some balance for our weeks.

   There was time for a bit of cake this weekend. Oh, and a glacier. That was nice.

   And so were your comments from the last post. Boy, just floating on all that love and good energy. Thanks guys.

   
   Almond Bundt

   • 2 cups Gluten Free or AP Flour
   • 1 cup Almond Meal
   • 3 tsp baking powder
   • 1 tsp cinnamon
   • pinch of salt
   • 6 eggs
   • 1 1/2 cups sucunat sugar
   • 1 cup melted, lukewarm coconut oil
   • 1 tsp vanilla extract
   • 1/2 tsp almond extract
   • 1 cup canned light coconut milk
   • 2 baskets green figs

   Frosting(s) 

   • 2 cups cream cheese
   • 1 cup powdered sugar
   • 1 tsp vanilla
   • juice of 2-3 lemons

   dairy free option 

   • 2 cups soaked cashews
   • 1/2 + cup coconut milk
   • 1 tsp vanilla
   • 1 drop almond extract
   • 1/2 cup brown rice syrup or Grade B maple syrup
   • juice of one lemon

   

   Directions

   Preheat oven to 350′ F. In a medium bowl combine flour, almond meal, baking powder, cinnamon, a salt. Set aside. In a large bowl, lightly beat 6 eggs until just broken up. Add sugar, coconut oil, vanilla, almond extract, and coconut milk one item at a time, mixing lightly between each addition, until combined. Fold in flour mixture to liquid one cup at a time, stirring lightly until just blended. Grease bundt pan with coconut oil or butter, dusting with flour to coat and prevent sticking. Pour in batter slowly and distribute evenly. Bake for 45-55 minutes until it passes the toothpick test. Let the cake cool for 30 minutes before trying to remove. TRUST.

   Cut fresh figs in quarters or halves, toss with sugar. Set aside.

   For the cream cheese frosting, beat blocks of cream cheese in a stand mixer for 2-3 minutes. As it begins to smooth out, add powdered sugar (I make my own in my blender using turbinado sugar), vanilla, and lemon juice. Beat together. Taste. Does it need more lemon? More sugar? Adjust to taste. If you’d like to achieve the drippy look on the bundt cake, add a bit of coconut milk or water to thin.

   Cashew frosting: use this technique, but add vanilla, almond extract, maple syrup while blending or after straining.

   Pour frosting into a piping bag, or, as I did, into a large ziploc bag with a hole cut in the corner. Drizzle generously over the bundt. Top with sugared figs.

   

2. Seeking

   September 10, 2011 7:42 am 22 Comments

   

   I should start thinking up some creative responses to the question I’ve been getting lately, “what are your plans for the future?” It would be so liberating to ditch the glossy answer and say something unexpected  like “I want to be a good friend,” or “I’d like to learn to play the guitar.” Although a few years ago I would have had told you exactly what I’d be doing after I graduate, today the plans are looking a lot more fluid. And to be honest, I kinda like it.  I’m a seeker; a person who is in a constant state of inquiry and exploration of self and the world around me. My formal education will end soon but the search won’t stop when I have a fancy diploma to hang on the wall. I’ll find something good that may lead to something else that’s good, leaving myself open to new plans, places, and people. Maybe I should tell people my plans are “to keep seeking.” 

   Everyone is a seeker in his or her own way, I think. We are concerned about understanding people, place, time, experience and will exert at least some degree of effort trying to develop that understanding further. We seek truth, in many different forms – greater truth, simple truth, and other truths individual to our unique human experience. In the process, we are constantly absorbing ideas, information, and energy to process, accept, reject, or reconsider later. Seeking is both incredibly exciting and exhausting. Throughout the course of our lives, we will find ourselves confident in and frustrated with the vast amounts of input we try so hard to process.

   I’ll try and get to the point. For most seekers, the more we begin to see of the world and the more information and experiences we collect in the pursuit of truth, the more we realize just how little of a clue we have at all about what “it all” means. If this sounds cryptic, it’s not meant to be.  I guess I’m just trying to elaborate on that catchy chorus of that Michael Franti radio hit “it seems like everywhere I go / the more I see / the less I know.” We seek to seek. To learn, grow, change habits, try new things. We don’t shouldn’t seek just to find answers. There are no concrete answers. Unless you’re into math I guess. Insight comes in waves and the sets roll in larger at some points in our lives than others. The “answers” are glimmers, flashes, and wonderings that are arrive then disappear for us to find again later.

   We’re not supposed to get “it.” And this time I’m being deliberately vague. “It” is the different thing we each seek from our unique view of the world at a single moment. If there were an instructional manual to seeking, I would say this should be the first order of business to address. You won’t always understand, and that’s okay. Second order of business then is to not be afraid. Don’t be afraid of the things you don’t understand. This is true for all things, be they about the future, health, relationships, culture, religion, etc. It is our animal instinct to resist the things that we aren’t familiar with. Fight that. Fight it with every fiber of your being. I’m not talking about intuition. Keep that flame a’glowin’ but try hard to embrace those things you don’t understand, seek them more, for it is in these areas that we resist that we most likely still need to develop our purpose.

   Let’s keep seeking.

   

   Warm Green Millet Salad 

   Inspired by Yotam Ottolenghi’s Green Couscous in Plenty. (He is basically a genius)

   • 1 cup millet  (or couscous)
   • 3 cups vegetable stock
   • 1 large sweet onion, thinly sliced
   • 1 tbsp olive oil
   • 1/4 tsp salt
   • 1 tsp cumin
   • 1 cup shelled pistachios, chopped
   • 1 carton green figs
   • 4-5 cups baby arugula

   • 1 head italian parsley
   • 1 head cilantro
   • 1/4 cup tarragon
   • 1/4 cup mint
   • 1/4 + cup olive oil

   Place the millet in a saucepan with the vegetable stock and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover, and let simmer for about 30 minutes. Meanwhile, fry the onion in olive oil on medium heat until golden and soft. Add the salt and cumin, mix well, and move around the onions over high heat until just browned. Set aside.

   For the “green” part of this dish, prepare the herb paste by placing all four herb greens and the olive oil into a food processor and blitz until smooth. Add this to the cooked millet, and mix together well with a fork to fluff it up. Add the cooked onion, pistachios, figs, and arugula and mix until consistent. Add a little salt and pepper to taste. Serve slightly warm or at room temperature.

   

3. Fig and Anise Seed Bread

   June 24, 2011 3:42 pm 14 Comments

   “The smell of good bread baking, like the sound of lightly flowing water, is indescribable in its evocation of innocence and delight… [Breadmaking is] one of those almost hypnotic businesses, like a dance from some ancient ceremony. It leaves you filled with one of the world’s sweetest smells… there is no chiropractic treatment, no Yoga exercise, no hour of meditation in a music-throbbing chapel, that will leave you emptier of bad thoughts than this homely ceremony of making bread.”  — M.F.K. Fisher (The Art of Eating)

   For a girl whose happiness owes a great deal to the likes of yoga, games of rummy over coffee, and a good concert; I find myself starting a lot of these posts peddling the benefits of meditation by cooking and baking. There really is something uniquely therapeutic and recharging about directing our thoughts and energy to the instructions of a recipe. Washing, mincing, shucking, stirring… suddenly, we’ll have realized we’re breathing again. Ms. Fisher says it beautifully of bread-baking in particular; how the business of measuring, kneading, and letting rest can help us slow down, pay attention, and actually wait for good things to unfold.

   Waiting. What a concept. How often do we really have to wait for anything, anymore? Many have labeled ours the generation of instant gratification; and although Shaun and I would like to think ourselves excluded from the categorization, we do fall into the trenches of haste from time to time.

   You can’t rush bread. Measuring. Kneading. Resting. Rising. Second rise. Baking. There aren’t any shortcuts or many special tricks, there are just a few simple ingredients, and time.

   Successful loaves, I realized during the process, are like successful relationships. They can be attributed to attentiveness, patience, and our full presence – the trifecta of mindfulness. Don’t rush the process, don’t try to force it be something it doesn’t want to be, keep it simple, and savor the hard work. Give it some TLC and you’ll feel so proud that you didn’t take the easy way out (as in, buying it from the supermarket). Start a relationship with bread-making and you’ll start to understand more about your own, I guess.

   This bread is well worth the wait. Inspired by a variety we’ve always loved from a local vendor at the Farmers Market, it’s sweet, savory, and will disappear right before your eyes. Fresh figs are just starting to arrive at the markets, but dried ones will turn out just as swell.

   Fig and Anise Seed Bread, built from Best French Bread by Mark Bittman in How to Cook Everything

   • 3 1/2 cups organic bread flour
   • 2 teaspoons salt
   • 1 teaspoon rapid-rise yeast
   • Scant 1 1/2 cups water
   • 1 1/2 tablespoons anise seed
   • 1 cup chopped black mission figs (I use dried)

   In the bucket of a food processor with the steel blade attachement, add the flour, salt, and yeast and process for 5-10 seconds. While the machine runs, pour the water through the feed tube and mix for 30 seconds to a minute, or until the mixture becomes a sticky ball. Add a teaspoon or two of water if it seems too dry. Scoop the sticky ball out of the container,and as Mark says “dump” into a large bowl. Add the anise seed and chopped figs, and knead together until well spread throughout the dough. Shape into a ball. Cover with a clean towel and let sit for 3 hours. Wait. Patience.

   Sprinkle a clean work surface with flour and give the mound a second light knead, and back to a ball. Pinch together the seam that forms at the bottom of the ball. Place a clean kitchen towel in a colander and sprinkle well with flour. Place the dough ball, seam side up, in the towel and sprinkle with more flour. Fold over the towel, and let sit for another 3-6 hours. Wait. Patience.

   Preheat the oven to 450′ with a baking stone on the bottom shelf. When the oven comes to temperature, remove the ball from the colander and slash the top with a sharp knife. Be vigorous about it, it takes a bit to break the gluten. Transfer to the baking stone. Bake for 30(ish) minutes. Remove and let cool on a wire rack. 

4. Oats, meet Figs

   July 14, 2010 4:27 pm Leave a Comment

   I didn’t know how much I loved figs until I impulsively bought a pound of them at the farmers market on Sunday. Figs have made friends with a lot of other ingredients since then, but oats and figs bonded more than the rest. This cookie recipe is healthy, delicious, and a perfect mid-day pick me up. They remind me a little of the classic “Fig Newton” that we all grew up on, but are considerably more sophisticated and wholesome. I snagged the ingredient list of the original “Fig Newton” straight from the Nabisco website:

   Enriched Flour (Wheat flour, Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamine Mononitrate {Vitamin B1}Riboflavin {Vitamin B2}Folic Acid)Figs Preserved with Sulfur Dioxide, Corn Syrup, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Sugar, Soybean Oil, Whey (from Milk) Partially Hydrogenated Cottonseed Oil (Adds a Trivial Amount of Saturated Fat)Salt, Baking Soda, Calcium Lactate, Malic Acid, Soy Lecithin (Emulsifier)Potassium Sorbate Added to Preserve Freshness, Artifical Flavor.

   Let’s get rid of the nasty, and focus on the beautiful and delicate fruit of the season. These are so easy to make, please do, and enjoy!

   • 2/3 cups Real Maple Syrup or Brown Rice Syrup
   • 1/4 cup Olive oil
   • 2 teaspoons Vanilla extract
   • 1 1/2 cup Kamut Flour (or any other gluten free flour of choice)
   • 1 cup Rolled oats
   • 1/4 cup Chia seeds
   • 1/4 teaspoon Baking soda
   • 1 teaspoon Cinnamon
   • 1 teaspoon Nutmeg
   • 1 pinch salt
   • 1 splash Almond Milk
   • 6 Raw figs, halved

   Directions:

   1. Mix olive oil, syrup, and vanilla together in a large bowl
   2. In a separate bowl, combine flour, oats, spices, seeds, and salt.
   3. Slowly combine dry ingredients to wet ingredients, the mixture will be on the drier side. Add just a little almond milk.
   4. Let mixture set for 10-15 min while you preheat the oven to 350 and cut the fresh figs in half.
   5. Roll out dough into 12 medium sized balls and press gently to flatten a bit. Set figs atop the cookie platform, sprinkle with a little cinnamon-sugar and bake for 12-14 minutes.
   6. Enjoy and be grateful for this beautiful life!