for the love of lobster

It’s my agave’s week to cook, so I can just sit back & relax as the food comes to me!  But after seeing this savory quick bread recipe referenced on the Vegan Mofo Roundup, I just couldn’t stay away from the kitchen today.

I don’t usually refer to recipes, and when I do it’s often just for inspiration. I tend to cook on the fly and jot my own procedure down for later rumination, however; when it comes to baking, I lack the confidence to play. I always follow the recipe. I don’t substitute. I don’t guess on measurements. I just stick to the finely-made plan — until today.

You see, I’ve been holding on to some teff flour for awhile now. For those who aren’t familiar with it, teff is a gluten-free super-grain that’s jam-packed with protein, calcium, potassium & iron.  It also has a deliciously distinct  flavor and is most commonly recognized in injera, that sticky-yummy-flat-fermented “bubble bread” found in Ethiopian cuisine.

I didn’t want to make injera, though. It’s widely available here due to Minneapolis’ sizable Ethiopian refugee population.  Off-hand I can name 3 African bakeries nearby that offer fresh injera daily, not to mention the coops & markets that distribute it.

So. Why not use this super-grain to make the quick bread?

Now, I didn’t change the recipe all that much, but since I don’t quite understand the chemistry of using gluten-free flour (or of quick bread itself, for that matter), I wasn’t sure what would happen. Luckily the results have delighted us. We ate half of the loaf immediately with our split pea soup (thanks for the soup, agave!), and I can’t wait to have more for breakfast.  Hooray!

I have riffed off the original bread recipe, in my own words, below. I hope you try it some time!

Teff Quick Bread

Implements:

• oven
• food processor
• baking/loaf pan (Mine was 5x9x3)
• measuring implements

Ingredients:

• 1 c teff flour
• 2 c all purpose flour
• 1 T baking powder
• 1/2 t sea salt + some to sprinkle on top
• 1/3 c olive oil
• 1 c + a several tablespoons warm water
• Earth Balance

Procedure:

• Preheat your oven to 375F.
• Grease a bread pan with Earth Balance (or similar vegan margarine)
• Mix the dry ingredients in your food processor. Then slowly add the oil & 1 cup water while still mixing. Let it run for awhile - the goal is to have it form into a dough ball. Add more water bit by bit until it does that!* The transformation will be obvious.
• Press dough ball into the greased pan. Flip dough over & press into it again.
• Cover with foil & bake for 20 minutes.
• Remove the foil, sprinkle with sea salt & bake for 20 more minutes.

*I had to add a lot more water than the original recipe called for in order for the ball to form (I didn’t count - but probably several tablespoons). This is probably due to the fact that high-protein flours like teff absorb more water than low-protein flours.

Wanna Shake it up?

• Let’s use 100% teff flour & make it super-potent and completely gluten-free! I anticipate needing a lot more water - maybe I should research baking with teff. If you try this, let me know how it goes!
  

This is going to be my longest post, I suspect. But it is the foundation for everything to come. So, sit back, relax, and enjoy.

I’ve spent Xmas Eve every year of my life at Grandma Ruby’s house.

Grandma Ruby lives in a classic 1940s home in a modest suburb of Minneapolis. The best way to describe her? A no-nonsense, farm-raised, divorced Swedish Athiest. Kind. Live & let live. Born in 1915 she was an independent woman ahead of her time, making her own living as a seamstress for 7 decades. Xmas Eve supper wasone of the few cultural/religious traditions Grandma Ruby upheld, I think, for the ‘sake of the kids.’ Dala horses and Christmas plates adorned the dining room table. The adults drank Asti Spumante or apricot brandy. We all cracked nuts and jokes until dinner was near.

My first memory of this annual event dates back to 1982. Tiny me, at just the preschool age when I started to assert my independence. ‘I can do it myself’ was my mantra, and I exhibited this by completing the very important daily tasks of dressing myself in corduroy ‘snickers’ and combing my hair into pigtails ‘with no lumps’ aided by barrettes that boasted my name between hearts. Perhaps I take after Grandma Ruby in both stubbornness and my affinity for fashion.

When we arrived at Grandma’s house that year we were met by a surprise just inside the door.  On the floor of the cramped kitchen there were several magical creatures confined in a few large, old-fashioned, speckled drums.  The creatures had hard bodies, fans at the end of their tails, and funny jointed legs that scraped against the metal drums as they tried fruitlessly to move. And their long antennae tickled our hands when we reached out to touch them. What joy! I had never seen anything like this!

“Go on down to the basement to play” we were told. Looking back, it was just an innocent ploy to keep us busy for awhile until it was time for supper. Grandma Ruby surely meant no harm.

We left the adults upstairs for the usual nut cracking & hors d’oeuvres and toddled down carefully to the  basement, followed by Grandma Ruby with the drums full of creatures.  She left us alone in our wonderful world of discovery, with ample room to play with our new friends. I don’t really know how long we were down there, but every moment was bliss.  We let the creatures out of their confines and together we explored the expanses of the cement floored underground world. My brother, 2 years older and more knowledgeable in the world of crustaceans, even eased the rubber bands off the claw of one of the amazing creatures, just to demonstrate how they worked. Snap! Clap! Squeal!

At some point we were lured back upstairs with the promise of food and presents.  We said good night to our new dear friends, and headed up to join the rest of the family.

Fast forward 20 minutes or so.  We all washed up for supper and were seated at the dining room table - all of us made only 8. In front of each place setting were cracking-tools and mini excavation picks. Tiny bowls of melted butter. And plastic bibs with happy, smiling, portraits of our new friends! And then, before we had a chance to say the L-word, the horror began.

Two by two, Grandma Ruby carried a procession of our magical friends up from the basement. Auntie licked her lips and prepared her tools. Dad got his butter closer for dipping. And everyone put on bibs (why were adults wearing bibs?!)! Grandma Ruby didn’t sit down at the head of the table until we each had a ‘friend’ placed in front of us, even tiny me. Where were the rubber binders to keep them from pinching us? Don’t they know that we could get hurt? But there was no movement; No magic, except for the chemistry of the boiling water that had turned our friends completely orange. Crack! The dinner-table mass autopsy began.

At that moment, my brother and I started screaming. Not crying, I am told, but SCREAMING!  My mother took us to the back bedroom, where she sat trying to calm us down for the entire duration of supper.  By the time she returned to the dining room, she says, all that was left was a pile of scavenged carcasses in the middle of the table. Broken shells. Cracked open, empty tails. They had not even saved her one bite to eat. No lobster for her that year, and I suspect, no midnight Mass, either. One hungry, exhausted, good-deed-doing Catholic vs. 5 full, fleshy Swedes. She didn’t stand a chance.

I don’t remember what happened with pie or presents that night. I am sure we went home exhausted and hungry. The surprises left by Santa Claus the next morning probably consoled us for the day, but the Xmas Eve nightmare lasted. I was scarred. Disappointed. And for the first time I made a decision, asserted my independence, in a way larger than what to wear or how to comb my hair. I began my journey.  7 years later, at age 10, I was completely vegetarian, and I never turned back. Sometime after college I became completely herbivorous. My brother, by the way, was not scarred quite as deeply. He’s an animal-lover, but a “compassionate omnivore.”

The menu for Xmas Eve has never changed, despite that scene in 1982. I have found ways to manage by bringing my own meal or scheduling my arrival after the remains of supper have been cleared away.  But I have to honor Grandma Ruby’s tradition. Lobster was not the average choice for a land-locked suburban home in the middle of winter. But Grandma Ruby is not your average woman.  I’m happy to report that she is still alive & well at 95, just 6 years into her retirement.  And, I have her to thank for my love of lobster & my life as an herbivore.