The Creative Process

In my own creative endeavors in the kitchen I've identified several distinct steps that I go through. The steps vary slightly depending on what sparks the creative fires, but I will describe the most useful process. I go through this process on an almost daily basis.

First identify the type of food you want, and/or identify the ingredients you want to use. For example, this morning I woke up and decided I wanted muffins for breakfast. I had some ripe bananas just screaming, "Use me! Use me!" So, I decided on banana muffins. I have not yet perfected an eggless banana muffin, so I would need to create one.

The second step is to find or think of a recipe that is similar to what you want. In my muffin example, I had already found a good eggless applesauce muffin recipe. This step can be the most time consuming or the simplest, depending on what you're trying to do. I would highly recommend allrecipes.com for help with this step. They have a search engine that lets you identify up to 4 ingredients you want to use and up to 4 ingredients you don't want along with keywords to search for. This lets you look for recipes that already exist that might fit your criteria.

The next step is to identify what changes need to be made to fit what you want. Let's go back to the muffin example. My applesauce muffin recipe calls for 1 cup of applesauce. I knew that applesauce has more liquid than banana, so a straight substitution would not work. I also knew that I didn't have an entire cup's worth of banana. I decided I would make the recipe using the banana I had and then, if it needed more liquid, I could add it at the end.

I followed that plan for the banana muffins and ended up having to add about 1/2 cup of rice milk. I didn't measure it, so I'm not sure of the exact amount. They turned out pretty good. Here's a picture.



This was all that was left by the time I got out the camera. These are whole wheat, eggless banana muffins. I won't post the recipe this time, because it's still a work in progress. They were a little too dense.

The last step is actually the most important step, because it's the basis of future experimentation. Taste what you made. Decide if it's good or not. Does it meet your expectations? Does it have enough flavor? Is the texture right? Try to identify ways that you might be able to improve the recipe, even if it's good. If you want to improve on it later, make sure you write down what you did, so you don't make the same mistake twice.

Going back to the muffin example, I made the comment that the muffins were too dense. This could be a result of not enough liquid or not enough baking powder. They may also have been cooked too long. Before I put them in the muffin tin, the batter was barely moist, so that was probably my mistake. So next time I try this recipe I will add enough rice milk to make the batter slightly thinner. I will need to make sure that I don't add too much milk, though, because then they will not cook all the way through. This is usually the problem I have with eggless muffins.

As you become more proficient with this process, you will get more enjoyment out of cooking. You will be more versatile in what you cook and you will have to make fewer last minute trips to the grocery store. You will enjoy the creative process and enjoy your food.

Eggs: Love 'Em or Leave 'Em

Eggs are one of the most amazing ingredients. For one thing, they are an emulsifier, which means they make it possible for oil and water to combine. This may not sound like a big deal, but it's the difference between mayonnaise and vinaigrette dressing. I once found a recipe for a vegan cake (no eggs) and it was really good, but because of the lack of eggs, it had a greasy feel and taste, and it left grease spots on the paper towels I placed it on.

Eggs also have the interesting property of solidifying when hot. That may sound normal, but stop and think about how many recipes you have made that are liquid or semi-liquid before being heated and are solid or even dry when cooked: pancakes, muffins, banana bread, custard. How many of them use eggs to accomplish this?

Eggs also add protein to many dishes that would otherwise be primarily carbohydrate. This makes them more filling and satisfying. It also slows down the rise in blood sugar after eating them.

With all the amazing things that eggs do in recipes, what do you do if you have to cut them out of your diet? The answer to that lies is why you're cutting them out.

If you are trying to cut down on cholesterol or fat, it's really quite easy. Egg whites have all the baking properties of whole eggs. Just use 2 egg whites for every egg called for in a recipe. The only exception to this rule is in recipes that depend on the fat in egg yolks, such as soft cookies and brownies. It will still work, but the finished product will be more dry. You can even make low-fat scrambled eggs by combining 3 egg whites and 1 whole egg. Add a little mozzarella and some mushrooms and onions and serve with toast and jam for a delicious, healthful breakfast.

If you find eggs are hard to digest, try just the yolks. The yolks have a higher fat concentration, but they are also easier to digest. In any recipe you can use 2 egg yolks for 1 whole egg. I've never seen this fail in any recipe.

If you want to (or have to) eliminate them completely, you have a much more difficult struggle. There are other ingredients that can act as an emulsifier, but there is nothing that has quite the solidifying power of an egg. Here are a few suggestions though. For more information or more options, I've found this website to be very useful. http://www.egglesscooking.com/egg-replacements/

Before trying any major cooking change, make sure you are fed well from the foods you can eat. Cooking with new ingredients and making modifications to recipes always comes with a bit of trial and a lot of error. Make sure when you go to make a new recipe that it's not something you are craving and you are not hungry. That way if it doesn't turn out it won't an emotional disaster, just a failed experiment.

The first option I tried was Ener-G egg replacer. I hated it. I seldom had any recipe turn out like I wanted. I later found out my mistakes and have had moderate success with it since. Keep in mind that package directions call for measuring it packed. I usually use just a bit more than what's actually called for just to be on the safe side. Also, it's very important to mix the powder with water BEFORE adding it to your recipe. Whisk it with a whisk or fork until it begins to thicken and froth up like egg whites. When you keep these things in mind it works pretty good almost all the time.

I didn't like the egg replacer very much at first so I went on a search for other options. The two that I like the most are mashed banana and applesauce. These work great in muffins and sweet breads, two of the things I was missing the most. You need 1/4 to 1/3 cup of either to replace one egg. Keep in mind that if you use banana, your final product will taste like banana. Applesauce has a more neutral flavor and is great in anything sweet, but you may need to decrease the other liquids to get the right consistency.

Eggs are just so fascinating. They have been the most difficult of my own allergies to deal with. Milk is so easy, because rice milk and MimiCreme work so well, and once I cut out most processed food, soy just kind of dropped out. But eggs were in everything I wanted to make. I still struggle with cooking without them sometimes, and create some of the most spectacular flops. :) But since I always learn from my mistakes, I still enjoy the creative process and enjoy your food.

Refried Bean Quesadillas

In January of 2009, I was told that I was allergic to milk protein. I didn't mind not being able to use milk itself. I never liked it anyway, and rice milk works great in cooking. There's also a great substitute for cream called MimiCreme. I even managed to find a substitute for butter (it's harder than you might think). What I can't really find a substitute for is cheese. There are cheeses that are not cow's milk cheeses, but they often have casein (one of the proteins in milk) in them to make them melt. There are even vegan cheeses with no milk products at all, but they are almost universally soy-based, and I'm allergic to soy as well.

For the most part, I've just avoided recipes that depend on the flavor of cheese, but one night, I was serving tacos for my family, and I just got fed up. I wanted a quesadilla. I wanted a tortilla, cooked to a crisp on the outside, filled with something gooey and salty. So I started thinking about what makes a quesadilla what it is.

I've seen all kinds of recipes for quesadillas. They often have things like chicken, olives, green peppers, salsa and any number of other things. But they always have cheese. That's why it's called quesadilla (queso is Spanish for cheese). The cheese serves two purposes: one is flavor, and the other is binding action. When the cheese melts it forms sort of a web that holds all the other ingredients together, so the quesadilla doesn't fall apart.

I knew from repeated failed experiments that I couldn't recreate the flavor of cheese without nutritional yeast (something I try to avoid), so I figured I would just have to let that purpose go. But I did need to find something that would hold the quesadilla together. The answer was right in front of me: refried beans.

I took a tortilla and slathered half of it with refried beans. I then sprinkled it with some olives, diced tomatoes, and garlic salt. I was just going with what was already on the table. I cooked it up, let it cool, and tried it. It was quite good for a first try. I did notice that the refried beans were a little sticky in my mouth, kind of like peanut butter, but the olives and tomatoes helped that out some. The next time I tried it, I used sliced tomatoes instead of diced tomatoes. That was even better, because it spread moisture more evenly.

Here's the basic recipe:

1 tortilla (any size)
about 3 Tbsp. refried beans
your choice of olives, tomatoes, onions, chicken, taco meat, or anything else you can think of.
garlic salt to taste
2 tsp oil

Spread the refried beans on half of the tortilla. The actual amount you use will vary depending on the size of your tortilla and what other toppings you use. You want enough beans to hold it all together. Sprinkle with garlic salt if desired. Sprinkle or spread your other toppings on top of the beans. Fold the tortilla over to create a half-moon shape. Heat 1 tsp oil in a frying pan over medium to medium high heat. When the oil is hot, add the quesadilla and cook until underside is golden brown. Remove from pan and add the other teaspoon of oil. Return the quesadilla to the pan, cooked side up, and cook until the other side is brown and the inside is warmed through. Use a pizza cutter or knife to cut the quesadilla into wedges for easier eating.

A word of warning: do not expect this to taste cheesy in the least. If you expect something more like a bean burrito, you will be much happier with it. I had one of these for lunch almost every day for more than a week after I discovered it, and it was different every day.

As always, make any adjustments you need to in order to make this fit your tastes or dietary restrictions. If you are trying to lower fat, just use a good non-stick skillet and you can leave the oil out completely or use non-stick cooking spray. Celiacs can use a corn tortilla. The variations on this idea are endless.

Most importantly, enjoy the creative process and enjoy your food!

My first creative endeavor: southern green beans

My food creation journey began when I was a teenager. My mother wasn't a very good cook (at least I didn't think so), but every time we had a social at church, everything was so yummy. I wanted to recreate the deliciousness, but there was a slight problem. I wasn't the one in charge of purchasing food, so the only ingredients I had to work with were what was in the house. My first project I wanted to tackle was to recreate the delicious green beans that every woman at my church was constantly churning out (I grew up in the south). I had to find something that was better than the plain, re-heated canned beans that my mother served. Here's the process I went through:

I tasted many different versions of green beans. Some were better than others, but the most delicious ones all had a few similar qualities. Firstly, they were all made of canned green beans, not frozen or fresh. Secondly, there was a slight greasiness, indicating the addition of some sort of fat. Thirdly, there was always a distinct saltiness.

My first attempt at southern-style green beans was nothing more than 1 can of green beans with about 2 tsp margarine and a sprinkling of salt. Those were the simplest ingredients that I knew of that would bring all those qualities together. It wasn't as good as most of the green beans at the potlucks at church, but it was miles above simply opening a can, warming it and serving it.

That recipe was satisfactory enough to me that I used it for many years. Once I came up with it, I was always asked to make the green beans when we had them with dinner. However, as I reached adulthood and moved out, I found myself in a place that didn't have such good cooks at church. I decided to have a go at improving my green beans and making them more like what I remembered. I thought back and identified two more flavors that I was missing, flavors that I couldn't have added before, because they were never in my mother's kitchen: onions and a meaty flavor.

I didn't want to deal with the time, energy, and expense of cooking bacon or other smoked meat just for green beans, so I decided to try bacon bits instead. I also hate chopping onions, so I used dehydrated onion flakes. Both of these ingredients re-hydrated in the cooking process because of the liquid from the can. I also stuck with the margarine and salt. It was even better.

But I noticed that the buttery flavor of the margarine didn't go very well with the meaty, smoky flavor of the bacon bits, so the next time I made it I used oil. That was perfect. I have used that basic recipe innumerable times in the last 10 years. Occasionally, I added real onions or leftover ham and ham grease, but that was only when I had the ingredients on hand and was in the mood for a real treat.

So the final recipe was:

1 can green beans (any style)
2 tsp oil (any kind, even olive oil)
2-4 Tbsp dehydrated onion flakes
2-4 Tbsp bacon bits (either real or artificial)
salt to taste

Drain the green beans, but leave a little less than half the water. Put them in a saucepan. Add the oil, onion, and bacon bits. Stir so that the onion and bacon bits are moistened. Bring to a boil, then cover and simmer for 10 minutes or until the onions and bacon bits are soft and the flavors have come together. Taste and then add salt to taste.

The most important thing to remember about any recipe I post is that it is always a jumping off point. Alter it in any way that makes it taste better to you or that complies with your own dietary restrictions. For example, if you're trying to add more veggies in your diet, definitely use real onion. If you're trying to decrease fat in your diet, decrease the oil or leave it out. If you're trying to cut out salt, use no salt green beans and flavor it with lemon or an herb mixture like Mrs. Dash.

Most importantly enjoy the creative process and enjoy your food!