The Cook & The Coach Blog

Jicama and Beet Slaw

1/29/2014

If you have been following us, you know that we post a weird vegetable recipe every Wednesday (#weirdvegwednesday). Jicama is a root vegetable similar to a potato or yam but actually is in the bean family. After you get through the brown exterior, the edible interior is a white flesh. It is crisp like a pear or apple and has a sweet flavor to it. Jicama is a great source of fiber and vitamin C. The fiber in Jicama also helps with digestion and has a prebiotic effect to it. We usually eat it raw but it can be cooked in stir fry or soups. It is great for salads or in this case we made a slaw out of it.

Ingredients

2 cups jicama, cut into matchsticks
2 cups cooked beets, cut into matchsticks
1/2 cup greek yogurt
1 tsp dijon mustard
1 tsp stone ground mustard with whole mustard seeds
2 tsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp white pepper
1/2 tsp salt

Directions

We got our beets pre-cooked, but if you buy fresh beets, I would suggest roasting them in the oven like you were baking a potato. Depending on size, it should take 30-45 minutes at 400 degrees. You could also boil them too if you are in a hurry.
I used our mandolin to slice the jicama and beets into 1/8″ matchsticks. If you don’t have a mandolin hopefully you have a sharp knife and some skills. Your beets are going to bleed so try to keep the two ingredients separate for as long as possible.
In a separate bowl, mix together your dressing, all the ingredients besides the beets and jicama.
Due to the fact that you are dealing with a white vegetable and beets, if you want to keep your slaw from turning pink for presentation sake only, I would recommend dressing the jicama only, then either fold in the beets very carefully. Or you could combine the two as you plate, a little jicama, then some beets, and repeat. If you just want to eat this goodness and could care less about presentation, go ahead and mix it all together.

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Vegan Cucumber Mint Ice Cream #WeirdVegWednesday

1/22/2014

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So we like to our vegetables, so we started up a deal a few weeks ago that we would try to use a weird vegetable each week. We also thought it would be fun to take semi-normal vegetables prepare them in a weird way. So we have all had cucumbers, but have you had cucumber ice cream? On top of that we decided to go a step further and make a vegan ice cream using coconut milk. We have the luxury of having an ice cream maker so if you don’t have one you may need to get creative on how you can make it without one.

Ingredients

1 can coconut cream
1 medium cucumber
1/4 cup fresh mint leaves
1/2 cup sugar
Pinch of salt

Directions

Peel the cucumber, leaving a little bit of the green skin behind. Cut in half the long way and using a spoon scrape out the seeds. Chop the remaining cucumber into small pieces that will easily fit in either a food processor or blender. Pulse until becomes a liquid.
Add all ingredients in a saucepan and over medium heat cook for 10 minutes stirring frequently.
Remove from the heat and cover and let steep for 10 minutes.
Strain through a fine mesh sieve into a bowl. Leaving the mint leaves and cucumber remnants.
Chill the remaining liquid in refrigerator for at least 2 hours.
Pour liquid into your frozen ice cream maker and let it run until starts to freeze. Roughly 15 minutes.
Put into a freezer safe dish and let it freeze for at least one hour before serving.

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Homemade Pizza including Whole Wheat Dough

1/14/2014

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When we were kids we always made homemade pizzas on Sundays. We would usually make two pizzas, one always had to be just cheese and the other one we got really adventurous and put pepperoni on it. Yeah can you believe how crazy that was. So this Sunday we decided to relive the good ol’ days, but step up our game a little bit on the toppings. One pizza had prosciutto, anchovies, kalamata olives, caramelized shallots, roasted garlic and feta. The other was pesto, shrimp, cherry tomatoes and mozzarella. We’ve made pizzas before but we have never ventured so far to try making our own dough, not sure why. So we found version on a blog, http://www.cookieandkate.com, and modified it a little bit.

Whole Wheat Pizza Dough

Ingredients

2 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup water, heated to 110 degrees
1 tbsp honey
1 tbsp olive oil
2 1/4 teaspoons instant yeast or 1 packet
1 tsp salt
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese (optional)

Directions

Mix the water, honey, oil, yeast together to dissolve the honey and also allow the yeast to activate. Let rest for 5 minutes. You should see the yeast at work. I did this right in my stand mixer.
Mix together your dry ingredients in a separate bowl.
Using the dough hook attachment on your mixer, turn it on at a low speed. Slowly begin to adding your dry ingredients a little at a time. Once all the dry ingredients are added your dough ball should start climbing up the side of the bowl, when this happens you can stop.
Cover the dough and let rest for 20 minutes.
After 20 minutes remove the dough and divide in half. Each half will make roughly a 12″ thin crust pizza.
Lightly dust your counter along with your hands with extra flour to keep from sticking. Roll out one half into a 6″ circle with your hands trying to keep it as round as possible. At this point I switched to a rolling pin because my pizza tossing and hand pressing skills are not that good. I rolled it out to about a 1/4″ thick and it was roughly 12″ across.

Shrimp Pesto Ingredients

1 1/2 cups cooked shrimp – we used uncooked 13-15 shrimp cut in half and sauteed in olive oil with some garlic, you could certainly purchase cooked shrimp to save time.
1/3 cup prepared pesto
1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
1 cup mozzarella cheese

Mediterranean Pizza Ingredients

1/4 pound prosciutto, ripped into bite size pieces
8 anchovy filets
1/2 cup kalamata olives, halved
5 cloves of roasted garlic, chopped
1/2 cup pizza sauce
1/3 cup feta cheese crumbles
1/4 cup fresh parsley, topping after it is done cooking

Pizza Assembly and Cooking

Preheat your oven to 475 degrees. I like to use a pizza stone which you should warm up in the oven too.
Once your oven and stone are preheated remove your stone from the oven. One little secret to keep your dough from sticking to your stone or baking sheet is to sprinkle it with a little corn meal. Once you’ve done that put your rolled out pizza dough on the stone.
Drizzle with a little olive oil and then use a fork to pierce the dough all over so that it won’t bubble up when it cooks.
Cook for 4 minutes without any toppings.
After 4 minutes, remove from the oven and add your toppings.
Cook for another 6 minutes.

One note, I was a little heavy on the salty products on the Mediterranean pizza. In hindsight I would have backed off on at least one of the salty ingredients, olives, anchovies, or prosciutto.

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Kale Salad with Chicken, Avocado, Tomato and Poached Egg

1/8/2014

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So we weren’t crazy adventurous for this weeks #weirdvegwednesday, but for some kale might be a little out there. If you are used to using spinach a mixed green for your salads I would encourage you to try kale. The health benefits are off the charts. To name a few things, it has more vitamin C than an orange, it has more calcium than milk, it contains omega 3 fatty acid, one serving has 5 times your daily serving of vitamin A, and it contains 7 times the recommended amount of vitamin K which has been used to treat Alzheimers. I could keep going.

Ingredients

2 chicken breasts
1 tbsp olive oil
3-4 cups uncooked kale, stems removed
2 tbsp coconut oil, could substitute olive oil
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 tbsp dijon mustard
12 grape tomatoes, halved
1 avocado cut into 1/2″ chunks
2 tbsp parmesan cheese
2 Eggs
1 tbsp white vinegar

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees to bake the chicken breasts. Prepare the chicken by seasoning with salt, pepper and olive oil. Bake for 25-30 minutes until they reach the proper temperature.
In a medium saucepan bring some water and 1 tbsp white vinegar to a low boil, the vinegar helps keep the egg protein together rather than making egg drop soup where it goes everywhere. There should be 3-4 inches of water in the pan so when you poach the eggs they can move freely and not sink to the bottom of the pan. You can also at this point start heating up a deep saucepan and the coconut oil, in preparation for sauteing the kale. I’m big on getting everything done at the same time, if you struggle at multi-tasking I would recommend doing the kale first then the eggs.
To sautee the kale, add it to the warm pan and toss to coat evenly and satuee for 1 minute, then add the lemon juice, mustard combination and cover and let steam for another 2-3 minutes.
To poach the eggs, crack each egg separately in a small dish so that you can gently put them into the water. Prior to putting the eggs in the water I like to give the water a little stir to create a slight whirlpool effect. Gently put the eggs into the water and cook for 3 minutes.
Lastly combine everything, I like the kale on the bottom topped with the chicken, avocado, tomatoes and lastly the beautifully runny poached egg. Garnish with the parmesan cheese and ENJOY!

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Stuffed Eggplant #weirdvegwednesday

1/1/2014

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So we are pretty adventurous eaters in general. But as we were walking around the produce section earlier this week we were looking at some vegetables that neither one of us have tried. So in the same spirit of Throwback Thursday or Flex Friday we decided why can’t there be a Weird Veg Wednesday. So we are going to try to use a vegetable that we have never eaten before or at least prepare a vegetable in a way that is a little outside the norm. You can follow our posts either on here or on Instagram and Facebook using the #weirdvegwednesday.

For week 1 we grabbed eggplant. I’ve never cooked eggplant so I had to do a little research on preparations. You have your classic Eggplant Parmesan then you have a lot of North African and Middle Eastern preparations. I haven’t dabbled much in the Middle Eastern stuff so I figured I would play it safe and stay Italian, and settled on a stuffed eggplant. You could use the marinara sauce recipe for any italian dish from spaghetti to lasagna it is my stock marinara sauce then I just added a little extra stuff for the stuffing. If you follow the ingredient list for the marinara sauce you will have some leftover, which is a good thing in my book. Try it out, hope you enjoy it!

Ingredients

Marinara Sauce

1 lb ground beef
1 medium onion
3 garlic cloves, minced – we like garlic feel free to adjust to your taste
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
16 oz can of diced tomatoes
16 oz can of tomato sauce
1 tbsp dried basil
1 tbsp dried oregano
1 tbsp dried marjoram
2 tbsp dried parsley
1 tbsp paprika
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
Salt and pepper to taste

Stuffing

1 Eggplant (2 Servings)
1/4 shredded Parmesan
1/4 cup shredded mozzarella
1/4 cup bread crumbs
1 Egg

Topping

2 tbsp parmesan cheese
2 tbsp chopped fresh parsley

Directions

Over medium/high heat a medium saucepan and oil, then sautee onions for 6 minutes, add garlic and cook for 1 more minute.
Add ground beef and brown. Drain grease when cooked through.
Add rest of the ingredients for the sauce. Simmer for 20 minutes.
While sauce is simmering, cut your eggplant in half the long way. I used a pairing knife and spoon to cut/scoop out the middle portion of the eggplant. Make sure to leave at 1/2″ of eggplant around the sides so that it holds it shape while baking.
In an additional pan heat up a splash of olive oil and cook the guts of the eggplant for 5 minutes until tender. Make sure if you took them out in large pieces to cut up into bite size pieces before cooking.
Remove roughly two cups of the sauce from the simmering pan and place in a shallow bowl or dish, add the eggplant and put in the fridge or freezer until slightly cooled. You don’t want to cook your egg when you add it to the mixture.
Once that mixture is cooled enough, add your two cheeses, bread crumbs and egg and mix together.
Scoop that mixture evenly into the hollowed out eggplant and place in a baking dish. Try to get the eggplant level in the baking dish so that the contents don’t run out. I had to use a little piece of aluminum foil to prop the smaller end.
Bake at 350 degrees for 50 minutes.
Remove from oven and add toppings before serving. ENJOY!

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Jicama and Beet Slaw

Ingredients

Directions

Vegan Cucumber Mint Ice Cream #WeirdVegWednesday

Ingredients

Directions

Homemade Pizza including Whole Wheat Dough

Whole Wheat Pizza Dough

Ingredients

Directions

Shrimp Pesto Ingredients

Mediterranean Pizza Ingredients

Pizza Assembly and Cooking

Kale Salad with Chicken, Avocado, Tomato and Poached Egg

Ingredients

Directions

Stuffed Eggplant #weirdvegwednesday

Ingredients

Directions