Early Spring Salad with Orange Dressing

We’re still seeing late season citrus in our local grocery store and we love to add that late citrus to spring veggies that are in season here in the Pacific Northwest. Delicious asparagus, spring peas, and purple radishes with freshly picked greens. We didn’t include amounts of asparagus feel free to use as much or as little as you have or as you want to eat. We use the crispy fava beans as protein in this salad, however if you don’t have them boiled eggs or fried tofu would both be good substitutes.

Time: 40 minutes

Ingredients

For the Salad:

Leafy Greens - early spring options include arugula, mustard greens, baby chard, spinach, radicchio, and pea greens

Asparagus

Radishes

Snow peas

Crispy Spring Onions

Good Bean Sea Salt Crispy Favas and Peas

For the Dressing:

1/2 cup orange Juice

1 tbsp lemon juice

1/2 cup olive oil

1/4 cup water

1/2 tsp mustard

salt and pepper to taste

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Move an oven rack to the top shelf in your oven, and turn the oven to the broil setting. Rinse and cut the ends off of your asparagus. Toss in olive oil, salt, and pepper. Layer the asparagus in a single layer on a cookie sheet and broil for 5 minutes. Flip the asparagus and broil for 5 minutes on the other side. The asparagus is easy to burn on the broil setting, so we recommend using a timer and watching them closely. Remove from oven and make the crispy spring onions.

Chop the remaining vegetables and cut or tear the salad greens (if you want to). Put all of the salad dressing ingredients into a jar with a lid and shake until it’s emulsified/fully combined. Add salt and pepper to taste. Add all the salad ingredients to a bowl (except the spring onions). Toss with salad dressing. Top with spring onions and enjoy!

Garlicky mashed pea-tatoes

Sometimes we feel all the things. Joy and grief can co-exist. We want to start with the joy we feel that the global uprisings in response to the murder of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and countless others are creating change! For those of you on the front lines protesting, for those of you sending money to support the uprisings, to the countless hours of un-paid Black labor that went into organizing this moment, and for all the labor that continues we thank you. Thank you for standing up to systemic racism and oppression, thank you for your work. Let’s celebrate together that the Minneapolis City Council is supporting de-funding police! Our voices can be heard. There is a long way to go and we need all of us in this work.

We also hold the grief of the immense amount of Black death and suffering that has, is, and will continue to happen until we can take down systemic racism. This is a lot to hold for us. If you are new to this work, and you are just seeing the injustice and inequity remember to be soft with yourself. We need you here today, tomorrow, and in 50 years. This moment didn’t come from nowhere, and the fight will continue. We trust that you are and will keep doing your part.

One thing we do to care for ourselves is eat lots of comforting foods. Comfort food looks different for everyone. For me, comfort food is usually something with a good amount of fat and salt preferably potato based. Also, any food that brings me back to sweet memories from my past is so comforting. It’s also a good reminder that food is never just one thing. White supremacy and diet culture often reduces food to it’s nutritional value. Food is so much more than nutritional value and it’s time that we re-contextualized the way that we think about it. Today, for me, that means remembering that comfort food can be relational. This recipe isn’t just about getting calories into my body (which is important and I’m thankful to be able to do). It’s also about remembering a deep friendship 30 years in the making and continuing.

This recipe is something Anne started making before she turned 10. At an early age we were already experimenting with different food combinations and enjoying inventing in the kitchen. We used to make ‘soup’ by throwing lots of random ingredients (whatever we could reach) into a pot of water and then telling our parents we had cooked for them. They were good sports, always saying how much they loved the food we made (even though we’re pretty sure they were only pretending to eat it). At one point, Anne started mixing peas into their potatoes and dubbed them pea-tatoes. For years, neither of us would eat mashed potatoes without peas (I’m sure our parents loved this new rule).

I’m making this for dinner tonight and I’m remembering how lucky I am to have such a deep friendship with this beautiful human who creates amazing food. I’ll be connecting to how the calories fuel my physical body and how the memories connect me to sweetness. This will be part of my survival kit. #covidcooking.

Pictured above: Anne + Camille cooking together at a young age.

Serves: 6 as a side

Time: 45 minutes (20 minutes active)

Ingredients

6 medium potatoes (I like the red ones)

1 head garlic 

A drizzle of olive oil

2 tbsp salt

3/4 cup cashews + water to soak them in

1/2 cup water

1/4 cup olive oil

1 cup frozen peas

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Preheat the oven to 375 F. Cover the cashews with water and put them in the fridge until you make the mashed potatoes. Roast the garlic. You can do this a number of ways and our two favorite are to use a garlic roaster or a small cast iron pan. If you are using a garlic roaster chop the tops off the garlic, drizzle a bit of oil into the garlic cloves, put this into the garlic roaster and roast in the oven for about 45 minutes. To use a small cast iron pan, peel the garlic and place cloves in the cast iron pan with a small amount of olive oil. Roast this in the oven for about 20 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes. Either way, the garlic should look golden brown and be very soft. With the cast iron method, it is easier to burn the garlic so make sure to check on it.

Quarter and boil the potatoes in very salty water until tender. The water should taste about as salty as sea water so that the potatoes soak in the water and are perfectly salted when done. Don’t worry if these feels like a lot of salt; you will be draining the water. Cook potatoes until almost tender, about 6 minutes, then add the peas to the boiling water, cook for another 4 minutes. Drain the peas and potatoes when the potatoes are fork tender.

Drain the soaked cashews and add them to a blender (we like the Vitamix) with 1/2 cup water until smooth. You can test for smoothness by rubbing some between two fingers. If it feels at all gritty, keep blending. Mash the cooked peas and potatoes with the roasted garlic, cashew cream, 1/4 cup olive oil, and nutritional yeast. We do not recommend mashing with a hand mixer as this can make your potatoes gluey.

Chickpea Crepe with Carrot Top Cheese

George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Tony McDade; it feels important to us to acknowledge these three Black people who were recently murdered by the police. Right now we are feeling grief, loss, anger, anxiety, and extreme sadness that we live in a society that deems White people worthy and needing protection while condemning Black people as something to fear and kill. Rachel Lewitt, one of Camille’s mentors, pointed out that we are currently seeing some of the largest demonstrations since the 60s, and we can create radical change y’all. We can resist!

We’ve been noticing a lot of White people just now realizing that racism still exists, feeling the injustice, and wanting to take action. Some of the things coming up for White people right now are anger, fear, being overwhelmed, confusion, the feeling of wanting to use our white privilege to end racism, the need to fix this, wanting to be good and do the right thing, and wanting to take action. Awesome, we need all of us in this work! We all need to be fighting racism wherever it shows up and if you are reading this and you are White, racism lives in your body, and ours too. To be White in the US is to be indoctrinated into the lies of white supremacy culture. To be White in the US is to be racist. If you feel activated by these statements, that is a normal response and is part of what will keep you from being able to do the work.

If you’d like to talk to us about this, reach out to us at chickpeasandspice@gmail.com. We’re here to process this with you, no judgement. This is inside our bodies too and until we all look at it, face it, understand it, and extract it we will continue to do harm.

Rachel Lewitt, a wake-up leader in Portland, who is deeply inspired by and mentored by Holistic Resistance says, “when White people become under-resourced, we become even more dangerous”. Right now we are living through the global trauma of a pandemic as well as the trauma of living under the oppression of white supremacy culture. If you, like me, are new to seeing the ways in which white supremacy culture systemically targets and kills black people as well as erasing indigenous people this can be a lot to take in. Remember to go slow. Don’t expend all your energy this week yelling and then assume you have done your part. As Aaron Johnson from Holistic Resistance says, “this is a marathon”. Our question is why are you doing this work? What will keep you doing this work?

If you aren’t White, we hope you are getting rest, nourishment, and time for whatever it is that you need.

One of the ways we resource ourselves is to cook delicious food and eat it. This is our most recent joyful recipe: A delicious crispy chickpea crepe with cheesy carrot top cheese and fresh sugar snap peas topped with tangy pickled onion. May it bring you nourishment that will help sustain you as you do the deep work of opposing racism where it comes up both internally and in the world.

Serves: 2-4

Time: 1 hr

Ingredients

2 cups sugar snap peas

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 cup oil for frying

For the Pickled Onion

1 tiny onion

Juice of half a lime

1/2 tsp salt

For the Carrot Top Cheese

1 cup cashews soaked

1 tbsp olive oil

3 tbsp water

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1 clove garlic

juice and zest of 1/2 lemon (about 2 tbsp lemon juice)

small handful of carrot tops

2 tbsp nutritional yeast (optional)

For the Chickpea Crepe

1 1/2 cups chickpea flour

1 1/4 tsp sea salt

1 3/4 cups water

3 tbsp olive oil

3/4 tsp rosemary

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Cover cashews with cold water and put in the fridge to soak for 30 minutes. Thinly slice the onion and add it and the salt and lime juice to a bowl. Set the onions aside to pickle, this takes at least 30 minutes. If you have some leftover, they keep in the fridge. Store them with the liquid. Mix the chickpea flour, salt, water, olive oil, and rosemary and whisk until smooth and let sit for 30 minutes.

Remove the ends from sugar snap peas. Heat pan with a high heat oil until it is medium to high heat. Add the sugar snap peas and cook until blistered and golden brown on one side. Flip. Salt while the second side cooks. Remove from heat when the second side has golden brown parts and set aside.

Combine all the cheese ingredients and blend until smooth, scraping down the sides of your blender or food processor as you go. The cheese keeps for 1 week. You can freeze and use it later if you don’t need the whole batch.

You can use either a food processor or a Vitamix blender for this. Using a food processor will give the cheese slightly more texture and a Vitamix will make the cheese extra silky/creamy. Both are good! I would not recommend trying to make this cheese in a blender that isn’t high powered, as the nuts can be hard on the motor and the cheese will come out with a strange texture. Note, I don’t always soak the cashews and can say from first hand it isn’t 100% necessary when using a Vitamix. It does however help take care of your equipment and can make the final product creamier, so I do recommend it, if you have the time. Because this is a thicker cheese recipe, if using a Vitamix we recommend using the tamper while blending. If you don’t have this you can add a bit of extra water to help with the blending process.

Using the same pan (clean first if there is any residue), heat a small amount of oil. Once the oil is hot, add 1/3 cup of chickpea batter to the hot pan. Tilt the pan to spread out the batter, and cook until golden brown and crispy on one side. Be patient, when the bottom is golden brown and crispy, the edges of the top will start to show color. Flip the crepe over and cook until speckled with golden brown on the second side. Cooking crepes to have a crisp but flexible texture takes some practice. Some tips are make sure your oil is hot before you add the batter. Don’t add too much batter. Allow the first side to cook until an even color is achieved before flipping. Remember, the first pancake rule applies to crepes as well. Your first crepe might come out under cooked and crumbly. Don’t be discouraged, keep cooking, be patient, and future crepes will be better.

We often cook as many crepes as we want to eat when we first make this dish. We then refrigerate the batter and fry fresh crepes for leftovers. When cooking batter that has been refrigerated, make sure to stir thoroughly before frying and if it is too thick, you can add a little water to thin it out.

To assemble the crepes, spread some carrot top cheese onto the crepe, top with sugar snap peas and onions. Try not to transfer too much of the lime juice when you transfer the onion onto a crepe. Roll them up and enjoy!

Mushroom Stew

Growing up, one of my favorite meals was the beef stew that my father made. His stew took several hours of simmering to soften the beef, but this vegetarian version only takes 1 hr. This stew reminds me of all the great parts of the stew from my childhood. It is filling, has lots of veggies for different flavors and textures, and really warms me up on a cold and rainy day. The addition of halved garlic cloves not only reduces prep time, it also provides a sweet and garlicky surprise every couple of bites. If you don’t love garlic the way we do, feel free to mince it to reduce its prominence, or omit it entirely.

Like many of our recipes, this recipe is quite flexible. You could omit the onions and garlic if that is your preference. Potatoes could be replaced with parsnips if you are sensitive to nightshades. And white beans or chickpeas could easily be added (either blended into the liquid or chunky) for more protein. Let us know in the comments how you alter it, and how it turns out!

Serves: 6

Time: 1 hr

Ingredients

olive oil

4 cups cremini mushrooms (11 oz)

1 onion (11 oz)

6 cloves garlic, halved

3 carrots (1/2 lb)

4 potatoes (2 lb)

1 tsp dried thyme

pinch of red pepper flakes

1 1/2 tsp salt

5 cups veg stock (gluten-free option, soy-free option)

1/2 tsp pepper

1 bay leaf

1 cup peas (frozen)

1 bunch of kale, de-stemmed and thinly sliced

1 tsp apple cider vinegar

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Slice and saute the mushrooms until browned, over medium heat, about 20 minutes, adding pepper after 15 minutes. In a large soup pot, saute the chopped onions and carrots in olive oil until starting to soften about 14 minutes. Add cubed potatoes, halved garlic cloves, veg stock, 1 1/2 tsp of salt, thyme, pepper flakes, and bay leaf. Bring it to a boil, turn down to a simmer and simmer for about 20 minutes or until the potatoes are tender.

Put the cooked mushrooms in a blender with 3 chunks of potato from the soup. Add hot veg stock from your soup until you cover the mushrooms and chunks of potato. Blend until smooth. Pour this back into the pot of stew and add apple cider vinegar, peas, and kale. Stir to combine new ingredients and simmer for 5 more minutes or until peas are hot and greens are wilted. Enjoy!