Some of you may already know, or have perhaps gleaned from the title of our blog, that your Camp Wilmot Resident Directors are, well, a bit peculiar. And this extends to our diet—or, more precisely, our particular dietary restrictions. Heather’s really the big winner in this category, as she is both a vegetarian and allergic to tomatoes. But Katrina has recently developed a mild form of lactose intolerance and refuses to eat any form of dried fruit (it’s unnatural!). This makes mealtime at the ol’ farmhouse something of a daily adventure; dinner often looks like a scene out of “Julie and Julia.” We perform a lot of culinary experiments, partially out of boredom, mostly out of curiosity and have created some really tasty dishes and produced a few flops. We present to you
THE BEST OF HEATHER AND KATRINA’S EPICUREAN INVESTIGATIONS
Vegan Butternut Squash Soup
Ingredients: a couple of butternut squash (we don’t really know how to choose a good squash, we typically just pick the ones with the weirdest shape), vegetable broth, minced garlic, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and pepper.
It’s a pretty simple ingredient list, and would actually be a pretty simple dish if it weren’t for the rind (?) on the squash. It’s nearly impossible to peel the rind off and one or both of us usually comes very near to losing a digit while preparing the squash for consumption. Once you’ve made it past that hurtle, however, things get much easier. Just boil the squash and garlic in the vegetable broth until it’s soft and then stick it in the blender—if you ask me, there really aren’t enough foods that can be made in a blender. Blend until you’ve got something roughly the consistency of baby food, add spices and voilà, soup’s on!
Tacos a lá H and K
You’re probably asking yourself, “What could a meat free, tomato free, lactose light taco night possibly consist of?” I’m glad you asked…
Ingredients: bell peppers (assorted colors), onions (color inconsequential), canned black beans, canned whole kernel corn, chopped cilantro, minced garlic, sour cream, hot sauce, shredded cheese, tortillas, guacamole (see recipe below), cumin, chili powder, garlic powder, salt, pepper
To start, we like to sauté the peppers, onions and garlic together with a liberal sprinkling of garlic powder, cumin, and chili powder. Next we combine the beans, corn and cilantro in a separate pot, add salt and pepper and heat. Then there’s the guacamole…
Ingredients: avocadoes, red onion, cilantro, garlic powder, salt, pepper, lime juice
To start, smush the avocado all up with a fork, or your hands, it’s pretty fun. Chop up the onion and cilantro and mix it in with the avocado. Sprinkle in some spices then drench the whole thing with lime juice. Easy, right?
Once you’ve got the guacamole all mixed up, it’s just a matter of assembling your taco: Peppers and onions on the bottom, then the beans and corn, large spoonfuls of guacamole and sour cream on top, sprinkle with cheese and drizzle with hot sauce. Olé!
And now you’re probably thinking, “That seems like a lot of dairy for someone who is claiming to be mildly lactose intolerant.” And you are correct. For this particular dish, you just suck it up and hope for the best, it’s worth it.
Falafel
Ingredients: one box falafel mix (what? You though we made this from scratch), pita or flat bread, hummus, sliced cucumbers, sliced tomatoes (prepared far, far away from Heather), spinach.
We like this recipe because the whole thing can be made in less than 15 minutes. To start, follow the instructions for the falafel mix—usually add water to the mix, stir, and let sit for ten minutes. While you wait, heat a bit of oil in a frying pan and start slicing those veggies. After the ten minutes has elapsed, form the falafel mix into something resembling a ball (mine are never perfectly round, but as close as you can get), and place in the hot oil. You’ll want to roll them around a bit, to make sure they’re browning evenly; the goal is a crispy, golden brown outer shell.
Remove the falafel from the oil and let drain on a paper towel. While the falafel cools, prepare your pita! Smear with hummus, add veggies and, when they’re ready, a couple of your falafel spheres. This is a pretty great dish if you’re trying to impress somebody. They’ll think you’re very worldly and wise and a genius at mixing spices. Just make sure to stash the box somewhere it won’t be found.
AND THE WORST…
No butter oatmeal chocolate chip cookies
We were halfway through mixing up a batch of cookies when we realized we were out of butter. We live pretty far back in the woods so a “quick trip to the store” is more like a thirty minute, epic journey through miles of forest and winding roads past no fewer than three libraries and an alpaca farm. Sufficed to say, we weren’t going to pop out for a couple of sticks of butter. Instead we googled, “out of butter, trying to make cookies, help!” The search returned something like one million results. A few benevolent bakers suggested a substitution of vegetable shortening—we happened to have a tub in the kitchen. We don’t recommend this. The cookies looked beautiful, and were about as chewy as hockey pucks.
No egg banana bread
Same idea here. We were trying to use up some bananas that were getting a wee bit squishy and thought we might bake some banana bread. The recipe called for two eggs, we had none. So, being the clever, experimental bakers that we are, we substituted a random amount of vegetable oil. Again, not recommended, unless you love really dry, dense, crumbly banana bread.
And that’s the news from the Camp Wilmot Test Kitchen—don’t forget to check out our “Would You Rather” and “Fun Facts” pages.
Until next week,
H and K