Roasted squash rancheros

We mostly followed PPK's recipe for Butternut Rancheros. Mmm.

Spanish stew with chickpeas, clams, and sausage

We were four tonight at our table: joining us for dinner was Monica (of Gastromonica fame, and one of my favorite cooks and people) and her partner. A high-risk strategy for dinner, B and I decided to try a new recipe from Chez Panisse Cafe Cookbook: a Spanish-style stew with chickpeas, clams, and sausage. The meal was sufficiently fantastic that we forgot to take any photographs.

The night before you want this stew, cover 1 ½ cups dried chickpeas with plenty of water, and let soak overnight (beans will double in size). In the morning or mid-day, drain the chickpeas and add a small white onion, one or two carrots, a celery stick if you have one, some bay leaf, some fresh thyme, and 1 Tbsp of salt; cover with water, bring to a boil, and simmer on low 90 minutes. Let the beans cool in their liquids. When you start cooking, drain the chickpeas and discard the veggies.

In the bottom of a large pot, brown 1 lb pork sausage (we used the breakfast links from Highland Hills, as it was all that was left when we got to the market today), crumbled or cut into small meatballs, in 1 Tbsp olive oil. Remove the meat to a bowl, and discard the liquid. Meanwhile, finely mince a large white onion, or, more easily, chop it coarsely and then puree in the food processor.

Add a little more olive oil to the pot and cook the onion until lightly browned. Meanwhile, finely mince (puree in food processor) one fennel bulb and lots of garlic, and add to the onion, along with a little salt. Cook a bit longer, and add one medium-spicy pepper, in small diced, and 1 Tbsp paprika. Also add a handful of small or two medium-large tomatoes, cut into medium dice.

Clean 3 lb manila clams while the vegetables cook.

Finally, stir in the chickpeas and the sausage, and cover and bring back to a simmer. Then add ½ cup white wine, ½ lb young braising greens or chard cut into ½-inch strips, and the clams. Cover and cook five to ten more minutes, stirring once or twice, until the clams have all opened.

While the clams cook, lightly toast some slices of a nice bread, and rub each slice with a clove of garlic. Serve the stew in shallow bowls, with a slice of bread at the bottom of each bowl and the stew spooned over it.

Accompany the stew with good company, fun conversation, and a nice Pinot Grigio (also set out the remaining bread with some butter). After the stew, serve a lettuce salad with a sherry vinaigrette as a palate cleanser.

Open a bottle of fine Moscatel, and move from the dining room table to the living room couch. Set out a plate of figs from the neighbors tree, cut into quarters with a dollop of a nice sheep's cheese on each, and sprinkled with chopped almonds and honey. Conclude the meal with macadamia-and-white-chocolate cookies.

Pasta with tuna confit and beans

We followed the recipe for tuna confit from Alice Waters' Chez Panisse Cafe Cookbook. We began by slicing a one-pound piece of tuna into four pieces and liberally salting everything. We placed it in a medium mixing bowl with about half a head of garlic (crushed but not peeled), one or two fresh bay leaves, a small hot red pepper, some whole pepper corns, a handful of fennel seed, and a few sprigs of thyme. We covered everything in olive oil (about 2.5 cups — Alice says 3), covered the bowl with saran wrap, and refrigerated the fish overnight.

The next day, we transferred everything to a pot, and warmed it on medium-low. The fish should cook ten to fifteen minutes, until it is don't on the outside but still a little pink in the middle. (Actually, we cooked it through, but Alice prefers it pink in the middle, and so do we.)

Meanwhile, we prepared a pound each of green beans and fresh cranberry beans. Following the instructions, we simmered the shelled cranberry beans for half an hour in lightly salted water with a sprig of thyme. This got the beans mushier than we like — next time we'll do twenty minutes. Alice likes her green beans parboiled two minutes, but we like them softer: between six and eight. We also boiled a pot of water for pasta: whole wheat penne from Barilla.

After draining everything, and reserving the oil (passing it through a sieve), we minced a few scallions (Alice wants shallots) and whisked in a liberal dose of the flavored oil, and then mixed this with the beans and pasta. We should at this point have flaked the tuna into the pasta as well, but instead we decided to serve the tuna in steaks. It was very good, although a bit too salty for steaks, and had a taste of the very best canned tuna you've ever had. Grated cheese for the pasta, of course, and white wine.

Of course, it was enough food for at least four as the main course.

Camping: roasted sweet potatoes and bean burgers with all the fixings

Last night in Indian Lake: homemade bread, hummus, baba ghanoush, and salad

Bean burgers

One trick to making good bean burgers is to serve them with home-made pickles and home-made buns. For the burgers themselves, first mix the dry ingredients well: salt and pepper, a little clove, a fair amount of curry, lots of nutritional yeast, and more than you think really necessary wheat gluten. Then add the wet ingredients: cooked beans (canned or soaked-and-boiled), cooked brown rice (processed in the food processor), and grated carrot. Work the batter a bit, probably adding more dry ingredients until the consistency is good and the gluten has made everything sticky. Coat in a little olive oil, and cook through (you don't really want any raw gluten left) on a hot grill.

Rigatoni with beet greens, sausage, and white beans

Rigatoni with white beans and red chard

When you need to make dinner quick, bring salted water to a boil, wash and chop a head of red chard, begin sauteing some onion in a wok in copious amounts of olive oil, add the pasta to the water, add the greens to the wok and cover, open a can of white beans, add the beans to the stir fry, grate cheese in the food processor, drain the pasta, toss it in with the vegetables, taste for salt, open a bottle of white wine, and serve.

Sole cooked with garlic; white beans with kale

We knew we wanted pan-fried petrale sole with garlic, and also that we had a head of kale that needed eating and a desire for white beans. Fortunately, we found the following recipe in Chez Panisse Vegetables:

Cannellini Beans and Wilted Greens

This makes an excellent side dish with roasted or grilled poultry, and it is also a fine sauce for a sturdy pasta, such as taccozette or penne. When the beans are tender, roughly mach about half of them, to thicken the sauce, and then stir in the cooked pasta. Add a little more bean liquid if the mixture is too thick.

• 2 cups dried cannellini beans
• Bouquet garni: celery, thyme, parsley, bay leaf
• 1 onion
• 1 carrot
• 6 cups water or chicken stock
• Salt and pepper
• 1 large bunch chard, kale, spinach, mustard greens, or turnip greens (about 1 pound)
• 6 cloves garlic
• 5 to 6 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 tablespoon chopped rosemary leaves
• Extra-virgin olive oil

Soak the beans overnight. The next day drain them and put them into a heavy-bottomed pot with the bouquet garni. Add the onion and carrot, peeled. Cover with water or stock and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer, skimming off any foam that forms on the surface. Cook the beans until very tender, from 45 minutes to 2 hours, depending on the age of the beans and how long they were soaked. Salt the beans generously once they start to soften. When fully cooked, remove from the heat.

While the beans are cooking, wash, trim, and chop the greens.

Finely chop the garlic cloves and gently sauté them in the olive oil with the rosemary, about 1 minute. Add the beans and about 1 cup of their cooking liquid, and simmer about 5 minutes, until some of the beans have crumbled apart. Add the greens to the beans, and stew together, uncovered, until the greens are wilted and tender. Add more of the bean liquid, if needed, to keep the vegetables moist and a little soupy. Taste for seasoning and grind in some pepper. Serve with extra-virgin olive oil drizzled over the surface.

Sauteed veggies

This was an everything-in-the-fridge dinner. In butter we sauteed together spring onions, garlic, cauliflower, asparagus, carrots, mushrooms, beans, and fresh parsley. Go cook on low, and while there is liquid in the bottom of the pan cover to steam the cauliflower.

Long time ago: Greek Dinner for Columbae

I was recently going through some very old posts at a different web journal. I came across this collection of recipes, and I do not think I have posted the here. The following is from May 14, 2005.

At a recent bookstore sale, I picked up two vegetarian cookbooks, each for $6 (one normally goes for $13, the other for $28). The cheaper one looks especially like a keeper: called Vegetarian's A to Z Guide to Fruits & Vegetables, it provides a number of simple but yummy-looking recipes for each vegetable (the veggies are alphabetized by name), as well as nutrition information for each recipe and discussion of the vegetable's properties, time of year, location, storage, etc. I can imagine living near a local organic farm and subscribing to a weekly produce box that would provide me with seasonal produce with, at any given time, a small selection. In such a situation, a book like this would be a lifesaver: we're eating cucumbers for a week? Fine, let's see what we can do with cucumbers. The farmers decide to grow Batavian endive? We can look that up too.

In theory, Columbae would opperate that way, and we do try to keep to local seasonal produce. That said, I've been looking forward to preparing a traditional (well, with vegan modificaitons) Greek feast tomorrow, and although we did get baby spinach from the local organic supplier, I wanted celery, cucumber, grapes, all of which are seasonal in mid- to late summer. Our produce manager, however, is currently my most favoritest person in the world: she got me a couple heads of celery, a big box of grapes, and a big box of cucumbers, all conventional. So I'll have to wash everything, and the cucumbers are probably waxed, which is a shame, because the skins are the healthiest part, but still.

I have filo dough, which I need to remember to move to the fridge tonight to defrost, and I have my veggies and recipes. I need to soak the beans, too, and look up the spices suggested for apple rather than pear filling for the desert (pears aren't in season, whereas we have a hella lot of apples, but apples aren't as delicate, so require more spicing). I don't get olives --- dry goods and dairy came through for me with the feta but not with everything --- but oh, well. It will be good.


Soup: Fassolada me Spanaki Serves 6-8

Soak for 4 hrs, drain, boil, and drain

• 1.5 cup dried cannellini

or open

• 2 cans beans

In a large saucepan on medium heat, saute in plenty of olive oil for 30 minutes

• 2 medium onions, finely chopped
• 4 medium carrots, finely diced
• 2 sticks celery, finely diced

Add, and bring to poin, cover, and simmer

• 4 sprigs celery leaves (optional)
• 2 large cloves garlid, finely chopped
• 2 Tbsp dried thyme (and/or greek oregano)
• 1/2 a medium bunch of fresh parsely, coarsely chopped
• the beans, if used dried
• 8 cups water or light vegetable stock
• 1 large can diced tomatos (or skin and dice three large tomatoes and let sit salted 15 minutes)
• 1 Tbsp tomato paste diluted in 3 Tbsp water
• 8 oz spinach, cut in thin ribbons

Simmer perhaps 20-30 minutes, adding the tomato paste and spinach in the last 5-10 minutes. Stir in

• another 1/2 bunch of parsely
• a little more oil

Serve hot, with

• 1 Tbsp red wine vinegar

sprinkled over each bowl.


Bulgari Pilafi Serves 4

Heat gently in large saucepan

• 3 Tbsp olive oil

and saute until translucent

• 1 large onion

Break up with fingers into roughly 2-inch pieces

1/4 cup thin spaghetti, vermicelli, or angel's hair

and add to onion. Continue stirring until pasta is pale golden and arromatic, 2-3 minutes.
Soak for a few minutes to enlarge, then rinse in a fine sieve under running water

• 2 1/4 cup coarse bulgar, picked clean

and add to pan, stirring, and add

• 1 1/2 cup vegetable stock (scale sublinearly)

Cover and simmer gently 7-8 minutes, until mixture looks almost dry. Cover with cloth, replace lid, and let stand off heat at least 10-15 minutes, or up to 1 hr.


Spanakopita Fills 13x15 lasagna pan, enough for 8 people as a main course

Make sure to have left the filo dough out to defrost to room temp 5 hrs before use.
Chop into uniform 1/4-1/2 inch cubes

• 1 large onion

and saute until clead. Add

• 1 clove garlic, mashed
• 2 lbs fresh or frozen spinach

and saute until limp.
Mash to chunks less than 1/2 inch

• 16 oz firm water-packed tofu (frozen and defrosted if you have time)

and add to pan, along with

• 2 tsp salt
• 3/4 tsp black pepper
• 2 Tpsp oregano

Remove from heat and drain excess water. Let cool slightly.
Preheat oven 350°F, oil a large lasagna pan, and get ready to work with filo dough: as the dough will dry quickly, don't open the package until everything is ready. Have 3-4 people working. Each sheet should be lightly oiled (so keep a brush and a bowl of oil handy) after it's placed in the the pan, and someone should keep a clean, barely moist towel over the unused dough. Anyhoo, when ready, cut open

• 1 pound filo dough

and place individual oiled sheets, with edges hanging over edge of pan, in varying directions. Use a third of the dough (roughly 6 sheets), then fill in half the spinach, then a third of the dough, then the other half spinach, then the last third of the dough. Fold edges over or in, make sever slashes through the top of the pastry to the filling, and bake 45 minutes to 1 hr, until golden brown.


Apple filo strudel makes 3 rolls (?)

Preheat oven 350°F.
Wash, peel, core, and dice

• 10 medium apples

to get about 14 cups. Mix in

• 6 Tbsp lemon juice
• 8 tsp cinnamon
• 5 cups walnuts, chopped or cuised
• 2-3 Tpsb white sugar
• 3 Tbsp brown sugar

Prepare to work with filo dough (see above), and stack 4 sheets, individually oiled. Spoon some filling along one long edge, leaving a 2-inch boarder. Fold filo dough over filling, tuck in ends, and roll up. Brush with canola oil. Place rolls seam-side down on greased baking sheet at least 2 inches apart. Slice into 1.5 inch pieces half way through roll. Bake 20-30 minutes until golden brown.


Greek Salad

We will be using

• mixed greens
• celery
• onion
• shredded carrot
• grapes
• feta on the side

Traditionally a summer salad would also include

• kalamata olives or possibly capers
• tomato
• possibly bell pepper

whereas winter salads are normally cabbage-based. Dressing is always olive oil mixed with lemon juice; one would normally place slices of feta on top of the salad, sprinkle everything with dried oregano, and then pour the oild and lemon juice on top, but I'm going to use crumbled feta and mix the oregano into the dressing. Grapes wouldn't normally be in the salad, but I don't get olives, and it will be yummy.

Hearty Italian soup

It's been pouring here non-stop, perfect soup weather. Our original plan for tonight was "mushroom and barley soup," to which we ten decided to add tomatoes and beans for a nice Minestrone-style stew.

Oh, and this recipe is going up immediately, because we forgot to take photos of dinner. I have a hard enough time remembering what we made based on two-month-old pictures, and by the time I get to posting the last few meals (hopefully soon) I won't remember we made tonight's dinner at all.

This is a "quick" soup: no stock. Begin cooking about ninety minutes before dinner, but you'll have at least an hour of simmering when you can go do other things.

Heat a large splash of olive oil at the bottom of your favorite soup pot. Add salt and begin sauteing:

• 3 spring red onions, cleaned and diced
• 1 spring garlic, washed, cleaned and diced
• 1 clove dried garlic, minced
• 4 small carrots, washed well and diced
• 3 dried bay leaves
• 2 sprigs each rosemary and savory, stems removed and minced

Stirring, let the mire poix saute until the onions are tender. Then add

• 1/2 cup pearled barley
• 1 lb crimini mushrooms, washed and halved
• a bit more salt

and cook on medium, stirring, until the mushrooms have just begun to wilt. Then add

• 1 large can tomatoes
• 1 small can your favorite white beans (we used soy beans, since it's all we had)
• 2 quarts water
• yet more salt

Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and cook covered for at least an hour.

Right before serving, stir in a small splash of vinegar. Sprinkle the bowls with minced parsley, and serve with a crusty bread.

Paella

Rice, white beans, tomatoes, oil, garlic, onions, clams, mussels, shrimp, broth. Maybe some other stuff — it's been a long time since I've updated.

Steamed broccoli with garlic, couscous with garbanzo beans and spices

The little heads of broccoli were steamed and topped with garlic. The couscous recipe is an old and easy standby from The Joy of Cooking:

Heat in a large skillet [I do the entire dish in our smallest saucepan] over medium heat:

• 3 tablespoons olive oil

Add:

• 1 cup sliced blanched almonds

Cook, stirring, for about 1 minute. Stir in:

• 1 teaspoon sweet or hot paprika
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon ground coriander
• ½ to 1 teaspoon hot red pepper sauce [I usually leave this out]

Cook until heated through, about 1 minute more. Stir in:

• 2½ cups chicken or vegetable stock of water [it's a flavorful dish; use water]
• 2 cups cooked chickpeas (about ⅔ cup dried), rinsed and drained if canned [1 can]
• 1 cup chopped raisins or whole dried currants [or dried red peppers or...]

Bring to a boil and stir in:

1¼ cups quick-cooking couscous

Cover, remove from the heat, and let stand for 5 minutes [or longer; it will holds its heat]. Fluff the couscous with a fork. Season with:

• Salt and ground black pepper to taste [or include some salt and pepper at the beginning]

Garnish with:

• ¼ cup chopped fresh parsley or cilantro

The very last of the beans

We harvested the very last batch of broad beans on the 13th of December, and pulled out the vines to make space for our fava seedlings. Most were dry enough to save in a jar, but some were still fresh and white, and so we made our favorite bean dip. Boil fresh beans twenty minutes or so, with a stick of rosemary in the pot. Meanwhile, peel and pound in the mortar and pestle many cloves of garlic, along with the leaves from a stick of rosemary. To aid with the pounding, add salt, and once the garlic is a paste, mix in good olive oil to help it pour out. When the beans are softened, drain them and remove the boiled rosemary twig. In a medium bowl, whisk together beans and the garlic-and-rosemary paste, until the beans have mostly mashed.

Hippie food

Soak black eyed peas over night, in at least three times as much water, and in a pot that can sustain that much water in a vigorous boil. An hour before dinner, bring the beans to a boil, with the lid almost covering but letting some of the air escape.

Also a full hour before you want to eat, combine one part wheat berry with two parts well-salted water, add a dab of butter, bring to a boil, and reduce to a simmer, covered. Cook on low 1 hr, checking occasionally, until the water has almost entirely cooked off. If you leave it covered, it will hold its heat at least another 30 minutes, if not another hour, so feel free to make the grains well in advance.

Wash one head each of collard greens and rapini greens, and strip the leafy part off the stems. Cut the leaves into thin strips. Wash also a bunch of mixed young braising greens. In a medium or large pot, saute one onion, coarsely chopped, in lots of butter, and add minced garlic, salt, curry powder, and mustard powder. Add the greens, cover, and cook on low — the water clinging to the greens from washing should be enough to steam them. Cook an hour, checking occasionally.

Twenty minutes before serving, chop a bunch of fresh shallots, and saute in butter. Add salt, clove, and mustard powder, and then the drain beans. Saute the flavors together.

Serve all three dishes hot.

Fasolada me spanaki and Greek salad

Fasolada, or Greek bean soup, is wonderful on a cold night, and can be made completely vegan. Prepare as you would any other vegetable soup: saute aromatics, add liquid, add veggies. In this case, the important parts are: lots and lots of olive oil, plenty of thyme, cooked white beans, and spinach or other cooking greens.

For the salad, we used a mesclun from Happy Boy, and added raw red onion, kalamata olives, feta cheese, and a lemon-juice dressing.

Garnish both soup and salad with extra feta. For a nice presentation, arrange the feta bowl with extra olives, and cover liberally with olive oil.

The last hurrah of summer

Our vegetable box last week surprised us: it was the final Tuesday of October, and yet the box came full of corn, green beans, sweet peppers, and basil (well, cilantro, actually, but we asked to trade). Our bean vines are still heavy with fruit, so we added some fresh shelled white beans, grabbed some thyme from the garden, and made a wonderful succotash.

Shell white beans and simmer at least ten minutes. Drain. Meanwhile, sauté diced white onion in lots of butter. When onion is translucent, add minced garlic, fresh thyme leaves, and fresh corn cut off the cob. Cook a few minutes while you dice sweet red peppers and add it in; also add in green beans, cut into one-inch pieces. Finally, mix in the drained white beans and some fresh basil leaves. Serve with a well-chilled white or rosé.

Black bean burgers

A good burger bun should be roughly two parts white flour to one part whole wheat, with lots of honey. Don't overyeast unless you're sure you'll eat all the rolls in a night — we usually have leftovers, and overyeasted dough goes stale really fast. The dough should be well-salted, well-kneaded, and reasonably stiff. Roll the dough in sesame seeds and bake on an ungreased cookie sheet. Allow two rolls per person, although not everyone will eat that much. Each roll is about half a cup of flour, so start with the same number of cups of flour as you have eaters. Serve the rolls whole, with a bread knife at the table, so that they have a chance to cool slightly before being cut open.




For the burgers, soak black beans the night before and then boil to mushy. Drain and let cool. Combine beans in the standing mixture with salt, nutritional yeast, minced garlic and onion, clove, and paprika. Then add wheat gluten spoonful by spoonful until the beans come together into a tight ball. Mold the beans by hand into good-sized patties and wrap well in foil. Bake forty minutes.






For the sides, scrub a few small sweet potatoes and cut into french fries. In a glass lasagna pan, toss the potatoes with olive oil, salt, and cumin; bake uncovered thirty minutes. Also slice up some onion, tomatoes, and cheese for the burgers, open a jar of bread-and-butter pickles, and set out prepared ketchup and mustard. Serve with a light red; the Cab Sauvignon by Firefly Ridge is a good standby and is currently steeply discounted at Safeway.

Pita bread with falafel, raita, and fresh tomatoes

It's so nice to be back in Berkeley. The weather has been warm, the mathematics has been stimulating, and the food has been delicious. Tonight's meal was particularly good; I'll post the last few meals soon.

This was not the first time we've made falafel and pita, but we're getting it down to an art. Tonight we forwent the hummus and babaganoush we sometimes make, in favor of a luxurious raita: it was hot this afternoon, and we wanted a cool yogurt. There are many variations — for example, combine nonfat yogurt (Nancy's), diced Armenian cucumber (wonderfully fresh from today's CSA), minced peppermint (from Full Belly, probably a weed growing on the farm), cumin, salt, and olive oil.

For the falafel balls, open a can of garbanzo beans (we didn't decide to make this meal until the last minute, else we would have soaked and boiled them; the surprisingly good Westbrae organic cans were on sale), and mix in plenty of tahini, some cumin, and a bit more salt than is strictly necessary. Also add a fair amount of flour, lest the beans fall apart while frying. The standing mixer with the paddle makes short shrift of the mixing and helps mash the beans — you do not need to get the beans completely smooth. Heat olive oil in the cast iron fry pan, and create small paddies (about 2 Tbsp each) of the bean mixture; fry on each side until golden brown, and transfer to a bowl lined with paper towel.

Maybe the most important part of the meal is the pita bread. We had been thinking of having soup and a whole-wheat baguette, so B had made a dough earlier, which fortunately was perfect for pita: very moist to the point of being a bit sticky, and not overly worked. When the dough has risen, transfer to a well-floured work surface, and cut off small pieces. Coat with a little flour if necessary, and lightly work into a round ball by hand. Then with a floured rolling pin roll the dough ball into a thin circle, about the size and thickness of a diner pancake. Coat well with flour, and set aside. Repeat; if you use enough flour, you can stack the dough pancakes into a short stack.

The trick with pita is to avoid overly glutenizing the flour until you roll it out: the rolling pin creates high glutenization but only horizontally. With the baking stone set inside, heat the oven as hot as it will go, and place the raw pitas on the stone. After a minute or three they will puff way up as the water in the middle expands and rips apart the weak vertical gluten strands. Remove the pita from the oven when it just barely starts to turn golden brown.

We paired the dinner with a Rosé from Red Bicyclette (we began by finishing a bottle of their Pinot Noir), and finished the meal with a lemon-dressing salad. Most important to the meal, though, were the sliced tomatoes we had with the falafel. The tomatoes had come in today's CSA (we also bought a twenty-pound box for canning) and were extremely fresh.