Black Bean and Squash Casserole with Cilantro Rice

As promised, I did dispense with the large amount of spinach mentioned in my last post by replaying the spinach kootu from a couple of weeks ago.  It came out great, as always, but my plan to make it into a vegetarian alternative to the tuna/bacon/spinach pasta went up in smoke when I realized that I was all pasta'd out after my last big batch of pasta salad.  So, I just made some brown rice to go with it and that was just as good.

Tuesday was a day off, so I addressed my anxiety about the three yellow squashes that had been in the fridge for at least a week by making this casserole. 

Black Bean and Squash Casserole with Cilantro Rice:
2 cups water
2 Knorr cilantro cubes
1.5 cups basmati rice (jasmine or another long-grain works too), rinsed
3 yellow squash, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced
3 jalapeno peppers, seeded and chopped
2 tbsp canola or olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
2 cans black beans, drained
cayenne pepper to taste
1/2 tsp cumin
1 tsp dried oregano
2 cloves garlic
8 oz. cheddar cheese, shredded

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

Bring the water to a boil and add the cilantro cubes. 

Toss the squash and jalapenos in a mixing bowl with the oil, salt and pepper.

In a separate bowl, combine the black beans with the next four ingredients.

In a 10 x 13" baking dish, spread the uncooked rice evenly across the bottom of the pan.  Layer the squash and jalapenos evenly across the rice, then pour the cilantro broth over both.  Layer the black beans evenly over the squash.

Bake, covered, for 45 minutes or until rice has absorbed all liquid.  Remove from oven (heat may be turned off at this point), cover evenly with cheddar cheese and put the dish back in the oven uncovered until the cheese has melted, about 3 to 5 minutes.  Serve warm.

***
I don't normally experiment with casserole dishes without having a recipe to tweak, but this came out okay all things considered.  My only regret is that the rice didn't really make itself a part of the casserole because of the barrier formed by the squash.  It would have been nice for some of the cheese to reach down and mix with the rice, but alas...maybe someday I'll try it again. 

Here's what it looked like on Steve's plate:

As for the squash, it neither helped nor hindered, but it was nice to have a veggie figure prominently in the mix, unlike the standard rice-and-beans plate you can get at any of the Mexican restaurants around here.  And I normally use a 1.5 to 1 ratio of water to uncooked rice, but I made it 4:3 this time figuring that any liquid coming out of the squash would make up the difference.  I was right, and the rice came out perfectly!  So the moral of the story is...maybe don't bother making this as a casserole, and just cook everything, put it on a heatproof plate and put that in the oven just long enough for the cheese to melt over the rice?...
 
Except for some tomatoes that Steve picked from the plant yesterday, we really don't have anything that needs to be used up right now.  If I had to guess, my next recipe will involve pesto made from parsley, basil and/or lemon balm.  Another pizza?  Stay tuned...

Look who finally cooked again!

I know it's been a while, but new demands on my time (mainly the new job I started a couple of weeks ago) plus school have made it hard for me to spend time on the computer for recreation - or cook as per usual.  So, updates will probably be scant through the end of April, but I appreciate your patience and look forward to being able to both cook and blog again more often!

Truth be told, the next time I cooked after the last post was a massive fail.  I had this idea that a soybean cassoulet might be a really good idea, and it really wasn't.  The first mistake was putting the soybeans in the slow cooker: that alone, on the low setting, took three days, with onions, carrots and rosemary added on the last day, and it really didn't taste good at all.  Luckily it was vegan, because some of it ended up in the compost bin.  That cured me of my momentary fascination with the dried soybean.  For most of the next week or two, I just ate frozen dinners or made simple spinach salads followed by wine and cheese for dinner. 

When it started warming up again and I realized I had some week-old lemons and an untouched package of celery of indeterminate age in the fridge, it seemed like a good time to try out a new pasta salad recipe.  Twisty egg noodles from Wal-Mart, two chopped tomatoes, a tablespoon of capers, chopped celery and onion sauteed in olive oil (just enough to soften them, but not enough to get rid of all their crunch), a dressing made of olive oil, lemon juice, dried Italian herbs and pepper.  Mix it all together, chill for two hours and add shredded or shaved Parmesan to taste (try 1/2 cup to start).

More recently, I reprised the easy vegetarian cassoulet recipe, only I made it vegan by substituting nutritional yeast (2 tablespoons) for the cheese and used veggie base to make the broth.  This recipe took care of some chopped onion left over from another recipe as well as the remaining celery.  Sometimes I'm afraid to do vegan too often, lest my flirtation with veganism cause me to have a B-12 deficiency, but the yeast takes care of that.  Read here for more on that.

And most recently, an untouched bag of baby spinach from Publix inspired a pasta dish based on my favorite spinach salad: whole wheat linguine cooked al dente, 6 ounces (about 2/3 of a bag) chopped fresh spinach cooked in olive oil, juice from half a lemon, a pinch of nutmeg, and crumbled feta and fresh ground pepper added at the end.  Mix it all together, and voila!  This tasted great, but I was chagrined to see the spinach turn brown when I added the lemon juice to the hot pan before it was done cooking.  It also brought back memories of the childhood invisible ink trick - write something in lemon juice, let it dry, then run a hot iron over the piece of paper and watch it turn brown.  Oh, well - next time I'll just drizzle it on at the end like I would with the salad. 

Another reason I haven't knocked myself out to cook as often is that - aside from Steve easing up on the produce purchases and the fact that I never shop if I can help it - they actually have decent food where I work now, and it's easy to think to myself, Self, a bowl of veggie soup is just two bucks downstairs.  But as long as I have raw materials, I'll be doing my best to use them rather than make lunch from cash. 

Until next time...

Stuffed Portabella Mushrooms and Broccoli Risotto

Last night's dinner and today's leftovers.  I bought a package of portabella mushroom caps on impulse at Earth Fare early in the week, and stuffing them just seemed like the thing to do.  The original plan was to make a stuffing mixture out of spinach and breadcrumbs (the incidental ones from when I made my own croutons for our Thanksgiving stuffing), but I made the mistake of adding too much of the nasty Chardonnay from last Friday to dampen the breadcrumbs, and the result was...nasty.  I realized this just as I was getting ready to spoon it onto the mushroom caps and ended up scrapping it and starting over sans breadcrumbs.  It was just as well - I wasn't sure how much stuffing these mushrooms would hold with the gills intact, so I just chopped up the spinach as finely as I could and mixed in a little lemon juice, pepper and feta.

Spinach and Feta-Stuffed Portabellas:
3 Portabella mushrooms, stems intact
1/2 cup fresh spinach, finely chopped
1/2 tbsp olive oil
1/2 tbsp lemon juice
pepper to taste
1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Remove and finely chop stems from mushrooms.  Combine chopped stems with spinach, olive oil, lemon juice, pepper and about half (1/4 cup) of the feta cheese.  Spoon onto mushrooms, packing it with spoon.  Top mixture with remaining feta cheese, place on greased (or foil-covered) cookie sheet or shallow baking pan in oven for 20 minutes.

The risotto seemed as good a pairing with the mushrooms as any, plus I haven't made it in a while.  This didn't use anything out of the fridge except some veggie base, but it was still an easy side dish to whip up while the mushrooms were in the oven.

Broccoli Risotto:
2 tbsp Smart Balance or Earth Balance
1 cup onion, chopped (I thawed some chopped onion from the freezer)
1 cup arborio rice
3 cups vegetable broth (I used Better than Bouillon vegetable base)
1 cup frozen broccoli florets, thawed
1/2 cup freshly grated Romano cheese
fresh ground pepper

In a 2-quart saucepan, heat the Smart Balance over medium heat.  Add onion and saute until softened, about 3 minutes.  Stir in arborio rice and cook for one minute.  Begin adding hot broth to the rice mixture 1/2 cup at a time, stirring often, until the rice has absorbed that amount of liquid.  Repeat until the rice has absorbed all the broth.  Broccoli may be added at this point or at the same time as the last addition of broth.  Stir in Romano and pepper and serve.

Next up: something to dispense of all the parsley, cilantro, red cabbage and carrots in the bottom drawer...

Corn & feta salad and Italian green beans

Tonight was a light dinner because some of us weren't hungry...

Which worked out well enough, considering I still had string beans, corn and a tomato to use up and some recent reading suggested that our bones might be better off for it. The corn and feta salad was slightly different from last time, and it was so sweet that it seemed almost a shame to add salt and vinegar, but the sweetness still came through - the Pinckney's difference!

Corn and feta salad:
3 fresh ears of corn with husks
salt and pepper to taste
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
3 oz. feta, crumbled

Bake corn in a 400 degree oven for 20 minutes and let cool for 5-10 minutes. Remove husks and any remaining threads of corn silk. Cut the corn off the cob with a serrated knife. Combine all ingredients in a mixing bowl and then serve.

Green beans:2 tbsp olive oil
1 pound fresh green beans, trimmed
salt and crushed red pepper to taste
1 vine-ripened tomato, diced

Heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add green beans, salt and crushed red pepper and stir to coat the green beans. Saute for 5 minutes. Add diced tomato, reduce heat slightly, cover and simmer until green beans are tender but not overcooked, about another 5 minutes.

Veggie Blue Plate Special

Tonight's challenge: use up the last 5 ounces of baby spinach, 2 of the 4 bell peppers in the fridge, the last ear of corn left over from last week, 1 tomato and 1 bunch of scallions. The obvious thing to do was to pretend we don't have any turkey smoked sausage, chicken or fish in the freezer and prepare a 3-veggie plate - tonight's blue plate special. This consisted of an encore presentation of the corn and feta salad plus the following two dishes:

Black-eyed peas, Italian-styleI'm not sure such a thing actually exists, but I pretended it did with my seasoning blend. These are great cooked in chicken broth, bu since I haven't gotten around to buying any yet, a little extra salt worked out just as well.

8 oz. frozen black-eyed peas, thawed
Salt to taste
1 bunch scallions (mostly the white part), thinly sliced
1 vine-ripened tomato, peeled and diced
2 tsp dried Italian herbs
1 tsp crushed red pepper or to taste

Place thawed black-eyed peas in a small (1 qt) saucepan, cover with water and add salt. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium and simmer covered. Peas will take about 20 minutes to cook, but check on them and add water if needed. During the last 5 minutes, add chopped tomato and onion along with Italian herbs and crushed red pepper.


Bell peppers stuffed with spinach risottoDon't really remember where this recipe came from; I'm thinking either Giada De Laurentiis or Emeril. Anyway, I also like to cook some chicken broth into the risotto when I have some, but extra salt was tonight's substitute here as well. I also like to saute some chopped onion in the olive oil before adding the rice, but since tonight's veggie plate featured onions in the other two dishes, I left them out of the risotto.

2 large bell peppers (red, orange or yellow look best with the risotto)
2 tsp olive oil
1 cup arborio rice
3 cups salted water
5 oz baby spinach (can also use 1/2 pkg frozen, thawed), chopped small
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/3 to 1/2 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
Fresh ground pepper to taste

Cut two bell peppers in half, remove hats, scoop out seeds and set aside on a shallow baking pan.

In a 1 or 2 qt saucepan, bring salted water to a boil, then reduce heat to medium.

In a separate 2-qt saucepan, eat the oil over medium heat. (Add the onion now, if using; saute for 2-3 minutes or until translucent.) Add rice and stir. Reduce heat to medium-low.

Begin adding salted water (or broth, if using) to the rice 1/2 cup at a time, stirring often. Once all water has been added to the rice and rice has taken on a creamy consistency (should take about 15-20 minutes), stir in the chopped spinach and let it cook for about 3-4 minutes in the hot rice. Add nutmeg and pepper and stir. Add Parmesan cheese and stir until it melts into the rice.

Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Use a soup spoon to fill the peppers with the risotto, pressing down in order to stuff the peppers. Sprinkle some more Parmesan over the tops.

Bake peppers in the oven for 20 minutes or until the Parmesan on top of the peppers turns golden brown.


To my credit (I guess), an entire hour has passed since we finished dinner, and Steve hasn't started snacking on boiled peanuts yet! I think I've figured out how we can both have enough to eat without meat being involved!

9 Veggies, 1 Soup, 1 Salad

After returning from a weekend camping trip, on which our food stores typically consist of pre-cooked chicken or turkey sausage, buns, Goldfish, Pop-tarts and pistachios, I noticed that I still had a ton of produce that might have been fun to bring along had our cold storage space not been mostly taken up by beer.

So…on hand I had a few beets, a trimmed bunch of mustard greens, one small head each of broccoli and cauliflower, spring onions, a few tomatoes, one cooked, husked and chilled ear of corn and a couple of carrots. Since I’m not able to cook every night of the week and didn’t want to spend all Sunday afternoon in the kitchen making several things to be consumed during the week, I took the easy way out and threw everything into a soup pot with a few cups of water and some partially cooked chana dal (dried split chick peas, available at Indian grocery stores). Here's what it looked like.


I have to say I was a bit disappointed in how much sweetness the beets added to the mix. Given the chance to do it all over, I think I would have nuked and then chilled the diced beets and then used them in a spinach, corn and feta salad served as part of a soup-and-salad combo. I might have also added a can of tomato paste or sauce for additional thickness and flavor. That said, here’s the soup-and-salad that I did end up making and what I used:


Corn and feta salad

This recipe is based on a cold side dish I used to enjoy at the now-defunct Birds on a Wire restaurant, located on Devine St. in Columbia until 2008 or 2009. Since the food was generally mediocre and the service worse, the only reason I really have for missing them is that I never learned how to make their black bean cake. Here’s a take on their corn and feta salad:

One ear fresh corn, baked with husk on and chilled
3-4 oz. feta cheese, crumbled
green onions from one bulb of spring onions or one small bunch, sliced
1 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp lime juice
pepper to taste

Once the ear of corn has chilled, peel off the husk and cut off the kernels with a serrated knife and discard the cob and husk.

Place the corn kernels in a mixing bowl. Add all other ingredients and stir until blended. Spoon onto small plates and serve. (Serves 2-3)


Indian Sambhar-style mixed vegetable soup
For most of my Indian cooking, credit needs to be given to Alamelu Vairavan, whose Healthy South Indian Cooking** book I found in the book shop of the United Nations headquarters in New York in 2006. None of her sambhars, not even her Mixed Vegetable Sambhar (p. 175), actually call for this many veggies. However, given the consistent list of spices, I figured the basic configuration would allow for additions and substitutions.

4 cups water
1 cup (dry) chana dal*, pre-soaked for one hour
salt to taste
1 teaspoon turmeric
2 tablespoons canola oil
2 tablespoons urad dal*
2 tablespoons black mustard seeds*
2 large carrots, peeled and diced into ¼ inch cubes
4 small beets, peeled and diced into ¼ inch cubes
4 spring onion bulbs, chopped
1 head of broccoli (stems removed), chopped
1 head of cauliflower (stems removed), chopped
1 bunch mustard greens (12-15 large leaves), chopped into bite-size pieces and washed in several changes of cold water
3 medium tomatoes, peeled and diced
1 tbsp sambhar powder* (like a mild curry powder)
Cayenne pepper to taste
*Can be purchased in Indian grocery stores.

Drain and rinse pre-soaked chana dal. Boil 4 cups of water in a 2-quart saucepan and add chana dal plus 1 tsp salt and turmeric. Cook covered for 20-30 minutes or until soft.

Heat the canola oil in an 8 qt pot over medium heat. When hot, but not smoking, add mustard seeds and urad dal. Cover pot and cook until mustard seeds pop and urad dal turns golden brown.

Add carrots and beets, stir and cook for 5 minutes. Add spring onions, stir and cook another 2-3 minutes.

Add broccoli and cauliflower, stir and cover for another 2-3 minutes.

Add cooked chana dal with their water and about 4 cups more water. Add tomatoes and mustard greens, pushing the greens down into the water with a large spoon. Stir in sambhar powder and cayenne (and more salt if needed), lower heat and simmer, covered, for 15 more minutes or until mustard greens have wilted.

Unsolicited testimonial: Steve was polite. To my pleasant surprise, given how seldom he eats corn by choice, he actually seemed to like the corn and feta salad. This ear of corn wasn’t especially sweet, so the kernels provided texture and just enough sweetness to complement the scallions and feta. Comments for the soup included “it’s pretty good” and something about each bite bursting with vitamins. Again, I found the beets to be a bit out of place in this soup because of the sweetness they added. Thankfully, they did not (at least not until the leftovers sat in the fridge overnight) discolor every other ingredient as I’d feared – just a few of the onions and carrots they cooked with in the beginning. Had I left out the beets, Indian spices and about half the greens and added tomato sauce and some Italian herbs, this actually would have made a great vegetarian minestrone. Will definitely make this again – just not the exact same way.

**Vairavan, A. and Marquardt, P. Healthy South Indian Cooking. New York: Hippocrene, 2001. ISBN 0-7818-0867-7