My Sweet Sixteen Birthday Dinner Revisited

For those of you who don't already know, today's my birthday.  Over the weekend, when I was thinking about what I might like to do for dinner tonight (go out or dine in?), it occurred to me that the most memorable birthday dinner I've ever had was for my sweet sixteen, on this date 20 years ago.  (So guess how old I am now?)  I remember that, after a bad day at school, I came home crying about something or other, and when I settled down my dad asked me what I'd like for dinner.  I told him kielbasa, sauerkraut and black-eyed peas, so that's what he made. 

Das ist richtig, y'all.  And when I say my dad "made" it, I mean he heated everything.  The black-eyed peas and sauerkraut were from cans, and the kielbasa was sliced lengthwise and thrown on the skillet just like any other day.  That was how we ate back then, and until I learned to cook it was all good. 

As it happens, we've had frozen black-eyed peas and a package of Tofurky kielbasa in the fridge for a few weeks now, waiting to be used, and tonight seemed like a special opportunity to bring those unlikely flavors together once more and make the most of my vegan cleanse.

I "made" the vegan kielbasa the same as before - sliced and heated in the toaster oven until slightly browned.  Instead of popping open a can of black-eyed peas, I thawed some of the frozen ones and threw them in the pressure cooker along with some chopped bell pepper, onion and broth, adding a couple of teaspoons of chipotle Tabasco sauce at the very end.  In place of the sauerkraut, I picked up a head of cabbage and made the equally flavorful cabbage with coconut poriyal recipe from my Indian cookbook.  Delish! 

On a side note, Steve gave me a copy of Skinny Bitch which I can't wait to read!  But not tonight - after the dishes are washed (also his treat), we'll be settling in front of the TV, indulging our new addiction to Breaking Bad (we just ditched the cable and are Netflixing all the episodes in order) while munching on vegan cupcakes that he also picked up at Earth Fare today!

Hope everyone's having as lovely an evening as me!  Until next time...

My first stab at chili

I mildly regret not having tried my hand at chili back when I was still doing a lot with ground turkey.  It would be nice to be able to say I did that at least once, even though I wasn't the world's biggest chili fan.  I like to think that if I've had something once, or even many times, and found that it wasn't that great or was only really good some of the time, I can improve upon it at home.  Many's the time I've eaten gumbo that looked and acted suspiciously like canned tomato soup with a few random pieces of rice, okra and/or shrimp.  (I'm looking at you, Wild Wing Cafe.)  But every time I made it myself, it was great.  Not to toot my own horn, but it was.  And now that I no longer eat any of the meats that were the cornerstone of my homemade version, I can at least look back fondly upon the days when I made it and it kicked ass.

Alas, my first attempt at chili was meat-free.  Having also never eaten veggie chili before, I had to stop and think about what goes into chili besides ground meat, beans and tomatoes.  As it happened, a couple of bell peppers in the backyard were due to be picked and we had half an onion and a couple of jalapenos left over from the last time Steve made guacamole, so we had enough on hand to make a truly veggie chili.  I never thought about adding corn, although I'm sure that would have been good.  Basically, I used the above fresh veggies plus a bunch of cans of beans and one can of tomatoes, added some spices and stirred it up until I had something remarkably like chili.

Five-bean veggie chili:
2 tbsp canola oil
1 green bell pepper, diced
1 red bell pepper, diced
2 jalapeno peppers, finely diced
1/2 medium-large onion, finely diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 cups water
2 Knorr brand cilantro cubes
1 can dark red kidney beans, drained
1 can navy beans, drained
1 can black beans, drained
1 can pinto beans, drained
1 can diced tomatoes with their juice
1 can fat-free refried beans
2 tsp dried Mexican oregano
2 tsp cumin
1 tsp cayenne pepper or to taste

Heat the oil in a 4-quart saucepan over medium heat.  Add diced peppers, onion and garlic and stir well.  Add water and bring to a boil.  Add cilantro cubes, stir well and reduce heat.  Add next four cans of beans and tomatoes; stir well.  Add refried beans and stir well to blend with liquids and thicken soup.  Add spices and raise heat to boil off excess liquid, stirring often for 10-15 minutes or as needed.  Serve alone or with rice, cornbread, tortilla chips, etc.
***
Not bad!  Although next time I'll probably use less water - maybe one cup or less, since the undrained tomatoes add quite a bit.  I'm really not sure how much time I spent on this, but it seemed like at least half of that time I was boiling off the excess liquid until it was thick enough to call chili.  Flavorwise, I give myself an A!  Next time (and I'm sure there will be one, since flexible recipes like these are right up my alley) I'll probably add a bit more spice, possibly in the form of the dried red chilies I get from the Indian grocery store on Two Notch Rd.  I'm sure I'll try it with corn at least once and maybe also experiment with different hot peppers from the produce section.

So, that was my lunch hour today.  Tonight we'll be going out someplace where I can load up on pasta for the big race tomorrow.  If any of you in the Columbia area are doing the Ray Tanner Home Run, hopefully we'll run into each other - and good luck!

Blackened Tofu with Cajun Rice

Finally - a few spare minutes yesterday in which to cook! 

So, I'm trying this vegan thing on for size.  I've done it for a day or two at a time before and I'm not making any commitments right now, but I figured I'd do the 21-Day Vegan Kickstart for however many days I can stand it and then resume eating cheese.  If you've never heard of it before, check it out - they have some yummy recipes on their website as well.

Last night's dinner was a take on a jambalaya recipe I used to make that involved chicken broth, smoked sausage and whole pieces of chicken.  Since I no longer consume any of those and I happened to have a block of tofu and some fresh peppers, onions and tomatoes in the fridge, I decided to try my hand at a vegan alternative.

Blackened Tofu:
7-8 oz. firm tofu, pressed and cut into four slices
2 tbsp olive or canola oil
2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
3 tsp paprika
2 tsp turmeric

Combine the spices and spread out across a small plate.  Coat the tofu pieces in oil, then coat both sides of each slice with the spice mix.  Place in the refrigerator for at least 20 min or up to 2 hours.  (Further instructions below)

Cajun Rice:
3 tbsp olive or canola oil
3 small green and/or red bell peppers
2 small yellow onions
3-4 cloves garlic
2 large tomatoes, peeled and diced (I peeled them using the boiling water for the broth)
2 cups jasmine rice
3 cups veggie broth
2 tsp garam masala
1 tsp turmeric
2 tsp dried oregano
black or cayenne pepper to taste

In a saucepan with a tight-fitting lid (don't put the lid on yet), heat oil over medium heat.  Add peppers, onions and garlic and saute until slightly softened, about 3-5 minutes.  Add tomatoes and cook for another 3 minutes.  Add rice, stir well and bring mixture to a boil.  Add broth and spices, reduce heat to low, cover with tight-fitting lid and cook until rice has absorbed all liquid, about 15-20 minutes.

Meanwhile, turn on medium heat under a nonstick saute pan (or heat 1-2 tbsp oil in regular saute pan), add marinated tofu slices and cook on each side until slightly crisp on the surface (some of the seasoning may come off), about 5-6 minutes per side.  Fluff rice and serve with tofu.

***
Gotta toot my own horn - this was so good I didn't even mind the absence of chicken, sausage or shrimp!  I had to wing it with the spices for the tofu since I don't have a Cajun or Creole seasoning mix, but this turned out really well!  The right spice mix makes a huge difference.  If you have any garlic or onion powder in your pantry (I don't), they would probably work well in this mix too.

Just one thing- next time I think I'll either make half the rice or use a whole block of tofu and double the spice mix.  Steve and I ate all four slices (two per plate with the rice, as shown) and there was plenty of rice left over.  But then, another simple solution to the problem of lopsided leftovers would be to throw in a can or two of beans and maybe some more cayenne...?  We shall see...

Polenta with Red Beans and Coconut

Today was a day off, I'm working all weekend, and a quick look at the cafeteria menu on the hospital's Intranet told me that this would be a bad weekend for a vegetarian to be at their mercy during her 30-minute lunch break.  Since the next best thing I could think of that doesn't involve cooking would be to venture out into the 100-degree weather to pick something up from the Chinese restaurant half a block away, I figured it would be best to cook enough today to last until Tuesday (my next day off).

I wish I could claim this as my own recipe, but alas...I used to make this a few times a year using the recipe from my Haitian cookbook, A Taste of Haiti (reference below).  I kinda got away from using this cookbook because meat recipes figure more prominently in it than veggies, and most of the veggie side dish recipes are for plantains and sweet potatoes.  I love both, mind you, but I can't eat them all the time.  However, I recently replayed the spinach praram sans sweet potatoes and found myself with half a can of coconut milk left over.  What to do, what to do?  Ah yes, the old coconut polenta with kidney beans recipe...

Before I give you the polenta recipe, I'm going to first provide the recipe for the Haitian ground "spice" mix that's needed at the very beginning.  I had hoped to be able to multi-task and save time by making the Zepis while everything else was getting started, but no...you really do need it first.  Here's that recipe along with some other suggestions (since this recipe makes a lot more than you'll need for the polenta):

Zepis (Haitian ground spice mix):
1 garlic head, peeled (or use 20-25 cloves of chopped garlic from a jar if you're too impatient to peel garlic)
2 green bell peppers
2 onions (or one big onion)
3-5 scallions
3 cilantro sprigs
10 parsley sprigs
1 cup of white vinegar (my preference; book says you can also use 1/2 cup oil or 1/2 cup water)

Combine all ingredients in blender or food processor and place in a jar (or two if they're small).  Keep refrigerated. 

Suggestions: this is very similar to the sofrito sauce that I made for the pigeon pea soup last summer; just add some chopped tomatoes and a few shakes of hot sauce (I like the Yucateco green habanero sauce because it adds more heat and less vinegar).  Zepis also has some potential as a marinade for meats and veggies, and the addition of some hot peppers (or that green habanero sauce) would make it into a delicious Mexican restaurant-style salsa verde.

The recipe book offers up a traditional, time-consuming version, involving dry beans and a whole coconut that you shred yourself, as well as a quick version using coconut milk and canned kidney beans.  Since their recipe calls for a whole can of coconut milk and two cans of kidney beans, I bought one can of kidney beans at the Pig this morning and made a half-batch for lunch:

Polenta with Red Beans and Coconut:
1 tbsp canola oil
1/4 cup Zepis (Haitian ground "spice" mix; see recipe below)
1 can red kidney beans, drained
1/2 can of coconut milk
2 whole cloves
1/2 cup plain yellow cornmeal
2 teaspoons salt, or to taste

Heat the oil, add the zepis and saute for 5 minutes on medium heat.  Stir in the beans and cook for another 5 minutes.  Add the coconut milk and cloves and cook for another 5 minutes.  Add 1.5 cups of water and bring mixture to a boil.  Add cornmeal slowly, stirring carefully to avoid clumps (or mash them out if they start forming) and then add salt.  Reduce heat to low and cover.  Cook for 25 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes.
***

I served this up with a simple, Caribbean-inspired take on a familiar side dish here in the South:

Okra and tomatoes:
1 tbsp canola oil
1 pound of frozen okra, thawed
2 tsp garam masala
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper or to taste
4 oz tomato sauce

Heat the oil in a saucepan over medium heat.  Add okra and spices and cook until okra seems less sticky and/or is starting to brown.  Add tomato sauce and cook until mixture is heated through.
***

As you can see in the picture, the polenta doesn't hold its shape very well.  If you're concerned about space on the plate and/or don't want to have the huge quantity that I was ready for by the time it was done, consider serving it in a ramekin or a small side dish bowl.  Despite the mushy presentation, it turned out as well as the last time I made it a couple of years ago!  Try it - dishes from spicy regions like the Caribbean are a wonderful change from the ordinary in the summertime.

Stay tuned to find out what I made for dinner (and other weekend leftovers)...

Recipes from:
Yurnet-Thomas, Mirta.  A Taste of Haiti.  New York: Hippocrene, 2002.  ISBN 0-7818-0998-3

My Kitchen of Indian Delights

So little time for cooking these days, what with the crazy hours I've been working at the hospital, but somehow I manage...
Before rediscovering some of the Indian recipes that I love but haven't made in a while, I had one more go at gyros on Tuesday, this time using mushrooms.   Since I ran out of Greek seasoning mix the last time I made gyros, I had to whip out my Greek cookbook and figure out an approximation.  It turned out to be as simple as salt, pepper, garlic, coriander and finely chopped onion.  The recipe in the book also called for a little bit of allspice and savory, which I don't have, but I found that the mushrooms did just as well with the seasonings I did have.

Yesterday (my only day off this week, boo) I made a couple of Indian dishes in hopes of getting through the next couple of days on leftovers.  One was a batch of Bell Pepper and Tomato Rice with Cashews, and the other was Zucchini Kootu.  Both recipes are in Healthy South Indian Cooking (see Books, Links, Blogs for biblio reference) and are totally vegan.  Recipes follow this colorful, texturific photo!

Bell Pepper and Tomato Rice with Cashews:
1 cup basmati rice (brown rice works too)
5 oz. frozen lima beans
1/2 tsp turmeric
2 tbsp canola oil
2 small pieces of cinnamon stick (or just sprinkle on some ground cinnamon)
1 bay leaf
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp fennel seeds
1/2 cup onion, sliced lengthwise
1 cup tomato, diced
1 green chili pepper, finely chopped
1 cup coarsely chopped green bell peppers
1/2 tbsp curry powder
1 tsp salt
1/4 cup cashew halves/pieces

Cook whatever rice you're using according to the package instructions and let cool for 15 minutes so that it's not sticky when you stir in the rest.

Cook the lima beans in just enough water to cover and 1/4 tsp turmeric until they are tender (10 minutes?), then drain and set aside.

Heat oil in a frying pan or large saucepan over medium heat.  When oil is hot, add the cinnamon, bay leaf, fennel and cumin.  Brown briefly, just enough to bring out their aroma, then add the onion, tomato and chili and saute for one minute.

Add the bell pepper, lima beans and remaining turmeric and mix well.  Cook, covered, over medium heat until bell pepper starts to become tender (3 minutes?).  Stir in the curry powder and salt.

Add cooked rice to the mixture and stir until blended.  Stir in cashew halves and serve.

Zucchini Kootu:
1/2 cup toor dal
1/2 tsp turmeric
2 tbsp canola oil
4 to 6 curry leaves
1 tsp black mustard seeds
1 tsp urad dal
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 green chili pepper, chopped
3 cups diced zucchini
1 tsp minced ginger
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp powdered coconut

Boil two cups of water and add toor dal and 1/4 tsp turmeric.  Reduce heat and cook until dal mashes easily with a fork (about 30 minutes; no need to mash it all, just make sure it's cooked to a "creamy" consistency).  Add water as needed until the dal is done cooking.

Heat oil in a saucepan over medium heat.  When it's hot, but not smoking, add asafoetida and curry leaves.  (This is very important when using asafoetida, because if it's added to a pan that's too hot, it could smoke you out of your kitchen.  Take it from someone who learned the hard way.)

Add mustard seeds and urad dal and cook, covered, until the mustard seeds pop and urad dal is golden.

Add onion, chili pepper and the remaining turmeric and stir.  Add the zucchini and ginger and blend well with the other ingredients.

Add the toor dal plus 1/2 cup of warm water (any water leftover from the cooking is fine), cumin and salt.  Stir well, cover and cook until the zucchini is tender, about 5 minutes.  Add the coconut powder, stir and remove from heat.
***

I was glad that the zucchini dish was relatively mild when I served it last night, because it seemed like a heavy seasoning blend might have clashed with that of the rice dish.  However, when I had the leftover zucchini for lunch today as a pita filling, it seemed a little bland all by itself.  The simple solution?  Stir in a little salt and cayenne pepper before nuking.  Easy, delicious lunch, and I still have some of the rice for when I get home from work tonight!

If you don't hear from me again before the weekend's over, have a safe and happy 4th!

Vegan Spinach Lasagna

Like the title says, it's vegan.  You've been warned...

This post had to wait a day because it took longer than I expected for this thing to come together.  I'm never, ever hungry past 7:30 p.m., and I realized when this went in the oven that it wouldn't be done until almost 8:00.  So, I let it do its thing and ate hummus and tortilla chips again while a computer handed his competitors' asses to them on Jeopardy.

I was a bit skeptical as to how a tweaked version of this recipe would turn out, but I was curious to see exactly what flavor combination would be produced by the ingredients for the tofu ricotta cheese.  Plus I still have a bunch of lasagna noodles left over from the two or three times I've made it over the past year (in a bread loaf pan, which only takes four or five noodles for three layers), I'm not a fan of ricotta cheese, and I was intrigued by the notion that the marinara sauce didn't have to be cooked down for over an hour and the lasagna noodles didn't have to already be cooked as long as the steam was held in.  Suddenly, lasagna seemed to have gotten easier.

Well, the sauce part was easier, and I just used frozen spinach and fresh baby bella mushrooms instead of the more complicated vegetable layer described in the original recipe.  Still, the time got away from me while I was blending the ingredients for the "cheese," thawing packages of frozen spinach, draining them, mixing in a little salt and pepper, then thinly slicing mushrooms and having the time of my life stirring the contents of a brand new can of tahini until I achieved an even consistency.  Think of stirring all the oil back into a deep jar of all-natural peanut butter and multiply that times 5.  No, make that 10.  So, despite having started this thing just after 5:00, it didn't go into the oven until 6:30.  So, tonight was the first opportunity I had to taste the end result while I had any appetite.

The result?...To be honest, I was expecting the "cheese" to be a little funky, but it actually wasn't!  Steve even finished his helping before I finished mine.

I do think that if I use my 9 x 13-inch baking pan again instead of the usual bread loaf pan, I'll make more sauce.  Maybe not the half-gallon used in the original recipe, but more than I did for this lasagna.  I only had two 15-ounce cans of diced tomatoes on hand; one I pureed, the other I left diced because the dice were small.  However, since it took more sauce than usual to cover each layer of veggies, etc., I hardly had any left to cover the top layer of noodles and half expected them to come out uncooked.  Thankfully, the sauce and everything else produced just enough steam (held in by foil) to keep that from happening, but next time I'll at least go up to three 15-ounce cans' worth of tomatoes so that I can have an equal layer of tomato sauce on top to swirl with the cheese mixture.

Off to watch three humans compete in tonight's Jeopardy teen tournament and to enjoy a nice long weekend.  Good night!

Supreme Pizza Pasta

...minus the pepperoni and sausage.  Maybe I should have named this after the veggie lover's pizza, but that doesn't sound as fun.

I've had this idea for about a week and finally got around to making it tonight.  Why tonight, you may ask, when Friday's such a great night for going out and enjoying food prepared by other people? 

Because I plan on going to bed at the usual (early) time tonight, having consumed no sugar or alcohol this evening, so that I can get up tomorrow bright and early and embark upon a running tour of Columbia that will begin at my house in Northeast Columbia and end at the All-Local Farmer's Market on Whaley Street!  (Many thanks to Steve for agreeing to drive down there and meet me at my anticipated time of arrival.)

1/2 of a 1-pound box of whole wheat rotini pasta
2 tbsp olive oil
1 medium-sized onion, chopped
1 cup frozen green bell peppers, thawed
1 cup frozen sliced mushrooms (as far as I know, only Publix has these in Columbia)
3 cloves chopped garlic
2 tsp dried Italian herb mix
crushed red pepper to taste
1 can diced tomatoes
1/2 of a 108 g can of Mario's sliced black olives, drained
15 manzanilla olives, cut in half crosswise

Bring 5-6 cups of salted water to a boil.  Add pasta and cook according to package instructions.

In a 2-quart saucepan, heat olive oil over medium heat.  Add onion and cook until softened, about 3 minutes.  Add garlic and green peppers and cook for another 3 minutes.  Add mushrooms, dried herb mix and crushed red pepper and cook for another 2-3 minutes.  Add tomatoes and raise heat as needed to boil off some of the liquid.  Stir in black and green olives. 

Serve when pasta is ready and sauce has reached the desired thickness.

***
I was even planning to garnish Steve's plate with some of the pepperoni slices he likes to snack on, but it turns out that he ate the last of them a day or two ago.  Oh, well.  A sprinkling of Parmesan or Romano also would have been nice, but I didn't want it enough tonight to grate it myself.  Next time?

Off to fall asleep in front of the TV and then get up tomorrow and blaze a trail from one end of this town to the other.  Good night!

Wicked Spicy Chicken and White Bean Soup

I went running at Riverfront Park after work - 39 degrees with a breeze when I started, and it cooled down after the sun set.  Thankfully, I had my iPod to keep me company for 6 miles.

Here's what I listened to, in order.  Can you tell I had it set to Shuffle?

Enuff Z'Nuff "Fly High Michelle"
Erykah Badu "On and On"
John Mellencamp "Check It Out"
Stevie Wonder "Living for the City"
Beastie Boys "Intergalactic"
ELO "Strange Magic"
MC Solar "Le Nouveau Western"
O Brother, Where Art Thou "Man of Constant Sorrow"
Naughty By Nature "Hip Hop Hooray"
Outkast "Hey Ya"
Peter Gabriel "Sledgehammer"

I really needed those last couple of songs to be as fast as they were - it was cold!

A much-needed shower warmed me back up as soon as I got home, as did the soup that took care of the last two bell peppers from this year's garden, half a Piggly Wiggly chicken, half a bunch of cilantro and a serrano pepper.  This is loosely based on Paula Deen's White Bean Chili, but I didn't feel like dirtying the blender to thicken it up if I could do this in two pots (one for the bouillon, one for the rest) and be done with it.

Wicked Spicy Chicken and White Bean Soup

2 tbsp canola oil
2 green bell peppers, diced
1 serrano pepper (seeds and all), diced
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp ground oregano
1/2 tsp salt
4 cups chicken broth
1 (15 oz.) can Great Northern beans, drained
Chicken thigh meat, deboned and diced
1/2 bunch cilantro, coarsely chopped

Heat oil in pot over medium heat.  Add next six ingredients, stir well and saute for 3-5 minutes.  Add remaining ingredients, cover and reduce heat to medium-low.  Simmer until soup is bubbly, about 15 minutes.

For those who aren't familiar, serranos are a little bit hotter than jalapenos.  This is the wicked hot part of this soup.  In fact, Steve said as he was eating it that it could be served in a Thai restaurant.  If your heat breaks down this winter, make this soup - it'll warm you up!  Normally I have seconds when soup's for dinner, but one bowl was all I could take.  I'll have to take some bread or something with the soup for lunch tomorrow.

Stay warm everybody!

Black beans and rice

What a busy week.  I actually made this on Friday for lunch and haven't been able to stop long enough to write about it.  This is a very simple vegan take on Cuban black beans and rice that I like to whip together when I don't have a lot of free time to spend in the kitchen:





3 cup basmati rice, rinsed
2 tbsp canola oil
1 green bell pepper, diced
1 red bell pepper, diced
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp ground Mexican oregano
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1 can black beans, drained

Bring 1.5 cups of salted water to a boil.  Reduce heat to medium-low, add rice, stir well and cover with a tight-fitting lid and cook for 13-15 minutes or until all water has been absorbed.

Meanwhile, heat canola oil in a small saucepan over medium heat.  Add bell peppers and stir well.  Add garlic, cumin, oregano, salt and cayenne and cook until peppers have softened, about 5 minutes.  Add beans, stir well and cook until beans are warm, another 5 minutes.

Remove lid from rice, rake all of it with a fork and spoon desired amount onto plates.  Mix desired quantity of beans and peppers into rice on plates (or just top the rice with the beans).

I'm hungry again just writing about it, and I haven't been able to cook much since then.  Hopefully that will change tonight...

Whiting escabeche

One of my favorite things to order when we dine at Old San Juan is their menu item called "La Garita," which is tilapia in escabeche sauce over rice. I was inspired to look up the escabeche recipe a while back, and Monday night I finally decided to give it a whirl.

I had half a cup of the chimichurri left over from the shrimp 'n grits, so I cheated by adding that to the diced peppers and olives along with the half-cup of tomato juice that the recipe calls for. I thawed the fish and put it all in a big Ziploc bag Sunday afternoon and left it in the fridge until I got home on Monday, then emptied the contents onto a shallow baking pan lined with foil and put it all in the oven on 400 degrees for about 15 minutes. While it was baking, I made the rice. Easy!

Leek and fennel pie with gazpacho

Last night I had a lot of stuff to get rid of (story of my life), so I made this pie to dispense with the last of the green leeks as well as the fennel bulb that I didn't use in the pigeon pea soup.  I made the gazpacho first so that it would have time to chill, and then I got started on the pie.  This recipe was the basis for the gazpacho that I made, but I did change it up a little.  Steve said he didn't care for a gazpacho that wasn't completely smooth.  I nearly left some chopped veggies out of the blender for myself but then decided that putting all of it in the blender would at least keep me from taking a bite and thinking, "Holy onion, Batman!"  So in the blender it all went and then chilled for two hours.

Gazpacho:

3 ripe tomatoes, seeded and diced

2 small cucumbers, seeded and diced

2 red-and-green bell peppers, seeded and diced

1 red onion, chopped

1/3 cup parsley, chopped

2 tbsp lime juice

2 cups tomato juice

1 tsp salt

1/4 cup red wine vinegar

1 tsp fresh ground pepper

While that was in the fridge I made the pie.  I don't usually do savory pies, so I really didn't know what I was getting into, but I figured that my limited experience with casseroles and fruit pies would get me through.  Plus I knew what I wanted the result to be, so I did my best to pull it off:

Leek and fennel pie:

1 store-bought deep-dish pie crust

3/4 cup parmesan cheese

3 tbsp Smart Balance

3 tbsp flour

2 cups milk

pinch of nutmeg

salt and pepper to taste

1 tbsp Smart Balance

1 fennel bulb (about 1.5 cups), diced

1-2 leeks (dark green parts only), halved lengthwise and chopped 1/4 inch

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Melt 3 tbsp of Smart Balance in a small, non-stick saucepan over medium-low heat.  Add flour and stir well to avoid clumping.  Gradually stir in milk, stirring well to avoid clumping of the sauce.  Stir often once the sauce begins to bubble.  A few minutes after the milk has all been added, add 1/4 cup parmesan.  Continue to stir often (skim the bottom well to avoid burning) until the sauce is thick enough to start coming away from the non-stick surface when stirred (could be 20-30 minutes). 

Meanwhile, heat 1 tbsp Smart Balance in a separate pan over medium heat.  Add fennel, salt and pepper and saute until fennel has softened, about 10 minutes.  Add diced leeks and continue to cook until all vegetables are tender, another 5-7 minutes.  Remove from heat and set aside.

Once the sauce is ready for the fennel and leeks to be mixed in, remove the pie crust from the refrigerator and sprinkle 1/4 cup of parmesan cheese over the bottom.  Add the filling to the pie crust, sprinkle the remaining parmesan cheese over the top.

Bake for approximately 45 minutes.  If the crust is browning too fast, brush with water after about 20 minutes.  Remove from oven and let cool for 45 minutes.

I actually didn't do the last part; I only let it cool for 15, which made the cutting somewhat messy.  I had a feeling that might happen, which is why I snapped the picture before cutting.  It seemed to thicken up on our plates, though, and still tasted pretty good.  Steve pointed out that eggs (listed in some of the leek tart recipes I looked at) might have shortened the cooking time, but, well, some of us can't do eggs.  So I guess the lesson learned here is patience - and maybe also that some recipes should be started 3+ hours ahead of time?

In any case, the gazpacho provided a nice, cool, zippy counterbalance to the pie.  There's still plenty of both leftover, so I may take the night off before cooking again...

Pigeon Pea Soup

I've been feelin' kinda tropical over the past couple of weeks - must be the weather.  Or maybe it's because I happened across a bag of dry pigeon peas that I bought a while back at E.M. Emporium on Two Notch Road that have sat around for months doing nothing.  Pigeon peas and rice is one of my favorite things to eat at Caribbean restaurants, but I've been out of regular long-grain rice for a couple of weeks and keep forgetting to pick up more.  So, I went on a recipe hunt and found this one for pigeon pea soup.  I had to go out and buy the squash, plantain and cilantro, but the rest of the ingredients I pretty much always have on hand.  Unlike with the cassoulet recipe, I did change this up enough to warrant a full report.  True to my disinclination toward meat in hot weather, the end result was achieved as follows:

1 cup dry pigeon peas, soaked overnight (yield: about 2.5 - 3 cups)
5 cups chicken broth
2 lb. butternut squash, peeled, seeded and diced

Sofrito:
3 green-and-red bell peppers, diced
1 large onion, chopped
4 garlic cloves, chopped
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro
4 shakes (1/2 tbsp?) El Yucateco green habanero sauce
salt to taste

1/2 plantain, peeled

Bring broth to a boil in a 4 qt. pot and simmer pigeon peas, covered, over medium heat until noticeably softer, about 10-15 minutes.  Add diced squash and continue to simmer, covered, another 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, heat olive oil over medium heat in a separate pan.  Saute peppers, onion and garlic with hot sauce until vegetables have softened, about 5 minutes.  Add cilantro, stir well and cook another 4-5 minutes.  Add salt.

Stir sofrito into pigeon peas and squash and cook, uncovered, until some of the liquid has evaporated, another 5 minutes.  Grate plantain over mixture, stir well and simmer another 3-5 minutes or until starch from plantains has further thickened the soup.  Remove from heat and serve.

Post-production review:
The way mine turned out, it should really be called a stew.  I nearly doubled the amount of liquid that it called for at the beginning, but I still had very little in the end and wasn't able to come up with a spoonful of just liquid.  Which was fine, because otherwise I might have needed seconds.  I added the squash sooner than the recipe says to because, having baked butternut squash before, I had a hard time believing that 30 minutes on medium heat without sauteing would be enough.  Turns out that if the squash is ripe enough (and leave it to the Pig to carry them out of season, unlike Earth Fare), you really don't need to cook it as much.  The end result was still okay, but next time I'll assess the condition of the squash before proceeding.

It also turns out that the aji dulce peppers in the original recipe are hard to find outside of Mexican grocery stores.  We have a few here in town, but I also have some very hot habanero sauce and a corner of my backyard overflowing with ripe bell peppers, and it just made sense to work with what I already had.  Don't ever dump the green Yucateco right on your fried chicken like it's Texas Pete.  Really - a little dab'll do ya.  The amount that I used in this soup made for a pretty good approximation of some of the flavors we've enjoyed at places like Old San Juan (behind the Dunkin' Donuts on Two Notch). 

I skipped the final parsley and garlic bit because it somehow seemed redundant - except for the parsley, which was likely to go unnoticed among everything else in this dish.  The recipe doesn't say to cook the shredded plantains at all, but I thought it might make a difference if the plantains could cook just long enough to thicken it up some more and sweeten it a little.  And indeed it did!  Overall, this dish defied my dislike of sweet-and-savory combinations.  Either element would have been great by itself, and the pigeon peas, squash, sofrito, etc. all have potential to be reconfigured as a Spanish-style multi-course meal.  But that's for another day.

The weekend is finally here - hope you enjoy it!

Five Recipes, One Busy Week

As much as I hate doing this - it's been a busier week than usual for cooking, but also in other areas of my life - here's a summary of the five or six things I've made since I picked up my last Pinckney's stash for the summer:

Top left: I made this chunky garden pasta recipe with about five tomatoes (one big one from Pinckney's and four small ones from the backyard!), two green bell peppers, the last three banana peppers (I've been chopping these small and pretending they're onions; I still don't know what people even want these for besides pickling), one largish zucchini from the backyard, herbs (fresh thyme and dried oregano), chopped garlic, salt and pepper.  Basically, saute everything but the tomatoes for a few minutes, then add the tomatoes (after dunking in boiling water and peeling) and simmer until you have a sauce.  Then I ladled it over wheat linguini and topped it with shredded parm.

Friday was a day at home doing chores, but I did find time to throw this salad together using a couple of small tomatoes and a generous helping of the green leaf salad that Steve bought on Thursday.  Friday night he went out and bought a whole roasted chicken from Piggly Wiggly, so that's what we ended up having for dinner, plus a similar salad on the side.

For lunch on Saturday, we still had half the roasted chicken in the fridge, so I warmed that up, pulled back the skin and sprinkled on some Cavender's Greek seasoning.  For sides, I made Greek-style vegetable sides: zucchini and tomatoes (zucchini from the garden plus about half a cup of tomato juice; the latter saved me some peeling and chopping) and carrots with ground cloves, fresh parsley and thyme.



Sunday I made a couple of things I haven't photographed yet because when I was done cooking, neither of us wanted to eat hot food.  (We went out for lunch on Sunday and ran a couple of errands while it was hot as blazes, and my car has a black interior and no a/c.)  Of the two items that were packed up as leftovers, one was Thiaka, a recipe from my Haitian cookbook that basically calls for frying up a small quantity of finely chopped pickled veggies and cubed salt pork (I made it vegetarian but would have used pancetta had I been so inspired) and then mixing in polenta and kidney beans.  The other was Fassolia Plaki, which is basically a Greek bean casserole (I used the butter beans that came in my stash) plus a chopped carrot, a peeled tomato, chopped parsley and fresh thyme, plus salt, pepper and oregano.  Both are pretty simple, although the polenta part took a while because I used the fresh corn to make the polenta and, once again, had to add water to my three ears' worth in the blender and then cook it on the stove until most of the water evaporated out.  Next time I guess I'll just buy a fourth ear or corn to make life easier.

I wasn't quite sure where to go with the blog once my Pinckney's subscription ran out for the summer, since the fall season doesn't start until September.  As it turns out, the peppers in the backyard are doing nicely, as are the zucchini and all the herbs.  To supplement what I already have, I might see what City Roots has to offer and, to the extent possible, buy more in between Steve's trips to the store.

Hope the summer's treating you well and that you're enjoying good food and weather (by which I mean the first sort-of rainy summer in South Carolina in over a decade) and all the other things that make it special!

Yummy Potato-Stuffed Peppers

So, guess who wasn't hungry again Tuesday night?

I'd originally come up with these as a complement to a TBA chicken or fish dish that would also use up the last of my red potatoes and two of the peppers from the garden, but it's been so hot this week that Steve and I decided that we could snack on pistachios later if we were still hungry - and that's exactly what we did, after eating two of these apiece.

But the pistachios required no effort on my part, and everyone knows what they look like, so...here's how I made the stuffed peppers:

8 small- or medium-sized red potatoes (larger ones cut in half or quarters)
2 tsp salt
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp cayenne
3 tsp chopped cilantro
2 green bell peppers, cut in half and seeds removed

Peel the potatoes, place in a pot and cover with water. Add salt. Bring to a boil and cook, covered, until fork tender (about 15-20 minutes). Drain water and mash potatoes in pot with hand masher. Add cumin, cayenne and cilantro and stir until blended.

Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees.

Place the peppers on a shallow baking pan lined with foil. Stuff each pepper using a soup spoon, mashing potatoes down and filling over the top. Texture the top with spoon (instead of smoothing out the potato filling) so that they will brown in the oven more visibly.

Bake for 20 minutes or until tops of potato filling have started to brown. Remove from oven and serve.

Doesn't sound like much of a dinner, but I do feel better about my feeding habits when I read articles like this as well as this one, which both suggest that a plant-based diet can prevent and/or cure more ills than previously known. To your health!

Ratatouille

So, I caught some sort of bug over the weekend and didn’t realize it until Monday morning at work, by which time I'd already made this and the Frogmore Stew. (Steve's still not sick - knock on wood.) Luckily, I had made this in the meantime, which has been just as good to eat while sick as anything else. To my great surprise, there were no squash or zucchini in this week’s Pinckney’s stash, but there was an eggplant and a green pepper in the swap box at my pickup location and a largish zucchini growing in the backyard, so I decided to make the ratatouille. This is great by itself or as a type of primavera sauce over pasta and topped with shredded parmesan.

3 tbsp olive oil
1 eggplant, diced into 1-inch cubes
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1 large zucchini, diced into 1-inch cubes
1 green bell pepper, cut into 1-inch pieces
4 medium-large tomatoes, peeled and diced
1 branch fresh oregano
1 branch fresh rosemary
salt and pepper to taste

In a pot at least 4 inches deep, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the eggplant and garlic, stir and saute until eggplant is slightly softened, about 5 minutes. (Note: to hold as much steam as possible, keep the lid on between veggie additions.) Add the zucchini, stir and saute for another 5 minutes. Add the bell pepper, stir and saute for another 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes and fresh herbs, pressing down the herbs so they are fully submerged. Cover and simmer for another 20-30 minutes or until all veggies are tender. Add salt and pepper to taste and serve.

I usually make a batch at least twice this size when I plan ahead, but with what I had on hand, I figured that a smaller batch would do as well and would cut down on the amount of leftovers that would have to go in the freezer.

It's Thursday once again, I have more produce to pick up from Pinckney's and I'm fairly certain I still won't be up for cooking or eating much of anything tonight, but I can at least be glad that I'm making good use of what I have as I get it.

Home-Away-from-Home Crab Soup

Inspired by (canned) Blue Crab Norfolk. I actually came up with the recipe after reading the ingredients on a can of soup, named after my home town, that I found in some frou-frou kitchen store. Here's what I used for the soup pictured here, which I made for lunch this past Friday (gotta love Fridays off from work):


2 tbsp olive oil
4 oz. pancetta, diced
1 green bell pepper, chopped
1 red bell pepper,chopped
2 spring onions, chopped
2 Russet potatoes, peeled and diced
4 cups salted water
6 oz lump crab meat
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 cup milk
1 tsp paprika
salt and pepper to taste

Heat the oil in a 4 qt saucepan and saute pancetta about 5 minutes on medium heat. Add green and red bell pepper and saute until softened, about 5 minutes. Add chopped onion and cook until softened, about 3-5 minutes.

Meanwhile, in another 4 qt saucepan, cover the diced potatoes with about 4 cups of water, add 1.5 tsp salt and bring to a boil. Boil covered for about 5-7 minutes or until fork tender.

Add potatoes and salted water to the other saucepan and stir. Add crab meat, wine, paprika, more salt (only if needed) and pepper. Simmer for 10-15 minutes. Add milk and turn off heat. After 2 minutes, stir and serve.

I realized when I took the picture that I also would have done well to stir it one more time after it had been sitting on the table for a few minutes. And I was somewhat ambivalent about the flavor when I ate it fresh. It improved after a day or two in the fridge, but if you don't want to take a chance on it coming out funky, use less wine or skip it. I usually make it with chicken broth and no wine, and it's good both ways.