So good. So, so good. This is an adapted version of this entry from Marth Rose Shulman's wonderful little book, Main-Dish Salads.
Salad:
~fresh spinach, baby or otherwise
~mixed greens (optional; if all that spinach is just too much sometimes!)
~fresh mint leaves (experiment with amounts as you wish; chopping large leaves into smaller pieces is recommended. if i had to say an amount: perhaps 7 or 8 leaves per plate. yum!)
~pears, washed, cored and sliced (bosc are usually best for this, but you can use bartlett, d'anjou, whatever! i never peel mine first, but i'm sure you can if you want to.)
~some red onion, very thinly sliced (the thinner the better! and not too much.)
~feta cheese, crumbled (any kind and amount you like; sometimes i don't have any feta, and the salad is still plenty delicious.)
~pecans (i highly recommend toasting them ahead of time. you can use a toaster oven or a frying pan. then break them up into small pieces, or leave them whole if you like! a handful per person or so.)
Wash all greens (including mint leaves) and dry, removing any stems or icky bits along the way. Place desired amount of foliage on plate(s). Add pear slices as desired, maybe like a quarter or a half of a pear per person. Throw down some feta, add a few sliced onions on top, and finish with the toasted pecans. Drizzle with dressing.
Dressing:
~2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
~1 Tbsp vinegar (i've used everything from balsamic to red wine to raspberry. all delicious. the book calls for sherry or champagne vinegar, neither of which i've ever owned. if you have them, by all means try them!)
~1 tsp mild-flavored honey (i usually up this to 2 tsp, but that's just me.)
~1/2 to 1 tsp dijon mustard to taste
~1/4 cup plain low-fat yogurt
~1/4 cup olive oil
~salt and freshly ground pepper to taste.
Throw everything in a clean jam jar, seal tightly, and shake. Alternatively, whisk everything together in a bowl. Add to salad as you see fit, and save any remaining! It's good for a few days, usually. Also delicious: add some fresh dill to the dressing. This is amazing when substituting grapefruit for the pears. But if you do that, leave the onions out. And um.... enjoy!
This salad is great with some baked garnet yams, mashed with a little lime juice. And a glass of Martinelli's! Okay, bye for now.
24 August 2007
23 August 2007
Zucchini Quiche with Basil
...I found this recipe in a vegetarian cookbook, and it's one i've returned to many times (and altered a bit, here) when i feel like something yummy and home-made. Hope you like it!
Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
Crust:
~1 stick of butter (chill ahead of time in freezer for awhile, if possible)
~3/4 cup whole wheat flour (pastry flour is ok)
~3/4 cup white flour (pastry flour is ok)
~salt as desired (<= 1 tsp)
~herbs, if you are feeling feisty (dried basil, thyme, etc.)
~few Tbsp of ice water, until dough holds.
So, okay- if you want to use a pre-made crust, that's cool. Also, if you already have a fabulous crust recipe of your own, use it! For those who have never made their own and wish to try, here is a very basic rundown: To begin, put a cup of ice water in the freezer, near your (hopefully) chilled butter. ;)
Sift together flours, salt, and optional herbs in a large bowl. Have a rolling pin and a clean space ready and dusted with flour for when you need to roll out the dough. Cut half of the butter up into small pieces, and, working quickly with your fingertips, combine the pieces into the flour, until it is all somewhat like crumbs. Add the rest of the butter and make sure to get all the flour from the bottom of the bowl! Try not to overwork the dough, which, i know, is way easier said than done. Now add the ice water, a Tbsp at a time, mixing a little in between, until the dough holds together in a ball, but is not wet. Place ball on floured surface, flour your hands, and press the edges inwards a bit and flatten the top just a bit. Now roll out the dough, from the center outwards, until it will fit your 9" round pie plate. Try to make sure it doesn't stick to the surface by flipping it a couple of times while rolling. Use as few rolls as possible! It is ok if there are small butter pieces left in the dough; they will incorporate while baking. We just don't want the dough to be tough by rolling it out for too long and making the flour glutens develop. Whew! Okay, now place the dough carefully in the pie plate, press it against the edges, and prick the bottom a few times with a fork. Weigh it down with beans, if you can (not absolutely necessary, though) and bake in the preheated oven for about ten minutes while you prepare the rest of the quiche. If it is done before everything else, that's fine (in my experience it usually is, in fact). Just take it out and place on a rack until you need it.
Filling:
~2 Tbsp olive oil
~red onion, sliced thinly (anywhere from a half to a whole onion, depending on preference)
~2-3 medium zucchini, sliced (the smaller and darker green they are, the better!)
~5-6 mushrooms, sliced (no need for fancy ones! crimini or button work great)
~spinach, if desired (i like to do this if i have some around. if frozen, thaw first, and if fresh, blanch in a little water until tender, then drain)
In a large frying pan, heat the oil, and add the onions. Saute until soft and aromatic, then add the zucchini and mushrooms. If you like, you may add a little herbs to the vegetables, such as dried basil, rosemary, or thyme, but it's not absolutely necessary ;) If using spinach as well, add towards the end. Stir occasionally for about 8-10 minutes. Try not to overcook- remember, these will be baking in the oven for an hour as well. While this is all cooking over a medium heat, put together the liquid ingredients.
~3 eggs
~1 cup milk (not sure if this recipe works with soymilk yet)
~1 tsp salt (or less, as the cheese will add saltiness)
~black pepper as desired
~grated cheese of your choice (romano, parmesan, gouda, swiss, etc.)
~crumbled feta
(i would say roughly a cup of cheese altogether; less is also fine, and more is okay too! experiment with cheese flavors as you like, and remember that it is definitely helpful to grate the cheese ahead of time.)
~fresh basil leaves, roughly a handful, rinsed and dried
Beat the eggs and milk together with the salt and pepper. Put some grated cheese on the bottom of the crust, then spoon in the vegetables from the pan. Add the feta and most of the rest of the grated cheese, and layer the fresh basil leaves on top of it all. Now, slowly pour the egg/milk mixture over everything (if there is too much liquid, leave a little out!). Top with the rest of the cheese, and more basil if you want; i always do ;)
Bake at 425 degrees for 20 minutes, then reduce heat to 350 and bake for about 30-40 minutes, depending on your oven (mine always cooks fast....) You want the crust to be golden brown, and the top as well. It should spring back a bit when you touch it, and smell delicious. Remove from oven, cool until you can't stand it anymore, and enjoy! Scrumptious with salad and a glass of soymilk. Or wine, if that's your fancy. So long!
Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
Crust:
~1 stick of butter (chill ahead of time in freezer for awhile, if possible)
~3/4 cup whole wheat flour (pastry flour is ok)
~3/4 cup white flour (pastry flour is ok)
~salt as desired (<= 1 tsp)
~herbs, if you are feeling feisty (dried basil, thyme, etc.)
~few Tbsp of ice water, until dough holds.
So, okay- if you want to use a pre-made crust, that's cool. Also, if you already have a fabulous crust recipe of your own, use it! For those who have never made their own and wish to try, here is a very basic rundown: To begin, put a cup of ice water in the freezer, near your (hopefully) chilled butter. ;)
Sift together flours, salt, and optional herbs in a large bowl. Have a rolling pin and a clean space ready and dusted with flour for when you need to roll out the dough. Cut half of the butter up into small pieces, and, working quickly with your fingertips, combine the pieces into the flour, until it is all somewhat like crumbs. Add the rest of the butter and make sure to get all the flour from the bottom of the bowl! Try not to overwork the dough, which, i know, is way easier said than done. Now add the ice water, a Tbsp at a time, mixing a little in between, until the dough holds together in a ball, but is not wet. Place ball on floured surface, flour your hands, and press the edges inwards a bit and flatten the top just a bit. Now roll out the dough, from the center outwards, until it will fit your 9" round pie plate. Try to make sure it doesn't stick to the surface by flipping it a couple of times while rolling. Use as few rolls as possible! It is ok if there are small butter pieces left in the dough; they will incorporate while baking. We just don't want the dough to be tough by rolling it out for too long and making the flour glutens develop. Whew! Okay, now place the dough carefully in the pie plate, press it against the edges, and prick the bottom a few times with a fork. Weigh it down with beans, if you can (not absolutely necessary, though) and bake in the preheated oven for about ten minutes while you prepare the rest of the quiche. If it is done before everything else, that's fine (in my experience it usually is, in fact). Just take it out and place on a rack until you need it.
Filling:
~2 Tbsp olive oil
~red onion, sliced thinly (anywhere from a half to a whole onion, depending on preference)
~2-3 medium zucchini, sliced (the smaller and darker green they are, the better!)
~5-6 mushrooms, sliced (no need for fancy ones! crimini or button work great)
~spinach, if desired (i like to do this if i have some around. if frozen, thaw first, and if fresh, blanch in a little water until tender, then drain)
In a large frying pan, heat the oil, and add the onions. Saute until soft and aromatic, then add the zucchini and mushrooms. If you like, you may add a little herbs to the vegetables, such as dried basil, rosemary, or thyme, but it's not absolutely necessary ;) If using spinach as well, add towards the end. Stir occasionally for about 8-10 minutes. Try not to overcook- remember, these will be baking in the oven for an hour as well. While this is all cooking over a medium heat, put together the liquid ingredients.
~3 eggs
~1 cup milk (not sure if this recipe works with soymilk yet)
~1 tsp salt (or less, as the cheese will add saltiness)
~black pepper as desired
~grated cheese of your choice (romano, parmesan, gouda, swiss, etc.)
~crumbled feta
(i would say roughly a cup of cheese altogether; less is also fine, and more is okay too! experiment with cheese flavors as you like, and remember that it is definitely helpful to grate the cheese ahead of time.)
~fresh basil leaves, roughly a handful, rinsed and dried
Beat the eggs and milk together with the salt and pepper. Put some grated cheese on the bottom of the crust, then spoon in the vegetables from the pan. Add the feta and most of the rest of the grated cheese, and layer the fresh basil leaves on top of it all. Now, slowly pour the egg/milk mixture over everything (if there is too much liquid, leave a little out!). Top with the rest of the cheese, and more basil if you want; i always do ;)
Bake at 425 degrees for 20 minutes, then reduce heat to 350 and bake for about 30-40 minutes, depending on your oven (mine always cooks fast....) You want the crust to be golden brown, and the top as well. It should spring back a bit when you touch it, and smell delicious. Remove from oven, cool until you can't stand it anymore, and enjoy! Scrumptious with salad and a glass of soymilk. Or wine, if that's your fancy. So long!
16 August 2007
Stuffed Poblano Peppers with Chicken and Cranberries
Our CSA gave us 7 large, shiny poblano peppers last week, and since our new veggies are arriving today we decided to stuff and roast these for dinner last night. We also had some leftover shredded chicken from the enchiladas we made the night before, which was already cooked and ready to mix into a stuffing. I've only done stuffed peppers in Vahid's kitchen, with him orchestrating the process, but it turned out to be easy to reproduce and adapt on my own.
First, cut the caps off of the poblanos, pull out the seeds, and save the tops to put back on once they're stuffed. Preheat the oven to 375F.
The stuffing could really be anything, but here's what I did: I sauteed half an onion and then added the shredded chicken and a few tablespoons of dried cranberries, and cooked until the berries began to warm up and release their aroma. Then I threw the mix into a bowl and added a can each of corn and black beans, and some chopped fresh cilantro, salt & pepper. Mix it all up, and try not to eat it all before stuffing.
The peppers ooze a bit while roasting, so we lined the baking dish with tin foil (turned out to be a good move!). Stuff the peppers with as much stuffing as you can cram in there, then fit the caps back on and rub the exteriors with olive oil. Roast for about half an hour, turning the peppers over once so they brown evenly.
We served this with spanish rice (yum!) and a simple salad of lettuce and cucumber with the leftover stuffing spattered on top. Easy, tasty, and a nice break from the usual. The cranberries were both sweet and tart, adding a nice contrast to the tastes of the peppers and chicken; I could imagine this working well with either dried currants or golden raising, too.
First, cut the caps off of the poblanos, pull out the seeds, and save the tops to put back on once they're stuffed. Preheat the oven to 375F.
The stuffing could really be anything, but here's what I did: I sauteed half an onion and then added the shredded chicken and a few tablespoons of dried cranberries, and cooked until the berries began to warm up and release their aroma. Then I threw the mix into a bowl and added a can each of corn and black beans, and some chopped fresh cilantro, salt & pepper. Mix it all up, and try not to eat it all before stuffing.
The peppers ooze a bit while roasting, so we lined the baking dish with tin foil (turned out to be a good move!). Stuff the peppers with as much stuffing as you can cram in there, then fit the caps back on and rub the exteriors with olive oil. Roast for about half an hour, turning the peppers over once so they brown evenly.
We served this with spanish rice (yum!) and a simple salad of lettuce and cucumber with the leftover stuffing spattered on top. Easy, tasty, and a nice break from the usual. The cranberries were both sweet and tart, adding a nice contrast to the tastes of the peppers and chicken; I could imagine this working well with either dried currants or golden raising, too.
09 August 2007
Peach Blueberry Jam with Vanilla
Inspired by Chez Panisse Fruit (which arrived this week) and the peaches at the farmer's market, I made a Peach Blueberry Vanilla jam today. The aromas coming from this stuff as it cooked were incredible - enough to make you wish you could stand over the boiling pot for the rest of time. As the blueberry syrup thickened, it began to smell faintly like sweet potatoes, but maybe that was just me.
~2.75 lbs yellow peaches
.75 lbs blueberries
4 cups sugar
juice of 3 lemons
2 vanilla beans
I blanched the peaches for 1 minute, then cooled in ice water, to make them easier to peel. Cut into wedges and add 3 cups of the sugar, one vanilla bean and the juice of 2 of the lemons, bring to a simmer and then refrigerate overnight. Do the same with the blueberries and the remaining sugar, vanilla and lemon juice. The next day, boil the syrups (I did them separate, but I don't see what harm would come from combining them) until they pass the saucer test and then add the fruits and bring back to a boil. Boil together for a few minutes and then jar immediately. I used half-pint jars this time, and this recipe filled 7 of them. I also boiled the jars, because of Kyle's scary stories about botulism. I cut the vanilla beans into pieces and added them to each jar as a garnish.
This jam looks like it's going to be *incredible*. The smell of cooking peaches (esp. with vanilla) makes me wish I'd been making peach jam my whole life.
04 August 2007
Mashed Potatoes with so much cream
Late last night the urge struck to make something - anything - delicious, and we ended up settling on mashed potatoes. I had never made mashed potatoes before, but it turned out to be obscenely easy. We cut into chunks and boiled 10 small russets, and sauteed several cebollas de ribo verde (small white onions w/ green stems) in another pan. When the potatoes were cooked we drained them and mashed in a few tablespoons of butter, about 2 cups of heavy cream (...) and the cooked onions, as well as about 1/4 cup grated Pecorino Romano. Tiffany was appalled at the amount of cream, but those who didn't see how much went in ate away happily and without guilt - delicious!
01 August 2007
Strawberry Preserves No. 2
Strawberry Preserves No. 1 resulted in a runny mess that oozed all over my high hopes of perfect jam on the first try. I had 12 jars of soupy, wet syrup that you couldn't really call "jam". In desperation, I re-boiled and re-jarred the jam in two batches, and I got a much better result. This time I took a page out of housemate Paul's book and used diluted iodaphor to sanitize the jars after washing them. Paul brews beer from time to time, and this is a method he uses in his home-brewing which also works well for canning.
I strained the berries and set them aside, just boiling the syrup alone for what turned out to be ~20 minutes. I did this in 2 batches, to avoid the mess that resulted when I tried doing it all at once the first time. An important element of jam-making is using a pot that is at least 3 times bigger than the volume you're starting out with. The syrup, once it heats up, begins to get foamy and the foam expands at least this much.
The frozen saucer test (see S.P. No.1) turned out to be very helpful. It takes much longer than I had thought for the syrup to get to the no-dribbling point, but the result is a heavy, thick syrup that you can actually imagine jamming up quite nicely.
The syrup seems to have three significant stages while it's boiling:
1. it's liquid: it boils, but there is no foam
2. it begins to foam while you stir it (you should be stirring almost constantly), but when you stop stirring it goes back to a transparent liquid
3. it foams like crazy while stirred, and when you stop stirring it stays at roughly the same foamy volume (and might even keep expanding)
It's not until at least stage 3 that there's any hope of it passing the frozen saucer test. I let the syrup get to this point before I added the fruit back in because I didn't want to over-handle the berries. The next time I make this jam, I'll try to handle the berries even less. I was really hoping for a whole-fruit jam that is all about the berries in it, but this batch ended up getting a little more mushy than I care for. The yield after the first boiling/jarring was 12 scant pints, runny. After the second boil, this reduced to 7 full pints - incredible to think that 5 pints of water were boiled off!
Finally, the original recipe called for a smaller amount of mint, and commented that the mint didn't really shine through. Whatever I did here seems to have worked, because the aroma is definitely minty and the finish also has a hint of mint.
I strained the berries and set them aside, just boiling the syrup alone for what turned out to be ~20 minutes. I did this in 2 batches, to avoid the mess that resulted when I tried doing it all at once the first time. An important element of jam-making is using a pot that is at least 3 times bigger than the volume you're starting out with. The syrup, once it heats up, begins to get foamy and the foam expands at least this much.
The frozen saucer test (see S.P. No.1) turned out to be very helpful. It takes much longer than I had thought for the syrup to get to the no-dribbling point, but the result is a heavy, thick syrup that you can actually imagine jamming up quite nicely.
The syrup seems to have three significant stages while it's boiling:
1. it's liquid: it boils, but there is no foam
2. it begins to foam while you stir it (you should be stirring almost constantly), but when you stop stirring it goes back to a transparent liquid
3. it foams like crazy while stirred, and when you stop stirring it stays at roughly the same foamy volume (and might even keep expanding)
It's not until at least stage 3 that there's any hope of it passing the frozen saucer test. I let the syrup get to this point before I added the fruit back in because I didn't want to over-handle the berries. The next time I make this jam, I'll try to handle the berries even less. I was really hoping for a whole-fruit jam that is all about the berries in it, but this batch ended up getting a little more mushy than I care for. The yield after the first boiling/jarring was 12 scant pints, runny. After the second boil, this reduced to 7 full pints - incredible to think that 5 pints of water were boiled off!
Finally, the original recipe called for a smaller amount of mint, and commented that the mint didn't really shine through. Whatever I did here seems to have worked, because the aroma is definitely minty and the finish also has a hint of mint.
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