Crispy Cravings

As I was out running errands today I had a huge craving for McDonald’s. The more I eat healthy organic produce, the less and less I crave overly processed fast food. But today for, some reason, it just sounded so good. Then I thought about it for a little while and realized what I really was craving was some French fries. So I decided to bypass the drive-thru at the Golden Arches and make some fries when I got home.

We have a few Persephone potatoes from last season, so I sliced them up and heated up some olive oil in a small skillet. I’d made Mushroom Pecan Burgers from Moosewood’s New Classics cookbook for dinner last night and had a cooked patty ready to be heated up. I’d used Persephone onions and shallots for the veggie burger mix.

The Mushroom Pecan burgers taste nothing like beef burgers, but are delicious in their own right. The mushrooms are nice and earthy, and the pecans add a hint of toastiness. And with oatmeal and brown rice used to bind everything together, they’re also packed with fiber.

The Yellow Finn and rose-fleshed potatoes I used fried up beautifully. I sprinkled them with a bit of kosher salt after I took them out of the skillet. A little bit of work and I had a lunch that satisfied my craving and was much more healthful than a Big Mac and fries.

P.S. I've added an Amazon tab to my blog. If you want to purchase one of the cookbooks or kitchen tools I frequently use and mention, you'll have easy access to it. And I'll get a percentage of the sale. Win-win. 

Spring Forward

This Saturday was the first day of the 2010 Portland Farmers’ Market in the South Park Blocks. And the weather couldn’t have been more gorgeous. Trevor is back at the Persephone Farm stand and that means more fresh veggies for us. It is still a little early in the season, so all the Persephone greens were snapped up pretty quickly. But there were plenty of leeks and a few heads of cabbage, so I threw them in my market bag with a Lidia Bastianich recipe in mind: Whole Wheat Pasta with Sausage, Leeks and Fontina.

It’s a wonderfully flavorful vegetable-packed pasta dish. If you love pasta, but get tired of tomato sauce, give this a try. Leeks and shredded cabbage cook down to an almost silky texture. The sausage adds some heat and the whole-wheat pasta is really filling.

This recipe was published in Lidia’s Italian-American Kitchen and Cooking Light magazine. I’ve included the link to the Cooking Light version since it’s available. The recipe in her book calls for more olive oil and three links of sausage instead of one, and more cheese. I used the version in her cookbook and chose leaner turkey sausage instead of pork. Either way, the dish is delicious.

Links:

Whole Wheat Pasta with Sausage, Leeks and Fontina

http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=833349

Good Garnish

While I grew up in a Mexican-American family, Tortilla Soup was never on menu at my house. I first had it at the chain restaurant El Torito. And I’ve liked it ever since. I found a great recipe for it in the Los Angeles Times, but lost it years ago. So when I was craving a rich, steaming bowl of tortilla soup I had to develop my own recipe.

I know red bell peppers aren’t in season, but I was able to make good use of the Persephone Farm onions, shallot and garlic I had in the “root cellar.” Plus, I had some delicious corn tortillas freshly made at the Mexican bakery in my neighborhood. Nothing beats a good fresh corn tortilla. When I was little my dad would only eat tortillas from La Central bakery. Sometimes my Aunt Esther would make them at home and that was even better. So I never ate the pale imitations of corn tortillas sold at the grocery store until I was an adult and didn’t make the extra trip to the panadería. I’m so happy I live close to one now!

The ingredients that make this soup subtly smoky are the roasted red peppers, cumin and pimentón — a specialty Spanish paprika. It’s so flavorful you only need a little. Don’t try to swap it for regular paprika; it just won’t taste the same.

The fun of tortilla soup is the garnishes. I love to add Cotija cheese (a crumbly cow’s milk cheese) for the saltiness, avocado for it’s silky texture, tortilla chips for crunch, and cilantro for a hit of freshness. But you can play around and add other toppers such as sour cream or leftover roast chicken.

Tortilla Soup

Serves 6 or more

Soup

2 red bell peppers, roasted with blackened skin, seeds and stem removed (see link below for instructions)

3 tablespoons olive oil

2 cloves garlic, smashed

¼ cup shallot, chopped

1 cup red onion, chopped

1 cup yellow onion, chopped

1 bay leaf

1 teaspoon ground cumin

½ teaspoon dried oregano

¼ teaspoon pimentón, Spanish smoked paprika (I used sweet pimentón)

1 14.5-ounce can chopped tomatoes

6 cups homemade chicken stock

4 corn tortillas, torn into pieces

Optional garnishes

Cotija cheese, crumbled

Tortilla chips, store bought or homemade

Cilantro, chopped

Avocado, sliced

Sour cream

Heat olive oil in large stockpot or Dutch oven over medium heat. Add garlic, shallot, onions and bay leaf. Cook, stirring frequently until tender and lightly browned, about 10 minutes. Add cumin, oregano and pimentón, stirring for about 30 seconds. Add tomatoes, roasted red peppers and chicken stock. Bring to a boil. Stir in tortillas. Reduce heat to simmer. Simmer partially covered for 30 minutes.

Remove pot from heat. Fish out the bay leaf and discard. Allow to cool just slightly, and then use an immersion blender to blend soup until it is smooth. Return pot to heat to bring back to desired temperature.

Garnish each serving with your choice of toppings. Enjoy!

Links:

How to Roast Red Peppers

http://allrecipes.com/HowTo/Roasting-Peppers/Detail.aspx

Eat Like the Irish

I spent a good part of my 20s frequenting an Irish pub walking distance from my apartment building. When it was that lean time right before paydays, my neighbor Kathy and I would scavenge in coat pockets, raid our laundry funds and check the couch for spare change so we could walk down for a pint of Harp or Newcastle, some live music and a chat with some Irishmen. As a result, I have an affinity for all things Irish.

With St. Patrick’s Day coming up (which was the only day of the year my neighbors and I ever ventured to English pub across the street), I was happy to find a fine Irish recipe for soda bread in this month’s issue of Cooking Light. This is a real thick, dense bread delicious slathered with butter. It has great texture from the steel-cut oats and whole-wheat flour. (I used locally milled Bob’s Red Mill flours.) It’s the kind of bread I picture Frank McCourt drooling for in the book Angela’s Ashes.

And even better, the issue contains a recipe for a Ploughman’s Lunch Platter. This was on the menu back at Irelands 32. Admittedly, the only time I really ate at Irelands was when my friends and I could talk Kevin the bartender/cook into making us “chips” after the kitchen was closed. But seeing the recipe made me want to try it with my freshly baked Brown Soda Bread.

The Ploughman’s Platter ended up being an economical use of odds and ends in the fridge. The recipe called for homemade tomato chutney. I swapped it for some mango chutney I had. (Even if you don’t make a platter I highly recommend eating the soda bread with Cheddar and chutney. It’s unbelievably good.) We almost always have sharp Cheddar on hand as well as some salad greens and pickles. I happened to have some chicken sausage in the freezer. You could always use a couple of hard-boiled eggs instead. It was a tasy and filling lunch. I can see why Irish wives fed this to their hungry farmer husbands. It’s cheap, healthy and fortifying.

Links:

Brown Soda Bread

http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=1963985

Ploughman’s Lunch Platter

http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=1963986

Golden Bowl

Trevor and I first made Sheila Lukins’ Elegant Butternut Truffle Soup for Christmas 2004. We’d traveled east to spend the holidays with Trevor’s family and decided to make a feast with the help of his brother and sister. The soup was one of the dishes included in the “Extremely Merry Christmas” menu in Lukins’ Celebrate! cookbook. The other parts of meal included endive salad with Roquefort vinaigrette, a standing rib roast with horseradish cream, chanterelle risotto, Apple Brown Betty, and her wine suggestions Grand Cru Chablis and Pessac-Leognan. Lukins was right, it was an extremely Merry Christmas.

And the meal was a real group effort. Because we were flying in on Christmas Eve, Trevor’s parents bought all the groceries in Maryland and drove them up to Massachusetts in two large coolers. Trevor’s dad even made up menu cards that read “Denise and Trevor present Christmas dinner 2004 at Chez Carolyn” and listed the courses.

The butternut soup is the one recipe from that menu that I’ve made over and over. As soon as butternut squash is in season I remember this soup. It’s relatively simple to make (especially if you use an immersion blender instead of a food processor). So when I was down to my last butternut squash from Persephone Farm, I knew what to do with it.

I think what sets this soup apart from other butternut squash soups is the use of mace and the dab of truffle oil used to garnish. The unbelievable earthiness of the oil plays so well against the sweetness of the squash. Truffle oil can be tricky to find, but a gourmet shop, or well-stocked grocery store will have it. And it’s pricey, but a little goes a long way, and it adds extraordinary dimension to your dish.

And of course for me, each spoonful of this soup reminds me of that memorable evening.

Links:

Celebrate! by Sheila Lukins

http://www.amazon.com/Celebrate-Sheila-Lukins/dp/0761123725

New Favorite

Looking at the wealth of Persephone onions we had in the root cellar, i.e. garage, I knew I had to try out Mary Ann Esposito’s recipe for Roasted Onion Soup. The soup had a couple things going for it. One, when onions are slow-roasted they transform from bitingly sharp to sweet and mellow. And two, lots of red wine.

I followed the directions and oven roasted the assortment of red and yellow onions, leeks, and fresh thyme from my garden. Then added the two cups of red wine to the rimmed cookie sheet. The smell in my kitchen was heavenly. After most of the wine reduced, I added the onions to a soup pot with beef broth and few seasonings.

I did modify the recipe slightly. It called for each serving to be topped with a slice of bread, sprinkled with Parmesan cheese and broiled. I wasn’t sure my bowls could go in the broiler.  So I tossed some bread cubes I had stashed in the freezer with olive oil and a pinch of kosher salt and toasted them in the oven until they were golden and crunchy. Then I topped each bowl with the croutons and cheese. It definitely worked and the croutons added a nice crunch. This soup of very simple ingredients was incredibly savory and rich. I think it’s my new favorite.

Links:

Roasted Onion Soup

http://www.ciaoitalia.com/Recipes.aspx?id=1258

Freestyle

I used to experiment a lot in the kitchen, making up my own recipes. But Trevor kind of got me out of that habit. He used to be a strictly by the book cook. He’s loosened up a bit, so I now do a little more “freestyle” cooking.

I saw a couple of PBS cooking shows last year that featured stuffed winter squash: “Totally Vegetarian” and “Caprial and John’s Kitchen.” Both gave me the idea to try my own version. I used several ingredients I had on hand — onion, shallot and garlic from Persephone, prosciutto, pine nuts and Parmesan cheese.

The great thing about this dish is that you can really play around with this recipe. Try cooked quinoa, barley or millet instead of a wild rice blend. Nutty Gruyere or Asiagio cheese would be great instead of Parmesan. Use pecans or walnuts. Cooked crumbled Italian sausage would be delicious instead of prosciutto. Or omit the meat altogether and it’s a perfect vegetarian meal. Mushrooms would be a good addition, too. The idea is to use great winter flavors that work well together. Also it’s OK if your filling is a little salty because the sweetness of the cooked squash will balance it out.

Freestyle Stuffed Winter Squash

Serves 2 to 4

1 buttercup, acorn or kabocha squash, about 2 ¼ pounds

olive oil

kosher salt and black pepper

           

Filling

1 4 oz package of wild rice blend

1 tablespoon butter

1 small shallot, finely chopped

1 large onion, finely chopped

4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

kosher salt

½ teaspoon each dried thyme and dried sage

olive oil

2 cups of chard, spinach or kale, thinly sliced

red pepper flakes

3 oz of thinly sliced prosciutto, chopped

3 tablespoons of toasted pine nuts

½ cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese, divided

1 tablespoon dry breadcrumbs (optional)

Sauce

½ cup white wine

¾ cup chicken or vegetable stock

2 tablespoons of butter

Preheat oven to 400˚ F.

Cut squash in half from stem to bottom to form two “bowls”. Scoop out seeds with a spoon. Slice off a small sliver from the bottom of the “bowls” so they will sit evenly on a cookie sheet. Place halves on rimmed cookie sheet and brush all sides with olive oil and season lightly with salt and black pepper. Bake for about 45 minutes, until the flesh is fork-tender in the thickest part.

While squash is in the oven, follow package directions for rice, omitting seasoning packet. Add a pinch of kosher salt instead.

In a large skillet, melt butter over medium heat. Add shallot, onion and garlic. Season lightly with salt. Cook 10 minutes until soft and slightly browned.  In the last minute of cooking add sage and thyme. Remove from pan and add to a large bowl. Put skillet back on heat and add a little olive oil. Add chard and a light sprinkle of red pepper flakes and salt. Cook until softened, about 4 minutes. Add chard to bowl with onion mixture. Put pan back on heat and add a little olive oil. Add prosciutto to pan and fry until crispy and brown. Add prosciutto to bowl.

When rice is done, add to bowl with other filling ingredients. Add pine nuts, ¼ cup Parmesan and bread crumbs. Mix together. Taste and season as needed with salt, black pepper and red pepper flakes.

In the same skillet you used to fry prosciutto, add wine and simmer until reduced by half. Add butter and stock, simmer until lightly reduced and thickened, adding salt if necessary.

Leave squash on the cookie sheet and stuff cooked squash halves with filling. (You may have a little filling leftover.) Top with ¼ cup Parmesan cheese. Place under broiler and broil until cheese is melted and lightly browned, 1 to 2 minutes at most.

For a very hungry person, one stuffed half is a good serving. But you can cut the half in half and it’s still a filling portion. Spoon sauce around squash on plate and enjoy!