Roasted Butternut Squash and Carrot Soup

I love chickpeas and I love that I've found something new to do with them. Not a starring role this time, but a solid supporting role.

Many soups that are purèed call for a potato to thicken the soup. The potato serves that purpose nicely without adding too much flavor that affects the taste of the main ingredients. Well, I don't cook potatoes at home and never have them in my pantry. I'm not anti-potato, I just love them too much, you know?

In this soup, I used chickpeas to thicken the soup and it works beautifully. They aren't quite as neutral tasting as a potato but they work beautifully and add protein and additional fiber to the soup. There is one important element to getting a silky  purèed  soup: you must use a blender to purèe the soup if you want it to be silky smooth. A food processor or stick blender just won't do the trick. Just as you must use a blender if you want to make silky smooth hummus (you do, you know - really), it's necessary to this soup, too. When it comes to hummus, some would say that you can't make a silken hummus without rubbing off the skins but I swear by the blender method.

...but I digress. I replaced the "one medium russet potato" called for in several recipes I reviewed with 1 cup cooked chickpeas in the recipe I ended up with. You could use canned but did you know that when you use canned chickpeas or other beans, unicorns cry? It's true!

ROASTED BUTTERNUT SQUASH AND CARROT SOUP

Sweet, Sour and a Little Bit Hot: Stir-Fry Cabbage and Greens with Sesame Seeds

In an attempt to get my refrigerator cleared out, in preparation for stuff I'm acquiring, cooking or baking for Thanksgiving, I considered the head of red cabbage and a bag of pea greens in my crisper. Generally, I use cabbage in the fall and winter versions of Spoon Salad and I like to finely chop up pea greens as an add-in, but I knew I was not going to get to that in the next few days.

I also had some, garlic and ginger. Add soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, sherry vinegar, agave nectar (alternately use honey), chili garlic sauce, sesame seeds and a little sesame oil and you can make a slightly sweet, sour and a little bit hot stir-fry. I also had some previously baked, marinated tofu cubes that I sliced up to add as a protein. For a prep-junkie like me, all the slicing, dicing and mincing is a rush but for those of you who don't get happy goosebumps at the thought of that, your pay-off is that the dish cooks in about 15 minutes.

This isn't so much a recipe as an example of really using the pantry, the spice cupboard and the crisper and winding up with something good. All sorts of substitutions can be made - from the type of cabbage or greens to the basic seasoning and liquids to the nuts. I really wish I'd had some cilantro, or chives and green onions, and I absolutely recommend those additions.

Pea greens, not to be confused with pea shoots which are more like micro-greens

I used pea greens - because that's what I had - but would recommend using another type of greens in this dish. When you quick cook pea greens, the vertical fibers of the (essentially hollow) stems, while pretty tender raw, do not break down. I occasionally buy pea greens and have always used them raw in salad, removing the tendrils and then chopping them up. If I did use them again in a dish like this, I'd pre-steam them in the microwave (sprinkled with a little water in the covered bowl) until they were wilted, but not completely cooked, and then chop them up very fine. De-stemming pea greens is kind of a pain and unlike chard or kale, the stem is not less fibrous as you move up to the top of the stalk.

Fortunately there are pages and pages of types of greens you can use, or you can leave them out. For the greens that have a slightly longer cooking time, you may wish to steam them in the microwave so that they are half-cooked and ready to finish off in the stir-fry.

If you're working by hand, it's easiest to thinly shred cabbage by separating some of the outer leaves
from the inner fold-y leaves. Flattening the outer leaves, placing them curved-side up
makes them easier to cut in long, crosswise strips.

I'm not including the recipe for the baked, marinated tofu (yet) but just about any protein would do whether vegan or omnivore: left-overs from your home-cooked, or a good purchased roast chicken, or pork, thin-sliced steak, etc - you get the message, yes? After the high-heat stir-fry and short braise in the liquids, the cabbage doesn't taste at all cabbage-y. It's tender but with a little residual crunch. It could be served on its own, or over rice or noodles.

Sesame seeds: from raw and white to toasted and caramel-colored, in the microwave. If you want to burn sesame seeds, it's dead easy to do so cooking them on the stove-top. You have to work harder to ruin them in the oven, but it can be done. I found that toasting them in the microwave removes the agony of defeat and acrid smell of burned seeds when cooked on the stove-top, but is the easiest (for me) if I actually want a tasty batch of toasted sesame seeds. You still have to pay attention to them but the whole process takes 5 or less minutes, depending on your  microwave's power and the transition from "almost toasted" to "perfect" is a little easier to control. On the other hand, if you've never had a problem toasting them in the oven or on the stove-top, I salute you!

RECIPE: HOT AND SOUR STIR-FRY CABBAGE and GREENS with SESAME SEEDS

Green Bean and Almond Soup and Notes on Vegetable Stock

This recipe was part of my "cook the pantry and the crisper" effort this week. After making two cakes with almond flour, I had a surplus. I also had a just-passed-prime, but still in great shape, pound of green beans. Searching "green beans" and almond meal". I found this recipe on Clotilde Dusoulier's "Chocolate & Zucchini" site. Ms. Dusoulier adapted this recipe from Rose Carrarini's (of Rose Bakery) book, "Breakfast, Lunch, Tea: The Many Little Meals of Rose Bakery".

Although not as pristine as when i bought them, these were super crunchy and fresh tasting.

It's a pureed soup of green beans, aromatics and vegetable stock thickened with ground almonds.  Green beans and almonds taste great together and using ground almonds as a thickener is a win for the gluten-intolerant. The resulting texture isn't silky smooth as most pureed soups, but the combination of flavors is very good. It's not a BIG! GIGANTIC! flavor-buster soup, but not everything has to be - just great ingredients and a lovely flavor. I ate this with salad and cheese toast.

In my version, I use leeks instead of onions and celery with no carrots (as there were none in the crisper). I prefer leeks over onions in a lot of soups and love the flavor. Leeks can take some cleaning, as there can be a lot of dirt in between the layers but I generally clean dirt of of the outside, trim off the ends, and the fibrous dark green parts (which I save for stock), cut them as called for and then wash them by soaking and swishing them around in cold water, letting them sit  for a couple of minutes to let the dirt drop to the bottom of the bowl then drying them off in a salad spinner. This method is easy and fast.

In most instances, I trim and cut up my leeks and then I wash them.
Just remember to clean your board and knife before moving on to the next vegetable.

Vegetable Stock: I cooked both wild rice and barley this week and used the left-over water as a basis for vegetable stock. Water in which I've cooked chickpeas also make a really tasty starter for stock. To that I added the green tops and trimmings from the leeks, some celery leaves, a bay leaf and a few stems of thyme. During the week I throw appropriate (where the veg isn't too strong-flavored or bitter and would overpower the taste) trimmings into a freezer bag and stuff it in the freezer. I don't use them if they've been in the freezer over two weeks.

The cooking water from many beans and grains - if you don't use it in the dish for which you cooked them - make a good base, too. White or light-colored beans - especially cannellini - tend to be good. I don't use bean cooking water when the resulting product is strongly colored or too cloudy. I let the left over water from the barley sit for about a half an hour and let the starch particles sink to the bottom while pouring off the less-cloudy water.

Vegetable Stock Guidelines: Heat up a big pot on the stove on medium-high. Add a couple of tablespoons of olive oil. Throw in the left-over vegetable trimmings that you have cut up roughly (the smaller the better) and a couple of pinches of salt. Depending on your preference, cook them without coloring them or caramelize them a little, adjusting the heat as necessary, along with 1 or two smashed cloves of garlic. Add a bay leaf, a few pepper corns, a tablespoon of tomato paste (if you have some) and cook for a few more minutes. Add half-dozen sprigs of parsley and a few sprigs of other herbs (if you have them). Add the left-over bean or grain cooking water, or just water to a ratio that works for the amount of vegetables and trimmings. Commonly, a pound of vegetables to a gallon of water, but adjust down (or up) depending on your vegetables.

Bring the pot to a boil, turn the heat down and cover so that the liquid comes to  a medium simmer. Let this cook, covered, for 45 minutes to 1 hour. It doesn't help this to cook it longer and by 1 hour, you've extracted the maximum flavor from the vegetables. Take off the heat and allow the stock to cool to lukewarm. Set a large strainer over a bowl and ladle the solids into the strainer (pushing down on them a little to extract so that you can pick up the pot and pour the remainder of the liquid through the strainer. Push down on the remaining solids a little to exact any extra liquid.  Allow this to sit for an hour or until completely cool. Pour this liquid, making sure that any sediment remains at the bottom of the bowl, through a double-layer of cheesecloth.  Cover and store in refrigerator for 2 days or in an airtight container (or multiple containers, in smaller quantities) in the freezer for a couple of months.

(LEFT) take the pan off heat when the almond meal is about this color. Have a plate ready (to cool it down)
because it will continue to cook. (RIGHT) Toasted and un-toasted almond meal comparison.

RECIPE: GREEN BEAN and ALMOND SOUP

Sweet Sunday: Orange Ginger Torte: A Long Post for a Short Recipe

Murcott Tangerines

!WARNING!: this is a long post. You can skip down to the jump for the recipe. Or read on for:

1. How I will manage to make baked goods and desserts on a weekly basis without guilt; and
2. How I tussled through two iterations of possibly one of the shortest recipes other than, "Apple: wash, eat".

Torte Version #2 Plated: Made with Murcott tangerines. The only sugar I had was an organic unrefined,
unbleached, cane sugar which produced a deeply browned exterior. It also photographed a little darker than it actually looked.

Consider the following:

• I am much more confident in my savory cooking than in baking or desserts and I would like more practice, but... 
• I should not have left-over desserts or baked goods, hanging out in my house and calling to me like the Sirens

What to do? Until now, I'd only make desserts for a dinner party or other special occasion and send left-overs home with guests. A few weeks ago I had an ah-ha moment: the church a friend of mine attends serves food after services. A few years ago, I sent a test batch of vegan, chai cupcakes along with her (they liked them). A few weeks ago I asked her if I could make a dessert at the end of the week and send everything with her except for a serving for me to taste (and one for her). Eureka!. Now we have "Sweet Sunday".

Torte Version #1 Plated: This was made with regular white sugar and glazed with a thin mixture of
orange zest, orange juice and sugar.

Unlike savory cooking where I'm generally fearless and understand what's going on and why something works (or doesn't), I don't have that deep experience with desserts and baking. This means more copious head notes in my posts (as if I weren't wordy already!) which I hope are helpful for at least some who read. If it's all old hat to you, just nip on down to the jump link and go right to the recipe.

Torte #1 after an hour of baking. Looks fine on the outside, but the interior was mushy, still.

For the first round of Sweet Sunday, I made an orange ginger torte which has a very sexy, seductive aroma and taste. It has a short list of ingredients: oranges, eggs, sugar, almond meal, ginger (both fresh and candied) and baking powder. I ended up making it twice. The first time the end result, once I got through all of the trials and tribulations, tasted good, but I couldn't post it until I addressed the issues and questions I had or at the very least understood why I ran into problems and made it a second time with adjustments, and I will definitely make it again. I'll note this again in the recipe, but I really think this torte tastes better after the first day and on the third day it was even better - just wrap tightly and store in the refrigerator.

#1: How BIG is Small? ...Because Size Does Matter

• After I made it the first time the first thing I came to learn was that your idea of a small, medium or large orange may differ from mine and this is a perfect example of why weight is a better way to measure, especially in baking. The recipe called for 2 large or 3 small oranges. I had several Moro blood oranges and 3 of them that I considered small. The cake took two hours to fully cook instead of the one called for in the recipe. After the first hour, the insides were like oatmeal. I emailed the author (Clotilde Dusoulier of "Chocolate & Zucchini" fame - a very good blog, full of delicious, interesting recipes and good information) and she was gracious enough to update the recipe with the weight (1 1/3 lbs for the oranges) and also give a really useful description of how the crumb should appear in the post's comments. She has been blogging for years and her site and recipes are very popular - for good reason -  so there are generally many comments per post. Not all bloggers respond to questions, but she does - and did respond to mine even though the original post was from 2004!

#2 The Right Citrus for the Job

• I did some research and found that most of the similar recipes were called "Clementine Cake"  and generally called for Clementine oranges (a mandarin hybrid).  Also, I think blood oranges aren't my preferred choice for this torte. They often are a bit dear and I think the special taste and aroma qualities of a blood orange is lost in baking - at least in this torte. When you get your hands on a good blood orange, it is a wonder and not just for the beautifully hued flesh and peel. I can find essence of roses and other floral aromas in the flesh and they are wonderfully juicy.
  

  

  Torte Version #2: The recipe from which I started called for a topping of pearl sugar combined with lemon juice and zest. I opted for a glaze made with powdered sugar, orange juice and zest, topped with toasted almonds.

  
  I think this cake tastes better using an orange with less pith. Less pith=larger ratio of flesh and outside skin (zest) to pith. The second time around, I used 1 1/4 lbs of Murcott tangerines. Murcott tangerines are marketed in some areas as "Honey Tangerines" and are sometimes called Murcott Mandarins (see: UCR College of Natural and Agricultural Science's Citrus Variety Collection- I love this reference site). They are delicious to eat with a bright, sweet flavor and a great aroma. I rarely encounter a seed but cut mine in half horizontally to look for any before I pureed them. I think any thin-skinned mandarin or tangerine with great taste and a thin pith would work just fine.

#3 What is it supposed to look like?

• Ms. Dusoulier's comment, "...one thing I want to note is that this cake remains a very moist one, even when fully baked. The crumb should feel like it's been soaked in syrup" was so helpful because I wasn't sure. I know tortes made with nut meals or flours will not have the same kind of crumb as a cake or quick bread, but I really didn't know what to expect. Her comment made perfect sense to me and I knew, for my second go-round that it was properly finished.

#4 One last thing - I swear it's the last note.

• The first time I made it I used a coarse-ground almond meal and the second time, I used a fine-ground almond meal - more flour-like. I didn't see an appreciable difference so use what you have or can get your hands on. I used Bob's Red Mill almond meal both times. 

On to the...
RECIPE: ORANGE GINGER TORTE

Roasted Eggplant in Coconut Curry Sauce

This dish is aromatic and light with some warmth, but definitely not hot.  I found it to be real comfort food. There are three parts: the coconut milk infusion, the curry paste and the roasted eggplant. You can serve this family style, on a platter, or on individual plates.

I didn't have the kaffir lime leaves called for in the original recipe and substituted lime but if you can get your hands on them, they are wonderful. The kaffir lime has sort of a double leaf and in recipes each half is generally considered to be one leaf. You can find them frozen or dried. I have read that if you use dried, double the quantity called for in the recipe.

Lemongrass. Left: prepared and ready to use

Lemongrass. Native to the Philippines, it is used widely used in cooking as an herb or tea. It has a highly aromatic citrus taste. It's pretty easy to find these days in some grocery stores and farmers markets and definitely in Asian markets. It freezes very well. To prepare, remove the tough outer leaves. Cut off about 1/3" at the root end. Cut off any of the top that doesn't give a little when you stick a fingernail into it. Remove a few layers of the tough outer leaves. From that point, there should be about 3-4 inches of stalk to use. Bash the remaining stalk with a meat tenderizer (or something similar) with gusto until it breaks down, then prepare as called for in your recipe. You'll want a sharp knife for mincing the bashed up stalks. Even with the tough bits removed, they're quite fibrous and the smaller you mince them, the better they will break down when you make the curry paste.

If you are freezing it, slice thinly (before bashing) and store in small plastic bags from which you have removed all possible air. I store mine in a 'snack sized' zip-close bags and just break off a chunk - it will defrost quickly - then seal the bag again. I  write the amount (number of stalks) of lemongrass on the plastic bag so that I can figure out what volume to remove when a recipe calls for a number of stalks. Fresh is best and freezing any aromatic will lessen its intensity, so use a little more if you're using frozen.

Coconut milk can generally be found in regular and 'light' versions. I can't remember the last time I used full-fat coconut milk in a savory dish. The 'light' versions have about 60% less fat and using it does not seem to negatively affect the dishes I've cooked.

This dish calls for Japanese or Italian eggplant. Long and generally about 2" or less in diameter. Make sure you don't slice them any less then 1/3" (and up to 1/2 inch) thick. They should be soft after roasting but if they're too thin, they'll break down.

The amount of sauce will be generous. After you serve, set some on the table to pass around. It's good. Since it is not over hot, this works as a side dish to spicier/hotter dishes or as an accompaniment to grilled meat, poultry or fish. I ate mine with some grilled, sliced marinated tofu.

RECIPE: ROASTED EGGPLANT IN COCONUT CURRY SAUCE

A Simple Soup of Sorrel, Leeks and Potato

Food bloggers photography dilemma: how do you photograph a VERY tasty soup that has the unfortunate hue of an army surplus tent? I think the color was due mostly to the color of my vegetable broth which rendered the soup not-so-green. So, before the beauty shot, why not dot the top with olive oil and float a perfectly formed quenelle of greek yogurt?

...that immediately sank to the bottom of the bowl. Oh, well.

Classically, a quenelle is a combination of fish combined with a white sauce, forced through a sieve, formed into the quenelle shape and poached. Now the use is broader, often just referring to the shape - basically a teardrop, where one of the two sides has a bit of a corner. So, I made this beautiful quenelle of greek yogurt and it sank. I should've swirled it in instead. Okay, I've moved on.

Leeks cooking with butter and a little stock.

This soup is dead easy. Except for the butter, salt and pepper, it takes four ingredients, all of which can be swapped out for others. If you have a small russet potato, a leek (or an onion, or shallots) and vegetable stock (or chicken stock, or even water) plus one other vegetable that is soup-appropriate, you can make this soup, or its cousin. If you're missing the "one other vegetable" and have another potato, you've got soup. Sure, you can tuck basil leaves into the blender with your roasted tomatoes when you purée it, or spike carrots with some harissa, but you can also just celebrate the taste of the ingredients, seasoned with just enough salt and pepper.

Sorrel leaves - pinch off the stem below the leaves.

Sorrel is a perennial used as an herb, cooking or salad green. Last week, Lynn and I used it with other herbs to stuff under the skin of a roasted chicken and it worked marvelously. I couldn't decide whether to use it in a sauce or make a soup - and decided on the latter. When I first tasted it raw, I thought, "Oh, okay another chard-ish, kale-ish cooking green." and then it tasted a little puckery (sour -like I had a mild lemon candy in my mouth - without the lemon taste or sweetness) and things got interesting. I really wanted to know what it tasted like without a lot of other competing flavors so I kept it simple: leek cooked in butter, vegetable stock, a small potato and sorrel, purréed after cooking.

After cooking, the puckery, slightly acidic finish in the taste of the raw sorrel goes away and it has a mild flavor that I don't think I can accurately describe or liken to something else - but it was very good.

The diced potato pieces should be completely tender, but should not break apart when you poke a fork into them.

You can make this without the potato and add previously cooked pasta, beans or other grain at the end. You can forego the purée-ing and keep it a little chunky - just chop up the greens as you would chard so that they are spoon up-able after cooking.

RECIPE: SIMPLE SOUP WITH SORREL, LEEKS AND POTATO

Spicy Chickpeas: a Riff on Chana Masala

I dip in and out of Indian cooking and I can claim no expertise but I love the little I've learned about it. I absolutely love what happens when you combine spices and together they become a whole (taste and aroma) yet maintain an individual presence. While I've found good commercial blends, combining from scratch when you have the time - especially with whole spices - is so much better. The -several- recipes I referenced as a base for this dish were titled "Chana Masala". "Chana" (or chole) are chickpeas (garbanzo beans) and "masala" is a term used in Indian cooking -- there are many regions and types so I feel okay generalizing -- referring to a mixture of spices, often dry roasted, or a spice paste.

Draft 2 - with some cooking notes. More changes were made.
including leaving out the last addition of fried mustard seeds
at the end as I really didn't think it added enough
to go to the trouble.

I've seen references to Chana Masala in the regional cuisines of Punjab, Gujarat and Rajasthani. Most refer to the dish being fairly dry (not goopy or soupy) and being served with a fried bread ("bhatoora"). The dish is easily eaten out of hand with bhatoora. In my take on this it isn't completely dry, but far short of soupy.

Also, poblano chiles. Yeah, I used poblanos and they're definitely not used in Indian cooking. I really liked the idea of the slightly smoky flavor of roasted poblano in this dish and I have several in my refrigerator right now. One of my favorite vendors at the SF Ferry Plaza Farmers Market is Catalán Family Farm and they have some of the most beautiful chiles this time of year, as well as a bounty of heirloom tomatoes and other vegetables.

One thing I didn't have on hand that I saw in all my references was amchoor (or amchur) powder - a powder made from dried, green mangoes. I've had green mango salads in Thai restaurants and there's a slight sour-sweet taste that I'm guessing is enhanced in the dried version. Without amchoor powder, I substituted lime - adding the zest of 2 limes to the dish while it was cooking and the juice (about 3 tablespoons) at the very end of cooking, when the pan was off the heat. I don't know how comparable the flavor is, but I was happy with how the limes worked with the dish. A little sweet, a little sour and a slight hint of acid was a great contrast to the aromatic, smokey, spicy and medium heat of this dish.

When the mustard seeds start popping, be ready with the onions, otherwise the mustard seeds will jump out of the pan.

This dish is great as a side or as an entree. I ate it again tonight as a side with some left over roast chicken from Friday's dinner.

RECIPE: SPICY CHICKPEAS INSPIRED BY CHANA MASALA

Spoon Salad, Chickpeas and Wild Rice with Yogurt Sesame Sauce

A few years ago, I landed on Heidi Swanson's blog (101 Cookbooks) when I was looking for instruction on how to make yogurt and have found inspiration there, and in reading her cookbooks (Super Natural Cooking and Super Natural Every Day) ever since. Her focus, is on "...natural, whole foods and ingredients - vegetarian recipes that are good for you, with the occasional sweet treat".

At the time I stumbled across her blog I knew I wanted to maintain my membership in the "I eat meat" club, but wanted to cut back and focus on produce and whole grains as the majority of what I eat. I was inspired by not so much the main part of the dish (which looks delicious), but the dressing in her post: Sesame Yogurt Pasta Salad. In turn, Ms. Swanson was inspired by one of Peter Berley's recipes in his book.

I've written on Spoon Salad previously - a combination of raw vegetables cut up so that you can eat it with a spoon - with a good 'refrigerator life' that I make on a weekly basis and mix with a variety of other vegetables, herbs, grains, nuts, beans, dairy, meat, fish and/or tofu. The creativity is in the dressings and 'mix-ins'. The base vegetables change somewhat by season. Every once in a while, I'll use it as a base for a speedy saute or stir fry. I just don't get tired of it.

I had Spoon Salad in the refrigerator along with cooked chickpeas and wild rice and enough 'mix-ins' (avocado and cilantro) to make a great lunch, and enough leftover dressing to take to my friend Lynn's house the next day as a dip for sesame crackers.

RECIPE: SPOON SALAD, CHICKPEAS, WILD RICE & SESAME YOGURT TAHINI SAUCE

Spoon Salad: It's Crunch Time

Spoon Salad: this time with cucumber, celery, carrots, scallions, zucchini, red bell pepper, breakfast radishes and snap peas

Spoon Salad?
Spoon salad is my name for a combination of raw vegetables cut up so that you can eat it with a spoon, with a good 'refrigerator life' that I make weekly and mix with, at the time I prepare it, a variety of other vegetables (those that don't store well), herbs, grains, nuts, beans, dairy, meat, fish and/or tofu. The creativity is in how it's dressed and the 'mix-ins'. The base vegetables change somewhat by season. Every once in a while, I'll use it as a base for a speedy saute or stir fry. I just don't get tired of it.

This salad is capital-C CRUNCHY! I love the freshness and the taste. It's filling and wicked good for you. It is also great for developing and improving knife skills. I have tried cutting some vegetables in the food processor but overall, it takes less time to do it by hand and in some cases, using a food processor creates too much liquid. I recommend a small dice (1/4") for carrots or other hard vegetables and 1/3 to 1/2 inch for other less hard vegetables.

If there's a vegetable you want to use and you don't know if will keep for a few days, prepare some and add it to a separate container. Check on it each day. If it gets a little liquid-y in the container, it's probably not a good candidate. If you are considering becoming a Spoon Salad convert, think about how and when you'll use it. Once you've diced up the vegetables, you've pretty much made a commitment and you may want to start by making just a few cups at a time.

 

There really are no rules, but these:

• The vegetables are cut so that you can eat the salad with a spoon
• Don't use any 'watery' vegetables - this is a salad that should last in the refrigerator, if stored properly, for up to five days. I've gone as long as seven days with no discernible degradation of appearance or flavor. Anything like tomatoes, seedy cucumbers or other vegetables that are likely to break down quickly should not be included in the 'base' but may be added at the time you assemble it for a meal. One exception is English or Persian cucumbers - they tend to hold up well.
• Make sure the vegetables are well washed when you start and as dry as possible before you assemble and store the salad - and by that I mean no or very, very little residual water left over from washing when you start to prep and dice the ingredients.
• It should be very, very colorful
• Store it in airtight containers - I store mine in several 4-cup plastic containers

You may or may not want to add scallions to your 'base', but I find that onions or shallots (if you wish to use those) should be added as 'mix-ins' at the time you're assembling your meal or dish. It travels well.

Ingredients I Use Include:

Baked Corn Pudding - Version 2: Updated and Improved

 My original post can be found here: Baked Corn Pudding: Simple and Delicious. It was my second post but it was stuck there in February when fresh corn isn't an in-season commodity for most of us. I made it on Saturday, but changed it slightly, including my approach to the seasoning. Is it worth getting excited over changes to a recipe that has just ONE main ingredient? Oh, hell yes!

Here are the changes:

1. For every three (or four) ears that you grate, cut the kernels off of the fourth (but save it to grate any extra corn-liquid).This dish is delicious when all of the ears are grated but even better with some whole kernels.
2. Season conservatively and taste. By that I mean start with a small pinch of salt, combine thoroughly with the corn and taste. If that's not enough, add another, combine and taste. Go very easy on the salt. For this batch, I used two small pinches of kosher salt (for a net product of approximately 2 cups of unbaked corn - it was perfect. The same goes for the pepper.
3. The butter that you use to top it should be unsalted, chilled and cut into tiny cubes - this helps cut down on the amount of butter in the dish. I used 1 teaspoon for each of the ramekins pictured, below. Using less butter has no negative impact on this dish.

Another thing that's very important is that you need a minimum depth of two- and up to three (-ish)  inches of unbaked product in whatever container you use to cook the corn. You need to bake it long enough to get at least a little brown, but not so long that it dries out. It's  more important that the corn pudding is moist than completely browned on top. I started checking these after 25 minutes and ultimately baked them for 35 minutes. There should be some liquid bubbling around the outside and the middle should be moist, but not runny.

The ramekins pictured below are 1 cup (8 fl. oz), with a depth of 2" at the inside rim.

On the left, about 1 teaspoon small dice of chilled butter scattered over the surface. You could use more butter I guess, but I think too much butter detracts from the corn flavor. I placed the ramekins on a baking sheet. If you are making a larger quantity and use a single oven-proof container, there's no need for the baking sheet.

Recipe: Corn Pudding (v2)

Sautéed Summer Squash Julienne with Garlic, Hot Pepper Flakes, Lemon and Shaved Parmagiana

Summer squash season makes me sad. Mostly because there are mounds and mounds of BEAUTIFUL shapes and colors of summer squash all over the place. Why am I sad amidst such a bounty?

Because I mostly hate summer squash. I don't mind it raw, diced up in a salad, diced small and sautéed in a smoking hot pan for a blink of an eye or (duh!) zucchini bread. It's when it is in chunks and cooked until it's soft and watery (I blame the seeds) that I start to hate it. A lot. I loved "Ratatouille" but do not like the dish. [Note: based on this recipe, the previous sentence is no longer true.]

A few weeks ago I saw Jacques Pépin make a yellow and green zucchini 'spaghetti'. He cut off each side - down to but not including the seed cores, julienned the planks and sautéed those fast, in a hot pan. I would trust Jacques Pépin with my very life so I thought I'd give it a shot. Now, I don't like wasting food. I use my produce scraps for stock that I will either use immediately or freeze and the only time the scraps go into the compost bin is when the freezer door becomes difficult to close. I save the heels of hard cheese to thrown into soups and stews. I use the water in which I cooked the chickpeas to cook the barley, and then I throw my onion/leek, carrot and celery produce scraps in that to make a broth.

Throwing the seedy cores of a couple of zucchinis into the compost bin? Zero guilt.

I didn't cut my own julienne, I used a Messermeister julienne-ing thingy. Worked like a charm. There are other small tools out there that are advertised as doing the same but this is the only one I've used and I'm happy with it and yes, my mandoline still scares me a little which is why I didn't use that. The Messermeister cut really beautiful, delicate julienne - and it's easier to clean up than the mandoline.

The ones I cut by hand were a little more like linguine but I think would have been just fine. Thinking after the fact, if I had hand-cut them, I might have cut thin slices, down to the core on each side, stacked those and then cut the strips - resulting in a more consistent julienne. The process using the peeler was very, very fast.

Messermeister julienne-ing thingy (left) and hand-cut julienne (right)

 Will I make it again? Absolutely. Next time I'll pan-roast some cherry tomatoes too. I think it would taste great hot or at room temperature. Top with shrimp? Tofu? Yes and yes. This has possibilities.

Recipe: Sautéed Summer Squash Julienne with Garlic, Pepper Flakes, Lemon and Shaved Parmagiana

Roasted Radishes: Good News/Bad News

"RUN! RUN BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE!
My kingdom for opposable thumbs!  Or legs!"
(Yes, these are the radishes speaking)

Good news: I really liked the greens.

Bad news: Roasted radishes remind me of roasted chunks of zucchini and do not even taste like radishes.

Do not want.

I did some research and pulled the recipe from a trusted source - still trusted - but figure this is a "chacun à son goût" difference of taste.

My advice is, don't throw your radish greens out - sauteing or roasting the greens is a good idea. Leave your radishes in the crisper and eat them raw - or pickle them.  If I ever do this again, I'll crank up the heat and just cook them long enough for some color, sauteing the greens separately - or I'll roast the greens 'til just crispy (they were very good!). The likelihood of me roasting radishes again is - oh - somewhere around exactly "hell no".

If you want to give this a shot, go for it. Believe me, I'd love to find out I was doing this wrong as my love of roasted things knows no bounds. In the mean time, I'm going to dream of sliced breakfast radishes on a baguette spread with sweet butter and sprinkled with sea salt.

Celery Root and Spring Onion Mash with Roasted Garlic

I've nothing against mashed potatoes -- I love them, just far, far too much. I cannot have a potato in my house without cooking it and consuming it (along with its siblings) with obscene quantities of cheese, butter or other dairy products. It's a fact that I can (and do) live with.

I needed something that would stand up (literally and taste-wise) to the jus and gravy from a pot roast (or a Thanksgiving turkey...), like mashed potatoes, but not BE mashed potatoes.  I saw a recipe for a spring onion mash but thought that wouldn't have the structure I needed.  I have been on a bit of a celery root tear and have seen many recipes and restaurant menu dishes over the years for celery root puree and celery root and potato puree. Boiled celery root has (approximately) 1/3 the calories and 1/3 the total carbohydrates of boiled potato (if that matters to you).

What if you cooked some spring onions down with a little salt and olive oil and mixed them with cooked celery root that you'd squeezed the bejesus out of to get rid of a lot of the juice and then mashed them together with roasted garlic?  Would it work? Would it taste good - delicious, even?

Hell, yes!

The first time I made them, I added some marscapone cheese and a tablespoon of butter and extended them with some mashed cannelini beans.  Yeah, you can do that and it's great, but last night I just stuck with the three basics: celery root, spring onions and roasted garlic.

Update: Leeks work too. 

Raw Kale Salad with Meyer Lemon Vinaigrette

I first ate this at Seester #1's house one Thanksgiving and I was well and truly hooked. There have been weeks where I ate this five days in a row.  Sometimes I wash, dry and prep the kale and then wrap it in a length of paper towel, then store it in a plastic bag.  It will stay fresh for several days.

I most often see this kale labelled as "Dino" because of the pebbled surface of the leaves.  There are many types of kale, but this is my favorite and I can't imagine making this salad with any other type. See: Kale (Wikipedia) and Google Image search for "kale varieties".

Baked Corn Pudding: Simple and Delicious

This recipe has been updated, see: Baked Corn Pudding - Version2: Updated and Improved

No cream, no aromatics, no bacon, no cheese (gasp!).  Corn, butter, salt. and pepper.  Eat it and be happy.

Ingredients

• 6 ears fresh corn
• 2 tsp kosher salt (1 tsp iodized salt)
• 4 tbsp unsalted butter + more for greasing the baking dish
• 1/4 tsp kosher salt  (a small pinch iodized salt) for the top
• Pepper to taste

Equipment:

• Box grater or corn creamer
• A big, wide bowl in which to grate the corn
• 8" square baking dish, greased with butter (compare the a volume of corn to the volume of your baking dish before greasing it - use a smaller or larger size baking dish as necessary)

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 400 F (204 C)
• Using the box grater, remove the meat and juices from each of the ears working very close to the cob - you want this to be very mushy and milky.  For me, cutting the ears in half makes them easier to handle.  Once you have finished the corn, season with salt and pepper, tasting the mixture.
• Pour the corn mixture into the baking pan.  Smooth out the top and dot with butter.  Sprinkle the top with the additional salt.
• Bake on the middle rack at 400 F uncovered for 45-50 minutes (start checking it at 40 minutes), or until the top is golden brown around the sides and the corn is bubbling.  Remove from the oven and let it rest for a few minutes before serving.