Easy Peasy Caprese

I am trying to recover from a major bonehead move which has turned my usual morning press into a frantic rush today.  I am rolling out a software implementation and conducting training with a team in Europe in the early mornings.  Today's training starts at 5:30 AM and late last night, I realized I'd forgotten to bring my laptop home. Damn!!!! Without the laptop I cannot securely access the software, so that means I will have to leave for the office no later than 4:30 AM. Gasp. Today's lunch preparation needs to be REALLY FAST and REALLY EASY.   A quick glance in the fridge revealed the ingredients for a classic Caprese salad: a fresh yellow heirloom tomato, mozzarella pearls, garlic, olive oil, balsamic vinegar and basil.  I have a very sorry looking basil plant growing on my kitchen windowsill that provides me with a scarce wintertime harvest of fresh leaves, for which today of all days I was very grateful.

This salad is way lovelier than the picture above, but I had no time to stage it up today, so Sorry!  I'll try harder next time...

2 Minute Caprese Salad

1 ripe tomato
2-3 oz fresh mozzarella cheese
1 clove garlic
1 medium basil leaf
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
2 tsp olive oil
pinch of salt and pepper

Slice the tomato in half crosswise and gently squeeze out the excess juice and seeds.  Coarsely chop. Cut the mozzarella cheese into small bite-size pieces. Finely mince the garlic and chiffonade the basil leaf.  Toss together, then drizzle with the vinegar and olive oil, sprinkle with the salt and pepper and gently toss together again.  Let marinate for at least 10 minutes, then enjoy.

Taco Tuesday, Vegetable Style

Today was a horrendously long day at work, starting with a 5 AM conference call/training session with Europe and ending with an evening call with Asia. I am very grateful for my incredible and supportive husband, who knew I would have no time to cook today, and took it upon himself to make a vegetable entree for me.  Most likely he opened the refrigerator and saw the 200 packages of mushrooms I'd accidentally ordered for my farm delivery this week and decided to use them in this dinner.  He did an internet search and came across Rick Bayless' recipe for Mushroom Tacos (which sounds less perverted than their official name, Hongos Guisados. Or maybe it's just me and my perverted mind that thinks that sounds perverted?)  At any rate, I know he probably thought I would enjoy this recipe because I record all the Rick Bayless PBS "Mexico: One Plate at at Time" TV shows and force him to watch them with me while I meticulously take notes on how to make sopas, salsas, and tamales. And I also dragged him to dinner Frontera Grill when we were in Chicago visiting our daughter, who as it turns out is also a Rick Bayless fan and owner of several of his excellent cookbooks.    Of course, he had an excellent time and a great meal at Frontera, and we are looking forward to going back and visiting some of Rick's other Chicago restaurants as well.

The recipe was tangy and garlicky, and very filling despite the absence of meat.  The original recipe anticipates this will be made as a filling for soft tacos, but I found it was a little too lacking in texture, so we decided to pan fry some corn tortillas, dust them with a little salt and garlic powder, and serve these as crispy tostadas instead.  I spread a little guacamole as the base, then followed with shredded lettuce, the mushroom filling, some grated jack cheese, and fresh chopped cilantro.  While a margherita would have been perfect with these, I settled for a nice glass of Pinot Noir (much lower in carbs and also readily available - as in handed to me as I walked through the front door at 9 PM).  This dinner was a perfect end to a very stressful day - thank you Bob! The recipe can be found here:  http://www.rickbayless.com/recipe/soft-taco-filling-stewed-mushrooms-with-onions-and-garlic/

 

If Things Don't Go as Planned, call it a Mousseline

I had a party in December featuring French food, and we made several recipes from Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, including Scallop Quenelles.  Quenelles are little football shaped dumplings, and one of the things I loved about Julia's recipe was her advice regarding Plan B if your recipe was a thin, runny failure:  Don't tell anyone you planned to make quenelles.  Instead, chill the batter and call it a mousseline.   That, my friends, is why today's featured vegetable dish is called Parsnip Mousseline.

You may recall a couple of days ago I wrote about a beet salad in which the beets were cooked in my pressure cooker.  I noted that I had cooked the beets for 10 minutes at 15 lbs of pressure - a perfect amount of time to cook a medium sized beet.  Not so perfect for a handful of small, thin parsnips.  They were very overcooked, and I could not use them as I had originally intended.  They sort of had spontaneously pureed themselves, so taking advice from the great Julia, I decided to puree them instead.  The result was unexpectedly tasty and made a nice accompaniment to some salmon we'd smoked for dinner that night. 

Parsnips have a slight horseradish-y flavor, and I must admit they are not one of my favorite vegetables for that reason.  I like horseradish on prime rib or as condiment but not so much as a main flavor component for my meal.  They are also a little starchy and therefore have a higher carb count. To offset these things, I added protein to this dish in the form of smoked gouda cheese which went very well with the salmon we had cooked in the smoker,  and non-fat cottage cheese which added creaminess without the fat of real cream. The end result was a balanced and flavorful side dish which I found surprisingly delicious.

Parsnip "Mousseline" for 2

 4 medium parsnips, washed and peeled

1/4 cup nonfat cottage cheese

1/4 cup grated smoked Gouda or smoked Jarlsberg cheese

1/2 tsp kosher salt

1/8 tsp nutmeg

up to 1/4 cup vegetable broth 

1 tbsp melted butter or margarine

Roast, steam or pressure cook the parsnips:  If roasting, coat with a little oil then roast in a 400 degree oven for 20 - 25 minutes, until very tendery;  if steaming, cut into even sized chunks, place in a steamer and steam for 8 minutes or until fork tender;  if using a pressure cooker, bring cooker to pressure then cook at 15 lbs pressure for 5 minutes.  

Puree the parsnips and all other ingredients in a food processor or high speed blender until smooth. Add vegetable broth as needed to thin the mixture to your desired consistency.  Just before serving, stir in the melted butter.

Mushroom and Kale Heirloom Cornbread

If you consider yourself a foodie, you need to follow Kenji Lopez and his blog, Serious Eats.  I adapted his delicious cornbread recipe to use up some fresh ground heirloom red cornmeal and the overflow bounty of kale that showed up last Friday in my farm box, along with some mushrooms I had on hand.    What I liked about this recipe is that it is not your typical sweet cake-type cornbread ala Marie Callendar's.  I think most people would agree that sweet cornbread (especially drizzled with honey butter) is delicious.  However,  if  you are watching your sugar and carb intake very carefully like I am, you need to make choices with what you eat. 


This recipe was a great compromise between sweet and savory and produced a very hearty, earthy bread that could practically be a meal by itself.   What I especially loved was the strong mushroom flavor this had, and how wonderful the candy cap mushrooms made the house smell as it baked.  If you have never used them before, candy cap mushrooms are the most amazing thing ever.  They smell like maple syrup and are often called the dessert mushroom.  I first discovered them at Far West Fungi, a great mushroom shop in San Francisco's Ferry Building. I was walking past the store and could smell them through their sealed packaging as I passed by.  Too hard to resist - I had to try this unique mushroom, so I bought a package of dried candy caps and made this awesome butternut squash and candy cap mushroom creme brulee from the chef at Pine Ridge Vineyards:  http://www.touringandtasting.com/desserts/pine-ridge-butternut-creme-brulee

I will admit, candy caps are not inexpensive, but I had 1/2 a bag left over from the creme brulee and this cornbread recipe seemed especially suited for them.  When I read Kenji's post about making cornbread that wasn't sweet, it struck me that I could use these mushrooms to add sweetness without adding sugar.  To intensify the mushroom taste, I also decided to add a package of shitakes that had been in my fridge way too long, and were starting to dehydrate. 

You can find the base recipe at this link (I don't think it's right to just copy someone else's recipe, so sorry for the redirect): http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2015/01/moist-and-tender-brown-butter-cornbread-recipe.html  However, I will share the modifications I made.    

1) In place of the fine yellow cornmeal called for in Kenji's recipe, I used 1 cup of coarse-ground heirloom red corn cornmeal.  This added protein, gave the bread a very robust wholesome flavor, and intensified the crunch this bread derives from being cooked in a cast iron skillet.

2) To pack this cornbread with vegetables,  I added the following items to the wet ingredients in step 2 of Kenji's recipe:

• 2 cups fresh lacinato kale, stems removed, cut into slivers

• 1 thick slice (3/8 inch) of yellow onion, minced (LOVED the way this tasted in the bread)

• 1 cup of fresh shitake mushrooms, finely chopped

• 1/2 oz dried candy cap mushrooms, ground into powder in a spice grinder (or a high speed blender) 

I followed the rest of the recipe as described, including baking the cornbread in a cast iron skillet.  It turned out great.  As soon as it was ready to cut open, I couldn't resist spreading a slice with some truffle butter for that ultimate mushroom rush. 

Roasted Beets in Creamy Diabo Sauce

This recipe makes a great chilled side salad but it's also good enough for eating on its own and makes a light lunch with some fresh cheese like burrata, or a dollop of greek yogurt.  It is both sweet and spicy and very satisfying.

I know I am a bit odd, but I like to make my lunch for work every day.  If I am making this dish for lunch, I will get up and pop the beets in the oven (if I haven't made them ahead of time).  Once I'm done with my morning routine, I'll take the beets out, have breakfast and make the sauce while they cool, then chop, toss, and put in a small container to let them finish marinating until it's lunch time.  If you are not interested in pulling this together in the morning, you can make it the night before.  The beets can even be made several days in advance, just keep them in their foil packets until you're ready to use them.

Roasted Beets
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees

Per person:
1 large beet, washed, tops removed and tail trimmed
1 tbsp olive oil per person
Salt & Pepper

Tear off a piece of foil large enough to enclose each individual beet.  Place each beet in the center of the foil, drizzle with 1 tbsp olive oil and sprinkle with salt & pepper.  Wrap the beet tightly in the foil to trap all the steam while it cooks, and place on a baking tray lined with parchment paper (for easier cleanup, in case the packages leak) in the pre-heated oven.  Roast for 45 min to 1 hour, until the beets are fork-tender all the way through.

Remove from the oven and let cool for 15 to 30 minutes.  Once cool, open the packets and gently rub the skins off using your hands or a paper towel. Chop the beets into small dice.

Diabo Sauce

I love this ghost pepper-basedsauce from the restaurant "Fat Rice" out of Chicago.  Yes, it's incredibly hot but when used sparingly it adds a great level of flavor plus heat to your dish.  Fat Rice's online store (https://squareup.com/market/loco-food-llc) describes the sauce as follows:

In the Indian state of Assam the Bhot Jolokia is the Maharajah of all chillies. Ranking as one of the hottest peppers on the planet, the “ghost pepper” tops out at over 1MILLION on the scoville scale. Diabo is a Fat Rice favorite! Sinful yet sweet with a whole lot of heat!  Indredients: Carrot, Habenero, onion, cane vinegar, water, ghost pepper, garlic, cane sugar, salt xanthan gum

If you don't want to order some Diabo sauce, you can substitute any other liquid chili sauce (Tapatio, Tabasco, etc.  Mix the other ingredients then add your sauce a drop at a time to your desired heat level.)

Per Person:
1 Tbsp mayonnaise, regular Vegennaise, regular or light sour cream, or Greek yogurt
1/4 tsp Diabo Ghost Pepper Sauce
2 tsp finely chopped fresh parsley
1 tsp lemon zest
a pinch of salt

Blend the ingredients together and toss with the diced beets.  Let marinate for at least hour, but can be made a day or two ahead of time if desired. 

Farm Box, How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Ways

This week's bounty!

I love Fridays when my farm box arrives. For someone who likes to cook, it's like a Christmas present appearing on the doorstop every other week.  The program I have lets me customize my box, and somehow, this week, I think I must have had a major Alzheimer's moment, because I added a lot of stuff to my box, but forgot to remove the things I didn't want.  The end result:  three different types of brocolli, three different types of mushrooms, too many types of greens to count, and all of this coming at the start of a three day weekend which I would be spending in Tucson, celebrating my Dad's 87th birthday. 

With such an abundance of cruciferous brassicas, I decided I had better make something with them right away.  Meaty, hearty roasted romanesco was my choice for today's lunch.  Romanesco is sometimes called cauliflower and sometimes brocolli, and I think the naming confusion occurs because it's actually a cross between the two vegetables.  It is supposedly a good source of numerous vitamins and minerals, including vitamins A, C, and K as well as folate, fiber, iron, manganese, carotene, protein, zinc, and omega-3 fatty acids.

My recipe had to be fast, because not only did I need to prepare it this morning before leaving for work, but I also needed to wash, prep and store all the rest of the vegetables.  I decided to simply roast it with salt, rosemary, olive oil, garlic and a kiss of cayenne.  This is a classic and easy preparation which requires just a little chopping followed by tossing the ingredients together then spreading on a baking sheet and roasting for about 25 minutes.

Since this was going to be my lunch, I decided to add some grated parmesan cheese and nuts to boost the protein content.  However, I ran out of time to toast the nuts, and I happened to have a bag of Good Bean "crispy crunchy" chickpeas, so I used those instead.  I think that toasted sliced almonds or pinenuts would also have been really delicious.  In hindsight, it would have been best to add the chickpeas just before eating, because they lost a little of their crunch after sitting in my lunchbox for a couple of hours.

Garlic and Olive Oil Roasted Romanesco

Preheat oven to 400 degrees and place rack in middle of oven

I head of Romanesco, broken into even size florets and sliced about 1/2 inch thick
2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp minced fresh rosemary
2 large cloves garlic, minced
1/2 tsp salt
optional:  1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

Place all the ingredients in a ziplock bag, toss well to distribute the seasoning, then spread evenly on a parchment-lined baking tray (to make clean up easier).  Roast for 20-25 minutes until the vegetables develop a nice dark carmelization in spots.


If adding nuts and cheese, use 2 Tbsp each of your favorite toasted nuts and grated cheese such as parmesan or another hard flavorful cheese. Add after the vegetables come out of the oven. 

" If you see Mt. Fuji, a hawk, and an eggplant on New Year's Day, you will be forever blessed."

Roasted Eggplant Salad with Smoked Almonds and Goat Cheese

You come across the oddest things while surfing the internet looking for eggplant recipes.  Given that we're in the thick of the Chinese New Year's celebration, this proverb seemed both fitting and a good omen.  

I love eggplant in just about every preparation except raw.  Raw, it's pretty disgusting, but baked, roasted, fried, sauteed, whatever - I love it all. The best thing about eggplant is how it embraces the flavors of whatever it's cooked with.  

Today's recipe - Roasted Eggplant Salad with Smoked Almonds & Goat Cheese - came from The Kitchn and can be found at this link: http://www.thekitchn.com/recipe-roasted-eggplant-salad-with-smoked-almonds-goat-cheese-164756.  I discovered this at about 5:30 AM the other day as I soaked in the bathtub surfing for something to make with the three eggplants I currently have in fridge.  It intrigued me for several reasons -- I love anything smoky, and this called for smoked paprika (of which I have an abundance, as mentioned in earlier posts). Additionally, it had these great toasted almonds in it with give the dish an excellent crunchy texture.  Last but not least:  it includes goat cheese. Yum. I can't say no to goat cheese.

We made it with only one minor substitution - we didn't have smoked almonds (and who wants those chemical coated nuts anyway?), so we toasted and added plain almonds instead and they were great.  I would make it the same way again.  It is a little tangy, sort of like a relish, but retains that creamy eggplant flavor that always reminds me of Italy. The addition of the smoked paprika draws in flavor profiles of the Middle East; it would be great scooped onto some fresh, home made pita bread.  One word of caution - a whole eggplant does not go very far when prepared in this fashion.  We ate this as a standalone dinner but it was a little on the light side, making about 3 cups altogether.  I would definitely make it again as a light meal or a side dish to accompany fish, chicken, or lamb.