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Recent Recipes

August 28, 2010 in cooking, food, review by spinstah | No comments

Capsule reviews of a few yummy things I’ve made lately (and by “lately” I do mean that one of these goes back to May):

Spicy Zucchini Soup: This was quite yummy and very easy to make. I didn’t find it to be particularly spicy (not even a kick) so next time I’ll use the entire jalapeno. And I think I put in more cilantro than it calls for, but that’s never a bad thing. The consistency is a little on the thick side, due to the bread, but I liked it nonetheless. And it’s good hot, chilled, or somewhere in between. Also very yummy with a side of corn on the cob.

Ratatouille: As a I made this recipe from Epicurious, recommended by my friend Abby, it occurred to me that in my cookbooks I probably have at least one recipe for ratatouille. Anyway, this is pretty easy, just a lot of chopping, and you can adjust the quantities of vegetables to your taste. I enjoyed it but when I ate the leftovers I found myself picking around the eggplant cubes, as they were quite soggy. This is the kind of thing that I think benefits from the veggies being a little crisp, so next time I think I’ll skip the part where you cook the eggplant alone a little bit (unless there is some compelling reason not to, hive mind?).

Basil Puree: From a pizza recipe in one of my cookbooks, this is a very loose pesto made with only basil, olive oil and garlic (and a pinch of salt). Lovely bright flavor.

Roasted Garlic, Caramelized Leek and Bacon Pizza: Very subtle smoky flavors, which I punched up with the basil puree. And I have to say, you haven’t lived until you have smelled leeks cooking in bacon fat.

Speaking of roasted garlic, I’m not about to turn on my oven in the summer just for the sole purpose of roasting garlic. So instead I put my google-fu to work and came up with this: roasted garlic on the stovetop. Keeping the paper/skin on your cloves, break off however many you need and put them in a dry frying pan over low heat. Turn them occasionally, trying to get them browned on each side. When they’re squishy, they’re done. Worked like a charm.

Ham Salad: I can’t think that I ever had ham salad before I made this, but I’m sure I must have at some point. In any case I made this primarily becuase I had a ham steak from our coop this fall/winter that I had been keeping in mind as I was a little at a loss as to what to do with it. So, when I spotted this recipe on a food blog feed I figured I’d give it a try. Overall it was yummy, but I’m not sure how much I like ham salad, so I probably won’t make it again. That said, the dressing is delicious and I think would make a fantastic egg salad or potato salad.

BLT Salad with Bacon Vinaigrette: Why did it never occur to me to turn my favorite sandwich into a salad!? Delicious! As I recall, I did end up adding some additional vinegar to the dressing, as when I followed the instructions it didn’t come out very tangy.

Mexican Chopped Salad with Honey-Lime Dressing: I make a lot of taco salads in the summer, and I bookmarked this mainly for the dressing, which is quite yummy.

Carmelized Leek Risotto: This was yummy, very light delicate flavor.

Israeli Couscous with Asparagus, Peas and Sugar Snaps: Wonderful lemony flavor that I still think about. The sugar snaps I had when I made this weren’t particularly good, so if you can’t get good ones just omit them. Maybe throw on some shrimp or scallops if you want some protein.

Corn Salad

July 20, 2010 in cooking, food by spinstah | 1 comment

With the delicious arrival of Eastern Shore corn a couple of weeks ago, I decided to try out this Grilled Corn Salad recipe. Because I wanted it to serve as lunches for a week, I originally planned to serve it over rice, but in the end I was too tired and hot and never made the rice — which was just fine, because I’m not sure the rice really would have worked in the end.

Naturally, I did make some changes. To get four nice lunch entrees out of it, I took the kernels from five ears of corn, and added in a can of (drained, rinsed) black beans. I also diced a tomato and threw that in. It’s a delicious salad, but could have benefited from some additional, more bright or intense flavor. So, if you do like I do and don’t put in a lot of heat in the way of peppers (I used one small jalapeno, diced fine), it might be nice to add a coupe of dollops of salsa to each serving, or perhaps amp up the dressing a bit.

I did the stove top version and my corn really didn’t brown at all. What seemed to happen was that the outer layers of the kernels just bonded to the cast iron, creating this crust between the corn and the pan. As a result the squash really didn’t brown either, but to me it was still just fine — I would even venture to say that if you’re making this on the stove top, just brown the squash and don’t bother doing anything to the corn.

Really this is one of those recipes that you can doctor up any which way you like, and it’s very easy to control how much of it you make. I’m not convinced it’d be that good with frozen corn, so I think this is one that I’ll reserve for the summer, when I get get the main star of the show fresh at the farmer’s market.

Summer food is here!

July 11, 2010 in cooking, food by spinstah | No comments

Danielle, Paul and I once again signed up to split a half share from One Straw Farm’s CSA, and as last year we are picking it up on Saturdays at Waverly Market, a year-round farmer’s market. I had been intending to post about the different things I got each week, as I did last summer, but since it started a few weeks ago and I obviously haven’t mentioned it, I think I’ll abandon that plan and instead just try to get back in the habit of posting about any new recipes I try. Except that would require that I try new recipes, which I haven’t done much of lately. This spring was just so busy that I got into a bit of a cooking rut, and was falling back on old standbys. Not that this is a bad thing, but it doesn’t make for much of anything interesting to share.

Anyway, here’s a little report on what I’ve been eating from the market lately. The growing season has been better this year (except for the recent lack of rain, which was somewhat relieved yesterday), so we didn’t have as long a period of time when it was “greens greens greens” in the CSA offerings. Read the rest of this entry »

Capsule Reviews . . .

April 1, 2010 in cooking, food, review by spinstah | No comments

. . . of a few things (mostly soups) I’ve made recently. I’ve been so busy that I haven’t had the time or inclination to blog more about these, and at this point some of them aren’t all that fresh in my mind. So, this is what you get!

Cabbage, Chickpea and Chorizo Soup was good, but would have been better without the cabbage — it didn’t seem to meld with the rest of the dish. Also, most of the broth was sucked up by the chickpeas. If you make this, chop the cabbage small. I did pieces about half the size of what the recipe called for, and they were still too big.

Rustic Cabbage Soup is for people who really like cabbage. Next time I think I’ll just make a bunch of coleslaw. It was OK but I don’t think I’ll make it again.

Sweet Potato, Sausage and Kale Soup was excellent!

Apple & Parsnip Soup was ok. The flavors didn’t seem to meld together very well. Maybe it’s better if you use granny smith apples, as called for, instead of whatever random apples you happen to have on hand?

Cream of Carrot with Ginger Soup was very yummy and easy.

Sweet Potato Soup with Miso and Ginger was good but would have been better with less ginger — it really overwhelemed the flavor. Also, I couldn’t find miso. I think I just left it out.

Chicken Fried Rice had a very light flavor. It needed a little oomph, I thought.

Spicy Parsnip Soup is so yummy, even when you make it with turnips instead.

Co-Op 2010: Weeks 1-3

March 6, 2010 in food by spinstah | 2 comments

This year, as last, the Mill Valley General Store is offering a co-op that works similar to a CSA. You pay in advance, and each week for a set amount of time (13 weeks in this case) you get a variety of items. Much as we did with the CSA, I’m splitting a share with Paul and Danielle. We opted for the full share, which means that each week we get four produce items and two “value-added” items to split between ourselves. Here’s what I’ve gotten so far, in various quantities shared between us:

Week 1
Onions, potatoes, grapefruit, ground bison, apple cider.

Week 2
Cabbage, carrots, oranges, butter.

Week 3
Apples, beets, turnips (which I thought were parsnips, oops), yogurt.

Week 4
Boston lettuce, sweet potatoes, sausages, rutabagas, yogurt.

Week 5
Bacon, lettuce, eggs, cinnamon raisin bread, red potatoes, oranges.

This obviously differs from a CSA in that not all of this is grown locally — the citrus comes up from Uncle Matt’s Organic Farm in Florida; the yogurt came from a dairy in New Jersey. The bison comes from Gunpowder Bison in MD. But just like with a CSA, I love that it forces me to try new things and search out new recipes, some of which I hope to share here soon.

On Waffles

February 3, 2010 in cooking, food by spinstah | No comments

I have a waffle maker, which has become a heavily used appliance in the last several months. Making waffles from scratch is easy, and the variations are endless. I use the recipes in my Betty Crocker cookbook, which provides a basic recipe and several variations — most frequently, I make the whole wheat version. I’ve also made waffles with cornmeal, and have tried buttermilk waffles (though they aren’t as good as buttermilk pancakes for some reason). Usually I make a half batch of the batter, which keeps for a couple of days in the fridge, and eat them for breakfast and snacks. I’ll throw all kinds of things on the batter before I close the lid — flax seeds, wheat germ, chopped nuts. Depending on what kind I’ve made, I’ll add fruit, chocolate chips, butter, brown sugar, honey or maple syrup on top. My waffle iron makes round waffles with four segments, so it’s easy to control the portions.

I made a batch of waffles this weekend, and tried a new recipe. When I opened the fridge to get the milk and eggs, I spied a half-empty container of sour cream, and figured I’d see if I could find a recipe to use that up. My Betty Crocker didn’t have a variation, but a quick Google search led me to Alton Brown’s recipe for Sour Cream and Pecan Waffles. I had just enough sour cream — sold!

As I have found with the buttermilk, these were good but not stellar. I didn’t feel like they really tasted all that different from a plain waffle, which is too bad because sour cream is tasty. I will probably put a stickie note with the proportions next to waffle recipes in the Betty Crocker, as it’s a great way to use up some sour cream that you want to get out of the fridge. But I can’t say I would go out of my way to make them. Read the rest of this entry »

Brunch Ring

February 1, 2010 in baking, cooking, food, review by spinstah | 2 comments

This was the other dish I made for my January brunch, and is yet another recipe from the January 2010 Vegetarian Times. This one was a big hit. Tasted great, looked impressive, and was easy to make. Essentially, it’s a tofu scramble encased in puff pastry. In this case the scramble uses some Indian spices, but you could really use any favorite tofu scramble recipe, so long as the volume is about the same.

In terms of wrapping the pastry around the scramble, I learned a couple of things — there will probably be a few extra pieces of crescent roll dough, and it works best to shape and mold the scramble, rather than just try to pile it on. I had trouble getting the points of the dough all the way around and underneath the ring, so I just pulled them into the middle and poked at them in hopes that this would work, and it did.

I didn’t modify this recipe a whole lot — in this case I just changed the spicing. As written the recipe is vegan, and calls for 1/4 C nutritional yeast. After some online research and a chat with the lovely SparkleJ, I decided to omit it and just include more spices. Since the recipe called for turmeric, I poked around and decided to add in some ground ginger, coriander and cumin. (In reality this meant I could have just used the curry powder in my cabinet, but I thought of this too late.)

This can be made ahead — you can do the whole thing right up to baking and then just chill it in the fridge overnight, covered loosely with plastic wrap or foil. I didn’t do that since I had enough time to make it before my guests came, but if you have folks staying over, this might be a nice thing to be able to offer pretty quickly in the morning.

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Tofu Tagine

January 27, 2010 in cooking, review by spinstah | No comments

This was a quick and tasty dinner that was quite easy to put together. The recipe comes from a little book of Rachel Ray recipes. Despite the fact that I find her annoying as a TV personality, she makes some good food. This book is also the source of my turkey chili. I haven’t made a lot of the things in it, but what I have made has turned out well and been quite good. I came across the recipe will trolling through the indexes of my smaller cookbooks, looking for inspiration. I tend to cook primarily from recipes I find online, and treat my cookbook collection more as a reference tool. This was a great reminder that I need to make more use of them!

In this particular case, I did make a significant modification of the recipe, which is actually called Quick Tagine-Style Chicken with Couscous. I feel like I’ve been eating a lot of meat lately, and I wanted to make this vegetarian. So, I subbed in some tofu and I think it worked out quite well. Below is the modified recipe; if you want to do chicken you would just start by browning 1 3/4 lbs. of cubed chicken breast.

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Sweet Potato Shepherd’s Pie

January 25, 2010 in cooking, review by spinstah | No comments

This is the second casserole I made from the January 2010 Vegetarian Times. This one I made to take to a meeting/party, and so I doubled it. One thing I was reminded of is the magic of baking something like this, which changes and improves the flavor — I tasted the individual components as I went, and found that I was not that impressed. In the end, people said they liked it and it did taste pretty good. I should note that I omitted the beans, mainly because I forgot to prep some (I do beans from dried) and didn’t have time to do it when I was actually making the casserole. I should also note that I didn’t have any wine on hand, so I used vegetable broth. Lastly, I subbed dried herbs for fresh, which might also have affected the final flavor. I also think that the bottom filling needs something else — somehow the lovely flavor of the leeks that I expected didn’t come through. Mine were about a week old by the time I used them, but they seemed fine, so I’m not sure if that’s the problem or if it’s in the combination of flavors (maybe increase the leeks and decrease the onions?). Overall I didn’t dislike this, but I’m not sure I’ll make it again. It will probably depend on whether I come up with any good ideas for modifying it and improving the flavor. (Ideas?) Regardless, I think this is definitely a side dish and not a meal in and of itself, whether or not you include the beans.

As I made this recipe, it struck me why people say that they can’t cook, even when they follow the recipe as written. Some recipes just aren’t written that well, and this was one of them. The proportions seemed a bit off (made me glad I’d grabbed an extra sweet potato just for the heck of it) — as written, you wouldn’t have very much sweet potato topping to work with. In the magazine, the recipe calls for “1 medium sweet potato (1/4 lb).” I found that the smallest ones at my grocery store were 1/2″ lb., so I’m guessing that the author didn’t actually weigh the potato, but perhaps just guessed after the fact. This recipe also didn’t include an instruction to preheat the oven at the start, which I’m sure will cause problems for some cooks.
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Indian Samosa Casserole

January 23, 2010 in cooking, review by spinstah | No comments

I have been cooking a lot in the last couple of weeks, but haven’t managed to post about the recipes in a timely fashion. I’m going to try and write up most of the posts today, and set them to post here and there over the next week or so.

This was the first of two casseroles I made right after the holidays, both from an article in the January 2010 Vegetarian Times, which I picked up while at home. All of them are designed to freeze well.

This casserole is pretty straightforward — you make a whole wheat pie crust to cover the top, and a samosa-style filling. The flavors weren’t as intense as getting a samosa at an Indian restaurant, but I expected that given that I was making it at home. Next time around I might increase the spices.

I also found that the crust was rather tough, probably due to one of the following: I modified the crust recipe to use butter instead of vegetable oil since I was out,  I used regular whole wheat flour instead of whole wheat pastry flour (I’m assuming there’s a difference since it was specified), I might have over processed the dough, and I overbaked the casserole by accidentally following the “from frozen” baking time rather than the fresh-made.

I’ll definitely make this again. Next time, I’ll make a point of being sure that I have chickpeas on hand, so I can make some kind of side dish that will turn this into a more complete meal.
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