What is up with stores not carrying black bean burgers anymore? Are they really a relic of the '90s? I spent a lot of happy high school and college vegetarian days scarfing down black bean burgers from Chili's and Morningstar Farms frozen black bean burgers with Trader Joe's guacamole. Ah, the good old days. I missed black bean burgers, so I decided to make some. This recipe came out very, very well. I think that actually if you double the poblano, add more chili powder, and more vital wheat gluten, they'd be perfect. At six points per patty, they're more of an investment than a three oz cold cut sandwich, but they are probably healthier and the patties are thick and satisfying. Use half a small whole wheat pita in place of a bun, and even with some cheese and barbecue sauce it's an under-ten-point meal.
Homemade Black Bean Burgers (6 large patties)
1 can black beans, drained
1/2 red onion, chopped
1 large clove garlic, chopped
1 1/2 tbsp chili powder
1/2 tsp cumin
1 tbsp vegetarian worcestershire sauce
1 poblano pepper
1/3 cup vital wheat gluten
2/3 cup quinoa
2/3 cup panko or other breadcrumbs
4 tbsp cornmeal
1 egg
4 tbsp olive or canola oil
2 tbsp soy sauce
black pepper
Turn on your broiler to high. Very lightly coat your pobano with oil and put it in the broiler. You'll want to turn it after about 3 minutes, when the skin is blackened.
Meanwhile, bring 1 cup of water to a boil. Add 1/2 cup quinoa, cover, and turn off the heat but leave the saucepan on the burner. In about five minutes you will have fluffy quinoa. Around that time, you may be ready to take out your blackened poblano and put it in a bowl covered with saran wrap.
While the poblano is cooling, put the black beans, onions, garlic, spices, egg, worcestershire sauce, gluten, and quinoa into the food processor and puree them. It may in fact be better to just mash them, but I'll stick with what I did right now since it turned out well.
Pour the puree into a bowl. Peel and chop the poblano, and stir in the chopped poblano and bread crumbs. Now, it must be kneaded-- this is what makes gluten activate. It's a wet, sticky mixture, so I used a rice paddle to sort of fold it and press it in a kneading motion until it became firmer.
Cover a baking sheet with cornmeal. Form patties by hand and press into the cornmeal on each side to coat.
Heat 2 tbsp oil in a frying pan. When hot, add three patties. Flip after few minutes, when the cornmeal on the bottom is browned. Before taking them out, throw a tbsp of soy sauce in the pan. It will sizzle up and season the burgers. Repeat with the second batch.
They are good right away, but better refrigerated overnight and then reheated. You can reheat them in a dry nonstick skillet. Top with some avocado, salsa, cheese, barbecue sauce, or whatever your soul desires.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Monday, July 25, 2011
Morrocon Vegetable Stew with Bacon - 4 weight watchers points per serving
I just made a rather delicious impromptu dinner out of leftover vegetables. I had some thick-cut applewood smoked bacon, so I cut up half a slice into smaller chunks and started it cooking in the pot. Then, I added 1 cup chopped kabocha squash, 1/2 cup chopped red onion, 2 chopped garlic cloves, and 1 tsp chopped ginger and sauteed them for a few minutes. I added a pinch of cumin, about a tsp of curry powder and a tsp of cinnamon, and sauteed a minute more. I added a cup of vegetarian chicken-flavor broth, a few diced drig figs, ground black pepper, a half-cup cooked brown rice, and about 1 1/2 or 2 cups chopped fresh spinach. Then I covered the pot and let it simmer for ten minutes. Throw in some fresh cilantro and a squeeze of lemon juice at the end. It is really tasty! You can make it two servings for 4 points each, or a full meal for 8 points. I had never had the combination of Morroccan spices and bacon before - probably because pork is not eaten much in that part of the world for religious reasons-- but it is really tasty. I was thinking about how bacon and maple syrup go together on the way home and I started thinking about cinnamon and bacon. They really go together well.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Changes: The Farmer's Market, and Weight Watchers
Wow, it has been far too long since we have posted. But it's not because we haven't been cooking. Over the past two months, I've started following Weight Watchers, and have lost over 13 pounds so far. With Weight Watchers, you can eat as many vegetables as you want and as much fruit as you want. Everything else has point values, and you get a certain number of points per day. I've discovered that it's kind of hard to use the vegetables we've been getting in our CSA for this. It's far easier to have the kind of vegetables around that you can just toss in with eggs in the morning or with some whole wheat pasta for dinner, and summer farmer's markets have those in abundance. Plus, I'm relying on fruit to fill me up, and all we were getting in the CSA was one box of strawberries a week. Meanwhile, bing cherries, pluots, nectarines, peaches are overflowing at the market. So we decided to reduce the CSA to once every two weeks and spend more time at the farmer's market instead.
Being on WW has definitely changed the way I cook. I'm going for cheeses that have more punchy flavor in smaller amounts, and using way less grains. I'm also eating a lot more salad and a lot more fruit than ever.
Here are a few of the things I've learned so far:
1. Soba noodles seem to expand more when cooked than regular pasta- I have no idea why, but they come in handy 2 oz. packets and somehow, two of those packets (4 oz.) fills out a stir fry to make it into four servings. Which means only 1 oz. of noodles per serving -- yet it still feels like a noodle dish.
2. Feta cheese gives you a lot of flavor without a lot of points.
3. Olives, hot peppers, and all varieties of pickles are a great way to add flavor to a sandwich without using cheese or mayo or pesto.
4. Buying medium whole wheat pitas and cutting them in half is a good way to cut down on the points in a sandwich. A half pita stuffed with filling is just as satisfying as a sandwich with two pieces of sandwich bread.
5. When making a salad put the dressing in the bottom of the bowl and then use your hands to mix the salad greens with it like the do on Chopped. You need much less dressing that way, and your salad is more appropriately lightly dressed.
6. Fat-free and lowfat cheese may give you a little bulk but they don't give you much flavor.
7. Having cherries and grapes around makes it easy to fill up a bowl with fruit instead of nuts or chips for snacking during Law and Order marathons.
8. Frozen bananas take of the edge off of ice cream cravings, especially with some chocolate syrup.
9. It's hard to fit pizza into Weight Watchers -- but making your own in the toaster on whole wheat pita is yummy and satisfying. Kale makes a remarkably good topping on these- it gets a nice texture with some time in the toaster.
10. After two months without a cheeseburger, it has gotten easier...but I still want one.
This week, we went to the farmer's market and got heirloom tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, crimini mushrooms, green & orange bell peppers, onions, peaches, nectarines, cherries, pluots, zucchini, Chinese eggplant, celery, sweet basil, and fresh thyme. At the grocery store we picked up feta cheese, parmesan, fresh mozzarella pearls, and a very flavorful, nutty hard cheese called une kaas. Here are my two best recipes of the week so far:
Greek Salad (3 servings, 5 points each)
Gretchen lived in Athens for six months and she said this tasted exactly how it is supposed to taste. Apparently real Greek salad does not have lettuce. This one's good for Weight Watchers because feta cheese is low in points, and you end up with less than an ounce of cheese and only 1 tbsp of olive oil per serving. I had this with a small piece of breaded, pan-fried fish last night for a low-points dinner.
1 heirloom tomato, diced
1 small green pepper or 1/2 a regular green pepper, chopped
1 cucumber, diced
8 small olives, sliced
1/4 a red onion or 1/2 a small red onion, chopped or sliced
2 oz. feta cheese, diced
3 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp + 1 tsp red wine vinegar
1 pinch dried oregano
salt and black pepper
In a bowl, whisk together olive oil and red wine vinegar with oregano and salt and pepper. Toss with vegetables & olives.
Catalan-Style Tomato Toasts-- These are good for WW because you shave the cheese on a mandolin. If you have a strongly flavored cheese, a little goes a long way. I used 1/2 oz of une kaas for this amount of tomato slices.
1 heirloom tomato
1 clove garlic
a few sprigs fresh thyme
1 tsp olive oil
salt and pepper
shaved cheese -- une kaas, parmesan, manchego, etc.
Pita or baugette
Slice tomato. Removed leaves from thyme springs. Slice garlic ultra-thin. Sprinkle salt and pepper and a drop of olive oil on each tomato. Stack tomato slices with fresh thyme and garlic slices between each tomato. Let marinate for awhile. I put them in the fridge overnight to have for lunch the next day, but they could probably just sit out for 15 or 20 minutes too.
Toast your bread of choice. Top with tomato-thyme-garlic slices and shavings of cheese.
Being on WW has definitely changed the way I cook. I'm going for cheeses that have more punchy flavor in smaller amounts, and using way less grains. I'm also eating a lot more salad and a lot more fruit than ever.
Here are a few of the things I've learned so far:
1. Soba noodles seem to expand more when cooked than regular pasta- I have no idea why, but they come in handy 2 oz. packets and somehow, two of those packets (4 oz.) fills out a stir fry to make it into four servings. Which means only 1 oz. of noodles per serving -- yet it still feels like a noodle dish.
2. Feta cheese gives you a lot of flavor without a lot of points.
3. Olives, hot peppers, and all varieties of pickles are a great way to add flavor to a sandwich without using cheese or mayo or pesto.
4. Buying medium whole wheat pitas and cutting them in half is a good way to cut down on the points in a sandwich. A half pita stuffed with filling is just as satisfying as a sandwich with two pieces of sandwich bread.
5. When making a salad put the dressing in the bottom of the bowl and then use your hands to mix the salad greens with it like the do on Chopped. You need much less dressing that way, and your salad is more appropriately lightly dressed.
6. Fat-free and lowfat cheese may give you a little bulk but they don't give you much flavor.
7. Having cherries and grapes around makes it easy to fill up a bowl with fruit instead of nuts or chips for snacking during Law and Order marathons.
8. Frozen bananas take of the edge off of ice cream cravings, especially with some chocolate syrup.
9. It's hard to fit pizza into Weight Watchers -- but making your own in the toaster on whole wheat pita is yummy and satisfying. Kale makes a remarkably good topping on these- it gets a nice texture with some time in the toaster.
10. After two months without a cheeseburger, it has gotten easier...but I still want one.
This week, we went to the farmer's market and got heirloom tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, crimini mushrooms, green & orange bell peppers, onions, peaches, nectarines, cherries, pluots, zucchini, Chinese eggplant, celery, sweet basil, and fresh thyme. At the grocery store we picked up feta cheese, parmesan, fresh mozzarella pearls, and a very flavorful, nutty hard cheese called une kaas. Here are my two best recipes of the week so far:
Greek Salad (3 servings, 5 points each)
Gretchen lived in Athens for six months and she said this tasted exactly how it is supposed to taste. Apparently real Greek salad does not have lettuce. This one's good for Weight Watchers because feta cheese is low in points, and you end up with less than an ounce of cheese and only 1 tbsp of olive oil per serving. I had this with a small piece of breaded, pan-fried fish last night for a low-points dinner.
1 heirloom tomato, diced
1 small green pepper or 1/2 a regular green pepper, chopped
1 cucumber, diced
8 small olives, sliced
1/4 a red onion or 1/2 a small red onion, chopped or sliced
2 oz. feta cheese, diced
3 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp + 1 tsp red wine vinegar
1 pinch dried oregano
salt and black pepper
In a bowl, whisk together olive oil and red wine vinegar with oregano and salt and pepper. Toss with vegetables & olives.
Catalan-Style Tomato Toasts-- These are good for WW because you shave the cheese on a mandolin. If you have a strongly flavored cheese, a little goes a long way. I used 1/2 oz of une kaas for this amount of tomato slices.
1 heirloom tomato
1 clove garlic
a few sprigs fresh thyme
1 tsp olive oil
salt and pepper
shaved cheese -- une kaas, parmesan, manchego, etc.
Pita or baugette
Slice tomato. Removed leaves from thyme springs. Slice garlic ultra-thin. Sprinkle salt and pepper and a drop of olive oil on each tomato. Stack tomato slices with fresh thyme and garlic slices between each tomato. Let marinate for awhile. I put them in the fridge overnight to have for lunch the next day, but they could probably just sit out for 15 or 20 minutes too.
Toast your bread of choice. Top with tomato-thyme-garlic slices and shavings of cheese.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Deliciousness Alert
Okay, so I just had the braised lamb for lunch. Forget what I said about too much chipotle, I wouldn't change a thing about this recipe, except perhaps adding more balsamic-soaked raisins. After sitting for a day, the flavors really came together well. The lamb is rich with a lot of red chile flavor and the balsamic raisins are a nice sweet and sour element.
Check out my recipe entry on food52.com: http://www.food52.com/recipes/12375_chipotle_braised_lamb_tacos_with_olives_and_balsamic_soaked_raisins
If you like it, write me a nice comment :)
Check out my recipe entry on food52.com: http://www.food52.com/recipes/12375_chipotle_braised_lamb_tacos_with_olives_and_balsamic_soaked_raisins
If you like it, write me a nice comment :)
Braised Lamb Tacos with Mediterranean Salsa
I created this recipe to enter this week's contest on food52.com -- your best street food. When I have cooked with achiote paste before I've just bought it already prepared from a Mexican grocery store. This time, I could only get ground annato seed, so I made my own, with tasty results. I've made a version of this dish before, but I think this one came out better- though I'd tone down the chipotle a little next time. But, I can honestly say I would be happy to get this out of the window of a taco truck, which is my highest praise for tacos. I'd suggest having these with a salad and a crisp cold beer.
Make 8 Tacos
Braised Lamb Tacos:
2 tablespoons ground annato seed
1 tablespoon orange or tangerine juice
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/8 teaspoon cloves
1/8 teaspoon allspice
1 teaspoon tequila
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tablespoon vinegar
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon lemon zest
1 tablespoon adobo sauce from canned chipotles
1 pound lamb stew meat, in 2 inch pieces
2 chipotles in adobo
3 cups vegetable broth
1 onion, chopped
3 bay leaves
sour cream
6 corn tortillas
Mediterranean Salsa:
1 tablespoon italian parsley, chopped
1 teaspoon fresh mint, chopped
2 tablespoons cilantro, chopped
2 tablespoons chopped white onion
2 tablespoons scallion
1/4 cup green olives, chopped
1 tablespoon raisins
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
juice of 1/2 a juicy lime
1 tablespoon sundried tomato
1 teaspoon olive or canola oil
1.Mix together first 13 ingredients to form a paste. Rub into lamb and marinate overnight, or for about eight hours. Ask a question about this step.
2.Heat 2 tbsp oil in a pan and sear lamb meat. Ask a question about this step.
3.In a food processor, blend vegetable broth with chipotles. Add liquid to lamb, and add bay leaves. Ask a question about this step.
4.Bring to a boil, then cover and cook on low heat for an hour. Ask a question about this step.
5.Remove cover and cook another thirty minutes or so, until liquid reduces to a sauce and lamb is very tender. Ask a question about this step.
6.Shred lamb into sauce with a fork. Ask a question about this step.
7.While lamb is cooking, put raisins and balsamic vinegar in a small saucepan. Heat, then reduce to low and simmer until balsamic is reduced by at least half and raisin are plumped. Ask a question about this step.
8.Mince raisins mix together with other salsa ingredients. Ask a question about this step.
9.Heat each corn tortilla in a frying pan with a tiny bit of oil, and top with a couple of good spoonfuls of meat, a good spoonful of salsa, and a dollop of sour cream
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Rhubarb Three Ways and Three Kinds of Homemade Sherbert!
We recently had a couple of friends over for dinner, and we decided to make it a rhubarb-centric meal, having gotten rhubarb in our CSA. But we got so ambitious with the rhubarb that we had to buy more anyway, which as you can see from the pic, delighted Gretchen.
Rhubarb is too often relegated to the dessert realm. It is fabulous in pies of course, and nice as a compote over ice cream as well. But its sour vegetal flavor makes it a useful ingredient in savory dishes too. Anything that is sweet n' sour is can probably incorporate rhubarb. If you have never cooked rhubarb before, you want to boil it with a little water and a bunch of sugar in a sauce pan until it's soft - then you can mash it up with a fork and add it to sauces. If you want it to keep its shape, just cut it into large pieces and take it off the heat when it is fork-tender. For the mashed rhubarb in these recipes, I used splenda instead of sugar to keep the calories down and it worked just fine.
I came up with a recipe for rhubarb barbecue sauce around this time last year that I made with country pork ribs with delectable results but since this year I'm doing weight watchers (lost 9.4 pounds so far!), I decided to make rhubarb bbq shrimp instead of pork ribs. Gretchen made a Mark Bittman recipe (from the Food Matters cookbook) for braised tofu with a rhubarb & black pepper sauce that was quite good (the tofu had a nice creamy texture).
I have a lot of insecurity about cooking fish and meat. I learned to cook as a vegetarian (I was strictly vegetarian from ages 14 to 21), and I've continued to cook mostly vegetarian food. When I started cooking meat I was so afraid of the bacteria that I consistently overcooked it, which is the death knell for any meat dish that isn't a long, slow braise. I still struggle with getting the cooking times right. I've been especially leary of cooking fish because sustainable fish tends to be pricey, and I'm always afraid I"ll end up messing it up. It seems easier to just pay three times as much to go to a restaurant and have someone else cook it perfectly.
But these fears are really a little irrational. Fish is one of the easier animals to cook, and there are websites everywhere with specific per-inch-of fish cooking instructions. For this occasion, I decided to make shrimp n' grits. I've only cooked shrimp once before in my life. I was staying with a friend In Mexico and she had an in-home cooking lesson on making shrimp with chipotle cream sauce. It didn't seem too hard, but I didn't like the peeling and deveining part. This time, I bought a pound of easy-peel frozen shrimp from Whole Foods, which come already deveined. They came out great! Cooking them was so easy! I don't know why I don't cook shrimp all the time, I think I'm going to start doing that. All you have to do is sautee them in a little olive oil, and as soon as they have changed colors, cut one in half to see if it's done. It only takes a couple of minutes, and you take them off the heat and have lovely, tender, flavorful shrimp (the Whole Foods ones seem to be pretty high quality). Now that I'm a convert, you will be seeing more shrimp recipes on this blog, I promise.
The best part of the meal we made for our friends though was definitely the dessert. Gretchen made three kinds of homemade sherberts-- tangerine, beet, and banana. She made whipped cream with a touch of orange flower water and chocolate sauce from taza chocolates, and we had wonderful banana splits. Beet sorbet may seems strange, and indeed it has a vegetal flavor, but with chocolate sauce, it's delicious. And adding a little orange flower water to whip cream creates a nice floral touch. I don't know how she made all of it, so she will have to explain that with the recipe below.
Rhubarb BBQ Shrimp & Grits
I used the ingredient list and roughly the proportions from my previous rhubarb bbq sauce recipe, but I just kept fiddling with it (adding a little more wine, a little more sugar, etc.) until I was happy with the way it tasted.
Rhurbarb BBQ Sauce
Makes about 2 cups
6 stalks rhubarb
⅓ cup sugar
½ cup water
¼ cup apple cider vinegar
½ cup ketchup
½ cup red wine
½ cup strong coffee
¼ cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons yellow mustard
2 tablespoons chili powder
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon sea salt
⅛ teaspoon liquid smoke
8 twists of a black pepper grinder
1. Chop rhubarb and place in a saucepan with water and 1/3 cup sugar. Bring to a boil and boil for
ten minutes, adding water if necessary and sugar to taste. The rhubarb should be sweet, tart, and
soft enough to be easily mashed with a spoon.
2. Add all other sauce ingredients, stir well to thoroughly combine, and simmer for 30 minutes.
The Shrimp
Defrost and peel shrimp. Heat a couple of tablespoons of olive oil, and throw in a minced garlic clove. Add shrimp, and cook, stirring about so they get cooked on both sides, until cooked through. Test one for doneness, and remove from heat. Add just enough bbq sauce to make them all have a thin sauce layer.
Grits
Follow package instructs to cook grits. Add a little cream, butter, and salt at the end.
Serve shrimp with grits! Delicious.
The Tofu Rhubarb dish is from Mark Bittman. It is a Vietnamese-inspired dish, which sounded yummy and interesting. As I made it, there were many times where I thought I had ruined it, but it actually turned out quite good. First you make a caramel, and then let the sugar burn a bit, to get that bitter/sugar flavor that is common in Vietnamese cooking. (This was the first time I thought I'd ruined it--my sugar never quite burned, but it did change texture and become somewhat hard--it softened up a again when I added water though). You then throw in a ton of onions and rhubarb, and let that cook down a bit. There is also a crazy amount of black pepper--like a tbls. This was the second time I thought I'd ruined it--SO MUCH PEPPER!!! and it is very peppery even after it's cooked down, but it was still really good. Then you put in tofu, cover, and let it steam for about 10 minutes. Right before serving you throw in a ton of cilantro. I liked the way the tofu came out--I was skeptical, since the initial dish was with fish, I thought the tofu might be bland or mushy. But actually, the rhubarb flavor seeped into the tofu, and the middle was creamy and yum.
In other rhubarb news, Becky made a really good cocktail with basil, rhubarb puree, and this really good infused pepper vodka that has both sweet and hot red peppers in it. It was delicious.
The sorbets were all made in our ice cream maker that I found under the sink in my old apartment in Brooklyn. For years, I carried it around from place to place, without ever making ice cream. Last year, I used it for the first time, and I have realized how easy making ice cream is. I made three kinds--banana, tangerine and beet. Here is the run-down of how I did each.
The banana is frozen banana. Period. After peeling and chopping up the bananas (about 4), I froze them over night. Then, I threw them in the food processor and processed them til smooth. Put them back in the freezer until ready to serve. So easy, so healthy, so good.
The tangerine sorbet is actually sherbert, from the NY Times cookbook. The original recipe called for gelatin, which I don't use, and which we didn't have, so I subbed agar agar, a Japanese gelatin from seaweed. I can't remember now, but I think I did use dairy milk and cream, since we actually had them in the apt. The last time I made it, I used almond milk, and it came out pretty much the same. The tangerine juice was from Becky's parents' trees. Processed in our ice cream machine.
The beet sorbet was modeled on beet sorbet we had in Argentina. I like the Argentine version better, but basically I used a apricot-champagne recipe that was in our latest Cooking Light magazine, and subbed beets from our CSA for the apricots. The champagne was the last bottle left over from our wedding. I roasted the beets, and then pureed them with a reduced champagne-sugar mixture. I think that might be it! Processed in our ice cream machine.
It was a great meal shared with great friends. Perfect.
Rhubarb is too often relegated to the dessert realm. It is fabulous in pies of course, and nice as a compote over ice cream as well. But its sour vegetal flavor makes it a useful ingredient in savory dishes too. Anything that is sweet n' sour is can probably incorporate rhubarb. If you have never cooked rhubarb before, you want to boil it with a little water and a bunch of sugar in a sauce pan until it's soft - then you can mash it up with a fork and add it to sauces. If you want it to keep its shape, just cut it into large pieces and take it off the heat when it is fork-tender. For the mashed rhubarb in these recipes, I used splenda instead of sugar to keep the calories down and it worked just fine.
I came up with a recipe for rhubarb barbecue sauce around this time last year that I made with country pork ribs with delectable results but since this year I'm doing weight watchers (lost 9.4 pounds so far!), I decided to make rhubarb bbq shrimp instead of pork ribs. Gretchen made a Mark Bittman recipe (from the Food Matters cookbook) for braised tofu with a rhubarb & black pepper sauce that was quite good (the tofu had a nice creamy texture).
I have a lot of insecurity about cooking fish and meat. I learned to cook as a vegetarian (I was strictly vegetarian from ages 14 to 21), and I've continued to cook mostly vegetarian food. When I started cooking meat I was so afraid of the bacteria that I consistently overcooked it, which is the death knell for any meat dish that isn't a long, slow braise. I still struggle with getting the cooking times right. I've been especially leary of cooking fish because sustainable fish tends to be pricey, and I'm always afraid I"ll end up messing it up. It seems easier to just pay three times as much to go to a restaurant and have someone else cook it perfectly.
But these fears are really a little irrational. Fish is one of the easier animals to cook, and there are websites everywhere with specific per-inch-of fish cooking instructions. For this occasion, I decided to make shrimp n' grits. I've only cooked shrimp once before in my life. I was staying with a friend In Mexico and she had an in-home cooking lesson on making shrimp with chipotle cream sauce. It didn't seem too hard, but I didn't like the peeling and deveining part. This time, I bought a pound of easy-peel frozen shrimp from Whole Foods, which come already deveined. They came out great! Cooking them was so easy! I don't know why I don't cook shrimp all the time, I think I'm going to start doing that. All you have to do is sautee them in a little olive oil, and as soon as they have changed colors, cut one in half to see if it's done. It only takes a couple of minutes, and you take them off the heat and have lovely, tender, flavorful shrimp (the Whole Foods ones seem to be pretty high quality). Now that I'm a convert, you will be seeing more shrimp recipes on this blog, I promise.
The best part of the meal we made for our friends though was definitely the dessert. Gretchen made three kinds of homemade sherberts-- tangerine, beet, and banana. She made whipped cream with a touch of orange flower water and chocolate sauce from taza chocolates, and we had wonderful banana splits. Beet sorbet may seems strange, and indeed it has a vegetal flavor, but with chocolate sauce, it's delicious. And adding a little orange flower water to whip cream creates a nice floral touch. I don't know how she made all of it, so she will have to explain that with the recipe below.
Rhubarb BBQ Shrimp & Grits
I used the ingredient list and roughly the proportions from my previous rhubarb bbq sauce recipe, but I just kept fiddling with it (adding a little more wine, a little more sugar, etc.) until I was happy with the way it tasted.
Rhurbarb BBQ Sauce
Makes about 2 cups
6 stalks rhubarb
⅓ cup sugar
½ cup water
¼ cup apple cider vinegar
½ cup ketchup
½ cup red wine
½ cup strong coffee
¼ cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons yellow mustard
2 tablespoons chili powder
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon sea salt
⅛ teaspoon liquid smoke
8 twists of a black pepper grinder
1. Chop rhubarb and place in a saucepan with water and 1/3 cup sugar. Bring to a boil and boil for
ten minutes, adding water if necessary and sugar to taste. The rhubarb should be sweet, tart, and
soft enough to be easily mashed with a spoon.
2. Add all other sauce ingredients, stir well to thoroughly combine, and simmer for 30 minutes.
The Shrimp
Defrost and peel shrimp. Heat a couple of tablespoons of olive oil, and throw in a minced garlic clove. Add shrimp, and cook, stirring about so they get cooked on both sides, until cooked through. Test one for doneness, and remove from heat. Add just enough bbq sauce to make them all have a thin sauce layer.
Grits
Follow package instructs to cook grits. Add a little cream, butter, and salt at the end.
Serve shrimp with grits! Delicious.
The Tofu Rhubarb dish is from Mark Bittman. It is a Vietnamese-inspired dish, which sounded yummy and interesting. As I made it, there were many times where I thought I had ruined it, but it actually turned out quite good. First you make a caramel, and then let the sugar burn a bit, to get that bitter/sugar flavor that is common in Vietnamese cooking. (This was the first time I thought I'd ruined it--my sugar never quite burned, but it did change texture and become somewhat hard--it softened up a again when I added water though). You then throw in a ton of onions and rhubarb, and let that cook down a bit. There is also a crazy amount of black pepper--like a tbls. This was the second time I thought I'd ruined it--SO MUCH PEPPER!!! and it is very peppery even after it's cooked down, but it was still really good. Then you put in tofu, cover, and let it steam for about 10 minutes. Right before serving you throw in a ton of cilantro. I liked the way the tofu came out--I was skeptical, since the initial dish was with fish, I thought the tofu might be bland or mushy. But actually, the rhubarb flavor seeped into the tofu, and the middle was creamy and yum.
In other rhubarb news, Becky made a really good cocktail with basil, rhubarb puree, and this really good infused pepper vodka that has both sweet and hot red peppers in it. It was delicious.
The sorbets were all made in our ice cream maker that I found under the sink in my old apartment in Brooklyn. For years, I carried it around from place to place, without ever making ice cream. Last year, I used it for the first time, and I have realized how easy making ice cream is. I made three kinds--banana, tangerine and beet. Here is the run-down of how I did each.
The banana is frozen banana. Period. After peeling and chopping up the bananas (about 4), I froze them over night. Then, I threw them in the food processor and processed them til smooth. Put them back in the freezer until ready to serve. So easy, so healthy, so good.
The tangerine sorbet is actually sherbert, from the NY Times cookbook. The original recipe called for gelatin, which I don't use, and which we didn't have, so I subbed agar agar, a Japanese gelatin from seaweed. I can't remember now, but I think I did use dairy milk and cream, since we actually had them in the apt. The last time I made it, I used almond milk, and it came out pretty much the same. The tangerine juice was from Becky's parents' trees. Processed in our ice cream machine.
The beet sorbet was modeled on beet sorbet we had in Argentina. I like the Argentine version better, but basically I used a apricot-champagne recipe that was in our latest Cooking Light magazine, and subbed beets from our CSA for the apricots. The champagne was the last bottle left over from our wedding. I roasted the beets, and then pureed them with a reduced champagne-sugar mixture. I think that might be it! Processed in our ice cream machine.
It was a great meal shared with great friends. Perfect.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Chicken, Turnip N' Greens Tacos
We have so many greens and so many turnips it's becoming a little bit scary. And more are on the way tomorrow! I don't even know where we're going to put them. On Sunday I did discover two easy and tasty ways to use up some greens though -- in tacos and on pizza.
It is my firm belief that anything can be a taco filling if properly seasoned or drowned in salsa. In this case, I made a stew of turnips, carrots, garlic, chicken breast, chard, and tomatillo. I'm sure roasting your own tomatillos would improve this dish but it's just fine with one of those 79 cent cans of tomatillo sauce in the "Hispanic Foods" section of your local market. These are very tasty and healthy. I am sure they would be even better if you deep fried your tortillas and added cotija cheese and sour cream though. Here's the recipe for tacos that each have a serving of vegetables:
Chicken, Turnip and Greens Tacos (serves 2 people - 4 to 6 tacos)
8 oz boneless skinless chicken breast, chopped into medium pieces
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 large turnip, diced
3 carrots (farmer's market sized), sliced into chunks
1 bunch chard, chopped up
about 2 cups vegetable broth
1 can tomatillo sauce
2 tbsp olive oil
fresh cilantro to garnish
Heat the olive oil in a skillet. Add chicken, turnip, garlic, and carrots. Sautee for about 5 minutes. Add tomatillo sauce, broth, and chard. Bring it to a boil, then let it simmer for a long time, till the liquid is reduced.
Throw it on a corn tortilla, garnish with fresh cilantro and whatever else you like on your tacos.
Kale and Italian Sausage Pizza
Not really a developed recipe here. This morning after making breakfast I threw some kale and vegetarian italian sausage into the pot I'd used for eggs and sauteed them up real quick, and then doused them with a healthy helping of Muir Glen pizza sauce, aka the best pizza sauce ever. At work, I spread this mixture onto a whole wheat pita and popped it in the toaster oven on the medium-dark setting. Out came a scrumptious morsel of kale-sausage pizza, toasty and crispy on the bottom. So yummy I didn't even miss having cheese.
It is my firm belief that anything can be a taco filling if properly seasoned or drowned in salsa. In this case, I made a stew of turnips, carrots, garlic, chicken breast, chard, and tomatillo. I'm sure roasting your own tomatillos would improve this dish but it's just fine with one of those 79 cent cans of tomatillo sauce in the "Hispanic Foods" section of your local market. These are very tasty and healthy. I am sure they would be even better if you deep fried your tortillas and added cotija cheese and sour cream though. Here's the recipe for tacos that each have a serving of vegetables:
Chicken, Turnip and Greens Tacos (serves 2 people - 4 to 6 tacos)
8 oz boneless skinless chicken breast, chopped into medium pieces
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 large turnip, diced
3 carrots (farmer's market sized), sliced into chunks
1 bunch chard, chopped up
about 2 cups vegetable broth
1 can tomatillo sauce
2 tbsp olive oil
fresh cilantro to garnish
Heat the olive oil in a skillet. Add chicken, turnip, garlic, and carrots. Sautee for about 5 minutes. Add tomatillo sauce, broth, and chard. Bring it to a boil, then let it simmer for a long time, till the liquid is reduced.
Throw it on a corn tortilla, garnish with fresh cilantro and whatever else you like on your tacos.
Kale and Italian Sausage Pizza
Not really a developed recipe here. This morning after making breakfast I threw some kale and vegetarian italian sausage into the pot I'd used for eggs and sauteed them up real quick, and then doused them with a healthy helping of Muir Glen pizza sauce, aka the best pizza sauce ever. At work, I spread this mixture onto a whole wheat pita and popped it in the toaster oven on the medium-dark setting. Out came a scrumptious morsel of kale-sausage pizza, toasty and crispy on the bottom. So yummy I didn't even miss having cheese.
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