Beet & black bean burgers

I wanted to make some beet burgers. I had an idea of mixing in some faro or wheat berries or something to make a chewy patty of grains and veggies that you could fry til crispy. Then I realized that black beans would make an excellent binder, as would chickpea flour. The trouble, of course, with making veggie burgers of any sort is that for them to taste good, you need to have a gazillion ingredients. Worth it, though! These have a really nice flavor, and excellent textures. And, they satisfy the tasty/healthy/cheap trifecta!

If you're looking for a meatless Monday option, or just want to try a beet burger, look no further.

The actual recipe is super flexible. The base components are:
- shredded root vegetable (beets, carrots, potatoes, sweet potatoes, parsnips, etc)
- a can of beans (any variety)
- egg (to bind)
- flour (of any variety)
- grain (preferably a whole grain that'll have some chew, because the point is to add texture. So, barley, wheat berries, faro, bulgur, quinoa, rice, whatever)
- flavors (think herbs, garlic, spices)
- salt (duh. everything is better with salt)

This version headed down a Mediterranean route. It was both tasty and very satisfying.

- 2 beets, shredded
- half a carrot, shredded (I had half a carrot languishing in the fridge, which was the only reason for its inclusion)
- 1 can of black beans, roughly mashed
- 1/2C chickpea flour
- 2 eggs
- a buttload of parsley, chopped
- ~1/2C wheat berries, cooked
- 1/4C sunflower seeds
- ~1/4C pickled onions, chopped
- 2 cloves garlic
- 2 tsp kosher salt
- 1 tsp peppercorns, ground
- 1 tsp cumin
- 1 tsp turmeric



The only pre-mix step is to lightly toast the garlic, in some oil, because I don't really like raw garlic. Then, mix everything together in a big bowl.

Generously oil a baking sheet, and form little patties. Bake the little patties at 400F, flipping after about 20 minutes, for about 40 minutes total. The goal is that the outside is crispy, and the inside still has a little moisture. Oil your pan generously for extra crunch. The next step, which I didn't try, but will try next time, would be to coat the patties in panko or bread crumbs before baking, for extra crunchy outsides!



These guys definitely have enough structural integrity that they make pretty darn good travel food, if you're looking for things you can eat with your fingers. But, they're also pretty good drizzled with a lemon tahini sauce, or in a pita with some pickled cabbage.

Served with some roasted cauliflower and some socca (that's for a different blog post. Definitely worth making!!)

Hearty Mac and cheese

I have a giant block of cheddar in my fridge. Well, maybe I should say "had", as it's since disappeared, but I was worried that I wouldn't get a chance to finish it before it went moldy. The first thing that came to mind was a mac and cheese dish, because mac and cheese is straight up awesome. This one has cauliflower and roasted squash in it, which adds a nice change in texture from just creamy sauce and pasta. 

Also, it turns out that multiple opinions on the "right" way to do mac and cheese can actually coextist. I discovered that Ed really likes his mac and cheese to be a solid block of food, that you carve out of the pan and eat with a knife and fork, pretty much. Can we say noodle pie? I prefer something with a creamier, runnier sauce, covered in more cheese and breadcrumbs, so you get a mix of textures. It's all about the textures for me. Luckily, you can keep cooking a roux to thicken it, or add more milk to thin it, so this is a recipe that can fit all tastes. Though you kind of have to choose, at the time. Generally the cook gets it her way :)

This isn't a recipe, so much as some flexible steps that will make you a tasty dish. Not like that's anything new. All the steps below can pretty much be done simultaneously.

1. In an oven-proof skillet (cast iron, perhaps), cook a diced onion to your happy point. For this dish, I just sweated it. Add some diced garlic.

2. Cube your squash (I think this was a butternut), and roast with some olive oil and salt until it's done. Brownness is ok, so blast that thing with heat, as it'll cook faster. Should take 10-15min. Boil a head of cauliflower, until al dente.

3. Cook some pasta, until just short of al dente. Drain.

4. While the pasta cooks, make a roux: melt a tablespoon of butter, whisk in a tablespoon of flour, and then whisk in as much milk as you need to get to the consistency you need. Grate a bunch of cheese. Add to the roux. 

5. Dump all of the above ingredients into a big bowl, and toss it around to mix. Taste, and adjust seasonings with salt and pepper. Add more cheese.

6. Put the glop back into the cast iron pan (you can mix in the pan if you're talented, but I would make a mess), top with more cheese and some breadcrumbs, and bake for 5-10 minutes, until the sauce is bubbling. You can broil a few minutes at the end if you want a crispier top.

7. Enjoy!

Grits and greens

This was surprisingly delicious. We had some sad-looking greens (I really don't remember what sort at this point... looks like kale maybe?), some tofu, and some mushrooms that needed eating. How to make something edible out of this?  We decided that maybe a pile of cheesy grits under the greens would be a good idea.  We were right!  Quite simple, really - we had a tub of Quaker corn meal, and there's a recipe on the side for "cornmeal mush".  Ok, let's make some mush: 

Boil 3C water

Add 1C cornmeal and a hefty pinch of salt to another cup of water

Pour that mixture into the boiling water

Turn down the heat, stir, and cook for 5-10 minutes until it's nice and thick

Add things to make it taste good - cheese, butter, more salt

Cook your veggies, I recommend lemon and salt if you're sauteeing kale. Dump on top. Wolf down, because you're starving, and this sort of dish really only tastes delicious when you're starving.

I don't really know how we made the tofu. Looks baked. That's a good idea, I'm going to bake some tofu next time.

6-Grain hot cereal

The other day, I discovered that cracked what, or kasha, would cook in roughly the same amount of time as old-fashioned oats. i.e. the amount of time it takes for me to shower in the morning.  And, that they add a really nice wheaty flavor to oatmeal, and some different textures. I remember the last time I cooked kasha, I thought that it was just mush, and kind of gross because of that.  Well, it turns out oatmeal is also just mush. Oatmeal is also cheap, easy, and good for you, and I've learned to tolerate it (though not quite tolerate it enough to eat a large enough quantity to get me through the entire morning without a snack).  Anyway, kasha was a welcome addition. Yay!

From there, it was not a giant leap of imagination to consider if I could make my own fancy 7-grain cereal.  You know, like this. The only major failing is that I like some chew to my cereal, which you can get with old fashioned oats, but not so much with quick cereals, and when it comes to things like brown rice and barley, you kind of have to grind them up finely to have them cook in 5 minutes. So, the major failing here was that the cereal mostly tastes like mush. But, mush with a wider variety of flavors than just oats.  I suppose leaving some of the flax seeds whole, and having an interesting nut/seed mixture to sprinkle on top, would help with the texture.  Anyway, if you're bored of regular oatmeal, and want to mix things up, give this a try.  

Homemade 6-grain cereal 

probably not any cheaper than the real stuff, and probably doesn't cook up as neatly.

1C old fashioned oats

1/2C bulgur

1/2C kasha

1/4C brown rice, ground up roughly (I did this in our spice grinder)

1/4C barley, ground up roughly

1/4C flax seeds, ground up 

To cook it, well, doesn't really matter, but I found using a smidge more water than usual was helpful in making more of a porridge and less of a solid glob.  So, 2/3C cereal + 5/3C water, more or less. And a good pinch of salt.  I like to dump it all in a pot and stick it on medium-low-ish while I shower, and once I'm clean it's done.  If you let it sit for a minute or two (while you put on moisturizer, for example), then you can stir up anything that stuck to the bottom of the pot.  

Top with tasty things. Maybe some milk, nuts, seeds, dried fruit, frozen fruit (protip: frozen fruit will cool it off so you can eat it sooner), ice cream... 

Oh and if you were really thinking ahead, you'd have made some overnight iced coffee.  Because obviously if it's iced coffee weather it's hot cereal weather. Geez, I am so confused when it comes to food temperatures!  (we can all agree that ice cream is an every-weather food, right?)

An American dinner

We had a very American dinner the other day. Steak and potatoes, and salad eaten on the same plate at the same time.  Whoaaa.  We made this salad again, because it was delicious, only without the avocado because we didn't have any.  Anyway, I wanted to talk about mashed potatoes. Because they're easy and quick and these ones were quite delicious.

I used to think I hated mashed potatoes, because they were always sort of gooey and the same consistency and pale and just gross.  But, it turns out that it's just boxed mash potatoes that I don't like.  Chunky "rustic" mashed potatoes are actually delicious!  

In this case, we chopped up two potatoes into quarters, and boiled for 15-20min or so until they were soft. Then, into a bowl with them, and maybe 2tbs of butter. Salt, pepper. A scallion, chopped finely. Mash with a fork. Eat. So simple, so delicious. You should make some, next time you want something fast and simple and delicious.  

Also, that yellow blob - that's an extra beet. Cooked, sliced thin, and drizzled with some really good vinegar. This one. You may ask why someone would spend $27 on a bottle of vinegar, and I would answer, because this one is totally worth it. You don't waste it in salad dressing, you drizzle it on things like beets where you can really taste it and appreciate it. Yum. Oh, and a pinch of salt and pepper, just to top things off.  

Chicken and rice (delicious version)

I got the opportunity to spend a night out in Sunderland last week, and this of course meant that what was left of the Gang of 5 needed to get together for dinner, because yum! Gail had her eye on this chicken and cardamom rice dish from the Jerusalem cookbook by Ottolenghi, and because I love his take on food, I was all for it.

I'll repeat the recipe here, because we changed the amount of water required - the original 1C of water was not going to cook any rice.  The end result was really delicious, especially all the crunchy bits of rice stuck to the pan.  Gail actually cooks by the recipe, we'll see how poorly this dish degrades when I take my usual approach to it next time.  (quantities? eh, close enough...).  Anyway, a very tasty version of chicken and rice, and I'll definitely make this again.


Ingredients:
2.5 tbs currants (or barberries, if you can get them, in which case you're supposed to soak them in sugar and water first)
3 onions
4 tbs olive oil
8 chicken thighs
salt and pepper
10 cardamom pods
1/4 tsp whole cloves
2 cinnamon sticks
1-2/3C basmati rice
3C boiling water
1.5 tbs chopped parsley
1/2C chopped dill leaves
1/4C chopped cilantro
(I imagine you could get away without the parsley, dill, and cilantro)

  

First, caramelize the onions in ~2tbs oil.  I think this should be done in a separate pot, though it defeats the whole one-pot part of this meal, because then you could parallel process the chicken.

Put 1.5 tsp of each salt and pepper all over the chicken along with another tbs of olive oil and all the whole spices, rub that in with your hands so it's really in there.  Brown the chicken in some olive oil.  We cooked the chicken skin-side down for probably 10min first, rendering out a lot of the fat and cooking the meat most of the way through. Since the chicken may need to cook longer than the rice, and you don't want to overcook the rice, it's worth browning the chicken for longer than you might for a chicken stew.

Pour off the excess chicken fat, then put all the rice, onions, currants, and spices into the pan.  Add 1tsp salt and more pepper.  Pour the boiling water over the top, put the chicken back into the rice, cover, and simmer for 30-45 minutes.  The chicken should be tender and the rice should be done...

We then took the chicken out of the rice and broiled it for 5min or so, until it was good and crispy.  Stir all the herbs into the rice, put the chicken back on the rice, and serve!




Gail in her new kitchen! I have kitchen envy.

Pumpkin gnocchi

These were actual pumpkin, as opposed to butternut squash, which I just find easier to work with.  Ed wandered in to the kitchen as I was puréeing the pumpkin, and noted that there was a giant bowl full of orange goo - yes, that is how pumpkin gnocchi are made!  We ate these in a browned butter sage sauce, with some caramelized onions and little sopressata bits, and they were delicious.  A+ on the Ed-rating, too.  You could probably do some other sauce; a creamy something or other would be tasty, for sure, but this one worked very nicely.

Pumpkin Gnocchi

Made enough for two

1C pumpkin puree (I used homemade puree, I imagine stuff out of a can would be a bit denser)

1.5C flour

2 egg yolks

~1/2tsp kosher salt

Mix the pumpkin and egg yolks and salt.  Add the flour, until you have a dough that you can roll out.  Divide it into 2-4 balls, and roll into ropes, on a very well-floured surface.  You want your dough to still be really loose.  I found I more sort of stretched and pinched the dough, rather than rolled it.  Cut the ropes into chunks, and sprinkle with more flour.  You want these guys well-enough floured that they don't stick to each other when you drop them in the water.

Get a big pot of water boiling.  The bigger the pot, the less likely the gnocchi are to stick to each other in the water.  

Sage brown butter sauce

1 onion, diced

some sopressata, or bacon, diced

1 bunch of sage, chopped coarsely

2-3 tbs butter

Put the sopressata in a pan.  Once it's leaked out enough grease, add the onions.  Cook those together until the onions are mostly caramelized and the sopressata is crispy.  Remove from pan.

Melt butter in pan.  Once it's barely started to brown, add the sage.  Cook until the sage is crispy and the butter is browned.  Add to the onions and sopressata.

Cook the gnocchi for ~2-3 minutes.  They're done when they float to the top of the water.  You may have to cook them in batches.  

Put gnocchi on a plate, pour on sauce, toss to combine, and serve.  Parmesan cheese optional, but delicious!

Pumpkin-cranberry scones

Actually, I lied - these are butternut squash scones, not pumpkin.  But, it basically tastes the same to me, and both are yellow and squashy, and I happened to have butternut squash, so I used it.  These scones were pretty fantastic.  I ate the entire batch for lunch.  *burp*

Butternut Squash Cranberry scones

Made eight

1-1/3C flour

2 tbs brown sugar

1 tbs baking powder (that was too much.  I'd recommend 2 tsp)

1/4tsp fine salt

1/2 stick butter, frozen

1/3C pumpkin

1 egg

1 tbs pumpkin-y spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves, allspice)

~1/2C cranberries, cut in half

Icing:

some powdered sugar, in a bowl

some more pumpkin-y spices

enough water to make it a paste

put flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and spices in a bowl.  Stir those together, make sure lumps are out.  

Use a cheese grater (with big holes) and grate frozen butter into the flour.  then use your fingertips to rub the butter into the flour, just pinch, for exactly 37.2 seconds.  

in a different bowl, mix egg and pumpkin.

dump wet into dry.  fold to combine, don't overmix.  It can still be very crumbly.  you don't want the butter to heat up, since that's what creates flakes.

Dump onto a floured surface.  Push all the crumbles into one lump, flatten out a little, fold in half, flatten a little, fold in half.  form into a circle.  cut into wedges with a knife.

bake at 350 for 25min.

make the icing.  when the scones come out of the oven, flip them upside down into the icing, move them around a bit to spread the icing, then flip back over and put on a plate to cool.

Flaky!  And delicious.

Lobster risotto

It was Ed's birthday last week.  So, I made him a 5-course dinner, and paired as many of the courses as I could with tasty beer.  We started with gougères, and a sliced pear and some chimay.  Can't say no to appetizers like that!  

(I kinda forgot that these guys puff in the oven, so they ended up being pretty huge, rather than tiny little delicate bite-sized morsels.  Oh well, still tasted awesome).

They went poof!  and were cheesy.  These things are so awesome.  Click that link and make some.

Then we had the salad course, which was caramelized pears, toasted walnuts, avocado, arugula, and craisins, in a maple mustard dressing.  That was pretty delicious, too.

The main course, which I served with a Belgian white beer from Unibroue, was a lobster risotto.  Lobster has been wicked cheap around here lately, and it's always delicious, so I decided to try my hand at a lobster risotto.  This was a bit time-consuming, but well worth the effort.  

First, I cooked the lobster.  It was a little guy, just 1.16lb, and I boiled him for 8 minutes.  Once he was cool enough to handle, I pulled the meat out of the shell, and threw the shell back into a pot, with some onions and carrots and bay leaves and the rinds from the gruyère cheese that I'd used up in the gougères, to make a stock.

Once I had a stock, I just set that aside until it was time to make the risotto.

To make the risotto, I started with a diced onion.  In a big wok, I sweated the onion in some olive oil, then added a few cloves of garlic, diced up.  Once that was toasted, in went ~1C of arborio rice.  I turned the heat up to high and kept that moving around for ~1-2min, until it was also toasted, and starting to look translucent.  While all this was happening, I had a pot with half a bottle of cheap white wine (pinot grigio; not ideal, but it was what was on sale) and a pot of the lobster stock warming on the back burners.  Once the rice was toasted, I added the wine, ~1/2C at a time.  I'd add some wine, stir it around until the liquid was gone, add some more.  When the wine was gone, I started in on the lobster stock.

About 10 minutes into the whole process, I threw in the chopped chanterelle mushrooms, and a pinch or two of kosher salt.  Continue to stir over medium-high heat, adding liquid as necessary, until the rice is cooked, another 15 minutes or so.  Then I added in the chopped lobster meat, and some parsley for garnish.

We served the risotto with some roasted brussels sprouts, just tossed in olive oil and kosher salt and roasted at 400F for 15min, because green things are good for you, and, incidentally, delicious.

The risotto was utterly amazing, and delicious.  It always is delicious, but the lobster flavor made it even more delicious.  It may be worth making this again before the lobster season ends.

Dessert was angel food cake topped with fruit in a cardamom lime syrup, but I'll save that for another post.  We also had a cheese board.  And Allagash Interlude, for the final dessert beer.

The cheeses were gruyere, a soft robiola cow/sheep milk mix, some sort of goat cheese round that I've forgotten the name of, and a very mild blue, that I've also forgotten the name of... it was a very delicious blue, though, and similar to a saint agur.

Pesto biscuits

I'm getting a bit back-logged here, I have oodles of new things that we cooked!  This is from last week, or is it the week before?  whenever it was that the temperatures were finally down in the 50s at night and only in the 70s during the day, so I actually was willing to turn on the oven.  We were severely short on anything bready or starchy, so to satisfy some imminent hunger cravings I made Alton Brown's pesto biscuits, from the I'm just here for more food cookbook.  They were pretty delicious, and quick to throw together.  And since I happen to have pesto in the freezer, it seemed like a good use for it!

I like to make drop biscuits, because then you don't have to knead them and cut them out and whatever, just makes it faster.  But, they aren't the prettiest things to look at.  I made some very minor tweaks to the recipe, using all butter instead of butter + lard (didn't have any lard), using half whole wheat flour, and like half the amount of buttermilk than called for, since I ran out halfway through measuring it.  Still worked out, and they were delicious!

Pesto dinner biscuits
Made 9

1/2C white flour
1/2C whole wheat flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/8tsp baking soda
1/2tsp salt
2 tbs butter, frozen
1/2C buttermilk (if you run out, just add water until you have the right amount)
1/4C pesto

Preheat oven to 450F.  Grease a baking sheet.

Mix all the dry stuff together.  Use cheese grater to grate frozen butter into dry stuff.  Pinch with your fingertips for 30 seconds or so.  mix all the wet stuff together.  Add wet to dry, mix just to combine.  Plop spoonfuls of batter onto the baking sheet, in whatever size you feel like eating.

Bake for 15-20min, until golden brown and delicious.  Enjoy!

Tamales

I had an urge to eat tamales the other day, so I made some.  I didn't actually know what went into a tamale, but I did know that I didn't have any corn husks, so I'd have to use an alternative.  I went with waxed paper, and that worked acceptably well.  I also didn't know what to put in the dough, but figured I couldn't go too wrong if I made tortillas, filled them, and steamed them.  The end result was delicious, and I highly recommend to anyone that they try this butchered version of tamales.  

First things first, I made the tortilla dough.  1C masa to 2/3C water, plus a splash of olive oil for good measure, and ~1/2tsp salt.  This made a nice dough, and I divided it into eight pieces.  I rolled out each piece, or smooshed it out with my hands more like it, and put in the filling.  Then I rolled it shut, sort of pinching it where necessary to close the holes, wrapped it in wax paper, and twisted the ends shut.

The filling was sort of random - I had some frozen lebanese meatballs that we'd made a while ago, so I thawed some of those as I sweated some onions and toasted garlic, then mashed up the meatballs (which were like half bulgur wheat anyway), and fried with the onions and garlic until the meat was cooked.  I also had some spinach, which I dumped in the pan after the meat with some garlic.  I think you could pretty much use anything for filling, though having some sort of sauce might be nice.  Next time I think I'll do pumpkin or squash, with some goat cheese or feta or something.  

Once my tamales were all wrapped up, I steamed them for 30 minutes.  I didn't really know how long to steam them, but this seemed about right in my head.  They were pretty tasty after that long, though I have no idea how to tell if they're overcooked. 

Once done, I poured some lime-cilantro-tomatillos sauce over the top, and consumed them all in one sitting and with great gusto.  They were filling, and delicious.  

Lime-Cilantro-Tomatillo sauce
Made ~1C sauce
2 tomatillos
juice of 2 limes
~1C cilantro, rinsed
pinch of salt

Put everything into a food processor, and zap until it's made a paste.  Olive oil might also be delicious to smooth things out, but I didn't get that far.

Popovers, update

So, we figured out a great popover recipe over last winter, but we've been tweaking. Basically, they weren't always rising as high as we thought they should be rising, and after adjusting every variable in the equation, I finally stumbled upon the reason. The ingredients just have to be warm enough. Also, you can't beat the batter too much, or you'll work the flour too much and it'll be all smooth and bread-like and not at all shaggy and rough like it should be.

The original recipe, which I'll retype below just for ease of use, is still a winner. These are pretty much my favorite bready thing to go along with dinner, and I think Ed's too.

Popovers

2 eggs, beaten

1 tbs butter

1C milk

1C flour

1 big pinch of kosher salt

Preheat your oven to 425F. Grease 8 muffin tins really well. Melt the butter in the microwave. Add the milk. Put that in the microwave too, until it's warm to the touch. Add the eggs, and whisk this mixture really, really, thoroughly.

Basically, you want the ingredients to be warm, so that when the popovers hit the very-hot oven, all the oven's heat will go into puffing them up, not into warming up the batter. You want the eggs very well whisked, because they're most of what provide the structure for the puffing action.

Add the flour and the salt to the liquids. Whisk to combine. Pour the batter into the greased muffin tins, 3/4-all the way full.

Cook at 425 for 15 minutes, without opening the oven door. After 15 minutes, turn the heat down to 350 and cook another 20 minutes. Consume!

Puffy, golden, shaggy, and delicious.

Look at all that custard-y hole-y goodness! Yummm.

Also, the meal shown with these delicious morsels was a turkey, white bean, kale soup. With caramelized onions and lots of garlic. That was also tasty.

Bacon Cheddar Chive Biscuits

I made these, and they were scrumptious. I added about two tablespoons of chopped chives. Other than that, I actually followed a recipe! The biscuits were tender and flaky, flavored like bacon and cheese, crunchy on the outside, and pure deliciousness. I had one for breakfast the next day (not sure how any of them survived from dinner, but somehow, there was one leftover), and it was still tender and flaky, though less crispy on the outside. These DEFINITELY got a good Ed-rating. But then again, it's hard to go wrong with good, thick-cut, smoky bacon from Carl's sausage kitchen.



I've reprinted the recipe below, in my words and for my files. But for the true foodie effect, I recommend heading over to pioneer woman and following her recipe. Actually, now that I look at this, I did change some things. Using all butter instead of crisco, and adding 1/4tsp of salt. Oops.

Bacon Cheddar Chive Biscuits
2C flour
1tsp baking powder
1tsp kosher salt
4 tbs frozen butter
1/4C olive oil
10tbs milk
1 egg
1C grated cheese
6 pieces bacon
3tbs chopped chives
1C diced onion

First, deal with the bacon: lay the strips out on a cooling rack, placed over a baking sheet, and bake for 10-20 minutes at 350F, until it is nicely browned and most of the fat has rendered out. Use some of that fat to sweat the onion, with a pinch of salt to help it along. Once the bacon has cooled, crumble it. Bump the oven to 400F.

Mix all the dry goods together. Using the big holes on a cheese grater, grate the frozen butter into the dry stuff. Mix that around with your finger tips (pinch it) for about a minute, then let it be. Stir in the cheese, crumbled bacon, chives, and onion. Mix all the wet ingredients in a separate bowl. Dump the wet ingredients into the dry. Stir just until combined - no more. Plop biscuit-sized rounds of dough onto a greased baking sheet, and bake for 20 minutes.

Enjoy!

Greek-ish pasta salad

A while ago, Sam and Ross fed us a deliciously tasty Greek-themed salad, with barley and chicken. I was overwhelmed by the deliciousness of the lemon and olives and sweet cherry tomatoes, so set out to make the same thing last week for Ali and myself, as I was staying out there. But, being me, I naturally didn't go to look up the recipe, and sort of did a cross between tabouleh and that Greek salad and a random salad. It was delicious anyway, but I think that's just because I love olives and lemon and feta cheese. Also, having neither barley nor enough time to cook it, I used orzo, which worked really well also, and basically turned this into a pasta salad. So be it. Anyway, I recommend this one for a hot evening when you don't want to cook anything. The only time you have to apply heat is for about 20 minutes to boil water and cook the pasta, then it's back to no heating devices turned on.


Greek-inspired pasta salad
Made enough for 2 very hungry people, with a bit left over for lunch. Would probably feed 4 normal people, or 6 as a side dish
1 can chickpeas, rinsed
1/2lb orzo, cooked and cooled
~1C halved kalamata olives (or another flavorful black olive)
1C halved cherry or grape tomatoes
1/2C chopped fresh parsley
2 tbs chopped fresh mint
1/2 onion, diced
1 cloves garlic, minced
1/2C feta cheese, crumbled
2 small pickling cucumbers, chopped
1/2 orange pepper, chopped
Anything else you have in the fridge that you want to use up

Dressing:
Zest of 1/2 lemon
juice of 1 lemon
about an equal portion of olive oil
salt and pepper, to taste.

Put everything in a bowl. Mix it around. Toss with the dressing. If you let it sit, it only gets better as the dressing sinks in and the flavors all meld.

Corn tortillas

Ed bought a giant bag of masa flour the other day, and we've been making corn tortillas (and we did try tamales, too) since. The fish tacos we made with Chris was here were truly delicious, but these were a different version of fish tacos. I think the fish was halibut, but any flaky white fish will do the trick. The flavors here weren't very Mexican, but it was delicious. The nice thing about home made tortillas is that they're flexible, so they actually act like tortillas should!

Corn Tortillas
Made 6
1C masa flour
1/2tsp salt
2/3C water

Put everything in a bowl, mix it around, and lump it into a ball. This'll take 5 minutes, max. Use a knife and cut the ball of dough into 6 pieces, and roll each piece into a sphere. Use a rolling pin and roll out each sphere into a tortilla-shape, about 1/8" (I think) thick - you don't want it too thin, or it'll tear.

Heat a frying pan to medium heat, and grease the pan, with butter, bacon grease, oil, whatever. Drop the first tortilla into the pan. Cook for about 2 minutes on that side, and then flip, and cook another minute. If you don't have the pan greased enough, the tortilla ends up looking too dry, but it doesn't actually taste any different, I think. Store the cooked tortillas on a plate as you finish cooking them.

It's easiest to roll them out on a silicon mat, because then it's easier to transfer them into the pan without tearing them. Clearly, I'm good at rolling round tortillas...



What to put inside? Well in this case, we went with cooked white fish (just salt, pepper, and cooked in butter), leeks (cooked down until they're soft and sort of sweet), and some purple cabbage (that thing never dies! This was cooked with salt, in bacon grease). And, of course, Greek yogurt, from the little Greek store where Ed gets the olives. So much tastier than sour cream!

Ed demonstrates how to make your tortilla. First, hold it in your hand, and spread the yogurt.

Then, put all the stuff on top. And then eat it.

I built mine on a plate, and massively over-stuffed it, as usual. Luckily, it's a taco, so you don't have to wrap it up, you just sort of nibble at the edges first until everything fits properly.

I highly recommend making these - they were simple and fast, at least for two people. and if you had a griddle for cooking them, they'd be even faster. And, most importantly - they're delicious!

Bribes

The other week, I had said something about wanting to leave Monday night (instead of Tuesday morning) for Amherst, to avoid the snowstorm on Tuesday. I went off to coach, and when I came home, Ed was in the process of cooking a steak tenderloin, mushroom risotto, and opening a bottle of wine from when we were last in France. Needless to say, I stayed home that night! What a bribe =)

This makes me start drooling. The risotto was a regular sort of risotto, with oyster mushrooms and shitakes in it, and then some oysters and black trumpets fried in butter until they're crunchy, and sprinkled on top of the risotto. Oh man, I just started drooling again.

We also had a very tasty salad, with a cilantro-ginger-lime vinaigrette. The vinaigrette is the only real recipe from that night...


Cilantro-ginger-lime vinaigrette
About a handful of fresh cilantro, rinsed
~1" cube of fresh ginger, peeled
1 lime, its zest and juice
olive oil
lemon juice, to taste
salt, to taste

In a food processor, combine everything. Process that up, until it makes a smooth dressing. Taste it. Add more salt, lemon juice, or olive oil, as needed.