Stuffed acorn squash

Look, a recipe! This was a good way to eat an acorn squash, and I would absolutely do it again. The premise is that you cook the squash, fill it with tasty things, crack an egg on top, and then dig in.

Next time, I am going to skip the egg, and add a bunch of cheese into the filling. And some sausage.

Filling
1/2C quinoa, cooked in stock (because I had it)
1 onion
1/2 can black beans, rinsed
~1/2C cottage cheese
1 tomato
1 green pepper
2 leaves of collards
2 cloves garlic
1 hot pepper
1 piece baon

First, get your squash cooking. Chop it in half, de-seed it, rub the inside with olive oil and salt and put it cut-side down on a baking sheet. Slide that thing into your oven as it preheats to 400F or so. Cooking it while the oven preheats will maximize the browning, and that means flavor. It'll probably take 20-30 minutes to cook, check after 20 minutes - the back side should yield a bit when you poke it.




For the filling, start with the bacon. Chop it up, render out the fat. As it nears the done point, add your diced onion, let that go as long as you feel like it, then add diced garlic and hot pepper. Cooking the hot pepper ought to take away some of its bite. I used a hungarian wax pepper. Then throw in the green pepper, collards, and tomato, cook those till they've wilted down, remove the pan from heat, and stir in the beans and cheese. Taste, season, adjust.




Once the squash feel mostly done, flip them over and fill with the filling. I topped these with eggs, which was fine, but didn't add much. Cheddar would be much better. Bake until the eggs are set or the cheese is melted, whichever you're doing (eggs will take 25 minutes, cheese will take like 10), and enjoy!




Oh, don't eat the skin. Too thick.

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!!)

Tabouleh

We had a dinner yesterday that felt like a very typical weeknight dinner, and I realized I don't think I've ever written down my tabouleh recipe. It's delicious. This whole thing was delicious, but dinner should be delicious, especially if you have a beagle mentality and all food is something to be celebrated. Start to finish about 45min, which, for us, is a pretty quick dinner. Because half the time we're also washing last night's dishes and we're always making stuff from scratch and yadda yadda yadda. I have colleagues who say they won't make dinner if it takes more than 20 minutes, and I just wonder how that's supposed to work. You can't have popovers, then. 

Anyway, this is a dinner that relies mostly on the oven, and considering the recent break in the heat wave, this was a good night for that. You're looking at roasted cauliflower and broccoli, tabouleh with roasted chickpeas, and popovers. 

I already broke my popover in half to let out the steam, but they look way cooler when it's a leaning mound of puffed eggy custardy awesomeness. 

Start by turning the oven on to 450F. Roughly chop the broccoli and cauliflower, lay it out in a single layer on a sheet pan, drizzle generously with olive oil and sprinkle with kosher salt. Drop that onto the bottom shelf of the oven as it pre-heats. This will maximize your brown bits without overcooking the veggies.

Take a can of chickpeas, rinse them, shake dry and dump onto another sheetpan. Toss with some oil, salt, and zaatar or other spice mixture. Put these onto the top shelf of the oven, which is still preheating. 

Make your popover batter. Make sure the mixture is warm! and that your muffin tins are well greased! I wrote up the recipe here: http://alexjospefood.blogspot.com/2011/12/popovers-update.html. It works, and gets an excellent Ed-rating. We were actually calculating the cost of a batch of popovers, because at one of our favorite farm-to-table type restaurants, you can get a basket of popovers instead of bread, and $10 gets you four popovers. One batch, in the recipe above, yields 6 huge popovers, for about $0.12 apiece. As if you needed another reason to make your own popovers.

Anyway, flip the brassicas if you smell any burning. They probably want 5-7 minutes a side. Once the oven is pre-heated, remove the chickpeas, and put in the popovers. You'll want to not open the oven again until 15 minutes is up, so hopefully your brassicas are done at this point, otherwise they're staying in. Because it's summer, who cares if your broccoli is room temperature? The room is warm. 

While the popovers are doing their thing at 450F, make the tabouleh: 

Tabouleh

1 large tomato

2 mini cucumbers

1 bit bunch of parsley

2/3C dry bulgur

1 lemon

olive oil

salt

Boil 2/3C water. When it boils, remove from heat, stir in the bulgur, and let it sit, covered, for 5min or so. 

Chop the tomato and cucumber relatively finely. Chop the parsley finely. Stir those together in a big bowl with the juice of the lemon, a glug or two or three of olive oil, and a few healthy pinches of salt. When the bulgur is cooked, stir that in. 

This will be even more delicious tomorrow, when the flavors have sat. You can add things, adjust things, whatever - super versatile grain salad. Basil and mint are excellent additions, if you've got them.

Ok, now you have your tabouleh and the popovers are done with the 15-minute period at 450. Drop the oven to 350, and let the popovers cook another 15-20min. Pop the chickpeas back into the oven - they would do best with like 40 minutes at 300F, but that's not what we're working with today, and slightly-roasted/slightly-burned chickpeas are still better than straight-out-of-the-can chickpeas. 

Use your 20 minutes of wait-time wisely. 

When the time is up, if you aren't immediately consuming all 6 popovers, poke them all with a knife and return to the turned-off oven for 3-5 minutes while you put the rest of the food on plates. Sprinkle the chickpeas on top of the tabouleh, or just eat them straight, because they're delicious.

Oh, and bonus if you have some tahini sauce in the fridge - literally just tahini, lemon juice, salt, and water, taste and adjust until it tastes good. It's pretty delicious on the cauliflower and broccoli.

Sourdough English muffins

A few months back, Ari gave me some of his sourdough starter. This means we've been making lots of bread. Luckily it's a hearty starter, meaning I can leave it in the fridge for a week or two between feedings, but still, there's more baking going on than usual. At least, we've been going through flour a lot more frequently than before.

The other weekend, I didn't have anything planned, and I picked up our dog-eared King Arthur Flour cookbook, to see what they had to say about sourdough. I learned that the addition of baking soda can nullify some of the sour flavor, which could be a very useful tidbit of information if you're looking to make non-sour sourdough things. Or I could just use yeast, but it's sort of like, why use yeast if I've got the natural stuff sitting in a jar in my fridge? Anyway, besides several variations on bread, which we've discovered by now on our own, King Arthur Flour had a recipe for English muffins. That sounds delicious! Time to try it. 

http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/sourdough-english-muffins-recipe

I used half the recipe, since we're only two people after all.

May have burned one. Oops!

How about topping with butter, jam, and a scoop or two of cottage cheese or ricotta? I recommend.

Squash mac and cheese

This is one that's worth making again! Mac and cheese is delicious, and now you can make it nutritious AND orange at the same time... that was your goal, right? right? Crap, I guess not. Well, regardless, this was good, and even got a good Ed-rating. You could skip the oven part, and just call this a pasta sauce. It works all ways.

Start with an onion. Everything starts with an onion. Chop it up, and fry in some oil until it's caramelized. At which point, add some garlic and a handful of fresh sage.

The squash: Peel and cube a butternut squash, saving the seeds because roasted butternut squash seeds are delish. Delicata seeds are the best, but butternut seeds are a close second. 

Add some butter to your pan, and fry up those squash cubes, leaving them in place long enough to get some browning. Browning = flavor. If you're a big fan of squash chunks, leave some aside to stir into the pasta as chunks instead of sauce.

Then food process everything in that pan until it makes a beautiful orange sauce. It might be chunky, but don't worry, you'll be adding the cheese sauce shortly, and that'll thin it out and help with the processing.

As the water boils for the pasta, start the sauce. 

Make a roux - ~2tbs butter, whisk in 2tbs flour, cook while whisking for 5 minutes, and add some milk. Probably about a cup? Keep adding and whisking until it's the thickness you like. Add some to the food processor to help puree the squash. Dump the pureed squash back into the pan with the roux, and taste and adjust seasoning. Salt, pepper, a hint of nutmeg. Dump in ~1-2 cups of grated cheese. Stir until that is melted. Set it aside.

Drain the pasta when it is still very al dente. Stir in the squash-cheese sauce, and load it into a casserole dish. Sprinkle a little more cheese on top, and bake another 15-20 minutes, until everything is bubbling and delicious. Or you can totally skip that step and just eat pasta with the cheesy squash sauce. It's all good!

Ingredients
1 onion
2 cloves garlic
a handful of fresh sage
1 butternut squash
1 lb pasta (small shapes, of any variety)
1-2C grated cheddar
2 tbs butter
2 tbs flour
1-2C milk
parmesan cheese, for serving



I like my pasta smothered in parmesan cheese.


We added green things.

Lamb shanks

We bought a lamb this spring, from Woodcock Farm. Part of it was for Steve and Jess as a wedding present, but the other half was for us. Before you start thinking that we bought some cute little fluffy thing, it came to us in packaged frozen chunks, nicely labeled. We also bought a ton of cheese, and had some friends over to each cheese and lamb, and it was everything we'd hoped. Anyway, the fun part about buying an entire animal is that you end up with cuts of meat you're not used to cooking. We all love lamb chops, but we don't love the $25/lb price tag, amiright? I think this may have been the first time I cooked a lamb shank, and holy moly, this will not be the last time. That was a DELICIOUS piece of meat after a few hours of braising. And braising is like the easiest cooking method out there, since you just get it simmering and then leave it for 2-3 hours. 

There are a lot of recipes out there for lamb shanks. It's pretty free-form, since you don't have to measure anything. I'll list out some bullets of the things I did that are either important or maybe different than the rest of the internet. Also, I don't really remember exactly what we did here, because this was like a month ago, and my memory doesn't stretch that far back.



Things to do when cooking a lamb shank: 

• Trim off the icky skin stuff beforehand, but don't be OCD about it
• Sear the heck out of the meat before starting the braise!
• I put in about a cup of beans (post-soaking). Beans love fatty stews.
• Sweat an onion and some garlic and add that
• Don't be afraid of heavy flavors
• Alcohol makes things delicious. I think I used some whiskey, since we didn't have any red wine
• Braise (slow bubbles) for 2-3 hours, minimum. The meat should fall off the bones

Enjoy!

scromelet

Or, how Alex eats when Ed is not home. I know I should eat things like vegetables and some source of protein, so I try not to just have a bowl of cheerios for dinner. Though in summer, corn on the cob and a few peaches seems like an acceptable dinner. Anyway, usually those quick meals with no thought come from eggs. Either an omelet or a "scromelet", which is just when your omelet gets a bit more scrambled than you like. It's a pretty straightforward meal, but does require that you have gone grocery shopping at some point in the last week, if you want fresh veggies.

Chop the things you can find in your fridge. In this case, carrots, peppers, asparagus, tomatoes, sausage, cheddar. Other options for when you haven't been shopping in a while include onions, canned beans, random jars of pickled veggies, and mysterious frozen things from the back of your freezer.

Saute the various vegetal things until they're cooked. They usually require different amounts of time, so I tend to start with the meat, add in the heftier veggies, and finish with anything leafy. It appears that I added a handful of spinach to this mix. Then mix together your eggs (depending on the level of hungry, its 2-3 for me), with a dash of milk or water (because I usually don't have milk on hand), get that pan hot and dump it all in. Wait a few seconds until it just starts to set, give it a twirl to give it some volume, then let it set another 45-60 seconds. Now's a good time to add some salt, pepper, maybe some oregano. Now dump your stuff in the middle, fold it over, and have a tasty meal!

(it didn't all fit)

Curtido and pupusas

This is an old post that never got posted, but let's talk about something delicious here - curtido! It's an El Salvadorian slaw, consisting of cabbage and red onions and jalapenos and lime, with a little bit of natural fermentation, and it's pretty durn amazing. I don't *exactly* remember what went into our curtido, but there are a lot of recipes out there. And if it's not obvious from the photo, we have a lot to learn about making our pupusas, but that didn't stop them from being amazing! 

Curtido

(ingredients are all estimates)

(this recipe looks close, and might make sense to follow instead of mine)

~ 1/2 a head of cabbage (any cabbage), thinly shredded

1 red onion, thinly sliced

2 carrots, thinly sliced

1 jalapeno, seeds removed, diced

a handful of cilantro

~1 tbs dried oregano

juice of 3 limes

1 tbs kosher salt

Put everything in a big bowl, and thoroughly mix it around. Preferably with your hands, make sure all the veggies get thoroughly salty and lime-y. Then smoosh it into jars, and let it sit in the fridge for 4-7 days. It'll ferment just a bit, and it'll taste delicious. 

Pupusas

There are much better instructions for how to make these than how I did it. We filled the pupusas with quesa fresco, but I think any cheese would have been delicious, as would refried beans or pulled pork. I think our masa dough was a little too dry, hence the cracking on the sides. And, I don't think we fried them in enough oil, they didn't brown up as much as they should. All the more reasons to redo this meal! 

I would suggest this recipe.

Spaghetti squash

I haven't posted anything in a while, but then Sam went and posted some food, so I figured I may want to remember delicious things, too. This meal was basically a case of putting everything into the oven and just taking it out at the right time, but it was pretty tasty. The only part that required any real thinking was the spaghetti squash. First you have to hack the thing in half, then roast it, then mix together a bunch of flavors with the spaghetti strands. For the first time maybe ever, I managed to shred out the innards without burning my fingers!

Spaghetti squash is amazing stuff. Mostly, that's because it looks like spaghetti. But also, it's not as sweet as other squashes. Something about the sweetness of squashes tends to make me only tolerate them, not love them. It also has texture - nice and crunchy! I find it pairs well with savory flavors, things like sausage and sage, but also things like caramelized onions and toasted garlic. In this case, I had some hot turkey sausage, that I squeezed out of its casing into chunks and fried up, and a pile of shitake mushrooms. And, for good measure, some chiffonaded collard greens, all in the same pan. Then a touch of grated mozzarella on top, into the oven again (in the half-squash "boats", if you want to get fancy!), just to melt the cheese. Cheese is pretty awesome. 

The other stuff is roasted potatoes and Brussels sprouts. My oven does a great job of heating from the bottom heating elements, so things brown very nicely when put with a little olive oil on a metal sheet pan!

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!

Braised endives

One thing we'd really been enjoying through the winter and early spring this year were braised endives. I think we've finally settled on a "favorite" way to cook them. I've always loved just cutting them in half and frying them in a pan until they're done, but we've discovered that frying them first, in some butter for flavor and color, and then adding some liquid and braising them until they're done, that's the way to do it. The endives will just melt in your mouth, not in a mushy way, but in a silky way, with a little bit of crunch still at the root of the leaves. This braising obsession may be in part because we've started making lots of veggie stock - we've just been throwing all our veggie scraps into a big tupperware that we store in the freezer, and once every week or three we boil it all down into stock. So far we've had some interesting combinations. Don't bother saving your radish greens. And squash peelings are not good eats, either.

Anyway, we now have a surplus of vegetable stock. Here's a good way to use it up. Start with a pat of butter in a frying pan. Halve your endives lengthwise, and place into the melted butter. Salt the top, grind on some pepper, and leave them put over medium-ish heat for maybe 5-10 minutes, until you've got some nice color.  Once you're happy with the amount of browning, pour a cup or two of stock over the top, and let that simmer away for another 15-20 minutes, until it's easy to stick a fork into the tops of the endives. Pull them out of the braising liquid and grate some parmesan cheese on top, though obviously you could skip that step if you didn't have any cheese.

Simple and delicious.

Spaghetti squash

Spaghetti squash is a really weird plant. When you cook it, it gets all stringy. I suppose this would be gross if it weren't so cool.  Anyway, we had dinner with my friend Maddy the other day, and she served us spaghetti squash, mixed up with some sauce and stuff and topped with cheese.  It was so tasty! But, Maddy being vegetarian, my suggestion that sausage would have improved things didn't go over super well.  So, I decided to remake the squash, this time with some meat. Definitely improved, and definitely delicious. I may have eaten an entire half squash in one sitting.

First, roast the squash: Cut it in half lengthwise (this may take some effort), remove the seeds, and stick it in a 400-degree oven, cut side up.  20 minutes later, see if it creates ribbons when you drag a fork across it.  If so, take it out, and shred the meat of the squash into ribbons with a fork. Careful, it'll be hot!  Put the spaghetti strands into a big bowl, to mix with all the ingredients.  Definitely save the seeds and roast them, too, because they're delicious.

As the squash roasts, prepare the filling. I used two pans (what one-pot meal? not so good at that part), one to caramelize some onions, and one to cook up the ground beef.  Sausage would work well here, but I had ground beef.  I threw in a big pinch of rosemary, fennel seeds, and cumin seeds into the grease to flavor things, and this was a good move. Definitely flavor the heck out of that meat, because the squash itself is pretty bland.

Put the onions and the beef and spices into the bowl with the spaghetti squash. We also had like a cup or two of chopped herbs - basil and parsley. But you can really go wild, whatever you think would taste good.

I had some fresh mozzarella, and put half of it, torn into pieces, in the bowl. The other half I tore into pieces and sprinkled on top.  Plenty of salt and freshly ground pepper, and then put the filling back into your squash shells, top with more cheese, and return to the oven for another 10-20min, until the cheese on top is slightly browned and totally melted.

Serves two as a main dish, but you could probably stretch it to 6-8 people as a side.  Tasty, healthy, cheap - this one's a winner!

Summer pasta dish

With summer truly upon us, that can only mean one thing, and that thing is fresh corn and too much zucchini.  Our landlords gave us a giant zucch, which normally is no better than junk, but we experimented with taking the seeds out before cooking it, and that vastly improved things. This pasta dish was quite tasty, and a good way to eat your veggies, too.  I've been trying to cook my pasta more like how they did it in Italy (disclaimer: I have no idea how they did it in Italy, but somehow it just tasted better. Altitude?), and the solution I think I've stumbled onto is to just put a ton of salt into the water once it reaches a boil. Like, a tablespoon or more.  This seems to give a bit more chew to the pasta, as well as improving the taste, though it is hard to improve on the taste of pasta.

Side note - ever notice how when you're running through a neighborhood around dinnertime, you can always smell who's cooking pasta?  mmm.

Anyway, I recommend this one. Quick, easy, tasty, healthy, cheap - it wins on all fronts.

Summer Pasta Dish

1-2 zucchinis (for 2-3C of chopped zucchini)

2-4 ears of corn

1 lb pasta, small shapes

~1/2C chopped herbs (basil, cilantro, parsley, mint, whatever you've got on hand)

Grated cheese for on top

Salt for the water

Pepper to taste

Bring a big pot of water to a boil.  Once it boils dump in a lot of salt, and then the pasta, and toutouille (this is a well-established verb in Jospe households that means "to stir the pasta once you've put it in the water".  It can also refer to tossing a salad after you have dressed it, but is generally reserved for the cooking of pasta).

Meanwhile, cut the zucchinis in half, use a spoon to scrape out the seedy parts, and chop into rough cubes.  Cut the raw corn off the cobs.  Chop the herbs.  Throw a glug of olive oil into a pan, and saute the zucchini until it's soft enough that you want to eat it. At the last minute, toss in the corn, and cook that for about a minute.  

Once the pasta is al dente, drain, and combine the zucchs and corn and pasta and mix in the herbs.  Sprinkle plenty of fresh-ground pepper on top and grate a pile of cheese on top. Enjoy!

Kale salad, again

After making the kale and quinoa salad the other day, it occurred to me that kale and any old grain is a good combo, because the toothiness of the grain offsets the crunchy of the kale nicely.  Recently, in Whole Foods, I had seen some kamut in the bulk aisle, and I was intrigued, so I got some.  No idea what it would taste like, so I figured I'd give it a try tonight.  It was tasty! and exactly what I wanted in my kale salad.  To add some other flavors and colors, I went with a grated carrot, a few sliced kumquats, and some dried cherries (since I still had them on hand.  Another reason I love Russos - they had dried cherries for "only" $11.99/lb, as opposed to Whole Foods' $18.99/lb. I don't even pay that for STEAK!).

For some protein, we fried up some tofu.  This is remarkably easy - add a quarter inch of vegetable oil to a small nonstick pan, and put in the tofu pieces, let them sit there for a few minutes, then flip them over. I found chopsticks were an excellent tool for this.

The dressing was a squeeze of lemon, a drizzle of oil, and a pinch of kosher salt.  Pretty tasty, and got a good Ed-rating, too!

Spinach Ricotta Pie

I first had a spinach-ricotta pie at Anna Mcloon's house, and it was from this awesome cookbook she had from the Moosewood cafe. It was good enough that I wanted to make it again, but I was worried about Ed's reaction, because he's not a huge fan of quiches. But, we were in luck, because the spinach and the ricotta create a firm enough texture that it's not quiche-like at all - no jiggling here!

The recipe is basically this one. I don't think I actually changed much, but I did just use my usual pie crust recipe. This was tasty! It got a good Ed-rating, and even his colleagues liked it when he brought in the leftovers. So, don't hesitate, make yourself a spinach-ricotta pie!

Popover pancakes

I decided that I wanted to experiment with some new breakfast ideas, rather than oatmeal, for the gazillionth time.  I prefer cheerios, but cheerios don't last me very long, since I'll eat half the box in one sitting.  mmmm, cheerios.  So, three days after buying cheerios, I no longer have breakfast food, and end up back with oatmeal.  Anyway, one of the problems with oatmeal is that while I find it totally edible, and actually enjoy it when you take the time to cook it slowly without stirring and there is good chew to the oats and you've put lots of fruits and nuts on top, well I don't enjoy it *enough* that I can sit there and eat enough of it that I'm not starving to death by 10am.  I'm pretty sure part of this is that oatmeal is mostly carbs, with a smidge of protein, and my body is REALLY GOOD at burning through carbs.  So anyway, I decided that maybe I should try eating a breakfast that has more protein and fat in the mix, but I don't really want to be eating bacon and sausage every morning.  That doesn't seem healthy.  And also, it's expensive for both your wallet and the planet to eat meat.  I get sick of eggs really quickly, so that's also not the answer, and I don't feel satiated by smoothies. 

So in a semi-compromise, but also in a bid for deliciousness (though anything vs bacon is hard-pressed to win that battle), I decided to try making popover pancakes.  Real pancakes don't really solve the problem of incorporating more protein and fat into breakfast.  Popovers are delicious, and consist mostly of eggs and milk.  But popovers take a lot of time to bake.  So, the birth of popovers cooked in a frying pan!  But of course, I didn't have milk.  This is a problem, but a solvable one, because I did have yogurt.  Plain yogurt and milk are totally substitutes...

1/2C plain yogurt
1 egg
1 pinch of salt
1 pinch of baking soda (popovers don't take leavening, but I didn't have a 450F oven to play with, and I did have yogurt, so baking soda it is)
1/2C flour
1 tbs butter, for cooking
1 peach

So, dump the ingredients into a 2C measure.  This lets you pour out your popovers!  And creates less mess to clean up.  Use a fork to beat everything together.  Melt the butter in a big frying pan.  Wash and cut up your peach (you can leave skin on).  Pour out some pancakes into the frying pan, dot with peach pieces.  Cook ~5min on one side, til the bubbles pop and don't re-fill.  Flip.  Cook another 3min.  Consume!  This made 4 pancakes.

I ate these plain, and they were delicious.  They aren't fluffy like pancakes; they're custardy like popovers.  Tomorrow, I am going to try putting some more yogurt and some rhubarb jam on top.  And maybe sprinkle with walnuts.  And maybe play with using a different flour than white flour, or see what happens when I use some almond flour in there with regular flour.  Or, since these aren't sweet except for the peach parts, I could go the savory route, and top with cheese, or avocado, or tomatoes and basil...

And hey, it's after 11am, and I'm not dying of starvation!

Though now that you mention it...

Nutritional breakdown -
Popover pancakes with a peach: 560cal, 22g fat, 73g carb, 23g protein
Oatmeal with a peach and walnuts: 360cal, 13g fat, 52g carb, 11g protein
So clearly, I just need to find something tasty and full of fat and protein to eat with my oatmeal to make it until lunchtime.  Back to the bacon hypothesis.  Or I could cook my oats in milk, but that makes it harder to clean the pan.  Or, keep eating popover pancakes!

Thai stirfry

We stopped by the Super88 the other day, picked up some fresh udon noodles.  These guys are interesting, just super thick, chewy, and strangely delicious noodles.  I figured we had the proper ingredients for a stir fry, of the Thai variety, if only because of the limes that I had kicking around.  Stir fry dishes are pretty loose when it comes to a recipe, but Ed started eating this and declared that it got an extremely high Ed-rating.  Then he considered for a bit, and amended the statement to be "the best cabbage dish I've ever had", and then amended the Ed-rating to even higher, as in this is so tasty he'd actually pay money for it at a restaurant.  I'm not sure what the difference was - I mean, this was one good stir fry - but I figured I'd better write down the pieces that turned it from a pile of cooked food stuffs into a unified dish.

 

I started by flavoring the oil.  Into the wok went a solid glug or two of vegetable oil. Once that was hot, but not yet smoking, I dropped in a dried red thai chili, cut into thirds or so.  All the seeds immediately fell out, and that gave a really nice kick to the dish.  Toss that around for a bit, maybe 30s, and once you can smell the spice (if you want really spicy, add 2-3 peppers), throw in some minced garlic, ginger, and thinly sliced lemongrass.  In retrospect, I should have done with the lemongrass what I did with the pepper, and thrown in a large chunk or two, just to flavor the oil, rather than cutting it into pieces, since it wasn't a fresh stalk of lemongrass, so it was kind of woody.

Aromatics set, now it was time for the filling bits.  About a quarter of a head of purple cabbage, diced, and some floppy-looking use-me-now-or-never kale made up the veggies.  On top of those went a large pinch (a small handful?) of brown sugar, a few small glugs of soy sauce, and a small glug of fish sauce.  Once the veggies were no longer raw, in went some cubed firm tofu and the udon noodles.  And the juice of two limes.  Then a large handful of basil leaves, and some cilantro leaves fresh on top once you pull it off the heat.

The only thing that really would have made the dish is if we'd had some ground peanuts for the top.  Anyway, I think it was the large quantities of lime juice that sealed the deal for me; we'll be making variations on this for a while!

Cauliflower and cheese galettes

I don't remember where I got the idea for this, but I know that somewhere on the internet, I'd seen somebody making little single-serving galettes filled with vegetables and cheese.  It looked good, and like the perfect thing for a picnic, because you could just eat them with your hands, since since we were traveling off to Saratoga Springs for a weekend of orienteering racing, picnic-type foods are what you want.  Also, I'd so much rather refuel with real food than with random bars and gels and stuff.  Tastes better.  So, real food it is!

These are Ed-approved, because they tasted good, but he wasn't such a fan of the whole planning ahead for food at races idea.  He's not really into the whole planning ahead deal in general.  Not like that stopped him eating them after the race.


They're filled with a grated summer squash, some roasted cauliflower, ricotta cheese, and possible some parmesan? I can't remember.  And an onion, and some garlic.  And an egg.  You mix together all those things, put them in the middle of a small round of pie crust, fold up the edges, and back until the top of the crust is golden brown.  I'd guess around 20min, but this year nearly a month ago that I made these, so things are a little fuzzy.


Pretty tasty with a side of crispy kale, too.  I topped them with some grated sumac, which has a delicious lemony-flavor, so tasty!  But you could skip that part.  You could also fill these with anything at all.  Pretty flexible, as long as it's relatively uniformly textured and not too gooey.

I'll definitely make these again!

Baba ghanoush

Take one eggplant.  Halve lengthwise.  Pour a little olive oil onto a baking sheet, and put the eggplants cut-side down onto the baking sheet.  Bake at 400F for 20-30min, until the skin is wrinkly and starting to burn.  Scoop the goopy innards into a food processor.  Mix with ~1/4C tahini, the juice of a lemon, ~1tsp kosher salt, and a clove of garlic.

Dump into a bowl, top with some parsley or basil or cilantro, paprika, pomegranate seeds, or pine nuts (optional).  Eat with carrots, pita chips, tortilla chips, bread, or a spoon...

Definitely got a good Ed rating from this one.  The hands-on time is less than five minutes, and I think that includes washing the food processor.  Next time you're wanting a dip of some sort, I recommend this one.  Smoky, tangy, vibrant, and delicious.

Pork spinach meatballs

I was wandering through Shaws, looking for things to inspire me to cook dinner, and found myself in the meat aisle, looking for deals.  Often you can find cheap deals on meat there, and while I find that pretty darn sketchy, I figure as long as you cook the manager's special stuff that night, you'll probably be fine.  I lucked out twice - thanks to those sketchy manager's special deals, I got a pound of ground pork for $1.10, and four beef bones for $0.60.  Cook that stuff til it's good and dead, eep.  What is wrong with our agricultural system that meat can be that cheap?

Anyway, the ground pork put me in mind of the meatball subs we'd had at the end of a long adventure race in Canada last fall; one of the flavor options had been something about pork, and then I got the idea that I wanted to put spinach in my meatballs.  So, a head of garlic and a pound of frozen spinach later, I was ready to go.

First things first: flavor.  Toasted spices are where it's at.  I think just about anything that imparts flavor is a good start, but I went with fennel seeds, cumin, mustard seeds, and red pepper flakes.

Salt, spices, meat, one egg, one small yellow beet (grated), 10oz of frozen spinach, thawed and squeezed, a few cloves of garlic, some bread crumbs... 

Smoosh it all together, with a utensil or your hands.

Make balls.  Heat oven to 350F.

Bake for 15min on an ungreased pan, then flip and bake another 10min.  Eat, or freeze.

Actual quantities: 

1lb ground pork 80% lean

10oz frozen spinach, thawed and squeezed dry

4 cloves garlic

1 yellow beet, peeled and grated (raw)

1/4C bread crumbs

2 tsp kosher salt (you could get away with 1tsp, if you're scared of sodium)

2 tsp fennel seeds

2 tsp cumin seeds

1 tsp red pepper flakes

1 tsp mustard seeds

Toast spices in a dry pan.  Grind.  Put everything in a bowl, mix together, make balls, bake for 25min.