Happy Summer

Over the last month or two, we have been...required, really, to alter our meals to the weather. It's been so hot that cooking hot meals in the PAK has been unbearable. On the really hot nights even washing dishes feels like an endurance test. How many dishes can I wash before there's too much sweat running down my face to see what I am doing? Fun times.

We started making more smoothies and more dinners like the one pictured above- tomato with mozzarella and basil, along with some homemade hummus (which was eaten with chips, not pictured).

Yes, that's right- the hummus addict has started making her own hummus and all is good in the world. I have yet to venture into experimenting beyond the basic recipe yet. But I'll get there.

Basically, the following ingredients go into the food processor until they are the right consistency of smooth deliciousness-

1 can (12 oz) of chickpeas
lemon juice (1 lemon should do the trick)
1 tablespoon tahini
Garlic cloves (this may vary but personal preference, I usually put in 1-2 cloves)
Extra light olive oil- amount here is also personal preference

Next I plan to tackle tabbouleh and then all will be even more good in the world.

Yet another bean burger recipe

Life is busy sometimes, and it means I've been ignoring the food blog... which isn't to say that I haven't been eating.

Chick pea burgers remain a staple in the home, but I've evolved the recipe.

Ingredient list:
-1 egg
-1/2 yellow onion
-2 tbsp flour
-1/2 tsp chili powder
-1/2 tsp ground cumin
-1/4 tsp salt
-1/2 can chick peas
-1/2 can black beans
-extra light olive oil
-1/2 cup greek yogurt
-1 tbsp tahini
-juice from 1/2 lemon
-1/4 cup thinly sliced celery heart
-sliced beefsteak tomato
-4 whole grain half-pita pockets

Pre-heat a cast iron skillet to just higher than medium heat. Use enough olive oil to coat the entire bottom of the pan.

Throw the egg, flour, salt, spices, and onion into the food processor. Mix until it's a gooey paste. Then dump in the chick peas and black beans and pulse a few times to get a coarse mixture. Mixture should make four patties. Fry in the oil for a few minutes on each side. Thanks to the onion, the patties may start to look almost black. Trust me, they're fine... they actually taste a little better that way. Crispy fried onions and chick peas are wonderful.

While the patties are frying, mix the yogurt, tahini, celery heart, and lemon juice in a bowl to make the sauce for the patties. Lately I've been using the very core of the celery heart for this... it's thin enough and the celery flavor isn't quite as strong, and it's the part of the celery bunch that I never really know what to do with anyway.

Serve in pita with a slice of tomato, and the yogurt sauce. Lately we've been buying the pita from Costco... it's a little smaller, so there's less leftover bread... and, it's cheaper.

Half a can of beans, half an onion, etc... I don't really leave half of two different cans of beans and half an onion  typically, I do a second batch to provide lunch for the next day. I usually let it fry while we eat the first batch.

Soup and Sandwiches for grown-ups

I love making soup. It's just so... easy. (Thanks to the availability of good pre-made broth at the store. I plan to tackle making broth sometime this year, but one thing at a time.)

The basics are simple. Cook the veggies, add the broth, and whatever grains. If you're going to use spices, put them in a tea ball so you can get keep them separate. This last one is pretty important, especially if you plan on storing the leftovers. Things like black pepper can continue to add flavor to the soup, and while it's not necessarily going to taste bad after stewing in the fridge for a day or two, it's not necessarily going to taste good, either, so being able to take the flavoring spices out as part of the process is key.

In this case, I thin sliced a few stalks of celery, sliced some leeks lengthwise and then chopped 1/4" pieces from there, and cut up an onion. Sizzle sizzle sizzle for about 8 minues on medium heat in some oil, and we're ready to go. I poured in a quart and a half of chicken broth, 1/2 cup of wild rice, 1/2 cup of a brown rice medley from Trader Joes, and 1/3 of a cup of barley. No salt, no seasoning, just the veggies, grains and broth. For the vegetarian crowd, you can use veggie broth instead... the rest of this improv dish is veggie friendly, and it's basic enough to be easy.

Bring to a simmer, and keep it there for 35-40 minutes.

I was using an oval roasting pot that my little sister bought me a few years ago, and one of the interesting things about the shape is that you can rotate the lid to vent off as little or as much of the steam as you want, unlike a regular circular pot. I don't think it's really a precise adjustment for maintaining a slow simmer, but it's nice to be able to vent just enough steam that the whole thing doesn't start boiling over.

Other trivia about this particular pot, Ariel loves teasing me about it. Why? Because it's Rachel Ray branded cookware. Why is that funny? Well... once upon a time, I'd put Rachel Ray on my list of 5. Ariel just couldn't wrap her mind around that one, and laughed at me about it for days. Shortly thereafter, I received this pot. So, to this day, it still puts a smirk on A's face.

Another benefit of making soup... there's time to stop, clean up a bit, and diminish the pile of after dinner dishes. (note the finished meal sitting on a CLEAN butcher block...) Once I was done with the cleaning, I still had time to get going on the sandwiches part. The general idea is an open-face grilled cheese... or maybe it's just over-grown crostini. Either way, it was mighty fine, and the salty savory crunchy cheese and toast thing went very well with the soup.

I grated some gouda and some other cheese, (gruyere is also wonderful for this) and packed it onto the top of some store-bought 'tuscan' bread. (Basically, fancy white bread with rubbery gluten and bog holes for the cheese to melt through.) I put that on the top rack in the oven with the broiler on high. You have to pay attention while the broiler is on, though. The first couple of minutes are pretty uneventful: the cheese starts to melt and bubble, and the grease puddles on top. Yum. The next minute or so the grease soaks into the bread, the bubbling picks up a bit. After that, things start to settle down, and it's important to grab the tray just after the cheese begins to brown. It's possible to actually watch the brown parts form and start to spread... and if you're not watching, it's possible to miss all of this completely, and end up with burned cheese on burned bread.

By the way, if you look closely at the picture, you can see that the back left corner of the cookie sheet is warping upwards, and the whole thing is starting to look like a pringle. It's not a trick of the light, that's actually what was happening. Don't be alarmed if this happens to you... there's something about being that close to the heating element that makes for some interesting thermal expansion issues. Once it cooled off it settles back down.

I still had time after this to clean up the stuff I used to make the grilled cheese before serving dinner. So all we had left to wash were two bowls, two plates, and the soup pot. Not too bad.

Date Night! Red pepper and Goat Cheese Frittata

So, I'd never made a frittata before. I'm going to be making more of them, though. Score one more for the cast iron skillet.

Basic ingredients:
-1 Cup sliced up red bell peppers
-1 bunch of scallions, chopped
-8 Eggs
-1/2 Tsp salt
-1/2 Tsp finely chopped Oregano
-1/2 Tsp freshly ground pepper
-1 Tsp Extra Light Olive Oil
-1 Cup crumbled Goat Cheese
-1/2 Cup Robust Gouda

Do all of the prep work before you put anything in the pan. Things happen pretty fast after that.

Pre-heat the Cast iron Skillet to the high side of medium. Turn on the broiler and let that go for a while. Put the rack close to the top of the oven.

Mix up the salt, pepper, oregano, and eggs.

Put in the oil. Put in the vegetables. Fry the veggies until they're starting to feel cooked. (3-4 minutes)

Add the egg, dump the 2 cheeses on top. Then throw the whole skillet into the oven/broiler for 3 or 4 minutes, until the gouda just starts to brown.

Pull the skillet back out, and let it cool for 3-4 minutes more. The skillet will continue to lightly cook the eggs, so the finished product is moist, but not wet or runny. After it's cooled a bit, and has started to pull away from the pan, flip the whole thing over onto a platter or dish that's large enough.

The finished product is a thing of beauty, but I really wanted to have one more part to the meal, so I baked some sweet potato fries to serve with the frittata.

Yum.

German apple pancake

This is a great recipe that I found a month or so ago. I've made it a few times, and served it up to a bunch of folks at a brunch that we had at our house a few weeks ago. Among other things, we also served up some thinly sliced kielbasa that we'd fried up in a pan on the stove. Somehow, someone discovered that the two things pair up very well... a great combination of sweet and savory.

The version you see in the photos is a scaled down version for one person, made in a 6" skillet. But the recipe itself, and the portions I'm going to list, are for a 12" skillet.

Ingredient list:
 
-1/4 stick of butter for the frying pan
-1/4 stick of butter, chopped up, to go into the food processor.
-2-3 apples, cored and cut into small pieces. Use granny smith, or something else that's nice and tart.
-1/2 cup milk
-1/2 cup flour
-4 eggs
-3 tbsp brown sugar to go into the food processor
-1 tsp vanilla
-1/4 tsp salt
-3 tbsp brown sugar to be sprinkled on the apples
-1/4 tsp ground cinnamon to be sprinkled on the apples

Step one: Pre-heat the oven and the skillet. Turn the oven up to 450, and get hte skillet warmed up to medium-low.

Step two: Saute the apples in butter. This is pretty simple, really. Butter in pan, apples in butter.



Step three: While the apples are frying up, put the butter, eggs, milk, flour, salt, and vanilla into the food processor to make the batter. (Or mix by hand, your option, but the food processor means I don't have to soften or melt the butter.)

Step four: Once the apples are starting to brown, sprinkle them with brown sugar and cinnamon. Then pour the batter over the apples and move the whole pan into the oven.





Bake at 450 for 12-15 minutes. Serve with powdered sugar, or maple syrup.

Enjoy.

Simple pasta and steamed veggies

It's pretty impressive that this dish hasn't made it on here already. I chalk it up to the effect that this blog has had on our kitchen. I'm trying a lot of new things and cooking a lot of new recipes. And writing about it, of course.

This is a quick and simple dinner that we've been enjoying for years. It was something I threw together one night out of sheer hungriness and a need for FOOD. While it's very simple, it does require a steamer basket that nests into the top of your regular saucepan, and use the same lid. It's not hard to find a setup like this when you're shopping for pots and pans. And I recommend the combination to people precisely because of this recipe. It's a serious production time saver.

Step 1: Chop up some vegetables into bite-sized hunks and throw them in the steamer basket. For this recipe, I used 2 heads of broccoli, a bundle of asparagus, and an onion.

Step 2: Fill the pot 2/3 with water. Don't overfill, as the steamer does take up some space in the saucepan, and it will displace the water onto your stove. (Note paper towel on the stove)

Step 3: Put the steamer on top of the pot, and the lid on the steamer.

Step 4: Turn on the stove and heat up the water for pasta.

Step 5: Throw in the pasta, and cook.

Step 6: Take the stack to the sink, and dump the pasta on top of the veggies in the steamer to strain.

Step 7: Dump the steamer into the serving bowl.

Step 8: Drizzle olive oil over everything, and move the pasta around enough to let the oil keep it all from sticking together. Serve with Salt, Pepper, and maybe some Romano or Parmesan.

As the water heats up to boiling, it warms up the veggies, and they steam while the pasta's boiling. When the pasta's done, the veggies are done. No muss, no fuss.

It's really amazing what the simple combination of oil, salt, and pepper can do for steamed veggies. And the cheese is salty enough to chime in pleasantly. Years ago I used to mix in goat cheese and cream and other stuff. But I've been trying to eat better lately, and I have to say, in this case, simpler is really better.

There are other veggie combinations thatare worth trying, like:
-zucchini, chick peas, and shallots
-Broccoli, Cauliflower, and summer squash
-Red peppers, spinach, black beans, and apples
-Use your imagination. Vegetables are vegetables, and some mix better than others, but almost all are good.

Whole Wheat Banana Bread

I can't tell you how many metric tons of Bananas I've thrown out over the years. I buy a bunch, with best intentions, eat a few when I get home, watch over the course of a few days as they get spotty, and then one day, I notice that they're too soft to eat, and the fruit flies have noticed. The irony inherent in this is, the bananas are almost ready to be made into banana bread at this point... and I've been throwing them away. They're black gold! (ew)

I've been saving over-ripe bananas in the freezer. It's really the best place for it. Right before they're pretty much gone, I freeze them. We came home from the grocery store last night, and I ran out of room in the freezer. So today, I decided, was banana bread day. I pulled the bananas out... and woke up to a puddle of slime on the counter, under some truly black and gnarly ugliness. One of the bananas was so soft inside, the peel had kinked a bit under its own weight, and started to ooze all over the top of the kitchen island. Not exactly what I'd call appetizing. And far beyond what I'd ever considered keeping.

This is a picture of the bowl with most of the ingredients. Note the presence of a buttery yellow. This is the color of the bananas. Kinda gross, right?

This recipe is adapted from the King Arthur Whole Grain Baking cookbook:

The ingredient list:

-3-4 way over-ripe bananas
-1/2 stick of butter
-1/2 cup packed brown sugar
-1 tsp vanilla extract
-1/2 tsp salt
-1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
-1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
-2 eggs
-3/4 tsp baking soda
-1/4 cup honey
-2 Cup whole wheat flour

The recipe calls for 1/2 cup of walnuts. But I hate walnuts. And the last time I had this bread, it was made by my then-roommate with chocolate chips and craisins. (Seth is clearly a genius) Good enough for me... so I added a fistful of each, as well as a little bit of black strap molasses. (yum)

The recipe calls for a 5x9 loaf pan. I used 2, 5x7 casserole dishes.  Whatever your vessel of choice, it needs to be greased. And the oven needs to be pre-heated to 350.

Mix all the liquid and soft ingredients with the sugar and spices until smooth. Then add the flour, chips and craisins. Pour into the dish/ pans/ whatever, and let it sit at 10 minutes at room temperature. Then put into the oven.

After 50 minutes, cover the loaf/ loaves loosely with aluminum foil. 10-12 minutes later, check with a fork, toothpick, whatever. If the cake-checker-outer comes out clean, the banana bread is done. And if I sound a little punchy, it's because the chocolate has entered my system, and I'm a little giddy.

This is some tasty banana bread. I don't know who came up with the idea of making banana bread. But somebody somewhere decided to fly in the face of all logic and slime-nasty bananas, and at this particular moment, I love this person.

As I write this, the loaves have been out for just under an hour. One of the two is almost gone... two pieces to me, two to Ariel, and one into A's lunch bag.

Chick Pea Burgers

Tonight I was digging through the folder of recipes I've cut out of magazines, and found one that came from Eating Well, for chick pea burgers with Tahini yogurt sauce. Among the ingredients: chick peas, lemon juice, tahini, and olive oil. All of these are found in hummus, which is half of Ariel's answer to the "one food for the rest of your life," question.

(Hummus and Tabouleh, mixed together, are Ariel's favoritest thing. Ever.)

So, already it sounded like a winner.

Update, 11/18/10: In the month since this was originally posted, this recipe has become a staple meal in our home. As a result of getting a lot of practice with this recipe, I've learned a few things, and edited the entry to reflect those lessons.

Ingredient list:

Chick Pea Burgers
1- can of chick peas, rinsed and drained. (I used to use 19 oz cans, I've since used 14 ox cans without changing anything else, and it works fine.)
4- scallions, trimmed and sliced
1- large egg
2 Tbsp all purpose flour
1 Tbsp chopped fresh oregano. (I used dried from a jar.)
1/2 Tsp ground Cumin. (I love Cumin.)
1/4 Tsp Salt. (Or a heavy pinch, if you don't feel like washing a little pygmy spoon)
2 Tbsp Olive oil. (Bullshit... will explain later)


Tahini Sauce
1/2 Cup- greek style lowfat plain yogurt
2 Tbsp tahini. (Sesame seed paste, you may have to look a bit to find it, but I've been able to find it at supermarkets that I didn't think would have it.)
1 Tbsp Lemon juice. (I just squeezed out a whole lemon.)
1/3 Cup chopped parsley. (More or less. I think mine ended up with a lot more than 1/3 of a cup.)
1/4 Tsp salt. (See above commentary on pygmy spoons.)

Other
2 pita bread pockets, sliced in half lengthwise (Ha... it's circular. You figure out which way is lengthwise...)
1 Beefsteak tomato, sliced

The egg, scallions, salt, flour, cumin, and oregano go into the food processor with the chick peas. Use the pulse feature, and make a coarse mixture that will form patties well.

edit: Having done this a few times, I can say that it's better to mix the egg, scallions, salt, flour, cumin, and oregano first, and then add the chick peas into the food processor. I used to dump all of the other ingredients on top of the chick peas, and it took a lot longer for those other ingredients to stir down into the mix properly. By the time it was all more or less homogeneous, it was halfway to being pureed. This way the other ingredients are mixed to form the glue that holds everything together, and mixing the chick peas from there results in a coarser mix, and better patties that handle more easily.

For the sauce, combine the sauce ingredients in a bowl and mix with a fork. It's not rocket science.

Next step, make patties with the chick pea mixture, and fry them at medium high in a frying pan, in the olive oil. Be careful when flipping them, as they will come apart pretty easily.

In the ingredient list, the quoted quantity of EVOO is 2 tbsp. This is bullshit, and you should pay it no mind. A more liberal application of oil is required, to help conduct the heat to the patties. For those of you who have a cast iron skillet that can handle 4 patties, I suggest you use it, as cast iron holds heat very well. It's a minor thing, really... frying these things up wasn't hard, but I do have a reason for thinking this.

Generally, I find that foods that are allowed to heat up more gradually do not get that crispy-fried crust on the outside. I've had friends that cooked falafel in aluminum pots, or with not enough oil, and the result was a mess. The aluminum conducts some of the heat away, and the falafel dough (if that's the proper term) cools the oil down even more if there's not enough oil in the pot to compensate. So, the oil didn't stay hot enough to make the falafel balls crust over, and the result was lumpy cooked chick pea paste, in oil.

Using a cast iron skillet to fry these up makes a WORLD of difference. Instead of the slowly building sizzle that I'm used to with our old aluminum and stainless frying pans, the patties start to sizzle the instant they hit the pan. And this instant-frying makes a much crispier outer crust. As a result, I've discovered I actually need less oil.

The patties are served up in the pita pockets with the sauce, and a slice of tomato. Extra pita can be used to help clean up the extra sauce that's typically left over.

This was probably one of the fastest, easiest things to make that I've cooked in a while, and it was really, really good. We'll be making this one again.

One very happy nursing student.