Tag: vegetarian

Or rather can be made vegetarian.

Dean & Deluca’s Middle Eastern Red Lentil Soup with Yogurt and Lemon

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Lentil soups are great this time of year when the season is lean, and fresh local produce consists mostly of tubers and squash. Lentils are extremely economical. Added bonuses: they cook up quickly, and have a wholesome, delicious nuttiness.

This soup is adapted from one in the Dean and Deluca Cookbook. If you keep the spices and lentils on hand, you can quickly pull it together after school or work.

Start to finish, the soup should take you about 30 minutes to make.

Actually, it will take you about 20 minutes (I added an extra 10 minutes for you to enjoy a glass of wine).

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon of olive oil

1 tablespoon of butter

1 medium onion, finely chopped

1 1/2 teaspoons of ground coriander

1 1/2 teaspoons of ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon of ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon of mustard powder

9 ounces of red lentils

4 cups of chicken or vegetable stock + 1 cup of water

The juice and the zest of one lemon

1 cup of whole milk Greek yogurt, divided

1/4 cup of fresh parsley, chopped

Aleppo pepper for garnish (you can also use sweet paprika as a substitution)

How to prepare:

1. In a large Dutch oven, melt together the butter and the olive oil over medium heat. Add the onion and cook it until it begins to turn translucent. Add the spices to the onions, stirring frequently to make sure that the spices toast, but do not burn. Continue to cook the onion until it begins to turn golden.

2. Toss the lentils with the onions and the spices. Add the stock, the extra cup of water, and a heavy pinch of salt. Bring everything to a boil, and then reduce the heat to a simmer. Simmer the lentils until they are tender, about 15 to 20 minutes. Once the lentils are tender, add the lemon zest and half of the yogurt to the soup. Continue to simmer everything together until the consistency is nice and smooth. Adjust the seasoning.

3. In a small bowl, combine the remaining yogurt with the lemon juice and the parsley. Stir everything together until the consistency is smooth and silky.

4. Ladle the soup into bowls. Top each serving with a swirl of the yogurt mixture and a sprinkle of Aleppo pepper.

Pumpkin Butter

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This is Cheese Pumpkin Project #2, using up the second half of the cheese pumpkin that I used in the Pumpkin Soup with Chipotle Chili Purée.

Pumpkin butter is terrific smeared on toast, or bread. This particular recipe is moderately adapted from Serious Eats.

Ingredients:

1/2 a small cheese pumpkin, seeded, peeled, and cut into 1-inch cubes

Apple cider

1/3 cup of maple syrup

1/3 cup dark brown sugar, packed

1 1/2 teaspoons of ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon of ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon of freshly ground nutmeg

A pinch of ground cloves

A pinch of salt

2 tablespoons of unsalted butter

Special equipment:

A hand-held immersion blender

A fine-mesh splatter screen*

How to prepare:

1. Place the pumpkin cubes in a large Dutch oven. Add enough apple cider to barely cover the top of the pumpkin cubes. Bring everything to a brisk simmer over medium-high heat, before lowering the heat to medium-low. Cook the pumpkin until it is very tender, about 30 minutes. You should be able to easily crush a pumpkin cube against the side of the casserole with a wooden spoon when the pumpkin is done.

2. Turn off the heat and using an immersion blender, purée the pumpkin until it is smooth. Add the maple syrup, the brown sugar, and the spices to the puréed pumpkin. Stir everything together to evenly distribute the spices throughout the mixture.

3. Turn the heat back on to low. Simmer the purée uncovered until it is thick and spreadable, and has reduced by about more than half. This can take anywhere between 1 to 2 hours. Be sure to carefully stir the mixture occasionally, scraping the bottom of the pan as well to ensure that your pumpkin butter is not burning or scorching. If it is burning or scorching, turn the heat down even more.

* At a certain point, you may want to cover the casserole with a fine-mesh splatter screen. As the mixture cooks down, thick bubbles will form and burst on the surface that can make a bit of a mess on your stove, and potentially burn you. Be sure to use a screen that allows most of the steam to pass through it so that your pumpkin butter can cook down properly.

4. Once the pumpkin butter is nice and thick, stir in the butter. Turn off the heat, and let the mixture cool completely before transferring it to another container and storing it in the refrigerator.

Pumpkin Soup with Chipotle Chili Purée and Pumpkin Seed Oil

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A few weeks ago, I was possessed with the urge to buy an entire cheese pumpkin. Cheese pumpkin is somewhat of a misnomer as it is neither made of cheese, nor does it taste remotely cheese-like.

Cheese pumpkins actually have nothing to do with the cheese-making process.

Instead, the cheese in cheese pumpkin actually refers to its appearance as it resembles an old-fashioned cheese box. Okay, sure, boxes are square or rectangular, and cheese pumpkins are clearly not. But they are buff-colored, low and squat — just like unfinished wooden cheese boxes.

The cheese pumpkin is the classic Cinderella pumpkin. That wasn’t a sugar pumpkin that got turned into a carriage!

Cheese pumpkins are awesome. They have sweet, soft flesh that is hardly stringy at all when you cook them. They make amazing purées, soups, and smooth-as-buttah’ custards.

They are also huge. About 5 to 7 pounds for a small one, 6 to 10 pounds for a large one. Often at farmers’ markets, cheese pumpkins are cut up and sold in halves and quarters.

But I just had to have a whole one to myself.

So consider this Cheese Pumpkin Project #1, as I only used half of a small one for this recipe.

Ingredients:

For the chipotle chili purée:

1 7.5 ounce can of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, reserving 2 peppers and 2 tablespoons of sauce

1 red bell pepper

1 teaspoon of sherry vinegar

1 tablespoon of honey

For the soup:

2 tablespoons of olive oil

1/2 a small cheese pumpkin, seeded, peeled, and cut into 1-inch cubes

1 medium onion, diced

2 cloves of garlic, minced

2 sprigs of fresh thyme

2 bay leaves

1 quart of chicken stock

1/2 cup of heavy cream

The reserved pair of chipotle peppers + 2 tablespoons of sauce

Salt

Pumpkin seed oil

Special equipment:

A hand-held immersion blender

A fine-mesh sieve*

How to prepare:

1. Heat the olive oil in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat until the oil starts to shimmer. Add the onions. Sauté them until they lose their opacity and begin to turn translucent. Add the garlic and sauté everything together for about another minute. Toss the pumpkin cubes in the onion-garlic mixture for another minute or two until they are evenly coated. Add the stock to the vegetables. Tuck the thyme sprigs and bay leaves under the pumpkin cubes. Bring everything to a boil, and then reduce the heat so that the liquid is at a steady simmer. Cook the pumpkin until it is soft. You should easily be able to mash a pumpkin cube against the side of the pot with a wooden spoon.

2. Remove the thyme and the bay leaves. Add the 2 reserved chipotle peppers and 2 tablespoons of sauce. Using an immersion blender, blend everything together until smooth.

* If you, like me, prefer the look and mouthfeel of a perfectly creamy and even-colored soup unmarred by any specks of green from the thyme, or any red from the peppers, you can pass the soup quickly through a fine-mesh sieve. By sieving your soup, you improve the texture immensely. Cheese pumpkins are much less fibrous than other pumpkins, but they can still have some.

Stir in the heavy cream, and adjust the seasoning. While the soup is cooling a bit, prepare the chipotle pepper purée.

3. If you have a gas range, set the red bell pepper directly on the gas burner with the heat on high. Turn the pepper periodically to make sure that the skin chars evenly.

If you have an electric range, rub the bell pepper with olive oil and place it on a cookie sheet set underneath the broiler. You can also rub the pepper with olive oil and pop it into a 450° oven. Remove it when the skin is blistered and blackened.

4. When your pepper is nice and charred, put it in a clean plastic grocery bag or a small pepper bag and wait for it to cool. When it is cool enough to handle, you should be able to gently rub off all the charred skin from the pepper. Seed the pepper, and discard the seeds and stem. Cut the pepper into 1/2 inch pieces.

5. Using the immersion blender, combine the remaining chipotle peppers, adobo sauce, the roasted red pepper, the sherry vinegar, and the honey together until smooth.

6. To serve, top each bowl of soup with a dollop of chipotle purée and a drizzle of pumpkin seed oil.

The Daring Kitchen November Cooks’ Challenge: Chinese Tea Eggs

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About a month or so ago, I heard about the Daring Kitchen from another blogger who writes Live the London Life. The basic premise is this: The Daring Kitchen comprises of two groups, The Daring Bakers and the The Daring Cooks. You can sign up for one or both (I am just signed up for The Daring Cooks). Once you sign up, you will be tasked with cooking one recipe each month from what the monthly host has selected as the cooking or baking challenges. Everyone posts their dishes on their blogs on the same day (also known as the reveal day).

So today is the big reveal day for my first challenge: Cooking with Tea.

I’ve never cooked with tea before, with the exception of maybe duck breast a long, long time ago. So long ago that it doesn’t count anymore. Of the three dishes I could have chosen from, I perhaps chose the easiest (the other options were a green tea noodle soup, and a beef and sweet potato stew made with rooibos).

But hey, I made the decision right after I whacked into my thumb with that folding knife!

And sometimes the simplest recipes are the most challenging . . . or at least that is what I am telling myself 😉

So here are the blog-checking lines: 

Sarah from Simply Cooked was our November Daring Cooks’ hostess and she challenged us to create something truly unique in both taste and technique! We learned how to cook using tea with recipes from Tea Cookbook by Tonia George and The New Tea Book by Sara Perry.

Ingredients:

6 eggs

2 tablespoons of loose black tea, or four tea bags (I used loose Keemun)

2 teaspoons of Chinese Five-Spice Powder

1 tablespoon of coarse salt

Sesame seeds for garnish

How to prepare:
(taken from The Daring Cooks’ November Challenge PDF)

1. In a large enough pot to avoid overcrowding, cover the eggs with cold water. Bring to a boil over medium heat and simmer for twelve minutes.

2. Remove the eggs with a slotted spoon and keep the cooking water.

3. With a spoon, tap the eggs all over until they are covered with small cracks. This can also be done by tapping and rolling the eggs very gently on the counter.

4. Return the eggs to the pan and add the tea leaves or bags, Chinese five spice powder, and salt. Cover the pan.

5. Heat gently and simmer, covered, for one hour.

6. Remove the pan from the heat and let the eggs cool down in the liquid for 30 minutes.

7. Remove the eggs from the liquid. Peel one egg to check how dark it is; the others can be returned to the liquid if you wish to have the web-like pattern darker. Allow the eggs to cool fully.

8. To serve, peel and slice the eggs in halves or quarters. Sprinkle with toasted sesame seeds.

Tiny Potatoes Roasted in Parchment Paper with Garlic, Rosemary and Thyme

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Last week I saw the cutest little potatoes at the Greenmarket. About the size of thumbnail each, they looked absolutely adorable — and I knew exactly how I wanted to cook them.

I wanted to roast them. In parchment paper.

I cannot express to you how essential a roll of parchment paper is in my kitchen. I use sheets of it all the time. They’re non-stick. They make clean-up a breeze. They line my sheet pans when I roast vegetables. They keep my pie weights away from my delicate tart crusts when I par-bake them.

And they make it possible to cook things en papillote, which is a fancy French way of saying that you cook your food in an “envelope” that you have made out of parchment paper.

Parchment paper is amazing. It lets just enough moisture release while cooking so that your food comes out perfectly moist and juicy, but not water-logged. Potatoes done in this way are crispy on the outside, and meltingly tender on the inside. They are practically like little orbs of confit.

It’s so simple to do, yet looks so impressive — like a beautiful present.

And who doesn’t like presents?

Ingredients:

About 1/2 pound of tiny potatoes per 12 x 16-inch sheet of parchment paper

Olive oil

Kosher salt

Pepper

1 sprig of rosemary

A few sprigs of thyme

1 fat clove of garlic, lightly smashed but still in its papery skin

How to prepare:

1. Preheat your oven to 400°.

2. Thoroughly wash and dry your potatoes. Put the potatoes in a large bowl and drizzle them with olive oil. Sprinkle them liberally with salt and freshly ground black pepper. With your hands, toss the potatoes together so that they are evenly coated with the oil and the seasonings.

3. Take a large sheet of parchment paper (about 12 x 16 inches) and fold it in half width-wise. Lay it out on a baking sheet. Turn the potatoes out onto one half of the paper. Arrange them in a single layer. Add the garlic clove to the potatoes, and lay the sprigs of rosemary and thyme on top. Fold the other half of the paper on top of the potatoes.

4. Beginning at bottom corner of one side, fold over or crimp the edges of the parchment paper as you move from one side to the other until you have a half-moon shape.

Now, traditionally you’re supposed to fold your parchment paper in half, and trim it into a heart shape (just like you did for Valentine’s Day back in school) before stuffing and crimping. However, I don’t know if this does anything other than make your half-moon a prettier shape. Maybe it also gets rid of excess parchment paper if you have cut off a sheet that is too big.

In any case, you can do it if you want to, but it’s not necessary.

To help you visualize crimping, here is a video with Chef Paul Prudhomme, who will pronounce en papillote any dang way he pleases.

5. Roast the potatoes for 45 minutes. Your kitchen will fill with the heavenly smell of rosemary, garlic, and thyme. Remove the potatoes from the oven. The parchment parcel will be all puffed up from the steam inside. Let the parcel sit for about 5 minutes before carefully (watch out!) using a pair of scissors to slit it open. Remove the garlic, thyme, and rosemary, and serve the potatoes straight from the paper.

Balsamic-Roasted Butternut Squash and Apple Soup

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This is a neat little twist on butternut squash soup. Roasting the squash concentrates its flavor. Roasting it in a buttery syrup accented with balsamic vinegar adds a little bit of bite, and a whole lot of interest.

Ingredients:

1 butternut squash, seeded, peeled and cut into 1-inch pieces

1 tablespoon of butter

1 tablespoon of olive oil

1 packed tablespoon of dark brown sugar

1 tablespoon of balsamic vinegar

2 teaspoons of salt

1 pinch of cayenne pepper

1 large shallot, minced

Olive oil

1 Gala apple, cored, peeled and cut into 1-inch pieces

3 cups of chicken stock

1 cup of apple cider

3 tablespoons of maple syrup

1/3 cup of heavy cream

Salt

crème fraîche to serve

Special equipment:

A hand-held immersion blender

How to prepare:

1. Preheat your oven to 400°.

2. In a small saucepan, heat the butter and the olive oil together over very gentle heat. When the butter has melted, add the brown sugar, balsamic vinegar, cayenne pepper and salt. Stir everything together until everything is well-incorporated. Continue to heat everything for a minute or two more. The mixture will become syrupy, and the harshness of the vinegar will soften a little bit.

3. In a large bowl, toss the butternut squash and the butter mixture together. Spread the squash out evenly on a parchment paper-lined cookie sheet. Roast the squash until it is tender, about 15-20 minutes. When the squash is done, transfer it from the hot pan to a bowl.

4. Heat some olive oil in a large casserole or Dutch oven over medium heat. When the oil starts to shimmer, add the shallots. Sauté them until they begin to soften. Add the apples to the shallots, and heat them together for about a minute or two. Add the butternut squash, and stir everything together. Add the chicken stock and the apple cider. Let everything simmer for about 20 minutes, skimming any foam that rises to the surface.

5. When the apples are tender, blend everything together with an immersion blender until smooth. Adjust the seasoning. Add the maple syrup and heavy cream. Stir everything together, and adjust the seasoning for a final time. Garnish with a dollop of crème fraîche and serve.

Roasted Miso-Curry Delicata Squash with Pork

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Yet another recipe adapted from Heidi Swanson’s Super Natural Every Day. This dish is a marvelous mixture of flavors and textures. It also shows off some of the first of Fall’s bounty: the gorgeous Delicata squash.

Oblong and streaked with golden yellow, forest green, and ivory, Delicata squash have a thin and delectable skin that does not need to be peeled. It cooks quickly, and yields a sweet, pure taste.

Though Swanson’s original recipe, like all of her recipes, is vegetarian, I find that the addition of thinly sliced pork goes well with the miso-curry sauce.

Ingredients:

A scant 1/4 cup of white miso

A scant 1 tablespoon of Thai red curry paste

Olive oil

1 Delicata squash

About 1 pound of small red potatoes, quartered or cut into even chunks

1 boneless pork chop (about 1/2 a pound), cut into 1/4 inch-thick slices

1-2 handfuls of shelled pepitas

Half a bunch of roughly chopped lacinato kale, stems removed

2/3 cup cilantro, roughly chopped

The juice of 1 limes (2 if the limes are small)

How to prepare:

1. Heat your oven to 400°.

2. In a small bowl, whisk together the white miso, the red Thai curry paste, and about a 1/4 cup of olive oil with a fork. Add more oil to loosen up the mixture if it seems too thick.

3. Trim both ends of the Delicata squash. Cut it in half lengthwise. Scoop out all of the seeds and discard them. Cut each half into 1/2-inch half moons.

4. In a medium bowl, combine the squash and the potatoes with about half of the miso-curry mixture. Toss the vegetables together with your hands until they are evenly coated. Turn the vegetables out onto a parchment paper-lined rimmed baking sheet. Spread them out in a single layer, and bake them for about 20 minutes.

5. In a small bowl, toss the pork with half of the remaining sauce. After the potatoes and the squash have roasted for about 20 minutes, evenly scatter the pork and the pepitas over the tops of them. Continue to roast everything until the pork is cooked and the potatoes are done, about 15 minutes more.

6. In a large bowl, combine the kale, the cilantro, the remaining miso-curry, and the lime juice. Add the roasted pork and vegetables to them. Toss everything gently together. Serve and enjoy.

Black Bean Salad with Oven-Roasted Tomatoes, Corn, Almonds, and Lemon Zest

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This is another great recipe adapted from Heidi Swanson’s Super Natural Every Day. Swanson, whose blog 101 Cookbooks is an amazing source of ideas and inspiration, makes food that is healthy, wholesome, a little quirky, always delicious, and never preachy.

The great thing about her vegetarian recipes is how amenable they are to your tastes. You can substitute chicken for tofu, or add shrimp, or beef, or pork, and the dishes will still be great.

For this recipe, I added local corn and the farfalle. Since Hurricane Irene, our farmers need all the help we can give them. Though NYC was mostly spared, many of the farmers and growers who bring the literal fruits of their labor every week to us were not. Almost no farm was left untouched by the flooding.

Support local and please make a donation here.

Ingredients:

1 pint of Sun Gold tomatoes (cherry or grape tomatoes work too), halved

Salt and pepper

Granulated cane sugar

Olive oil

3/4 cup of raw almonds, halved width-wise

1 cup of corn kernels (about two ears)

2 15-ounce cans of black beans, rinsed and drained

1/3 pound of farfalle, prepared according to package directions

The grated zest of one lemon

The juice of one lemon

1/4 pound of French feta, crumbled

How to prepare:

1. Preheat your oven to 350°.

2. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper. Spread the tomato halves over the sheet and sprinkle them liberally with salt and sugar. Drizzle the halves with olive oil. Toss everything together so that the tomatoes are evenly coated in the oil, salt, and sugar. Arrange the tomatoes cut-side up. Roast them until they have shrunken, and have begun to caramelize around their edges, about 45 minutes. Remove them from the oven, and when they are cool, scrape them into a large bowl along with all their caramelized juices.

3. Meanwhile, heat the almonds in a single layer in a large cast-iron skillet set over medium heat. Toss them around every couple of minutes until they are fragrant and toasty. Be sure to monitor the nuts closely; they can burn in a minute! When the almond halves are toasted, add them to the same large bowl as the tomatoes.

4. Wipe out the skillet and add about 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Heat the pan over medium-high heat until the oil begins to shimmer. Add the corn, and toss the kernels in the hot oil until they begin to brown. Add the corn to the same large bowl as the almonds and tomatoes.

5. Add the remaining ingredients to the bowl and drizzle everything with olive oil. Toss everything together well. Adjust the seasoning and serve.

Penne al Pomodoro Crudo (Penne with Raw Tomato Sauce)

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Indian summer, that strange spike in temperature and humidity that occurs following the first frost. Okay, so maybe we haven’t had a first frost yet, but the weather in the Mid-Atlantic has been so screwy lately that it makes me feel like anything goes.

I just know that it has been pretty warm out, warm enough to make me still crave food that minimally requires use of my stove.

Pomodoro crudo is the simplest of sauces, and an excellent way to savor the very last of this season’s tomatoes. I used a big, fat heirloom tomato, the jolie-laide of summer fruit. A little gnarly, very misshapen, but incredibly full, flavorful, and delicious.

And it goes without saying that the better your core ingredients, the better the sauce will be.

Ingredients:

About 1 to 1 1/2 pounds of very good, very ripe tomatoes

1 clove of garlic, lightly crushed

About 2 tablespoons of excellent extra-virgin olive oil

Salt and pepper

Fresh basil

About 1/3 pound of dried penne

How to prepare:

1. Bring a large pot of water to boil.

2. Set up a large ice water bath.

3. When the water begins to boil, score an X on the bottom of each tomato. Drop the tomatoes gently into the boiling water and leave them in for about 20-30 seconds, depending on how big your tomatoes are. Remove them carefully from the boiling water, and slip them into the ice water bath. You should now be able to easily remove the skin of each tomato.

4. Once all the tomatoes are peeled, cut them in half and remove the seeds. Chop each tomato, and transfer everything to a medium-sized bowl. Season the tomatoes with salt and pepper to taste (you can salt liberally). Add the olive oil and the crushed clove of garlic. Stir everything together, and let the sauce sit covered and undisturbed on the counter for about 30 minutes.

5. Bring a large pot of salted water to boil. Add the penne and cook it until it is just slightly under-al dente. Drain the pasta and add it to the sauce. Toss everything together, and remove the garlic clove.

The pasta should begin to absorb some of the excess liquid in the sauce.

Hand-tear a handful of basil and add it to pasta. Toss again, and serve.

Insalata Caprese (Tomato, Mozzarella, and Basil)

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The whole summer has been building up to this moment.

Tomatoes.

Shiver.

It’s true that tomatoes, thanks to globalization and hothouse farming, are available year-round. But those tomatoes are wan in comparison to real, ripe field tomatoes. I’m talking about local tomatoes. Tomatoes that are juicy and complex, almost ambrosial. Not thin and mealy tomatoes.

With tomatoes this good, only the simplest preparation will do them justice.

Slice them into rounds. Top them with thick slices of mozzarella di bufala, if you can. Sprinkle them with flaky Maldon salt. Hand-tear heady leaves of basil, and scatter them over the top. Dribble the best extra-virgin olive oil that you have over everything. Have some good crusty bread ready to sop up the juices left on the plate in after the tomatoes are gone. A pleasant wake.

Balsamic vinegar, though trendy, does not belong in insalata caprese; it’s strong flavor overwhelms the delicate acidity of good, late summer tomatoes.