December 01, 2007
Mussels a la Back Eddy
These are a great starter or main part of a meal with bread and salad. The recipe is based on the mussels served at Westport, Mass., standout The Back Eddy. It isn't exactly like the restaurant's version (which is exquisite, especially eaten with a view of the water), but pretty close and very tasty. Done in a flash:
Put 2 Tbsp. olive oil in a hot saute pan. Add 1 Tbsp. grated fresh ginger and a sprinkling (up to 1 Tbsp.) of ground chilis or red pepper flakes. Cook hot for one minute.
Add 1 clove garlic, minced or pressed and 1 lb. mussels in their nice closed shells. Spread 'em around then cook till they open.
Add 1/4 c. hoisin sauce, cook another minute. Add 1/2 c. coconut milk and cook for 1 minute longer. Turn off heat. Add juice of one lime.Garnish with fresh cilantro, if you happen to have it. Serve with crusty bread.
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April 01, 2007
More Soup: Spring Minestrone
This soup is actually kind of dry, more like a wet pasta, but very tasty and springlike. It’s very quick to make and satisfyingly efficient—you can be chopping the stuff that comes later while the first stuff is cooking. Here's how:
Heat 2 Tbsp. olive oil in a large saucepan. Add 1 chopped leek (white & light green parts) and cook over moderately high heat until softened, about 5 minutes.
Add 6 c. chicken stock and bring to a boil. Stir in 1 c. small pasta (ditalini, stars, etc.) and ½ t. salt. Simmer for 5 minutes.
Add 10 skinny asparagus stalks cut into 1-inch lengths, 1 small fennel bulb (diced), ¼ lb.sugar snap peas, 1 c. chopped Swiss chard and 1 can drained cannellini beans. Simmer until pasta is tender, about 5 minutes longer.
Add 1 c. frozen peas (thawed). Recipe called for 2 Tbsp. chopped mint (I didn't have it). Salt and pepper and simmer for 1 minute longer. Ready to eat! Grate parmesan on top.
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January 23, 2007
Roasted Cauliflower Soup and Sauteed Shrimp
Roasted cauliflower apparently made the rounds in the food blogosphere awhile ago, but I have never claimed to not be behind the times.
Preheat oven to 400 F. Take a head of cauliflower, break or cut it into small bite-size pieces, a bit smaller than you might usually. Toss it with a few Tbsp of olive oil, 2-4 cloves garlic minced, kosher salt and a sprinkling of fresh lemon juice. Spread it on a baking sheet and bake for 20 minutes. Take out of oven and grate Parmesan cheese over it.
Meanwhile, heat a few Tbps. of olive oil in a saute pan, add another few minced up garlic cloves. In a minute add half a pound of peeled shrimp (ideally fresh wild-caught Maine shrimp, button-cute and tender). Saute till they whiten.
Serve together with a green salad, Chardonnay. Good.
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August 30, 2006
Grilled Pork Tenderloin with Quinoa Mango Salad
Slap some oil, salt and pepper on a little pork tenderloin and grill till cooked thru, not dry—depends on size. The simple recipe below comes (slightly adapted) from Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone.
Boil 3 c. water. Add 1/2 t salt and 1-1/4 c. rinsed quinoa. Lower heat, cover, simmer till tender, 12-15 min. Drain.
Chop 1 mango into bite sized squares.
Toss cooked quinoa with mango plus 3 sliced scallions (including an inch of green), 1 jalapeno seeded and diced or a smaller portion of whatever spicy chile you have around, and the vinaigrette—see below.
Sprinkle with 1/3 c. almonds, roasted.
Vinaigrette
Pound 1 clove garlic with 1/4 t. salt in mortar until smooth. Combine with 2 T yogurt, 1 t curry powder. Stir in 1-1/2 T lemon juice. Then whisk in 5 T light oil (safflower, sunflower). Let stand 15 minutes. Stir in 2 T finely chopped cilantro.
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July 10, 2006
Grilled Coconut Shrimp
This is adapted from a recipe on Down Home Soul Food Cooking Blog.
1-1/2 lb. shrimp, shelled & deveined
1 can coconut milk
1/3 c. fresh lime juice
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 t salt
1 t ground black pepper
Rinse shrimp and pat dry. Place in large sealable plastic bag. In a bowl, combine coconut milk, lime juice, garlic, S&P. Pour that over the shrimp, seal bag and marinate in fridge for 30 min.
That gives you some time to make some rice or a salad, shuck some corn, or contemplate your wine selection (dry riesling was nice).
Fire up your grill. Toss shrimp in a grill pan, or put them on skewersand grill until just pink. Very nice, delicate sweet flavor. Reasonably healthy. Fast and painless in hot weather.
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June 10, 2006
Butternut Squash & Cashew Soup
Got this recipe from a friend—don't know its original provenance. It suits all requirements of being good for you and fast. Can even make it vegan by replacing milk with almond milk and butter with o.o. Here 'tis.
Heat 1/4 c. olive oil and 4 T butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Cook 1 onion (chopped) till soft, not brown—about 5 min.
Add one 2-lb. butternut squash (peeled and chopped), 1 tsp. curry powder, salt and pep to taste. Cook 5 minutes.
Add 2/3 c. milk and 2 c. water, bring to boil.
Simmer 30 min. Add 1 c. chopped cashews. Blend, blend, blend till smooth and thick.
I used roasted unsalted cashews, seemed to work. A swirl of yogurt or creme fraiche looks pretty on top and adds a nice tang.
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March 30, 2006
Roast Lamb
Simple. Two pounds fed 3 adults well. I winged the rub, but it went about as follows:
A 2-lb boned Icelandic, free-range, grass-fed, herded by Icelandic pony-riding cowboys leg of lamb
1 big clove garlic
1.5 T olive oil
t salt
t balsamic vinegar
fresh rosemary (dry works all right, too)
black pepper
Preheat oven to 475-500. Mash garlic and salt in mortar & pestle. Add oil and vinegar and broken up rosemary leaves, plus pepper to taste. Stir it up and smear it on the meat (leave the strings on). Put in hot oven for 10 minutes, then reduce heat to 425 for another 40-50 minutes.
Very tasty. Delicata squash and green salad a nice accompaniment. Halve the squash, scrape out seeds, lay cut side down on a baking sheet or flat pan and put in the oven for the last 20-25 minutes while the meat cooks. Plop butter in the cavity to serve.
A Spanish jumilla goes nicely, as does apple crisp.
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September 29, 2005
Grilled Green Chicken
This is from the food blog Toast. It’s quite good and super fast. Flexible, too. I adapted with what I had on hand and was very happy with the results. We had corn on the cob and steamed broccoli with it, done in half an hour.
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
¼ c chopped parsley
¼ c cilantro leaves
1 clove garlic (I used 1 shallot)
1 jalapeno pepper (optional; I used half a dried red chili)
¼ c olive oil
juice of 1 lemon (I used a lime)
2 small ripe tomatoes, chopped
salt and pepper
1 tsp grain mustard
Put the herbs, garlic, and pepper in a food processor (or use immersion blender). Zap them with a drizzle of olive oil and continue adding oil and lemon/lime juice until you have a thin sauce.
Make a few diagonal slits in the chicken breasts with a sharp knife. Slather half the herb sauce on them, pushing some into the slits. Salt and pepper, and place them on a hot grill.
In the meantime, chop the tomatoes and toss them with the rest of the reserved sauce and the mustard. When the chicken is grilled on both sides and done in the middle, serve them over a helping of the saucy tomatoes.
Although white wine might be indicated (especially on a hot night), a soft Bardolino served just fine.
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September 24, 2005
Fast Fish Stew
Preparation time: 25 minutes. I ever so slightly adapted this from a recipe on the blog Simply Recipes. It is incredibly easy to make, given how tasty the results. The key ingredient is the clam juice, the blogger Elise says, though you can prepare it for people with shellfish allergies substituting fish stock or water. I used haddock, which worked nicely.
5 T olive oil
1 cup of chopped onions
2 large garlic cloves, chopped
2/3 cup fresh parsley, chopped
8 oz of clam juice
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 cup of fresh chopped tomato
2 tsp tomato paste
1 lb fish fillets (use halibut, cod, sole, sea bass, shark, orange roughy), cut into 2-inch pieces
Touch of dry oregano, Tabasco, thyme, pepper
Heat olive oil in heavy pot over medium-high heat. Add chopped onion and garlic and sauté 4 minutes. Add parsley and stir 2 minutes. Add tomato, tomato paste and cook 2 minutes longer. Add clam juice, dry white wine, and fish and simmer until fish is cooked through, less than 10 minutes. Add seasoning. Ladle into bowls and serve.
Serves 2 generously, or 4 as first course.
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September 15, 2005
Tastes of Summer
The reason grilled beef and corn on the cob are such summer classics is that they are incredibly easy and go so well together. Throw in a few sliced garden tomatoes with a dollop of mayo, or some green beans (grilled too, in a grill basket after brushing with olive oil) and you have a colorful, delicious, balanced meal.
Flank steak used to be not so popular for suburban grills, because it is quite lean, which is what makes it more popular nowadays. It’s also very flavorful and fairly tender. Slice against the grain for serving.
It’s typically very thin, so takes only minutes a side. I have a friend who slathers hers with Dijon mustard before grilling. Or, here’s a really simple recipe for salsa verde, which makes a nice sauce on the meat:
2/3 c parsley leaves
6 anchovy filets
1 garlic clove, minced
2 T capers, drained
½ c olive oil
1 t red wine vinegar
In a food processor pulse everything except the oil until coarsely blended. Add the oil in a thin stream with the machine on. That’s it. You could do it in a mortar & pestle too, if the power were out or something, but it’d stop being so easy!
What's really nice with this is a Cabernet Sauvignon or Bordeaux, if the nights are cooling a bit....
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September 07, 2005
A Note on Meat
After having been a vegetarian for nine years, I admit I do eat meat. And feel guilty about it too, if I think about it. Part of my vegetarianism was simply taste: I didn’t care for red meat much. Developing a taste for red wine kind of changed that. The other part of it was political/economic. The way meat is produced in the United States is for the most part inhumane and wasteful. I still feel strongly about that. But today, if you seek it out, you can find meat from small scale, even local farms and slaughterhouses, or at least buy the stuff from a Whole Foods type of place. It may cost more, but you don’t need to eat that much meat so it’s a worthwhile balance.
Why did I give up on being a vegetarian? I was staying in and eating at the Hotel Bel Sit in Comerio, Italy, for several weeks while training for World Rowing Championships. The food was fantastic, and classically Italian with primeri, secondi, etc. As we were rowing twice a day, even though we were kilo-conscious lightweights, the pasta course was a favorite. Besides it was unbelievably good. And varied—we never saw the same pasta shape or sauce combination twice. But a lot of the sauces had meat for flavoring. Two other vegetarians in my group continued to ask for “pasta solo con olio” during our entire stay and the waiters looked at them in the most puzzled way every time. I just decided to stop being the it-must-be-my-way American, and say, “When in Comerio….”
And I brought that Italian influence back home with me (more than a decade ago). Being a pure vegetarian is hard, from a social perspective, though certainly not impossible. Being an athlete without consuming animal protein is definitely an option, but I found it easier to stay lean and to not have that I’m-not-really-hungry-but-feel-compelled-to-eat kind of craving when I had some of it in my diet. Maybe it’s age or something coincidental, but there it is, my anecdotal experience. An interesting review of multiple studies from the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition reports that “The available evidence supports neither a beneficial nor a detrimental effect of a vegetarian diet on physical performance capacity, especially when carbohydrate intake is controlled for.” So, you can make what you want to do work.
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September 02, 2005
More Tomatoes
If you don’t like tomatoes, rest assured, the season’s short.
This recipe came from my sister-in-law who has edited and written many cookbooks. It’s very simple and may not look like much but tastes exquisite.
You need:
3-8 garden fresh tomatoes
2 cloves garlic
Salt
Handful of basil leaves
1 pound pasta with whorls or wrinkles
Boil water to make the pasta. Before you put the pasta in, plunge each tomato in the boiling water for a few seconds, then move to cold water to loosen the skin. Peel. If you like, remove the seeds. Chop tomatoes. Set them in a bowl and sprinkle with salt. Let them sit.
Cook the pasta in the boiling water you just used, or wait and do it later.
In a mortar and pestle, grind up a clove or two of garlic with a half teaspoon of salt. Throw in a few chopped-up basil leaves and bruise those. Stir that mash into the tomatoes, and cut some more basil leaves into the bowl. The longer this sits the more intense the juices become.
Once the pasta’s ready, just put it together with the tomatoes and stir. Sprinkle with grated cheese. Summer’s good.
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August 31, 2005
Fresh Tomato Soup
Hot summer night, cold soup, fresh tomatoes.... This recipe is adapted from Food and Wine's website (access to recipes is on-and-off restricted to subscribers or those with a code off the newsstand issue). Easy, if slightly fussy.
You'll need:
Fresh garden tomatoes, about 2 pounds
1 T olive oil
1 t balsamic vinegar
Half pound of crabmeat 1 T lime juice 2 T finely chopped red onion 2 t chopped fresh basil leaves 1 avocado Salt and pepper Stick each tomato in boiling water for 10 seconds, then in cold water. This makes them easy to peel. Peel them and remove the seeds. I don't know a graceful way to do it, but it makes a difference. Chop 'em and pop 'em in the blender with 1 T olive oil and 1 t balsamic vinegar. Blend till smooth. Add salt and pepper to taste. Chill by placing in a bowl of icewater.
In a separate bowl, combine the half pound of crabmeat with 1 T of lime juice, 2 T finely chopped red onion, and 2 t chopped-up basil. Coarsely chop an avocado and add that gently to the mix.
Put the soup in individual bowls and put the crab mixture on top. We ate it happily with some store-bought pizza dough rolled flat, grilled, and sprinkled with olive oil, salt, parmesan and rosemary.
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August 22, 2005
Stuffed Zucchini
What should you make?
Stuffed zucchini.
This delicious dish has a lot going for it: Healthy, meatless, quick and simple to fix. Plus it looks elegant. I modified the recipe from a lovely blog called Chocolate & Zucchini.
Quantities are very forgiving to fudging and adaptation. This serves two people. Nice with sliced tomatoes and mayo on the side….
Four 6-8 inch zucchinis
Couple of cloves garlic
Herbes de Provence (pinch or so)
Couple tablespoons of pesto, or some chopped-up basil
1 cup quinoa
1 cup ricotta cheese
2 T pine nuts, toasted
Olive oil
Salt, pepper
Slice the zucchini in half the long way. With a melon baller, scoop out the seeds and innards, careful not to puncture the skin. Rub a little oil on them and set them face-down on a baking sheet, sprinkle with salt and bake in a fairly hot (375 F or so) oven for about 20 minutes (toaster oven works too!).
Meanwhile, sautee the scooped-out zucchini bits, garlic and herbes de Provence gently in some olive oil. In a saucepan, put 1 cup of quinoa into two cups of water and bring to a boil, then simmer about 15 minutes, until al dente.
When quinoa is ready, mix it with zucchini sautee, 1 cup ricotta cheese, pinenuts and basil/pesto. Salt and pepper to taste. Take the zucchini out, turn them so the hollow side is up, fill them with the gooey grain filling and garnish as you wish. Yum.
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