Good Real Food

Our fridge went out on us this week. Yes, we can put some stuff on the porch still, but really, I could not go shopping for food this week. So, I had the motivation to cook using just what was on hand in the pantry and using up the last of the veggies from last week. I make red beans and rice a lot. It is a staple in our house often accompanied by our favorite hot sauce that we discovered on our honeymoon in Belize. Taking an outboard moterboat 3 miles off the coast of Dangriga to Tobacco Caye, we passed an island home owned by the famous Marie Sharp and soon learned why she has her own Island after tasting her sauces. I only had brown rice, so tried it and was pleasantly surprised. Along with some roasted sweet potatos and the last of the kale, it was lunch for two for two days.

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Yep - those 5 things, when combined, with a few other things make for a darn tasty and quick late winter/early spring pasta - at least here in MN they do.

I know that in other parts of the country, you’re experiencing the beginnings of spring. And truth be told, so were we here in the Twin Cities. At least last week. Then, it decided to get a bit nippy again, and now the weather people are talking about a few more inches of snow over the next two days before it all melts again.

So that was on my mind as I rode my bicycle home into a headwind (it seems to almost always be a headwind on the way home) as I headed the market before going home. On the way, I was recalling a pasta dish I’d made in the past that involved sauteed garlic, slow cooked onions, and lots of parsley. When I stepped into the market, the first thing I laid eyes on was a bunch of broccoli rabe. Out of that happy coincidence our dinner was born, and it turned out to be just the right “feel” for an early spring evening. And it was pretty darn quick too

Here’s what I did:

1. cooked my chick peas - we pretty much only use dried beans these days, so I tossed them in the pressure cooker while I
2. gently cooked some thinly sliced garlic over very low heat - we’re going for flavor extraction here, okay?
3. once that had cooked a while, I threw in some chopped onion and some dried marjoram
4. after that cooked a bit, I added my chickpeas, followed a few minutes later by my parsley and finally a can of diced tomato
5. I let all this cook down while my pasta cooked
6. oh, somewhere in there, I also added salt, pepper, and a tiny bit of crushed red pepper

As all this was happening, I quickly cooked the broccoli rabe by slow sauteeing garlic in olive oil, followed by adding the broccoli rabe and a bit of water and covering that and allowing to steam/cook through. Once it was done, I salted, peppered, and added a bit of crushed red chili, both by habit, but also cause I’d recently read the recipe for something similar over at We Are Never Full. I tossed the pan in the oven to keep warm while the pasta finished.

Once the pasta was cooked, I tossed it with the sauce, along with some grated Parmesan and a bit of the pasta water that I’d reserved before draining the pasta. When plating, I topped each bowl of pasta with a fanned out portion of the broccoli rabe - it was rather pretty even if I say so myself.

The verdict from my family was positive. My four year old daughter barely paused from inhaling the food to pronounce it “good.” It isn’t a “perfect” dish - there is still some work to be done to really bring it all together - and I invite your efforts, thoughts and comments to that end.

For what it’s worth, here is what I think works about this dish - first, the chickpeas and the earthy flavors of parsley and marjoram combine nicely with the garlic, onion, and tomato - the sauce has some layers of flavor that taste much more complex than the prep was. Second, I think the bitter flavor of the broccoli rabe contrasts really nicely with the whole wheat pasta and the chickpea sauce. The contrast really emphasizes the sweetness of the chickpeas and the pasta - a much needed flavor when winter seems to be holding on too long, and spring seems weeks aways.

So there you have it - a concept that I think it pretty good, and an invitation to tweak, revise, and otherwise modify till it’s “right” for you. If you choose to take this and “fix” it, I would love to know what you do to make it really work.

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My stepmother gave me these lovely little ramicans, I suspect, just so I could make her this dessert. I use the recipe from the book Roast Chicken and Other Stories by Simon Hopkinson.

What you need:

• 3/4 cup heavy cream
• 1/2 vanilla bean, split lengthwise (oh my goodness are these ever expensive! I used vanilla extract the first time I made these and it was good as well if you want to skip the vanilla bean splurge.)
• 6 tbsp milk
• 41/2 oz dark, bittersweet chocolate, broken into pieces (one standard bar of good dark chocolate does the trick)
• 2 egg yolks
• 1 heaped tbsp confectioners’ sugar

Preheat the oven to 275. Stir the cream with the vanilla bean and cover to infuse for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, melt the chocolate in the milk. Beat together the egg yolk and the sugar, add the chocolate milk and vanilla cream. Remove the vanilla bean if using and stir together. Pour into individual ramicans and bake in a water bath (place in an oven proof dish that you have filled 1/2 way with water) for 45 minutes to 1 hour. There should be a bit of a crust on the top when you get them out of the oven. Cool in the fridge for 6 hours or overnight. I added the rasberries and mint as a topping.

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kimchi on a hotdog

Seriously.  Try it.  It is really good.

In my defense, please know that the hot dogs we at are from Farm on Wheels, a small family farm in Kenyon, MN.  Their hot dogs are billed as old-fashioned and coarse ground, and they are really quite excellent. The kimchi was local too - from Angelica’s Garden in Elmwood, WI.  The kimchi was much less spicy than what I make, and had more of a sauerkraut-ish tang to it.

What’s your favorite/indulgent/guilty “junk food” pleasure?

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this is a minor variation on my usual kale recipe which involves sauteeing garlic and onions for a few, adding crushed red chili, followed by roughly chopped kale and cooking, covered till done to your liking.

The minor variation is this - cook your garlic over very low heat for a longer time - 10 minutes maybe, to really infuse your olive oil.  Turn up the heat to medium and add lots of very thinly sliced onions and cook till those are brown.  Then add your chili and kale and cook as usual.

The extended time on the garlic and onion really makes the sweetness of the onions and the flavor of the garlic pop, and creates a really nice contrast to the bitter flavor of the kale.

It was different enough from the usual that my daughter commented on it, hence this posting.  Enjoy.

By the way, in case you didn’t know this, the trick to getting truly brown onions is time.  Turn down the heat once you start to get a bit of color and cook, stirring frequently.  It takes a while, but the flavor is well worth it.

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Last night we hosted 20 some folks for my birthday party/fundraiser for the Progressive Technology Project (which would be where I work).
Because I’d just returned from a rather taxing week away, I decided to keep the food for the shindig as easy as I could, and though I hadn’t made this recipe before, figured it was simple enough and fairly straightforward and how could you really go wrong with veggies and beans and broth anyway?

As expected the soup came out nicely, though I can certainly see why the cooks that I lifted this recipe from added some bits of meat.  I sort of thought that some stew meat/pork/lamb would be a nice addition, though you’d want to change the cooking order a bit if going that route.  In any event, here’s a soup that’s quick to make, dead simple, and is filling and warming and everything else that winter soups should be.  Enjoy.

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What the heck is this? Well, it is practically the only local vegetable available (Wisconsin) so I should try it. This is what led me to buy one of these strange things today to take home and test it out.                                                                                                                        I found online a CSA farmer in California who fell in love with these Heirloom roots. “The black Spanish radish is an antique radish, a throwback to a time when people counted on storing roots to survive the winter.” He talks about his journey growing them and also has some interesting Recipes. I was inspired by the Asian influenced one on the site and created this salad using: 1 black spanish radish, two carrots, four scallions, 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes, 1 tbsp olive oil, 1 tbsp lemon juice, 1 tbsp rice wine vinigar, 1 tbsp sugar and 1/ 2 tsp salt. It has a very fresh spicy bite with a really clean finish that tasted amazing with a glass of beer. I brought the mixing bowl over to D right after I tasted it. He gave me a sour look for bothering his reading, but I held up a fork to his mouth. His eyes closed as he chewed and he reached for more with  a boyish grin.                                                                                 

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