Okay, for any of you who think you might get a holiday gift from me in the next few weeks and don’t like ruined surprises, stop reading now!
For the rest of you who want to know what’s in those darling boxes, click the link below for a great homemade gift idea.
Who out there has gotten hit by the first surge of winter bugs? Cold, flu, fever, random thing that saps your brain cells of any cognitive capabilities? Well, you’re not alone. I’d been teetering on the brink for a few days and this morning I finally had to admit I’m sick.
I’m not good at being sick. It doesn’t happen often. I accredit my freakishly hardy stock to eating lots of powerhouse veggies and shocking my system every morning with a freezing cold bike ride. Apparently it’s not a fool proof system.
I won’t bore you with my childish whining. Instead I’ll put forth a recipe made up of the aforementioned powerhouse veggies in hopes that we’ll all get through this winter cold season relatively unscathed. And if not, at least we’ll eat well along the way.
Bring on the dark leafy green things! In this case, kale and collard greens, which are packed from stem to leaf tip with vitamins and minerals that wallop a punch. And as an added bonus, the spicy heat in this dish will clear your stuffy nose right out!
Still in season here in the mid-Atlantic region, hardy greens can be gotten fresh at the farmers market for another few weeks. When comparing bunches to buy, just remember that smaller leaves = younger = more tender. So as tempting as it is to let our “more is better so give me the biggest bunch” instinct take over, you’ll really get more value out of the smaller greens. They cook much faster and don’t have that bitterness which turns off many people. Kale and collards also have a decent “shelf life” — they’ll hold up for two weeks or more in the fridge.
In addition to the cornucopia of vitamins from the greens in this stick-to-your-ribs ragu, the cannellini beans supply a healthy dose of magnesium, which in turn loosens up your circulatory system so more oxygen and nutrients can get around your body to fight the good fight. It’s worth stocking up on these fresh greens while you can. Tuck away extra kale and bean ragu in the freezer so you’ll be ready to combat any winter bug. After all, what sick soul wants to cook? Not I.
A note about the photography for this post: I’m sorry to deprive you of color, but I wanted to challenge myself to find beauty in the forms of the veggies and not so much in their dark green splendor. In the shot of the final dish you didn’t miss much as it wasn’t all that pretty, unless you’re into that “rustic” look.
KALE AND BEAN RAGU
Adapted from Allrecipes.com
2 T. extra virgin olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
1 large bunch of kale and/or collards (about 4 c. chopped)
14 oz. can of diced tomatoes
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 1/2 c. water
2 bay leaves
1 small pablano, finely minced
1/2 t. ground cumin
1 scallion, chopped
2 15 oz. cans of cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
1 t. dried oregano
1 T./cube of frozen basil (or fresh if in season)*
salt and freshly ground black pepper
*This was a great opportunity to use my stash of frozen basil from earlier.
Prepare kale and/or collards by washing the leaves and trimming off stems. Stack and roll leaves into a cigar and chop into thin ribbons. Heat oil in a large deep skillet over medium-high heat. Add the chopped onions and kale/collards. Stir and cook until onions are transparent and greens wilt and reduce.
Turn heat down to medium-low and add tomatoes and water. Stir and then add garlic, bay leaves, cumin, and scallion. Simmer the mixture until the greens are soft; this could take anywhere from 25 minutes to an hour, depending on how young the greens were. Greens are done when stems are very tender.
Stir in the beans and simmer until beans are heated through, about 10 minutes. Stir in the oregano and basil. Add salt and pepper to taste. Fish out the bay leaves and serve immediately. If desired, top with some grated cheese.
(serves 4-6)
Here we are at the end of the autumn season (in my book, winter officially starts December 1st). In case you weren’t around back at the start of the autumn season, I’d like to revisit the value of roasting vegetables in the grander scheme of a recipe. Yes, roasting is more time consuming than the boiling usually called for in recipes such as the one for this tasty mash. But it intensifies the natural flavors of the vegetables and also infuses them with the flavors of whatever herbs and seasonings you may be using. In this case, instead of just watered down sweet potato and cauliflower flavors, you get sweeter notes from the roasted potatoes, caramelized hints from the roasted garlic, and a much more robust whiff of mellowed garlic and delicate marjoram.
Gosh, I shouldn’t write these things over my lunch hour. I’m wishing I hadn’t eaten all of this mash for dinner last night so right about now I’d have had some for leftovers.
The best thing about this dish was that besides the roasting, which you can walk away from to go take a shower or clean the cats’ litter box or finally root through your crisper drawer and toss out the stuff that’s gotten shriveled, it was fast and left only one dirty bowl in the sink.
Wait. I lied. The very best thing about this dish is how “good for you” it is. You’ve got the beta carotene of the sweet potatoes, which is your starch for the meal. You’ve got the vitamin C of the cauliflower, which is your veggie for the meal. And since these two ingredients were roasted, there was no water to leech away the majority of these vitamins. Then you’ve got your bacon for protein and the sour cream for calcium/dairy. If you use the soy bacon and the fat free sour cream I suggest, the fat content is minimal and only the healthy kind to boot.
Wait. Sorry, I lied again. The very very best thing about this dish is how it tastes and looks! You would never guess this is one of the healthiest dishes I’ve put up on the blog (and there are a bunch to compete for that title). You’ll be charmed by how colorful and aromatic it is.
And that’s no lie!
ROASTED SWEET POTATO AND CAULIFLOWER MASH
Adapted from Food Cures: Treat Common Health Concerns, Look Younger & Live Longer
1 large sweet potato, peeled and cubed
1/2 a head of cauliflower, cut into florets
2 T. extra virgin olive oil
3 cloves of garlic, minced
pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 t. dried marjoram
salt and freshly grated black pepper
1/2 c. vegetable broth, heated
3 T. fat-free sour cream
8 strips of soy or regular bacon, cooked and crumbled
1 scallion, thinly sliced into rounds
Pre-heat oven to 350 F and line a baking sheet with foil. Place potato cubes and cauliflower florets on baking sheet and drizzle with oil. Toss to coat and sprinkle with garlic, nutmeg, marjoram, salt and pepper. Toss again, cover with foil and bake in oven for 20-30 minutes until vegetables are soft. Remove foil and roast for another 3-5 minutes to allow vegetables to brown just a bit.
When vegetables are done roasting, place in a medium bowl and mash with a fork or potato masher. Stir in heated vegetable broth and mash vegetables some more. Stir in sour cream and taste. Adjust seasoning as needed. Fold in bacon crumbles. Top with scallion and serve immediately.
(serves 2)
So I’m a little behind the times. I’m going to talk about Thanksgiving today. The truth is that I forgot all about this here soup I’m about to deliver and so you’re just hearing about it now. But this velvety potage is worth the wait.
I’m not much of a fan of Thanksgiving. Even though I have more than my fair share of zest for cooking and eating, the borderline gluttony of this holiday disturbs me. Before I left for college, it was also a markedly uncomfortable day of visiting with that side of the family. So it is that I haven’t attended official Thanksgiving feasts in over a decade. This particular Thanksgiving last week found me as usual, puttering around the house in my PJs.
The day was gusty and just warm enough here in the city that I had my front door open. The cats appeared to be watching a tennis match as they snapped their heads back and forth to mentally catch the leaves that were zipping around the yard. When I finally left them outside, they sprang and leaped all over the place, failing more often that not to secure the leaf they were after. Amused by my feline family, I got an itch to make something reminiscent of Thanksgiving for D and me to eat for dinner. None for the cats though, although they certainly tried to get a lick or two.
For me, creamy soups are the epitome of fall and harvest and, yes, Thanksgiving fare. Sunchokes, as those of you playing along will know, are a starchy root vegetable I’m really enjoying right now. I’d once looked at this recipe, entitled “Jerusalem Artichoke Soup”, in my dog-eared soup book but at the time had no idea what the heck a Jerusalem Artichoke was. Delighted at now being “in the know,” I was sure this soup would be just the thing for my I-dislike-this-holiday-but-I-kinda-want-to-embrace-its-flavors-anyway mood. And so it was.
While it pains me to say anything bad about the “fugly” sunchoke, in the interest of full disclosure I should issue a word to the wise about eating large quantities of them. Now, I have a stomach of steel so this didn’t happen to me, but I’ve been told that this soup may cause flatulence. Something to do with the inulin they contain, I suppose. In any case, if you haven’t tested your tolerance, you might want to start with just a small serving of this soup. But be prepared to call upon all your will power reserves. It’s hard to refrain from consuming the whole pot of this luscious stuff!
Sunchoke Soup with Saffron Crème
Adapted from The Cook’s Encyclopedia of Soup
4 T. butter
1 onion, chopped
5 or 6 sunchokes to equal 3 c. chopped
3 ¾ c. vegetable broth
2/3 c. milk
2/3 c. crème fraiche
pinch of saffron
salt and pepper
Chopped fresh chives to garnish
Thoroughly wash sunchokes and roughly peel. Don’t worry about getting every nook and crany. Roughly chop sunchokes into 1-2 inch pieces.
Melt the butter in a large heavy saucepan. Add the onion and sauté for 5-6 minutes until soft but not brown, stirring occasionally. Add the sunchokes to the pan and stir to coate with butter. Cover and cook over low heat for 15 minutes, being sure to stir them every once in awhile to keep them from burning.
While sunchokes sauté, mix crème fraiche and saffron together in a small bowl. Chill until ready serve.
When sunchokes have sautéed, pour in the vegetable stock and milk. Cover and simmer for 15 minutes or until the sunchokes are soft. Remove from heat and cool for a few minutes before processing with a stick blender or regular blender until smooth. Taste and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper as desired.
Serve immediately, topped with a dollop of saffron crème, fresh chives and a few strands of saffron.
(serves 3-4)
Sometimes — well, really it’s not all that often — I make a dish that I just can’t decide if I like or not. That’s not to say that I always hit a homerun in the kitchen. Oh no, no, no. I just don’t tell you about the flops. Blogger’s privilegest and all, ya know. But in the case of this pie, I’m completely undecided on its level of success. I’m kind of hoping a couple of you will make it and form a jury to declare its status. But most likely I’m not doing a very good job selling the idea to you so perhaps I should just make it again, tweak a few things and report back? Since we’re on the brink of December, I didn’t want to wait for “take 2″ for fear the urge for an autumn pie would scurry away with the last of the leaves on the trees.
Here’s the problem with this pie. My starting point was a recipe on allrecipes.com that claimed to be a quiche but was more likely to be a sweet souffle judging from the ingredient list and the reviews. I was looking for a side dish along to a small Thanksgiving gathering this past weekend so I didn’t really want something sweet. And well, if I wanted a quiche, I have a very good recipe for that already.
I did like the idea of a savory spinach squash souffle pie concoction. And since I had three of the main ingredients — carrots from the farm, and sweet potatoes and a Delicata squash from Headhouse – already on hand, this seemed like a good springboard from which to plunge into “a pinch here, a pinch there, take this away and add that in” pool. By the way, I love swimming in this pool as I usually feel my culinary creativity refreshed after a quick dip. Anyway, I dabbled a good bit with the recipe, including adding a pie crust, and took this pie along to a weekend Thanksgiving gathering.
It met with mixed reviews, including my own. The flavor was subtly spicy. But was it too subtle? The textures of the more solid spinach and the smoother squash puree contrasted. But was it a nice contrast? The crust most definitely made it a pie. But was it really meant to be a pie? (Whoa, just had a flash back to my college philosophy course!)
Oh, you were expecting answers to those questions? Hmmm…well, I do know that if I made it again I would stir the spinach and squash layers together. I’d also up the salt, pepper and cumin quantities. And I might just add another egg in there somewhere. But really I’m not sure that the recipe below isn’t fine just the way it is. The only thing I do know for sure is that this pie was much better served hot out of the oven (or reheated for 15 minutes at 250 F) than when it cooled to room temperature.
On a completely different note, I wanted to mention a great farmers market I got to visit over the weekend (shortly before eating this pie in fact) in Troy, New York. I’m constantly intrigued by how these amazing markets pop up in unexpected places. Troy, for anyone who’s not been there, is a small industrial city that, to be honest, doesn’t seem to hold much in the way of local foodie culture. And yet, plunked smack dab in the middle of it was this farmers market that rivals the Headhouse Market here in Philly. It had moved indoors for the winter so I’d suspect it might actually out stride Headhouse in the summer. Sadly, I didn’t bother to take my camera along so have nothing more to share with you than a couple links and the suggestion to seek out farmers markets during your travels. You just might be surprised where you find them.
The Market: Troy Farmers Market
I Bought Their Amazing Gouda Cheese: Clover Mead Farm
I Bought A Skein of Their Lovely Yarn to Make a Scarf: Dancing Lamb Farm
Savory Spinach Squash Soufflé Pie
Adapted from Allrecipes.com
Squash Puree
1 small winter squash, peeled and chopped
1 large sweet potato, peeled and diced
1 bunch of carrots, chopped (about 1 cup)
2 eggs, beaten
2 T. butter
2 T. extra virgin olive oil
1 t. salt
½ t. freshly ground black pepper
½ t. curry powder
¼ t. cayenne pepper
½ t. ground cumin
½ t. cinnamon
1 pinch freshly ground nutmeg
Spinach Puree
16 oz. frozen chopped spinach, thawed and drained
2 eggs, beaten
1 t. salt
¼ t. freshly ground black pepper
½ c. sour cream
2 T. bread crumbs
2 pie shells, frozen or fresh
In a large saucepan, combine chopped squash, sweet potato, and carrots. Pour in just enough water to cover vegetables and cook over low heat until very tender, about 30 minutes. Drain and roughly mash with a fork. Stir in butter and oil and allow to sit for a minute to let butter melt. Using a stick blender or regular blender, process squash mixture until smooth, adding 2 eggs and spices as it blends. Set aside.
Preheat oven to 350 F and pre-bake pie shells for 10 minutes.
Clean the blender and process spinach (be sure you squeezed out all the water), 2 eggs, sour cream and salt and pepper. Using a spatula, mix in the bread crumbs. Divide the spinach mixture between the two pie shells, flattening it with the spatula.
Gently pour squash mixture on top of spinach layer. Spread out a bit but leave an edge around the outside so the spinach can still be seen. Bake in preheated oven for 35 to 40 minutes until squash resists a lightly pressed finger. Serve immediately or prepare ahead and warm in the oven for 15 minutes before serving.
(serves 16)
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