See what’s on my plate

Asparagus Pasta

2021-05-24T00:00:00+00:00

One of the biggest changes to the way I make pasta is that I no longer place pasta in a huge pot of boiling water. I started using a sautee pan and added water and pasta to the pan and brought it to a boil.

Improvement two is that I no longer pour out all the water or rinsed the pasta when it was done. I take the noodles from the water and move them to the other sautee pan that contains my sauce.

Improvement three is that I add some of the starchy pasta water to the sauce to bring everything together.

This recipe from Anna Jones uses just the amount of water you need and cooks the noodles and sauce together to make her “One-pan pea, lemon, and asparagus pasta.”

I made a half serving - the original was double this amount. Also, I used spinach but feel free to use watercress, sorrel, or another green.

Ingredients

50g spinach
1 lemon
200 g spaghetti
1/2 liter water
200 g asparagus
1 clove garlic
100g peas
50g olive oil
1/2 teaspoon salt
20g parmesan

Directions

Cut the tips off the asparagus and reserve them. Cut the rest of the usable asparagus into .5cm slices. Zest the lemon. Slice the garlic thinly. Boil water in a teapot or in a separate pan.

Place the pasta, asparagus, lemon zest, garlic, oil, salt, and peas into a pan. I used a pan large enough to lay the pasta down that had a lid - the lid seemed to be unnecessary.

Add 1/2 liter of boiling water and turn the stove on and bring the pasta back to a boil.

From the time it returns to a boil you’re going to cook for eight minutes. Every thirty seconds you’re going to toss the pasta with tongs. This is what lets the pasta cook evenly as it can’t be bubbling away in water.

Cut the spinach a bit to give you something to do while the pasta cooks.

After eight minutes reduce the heat to a simmer and stir in the spinach, asparagus tips, and the juice of half a lemon. You can add basil or mint if you like - I didn’t. Simmer for another two minutes.

Serve the pasta and top with parmesan cheese and if you like a little finishing olive oil.

This was so simple and so good.

Green Bean and Simple Tonato Sauce Salad

2021-05-17T00:00:00+00:00

I started to make another recipe from Ottolenghi’s Flavor and was tasting along the way. I know he has a whole other part where he makes a sauce to go on top but I thought it was wonderful as it stands.

Adjust the amounts as you wish

Salad Ingredients

1/2 lbs green beans
3 tbs diced rhubarb
2 Tbs bread crumbs

Simple Tonato Sauce

small can of tuna fish packed in oil
2 anchovy fillets packed in oil
2 tbs mayonaise
juice of a lemon

Directions

Mix the sauce ingredients together and blend with an immersion blender, a real blender, or a food processor. The sauce should be pretty thin. If you want a thicker sauce add a tablespoon or so of olive oil while you’re blending.

Boil water for the green beans. Salt the water and add the green beans. After two minutes taste a bean - the color should be deepened, the flavor should be vibrant, and the beans should be cooked but not too soft. Remove the beans and put them in a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking. Once the beans are cool drain them.

Put the beans in a bowl. Drizzle tonato sauce on top. Sprinkle bread crumbs on top of the sauce - I used crumbs from some whole wheat bread I made - dried in a low oven.

Add diced rhubarb to the plate and serve.

Shaved Asparagus Salad

2021-05-14T00:00:00+00:00

Adjust the amounts as you wish

Ingredients

1/2 lbs asparagus
4 Tbs mint leaves
2 Tbs lime juice
3 Tbs pistachio nuts
2 Tbs olive oil

Directions

Shell the pistachios and heat them in a pan to toast them. Be careful not to add too much color or burn them - you’re just bringing out the flavor.

Cool the pistachios and cut them into small bits (see the picture).

Shave the asparagus thin. You can use a vegetable peeler, a mandoline, or a food processor - or show off your great knife skills.

Cut up or tear the mint leaves.

Toss the ingredients together reserving a tablespoon of the pistachios to sprinkle on top.

Potato Salad

2021-04-28T00:00:00+00:00

I never would have thought of adding lettuce to potato salad. It lightened it up and changed the texture and tasted great. This was mentioned by Chef Jamie Simpson in a video from Farmer Jones about this week’s box of vegetables.

Adjust the amounts as you wish

Ingredients

2 lbs russet potatoes
4 Tbs rice wine vinegar
2 Tbs sugar
2 Tbs Dijon mustard
2 Tbs chopped pickles or pickle relish
3/4 cup mayonnaise
3 ribs of celery diced
1/2 medium onion or 2 spring onions sliced
2 heads romaine lettuce chopped

Directions

Put the potatoes in water that is just below a boil for 15 - 20 minutes.

Peel their skins and reserve for another recipe.

Dice the potatoes and sprinkle 2 Tbs of the vinegar on them. Let them cool completely.

Add the other 2 Tbs vinegar, the sugar, mustard, relish, and mayonnaise. Grind fresh pepper and sprinkle with salt and toss to completely cover.

Add the celery, onion, and lettuce and mix thoroughly.

The salad will be better on day two.

Carrot Slaw

2021-04-25T00:00:00+00:00

I bought these beautiful three color carrots from Farmer Jones. Orange. Yellow. Purple.

I washed them and tasted one.

Amazing.

It tasted like a carrot.

So I took out a vegetable peeler and peeled them into little noodles of carrot and split the ends between me and the dog.

You can do anything with this. Add some acid, more vegetables if you want, and something crunchy.

Here’s what I got.

You’ll note that I went out and got peanuts after not having them the other day.

Ingredients

A bunch of carrots
A couple of spring onions or half a medium onion
A couple of medium or sweet peppers
1 lime
2 teaspoons rice vinegar
1 tablespoon sesame oil
A handful of sesame seeds
A handful of peanuts

Directions

Use a vegetable peeler to cut up the carrots.

Slice the onion and peppers thinly.

Zest the lime.

Toast the sesame seeds.

Toast the peanuts.

Mix everything together (juice the lime and add that too).

Squash Blossoms

2021-04-24T00:00:00+00:00

I’ve been meaning to visit Farmer Jones farm in Huron for years.

Dad and I looked into taking classes there.

They were famous for supplying chefs with mini vegetables and they pivoted last year during the pandemic and started selling more to homes.

They’re expensive but really good. I’ve wrestled with this a bit but have been increasingly spending more on my food and trying to buy more directly from farmers and farmers markets.

Anyway, I visited there on Saturday to pick up my order and the guy helping me out was Chef Jamie Simpson from their videos.

If you pick up in person you get a bonus item and I was overwhelmed by the choices.

A young woman behind the counter suggested aliums - but the box already had spring onions and leeks. Jamie started to suggest greens but the box had kale and spinach.

He walked over and handed me a container of squash blossoms.

I’ve never prepared them but they looked beautiful so why not.

Most recipes I found suggest stuffing them with a mix of a soft cheese like ricotta, goat cheese, or even cream cheese and herbs. Next time I’ll try goat cheese.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have any so I used some pizza cheese that I had and mixed it with some olive oil to create a soft-ish cheese.

I also had bread crumbs that I’d made myself from some homemade whole wheat bread.

I was ready.

Ingredients

10 Squash Blossoms
4 tablespoons of a soft creamy cheese
2 tablespoons of assorted herbs (I used basil, mint, and chives)
1 shallot or green onion
1 egg
Bread crumbs

Bread Crumbs

If you don’t have bread crumbs, take bread and slice it thin then cube it. Put it in a very low oven (250 F / 121 C) and let the bread totally dry out. It took about an hour for me.

Crumble the cubes into crumbs - I don’t mind having a rice sized piece mixed in with mostly sand sized pieces.

Directions

Cut the herbs and shallot or onion and mix them in with the cheese along with a little salt and a good amount of pepper.

Open up each squash blossom. Remove the stamen at the bottom (I don’t know why but every recipe said to).

Fill each blossom with the cheese mixture and wrap the petals back around to seal the mixture inside.

Beat the egg in one bowl and use another bowl for the bread crumbs.

Dip each blossom in egg and then coat it in bread crumbs.

Most recipes call for deep frying the blossoms. I air fried them in a convection oven and highly recommend it.

I lightly sprayed each blossom with oil and air fried on 400 F / 205 C for ten to fifteen minutes.

The outside was crisp and the inside creamy.

Cucumber Daikon Salad

2021-04-23T00:00:00+00:00

For some reason I picked up a daikon the last time I was in Heinen’s.

I don’t know what I thought I would do with it, but I found a recipe for a Cucumber Daikon salad in Ottolenghi’s Flavor cookbook and thought I would try it.

Ottolenghi recipes tend to use lots of ingredients and I didn’t have them all so I made some substitutions.

In particular I didn’t have chipotle peppers and I didn’t have peanuts (which is odd - I cook with them a lot.).

This led to an experiment that will become part of my salad topping routine - I used pumpkin seeds instead.

Pumpkin seeds, for me, are like turkey at Thanksgiving. I love roasting pumpkin seeds at Halloween but don’t think to prepare them the rest of the year. At Halloween I’m using the seeds from the fresh pumpkin so they’re there and convenient, but why not buy raw seeds and toast them for recipes.

So I did. It was wonderful.

This is my adaptation of Ottolenghi’s recipe

Base Ingredients

1 English Cucumber
2 Daikon (same amount as the cucumber)
1 bunch of red radishes

Slice these as thin as you can and toss them in a bowl

Dressing

2 garlic cloves
1 jalapeno pepper
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
2 tablespoons Olive oil
2-3 limes

Toast the cumin seeds, mince the garlic, zest the limes, and dice the jalapeno. Put them all in a bowl with the olive oil and the juice from the limes and mix. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Topping

1/2 cup raw pumpkin seeds
1 teaspoon of gochugaru or 1/2 teaspoon of chili flakes
1 teaspoon of molasses
1 lime
2 tablespoons olive oil

Directions

Heat a pan over medium low.

Add the pumpkin seeds to the pan.

Zest the lime and add the zest and juice to the pan along with the spice, molasses, and olive oil.

Stir and cook until dark and fragrant but not burnt. Take off the heat and put in a bowl to cool.

Toss the dressing with the base ingredients.

I think the seeds lose their crunch if you toss them with the salad, so I sprinkle some on top once the salad has been plated.

Or put a bowl of the seeds out with a spoon next to the bowl with the salad and let people serve themselves.

Carrot Reuben

2021-03-19T00:00:00+00:00

A carrot reuben for St Patrick’s Day!

This is a lot less like a reuben than yesterday’s mushroom reuben.

I adapted the Vedge cookbook’s recipe for Little Carrots with Chickpea-Saurkraut puree.

Their recipe was for a carrot dish that sits in a bean puree. I made it into a very messy but good sandwich on rye.

I considered using the same rub as yesterday but figured that carrots have a very different base flavor than mushrooms and so I followed their seasoning guidelines.

For the final assembly, I used the same sauce as yesterday and left out the swiss cheese.

Seasoning Ingredients

2 tablespoons coarse sea salt
2 tablespoons black peppercorns
1 teaspoon caraway seeds
1 teaspoon coriander seeds
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 teaspoon fennel seed
1 teaspoon celery seeds

Grind the spices and mix them together.

Puree Ingredients

2 cups cooked chickpeas or one 15-ounce can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
3/4 cup bottled sauerkraut with 2 tablespoons of its juice
2 tablespoons minced fresh dill
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Add the puree ingredients to a food processor or use an immersion blender to puree.

Additional Ingredients

Four slices of rye bread
Butter for the bread
2 lbs carrots
1/2 teaspoon cloves
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 teaspoons sherry vinegar

Directions

Slice the carrots into plank after removing each end.

Mix 1 tablespoon of the rub with the cloves, olive oil, and sherry vinegar in a medium to big bowl. The recipe called for more salt here but I didn’t think it was necessary.

Toss the carrots in the mixture to coat all over.

Lay on a sheetpan and cook in a 300 degree F oven. I used a 212 degree F oven with convection and steam and roasted more slowly.

When the carrots can bend nicely but are neither al dente nor too soft, take them out of the oven.

Grill the rye bread in butter on both sides.

Lay down a slice of bread and cover with a thin layer of puree. Layer carrots on top - I put more puree in between the layers of carrots. Add sauce to the other slice of bread and perhaps some more saurkraut. Put this piece of bread on top of the sandwich.

You’ll need plenty of water to drink as this is salty. And you’ll need plenty of napkins as it’s messy.

Mushroom Reuben

2021-03-18T00:00:00+00:00

A mushroom reuben for St Patrick’s Day!

I just signed up for my summer CSAs again.

We’re months away from the fruit and vegetable from local farms in Northeast Ohio, but I am trying to cook less with meat with varying degrees of success.

I found a recipe for a mushroom based reuben in the Washington Post and made some very small changes to it.

I’m also testing rye bread recipes for a baking cookbook I’m writing so I needed to test two different loaves in a head to head reuben battle. Both stood up really well.

The recipe makes a lot of sense - instead of corning the beef, you use a lot of the same spices to corn the mushrooms.

For the dressing you can use Thousand Island or make your own.

Sauce Ingredients

1/4 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup ketchup
1 1/2 teaspoons prepared horseradish
1/2 teaspoon paprika (I used smoked)
1 tablespoon pickle relish (I used sweet) or chop your own

Mix the sauce ingredients together, cover, and refrigerate.

Rub Ingredients

2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
2 teaspoons ground coriander
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
Pinch ground allspice
A few grinds of black pepper

Mix the rub ingredients together.

Additional Ingredients

Four slices of rye bread
Butter for the bread
Oil if you’re sauteeing the mushrooms
Saurkraut
A couple of slices of Swiss Cheese
Mushrooms - the recipe called for a couple of portobella caps sliced thin, I used a pound of Oyster mushrooms from a local grower

Directions

The recipe from the post had you sautee the mushrooms in oil and cook until there’s no visible moisture.

I spread the mushrooms on a sheet pan and cooked them at 212 degrees F/ 100 degrees C in a convection oven with steam until they had wilted and softened.

However you cooked them, lay them out and coat one side with the rub. I used a brush and painted it on the underside of the mushrooms. Already the smell reminded me of corned beef.

If you are sauteeing, heat some oil up in the pan and cook the mushrooms and the rub. I found the oven worked great. I cooked another ten minutes at the same settings.

Meanwhile I heated a pan over low heat and buttered both sides of the bread slices and put them in the pan.

When the bottom of the bread was toasty and delicious, I flipped them over. Put swiss cheese on two of slices. Top that with a stack of mushrooms - biting through layers of mushrooms will feel a bit like biting into sliced corned beef.

Top this with saurkraut and the other slice of bread.

Once the bottom bread is toasted, carefully flip the sandwiches and toast the other side.

Flip the sandwiches onto a cutting board. Lift the top slice and liberally add sauce.

Warning - this is a messy sandwich to eat but is on the list of things I intend to make again.

Tofu Noodles

2021-02-13T00:00:00+00:00

The Bittman Project is a cooking project from Mark Bittman. In the first video released, Daniel Meyer cooks a tofu dish that looked really good so I adapted it for what I had.

I made a spicy crispy tofu and vegetables in pasta.

I suppose for color I could have added scallions on top or some red pepper.

It was quite tasty.

Ingredients

1 container of firm tofu prepared in advance
1 medium onion diced
Optional a leek or two. You could also use more onion sliced
3 - 4 ribs of celery sliced thin
3-4 garlic cloves
1 inch of ginger minced
Soy sauce
Xiao xing cooking wine
Sriracha

Directions

The tofu isn’t necessary but it provided some protein and a texture contrast. Toasted nuts would have also made a nice addition and maybe I’ll do that next time.

The first step was to dry some tofu so that it crisps up nicely.

Slice some firm tofu into 1/4” or narrower slices.

I arranged it on parchment paper on baking sheets in a 250 degree (F) convection oven and cooked it for a couple of ours flipping it half way through.

Meanwhile I cut up an onion, a few ribs of celery, a leek, three cloves of garlic and some ginger. I also had some fermented black beans so I minced them as well.

Oh and I cut up a jalapeno but I forgot to add it so I used it in a rice and beans dish I had going in the Instant Pot.

When the tofu dried I sliced it into 1” x 1” pieces. Heated up oil in a non-stick pan and when the oil was really hot I quickly sauteed the tofu.

They should blister and crisp up a bit. When they’re done enough, remove them from the heat and put them in a bowl.

Put the pan back on the heat.

When it’s hot add the onion, celery, and leeks and cook for five minutes or so until it begins to soften but isn’t soggy.

I added some chinese cooking wine and tossed for a bit. Then some soy sauce and tossed a bit more.

Add the garlic, ginger and black beans and toss some more.

Add a healthy amount of sriracha and return the tofu to the pot and toss.

This would be good over rice - but I had some really nice italian spaghetti so I cooked it up and tossed it in the pan with the other ingredients so the noodles were spicy as well.