Jessica's sweet potato chickpea peanut stew - an easy winter meal

This recipe (from my friend Jessica) comes together so fast, is made in one pot (or crock pot), requires little chopping, and brings together delicious flavors. A real winner I keep making over and over since she first shared it with me. If you have some ginger, garlic, and a sweet potato on hand, you can probably make this with stuff you have in your pantry.

• 1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed (or about 2 cups from frozen)
• 1 sweet potato, cubed (I used 2)
• 1 1/2 t. curry powder
• 1/2-3/4 t. garam masala (depending on how spicy you like it)
• 1 t. cumin
• 1 T. minced ginger
• 2-3 cloves minced garlic
• dash of cinnamon
• 1 14 oz. can fire roasted tomatoes, in juice
• 1 can light coconut milk
• 2 c. vegetable stock (or 1 if using crock pot)
• 2 T. natural peanut butter
• 1/2 c. red lentils, drained and rinsed (can substitute quinoa, if desired)

Combine everything in a soup pot, bring to a boil, let boil for about 15-20 minutes, then put on low and simmer for about 1 hr. It's finished when the potatoes are nice and tender (and falling apart). If you have a crock pot, turn it on high for an hour, and then let it cook on low for 2-3 hours (or low 4 hours).

Brown Market Shares: Week 1 (+ recipe for penne with kale pesto)

Michael and I signed up for a weekly share of vegetables through a program at Brown called "Market Shares." It's like a CSA, but they work with multiple farms instead of just one. The program is only open to Brown students, faculty and staff and the pick-up is conveniently on campus. I was also super excited that they also had an option to sign up for a dairy and bread share. So we will be getting a loaf of bread each week from Seven Stars Bakery (as close as I will come to Ann Arbor's Zingermann's here), and cheese and yogurt from local Narragansett Creamery. This is this week's installment:  kale, leeks, collard greens, scallions, patty-pan squash, pea greens, apples, garlic. Yum yum. It's a lot of greens. Kale pesto pasta for dinner... (nothing fancy...just a quick and easy weeknight dinner...)


PENNE WITH KALE PESTO

ingredients:
1 bunch of kale, de-stemmed and roughly chopped
2-3 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
1/3 cup toasted pine nuts
olive oil
salt, pepper, red pepper flakes
parmesan cheese (about 1/2 cup, or more to your taste)

1. Pasta: Make pasta according to package directions for al dente (I used a whole wheat penne and it was about 9 minutes). When you drain, make sure to save about 1 cup of the liquid. 

2. Pesto: Remove the stems from the kale (trick: fold in half, hold on to leaves and rip step out with your other hand. This way you get all the tough fibers out and it's faster than using a knife). Chop roughly. In a blender or food processor, pulse garlic and pine nuts, then pulse in about 2/3 of kale and add some olive oil, maybe about 2-4 T total, depending on what you need to get it smooth. (I was using a blender, and so I also had to add in some of the pasta liquid to get it to puree nicely. A food processor would work better.) You should get a nice green mush.

When the pasta has about 1 more minute, drain the water and keep about 1 cup of it (I used some of this to blend the pesto). Add the noodles back in the pot, add the pesto plus the 1/3 of chopped kale. Add a bit more water if it's dry looking. Stir. Grate the cheese and stir into the pasta. If you let it sit a minute it will absorb some of the extra sauce and the chopped kale will wilt nicely into the penne.

Season with salt and pepper, sprinkle with a little extra cheese. I like a little spice on my pasta, so I added in a sprinkle of red pepper flakes as well.

turkey and zucchini meatballs with green onion and cumin (and sumac-yogurt sauce)

I think this might be the first thing I tried from Ottolenghi and Tamimi's cookbook Jerusalem. I love Ottolenghi's Plenty, which Synne introduced me to, of course. I have absolutely loved everything I've made from it. He has great, flavorful food which isn't too difficult, but it pushes me to try new things. My friend Rachel gave me some sumac spice a while back, and I see that lots of the Jerusalem recipes call for it. This was my first time using sumac. It has a mild flavor, I guess slightly tart and lemony. We had the zucchini meatballs (or "burgers") with a salad of baby kale with toasted pine nuts and parmesan - a really wonderful dinner.

ingredients:

1 lb ground turkey

1 large zucchini, coarsely grated

3 green onions, thinly sliced

1 large egg

2 T chopped mint

2 T chopped cilantro

2 cloves garlic, crushed

1 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp fresh black pepper

1/2 tsp cayenne

vegetable oil, for browning

sumac-yogurt sauce: mix in a bowl: 2/3 cup yogurt, 1 tsp grated lemon zest, 1 T lemon juice, 1 small clove garlic, crushed; 1 T olive oil, 1 T sumac, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp black pepper 

1. Make the sauce and set aside. 

2. Preheat oven to 425 F. Ina bowl, combine all meatball ingredients. Mix with your hands then shape into about 18 patties. I noticed that the mix seemed really wet. the zucchini isn't drained first (as it often is in such recipes), and when I browned them, they started to fall apart a bit. But when I finished them off in the oven (a step that I almost skipped...I have to admit), they got a really nice consistency.

3. Pour oil into a large pan, heat over med until hot, then sear the meatballs in batches on all sides. Cook each about 4 minutes. You may have to add a bit more oil. 

4. Carefully transfer to a baking sheet (I lined it with alu-foil) and bake 5-7 minutes until cooked through. 

5. Serve warm with the sauce. 

spicy sweet potato and black bean taco filling (vegan)

Sorry there's a lot going on in this photo. It's the taco filling, with some salsa, pickled onions, and queso fresco on top. Yum yum. I made this filling for taco night as a vegetarian option (also vegan without the cheese on top). You can vary the spice by adding more or less jalapeno and chipotles in adobo. 

how to host a taco party (with pork carnitas and all the fixings...)

Last night we had a couple of friends over for tacos, our first little party in the new place. It was really good food and good company, plus margaritas. No better way to extend summer. :) Tacos are a really fun group/dinner party food, because you can prep almost everything in advance and it's easy to pass stuff around at the table. I had been craving some more good tacos after having some at the Providence Farmer's Market a few weeks back, and going to Isalita (a new restaurant in Ann Arbor) last week. I knew I wanted to make pork carnitas plus a couple kinds of salsa and toppings. This was a lot of firsts for me: first time making carnitas, making pickled onions, first time using tomatillos... But I had really been wanting to do this. Everything was a hit - especially the pineapple salsa. It was a bit of work to put everything together, but the flavors were really good and we have lots of delicious leftovers for the busy week ahead.



Here's the menu:

for the taco fillings:
pork carnitas (recipe below)

vegetarian/vegan option: spicy sweet potatoes and black beans (recipe here)


salsas:
spicy pineapple salsa
guacamole taquero (with tomatillos)
pico de gallo

toppings: 
sliced radish
pickled onion
queso fresco
cilantro
lime

margaritas: blood-orange margaritas (from Smitten Kitchen)

cucumber-pepper slaw with feta

I can't believe it's already September. One of the things I am feeling sad about, as we are enjoying the last weeks (days?) of summer, is that I was traveling so much and missed out on so much summer produce. Sigh. I had a great summer, but I wasn't cooking very much and that I am a little bummed about. Anyways, for this fall Michael and I signed up for a CSA share that is run through Brown, so we will get to enjoy the end-of-summer produce as well as fall's bounty. Which will be wonderful.

The last few days I re-made that grain salad with cherries, blue cheese and pecans. And served it on baby kale (which is a very good product - yum yum). It was really good. If you haven't made it yet, do it! Tonight I wanted to make something different and get some more veggies. So I paired some chicken with a jerk marinade with a fresh veggie slaw.

Another variation, if you wanted to make the veggie slaw more substantial and take for lunch would be to dice or more roughly chop the vegetables, and then mix with quinoa or a whole grain (barley, farro, etc). That would be good, too.

ingredients:
1 medium - large cucumber
1 T salt
2 T olive oil
1 scant T rice vinegar
1/4 tsp sugar
fresh black pepper
1 jalapeño pepper, seeded and thinly sliced
1/2 red bell pepper, thinly sliced
1/2 yellow pepper, thinly sliced
1/2 small red onion, fine diced (or paper-thin slices)
3 oz. feta, crumbled (vegan without the cheese)
roughly chopped basil

1. Cucumber: Cut lengthwise and scoop out the seeds. Then cut cross-wise on a mandoline (thin slices) or with a knife. Salt and put in a colander over a bowl. Let sit 15 minutes while you do the other ingredients, then rinse and pat try with a paper towel. 

2. prep other veggies: thinly slice the jalapeño, peppers, and onion.

3. mix the dressing: olive oil, rice vinegar, sugar, black pepper. Don't add salt because the cukes will add some more saltiness.

4. combine everything and serve. Let sit about 30 minutes before serving.

Slaw recipe adapted from Saveur. I found their dressing to be 4x what I needed, also I was afraid of using a habanero!

We had this for dinner with chicken. For the jerk chicken, I just mixed some jerk seasoning with about 2 T olive oil. I smeared this on some chicken drumsticks and let it marinade a few hours in the fridge until dinnertime. Then cook the chicken in a pan on the stovetop, or grill if you have one.

chicken with roasted tomatoes

Ooh, this is a good one. Very easy, 30-40 min prep/cooking time, and amazing flavors. It's the end of summer tomato season! Celebrate it! :)

ingredients:
1 1/2 pounds cherry tomatoes
olive oil
2 tablespoons herbes de Provence
salt and pepper
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 shallot, minced
2 cloves garlic, pressed or minced
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar or red wine
herbs to garnish

1. Tomatoes: Heat oven to 450 F. Cut tomatoes in half and combine with 2 T olive oil and herbes de Provence in a bowl, salt and pepper, toss, and lay out on a cookie sheet in the oven to roast. They will soften and start to brown and caramelize (about 20-25 minutes).

2. Chicken: Season chicken breasts with salt and pepper. Heat 2 T oil in an ovenproof skillet. Brown the chicken on both sides, about 6-8 minutes, over med-high heat. Then put in oven and cook 8-10 minutes. Remove to a plate or cutting board and let rest, covered in foil, at least 5 minutes.

3. Sauce: In the chicken skillet, add 1 T more oil, then add shallot and garlic. Stir 1 minute, then deglaze the pan with some red wine or red wine vinegar. Add the tomatoes in at this point and stir the sauce. Season with salt and pepper.

Serve chicken in slices with the tomato sauce on top and a nice green salad on the side.

inspired by a recipe from Bon Appetit: Chicken with Herb-Roasted Tomatoes

summer vegetable pie with cornbread topping

I'm back in Ann Arbor just for a week, working during the new student orientation and getting some of my work in order. While I'm here I'm staying with two good friends of mine who are also great cooking companions (I've mentioned them a few times...). And they have a great summer CSA share, which is a plus. :) We got home from the airport and the fridge was stocked with veggies waiting to be transformed. We made this vegetable pie with lots of summer vegetables they had on hand. It would work with many other combinations though. Just be careful with the spice - if you add in hot peppers don't add in much other spiciness.

filling:
1 T olive oil
1 pepper (or poblano chile)
1 hot pepper (like jalapeno, if not using poblano)
1/2 red onion (or shallot)
1 clove garlic, minced
1 med yellow summer squash (or zucchini)
1 small eggplant
2 fresh tomatoes, cubed (or can diced)
1 tsp chili powder (if not using hot pepper)

other ideas: 1 ear corn, kernels cut from cob, fresh cilantro

cornbread topping*: 

1/3 cup flour
1/3 cup cornmeal
1 T sugar (or 2 T honey)
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/3 cup buttermilk
1 large egg
1 T unsalted butter
*may want to double, especially if using 10-inch skillet

1. Preheat oven to 450. In an ovenproof skillet (8 or 10 inch), saute the onion and peppers, then add garlic and cook until soft. Add the rest of the vegetables and cook until they cook down  and get soft. I covered them for a while and checked them occasionally while prepping the cornbread. Salt and pepper to taste, watch the spice level.

2. Make the cornbread. Mix the wet and dry separately, (not butter yet), then add wet to the dry, and stir in melted butter last.

3. Pour the cornbread mixture over the top of the vegetables and put in the oven 12-15 minutes. The cornbread will brown slightly.

inspired by a recipe from Cook's Illustrated, Cooking for Two

couscous with broccolini and spiced chicken sausage

This recipe is proof we are up and running in the new apartment - the gas stove and all. I made this dinner by first cooking and browning the chicken sausage, then making the couscous, throwing the broccolini in at the end to steam the last few minutes, and mixing it all together. Pretty quick and easy and lots of good flavors, which mostly came from the really good sausage. I got the chicken sausages from the meat counter at Whole Foods, one garlic and herb, and one spicy italian. They were uncooked, so I first cooked them, then removed them from the pan to the cutting board, sliced them and put them back in the pan to brown.

2 chicken sausages (uncooked or cooked), use 1 spicy and 1 milder
1 bunch broccolini
1 cup Israeli couscous (I used a blend, like the Trader Joe's Harvest Grains Blend, which has quinoa and orzo mixed in)
season with a bit more salt and pepper

I thought the recipe would be good with some tomatoes mixed in, too. If it's summer, use fresh, or maybe even a can of diced tomatoes.

a very green no-cook meal for your first meal in a new apartment

Yesterday we moved into our new apartment in Providence. It was a lot of work, first moving down from a second-story apartment with very narrow, steep stairs, into a third-floor apartment. Every muscle in my body is aching today... People really should just offer to help random strangers move instead of going to the gym. :) Luckily we had the help of a friend, which made things go much faster.

So anyways, we did eventually get hungry, in the middle of our afternoon/evening of unpacking and organizing. One great thing about this apartment is that it's 2-3 blocks from the grocery store, so it's really easy to run out and get something. I was going to make a warm meal, but it turns out that our gas is not turned on yet. I went and knocked on some doors in the building to make sure we were doing it right...and got to meet a super friendly man who lives downstairs. He brought up matches and confirmed what we already thought: no gas flow yet. So... it had to be a cold meal. I ran out and got a good loaf of bread, avocado, and the ingredients for a simple green salad. I threw dinner together while Michael put the table together so we could sit down and eat.

It ended up being a very green meal and was just the thing for a hot summer night. We ate the salad with olive bread from Seven Stars Bakery in Providence, with avocado slices and a sprinkling of Maldon salt. (This is one of my easy favorites.) Oh, and full disclosure: to keep things super classy I got some chicken wings from the hot bar at Whole Foods to have with our healthy dinner. :)

Green Salad with Mango and Mozzarella
salad greens
mango, diced
fresh mozzarella, torn into pieces or cubed
squeeze of lemon
dash of extra virgin olive oil
grind of fresh pepper

spring pea pasta with pancetta, spinach and shallots

This was dinner from my regular St. Olaf friends gathering. It's finals, the end of the semester, so we wanted a quicker, easier recipe. This one is delicious, and comes together quickly. Nicole brought an awesome salad and a grapefruit cake with candied violets on top. So pretty stellar for an "easy" mid-week meal, although a bit rich and indulgent. :)  It's easily made vegetarian by omitting the pancetta.

ingedients: shell pasta, peas (we had to use frozen rather than fresh because of this cold cold spring), spinach, pancetta, shallots, lemon, parmesan, half/half, mint or parsley. 

Boil the salted pasta water, add pasta (about 1/2 lb for 3 servings). When the pasta is done, strain and set aside.

While pasta is cooking, chop shallots, pancetta. Cook pancetta till near-crispy in a separate pan, then add the shallot to soften.

Zest 1/2 lemon and 1 c parmesan.  Roughly chop spinach leaves and mint or parsley for garnish.


Melt some butter in the (emptied) pasta pot, then add 1 cup half/half (or cream). Let it simmer and reduce a bit. Add peas to let them cook. Then add shells back in, plus zest, parmesan, salt and pepper. Mix together, add pancetta and shallots back in, with spinach, just to get it wilted. Top with mint and an extra shaving of cheese. 

ginger-garlic meatballs

These are a Nigel Slater - inspired recipe. I am really enjoying discovering his recipes, and I love his writing style. It's so strange when you feel you get to know someone a bit through his or her writing. The best cookbooks are like that. Synne gave me The Kitchen Diaries for Christmas - and he goes through a year, sharing recipes and food notes. You really feel you get to know him. I am also reading through Appetite and really enjoying it. It has gems like this:

"Putting little bits of leftover food on plates is not a good idea. They will only dry up and haunt you every time you open the fridge door. You might as well throw them away in the first place."

"Use your nose. At first you can only tell when something is burning. The smell of smoke will alert you to the fact that your supper is probably past the point of perfection. Pretty soon you will find that the smell a dish gives off as it cooks can be a good clue to its progress. Butter will smell nuttier, garlic will smell sweeter when it has softened..."

"I loathe gadgets. My idea of hell is a drawer full of those miraculous, time-saving devices specialy designed for cutting pizza/portioning a cake/brushing the soil off mushrooms, etc. ...Before you get carried away with one of those gadget catalogues and your credit card, let me warn you that you by the time you have played hide and seek with your little diddy that does this or that, you could have done the job ten times over."

"butter. Glorious stuff."

"mustard. How I love mustard."

Okay I could go on and on but I will stop myself. :)

winter comfort: pancetta, white bean, swiss chard pot pies

Monday night Katie and I cooked pot pies from the Smitten Kitchen Cookbook. It was a little bit of work, making the pastry dough from scratch as well, but if you have two cooks in the kitchen it all gets done pretty efficiently. :) Deb Perelman suggests making these for company, because you can also do the components in advance and bake them later. To make: first make the pastry dough, make the pot pie filling (swiss chard, pancetta) and a gravy-like sauce (white beans), fill oven-save bowls, top with the pastry, and bake. The pastry is really flaky, buttery and delicious. If you left out the pancetta and used vegetable stock it would be great as a vegetarian recipe as well.

hearty soups: shredded pork stew with chipotle tomato sauce

 When we're planning what to cook, Michael often tells me he feels like something "hearty." I'm spending a few days in Providence and my goal is to make him some hearty soups, putting all the leftovers in the freezer so he misses me lots when I'm gone. :)  The first one I came across in a book series from Food & Wine: Best of the Best Cookbook Recipes, taking recipes from what they consider the 25 best cookbooks of the year. (This was a find at the Ann Arbor Public Library, which has an amaaazing selection of cookbooks. Except also a long waiting list for new and popular items. I guess it's a community with a lot of good cooking going on!) This particular recipe is from Lourdes Castro, from the cookbook Simply Mexican. It looked so good, I just had to try it. It was a little on the spicy side, so be careful with the adobo sauce and chipotles - but don't leave them out. This gives the soup its spicy, smoky flavor.

roommate dinner: quinoa stuffed squash and apple-celeriac salad

Jessica and I were both finally home on a Friday night, so we cooked and caught up on our Top Chef episodes (We love Sheldon! And we want to cook for the Iditarod mushers! That was the coolest challenge ever!). This was a recipe on our to-cook list for a while, plus a recipe to use up more CSA ingredients. The two recipes actually paired really well together, both using green apples. One hot and one raw dish. Even after a great dinner, watching Top Chef still made me hungry...especially for some seafood! (this episode took place in Alaska, and they had a salmon/sourdough challenge!) I wish I had access to my dad's freezer full of wild salmon...

A Valentine's Dinner: beet stew with lamb meatballs and wild rice

 For our Valentine's Day dinner, and what is turning out to be a weekly Ole Reunion dinner, we went with pink food: a beet stew with spiced lamb meatballs. It was meant to be: Katie had the idea for the stew, I had just happened to buy lamb at the farmer's market last weekend. And we added some wild rice to bring in our Minnesota roots. Nicole made a beautiful winter salad with toasted almonds and cranberries and buttermilk dressing, and Peter mixed us ladies some cocktails while we were cooking. This stew is beautiful and so tasty!

Ottolenghi's ultimate winter couscous

This recipe is from Yotam Ottolenghi's Plenty, a vegetarian cookbook. Thanks to Synne for introducing me to this Israeli-born British chef, who also regularly writes for The Guardian. The flavors are always amazing in his recipes. This one was great for using our winter produce. I love recipes that are just so vibrant. This one, with the squash, carrots, parsnips, and warm spices, is very orange and very beautiful. 

minestrone with kale, white beans, tomatoes

 This recipe came to my inbox from the New York Times Recipes for Health, just when we had fresh kale to use. Pretty much everything else is in the pantry. We had our beautiful purple potatoes and purple kale from the CSA. As I was cooking, Jessica was heating up some amazing smelling smoked bacon next to me, so I threw in some of that, too, and garnished with crispy pieces. It would be vegetarian and vegan without the bacon and the parmesan rind. Yum yum.

Chicken Tagine with Apricots and Almonds served with couscous

My weekly dinner with Katie and Peter ended up being an Ole reunion this week, with another St. Olaf grad, Nicole, joining us. She brought a great spinach salad, Katie and Peter supplied the wine and kitchen, and adorable puppy. We made a chicken tagine with apricots and almonds...mmm...The warm smell of cinnamon is perfect for winter weather!