Crunchy Granola Suite – the homemade version (<10 minute prep!)

I’m not a huge Neil Diamond fan, but I love that he wrote a song about granola. Granola goes with everything – milk for cereal, mixed in with yogurt, topping on ice cream, straight from the bag. And granola bars are such an easy on-the-go snack, and come in every flavor and iteration – from the beloved little childhood chewy Quaker bars (my favorite was S’mores) to the whopping crunchy Nature Valley options (I lived on peanut butter version for a while) to the ‘healthy’ offerings like Kashi. But even the healthy versions don’t quite get the job done when it comes to being low sugar / low fat.

I’ve never considered making granola bars at home – why would I, if I can just run to the store and pick up a box? And my assumption had been that it was really hard. Much like getting the recommended 150 minutes of exercise per week, or having patience with the general populace. But in my quest to find healthier snacks, especially ones that are travel friendly, I stumbled upon this beauty from Oh She Glows. Three things initially attracted me to this – one, the picture was pretty. Don’t judge me. Two, she mentioned dark chocolate. Sold. Three, I had almost all of the ingredients on hand already, so I didn’t need a trip to some specialty store to hunt down the components. That satisfies my distaste for putting on pants and going out in public. Plus, they really are easy – I think it took less than 10 minutes to prep these and put them in the oven. I can dig that.

I love the amount of protein, fiber, heart-healthy fats in here. I threw a handful in a Ziploc bag and brought them on a trip with me, and they stayed together (and delicious) beautifully. Even better, I tested them on my own personal guinea pig (the huz) and he loved them. They were so easy to make; I don’t know why I’ve been buying granola bars all these years. Oh, and as a side note, these are not crunchy granola bars, as the title may suggest, they’re chewy. But enough about that, let’s get baking.

You may have noticed that there isn’t any sugar in the photo. Well, aren’t you the eagle eye? This recipe uses bananas as a sweetener, plus the dark chocolate and dried fruit if you’re using them.¹ I will take any opportunity to add dark chocolate while baking, but if that doesn’t trip your trigger, leave it out.

Anyhoo, mash up your ‘naners. I use a potato masher because it’s easy, and it’s rather cathartic, if I’m being honest. Stir in the vanilla.

Now for the power tools – put your oats in a food processor and pulse a few times until they’re coarsely chopped. You don’t want a fine flour or anything like that, you still want some texture so the bananas have something to snuggle.

This part is, like, totally hard, man. Stir the oats in with the smooshed bananas, then add everything else and mix ‘er up.

Now for the ‘play with your food’ part. Put some parchment paper in a lightly greased pan (the recipe calls for 8.5 inches x 12.5 inches, but I’m really not going to quibble over half an inch so I used a 9×13) and smoosh the granola mix into the pan. Press around with your hands until it’s flat and even and all that.

Put the pan in a pre-heated oven (350º, nothing crazy) and let it bake for 23-27 minutes (I did 25) until firm and lightly golden along the edges. It smells SO GOOD while baking.

Let it cool on a cooling rack in the pan for 10 minutes, and then lift the parchment paper out and set the whole thing down on the rack again for a good while, basically until cool. I don’t know, 30 minutes or so? I forgot to keep track, sorry. Then, slice ’em up! I used a bench scraper because it was easier than a knife, but use whatever you have on hand. Put them in Ziploc bags for storage on your countertop, or freeze them for later. Either way, enjoy!

Feel Good Hearty Granola Bars
By Angela Liddon on Oh She Glows

Ingredients:

• 1.5 cups mashed ripe banana (about 3-4 medium bananas)
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 2 cups rolled oats
• 1/2-3/4 cup dried cherries, chopped (I used 3/4 cup)
• 1/2 cup walnuts, chopped (or you can buy chopped walnuts, which is what I did)
• 1/2 cup sunflower seeds
• 1/2 cup pepita seeds (aka shelled pumpkin seeds)
• 1/2 cup sliced almonds (again, just by the sliced almonds, it’s so much easier)
• 1/4 cup hulled hemp seeds
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon pink Himalayan salt or fine grain sea salt, or to taste
• Dark chocolate chunks, if desired (yes please!)

 Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350F. Lightly grease a large rectangular baking dish (I used a 9×13) and line with a piece of parchment paper so the bars are easier to lift out.
2. In a large bowl, mash the banana until smooth. Stir in the vanilla.
3. Place the rolled oats into a food processor (or blender on the lowest speed) and pulse until the oats are coarsely chopped (but still with lots of texture). Stir oats into the banana mixture.
4. Chop the walnuts (or just buy chopped walnuts and not worry about it) and cherries and stir these and the rest of the ingredients into the banana-oat mixture until thoroughly combined.
5. Spoon mixture into prepared dish. Press down until compacted and smooth out with hands until even.
6. Bake for 23-27 minutes (I baked mine for 25 minutes) until firm and lightly golden along the edge. Place dish on a cooling rack for 10 minutes then carefully slide a knife to loosen the ends and lift out. Place granola slab on a cooling rack and let sit until cool.
7. Slice into bars and enjoy!

Feel Good Hearty Granola Bars

¹ I used the dried cherries the recipe calls for because I want to know what it’s supposed to taste like, but I truly madly deeply detest dried fruit and will not use it going forward. I wish I liked dried fruit, I really do. But I find it too sweet and too chewy. However, if you like dried fruit, it does work very well here, adding a pop of flavor and sweetness.

 

Move over, Reese’s – the perfect (and healthy-ish) chocolate almond butter cups

Hello, I’m Beck, and I’m a Reese’s addict. (Hi, Beck.)

I truly cannot remember the last time I ambled down a candy bar aisle, which is a good thing for my waistline and general health. If it’s in the house, I’ll eat it, so my rule of thumb is to buy healthy foods at the grocery store and keep the crap (albeit delicious, sugary, lip-smacking crap) out of my home. It’s a solid plan, and one that has worked for quite some time.

But, I have a mother. A wonderful, generous, thoughtful mother. A mother who feels she has failed in her mothering duties if a holiday passes without her mailing a box of delicious, sugary, lip-smacking crap in the shape and color of said holiday to her children. As such, my solid plan is occasionally thwarted by my mother. I am particularly susceptible to Easter egg and Christmas tree-shaped Almond Joys and Reese’s. My willpower crumbles in the face of celebratory commercialism; I remember spirited trades each holiday with my brother and sister, the likes of which are only seen in the pits on Wall Street, where we would dump our stockings / Easter baskets / etc and they would get my jelly beans and candy in exchange for my favorite chocolate candy bars.

My ‘more holes than Swiss cheese’ willpower and propensity toward justification when it comes to chocolate lead me to unexpected places in my search for a healthy chocolate snack. To wit, the Oh She Glows website. The lovely Angela Liddon provides healthy and tasty recipes to anyone with an internet connection, including the subject of this post – Raw Almond Butter Cups. I think the title could use some work, as it doesn’t convey what these little gems actually are – a riff on Reese’s peanut butter cups, but with almond butter and even more yummy and healthy. As a bonus for those hot summer days, these are chilled snacks requiring no baking whatsoever – no oven, no microwave – and they come together in about 10 minutes if you’re moving slowly. I think of them as a cross between Reese’s and Almond Joy – nut butter, chocolate, and a hint of coconut from the coconut oil. Even the huz, who is not a coconut fan, gobbles these down. I encourage you to try them – if you don’t like them, you haven’t wasted much time making them, and you can bring them to work and be a superstar.

Off we go, then. (Moment of confession, because I feel like we should be honest with each other: I just went to the freezer and ate one of these almond butter cups. I resisted having more than one, but it was a struggle of gargantuan proportions.)

The cast of characters

Perhaps you’ve noticed that plain old white sugar is missing. The maple syrup is used as a liquid sweetener instead, which is great for me because I looooooove maple syrup and nut butter together. Ever try peanut butter and maple syrup on your pancakes or waffles? Life-changing.

Anyway, the recipe is broken into two parts – the base of the cup, and then chocolate topping. Grab a food processor and grind up some raw almonds and oats until they’ve turned into a flour. I do have a Ninja that I love, but for flour needs I use my little magic bullet with the spice grinder blade, as it makes for a more finely processed flour. I’m sure you could use almond flour but I don’t know how much you’d have to use, and it takes 10 seconds to grind.

Dump the flour into a bowl, and add the rest of the base ingredients. One small catch – depending on how hot it is in your house, you may have to warm up the coconut oil a bit. I do this because I want to make sure everything is evenly mixed, but you can do whatever you want. It’s your coconut oil. It will start out semi-solid (see the photo below on the left) and quickly turn into a clear viscous fluid. I heat the oil on low for a few minutes, and that does the trick. You don’t want to boil the oil, just melt it a little, so keep the temp low.

Mix up the ingredients – I use a fork because it’s quick and easy – and you’ll end up with a sticky dough-like substance.

Now you get to play with your hands; I do enjoy the tactile experience of cooking and baking. More satisfying, somehow. Here’s another fork in the road – you can use a silicon muffin holder (which you can get at Target or on Amazon for around $12), or a mini muffin tin lined with paper muffin cups. I use the silicon holder because that’s what I have, but again, it’s your kitchen. Do what you will. Press roughly a tablespoon or so of the ‘dough’ into each little cup, and flatten it out so the tops are even and straight across. A tip, if you’re using silicon holders and not rigid muffin tins – put a baking sheet or something underneath it so when you move the holder it won’t wobble and spill.

Now you make the chocolate topping, but gird your loins – you’ll want to lick the bowl clean. Don’t do it! Resist! Add the chocolate topping ingredients into a bowl and mix ‘er up with a tiny whisk or fork until it’s smooth. Two tips – here again, I melt the coconut oil to make the whisking easier. I also use really high quality dutch-processed cocoa powder. Your chocolate topping will only be as good as the cocoa powder you use, so don’t buy the generic gas station brand. Capiche?

Carefully spoon or pour the chocolate topping over the almond butter base. I add a little at a time until the cup fills to the top and is even across the top. Should the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune befall you, and you spill a little outside the cup, take one for the team and lick it up. Note my cutting board under the holder; my baking sheets were out of reach so a cutting board worked as a stabilizer for movement.

Now, you put it in the freezer. (Hence the need for stability during movement.) That’s it. Well, and the tortuous wait of 30-45 minutes. These little babies will firm up during this time – and then you can feast to your heart’s content.

The ingredients will get all soft and melty at room temp, so I just keep them in the freezer – although let’s be honest, they don’t last long enough to get warm and melty at room temp. They’re so yummy, pleeeeease try them! And invite me over, so I can act as quality control.

The printable is at the bottom of the post. Enjoy!

Raw Almond Butter Cups
By Angela Liddon from Oh She Glows

Ingredients

The base

• 3/4 cup raw almonds, ground into a meal
• 1/4 cup rolled oats, ground into a flour
• 2 tablespoons raw almond butter (or nut butter of choice)
• 1.5 tablespoons coconut oil, warmed if necessary
• 1.5 tablespoons pure maple syrup (or agave nectar)
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• pinch of fine grain sea salt, to taste

The chocolate topping

• 3 tablespoons coconut oil (I warm this up too)
• 3 tablespoons pure maple syrup (or 2 tbsp agave nectar)
• 2 tablespoons cocoa powder
• pinch of fine grain sea salt, to taste

Instructions

1. Add almonds and oats into a high-speed blender and blend on high until a flour forms. Dump into a large bowl and break up any clumps with your fingers.

2. Add the nut butter, coconut oil, maple syrup (or agave), cinnamon, vanilla, and salt into the bowl. Stir until thoroughly combined. The dough should be fairly sticky like cookie dough.

3. Line a mini (or regular) muffin tin with paper liners or use a silicone muffin holder. Portion the dough into each muffin cup and press down until even and smooth. If you are using a silicon holder, put something sturdy like a baking sheet underneath it.

4. To make the chocolate sauce: Whisk together the coconut oil, sweetener, cocoa powder, and salt until no clumps remain. Spoon the sauce over top each of the cups, distributing evenly. Garnish cups with sliced almonds if desired.

5. Place in the freezer in a flat area for 30-45 minutes, until firm. Pop out the cups & enjoy! Store leftovers in the freezer.

Raw Almond Butter Cups

 

Cake? Yes please! Made of oats? Well, ok. It’s still cake. Kinda.

I’m still bitter, Cake of Chestnut Hill in Philadelphia. How black is your soul, how purely malevolent are you, to name a restaurant ‘Cake’ – and not serve cake?? I happened upon this cruel misnomer five years ago and the pain hasn’t lessened.¹ This is how much I love dessert.

But let’s talk of sunnier, happier things.

Given that I spend many of my waking hours traveling, it follows that I spend many of my eating hours with airport / airplane / room service / restaurant food. This does little to help maintain my girlish figure, and even though I try to eat vegetables and other nutritious food, it’s never as healthy as preparing it at home. (Don’t worry, I’m getting to the happy part.)

I needed inspiration for some healthy snacks that held up well on overseas flights, dashes through airports and insane cab drivers, yet were tasty enough that I wouldn’t be tempted by the Willy Wonka factory level of candy in every fieldwork facility where I worked. I happened upon Heidi Swanson’s blog 101 Cookbooks quite some time ago and found a few ideas on her site, but after more research I decided I might strike gold in her cookbook Super Natural Every Day. And like some of the folks in the 1848 gold rush, I got lucky!

People, meet oatcakes. Oatcakes, meet people. Ms. Swanson’s description of these ‘nutty, golden oatcakes’ that ‘stand up to an entire day tucked into my purse without falling apart’ sounded right up my alley, so I figured out what the hell coconut oil was (hint: it’s not liquid!) and gave these babies a try. That was over a year and a half ago, and since then I’ve kept all of the ingredients for these amazing little lifesavers on hand because I make them so frequently. I’ve taken these to several different countries, on short flights, car trips, vacations, given them as gifts to friends, even two different two-week trips through Europe with a bag full – and these oatcakes have never failed me. They have enough protein and fiber and good stuff to keep you full (and away from those pesky mini Twix bars), are versatile enough to be made vegan (I did this once and they still turned out well), and clearly travel well. There’s a little nutty, a little salty, a little sweet – it’s got it all. If you’re afraid to try them, come over and I will whip you up a batch – I’ll have the ingredients, and they take no time at all. Be gone, hockey puck-like coffee shop muffins and cakes. Here come my homemade oatcakes! Let’s get started, shall we?

First: unless you have some already, go buy coconut oil. You can find it in the grocery section with all of the various oils, but look for a jar containing white solids. Got it? Good.

All right. Fire up your oven and prepare a muffin tin. This will make 12 oatcakes, and you can just butter or spray the tins, you don’t need muffin cup liners.

Combine the coconut oil (the white stuff in the picture on the left), butter, maple syrup and sugar and let it melt slowly over low heat. Three tips here: one, cube your butter. It will melt faster. Two, do not skimp and get crappy maple syrup. Seriously. There are plenty of options out there. Three, you do not want to hurry this along and heat it too fast. You just want everything to melt together (like the picture on the right), you don’t want this to simmer or get too hot. Why not? Well, you’ll be mixing some eggs in later, and you don’t want this to be so hot that it cooks the egg on contact. Scrambled eggs do not equal structured baked goods.

While this is getting all melty, toss the dry ingredients together in a big bowl. This is where I vary a little from the recipe – it calls for rolled oats (not instant) and flax seeds. However, I tend to use a mixed grain hot cereal mix (most often Bob’s Red Mill 5 Grain Rolled Hot Cereal with Flaxseed) that already has flaxseed in it, so for a little extra nutritional boost I use chia seeds instead. Also, I’m usually lazy and don’t toast the walnuts like I should, but that’s up to you and your level of motivation. And last, the recipe calls for fine-grain sea salt but I use coarse as the bigger flakes really stand out and add an extra level of awesome to these beauties.

After your melty mix has cooled a little, pour it over the oat mixture. Using a fork (yes, a fork), gently mix – but not all the way, there should be some dry spots in there (see the middle picture). Lightly beat the eggs and add those to the bowl, and now you can mix everything up all the way with the fork. This dough tastes yummy, but it does have raw eggs, so, you know, be careful and all that.

Take a big spoon and scoop the dough into the prepared muffin tin. I use two 6-cup jumbo muffin tins, so the cups are only about half full, but you should nearly fill the cups in a standard 12-cup tin (picture on the left and in the middle). Bake for about 25 minutes or so, or until the edges are golden brown. You’ll be able to tell when the edges are all pretty and golden (picture on the right), and the oatcakes will smell amazing.

Let them cool for a few minutes, and then take a knife (although I use a chopstick to prevent scratching the muffin tin) and gently work it around the edges of each oatcake. This will loosen it up and you can just tip the muffin tin over onto a cooling rack. I prefer these warm, but most of the time I have to eat them at room temp and they’re still awesome. On one trip I used these as the ‘topping’ for yogurt at breakfast because I didn’t want to eat any of the giant pastries they offered, and it was delicious.

I realized I didn’t grab a photo of the oatcakes out of the pan, so I borrowed one from a website. This is what they look like. And yes, they really do look like this:

Please try them? Please? I think you will love them. And they will love you. Recipe is below, as is the link for the printable. Enjoy!

¹ Let it be known: I hold a grudge. For a really long time. Like, forever. I did see that the jerkfaces at Cake finally added ‘cakes to order’ to their menu, but Rose Kennedy was wrong – time does not heal all wounds.

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Oatcakes
By Heidi Swanson, Super Natural Every Day, p. 204

Ingredients

• 3 cups rolled oats (I use Bob’s Red Mill 5 Grain Rolled Cereal, or any hot cereal mix that has a bunch of grains in it. Don’t use instant oats!)
• 2 cups spelt flour or whole wheat pastry flour (I always use spelt, I think it adds a little nuttiness and more nutrition, and you can buy it in a little bag in the flour aisle so you aren’t stuck with 35 pounds of it)
• ½ tsp baking powder
• 2 tsp sea salt (I use coarse sea salt)
• ¼ cup flax seeds (because my cereal mix usually contains flax seeds, I use chia seeds here instead)
• ¾ cup chopped walnuts, lightly toasted
• 1/3 cup extra-virgin or virgin coconut oil (the solid stuff)
• 1/3 cup unsalted butter
• ¾ cup maple syrup (be nice to a Canadian or Vermonter and buy real stuff)
• ½ cup sugar
•  2 large eggs, lightly beaten

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 325ºF with an oven rack in the top third of the oven. Butter / spray a 12-cup muffin pan or two 6-cup muffin pans.
2. In a medium saucepan over low heat, combine the coconut oil, butter, maple syrup and sugar and slowly melt it together, stirring frequently. Stir just until the butter melts and sugar has dissolved – you don’t want this simmering or getting too hot, or it will cook the eggs on contact. Remove from heat and let cool slightly.
3. Combine oats, flour, baking powder, salt, flax seeds and walnuts in a large mixing bowl. Beat the eggs in a separate bowl.
4. Pour the coconut oil mixture over the oat mixture. Stir a bit with a fork until it’s mostly mixed in but not all the way, and then add the eggs. Stir again just until everything comes together in a wet dough.
5. Spoon the dough into muffin cups. Depending on the size of the muffin pan, this may nearly fill the cups or may only be halfway full. That’s ok.
6. Bake 25-30 minutes, until the edges of the oatcakes are deeply golden. I usually bake 25 minutes, check, and if they aren’t done keep a close eye on them. You don’t want them to bake too long or they’ll dry out.
7. Remove the pan from the oven and let cool for a few minutes. Run a knife (I use a chopstick to avoid scratching up the pan) gently around the edges to loosen them and tip them out onto a cooling rack. Serve warm or at room temp.

Oatcakes

 

Somewhere over the rainbow (of vegetables)

Oh look. Here comes yet another blizzard, rumbling across the Chicagoland area, laughing at the poor humans below. I feel that I have as little hope of any kind of forward movement toward spring as anyone standing in line at the DMV or post office. This made me think about rain dances. Does dancing help bring rain? In a meteorological sense, probably not. But I bet the people dancing feel better, like they were at least doing something to alleviate the suffering of a drought. It’s like yelling at a hockey game on TV. The players can’t hear you, but you feel somewhat mollified knowing you’ve just insulted their skills, their moms, their penchant for diving and being a sissy and most likely staring in the mirror all day like Narcissus and his pond.¹

Maybe I can’t make robins and the shy green shoots of lilies and that ‘new earth’ smell and open balcony windows come any faster, but I can fight the grey winter blahs with a rainbow of vegetables.² What’s my favorite part about this dish? Honestly, I don’t know if I can decide. How can you pick your favorite CCR song, or Beatles’ album, or the best bite of caramelized pineapple and cardamom sundae at Culture?³ It’s not as easy as picking your favorite New Kid⁴ or your favorite blueberry pancakes and lemon cake in the world.⁵

A particular highlight is how affordable this meal is – you can feed 4 people for about $8 total. It’s nice saving some cash-ew. (See what I did there?) Or, since the recipe is from a British magazine, for less than £5. Nothing particularly exotic that you’ll have to find at the grocery store, it’s customizable, fast, portable, tastes great cold, room temp or hot… And for the carnivores in your life, they won’t miss the meat – there’s plenty of protein to go around. Shall we begin?

Here’s what you need: Although to be honest, the ingredients come and go depending on the season and my mood and what’s in the house.

Get your noodles started first; while they’re cooking you can get the rest of it ready. The longest part of this recipe is the noodles cooking, which is a nice bonus on a busy weeknight. When I first made the recipe I had to figure out what the hell a ‘bundle’ was, and after exhaustive searching I determined that it’s roughly 8 oz. Given that the bag o’ noodles that I buy is 12 ounces, I put in about 3/4 of the bag. Very scientific. Also, the recipe calls for medium noodles, but I wanted them a little thinner so the focus was on the veggies, not the carbs – I bought Manischewitz Kluski egg noodles, from the international aisle at the grocery store. Or I’d buy ‘fine’ noodles if they carried it.

Noodles are cooking? Good, stir-fry your cashews. Heat a dry wok until hot and stir-fry for about 2 minutes, stirring frequently to avoid burning the cashews. Put them aside and move on to the aromatics. Heat up some oil and add the garlic, ginger and chile. Note: this has a tend to pop and come flying out of the pan at speeds resembling underage kids fleeing from a party the cops just busted. Just be careful, don’t go sticking your face in the pan or anything. Things could end not well. Stir this around for a minute or so, and then add the matchsticked carrots, spring onions and peppers and toss so it’s all coated and mixed. Give ‘er a good stir frequently so things are evenly rotated.

I was not a member of the ‘I know how to matchstick vegetables’ club, so I had to look it up. Easiest way for round things like carrots – cut the carrot in half lengthwise and lay each half flat. Trim the still-rounded top a little to make a roughly flat surface so your carrot now looks more like a rectangle. Make tiny little slices lengthwise, and then rotate the stack onto its side and make tiny slices lengthwise again. This should leave you with matchsticks.

Add the broccolini and stir around to coat; then add the bok choy. Keep stirring for a few minutes.

You’re almost done! So easy, right? Dump in the noodles and cashews and mix everything well. Then comes the soy sauce and sesame oil. The recipe calls for sesame oil, but I do about half normal sesame oil and half toasted sesame oil. It gives that little extra something, a hint of something nutty and delicious, that I love. Make sure everything is mixed evenly, all the noodles and veggies are coated with the sauce and oil.

Then, serve it up! That’s it! You can eat this warm or cold or room temp and it will taste great. You can bring it on a picnic or to work or hide an extra serving for yourself behind a bag of chocolates that serve as a giant black hole for your husband to fall into so he ignores the yummy salad behind it. “More food for me” should be my motto. Anyway, check out the recipe below, and click on the link for a printable version. Enjoy!

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¹ Sidney “Sissy Cindy” Crosby.
² Armored Philistine French peas: “Ho there, tiny pickle!” Larry: “I’m a cucumber!”
³ I have dreams about this place, much like my friend Heather used to (still does?) dream about the onion rings from Ted’s Montana Grill as inner tubes. These suckers are pretty huge, so it makes sense.
⁴ Joey McIntyre – I had his life-sized poster hanging on my wall and would gaze at it adoringly every night, hoping one day he’d come to my hometown and whisk me away in his red convertible. Not sure why he was in a red convertible, but that was my dream. Mom let me stay up to almost midnight once when I was in elementary school and she took me to an NKOTB concert. I know, BEST MOM EVER, right? I can still sing all the words and even do the dance to Step By Step, as I accidentally discovered with Alex in a corset shop in NYC’s Fashion District. Heaven, ladies and gentleman, isn’t so far away.
⁵ Donna and Lorraine’s from Sweet Bytes. No contest. Ever.

Stir-fried rainbow vegetables with cashew nuts
By Vegetarian Living, p. 16

Ingredients

• 1/3 cup cashew halves (I do raw or roasted, unsalted)
• About 8 oz egg noodles – go with a fine or Kluski egg noodle from the international aisle
• 1 TBS sunflower oil
• 1 cm piece fresh root ginger, cut into matchsticks (or up to 1 TBS minced ginger from a jar)
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1 red chile, deseeded and chopped (I happened to use a fresno here, but I’m sure jalapeno would work too)
• 1 red pepper, deseeded and cut into matchsticks
• 1 bunch spring onions (scallions), sliced
• 2 carrots, cut into matchsticks
• About 1/3 cup broccoli florets, or one bunch of broccolini
• 1 bok choy, shredded (I use a baby bok choy)
• 4 TBS soy sauce
• 2 TBS sesame oil, or about 2 tsp toasted sesame oil and the rest regular sesame oil

Directions

1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil and cook noodles according to the bag’s instructions. Drain.
2. Heat a wok or large frying pan until hot and stir-fry the cashew nuts about 2 minutes, stirring frequently to prevent burning, until golden. Transfer to  a plate.
3. Heat oil in the wok or large frying pan until hot and stir-fry the ginger, garlic and chile for about one minute, stirring frequently to prevent burning the garlic and ginger. Add the pepper, spring onions and carrots and stir-fry for 3 minutes.
4. Add broccoli / broccolini to the work and stir-fry another 2 minutes. Add bok choy and stir-fry one more minute.
5. Add the drained noodles and cashews to the wok and stir-fry for a minute. Add the soy sauce and sesame oil and toss well until everything is coated evenly.
6. Serve!

Stir-fried rainbow vegetables with cashews

 

Stewing in my ‘winter is never going to end’ funk

As long as I’m stewing, let’s make some. Stew, that is.

It has been blizzard after blizzard this year in the Windy City, and as the months and piles of snow drag on I find myself turning more and more to carbs and hot comfort food. Sometimes the only thing that can get you through the day is a big bowl of mac ‘n cheese or a plate of pasta. I fully support this craving.

These are not necessarily the healthiest options, however, so I’ve been seeking out greener pastures (in a caloric sense). My beloved Deborah Madison came through, as she always does. Warm, filling, seasonal root vegetables, plus an excuse (let’s be honest, I didn’t really need one) to open up a gorgeous bottle of Portuguese red we just discovered over the holidays. It looks pretty, tastes great, freezes well, satisfies the carnivore in your life – what more could a kitchen midget want?

As a bonus, you can make this while recovering from a concussion, and it won’t tax the multi-tasking skills you temporarily lost. I made this after the concussion but before the most recent ‘trying to chop off your finger’ incident (making a yummy salad recipe I’ll post soon) and it turned out well, so I’d say on a scale of 0 to ‘Beck-proof,’ this is a safe one to try. (The huz has started to insist on high levels of kitchen protection. I am the proud owner of what appear to be chain-mail kitchen cooking gloves to ward off any danger from, well, myself.)

The key to the recipe, and this is a big one: don’t drink all of the wine before you make the stew. Everything else is child’s play. Put on your hockey helmet and shin pads, and let’s begin!

The cast of characters:

What’s cooking, good looking?

You don’t really NEED all of the pretty-colored potatoes, but if you can use ’em, why not? A little color and different texture profiles add pizzazz to your dinner. And I’m nothing if not a fan of dinner pizzazz. The knobbly things that kind of remind me of Ree-Yees, who made an appearance in Jabba’s palace and on his sail barge (go ahead, I’ll wait while you look him up. Ok, you’re back – see what I mean?), are sunchokes, also known as Jerusalem artichokes.¹

Slice and dice, get your roots ready, and then toss the onion, garlic, a bay leaf, some thyme and olive oil into a Dutch oven. Give ‘er a stir occasionally and cook until the onion begins to brown. Then add the chopped veggies, salt, pepper and nutmeg and cook for a little while, getting them all soft and snuggly and warm.

Pour in whatever wine you haven’t consumed yet and scrape up the little browned onion bits from the bottom. This is good stuff, people; scraped-up browned onion bits are considered to have magical powers in some parts of the world. Let the wine cook down a bit, then add the tomato paste and some flour for thickening and cook for a teensy bit longer.

Add some water and cook until the veggies are tender.

Tip #1: add more water than you think you’ll need. Here’s why: when you add the insanely yummy dumpling-y topping, you have to put the stew in the oven and if you just add the exact amount of water needed it will evaporate and you will not have a very pot-pie-like stew, it will be more like root veggies and bread. Delicious, just lacking a bit of saucy goodness.

Tip #2: let the stew come to room temp before you stick ‘er back in the oven. If you do not, the steam from the still-warm stew will impact the bread and make it all soggy. Nobody likes soggy bread + stew. What’s nice about this is you can make the stew ahead of time, even a day or two, and when you’re ready for the topping it will be ready to go.

I can’t even handle how good this next part is: the ‘cobbler topping,’ or what look like dumplings of nutty deliciousness. And it’s super fast. Cut some butter into a mix of all-purpose and whole wheat flour with some baking powder and salt until it makes a coarse meal. Add some milk, stir until just damp and then knead it a few times just until the dough comes together. Don’t overdo the kneading here. If you have some anger issues, go chop chocolate, don’t take it out on the poor cobbler topping.

You can use a spoon, but I think it’s more fun with your hands – plop hunks of the dough over the stew in a baking dish. You can do this in the original dutch oven you used to cook the stew, or, if you happen to have some smaller casserole dishes, you can separate out the stew into individual portions and do it that way. I went for the middle ground and did a few individual stew casseroles and one medium-sized one.

Brush it with a beaten egg for some glossy glaze action, and bake it for about a half hour or so. Done! It smells like everything you imagine a good stew will smell like, plus the added bonus of baking bread. I’m getting hungry typing this, although possibly because I only had one lunch today and not two.

That’s it! You can wrap it up in plastic and store extras in the fridge, or wrap it up extra-well and store it in the freezer. Just let it thaw a bit in the fridge before you reheat it, if going the frozen route. The meat-eater in the family gave this a thumbs up, and the vegetables are recognizable so it shouldn’t scare off any picky children (or my flavor-fearing uncles). I love this stew – go make some right now! You’ll love it too. The printable is at the end of the post – enjoy!

¹ See ‘Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy‘ for more on Jerusalem artichokes / sunchokes.

Winter Vegetable Stew with Sunchokes and Cobbler Topping
From Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking For Everyone, p. 245 and pp. 258-59

Ingredients – Stew

• 2 TBS olive oil
• 1 large onion, diced
• 6 garlic cloves, peeled
• 2 bay leaves
• ¼ tsp chopped thyme
• 4 large carrots, cut into 2-inch lengths
• 2 celery ribs, cut into 2-inch lengths (I don’t like celery so I didn’t use this)
• 4 medium boiling potatoes, peeled and quartered (I did not peel my potatoes and chopped them up a little smaller than quarters, plus I used a bunch of different colors)
• ½ lb Jerusalem artichokes (sunchokes), scrubbed and cut into ½-inch pieces
• Salt and pepper
• 1/8 tsp nutmeg
• 1 cup dry red wine
• 1 TBS tomato paste
• 1 TBS all-purpose flour
• 2 TBS parsley chopped with one garlic clove (I hate parsley and did not use this)

Ingredients – Topping

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup whole-wheat flour
• 1 TBS baking powder (yes, one tablespoon)
• ½ tsp salt
• 6-8 TBS cold butter, diced
• 1 cup milk
• 1 egg, beaten

Directions – Stew

1. Heat oil in a Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the onion, garlic, bay leaves and thyme and cook, stirring occasionally, until onion begins to brown (about 12 minutes).
2. Add the vegetables and season with pepper, nutmeg and 1.5 tsp of the salt. Cook for 5 minutes.
3. Raise the heat to high and add the wine. Scrape up any onion bits from the bottom, and then let it simmer until the liquid is reduced by half.
4. Reduce the heat to medium, add the tomato paste, sprinkle the flour over the veggies, cover and cook for 2 minutes.
5. Stir in 1 cup (I’d suggest more) of water and cook until the liquid is again reduced by half. Reduce the heat to low and simmer, covered, until the veggies are tender (about 20-25 minutes). Add parsley and garlic if using. Let the stew come to room temp before adding the cobbler dough.

Directions – Topping

1. Preheat the oven to 375°F. In a small bowl, lightly beat an egg. In a separate bowl, combine the flours, baking powder and salt. Add the cold butter and work with a pastry blender or your fingers until it makes a coarse meal.
2. Add the milk and stir until everything is dampened, and then knead a few times, just until everything comes together.
3. Using your hands or a spoon, drop spoonfuls of the dough over the stew. Brush the dough lightly with the beaten egg.
4. Bake in the oven until the crust is golden, about 35 minutes.

Winter Vegetable Stew with Sunchokes and Cobbler Topping

 

Easy peasy lemon squeezy – the cure for the holiday kitchen exhaustion

Raise your hand if you are one of the weary cooks and chefs and bakers that start twitching by the end of December from holiday cooking PTSD. (You can’t see it but my hand is raised.) The last thing you want to do after spending hours on your feet, covered in flour and butter and cookie sheet burns, is to enter the battleground of your kitchen and make dinner. Just looking at the oven sends your brain into spasms. Well, fear not, my friends – I’m here with two recipes that will make your lives just a smidge easier during the holiday season. They almost make themselves, really – just toss them in a pan, put them in the oven, and you’re free to pursue the rest of your to-do list.

Each recipe has an ingredient that you likely won’t have in your pantry – in ‘roasted chicken with Jerusalem artichoke and lemon,’ I had to seek out the not-really-an-artichoke Jerusalem artichoke. In ‘roast chicken with saffron, hazelnuts and honey,’ I had to buy rose water. Neither of these ingredients is hard to find, they just aren’t as common (although after tasting these recipes, they should be!). Both recipes are ‘one pan’ recipes, meaning everything goes into one pan. No muss, no fuss. As there are two recipes and I don’t want this post to be an epic reminiscent of the Odyssey, I’ll keep the photos and descriptions fairly brief. First up, Jerusalem artichokes.

Roast chicken with Jerusalem artichoke and lemon

Basically, you chop stuff up, put it in a bowl to marinate, then dump it in a pan and bake it. The only exception here is that you need to boil the artichokes first, but it doesn’t take much time.

Here’s the cast of characters:

Jerusalem artichokes – also known as sunchokes – are not actually artichokes. Nor are they from Jerusalem. I’m not in charge of naming things, but this seems a bit off.¹ It’s actually part of the daisy family – the plant part of it looks like a sunflower or daisy (hence the sun in sunchoke) – and the root is considered a tuber, which tastes a little like an artichoke, but it doesn’t have a lot of starch like other tubers. They look like ginger root – knobbly and earthy and wrinkly. You don’t have to peel them, but this recipe called for it so I did. Kind of looked like the end of a Clue game where a root was murdered – it was Beck with the vegetable peeler in the kitchen!

Anyway, boil them a little to soften them up, and then toss most of the other ingredients in a bowl with the chicken to marinate.

Arrange everything in a roasting pan – with the chicken pieces skin-side up – and roast. Part way through roasting you’ll cover with foil. Then it will be done, and you scoop it on to a plate and enjoy! See? Told you it was easy.

 

Roast chicken with saffron, hazelnuts and honey

This little beauty has a surprisingly light and delicate flavor, and the hazelnuts add a welcome crunch. The only thing you have to do ahead of time is put the hazelnuts on a baking sheet and roast them for a few minutes. I know, this is really taxing and I don’t know how else to help but to say I’m here for you during this difficult step.

Cast o’ characters:

If your hazelnuts still have the papery skin on them, you’ll just need to rub them in your hands after they cool and the skin will just fall off. This is much easier than the pistachio shelling disaster from an earlier post.

I don’t know if you can prepare yourself for the technical difficulty of this next step – put everything in a bowl and marinate the chicken. I know, I need a breather after that one too.

Roast the chicken mix; meanwhile, make a little paste from the hazelnuts, honey and rose water.² This smells and tastes amazing. Spread the paste onto the chicken and finish roasting. This smells and tastes fantastic. Scoop out and enjoy!

 

 

For your PTSD-free dinners, click on the link below for recipes and instructions.

Roast chicken with Jerusalem artichoke and lemon

Roast chicken with saffron, hazelnuts and honey

—————————————————————————————————-

¹ “Samsonite? I was WAY off!”
² Yes, that is a muddler, not a mortar and pestle. I recently and accidentally garbage disposal-ed my pestle, so I had to use my muddler from Brazil to make the paste.

 

Get back in the kitchen and make me some pie!

Well, Cartman’s quote (from which my headline is derived) is a bit…saltier than that. But this is a family show.¹

Thanksgiving is coming up, but really, do you need an excuse to think about pie? I know I don’t, especially when I recently attended an event at Greenlight Bookstore in Brooklyn with my favorite Brooklynites, Alex & Johnny. To be 100% honest, I’m not sure what attracted me more – the fact that the two sisters would be discussing and signing their new cookbook, released that day, no less, or the fact that they were giving samples after the talk.

Mayhap you’ve heard of Four & Twenty Blackbirds pie shop in Brooklyn. Run by two farm-raised sisters from South Dakota, it’s essentially a place to go eat pie and drink coffee. But it’s oh so much more than that. Think of your happiest memory right now. Mix it with your biggest future dream. Then add pie. That’s just scratching the surface of this little slice (see what I did there??) of heaven. I like the sisters because they’re down to earth and self-taught and sweet and inspiring and brought their mom to their book signing and make ridiculously good pie. If ever there were a time for the word ‘redonkulous’ (really, is there ever?) it’s here. They also encourage feedback and questions and said during the talk that they gave all of their secrets away in this cookbook. I love Midwestern practicality and honesty.

Anyway, Alex and I elbowed our way to pie samples and I’m fairly certain we had way more than our share. Research purposes, of course. And I did buy the beautifully written and photographed cookbook, ‘The Four & Twenty Blackbirds Pie Book’ before the talk. Naturally I’ve been sitting with the pie book in bed since then, drooling over photos and planning recipes for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday.² Who needs turkey when you can eat pie? Savory, sweet, fruit, custard – bring it on, I’m all in.

My two standard pies are my pumpkin pie and my mom’s deep dish caramel apple pie. I’ve never found an apple pie that can compare to Mom’s, so obviously this means PIE THROW-DOWN with Four & Twenty Blackbird’s Salted Caramel Apple Pie. But before we go any further, I have a confession. I’ve never made a pie crust from scratch. (I know, I’m filled with shame.) Why would you, when they abound in the frozen section of your nearest grocery store? Plus, the idea of working with delicate pastry scares me. I don’t really ‘do’ delicate anything. But the Elsen sisters convinced me that it could be done, and provided step-by-step photos and diagrams for comfort when moments of panic started creeping in. Another point in homemade pie crust’s favor – it can be done in many little steps over many days, so if you don’t have all sorts of free time to engage in the pie crust arts, you’re still a-ok because you can refrigerate or freeze it for later use.

As an aside, I just had to get up and wash my hands because I’m eating my first slice of this pie as I type and I keep forgetting about typing and just focus on the pie and my hands are buttery and caramel-y and that makes the keyboard sticky.

Ok, I lied. It’s my second piece of pie.

I did make this pie over several days’ time because of my travel schedule and it still turned out beautifully. For my first totally-home-made pie, I’m pretty darn impressed with myself. Those of you with years of pie crust experience may dismiss my newbie excitement but I don’t care, I’m the one eating salted caramel apple pie with extra caramel sauce drizzled on top right now – what are YOU doing, huh?

I would like to point out that I have not made a single nerdy pi joke yet. Nor am I wearing my pi-rates shirt. I think it’s all of the caramel I’ve ‘accidentally’ ingested today. Onward to pie! The post is a long one because I include a lot of pictures and there are many steps, but they’re little steps broken into manageable chunks. Bear with me; the pie is seriously worth it.

The Crust

First, the crust. It does involve a rest period in the fridge, so take note. This crust will make two 9-inch crusts (a ‘double crust’ recipe), one for the bottom of the pie and one for the lattice on top.

My kosher salt box is indeed damaged. I don’t want to talk about it. The vinegar gives the crust a slight tang, but if I didn’t tell you it was in here you’d never know. Anyway, cube the butter. There are a handful of kitchen tools that I would marry if I were a kitchen tool; my bench scraper is one of them. You want to cube the cold butter and then put it back in the fridge to keep it cold until you’re ready for it. Did I mention the butter should be cold?

Cut the butter into your dry ingredients with a pastry blender. It’s good to have a flat-bottomed bowl here for stability while blending the butter. And yes, I have a bacon bandaid on my finger. You’d think we have little kids here – we have bacon, ninja and mustache bandaids, but no normal ones.

Keep going until the butter is in little pea-sized chunks. You do not want large chunks of butter here.

Easy so far, right? Right. Now it’s time to doctor the crust a little. Mix the wet stuff together for a vinegary ice bath.

Dip a tablespoon in there and start adding liquid, 1-2 TBS at a time, mixing with the pastry blender each time. Keep going until the dough starts to form – it will mostly be sticky, with a few little dry bits here and there. Mold the dough into a ball – run your fingers through it a time or two to make sure there aren’t any large butter chunks in there. You want it to be marbled. But don’t knead it like bread or mix too much, that would be bad for reasons of which I’m not entirely certain. Probably something to do with gluten. Get some plastic wrap, plop the ball of dough on there, and cut it in half.

Flatten each half into a round disk, wrap tightly with plastic, and stick ‘er in the fridge for at least 1 hour, preferably overnight, to let the gluten relax and the crust ‘time to mellow.’ I assume that means you crack a few beers, play it Jimmy Buffett songs? I opted for the Johnny Cash radio station on iTunes. It seemed to work. You can leave this in the fridge for up to three days, or freeze it for one month. Before you roll out the dough, let it sit at room temp for 10-15 minutes so it doesn’t crack.

This next part depends on whether you have two rolling pins or one. If you happen to have a French (tapered) rolling pin use that to start. Roll out the disk on a floured surface until it’s about 8-9 inches across, and then finish with a standard rolling pin, or just use the standard rolling pin the whole time. (The French one allows for a bit more leverage around the outside of the circle but does put pressure on the center, and you don’t want to stretch the dough.) You’re supposed to have a disk about 11-12 inches across; mine was more of a trapezoid. Oh well. Also, don’t throw away the plastic wrap from the two dough halves.

For the top of the pie, the lattice, cut the ends off the sides of one of the disks with a pizza cutter, and then slice up eight even strips. When you’re done, transfer the strips to a cookie sheet covered with parchment paper (or well-floured).

Use a glass pie plate if you can – it distributes heat more evenly than aluminum, and you can check the bottom of the crust while it’s cooking. For the bottom of the pie, fold the other disk in half and gently place it in the center of a well-buttered pie plate (edges facing out). Gently is the name of the game here. Unfold the disk over the pie plate so it hangs over. Pick a place to start and gently lift the overhang up a little and let the dough naturally slide down the side of the pie plate. Go around the whole pie, and when you’re done press gently (gentlYYYY³) into the sides of the pie plate to make sure there aren’t big gaps or air bubbles. Finally, take the pizza cutter and run it around the side of the pie plate to trim the overhang; you’ll want 1-2 inches (as measured from the inner ring of the pie plate).

Use the plastic wrap that you hopefully didn’t throw away – it’s already greased up from the dough, so it works well here to wrap the crust in the pie plate and the strips on the cookie sheet for a second rest in the fridge. I wish I could take this many naps. Refrigerate it for at least 30 minutes, preferably an hour, and up to three days (or frozen for up to one month). And that’s the crust!

The Filling

For the filling, make the caramel, and while that’s cooling, core, slice and peel the apples, and then do some mixing magic.

I felt awfully proud when I ended up with a bubbling vat o’ caramel. Whisk sugar and water together in a medium saucepan over medium-low heat just until the sugar is dissolved. Add butter and bring to a slow boil – low and slow is the way to go, you don’t want the sugar burning.

Keep stirring constantly as the mix continues at a slow boil. It will bubble and foam a little and start to thicken. Keep stirring, because the color change will happen quickly. When it turns a deep golden brown, remove it from heat and immediately, but slowly, drizzle in heavy cream while stirring. As you can see, the mixture will bubble and steam a bit, but that’s ok. Let cool while you prepare the apples.

It’s so pretty! You may also notice the powdered sugar residue. That’s from me accidentally dumping an entire bag of powdered sugar into the caramel pot. The universe decided that today it would like me, so the bag ended right side up, with only a little caramel splashing and a little dusting of sugar popping out. I would have actually cried had this gone any other way.

Now, juice two lemons into a big bowl.

I strongly suggest you get an apple corer/slicer thingy. If you ask for it by that name at an apple orchard or probably a Target or something, they’ll know what you’re talking about (because that’s how I got mine). It peels, slices and cores in a flash and is fun to use! You can also slice apples into thin wedges if you’d like. I happened to have some thin wedges already sliced, and then I used the corer/slicer thingy on the rest of them. The reason you want them more uniform and thin is for packing purposes – thinner and more uniform means more apples in the pie, fewer air pockets, general pie integrity and deliciousness, etc. I feel like a little kid playing with toys when I use this. 

I work for a fabulous company and boss who decided that, because we all travel too much and never see each other, we should have a day out together. On a perfect fall day we drove out to the middle of nowhere and picked apples at an orchard (and fed goats and sheep and llamas and baby donkeys and emus and saw piglets race and swung on ziplines). Yes, racing pigs.

As a result, I had a mix of Jonagold, Honeycrisp, Granny Smith and I think a Liberty and Pink Lady. If you’re making any kind of apple item – applesauce, apple pie, etc – it’s best to have a mix. If you can only find two kinds, use Granny Smith and then a sweet-tart firm apple (Jonagold, Braeburn, Honeycrisp, Fuji, Pink Lady). The firm textures will hold up and not overpower the pie with sweetness. 

Add the slices to the bowl with the lemon juice and dredge the slices around so they’re all juiced up. Sprinkle with some sugar and set aside for 20-30 minutes. The lemon juice should protect it from browning too much, and the sugar will help the apples soften and release juices.

Put some raw sugar in a small bowl. You can find raw sugar at the grocery store – there’s Sugar in the Raw and other brands. It looks like big, brown crystals. I happened to have turbinado sugar in the raw, so that’s what I used. Shake some Angostura bitters over the sugar. I had to go to the liquor store to find a small bottle. The Elsen sisters say bitters are an ingredient that give the pie ‘a little something,’ so I used it. I don’t want my pie to be a little something-less. Mix in some other apple pie spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, etc). Carefully add the apples into the spice mixture, leaving behind excess liquid. Nobody likes a soggy pie. I used a pasta scoop to transfer the apples over. Gently mix the apples so the apples are covered evenly in the spice mix.

Preparing the Pie

Grab your pie crust and sprinkle some flour and sugar in the bottom – this helps suck up any excess juice. Pile the apples into the crust, mounding the apples a little higher in the middle. Pour some caramel evenly over the apples, and sprinkle with some flaky Maldon salt.

Either do the lattice yourself or grab a school-aged girl who can braid.

Trim any big overhangs from the lattice strips, and crimp the sides of the pie. Form a C with the pointer finger and thumb of one hand, gently press it against the side of the pie plate rim, and while pressing in toward the pie use the thumb of your other hand to press outward in the middle of the C. Work your way around the pie. When you’ve crimped and latticed, brush the pastry with an egg wash and sprinkle with more raw sugar and a little coarse sea salt.

Let the pie sit in the fridge for 10-15 minutes to set while your oven preheats. Now, this part is critical – bake your pie on a rimmed cookie sheet, or on some aluminum foil with ends turned up. Otherwise, the bubbling over will burn on the bottom of your oven and that really, really, really blows. And stinks. Start the pie on the bottom rack of the oven – this helps set the crust and allows for more even browning. About halfway through, move the pie up to the center rack. The pie is done when it’s a deep golden brown and the juices are a-bubbling.

The hardest part of this entire thing – now you have to wait. I was NOT happy about this. Smells of buttery pastry and spiced apples had been torturing me, and I have to wait? But you do – you want your pie to set and not be a runny, gloppy mess when you serve it. Put the pie on a wire rack and let it cool for at least 2-3 hours. This actually does help the pie set, I’m sad to report, because I’d love to just shove my face in it right away. I set a timer for two hours – I didn’t think I was going to make it – and dug in the second the two hours were up. The slices held – well, for about a nanosecond, after I drizzled it with leftover caramel sauce and savored every incredible, hard-earned bite.

Even Sergei got involved – he came creeping around, trying to figure out what had so captivated our attention.

It looks complicated, and maybe it is a little, but man, it is worth it. I can’t wait to try more recipes from the book, now that I’m not scared of making my own pie crust! And it’s huz-approved – he said this is the first time he hasn’t ignored a pie crust, he actually likes it. A printable link is at the bottom. Enjoy!

¹ Well, it’s a family show in the main text. Footnotes are another story: “I would never let a woman kick my ass. If she tried anything, I’d be like, EH. You get your bitch ass back in the kitchen and make me some pie!”
² I really do read cookbooks and food magazines for fun. It’s kind of an addiction.
³ Buttercup: “At a time like this, is that all you can think to say? Gently?” Westley: “GentlYYY!” (thump)

Salted Caramel Apple Pie

 

And we’re back…let’s start with some Jerusalem fusion food, shall we?

It feels wonderful to be blogging again. I was winding down at my old job and starting at my new job and had planned to come back after the new job settled down. That, as it turns out, was a crappy plan of epic proportions: (a) my new job has yet to settle down in 6+ months; and (b) my phone, which contained about 15 recipes’ worth of photos for posting during my down time (ha!) was stolen. Ergo, I’m starting from scratch. I’m home for four full days in a row, which means I can grocery shop and cook meals, which means I can start blogging again. Huzzah! Oh, and we moved apartments, which threw a kink in the ‘I’m going to cook’ plans. However, I would marry my new kitchen if I could. It’s spacious and bright and more than one person can be in it at the same time. I have some good stuff coming up, including Thanksgiving-themed posts to assist in your holiday drool-fest.

Are we starting with something simple to get back into action? Nope, we’re going full out with a brand new recipe from brand new (to me) cookbook. If you haven’t heard of Yotam Ottolenghi, let me be the first to open your eyes to the Middle Eastern culinary delight that is the London-based, Israeli-born chef, author, pioneer, etc etc. With a weekly column in the Guardian, three gorgeous cookbooks (I own all three) and famed delis and a restaurant in London, the man is a (quiet) rockstar. I’ll add ‘artist’ to the list, because his cookbooks are beautiful – coffee-table worthy and surprisingly informative on the history and tradition of food in Jerusalem, Palestine and sundry parts of the Fertile Crescent.

First up is a simple dish that could fall into the brunch, comfort food, or weeknight supper categories: braised eggs with lamb, tahini and sumac. I have to be honest: had I read that title first, I would have likely skipped over the recipe. ‘Braised’ sounds scary and involved, and isn’t sumac that lovely multi-hued bush on the side of the road?¹ However, the picture of the finished dish graces the cover of Ottolenghi’s ‘Jerusalem’ cookbook, and the photo is so pretty that it drew me in with its siren song.

So pretty…

Can you hear them? Scylla and Charybdis, drawing you in to a new world of exotic spices and names and tastes. This is all sounding well and good, but here’s the problem: as previously noted, I am in the running for most klutzy, accident-prone human on the planet. I suppose I shouldn’t feel too badly: Odysseus lost six sailors when he tried to navigate the harrowing waters between the two monsters, and I only lost half of the dish and my remaining pride. But we’ll get to that. Let’s begin!

Mise en place, no? There are two parts to this dish, the main attraction and the yogurt sauce. For the main attraction, we have the following players:

Granted, this looks like a lot of stuff. But I promise you, it’s simple. No, seriously. Just don’t make the mistakes I did, and you’ll be fine. For example, I couldn’t find shelled pistachios. No big deal, right? The recipe calls for a scant half cup of crushed pistachios – pshhh, I can shell some pistachios and crush them myself. Therein lies the problem: I overestimated my ability to efficiently shell anything, and neglected to account for the certainty that I would spill half the crushed, shelled pistachios on the floor and have to start over while your sadistic husband laughs at you. True story. If you are a normal person, this should not trip you up. Otherwise, put in the effort to find shelled pistachios.

But I digress.

Chop up your onions, slice your garlic and preserved lemon peel, crush your new archenemy (pistachios) and wash your cherry tomatoes. The recipe calls for toasted pistachios and pine nuts, but at this point I was fairly certain I’d burn the house down if I turned on the oven, so I went with untoasted. Heat some olive oil over medium high heat in a pan for which you own a lid. The instructions say to use a heavy-bottomed frying pan, but I don’t have one, so I used a dutch oven. Toss in the onions and garlic and saute for 5-6 minutes until they soften and color a bit.

I recently discovered the rather shocking pungency of fresh garlic purchased from the farmer’s market, rather than grocery store garlic bulbs (which, according to the farmer, are a few years old and from China). Heavenly. Kick the heat up to high and add the ground lamb. If you don’t like lamb, use a good quality ground beef. You know, I wonder how ground turkey would work here? I’ll have to try.

Brown ‘er up, 5-6 minutes, stirring occasionally. Meanwhile, heat up a dry cast-iron pan over high heat, and when it’s piping hot, add the cherry tomatoes.

Hello, my pretties!

Toss (or stir) occasionally and cook for 4-6 minutes until starting to char and blacken on the outside.

Set them aside for later and go back to your lamb. Once it’s browned, add in the sumac – which is not a bush in this case, but a deep red spice – and cumin, salt and pepper.

Cook for another minute to let everything blend, then turn off the heat and add in harissa, nuts and preserved lemon. A note on harissa and preserved lemon: I tend to make my own harissa, which is essentially a Middle Eastern hot chili sauce, but you can buy it at the store in the international aisle. Same with the preserved lemon, although it may be located with the oils and vinegars and pickled items. Preserved lemon is basically pickled lemon, and smells delicious.

picture

If you’re busy and need to go do something else, you can leave the meat mixture for about an hour. Just reheat when you go to the next step.

Add chicken stock and bring to a boil. Here comes the part where you wish you had used a wider pan: time to add the eggs. Make four little wells in the meat mixture and break an egg in each well.

Put the cover on, and cook the eggs over low heat for about 3 minutes; the egg whites will begin to set.

Add the tomatoes on top, making your best attempt to not fling them at high velocity on top of the yolks, which will burst and really just ruin your day.

Cover it all up again and cook for about five minutes. The whites should be cooked and the yolks a little runny – unless you don’t like that, in which case you should cook them until they’re hard.

Meanwhile, make the yogurt sauce. It’s really, really easy.

Whisk this stuff together, and add a pinch of salt. If it’s too stiff, add a splash of water, but mine turned out fine the first time.

Now, ideally this is when you turn the heat off, take the lid off your pan, and scoop some of meat/nut mix and an egg on to a plate for the addition of accoutrements. Unless you’re me. And you somehow drop the entire thing on the floor.

I don’t know how this happened, but it landed on its side, flung the contents out across the kitchen floor, as seen here:

…bounced back into the air, and landed on the bottom. I was able to salvage about half. Before I dropped it, it looked similar to the photo in his cookbook, so I felt somewhat mollified. Also, a creeper showed up.

Sergei was awfully sympathetic and to make me feel better, he helped clean up.

Let’s pretend that you don’t fail at life, and you were able to successfully scoop a serving on to a plate. Plop a few dollops of the yogurt sauce, sprinkle with a little sumac and cilantro. Dig in – it’s delicious!

This is huz-approved, and easy to make – basically a breakfast hash, but with a little wow factor added in. The recipe is below, and a clickable link to download the recipe in Word is at the bottom. Enjoy!

¹ Yes, yes it is. However, someone figured out that you can crush the fruits of the sumac and make a delicious spice used ubiquitously in Middle Eastern cooking. You may have encountered it before – the red sprinkles on hummus at a restaurant? Sumac. Mind: blown. I found it at a local spice shop, as Whole Foods happened to be out.

Braised eggs with lamb, tahini and sumac
By Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi
From ‘Jerusalem: A Cookbook’ (p. 205)

Ingredients

• 1 TBS olive oil
• 1 large onion, finely chopped
• 6 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
• 10 oz ground lamb
• 2 tsp ground sumac, plus a little extra for the end
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• Scant ½ cup toasted, unsalted pistachios, crushed
• 7 TBS toasted pine nuts
• 2 tsp harissa
• 1 TBS finely chopped preserved lemon peel
• 1-1/3 cups cherry tomatoes (I just bought a pint and used the whole thing)
• ½ cup chicken stock
• 4 large eggs
• ¼ cup fresh cilantro (I just tore off some stems and picked off the leaves; I didn’t measure)
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• Scant ½ cup plain Greek yogurt (I always buy Stonyfield – the 5.3 oz container gives you about a half cup)
• 1-1/2 TBS tahini (find it by the peanut butter and almond butter and other nut butters)
• 2 TBS lemon juice
• 1 TBS water, if necessary

Directions

1. Heat the olive oil over medium-high heat in a medium heavy-bottomed frying pan for which you have a tight fitting lid; add the onion garlic and sauté for about 6 minutes until softened and starting to color.
2. Raise the heat to high, add the ground lamb, and brown well, 5-6 minutes.
3. Season with sumac, cumin, ¾ tsp salt and black pepper, stir, and cook for another minute. Turn off the heat and stir in the nuts, harissa and preserved lemon.
4. Meanwhile, heat a dry cast-iron skillet or other heavy pan over high heat. Add tomatoes and char 4-6 minutes, tossing occasionally, until beginning to blacken. Set aside.
5. Add chicken stock to the meat mix and bring to a boil. Make 4 small wells in the mix and break an egg over each well. Cover the pan and cook the eggs over low heat for 3 minutes.
6. Meanwhile, whisk together the yogurt, tahini and lemon juice. Add water if the sauce is too thick.
7. Place the tomatoes on top of the meat mix (being careful not to break the yolks), cover again and cook another 3 minutes or so, until the egg whites are cooked and the yolks are your desired consistency.
8. Top a serving with dollops of the yogurt sauce, sprinkle a pinch of cumin on top, and top with cilantro. Makes 4 servings.

Braised eggs with lamb

 

Moroccan Spiced Lamb Stew

I never understood the appeal of a stay-cation, which is odd given how much I travel for work. A vacation is when you pack a bag, go somewhere, see or eat or do something out of the ordinary, get away from your daily life. And then, by happenstance, I had a stay-cation last week. I begrudgingly admit to enjoying my time spent at home, doing absolutely nothing but baking and cooking and reading. By the by, I may need a Food Network and Cooking Channel intervention.

Thanks to my unplanned but thoroughly enjoyed time at home, I have a stack of new post entries ready to go! Well, I have the photos and the recipes, I just have to write the posts. All in good time.

First up, we travel across the pond to a little place called Morocco. Where I live, it’s winter right now, and it’s cold. That immediately conjures up a desire for hearty, thick stew, and this twist on the typical beef stew is just what the doctor ordered. Or it would be, if doctors prescribed stew. I think they should. Or at least, flat 7-Up and Campbell’s condensed chicken noodle soup. Cures everything.

I’m going to insert a plea here, and I wavered on whether to do so because I don’t want it to scare you off. But, I don’t want the recipe to scare you off either, so there you go. The recipe may look like it’s complicated, but I promise that it isn’t. You should have most of the ingredients in your kitchen already, or at least have them on your grocery list. You can make this with chicken if you don’t like lamb, and you can add all kinds of other vegetables if you want to clean out your cupboard. There are four steps to the stew – five, if you make the homemade ‘sauce’ that accompanies the stew (and you should, it’s criminally easy). Four (or five) steps. You can handle that. You’ll end up with a delicious, filling stew of flavorful lamb, tender vegetables, nutty couscous – I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship between you and lamb stew.¹

Tip one: If you can find lamb cut into stew chunks at your local grocery store or butcher, awesome. Get that. If not, ask your butcher to cube the lamb meat for you – saves time, and frankly I just don’t want to be bothered. The recipe calls for lamb shoulder or breast, but I go with the leg because it’s leaner and you don’t have to trim as much of the fat and gristle. Another time saver! I should hang out with Justin Timberlake and the big-eyed blonde chick in that movie In Time. I’d be so popular.

Tip two: While you’re at the grocery store, check out the spice aisle. This recipe calls for saffron, which tends to be pretty expensive. There are ways around that – I’ve found that Trader Joe’s and Penzey’s (a store dedicated to spices) both carry saffron threads at a reasonable price. Or, if you don’t have one of those places nearby, see if there’s a spice shop in your town – since they will probably sell more of it than a regular grocery store, it should be a bit cheaper.

Remember how I said you can make the stew in four (or five) steps? Allow me to elucidate.

Step one – throw stuff in a pot and let it simmer for an hour.
Step two – put some more stuff into the pot, and let it simmer for about 45 minutes.
Step three – make your couscous, which encompasses throwing some stuff in a saucepan and letting it sit for 5-10 minutes.
Step four – put the last bit of stuff into the pot, let it simmer for 10 minutes. Done.
Step five (optional) – put some additional stuff in a saucepan and let it simmer for 15 minutes. Really done.

That may be simplifying it just a titch, but not by much. So, now that you’re properly wary and have girded your cooking loins and are having second thoughts, let’s do this.

Act One, in which stuff is thrown into a pot and left to simmer for an hour (Imagine trumpet fanfare and the curtain rising)

Here’s what you need.

Put the lamb pieces, onions, garlic, ginger, saffron, cinnamon sticks and chicken broth into a large pot or casserole and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat, cover, and let simmer for an hour. The recipe calls for 6 medium onions – I love onions as much as the next person who buys a lot of gum and mouthwash, but the end result makes for a situation where you’d ask, “Can I have some stew with my onions?” It could also be that Whole Foods signed a contract with the farmers that spliced Andre the Giant’s DNA into onions and can only grow onions the size of your head, so 1 onion at Whole Foods is equivalent to 2 or 3 medium onions. In any case, over time I’ve cut down on the onion portion of the recipe – I used 1.5 to 2 large onions, and still at the end I find myself scooping out a lot of the floppy onion pieces. But, do what you will. Hugs not drugs. Etc. It’s just some friendly advice.

Starting ‘er off – don’t be afraid, the onions will cook down.

All cooked down and simmering…

Act Two, in which more stuff is thrown into a pot and left to simmer for 45 minutes (No fanfare this time. The trumpet player is at the bar getting a beer. You can never find good help, you know?)

Here’s what you need.

Add the carrots, tomatoes and cilantro bundle to the pot. Stir, cover, bring the soup to a boil, reduce the heat to medium-low, and let ‘er cook for 40-45 minutes. Two asides here – one, if you happen to have run out of kitchen string and your only other option is an old paper clip you dug out of the junk drawer coated with a mysterious layer of dust and grime, I say go ahead and just use the rubber band that is still on it from the grocery store. Reduce, reuse, recycle, right? You’re going to pull the entire bundle out at the end, so you do want it tied together. Two – the recipe calls for fennel at this point. Fennel and I do not see eye to eye (and not just because I’m short). If I could, I’d kick fennel in the ankle and insult it by cleverly playing on the second part of its species name, vulgare. I don’t pull any punches when it comes to vilifying vegetables I don’t like. I’d look at the fennel, narrow my eyes a bit, and say, “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, you walk into mine.”² This is a very long way of saying that I don’t add fennel. If you like it, then fennel away, my friend.

Act Three, in which you throw some stuff in a saucepan (i.e., make couscous). (Imagine that people are back from intermission, they’re feeling good, wrapping up some last minute chatter, shutting off their cell phones.)

Here’s what you need. However, this is slightly incorrect – I forgot to take the chickpeas out of the picture. So, it’s the couscous plus chickpeas. Just ignore the chickpeas for now.

Take some of the soup broth and substitute that for the water in the couscous – a bonus extra boost of flavor. I’ve always used Near East’s couscous (look for it in the aisle with the rice and grains), and I tend toward Toasted Pine Nut as it complements the flavors. All you have to do is bring the liquid and the contents of the spice sack to a boil, pour in the couscous, cover ‘er up and remove it from the heat, and let it sit. And…scene!

Act Four, in which you throw the last bit of stuff into the pot and let it simmer for 10 minutes. (The curtain rises for the final time, unless you count the encore.)

Here’s what you need. As mentioned above, I took a picture with two ingredients. So, ignore the couscous this time.

Dump the chickpeas in. Stir. Cover. Simmer 10 minutes. The end.

Act Five, the encore, in which you put additional stuff in a saucepan and let it simmer for 15 minutes (i.e. make Harissa)

Here’s what you need.

Harissa is essentially the North African version of hot sauce. You can buy it bottled from the grocery store, or you can just make it yourself (which I suggest). This is billed as Act Five, but really it should be Act Four A and adding the chickpeas should be Act Four B, as you should make the harissa before you add the chickpeas. You don’t have to, and I usually forget, so it won’t hurt anything if you let the stew cool for a bit while the harissa simmers. Put the various ingredients into a small saucepan, bring it to a boil, and let it simmer (uncovered) and reduce for about 15 minutes. Done! You don’t have to buy bottled harissa, or make it yourself, but it’s a nice little hitch in the ol’ giddy-up for adding flavor.

Start simmering!

All cooked down

And that’s it! Put some couscous in a bowl, top it with the stew, and then drizzle some of the harissa over everything. What are you waiting for? Get to cooking!

The printable recipe link is at the end of the post. Enjoy!

¹ That was an almost too-easy quote reference from Casablanca. Which, if you aren’t partial to geography, is in Morocco.
² I don’t own a gin joint, in Casablanca or anywhere else, but if I did, I’d only carry Hendricks. Everything else tastes like Windex.

Moroccan Spiced Lamb Stew
by Nina Simonds in Spices of Life

Ingredients – Stew 

• 2 lbs lamb (shoulder or breast, but I use leg), trimmed of fat and gristle and cut into 1-1/2 inch cubes
• 6 medium onions, peeled and cut into quarters (I go lighter on the onions)
• 8 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed with the flat side of a knife
• 2-1/2 TBS chopped fresh ginger
• 3/4 tsp crushed saffron threads
• 2 sticks cinnamon
• 5 cups chicken broth (I always use low-sodium)
• 1-1/2 lbs fennel bulbs with stalks, rinsed and trimmed, leaving 1/8 inch of the root base to hold the fennel together (I don’t use)
• 5 carrots, peeled, cut lengthwise in half and chopped into 2-inch lengths
• 1 14.5 oz can tomatoes (I usually do diced, just because it’s easier)
• 1 fresh bunch cilantro, rinsed, drained, and tied together with string
• 1 15-oz can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
• 1-1/2 tsp salt
• 3/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
• 3 cups quick-cooking couscous (equivalent to one box of Near East couscous)
• 3/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro leaves for garnish, if desired

Ingredients – harissa

• 1-1/2 TBS minced garlic
• 1-1/2 TBS hot chile sauce (I use Sriracha, the bottle with the green cap and rooster on it – look in the Asian aisle)
• 1/2 tsp ground cumin
• 3/4 broth from the lamb stew, or chicken broth
• 1/4 cup minced fresh cilantro leaves

Directions

1. Put the lamb pieces, onions, garlic, ginger, saffron, cinnamon sticks and chicken broth in a 5-quart pot or casserole with a lid. (I use a dutch oven.) Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to medium-low. Cover and let simmer for one hour.
2. If using the fennel – cut each fennel bulb lengthwise in half, and then cut the fennel into slices about 1/2 inch thick and 2 inches long.
3. Add the carrots, fennel (if using), tomatoes and cilantro bundle to the pot. Stir, cover, bring to a boil, and reduce heat to medium-low. Cook, covered, for 40-45 minutes. Skim the surface with a spoon if there are any impurities.
4. If making the harissa, start it about 35-40 minutes in to the cooking time of step 3. Add the garlic, hot chile paste and ground cumin into a small saucepan. Add the lamb broth and minced cilantro and bring to a gentle boil. Let it simmer, uncovered, for about 15 minutes – it will reduce into a thick sauce. Serve it with the stew and couscous.
5. About 40 minutes into the cooking time of step 3, make the couscous according to the package directions, substituting one cup of lamb broth for 1 cup of the water. Let it sit, as directed by the package. You can let it sit until the stew is ready. Just before serving, mix in the fresh cilantro leaves.
6. Add the chickpeas to the stew (which has been cooking for 40-45 minutes, per step 3). Stir, cover, and continue cooking about 10 minutes.
7. Layer the couscous and stew into a bowl and top with harissa.

Moroccan Spiced Lamb Stew

 

My New Year’s resolution – eat some New Year Noodle Soup

The new year is already upon us, and I still can’t figure out where the old one went. Wasn’t it just March?

Whether you’re dragged kicking and screaming into 2013, or you’ve happily pushed 2012 out the window along with a barrage of insults and its old clothes and photos of the two of you, the new year will be here soon. Why not greet it with a steaming, healthy, filling bowl of flavorful soup?

After the holidays, or any trip back home to see the family, I need to detox and fill my recently enlarged belly with healthy foods in order to shrink said belly back to normal proportions. At some point in the past year, I don’t remember when, I happened upon a lovely photo of a bowl full of leafy greens and assorted colorful veggies and grains. Heidi Swanson, a San Francisco-based creative soul, is behind the site 101 Cookbooks, full of healthy (and often vegetarian) recipes, plus pretty photos of her travels and quirky items featured in her online pop-up store Quitokeeto. I’ve experimented with a number of the recipes on her site, and all have been as hoped – nutritious, filling, delicious, and emotionally satisfying (as all healthy eating should be!). I’ve had to play a little with some of the recipes, as regional variations in grocery stores prevent people from obtaining ‘seasonal’ or local ingredients, but they’re all good.

A particularly apropos recipe for the impending calendar change is the Persian-inspired New Year Noodle Soup. It’s fantastic – and even better, it continued to taste great in the days after, and even froze well. You can make it mild enough to appeal to kids, or spice it up for the hothouse flowers in your life. I can’t think of a single bad thing to say about this soup – perfect for the new year hangover, a cold, warding off the winter chills, and it’s healthy and quick to come together? What’s not to love? It only takes a few minutes to get started, then you let the soup bubble for a bit, and then add in the rest of the ingredients. That’s it! So, finish off the last of the Christmas cookies, resolve to start eating better, and then kick it off with this soup!

Dice a long red chili or green serrano (what I used, as the grocery store was out of long red chilis) and thinly slice an onion – think the half moon-shaped slices, not chopped pieces. Heat some oil in a pot and toss in the onion and pepper, sauteing for a few minutes.

Toss in the spices, stir around for 30 seconds or so.

Add some broth. I used veggie broth, but I’m sure chicken broth works as well if you don’t want to go the pure vegetarian route. Bring to a boil and add lentils to the pot. Wipe your brow, as I’m sure you’re sweating from all of the time-consuming and complex work you’ve just accomplished. (Didn’t I tell you this was easy? You should really believe me when I say things like that.)

Let the little balls of protein simmer for about 25 minutes, or until tender. Next, add in the chickpeas and borlotti beans. Let me stop us here for a moment and review that last ingredient – what in the name of all things legumes is a borlotti bean? I sure didn’t know. Thanks to the InterGoogle, I discovered that the borlotti bean is a dappled red and white bean related to kidney and pinto beans, popular in Italian and Portuguese cooking. It’s also known as the cranberry or roman bean. So there you are, learning something new for the new year already. The recipe calls for dried beans, but I eschew dried beans as I am almost completely incapable of remembering to soak them overnight. I set out to the grocery store with a small hope of finding the dried varietal in the bulk section, and resolved to just use light red kidney beans in a pinch, but all by its lonesome on the bottom shelf of the bean section I found a can!

Rinse and drain your spectacular find, along with your chickpeas. To my disappointment, the borlotti beans looked like, well, light red kidney beans. There were a few that were white-flecked; I assume the dried variety will have a more dappled appearance.

Add them to the soup and cook for a few minutes to make sure they’re heated through. Then, add the noodles. It’s time for another aside. I know, already? But I took one for the team and had a conversation with a weird looking hippie woman in the pasta aisle so that you wouldn’t be confused, so you’re just going to have to deal with it. The recipe calls for thin egg noodles. No problem, right? They’re the workhorses of the casserole and Beef Stroganoff world. But, my young grasshopper, you may be wrong. I looked in the normal pasta section and in the Asian section of the grocery store, and no thin egg noodles. The wide, ripply egg noodles, sure, but no thin ones. Crap. The aforementioned hippie woman told me that I could use vermicelli or angel hair as a viable substitute, and while I balked at the idea of not using what the recipe called for the first time I made it, I didn’t really have a choice. A few minutes later, I detected the odor of patchouli and suddenly hippie woman was at my side, waving a bag of thin egg noodles at me. She found them, obviously, in the German aisle. (Who plans out grocery stores? I just don’t follow their logic.) The noodles were little bitty guys, not the long noodle-y appendages in the 101 cookbooks photo, but the label did say thin egg noodles, so onward and upward.

Cook for a few minutes, or until al dente. This won’t take long, as the noodles are quite thin. (So it’s not just a clever name.)

Add the spinach and cilantro. The recipe calls for dill, but I really don’t like dill. In fact, I strongly object to dill. Ergo, I didn’t add dill.

Give ‘er a quick stir, squeeze in some lime juice, and hey presto! New Year Noodle Soup.

If you want it to be a thicker, more ramen-like dish, just add more noodles. Ladle into bowls, and – trust me on this – top with a handful of walnut pieces. Unless you’re allergic or don’t like walnuts, and then don’t add them. Other topping suggestions were creme fraiche and/or caramelized onions, but i just stuck to the walnuts and was perfectly happy. I ate this for lunch three days straight and froze the remainder, and it was still delicious after thawing.

I can’t believe it’s been almost a year since my first post – I look forward to another year of exploring new recipes with you. Have a safe and relaxing New Year’s Eve, and a Happy New Year!

New Year Noodle Soup
by Heidi Swanson in 101 Cookbooks

Ingredients

• 2 TBS olive oil
• 1 onion, thinly sliced
• 1 long red chili OR green serrano, finely chopped
• 1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 8 1/2 cups vegetable broth (or chicken broth, if desired)
• 3.5 oz brown lentils (roughly half a cup of lentils)
• 1-1/2 cups cooked chickpeas, rinsed if using canned (I used one 15-oz can of chickpeas)
• 2 cups cooked or canned borlotti beans
• Sea salt, to taste
• 120 g thin egg noodles (the bag I purchased was 500 grams, so I used just over 1/5 of the bag – noodles are usually sold in oz, so you can estimate as you see fit)
• 3-1/2 oz fresh spinach leaves, finely shredded
• 1/2 cup finely shredded cilantro leaves
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill (if desired)
• juice of one lime (about 1-2 TBS)
• Topping suggestions: caramelized onions, creme fraiche or sour cream, walnut pieces
  

Directions

1. Heat the oil in a large, thick-bottomed soup pot over medium heat. Add the onion and the pepper and cook until they soften, a few minutes. Add the spices and cook for another thirty seconds, just long enough for them to toast a bit.
2. Stir in the broth. Bring to a boil and add the lentils to the pot. Cook until they are just tender, about 25 minutes.
3. Stir in the chickpeas and borlotti beans. Once the beans have heated throughout, season with salt to taste.
4. Add the noodles to the simmering soup and cook until al dente. Stir in the spinach, and cilantro and dill (if using). Add a big squeeze of lime to the pot or serve wedges along with each bowl of soup. Taste and adjust the seasoning to your liking.
5. Serve right away, each bowl topped with a big spoonful of caramelized onions, some creme fraiche, and a sprinkling of walnuts if desired.

New Year Noodle Soup