Author Archives: Andrea

Borlotti Beans with Sage

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Borlotti Beans with Sage

A satisfying meal: borlotti beans cooked with water, sage and salt.

 

Borlotti Beans dried

When cooked, the borlotti beans lose their pink marbling and turn solid brown in color.

 

Sage

Fresh sage from the Farmers Market.

Remember when I wrote about cranberry beans last summer? Intrigued by this bean with a curious name and deep pink marbling, I bought a couple pounds of the fresh beans and set out to discover all the wonders fresh beans had to offer. It didn’t take me long to realize that as much as I like the idea of fresh beans, I’m not a fan of shelling beans. And I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one who’d rather not shell beans: the vendor at the Farmers Market who sold fresh cranberry and fava beans last summer is now selling bags of the beans dried. “Dollar a bag! Dollar bag!” he calls out, referring to the bags of beans purposefully arranged next to the weighing-scale and cashbox. Like kids in the grocery store checkout line, we’re sold on these last-minute sundries and indulge in an impulse buy: two bags of dried cranberry beans.

Why all this talk about cranberry beans when this post is supposed to be about borlotti beans? Well, they happen to be the same bean. When I’m referring to a recipe, I like to call the beans borlotti beans instead of cranberry beans because the word “cranberry” can bring about some inaccurate connotations (I, for one, can’t stop thinking about cranberry sauce when I hear the words “cranberry beans”).

In his cookbook How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, Mark Bittman claims that dried beans are superior to canned beans. I was skeptical. Canned beans are so convenient, I thought, dried beans better have something amazing going for them. According to Bittman, that amazing something is the bean’s cooking liquid (and price). Really? Could this dirty-looking water be that flavorful? Yes, in fact, it can. I discovered this quite by mistake when I was cooking borlotti beans to use in another recipe yesterday. I added a sage leaf and some salt and let the beans simmer while I paid attention to my other more-important cooking projects. When it was time to use the beans, I tasted them and was astounded how rich and flavorful they were. There was a subtle hint of sage, the beans were creamy inside and the cooking liquid was as hefty and rich as any beef broth. These beans weren’t going in my other project; there were going straight to the dinner table. Up until yesterday, I had been tossing the beans into tomato sauces to give them flavor; I never realized how flavorful the beans were in themselves, in their own cooking liquid. Mark Bittman was right: dried beans really are superior to canned beans. These beans were a good reminder that convenience isn’t everything and sometimes a little extra effort goes a long way.

Dried beans aren’t nearly as convenient as canned beans, but the good news is that while the beans soak and cook they barely need to be attended. That’ll give you plenty of time to fold laundry or catch up on the DVR. Leftover cooked beans can be stored in their cooking liquid in the refrigerator or freezer.

Makes 5-6 cups cooked beans.

Ingredients

1 pound dried borlotti or cranberry beans, rinsed and picked over
1-2 sage leaves
salt
water

Make the Borlotti Beans with Sage

Soaking: Put the beans in a large pot with a tight-fitting lid and cover with cold water by 2 to 3 inches. Bring to a boil and boil the beans, uncovered, for about 2 minutes. Cover the pot and turn off the heat. Let the beans soak for about 2 hours.

Cooking: Taste a bean. If it’s tender (it won’t be done), add a large pinch of salt and the sage and make sure the beans are covered with about an inch of the soaking water. (If not, add a little water). If the beans are still raw, don’t add salt and sage yet and cover with about 2 inches of water.

Bring the pot to a boil, then reduce the heat so that the beans bubble gently. Partially cover and cook, stirring occasionally, checking the beans for doneness every 10 or 15 minutes, and adding a little more water if necessary. If you haven’t added salt and sage yet, add it when the beans are just turning tender. Stop cooking when the beans are done the way you like them, taste and adjust the seasoning, and use immediately or store.

Quick-Soak Cooking method adapted from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman (p 581).
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Celery Salad with Feta and Mint

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Celery Salad with Feta and Mint
Celery has won itself the reputation of being a nutritious (and catabolic) snack food: dip it in hummus; smear it ants-on-a-log style with peanut butter; eat it plain. Celery is rarely the star of the show—that is, until this Celery Salad with Feta and Mint from Martha Stewart’s Everyday Food came along. Greek-inspired ingredients including red onion, olive oil, feta and mint enliven the otherwise plain celery, infusing it with briny, pungent and citrusy flavors. Celery’s inherent crunchiness is a boon, making it an interesting accompaniment for items ranging from Greek lamb kebabs to a traditional turkey and avocado sandwich.

Celery is one vegetable worth buying organic: it is rated Number One on the Dirty Dozen list, which means it soaks up more pesticides than any other fruit or vegetable. Check out the Dirty Dozen list to see how other veggies and fruit stack up.

Serves 4

Ingredients

6 large celery stalks, cut crosswise into ½-inch thick slices
¼ small red onion (or to taste), thinly sliced
2 Tablespoons lemon zest
1-2 Tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1-2 Tablespoons lemon juice
Coarse salt
Freshly ground black pepper
? cup crumbled feta
3 Tablespoons thinly sliced mint leaves

Make the Celery Salad with Feta and Mint

In a large bowl, combine the celery, red onion, lemon zest, olive oil and lemon juice. Start with 1 tablespoon each of olive oil and lemon juice and add more to taste. Mix well to evenly coat celery. Season with salt and pepper. Sprinkle with feta and mint leaves.

Nutrition Facts per serving: 102 calories; 9 g fat (3 g sat fat); 2 g protein; 3 g carb; 1 g fiber.

Recipe from Martha Stewart’s Everyday Food, March 2011, p 109.
Posted in: Recipes, vegetables / Tagged: , ,

Meyer Lemon Radicchio Salad

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Meyer Lemon Radicchio Salad

Meyer lemons have surged in popularity over the last few winters, but if this flowery, sweet citrus is still new to you, you may still be discovering the best ways to use them. Most Meyer lemon recipes I’ve found are for desserts, and as much as I’d love to indulge in Meyer lemon souffles, Meyer lemon upside-down cake and Meyer lemon curd, I’m putting a halt to the number of sweets coming out of my oven. Enter the Meyer Lemon Radicchio Salad—a refreshing (and guilt-free) way to enjoy Meyer lemons in savory form.

Here the entire Meyer lemon—rind and all—is chopped into bite-sized pieces and tossed into the salad. Briny bites of feta, creamy chickpeas and slightly bitter radicchio are fitting companions for the sweet-tart Meyer lemon: each ingredient is unique, each complements the other. A delicate floral aroma and bursts of yellow, purple and green color call to mind the bounty of summer, but the use of citrus classifies this salad as a winter dish. Bright, crisp, light—if this dish is wintry, then it must be winter on the Greek isles. And quite frankly, that sounds better than any dessert.

Serve this salad alongside broiled fish, grilled chicken or turkey kebabs.

Serves 6

Ingredients

1 Meyer Lemon, washed and chopped into ½-inch pieces, seeds removed
1 cup chopped Vidalia or other sweet onion (I cut the amount in half and used red onion)
1 cup fresh parsley, chopped
1 15-oz. can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
2 cups sliced radicchio
¼ cup crumbled feta
2 Tablespoons fresh Meyer lemon juice
3 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Kosher salt (to taste)
Freshly ground black pepper (to taste)

Make the Salad

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and toss to coat evenly.

And because the magazine provides nutrition facts, I’ll include ‘em so you can feel great about eating this salad:Per serving: 215 calories; 2 g saturated fat; 7 g unsaturated fat; 6 mg cholesterol; 26 g carb; 222mg sodium; 8 g protein; 7 g fiber.

Recipe from Whole Living magazine, January/February 2011, p 60.
Posted in: dinner, Recipes, Uncategorized, vegetables / Tagged: , , , ,

Dal Roti: Spiced Pakistani Lentils

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Dal Roti Curry Mix

Dal Roti Lentils

Dal Roti Dal

Dal Roti Roti

“Easy to Cook. Hard to Resist.” Those are the alluring words written on my box of Shan brand curry powder, and I have to agree with them: use the Shan brand of curry powder to season lentils and you’ll have an easy dinner that’s, well, hard to resist.

Lentils, or dal (pronounced like “doll”), are a go-to dinner for Sam and me. No fresh food in the fridge? Make lentils. No time or energy to create an innovative dinner? Make lentils. From a few pantry items—lentils, water, onion and spices—a simple, filling, nutritious meal emerges.

While you could use individual spices to season your lentils, I recommend venturing into an Indian grocery store to buy a lentil-specific curry mix. As soon as you walk into the Indian grocery store, you’ll see shelves lined with little boxes of seasoning for any Pakistani or Indian dish you could imagine making. And they’re a steal: a 3.5 oz. box of spice mix costs only $0.99. Since the curry mixes contain so many spices—red chili, turmeric, black pepper, cumin, coriander, brown and green cardamom, garlic, ginger and dried dill leaves, for example—it’s more economical than buying the individual spices and making your own lentil spice mix.

We use split red lentils, which you can get at either a regular or Indian grocery store. Though they bear the name of red lentils, they are actually orange in color. To top it off, they turn yellow when rinsed in water and cooked with turmeric. Sure, lentils may be confusing in the area of color-identity, but when it comes to cooking them, they’re easy to cook and hard to resist.

We like to eat our dal with roti, a whole wheat flatbread. You can read my instructions on making roti here. Whole wheat pita is an acceptable substitute for roti if you’re in a pinch. The dal can also be served with white or brown basmati rice.

Serves 3-4

Ingredients

2 Tablespoons ghee or vegetable oil
1 large onion, roughly chopped, divided
1 ½ – 2 Tablespoons Shan Dal Curry Mix (See photo below)
1 cup split red lentils (Masoor Dal)
4 cups water
1-inch piece of ginger, chopped
1-inch piece of jalapeno, chopped

Make the Dal

Heat 1 Tablespoon ghee or oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. When the ghee or oil is hot, add half the chopped onion. Cook onion until soft and translucent, about 5 minutes. Meanwhile, rinse lentils in several washes of cold water until the water from the lentils runs clear.

When the onion in the pan is soft, stir in the dal curry mix and evenly coat the onions with the spices. Next, stir in the lentils and water. Bring to a simmer and cook until the lentils are tender, about 30 minutes.

While the lentils are cooking, prepare the tardka, a caramelized onion mixture that is stirred into the lentils before serving. Heat the remaining tablespoon of ghee or oil in a skillet. When hot, stir in the remaining onions and cook until golden and caramelized. Before removing the lentils from the stove, stir in the onion tardka. Spoon the lentils into a serving dish or individual bowls and top with jalapenos and ginger. Serve with roti or rice.


Dal Roti Shan Curry Dal Mix

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Kim Boyce’s Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookies

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Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookies

Last year pastry chef Kim Boyce published Good to the Grain, a cookbook about baking with whole grains. Since the cookbook’s release food bloggers have been singing the praises of Boyce’s Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookies. When I saw a picture on 101 Cookbooks of the Whole Wheat Chocolate Cookies cooked in a cast iron skillet, my resolution to bake fewer cookies and sweets this year suddenly vanished. Rereading a post—“I am Sold”—on Orangette about the same Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookies sealed the deal: these were going to be the next cookies into my oven.

The cookies deserve every single commendation they’ve received. They are nutty, chewy and oh-so-tasty. More than once I’ve decided to eat just half a cookie, but discovered it was near impossible to neglect the other half. If you’re skeptical and think the texture of the cookie might be off because they’re 100% whole wheat, fuh-get about it. Just try ‘em. I promise the texture is just as good—maybe even better—than traditional white flour chocolate chip cookies. Go make some cookies and share the whole wheat love.

Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookies 2

To make these cookies pizzookie-style in a skillet, check out Heidi’s post on 101 Cookbooks. If you’re curious about using white whole wheat flour or storing the dough in the fridge, read Molly’s notes on Orangette.

Kim Boyce’s Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookies

Recipe via Orangette

3 cups whole wheat flour
1 ½ tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 ½ tsp. kosher salt
2 sticks (8 oz.) unsalted butter, cut into ½-inch cubes
1 cup lightly packed dark brown sugar
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
8 oz. bittersweet chocolate, roughly chopped into ¼- and ½-inch pieces, or bittersweet chips

Position racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven, and preheat to 350°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment. (If you have no parchment, you can butter the sheets.)

Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl, and whisk to blend.

Put the butter and sugars in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. With the mixer on low speed, mix just until the butter and sugars are blended, about 2 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in the vanilla. Add the flour mixture to the bowl, and blend on low speed until the flour is just incorporated. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl. Add the chocolate, and mix on low speed until evenly combined. (If you have no stand mixer, you can do all of this with handheld electric beaters and/or a large, sturdy spoon.) Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl, and then use your hands to turn and gently massage the dough, making sure all the flour is absorbed.

Scoop mounds of dough about 3 tablespoons in size onto the baking sheets, leaving about 3 inches between each cookie. (I made smaller cookies; about 1 inch balls of dough.)

Bake the cookies for 16 to 20 minutes, rotating the sheets halfway through, until the cookies are evenly browned. Transfer the cookies, still on parchment, to a rack to cool. Repeat with remaining dough.

Yield: about 20 big cookies  or 36 smaller cookies

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