Upside-Down Pear

We’ve used a microwave cart, our old kitchen table, and the big wooden cutting board across the stove burners to cobble together a workspace for the next few weeks. We have a microwave, a toaster, an electric kettle, an espresso machine, and an electric skillet.

As I was making tonight’s dinner (watercress salad with goat cheese, pancetta, and potatoes), I realized that aside from a lack of running water and access to all my pots & pans, this makeshift kitchen is very similar to the original kitchen.

Which I suppose is why we’re redoing the kitchen…

When planning this week’s meals, I had leftover channa masala to use up — but not enough for a dinner on its own. It needed either a side, or to be a side.

I also had boneless skinless chicken breasts in the house; I almost never have these since we get most of our chicken whole. I wanted to use those up, as well. Each piece was about a half-pound and had a very fat end and a thin end, so cooking them evenly was not fun.

So, I took one piece of breast meat and cut it into two thinner fillets (one shorter and fatter, one longer and thinner). I seared these in a hot skillet with some coconut oil, then added a small can coconut milk (5 oz. size), and various herbs & spices from my cabinet: some ground ginger, fenugreek, dried cilantro, and garam masala. I let the sauce simmer down as the chicken finished cooking, and served it alongside the channa masala, over rice.

For something made up on the fly, it came out wonderfully, though I’d make some changes for next time: get a better sear on the chicken, and cook it more thoroughly before adding the coconut milk, so that the milk doesn’t have to almost cook off before the chicken is done. That way, there will be more sauce for the rice!

This is a very quick side dish, by the way — I put the chicken on when there was 10 minutes left on the rice timer, and it finished about 30 seconds after the timer went off. Cutting the fillets took about 1 minute. Very good for a weekday night, or if you’re just really hungry…

The last week of February, I bought a butternut squash, but it didn’t end up in my menu planning for that week. I put it into the next week, and wanted to do something new and fun with it. Fortunately, Nat and I had recently purchased a Persian cookbook, Persian Cooking, by Nesta Ramazani. It was the first place I checked for things to do with my squash, and I found ghalieh-ya kadoo, translated as “lentil-squash casserole”, right away.

The recipe said “serves 5″, and called for two large butternut squashes. There are only 2 of us, and I only had 1 squash, so I halved the recipe. It still seemed suspiciously large, but I figured that if there were leftovers, I’d sort that out later.

The halved recipe turned out to make 6 side servings, easily, but for company or seconds, I would say it serves 4.

Ghalieh-ya kadoo
Modified from Persian Cooking, by Nesta Ramazani, p. 88
Serves 4.

• 1 1/2 medium yellow onion, sliced
• 1 1/2 tbsp butter
• 1 cup red lentils, rinsed & picked over
• 1 medium butternut squash, scooped out, peeled, and cubed
• 1 1/2 tsp lemon juice
• water
• salt & black pepper, to taste

Heat your pan to somewhere between what you’d use for a sweat, and what you’d use for a sautee. Melt the butter in it, then add the onions. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions are a beautiful golden-brown. Remove about a third of the onions and set aside.

Add the lentils and enough water to cover them; simmer until tender (red lentils cook fairly quickly — about 20 minutes), and then add the squash and simmer until those are tender (about another 20 minutes). You may need to add a little bit more water. Stir in the lemon juice and the salt & black pepper to taste.

Serve with the reserved onions on top.

To go with the dish, I made a small rack of lamb, rubbed with lemon zest and black pepper, and served the lamb sliced and fanned over a pillow of the lentils.

Now, of course, I had 4 servings left over, so I needed to figure out what to do with them. Back to the cookbook I went, and flipped through the many stews. I didn’t want to go out and buy anything, but luckily I do keep a fair amount of supplies from Salim’s Middle Eastern Foods around, so I figured I’d be able to find something.

Indeed, a recipe for khoresht-e fesanjan (”Chicken (or Lamb) in Pomegranate Sauce”) caught my eye. The original recipe says it is traditional to make this with duck or pheasant, but that it can also be made with chicken, lamb, or ground beef meatballs. Lamb, I had!

It called for walnuts, which…actually, I was out of. Pomegranate molasses? Sure thing. Walnuts, not so much.

I am, however, unafraid of substitution, and I did have almonds….

I also usually do not have beef broth around, but I’d made a rib roast the previous week and turned the leftovers into stock, so I was all set!

Sort-of khoresht-e fesenjan
Modified from Persian Cooking, by Nesta Ramazani, p. 139-140
Serves 2 greedy people who don’t want to share with anyone!

• 1 medium yellow onion
• 1 tbsp butter, plus a little
• approx. 1 lb lamb stew meat (we get our meat from a local farm, and they don’t label, so…), in 1″ cubes
• 1 cup beef stock
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 cup ground almonds
• 2-3 tbsp pomegranate molasses
• 1 tbsp sugar
• pinch saffron (or tumeric if you don’t have saffron)
• pinch ground cinnamon
• pinch ground nutmeg
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• salt & black pepper to taste

Heat your pan to somewhere between what you’d use for a sweat, and what you’d use for a sautee. Melt the butter in it, then add the onions. When onions are golden brown, remove from the pan. Brown lamb in the pan, adding more butter if necessary. When lamb is browned, add onions back in, along with the beef stock. Cover and simmer for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, stir together the water and almonds in a saucepan over low heat. Add the pomegranate molasses and sugar and stir well; bring to a very gentle simmer for 10 minutes, then remove from heat and cover.

When the lamb has simmered for 30 min, add the pomegranate sauce, spices, and lemon juice. Cover and simmer for another hour, stirring occasionally to make sure it does not burn. At the end of this time, the sauce should be thick and glossy and intensely flavored. Adjust seasoning with salt and pepper (or with sugar or pomegranate molasses if it is too sour or sweet for you).

The lamb was fork-tender by this point, and the sauce over the ghalieh-ya kadoo was heavenly. Next time, I’m going to have to make a larger batch, and freeze it for lunches!

And after all that, I still have two servings of ghalieh-ya kadoo left. What to do…

I haven’t posted in a while, because November and December got more-stressful-than-usual, with family illnesses and so on.

I cooked for my mother’s 60th birthday party, which food was devoured by the hordes, and helped out at my in-laws’ while my father-in-law was recovering from surgery. January’s been a discombobulated month, but despite a nasty cold I’m starting to get back into the swing of things!

Today, I opened my freezer to select something to defrost for dinner, and noticed the neatly-wrapped chunks of leftover smoked pork butt. Upstairs it came! But what to have with it? My fresh produce drawer was nearly-empty, and the pork is quite heavily spiced, so I didn’t want to clash with it.

Friends suggested baked beans; a review of my bean drawer revealed that I need to make a bean-buying run, for both canned and dried varieties. I did have two cans of pinto beans.

I didn’t feel like making any of my normal bean recipes, either, so I turned to Google for inspiration. On cooks.com, I found Baked Beans (Beer) and decided to go from there.

Here is what I ended up with:

Maple Baked Beans with Beer

• 2 cans pinto beans
• 1/2 c. onion, chopped
• 1 tsp. dry mustard
• 1/2 c. tomato ketchup
• 1/2 c. brown sugar
• 1/4 c. maple syrup
• 1 c. brown ale (I used Peak Organic Nut Brown)
• 2 bay leaves
• Frank’s Red Hot and salt to taste

Preheat oven to 350F.

Drain & rinse beans thoroughly. Put in oven-safe dish. Mix in rest of ingredients, except Red Hot and salt.

Cover and bake for 1 hour, stir, bake 1/2 hour longer, stir. Uncover and stir. If, when stirred, they seem to be in a thickish sauce, they are done. If they are still wet, cook uncovered 10-15 minutes; you do not want the beans burning or drying out, so keep an eye on them.

Adjust taste with Red Hot, then with salt. (We used 4 dashes of “Xtra Hot” Red Hot, and no extra salt. Your mileage will almost certainly vary.)

I had some leftover roasted stuffed leg of lamb to use up, and no side dishes to go with it. Today was farm box day, though, and the farm box came with two small Italian eggplants and some white mushrooms. They seemed to call out for a quick, light treatment.

I cubed and purged the eggplant with salt, before rinsing it and cooking it over medium heat in extra-virgin olive oil. I added cubed onion and mushrooms, fresh-ground black pepper, granulated garlic, and a dash of cayenne pepper, fresh parsley, and balsamic vinegar.

It was light and fresh, yet earthy and autumnal: perfect for October in Pennsylvania.

Balsamic Eggplant & Mushroom

• 2 small Italian eggplants, cubed
• 1/2 medium yellow onion, cubed
• 4 large white mushrooms, cubed
• a nice handful of fresh parsley
• granulated garlic, black pepper, cayenne pepper, and salt to taste
• balsamic vinegar to taste
• extra-virgin olive oil for cooking
• kosher salt, for purging

Cube all vegetables, and place eggplant cubes in a colander over a sink or bowl. Salt the cubes and let the purge for a half-hour or so, shaking them every few minutes. Rinse thoroughly with water.

Heat olive oil over medium heat. Add rinsed eggplant cubes and stir to coat with oil. Cook until eggplant is soft, then add onion and mushrooms; add more oil if necessary. As soon as the onions are translucent, stir in chopped parsley and seasonings to taste. Turn off the heat and add balsamic vinegar to taste.

One of the reasons I like keeping a variety of things around in the freezer is that it makes it easy to turn out a tasty meal even when I’m low on fresh produce. I forgot to go pick up my farm box this week, so I turned to my backup supplies.

In the fridge, I had lemongrass, Thai basil, about a cup of leftover chicken broth, the end of a bottle of Thai chili sauce, and the end of a jar of roasted chile curry paste.

In the pantry, I had potatoes, onions, garlic, and coconut milk.

In the freezer, I had chopped green bell peppers and shrimp.

Clearly, a nice shrimp and potato curry was in the offing!

I chopped the onions and garlic and lemongrass, and sauteed them with the green peppers in a little extra-virgin olive oil. I added the curry paste, chicken broth, chili sauce, and half the can of coconut milk, and let it all simmer together for a bit.

I peeled and chopped the potatoes and boiled them in salted water for 15 minutes, then scooped them into the simmering curry sauce to finish cooking. A few minutes before serving, I added chopped Thai basil and the defrosted, peeled shrimp. When the shrimp were done, so was the curry.

The only change I think I’d make in the future is that I’d put the lemongrass in as bundles; the tender part of it wasn’t quite tender enough, so we ended up picking it out in the end!

I also think that chicken chunks would work well in this, or stew beef — both would require alterations to the cooking method, though, since they’d take quite a bit longer to cook than the shrimp.

Weekend (and holiday) brunches are important in this household. Today’s was simple: a potato-leek frittata dressed up with the long-simmered red sauce I made yesterday.

I lined the small cast-iron skillet with thin slices of potato, gallette-style, cooked everything slowly, and ended up with a firm, creamy dish that lifted out of the pan perfectly.

• 1 medium potato
• white of one leek
• 4 eggs
• 1/4 cup cream
• Salt & pepper to taste
• extra-virgin olive oil

Set a pot of salted water to boil. Slice the potato thin — not quite as thin as you would for potato chips, but thin. When the water boils, put the slices in and let cook for about 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, slice the leek into discs, and sautee in olive oil. (I used the same small skillet for this step as for cooking the frittata.) I like to let them carmelize slightly before removing them from the heat (and from the pan, if you are using the same pan as I am).

Beat eggs with cream and season with salt & pepper.

Preheat oven to 350F.

Brush small oven-safe skillet with olive oil and place over medium heat. Remove potato slices from water with a slotted spoon and arrange in the bottom and sides of the skillet. When the potatoes are sizzling, add the leeks and then the egg mixture. Turn heat to low and let cook for about 5 min.

Put skillet into oven. After 4 minutes, check to see if center is set. If not, check back in another few minutes. When center is just barely set, switch oven to broil mode and broil the top until puffy and lightly browned (about 1 min).

Serve with a side salad or red sauce.

This evening, we picked up our farm box and headed home with it. In my head, I tried to count up what we had left from last week, what we’d need to make room for in the refrigerator, what meals I could make with this new bounty. August is always difficult for me; there’s too much food in the farm box to get around!

Since we had a new head of red cabbage, I decided to turn the older one in the fridge into the first braised red cabbage of the season. I chopped it and tossed it into the Dutch oven with some olive oil, salt, a lot of black pepper, caraway seeds, about a half-cup of dried currants, about a half-cup of water, and a solid glug of some fig-infused balsamic vinegar from my mother-in-law.

I let it simmer a bit, but I felt like it was lacking something. I toyed with adding onions, or sugar, or cider vinegar, or bacon, or chicken broth, or….

Finally, paralyzed by indecision, I resorted to the web; one of the first hits I got included all of the ingredients I’d been toying with. Hah!

Ingredients excerpted from “Braised Red Cabbage with Bacon”

• 1 medium head red cabbage
• 6 thick slices applewood-smoked bacon, or other smoked bacon, cut into lardons (about 1/4-by-1/4-by-3/4-inch pieces)
• 1 medium yellow onion, thinly sliced
• 2 tablespoons packed dark brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
• 1/3 cup apple cider vinegar
• 1 cup low-sodium chicken broth

I had some black forest bacon and a vidalia onion. In a separate pan (since the Dutch oven was already in use!) I fried the bacon, then tossed the pieces into the cabbage; while the onions fried in the bacon fat, I added some cider vinegar, brown sugar, and dijon mustard to the cabbage. When the onions were ready, in they went…and so did a nice dash of cayenne pepper. I left out the chicken broth, because I’d already added salt and water earlier.

It came out sweet and spicy and rich, with just a hint of autumn in the apple-and-mustard undertones.

Nat asked me particularly to write this one down before I forgot it, and I rather think that’s an endorsement. Next time, though, I’ll probably use the more traditional method in the recipe, rather than the after-the-fact adjustment method!

I’ve long been a fan of eggs with red sauce. When I was a child, I would toast an Italian roll with provolone cheese on it, fry up an egg, and make an egg-cheese-and-sauce sandwich for breakfast or weekend lunch. My sauce of choice in those days was the Newman’s Own “Sockarooni” that my mother stocked, and which I will also admit to eating straight with a spoon.

As an adult, I make my own red sauce, in the old-school simmering-for-hours way, and I’ll often fry eggs and dress them with some sauce for breakfast or brunch. Last week, I made a large batch of sauce with sausage in, and up until today I had two quart containers full in my refrigerator.

This morning, I was cranky and in no mood for any of my normal breakfast options. It was closing in on 11:30am, and nothing I thought of made me happy. I yanked two cookbooks from the shelf and flipped through them, and in Craig Claiborne’s The New New York Time Cookbook I found a recipe entitled “Les Oeufs en Cocotte aux Tomates (Eggs in ramekins with tomato sauce)”.

The tomato sauce in the recipe is not an Italian-style red sauce, but it didn’t matter. I wasn’t going to use it in any case: I was going to steal the idea and the cooking method and use the sauce in my fridge.

• about 8-10 tbsp red sauce with sausage chunks (or your favorite red sauce)
• 4 eggs
• salt & pepper
• 4 slices toast

I placed 4 ramekins into a large Pyrex baking dish. Into the bottoms of the ramekins, I put a heaping spoonful of sauce, making sure there was a chunk of sausage in each, and reserving some sauce for topping later. Over each pile of sauce, I cracked an egg, and sprinkled with salt and pepper. I poured boiling water into the Pyrex dish until it came halfway up the side of the ramekins, and then popped the whole thing into a 400 degree oven until the eggs were just set. The original recipe said 10-12 minutes, but that was using hot tomato sauce; my sauce was just out of the fridge and slowed things down considerably — it took about 20 minutes.

I pulled it out of the oven, top-dressed the eggs with a little more sauce (reheated, of course) and served with toast fingers and cafe con leche.

Bliss!

Tonight, Nat is off playing bocce, so it was time for dinner for one. He doesn’t like broccoli, and we had a head of it in our farm box. I can’t eat a whole head all at once, so this was meal #2 from it, just for me:

• about 2 handfuls broccoli florets
• 1 thumb-size piece of ginger
• 1 nice fresh scallion
• sun-dried tomatoes (not oil-packed)
• soy sauce
• chili sauce (I use “rooster” sauce – the Hoy Fong brand Sriracha sauce)
• 1 lime wedge
• honey
• black pepper
• peanut oil

Cut the ginger in half and keep half for some other recipe. Peel the remaining half and cut into matchsticks. Slice the white and green parts of the scallion into thin slices on the bias.

Heat the peanut oil over medium-high heat. Stir-fry broccoli, ginger, and scallion until the broccoli is bright green and the ginger soft.

Meanwhile, chop the sun-dried tomatoes and put in a bowl. When the stir fry is done, add to the bowl. Dress with soy sauce, honey, rooster sauce, the juice from the lime wedge, and a little black pepper. Toss. Eat.

Makes about 1/2 of a large cereal bowlful.

This would be delicious with tofu, chicken, or shrimp in it as well; it would also multiply well for more people. It took me about 5 minutes, start to finish. Yum!

What to do with two smallish lamb shanks and two slightly-aged carrots? Why, make the smallest stew ever — just two servings.

• 2 small lamb shanks, meat cut from the bone & cubed (about 2 handfuls meat)
• 2 carrots, chopped
• 3 shallots, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1 cup red wine
• 1 cup water
• extra-virgin olive oil
• 2 bay leaves
• salt, black pepper, and parsley to taste

Sautee the shallots and garlic in the olive oil until translucent. Add the carrots. Add the lamb and brown well all over. Pour in the wine and water, add the bay leaves. Simmer over low heat until most of the liquid is gone and the lamb is tender (about 2-3 hours). Add salt, pepper, & parsley to taste.

Serve over rice or noodles, or with good crusty bread.

In retrospect, I should’ve put the shank bones in to cook, for the gelatin. Next time!

My fascination with fried eggs should come as no surprise. While looking for something entirely different in my copy of Cradle of Flavor, I found a recipe for Telur Mata Sapi Bumbu — Indonesian Fried Eggs. These eggs are fried in hot oil, then topped with potent aromatics: garlic, shallots, chiles, and ginger.

I aim to try them soon. Until then, here’s the recipe, to tide you over:

• 3 tbsp peanut oil
• 3 eggs
• kosher salt
• 3 cloves garlic, sliced thin
• 2 shallots, sliced thin
• 2-3 fresh chiles (the original recipe calls for Hollands, Fresnos, or cayennes; I don’t see why jalapenos won’t suit just as well
• 1 thumb-sized piece fresh ginger, peeled and cut into matchsticks
• 1 tsp palm, cider, or rice vinegar

Heat the oil in a skillet over medium heat. When hot, crack an egg into it (when I make eggs in hot oil, I crack the eggs into small bowls and then tip them in from the bowls — less chance of splatter or of shell ending up in the oil). Season the top of the egg with salt. When the white turns brown & crispy at the edges, flip gently and cook until the yolk is just set (about 1 min).

Remove fried egg with slotted spatula, set aside, and fry remaining eggs in same manner. (I would probably use a little more oil and a larger skillet and cook all the eggs at once.)

Let the oil cool slightly, then place over medium-low heat. Add the aromatics and stir until garlic and onions are just translucent. Remove aromatics with slotted spatula and place over eggs.

The book suggests serving these with rice or with a number of other recipes found in the book. It also says they work well with a nice salad & crusty bread, or, if you like a spicy breakfast, as breakfast.

Me? I like a spicy breakfast — but I’m currently out of hot peppers. I shall have to remedy that as soon as possible.

Last night, I made broiled head-on chili shrimp, Chinese noodles, and vegetable stir-fry for dinner. The stir-fry was simple — just onions, bok choy, oyster mushrooms, and some seasonings — but delicious. We had noodles and some stir-fry left over, and it occurred to me that it might make a good breakfast, paired with an egg somehow.

Scramble the egg and go frittata-style? Scramble it and fry up like pad thai? Egg on the side? Egg over top?

I settled on a variant of the Greek fried egg: 1/4 c. olive oil in my big skillet, and an egg for each of us in that. It seemed to me that the crisp brown edges and silky-smooth middles of these eggs would compliment the leftovers well.

As for the leftovers themselves, I warmed them in the microwave, then added them to a pan where I’d sauteed some extra onion in chili oil, and tossed to coat. Once they were thoroughly warmed, I divided them into two shallow bowls, popped the fried eggs on top, and dressed them with a sprinkle of soy sauce and a dash of chili oil.

They were hot and crisp and fresh-tasting, with just enough spice to be interesting.

Nat rated it “A+! Would eat again!” — and that’s good enough for me.

One of my pets has been ill, and had to be hospitalized somewhere quite a ways from my home. On the upside, I got to see what it would be like to commute from a suburb every day. On the downside, we ate out a lot.

Which meant that we both ended up craving some decent vegetables — we tend to eat a lot of veggies, and restaurants generally don’t cut it in that area.

So, tonight, I made a nice light salad for dinner.

Highly Modifiable Green Bean Salad

• about 3-4 handfuls fresh green beans, cut up & blanched
• about 1/4 to 1/3 red onion, sliced thin
• some sweet or hot pickled peppers (I used Peppadews), chopped
• salt & pepper, to taste
• extra virgin olive oil, to taste
• red wine vinegar
• 1 regular-size can tuna

Mix together.

It’s one of those recipes easily modified for taste: take out the peppers, add olives. Throw some mustard in there, if you like. Don’t eat fish? Put in hard-boiled egg or white beans or thoroughly cooked French lentils instead. Sliced fennel? Crumbled crisp bacon? Why the heck not? Put some good-quality cheese chunks on the side (I highly recommend this). Hate green beans? Well…once you replace those, it’s just a Highly Modifiable Salad, not a Highly Modifiable Green Bean Salad. But I suppose you could put some lettuce in there, if you’ve got your heart set on it.

There are a million variants of warm spinach dip floating around, but when I was looking for one earlier today, none of them suited what I had in the house. So I made one up.

• about 1/2 cup of grated parmesan cheese
• a big spoonful of sour cream, maybe 1/4 – 1/3 cup or so
• a few tbsp mayonnaise
• some onion, minced
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• maybe a tsp of the Penzey’s Chip & Dip seasoning a friend got me
• maybe a tsp of the Penzey’s Fox Point seasoning the same friend got me
• about 1/2 cup of frozen, thawed, drained, squeezed dry spinach

Mix everything together and put in small oven-proof casserole. This ends up making a bit less than 2 cups of dip, so I put it into my 14 oz Le Creuset Petite Pear (a gift from the same friend who gave me the Chip & Dip and Fox Point…hm).

Bake at 350F for ~45 min, until nice & hot. Serve with crudite.

I have long had a fondness for the small dishes of many cuisines. I cut my teeth — almost literally –on the American bar & grill appetizers, which to this day I enjoy as meals on their own. Show me a tapas restaurant and I’m there, with bells on. And then there are mezethes, more commonly known in the US by the name of the singular, meze. Just out of college, already a fan of the “meze platter” or “mezza platter” from various Greek and Middle Eastern restaurants around me, I found a few brands of jarred mezethes — “eggplant dip”, “roasted red pepper meze”, “grilled vegetable appetizer”, and so on.

Desperate to use up the bounty of my garden and farm box, I turned to mezethes (or their close relations). A friend had recently made Ina Garten’s Roasted Eggplant Spread, and I had fond memories of roasted red pepper meze, so I decided that’s what I’d make (only I didn’t have red peppers. A small detail). It’s hard to roast in the summertime when you have no air conditioning, but this morning was cool and I was working from home, so could make this in-between projects.

I gathered up all the peppers I had — many! of several varieties, ranging from hot to sweet — and roasted them in a 450F oven for about 20 minutes, turning them after 10 minutes. I put the veggies for the Garten recipe into the oven at that 10 minute mark, then turned it down to 400 for another 20 minutes after the peppers came out.

Meanwhile, I cooked chopped fresh tomatoes and diced onions on the stove until the tomatoes broke down, then added minced garlic. This would be the base of the pepper meze.

When the peppers came out, I set three aside for the Garten recipe — it calls for two red bell peppers, and red bells are pretty large. I figured three of my peppers would be about right; I used one small bell pepper and two of a slightly spicy mystery variety (similar to Hungarian Wax peppers) that came out of my garden.

The rest I peeled, seeded, and chopped. I added them to the pan with the meze base, spooned in a little canned crushed tomato for extra tomato goodness, splashed in maybe a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar, and shoved it all over a low burner for about half an hour.

I then peeled, seeded, and chopped the peppers for the Garten recipe and put them, the roasted eggplant, and some more canned crushed tomatoes (I don’t keep tomato paste around) into my food processor.

Roasted Pepper Meze

• mixed hot & sweet peppers, about 2lbs
• 2-3 medium/large tomatoes (flavorful meaty tomatoes preferred!)
• 1/2 large white onion
• 4 cloves garlic
• extra-virgin olive oil
• a few big spoons of canned crushed tomatoes (or else maybe a small spoon of tomato paste, or some spaghetti sauce if that’s what you have around, but not ketchup because that would taste funny)
• balsamic vinegar
• salt (I use kosher salt) and pepper

Wash peppers and roast, whole, in 450F oven for 20 minutes, turning once. (Peppers should be browned or blackened on the outside.)

While the peppers are roasting, chop tomatoes and squeeze out the gooey bits. Put them in a hot pan with a few tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil and some kosher salt. Chop the onions and add them to the pan, as well. Let cook over low heat until the tomatoes are soft and have broken down a bit (like they are trying to be sauce). Mince the garlic and toss it in the pan at this stage, and turn off the heat.

By now the peppers should be out of the oven. Let them cool down until you can easily handle them. Peel them & remove the seeds (you should be able to just pull off the skins and rip open the pepper and slide the seeds out. Very messy and a bit slimy, but easy). Chop them up and toss them into the pan, along with the canned crushed tomatoes and a splash of balsamic vinegar.

Cook over low heat for about 30 minutes. Taste & adjust salt & pepper until it’s how you like it!

Serve on toast, crackers, pita, eggs….

We ate both of these with toast and pieces of cheese for dinner. They’re like concentrated late summer, hot and smoky-sweet.

Lately, I’ve had two baking failures. One: I made this zucchini bread recipe. It came out VERY strangely indeed, and tasted strongly of baking soda. Two: I made rhubarb crumble and forgot to turn the timer on, so it burned up dreadfully. I am guessing that is the last rhubarb of the season, too — and one of my favorite easy recipes.

Rhubarb Crumble Pie

• 1 bunch rhubarb
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup lightly packed brown sugar
• 4 oz. (1/2 stick) butter
• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• pinch salt

Preheat the oven to 400°F.

Remove any leaves from rhubarb. Wash & cut into 1-inch chunks, and place in a 9″ or 10″ pie pan.

Mix together the flour, sugars, and salt. Melt the butter and stir into the flour/sugar mixture until you get a big crumbly mess.

Cover the rhubarb with the crumble mixture. Bake for 35 minutes, or until the top is brown & crisp and the juices all bubbly.

Serve warm or cold! Keeps a bit over a week, covered, in the fridge.

Now, onto the Greek fried eggs. This morning, I minced a clove of garlic and divided it into our two bowls; I kept it pushed to the side so that I could put the egg next to it & the hot oil would pour directly onto it and sizzle it up.

This resulted in a lovely, garlic-infused breakfast. Highly recommended!

A while ago, someone — either my husband or my mother-in-law — gave me a copy of The Olive and the Caper: Adventures in Greek Cooking, by Susanna Hoffman. I haven’t made a lot from it, but everything I’ve made has been delicious. (The moussaka recipe is meltingly good, and freezes very well.)

The dish I make the most often is the Greek fried egg. Hoffman says that fried eggs are not so much a breakfast food in Greece, though they are occasionally served to tourists. The fried egg method she outlines is different and surprising, but produces an egg like nothing I’ve ever tasted: crispy-brown on the bottom, tender on top, olive-scented and amazing.

Greek Fried Egg

• 1/4 cup good extra-virgin olive oil (yes, really)
• 1 large or extra-large egg
• 1 piece good bread (optional)
• a few kalamata or spicy green olives (optional)

Heat the olive oil in a small, heavy skillet until drops of water sizzle off immediately. Break the egg into a small bowl (so you don’t have to worry about picking shell out of hot oil!) and then tip it gently into the oil. After about 20 seconds, use a spatula to dislodge the egg from the bottom of the pan and push it to the side; spoon hot oil over the top of the egg repeatedly, staying well back so as not to get splashed!

Timing: about 1 min. 15 sec. total cooking time for your yolk to be just at the edge of gelatinous; about 2 min. for it to be jelly-solid; about 3 min. for it to be burned! (Note: 3 min. not really recommended.)

Lift the egg out of the hot oil and put it in a shallow bowl, like a soup plate. Pour the rest of the oil over top of it, let sit a few minutes to cool, and eat with bread and/or olives. Soak up the oil! It’s delicious, and good for you.

Hoffman says these can be eaten at room temperature as well as warm, but I can’t imagine having the self-control to just let them sit there that long!

You could probably also put garlic into this recipe — I’d put it in the bowl before pouring the hot oil over, so it doesn’t burn — but I haven’t tried it. If you do, let me know how it works out!

I’ve been accused in the past of having too much weird food lying about my kitchen. I don’t, really; mostly it’s normal foods that I happen to keep around regularly, while most folks buy them especially for particular recipes. While this has advantages, such as my “there’s nothing in the house” meals being rather less “nothing in the house”-like, it has disadvantages, such as realizing that you have a collection of oddments around that need to be combined into a meal, and soon, or they’ll go off.

Last night, for example, I had some defrosted chorizo sausages, five bananas just past perfect, and two jalapenos that were threatening to get fuzzy around the tops. I thought about this for a bit, and figured – well, I’ve had Peruvian cooking, and other South American cooking, and they use a lot of chorizo and a lot of bananas, so there has to be something out there with both….

Google found me an Ecuadorian recipe for bean & banana dip, and I used that as my starting point.

Chorizo Banana Dip

• 2 chorizo sausages, skinned and chopped, or 1/2 lb ground beef or pork, seasoned with 1 1/2 tsp chili powder [1]
• 1/2 medium white onion, finely chopped
• 2 green onions, chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1-2 jalapenos, seeded and minced
• 1/2 cup crushed tomatoes
• 2 cups cooked kidney beans or 1 can kidney beans, slightly mashed [2]
• 4 bananas, ripe but firm
• 1 tbsp water, if needed
• tortilla chips [3]
• sour cream

  1. Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. Brown the chorizo, stirring occasionally.

  2. Add onion & the pale/white parts of the green onions and cook until onion is soft and translucent, stirring occasionally.

  3. Reduce heat to medium and add the garlic, jalapenos, and crushed tomatoes. Mix well and cook for a few minutes, stirring occasionally.

  4. Mash beans and bananas together in a large bowl. Add water if needed to make a thick, dip-like consistency.

  5. Add bean and banana mixture to skillet and mix well.

  6. When everything is mixed up and heated through, scoop into a bowl and top with the darker green parts of the green onion.

  7. Serve warm with tortilla chips and sour cream.

  [1] Mild Italian sausage? Was the original recipe kidding me?
  [2] The liquid in canned beans makes me ill, so I always rinse it all off. I wasn’t about to reserve some of it like the original recipe asked for.
  [3] Some brands are way too salty for me. Herr’s chips have 30mg sodium less per serving than Tostito’s, for the same serving size.

This recipe makes quite a lot of dip – about 4 cups. We ate some of the leftovers this morning, in tortillas with scrambled eggs and sour cream.

On Sundays, Nat and I often sleep in, then fix ourselves a nice brunch. Our brunches cover a wide range – from crepes to brik to muffins – and are sometimes large, and sometimes small.

Today’s was a true brunch meal – large enough to cover both breakfast and lunch. To gear ourselves up for the task of cooking, Nat made Cafe de Olla, and then we settled down to the serious business of tuna cakes.

Tuna Cakes with Eggs

This recipe is for two people, for a large brunch. It would also easily serve 4 as a small brunch.

• 2 cans chunk light tuna in water, drained (or about 340 g. tuna, cooked & flaked)
• 1/2 medium red onion, chopped fine
• a couple handfuls breadcrumbs
• a handful of fresh parsley, chopped fine (or about 1 tsp dried parsley)
• 5 eggs
• 1 heaping tablespoon Dijon mustard
• 1 tablespoon mayonnaise
• about 10 grinds black pepper (er, about a tsp?)
• 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
• salt (if your canned tuna has salt, you can omit this; ours is unsalted)

Mix together all of the ingredients except the eggs, then add one egg to the mix, stir in, and form mix into flat cakes. Pan-fry cakes in butter or olive oil until nicely browned on both sides. At the same time, make the remaining 4 eggs how you like ‘em (Nat had his poached; I had mine fried hard).

Serve tuna cakes topped with the eggs and whatever condiments you desire (we put sour cream on ours).

Now, if I can only work up the will to move the rest of the day….