Pretty Salad

Look how pretty this lunch was! The salad is from City Roots, and contained nasturtium flowers and leaves, pea shoots and arugula shoots, I think.

I made blue cheese dressing, which I have been making lately because Lawson announced he is sick of vinaigrettes with greens. I'm using no particular recipe, just an ad hoc, sample-as-you-go mixture of a minced garlic clove, some blue cheese, black pepper, salt, mayo, yogurt and milk.

Old/New Thanksgiving Food

We had many of the usual dishes on Thanksgiving: Portuguese-style turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, applesauce, pumpkin pie, etc. I did manage to insert two new twists on cranberries and sweet potatoes, which we all enjoyed.

Sprouts sells these sweet potato chips, which are delicious. I often serve them with raw tomatillo salsa, but this time found a cranberry salsa recipe in the local paper. It was a satisfying and colorful appetizer.

Spicy Cranberry Salsa

1/2 small red onion

1 tablespoon canned jalapeno slices

2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro

8 ounces fresh cranberries

1/2 cup dried cranberries

2 tablespoons lime juice

2 tablespoons honey, or to taste

1/2 teaspoon or more salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

In food processor, pulse onion, jalapeno, and cilantro to chop finely. Add cranberries and pulse until coarsely chopped. Add remaining ingredients and mix lightly. Serve with chips.

Instead of the usual sweet potatoes, I made baked wedges with a yogurt dipping sauce, which we had at Zinburger recently. I got the recipe from the Bon Appetit website.

Tagines

I'm in love again--this time with my new cookbook Tagine: Spicy Stews from Morocco, by Ghillie Basan. Dad noticed it in a cooking store in Tubac, and I've become very involved with it.

First I made a chicken and dried apricot tagine, quite delicious. Next I made one with lamb, prunes, apricots, and honey (top picture). With that meal I made sides from the cookbook, including an orange olive salad and a sort of Moroccan pico de gallo. And Moroccan bread.

Now I am turning to the vegetable tagines, and we loved this one made with carrots and chickpeas. It was very quick and flavorful.

Spicy Carrot and Chickpea Tagine with Turmeric and Cilantro

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 onion, chopped

4 garlic cloves, chopped

Heat the oil in a tagine or heavy casserole and saute onion and garlic until soft.

2 teaspoons ground turmeric

2 teaspoons cumin seeds

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon cayenne

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

Salt

3-4 medium carrots, sliced on the diagonal

Add spices and carrots. Add water to barely cover. Cover and cook 10 or 15 minutes, until carrots are just tender.

1 one-pound can chickpeas, drained

Add chickpeas and simmer for 10 minutes until flavors are blended and liquid is somewhat reduced.

Cilantro, chopped

Lemon wedges

Garnish with chopped cilantro and serve with lemon wedges.

Greek Chicken with Sage

We have two varieties of sage in the herb garden at present. I don't know their names but I certainly admire the way they hung in there over our record-hot summer. I don't use sage very much except at Thanksgiving, so I was happy to find this vinegary, flavorful recipe in Susanna Hoffman's The Olive and the Caper. A bonus: it's very easy.

Chicken with Onions, Tomatoes, Capers and Sage

2-4 tablespoons olive oil

3-4 large boneless, skinless chicken thighs, halved

1 sliced onion

1/3 cup dry red wine

1/3 cup balsamic vinegar

1 cup canned diced tomatoes

3 tablespoons capers, drained

1 teaspoon or more fresh chopped sage leaves

Salt and pepper

Heat the oil and brown the chicken and onion for about 10 minutes. Add all the remaining ingredients and stir to mix. Simmer, partially covered, until chicken is tender, perhaps about 45 minutes. Reduce the sauce at the end if it's too liquid.

Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms

I love mushrooms and would like to use them more. I bought these portobellos because they were beautiful, but with no plan in mind. Viana La Place and Evan Kleiman can usually be counted on to have a good idea for vegetables. This is their recipe from Cucina Fresca.

Grilled Stuffed Mushrooms

Large brown mushrooms or portobellos

Fresh thyme leaves

6-8 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped

1/4 cup olive oil

Clean mushrooms with a damp towel--don't immerse. Trim off woody stems. Cut slits in the thickest part of the flesh so they will cook evenly. Brush with olive oil.

Mix chopped thyme leaves, garlic, and generous salt in a small bowl. Stuff this mixture into the gills and slits of the mushrooms.

Broil or grill for 5 minutes, more or less, depending on their size, until the mushrooms soften slightly.

October Beans

We stopped last week to buy apples at a big farm stand near Hendersonville, and among all the lovely apples and beets and ornamental squashes and tough, late-season green beans were a few bags of dried, shelled beans marked "dried October shellies." They were available in pods, too, by the handful: half-dried, twisted pods, beautifully mottled with pink and creamy white swirls. The beans, too, were pink and white. I cannot resist beans, so I bought some.

I did some research at home. My cookbooks were little help; the only people writing about these beans (which go by the names October beans, shelly beans and -- get this -- horticultural beans) seem to have ties to Appalachia and heirloom seeds. These beans seem to be grown mostly in parts of the rural, mountainous South and Midwest. They can be eaten fresh or dried. The pods are edible, too -- people chop them up and put them in soups for flavor.

I cooked them very simply, Southern-style: a few hours of soaking, followed by cooking with two slices of chopped up, rendered bacon, a dried red chile, water and a drizzle of honey. They cooked more quickly than older dried beans.

Surprisingly, they taste very much like pinto beans. I expected a more crowder-pea-like, brassy flavor, or maybe something creamier and lighter like an Italian cannellini.

We ate them mostly plain with cornbread and sauteed spinach that night. We had them left over for lunch. And yesterday -- five days later -- I cooked the rest of them with some tomatoes, rosemary, dried red chiles and garlic and such and served them over linguine. I like Italian bean pastas a lot.

Chotee Gobi (Brussels Sprouts from Eastern India)

This is one of my favorite ways to fancy up Brussels sprouts.

Chotee Gobi

1 large onion

4 cloves garlic

Olive or vegetable oil

Slice onion and garlic. Fry in 2 tablespoons oil until soft.

Stir in the following spices and fry for two more minutes.

1 teaspoon turmeric

1 1/2 teaspoons chili powder

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

2 teaspoons poppy seeds

2 teaspoons ground cumin

1 teaspoon sesame seeds

Add:

2 teaspoons ground coriander

1/2 to 1 cup yogurt

Juice of 1 large lemon

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon black pepper

1 teaspoon to 1 tablespoon honey

Stir to combine and simmer for a few minutes.

1 pound Brussels sprouts, trimmed and cut in half

Meanwhile, gently boil the sprouts in water to cover until barely tender. Drain and add to the sauce. Cook and stir for about five minutes until flavors blend.

Better Snapper Veracruz

We bought some gorgeous snapper from the Beaufort fish guy who sells up here on Saturdays. He said it was silk snapper. It had a big flavor-enhancing set of ribs in the middle of it, so we got a discount. (We also bought a little half-pound fillet of grouper that Lawson coated in flour and pan-fried for our lunch. I made tartar sauce and bought some nice buns and a tomato. We were very inspired by those flounder sandwiches at Whaley's in Edisto and have been thinking about them ever since, you see.)

I love fish Veracruz-style, but sometimes it seems too -- too cooked, I guess. Too stewed. Not fresh enough. I've always used Aida Gabilondo's recipe or similar variations, which call for pickled jalapenos and browned vegetables and such.

When I found Paul Johnson's recipe yesterday, I was really excited. It's more like a pico de gallo that you dump on the fish and cook all at once. No browning onions or garlic.

Here's my slight variation:

Marinate fish for 30 minutes in salt and juice of 1/2 lime.

Dice and mix:

• small white onion
• 1 T garlic
• 1 pound tomatoes, fresh or canned or both (those Pomi tomatoes always taste less cooked to me. I like them.)
• several fresh chiles, minced. I used two red Anaheims, a dedo di moca and a Tabasco. Any combo would work. If all you have are super-hot chiles, supplement with some bell pepper.
  
• 1/8 cup olive oil
• 2 T capers
• 12 or more green olives
• the other 1/2 lime
• salt to taste

Toast in a dry pan, crush in mortar and add to mixture:

• 10-15 coriander seeds
• 1/2 teaspoon Mexican oregano

Heat oven to 375. Heat pan in oven if it's a stoneware style Dutch oven. Put fish in pan. Dump mixture over fish. cover. Cook for 20-30 minutes, or until slightly steaming and bubbling. Let rest for 5 minutes. Garnish with cilantro. Serve over rice.

It was amazing.

Feeling Ready for South Carolina

In anticipation of our trip to South Carolina, tonight we had stewed okra and tomatoes, sausage gravy, and grits. Dad is picking about 15 okra pods per day right now, the best crop we've had. (I think sausage gravy is supposed to be served with biscuits for breakfast, but we do the best we can over here in the Southwest.)

Mediterranean Tomato-Saffron Tilefish

There's a Beaufort-based seafood guy now coming to the All-Local Farmers Market every Saturday, and his fish is amazingly, absurdly fresh. Yesterday we bought grey tilefish, which I've never bought before. It was lovely -- bright spotted skin, big easy-to-find bones, grouper-like color and grain. You could put your nose right down on it and smell nothing except a faint, fresh sweetness.

I poked through some more complicated recipes and came up with this simple Mediterranean preparation, which has some of the flavor of bouillabaisse but is more straightforward. Any blend of garden and canned tomatoes would work; I used a little of both. It's not a super tomato-ey dish.

I'm out of the food-photographing habit, so here's Patty demonstrating how hot it is here lately.


Mediterranean Tomato-Saffron Fish

Preheat oven to 400.

In Dutch oven, saute in olive oil until onions are softened and smaller:
- 3 small Vidalia onions, sliced
- 8-10 saffron threads
- 1 teaspoon fennel seeds

Add and let some of the booziness cook off:
- 3/4 c dry vermouth

Add and cook for just a few minutes:
- 1 ripe tomato, chopped
- 1/2 cup chopped canned tomatoes
- salt
- pepper

Add, cover, put in oven and cook 8-15 minutes, depending on fish size:
- 1 lb. fish

I left the fillet whole, and it took exactly 15 minutes. The bones and skin thickened the broth just a little.

I served it over farro, with which Lawson and I are in love. He says it tastes like he wishes brown rice tasted.

Crusty bread would also be good with this. On the side we ate sliced cucumbers in rice vinegar, and baba ghanoush made with our own eggplant, which are the only plants really doing well this year in our yard. I drank vinho verde. Lawson drank Pabst Blue Ribbon. It was a good summer dinner.

Tomatillo Time

Here’s a fresh, easy raw tomatillo salsa. It’s from Aida Gabilondo’s Mexican Family Cooking, still my favorite Mexican cookbook.

Green Green Sauce

1 pound tomatillos

2 fresh jalapenos

1/4 cup chopped green onions

1 cup cilantro leaves

Salt

1 teaspoon sugar

Remove the husks from the tomatillos and rinse. Pulse all ingredients together in food processor or blender, leaving a little chunkiness in the texture if desired. You may add a clove of garlic if you want.

Salade Nicoise

I was so happy to discover I had the ingredients to make this the other day.

Green beans, blanched
New red potatoes, boiled
Anchovy filets
Lettuce
Hard boiled eggs
Tuna
Olives
Capers
Mustard sprouts (from City Roots -- so tasty)

The dressing is a simple vinaigrette: just mustard, salt, pepper, olive oil and vinegar. You toss some of it with the potatoes and green beans while they're still warm. Then you serve everything at room temperature and drizzle dressing over it.

We ate it with bread and butter on the side.

Chocolate Icebox Cookies

I had a vague image of this recipe from my childhood--Grandma Oty used to make them--and managed to find the right recipe on About.com. It was in the Southern food section, though I think of them as quintessentially mid-Western. They are so easy! I love the mildness of the chocolate, because you can taste everything else: the butter, the brown sugar, the walnuts.

Cocoa Icebox Cookies

· 1/2 cup butter

· 1 cup brown sugar

· 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

· 1 egg

· 1 1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour

· 1/2 teaspoon baking soda

· 1/4 teaspoon salt

· 2 tablespoons cocoa

· 1/2 cup finely copped walnuts

In mixing bowl with electric mixer, cream butter, sugar, and vanilla. Beat in eggs, blending well. Sift together the flour, baking soda, salt, and cocoa; stir into creamed mixture, blending thoroughly. Stir in walnuts. Shape into a roll about 2 inches in diameter. Wrap roll in waxed paper and refrigerate until thoroughly chilled. Slice roll into 1/8-inch slices. Place on ungreased baking sheet and bake at 350° for 10 to 12 minutes.
Makes about 5 dozen cookies.

Note: I increased the cocoa by 1 tablespoon and reduced the flour the same amount.

Basic Beans

I had to post this because for a while we couldn't find the recipe card--we worried that it might be lost to posterity. Dad makes these.

And I have to tout Anasazi beans again: they are less gassy than pinto beans, and they cook in about half the time without pre-soaking. This is a slow crockpot recipe, but on the stove top they become tender in a little over an hour.

Crockpot Anasazi Beans

1 pound Anasazi beans

Water to cover by about 1 ½ inches

Place in crockpot in the morning and cook on High for half a day.

1 ½ teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon oregano

1 teaspoon cumin seeds

1 small dried red chile

3 cloves garlic, crushed

2 tablespoons olive oil

Add the remaining ingredients and cook on Low until dinnertime.

Sweet and Sour Eggplant Salad

This is from Claudia Roden. It's simple enough to let the flavor of the eggplant come through.

Sweet and Sour Eggplant

Olive oil

1 large Spanish onion, coarsely chopped

1 pound eggplant, partially peeled and cut in 3/4-inch cubes

2 cloves garlic, chopped

1-pound can diced tomatoes

4 tablespoons chopped parsley

3 tablespoons wine vinegar

1 teaspoon sugar

1/2 teaspoon ground red chili

Cover bottom of a large skillet with oil and heat. Saute onion until soft and golden. Add eggplant and cook, stirring, for about five minutes. Then add garlic and cook until colored.

Add remaining ingredients and cook over very low heat for 20 minutes. Serve cold (we had it warm last night and cold today--delicious).

And here's the Sidecar recipe. Russell made these for us.

Sidecar

1 part lemon juice

1 part Cointreau

2 parts cognac

Shake with ice.

And our version:

Poor Man's Sidecar

1 part lemon juice

1 part Triple Sec

2 parts bourbon