Scrambled duck eggs with piperrada

The summer produce keeps on rolling!  Last week, we got about 2 gallons of peppers and a gallon of tomatoes.  We also did a special order of a dozen duck eggs.  I had never had duck eggs before this... so I wasn't sure what to expect.  For our first duck egg breakfast, I just cooked them over easy and we had them with some toast and grilled tomato slices.  They were only okay.  I didn't love the texture; the yolks are a bit stickier than an over easy chicken egg yolk, and the whites were much firmer.  But they were very rich.  It made me think they'd be better scrambled.  And I have to say, they definitely were.

The peppers and tomatoes that went into the piperrada

I made this for breakfast by myself on Friday.  I had some time to kill after dropping Andy off for the airport shuttle at 5:30am (he went to Montana, and his friends got their elk, he'll be coming home on Monday with a cooler full!)  I love cream cheese in scrambled eggs, and at the risk of over-rich-ifying the duck eggs, added a small amount.  I think they went great together.  Inspired by a NY Times recipe, I stewed some of the peppers and tomatoes from the CSA, trying to mimic a Basque piperrada.  Not sure how close I got, but it tasted great!  I thought about cooking everything in the same pot, but decided against it cause I wanted to be able to control the heat on the duck eggs.  Also had some leftover roasted red potatoes.  Now that's a breakfast.

Piperrada (makes a good amount!)
1 T. olive oil
12 small peppers, cut into strips (probably equivalent to 8 medium sized bell peppers.  Use a mixture of types, if possible, I think it imparts some depth... our CSA calls our peppers "Italian peppers" which look like bell peppers, and "chile peppers" which look like hatch or poblanos)
salt
4 tomatoes
2 bay leaves
2 t. smoked paprika
1 t. thyme

1.  Heat the olive oil over low heat.  Add the peppers and some salt and cook about 10 - 12 minutes, stirring only occasionally (longer's fine too, this is basically a stew).
2.  While the peppers are cooking, boil a medium pot of water.  Cut a shallow cross into the skin on the bottom of the tomatoes.  Submerge the tomatoes in the water for about 15 seconds.  Plunge the tomatoes into ice water.  Slip the peels off.  Roughly chop the tomatoes.
3.  Add the tomatoes, bay leaves, smoked paprika, and thyme.  Cover and cook for 12 - 15 minutes, stirring only occasionally.
4.  If it looks watery after 12 minutes, remove the cover and turn the heat up a little.  There should be liquid, but you probably want it more sauce-y than liquid-y.  Mine probably could have used a little more time but I was hungry.  Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Scrambled duck eggs (serves 1, multiply as you wish)
1 t. butter
2 duck eggs (size?  most of the ones we got were close to the size of chicken eggs... except for one giant one.  I used the chicken egg sized ones)
2-3 t. cream cheese
Freshly ground pepper
Salt, Maldon smoked sea salt if you have it

1.  Heat the butter in a sautee pan over low heat.
2.  Whisk the ducks eggs, add in some salt and pepper.
3.  Pour into sautee pan.  Use a spatula to stir and break up the curds nearly constantly.  You want to cook these guys slowly, it probably took about 5 minutes to cook my two eggs.  More than 2 eggs will take longer.   The texture at the end is closer to a small curd cottage cheese than, say, the egg patty you might get at a bagel shop on your breakfast sandwich.
4.  When they're nearly done, add the cream cheese and break apart with the spatula.  I like it mostly broken up but with an occasional tasty little chunk. 
5.  Season at the table with the smoked sea salt and more pepper.

Does anyone else have ideas on ways to cook duck eggs?  I have 6 left.  If you have an idea leave a comment!

Peach, cucumber, black bean salad/salsa

This one might sound familiar... at first I was going to title it "peach and cucumber salad," but being different by only one word from the previous post is unacceptable. So I aggrandized it. Also I realize every August post is a salad. But that's how it's supposed to be in the summer right? In reality, this salad is totally different, even from the previous peach salad. And, it would be just as great as a salsa to serve with chips, over fish or chicken, in a burrito, you name it. I would just recommend chopping everything a bit smaller if you are going to dip into it. I'm going to give you recipes for the full menu, although the salad was really the winner on the plate. The menu:
~Peach, cucumber, black bean salad
~Shredded cabbage w/lemon and cilantro
~Sliced raw beets w/lemon and chile
~Quesadillas

Peach, cucumber, black bean salad
3 peaches, chopped
1 cucumber (medium to large sized), half-peeled (leave alternating stripes of peel) and chopped
2 green onions, chopped
2 radishes, thinly sliced
1/2 bunch of cilantro, chopped
1 can of black beans, drained and rinsed
1/2 t. salt or to taste
Zest of one lime
Juice of one lime and one lemon (I probably would have used 2-3 limes instead of 1 lemon and 1 lime, but I only had 1 lime)
2 squeezes of honey
2-3 T. canned chipotles in adobo, very finely chopped
1 T. olive oil
Optional: shredded cabbage

1. Combine all the chopped things together, as well as the beans.
2. Combine the dressing ingredients and whisk: salt, lime zest, juices, honey, chipotles, olive oil. My measure on the chipotles is approximate - they have a little heat, so adjust to your liking. When I open a can I put the rest in the freezer and then use a knife to cut off however much I want from the frozen chipotle block. Then I microwave it, and I chop it finely enough so that it's almost a liquid consistency.
3. Toss dressing with the fruit mixture, let stand for 20 minutes before serving. Serve on top of or next to a bed of cabbage if you like, or even better, citrusy-cilantro-y cabbage (see below).

Shredded cabbage w/lemon and cilantro
Green cabbage, sliced very thinly (I used about 1/3 a head)
Juice of 1 lemon
1 T. chopped cilantro
One squeeze/glug/choose-your-verb-inspired-measure of olive oil

1. Toss them all together. Season.

Sliced raw beets w/lemon and chile, a recipe from The Kitchn.
2 large beets, sliced as thinly as possible
Juice of 1 lemon
A few shakes good quality chili powder (discussed here)

1. Toss them all together.

Quesadillas - don't need a recipe for these - but I like a simple white Vermont cheddar (mmmm Cabot) on corn tortillas.

The green stuff you can see in the picture (on top of the quesadilla) is a chutney I made to go with some saag paneer a week or two ago ... it was loosely based on this recipe, but I don't remember exactly what went into it.

Some of the things in tonight's dinner came straight from today's haul of the CSA. I thought it might be fun (for me at least) to write down what all the things in one week's CSA went into. And this was a particularly good-looking and large haul (which was quite interesting to bike home with), so I set it up for a photo shoot. Keep an eye out for that in a coming post.

Five-green saag paneer

8/3/10 update - new photo (not a good one though, ha!)

This is based off of a traditional saag paneer recipe from Dance of the Spices by Laxmi Hiremath. "Paneer" is Indian style white cheese, and it's about the most basic cheese you can make. It's really pretty easy, just requires a little planning. It's similar to cottage or ricotta cheese, except that you press out water until it's rather solid, and then cut it into chunks for use in recipes. "Saag" refers to the spinach sauce that the paneer is in. I've made this so many times I feel like it's kind of taken on a life of its own, especially with the CSA coming in strong in the greens category. Saag paneer is basically my catch-all dish to use up any kind of greens, from lettuce to kale, even the radish and beet tops that you might be tempted to just toss (yes! you can eat them!).

A few specifics on the ingredients called for - I'm pretty sure almost any combo of greens would work. So really you should use the ends of whatever you have! Heck, you could even throw in some broccoli or cauliflower probably. But I do like keeping spinach the predominant one just to keep tradition somewhere in the mix. This is a good use of the outer lettuce leaves that are a bit tougher, especially on a head of Romaine. For the paneer, steps 6 and 7 have ** next to them, because I've done very different times for those steps, and it's always worked. I've let it drain in the sink over night, I've pressed it for only 1 hour... last time I made this I skipped the draining over the sink part, only pressed it for maybe 1.5 hours, and it was ready for dinner that night, no foresight required. So bottom line, make the cheese fit your schedule and it'll be fine.

Paneer
1/2 gallon whole milk
4 c. (1 quart) 2% milk
3 c. buttermilk

1. In a very large saucepan, bring the milk to a simmer over medium heat. This will take a while. Stir occasionally.
2. When it just gets to a simmer, add the buttermilk and reduce heat to medium-low. Stir constantly until the curds have separated from the whey. The whey should be pretty clear when this process is done. It will only take a few minutes. This is when it's easiest for the curds to burn, so make sure you are stirring.
3. Turn off the heat, let sit for about 15 minutes.
4. Line a large colander with a double thickness of cheesecloth, with enough excess so that you'll be able to gather the corners after straining. Pour the mixture slowly through the cheesecloth.
5. Gather the corners of the cheesecloth, and twist/tie up with kitchen twine. Use the twine to suspend the cheese bundle from a faucet.
**6. Let the cheese drain into the sink for 3 hours.
**7. Place an upside down small saucer or salad plate on top of a dinner plate or bowl. Place the bundle on the inverted plate. Put something heavy on top of the bundle. You may need to arrange other random heavy things around this setup so the first heavy thing does not fall down. I usually put my cast iron dutch oven atop the cheese, push the setup into a corner and then balance the dutch oven with two heavy canisters. This is probably the hardest part of the process. Let it stand like this for 2-3 hours.
8. Unwrap and slice for immediate use or store in the fridge. I like my slices about 2" by 1" by 0.5".


Saag
About 6 c. packed greens - I probably used about 0.5 c. radish greens, 1 c. ugly Romaine lettuce, 1 c. beet greens, 1 c. kale, and 3 c. spinach.
1 inch piece fresh ginger, peeled
8 cloves garlic, crushed and peeled
3-5 serrano chilis, de-seeded and cut into a few chunks.
about 1 c. water
2-4 T. butter
1 small-medium onion, grated (grate this in the food processor first, before starting the saag)
1 t. ground cumin
1/2 t. turmeric
black pepper
1 t. salt
1-2 t. sugar (optional)
about 1/2 c. heavy cream (optional)
paneer (recipe above, sliced)
shelled pistachios or pine nuts (optional)

1. Place the greens and 1/2 c. water in a very large saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium-high with a cover. Stir a few times until the greens are very wilted; 6-8 minutes.
2. While the greens are steaming, ready a big bowl of ice water. Transfer the greens to the ice water when they are done steaming. Let sit for at least 5 min.
3. While the greens are steaming and chilling, add the ginger, garlic, chilis, and about 1/2 c. of the ice water (try to avoid the ice cubes) to the work bowl of the food processor or blender. Blend until these ginger, garlic, and chilies are well-chopped.
4. Squeeze some of the excess water out of the greens and add them to the work bowl.
5. Process until everything is very smooth. You may need to add more cold water. It should have the consistency of a thick pancake batter... or maybe a thin hummus (having trouble making a better analogy here, sorry!).
6. Melt the butter in a large saucepan over medium. Add the onion. Cook, stirring occasionally until the onion browns a bit.
7. Add cumin, turmeric, salt and pepper and stir for 1 minute.
8. Add the spinach mixture. Bring to a simmer. Add more water if necessary.
9. Add in the paneer and warm it up. This is a good time to add the cream, if desired (I like it a lot more with cream, personally wouldn't skip it). Stir it in, then taste and adjust the seasonings - add the optional sugar (I again always throw in just a small amount), and if you want, more salt and pepper.
10. Serve over jasmine, basmati, or (my favorite) brown basmati rice, with a sprinkling of pistachios or pine nuts on top and some Sriracha on the side.

Bean and chile posole

Posole is Southwestern regional dish - usually, it's a stew with pork, chiles, and the posole itself. Posole is whole, dried corn kernels that have been soaked in lye (calcium hydroxide, so the solution has a high pH). It is the same stuff that is coarsely ground to make typical southern grits, or finely ground to make masa, the basis for corn tortillas. It's also called hominy, but seems to be labeled posole around here. I was looking for a picture to put up here, and in my googling and wikipedia-ing adventures, I learned that hominy is the Powhatan word for corn... the same word that is in Chickahominy, the river and Indian tribe near Williamsburg where Andy grew up. Chickahominy means "the people of coarse ground corn." I hadn't put the two together until just now - learning while blogging!

But anyway, this is a not exactly vegetarian version of the dish. No pork, but I used chicken stock because I like the depth and body stock imparts to simple soups. The roasted chiles came from our farmers market (roasted on site in a giant propane powered rotating drum). I really liked the texture of the posole; they're chewy and hearty. I'll definitely be trying it in the future in other less traditional dishes. I haven't tried canned hominy, but I bet it would be good too.

1 c. dried posole, available in the Mexican section of grocery stores in Colorado, also called hominy
1 c. dried pinto beans (kidneys, black eyed peas, or black turtles would all work, canned would be just as good too)
1 T. oil
1 large onion
4-5 medium carrots
a pinch salt
1 t. ground cumin
8-10 cloves garlic
32 oz. no salt added chicken stock (I use Kitchen Basics brand)
10-14 roasted green chile peppers, peeled and chopped to some degree
1 15 oz. can diced tomatoes
1/3 c. lime juice
cilantro, chopped, to put on top
hot sauce

1. Soak the posole and beans overnight - fill water to about 2" over level. I put them in different pots, cause I wasn't sure if they would take the same amount of time to cook or not. I think this is a good idea cause although they took almost the same amount of time, I used the cooking liquid from the posole in the soup.
2. The next day, bring the posole and bean to a simmer and cook till tender and appealing - this took about an hour 45 for me, but beans can be very fickle. You could also use the 90 minute method on the beans - wonder if it would work on the posole??
3. In the meantime, heat the oil over medium and sautee the onions, carrots, salt, and cumin till they are lightly browned (6-8 min). Add in the garlic, stir for another 2-3 minutes.
4. Add in the stock and stir to release all the stuff on the bottom of the pot. Add the chiles, tomatoes, beans (drained and rinsed), and posole (with cooking liquid). Bring to a simmer and cook for 30-45 minutes, till the tomatoes are cooked and it tastes good.
5. Add lime juice, and then add water, salt, pepper, hot sauce to taste. Put some fresh chopped cilantro on top.

Butternut and bean mole

Well this recipe is sort of cheating, but it is good and original. One gripe I have with Mexican restaurants is that there is a rarely a vegetarian dish featuring mole sauce. If you're unfamiliar with mole (pronounced mo-lay) it is a thick sauce that usually has a mixture of chiles, cocoa powder, and cumin. It's delicious, but traditionally served with chicken which I generally don't order at restaurants. It also is pretty labor intensive and takes a while to cook. But not with a spice blend from Savory Spice shop. I tried their Mexican mole blend and improvised a vegetarian dish that was sort of based on the recipe card I picked up in the store for a chicken mole. It turned out really good.

Ingredients
1 large butternut squash
oil
3 tomatillos, leaves removed and rinsed
4 ozs. Savory Spice Shop's Mexican Mole Blend
1.25 c. vegetable bouillon, or 1.25 c. water and 1.25 t. Better than Bouillion
2 T. raisins
1 onion, chopped
1 green pepper, chopped
1-2 jalapeno peppers, chopped
2 c. cooked beans (I used some pintos I had cooked a while ago and froze, I think a can or two of pintos, blacks, or kidney would all work)
corn tortillas for serving
brown or white rice for serving

1. Slice squash in half and remove seeds and skin. Cut up into 1/3 - 1/2 inch chunks. Heat a small amount of oil in a cast iron skillet over medium. Add squash chunks and cover, cover 5 min. Remove cover and crank up heat, stir frequently until cooked through, and crispy on the outside.
2. Roast tomatillos under broiler until blistered and slightly blackened, about 10 minutes, flip halfway through. Set aside to cool.
3. In small bowl, mix Savory Spice Shop’s Mexican Molé seasoning, 1/2 cup warm veggie bouillon into a smooth paste. In food processor or blender, pulse molé paste, raisins and tomatillos until thoroughly blended. Set aside.
4. Heat olive oil in a Dutch over or pot over medium high heat. Add in onion, cook and stir for 3 min. Add in green pepper and jalapeno, cook and stir for 3-5 minutes, till the veggies are mostly cooked through.
5. Reduce heat to medium, add mole paste, and sauté and stir for no more than 1-2 minutes. Add squash and rest of veggie bouillon. Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, cover and cook for 12 minutes stirring occasionally. Remove cover and simmer for 15 minutes.
6. Serve over brown rice and with corn tortillas. It's even better leftover the next day.

A peanut soup (made mostly of pantry items)

Andy and I were out of town for a week earlier this month. We got back, exhausted, late on a Sunday night. I started off Monday with an early meeting and was busy all day catching up. Luckily, a well stocked pantry yields soup that doesn’t require an immediate trip to the grocery store upon returning from a trip. The ingredients include pantry items, and a few veggies that keep for weeks in the fridge. Well, the tomatoes were very sad looking, but that means soup is the perfect destination for them. And while I would not have called cilantro something that keeps for a long time a few months ago, I now store it in an Herb Saver (thanks Mom!) and it keeps for at least 2 weeks!

A few notes on the ingredients
Squash - really, any winter squash would work. Since this is the end of winter squash season, stock up now! Cause they really do keep a long time in the fridge.
Better Than Boullion (BTB) – I’ve spoken highly of this product before, if you still don’t have some in your fridge go get it. It makes soup so easy and tastes really good.
Peanut butter – most recipes call for creamy PB, but I kinda like crunchy. First, cause that’s what I usually have at home and second, why not have little peanut fragments in your soup? They’re good.
Bulgar – I was going to use some wild rice but was hungry and bulgar cooks very quickly. Lots of grains would be good (rice, quinoa) as well.
Chile peppers – I used a whole jar of MMLocal’s mild high desert peppers. They were great. This is not something I usually have in my pantry, but I might start cause the soup really came together when I added them. However, I think if you had some fresh chiles or dried or canned or pretty much anything would taste good.

1 t. of peanut or veggie oil
1 acorn squash, cubed
1 onion, chopped
5 cloves of garlic, chopped or pressed
1 t. red pepper flakes
1 t. smoked paprika
1/4 t. cinnamon
4 pints water (preferably measured from your empty beer glass)
1/2 c. bulgar wheat
2 T. Better than bouillion
4 tomatoes, roughly chopped (I used small plum tomatoes here)
1 can garbanzo beans, drained
1/2 c. peanut butter
1/3 c. yogurt
1/2 bunch cilantro, chopped
1 7.5 oz. jar of mild preserved chile peppers, chopped
Sriracha (for serving)

1. Heat the oil over medium. Add in the squash, onion, and half the chopped garlic and sautee, stirring occasionally, for 6-8 minutes while you get the other ingredients together and chopped.
2. Add in the rest of the garlic, red pepper, paprika, and the cinnamon and stir another 30 seconds.
3. Pour in the water and the bulgar.
4. When the water is getting close to boiling, add in the BTB, tomatoes, and peanut butter.. Stir for a while to get the PB dissolved and dispersed. If it’s taking a while, let it heat some more and come back to it. Then stir in the garbanzo beans. Cook for about 15-20 minutes.
5. Just before serving, stir in yogurt, cilantro, and peppers.
6. Serve with Sriracha or spicy chile sauce of your choice!

And lastly, a note on a previous recipe. If you read about avocado ice cream in my last post, you saw that I lost my notes and didn't have an exact recipe. Well, I found them and updated the post. Yay :)

Very green curry (aka green dinner, part 1)

I made the greenest meal ever the other night: Green curry with lots of green veggies and avocado ice cream for dessert (coming in the next post). This Thai-style curry is really not very inventive, but I think it was a great combo for spring, and definitely a quick, tasty, healthy dinner. If you haven't ever cooked with Thai-style curry paste, you should give it a try. The ingredients in this particular brand are simple and delicious: chiles, lemongrass, garlic, keffir lime, and ginger - that's pretty much it. I think this was the first time I put edamame (baby soybeans, look for them in the freezer section) in a curry; they really play a nice role! I think I may like them in curry as much or more than tofu. You can buy them frozen, shelled or unshelled - shelled makes them super easy to use in applications like this. Unfortunately the only picture I took is the curry leftover, as my lunch today.



Serves 4

2 c. rice (I like brown) cooked in a rice cooker or however
2 t. neutral oil
1 onion, chopped or sliced
3-4 carrots, sliced (looks especially nice if you cut on a diagonal)
pinch of salt
1 bunch asparagus, cut into bite-sized pieces (ditto on the cutting remark above, make sure to discard the bottom of the stalk if they are lighter in color or feel tougher - that part is unappealing fibrous when cooked)
1 can coconut milk
1/2 can of water
1 to 1.5 T green curry paste (it's spicy, so start small if you're sensitive)
2 c. frozen, shelled edamame
2 large handfuls washed baby spinach
fish sauce to taste (2 t., maybe)
sugar to taste (2 t., maybe)

1. Heat the oil in a large wok (if you use a typical 10 or 12" skillet, you may want to reduce quantities of the veggies to prevent overflow)
2. Stir-fry the onions and carrots with a pinch of salt, till the the carrots are still firm but the crunch has just been taken off (about 5 minutes)
3. Add the asparagus, and stir-fry till the asparagus is still firm but the crunch has just been taken off (about 3 minutes)
4. Add the coconut milk, water (use the water to rinse the last bit of coconut milk), and curry paste.
5. Add the frozen edamame, bring to simmer, and cook for 4 minutes.
6. Add the spinach and cook for another minute or to wilt the spinach.
7. Season with fish sauce and sugar to taste (I used about 2 tsp. of each).
8. Serve over rice



[I hope I don't spill this on my laptop!]

Roasted garlic-chipotle refried beans with poached eggs and beet-carrot slaw

I never made refried beans before tonight - so I'm not going to claim to be an expert on this one, and I haven't done any experimentation so I can't even claim to be a curious cook. But, these are so good I'm sharing anyway! Refried beans definitely fall into the comfort food category. Pairing them with some poached eggs and some nice flavors makes them even better.


Also, I realized that I don't think I've written about any egg dishes. Which is funny, since we eat eggs for dinner or breakfast quite often (thanks to Barack I, Barack II, and Barack III, pictured).

This dinner has everything going for it - it's super easy, healthy and has interesting flavors. It's not quick, but I used the 90 minute no-soak method (seriously!) to speed it up a bit. Still about 2.5 hours start to finish, but most of that time is not active. The beans came from our winter share CSA from Grant Family Farms. I've never been a bean connoisseur before, they usually just taste like beans, but I have to say these are awesome! I think they are just plain old pintos, but that the difference must be freshness. It's the texture that's a little nicer - they cook up really smooth, and seem to take less time to cook as well (by normal or the 90 minute method). Refried beans pair great with chiles, of course, and the smokiness of chipotles makes the combo even better. And roasted garlic ALWAYS makes EVERYTHING better. I served these beans with poached eggs, corn tortillas, sliced avocado, and some beet and carrot slaw (recipe follows) to round out the meal. The avocados were leftover from a few days ago, so unfortunately they are rather ugly.



Roasted garlic-chipotle refried beans
Ingredients
2 c. dried pinto beans
3 bay leaves
1 head of garlic
a little olive oil
3 T. vegetable oil (or some lard if you're into that)
1/2 onion, minced
3/4 t. salt (I used Maldon smoked sea salt)
4 dried chipotle peppers (canned would also be fine, skip the rehydrating step if using)
1 t. vegetable bouillon paste (I really like Better Than Bouillon)
1/2 tomato, chopped

1. Preheat the over to 250 degrees.
2. Rinse the beans. Transfer to a oven-safe pot with a tight fitting lid - like a Dutch oven. Add the bay leaves, and water to cover the beans by 2.5-3 inches or so.
3. Bring to a boil on the stovetop, then put in the preheated oven. Make sure the lid is on tightly at this point. Leave in the oven for 75 minutes. Check on them at this point to see if they're done. If necessary leave in a little longer.
4. Roast the garlic at the same time. Normally I use a hotter oven, but 250 worked just fine! Take the whole head of garlic, and remove any really dry outer layers of skin. Cut the tips of the individual cloves off - you can get the middle ones with one cut; then get any of the outer cloves the first cut missed. Place the garlic on some aluminum foil (cut side up) and drizzle a little olive oil on the cloves. Wrap up the garlic tightly in the foil, and stick in the oven. Leave in for as long as the beans take.
5. While the beans are cooking, you can make the slaw (recipe below), or another side dish if you wish.
6. When they're done, drain the beans and fish out the bay leaves.
7. Heat the oil in the pot you used for the beans, and cook the onion and some salt over medium low heat, till slightly caramelized and thoroughly cooked. Stir occasionally.
8. While the onions are cooking, puree the beans with a little water in a food processor till they are the consistency you like for refried beans. I like them pretty smooth.
9. Transfer the pureed beans back to the pot with the onions, stir. Reduce heat to low. Stir occasionally.
10. Boil some water (1/2 cup, at least) and pour over the chipotles to rehydrate. Let sit for 5 minutes or so.
11. Fish out the chipotles and put them on a cutting board. Add the teaspoon of veggie bouillon base to the water, stir to dissolve, and pour into the pot with the beans. Stir everything really well.
12. Take half the head of roasted garlic, and squeeze the cloves out of their skins one by one (of half the head, reserve the other half for another use). Mince the chipotles and roasted garlic cloves. Add these and the chopped tomatoes to the pot.
13. After you've added everything and the mixture is slowly bubbling (maybe more like burping!), cook for at least half an hour, stirring occasionally. The beans will stick to the bottom of the pot a little, but that's okay. Just keep the heat low enough so they don't really burn, and scrape the bottom when you're stirring. You will probably need to add a little more water at some point, depending on the thickness you prefer.
14. Poach 2 eggs per person. Here's how I poach eggs: Boil water in a large, deep skillet (about 2/3 full of water). Add a splash of vinegar (white, white wine, or apple cider). When the water is at a simmer (not a full rolling boil or the eggs will get shredded), crack the eggs one at a time into a saucer, and gently lower the edge of the saucer into the boiling water so the eggs slides in gently. Cook for about 4 minutes, and remove gently with a slotted spoon or spatula.


Carrot and beet slaw
Ingredients
2-3 medium beets
4-6 medium carrots
1/4 c. parsley (or cilantro)
Juice of one lime
Splash of olive oil
Splash of apple cider vinegar (optional)
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Shred the veggies in the food processor, chop the parsley.
2. Toss with lime juice and olive oil. Taste, and add vinegar or some extra lime juice if you like. Season with salt and pepper. Let sit for an hour or so.

Hints
I used my food processor for nearly everything! And I even managed to avoid washing it in between ingredient processing by processing in this order. 2 through 4 are for the salad.
1- onion (blade)
2- carrots (grating disk), and beets (same)
3- parsley (blade)
4- beans (blade)
5- rehydrated chipotles and garlic (blade)
6- tomato (blade)

Variations
The traditional way to mash the beans is with a potato masher. I don't have one, so I used the food processor! You can certainly vary the the seasonings - chile powder, roasted fresh peppers, cumin, lime juice would all be good! But maybe not all at the same time. Also, I think this would be pretty good with canned beans, but I haven't tried it. I think next time I will make this doubled or tripled and freeze some. (And I will be making it again, cause I have lots of these beans!)

And lastly, just to brag about my pets a little, check out how tall the yolk is on the egg on top in this other shot of dinner! That's what you get with fresh eggs from backyard poultry.

Sardines! Sardine-jicama-orange-avocado salad

On Saturday I woke Andy up in the middle of the night saying that I needed to give Alton Brown the salad. I don't remember any of this, but I started writing this blog posting that day, so I must have been dreaming about it. I wonder if I meant I had to give him the recipe or the salad itself?! The title of this recipe may give you pause; sardines have a bad rap as a smelly, oily fish. But I encourage you to read on and then give them a chance (except Matt, you're exempt).

Let's discuss sardines first. I bought some canned brisling 2-row sardines packed in olive oil at King Soopers the other day after being inspired by, who else, Alton Brown (I realize this is the third post in a row where I mention him...) On a recent show, he extolled the virtues of sardines as a healthy and tasty food, and made open faced sandwiches that I made the other day - they were great! The health benefits and tastiness are definitely true, but more importantly in my mind is that sardines are a sustainable fishery. They are abundant and very low on the food chain. Because they are low on the food chain, they don't require a lot of inputs and don't create much waste - essentially the oceans can support a lot of them. Compare sardines to, say, canned tuna. Tuna are high on the food chain, thus they require more inputs and the ocean can support fewer of them...making them prone to overfishing especially when they are a super popular fish. Another outcome of being high on the food chain is that they bioaccumulate toxins as they consume the fish that are below them on the food web; most notably mercury and PCBs. I've made a table to compare canned tuna and canned sardines. All the nutritional information is for equal serving sizes (by mass) of the fish, canned in oil. The cells highlighted in green show which fish shines in that category. Yellow and red highlights where you might want to be cautious. You can see sardines are higher than tuna in a number of beneficial nutritional measurements: calcium, fatty acids, vitamin D, among others.



Sources of data:
Sardine nutritional data
Tuna nutritional data

Monterey Bay Aquarium factsheet for sardines
Monterey Bay Aquarium factsheet for canned tuna
Mercury measurements

So, having made the case for sardines, here's the recipe. I think that the citrus helps moderate the oilness of the sardines.

Ingredients
2 cans of 2-row brisling sardines packed in olive oil
Juice and zest of 2 limes
1/4 c. cilantro, chopped
1/4 t. chili powder
freshly ground black pepper
1/2 of a medium-large jicama or 1 small jicama - the equivalent of about a grapefruit sized volume
3 oranges
2 avocados

1. Drain the sardines reserving the olive oil.
2. Whisk together 1 T. of the sardine oil, the juice and zest of the limes, the cilantro and chili powder. Add some pepper.
3. Add the sardines to the dressing, lightly break up the sardines with a fork into bite sized pieces. Marinate the sardines in this dressing for 30-60 minutes.
4. Cut up the jicama into bite sized pieces... I like it in fat matchstick shapes. Cut up the orange and avocado into small bite sized pieces. Remove most of the oranges' pith if you're picky.
5. Toss everything together, let the flavors coalesce for 15-30 minutes or so, and serve.

This is best served the same day it's made.

Variations
I think this could be made with a variety of fruits or even vegetables. I can see sardine-watermelon-banana salad, sardine-jicama-grapefruit (with honey!), sardine-potato-raisin (with vinagrette, a potato salad variation)...

My favorite veggie chili (just in time for the Super Bowl)

Chili is all about chiles. With an "i," chili is the spicy bean and tomato stew. With an "e," chiles are the fruit (yes, fruit, seeds are inside and they can grown into new plants!) that make chili spicy. Now that that clarification is out of the way, here's the bottom line: the chili powder makes all the difference. It is SOOO much better if it's homemade. Why? Not sure, but my guess is that 1) the chiles you put into it are fresher... and once ground and sitting on a Safeway shelf for months, a chili powder loses freshness quickly. 2) you can use any variety of chiles you want. My guess is that most commercial chili powders are the cheapest chiles available.

You can make your own chili powder a million different ways, but here's one incredible recipe from Alton Brown, my favorite TV chef. I've made mass quantities of AB's chili powder and given it as Christmas gifts before. AB's chili powder recipe takes care of all the spicing requirements. The only additional spices I add are fresh garlic (cause garlic makes everything better) and cinnamon, which kind of magically melds the flavors together. I try to add just enough to accomplish this, but not overwhelm the chiles. It's easy to add too much, so be light with the shaker.

Since I'm not a meat fan, I like to add some bulgar wheat to chili. Not as a meat substitute, but to give the chili some extra al dente appeal. I make it with quinoa instead sometimes but bulgar is better. Also, a writer at Serious Eats has done a much more scientific analysis of his chili recipe, it's a very good article. The part about the meat is especially interesting for you meat-eaters.

And for serving, be sure to provide all the fixins (listed below the recipe), along with some cornbread.


Ingredients
0.75 cup bulgar wheat
1.5 cups water or tomato juice
2-3 T. oil
salt
at least 3 T. homemade chili powder
3 onions
lots of garlic (6-10 cloves)
2-3 carrots
2-3 green bell peppers
2-3 jalapenos
1 28 oz can crushed tomatoes
1 28 oz can diced tomatoes
0.25 to 0.5 t. ground cinnamon
1 bag soaked and cooked black beans, or any mix of black, red, kidney, pinto, black-eyed peas. Cans are fine too, use 3 or 4.
molasses, to taste (I maybe use 0.25 c.)
soy sauce, to taste (just a few dashes)
optional add-ins: frozen or fresh corn, spinach


1. Cook bulgur according to package directions (in the water or juice, usually a 1:2 ratio). Set aside.
2. Heat the oil in a big pot over medium. Cook the onions, carrot, salt, and chili powder till the crunch is just barely taken off. Stir often.
3. Add the garlic and peppers. Saute till the crunch is barely taken off the peppers. Stir often.
4. Add the tomatoes and cinnamon. Turn the heat to low, and cook for at least half an hour (an hour is better), stirring occasionally. The tomatoes should lose some acidity and turn a more orangey shade of red.
5. Add the beans, bulgar, molasses, soy sauce and corn and spinach (if using), and cook another half hour more. Add additional water or tomato juice if it is too thick for your liking.
6. As you are going, adjust seasonings. I usually end up adding a LOT of chili powder. The cinnamon shouldn’t really be tasteable, but somehow it tends to bring all the flavors together.

Serve with grated cheddar cheese, sliced avocados, plain greek style yogurt (I can't get enough of Mountain High plain lowfat) or sour cream, shredded green cabbage or lettuce.

Chile relleno casserole

This recipe comes from one of my PhD committee members, Linda. Thanks to the CSA, I again had a whole bunch of chiles, Anaheims I believe. I often get chiles rellenos when I eat at Mexican restaurants. They're so good. I always figured they were somewhat of a production to make, until Linda told me about her short cut way. The amounts here are definitely guesses, I should have jotted them down as I was making it (this is a common theme lately), so if it looks like too much or too little, definitely adjust! The key to the recipe is the batter; whipping the egg whites makes it light and crispy, mimicking the results of frying batter-dipped chiles.

Ingredients
1 lb potatoes, diced
1 onion, diced
salt & pepper
~at least 1 dozen green chiles: Anaheim, poblanos, hatch most types would work
~1/2 lb of cheese, preferably Cabot Hunter's X-sharp, sliced or grated.
optional green chile
some butter
2 eggs
~1/3 cup flour
1/2 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
1/2 t pepper

1. Preheat oven to 375.
2. Sautee potatoes and onions in butter till potatoes are done, season with S&P to taste.
3. Roast chiles the same way as directed in the green chile recipe. Linda says you can skip this step if you don't have time - or use canned roasted chiles.
4. Butter a medium-sized casserole or baking pan.
5. Layer half the green chiles, the potato and onion mixutre, the cheese, and top with the other half of the green chiles or the optional green chile. If your chile are still whole, you can make it fancier by stuffing them instead of layering.
6. Separate the eggs, reserving yolks and transferring whites to a mixing bowl.
7. Beat egg whites with an electric mixer till the soft peak stage.
8. Lightly beat yolks in a separate small bowl.
9. Very lightly fold in the yolks, flour, baking powder and S&P. The batter should be light and thinner than pancake batter.
10. Pour the batter evenly over the casserole.
11. Bake for about 40 minutes, till the batter is completely cooked in the middle.

Serve with warm corn tortillas, chopped cilantro, plain yogurt or sour cream, and salsa (fresh, if available!), and/or rice and black beans.

Green chile

Here in Colorado, green chile is ubiquitous. It's served by itself, as stew (usually thinned with stock), but more often as a condiment for burritos, tamales, eggs, meat dishes etc. I don't think it's very common outside of Colorado, New Mexico... maybe a couple other places. And interestingly, there's not a lot of recipes for it online, and there seems to be wild debate on message boards. A couple things I've decided about green chile, which may or may not be right:
1. Green chile should be made of New Mexico Hatch chiles
2. The chiles are roasted and peeled first
3. It does not contain tomatoes, tomatillos, cilantro, or really much else.
4. It contains pork

I don't really like pork very much. So I decided to try to make a somewhat traditional green chile (ie follow observations 1-3), but without the pork. I thought some chicken, flavorful, fatty chicken, might give the green chile the required depth in place of the pork. I got a "stewing chicken" from our CSA thinking it might do the trick. I don't claim that this is traditional, the correct way, the best way, or anything else, but it did work fairly well.

I took a similar approach to making pho ga, the Vietnamese chicken soup, which I learned to make from Tin's mom Thuy. My thinking was that I would end up with a bunch of awesome chicken stock, some cooked chicken, and some chicken fat to work into the green chile.

The chiles, as I noted above, are roasted first. I didn't do this part particularly well, so I am writing the recipe as it should be made, not as I made it. My problem was I roasted them for too long, and the chile flesh got a bit burned and dry. The parts of the chile that weren't as subject to high heat were the best. So onto the recipe!

Ingredients:
1 whole chicken (you won't use all of it)
About two dozen green chiles, I used mostly Hatch, and some Anaheim
4 cloves garlic, minced

Part 1 - the chicken
1. Rinse the chicken.
2. Boil water in a stockpot, add chicken. You can throw in some charred onion or other vegetables (char the onion directly over a gas burner).
3. Bring to a boil again over medium heat, then reduce, and let simmer for 45 minutes.
4. Pull out the chicken, make sure it's done. Put on some gloves (latex are fine, it'll be hot and they help a little) and used a fork and knife and your fingers (with caution, hot!) to pull the meat of the carcass.
5. Return the carcass to the stock and boil for another hour or two or however long you want.
6. Chill the stock overnight in the fridge.
7. In the morning, skim the fat off the top, and save it.

Part 2 - the chiles
1. Wash the chiles. One comment on a message board says to rub the chiles with lard or shortening, saying that it helps cook the chiles more evenly and makes the skinning easier. I haven't tried this, but might next time.
2. Put the chiles on the grate of your preheated grill. If it's a gas grill, I would probably aim for only about half heat, but it's all relative.
3. Watch the chiles carefully. As soon as you see black and blistering skin, turn the chile, getting them as evenly cooked as possible. I think when I cook this again, I will err on the side of underdone.
4. As they finish cooking, but them in a bowl and cover with a damp dishtowel. Let them sit and steam until they are cool enough to handle.
5. Peel off the skins. Gloves are again useful, especially if you wear contact lens and will eventually want to touch your eyes! Discard any stems and big clumps of seeds. The seeds that stick to the inner membranes are fine to leave.
6. Chop the peeled, cooked chiles roughly (about 1/4 to 1/2 inch dice, but shouldn't be terribly uniform).

Part 3 - unification
1. Heat up a little of the reserved chicken fat in a heavy saucepan over medium-low heat. If this grosses you out, use a neutral oil.
2. Add in the garlic and all the chopped up chiles. Stir occasionally for 5 minutes. My thinking here was to evoke any of the fat-soluble flavors from the chiles.
3. Pour in enough chicken stock to just cover the chiles; you won't use all of it. Cover and simmer for about half an hour.
4. Take the reserved chicken out of the fridge and shred or chop. You want the chicken in small pieces... and not long strings. You can put as much chicken into the chile as you want.
5. Add as much chicken as you want and simmer for another half an hour or so. Simmer without the lid if seems too soupy.

My version of this chile was quite spicy (it all depends on the spiciness of chiles though). I knew it would take a while to eat it all, so I froze it in an ice cube tray for little blocks that are the perfect size to accompany a fried egg! In fact I think my favorite breakfast of the moment might be two over easy eggs with sliced tomatoes (too bad the season's over! no more in our CSA...), grated Cabot cheddar cheese, and green chile on some warmed corn tortillas, as is pictured below (actually this looks like wheat tortilla, corn is better :)