Roasted Beans with Garlic and Olives

Roasted Beans with Garlic and Olives

From Mollie Katzen's Vegetable Heaven

3 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 1-lb package frozen lima beans or shelled edamame (or 3 to 4 cups fresh favas, shelled and peeled)
6 large cloves garlic, peeled and halved
1 heaping cup green olives, pitted and sliced
1 to 2 Tablespoons minced fresh herbs (1 to 2 teaspoons dried): summer savory, marjoram, thyme, and/or sage are good choices.
salt and pepper to taste

1. Preheat oven to 375°F. Spread 2 Tablespoons olive oil into a 6x9-inch baking pan or an oval gratin pan.

2. Toss everything together directly into the pan and sprinkle with a little salt and pepper. Cover the pan tightly with foil.

3. Bake for 50 minutes or until the garlic is tender when pierced with a toothpick or fork. Transfer to a bowl and stir. If desired, you can drizzle on a little extra olive oil and add more salt and pepper to taste.

Yield: 4 to 5 servings
Prep time: 1 hour (10 minutes of work)

Tuscan Bean and Pasta Stew

Tuscan Bean and Pasta Stew

From Mollie Katzen's Vegetable Heaven

3 cups uncooked pasta (any small shape) [alternately: 1-lb package frozen corn, defrosted]
1 to 2 Tablespoons olive oil
2 cups minced onion
1 Tablespoon minced garlic
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon dried sage
1 Tablespoon dried basil (or 3 Tablespoons minced fresh basil)
2 10-oz packages frozen chopped spinach, defrosted and drained (or 2 lbs fresh spinach -- cleaned, stemmed and chopped)
2 14.5-oz cans diced tomatoes
2 15-oz cans cannellini beans, rinsed and drained

for the top: ground black pepper, grated parmesan cheese, red wine vinegar

1. Heat a large pot of salted water for the pasta, if using. When it boils rapidly, add the pasta, give it a stir, and cook until tender. Drain and set aside.

2. Meanwhile, heat the oil in a large, deep saucepan or Dutch oven. Add the onion and half the garlic, and sauté for about 5 minutes over medium heat, stirring often. Add 1/2 teaspoon of the salt and the dried herbs and sauté for about 10 minutes longer. NOTE: if you're using fresh basil, add it later.

3. Add the spinach to the onion, along with the tomatoes and remaining garlic and salt. Stir, cover, and let stew over medium heat for about 10 minutes, stirring once or twice.

4. If you're using fresh basil, stir it in now, along with the beans and cooked pasta [or corn]. Don't cook the stew any further at this point -- just heat it gently before serving. When it is heated through, add a generous amount of freshly ground black pepper, a few Tablespoons of grated parmesan, and/or the vinegar.

Yield: 4 to 6 servings
Prep time: About 45 minutes (30 minutes of work)

RECIPE: Chinese Beef and Broccoli

Notes: The original recipe called for oyster sauce, not worcestershire.
I tend to pick minute steak or other cheaper cuts of beef. Cutting across the grain into bite-sized pieces helps to offset the tough nature of the meat.
Do not skip step 3 with the cornstarch (you can use any kind of starch here) or you will not get a good coating of sauce on your food.
Once the final cooking gets going, it goes very fast - chop and mix all ingredients before heating the wok.

SOURCE:  The Garden-Fresh Vegetable Cookbook

MAKES:  4 Servings

INGREDIENTS:

1 lb beef, cut into matchsticks

3 tbsp worcestershire sauce

3 tbsp soy sauce

2 tbsp Chinese rice wine or dry sherry

1 tbsp sugar

2 teasp dark sesame oil

1/2 teasp black pepper 

2 lb broccoli, stems sliced and florets roughly chopped(~12 cups) 

1/3 cup chicken broth

1 tbsp cornstarch 

3 tbsp peanut or canola oil

1 tbsp fresh ginger, minced

1 tbsp garlic, finely minced

   hot cooked white rice

METHOD:

1. Combine the beef, worcestershire sauce, 2 tablespoons of the soy sauce, 1 tablespoon of the wine, sugar, sesame oil, and pepper in a medium bowl and set aside to marinate.

2. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add the broccoli and blanch for 3 minutes, until the broccoli is barely tender and bright green. Drain, plunge into cold water to stop the cooking, and set aside to drain.

3. To make the sauce, combine the broth, remaining 1 tablespoon soy sauce, remaining 1 tablespoon wine, and cornstarch. Whisk until thoroughly combined.

4. Heat a large wok or skillet over high heat. Add 1 tablespoon of the oil and heat until very hot. Add the half the beef and marinade and stir-fry, stirring constantly, until well browned, about 4 minutes. Use a heatproof rubber spatula to scrape the beef into a medium bowl and keep warm. Return the wok to high heat. Repeat with another 1 tablespoon of the oil and the remaining beef and marinade. Transfer the beef and marinade to the bowl and wipe out the wok.

5. Heat the remaining 1 tablespoon oil over high heat until very hot. Add the broccoli and stir-fry, stirring constantly, until heated through, about 3 minutes. Push the broccoli to the sides of the pan and add the ginger and garlic. Cook until fragrant, about 45 seconds. Toss with the broccoli.

6. Return the beef to the wok. Whisk the sauce and pour into the wok. Cook, stirring constantly, until the sauce is thickened and evenly coats the beef and broccoli, about 1 minute.

Serve immediately with the hot rice.

Seed Starting

It's the first day of February...  A day when it's usually below 0°F in Albany, NY.  There is usually snow on the ground.  The cabin fever is *usually* fierce.

The seed packets and catalogs taunt me this year as it rains and the wind blows through 55°F air OUTSIDE.  My brain and body are both confused, both feeling like they might have skipped right over February and jumped right into mid-March.  Did we miss something?

This year, the winter-that-wasn't, I feel like I'm behind somehow.  But February 1, I'm starting some seeds.  I've decided it's time to start some herbs so I've sown the Lavender (Elegance Purple) seeds that I never got around to planting last year and three types of parsley: "Giant of Italy," "Titan" and "Forest Green."

Good luck kids!  We're ALL gonna need it...

My brain juices are flowing... all over the place right now.  I want to start planning the garden, but I don't know where to start.  I want to create new garden beds, but I don't know where I want them to be.  I have to put them somewhere they won't get mowed over...

Just so you know, you don't have to come on this journey with me.  This is my set of ramblings, and I don't insist you come along for the ride...  Just in case you do, this is a blog, and is for all intents and purposes and public forum.  If you're coming along, chime in!

The veggie garden currently has 5 raised beds 4'x8' dimensions with drip irrigation installed.  In those beds, we plant tomatoes, cucumbers, beets, peppers, onions, peas, beans, carrots and some lettuce.  There are two 4'x4' beds outside the west side of the garden which grew potatoes last year, and this year will house the garlic, albeit poorly I predict.  To the east of the garden, we have installed 15 thornless raspberry plants which will hopefully produce a nice crop of berries this year.

There are other things I'd like to plant, but feel there may not be room for in the current garden layout.  I'd like a proper herb garden, I'd like asparagus (definitely not room in the garden...), strawberries, okra.

I found an incredibly helpful page today:

http://www.rogerbolger.com/Seed_Calendar.pdf

Looks like I'm starting my seeds indoors on February 25...  I've put all the dates into Google Calendar and maybe I'll be more organized about it all this year.  I'm getting excited already.

The garden porn has started appearing in the mailbox.  Yesterday I received the Burpee catalog, Jung seeds catalog and Nourse Berry Farm catalog.  Spring can't be long now...

More Sourdough

I've been lamenting the lack of "tang" in my sourdough breads...  I read an article which suggested the answer is to add sour salt (citric acid crystals) to the mix.  Long story short, I no longer own sour salt, and I really have no other use for it, so I don't feel compelled to go out and buy some.  I tried adding a teaspoon of lemon juice to the bread.  Honestly, I didn't think it made a difference.  So, I've been making yummy bread which has slightly less of the interesting flavors that I've been looking for.

Until this weekend.  Thursday night, I mixed up a batch of dough for challah, but it didn't work quite right.  The dough didn't come together correctly, it was crumbly and oily and kind of a mess.  I tried to salvage it in small batches, and was able to get it somewhat dough-like.  I braided it and slipped it into the cold oven overnight hoping the yeasties would work their magic.  Friday morning, I awoke to find two loaves that were only slightly more risen than the night before.  Figuring I'd come this far with this batch, I baked the loaves, and while they were baking, I mixed up yet another batch of dough, which came out perfectly.  The bread in the oven didn't rise much (I think too much flour...), I wrapped the fresh dough in floured plastic wrap, threw it all in the car and left the house in a hurry.

The challah was tasty but dry and crumbly.  It was twelve hours after leaving the house when I unwrapped the dough (which was trying to escape from the plastic wrap) to shape it on my mother's kitchen counter and allow it to rise overnight.  In the morning I baked the new breads, packed them up and headed down to NYC for the family party.  To my surprise, the bread had a hint of a tang to it - the kind of kick that you expect to taste when you bite into something labelled 'sourdough'!  So, maybe there's something to this "rise twice" business?

Anyway, glaze with egg and maple syrup, pop in the oven at 350°F for 30 minutes, then 400°F for another 10 minutes to finish up cooking the insides, pull it out and it was delicious!

Sourdough

I have an 8-cup glass pyrex measuring cup on my counter right now filled with flour, water and lots of microbes.  (Microbes make me happy.)

From this soup I've been making breads.  And it's yummy!

Some folks have asked for the recipe for the breads I've been making.  I modified my recipe a little from here:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/4200/sourdough-challah-photos-recipe


For my bread, I start the night before I'm going to bake.  I take 1.5-2 cups of sourdough starter and put it in the bowl of my stand mixer.  I add 1/4 cup of honey, 3 eggs, 1/4 cup of vegetable oil, salt, and any other amendments I'm going to add.  Lately I've been throwing in 2 Tablespoons of flax seed meal.  Anything else that you want in your bread goes in now.  Then I add 1/2-1 cup of flour, mix it up well and let it sit out for a few hours to make sure the yeast really likes it in there.

Before I go to bed, I add 2 more cups of flour, put the dough hook on the mixer and mix the whole thing up.  If it's too sticky, I add more flour.  I've been letting the mixer do most of the kneading for me.  Then I turn it out, knead it by hand a little bit, and shape the dough.

Yeah, that's really it.  I'm not letting it rise a second time; I won't re-knead it again in the morning.  Shape it, put it on a baking sheet, stick it in a cold oven (so the cat doesn't step on it) and go to sleep!  When you wake up, it will be puffier than you remember leaving it and therefore more fragile - you won't want to move it from the pan.  Warm up the oven (I'm still working on the right temp/time), glaze the bread with your glaze of choice (honey and egg anyone?) and bake.

And add water.  Once your oven is hot, put the bread in and spill some water (1/8-1/4 cup should do it) on the bottom of your oven, then close it fast.  The steam is good for the bread and helps to make a nice crust.  If you open the door to the oven while it's baking, your glasses will fog up.  If all the water goes away, add more water.

I don't wait for my bread to cool before cutting into it.  I let it rest for about 30 seconds, then throw a towel over it so I don't burn my hand and slice.

Geek alert: If you're not interested in the minutia of XML markup, CSS modification and the back end of a digital cookbook, you're excused.  Otherwise...

I took a hard look at the RecipeBook XML DTD and stylesheet that is on the happy-monkey.net website.  Also looked at the RecipeML DTD...  Interesting stuff, though the RecipeML site content hasn't been updated since 2002.  I can't tell if anyone's even looking at it besides me...

RecipeBook XML is definitely more concise than RecipeML.  It looks more like there may still be someone at home, even though the copyright information hasn't been updated since 2005.  Still, there's no (lack-of-industry) standard.  Truthfully, I doubt if anyone is clamoring for one.  Still, I'd like a way to store my own recipes, print out new copies of soiled pages, share recipes and ideas with friends and have fast, easy access to recipes on the computer by clicking on a category (metadata).  The kind of access I want requires some level of database behind it.

Otherwise, I suspect I could create a template and application (Wordpress?) for entering and importing recipes to your cookbook...

The RecipeBook XML DTD is as follows:


<!--


RecipeXML - An XML recipe markup language.


Copyright (C) 2005 David Horton
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike
license.  See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/ for details.


-->




<!-- === Hyperlinks for URL references === -->


<!ELEMENT hyperlink (#PCDATA)>
<!ATTLIST hyperlink url CDATA #REQUIRED>




<!-- === Information about a recipe === -->


<!ELEMENT author (#PCDATA)>
<!ELEMENT blurb (#PCDATA)>
<!ELEMENT effort (#PCDATA)>
<!ELEMENT genre (#PCDATA)>
<!ELEMENT preptime (#PCDATA)>
<!ELEMENT source (#PCDATA|hyperlink)*>
<!ELEMENT yield (#PCDATA)>




<!-- === Lists of ingredients === -->


<!ELEMENT fooditem (#PCDATA)>
<!ELEMENT quantity (#PCDATA)>
<!ELEMENT unit (#PCDATA)>
<!-- FIXME? The mixed-content definition below does not enforce one and
     only one instance of the tags quantity, unit and fooditem. -->
<!ELEMENT ingredient (#PCDATA | quantity | unit | fooditem)*>




<!-- === Elements of preparation === -->


<!ELEMENT equipment (#PCDATA | hyperlink)*>
<!ELEMENT step (#PCDATA | equipment | hyperlink)*>




<!-- === The main elements of a recipe === -->


<!ELEMENT title (#PCDATA)>
<!ELEMENT recipeinfo (author | blurb | effort | genre | preptime | source | yield)*>
<!ELEMENT ingredientlist (ingredient)*>
<!ELEMENT preparation (#PCDATA | equipment | step | hyperlink)*>
<!ELEMENT serving (#PCDATA | hyperlink)*>
<!ELEMENT notes (#PCDATA | hyperlink)*>




<!-- === And finally, the recipe itself === -->


<!ELEMENT recipe (title, recipeinfo?, ingredientlist, preparation, serving?, notes?)>




<!-- === The following elements provide logical groupings of recipes === -->




<!-- === A section provides logical divisions of a cookbook === -->


<!ELEMENT section (title, recipe+)>




<!-- === A cookbook consists of one or more recipes or sections === -->


<!ELEMENT cookbook (title, (section | recipe)+)>

And the CSS file is:

/*

This cascading style sheet can be used to style raw RecipeBook XML

[http://www.happy-monkey.net/recipebook/] in a XML/CSS capable browser

like Mozilla Firefox. [http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/]

It is also handy to use with XML editors like XMLMind's XXE

[http://www.xmlmind.com/xmleditor] that use CSS for presenting the

document while editing.

recipebook-xml.css was written by David Horton

*/

hyperlink {

  display: inline;

  color: #0000FF;

  text-decoration: underline;

}

cookbook {

  display: block;

  background-color: #FFFFFF;

  font-family: sans-serif;

  font-size: 12pt;

  margin: 12pt;

  padding: 12pt;

}

cookbook>title {

  display: block;

  font-size: 24pt;

}

cookbook>subtitle {

  display: block;

  font-size: 16pt;

  font-style: italic;

}

cookbook>cookbookinfo>author {

  display: block;

  font-size: 16pt;

}

cookbook>cookbookinfo>copyright {

  display: block;

}

cookbookinfo>license {

  display:block;

}

section {

  display: block;

  background-color: #FFFFFF;

  font-family: sans-serif;

  font-size: 12pt;

  margin: 12pt;

  padding: 12pt;

}

section>title {

  font-size: 16pt;

  font-weight: bold;

}

recipe {

  display: block;

  background-color: #FFFFFF;

  font-family: sans-serif;

  font-size: 12pt;

  margin: 12pt;

  padding: 12pt;

}

recipe>title {

  display: block;

  font-weight: bold;

}

recipe>subtitle {

  display: block;

  font-style: italic;

}

recipeinfo {

  display: block;

  margin-top: 12pt;

  margin-bottom: 12pt;

}

recipe>author {

  display: block;

}

recipe>author:before {

  display: inline;

  content: "Recipe by: ";

}

blurb {

  display: block;

}

genre {

  display: block;

}

genre:before {

  display: inline;

  content: "File under: ";

}

preptime {

  display: block;

}

preptime:before {

  display: inline;

  content: "Preparation Time: ";

}

source {

  display: block;

}

source:before {

  display: inline;

  content: "Source: ";

}

yield {

  display: block;

}

yield:before {

  display: inline;

  content: "Yield: ";

}

ingredientlist {

  display: block;

  margin-top: 12pt;

  margin-bottom: 12pt;

}

ingredientlist:before {

  display: block;

  content: "Ingredients";

  font-weight: bold;

  margin-bottom: 12pt;

}

ingredient {

  display: block;

}

preparation {

  display: block;

  margin-top: 12pt;

  margin-bottom: 12pt;

}

preparation:before {

  display: block;

  content: "Preparation Instructions";

  font-weight: bold;

  margin-bottom: 12pt;

}

serving {

  display: block;

  margin-top: 12pt;

  margin-bottom: 12pt;

}

serving:before {

  display: block;

  content: "Serving Suggestion";

  font-weight: bold;

  margin-bottom: 12pt;

}

notes {

  display: block;

  margin-top: 12pt;

  margin-bottom: 12pt;

}

notes:before {

  display: block;

  content: "Notes";

  font-weight: bold;

  margin-bottom: 12pt;

}

There is one ELEMENT missing which would make this useful for a custom cookbook as opposed to a printed and bound device: the Category metatag.  Different people categorize their recipes based on their needs.  I would categorize based on the holiday menu that a recipe is most useful for (Pesach, Rosh HaShanah, etc.); whether the recipe goes with a meat meal, a dairy meal or is parve; even the occasions for which I made the dish.  Some would lump this data in the notes ELEMENT.  I am torn as to whether <category> is a child of notes or its own ELEMENT...  

I've been thinking about how to collect recipes, how to store them and how to share them.  On my Mac, I've been using software called "Yum!" which is now discontinued by the company that took it over.  It's a good piece of software, or at least the version I've been using, but I suspect it to use a proprietary database format.  I've thought about hacking into the data files at times, but haven't done anything about it...  Tonight I went looking for recipe storage formats, and I found RecipeBook XML Format.  Hooray!

http://www.happy-monkey.net/recipebook/

I'm so happy that someone has thought of this!  I'll keep looking to see if anyone else has put an XML recipe markup standard together, but it seems like someone should make this or something like it into an industry standard...

Pumpkin - a sketch

Pumpkin.  It's baked to a mush, scooped out of its shell and mashed into a dish.  Soup, pie, breads.

A new twist on pumpkin pie:
http://www.namthip.com/2009/11/pumpkin-pie.html


http://www.endlesssimmer.com/2010/10/14/100-ways-to-cook-a-pumpkin/

Tomatoes - a sketch

What dishes feature tomatoes?

Salad Caprese

The tomato-cheese sandwich

Gazpacho

Salsa

Tomato soup

Sauce...

Make a point of becoming intimate with this site:

http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/publications/guides/carver_tomato.html

Interesting thing about how we eat tomatoes... Most recipes call for the thing to be sliced raw, or else cooked and macerated beyond any recognition of its original form.

It's a veggie thing

I'm starting a project: I'm going to write a cookbook for the kosher gardener. Not just a cookbook, but one that takes the beautiful vegetables that the gardener has grown and elevates them to something holy.

I have to admit, I'm reading Julie and Julia by Julie Powell, and it's given me that bug that I should be doing something ambitious, clever and foodie. So, here goes - it's gonna be bumpy and delicious, I hope!

A few notes before I begin:

1) I keep a kosher home. This isn't a problem for my garden, but a lot of the recipes I find for gardeners fall back on the heavy use of shellfish. I find this frustrating when I read those cookbooks and so I hope to remedy this.

2) Throwing a handful of halved cherry tomatoes into a frittata or tossing them with a pound of pasta isn't a very inspiring way to use my amazing garden produce. Yes, I sometimes fall back on these techniques, but I don't find I need a whole recipe to tell me how to do this. I call these recipes "cookbook fluff" - they're filler recipes. When I use the vegetables I've grown, I want them to be the stars! I want them to shine! I don't want to hide their flavor under a pile of eggs or in a nest of pasta.

3) I want a cookbook organized by quantity of vegetable. When my peas start to produce, I'll be able to pick a few each day. What do I do with 6 pea pods? (Well, I usually just eat them before I leave the garden...) What will I do with 100 pea pods when production really starts to pick up?

4) My favorite, and most inspiring cookbook is Molly Katzen's Vegtable Heaven. I hope to live up to the standard for eating that she has set, be inspired by her use of spices, and inspire others to eat the most amazing produce on the planet - that which has been coaxed from the ground with their hands. Inch by inch, row by row.