Lemon & Asparagus Risotto

Lemon & Asparagus Risotto

This lemon and asparagus risotto, from Alice Waters' The Art of Simple Cooking, was like springtime in a bowl. The only ingredients are rice, one lemon (zest and juice), 1/2 c dry white wine, chicken stock, a finely minced small onion and a couple tablespoons of butter.

Even Lee, who has lukewarm feelings about asparagus (at best) loved it! I think it would also be delightful with fresh peas. Alice Waters also suggested a pancetta and potato version, which would be nice for brunch.

What's better than homemade eggplant parmesan?

eggplant parmesan in Emile Henry baking dish

Eggplant parmesan with a clementine clafoutis for dessert. Eaten with good friends, of course.

Tepary beans

tepary bean stew

Tepary beans are Arizonan heirloom beans with a nutty, meaty flavor.

We soaked a bag of teparies acquired from Native Seeds/SEARCH and used half for a vegetable tepary soup (just added carrots, green beans, broccoli and other veggies on-hand, plus a bit of chili powder and cumin) and made fresh baked beans with the other half.

The beans have great flavor, kind of lentil-cum-pinto. They added immense flavor to the soup and an earthiness to the baked beans. In both cases, the beans held together well after the long cooking time.

Cranberry-Walnut Power Bars

We're always on the lookout for good portable snacks, especially something that can give us a little afternoon energy. Last month (in Food & Wine, I think), I spotted a recipe for cranberry-walnut power bars from Heidi Swanson. They were, as with a lot of things I've been cooking lately, extraordinarily simple. And they should be just as easy to manipulate next time we make them.

First came the dry ingredients. These included cranberries, toasted walnuts, oat bran, rolled oats, puffed Kashi cereal, and diced crystallized ginger. Next, I boiled brown rice syrup with vanilla. When the syrup was hot enough, I pulled it off the stovetop and poured it over the dry ingredients.

After stirring to incorporate everything, I pressed the mix into a greased 9" x 13" Pyrex pan. (If you try making your own power bars, make sure you press down hard at this step so you'll have firm, chewy bars that will hold together nicely.) They cooled for about 45 minutes. I cut the whole batch into about 16 bars and wrapped each individually in plastic wrap to keep them fresh. We stored the bars in some Tupperware and ate a few as snacks when we weren't sick from the flu.

I'm already planning to make these again, possibly with chocolate chips and soy nuts or dates and figs. I suspect you could make two half-size batches of dry ingredients and have two flavors of granola bars at the same time.

Black-Bean Burgers with Lime-Pepper Fries

Turns out, vegetarian burgers are even easier to make than meat burgers. Thus begins our obsession with black-bean burgers.

One can of black beans gave us four burgers. Just rinse the beans and mash to desired consistency. In go some herbs and spices and an egg to hold them together. I cooked these on our cast-iron grill until browned on both sides. At the end, I topped each burger with a couple of slices of avocado. We spooned salsa on them at the table. Simple, quick, and delicious. On the side, we served some oven-baked fries, tossed with lime zest and pepper.

Moroccan-Style Potato and Egg Sandwiches

I spotted these sandwiches in Gourment magazine and couldn't resist making them. The original recipe called for Portugese rolls, but, for some reason, I had a hard time tracking those down around here. At one nearby bakery, the guy behind the counter responded with "what are those?" At Whole Foods, though, I found some really nice ciabata rolls.

The recipe itself is a cinch. Basically, hard boil enough eggs for everybody to have one. Sauté some sliced onion, potato, and cubanelle pepper. Then, when everything's done (vegetables are soft, eggs are cooked and quartered), stuff the sandwiches. First, hollow out the rolls. Then, make a bottom layer of two egg quarters. Pile some of the vegetables on top of the eggs. Top the sandwich off with two more egg quarters. We sprinkled a mix of cumin, cayenne and paprika on ours. Next time, we'll either mix that in as we layer the filling, or else we'll put them out on the table so we can add more when we get down to the bottom of the sandwich.

They made a great, quick breakfast, and they'd probably make a great brunch food, too.

Vegetable Penance Soup

We spent the weekend out of the kitchen, visiting out-0f-state relatives. But two flights in two days means a lot of eating on the go, and today we felt the need for something fresh, light and easy.

Enter Vegetable Penance Soup. Basically: saute a medium-sized onion and a few cloves of garlic in just a dab of olive oil, then add some vegetable broth and every vegetable you can find. We used broccoli, cauliflower, chard, zucchini, carrots and cabbage. Then add in some fresh herbs (we used a couple bay leaves and a sprig of thyme) and a generous sprinkling of salt and pepper. Simmer until the carrots are tender and eat a generous bowlful.

Spicy Udon Noodles with Tofu

It started getting a little cold in Chicago this weekend, so we decided to make a batch of spicy Asian noodles to get us through the weekend. We made a fairly basic udon noodle dish out of Cooking Light with some tofu, snow peas, and mushrooms.

In general, I thought the recipe came out pretty well, but there were a few things that I would do differently next time (and there will be a next time; we love our udon around here). The recipe called for me to add chili pepper, garlic, and ginger at the same time that I added the broth. Instead, I'll probably sauté them for a little while first, so they release their oils and flavors and make a richer broth. I think we'll also make a little less broth (we used 3 cups, but 2 would have done it for the full recipe).

Overall the dish was very tasty. And we used the extra spot on our bowls to keep a blob of chili paste handy to spice up our noodles.

Butternut Squash Ravioli with Four-Herb Tomato Sauce

About a week ago, while putting together this week's menu, I started clicking around the recipe posts on the newly launched Chow. One that caught my eye immediately was this one for autumn squash ravioli with sage brown butter sauce. Seemed like a nice mid-week dinner that wouldn't take too much effort to throw together. By the time we got done with it, though, we'd turned it a little bit on its head, for the better I think.

The squash I stuck to pretty much as written. This morning I roasted two halves of the butternut squash in the oven and mashed the cooked insides together with vanilla and nutmeg. Then I let it sit all day.

By the time I get home, Jennifer and I had already decided to open a bottle of Francis Ford Coppola's claret with tonight's dinner. So, I figured the whole dish would be better with a red sauce. We had one box of plain tomato sauce and a few packages of fresh herbs: parsley, sage, rosemary, and oregano.

I started with half a red onion and two cloves of garlic. Those sautéed over medium heat while I added the fresh herbs. Then, the tomato sauce got dumped in, along with some chopped mushrooms, for texture. We simmered the sauce for maybe thirty or forty minutes, to let the flavors really mix together. By the time it was ready, Jennifer said she could smell it out in the hallway.

The ravioli was a cinch to put together, mostly because we used wonton wrappers. We tried a few different shapes, just to get a feel for what we'd serve in different contexts. For a dinner, I'd definitely stick with big squares. But for a cocktail party, we made some little rectangles that would work very well. We poured a little bit of sauce over it to serve and paired the whole dish with some of the leftover kale and cabbage.

In the end, the sweetness of the ravioli matched the herby sauce amazingly well. And the claret played expertly off the peppery sauce. This was easily my best meal this week.

Black-Eyed Pea Dip with Toasted Pita

We rang in 2007 with black-eyed peas, bacon and collard greens for lunch. Black-eyed peas, eaten before noon on New Year's Day, are considered good luck.

I had quite a bit of leftover beans and decided today to make a dip with them. I served them with oven-toasted pita chips. Perhaps we'll wrest a little more luck out of this year, yet.

Black-Eyed Pea Dip
Drop two cloves of garlic in the food processor, pulsing until they're finely chopped. Then add about two cups of black-eyed peas (if you're using canned peas, rinse and drain them first. Better yet, use freshly cooked peas. They're so inexpensive!) and process until creamy. Add one teaspoon of natural peanut butter, the juice of one small lemon, and salt, pepper and Tabasco to taste.

Toasted Pita
Cut pita rounds into triangles. Spray the bottom of a jelly roll pan with nonstick spray, then arrange the pita triangles on a single layer in the pan. Brush the tops of the pita with a lightly beaten egg white (I suppose you could also use more cooking spray) and bake them in a 450-degree oven for about five minutes. If need be, crank the oven to broil for the last minute or so.


We ate it with Escarole and Fennel Salad with Pears and Gruyere and called it lunch.