Month: March 2010

Spicy beans.

~ wellfedemily ~ 5 Comments

Right now, Nick is rustling papers at the big computer, and he’s got his headphones on and he’s working on his novel. He’s a very good writer, and much better than I am at staying on task. I’m supposed to be writing as well, because the deal was that we were both going to write bestselling novels at the same time so that we could be awesome together, and then we’d get rich and quit our jobs and do whatever we wanted.

The reality is that I have no focus and my cat is enticing me with her cuteness and my creativity levels have plunged to a new low.

At this point, I shall be an editor forever, which will not help me get rich OR famous – practically no one else cares about punctuation or using the right homonyms.

At least I’ll eat well. Sometimes, distraction is all kinds of delicious.

Spicy beans

(Serves four as a large side-dish.)

  • 2 tbsp. sesame oil
  • 2 tbsp. finely chopped onion
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 tbsp. fermented black beans, chopped
  • 1 to 2 tsp. chili paste or dried red chili flakes
  • 2 tbsp. light soy sauce
  • 1 tsp. black pepper
  • 1/2 tsp. fish sauce
  • 1 lb. green beans, frozen or fresh if in season (if using fresh, blanch first)

In a large pan over medium-high heat, stir together sesame oil, onions, and garlic. Cook together until garlic has begun to brown. About two minutes.

Stir in chopped black beans, chili paste or flakes, soy sauce, black pepper, and fish sauce, and mix until well combined.

Also, I should mention, all of these ingredients should be available in your local supermarket, in the Asian foods section. You can substitute black bean sauce for the beans in a pinch, but cut down the soy sauce if you do.

Add beans, tossing to coat in liquid. Stir-fry for three to five minutes, or until beans are heated through, with skins that look like they’re beginning to wrinkle. Serve hot.

These are like the Szechuan green beans you get at dim sum, and we eat them all summer long. I had some of last year’s beans still in my freezer, and I’ve missed them. They’re a great part of one of those dinners where you don’t feel like cooking, when you want everything to come together in under twenty minutes. Tomorrow, I’ll tell you about the other half of tonight’s meal, which came together in under ten minutes, even though I didn’t end up doing anything productive with the saved time.

The word of the day is “lazy.”

~ wellfedemily ~ 1 Comment

I had all these big plans this week, but I got lazy. Already. My biggest big plan was to make cabbage rolls because they are so super awesome and they make lunches and leftovers all week long and no one ever went wrong with a big dish of meat. But then, I failed. I didn’t feel like it.

Then I remembered this handy tip I got awhile back from a reader named Jenn, a very funny high-school teacher from Saskatchewan, who suggested lazy cabbage rolls, and also this lazy pierogie thing I’m going to try another lazy time. I liked her idea, but I had all the stuff for non-lazy cabbage rolls, so I adapted. This is what happened. We are going to have leftovers forever.

Oh, one more thing. I used bratwurst here because I always seem to have it in my freezer, and because it’s flavourful and the point here is laziness. If you don’t have bratwurst, or if it isn’t dirt cheap at your local Polish deli, then you can use ground pork, or beef, or whatever you like, but you may want to add additional seasonings.

Lazy cabbage rolls

(Serves six to eight.)

  • 1/4 lb. bacon, chopped
  • 1 medium onion, diced
  • 2 cups diced carrot
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 lb. bratwurst, casing removed
  • 1 cup long-grain white rice
  • 1/2 cup chicken stock
  • 1 tsp. black pepper
  • 1 tsp. dried marjoram
  • 1 28 oz. can crushed tomatoes
  • Salt, to taste
  • 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
  • 1 1/2-2 lbs. green cabbage, cut into thin strips
  • 1 cup shredded mozzarella (or other mild cheese)
  • 1 cup bread crumbs

Preheat your oven to 350°F. Butter a 9″x13″ baking dish.

In a large pan over medium-high heat, fry bacon until brown and crisp. Add onions and crumble bratwurst into the pan, stirring until meat has browned. Add garlic, carrots, and rice, and then add stock to deglaze, scraping the bottom of the pan to ensure all those delicious meaty bits make their way into the sauce. Season with pepper and marjoram, then pour in the crushed tomatoes. Remove from heat and stir in parsley. Taste, and salt as desired.

Layer half of the cabbage along the bottom of the pan. Pour half of meat mixture over top, then add another layer of cabbage. Press down lightly to pack. Add the remaining meat mixture, then sprinkle with breadcrumbs and cheese.

Bake covered for 80 minutes, then remove the cover and cook for an additional 10 to 15 minutes, until top is browned and bubbly. I’ll admit, the cooking time is a little longer than I like on a weeknight, so this might be something best served on Sunday night, so you can pack the leftovers for lunches.

Eat while wearing pajama pants. Know that this is going to make your entire office smell like eastern Europe tomorrow. And be okay with that. Believe me, there are worse things you could do.

Eggs Rabbit.

~ wellfedemily ~ 9 Comments

So, last week was unpleasant. I was a raging cyclone of stress and emotion and death threats, and Nick did his best but holy crap, and by Wednesday, I was on the verge of stabbing someone. That was the day my friend Corinne (her company is linked in my sidebar because it’s awesome) was to come over and I had all these big ideas about making Italian Wedding soup with barley and chard, because I saw these tiny meatballs and fell in love with them but had already eaten stuff baked in cheese that week.

But when I got home on Wednesday night, the thought of doing something detail-oriented like rolling teeny tiny meatballs was enough to hurl me into catatonic despair, so instead we had breakfast for dinner, and I didn’t have to stab anyone and then I drank a bottle of wine because alcohol makes me seem less unstable and also funnier. We watched The Great Muppet Caper. It took until at least 10:00 am on Thursday for the stabby feelings to return.

This version of breakfast for dinner is also a version of Welsh Rabbit/Rarebit, which has a surprising number of variations for something that is really just cheesy beer sauce on toast. We were going to have Eggs Benedict, but Corinne hates Hollandaise sauce (which, I know, right?). So, this is a saucier version of Rabbit, which you can use in place of Hollandaise on any eggy old thing. Corinne took all the photos, by the way.

Eggs Rabbit

(Serves four)

  • 2 tbsp. butter
  • 2 tbsp. flour
  • 2 cloves garlic, finely minced
  • 2 tsp. dijon mustard (grainy is better, but not critical)
  • 1 cup beer (whatever kind you like – I use a pale ale)
  • 1/4 tsp. nutmeg
  • 1/4 tsp. dried thyme
  • 1/2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
  • 1 cup grated sharp Cheddar
  • 1/2 cup cream
  • Salt and pepper, to taste
  • 4 English muffins, halved and toasted
  • 8 strips bacon, cooked and drained
  • 8 eggs, poached to desired doneness
  • Chopped parsley, for garnish

In a saucepan over medium-high heat, melt butter and stir in flour, garlic, and mustard to form a paste. Whisk in beer, and reduce to medium heat.

As the butter-paste begins to melt into the beer and the sauce begins to thicken, whisk frequently, adding nutmeg, thyme, and Worcestershire sauce as well. Once mixture is smooth, stir in cheese and allow to melt. Once mixture is smooth again after the cheese has melted, stir in the cream. Season with salt and pepper, to taste.

Stack English muffins with bacon and eggs, and pour sauce over top. Sprinkle with parsley, and then serve hot.

Now, this is very basic, and can be fancied up in any number of ways. I like this with sauteed mushrooms, or with roasted squash slices in fall or wintertime, or with fresh tomatoes, avocado, and spinach in the summer. I bet a little bit of grilled asparagus would make this fantastic. I served the dish this week with roasted curried cauliflower in place of hash brown potatoes, but you can improvise there as well. I thought the meal could have used a salad, but that could just be spring panic over the imminence of swimsuit season setting in. In any event, please try the basic recipe, and adapt it to your taste however you like. I guarantee, if you’ve had a very bad day, breakfast for dinner, especially cheesy-beer covered breakfast for dinner, will make everything all better.

Blood orange cookie bars.

~ wellfedemily ~ Leave a comment

I love blood oranges so much. It’s not just their deep red flesh – they taste like a mash of oranges and raspberries, at least to me, and they peel easily and they aren’t so bitter that you can’t eat eight of them in one sitting if you wanted to, and I want to, most of the time.

When I was a kid, my mom used to make lemon slice – lemon custard baked onto a shortbread cookie crust. I think everyone’s mom made it – it was the kind of thing you’d have at open houses, grown-up birthday parties, or on Sundays. I’ve made them with limes, and the result was delicious, and with oranges. I wonder about grapefruit – I bet grapefruit cookie bars would be pretty interesting. Today, we have blood oranges, because to be honest when it’s blood orange season we always have more than we can peel and eat on hand anyway. I hope you like these. They’re like mom would make – especially since they’re adapted from a recipe I swiped borrowed from her tattered kitchen binder. But prettier, because they’re pink.

Blood orange cookie bars

Shortbread crust:

  • 1/2 cup butter, at room temperature
  • 1/4 cup granulated sugar
  • Zest of one blood orange
  • 1 cup all-purpose flour

Custard:

  • Zest of one blood orange
  • 4 tbsp. blood orange juice
  • 1 tbsp. lemon juice
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 3 eggs
  • 1/4 cup flour
  • 1/4 tsp. salt
  • 2 to 3 tbsp. confectioner’s sugar

Preheat your oven to 375°F.

Cream together the butter, sugar, and zest to make your crust. Stir in flour until a crumbly dough forms, and then press it into a 9″x9″ square baking dish. Bake for 20 minutes, until the edges have browned and it smells like cookies. Remove from oven and cool in the pan on a rack, about 20 minutes.

Whisk together your zest, orange juice, lemon juice, sugar, eggs, flour, and salt. Pour over crust. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until lightly golden around the edges, dry on the surface, and pretty much firm in the centre when tilted slightly.

Cool, again in the pan, on a wire rack. Once completely cooled, sprinkle with confectioner’s sugar and cut into slices. Serve with tea. Or, if you had a crappy work week and it’s over now, serve with a glass of sparkling wine with just a squish of blood orange for colour.

Casseroles: Not totally gross?!

~ wellfedemily ~ 5 Comments

I like the idea of casseroles. A whole meal in a single pan that will produce leftovers I can enjoy for lunch the next day? Yes please I want that. I think somehow, somewhere, the casserole went awry. I am not really sure who to blame for this – Kraft? Campbells? In any event, the casserole seems to have somehow fallen out of favour. But not around here. Here, it’s just coming back into style.

Kielbasa casserole

  • 1 medium onion, diced
  • 1/2 cup butter, divided
  • 1 1/2 – 2 lbs. potatoes, boiled, cooled, and cut into bite-size pieces
  • 1 lb. kielbasa sausage, cut into bite-size pieces
  • 1/2 lb. kale, stems removed and blanched
  • 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
  • 2 cups milk
  • 2  cups grated cheese (I used Cheddar, but you could use Swiss, or Havarti – anything you like or have in the fridge)
  • 1 tbsp. dijon mustard
  • 1 clove garlic, minced
  • 1 tsp. ground black pepper
  • 1/2 tsp. dried thyme
  • 1/4 tsp. nutmeg
  • Salt, to taste
  • 1/4 cup bread crumbs

Preheat oven to 375°F. Thoroughly butter a 9″x13″ casserole dish.

In a large skillet over medium-high heat, melt two tablespoons of the butter, and add onion. Sauté until translucent, then add potatoes, and cook until lightly browned. Add kielbasa, and reduce to medium heat.

In a saucepan over medium-high heat, melt remaining butter, and stir in flour until the mixture forms a paste. Whisk in milk and reduce to medium, stirring frequently until thickened, about two minutes. Stir in 1 1/2 cups of cheese, mustard, garlic, pepper, thyme, nutmeg, and salt. Taste before salting too heavily – keep in mind, your sausage will be plenty salty as well.

Add blanched kale to the potato mixture, then pour sauce over, tossing to coat. Pour mixture into casserole. Sprinkle breadcrumbs and remaining cheese over top, then slide into the oven, and bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until bubbling and golden brown.

You could substitute bratwurst for the kielbasa if you wanted, sub in whatever kind of cheese you have or prefer, add mushrooms if you wanted, or use spinach instead of kale depending on the season. This was a nice, hearty, easy meal, and Nick has asked that it be made again. Because it’s so saucy, you might try over egg noodles or braised cabbage, or with a side of crusty bread to wipe your plate clean.

It’s homey, and sort of rustic, and I want to call this a casserole because it reminds me of something you’d serve on a weeknight, to your family or an apartment full of hungry friends, and not just for it’s delightfully cheap and easy attributes. And for all that cream sauce? It’s surprisingly not heavy or unpleasant once it’s in.

So, anyway. I think it’s time we made casseroles cool again. You in?