CHEDDAR-CHIVE QUICKBREAD

Remind me to stop trying non-sweet quickbreads. I just don’t like them that much. Cornbread? Soda bread? Scones? Bah humbug.

After the delicious Dill Bread, I got cocky. I craved more savory, herby homemade breads, but I didn’t want to have to work so hard. So I got lured into this recipe, which promises plenty of cheese and ease. It has a fine pedigree from the inimitable Dorie Greenspan, the user reviews are glowing, and with no yeast, “It takes less than 10 minutes to put together, requires no special equipment, and really takes no special skill.” Bingo!

It certainly turned out a gorgeous loaf (it helps that I made it during the day and got to photograph my food during full sunlight, for once). And it didn’t taste bad or anything, but it didn’t taste how I expected—in fact, it didn’t really taste that strongly of chives or cheese. Everyone who tasted it (me, A, P) agreed that it seemed as though something were missing. I tried eating it with butter, even a sprinkling of salt, but the slightly flat flavor stubbornly remained. P described it as “eggy.” I wonder if maybe I should have used medium cheddar instead of sharp. A wanted a more flavorful herb. And to be fair, Greenspan suggests that you play around with the recipe however you like, using any hard cheese that suits your fancy, varying the herbs however you like, or including add-ins like ham or nuts or vegetables. I appreciate this versatility, and I’m sure I could keep trying this until I found a flavor I liked.

The texture of the bread was also unusual; Greenspan describes it as a “savory cake,” and indeed, it felt oddly like cake in the mouth. Again, this isn’t a bad thing, but it wasn’t what I expected. It had a little of the dry crumbliness I don’t like about cornbread.

I still have half a loaf left, and I’m looking forward to trying it lightly toasted, as Greenspan suggests—that might really make the difference for me, as I love toast far more than “raw” bread. And I really can’t blame this recipe for differing from my expectations. I’d still recommend it, since it was just as quick and easy and reliable as promised, and you can flavor it however you want. But it wasn’t what I was craving, and with so many other delicious-looking bread recipes out there clamoring for my attention, I probably won’t be making it again. I think what I’m looking for is a yeast bread, and I should resist being tempted by shortcuts.

Still, that photo is awfully appealing, if I do say so myself.

1¾ cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ to 1 teaspoon salt (depending on what add-ins you’re using; I used the full 1 teaspoon for the basic cheddar-chive combo)
¼ teaspoon freshly ground pepper
3 large eggs, at room temperature
1/3 cup milk, at room temperature
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
3 ounces coarsely grated cheddar or other cheese
2 ounces cheddar or other cheese, cut into very small cubes
½ cup minced chives or other herbs

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and generously butter a loaf pan.

2. Put the flour, baking powder, salt, and pepper in a large mixing bowl and whisk to combine.

3. Put the eggs in another mixing bowl and whisk for 1 minute, until foamy and blended. Whisk in milk and olive oil.

4. Pour the wet ingredients over the dry ones and gently mix with a wooden spoon or sturdy rubber spatula until dough comes together. Because beating the dough makes it tougher, there’s no need to be too thorough or energetic—just mix until all the dry ingredients are moistened. Stir in the cheese, the herbs, and any other add-ins you’re using. Turn the dough into the buttered loaf pan and even the top with the back of the spatula or spoon.

5. Bake for 35 to 45 minutes, or until the bread is golden and a slender knife inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean. Transfer the pan to a cooling rack, wait about 3 minutes, and then run a knife around the sides of the bread and turn the loaf over onto the rack. Invert to right-side up and cool to room temperature. The bread can be served slightly warm, but it’s better when fully cool, and best when given some time to “ripen”—wait a few hours or overnight to serve.

Serves: 8
Time: 1 hour

ZUCCHINI LASAGNA

I am way behind with recipe posting; I think I made this three weeks ago! So I’ll be brief. This is a good, basic vegetarian lasagna recipe, which is exactly what I was hungry for at the time. I found it in Vegetarian Suppers From Deborah Madison’s Kitchen, courtesy of the local library. Changes I made to the recipe: it originally called for 1 cup of finely chopped walnuts or pine nuts, added in thirds right after each ricotta layer, but I left that out because I thought the crunchiness would interrupt the smooshy texture I was longing for. Having forgotten to photocopy Deborah Madison’s recipe for tomato sauce (which was in another section of the book) at the same time I copied the lasagna recipe, I was forced to punt: I wanted something plain and non-chunky, so I just sautéed a couple of cloves of minced garlic and a pinch of red pepper flakes in about a tablespoon of olive oil, added two 14-ounce cans of Trader Joe’s plain organic tomato sauce, and seasoned with pepper, fresh oregano, and dried basil (I didn’t have fresh on hand). It was easy and tasted great. Use whatever tomato sauce you feel like.

In all, I was surprised by how quickly this dish came together—I made it on a weeknight, even—and I would certainly make it again, but it’s not the be-all and end-all of lasagna recipes for me. There was a significant amount of zucchini; I kept feeling like it was almost on the verge of being too much, but then it was nice to see and taste something green in the otherwise cheesy-noodliness of the finished product. I should have sautéed the zucchini a bit less long, though—I took the “until it glistens and is tender” directive a bit too seriously, forgetting that the zucchini would then be baked for another 40 minutes. And if 40 minutes is long enough to soften no-boil lasagna noodles, it’s certainly long enough to soften zucchini. They became a little too army-green for me. Next time I’ll stick to the “5 minutes” part of the directive instead.

Speaking of no-boil lasagna noodles, can you believe I’d never used them before? What a miracle of modern technology! Not only are they easy to use, but I also prefer the texture to “regular” lasagna—they retain a slight firmness that’s not only pleasingly al dente to eat, but also helps the casserole maintain its structural integrity, for easier slicing and serving. I now have half a box left and am itching to use them, so look out for more lasagna recipes in the future.

2½ cups tomato sauce
1 pound ricotta cheese
salt and freshly ground pepper
2 ½ pounds small zucchini
olive oil as needed
8 ounces no-boil lasagna noodles (12 noodles)
½ pound fresh mozzarella cheese, grated or shredded
1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly oil a 9-by-12-inch baking pan.

2. If ricotta is densely textured, thin it with several tablespoons water and season with salt and pepper. If it’s milky and wet, set it in a fine strainer to drain (season with salt and pepper before using).

3. Cut the zucchini in half lengthwise. Cut each half into diagonal slices as thinly as possible. Heat the oil (I used 1–2 tablespoons) in a large nonstick skillet. Add the zucchini and cook over medium-high heat, turning frequently, until it glistens and is tender, about 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

4. Spread ½ cup tomato sauce in the bottom of the baking dish and set 3 noodles over it. Cover with a third of the ricotta and a third of the zucchini. Cover with ½ cup of the tomato sauce, a quarter of the mozzarella, and a sprinkling of Parmesan. Add the second layer of noodles and repeat twice more (in case you’re confused—I know I was—that’s ricotta, zucchini, tomato sauce, mozzarella, Parmesan, noodles, ricotta, zucchini, tomato sauce, mozzarella, Parmesan, noodles). Cover the final layer of pasta with the remaining tomato sauce, mozzarella, and Parmesan.

5. Cover the dish with foil and bake until bubbling hot, about 40 minutes. Let rest for several minutes before serving.

Time: 1 hour 15 minutes
Serves: 6

GOULASH

Goulash! Goulash, goulash, goulash. Sure, the word might sound unappetizing, too close to “goo” or perhaps “ghoulish,” but the stuff itself is delicious, perhaps the perfect winter food. And I don’t even like beef that much, so this is truly a ringing endorsement.

Fellow beef-take-or-leavers: The pieces of meat are really tiny (that is, if you read the recipe correctly—I somehow misread it as “2-inch cubes” instead of “1/2-inch cubes” when I started cutting, then realized my error and had to go back and pare down the giant beef chunks after I’d browned them), and they cook for so long they get nice and tender. Everyone else: beefy goodness! Plus bacon, red peppers, and a rich, spiced, beautifully glossy reddish-brown broth. I was particularly fond of the flavor imparted by the caraway seeds. Oh, and let’s not forget that after talking your ear off about Spanish smoked paprika for the last month, I’m finally moving on to a new paprika—Hungarian sweet. It didn’t jump out and grab me the way the smoked stuff did, but it’s key to the warm flavor of this dish—and sure is more flavorful than ordinary red-powder-on-top-of-your-deviled eggs paprika.

The nitty-gritty: The recipe is from Gourmet, via The Smitten Kitchen. Some of the quantities are odd because I halved the recipe (it originally served 12). It was quite easy to make, especially since once you get everything mixed together, it just simmers for an hour while you talk on the phone or do yoga or watch TV. It’s sort of a soup, sort of a stew (depending on how much and what kind of liquid you add), and sort of a sauce you can ladle over egg noodles, as I did. (It turned out I had exactly 3 cups of frozen beef broth in my freezer, so I used all of that and didn’t add any water or beer, and I was very happy with the consistency…though beer might add a really nice flavor.) Served with a green salad, and with some homemade chocolate-chip oatmeal cookies for dessert, it was the perfect Sunday-night food: solid and comforting, but not heavy or decadent. Last week was cold and rainy, and this stuff braced my spirit and warmed my tummy.

3 slices bacon, diced
1½ pounds boneless chuck, trimmed and cut into ½-inch cubes
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 medium onions (about ¾ pound), chopped fine
2 garlic cloves, minced
1½ tablespoons sweet paprika
¾ teaspoon caraway seeds
5 tablespoons + 1 teaspoon all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons tomato paste
2½ cups beef broth
½ cup to 2½ cups water or beer (use water to make a stew, beer to make a soup)
½ teaspoon salt
1 red bell pepper, chopped fine

1. In a large, heavy kettle, cook bacon over medium heat, stirring, until crisp. Transfer with a slotted spoon to a paper-towel-lined plate and set aside.

2. In fat remaining in kettle, brown chuck in small batches over high heat, transferring the browned meat with a slotted spoon to a bowl.

3. Reduce heat to medium and add oil. Add onions and garlic and cook, stirring, until tender and golden. Stir in paprika, caraway seeds, and flour and cook, stirring, for 2 minutes. Whisk in vinegar and tomato paste and cook, whisking, for 1 minute. Stir in broth, water, salt, bell peppers, bacon, and chuck and bring to a boil, stirring. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, stirring occasionally, 60 to 75 minutes. Season with salt and pepper, and serve over egg noodles if desired.

Serves: 6
Time: 2 hours

CREAMY LEMON CHICKEN

Oh, crème fraiche, where have you been all my life?

This is one of those fabulously simple recipes that yields surprisingly sophisticated and amazingly delicious results. If you make it for other people, it will impress them, and possibly knock their socks off, and the entire time (in between bouts of licking your plate) you’ll be laughing behind your hand at how secretly easy it was to make. The recipe comes from Amanda Hesser and I found it at The Wednesday Chef; it seems to have made the rounds of the food blogs, and other writeups can be found here and here and here. The fact that it came so highly recommended overcame my fears that a recipe with so few ingredients would be bland, and the lemon chicken didn’t disappoint. The sauce was a perfect blend of rich, creamy creme-fraicheyness and lemony brightness. With smoked paprika roasted potatoes (the better to soak up more sauce with) and a big green salad, this chicken was a perfect weeknight supper, but I would have been equally comfortable serving it at a dinner party.

Trader Joe’s doesn’t carry whole chicken legs, so I bought a “whole cut-up chicken,” which, oddly, consisted of two breasts, three thighs, three drumsticks, and no wings. (That’s one freakish chicken.) I decided to save the enormous breasts for another day and just make the six leg pieces, or three servings. (This turned out to be a good decision, because when A ate the one leftover portion the next day, he reported that although it still tasted fine, the sauce had separated dramatically. So this is probably a dish best served immediately.) I used full amounts of all the other ingredients, though, because I figured a little extra sauce couldn’t hurt anything. (It didn’t.) The recipe was easy to make—season the chicken well with salt and pepper, brown it in the butter and olive oil, bake it until done, and then make a pan sauce out of the drippings and lemon juice and crème fraiche. Can you believe I’d never used crème fraiche before? For those not in the know, it’s cultured cream—sort of like sour cream, but less sour. I don't particularly like sour cream, mind you, but I love creme fraiche. It's sort of like Mexican crema, zippy like yogurt, vaguely reminiscent of Mascarpone in its uses, but better than all those things. Pretty much like tangy, creamy crack. I bought it at Trader Joe’s, but apparently you can make your own quite easily by mixing cream with a little buttermilk and letting it sit at room temperature for a day or so. I’m totally trying it sometime.

The only hitch in making the chicken was that it was the first time I’d used my Calphalon pan in the oven, and even though I knew, logically, that the metal handle would be hot when I returned the pan to the stovetop, I kept automatically, absentmindedly grabbing it with my bare hand while I was making the pan sauce. (A’s not usually one to laugh at my pain, but I do have to admit it must have been pretty funny for him to keep overhearing my exclamations in the other room: “@!$%#! I burned my hand on the pan handle, but I’m OK!” Then, two minutes later, “$%@$*! I’m OK!” again.) So keep those oven mitts on the entire time, kids. Now you know, and knowing is half the battle! (Sorry, GI Joe flashback there. It was on right before Scooby-Doo when I was a kid, so I’d always tune in just in time for the public service announcement portion at the end of the show.)

1½ tablespoons butter
1½ tablespoons olive oil
4 whole chicken legs (thighs attached)
coarse sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
grated zest and juice of 1 lemon
½ cup crème fraiche

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

2. Heat a large ovenproof skillet over medium-high heat. After 3 minutes, add the butter and oil. Season the chicken generously with salt and very generously with pepper. Place the chicken, skin side down, in the skillet and brown well on both sides, turning once.

3. Transfer the skillet to the oven and bake for 15 minutes, or until the juices run clear when the chicken is pierced with a knife.

4. Return the skillet to the stovetop. Transfer the chicken to a platter and keep warm. Remove all but 1 tablespoon of drippings from the skillet. Over medium heat, add the lemon juice to the skillet and stir well. Simmer for 1 minute, then add the crème fraiche and stir until melted and bubbling. Pour the sauce over the chicken and sprinkle with lemon zest and additional pepper. Serve hot.

Serves: 4
Time: 30 minutes

SMOKED PAPRIKA ROASTED POTATOES

I’m a bit behind with this posting thing, so you can look forward to lots of new delectable recipes this week. (Well, three, anyway. But super-delectable!)

You may have noticed that I’m all over the smoked paprika. I slathered it onto a roasted chicken, then I substituted it for normal paprika in Israeli Spice Chicken (an awesome decision, if I do say so myself; all smoky like barbecue), and now (er, a week and a half ago), I’ve dusted it onto roasted potatoes in this genius side-dish recipe from Hogwash. So good. So very easy. Why are you still reading this and not running to the nearest store to buy smoked paprika?

1½ pounds small red potatoes (I used a mixture of red, yellow, and purple, because I like to live on the edge)
1½ tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

2. Scrub the potatoes under cold running water and cut them in half (I ended up cutting mine in fourths because they weren’t the super-tiny kind). Arrange them in a single layer in a large ovenproof dish (I used a 9-by-12 Pyrex). Drizzle the olive oil over them, then season with the paprika, plus salt and pepper to taste. Toss with your hands to distribute the seasoning evenly.

3. Roast for 35 minutes, or until potatoes can easily be pierced with a fork.

Serves: 4–6
Time: 40 minutes

OATMEAL KNOTS

Sorry, this is a crazy photo. The season finale of Amazing Race was starting, and I’d inadvertently set my camera to some crazy manual-focus setting that made the foreground blurry and the background clear.

This recipe is from a recent issue of Cooking Light. It was a bit frustrating to make, because my dough turned out super-sticky, even after I added well over ½ cup of extra flour during the kneading process (which was really more like the “desperately peeling dough off the counter” process). I had to laugh bitterly at the “to prevent dough from sticking to hands” instruction in step 3—my dough was sticking to hands, bowl, counters, everything. Shaping it in step 5 was kind of a joke; as you can see, my “knots” look pretty much like smooth, round rolls. But just when I was on the verge of despair, I bit into a roll fresh from the oven and it tasted great. Sort of like my beloved Bumpy Rolls, but sweeter, and with the added wholesomeness of oatmeal and flax meal, plus sesame and poppy seeds, which I love. Although the original recipe didn’t call for it, I ground a little coarse salt on top of each roll, and I’m so glad I did—it contrasted nicely with the sweetness—that I’ve added it to the directions below.

Would I make these again, considering what a pain they were? I’d like to try at least once more, to see if I can make the dough more workable—I know something containing that much oatmeal and honey is bound to be a bit sticky, but mine seemed way goopier than what the recipe was expecting. I also think I’d skip the whole dividing-and-tying-into-knots step, which was mainly cosmetic, and make them into cloverleafs in a muffin tin, as with Bumpy Rolls. I’ll keep you posted.

Postscript, December 2009: Not worth it. I don't bake a lot of bread, so when I do, I want Bumpy Rolls. Maybe I can just throw some seeds on top of those sometime.

1 cup regular oats
½ cup honey
2 tablespoons butter
1½ tablespoons salt
2 cups boiling water
1 package dry yeast (about 2¼ teaspoons)
1/3 cup warm water (100 to 110 degrees Fahrenheit)
¼ cup flaxseed meal
3 cups whole wheat flour (about 14¼ ounces)
1½ cups all-purpose flour (about 6¾ ounces), divided
olive oil or cooking spray
1 large egg
1 tablespoon regular oats
1 tablespoon poppy seeds
1 tablespoon sesame seeds
coarse salt

1. Combine the first four ingredients in a large bowl and add 2 cups boiling water, stirring until well blended. Let cool to room temperature.

2. Dissolve yeast in 1/3 cup warm water in a small bowl; let stand 5 minutes. Add yeast mixture to oat mixture and stir well. Stir in flaxseed meal.

3. Measure flours by lightly spooning into dry measuring cups and leveling with a knife. Gradually add 3 cups whole wheat flour and 1 cup all-purpose flour to oat mixture, and stir until a soft dough forms. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Knead until smooth and elastic, about 8 minutes, adding enough of remaining all-purpose flour, 1 tablespoon at a time, to prevent dough from sticking to hands (dough should still feel tacky, however).

4. Place dough in a large bowl coated with olive oil or cooking spray, turning to coat. Cover and let rise in a warm place (about 85 degrees Fahrenheit), free from drafts, 1 hour or until doubled in size. (Press two fingers into the dough; if indentation remains, the dough has risen enough.) Punch the dough down and let rest for 5 minutes.

5. Divide dough in half, then cut each half into 12 equal portions. Working with one portion at a time (cover remaining dough to keep it from drying out), shape each portion into an 8-inch rope. Tie each rope into a single knot and tuck top end of rope under bottom edge of roll. Place rolls on baking sheets coated with olive oil or cooking spray. Cover with plastic wrap coated with olive oil or cooking spray (or use a damp disk towel), and let rise on a warm place for 30 minutes or until doubled in size.

6. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

7. Combine egg with 1 teaspoon water in a small bowl, and brush egg wash over rolls. Combine 1 tablespoon oats, poppy seeds, and sesame seeds in a small bowl and sprinkle evenly over rolls. Sprinkle a little coarse salt over rolls. Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes, or until golden. Cool on wire racks.

Yield: 24 rolls
Time: 2½ to 3 hours

DILL BREAD

I made bread! And I used the KitchenAid dough hook! And even though I flubbed the dough texture a little bit as a result, it tastes delicious!

I am really craving savory, herby, grainy breads lately, and I hope to spend the winter months merrily baking them. At the top of my list was this alluring dill bread from The Joy of Cooking via The Smitten Kitchen (where you will notice a heck of a lot more bread-baking expertise than you see here). I’ve seen many a dill bread recipe that contains sour cream, but this one appealed to me with its slightly healthier use of cottage cheese as a moistening agent, as well as honey instead of boring old sugar, and wheat germ for extra ethos.

Making the bread in the mixer saved me a lot of mess and elbow grease, but I should have added more flour to compensate for the fact that I wasn’t kneading the bread with floury hands on a floured surface. Since the KitchenAid method was less hands-on, I didn’t immediately notice that my dough was too shaggy and sticky until I started transferring it to the oiled bowl for the first rise. Granted, at that point I could have added more flour and kneaded it again, in the machine or by hand, but I decided I didn’t care enough. Better too moist than too dry, right? That’s me, Bookcook, slapdash and lazy since 1977!

Actually, the bread turned out perfectly fine for a nonperfectionist like me. The dough was so hard to work with that the loaf was rough and misshapen, but the exterior texture was perfect, crusty and golden and salty (thanks to the genius melted butter/salt wash). The interior was almost like a cake or a quick bread, maybe a bit too much on the gummy side where it should have been crumby, but I secretly enjoy slightly-underdone baked goods (whereas bread that’s too firm or dense or dry makes me want to spit it out after a bit of halfhearted chewing). Anyway, minor textural issues are nothing compared to the awesome flavor, savory with herb and onion and the perfect sweet/salty balance. I bet this stuff makes killer grilled-cheese sandwiches, and I intend to find out very soon, if I don’t eat it all plain first. This bread needs no butter or other adornment. A definite keeper.



1 package (2¼ teaspoons) active dry yeast
½ cup warm (105 to 115 degrees) water
3 cups flour
½ cup finely chopped red onion
3 tablespoons chopped fresh dill
2 tablespoons honey
1 tablespoon toasted wheat germ
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup cottage cheese
1 large egg
1 tablespoon melted butter
½ teaspoon coarse salt

1. Combine yeast and water in a small bowl and let stand until yeast is dissolved, about 5 minutes.

2. Combine flour, onions, dill, honey, wheat germ, and 1 teaspoon salt in a large mixing bowl (or the bowl of a stand mixer). Add the yeast mixture, the cottage cheese, and the egg. Mix by hand (or if using a mixer, on low speed) until the dough comes together, adding more flour or warm water if needed to achieve proper consistency. Knead for about 10 minutes by hand (or using the dough hook of the stand mixer on low to medium speed) until the dough is smooth and elastic. Transfer to an oiled bowl and turn dough over once to coat it with the oil. Cover loosely with plastic wrap or a kitchen towel and let rise in a warm place (75 to 80 degrees) until doubled in volume, 1 to 1½ hours.

3. Grease a 9-by-5-inch (8-cup) loaf pan. Gently press the dough down, form it into a loaf, and place it seam side down in the pan. Cover with oiled plastic wrap or a kitchen towel and let rise in a warm place until doubled in volume, about 1 hour.

4. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Brush the top of the loaf with melted butter, then sprinkle with the coarse salt. Bake until the crust is deep brown and the bottom of the loaf sounds hollow when tapped, about 35 to 40 minutes (internal temperature of the loaf should be about 200 degrees). Remove the loaf from the pan, place it on a rack, and let it cool completely.

Yield: 1 9-by-5-inch loaf
Time: 3 to 3½ hours

MINNESOTA BRIE AND APPLE SOUP

Sure, it doesn’t look like much, but that’s partly my fault for failing to garnish with apple slices and rosemary sprigs as directed, and not having any white pepper on hand instead of those big honking black specks you see. Anyway, who cares what it looks like when it tastes like apples and Brie?

Will you be surprised when I inform you that this soup is fabulous? Thank you, parents, for The St. Paul Farmers’ Market Cookbook, and thank you, St. Paul Farmers’ Market Cookbook, for including this recipe for one of the Dakota Jazz Club and Restaurant’s trademark dishes, and thank you, (former) executive chef Ken Goff, for creating it in the first place.

I had a few quibbles with the recipe—for one, it called for three cups of heavy cream, which is insane, considering we’re already using half a stick of butter and half a pound of Brie. The chef’s parenthetical notes grudgingly suggested I could substitute half and half or whole milk if I also used four potatoes instead of three. I went a step further down the ladder and used 1% milk, and it’s still the creamiest soup in Creamyland. I’m not even including the option for cream in my version of the recipe. Use milk and live longer, the better to enjoy more Brie and apple soup.

Also, the original recipe asked for just “4 small potatoes,” which is maddeningly unspecific. When I think “small potatoes,” I think teeny-tiny one-bite baby red potatoes, but I don’t think that’s what Goff meant. I used four smallish Russet potatoes, and that seemed about right. Just use enough potato slices to fit in the pan with the three cups of milk, but not so many that the milk doesn’t cover them. And speaking of that, Goff also became vague about cooking the potatoes in the milk, failing to give any guidance beyond “combine and cook slowly”—does that mean low heat? Medium? Can I blame this vagueness for the fact that the milk burned like hell onto the bottom of my (granted, not very high-quality or “thick-bottomed” pan)? Sadly, I think not. I hate any recipe that requires me to boil milk; I’m terrible at it, and burning inevitably ensues. It didn’t affect the taste of the soup at all, but it will affect my arm tonight when I try to scrape off the layers of char. Anyway, I’ve tried to clarify the directions below, but maybe you don’t want to listen to the woman who always burns the milk.

Finally, I’ve switched the steps around for maximum efficiency. The way the recipe was originally organized, I didn’t start cooking the potatoes and milk until after I’d added the chicken broth to the onions and apples. I figured: hey, 15 minutes for the onions and apples, 12 minutes for the potatoes and milk—that should time out pretty well! I had neglected to take into account the time it took for the refrigerator-cold milk to even heat up to a simmer, and thus the 12-minute clock didn’t even start running until well after the onions and apples were soft (I just turned the heat down to the lowest setting and kept cooking the onion/apple mixture until the potatoes were ready, and it was all fine, but it took a lot longer than it should have). So even though my directions sound complicated, making you jump back and forth between the two pots, it’s quicker this way, trust me.

Besides these minor frustrations, this wasn’t a hard recipe to make (as usual, the immersion blender helped immeasurably), and it turned out amazingly. Too rich and sweet to eat in great quantity, but so creamy and luxurious and with a great oniony, herby undertone. Unique and sophisticated, and thus perfect for serving to others so you can amaze them with your fancy-pantsness. But not too pretentious for just a simple Sunday night at home like ours, where we ate it with fresh dill bread (recipe to follow) and bitter green salads dressed with lemon vinaigrette (my favorite salad dressing ever: juice of one lemon, 3 tablespoons of olive oil, coarse salt, freshly ground pepper, shake well) while watching The Amazing Race.

4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 cup yellow onion, chopped
¼ cup sliced leeks (white part only)
4 large tart apples (I used Granny Smith), peeled and quartered
2 cups chicken broth
1 sprig fresh rosemary, about 1½ inches long
¼ teaspoon dried thyme
1 small bay leaf
1½ teaspoons salt
3 cups milk
4 small Russet potatoes, peeled and sliced ⅛ inch thick
8 ounces Brie cheese, rind removed, cut into pieces
salt and ground pepper to taste

1. In a soup pot with a heavy bottom, melt the butter over medium-high heat until it foams. Add the onion, leek, and apple. Stir to coat them, then reduce heat to medium and cook until onions are softened, about 8 minutes.

2. While onions are cooking, combine the milk and potatoes in a separate heavy-bottomed saucepan. Bring to a simmer over medium heat, reduce to medium-low, and cook slowly, stirring frequently, until the potatoes are tender, about 12 minutes.

3. When onions are softened in the first pot, add the chicken broth, rosemary, thyme, bay leaf, and 1½ teaspoons salt. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer until the vegetables are tender, about 15 minutes.

4. When potatoes are tender, add them to the pot with the onions and apples. Puree in batches in a blender (or use an immersion blender in the pot), adding pieces of Brie gradually while blending just long enough to incorporate. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Serves: 6
Time: 1 hour

SMOKED PAPRIKA ROASTED CHICKEN

As soon as I acquired some smoked Spanish paprika, courtesy of my mother’s generosity at Penzey’s during my Minnesota visit, I immediately began searching my favorite food blogs for recipes in which to use it. This one, from Simply Recipes, won first place. It was easy to make, and man, was it good. Of course, I managed to eff it up slightly by forgetting the lemon juice in the spice rub and then sort of trying to sprinkle it on later, and maybe I didn’t get my chicken quite dry after washing it in Step 1, because I saw too much of the precious red spice goo dripping off after I applied it, but the end result was still delicious. My only sadness was that there was no way to get that delicious, sweet-smoky flavor inside the meat—it was all on the outside, which caused me to ingest rather more chicken skin than I usually like to. Still, I will definitely be making this again. And watch for more smoked paprika recipes in the weeks to come. I love that stuff!

2 tablespoons smoked paprika
2 tablespoons honey
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon softened butter
2 teaspoons garlic salt (or 1 teaspoon salt plus 1 teaspoon garlic powder)
½ teaspoon pepper
1 whole 4-to-5-pound roasting chicken

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Rinse the chicken with cold water and pat dry thoroughly with paper towels (if it’s wet, the seasoning won’t stick to it).

2. Mix together the paprika, honey, lemon juice, butter, garlic salt, and pepper. Spread over the entire surface of the chicken and place on a roasting rack or in a shallow baking pan.

3. Roast for approximately 1 hour and 15 minutes. You may need to adjust the time depending on how large your chicken is; the chicken is done with the juices run clear (not pink) when a knife tip is inserted into the breast and thigh, and the temperature is about 165–170 degrees for the breast and 180–185 degrees for the thigh.

Serves: 4–6
Time: 1½ hours

MUSHROOM TART

Another simple, solid recipe from Everyday Food: Great Food Fast. Ironically, I was going to make this tart into a pizza, using Trader Joe’s pizza dough instead of puff pastry called for, both because it seemed healthier and because I’m interested in the mushroom/spinach/onion combination on a pizza. But Trader Joe’s sabotaged me by running out of pizza dough that day, so puff pastry it was. And while A argued that the butteriness of the puff pastry is a necessary foil for the earthy tastes of mushroom, spinach, and goat cheese, I found myself wishing for the more neutral taste of pizza dough, but perhaps that’s because the puff pastry got a bit overdone. Either my puff pastry sheet was too small (Trader Joe’s all-butter puff pastry comes in a two-sheet 16-ounce package), my baking sheet was too crappy, or the baking times in this recipe are a bit too long. Anyway, the darkened puff pastry tasted bitter to me, and combined with the fact that I don’t totally love goat cheese (I think there’s something musty about it) and the aforementioned earthiness of the mushrooms and spinach, it had me longing for a brighter note in the flavors, besides the sweetness of the onions—maybe garlic or parsley?—or a different kind of cheese—maybe Fontina? I’ll have to play around with it. But even with my reservations, I would not refuse to make this again as is (being more careful not to darken the pastry, though). It was easy to make, and those with more affection for goat cheese (like A, who was enthusiastic) might find it downright delectable.

Postscript, 2/21/08: Consider my reservations overcome. I made this again last night and (as the photo above shows) it came out beautifully. Using a double layer of baking sheets and keeping a careful eye on the puff pastry as it baked rather than relying on the recipe's time measurements, I was able to avoid overbrowning the crust, which fixed a lot of the bitterness problem. I sauteed a couple of cloves of minced garlic with the mushrooms, which added a nice flavor (I also wanted to sprinkle minced parsley over the finished tart, but I got too lazy--maybe next time). I'll admit that I experimented on a small corner of the tart, using grated Gouda instead of goat cheese, and preferred that. But even the normal goat-cheese parts tasted way better to me this time around. Also, can I just testify that I love this method of caramelizing onions? I always have trouble getting them suitably tender before they get too brown, and had never thought to cover them and let them steam. I'm going to do this all the time. Thanks, Everyday Food!


Flour
1 sheet frozen puff pastry (from a 17.3-ounce package)
1 medium onion, halved and thinly sliced
2 tablespoons olive oil
coarse salt and freshly ground pepper
20 ounces white or brown mushrooms, trimmed and thinly sliced
10 ounces fresh baby spinach
2 ounces soft goat cheese, crumbled

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Thaw puff pastry according to package instructions.

2. Meanwhile, in a small saucepan with a tight-fitting lid, toss the onion with 1 tablespoon of the oil and season with salt. Cover and cook over medium heat until the onion begins to brown, about 5 minutes. Stir. Continue cooking with the cover on for 15 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes. Set aside.

3. While onions are cooking, heat the remaining tablespoon of oil in a large saucepan with a tight-fitting lid over medium heat. Add the mushrooms; cover and cook until tender and all liquid has evaporated, about 10 minutes. Fold in the spinach; season with salt and pepper. Cover and cook until wilted, about 5 minutes more. Drain off any liquid.

4. When puff pastry has thawed, roll the dough out on a floured surface into a 16-by-10-inch rectangle. Place the pastry on a baking sheet. With a sharp knife, lightly score the dough to form a 1-inch border. Using a fork, prick the dough inside the border every ½ inch. Bake until golden, rotating the pan once, about 15 minutes.

5. Top the dough with the mushroom-spinach mixture. Scatter the onions and goat cheese on top. Bake until the cheese is lightly browned, about 15 minutes.

Serves: 4
Time: 45 minutes

HAPPY NEW COOKING YEAR!

Just one of the many trays of homemade Christmas cookies I was fortunate enough to encounter during the holidays.

I hope you all had a lovely holiday. I enjoyed my visit to Minnesota, where I dined happily upon my parents' incomparable homemade pizza, plus lefse, about a million cookies, Davanni's deep-dish pizza with mushrooms and pink sauce (an off-menu treat consisting of the usual red sauce mixed with the garlicky sauce used on their white pizzas), sushi at Saji-Ya, salad at Cafe Latte, kothe (pan-fried pork momos) at Everest on Grand, Honeycrisp apples (which don't seem to have made it to California), and many perfect mugs of Tea Source tea. I did a lot of cooking before the holidays (cookies, jam, etc.) that never got written down here, but I hope to do a better job at documenting things in the new year. In the meantime, let's take a look back at 2007....

BOOKCOOK’S FIVE BEST RECIPES OF 2007:

1. Mac and cheese
2. Roasted kale
3. Pizza sausage
4. Shrimp boil
5. No-knead bread

BOOKCOOK’S FIVE FAVORITE FOOD/COOKING-RELATED THINGS OF 2007:

1. My KitchenAid stand mixer
2. My immersion blender
3. Experimenting with new produce (including chard, kale, cabbage, tatsoi, broccoli rabe, arugula, parsnips, beets, and delicata and kabocha and red kuri squash) thanks to my CSA
4. Photographing my food
5. A wealth of new favorite food sites (see sidebar)

BOOKCOOK’S FIVE FAVORITE FOOD BOOKS READ IN 2007:

1. The Kitchen Diaries, by Nigel Slater
2. The United States of Arugula: How We Became a Gourmet Nation, by David Kamp
3. The Amateur Gourmet: How to Shop, Chop, and Table-Hop Like a Pro, by Adam D. Roberts
4. Alone in the Kitchen With an Eggplant: Confessions of Cooking for One and Dining Alone, edited by Jenni Ferrari-Adler
5. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, by Barbara Kingsolver with Steven L. Hopp and Camille Kingsolver

LOOKING AHEAD TO 2008:
I received a passel of food-related Christmas gifts I’m really excited about. My new tea kettle and single-cup loose-tea infuser from my parents, plus the scads of Tea Source tea I picked up during my visit to Minnesota (Moon Over Madagascar, which is richly vanilla-flavored, and Winter Spice, which is…well, what it sounds like, are my current faves) ensure that I’ll be happily sipping tea all year long. A’s dad gave me a brand-new block of nice sharp knives that’ll make chopping and mincing a joy. A’s aunt gave me a silicone baking mat for rolling out dough, so I won’t have to slip and slide all over the counter on the cutting board anymore (I have a tiled counter, which is too uneven to roll out dough directly on it). A’s mom supplied a nifty sliding-top measuring spoon that allows me to measure odd quantities, like 1¼ teaspoons, all in one shot. I received a renewal of my Cooking Light subscription, plus the St. Paul Farmers’ Market Cookbook and several others, ensuring me a good supply of new recipes to try. I won a waffle iron, of all things, at my office holiday party, and I fired it up last weekend—chose a sugarless, “light and crispy” waffle recipes from the booklet that came with the waffle iron, and experienced the joyous one-two punch of employing my KitchenAid to beat egg whites until stiff while I mixed up the rest of the batter, then I folded the two together and the waffle iron worked its magic. I spread the waffles with the apple butter I made (and canned all by myself) for Christmas (recipe to be posted eventually), and it was heaven. I also received some food items: dark Mexican honey from one aunt and uncle, Harry and David pepper and onion relish from another, and French gray sea salt and Spanish smoked paprika that mom let me pick out during a visit to Penzeys in St. Paul (great store, but sadly, only one location in the entire great state of California). If you haven’t tried smoked paprika yet, it smells like really great barbecued potato chips and tastes even better. I tried some on a roast chicken last weekend (recipe forthcoming) and had to refrain from licking the chicken skin afterward.

I’m not going to make strict resolutions for the new year, but here are some general food-related wishes and hopes for 2008:

About Bookcook:

1. I’d like to remember to post more often, with more photos.
2. I want to recategorize the recipes on this site (this is already in progress, as you can see from the shambles of the sidebar) and make sure they’re all up to date and error-free.
3. I’d like to see some comments from my readers, ahem ahem! Have you tried a recipe and loved or hated it? Do you have questions? Recipes to recommend? Just want to say hi? Let me know you’re out there every once in a while, hmm?

About cooking:

1. I have yet to try the dough hook on the KitchenAid. More bread-baking, please!
2. Possible tools to try/acquire: KitchenAid pasta-making attachment (I’m dying to make ravioli), kitchen scale (I like the cute Escali Primo, which has a small footprint and comes in a rainbow of colors), enameled cast-iron Dutch oven, new dishes (I’m coveting my friends’ Fiestaware collections), a food processor, a mandoline and a mortar and pestle (P just acquired both of these and I’m keeping an eye on her to see how she likes them).
3. Just keep on trying new recipes and new ingredients (things I’d like to try making include pies and tarts, gnocchi, flour tortillas, pickles, more jams, and more muffins and cakes and bread and cookies).

About shopping and eating in general:

1. Try more new restaurants. I'm definitely in a rut there.
2. Recycle more of my trash, always use reusable bags when shopping (I’ve gotten into the habit of bringing them to the farmers’ market and my weekly grocery shopping, but I often forget on shorter or more spontaneous errands), and waste less food.
3. Keep on striving to eat homemade, fresh, healthy, local, and organic as much as possible.

BAKED RAVIOLI

I found this recipe in the Everyday Food cookbook, Great Food Fast, during a recent trip to the library. It’s a real no-brainer (pasta + tomato sauce + cheese + oven = oh really?) and, assuming you’re using cheese ravioli, it probably contains more cheese than you’d want to consume on a regular basis. But it’s fairly quick and easy as all heck (I had all the ingredients in my kitchen already), and it’s a great treatment for any prepackaged stuffed pasta you might have lying around. I had stashed a bag of Safeway brand five-cheese frozen ravioli (I like Rosetto, but my grocery store doesn’t carry it) in case of a food emergency, and it was getting a bit ice-encrusted, and this was the perfect way to use it up. Baking the ravioli seems to give it more character (less soggy, more chewy), and the cheeses form a delightful brown, crispy crust on top. Aside from the virtue of being homemade, the tomato sauce is nothing special, and I dare say you could tweak it however you want or substitute your own preferred tomato sauce recipe, as long as it matches the quantity and texture of this one. I personally would have wished for something slightly less chunky (this may be my fault; I can never find canned crushed tomatoes, and whole tomatoes are so very chunky, so I split the difference and just used two cans of diced tomatoes) and zestier (I sprinkled on some red pepper flakes at the end).

So: I wouldn’t buy ravioli just to make this recipe, but I would make it again if I had ravioli on hand. It’s easy, cheesy, and definitely elevates the storebought stuff to the next level. Which is all you need sometimes.

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
salt and pepper to taste
¾ teaspoon dried basil
¾ teaspoon dried oregano
1 (28-ounce) can whole tomatoes
1 (28-ounce) can crushed tomatoes
2 pounds ravioli (any variety, fresh, dried, or frozen)
1½ cups shredded mozzarella
½ cup grated Parmesan

1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

2. Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic, and season with salt and pepper; cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 5 minutes. Add the dried herbs and tomatoes. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer, breaking up the tomatoes with a spoon, until the sauce is thickened and reduced to about 5½ cups, 20 to 25 minutes.

3. Meanwhile, cook the ravioli in a large pot of boiling salted water just until they float to the top (the pasta will continue to cook in the oven). Drain the pasta and toss with the sauce.

4. Pour the pasta and sauce into a 9-by-13-inch baking dish, and sprinkle with the cheeses. Bake until golden, 20 to 25 minutes. Cool slightly before serving.

Serves: 6
Time: 1 hour

CRISPY ROASTED KALE

Roasted kale in foreground (man, I love the “macro” setting on my camera—you can see the individual grains of salt!), spicy roast chicken and tomatoes in background.

When we were studying abroad in England 10 years (ack!) ago, A and I discovered a new favorite appetizer at Chinese restaurants. Described simply as “crispy seaweed” on the menu, it was a huge pile of shredded green leaves, warm, salty, and, magically, crunchy (it was probably fried). The texture was brittle and paper-thin, melting in your mouth almost immediately. Like edamame, they were an incredibly addictive snack. I don’t know what possessed us to first order this dish—or maybe it arrived free on the table before our meal, like a bread basket?—but we were instantly hooked, ordering it every time we visited London’s Chinatown. It was on the menu of every restaurant we went to there, but we’ve never seen it again since returning to the U.S. We were starting to feel like maybe we just dreamed it, and then we had roasted kale.

Make this. It’s barely even a recipe at all. It doesn’t matter whether you like kale or not (we’re not sure whether we do yet). It’s one of the easiest, most amazing transformations you can achieve with just three ingredients and an oven. I found it floating around on the Internet when I was desperate for recipes to use up my CSA kale, and now I’m actually considering buying more kale at the farmers’ market just so we can have this again. After we cleaned our plates, A, who is eternally suspicious of leafy greens, even said wistfully, “I wish we had more kale.” Now that’s a testimonial.

Some recipes note that any firm, leafy green works fine in this recipe, so I might try substituting collards or Swiss chard if any of them cross my path.

1 bunch of kale
olive oil
coarse sea salt

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Wash the kale and trim it by stripping each half of the leaves away from the tough center stems.

3. Place leaves on a baking sheet and toss with olive oil to coat (I used about a tablespoon).

4. Spread leaves in a single layer and roast for 5 minutes. Turn the leaves over and roast another 5-10 minutes until kale begins to brown and is thin and brittle. Remove from oven and sprinkle generously with sea salt.

Serves 2

THE CSA EXPERIMENT: WEEK 5

The cast of characters:

more chubby carrots
fresh rosemary
1 kabocha squash
2 turnips
1 head lettuce
½ bunch tatsoi
½ bunch kale
½ bunch arugula
½ bunch broccoli rabe

First, an update from last time: after baking and eating the red kuri squash, I decided I wasn’t that into it. I mean, it tasted fine; it tasted pretty much like…squash. But with a firmer, flakier texture than I like. It was fun to try it, and maybe it would benefit from different preparation, but I’ll just go back to my new favorite, delicata, thankyouverymuch.

Oh wait, but first I have to try the kabocha that’s sitting in my kitchen. I made an executive decision to wait until next week to eat it (and also the turnips), because (a) we’ve been eating an awful lot of squash lately, and (b) we’re currently too busy drowning in all these greens we’ve been given. Five kinds of greens, as you may notice, all (except the lettuce) still rather unfamiliar to us and all threatening to go wilty at any moment. Planning the menu last Friday and trying to include all these greens was a major challenge. Still, I do think I’ve acquitted myself admirably, if I do say so. On Saturday night we tackled the broccoli rabe, something I’d heard much about but never eaten before. There wasn’t enough of it to make a really broccoli-rabe-featuring recipe, so instead I used it to top some sausage sandwiches. Improvising loosely from a recipe I found online, I split two Italian chicken sausage links in half and pan-fried them until browned. Meanwhile, I blanched the broccoli rabe for a few minutes, plunged it into ice water to stop the cooking, and then sautéed it with a little olive oil, garlic, red pepper flakes, and salt and pepper. I split a loaf of ciabatta, brushed the cut halves with olive oil, baked them for a few minutes until crisp, topped them with thinly sliced fresh mozzarella and let it melt, then added the sausage and broccoli rabe and topped with the other half of the bread. The sandwiches were pretty tasty, and although I wasn’t always sure I could taste the broccoli rabe, occasionally a mustardy tang came through that complemented the sausage very well.

On Sunday night (and again with leftovers at lunchtime on Monday) we ate huge salads alongside our macaroni and cheese, dispatching all of the lettuce and most of the arugula. Last night, to accompany our chicken breasts (which were seasoned with some of the fresh rosemary), we attempted roasted kale, which was awesome (I’ll post the recipe with a photo later). Tomorrow, I’ll throw the tatsoi into some mini-meatball soup (into which the chubby carrots will also go). Thursday, we’ll try topping a pizza with the arugula pesto that’s still in my freezer. Besides the turnips and squash, that will just leave us with a little fresh arugula. If it survives until the weekend, I’d like to see how it tastes on BLTs. I guess this crazy winter greens overload isn’t so bad!

THE CSA EXPERIMENT: WEEK 4

clockwise from lower left:
6 adorably fat carrots
1 head lettuce
½ bunch arugula
1 red kuri squash
½ bunch red Russian kale
½ bunch tatsoi
1 bunch cilantro
15 red and yellow cherry tomatoes

(P got parsley in exchange for my cilantro, mixed salad greens for the lettuce, and a delicate squash for the kuri. Everything else we split evenly down the middle.)

I finally remembered to photograph my haul this week. And isn’t it pretty, all the oranges and greens? Oh, so many greens! I feel slightly oppressed by them, considering they all need to be used before we fly to Minnesota on Tuesday night. But I’ve got a plan. This weekend I’m going to try this recipe for arugula pesto and cleverly freeze it and use it later. I might also try processing the cilantro with a little bit of oil and freezing that, to drop into soups or something later. With the last box, the cilantro was the one thing that I didn’t end up using, and it had to be thrown away. I hate wasting food, but I admit I can be a little careless with my herbs. I usually buy a couple kinds per week and end up throwing at least part of each bunch away at the end of the week. With fresh, locally grown herbs available at the farmers’ market here all year round for just a dollar, it’s hard to remind myself to try preserving what I don’t use. But I’m reading Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and feeling inspired. The book is really good, by the way—like Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma, it will forever change the way you eat and shop, but it’s a little less of a downer. Also, it’s totally persuading me to try making my own mozzarella sometime!

The carrots and tomatoes can just go directly into my mouth. I’m thinking I’ll throw the lettuce and tatsoi into a salad to accompany cheesy baked potatoes on Sunday night, cook up the kale with some garlicky white beans (a Jack Bishop recipe I’ve been meaning to try) on Monday night with baked squash on the side, and maybe use whatever remains of the lettuce to make BLTs on Tuesday night before we leave for the airport.

I’m really excited about the red kuri squash, another one I’d never heard of before (of course, what I know about winter squash besides butternut and acorn could fit on the head of a pin, considering I was an adamant squash-hater for at least 20 years of my life). The Internet tells me that this type of squash originally hails from Japan and is less sweet than other winter squashes, with “a dry and velvety flesh and a mild, salty flavor,” or “very smooth and creamy flesh with a savory chestnut-like flavor,” depending on who you talk to. I’ll let you know!

GREEN BEANS WITH GINGER BUTTER

I don’t have a photo, but I made this side dish for the second or third time last night (to accompany this red lentil soup* and some really nice dark, dense whole-wheat seeded bread from Whole Foods) and was reminded how awesome it is, and thus how much I need to tell you about it. I’m pretty sure the recipe is from Ye Old Standby, Vegetables Every Day by Jack Bishop. I love green beans and would never have thought to pair them with ginger. I think it’s the addition of lemon that makes them so addictive to me, though. Better still, it's so quick and easy you can whip it up while your chicken or fish or whatever main dish finishes cooking.

*The soup was really good, a nice change of pace for me (I've never had red lentils before), easy to make, wholesome, and just right on the spiciness scale. But I don't think I love it quite enough to add it to my repertoire, so I'll just let Sassy Radish tell you about it instead.

1 pound green beans, trimmed
1 1½-inch-long piece fresh ginger
1½ tablespoons butter
Finely grated zest from ¼ lemon
¼ teaspoon salt

1. Cook beans in 4 quarts boiling salted water, uncovered, until just tender, 5–8 minutes (depending on thickness). Drain in a colander and wash under cold running water to stop cooking. Drain beans again and pat dry.

2. Peel ginger and halve crosswise, then thinly slice lengthwise and cut into very thin matchsticks.

3. Heat butter in a nonstick skillet over medium heat until foam subsides, then cook ginger, stirring, until golden, about 3 minutes.

4. Add beans and cook, stirring, until just heated through, about 2 minutes. Remove from heat and add zest and salt, tossing to combine.

Serves 4

HONEY-ROASTED SQUASH WEDGES

I had three-fourths of a butternut squash in the refrigerator, left over from last week’s pizza. I had a jar of delicious CSA honey. And I had this recipe. It hadn’t looked especially exciting to me when I first saw it, but I dutifully photocopied it from the library’s copy of Martha Stewart Living Annual Recipes 2002, figuring it might come in handy if the CSA stuck me with a bunch of weird winter squash. It’s practically a no-brainer to put butter, cinnamon, and salt and pepper on squash, but what a difference the honey made. The result was tender squash coated in a sticky, chewy, spiced glaze, so sweet it could have been dessert. As A exclaimed, “It’s like candy—with vitamins in it!” This was not only delicious, it was also beyond simple to make: just mix ingredients and bake. The baking time is just long enough for you to prepare something to go with the squash (I made zucchini fritters; with some pears on the side, it was an odd jumble of fallish food that somehow managed to work together). If you slice your squash thinner than the 2 inches recipe calls for, as I impatiently did, it’ll bake even quicker.

The original recipe calls for acorn squash, but I think any winter squash would work just fine. I peeled my partial butternut squash, cut it in half and seeded it, and sliced it into ½-inch-thick slices—which, predictably, became very soft and brown very fast in the oven. In the future, I think I’d split the difference and go with 1-inch-thick slices. I’ll also add a little cardamom to the honey-butter mixture next time, because I freakin’ love cardamom. Regardless, this is definitely going to be one of my go-to squash recipes from now on.

2 acorn squash, or equivalent amount of any other winter squash
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
2 tablespoons honey
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 pinch ground nutmeg
½ teaspoon coarse salt
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cut the squash in half through the stem end and remove the seeds (you can peel the squash if desired; of the squashes I regularly use, I know that butternuts and delicata should be peeled, while acorns and sweet dumplings don't need to be). Cut each half into 1-to-2-inch-thick slices and place the slices in a large roasting pan (I used a baking sheet coated with tin foil, because burning sugar always makes a mess).

2. Mix together the melted butter, honey, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, and pepper in a small bowl. Pour over the squash and toss well (or, since the honey mixture is pretty thick, painting it on with a pastry brush might work well, too). Roast the squash, tossing occasionally, until tender and golden brown (about 30 minutes).

Serves: 2–4
Time: 50 minutes

SMOKED SAUSAGE, KALE, AND POTATO SOUP

(Sorry about the blurry photo. It was dark, Amazing Race was on, and I just wanted to eat. Even as I snapped the shutter, I was already leaning away to grab a spoon and dig in.)

It’s funny how much more spontaneous and improvisational I am with the CSA food than with the food I actually choose myself. Because it’s bonus food, surprise food, I’m much more willing to play fast and loose with it. I wouldn’t normally have bookmarked this recipe in Bon Appetit, but with some kale burning a hole in my pocket it suddenly sounded like a good bet. (Admittedly, I figured that just in case it turned out I didn’t like the taste of the kale or totsoi, spicy smoked sausage makes everything taste better. Also, the caraway seeds intrigued me; I love them in rye bread. Mmm, suddenly I want a patty melt.) And I wouldn’t normally have made this many adjustments to a recipe I was trying for the very first time, but since I was only making the recipe out of expediency—just this one time, to use up the kale, not to add to my permanent repertoire—I was feeling reckless. In doubling the original recipe from two servings to four, I increased some quantities (sausage, chicken broth, potatoes, caraway) but not others (wine, kale). I threw in an onion and some garlic too, because it seemed like that would make it taste better. And of course, I was using a mix of Russian red kale and totsoi. Anything could happen! I made a couple of loaves of no-knead bread (photo added!) and some apple crisp to round out the meal, just in case.

Well, the joke’s on me, because I loved this soup. It was quick, it was easy, it tasted good. It was hearty, great for the first day off of Daylight Savings when it suddenly gets dark at 5 PM, great with the crusty bread to mop up the savory broth. Every choice I made was the right one. I’d even make it again, even if I didn’t have kale to use up. I think you could use just about any green—spinach, chard—but heck, I’d go ahead and willingly buy kale to make this again. The totsoi was good, too. I’m not sure I could tell the difference between them once they were cooked, but I nibbled on a few raw totsoi leaves and thought they’d make a nice salad.

It’s still true, though. Spicy smoked sausage makes everything taste better. I used a Cajun-style chicken andouille from Trader Joe’s. Also, I diced the potatoes instead of slicing them. I don’t know why. Who cares? I’m a cook gone wild!

8 ounces smoked fully cooked sausage (such as kielbasa or andouille), sliced into rounds
1 onion, minced
1–2 large garlic cloves, minced
5½ cups good-quality low-salt chicken broth, preferably homemade
1½ pounds small red-skinned potatoes, cut into small dice
1 cup dry white wine
5 cups thinly sliced trimmed kale leaves (or other greens)
½ teaspoon caraway seeds, lightly crushed
salt and pepper to taste

1. Saute sausage slices with onion and garlic in a large, heavy saucepan over medium heat until onion is softened and sausage is beginning to brown. Add chicken broth, potatoes, and white wine and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium, cover, and simmer until potatoes are almost tender, about 10 minutes.

2. Add kale and caraway seeds to soup and simmer, uncovered, until potatoes and kale are very tender, about 10 minutes longer. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Serves: 4–5
Time: 40 minutes

THE CSA EXPERIMENT: WEEK 3

Good news! The farm didn’t burn, though there was some crop damage (and significant damage to Southern California agriculture in general, particularly the poor avocado groves). I’m so grateful for that, and for the workers who donned masks and goggles in the soot-filled fields to harvest this week’s box, which arrived as scheduled yesterday. My share is:

2 sweet dumpling squash
1 head garlic
1 bag baby lettuce salad mix
1 bunch cilantro
4 adorably fat, squat carrots with tops
8 small tomatoes (mixed grape, cherry, and plum)
½ bunch red Russian kale
½ bunch tatsoi
8 ounces fresh raw honey!

We split mostly everything down the middle this week, except P got Romaine lettuce, arugula, and a pumpkin in exchange for my squash, garlic, salad mix, and cilantro. A lot of this stuff is starting to get familiar now, but as usual there are some standouts that promise to challenge my kitchen skills and my palate: the kale and the tatsoi. No idea what I’m going to do with those yet. Soup, maybe? I’m most excited about the squash, which I fell in love with last week, and of course the honey!

Update from Week 2: I ended up roasting the beets along with some sweet potatoes and the CSA red and purple potatoes, to accompany Roast Lemon Chicken With Honey Glaze. After I peeled them and roasted them they were just five tiny red mouthfuls. As I bit into the first one, I was reminded that I always think beets taste like dirt. Even though they’re sweet, they’re just overwhelmingly earthy. I ate them and didn’t mind them, but they didn’t compare favorably to the roasted potatoes—and especially the sweet potatoes, which I’m really starting to like. Dear CSA Santa: Could you manage to slip a few of those into a future delivery?

PESTO PIZZA WITH BUTTERNUT SQUASH

Another delicious way for me to use Trader Joe’s pizza dough, courtesy of Cooking Light. Last night was the second time I tried this recipe; the first time, I foolishly disregarded the recipe directions and prebaked the pizza crust for a while before adding the toppings, as I habitually do when making tomato-sauce-covered pizza (I must have been tired, because if I’d been thinking straight I would have realized that this is much closer to asparagus flatbread than to ordinary pizza, with no sauce to keep it moist). Surprise, surprise, it ended up over-browned and a bit dry, still OK-tasting but overall uninspiring, and given such a flawed first attempt, I couldn’t decide whether the recipe was a keeper or not. Of course, when I made it again and actually followed the instructions, it turned out perfectly done, with just the right balance between crispy and chewy. Adding ingredients to the raw dough not only prevented overbaking, but also allowed the cheese and pesto to bake deliciously into the crust. I suppose you could experiment with other ingredients or seasonings (sage instead of dried oregano, maybe?), but I think the different flavors (sweet squash, acidic tomatoes, garlicky pesto, salty cheese) blend together admirably. So, to recap: tasty, moderately healthy, and pretty darn easy to make, especially if, like me, you use premade dough and happen to have some homemade pesto stored in your freezer (I can’t in good conscience recommend that you use store-bought pesto, but do what you must).

One change I did safely make to the recipe was to use chopped fresh tomato instead of canned. With meaty heirlooms still in season at the farmers’ market, I just couldn’t resist. I might consider slicing them instead of dicing them next time, just for a prettier effect and more uniform texture. I also think I’ll try brown sugar instead of white next time. It’s traditional to pair it with squash, and it creates such a better caramelized flavor.

Also, don’t skimp on the squash or cut it too thin. The first time, my slices were too thin (apparently, ¼ inch is bigger than I think) and quite a few burned to a crisp during the initial roasting, leaving me with not much to put on my pizza. This time, I cut about 12 slices from the stem end of the squash (the solid part, that is; I saved the part with the seeds for another use), experimenting with varying thicknesses, then cut each squash round in half to make half-circles. After roasting, I was able to pick and choose the best ones for my pizza, rejecting the few that were too thin and overbrowned or thick and underdone. I used as many as would fit comfortably on the rectangle of dough, which was nearly all of them, which is probably more than the recipe calls for, but hey, if you’re going to make a squash pizza, make a squash pizza! It’s good for you.

About ½ pound butternut squash, cut into ¼-inch-thick slices
2 teaspoons sugar
1 teaspoon olive oil, plus a little extra
pizza dough for one pizza (1 lb)
½ cup shredded fontina or Gouda cheese
1 tomato, diced or sliced, or 1 (14.5-ounce) can finely chopped tomatoes, drained
½ teaspoon dried oregano
¼ cup pesto
½ cup grated fresh Romano or Parmesan cheese

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

2. Combine squash slices with sugar and 1 teaspoon olive oil in a medium bowl and toss well. Spread squash on a baking sheet coated with a little olive oil (I also coat mine with tin foil, just to minimize mess and sticking). Bake for 20 minutes or until squash is tender.

3. Remove squash from oven and set aside. Increase oven temperature to 450 degrees.

4. Roll out pizza dough to desired size and shape. Sprinkle fontina or Gouda over dough, leaving a ½-inch border. Top with squash slices, tomatoes, and oregano. Drop pesto by level teaspoons onto pizza, then sprinkle with Romano or Parmesan. Bake at 450 degrees for 20 minutes or until browned.

Serves: 4
Time: 1 hour