Feeding My Family

I had eggplant. I had tomatoes. I had fresh basil. I had fresh mozzarella. I had a bag full of leftover cubed baguette in the freezer. The stars were aligned.

The eggplant got sliced, brushed with olive oil, sprinkled with salt and pepper, and broiled until light golden. Thick slices of ripe tomato and thin slices of the mozzarella were layered with the eggplant in a gratin dish. The basil was torn up by hand and tossed on top. A drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkling of salt and pepper for good measure. Then, the bread cubes, and another generous drizzle of oil over all.

I covered the gratin with foil and baked at 400 degrees for about 25 minutes, until the juices from the tomatoes were bubbling. I used a spatula to press down on the bread cube topping so that they would soak in some of that delicious juice, the put the gratin back in the oven uncovered until the tops of the bread cubes were crisp and golden.

Oh, it was so good.

It was Ryan's turn to choose tonight's sandwich, and he went for gooey chocolate-y goodness. Okay, okay, I'll admit it- he got the idea from me. I've made these sandwiches before. And I certainly can't blame him for wanting to have them again, as they're delicious.

This is an easy one (everything I make these days is pretty easy). Slice some sourdough or french bread about 1/2" thick. Spread one side of each piece with Nutella. Cover one slice w/ sliced banana, and place another Nutella-covered slice on top (Nutella-side down, of course). Brush the outsides with a little softened butter and place in a panini grill till the bread is crisp, and the Nutella is nice and melty. No panini grill? Just cook them like you would a grilled cheese sandwich, in a skillet.

Yeah, it's like eating dessert first. But don't worry, I served the sandwiches with a side of veggies and some fresh fruit!

Next week, it's my turn to choose again- we'll be picnicking at our town's annual fireworks show, so I'll have to pick something portable...

Aw, man, I forgot to take a picture!

This week it was the husband's turn to pick our Friday night sandwich. Ryan presented him with a sandwich cookbook and told him he could pick anything except the veggie burgers since that's what Ryan wants to pick on his next turn. So, Jason chose a recipe called Island Wraps, which consist of a quick homemade black bean hummus spread on flour tortillas, then topped with some baby spinach, sauteed plantain slices, and salsa.

Have you ever had sauteed plantains? They're delicious! They're my favorite part of having dinner at our local Cuban restaurant, Martino's. (Well, second-favorite, behind the incredible tres leches cake.) The first trick is finding plantains at the grocery store, and the second trick is letting them get really, really ripe. If you're lucky, your grocery store will carry both green AND ripe plantains. This week, I was lucky, and my store had some that were ready to use: almost all black with just a little yellow left on the peels. To peel them, you simply cut off both ends, then make a slit down the side and gently pull the peel off. I sliced the plantains into 1/4" rounds and let them cook for a few minutes on each side in a hot skillet coated with vegetable oil. Once they are nicely browned on each side, they're removed from the pan and sprinkled with salt.

While the plantains were cooking, I pureed a can of black beans in the food processor along with some tahini, lemon juice, garlic, and salt. Very quick and simple. If I'd had good fresh tomatoes and a jalapeno on hand, I'd have made a salsa fresca. But alas, no tomatoes, so I used jarred pineapple salsa. Not bad, but I think fresh would have been better, and the kick from the jalapeno would have been a welcome flavor addition.

I thought these were pretty tasty and definitely a change of pace for the taste buds. Jason liked them too and Aiden enjoyed his baby-sized serving of plantains, while Ryan wouldn't even try the plantains. I should have lied and said they were bananas. Regardless of the rejection by Ryan, I'd definitely make these again.

(I could've sworn I blogged this non-recipe before, but I don't see it in the archives. I'm happily posting it now regardless, because it's that good.)

Chard is one of the many vegetables that never really made its way into my kitchen until we joined a CSA. Then we began receiving huge bunches of all kinds of leafy greens- chard, kale, collards- that seemed daunting just on the basis of the amount of space they took up in the fridge. (Ever try to stuff an enormous bunch of chard into your crisper drawer? Not happening in my fridge.) So, over the years, I've learned how to use these nutritional powerhouse veggies in a variety of ways. And one of those ways is chard tacos.

I mentioned that Jason just brought me a big bag of fresh corn tortillas. Onions on the counter, chard and a chunk of salty feta in the fridge? Check, check, and check. You don't need much else. Here's what I did:

I sliced up a few onions and put them in a skillet to caramelize. While the onions cooked down, I crumbled the feta into a small bowl. I rinsed the chard and tore the leaves from the ribs, then coarsely chopped the leaves. When the onions were done, I scooped them out of the skillet and into a bowl. Then I heated some olive oil in the same skillet, added some minced garlic and crushed red pepper, and let it sizzle just long enough to flavor the oil. I dropped the still-damp chopped chard into the skillet and tossed it with tongs until it was wilted.

Then I ran into a problem. We like soft corn tacos, rather than crisp shells. I heated my tortillas the way I usually do, in the skillet with some oil, just a few seconds on each side...and the tongs I was using kept tearing holes in them, making them rather useless as taco holders. Who knew there could be a downside to super-fresh and super-moist tortillas? Next time I might try steaming them or just wrapping them in foil and putting them in the oven instead. No big deal though- instead of filling the tacos and eating them out of hand, we just piled pieces of warm tortilla on our plates, mounded some chard and onions on top, and sprinkled with the feta.

This would also be a great dish with the addition of some warm pinto beans, either on the side or as part of the taco, and of course any salty cheese would be welcome here.

Another dinner that combined pantry staples with our CSA bounty to yield a nice healthy dish. You have to love pasta for the way it's just a blank canvas, waiting to have its bland but toothsome carb-y goodness sparked with whatever flavors you choose. I had a big bag of chard from the CSA, and I needed a quick dinner.

A glance into the pantry led me to a box of rotini and a can of chickpeas. While the pasta cooked in salted water, I cleaned and trimmed the chard. I poured the cooked pasta into a colander, the put the pot right back on the hot stove. Poured in a little olive oil, let it warm up, then added some garlic and crushed red pepper. Waited another minute or so, then dropped in the chard and tossed with tongs until it was wilted, and good and garlicky. Added the drained chickpeas and dumped the pasta back in, then tossed some more, until everything was heated through. A squeeze of lemon, a shower of grated parmesan, and that was that.

Between our CSA share and the pea patch in our backyard, I had over a pound of snow peas to work with this week. Everyone should be so lucky, right?

Some of them were slivered and tossed, raw, with slivered radishes, olive oil, salt, pepper, and shaved parmesan. They made a delicious fresh and crunchy salad. And the rest became tonight's super-simple dinner. I blanched the peas for just 30 seconds, then rinsed them in cold water to stop them from cooking any further. Scallions, ginger and garlic sizzled in a mix of peanut and sesame oil in my skillet. Then I tossed in the peas, some diced Soy Boy tofu lin (a favorite fridge staple), sesame seeds and a drizzle of sriracha sauce. Ta-da! Add a side of rice, and you have dinner!

Another Friday sandwich night at our house, and this time Ryan got to choose the sandwich. He paged through a cookbook of mine and selected one called the "Ooh La La!" Since the recipe title gives nothing away, I'll fill you in. The Ooh La La consists of turkey, melted brie, raspberry mayo, and lettuce, all piled onto a buttery croissant. I described this to my sister on the phone last night and she said "That sounds...kind of disgusting." Hee.

Actually, it wasn't a terrible combo at all. I skipped the raspberry mayo (which was simply raspberry jam stirred into jarred mayo) and just used the jam* (see my mini-rant on the jam later). Mr H., as I've mentioned, is generally anti-condiment and mayo is the most evil condiment of them all in his book, but he likes jam. I was out of lettuce (gasp! can you believe we finished 3 heads of lettuce with a day to spare before the next CSA pickup?!) so I used some fresh spinach leaves. And my sandwich was, of course, turkey-free.

So, I made the sandwiches. The croissants get split open. The bottom halves are piled with turkey (or not) and topped with slices of brie, then run quickly under the broiler just until the cheese is nice and melty. Once out of the oven, I laid a few spinach leaves over the cheese, spread jam on the other half of each croissant, and placed them on top.

The verdict? My turkey-free version was fine- a little rich between the brie and croissant. Mr H. seemed to like his. Ryan ate half his sandwich rapidly, then said suspiciously "What's THIS?" referring to the cheese. Ryan is weird about cheese. He likes REAL parmigiano-reggiano. He'll eat mozzarella on pizza and sometimes will eat melted cheddar in a quesadilla. Otherwise, he's down on cheese. I told him the brie was fancy French cheese, since he is currently obsessed with Paris (don't ask), but he was unmoved. Sigh. So he nibbled away at some of the turkey on the second half of his sandwich but didn't finish it. Overall, probably not a repeater, but definitely a unique entry in our Friday sandwich night series.

Next week, we're having very special guests for dinner, and they'll be making the sandwich selection for us!

*The jam rant: My usual jam of choice is Polaner All-Fruit. But recently this seems to have been replaced on store shelves with Polaner All-Fruit with FIBER. And that's what Mr. H. brought home last night from the store, not realizing it was any different from what we usually buy. Can someone please explain to me why we need added fiber in JAM? I'm so tired of finding surprise ingredients and additions in products I previously liked. Seriously-if you need fiber in your diets, people, eat whole grains, beans, and fruits and veggies.

Two heads of lettuce down, one to go...

It is hot hot HOT here, and I don't know about you, but on 90+ degree day I have no desire to turn on the oven or eat a heavy meal. We have no problem making a meal out of giant salads!

Last night's salade du jour was arugula with fresh mozzarella, kalamata olives, white beans, and red onions, with a lemon-basil vinaigrette and crispy onions on top. Lots of big flavors in there- slightly bitter arugula, salty olives, sharp red onion, and then the textural contrast of the crisp onions. Yum.

And tonight, we went with a Greek-style salad. Feta, olives, cucumber, onion, tomatoes, bell pepper, radishes from our garden, and onion along with a big pile of greens. To make the meal a little more substantial, I made a quick batch of chickpea patties- basically, just chickpeas, garlic, parsley and spices smushed in a food processor, then pan-fried until crisp. Think pared-down falafel. They made a nice topper for the salad.

We'll knock off the last head of lettuce in side salads the next two nights. Now I just need to figure out what to do with the spinach...and then I can enjoy empty crisper drawers for about 12 hours, until the next CSA share is doled out on Saturday morning!

I love potato salad. All kinds of potato salad. But the husband hates mayonnaise, which automatically removes approximately half of all potato salad recipes from contention for the dinner table at our house. Drat.

This recipe, however, does the trick when I want a fairly quick potato salad to go with sandwiches or veggie burgers. It evolved from one that I found years ago in one of Mollie Katzen's cookbooks. In her recipe, she calls for boiling diced potatoes in a mixture of one part vinegar to five parts water, until the potatoes are just tender . That's pretty much the only part I remember at this point, but it's the key information. What you do next is up to you. Here's what I do:

-I use about 2 lbs red potatoes, cut into about 1/2" dice. I don't bother peeling them.
-For the vinegar, I use red wine or white wine vinegar
-I put about a teaspoon of kosher salt into the pot along with the potatoes

Once the potatoes are tender, drain them and transfer to a bowl. Then the fun begins. While the potatoes are still warm...

-Drizzle with olive oil
-Season with salt, pepper, or other spices
-Toss in some chopped fresh herbs: chives, basil, oregano, cilantro- whatever you like
-Mince a clove of garlic and stir it in- or not.
-Add anything else you like- halved cherry or grape tomatoes, sun-dried tomatoes, kalamata olives, roasted garlic, some minced chipotle in adobo sauce, diced bell pepper or roasted pepper, minced red onion or scallion, thinly sliced zucchini, corn kernels, black beans, white beans...
-Taste and adjust seasonings- a little more olive oil? a squeeze of lemon? more freshly ground pepper? Go for it!

And then serve warm, at room temp, or chilled. If you serve it cooled/chilled, you can also add a bit of grated or crumbled cheese to the salad.

But really, all you need to remember is this: 1 cup of vinegar to 5 cups water. Then make it your own and enjoy!

I've had a mini-cold for a week and am pretty sleep deprived thanks to the baby, who thinks it's cool to wake up with the neighborhood "dawn chorus" of birds at 5 A.M. each day. Days like this call for an easy meal- easy to prepare, easy to clean up.

So here's what we tried: Liar's Soup. What? Yep, Liar's Soup. This recipe's been around on the internet for a while; I think it originated in Real Simple magazine. I think the idea behind the title is that it's so good you could get away with saying you slaved over a hot stove all day to make it. What's in it? One jar of Rao's marinara sauce* one can of cannellini beans, one cup of vegetable broth, one clove of garlic, a squeeze of lemon, some salt and pepper, and a drizzle of olive oil. What do you have to do? Dump it all in a pot, blitz it with a hand blender til pureed, heat it up, and eat it. Yup, that's all. What's in it for you? A flavorful, satisfying, and EASY meal. Alongside, we had bread and an arugula (from the CSA!) salad with shaved parmesan and almonds.

And there you go. A healthy dinner in no time flat.

*I've never been to Rao's restaurant in NYC, or even tried their marinara sauce before today. I mean, $9 for a jar of spaghetti sauce? Not generally in my budget. But it was on sale this week, and I remembered this recipe. I tasted the sauce before pouring it into the pot, and will admit it's very, very good. The soup recipe as I found it says the sauce "must be Rao's." Of course, I read that as a challenge, and now I have to try it with another (cheaper!) brand. If I do any experimenting, I'll let you know what I find.