Through the Cooking Glass

We just got back from vacation and didn’t have much in the house to eat. I made do with what I had and here is the result. I found it quite tasty. It has a unique combination of flavors that I liked but Shari did not. She didn’t seem to like the sweetness that the squash and onion added. I liked the way the sweetness of the squash combined with the acidity of the tomatoes. The beans, bacon, and stock served to add a solid flavor base to the sweet and sour overtones.

• 2 cups dry black turtle beans
• 6 strips bacon
• 1/2 sweet onion, diced
• 2 stalks celery, diced
• 1/2 cup chicken stock
• 1 small sweet dumpling squash, peeled, seeded, and chopped
• 1 28oz can chopped tomatoes
• 1/4 chipotle pepper in adobo sauce, seeded and minced (optional)
• 1 tsp coriander
• 1 bay leaf
• grated nutmeg
• salt
• pepper

Soak beans for 12-24hrs in slightly acidic water (e.g. add vinegar, whey, or lemon juice). Rinse beans thoroughly, add water until just covered and cook 3-4 hours until soft, adding water as needed to keep beans covered.

Peel and chop squash into beans.

Cook bacon. Chop bacon into beans.

Saute onion and celery in bacon drippings until soft. Deglaze the pan with the chicken stock. Add to beans.

Add the remaining ingredients and cook gently with the lid off for 40-60 minutes until the squash is fork tender.

Garnish with sour cream, crème fraîche, or yogurt.

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The Thanksgiving leftovers were devoured by my visiting family. I had not planned meals for most of this week depending on the fact that we generally have enough leftovers to last us for a week. What to do? I remembered that Shari likes a white bean chicken chili she’s had at Ruby Tuesday’s and a local coffee shop. The only leftovers we had were turkey. I had a small bag of cannellini beans in the pantry. This is what I came up with.

• 3 cups dry cannellini beans
• 1 cup chicken or turkey stock
• 1-2 cups leftover cooked chicken or turkey, diced
• 1 onion, minced
• 1 stalk celery, minced
• 2 tablespoons butter or lard (or bacon drippings of you have them)
• 5 cloves garlic, minced
• ½ chipotle pepper in adobo sauce, seeded and minced
• 1 teaspoon chili powder
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 1 teaspoon coriander
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• salt to taste
• pepper to taste (I used about 12 twists if the grinder)

Pour simmering water over beans and soak overnight (12-24 hours). Add a strip of kombu seaweed for improved digestibility. Rinse thoroughly and cover with just enough water. Bring to a boil and skim. Add about 1 tablespoon of salt and cover. Reduce heat to a gentle simmer and cook until tender, 2-4 hours. Add additional water as needed to keep the beans covered. Sauté onion, celery, and garlic in butter or lard until tender. Add vegetables and lard to the beans. Stir in remaining ingredients and cook covered for 1-2 hours. Leave off the lid if you want a thicker chili. Serve with crème fraîche or sour cream.

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This is a quick and easy thing to do with leftover chicken or turkey.

• 1 cup brown rice (I use short grain brown)
• 2 cups chicken stock
• 1 tsp salt

In a covered saucepan, simmer the rice in the chicken stock with salt until all the water has been absorbed.

• 2T butter or coconut oil
• 2T unbleached flour
• about 2/3c coconut milk (I eyeballed it)
• about 2/3c chicken or turkey stock (I eyeballed it)
• salt
• pepper
• leftover chicken or turkey, chopped

In a sauce pan, melt butter. Add flour and wisk until combined. Let simmer for about 1 minute. Wisk in stock and coconut milk. Bring to a simmer until thickened. Season with salt and pepper. Stir into rice and add chicken or turkey. Season to taste. A nice addition might be some cyan other spice, but for kids, simple is best.

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Shari picked up the original at a local Weight Watcher’s meeting. I changed it a little bit. It’s a quick and delicious summer-time dish.

• 1½ cups brown rice penne pasta
• 2 medium zucchini thinly sliced
• 4-8oz feta cheese crumbled
• ½ cup pasta cooking water
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 tablespoon fresh basil
• salt
• pepper

Cook the pasta per package instructions. Set aside 1/2 cup of the cooking water.

While the pasta is cooking, sauté the zucchini in the olive oil for about 10 minutes. Add the pasta and cooking water and let it cook down. Turn off the heat and mix in the feta cheese and season with salt and pepper to taste. Sprinkle with basil.

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Everybody’s had garlic mashed potatoes. There can’t be that many ways to make garlic mashed potatoes can there? Well, I don’t know, but here’s how I do it.

• 8 medium new red-skin potatoes
• 4-6 large cloves garlic, thinly sliced
• 1 sprig rosemary
• 3 tablespoons butter (olive oil will also work)
• a couple dollops of sour cream (I culture my own)
• 2 tablespoons minced chives
• salt
• pepper

Steam the potatoes until tender.

While the potatoes are steaming, gently saute the garlic and rosemary in the butter (or olive oil) to make an infused oil.

Mash the potatoes, leaving the skins on. Strain the infused oil into the potatoes. Add the sour cream, chives, salt, and pepper and stir until mixed.

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This is an adaptation of potato and pea salad with chive aioli from Epicurious combined with the mayonnaise recipe from Nourishing Traditions and a few minor changes.

The aioli (makes more than needed for the salad):

• 1 whole egg
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 1/2 T brown mustard
• 1 1/2 T lemon juice
• 1 T whey (optional; not whey protein powder, but whey from yogurt or soured fresh milk)
• 1/3 c olive oil
• 1/3 c sesame oil
• 1/3 c coconut oil
• large pinch of sea salt
• 3 large cloves of garlic
• 1 chili pepper, seeded (I’m not sure what kind I used, but it was from my garden)

Combine all ingredients and blend with an immersion blender until smooth and emulsified. If doing this in a regular blender you will have to slowly drizzle in the oils while blending. If you include the whey, allow the dressing to sit overnight at room temperature before refrigerating. This also works well in sandwiches in place of plain mayonnaise.

• 3 lbs red-skinned new potatoes (unpeeled)
• 3 T wine vinegar
• 3 celery stalks, thinly sliced
• 1 1/2 c thawed frozen peas
• 6 T chopped fresh chives
• 1 1/2 cups aioli (or whatever feels right)
• salt
• pepper

Boil the potatoes for about 25 minutes. Allow to cool so that it is comfortable to slice and slice into bite sized pieces. Toss with vinegar and allow to marinate for a few minutes. Gently stir in the remaining ingredients. Salt and pepper to taste. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour before serving.

Garnish with chives.

This is my favorite potato salad ever.

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• 5 medium corn on the cob (sliced off the cob)
• 8oz roasted red bell peppers (jar)
• 4oz Sundried Tomatoes in Oil
• 2 small onions chopped
• 4 clove garlic clove minced
• 6 slices cooked bacon
• 1 Tbsp bacon fat
• 1 1/2 – 2 quarts chicken stock
• 2 cup heavy whipping cream
• 8 small red potatoes chopped into bite size pieces
• several sprigs of thyme
• a sprig of rosemary
• salt
• pepper

Brown bacon in a stock pot. Remove and chop bacon and set aside. Saute onions and garlic in bacon grease until soft, adding extra bacon fat if necessary. Deglaze the pan by adding a little of the chicken stock and scraping the bottom of the pan. Add the rest of the stock, peppers, tomatoes, corn, potatoes, thyme, rosemary, salt, and pepper. Simmer until the potatoes are the desired texture. Allow to slightly cool (so it’s no longer bubbling) and add the cream and bacon. It is now ready to serve.

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I got a hankering for chicken and dumplings and had never made them before. I considered looking up recipes, but figured it would be more fun to just make things up as I went along. So here are my results.

First I made a roux. I had seen several shows on the food network explaining different types of roux from white roux to brick roux. The only type of roux I had made before is a white roux for gravy or Mornay sauce for macaroni and cheese. So I thought I would try making a slightly darker roux for more flavor. I cooked 3 tablespoons of flour with 3 tablespoons of butter in a pan on low-medium heat until it got slightly brown.

To this I added 2 quarts of home-made chicken stock. Unfortunately, the roux I had made was not enough. I should have doubled or tripled it. So in order to compensate for the inadequate roux I made a slurry (water with arrowroot powder) and stirred that in until it was the thickness I wanted.

After this I threw in some pre-cooked chicken (leftover from something else), a couple bay leaves, fresh thyme, salt, and freshly ground pepper. For the dumplings, I used my regular biscuit dough and just pulled off little chunks of dough and threw them into the pot.

I cooked that for 15-20 minutes. Delicious.

UPDATE (9/17/2007): I have found that the dumpling dough has a thickening affect. There is no need to make sure the broth is the desired thickness before adding the dumplings. The second time I made this I did double the amount of roux, but the broth was still not the thickness I wanted. Since I was camping and didn’t have a lot of ingredients to work with I just let it go and added the dumplings. The broth thickened right up.

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