There’s a Horse… in the Hospital

“Are you reusing a tea bag?” Rich just asked me as I poured hot water into a mug. Indeed, I am. That’s a trick I picked up from my stepdad Max, one of many food hoarding behaviors I realized recently trace back to him. A lot of them stem from the fact that he, and my mom, were both children of Holocaust survivors. Max’s parents met and married in a displaced person camp. My mom was born on a farm in Provence, where her family was in hiding after fleeing Germany in the 30s. 

Being raised by Children of Survivors means I’ve been practicing for unprecedented events like this my whole life. My pantry is fully stocked, and I panicked shopped three weeks ago, so my freezer downstairs and mini-fridge are in good shape. Rich was perplexed, and a bit annoyed, that I brought home extra toilet paper in February when he had just bought some, but I told him it was for later. 

Still, with all my extra-preparedness, I can’t help but worry for people who don’t have the economic ability to fill up a freezer in the basement, or even afford an extra package of toilet paper. All of us Parrs will be telecommuting from home for the foreseeable future, Lilli included, although Bea may never learn what letter comes after R at this rate.

Bea’s purim costume from last weekend.

My hope is to get back to updating this site more frequently. But I will remind you right now that Cheap Beets already has a ton of pantry-friendly recipes. And of course I will keep posting meals on my Instagram feed, which has become my default way of getting food ideas out there.

The recipe I have for you today is one we’ve been making all winter. It’s a pantry recipe, meaning it doesn’t involve lots of fresh things, save for a chopped carrot, but chances are you have that in your fridge. I’m also guessing you have a big can of tomatoes, an onion, some bouillon or stock in the pantry, and a touch of sugar. 

If you have tomato paste, all the better – once I open my small can of it, I put the rest of it into a Ziploc bag in the freezer so I can break off tablespoons at a time for little flavor boosts with soups and sauces. 

Bea’s a big fan of this soup, and loves slurping it alongside her grilled cheeses. 

Now back to my tea.

Tomato Soup

Ingredients 

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons tomato paste

1 large onion, sliced

1 carrot, peeled and diced

1 28 oz, can of tomatoes (chopped, diced, pureed – it doesn’t really matter for this one)

2 to 3 cups stock (or water or water with bouillon) 

2 teaspoons brown sugar (use white if that’s all you have) 

Salt and Pepper to taste

Directions

Pour the oil into a large, deep pot over medium heat. When hot, add the tomato paste and let it cook for a minute, then add the onion and carrot. Sprinkle with salt and cook, stirring until the onion begins to soften, about 7 minutes. 

Add the canned tomato and cook, stirring occasionally until the tomatoes break up, about 10 to 15 minutes. Add the stock or water, stir, then bring to a boil. Adjust the heat and simmer long enough for the flavors to mingle, about 10 minutes.  

When the soup is done, puree it carefully in a blender or with an immersion blender. 

Serve hot, preferably with a grilled cheese sandwich. 

Cooking for a Crowd

I feel a little silly coming to this space to tell you about a recipe that took the internet by storm  (checks notes, squints eyes) TEN YEARS AGO. I’ve been making it for years without a peep on this blog, but this fall I learned it’s very easy to double, triple, and even sextuple the recipe. So now I’m here to share the gospel of chickpea and butternut squash salad with tahini dressing.

A local friend who I met through this blog has developed a crew of kiddush makers for the Conservative synagogue in town. Our volunteer group gathers in the kitchen every few weeks when it’s our turn to get the meal on the table. I’ve been tapped to do the menu planning, and it’s been a learning process. I think December’s Chinese food themed luncheon, with lo mein, magic tofu, Asian slaw, and gingery roasted broccoli salad, all served on top of white rice, was the best one we’ve churned out so far.

Catching you up on the girls: here’s Bea at her ballet recital from December.

But for one of our earlier meals this fall, I made this chickpea and butternut squash salad with a tahini dressing using six butternut squashes I had piling up in my kitchen from the end of the fall CSA. I made it again this week in my own kitchen with tahini I picked up from Buy Nothing Northampton. As you can see in the photo, Rich tossed his with arugula we had in the fridge for a little something extra.

And here’s the birthday girl Lilli at school this past Friday!

I think this is technically supposed to be served warm, but since it travels well and makes great leftovers, I’m not too picky about the temp it’s served at.

Butternut and Chickpea Salad with Tahini Dressing (Adapted from Smitten Kitchen)

Ingredients

For salad:

1 medium butternut squash (about 2 to 2 1/2 pounds), peeled, seeded, and cut into 1 1/2-inch pieces

2 tablespoons olive oil

Kosher salt

One 15-ounce can chickpeas, drained and rinsed (1 1/2 cups)

1/4 of a medium red onion, finely chopped

For tahini dressing:

1 medium garlic clove, finely minced with a pinch of salt

Juice from half a lemon

3 tablespoons well-stirred tahini

2 tablespoons water

2 tablespoons olive oil, plus more to taste

Directions

Preheat the oven to 425°F.

In a large bowl, combine the butternut squash, olive oil, and a few pinches of salt. Toss the squash pieces until evenly coated. Roast them on a baking sheet for 25 minutes, or until soft. Remove from the oven and cool.

Meanwhile, make the tahini dressing: In a small bowl, whisk together the garlic and lemon juice. Add the tahini, and whisk to blend. Add the water and olive oil, whisk well, and taste for seasoning. You might need to add more water to thin it out.

To assemble the salad, combine the squash, chickpeas, and onion in a mixing bowl. Add the tahini dressing to taste, and toss carefully.

Compote Season

Well then. Now that I’m done teaching Hebrew school for the year, I can get back to ye olde blog. But honestly though, March is such a let down in terms of food. Then it was Passover, which I meant to write about, because let me tell you, we ate like kings every day of the holiday. But then April was unusually cold, which meant that the asparagus was late this year. It’s always the first week of May, but it was closer to a week and a half in before stalks started popping in my front yard.

Rhubarb was also late this year, but has now officially started taking over people’s yards. Someone had so much of the plant that they put out a call on my beloved local Buy Nothing Facebook page, where my finds so far have included a nightstand, a bathroom clock, curtains, pizza, children’s snow pants, and, today, four free duck eggs.

I picked about 2 pounds worth of the ruby and emerald stalks, and was going to make it into a rhubarb compote, then use that to make a rhubarb spoon cake in Rich’s cast-iron skillet. But I only had a quarter cup of flour in the house, so compote was all I made in the end.

However, inspiration struck as I was chopping up the rhubarb, and I added about 2 cups of cleaned and quartered fresh strawberries (bought for and rejected by the girls). I think if I’d had some fresh ginger on hand it would have rocketed this compote out of the stratosphere. All that being said, this brand new compote recipe is divine, and I even got the girls to bed a half hour earlier than usual tonight  because I needed to share this with you that badly.

The rhubarb compote and spoon bread recipe is from Erin French’s The Lost Kitchen, which I wrote about last summer, because her custard with freshly picked blueberries and basil, remains one of the tastiest and most elegant desserts I have ever served.

I’ve enjoyed this on Greek yogurt (full fat, please) as well as on local vanilla ice cream. Yes, both; don’t judge, it needed to happen. The compote now sitting in a glass jar in my fridge and will last about a week. I mean, the compote will be good for about a week. I don’t see this lasting past Friday.

Rhubarb and Strawberry Compote

Adapted from Erin French’s The Lost Kitchen

Ingredients

3 cups chopped rhubarb (1-inch pieces)

⅔ cup sugar

Zest of one lemon

Juice of one half lemon

2 teaspoons cornstarch

2 cups cleaned and quartered fresh strawberries

Directions

In a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan, combine the rhubarb, sugar, lemon zest, lemon juice, and cornstarch. Bring to a summer over medium heat, stirring constantly until the rhubarb becomes tender and sauce-like, about 5 minutes. Stir in the cleaned strawberries and cook for about 4 more minutes. Remove from the heat and allow to cool to room temperature. This will keep in the fridge for up to a week.

Kissed with Garlic

I’m not sure if more people go to the Middle East in Cambridge’s Central Square for the food or the live music, but for me, the draw to the night club and restaurant was always the whipped garlic. They serve it in a miniscule bowl, smaller than a saucer, with triangles of pita, served in a small wicker basket, on the side for dipping.

I think the owners are Egyptian – they also make a terrific fool – but it took me years to learn that the zippy sauce I craved was actually Lebanese. It’s called toum and if you go into, literally, any Lebanese falafel and shwarma shop it will be an option next to the tahini sauce as they build your dish. Toum was once described to me as a “very strong kiss of garlic,” by another Lebanese restauranteur.

And even though I have spent hours of my life thinking about this sauce, it wasn’t until this winter as I stockpiled garlic from my Winter CSA that it ever occurred to me that I could skip the lines and make my very own jar of toum. I should add the reason I had so much garlic on hand is because I was sent an Israeli product, Dorot, which packages frozen cubes of garlic, ginger and a few other herbs, and has simplified my life so much. Making a soup and want some garlic? Putting together a curry and you want a ton of ginger and garlic? Toss in some frozen Dorot cubes. They are a life changer. But that means my garlic pile on the counter kept on growing and I barely touched it.

 

 

It wasn’t until I got the February Bon Appetit that I finally made my way to the kitchen. I ended up using an amalgam of recipes, rather than the one in the magazine. The best advice I’ve read about making this sauce is to put your bottle of oil in the fridge while you prep the garlic, which takes time because you really want to remove any green stems as that will cause your dip to be bitter. Trust me, I’ve had bitter toum and it really was awful; definitely take the time to clean your garlic thoroughly. The recipes also warn that this is an emulsion, so go s-l-o-w-l-y when adding the chilled oil. It’s best done in a food processor.

This made a canning jam jar of the sauce, and I put it on everything while it lasted in the fridge. It’s great on roasted potatoes — and roasted sweet potatoes. I spread it on Friday night challah, dolloped it in red lentil and potato stew, and even used it as a dressing on salad greens.

Although the recipe calls for 4 cups of oil, I think mine hit the right consistency, like a thin mayonnaise, before I poured in 2 cups. They say it lasts up to 4 weeks in the fridge, but trust me when I say you’ll use it up long before then. 

Toum (Lebanese Garlic Sauce)

Put your bottle of oil into the fridge as you gather the rest of your ingredients and prep the garlic

Ingredients

Up to 4 cups grapeseed, avocado or extra virgin olive oil

½ cup of peeled garlic cloves

Juice of 1 lemon, divided

½ cup of ice water, divided

Kosher salt

Directions

Before you begin, place your oil in the freezer or refrigerator so that it is chilled, but still liquid. While the oil chills, remove the ends from your garlic cloves, split them in half and remove any green layers from inside.

In the bowl of a food processor, combine garlic cloves, a hefty pinch of salt, juice of half a lemon, and 1/4 cup of the ice cold water.

Process until smooth, then stop and scrape the sides of the food processor with a spatula.

Turn the food processor back on and drizzle the chilled oil through the top as SLOWLY as possible, one cup at a time.

Scrape down the sides of the food processor as necessary. Be sure that your processor does not get too hot, as this can cause your sauce to separate.

Juice the second half of the lemon, and add the rest of the ice water.

 

Add oil until you’ve reached the texture you desire. The final result should resemble a thin mayonnaise. Store toum in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to four weeks, although it will be long gone before then.  

 

Apply to everything.

Hot Crock Time Machine

I’m about to make your holiday cooking about 10 times easier. Seriously. Those caramelized onions you need for that potato kugel or chopped liver?  What if I told you you can do them in your sleep — literally?

It had never occurred to me to caramelize onions in a crockpot, which is genius. The credit goes to someone named Barbara L. who submitted the recipe to Stock the Crock, a follow up to Phyllis Good’s bestselling Fix-It and Forget It series. The recipes are crowd sourced and compiled by Ms. Good. One of the cookbooks was sent to me a few years ago, and I made a very disappointing sweet potato curry from it. But reading that these books have outsold Ina Garten, Giada De Laurentis and Jamie Oliver, combined, had me picking up this newest with renewed curiosity. Here she’s compiled 100 recipes, as well as 200 easy-to-follow variations for dietary preferences including gluten-free, paleo, and vegan.

Given that this is a Crock-Pot cookbook, there’s a ton of meat recipes, but I immediately bookmarked the Indian Lentil Soup and Butternut Squash and Kale Gratin. But it was the onions, melted down ostensibly for French Onion Soup, that stopped me in my tracks. You mean I can do this in my sleep? While I’m at work? If this worked, I thought, this book is worth its weight in gold delicious oniony goodness.

Turns out it did work, and the house now smells like caramelized onions. The hardest part of all was slicing up all the onions. Rich came into the kitchen this morning and saw me weeping at the counter and asked what was wrong.  Then he looked down and saw the onions. If you can, the recipe suggests you stir the onions after the first and third hours, but it does also say they’ll be fine if you can’t. The onions give off so much liquid that there’s no way they’ll scorch on the bottom of the pot.

So consider this a Rosh Hashanah present, from me to you, or an early time-saver looking ahead to Thanksgiving, etc.

Caramelized Onions for Soup (Or Sandwiches. Or Kugels.) from Stock the Crock by Phyllis Good

Ingredients

2 ½ lbs. red onions

1/3 cup avocado oil or olive oil

½ teaspoon kosher salt

A few peeled garlic cloves, optional

Directions

Grease the interior of the 6 qt. slow cooker crock with nonstick cooking spray

Cut the onions in half on a cutting board, place them flat sides down, and cut them into 1/4-inch-thick slices. Place the sides in the crock. If they come almost to the top, don’t worry. They’ll sweat and shrink down.

Pour the oil and spoon the salt over the onions. Add the garlic cloves, if desired. Stir. Cover. Cook on High for 6 hours.

If you are home, stir up from the bottom after the first hour of cooking and again after another 2 hours. But if you’re away or cooking overnight, it’s not a problem.

After 6 hours you have caramelized onions. I personally waited for mine to cool down, then I wrapped them up and stuck them into the freezer to be used later this week.

Belt and Suspenders

“Do you cook?,” the seller’s agent asked me. “You are just going to love having two stoves, especially if you do any preserving.” She really didn’t need to sell me on the kitchen in our now-house; it’s huge and filled with the light. Yes, it was a little odd to have an electric stove top at one end of the counters and an entire electric stove and oven on the other end, but I just went with it.

(Rich would like to assure everyone that we replaced the electric stove and oven with an electric induction unit. It was pricey but about equal to getting a gas line and a mid-range gas stove. Induction uses electromagnetic fields to heat up the pot itself instead of the cooktop. Your pots need to have some magnetic material in them, but we made sure almost all ours would work before we pulled the trigger. It really is magical – safer than regular electric, with the heat control of gas. And it boils a whole pot of water in like 3 minutes.)

In the past year I have used both stove tops exactly twice. First it was to fry piles of latkes at Chanukah, when it really did cut down on time to have four frying pans going at once. The second time was at Pesach, where there are never enough burners or countertop space for all the cooking that needs to get done. Now it’s summer time, so prime pickling and preserving season. And just as the realtor foresaw, the two stove tops really have come in handy.

I did pause for a moment considering if I should be sharing pickling recipes with you, because chances are you don’t have a second stove top to set an enormous pot of water on to boil and continue making dinner on another stove top. But I saw a very old, very dear friend on Sunday who is preserving nonstop right now in a not-huge New York kitchen. Perhaps some of you feel the same, or would with a little nudge.

The driving force behind all the pickling and preserving is the book Ball Canning Back to Basics: A Foolproof Guide to Canning, James, Jellies, Pickles & More, an absolutely terrific book that breaks the recipes down into clear, step-by-step directions. Honestly, the recipes are so clearly written and easy to follow that I’m constantly opening the book up to search for something new to make. It’s become rather addictive. As the cover touts, “If you can boil water, you can make your own delectable jams and jellies, try your hand at fresh-pack pickling, and jar savory sauces.”

Now, I must admit it helps if you have a little hardware at your disposal, including jars, a massive stock pot to process the jars, heat proof gloves, and a canning set. But you buy those things once and then you have them for years.

First thing I pickled were the pickling cukes from the CSA, but those took a little work. I had to brine the gherkins overnight, then make the pickling brine, sterilize jars, add the pickles, dill, brine and process. It took some doing, I’m not going to lie. But the pickles were great, and I highly recommend the recipe.

What I am going to share with you is the pickled hot peppers, or pepperoncini, because it’s prime hot pepper season. I love having a jar of there on the door of the fridge. I add them to sandwiches for a little kick, or chop them into a salad with roasted beets, chickpeas, feta, cucumber and sunflower seeds. Or I just pop one into my mouth as I walk by the fridge.

 

The directions are to make 5 (1-pint) jars, but if you only want to make 1 or 2 jars you have my permission to do so. You can buy several gallons of white vinegar for about $3, so don’t worry about saving leftover brine and not enough peppers.

To prep the jars, wash them in very hot soapy water. Do not dry the washed bottles or jars, but put them upright on a baking sheet, about 2 inches apart, and put in the oven. Turn on the heat to 350F and once the oven has reached this temperature, leave the bottles or jars in the oven for 20 minutes to ensure they are completely sterilized. Wear protective oven mitts when handling hot bottles and jars.

Pepperoncini – Pickled Hot Peppers from Ball Canning Back to Basics

Ingredients

3 pounds hot peppers (such as banana, jalapeno, or serrano peppers)

1 quart plus 2 cups white vinegar (5% acidity)

2 cups water

3 garlic cloves, crushed

Ball Pickle Crisp Granules (optional – I just used kosher salt I had in the house)

Directions

Rinse the hot peppers under cold running water; drain. Remove the stems and blossom ends from the peppers. Cut the peppers into 1-inch pieces. Place the peppers in a large bowl.

Combine the vinegar, water, and garlic in a large stainless-steel or enameled saucepan. Bring the mixture to a boil. Remove heat to a simmer; simmer 5 minutes. Remove and discard the garlic.

Pack the hot peppers into a hot jar, leaving ½-inch headspace. Ladle the hot liquid over the peppers, leaving ½-inch headspace. Add 1/8 teaspoon salt to jar, if desired. Remove air bubbles. Wipe the jar rim. Center the lid on the jar. Apply the band, and adjust to finger-tip tight. Place the jar in the boiling water. Repeat until all the jars are filled.

Process the jars 10 minutes, adjusting for altitude. Turn off heat; remove the lid, and let the jars stand 5 minutes. Remove the jars and cool.

Home on the Range

According to the Internet and her book jacket, Shannon Stonger and her husband have five children, various farm animals and live off the grid on their five-acre homestead in Texas. I want that to sink in for just a second. This woman has five children and somehow managed to write a cookbook. A good one, I might add.

I have two little girls and live very much on the grid, and I can barely get up three paragraphs once a week on this blog. How she found the time to sit and write a book is blowing my mind right now.

When her book Traditionally Fermented Foods arrived in the mail in late May, I honed in on the kimchi, or, as she puts it, “Homestead ‘Chi”. Most everything I needed for it was in the CSA: cabbage, turnips, and green onions. All that was left to add was garlic, spice, and time, and I’d eventually have kimchi.

And, oh, how I tended to my kimchi. For the first week I had to “burp” the built-up gases nightly, by quickly opening and shutting the cap. It gave the most satisfying little exhale. Of course, this was pre-snake, back when I would go down to the basement.

The ‘chi rested for about a month and a half in two large jars at the bottom of the stairs. I’d fashioned the fermentation weights with stones I found outside and wrapped in cheesecloth. I know they sell special weights in kitchen stores, but I encourage you to improvise as well.

 

And while your kimchi ferments, there’s much, much more in the book to try.  A sourdough section, kombucha, and a dairy section with kefir and sour cream.

We’ve stirred our kimchi into leftover brown rice and topped it with a scallion salad and fried egg for a meal.  I tucked some of it into a grilled cheese sandwich on Sunday night and it was PHENOMENAL. It’s become a go-to condiment in our house, right next to the ketchup, mustard and sriracha.

To prep the jars, wash them in very hot soapy water. Do not dry the washed bottles or jars, but put them upright on a baking sheet, about 2 inches apart, and put in the oven. Turn on the heat to 350F and once the oven has reached this temperature, leave the bottles or jars in the oven for 20 minutes to ensure they are completely sterilized. Wear protective oven mitts when handling hot bottles and jars.

Homestead ‘Chi from Traditionally Fermented Foods by Shannon Stonger

Ingredients

2 medium heads green cabbage

2 large (softball-size) turnips, grated

12 green onions, chopped roughly

8 large garlic cloves, minced

3-4 tbsp (45-60 g) salt (4 tbsp [60g] only if temperatures exceed 80F (27C])

3 tbsp (22g) ground sweet paprika

1-2 tbsp (2-4g) red pepper flakes or 1/4 -1/2 cup (43-85) diced hot peppers

Directions

Shred the cabbage thinly using a knife and cutting board or mandolin. Add the cabbage and all remaining ingredients to a large mixing bowl. Mix well with hands to combine. Pound the cabbage with a mallet or potato masher to release the juices. Alternatively, allow to sit, covered for 1 hour to allow the juices to be released.

Pack kimchi tightly in a half-gallon (2-L)-size jar or 2 quart (1-L)-size jars, leaving at least 2 inches (50mm) of headspace. Add the fermentation weight of your choosing. Check that the brine is above the level of the fermentation weight. If not, mix 1 cup (236ml) of water with 1 ½ teaspoons (8g) of salt and pour this brine into the jar until the fermentation weight is completely covered.

Place at cool room temperature (60 to 80F [16 to 27C], optimally) and allow to ferment for at least three weeks. If you haven’t used an airlock, then during this period, especially during the first 5 to 7 days, you will need to burp the jars by quickly opening them to release the built-up gases that result from the fermentation. To do so, carefully and quickly open the jar, listen for the release of gas and close jar back up with just a bit of the gases still remaining inside.

This ferment pairs wonderfully with eggs, beans and salads, and makes a delicious spread when mixed with soft cheese.

 

 

 

Dining Out, Dining In

Dining out, for me at least, means ordering something on the menu I can’t reproduce in my own kitchen. The more I cook and bake, if in part, perhaps to keep on providing you with fresh ideas for your own table, means the list of dishes I’ll eat out grows smaller. Good for my wallet, especially with the exorbitant cost of childcare. (Seriously, you’d pass out if I told you what we spent in 2016 for our two precious girls.) There are some dishes I just can’t nail – baingan bharta, for example, is one that I will always order in a restaurant because I just can’t do it in my own kitchen. Hummus, too, I just can’t get right, although I recently heard a tip I need to try: run the food processor an extra 2 minutes, to help aerate it. We’ll see if that helps.

Chinese food is another that tends to taste better from a restaurant. But I had good luck with this Sweet and Sour Tofu-Vegetable Stir-Fry. It’s from Everyday Vegetarian: A Delicious Guide for Creating More Than 150 Meatless Dishes from the editors of Cooking Light. This recipe is exactly what you would have at the restaurant. Seriously, it’s spot-on. I’m an admitted broccoli junkie, and I freely admit to making this twice in a 4-day period. Rich, who would never willingly order tofu or request it of his own choosing, gladly ate this dish.

One of the nice features of cookbooks from magazines, like this one, is that there’s a full cadre of writers and cooks to test recipes. This cookbook has been more thoroughly vetted than the current president’s cabinet members. There are eight sections in the cookbook, plus an opening on the “Everyday Vegetarian Kitchen.” I’m looking forward to trying many of the recipes here, including Lemony Zucchini Pitas with Quick Pickled Dill Carrots and Spinach and Feta Quiche with Quinoa Crust. I have a feeling they will be as spot-on as the stir-fry.

 

This week’s recipe was one of the recipes I’d accumulated during my broken computer hiatus and set aside until it was in season. Now that broccoli has arrived in this week’s CSA haul, I’m so so happy to share this one with you now.

Maybe also because it’s from a mainstream publication, they often “suggest” using ingredients like Uncle Ben’s in the Warm Brown Rice and Chickpea with Cherries and Goat Cheese, or Swanson’s when stock is needed. As I get older, short cuts in the kitchen like that make more and more sense to me, but I’ll leave what brands to use to your best judgement.

I made quite a few substitutions of my own. I never have dry sherry in the house, so I used sherry vinegar, which was a perfect substitute. I didn’t have fresh hot pepper in the house and used a pinch of red pepper flakes instead. Although the recipe calls for Broccolini, I used broccoli florets. I also skipped the carrots. I can’t stand cast-iron and never used my wok so I didn’t pack it when we moved, so I used a non-stick skillet. Yes, I am aware I spent time talking about how spot on this recipe is, then followed up by talking about the alterations I made to it. But I know the little tweaks I made wouldn’t change the flavors or texture of the recipe. And that’s what cooking is all about. It’s trickier to do that with baking, though.

Although the header notes say, This dish is mildly spicy; to make it extra kid-friendly, omit the chile from the sweet and sour sauce.” Beatrix, who at least tasted it because it was broccoli, something she will still eat, announced it was “too spicy,” and spat it out. Her loss, because this dish is fantastic.

Sweet and Sour Tofu-Vegetable Stir-Fry from Everyday Vegetarian: A Delicious Guide for Creating More Than 150 Meatless Dishes By the Editors of Cooking Light

Ingredients

1 (14-ounce) package water-packed extra-firm tofu, drained

3/4 cup water

1/3 cup rice vinegar

2 Tablespoons sugar

4 garlic cloves, minced

2 Tablespoons dry sherry (I used sherry vinegar, which was a perfect substitute.)

2 Tablespoons ketchup

2 Tablespoons finely chopped red hot chile (with seeds), such as red jalapeno or Thai chile (I used a pinch of red pepper flakes instead.)

1 Tablespoon cornstarch

1 ½ Tablespoons lower-sodium soy sauce

2 Tablespoons canola oil

½ teaspoon salt

1 red bell pepper, seeded and cut into ¼-inch-thick slices

2 carrots, diagonally cut into 1/8-inch thick slices

1 (8-ounce) bunch Broccolini, cut into florets and stems cut into ½-inch pieces (I used broccoli florets.)

2 cups cooked brown rice

Directions

Place the tofu in a shallow dish. Place the paper towels on top, and weight with a cast-iron skillet or other heavy pan. Let stand 20 minutes, pressing down occasionally. Discard the liquid, and cut the tofu into 2 x ¼-inch pieces.

While the tofu stands, combine ½ cup of the water, vinegar and sugar in a small saucepan, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Stir half of the garlic into the sugar mixture. Stir in the sherry, ketchup, and chile. Cook the mixture over medium heat until boiling. Remove from the heat; stir in the cornstarch, stirring with a whisk until smooth. Stir in the soy sauce.

Heat a large cast iron skillet or wok over high heat. (I used a non-stick skillet.)

Add 1 Tablespoon of the oil swirl to coat. Add the tofu in an even layer; cook, without stirring, 2 minutes. Turn the tofu; cook 2 minutes. Place on a plate; sprinkle with the salt.

Add 1 teaspoon of the oil to the pan; swirl to coat. Add the bell pepper; stir-fry 2 minutes. Add the remaining garlic; stir-fry 10 to 20 seconds. Remove to the plate with the tofu. Add the remaining 2 teaspoons oil to the pan; swirl to coat. Add the carrots; stir-fry 1 minute. Add the Broccolini; stir-fry 3 minutes or until the water evaporates. Return the tofu mixture to the pan. Add the sauce mixture; stir to coat. Place the rice on each of 4 plates. Place the tofu mixture over the rice.

 

 

Rah Rah Radishes

Our CSA started last week! Unlike in Boston, where Lilli and I drove to the Whole Foods parking lot to pick up our share, now we go to the actual farm in Easthampton to choose our goodies. But even better is the pick-your-own part of the expedition, where you head out to the field with a pair of scissors and cut your own flowers (five floppy orange calendula, this week) and herbs (thyme, oregano and sage) – no limit on that, simply the amount you know you will use that week.

With so much of the area covered by farms, CSAs are extremely common around here. We went with Mountain View, which I found after some… Googling. (Sorry, Rich is leaning into the dad jokes of late.) Actually, it came recommended by many folks, and it’s won the “Best of” award from one of the local papers for half a dozen years in a row. That’s right, we have so many CSAs that we have an entire “Best of” category covering them. One of the parents from Bea’s daycare remarked that CSAs around here are what people do instead of country clubs. I found that to be a very apt description – minus the blatant discrimination against my kind and others, of course.

We made it to the farm before the start of the weekend, so now our fridge is brimming with lettuces, kale, scallions, and radishes. I “gifted” the bok choy to my cousin Roz; it’s one of the few vegetables I actively don’t care for – too mustardy for me. That’s how I used to feel about radishes, too. As I’ve mentioned, I called them “killer radishes” when I was a little girl. But I had a wonderful moment with them in Jerusalem the spring I turned 21 and have been a convert, nay, a radish evangelist, ever since.

I got two bunches of radishes, and the magenta orbs found their way on top of a platter of sesame noodles. Tonight we’re having them in Deb’s kale salad, which features dried cherries, pecans, goat cheese, and a honeyed dressing. But today’s recipe is my go-to of late, from Julia Turshen’s Small Victories. She has you roast the radishes and drizzle a dressing of Kalamata olives on top. Roasting does absolutely magical things to radishes – it softens them and completely removes their peppery bite in the process. As Turshen points out, this recipe is vegan, and the dressing works well on many things, including less-than-vegan dishes like goat cheese or on grilled chicken or fish.

The “small victory” here is all about cooking vegetables that are almost always served raw. She suggests spin off recipes, including stir frying iceberg lettuce with finely peeled ginger, garlic and fresh chile, and topping it with soy sauce and fish sauce; braising celery with a few minced garlic cloves and a couple of anchovies, then drizzling with high-quality olive oil and a few squeezes of lemon juice; and endive and radicchio, cut into wedges, coated with olive oil and salt, seared on a hot grill, and finished with wedges of lemon.

But for now, it’s radishes. We’ll see what we get from Mountain View next week!

Roasted Radishes with Kalamata Dressing from Small Victories by Julia Turshen

Ingredients

1 ½ lb. (680) radishes, split lengthwise (it’s ok to leave a little of the stem)

5 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

Kosher salt

1 small garlic clove, minced

1 Tbsp sherry vinegar

12 pitted Kalamata olives (or other dark olives), finely chopped

1 Tbsp finely chopped fresh Italian parsley or chives or 1 tsp finely chopped oregano

Directions

Preheat your oven to 425F (220C). Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Put the radishes on the prepared baking sheet, drizzle with 2 Tbsp of the olive oil, sprinkle with a large pinch of salt, and use your hands to toss everything together. Roast, stirring occasionally, until the radishes are tender and browned, about 45 minutes.

Meanwhile, put the garlic, a large pinch of salt and the vinegar in a small bowl and let them sit and get to know each other for 10 minutes (this quick-pickle moment will tame the bite of the garlic and also infuse the vinegar with the garlic.) Slowly whisk in the remaining 3 Tbsp olive oil and stir in the olives.

Transfer the roasted radishes to a serving platter, spoon over the olive dressing, and scatter over the parsley. Serve immediately.

There’s Always Money in the Banana Stand!

Remember how last week I kindly suggested you peel five ripe bananas and put them into your freezer? It’s time to remove them. There’s a frozen chocolate peanut butter banana pie in my freezer right now and my kids have no idea. Please don’t tell them. They had melon for dessert, and I’d like to keep it that way.

This pie is probably my favorite recipe from the new cookbook The Chubby Vegetarian: 100 Inspired Vegetable Recipes for the Modern Table, from the folks behind the eponymous food blog. It might have something to do with it also being the easiest recipe in the entire cookbook, but more likely my inclination towards all things chocolate-peanut butter.

There are other recipes that I’ve bookmarked: Baked Cauliflower Wings with Black and Bleu Dressing; Crispy Baked Avocado Tacos with Purple Cabbage Slaw; and Egg Foo Young with Sriracha Gravy. But other recipes have me asking why someone would go out their way and put tricky ingredients into a cookbook, like the Huitlacoche and Sweet Potato Quesadillas with Chipotle Cream. (Huitlacoche is a mushroom-like fungus that grows on corn and is apparently a delicacy in Mexico.) Still, I have a huge bag of masa on my kitchen table with which I will be making pupusas, but I’ll be skipping the pickled loroco flower.

But yes, this pie. Oh man, this pie.

This photo is a lie: My children don’t actually eat food. Unless it’s lox, in which case, Bea would like another slice.

But back to the pie. Those frozen bananas are going to get whirled in your food processor (yay for my blade finally coming!) along with some peanut butter, dried dates, a little cocoa powder, almond milk and a touch of Maldon salt. If you don’t have Maldon salt, just use a pinch of kosher salt. Close enough. You’ll be making the crust first, and that’s just peanuts that have been pulsed in the bowl of the processor.

Honestly, this recipe couldn’t be simpler, although I would encourage you to really chop the dates and cut the bananas into smallish pieces. Your food processor will really get a work out with this recipe, and the smaller pieces will make it easier to blend.

This pie is vegan and gluten-free and “is just about perfect for summer birthday celebrations and backyard grilling parties.” I’d make this for Bea’s second birthday party in a few weeks, but she’s made it clear she wants a Princess Leia cake. May the force be with us.

Frozen Peanut Butter Banana Pie from Frozen Peanut Butter Banana Pie from The Chubby Vegetarian by Justin Fox Burks & Amy Lawrence

Ingredients

5 ripe bananas

1 cup roasted and salted peanuts

½ cup peanut butter

5 dried dates (pitted)

1 Tablespoon cocoa powder

½ cup unsweetened almond milk

½ teaspoon Maldon sea salt flakes

Chocolate syrup (to garnish)

Directions

Peel the bananas and freeze them for at least 3 hours. Into the work bowl of your food processor, place the peanuts and pulse until finely chopped. Into the bottom of a springform pan, spread the finely chopped peanuts in an even layer.

Slice the frozen bananas into chunks. Into the work bowl of the same food processor, place the bananas, peanut butter, dates, cocoa powder, almond milk, and salt. Blend until smooth. Gently pour mixture into the springform pan so as to not disturb the layer of peanuts on the bottom. Smooth the mixture with a rubber spatula by pushing the mixture to the edges. Place the springform pan in the freezer for at least an hour. For the best consistency, remove the pie from the freezer 10 minutes before serving so it softens a bit. Slice and drizzle with chocolate syrup.