Archive for December, 2008

Cheesy Buckwheat Winter Casserole with Christmas Lima Beans

Tuesday, December 30th, 2008

(Vegetarian, gluten-free)

Do you remember Buckwheats? The cereal by GM was the taste of my childhood – on a good day, when store-bought breakfast cereal was allowed. The flakes were thick and crusted with a honey and maple glaze, sweet enough to satisfy a kid yet bearing enough resemblance to something that actually belonged in one of the food groups that my parents didn’t ban it outright.  It was like catnip for kids.

Well, this recipe bears no resemblance. Don’t let the “buckwheat” in the title delude you.  Like the cereal though, this dish has enough good stuff to be healthy and enough bad stuff to taste good. And it was an utter exercise in cleaning out the pantry, one of those sort of happy accidents. I say sort of because at first I even wondered if I could pull it together. All I knew when I started out was that I wanted to eat a nutty grain that came steaming and bubbling out of the oven. Found buckwheat groats in the cupboard, and I started tossing things in from there, trying hard to build and then enhance some distinctive flavor. This dish was sloppy, haphazard, and it almost sunk. But don’t knock it till you try it.

Now if only the weather would help me out. I’m a winter bird living in the single balmy spot in the country besides Phoenix. The world is covered in snow, or at least the contiguous US and most of Canada. My sister-in-law in Seattle took her kids sledding down Queen Anne Hill (some people were doing it on sofas).  All my local friends found themselves snowed in in strange towns and cities over the course of their holiday travels.  Gilda, who commented on the last post, signed off somewhat woefully from “cold, windy London Ontario Canada”.  As Napolean Dynamite says, Luckeee… And then there’s the East Coast. And Chicago. And Minnesota. Probably California…

All I want is a little snow. A little sign that winter is alive and well or at least putting up a good fight against  global warming’s steady march.  It’s trying, I know. I can hear winter, wailing behind the gusts of wind that are shredding what’s left of our leaves as warm air smacks into cold air somewhere other than here. So I have to settle for a little winter food, in the absence of the real thing. And for those of you who are getting snowed upon, this will warm your insides nicely.

This was almost a lost opportunity. Those of you who know heirlooms must have been wondering when I was going to call in the Christmas Lima. I’d actually forgotten that I had them. With their creamy, snowy color and their cranberry splashes, it’s easy to imagine what inspired the name. They look like something I’d hang on my tree.  They’re huge as beans go, nearly half-dollar sized once they’re soaked. Here’s a bit of trivia, in case it ever comes up: it takes only 25 Christmas Limas to make an ounce (most other dry beans take about 80 to an ounce).

According to Seed Saver’s Exchange, the Christmas Lima dates back to around 1840.  Like other limas, it’s buttery and nutty.  Almost like chestnuts, which might also explain the name.

The Recipe
Buckwheat groats need to be toasted before they’re cooked, otherwise they have a bitter taste rather than a rich, nutty one. You can do this yourself by heating a dry skillet on high. When it’s hot, add 6 ounces of buckwheat groats and let them toast for a few minutes, until they begin turning golden. Then add one beaten egg to the skillet, stir well to coat the groats, and let toast another 5-6 minutes, until they are deep brown. The egg keeps the groats from getting mushy when they’re cooked.

When you’re done, they should look like the photo here (greenish-white is before, the walnut shade is after of course). And if you don’t feel like doing this, buy kasha instead of buckwheat groats. Kasha is already toasted, though it’s not always easy to find.

Also, I know the wine-pairing wisdom tells me otherwise, but I really like this dish with a hearty, full-bodied red wine, like a Zin, or perhaps a Bordeaux full of barnyard. The nuttiness and full mouthfeel of the dish is a good match for the wine, and it can certainly stand up to the higher alcohol content in a Zinfandel.

Cheesy Buckwheat Winter Casserole with Christmas Lima Beans

1 ½ cups vegetable stock
I cup toasted buckwheat groats (see method, above)
1 bay leaf
1 large onion
4 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons butter
1 large potato, with skin, diced
2 turnips, diced
1 carrot
1 ½ cups baby portabella mushrooms
splash of olive oil
1 tablespoon fresh rosemary
2 teaspoons fresh thyme (you can substitute dried – just use less. And you might throw in a dash of dried anyway to enhance the greener flavor in the fresh herbs)
1 cup cooked Christmas Lima beans
½ cup red wine
salt
fresh ground pepper
1/2 cup sour cream
½ cup goat cheese (or use another half cup of sour cream)
2/3 cup sharp cheddar cheese, grated

In a pot, bring vegetable stock to a boil.  Reduce to simmer, add bay leaf and toasted buckwheat groats and cook on medium low heat until water has been absorbed, about 15 minutes. Remove the bay leaf.

In a large skillet, melt the butter. Add diced onion and minced garlic and cook until they are just beginning to turn pale, about 2 minutes. Add the potato, turnips, carrot, mushrooms and the rosemary and thyme. Add just enough olive oil to lightly coat all the vegetables and cook until the veggies are tender-crisp, about 10 minutes. Stir in the Christmas Lima beans and the cooked buckwheat. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Preheat oven to 375.  Place the mixture into a large casserole dish and place in oven, uncovered, for about 20 minutes, until veggies have begun to roast. Stir in the red wine and cover and cook another 15 minutes.  Stir the sour cream/goat cheese and the cheddar cheese into the mixture, reserving enough shredded cheddar to sprinkle on top.  Return to oven and let cook until the cheddar cheese is bubbling and browning, about 6 minutes. Serve as hot as you can take it while the snow swirls in the wind outside your window.

(You’re right. The bowl of fruit has nothing to do with this recipe. I was just playing around with the new camera lens that Simon gave me for Christmas. You might have noticed that several of the images in this post are blurred out at the edges – more so than is artistically desirable. I’m just learning my way around the lens, with its very precise depth of field…)

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Vanilla-Loves-Chocolate-(and I love them both)-Biscotti

Saturday, December 27th, 2008

T’was three nights before Christmas, and I had an urgent SOS for Santa.  I was just placing the first two trays for the next day’s cookie exchange into the oven when I realized the oven, which had been preheating for 20 minutes (but, now that I had stopped to think about it, hadn’t beeped to announce the desired temperature had been reached) was cold inside.

Now, let me tell you. The oven stopped. At Christmas. And most of you don’t know this but I’ve been through a lot this month, and last month and the month before too, lots of scary health stuff and other trauma, but when my oven broke down so did I.  I’m not ashamed to say so. Just think of it, will you?  Initially Simon was not so sympathetic. “I had part of the Christmas tree stuck in my eye (it’s true) and you thought it was funny (that’s also true). And now,” he exclaimed, “you’re going to cry because the oven won’t light?!”

Luckily, he figured it out. Only because I was putting on my coat and making noises like I was heading off to Lowe’s to buy that convection oven I’ve been eyeing all year.  And also because he thought of all those good boys and girls who wouldn’t have any biscotti with their Vin Santo this season if my oven didn’t work.

Truth is, I didn’t really want to buy an oven just yet. Though I’m also not ashamed to say that I think about ranges and stovetops the way some people think about sex, I haven’t researched the options and if I had to run out and buy one without properly understanding what I was getting into, well, that would have been more stressful than trying to make Christmas dinner in the backyard fire pit. Happily I didn’t have to do either.

It was just the igniter, a relatively inexpensive and do-it-yourself-able fix. But it made me realize that I don’t ever want to be in the position of buying a range/oven without first having had the time to figure out exactly what I want. Induction stove top with convection oven? Gas cooktop with electric baker? Stainless steel, most certainly (I like shiny things…) Though I cook and bake constantly, I don’t really have any idea where to start figuring it out, but it’s one of my tasks for 2009 (my current one should last another 365).  So if any of you have been through this recently and have some tips for me, please share what you know.

The Recipe
This biscotti is an ode to my other grandmother, my mom’s mom. She was Italian, which also explains why she had no teeth.  The biscotti habit, I mean. She loved these things – she loved any dried out, stale, petrified bread product, actually.  She was always scouting for things to dip into her black coffee.

It wasn’t until I was older that I learned to love the biscotti she held so dear, but now that I have developed a taste for them, I make them each year. Over the years I’ve experimented quite a bit, and I’ve come to see that there is a compromise between  crumbly and crunchy and tooth-destroying. The secret seems to be in the choice of fat. Butter yields a good flavor but they also tend to be soft and spreading.  Whole eggs are a better choice, but these can be a bit on the impenetrable side. It’s the addition of extra egg yolks to the batter that gives it an authentically Italian texture — sturdy, serious, and unflinching but also a bit sandy, definitely bitable, and willing to concede to a mug of hot java (or a glass of Vin Santo).

These vanilla beans really are heirlooms.  Not in the biological sense perhaps, but certainly in the historical sense: these beans have been marked by the farmer who harvested them in Madagascar.  Sometimes, according to Margaret at my local Penzey’s store, they do that. Margaret wasn’t sure why the field workers sometimes carve their initials into vanilla pods – maybe to indicate that the crop was hand-collected by them, or maybe just their way of saying “I was here”, like writing your name in the sand just before the tide washes in.  Whatever the intent, it’s always a bit magical to pull a vanilla pod from the jar and find another person’s presence etched into it, to almost be able to conjure a hand, holding the other end of the bean, and to picture a face belonging to that hand.

In this bean, it’s hard to read them – something round like a C or a G, and then something lean like an L or an I. It’s impossible to tell. But the indentation is clear, and the reddish brown tint of the etching, where the pod has begun to dry out a bit.

Cooking with vanilla beans instead of extract is a real treat. The fragrance and flavor is both more delicate and more insistent. After you’ve split your bean and scraped the “caviar” out of it, touch your tongue to the inside of the pod, just to see. It’s a very different taste than extract – potent, slightly bitter, and almost buttery.

The easiest way to extract the usable part is to slice the bean in half lengthwise and then, using a knife, scrape out the hundreds of tiny seeds that line both sides of the pod. Don’t waste the empty pod – place it in a cup of sugar or honey or in a pint of rum. After a couple of weeks you’ll have extract or scented, flavored sugar.

Vanilla Loves Chocolate Biscotti
2 1/4  cups unbleached  flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1  teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 large egg yolks
Seeds from one vanilla bean

For ganache:
8 ounces dark chocolate, chopped into small pieces
¾ cup heavy cream

Sift flour, baking powder and salt together into a small bowl.

Whisk sugar and eggs in a large bowl, beating together until they become a pale yellow color and there are some air bubbles forming. Add the vanilla beans and mix well. Take in the scent – lovely!

Add the black pepper, cinnamon, cloves and allspice. Observe how gorgeous it looks, sprinkled atop the egg mixture. Stir it in, then add the dry ingredients. Mix carefully, just until the dough is beginning to form.
Divide the dough in half and roll each piece into 13 x 2 inch logs. Place them on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and place them in the refrigerator for about 40 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350. Bake the logs just until they are golden and starting to crack on top, 30-40 minutes.
Remove the logs from the oven and allow them to cool for about 15 minutes. Lower oven temperature to 325 derees, then slice each log diagonally into slices. Place the slices ½ inch apart on a cookies sheet, cut side up. Return them to the oven and let them bake for about 22 minutes, until they are crsip and golden brown. You will need to turn the biscotti once or twice during this second baking. When they are finished, remove from oven and allow them to cool completely. They will get harder as they cool, so if they don’t seem quite done when you pull them out, they will get sturdier as they sit.

To make ganache, chop the chocolate into fine pieces and place it in a large, sturdy bowl. Bring the cream to a boil in a small sauce pan, letting it rise up the sides of the pan. Remove from heat and pour over the chocolate. Stir slowly and constantly for about two minutes, until all the chocolate has melted and become smooth and thin. You’ll know it’s properly melted if it responds to gravity – that is, if it sticks to the spoon or spatula then you need to keep stirring.

Dip one end of each biscotti into the chocolate, spinning it to make sure the chocolate covers both sides.  Allow to cool so that the chocolate forms a solid coating. Enjoy by dipping into your beverage of choice – coffee, tea, Vin Santo (hey, you should try it just once. The Italians know how to enjoy wine!).

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In praise of – and a prayer for – the irreplaceable

Wednesday, December 10th, 2008

I’ve been thinking. Well, I’ve been cooking, in kitchens that aren’t mine. Holidays often find me in strange but friendly places. And while I’ve been wowed by some spiffy gadgets and enviable cookery – most notably this KitchenAid Pearl 600 Stand Mixer and this, the classic, a real Le Creuset Dutch Oven, which, I will say, I do fervently covet, in the red shade if anyone needs to know – well, there’s no space like the home kitchen.  After all, I’ve spent three years now arranging it just the way I want it, and filling it with the things that keep my cookery moving along at a harmonious and feast-focused tempo.

And then there are those things. Gifts, accidental finds, a few purloined items too. The things that, if your kitchen burned down (because you forgot to close the oven door or you accidentally ignited the cat when you were perfecting your saganaki technique), but you were rich and money were no obstacle to buying all that stuff again and again if need be, well, those things that you just couldn’t.  Couldn’t replace, wouldn’t be yourself without. Those precious items, treasured for strange and private or perfectly practical reasons that, would it be fair to suggest, without which your cooking career could be in the garbage disposal?

I know you have some of those items.  It’s a little scary to admit them, isn’t it?  Sort of like drawing a big red I AM HERE circle on your gravest vulnerabilities.

I’ll go first then. I have about six or seven kitchen treasures that have shaped the way I cook, the way I even think about food, and they’re all remarkably basic. I won’t give them to you all at once though. For today let’s talk about my biscuit cutters.

Biscuit cutters

I stole these. I was a strange kid.

They belong/ed to my grandma (one reason that I’m glad my grandma doesn’t know how to use the internet – though occasionally my well-meaning mother prints out a post and mails it to her. This one is for the closet, Mom).

I pretty much grew up at my dad’s mom’s house, spending the bulk of my pre-school time there. She lived in the country, or so I thought; a small, backwards city is more like it, where she happened to own an acre of land. I learned to cook and garden there. Learned all about the wonder of compost by watching my grandpa dig a hole in the ground and throw leftover produce in it. Learned to love cats and hate bugs (my grandma has so many phobias – odd, for a farm girl).  Fed the insatiable, rock-eating polar bear that lived in her drainage sewer (bygones, oh Collinsville Public Works). Built my first outdoor fire – and my first indoor blazer happened there as well.  Made funnel cakes and dumplings and chicken noodle soup (the only meat dish I ever really crave) and experienced eating herbs, those magical, mysterious things that don’t resemble food but which are not forbidden to eat, even right out of the backyard. Fresh dill tastes like Grandma’s house.

She’s still got beads and rhinestones and silver pins and big, clinking, clattering, sparkling, colliding jewelry in her treasure box.  But no. I was bedazzled by her kitchen.

Rustic and purposeful and relentlessly efficient, nothing was ever wasted in that kitchen of hers.  As far as I can tell, it still isn’t.

She had these biscuit cutters, a set of three, each one slightly bigger (or smaller, depending on where you started) than the last.  When not in use they fit inside each other like nested dolls. We used those biscuit cutters most mornings I was there, to make light breakfast breads and sometimes cookies. Even back then, they were old, in a regal and storied way though, in that historically heavy way that even a child can recognize. They were burnished dark and solid, but when you pressed hard enough on them the handles caved slightly under the weight of your hand, so that you had to hold the dough down and lift the whole cutter carefully, jiggling it back and forth to extricate it.

One night I was wandering her kitchen while she sat at the dining room table (the gathering place in her home). She might have been talking to my parents about the strangeness of the new-fangled push-through tab on the can of Tab Cola.

“Grandma?” I called, and carried my six-year old self earnestly to the table and plunked down in the center of the discussion, biscuit cutters clutched in my left hand, which I held slightly behind my back.  “I have a good idea. How about if we have a new rule?  Say that if  you come to my house and see something you like, you can have it, and if I come to your house and see something I like, I can take it home with me and keep it.”

“So, if I come to your house and find money, I can take it?” she asked.   I had no money. I nodded.  “And if I come over and decide I like….” she glanced around her own house and named the first thing her eyes fell upon, “your new upright vacuum cleaner, that’s mine?”  If only…. I nodded vigorously.  “Well what if I come to your house and I see some bubblegum, I can have that too, right?” After a quick calculation, I determined that was easy enough to come by. I magnanimously agreed. “What about your new shoes, then?” she asked.

“Which ones do you mean?” I hedged.

“Your new ones. The red ones. With the sparkles.  The Dorothy shoes.”

Well. That was a bit tougher. Was she bluffing? I glanced under the table at her feet. There was no way she’d ever fit into my new Dorothy slippers. Still, what if she knew some other kid that would like them, and she took them for her?

Without saying yes or no, I slipped away. I hung the biscuit cutters back on their rusty hook and went to play with her jewelery box.

Late that night, when my parents had driven through the oak woods and across the river, covering the 20 miles back to our house, and were groggily unpacking our bags –  the leftovers sent from Grandma’s kitchen,  a new screwdriver that Grandpa had bought for Dad and the catfood that none of her 8 cats would eat but that she thought our current stray, Friendly, might like — I gasped. My parents were equally surprised to find the biscuit cutters in the bag, tarnished and slightly dented, beautiful, and mine.

It’s funny though. Technically, of course, I didn’t steal them. Even though Grandma sent them with me, and probably forgot about them soon after, I still feel like they don’t belong to me. That’s not such a bad thing either. I wonder if it’s why some people do steal — feeling the tug of the person they stole from on the other end of the object, a presence with them all the time. It’s like having my grandma in my kitchen with me each time I cook, and I feel both a twinge of guilt at my childhood brashness and also a glow, a special contentedness, each time I catch sight of them. For that, I’ll live with my conscience.

I use them for everything.  Cheddar jalapeno biscuits.  Perfectly round bruschetta pieces. Pita circles. Homemade fillable pasta. Cookies, naturally, most notably my Lady Grey and Lavender Tea Cakes. And of course these spicy couscous cups, which some of you may remember from earlier in the year.

I offer you this recipe now because it’s a no-brainer for holiday potlucks – so easy to make (I cheat and use Near East boxed couscous), good hot or cold. Spicy enough to catch everyone’s attention without causing any unplanned profanities. And really pretty too (even though, back when I wrote that post, I wasn’t too creative with the camera yet, so forgive the lack of photos here…)

And how about you? What objects in your kitchen are utterly irreplaceable?


The Recipe

Spicy Couscous Cups
4 large flour tortillas**
3/4 cup of sesame chili oil*
1 box tomato and lentil couscous
2 cups cooked heirloom black turtle beans (or other black beans)
¼ cup fresh parsley
1/2 cup olive oil
1 red bell pepper, finely chopped
3/4 cup crumbled feta or goat cheese (optional)

** don’t use whole wheat tortillas for this. They’re too thick and end up breaking apart and cooking unevenly.
* if you can’t find this, just add a few flakes of hot red chili to your own sesame oil. Add them depending on your preference for heat, of course.

Using a 2 1/2? to 3? biscuit cutter (or tin can, if your Grandma didn’t give you her cutters), cut circles out of the flour tortillas, about 3 dozen. Brush both sides with sesame chili oil and press into a mini-muffin pan. Bake at 400 for 10 minutes. Remove and cool.

Prepare couscous according to package instructions. In a food processor, blend the black beans, parsley and olive oil until a chunky paste forms. In mixing bowl, combine the couscous, bean paste, cheese (if using), and red peppers and stir well. Fill the cups just before serving.

These are great to make a day ahead, just store the tortilla shells in an airtight container and warm before filling and serving.

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