Seeing Green

It's one of my favorite weeks. It's the week of St. Patrick's Day and I get to break out some of my most loved foods. Plus I got the Feb/Mar issue of Fine Cooking the other day and after drooling a little bit I picked out a couple of things to add to the menu this week.

Monday: Stout & Cheese Meatloaf
Tuesday: no one will be home
Wednesday: Corned Beef with all the fixin's
Thursday: Quinoa Salad
Friday: Potato Leek soup
Saturday: Moroccan Lentil Soup
Sunday: Leftovers

We'll see if Friday's meal plan actually happens. We now have a funeral to attend that morning so I might not get a chance to get everything put together. Something will happen, I'm just not guaranteeing that it will be what I said will happen! So with that I leave you with some lovely pictures of the meat loaf that was dinner tonight before I cooked it and after it came out of the oven. Enjoy!

A Weird One

The weather is supposed to get better this week. I hope. But we won't be home much to enjoy dinners together this week so I guess I better make the ones I am home for count!

Monday: Sweet Potato & Chickpea Stew
Tuesday: No One Home
Wednesday: Venison Stew with Dessert Custards
Thursday: No One Home
Friday: Moroccan Glazed Lamb with Green Beans & Mashed Potatoes
Saturday: Pancakes & Bacon for Breakfast
Sunday: Leftovers

Tradition

Every year for Easter my family gathers on Good Friday and celebrates. The day starts at around 9am with all of my aunts and my grandmother in the kitchen, making pierogi. The finished dumplings are so delicious, when I make them for myself I usually make a couple of batches and freeze them so I have them for a while. We usually do just a potato filling. This year I did 5 pounds of potatoes mixed with 1/2 a pound of cheddar, finely grated. That amount of potatoes filled 2 recipes of dough. Alternately you can use the same dough and put a spoonful of your favorite pie filling inside and serve with ice cream or just powdered sugar for a fun desert. Other filling options traditionally include meat, and sauerkraut, but the sky is really the limit.

Pierogi Dough
Makes about 70 pierogi.

4 cups all-purpose flour
2 eggs
5 tablespoons dairy sour cream
6 tablespoons vegetable oil
pinch of salt
about 3/4 cup water

Sift flour into a large bowl or onto a flat working surface; make a well in the center.
Break eggs into well.
Add sour cream, 3 tablespoons oil and salt.
Blend ingredients with your fingertips.
Gradually add water, working and kneading mixture into a smooth, pliable dough.
Divide dough into quarters.

Roll to 1/16 inch thick
Cut into 3-1/2 to 4 inch circles.
Place 1 heaping tablespoon filling -- fold over -- crimp edges. (crimp very tightly, if there are any holes all of the filling will leak out when you boil them)
Boil in salted water (1/2 teaspoon salt per 2 quarts water)
Cook 4 to 5 minutes or until pierogi float.

At this point you can freeze the pierogi, or if you want to eat them right away, you can either pan fry, deep fry, or bake them until they are golden brown and lightly crispy. If you want to freeze them, I recommend laying them out on a greased sheet pan and putting them in the freezer until they are solid, then put them in gallon zip-lock bags to store them. If you put them in before they are frozen, they will freeze together into a solid mass and be impossible to separate without tearing the dough.

Enjoy!

Tunisian Addiction

The last few weeks I've been getting really, really excited about food with the fresh produce and such coming back to the Farmer's Market. I had my very first salad of the season this last weekend with mixed spicy greens, pea shoots, handmade croutons, walnuts, and currents all drizzled over with a raspberry vinaigrette. No real recipe for this one, simply great ingredients tossed together in a big bowl and happily consumed. One thing in my fridge that sometimes gets forgotten about (and tragically so) is the jar of Tunisian harissa paste that lives toward the back. I made a squash soup that was liberally laced with it back in October that was delicious. But then the jar got pushed to the back of my fridge and largely forgotten about for a while. Then I got inspired by a couscous salad at work. And I was off into the kitchen to see what I could do to replicate deliciousness.

Salad:
2 cups couscous (you really want the larger Tunisian style, or Israeli will do in a pinch), cooked and cooled
1 cup black olives, pitted and halved (do not use "California black olives" from the supermarket for this, I recommend a pitted kalamata or sahli olive)
1 bunch scallions, chopped
3 med ripe tomatoes, diced (you can use canned, just make sure to drain well)
1 bunch parsley, chopped
1 carrot, grated
1 lemon, zest

Dressing:
Harissa paste
lemon juice
Olive oil
Salt
couscous water

In a large bowl mix cooked couscous (the larger style is actually more like a pasta, cook accordingly and reserve about a 1/3 cup of the cooking liquid for the dressing), scallions, olives, tomatoes, most of the parsley, and carrot. Reserve about 2 tablespoons of parsley for serving.
In a smaller bowl, mix the dressing ingredients. I haven't given exact measurements for any of the dressing because I just kind of winged it, tasting as I went along. I started with about a tablespoon of the harissa and added the juice of one lemon (I only had one, more might be nice). I added the olive oil and reserved couscous water until I had a consistency I was happy with and what looked like about a cup of dressing total. Salt to taste.
Pour the dressing over the couscous and veg mixture and toss to coat. Sprinkle reserved parsley and lemon zest over the top when you serve. This is a pretty versatile salad, I had it warm, room temp, and cool and it was excellent all ways.

I am using the last jar of tomato sauce that I made this summer for dinner tonight. I am now waiting (probably not so patiently) for tomatoes to come back into season.

It's definatly Fall in Michigan

We have had our first frost and the weather has been chilly the last couple of days. I had to find my sweaters and I'm packing up the shorts and tank tops in recognition of the fact that it will not be warm enough to wear them again for a while. So in honor of that change I made some delicious soup :) Squash soup is one of those things that I never remember having until I was in high school, but hooboy is it one of my favorite things about seeing the winter squash showing up at the Farmer's Markets. This was kind of an experiment and to my great delight it turned out so delicious!!

You'll Need
8 cups stock (chicken or veggie work best)
2 medium butternut squash, seeded and peeled, in 1" chunks
1 large sweet potato, peeled and diced
1 medium onion, diced
1 tablespoon harissa*
1/2 teaspoon fresh thyme
1/2 teaspoon fresh sage
pinch of salt
sour cream to serve with

In a large (7 qt) slow cooker mix the squash, sweet potato, and onion. Add the harissa, sage, thyme, salt, and the stock. If the liquid is not enough to cover all of the squash, add water to top off. Cook on high for 6 hours or low for 8-10 hours. Use a blender or food mill to puree the soup until smooth. Top with a dollop of sour cream to cut the heat slightly. Eat and enjoy!

*Harissa is a North African hot pepper condiment. I really like the one from Moulins De Majoub, but if you can't find one here's a simple one you can whip up for your fridge.

12 dried red chiles
1 tablespoon coriander seeds
2 teaspoons cumin seeds
2 cloves garlic peeled
1/2 teaspoon salt
4-6 tablespoons olive oil

Discard the stems and seeds from the chiles, then place in a bowl and cover with boiling water. Leave to soak 30 minutes until softened. In a heavy skillet heat the coriander and cumin seeds until they smell aromatic. Grind to a powder in a grinder. Drain the chiles and place in a blender with the garlic coriander mixture and salt. Blend together, trickling in the olive oil until the sauce has a mayonnaise-like consistency. To store, put in an airtight container and cover with olive oil and refrigerate.

Applesauce

It's defiantly fall weather outside and that turns my thought inevitably to comfort foods. And a good applesauce is defiantly up there in my list of comfort foods. Can't be too sweet, should be well spiced, and I just like it better chunky. So instead of trying to hunt for the perfect one, I made my own.

You'll need:
8 pounds apples (I used McIntosh) cored and diced, you can peel if desired
3 inches ginger root, peeled and grated very fine
tablespoon cinnamon
tablespoon nutmeg
2/3 cup honey
2 cups water
1/4 cup lemon juice

Combine everything in a very large stainless steel or enamel pot (don't use aluminum). This all fit (just barely) in my 8qt stock pot. Stir to make sure all of the apples are well coated, cover, and cook over medium heat for 20 minutes, or until the thickness makes you happy. If you don't like a chunky applesauce you can use an immersion blender or food mill to smooth the texture to your liking. I got about 7 pints of sauce from this recipe. If you want to can this, process in a boiling-water bath for 15 minutes.

Split Pea Soup

Most of my kitchen adventures start with something on sale. In this case it was yellow split peas that were on sale at the Co-op. Don't ask me what my brain was intending to do with 2 pounds of split peas at the time, but I bought them and in digging around for something to do for dinner the other day, I found the bone from a ham that I did last week. Bingo! Pea soup in the crock pot, so it could cook all day while I was at work so when we all got home around 6 we could sit down to dinner. This is a recipe that is pretty open to interpretation and can be made vegetarian/vegan pretty easily.

You'll need:
18 ounces split peas
1 ham bone (optional)
1 cup frozen or fresh veggies (I usually opt for corn and carrots to sweeten the soup up)
2 quarts chicken or veggie stock (you can dilute this with water if needed)

Add all ingredients to a 3 1/2 or 4 quart crock pot. Set to Low. Go to work, play in the yard, or whatever else you have more pressing in your life for around 6 hours. If you are going to be gone longer, don't worry... this isn't really a dish that you can "overcook". Fish out the ham bone and dispose of (or give to the dog). If you want, you can run through a blender or food mill to give it a smooth texture, but I don't really find this necessary.

Now I'm off to ponder a goat curry obsession that I have recently come across...

Garden Tomato Sauce

The farm stand around the corner from my house was having a sale. 1/2 a peck of tomatoes for $4.95. How could I pass it up? So I carted home my peck of tomatoes (at that price, I totally bought 2) and then contemplated what the heck to do with a peck of tomatoes! And then I set about thinking what I ate a lot of that involved tomatoes, and came up with a solution that had everything going for it. During the winter here in Michigan I tend to eat a lot of pasta because it's quick and filling and generally warm. And I like my pasta with tomato sauce because it's a little bite of sunshine when sun is in short supply. So I set about making my tomatoes into sauce to go into my freezer until I am desperate for a mental trip back to August.

What You'll Need -

9 tomatoes chunked (leave the seeds and skins intact)
3 medium onions, diced
10 cloves of garlic, minced (ok, I really like garlic, but you can cut back to taste)
2 small poblano peppers, seeded and chopped
any other garden veggies that you need to use up (zucchini, green peppers, etc...) diced
3 sprigs of basil, stripped and chopped
1 cup of good red wine
1/4 cup sherry or red wine vinegar
1 cup tomato juice
1 teaspoon sugar
salt and pepper
olive oil

Turn the burner on medium heat and in a large stock pot heat the olive oil (enough to coat the bottom) until it shimmers in the pan. Add the onions and cook for about 5 minutes or until soft. Add the garlic, any peppers or other veggies (Not the tomatoes), the basil and cook until soft.


Add the vinegar and scrape the bottom of the pot getting up all of the good bits at the bottom. Let everything simmer lightly in the vinegar so that it soaks it all up. The vinegar is going to brighten up the sauce and play up the sweetness of the tomatoes. At this point I like to add the sugar, salt, and pepper and stir so all of the veggies are evenly coated. Add the tomatoes, wine and tomato juice stirring to combine.


Put the lid on the stock pot, turn the burner down to low so that the sauce is barely simmering and walk away. If you are feeling particularly responsible you can clean up the kitchen (you are done with the intensive prep work now) but I grabbed the trashy romance novel that I was in the middle of and plopped down on the couch where I could see the stove and chilled out for a while. In about half an hour (if it's longer it's not really going to suffer at this point, you'll just need to add more liquid) take the pot off the heat. We've now reached the point where my husband and I disagree. I really like chunky sauces, he likes them smoother. This batch got smoothed out with an immersion blender because I wasn't home to bicker with him, but this is not a necessary step. If you are going to enjoy immediately, you're done! If you are going to keep it for a bit let it cool on your counter for about an hour. After that hour, put the sauce in the refrigerator and leave it overnight to cool completely. Seal in appropriate containers (we have a vacuum sealer so we made up 2 cup bags) and freeze. Use in 4 to 6 months for best flavor. This makes approximately 8 cups of tomato sauce.

Now I just have to figure out what to do with the other 20 tomatoes I have left!