Savory rainbow chard and mushroom tart with potatoes

Tonight, it finally got below 80 degrees, which is a big deal if you don't use the A/C your in-laws generously sent. We've lately become Stan Cox devotees (except on the train), so I baked now that it was a little cooler out. We got some rainbow swiss chard the other day and I really wanted to make an eggy, cheesy quiche. But since I stink at quiches, I made a tart instead.
This is an adaptation of the Fresh Direct recipe. Oops, did I fail to mention that sometimes, we get our groceries delivered? I have a lot of enviro-angst about this too, but since we don't own a car, and sometimes I am not always well served by the grocery stores in our neighborhood (and buying groceries in Manhattan and lugging them down to Brooklyn only makes sense during the school year), we resort to this sometimes.

Savory rainbow chard with mushroom tart
(approx 1 hr to prep, serves 4)


Ingredients
1 bunch of rainbow chard, washed and finely chopped (separate out the stems)
1/2 onion, diced
4 oz of baby bella mushrooms, rinsed and chopped
1/4 c. and 1 Tbs of olive oil
1/4 teas. of salt
salt, pepper, and oregano to taste
1 c. of whole wheat flour
3 large eggs
1/3 c. of finely grated parmesan
1/4 c. of crumbled feta
1/4 c. of milk

Preheat the oven to 400.

Mix 1 cup of flour, 1/4 teas. of salt, and 1/4 c. of olive oil in a bowl. It should get to be grainy but doughy. Press into the bottom of a pie plate and stick in the oven (to firm up a bit) for about 4-5 minutes.

Cook the onions in the remaining olive oil over medium heat, for about 3-4 minutes. Add the mushroom, and stir occasionally, another 3 minutes. Next add the chopped chard stems and stir. You can increase the heat a bit here. Add the leaves, stir, and cook until the liquid boils off.

In a bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, and cheese.

When the liquid is evaporated from the chard/mushroom mixture, empty the mixture on top of the crust in the pie pan.

Pour the egg/milk/cheese mixture on top, and bake for 40 minutes.

post baking goodness (it tasted meaty! But there was no meat!)

But in full disclosure, the "crust" was neither good nor necessary. Next time, I'll forgo the crust entirely and make it frittata, upping the recipe to 5 eggs.

Roasted Potatoes with Paprika
In the meantime, scrub and dice 4 medium potatoes. Toss with 1 Tbs of olive oil, and bake in the same oven for about 30 minutes. You can turn the oven onto broil and stick the pan in the broiler for 3 minutes to get the tops crispy. Season with salt, pepper, and paprika.

Our baby cat Buster really wanted the potatoes.

First CSA meal of the summer

Summer doesn't just mean guilt* about work, hot depressed cats, allergies, and sweaty subway stations. It also means delicious, seasonal, local, organic Community Supported Agriculture vegetables! (And a pint of local raspberries, too!)

Our CSA farm is owned by an Asian-American couple, and they plant a lot interesting greens. They especially love the bok choy. So in honor of Sang Lee Farms, and my old roommate Kris, who ruled the tofu world, I made (or tried to make) Ginger Baked Tofu and Bok Choy Stir Fry

Serves two hungry kitty-sitters**

Ingredients:
1 box of firm tofu, frozen and thawed
1 Tbs honey
2 inch of ginger root, grated (less if you're not a ginger freak)
5 cloves of garlic, chopped
2 Tbs of lite soy sauce (and some more to taste)
1/2 Tbs of toasted sesame oil (and some more to taste)
1 Tbs of a neutral oil
sesame seeds for garnish
pepper to taste
2 baby bok choys, well rinsed with stalks removed from leafy parts
3-4 small carrots, chopped into thin slices
handful of sugar snap peas, cleaned and chopped
1 c. of jasmine rice (white or brown)

The middle carrot has to go to the bathroom real bad

To prepare the tofu (takes some planning)
Ahead of time, you can freeze the tofu and thaw it. This takes at least a day. This is not necessary, but frozen and thawed tofu absorbs marinate better. If you're not crazy, you can just wrap the tofu (uncut) in 2-3 paper towels, and stick a cutting board and a book on top, and this will draw out most of the moisture (for at least 30 minutes).
Slice the tofu in 1/2 length wise, and then cut those pieces into quarters. If you can, cut these into quarter height wise (so you're slicing them thinner, not smaller).

This picture was meant to show the texture of thawed, once frozen tofu. The freezing process expands the water pockets, helping it "soak" up marinades

Make a marinade with 2 Tbs of soy sauce, 1 Tbs of honey, 3 cloves of chopped garlic, half of the ginger, some salt, and 1/2 Tbs of sesame oil. Stick it in a Tupperware and let it in marinade in the fridge. Go file your nails or something. Or chop up the vegetables.


After 1-2 hours of marinading, preheat the oven to 350. Place the tofu in a single layer on a pan, and bake for 25 minutes, taking out to flip the pieces half way through. They should be firmer and take on a nice golden glow.
While the tofu bakes, cook the rice according to the directions.
For the stir fry, warm up the oil in a wide pan, over medium heat. Add garlic and ginger, stirring. Separate the leafy part of the bok choy from the firmer stalks.


When the garlic/ginger has cooked a few minutes, increase the heat to medium-high add the stems of the bok choy. Stir. After a few minutes, add the carrots. Cook 2 more minutes. Add the chopped sugar snap peas and then the leafy part of the boy choy. Cook until wilted. Remove from heat. Add soy sauce, sesame oil, and sesame seed to taste. Add the finished tofu and serve over rice.

Vegan dinner is served

*Mostly joking. I do love summer, but I love fall more. I think summer, as a season, is a bit overrated. I hate dem pesky mosquitoes, and all of NYC goes nuts during that time.

**Blokey and I have a new kitten in our lives. Aw...

Writing break!

I am finally done with a second paper for a conference that is coming up. I can't wait to see my buddies from graduate school (the presentations make me nervous, so I just won't think about them today).
When I write, the process takes over my life. I dream about my arguments. I get snippy, achey, tired, and easy frustrated. I feel stupid and question my life choices. It's during these times that I should make an effort to take care of me, but it doesn't always happen. "Exercise" goes to the wayside, and I often don't cook. I eat, but I don't even take proper meals. Bad professor!

where non-genius stuff happens

Last night, I was almost done, and I realized that I needed to cook. Blokey has been patient and kind, as usual, reading drafts and discussing my ideas with me along the way (it's been a long way). So I made one of his favorites: homemade pizza (he prefer's Lou Malnati's over mine, but I can forgive him for his Chicago prejudices) with salad.

Arugula salad pizza

For the dough, I used this recipe: the bread without a timer . I didn't useit all, so I have about 1/3 of the dough in the fridge, for a snack later.

Additional ingredients:
Fresh mozzerella (I got mine from Fairway)
Pecorino Romano (also from UWS Fairway)
Coarse ground corn meal


For the Sauce:
1 28 oz. can of chopped tomatoes
about 3/4 teaspoon of salt (but careful with this, my tomatoes weren't salted)
butter
2 cloves of garlic chopped
1 smaller onion, diced
dried basil
pepper
a pinch of cayenne

Method:
Saute the onions in the butter over medium heat until it is softer (2-3 minutes). Add the garlic. Stir. After another 4-5 minutes (everything should be golden brown), add the tomatoes. Now add another Tablespoon of butter (you know you want to). Simmer with the lid over lower heat for about 10-15 minutes. Add pepper, cayenne and dried basil to taste (fresh would be better, but it's February)

Preheat the over as hot as it will possibly go (Broil for us. Our heat was down last night so it was welcome).
Pull off a chunk about 1/3 of the dough from bread and rolled it out, then stretch it by hand to desired thickness/thinness. I made it thicker than usual, because Blokey likes it thicker (damn you, Chicago culture).
Sprinkle the bottom of your cookie sheet (ideally a baking stone). Place the streched out dough on top. Add sauce and cheese (we went heavier on the mozzerella, because the percorino was quite strong) and other toppings if you have them around.

Bake for about 10-12 minutes, but keep a close eye on it. When the edges are golden and the cheese is bubbly, it should be done.

While it's baking, whip up the salad:

4 oz. of arugula or other mixed greens
dressing:
1/2 Tbs of dijon
1 Tbs of olive oil
1 clove of garlic chopped
juice of half a lemon
splash of apple cider vinegar
salt, peper and oregano to taste.

Whisk up the ingredients for the dressing then pour over the salad.

When it's done, place the salad on top of the pizza and eat. Somehow the fresh arugula and drsesing on the fatty, carby goodness is a great combination.

vegetarian feasts

Lula doesn't approve of a vegetarian lifestyle, but digs e-commerce

I like cooking, but I don't always use recipes or cookbooks, so many times the ingredients and directions on this blog are approximations.
I was thinking about how I enjoy vegetarian cooking, because I see it as a challenge. I eat meats, but Blokey does not, so cooking vegetarian is about getting a good balance of flavors without resorting to sugar, fat or oversalting the ingredients (also known as the American processed food sucker punch).

The thing about veggie food is you need non-meat, non-uber processed substitutions for the savoriness meat provies. This can be olives, sauteed mushrooms, carmelized onions (carmelization in general is a great flavor booster), a small amount of strong cheese/dairy (stinkier the better, use a microplaner/zester to avoid too much fat), soy sauce, browned bread, and sour flavors (lemon or a good vinegar help to bring out flavors without too much salt). A little heat also helps.

This meal is great because it incorporates a lot of these flavor enhancers and avoids the usual short cuts. The pita is lightly browned, the soup and pate uses faux carmelized onions, vinegar and sour vegetables. I add no sugar, there's not too much fat, little salt, and lots of fiber and greens. I used up some of the ingredients leftover from our winter CSA share: potatoes, leeks, salad greens (from the hothouse), as well as some out of season stuff that I wish we could get locally year round (but I am unwilling to move to a temperate climate to do so). I used buttermilk, which is getting to be a favorite ingredient of mine (it is less than $2 at the store, you guys!), which is healthful because it is cultured, which has a lot of benefits. You can substitute regular milk or plain yogurt (or a mixture of this) if you don't usually have buttermilk on hand. I also made some lentil pate, which I riff off of the one I used to buy the Wedge co-op in Minneapolis (minus the walnuts).

This meal also marks the return of the Kitchen Aid immersion blender, which I mangled my hand in about 2 weeks ago. It is healing relatively nicely.

I used this recipe for the pita, although I added a bit more olive oil this time.

These mofos puffed up nicely

Before cooking, I sauteed 1 1/2 large chopped onions and 4 or so chopped cloves of garlic in 2 Tbs of butter (and added water as necessary) over low-medium heat for about 15 minutes (and continued to stir ocassionally while copping other things).

looks pukey, tastes bitter-lovely

Salad greens and Arugula potato leek Soup (roughly adapted from here)
Ingredients:
about 1/2 of the carmelized onions
about 1/2 of a bag of wild arugla (approx 4 oz.)
handful of salad greens (mine had mustard greens in it)
2/3 c. of buttermilk
2-3 chopped and scrubbed potatoes
2 teas. of olive oil
2 leeks (the white and light green parts- I eat lot of it), well washed and sliced (I slice lengthwise once, and then chop into 1 cm long bits)
salt, pepper and paprika to taste
3 c. of water
handful of chopped parsley, washed (optional)

Method:
1) Sautee the leeks in olive oil over medium heat in a medium saucepan. While this is cooking (about 5 minutes) roughly chop the salad greens. Add potatoes and the quasi carmelized onions.
2) After another 2-3 minutes of sauting the potatoes, add the water and increase the heat to a boil. Lower to a simmer and cook for about 15 minutes (until potato can be pierced with fork, but before it gets mushy)
3) Add the salad greens and argula. Add buttermilk (it will curdle a bit and then turn into crazy delicious fresh cheese. Don't worry, we'll blend out the lumps). Simmer another 10 minutes.
4) Use the immersion blender to make it fairly creamy and get rid of most of the potato lumps. Salt, pepper, and add paprika and parlsey to taste.

lentil-licious

Lentil Pate
Ingredients:
the other half of the onions/garlic mixture
about 1 1/2 c. of dry lentils
bay leaf
5-8 baby bella mushrooms
olive oil
1/4 c. of roughly chopped and washed parsley
1 Tbs. of dried oregano
1-2 Tbs. of olive tapenade
salt, pepper, and cayenne to taste
lemon juice

Method
1. Cook lentils with bay leaf. You can do this as you're starting the process for the soup. They take about 20 minutes. During this time, saute the mushrooms in about 2 teas. of olive oil (and season), and set aside. Drain and remove bay leaf.
2. Put lentils and the onions/garlic, parsley, mushroom, and oregano. Pulse until it is smooth.
3. Season with salt, peppers, and lemon juice. Add the olive tapenade about 1 Tbs. at a time (I only used one). This adds a great oomph to the pate.
4. Serve cold or room temperature. Yummy with pita, crackers, or veggie crudites.

Blokey liked his arugula soup with a wee bit of sheep's milk feta swimming on top

New Year's Dinner, take two

Since I was too mangled too make a spinach pie on what was left of New Year's Eve, we made the spinach pie on New Year's Day, which I thought wasn't a bad deal.
I've tried many versions of spinach and cheese over the years. Delis in midtown west around my work serve alot of spanikopita, which requires buttery, flaky layers of phyllo. Tasty but complicated, fussy, and kinda price to DIY. Plus, blokey doesn't care for it. I've made regular pie crusts (doubled), and soda bread style whole wheat crusts. For this recipe, I used the leftover pita dough (half of the recipe) as the crust, and it came out as something between a pizza, a calzone, and a galette/tart. It was good, and I mostly fudged the recipe.
LeftyCook's 2010 Spinach pie
Ingredients:
1 standard supermarket bag of baby spinach from that organicky brand (or two washed, rinsed, chopped heads of spinach)
1/2 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
6-8 baby bella mushrooms (optional),
1 Tbsp of butter
1/4 c. of walnuts, crushed (for crunch, also totally optional)
salt
pepper
Hungarian paprika
3 oz. of feta cheese
1 egg
1/2 of the mostly whole wheat pita dough (see previous post)

cook off, liquid!

Method:
Preheat oven to 375
1. Saute onions and garlic in butter over medium heat, until fragant and soft/translucent. Add the mushrooms. If it seems dry, add more butter. Cook, stirring occassionally, until mushrooms begin to give off liquid.
2. Add the spinach. This will start to wilt and also give off liquid. The key to this recipe is you want to cook of as much liquid in the pan so it doesn't soggy up your pie. Ick.
3. After the liquid is mostly cooked off, add salt, pepper and paprika to taste.
4. Beat the egg in a small bowl. Add most of it to the spinach mixture, but not all of it or it will get all sogg again.
5. Divide the dough into 2 balls. Roll out until relatively thin but not breaking
6. This gets difficult. Spoon about half the spinach mixture into each dough circle. Then try to close it. As this fails, do the best you can to make a crush or galette type encirclement on top.
7. Bake about 20-30 minutes at 375 degrees or until the mixture is set.
Serve with a tomato salad (chopped cherry tomatoes, chopped parsley, olive oil, lemon and salt), some olives, and cucumber/yogurt sauce (see previous post)

rollin' out the dough

more like a chicago-style deep dish spinach pie

this one is more like a rustic gallette spinach pie

mental break

Ah, the agony of the manuscript process. I know that I am a lucky girl to even be at this stage, but it's still a slog of a process.
I have been cooking a bit (and plan to make a huge mess of rice and mung beans tonight to get me through a long weekend of compulsive writing, only to be broken up with an acupuncture visit- yeah, I'm one of those Brooklynites, it seems). Here is my impromptu Monday dinner, Mondays being one of those evenings when my commute brings me to my grimy door at 9PM, starving with a voice cracking from 4 hours of shouting about political science to very bored NYC kids (bless them).


"Quick and Cheap" Untenured Professor's Green Fettuccine Faux-Carbonara
(30 minutes prep?)
would serve 2, but I ate it all, again

1/2 pack of Rice noodles (I used fettuccine, you can use whole wheat too)
2 cloves of garlic, minced
2 zucchinis, slices and cut in half (thin half moons)
5 baby bella mushrooms, chopped
2 handfuls of roughly chopped arugula
2 Tbs of chopped fresh parlsey
1 egg
2 anchovy fillets, chopped into little bits (will make the cat sniff you afterwards)
salt, pepper to taste
juice of one lemon
Hungarian Paprika (optional)
2 Tbs of pesto sauce (I made some with my farmer's market bounty weeks ago, but I guess the store bought kind is OK, no soybean oil)
Olive oil (1 1/2 Tbs?)

Directions
1. Boil the pasta according to directions
2. In a bigger pan, over medium heat, cook the garlic, about 2 minutes. Add the zuccini and cook (this will take about 10 minutes- you can chop other things during this time). Add the mushrooms after 5 minutes (they take less time).
3. Beat the egg in a small bowl. Add the pesto and parsley. Maybe add some water. Beat together.
4. Drain the done pasta. Add the anchovy bits to the finished zucchini, then add the pasta and arugula. Mix with one of those pasta sporks (if this is hard, add a little olive oil). Be sure that it's not on the heat anymore, but everything should still be hot.
5. The fun part- quickly add the egg/pesto sauce in the hot mixed up pasta/zucchini mixture. It should pretty quickly "cook" and make everything kinda sticky.
6. Add salt, pepper and lemon juice to taste. You could garnish with cheese but I didn't have any. I threw on some Hungarian Paprika at the end, to give it more color.

The cat, my legs, and very full belly

Late night, early semester comfort foods

Augh, I got sick the first week of the semester! But never fear, Professah of Love will be bounding back in no time. Even though I've been teaching for a while and I know that the first week is not challenging in terms of preparation (once the syllabus is off to the presses), I still feel a pit of nervous, excited anxiety that knots me up inside the week prior to the beginning. Now its over (I only teach 2 days a week) and I have some time off because of Labor Day (thank you, early American trade unionists) to recover.
After returning home from midtown, I slept from 6 until late, and woke up around 9, heavy headed and weak. I finally pulled myself together around 2, rooted around our CSA offerings and pantry, and whipped up the following: (sorry no pics)

"Sickey from the beginning of a New Semester" Faux-Italian Quinoa Salad
(feeds 2 people for dinner, and maybe some left overs for lunch)
Ingredients:

• 1 c. of quinoa (rinsed)
• 2 summer squashes/zuccinis, finely sliced
• 1 c. baby bella mushrooms
  
• fresh greens (parlsey, spinach, or arugula)
• 1 c of cherry tomatoes (or 1 tomato, diced); alternatively- one chopped and seeded red bell pepper
• olive oil/butter
• 2 Tbs pesto (or 1 Tbs of tomato paste)
  
• salt to taste
  
• juice of one lemon (optional)
  
• 1/2 c. mozzerella or pecorino cheese (optional)

Directions:
Prepare quinoa according to directions (usually, boil in double the volume of water, turn to simmer until the water is absorbed). In the meantime, sautee the squash (in a large-ish frying pan) in olive oil over medium heat. Salt to taste. Set aside and sautee mushrooms in butter until soft and brown. Salt to taste. Chop up greens and tomatoes. When the quinoa is done cooking, add it to the frying pan with the cooked mushrooms and squash. Add the 2 of pesto, and mix it all up. Finally, add the tomatos and arugula. Salt and add cheese to taste.

Late May/ Early June food adventures and failures

Apologies for the gaps in updates. The middle of May since now has been a period of transition. My cat has moved in with me, and the blokey is visiting, so I've been trying to impress with culinary delights, but mostly I've been learning the extent of his patience. And I finished teaching those three classes and only have some grade complaints (always with these B+ students wanting As).

First a few of my "experiments"

Exhibit A: Asparagus Quiche of Good Intentions:
Why yes, the arugula and tomato salad with homemade vinagarette dressing is colorful and lovely. (method: wild rocket salad from Trader Joes, add quartered tomatoes, toss with about 1 1/2 Tbs of Olive Oil, 1 Tbs of Balsamic Vinagarette, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/4 teas of pepper, some dried oregano). This is my summer go-to salad. It's even cheaper at the farmer's market stand at the Greenmarkets all over NY, but there hours are more limited.
But the quiche was a mistake. First, I tried to make my own "crust" following Betty Crocker's olive oil "pat in the pastry" single pie crust.
Ingredients
1& ½ cups, plus 3 tablespoons all purpose flour
1 tablespoon sugar
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup vegetable oil
3 tablespoons cold milk

Instructions
Place flour, sugar and salt in a pie pan. Mix with fork until blended. In another bowl, add the vegetable oil and milk. Beat with a fork until creamy. Pour oil mixture over the flour mixture. Mix with the fork until moistened. With your fingers, pat the dough across the bottom and up the sides of the pie pan.

For the quice, I looked a bunch of recipes online. I mixed 5 eggs, 1/2 yogurt, 1/3 cup shredded romano cheese, sauteed onions, 12 oven roasted asparagus, 1 handful of wilted arugula, mixed it, layered some mozzerella slices on top, baked it at 425 for about 45 minutes. I expected a quivering, carmelized delicious pie, but it came out with a spongey, goopey mess. That blokey ate with no complaints, making some enthusiastic food noises along the way (bless him).
Lesson learned:
Quiches require real cream, and lots of cheese for substance (like 1 cup)
Less is more in terms of ingredients (you get a soggy quiche if you overdo the ingredients)
Simple arugula salad will cover up almost all salad woes.

Ginger-garlic kale

Serves: 2-4 as a side dish (one if you're starving and desiring a large, leafy snack)
Time: about 15-20 minutes

This is a really simple, quick side that you can make after endless days of cheese on carb type lunch and dinners (oh but its so good). It goes well with brown rice and a can a chickpeas mixed in. I ate it for my later lunch and stunk up the whole apartment, but those kids like me for my body, not my cooking smells.
Kale is cheap, great for you, chock full of iron, vitamin C, and fiber (every [former] grad student's friend. You can stir fry it, you can crisp it in the oven (like chips), you can boil it to a mushy death (OK, it's not that bad), put it in curries, etc. Versatile but if you haven't tried it yet, I highly recommend. I tried to woo the Fella early in our relationship by serving him my version of a North African style soup with kale from FatFree Vegan Kitchen.

(this was very fresh on Saturday)

Ingredients:
2-4 cloves garlic (minced)
bunch of kale (pick crisp and bright green leaves, with no wilting or soggy bits)
1" gingerroot, minced
soy sauce (about 1 Tbs)
sesame oil (about 1 Tbs)
olive oil
lemon juice (optional)
toasted almonds (optional)
sesame seeds (optional)
pepper (cayenne or black) also optional

(sometimes my ginger root dies a slow death in our fridge)

Wash and break kale into bite sized pieces. They recommend that you remove the ribs, but I am too lazy to do that well. Since the leave if curly, I suggest that you wash it in a big pan first to get the dirt to sink to the bottom and then transfer to the colander.

Add about 2" of water to a large pot. Set to high heat until it simmers, lower heat, and add kale. Cover and cook about 5 minutes, and then drain.
While this is cooking, add olive oil to a large pan over medium heat, add garlic and ginger and let brown. When this is sufficiently fragrant, add the partially cooked kale and stir over the ginger and garlic. Add soy sauce and sesame oil, stirring to coat the leaves. Taste and add more as per you preference. Season with pepper and lemon juice (if you want some acidity, but I didn't use it this time). Spring sesame seeds or almond slivers on top. Serve, eat, and feel redemption for your many nutritional errors.