Spanish Tortilla

We love Spanish food. We love a dinner of tapas – many small plates of various types of dishes. It’s a great way to eat because you get a lot of variety and you can have as little or as much as you want. We went to Madrid many years ago and it was one of our favorite vacations. There is nothing better than sitting in a little bar with gorgeously tiled walls and eating tapas and drinking Spanish wine. Tapas are great for summer because many of them are served cold or room temperature, so you can have a great dinner without slaving in a hot kitchen. A tortilla (pronounced tor-tee-ja in Spain) is a staple of Spanish cuisine. From Schulman’s Mediterranean Harvest.

• 3/4 lb of Yukon gold or russet potatoes, peeled and quartered
• Salt
• 2-3 tablespoons of olive oil
• 1 medium onion, chopped fine
• Fresh ground pepper
• 6 eggs
• 1 teaspoon of dried parsley

Put the potatoes in a medium saucepan and cover with water. Add 1 teaspoon of salt and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium and boil gently, partially covered, until tender, approx 20-30 minutes. Drain and return the potatoes to the pot and cover while you prepare the remaining ingredients.

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Heat of 1 or 2 tablespoons of oil in an oven-proof skillet, over medium heat. Add the onion and cook until translucent and tender, about 5 minutes. Remove the onion from the pan with a slotted spoon and transfer them to a bowl. Do not clean the skillet.

Mash the potatoes with a ricer or food mill. Add them to the bowl of onions. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Add a tablespoon of oil to the skillet and heat on medium-high. Beat the eggs with 1/2 teaspoon of salt and pepper. Stir in the potato and onion mixture, and the parsley, then scrape into the skillet. Shake the pan gently while you lift the edges as the eggs set. When the bottom of the tortilla has set, place the pan in the oven. Bake for 20-25 minutes until the tortilla is cooked through and a little puffed. Remove from the oven and allow to sit for a few minutes before sliding onto a serving dish. Serve hot or at room temperature.

 

Lemon-Braised Artichokes

I have to be honest and tell you that we weren’t crazy about this one. The problem is the whole artichokes. I’m a lazy cook and an even lazier eater. Whole artichokes are just too much work and not enough pay-off for me. That said, this was an easy recipe and we loved the sauce. Next time I will make the sauce and use it to cook artichoke hearts instead of the whole artichoke. From Real Simple magazine, May 2008.

• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
• 8 sprigs of thyme
• 4 cloves of garlic, minced
• 2 medium artichokes
• Salt and pepper

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. In a large, oven-safe pot, combine the oil, lemon juice, thyme, garlic, 1/2 cup water, 1 1/2 teaspoons salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Trim the top and bottom of each artichoke, then snip off the tip of each leaf with scissors. Cut the artichokes into quarters and then scoop out the fuzzy chokes. Toss the artichokes in the oil mixture. Cover, and cook in oven for about 45 minutes. Spoon cooking liquid over the top of the chokes when serving.

Broiled Cherry Tomatoes

This is one of our all-time favorites. It’s sooo easy and healthy. Mark would never eat cherry tomatoes until I used this recipe (he had some childhood incident involving cherry tomatoes and wasps – I’ve heard the story more than once, but the details are still hazy). I use a combination of herbs straight from my herb garden. The recipe is from Bittman’s How To Cook Everything Vegetarian.

• 1 lb cherry tomatoes
• 2 or 3 sprigs of fresh basil, oregano, thyme, rosemary, or tarragon
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• salt and fresh ground pepper

Preheat the broiler and put the top rack 4 inches from the heat source. Toss the tomatoes with the oil, herbs, salt and pepper. Spread them out on a rimmed baking sheet or a gratin dish. Broil until the skins blister and crack – 3 to 5 minutes. Check the tomatoes and shake the pan occasionally, they can burn easily, so keep a close eye on them. Serve hot from the broiler.

Crostini with White Bean Spread

This is an easy appetizer or healthy snack — you could also use it as a dip for veggies. This recipe makes 3 cups, but it’s easy to make a smaller batch, just use 1/2 of every ingredient listed. From Schulmans’s Mediterranean Harvest.

• 2 cloves of garlic
• Salt
• 4 tablespoons of olive oil
• 2 cans of white beans drained and rinsed
• 1/4 cup milk
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• Freshly ground pepper
• 1 tablespoons of chopped, fresh rosemary or sage
• Crostini – French bread sliced and toasted, toasted pita bread, or crudite veggies

Mince the garlic then mash it in a small bowl with 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Puree the beans and garlic mixture in a food processor. With the machine running, add the remaining olive oil, milk, and lemon juice, Add pepper to taste and season with more salt if neccessary. The beans will be the consistency of hummus. If it’s too thick, you can add a little more milk.

Spread on crostini and sprinkle with the fresh herbs.

Conchiglie and Baby Broccoli

This is an excellent and easy pasta dish. The recipe is adapted from Schulman’s Mediterranean Harvest. The original recipe called for orecchiette and broccoli rabe, but Whole Foods didn’t have either, so I substituted the conchiglie and baby broccoli. You could use any shell-type pasta and any other greens – kale, chard, turnip or mustard greens. The baby broccoli looked good that day and I haven’t used it in awhile.

• 1 lb of greens
• salt
• 2 tablespoons of olive oil
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon of red pepper flakes
• 3/4 lb of shell pasta
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan

Trim stems of greens, if necessary and wash. Bring a large pot of water to boil. Add some salt and the greens. Cook until tender (times vary depending on the greens you are using) approx 2-4 minutes. Transfer to a bowl of cold water and let sit for a few minutes, then drain. Squeeze out water and chop the greens.

Bring a large pot of water to boil for the pasta. Cook until al dente then drain. While the pasta is cooking, heat the oil in a pan over medium heat. Add the garlic and red pepper flakes. Cook 30 seconds to one minute, until garlic is fragrant, and then add the greens. Toss for a minute and season with salt, then remove from heat and keep warm.

After pasta is cooked and drained, toss it with the greens and the cheese.

 

Chickpeas and Yellow Split Peas plus Spinach Saag

I’ve been in an Indian mood lately. Probably because I’m reading this book called Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra. It’s about 1000 pages long and I’m just about at the halfway point. So I’ll be craving Indian food and using the Madhur Jaffrey cookbook for a few more months, but this week it’s back to the Mediterranean – I’ve been missing pasta.

Chickpeas and Channa Dal in Mint Sauce – I didn’t have enough mint for this recipe. I’m growing mint but I knew I wouldn’t have enough, and Whole Foods was out of mint, so I had to use what I could pick off from my little plant – 1/2 cup of packed leaves, not a full cup. So it wasn’t a minty sauce, but it was really good – I think the tamarind paste gives it a great flavor. This calls for green chillies, but it’s not spicy – I removed all the seeds from them which takes away the heat factor, but you have to be really careful with those little seeds!

• 1 1/2 cups dried chickpeas
• 3/4 cup yellow split peas
• 1 tablespoon chopped garlic
• 1 tablespoon chopped ginger
• 3 green chillies, chopped
• 1 cup mint leaves, packed, washed and chopped
• 1/4 cup canola oil
• 2 onions, chopped
• 4 oz chopped tomatoes
• 2 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons coriander
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon garam masala
• 3 tablespoons tamarind paste

Cook the chickpeas. I just bought a pressure cooker and it works very fast for cooking beans. I soaked the chickpeas for 4 hours and then pressure cooked them for 3 minutes and they were done perfectly. You can’t cook split peas in the pressure cooker, for some reason, so I cooked those on the stove and then proceeded with the following:

Combine the garlic, ginger, green chillies, and mint in a blender. Add 6-8 tablespoons of water, as needed, and blend until pureed. Set aside.

Heat the oil in a pot over medium heat. Add the onions and fry until cooked. Add the tomatoes until they break up and darken. Add the blended spice paste and cook, stirring for 5 minutes. Add the chickpeas and split peas and some cooking liquid, then sit in the salt, and remaining spices and tamarind paste. Mix thoroughly, cover. lower heat, and simmer for 1/2 hour.

Spinach Saag

• 1/4 cup canola oil
• 1 -2 green chillies
• 1 onion, chopped
• 3 garlic cloves, chopped
• 4 oz tomatoes
• 3 bags of spinach
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon garam masala

Put the oil in a large pot, over medium high heat. When it’s hot, add the chillies, onion, and garlic. Stir and cook until the onions are brown. Add the tomato and cook for 2 minutes. Add the spinach and salt. Allow the spinach to wilt and then add more until all the bags are in the pot. Turn heat down to medium, cover, and cook for 25 minutes. Uncover and add the garam masala and stir. Cook, uncovered another 5 minutes until there is almost no liquid left in the pan – increase the heat if necessary.

 

Chickpeas with Potatoes and Tomatoes

Courtesy of Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone.

• 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 3 red potatoes, peeled and diced to same size as the chickpeas
• 2 carrots, cut into 1/2 rounds
• 1 small dried red chile
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 teaspoon coriander
• 1 cup diced tomatoes (I used canned)
• 3 cups chickpeas, cooked
• Salt and pepper
• 1/2 cup water or chickpea broth
• 1/4 cup chopped cilantro
• 1/2 cup parsley

Heat the oil in a large pot. Add the onion and cook until lightly colored, about 8 minutes. Add the potatoes, carrots, chile, garlic, and coriander and cook 5 minutes more. Add the tomatoes and chickpeas, season with 1 teaspoon of salt and some pepper, and add the water. Cover and simmer gently until the potatoes and carrots are tender – 15 to 20 minutes. Stir in the cilantro and parsley before serving.

Gratin of Root Vegetables

This is from Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. The recipe calls for rutabagas, turnips, and carrots. I bought what I thought were rutabagas and turnips, but what I thought were rutabagas were actually turnips and what I thought were turnips were actually parsnips. Confused? Yeah, me too.  This recipe can use any root vegetables, you like, but carrots are probably a must because they give it a nice color.  Don’t ask me to tell you all the root vegetables you can use – I just looked up “root vegetables” on Wikipedia and there are tons – most I had not even heard of, so just go to the store and pick a couple that look interesting.

Anyway, this turned out really good, except my bechamel sauce was too thick, so next time I will add more milk to get a thinner consistency. Madison’s recipe for Bechamel sauce was very fiddly and involved a double-boiler. I like easy, non-fiddly recipes and I don’t have a double-boiler, so I used Mario Batali’s recipe that I found on the Food Network site. I used my food processor to julienne the vegetables – my first time trying this. They came out a little small, not the long slender pieces I had envisioned, so next time I’ll try using my mandoline. Yes, I have a mandoline but no double-boiler. Really, a mandoline is useful, but what exactly do you use a double-boiler for, except making unnecessarily complicated bechamel sauce?   

Bechamel Sauce (here’s the link to Mario’s )

12 oz of rutabagas, or any root vegetable you like, peeled and julienned

salt and pepper

1 small onion, finely diced

1 T butter

12 oz of turnips, or any root vegetable you like, peeled and julienned

8 oz carrots, peeled and julienned

1 cup fresh bread crumbs

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Oil a 2-quart gratin dish. Prepare the bechamel sauce. If you are using rutabagas, boil them in salted water for 2 minutes and drain. Cook the onion in butter over medium heat for 8 minutes, then combine with the rest of the vegetables. Season with salt and pepper and transfer to gratin dish. Pour the bechamel sauce of the top and cover with bread crumbs. Bake until bubbling and golden on top, about 45 minutes.

Cream of Tomato Soup

Adapted from Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. I tried out my new toy – the food mill on this one but next time I’ll use the blender to give the soup a little more body.

2 1/2 T butter

1 onion, chopped

pinch of ground cloves

2 T flour

2 15 oz cans of diced tomatoes

pinch of baking soda

2 1/2 cups vegetable stock

1 1/2 cups milk

salt and pepper

tomato paste – if needed

Melt the butter in a large pot over medium heat. Add the onion and cloves, cook stirring occasionally until onion is limp. Stir in the flour, then add the tomatoes, baking soda, and stock; bring to a boil. Lower the heat anad simmer, partially covered, for 20 minutes. Let cool, then puree in a blender until smooth. Return soup to pot, add the milk, and season with salt. Add some tomato paste if the flavor is not as rich as you’d like. Reheat and season with pepper before serving.

Why you won’t find any recipes for tofu here

It’s not that I don’t like tofu – it’s pretty good if it’s cooked the right way. I just think that too many vegetarians tend to use tofu as a meat substitute and eat it far too much. I save tofu for eating out, since that’s the likely option for vegetarian dining in a restaurant.

There was an interesting article in the Jan-Feb 2008 issue of Vegetarian Times about soy, (tofu is the whey from soybeans). The general tone of the article was that if you are going to eat tofu, eat it from traditional foods such as edamame or tofu. You should not eat it from fake meats, isolated soy protein, or texturized vegetable protein. I don’t advocate eating processed foods anyway, because you should know what is in your food. You’d be surprised where soy shows up – like Pop Secret Popcorn, according to the article.

I think the safest advice on soy and tofu is eat no more than 10 grams of soy protein a day – the equivalent of 1/2 cup of tofu. That is the average a Japanese adult consumes, and if it’s good enough for them , it’s good enough for me.

Why not pig out on tofu and eat it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner? Some studies show that soy protein can cause the growth of cancer, especially breast cancer. This is because soybeans have a high amount of isoflavone, which is a type of phytoestrogen and are chemically similar to the human hormone estrogen. Phytoestrogens act as human estrogen, and estrogen is one of the main causes of breast cancer. There is a big debate on all this, but I am very cautious when it comes to soy because my mom is a breast cancer survivor. I’m not saying you should eat soy, just be informed and eat it in moderation – something that always seems hard for Americans to do.