December 4, 2014

Edible Greens to go with the Holiday Decorations

I know it is the time to deck the halls and fill our homes with living greenery. Though they smell and look great, these are not good to eat.  I would like to discuss some edible greens today.  These might be ones that grow where it is still warm, where folks mean it when they sing of a white Christmas.  For those of us who actually live with the white stuff, however, we must either pick our greens from our storage bins, or head to the store.  Fresh is good, but frozen is also fine.  Foods that are frozen at the store were picked at the height of their goodness and then quickly frozen to lock in the nutrients.  They may actually have more nutrition than the fresh veggies that traveled for several days to get to your store. 

The rule generally is, “The darker the green, the more concentrated the vitamins,” but not always.  For instance, celery is chock full of vitamins and minerals.  Cabbage too has antioxidants and other goodies for our bodies.  It is a good source of fiber, folate, and Vitamin K.  Kale and Spinach are great sources for Vitamins A, C and K, and folate as well as calcium and magnesium. 

A good way to prepare these vegetables is to make coleslaw.  Chop up the cabbage, carrots and greens finely.  Mix a healthy dressing and pour it over the vegetables and enjoy.  Here are two recipes that are easy to make and delicious to eat.

The first recipe is as basic as coleslaw can be.  The second one is fancier, but still easy to make. I was specifically asked to bring it to our Thanksgiving meal.   The beautiful thing about these recipes is that there isn’t a need for a high-fat creamy dressing.  Try these this winter to add some crunch to your meal. 

Cranberry Walnut Coleslaw

(from the Cooking Matters cookbook)

Ingredients:

            1 pound of cabbage, either green or purple

            3 medium carrots

            1 cup walnuts

            1/3 cup cider vinegar

            ¼ cup vegetable oil

            1 TBSP sugar

            1 tsp. celery seed

            ¼ tsp. salt

            1 cup dried cranberries or Craisins

Directions:

            Rinse and thinly slice cabbage.  Rinse, peel and grate or thinly slice carrots.

            Chop walnuts

            In a large bowl, whisk together cider vinegar, oil, sugar, celery seed and salt.              

           Add other ingredients and mix well.  Serve immediately or up to 1 day later.

Cashew-Spinach Coleslaw

Ingredients:

            1 (16 oz.) coleslaw or broccoli slaw mix (this is an easy way to get broccoli in                                                people who claim not to like it)

            3-4 oz. fresh spinach leaves or baby kale

            2 carrots cut into skinny carrot sticks, about 3 inches long

            ¼ cup sugar

            ½ tsp ground ginger

            ¼ tsp salt (optional)

            ¼ tsp ground black pepper

            ¼ cup rice vinegar

            3 tbsp roasted or toasted sesame oil

            3 tbsp soy sauce*

            ¾ cup roasted cashews or almonds

            ¼ cup raw sunflower seeds

* For those who cannot eat gluten, in place of soy sauce, use tamari.  It is gluten-free and can be found in the Asian department of most supermarkets.

Directions:

           

1.     Empty the package into a large mixing bowl or ziplock bag.

2.     Remove thick stems from spinach.  Roll a handful of spinach leaves into a tight mound on cutting surface.  Chop the spinach/kaleinto thin strips and add it to the coleslaw mix.  Continue until all of the spinach/kale is thinly sliced, or shredded.

3.     In another jar, mix the sugar, ginger, salt, pepper, vinegar, oil and soy sauce.  Whisk to mix thoroughly. 

4.     Pour the dressing over the salad and allow the flavors to mingle and mellow for at least an hour.  This can even be made a day in advance.

5.     Just before serving, add nuts and seeds and toss to combine.

           

It's time to learn some French!

As Mom talks about coleslaw, I will be talking about some of the knife cuts used in the components.

First we have what is called Chiffinade. To make this knife cut, you need a leaf of some kind, like kale. You then will roll this up from tip to tail so that it looks like a sushi roll. You will then take your chef’s knife and make very small cuts running from one end to the other of this roll. You will know when you got it right when after it’s unrolled, it becomes a series of strips.

The other main knife cut is called a Fine Julianne. This cut looks like a pretzel stick when done. What one does is they take the carrot, first peeling and cutting both ends off.  Then cut it into sections about 2inches long.  Next, you take your knife and cut the carrot section into planks about 1/4 inch thick. A good way to get this size every time is to use a mandolin. After the carrot is in planks, stack 3-4 planks high and make a cut lengthwise 1/4inch wide. There is your Julianne, also known as skinny carrot sticks.

Happy holidays to everyone!

Viki and Devin

Tomato Sauce and Spagetti Cake

Tomato Sauce and Spagetti Cake

Tomato Sauce:

This is one of the five mother sauces that I talked about last time.  It is an extremely easy sauce to make and one that is recognized by everyone.

To make a good tomato sauce, I like to use the freshest tomatoes I can, as this provides the best flavor possible. However, if it is winter or tomatoes are not in season, canned tomatoes will do just fine. The sauce that I like to make contains roasted tomatoes, tomato paste, and tomato juice as the main ingredients. This sauce is the one that I have made at school.

Roasted Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

·       Olive oil, as needed

·       1 Tbsp. minced garlic

·       2 Tbsp. minced Shallots or onion

·       ¼ cup tomato paste

·       3 cups roasted tomatoes, skinned

·       1½ cup tomato juice

·       2 Tbsp. basil, sliced thinly

·       2 tsp. dried oregano

·       Pinch of sugar

·       Salt and pepper, as needed

Directions

1.     Heat the olive oil and sweat the shallots/onion and garlic, then add tomato paste and caramelize

2.     Add the roasted tomatoes and tomato juice; simmer for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Make sure that the sauce does not burn.

3.     Puree the mixture

4.     Add salt and pepper to enhance the flavor, garnish with the basil

Shallots are an expensive and hard to find item in a store. If you don’t want to spend the extra money, you can just use an onion instead. Shallots look like a mini onion and have a just stronger flavor.

I wanted to make a recipe of “Spagetti Cake” using the tomato sauce, but I admit that it was hard to prevent my kids from eating the cooked noodles before they had been put into the cake.  It took several tries on my part.  However, I eventually prevailed and now I would like to share this easy and possibly elegant rendition of “Noodles with Red Sauce,” as it is called in my house.

Spagetti Cake (inspired by Susie Fishbein)

Ingredients:

1 16 oz. box of spagetti, thin spagetti or other long noodle

2/3 cup Parmesan cheese

1 cup (8 oz.) ricotta cheese

4 eggs

1 tsp. each dried basil and oregano

½ tsp. each garlic powder and onion powder or use 1 tsp. dried, minced onions

½ tsp. salt

3-4 cups freshly made tomato sauce or 1 26-oz jar of sauce

8 oz. shredded mozzarella cheese

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 F.  Cover the bottom of the pan with parchment paper. Spray the sides and bottom of spring form pan with nonstick cooking spray. 

Cook the noodles according to directions, but a tiny bit underdone. Drain the noodles and put back into the cooking pot (do not store in fridge overnight as I did or they may be eaten before you get any further!)  

Mix in all of the ingredients above. 

Place into spring form pan and press gently on top to remove air pockets.

Bake, covered for 30 minutes.

Remove from oven, remove top and cool for 10 minutes.  Slide knife gently around the edges of the pan and release the sides slowly.

Turn upside down on extra plate and remove the parchment paper.  Flip cake again.

Serve with a spatula, just as you would a “regular” cake.

Out of the oven in the spring form pan

Ready to flip, sitting on metal bottom

Enjoy!  

Devin and Viki

  Let the cake cool for about 10 minutes before running a knife around the edges carefully and releasing the side of the springform pan.

Then flip the cake onto an extra plate to remove the bottom of the pan and the parchment paper.  Flip again onto your plate of choice and you are ready to serve!

October 22, 2014

Sauces for all of us

This has been an especially busy week for the two of us.  I was out of town for a couple of days and then had to stage a huge exhibit on Wednesday.  Devin is studying for his next final, coming up next week.  But in spite of the pace of our lives, the kitchen remains the heart of our home.  Sometimes I think that is amazing and then I remember that everyone has to eat... every day.  And then it makes more sense! 

     This week’s topic is sauces.  Devin is studying them in his class.  He discusses the five “mother sauces” in the details that chefs use.  I want to discuss the idea that sauces are easy to make and that a good sauce can transform a mediocre dish into a terrific one.  Many bottled sauces have extra ingredients in them to keep them shelf-stable and extend their lives, or to cut down on costs.  But with a few ingredients, it is amazing what wonderful sauces we can conjure up.  Like fresh applesauce, it tastes so much better than store-bought!

     

     There are five sauces out there that all other sauces come from; these are called the Mother or Grand sauces. These five sauces are hollandaise, béchamel, velouté, tomato sauce and Espagnole. Most professionally trained chefs know how to make these and they are very easy to make at home for the home cook. Here is a short explanation of how to make them and their ingredients:

     

     With the Hollandaise, all one does is make a reduction of wine, vinegar and peppercorns, then whip in egg yolks a little at a time until the eggs look like ribbons. After that, drizzle melted butter or oil into the sauce while whipping it to emulsify the sauce.

    

      Béchamel and Velouté are known as white sauces because they are created when roux is added to thicken them.   Béchamel is basically just warm milk thickened with a mixture of flour and butter called roux. Velouté is made by adding roux to warm stock and whisking them together.

     Tomato sauce is a little harder but not much. Start by roasting off tomatoes, and then add some tomato juice, shallots and garlic. Bring this to a simmer, let it reduce a little and puree the mixture.

     Espagnole is just like Velouté except there are some tomatoes and a mixture of vegetables called mireproix (50%onion, 25%carrot, 25%celery). Start by sautéing the mireproix, and then add tomatoes. After this, add the stock and thicken with roux. Let this simmer for about 45 minutes and its done.

     These five sauces are basic sauces that anyone can make. All that one needs is some time and a willingness to learn. From these sauces, you can make almost every other sauce. So the next time you’re in a restaurant, think about how easy it would be to make the sauce on your plate.  

     Today there are two simple but elegant recipes posted.  First, I am including a recipe for homemade Alfredo sauce because it is incredibly easy and because, with homemade ingredients, it is tastier and costs much less than the store-bought variety.  It is related to Bechamel sauce but my recipe doesn’t have flour in it.  I use Alfredo on noodles, on pizza crust, on rice.  It could be used over fish or chicken too. This has half of the butter that most Alfredo sauces have, so you are ahead of the game already.   If this was made with freshly grated Parmesan, you might want to lick the pot when you are done  :) 

  Quick Alfredo Sauce  (Lowfat)

Ingredients:

1/4 cup butter (1 stick)

1 pkg. cream cheese or Neufchatel Cheese (lowfat cream cheese)

2 tsp. garlic powder

2 cups milk

6 oz. grated Parmesan cheese

1/8 tsp. ground black pepper

Directions:

Melt butter in saucepan over medium heat.  Add cream cheese and stir with a whisk until melted and smooth.  Add milk and garlic powder.  Keep on mixing!  Stir in Parmesan slowly as you mix, and then add the pepper.  The sauce will slowly get thicker as it heats up.  Stir often until at desired thickness.  Then remove from heat. 

Notes:

That’s it!  Pour over whatever else you were making it to go with. 

I have made this with all non-dairy ingredients and it is also good.  My favorite is with lowfat coconut milk and non-dairy cream cheese.  There is also non-dairy Parmesan style cheese available too. 

*****

Below is one of the family favorites that highlights this wonderful sauce.  There aren’t any leftovers when this is served and it is easy to make.  It is also fancy enough to serve to guests.

Spinach Linguine Alfredo with Walnuts

Ingredients:

1 pound linguini noodles (use whole wheat or spinach ones if you can find them)

2 cups walnuts, chopped

1 cup fresh spinach leaves, chopped into bite sized pieces

1 recipe Alfredo sauce, above, already made

Extra Parmesan cheese to sprinkle on top, (optional)

Directions:         

1.     Cook the pasta as directed on the package. Do not overcook.   Drain and keep warm.

2.     While the pasta is cooking, spread walnuts on a parchment-lined baking sheet and toast for about 8 minutes at 350 degrees F.    Pay attention so they don’t burn!

3.     Add the chopped spinach leaves to the Alfredo sauce and mix them in. 

4.     Pour sauce over the cooked noodles and combine all ingredients. Don’t worry if it seems like there is too much sauce at first.  The noodles will soak it up.

5.     Add 1½ cups of chopped walnuts to the noodle mixture and combine.

6.     Serve pasta on plates and add some of the remaining chopped walnuts on top.  Add a bit of Parmesan if desired.

Devin and I hope that your week is filled with goodness from your kitchen.  If you have ideas about how to make any of our recipes better or how you used the recipes that we offer here, let us know.

Viki and Devin