Weekly Dish

I started this blog because I wanted a place to write about what I love, a place to record what happens in my kitchen, and a place to share recipes with friends and family and anyone else who might find them useful. Since Josie, it isn’t just that it’s difficult to take the time to write (which it is). It’s that the whole way I cook has changed with a little person around, and I haven’t figured out how to share that process. It’s not necessarily that I cook different kinds of foods; for the most part, Josie eats what we eat, and is happy to do so. It is more about what actually happens during the cooking, a juggling act which involves very little measuring and a good deal of haste; hungry toddlers are grouchy creatures. What that means is that when it’s over each night, I generally have no idea what happened, much less recipe notes or photographs to show for it. If I tried to give you a peek into our kitchen window, most days you’d have to stand on your tiptoes to see over the piles of vegetables, a trail of plastic bowls and cups “washed” by Josie, and the tangle of books, paper, and markers that follow us from room to room. But amidst the mess, cooking is happening every day, which seems like a tiny miracle all by itself.

Corn and tomatoes are farmer’s market staples for our family during the summer months, as I imagine they are for many of you who try to eat seasonally and locally. Sometimes I find myself staring at yet another heaping pile of shiny red globes or tripping over the bag of yet-to-be-shucked corn in the corner of the kitchen wondering how on earth I will ever find a way to use them creatively. To help solve that existential crisis, I’ve been assembling a collection of recipes: a dozen ears of corn and a box of tomatoes (somewhere between 3 and 5 pounds) come home with us every Saturday, and sometimes one or both ingredients will form the center for a whole week’s worth of meals. So I thought I’d share a bit about what some of those meals look like while I remember. With a little extra prep the night before, these dinners are not terribly fancy, but they are economical, fairly easy to make, and the one, unfailing qualification in my kitchen: delicious enough to enjoy for dinner and lunch the next day.

Day One: usually, I try to cook and use the corn as quickly as possible; the farmer I buy it from has picked it the day before, but once harvested, the sugars start to break down, and the corn starts to lose its flavor. (It’s still good after day 3, but best before that). If I want to make a dinner where the main event is the flavor of the corn, that usually happens on Monday. One such recipe that’s all about sweet, fresh corn is a very simple soup.

This recipe is based on Sara Foster’s Summer White Corn Soup. The genius of the recipe is the broth: while you’re preparing everything else, you put a big pot of water on to boil, add the stripped corn cobs, basil stems, onion trimmings, and a palmful of salt. The boiling water leeches out all of the vegetable’s goodness, so that the finished soup tastes of little else but sweet summer corn. I make twice as much as I need for the soup and reserve it for corn and tomato risotto later in the week.

I serve the soup with crusty bread, rubbed with butter and garlic, and a big salad. For company or a special occasion, I like to top the soup with boiled shrimp.

Sweet Summer Corn Soup
–adapted from Sara Foster, Fresh Everyday

6 ears sweet corn, shucked and stripped from the cobs, cobs reserved
1/2 cup milk
1 T. butter
1 T. olive oil
1 sweet onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, chopped
2 small new potatoes, scrubbed and chopped
4 cups corn broth (see method below)
coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
1/2 cup fresh basil leaves, thinly sliced

First, start the broth: in a large stock pot, cover the stripped corn cobs, basil stems, and onion and garlic trimmings with 4 quarts of water. Sprinkle with 2 teaspoons of salt and a couple of grinds of black pepper. Bring to a boil, and then reduce the heat to a simmer. It will reduce quickly, so keep an eye on it; if it reduces by more than half, add more water. You should end up with about 2 quarts of broth.
Meanwhile, put the corn kernels in a small saucepan with the milk. Heat gently over medium heat, just until the milk bubbles and foams. Reduce the heat and simmer for another 5-7 minutes. Set aside to cool.

In a larger saucepan, heat the oil and butter over medium, and add the onion. Cook until very soft and beginning to turn golden, about 15 minutes. Stir in the garlic and cook for another minute or two. Add the chopped potato, 4 cups of broth, and half of the basil. Turn the heat up to medium-high. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, and taste. Add more if it needs it. When it begins to boil, turn it down to a simmer and cook for another 20 or 30 minutes, until the potato is soft enough to mash with a fork.

Next, puree half of the corn-milk mixture in a food processor or blender. Stir the puree into the soup, and add the remaining corn and milk. Salt as needed, and serve with the remaining basil leaves sprinkled on top. The leftover corn broth will keep in the fridge for a week or so, and indefinitely in the freezer.

Did you have black-eyed peas and cabbage for your New Year’s meal? We did — twice, in fact; once, prepared by some friends who invited us over on the actual first, and Thursday too, because I had already bought the fixings for the traditional peas, cabbage, and cornbread.

This might sound strange to those who know me well, as I have never been a lover of either peas or cabbage. I have learned to fix them to my liking, though, mostly because my husband loves them so — the cabbage, I braise with a green apple and red onion, while the peas get a more Tex-Mex treatment: garlic, jalapeno, cumin, and chile powder. Perhaps not as traditional as it could be, but a definite improvement for me and my finicky relationship with both legumes and cruciferous vegetables.

Even if I have learned to like them this way, the whole time I was braising the cabbage and stirring the peas this year, I couldn’t stop thinking about salad. Oh, yes, it was in the twenties outside, frigid for this part of the world, even in January. And I enjoyed my hot meal of cabbage, peas, and cornbread, which we topped with poached eggs, just fine. After it was over, though, I was still thinking about what those ingredients would taste like in salad form, despite the chill in the air.

So salad it was, for dinner last night, a panzanella of sorts, modified with southern ingredients, particularly those considered lucky to eat on the first of the year. The pepper jelly vinaigrette softened the cornbread croutons and jazzed up the cabbage, while the goat cheese melted into the creamy peas in a way I wouldn’t have expected (I’m imagining the peas in dip form, blended with goat cheese…) to make a salad that was surprisingly tasty. In case you have some of these spare parts rumbling around in your fridge, post-New Year’s, here’s a delicious way to use them up. And it just might make you doubly lucky to boot.

New Year’s Cornbread Panzanella with Hot Pepper Jelly Vinaigrette

These proportions will make two dinner-sized salad. If you have a heartier eater on your hands, I think bacon or ham would work well to up the caloric anty; a poached or fried egg would also sit nicely atop this meal.

2 cups cornbread, cut into cubes
Olive oil
1 cup black-eyed peas*, cooked and cooled
1 T. red onion, finely chopped
2 cups green cabbage, sliced into ribbons
1 ounce goat cheese
Hot Pepper Jelly Vinaigrette (recipe follows)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Toss the cornbread cubes with olive oil and toast them in the hot oven for about 20 minutes (or as long as it takes to chop everything else and mix up the dressing).

To assemble: lay the cabbage ribbons in a single layer on two plates. Top each pile of cabbage with cornbread croutons, peas, and red onion. Divide the goat cheese into two equal portions, and crumble it on top of each salad. Drizzle with dressing.

*I used frozen peas that had been cooked in water for about 25 minutes, but I think leftover peas, cooked as you like them, would work too.

Hot Pepper Jelly Vinaigrette

1 clove garlic, minced
3 T. hot pepper jelly
1/4 cup cider vinegar
Squeeze of lemon
1/4 cup olive oil
Salt, to taste

Whisk together the garlic, pepper jelly, vinegar, and lemon. Pour in the oil in a slow steady stream, whisking vigorously until well-incorporated. Salt to your liking.

After my revelatory butternut ravioli, I had half of a roasted squash left to use (the ones at our market this fall have been enormous). I also had some Italian sausage left over, and that combination worked so well that I came up with this very fall pizza. Super-thin, crispy crust worked well with this robust flavor combination, although now I’m thinking that these ingredients would also work well in a calzone. Maybe I’ll try that next week. Like the ravioli, this pizza would be good without the sausage for a vegetarian alternative.

What follows is not so much a recipe as a suggestion; I’m sure there are tons of ways to vary this with good success. Amounts for pizza are always for me a matter of taste — if you love blue cheese, throw on a hefty portion; if you only like it a little at a time, sprinkle less liberally. I could be wrong, but I think it would be difficult to mess this up.

Fall Pizza

Your favorite pizza dough or shell
Half of a large butternut squash, cooked and mashed (I cook it like this)
Olive oil
One or two links Italian sausage, sliced and cooked
Blue cheese, amount to taste
1 ripe pear (I used an Asian one and it was delicious), thinly sliced
A couple of handfuls of arugula leaves, washed and roughly chopped or torn

Preheat the oven to 475 degrees. If you’re working with uncooked dough, rub it with a bit of olive oil and bake it for about 5 minutes. Spread the warm dough with the mashed squash, using olive oil as needed to thin and spread the mixture. Don’t worry if you don’t get an even coat, just try to cover as much surface area as you can. Top with the pear slices next, distributing them evenly. Sprinkle with as much blue cheese as you desire, and then finish with the cooked sausage rounds. Bake the pizza for another 5-8 minutes, until the pears are very soft and the cheese is melted. Cover the hot pizza with chopped arugula; slice, and serve.

I served this pizza with an extra mound of arugula, dressed with olive oil, fresh lemon juice, cracked pepper, Kosher salt, and shavings of Parmesan cheese.

As you know, I have, over the last few months, lost my taste for food. I’m sure for many pregnant women, those who dread cooking or find it difficult, this would not be the end of the world. But, I have to tell you, for a girl who loves to be in the kitchen, relying on peanut butter sandwiches and smoothies for nutrients has not been much fun. I guess I should have relished the break from cooking, as my husband cheerfully took over, but instead, I felt like a big part of my day was missing.

And I didn’t like it one bit.

In the midst of this cooking hiatus, I often scanned my favorite food blogs, searching for inspiration, hoping that something would awaken my nausea-weary tastebuds. For whatever reason (only the hormonal monsters in my body know for sure), one afternoon, a ravioli recipe that I’d bookmarked months and months ago from Chez Megane suddenly sounded good. Nevermind that I didn’t have sweet potatoes or ricotta cheese. I did have a butternut squash, one that had been looking longingly at me from the pantry for several days since I picked it up from the farmer’s market, and I had wonton wrappers. And, miracle of all miracles, I actually had an appetite!

I put on some music and an apron and went to work. I cut the squash in half, smeared it with a bit of butter, molasses, and basalmic vinegar, and popped it into the oven. I harvested the last good leaves of our sad sage bush (which has since gone on to herb heaven, rest in peace), and carefully laid out all the ingredients I would need. I chopped garlic and beat an egg and grated Parmesan cheese. In fact, I decided while I was there, I might as well busy myself until the squash was finished and cool enough to handle. So I baked some bread and made granola.

And, dear reader, I am happy to report that when the ravioli was plated up and ready, I was starving. It tasted like the best meal I’d had in weeks. I know not everyone understands this, but, oh, the pleasure of preparation — of getting my hands dirty and anticipating the way the flavors and textures will taste in my mouth: this is what I’d been missing.

And, ever since I made that discovery, I’ve felt more like myself every day.

Butternut Ravioli with Sage Butter and Italian Sausage

1 1/4 cups of cooked, mashed winter squash
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/8 t. freshly grated nutmeg
About a dozen sage leaves
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese, shredded, plus extra for serving
1 egg plus water
Wonton wrappers or pasta sheets
4 T. butter
1/4 cup pine nuts
1 link Italian sausage, sliced into rounds (you could, of course, leave this out for a vegetarian meal)

In a heavy-bottomed skillet, melt a tablespoon of butter. Saute the garlic over medium-low heat until translucent and very soft. Chop a few of the sage leaves and add them to the skillet. Sprinkle with Kosher salt and saute for another minute or so, until the leaves crisp up a little bit.

In a large bowl, scrape the contents of the skillet in with the mashed squash. Add the Parmesan and nutmeg, and combine well. Set aside.

Now, I am funny about the wonton wrappers: I don’t think they hold up very well unless they’re doubled up. So, I use 4 wrappers per ravioli, brushing one side of a wonton wrapper with egg wash and then laying another wrapper on top of it, pressing to seal. I repeat this process with another pair of wrappers. Then, spoon filling on top of one double sheet, then top with the other double sheet and seal the edges with egg wash. It’s a little extra trouble to do it this way, but I once had a whole batch fall apart in the boiling water with only single sheets, so I prefer to play it safe. (Of course, homemade pasta would be best).

Once the ravioli are assembled, set them aside. Bring a pot of water to boil. Add the ravioli and cook until they float, about 3 or 4 minutes. (You may have to do this in batches). Drain and arrange on plates.

While the ravioli are cooking, brown the sausage in the skillet (the one you cooked the garlic in) until cooked through. Remove with a slotted spoon. Add the butter and cook over medium until it’s just beginning to turn golden. Add the pine nuts and remaining whole sage leaves. Stir and cook until the sage leaves are crispy. Watch carefully so that the butter doesn’t burn. Divide the sauce evenly between the plates of ravioli. Top with the sausage and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese. Serves 2 hungry people for dinner, with a couple of extra ravioli left over.

–Inspired by Megan’s recipe for Sweet Potato Ravioli

A sandwich.

And a menu.

I wish I had more to offer, but school is all-consuming at the moment. I’m hoping things will slow down soon.

The thing that makes these sandwiches special is a seasoned black bean spread that will also double as part of the enchilada filling later in the week. Sweet potato fries make a great side for these hearty sandwiches.

Ham and Black Bean Tortas

For the black beans:
4 slices bacon
2 cloves garlic
1 jalapeno pepper
1 14 1/2-ounce can black beans
1 t. cumin
1 t. chili powder
1 t. seasoned salt
Juice of 1 lime

Cook the bacon in a large skillet. When crispy, remove and set aside. Drain off all but about a teaspoon of the fat, and return the skillet to the heat. Saute the garlic and pepper over medium heat until both are tender, a few minutes. Add the beans and their liquid, and turn the heat down to medium-low. Season with cumin, chili powder, and seasoned salt. As the beans cook and the liquid reduces, mash some of the beans with the back of the spoon. The mixture should become thick and spreadable. Remove from the heat, and stir in the lime juice.

For the sandwiches:
Black bean spread
Reserved bacon
6 slices ham
Havarti cheese, sliced
1 avocado, sliced
Thick, crusty bread

For each sandwich, spread each slice of bread with a nice coating of the black bean mixture. Top with cheese, avocado, ham, and bacon. Heat the sandwich if you wish, and save the remaining black bean mixture for enchiladas, fajitas or quesadillas.

For super-easy enchiladas, mix this black bean mixture with cooked, diced chicken, and a fourth-cup of salsa; divide the filling among 6 warmed flour tortillas; roll them up and arrange them in a baking dish; top with 1/2 cup salsa mixed with 1/4 cup half-and-half or whole milk; shred cheddar or Monterey Jack cheese over the whole dish; and bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes.

–Recipe adapted from Intercourses by Martha Hopkins and Randall Lockridge

This super-fast dinner was inspired by a post by Barbara at Tigers & Strawberries (who just gave birth to a gorgeous baby girl!) about using leftovers for breakfast. I read somewhere recently (and in true mid-semester fashion, can’t remember for the life of me where) that a hash is typically a meal made from leftover potatoes. Which certainly makes sense to anyone who’s every tried to make hash browns with raw potatoes: it can take forever. In light of my recent fascination with using up leftovers, the specifics of this dish were inspired by a ziploc bag full of sweet potatoes roasted the night before and a hankering for breakfast at dinner time (which strikes often, since I love breakfast food, but am not much of a morning cook).

Everything for this meal happens in one skillet, which my clean-up crew appreciates, and the salad greens give this old-fashioned high-fat breakfast more healthful clothing for dinner. I love the way the runny egg yolk becomes part of the dressing; once everything on this plate is all mixed up, each bite is packed with a zingy mixture of flavors. Next time, I’ll use spinach arugula instead of Romaine.

The recipe follows this week’s menu (I need a new dry-erase marker; sorry if it’s hard to read!).

Sweet Potato Hash Salad

4 slices thick bacon
1 cup cooked, chopped sweet potatoes
1 T. Dijon mustard
1 T. cane syrup (honey would also work)
2 T. cider vinegar
Two platefuls of salad greens
2 eggs

Cook bacon slices in a skillet until cooked to desire crispness. Remove and drain off all but about a teaspoon of the fat. Add the sweet potatoes to the skillet, and toss gently, browning as you cook.

Meanwhile, line two plates with the salad greens.

When the potatoes are fairly evenly browned, add the mustard and syrup and stir to mix well. Add the vinegar, stirring constantly, until all ingredients are well-incorporated. Divide the sweet potato mixture between the two plates.

Return the skillet to the heat, and fry two eggs, topping each plate with one of them. Finish each plate with two slices of the reserved bacon.

To eat, mix everything on the plate together thoroughly.

Reheated fish is just not to my liking. The texture is all wrong, and somehow the flavors sharpen unpleasantly in the refrigerator. When I make paneed tilapia, I like to make fish cakes with the leftovers, and cakes would work well with salmon too. But because we’d grilled a whole slab of salmon, I needed something that would last more than just one meal. My guess is that reheated fish cakes wouldn’t be so appetizing either.

So I made salad instead. The combination of salmon, dill, red onion, and capers is a common one, and I added a simple yogurt dressing flavored with lemon and feta cheese. The first night, I served the salad on toasted whole grain bread with rosemary potatoes on the side. For lunch the next day, the salmon salad sat atop a bed of spinach, dressed in a touch of lemon juice and olive oil. Both preparations worked well, and the best part is, once you have leftover salmon, little effort is required to make at least two meals.
Salmon Salad

Juice of 1 lemon
1/4 cup fresh dill, minced plus extra for garnish
*1/2 cup plain yogurt (I used nonfat)
2 ounces feta cheese, crumbled
1/2 t. Kosher salt
Leftover salmon (I used about a pound)
1/4 small red onion, minced
2 T. capers, drained

In the bowl of a food processor, combine the lemon juice, dill, yogurt, feta, and salt. Pulse a few times until well combined. In a large bowl, break up the salmon into chunks. Add the red onion and capers and toss to mix. Add dresssing and mix until the salad is moist enough for your liking. Serve on toasted whole grain bread or mound on a bed of spinach. This recipe made enough for 2 dinner-sized portions and at least 4  lunch portions.

*Note: If you want a thicker dressing, mayonnaise would probably work in place of the yogurt.

My good friend Katherine, who has two small children, said to me the other day, “Hey, I have a great idea for your blog.” I saw David smirk in the background because he says that exact thing to me often, only his ideas are usually quickly dismissed (rarely do they have anything to do with food, at least in any realistic sense, and most often, he’s just trying to be a wise guy. A big surprise, I’m sure, to any of you who caught his carbonara recipe.) He was waiting to see if I responded similarly to my friend.

But Katherine’s suggestion was genuine. She said she’d love to see more recipes that are quick and easy that can also provide for two meals. I’d gotten into the habit of cooking that way in the fall and winter last year — slowly roasting vegetables that could morph into side dish, soup, or pasta sauce; cooking two chickens at once for main dish, stock, chicken salad, and a curry or quesadilla. But summer demands a different kitchen ethic: both because our schedule was a bit more lax and because turning the oven on for more than 20 minutes at a time is out of the question, dinner was usually a one-shot deal. Quick, perhaps, but rarely any leftovers.

But as the weather cools slightly and the days become busier, I find myself, perhaps inspired by Katherine’s suggestion, trying to plan more carefully and think ahead, getting more mileage out of the effort I put into particular dishes.

This salmon is a good example. It isn’t difficult or labor-intensive, but because I cook a whole slab at once, it makes a fabulous main dish one night, and then will crumble up into a yummy salad later in the week, enough for another supper and at least a couple of lunches. On the first night, I slathered it with fresh basil pesto, grilled it, and topped it with a silky tomato-cream sauce and fresh basil. Grilled corn and baby eggplants rounded out the plate.

Look for the salad recipe later on, and don’t forget to grill a few extra ears of corn too. It’s another great leftover food.

Grilled Pesto Salmon with Tomato Cream Sauce

1 whole slab salmon (about 1 1/2 - 2 lbs), or 4 6-ounce steaks
1/2 cup basil pesto
Kosher salt and cracked pepper
2 T. butter
1/2 small onion, chopped (about 1/3 cup)
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 medium tomato, diced
1/4 cup white wine
1 T. heavy cream
Basil leaves, for garnish

Prepare the grill. Rub the salmon on both sides with the pesto (depending on how thick you make your pesto, you may need to add a bit of olive oil); you should have a nice, thin coating of oil and herbs. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Grill the salmon, skin side up, until it’s just translucent in the center (it took ours about 4-6 minutes per side).

Meanwhile, saute the onion and garlic in butter over medium-low heat until soft. Add the tomatoes, and stir to heat. Sprinkle with salt. Turn the heat up to medium-high, and pour in the wine. Stir, cooking for a few minutes, until the vegetables have absorbed some of the wine; stir in the cream. Turn the heat down to low, and keep covered until the salmon is ready.

To serve, cut the salmon into 4 equal portions (if whole), and reserve 2 for salad later in the week. Top the steaks with the tomato sauce and fresh basil leaves.

–Recipe adapted from Come On In! by the Junior League of Jackson, MS 

I love to make quesadillas. I love the idea of making an interesting filling, placing it in a tortilla, frying it, and voila! — a crispy, melt-in-your-mouth-good combination of flavors. This recipe is inspired partly by the Black Bean Enchiladas in Intercourses, which are also delish, but more labor-intensive and partly by a smoky black bean pizza that the pizza chef at the Brick-Oven used to make. For these, you just need some good salsa, leftover chicken, a can of black beans, some bacon, and some cheese. My husband really likes these, and the filling makes enough to have plenty of leftovers.

For the filling:

6 slices bacon

1/2 yellow onion

1 cup chopped green onion

4 cloves garlic, chopped finely

Chicken (I had 2 breasts leftover from grilling, so I used them, chopped, but shredded cooked chicken would also work)

1 can black beans, drained

1/2 cup salsa

Monterey Jack cheese (with peppers if you like spicy)

Tortillas (burrito-sized work well, but if you have the smaller ones, just use 2, instead of folding them in half)

In a skillet, cook the bacon slices until done. Remove, and drain off all but about a tablespoon of the grease, and sauté the onions and garlic over medium-low (be careful not to let the garlic burn). Add the diced chicken, black beans, and salsa. Cook over low for about 10 minutes, until you can begin to mash up the beans to get a good, thick consistency. Crumble in the reseved bacon. Remove the filling from the skillet. Fill tortillas with the chicken mixture and top liberally with cheese. Fry the tortillas in a little bit of oil (I use the same skillet–mindful always of my sweet husband who cleans up my messes!). Serve with salsa and guacamole (Ina Garten’s recipe in The Barefoot Contessa is my favorite–chunky, with lots of lemon and salt). The citrusy flavor of the guacamole works well with the smoky intensity of the quesadillas. We like to drink a spicy wine with a meal like this also–Zinfandel is our favorite. Or, of course, margaritas if we don’t have school the next day. Tequila and early mornings, in my experience, are not a favorable combination, but hey, if it works for you. . .