Tomato Kumato

February 16, 2010

Lent

Filed under: Pasta, Vegetarian Main Dishes — Tags: , , , , — emiglia @ 11:55 pm

Today is Mardi Gras, also known as Shrove Tuesday or Pancake Day to some–the last day before the period of Lent.

I know that most of you are probably at least vaguely familiar with Lent–it’s that day that we Catholics make ourselves suffer and give up something like chocolate or cigarettes or drinking or television… right?

Well… sort of. Lent is a period of introspection, of preparing ourselves for Easter, which is really the most important holiday of the Catholic calendar, regardless of what the Hallmark industry and Santa Claus may want us to believe. For forty days before Easter, which represents the rebirth of Jesus–and essentially everything that makes Christians Christian–we get ourselves ready, and yes, this often does involve giving up something that we may find difficult to relinquish.

I’m not trying to get all preachy on you–God knows that I of all people am not the person to be preaching Catholic doctrine to anyone. I’m just trying to set the record straight: we don’t fast because we want to suffer; we fast because it makes us think. The whole idea behind giving up something that you want is that each time you reach for it–a bar of chocolate, a cigarette or a beer–you stop yourself, and then you remember why you’re stopping.

It’s because of this that my favorite priest–and yes, I have I favorite priest: the one who led my student youth group at boarding school–changed the rules somewhat. Father Francisco was a Franciscan monk, the most Catholic of all the Catholic people I’ve ever met. He walked the campus in billowing black robes and prayed when he joined us for breakfast like it was the most natural thing. His suggestion for Lent was not to give something up, but to take on a new challenge: he said that it was important not only to be introspective during Lent, but to use the period to give back to others as well.

I may pick and choose the parts of Catholic doctrine that I subscribe to, but I think that most Catholics–even lapsed Catholics–make some sort of gesture during Lent. It’s like an internal clock that gets us every year, even if we haven’t been to mass since Christmas, even if we haven’t really even taken a second to think about whether or not we believe, most of the C and E Catholics I know will go to church at some point tomorrow and come out with a black smudge on their forehead and something in mind that they’ve decided to live without.

I’ve decided to do a myriad of things, most of which I will not share here, for the sole reason that I’ve always liked the story in the Bible that tells you to pray in quiet, to hide the fact that you’re fasting when you do, because it’s a personal thing that you should do for your own fulfillment. I will share, mostly because it has some sort of effect on all of you, the fact that I will be giving up all meat in this Lenten season (as with most Catholics, I do not take this to include fish), and so on the eve of Ash Wednesday, I offer you this recipe, which I’ve been making for years, ever since I found it on Ree’s website.

Asian Noodle Salad (adapted from The Pioneer Woman)
1 package whole wheat spaghetti, cooked, rinsed and cooled
1/2 head sliced Napa cabbage
1/2 head sliced Purple cabbage
1 bag bean sprouts
2 carrots, sliced into rounds
1 bunch cilantro, chopped
3 scallions, sliced
1 lime, juiced
8 Tbsp. olive oil
8 Tbsp. soy sauce
2 Tbsp. sesame oil
1/3 cup brown sugar
3 Tbsp. fresh ginger, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
2 jalapenos, chopped

Mix pasta and vegetables together. Whisk dressing together and pour over salad. Toss to combine.

November 3, 2009

Pasta with Mushrooms and Gorgonzola Sauce

Filed under: Pasta, Vegetarian Main Dishes, cheese — Tags: , — emiglia @ 9:08 am

Note: Please be aware that this post was scheduled to go up on Halloween, and then my Wordpress had a fit and died most unfortunately. Put yourself in a Halloweeny mood if you like. P.S. Sorry for the pictures, which are probably the only scary part of this not-very-Halloweeny Halloween post.

Today, most people have their Halloween posts going up–something sweet or creepy or at the very least black and orange. I do not.

Halloween is not a big deal in Europe. I recently learned that the holiday is, in fact, of Irish and not American origin, but it’s in the States that we start getting ready at the end of August, throwing up ghoulish designs and selling costumes in stores as soon as kids are back in school. Here, if anyone celebrates, it’s college kids–the Halloween celebrations I’ve seen since leaving the States usually involve dressing up and drinking (multiple, strong) drinks with dry ice in them so that they smoke like witches’ brew. Don’t get me wrong: I love those celebrations, but there’s something so safe about being a kid and trick or treating, guarding your bag of candy like your bounty once you’re safe at home.

I’m leaving Spain in a week, and leaving a place always gets me thinking: I’ll miss San Sebastian, a city I’ve come to know and love. It’s a strange feeling to arrive in a new place and know that soon this will be your home, soon you’ll know everything about it, and yet that’s what’s happened yet again here, for me. San Sebastian is mine now, now that I’m ready to leave it.

I’ll miss the surf, of course, the surf I’ve waxed poetic about since I got here. I sold my surfboard yesterday–I’m sure I’ll have a new one soon, as soon as I arrive in Argentina, but it still felt like something so final, and it’s strange to sit in my room and not see it here.

I’ll miss walking around and speaking Spanish–my Spanish is nowhere as good as my French, but even giving directions or the time in Spanish, saying agur (goodbye in Basque) when I leave a store… it will be strange to be back in France and then soon after in America, back to my normal routine.

But there are things I’ve missed since coming to Spain, one of which is cooking for people. I’ve gotten used to being the point person for a new recipe or for bringing something delicious to a party, and here, due to whatever reason–the fact that I don’t have my own place, the fact that we party out more often than we stay in–has not been the case. I never realized how much I love having people to cook for until suddenly I was alone, cooking for myself, regressing back to the dishes of stewed tomatoes and vegetables that got me through my first few weeks in Paris, the weeks where my kitchen was my own and the only plate at my dinner table was mine.

So a few nights ago, I decided to cook for myself as though I had people to cook for, as though I had people other than myself to impress, and impress I did. This dish is simple to make, but it’s one of those dishes where the product is so much more than the sum of its parts. Slowly cooking earthy mushrooms with sweet onions, adding just a little bit of cream (if you’re feeling bad) and a bit of blue cheese (even if you’re not) and serving the whole thing over pasta infused with even more mushroom deliciousness… well let’s just say that even if you’re cooking for one, you may forget that you’re the only person you’re spoiling.

Pasta with Mushrooms and Gorgonzola Sauce

1 tsp. olive oil
1 tsp. butter
salt
1 onion, sliced
350 g. (12 oz.) mushrooms, sliced (I used plain white button mushrooms because they’re cheap and so am I, but feel free to change it up. And please, slice them yourself.)
black pepper
1/4 cup vegetable broth
1 tsp. cream
1 tbsp. blue cheese
1 cup mushroom fettuccine (or other pasta)

Heat the oil and butter over medium heat and cook the onion with a bit of salt until just soft. Move to the sides of the pan and turn the heat up to medium-high.

Add the mushrooms to the pan in batches so that there is no crowding. Allow to brown and release their liquid, and then combine with the onions at the sides of the pan, tossing to combine and then moving back to the sides of the pan. Repeat until all the mushrooms are cooked.

Reduce the heat to low and add the black pepper and broth. Meanwhile, cook the pasta.

When the pasta is cooked, add the cream and cheese to the mushroom mixture and stir until the cheese is melted. Remove from the heat and add the pasta. Toss to coat, adding pasta water if the sauce needs thinning.


October 8, 2009

Escalivade

Filed under: Side Dishes, Vegetarian Main Dishes — Tags: , , , , , , — emiglia @ 2:30 pm

I love to check out what other people are buying at the grocery store.

I know that most (read: normal) people would rather be doing their taxes, watching Paris Hilton speak about politics, listening to the Hamster Dance song on repeat… anything aside from waiting for the cashier to ring up their purchases, but I honestly do love it. It might be the people-watcher in me, but I think that looking to see what other people are buying is fascinating.

What is that man going to do, for example, with one orange, a tiny bottle of heavy cream, and a can of olives? Does that woman eat microwave pizza every night, or is she stocking up for the apocalypse? How many people are in that man’s family that he has to buy 20 pork chops? And how much did that scraggly, bloodshot young man smoke that he needs a frozen Mars bar, a family-sized bag of tortilla chips, a two-liter bottle of Coke and a bag of Carambars to come back down?

If someone were as interested as I am in what is passing in front of them on the conveyor belt to check out my purchases as of late, they would probably think I was a vegetarian: I’m not, and I haven’t been since 2005 (and even if I were, I doubt that I would have been able to keep it up in Spain, land of amazing seafood, incredible ham, and general use of pork products everywhere you look). But when I go shopping, I look like the poster child for that old-school food pyramid… the one I grew up with that actually looks like a pyramid, I mean.

This week, for example, as I emptied my shopping basket behind one woman’s selection of various sorts of ham, dry cereal and meal replacement bars and in front of a gentleman’s two bottles of dry white wine, one bottle of detergent and small loaf of seeded bread, I wondered what people would think of me? Ten pear-shaped tomatoes and three containers of cherry tomatoes, a bag each of apples and pears, a shrink-wrappd styrofoam flat of white button mushrooms, six cans of tuna, a bottle of tomate frito, a head of broccoli, two bags of grated carrots, a box of mushroom linguine and three glass jars of lima beans. You’d think I never ate a thing aside from vegetables… and canned tuna.

And while that’s not true (I just ventured into the world of pintxos making with a native Donostian chef last night, where everything was deep-fried, pork producty deliciousness), there is something to be said for filling your belly entirely with vegetables, for getting that satisfied feeling after having eaten just a touch too much, and knowing that all you’ve eaten is carrots and cucumber.

The urge to binge-eat out of the produce drawer starts to leave me as the weather gets cooler, but even though it’s been raining here–the skies opening and soaking you in five seconds or less–I’m still making meals out of tomatoes and lima beans and carrying around more apples in my purse than Johnny Appleseed.

This dish is typically Catalan–a different part of Spain, and something that I learned to make in Paziols (also in Catalogne/Cataloña). Summer vegetables are gathered and roasted with garlic and olive oil and then bathed in a simple vinaigrette made from Banyuls vinegar and fresh herbs. This is one of those dishes that is so much more than a sum of its parts, and it’s perfect for people like me, who make their meals entirely from vegetables.

Escalivade

250 g (1/2 lb.) tomatoes
250 g (1/2 lb.) eggplant
300 g (2/3 lb.) zucchini
300 g (2/3 lb.) red pepper
200 g (a bit less than 1/2 lb.) green pepper
200 g (a bit less than 1/2 lb.) yellow pepper
200 g (a bit less than 1/2 lb.) orange pepper
1 onion
3-4 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
2 Tbsp. fresh chives
4 cloves garlic, minced
2-3 small shallots, minced
a few sprigs of fresh thyme
freshly cracked black pepper
2-3 Tbsp. Banyuls vinegar, or good wine vinegar

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Wash and dry the vegetables. Seed the peppers and slice them into strips. Slice the eggplants and zucchini into strips of about the same size. Cut the tomatoes and onions into rounds.

Organize the vegetables in a baking dish any way you like (traditionally, you keep the like vegetables together, which makes for a prettier presentation.)

Dress the top of the dish with one tablespoon of the olive oil, and place the entire thing in the oven to roast for 30-40 minutes. Every so often, add a bit of water to the dish to keep the vegetables from burning.

When everything is cooked, allow to cool for a few minutes before removing the skins of the peppers. (Note: I don’t always do this step.)

Add the rest of the olive oil, the vinegar, the garlic, the shallots, the chives, the thyme and the pepper.

August 9, 2009

Quiche

Filed under: Eggs, Pork, Salad, Vegetarian Main Dishes, cheese — Tags: , — emiglia @ 10:22 am


We drive up the path, and even though I’ve been self-consciously wedged between my boyfriend’s mother and one of his best friends for the past several hours as we rode the straight-shot highway from the north–Paris–to the south, I can’t help squirming in my seat, causing the close physical contact I’ve been trying to avoid this whole time as I knock manouche #1’s elbow three or four times, craning my neck to see around him, to drink in everything.

Memories stream back into my consciousness as the reality sets in: grapevines, tiny winding roads. Castles so old I can’t even fathom it. Familiar signposts leading to even more familiar locations–I smile as I remember, not even having realized until this very moment that I had forgotten–the names of winemakers in the region, of nearby cafés, of the champion rugby team.

This feeling used to only come from Long Island–the only true home I had for years: the feeling of something, of some place, that is just so inexplicably right.

When I left Paziols last year, I wasn’t sure I would be coming back–plans were crumbling and rebuilding themselves left and right: a for-sure move to Argentina slowly became a quick jaunt to Spain, and a firm decision to leave Paris at the end of December was fading away as I realized that maybe I would be able to face my 18-month itch–that need I feel to move every year and a half–that maybe someone was more important to me than that feeling, that need, to move on.

But I was back–and, in spite of myself, in spite of the fact that I was dejected about the loss of my almost-job in Africa, despite the fact that I had no real idea what I would be doing at the end of the summer, I was back in Paziols for five weeks, and I allowed myself to be happy about it.

I have turned Paziols into a true home over the past few weeks–a metamorphosis that you, my readers and internet confidantes (no better kind) have witnessed as it unfolded, slowly creeping in around the edges, the way the midday sun here creeps into the cool and breezy mornings so that you don’t even notice until you realize you’re gulping down diabolo menthes by the glassful.

It seems bizarre that I only got here five weeks ago: I feel like I just got here, but at the same time, I feel as though I’ve been here forever. The house feels as though it has my imprint on it–my place at the table, in the chairs by the bookshelf, in my bed by the window in the attic–no place has seemed so right in a long time.

The past few days have been peppered with talk–talk of making programs in Paziols a more permanent thing. My heart skips a beat as I plan–my default setting–plan for adult classes in winemaking and cuisine, coordinating groups with lessons at the boulanger in Cucugnan. I imagine what it would be like to live here all the time–to welcome, not only two groups of children every summer, but other groups, other people, throughout the year. To share Paziols with even more people, and to get to know it better myself. I know it’s just a dream, just a haze in the distant and indefinite future, but for me, it already feels so real I can taste it.

And taste it I will… in time. For now, it’s goodbye again: goodbye to the light pink rosé we’ve been drinking all summer, to the fresh cheeses that sit upon our table every day. Goodbye to fresh baguettes every morning and three or four heads of lettuce consumed every day.

It’s goodbye to the tomatoes we’ve come to love–the ones that I dressed simply with garlic, basil, olive oil, oregano and feta cheese and made into the quintessential summer salad here in Paziols–the one that was missed the day I ran out of tomatoes and didn’t think anyone would notice.

It’s goodbye to perfect summer dishes that I loved to make and typical winter dishes that I sweated over but made anyway because you can’t come to southwestern France without tasting classic cassoulet.

This quiche was a lunchtime standard this summer, one that I could throw together over my shoulder as I spelled out directions slowly and carefully in French to sous-chefs unsure of the meanings of the words dorer, demi and ajouter.

It’s easy enough to throw together quickly for a crowd, but tasty enough to serve with a simple green salad as a classy summer dinner, for quiche, like so many things French has become synonomous with class back in the States, where I’m headed tomorrow. As for me, it’s just a synonym with France, with everything that has been my life for the past two years. And, like everything else, I find it simply delicious.

Quiche Lorraine
5 eggs
25 cl. crème fraîche
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. black pepper
1 pinch fresh nutmeg
400 g. lardons
2 onions, diced
1 refrigerated pâte brisée
1/2 cup grated emmental cheese

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Combine the eggs, crème fraîche, salt, pepper and nutmeg in a bowl until well combined and smooth. Set aside.

Heat the lardons in a skillet over medium heat. When they begin to release some grease, add the onions. Cook until the onions and lardons are golden brown.

Roll the pâte brisée out in a tart pan. Spread the lardons and onions over the bottom, and pour in the egg mixture. Sprinkle the emmental cheese over the top.

Bake for 15-20 minutes, until the top of the quiche is golden. It will puff up slightly, but don’t worry: as soon as you remove it from the oven, it will fall back into place. Serve with green salad simply dressed with homemade vinaigrette.


Vegetarian Quiche
5 eggs
25 cl. crème fraîche
2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. black pepper
1 tsp. dried basil
1 pinch fresh nutmeg
1 tbsp. butter
1 tsp. olive oil
1 carrot, diced
1 onion, diced
1 stalk celery, diced
1 red pepper, diced
1 orange pepper, diced
1 refrigerated pâte brisée
1/2 cup grated emmental cheese

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Combine the eggs, crème fraiche, salt, pepper, basil and nutmeg in a bowl until well combined. Set aside.

Meanwhile, heat the butter and olive oil over medium heat in a skillet. Add the vegetables and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened and golden, about 10 minutes.

Roll out the pâte brisée in a tart pan. Spread the vegetables over the bottom, and then pour in the egg mixture. Sprinkle the emmental cheese over the top.

Bake for 15-20 minutes, until the top of the quiche is golden. It will puff up slightly, but don’t worry: as soon as you remove it from the oven, it will fall back into place. Serve with green salad simply dressed with homemade vinaigrette.

Homemade Vinaigrette
1 tsp. French mustard
50 cl. cider vinegar
50 cl. extra virgin olive oil
50 cl. sunflower oil
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. black pepper

Place all ingredients in a clean jar with a lid. Shake to combine. Taste for seasoning. Use to dress clean, cool lettuce just before serving.

June 30, 2009

Burek

Filed under: Vegetarian Main Dishes, cheese — Tags: , , , , — emiglia @ 3:15 am

“I don’t have a home.”

An oft-uttered phrase, at least for me, for whom it’s fairly true.

It follows, naturally, that I don’t feel homesick. Or at least, I shouldn’t. That’s not terribly true.

It’s true that I adapt easily, that I usually don’t mind uprooting myself and sticking myself somewhere else. Living out of a suitcase, getting used to a new time zone, sharing a bathroom with people I don’t know… these things have never been a problem for me.

And yet, there is this crawling, gnawing sickness I get in my stomach sometimes–a feeling that I always want to feed, because it feels so close to hunger, even though I know it’s not. It creeps up on me in places where it shouldn’t: in my apartment in Paris, in my parents’ house–the house where I grew up. At a friend’s apartment. In the park. It’s homesickness–that I know for certain. What I don’t know is how to fix it, because I don’t have any home to go to.

I’m back in Paziols: my third summer in a row. For the past few summers, I’ve made my way down to this tiny town, just close enough to the Spanish border for the Catalan accent and Occitan language to permeate everywhere. I love this town: love the hour’s drive from Perpignan, love watching as the airport and shopping center give way to endless, crawling green vines, to winding paths into the Pyrenees, to the little towns I’ve come to know so well.

Estagel, Tuchan, Tautavel. I read the names on the signposts, recognizing them and waiting until we’re close enough to Paziols for the tiny, 300-some-odd person town’s name to start appearing as well. I wait until I see the road I recognize: too narrow for two cars to pass one another, with trees leaning over, forming a tunnel, welcoming me back.

The house is different this year, once again. Since we’ve arrived, it’s been a flurry of painting and organizing and dusting and endless laundry. This summer, Patricia, Alex’s mom, who used to come to Paziols to cook for our group of nearly 20, will not be here. The task–and the “toque du chef”–has passed to me. She drove us down and stayed for a few days, and last night, she taught us how to make burek, a Balkan dish of filo and feta cheese.

We’ve been back and forth to Perpignan at least three times, and I’ve been to Spain once and am heading back out tomorrow to pick up our new group: 13 more kids, in addition to the veteran from last year who arrived on Sunday and my boss’ niece, who have been painting and organizing and vacuuming with the rest of us. 13 more starry-eyed Americans, who probably will have no idea what they’re in for as they’re driven, drowsy and jet-lagged, up the same paths that brought me so much comfort a few days ago.

I hope they learn to love it as much as I do. I hope they leave a piece of their hearts here when they go. I hope they know, when they get that clawing feeling from the pit of their stomachs, that a summer morning in Paziols with a hot cup of coffee and a tartine with Nutella, a morning filled with jokes and laughter… I hope that they realize that that is the perfect cure.

Burek

~30 sheets of phyllo
8 125 g. pots of yogurt
30 cl. crème fraîche
800 g. feta, crumbled
5 eggs + 1
pinch of pepper
1/2 cup sunflower oil
1/2 cup sparkling water

Combine the yogurt, crème fraîche, feta, eggs and pepper in a bowl–be careful not to crush the feta.

In a plastic bottle, combine the oil and water. Poke some holes in the top of the bottle with a sharp knife.

Taking the phyllo sheets two at a time, sprinkle the top sheet with the oil-water mixture, and then spread some of the yogurt-feta mixture over half of the sheet. Roll and place in an oiled baking sheet. Continue with all of the sheets, and paint the top of the dish with the reserved egg.




Bake in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes or until golden and the filo is cooked through.


Concombre au yaourt

1 cucumber
2 heaping tablespoons of crème fraîche
13 125 g. containers of Greek yogurt
5-6 cloves of garlic
a few tablespoons of minced fresh parsley (optional)
salt and pepper

Peel the cucumber and dice it.

Empty the yogurts into a large container and add the crème fraîche and cucumber.

Press the garlic and add it to the yogurt mixture. Add the parsley, salt and pepper to taste and combine. Taste for salt and then keep at least 2 hours in the refrigerator, covered, at least two hours before serving. Serve with the burek.


June 23, 2009

Mediterranean Vegetable-Cheese Pie

Filed under: Eggs, Vegetarian Main Dishes — Tags: , , , , , , — emiglia @ 6:27 am

“And it’s so healthy!” My father exclaims, digging into a huge bowlful of salad.

My siblings and I are used to these conversations. I twirl another forkful of spaghetti and my sister blots the grease from her slice of pizza, both of us aware of the fact that our dinner choices are probably ten times healthier than my father’s. My brother smiles to himself as he cuts into a steak: he doesn’t care whether what he’s eating is healthy or not… he’s got the metabolism of, well, a teenage boy.

“I could eat this for every meal, every day. It’s just so fresh! Do you think you could make me a salad like this for dinner?”

“Sure…” My mom answers, in the same voice she used to use when we used to ask if planting watermelon seeds in the backyard would sprout real watermelons. She’s a preschool teacher, and she’s very good at egging on our childish plans. She doesn’t bother to correct my father and tell him that she makes a salad with dinner every night that’s ten times healthier than the one he’s eating.

My father suffers from the same jilted look on reality that so many Americans do: he thinks that anything with vegetables–even a salad laden with dressing, salt, cheese and croutons–is healthy. He thinks that anything with grill marks is oil-free. I used to believe him, until I started cooking myself and realized how much oil goes into some of the “healthy” options that we’re all used to.

As a food blogger, I sometimes have trouble with portion control, with tasting all of the things I make for this blog just a few too many times. Luckily, Ann from Redacted Recipes has provided a recipe truly worthy of the title “healthy,” with deliciousness to boot.

This pie, made up of vegetables, eggs and lowfat cheeses is truly worhty of the title “healthy.” And, like Ann, I feel no regret in finishing half the pie myself and calling it dinner.

Mediterranean Vegetable-Cheese Pie (adapted from Redacted Recipes)

Olive-oil cooking spray
2 medium potatoes, sliced in 1/8-inch rounds
1/2 cup diced onion
8 oz (about 8 cups) baby spinach, from frozen, thawed
3 garlic cloves, chopped
2 whole eggs
3 egg whites
1/2 cup ricotta
1/2 cup nonfat cottage cheese
3 tbsp finely chopped basil, plus more for garnish
1 zucchini, sliced into 1/4-inch rounds
1 1/2 tbsp grated Asiago or Parmesan
salt and pepper

Heat oven to 350°. Coat a 9″ pie plate with cooking spray. Line bottom of plate with potato slices. Cut remaining slices in half and arrange around side of plate. Season with salt and pepper. Lightly spray them again. Bake 12 to 15 minutes. Remove from oven and set aside.

Coat a sauté pan with cooking spray and sauté onion over low heat until tender, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and saute about 1 minute. Add the spinach and stir until just heated through. Remove from heat. Drain excess fluid from onion and spinach mixture.

In a bowl, beat eggs and egg whites. Stir in ricotta and cottage cheese. Add half the basil and a pinch of salt and set aside.

Spoon onion and spinach mixture into pie plate over potatoes. Layer on egg mixture, then slices of zucchini.

Bake 35 to 40 minutes or until egg is set and a knife inserted into pie comes out clean. Sprinkle grated cheeses evenly over top of pie and top with basil garnish. Return to oven for 5 minutes or until cheese melts. Remove from oven and let sit for 5 minutes. Cut pie into 4 wedges. Serve immediately.

April 24, 2009

A Big Bowl of Vegetables

Filed under: Beans and Legumes, Vegetarian Main Dishes — Tags: , , — emiglia @ 6:57 am

Sometimes, I just crave a big bowl of vegetables.

The term was first coined by my long-time-vegetarian-finally-turned-omnivore friend while we backpacked through Europe after we graduated high school. The cheapest and easiest foods to buy while traveling are not necessarily fresh produce, and by the end of our five weeks, she had us all fantasizing about carrots and tomatoes and fresh corn.

I still go into “big bowl of vegetables” mode, usually after a week like this one, where somehow I ended up eating things like fast food pizza (guilty pleasure) and vast amounts of cheese (no guilt whatsoever).

This vegetable moussaka is actually a combination of two moussaka recipes I found at Almost Turkish. The first was a layered and baked version, which I liked the look of, however I didn’t want the meat portion: I was in big bowl of vegetable mode. The second was a chickpea and zucchini Turkish style moussaka, which is really more of a stew than the Greek-inspired layered versions. I put the two together, and what I got was this: a big, layered tray of vegetables that perfectly satisfied my need for a filling meal that was low in fat and high in vitamins and minerals.

This moussaka is also my entry into the third round of Cooking to Combat Cancer. I have never participated in this event before, but for the past year, my family has been dealing with my grandfather’s battle with cancer, something I have not mentioned on this blog.

My grandfather is an amazingly strong man: when I was growing up, he was already in his sixties, and weekends found him “weaseling” in the woods, complete with a pipe and overalls, trundling in and out with wheelbarrows filled with branches and leaves. Now, he is in his eighties, and he has undergone severe chemotherapy and radiation as part of his cancer treatment. He has been lucky to keep his hair and to not suffer much from nausea as many people do. Mostly, his therapy just makes him tired, and he and my grandmother have taken to eating dinner in front of the television so that he can stay on the couch with a blanket.

This dish has tomatoes, legumes and onions and garlic, all of which are cancer-fighting foods. There is also no knife-and-fork action to deal with, which makes it easy to eat in front of the TV.

If you’d like to participate in this event, you have until April 29th to send in your entries. More information can be found at Mele Cotte.

Zucchini Moussaka (inspired by Almost Turkish)

1 Tbsp. olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 onion, diced
1 can (800 g.) whole tomatoes
1 can (800 g.) chickpeas, drained
1 tsp. dried mint
1 tsp. dried oregano
1 zucchini, sliced into rounds
1 oz. feta cheese, crumbled
salt and pepper
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
Heat the olive oil over medium heat in a large, heavy bottomed pot. Add the onion and a pinch of salt and cook 2-3 minutes, until soft. Add the garlic, and cook until fragrant, about one minute. Add the tomatoes and chickpeas and cook until the chickpeas have softened and the tomatoes are cooked down, about 20 minutes. Add the mint and oregano and cook another 5-10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

Pour the mixture into a baking pan and top with the zucchini and feta. Bake until the zucchini is cooked through, about 10-15 minutes, and then broil to melt the cheese and brown the top.

Note: I usually serve this as-is, but you can also serve it with whole wheat couscous (cancer-fighting whole grains) to make it more filling.

April 16, 2009

Spring Peas Two Ways

Filed under: Beans and Legumes, Pasta, Side Dishes, Vegetarian Main Dishes — Tags: , , , — emiglia @ 10:12 am

I used to be offended when market vendors tried to foist their deals on me.

I thought it was a reflection on my status as a foreigner, something I’ve always hated. I know that I have an accent, but I feel like a Parisian, and I expect to be treated as one, even though I know that that’s not always going to happen.

Recently, though, I realized that I may have misconstrued the way that I am being treated at the markets.

My aunt recently visited me for a bit more than a week, and while she was here, we traipsed all over Paris, including many of the daily markets. I watched as the women interacted with the vendors, and I realized something: the Parisian housewives, the ones with their little carriages for carrying their purchases home who could not be mistaken for anything besides locals were getting the exact same treatment as I was.

“One kilo of strawberries.”

“I can give you two for five!”

And here was the difference: where I was usually guilted into accepting the offer, these women knew what they wanted.

“No, one is enough.”

They didn’t see my Americanness before the question was asked, but after, after I had given my begrudging, “OK.” All I had to do was say, “no, thank you.”

I started at my local market a week later, setting off to buy peas for an Asparagus and Pea dish I had found on Epicurious.

“One kilo of peas, please.”

“I can give you two for eight,” was the answer. I almost spat out, “No,” right away, eager to test my new theory, but then I decided that it was a good price and decided to take them. Oh well, theories for another day, right? Until I realized I could buy my asparagus from the same stall.

“And a bundle of asparagus.”

Almost automatically, the vendor answered, “I can give you two for five!”

“No, one is fine.” I answered.

“Very good, miss.”

I paid, I left with my produce… and I felt Parisian.

I also, of course, had a lot of peas to contend with.

I started with the Asparagus and Pea dish. I really wanted to like it–the description sounded so enticing: fresh peas and asparagus, brought together with the taste of freshly picked basil and onions sautéed in butter. But alas, it was not to be: maybe it was my French-style white asparagus. Maybe it was the fact that spring asparagus here are much fatter around than the American ones. Maybe it would have been better with roasted asparagus, with a bit of pesto used to bind the vegetables a bit more… but something wasn’t right with this dish, as pretty as it was. It was fine, but it didn’t feel like quite the right way to celebrate fresh spring peas.

I had more peas to use up, and this time, I ventured forth without a recipe. I shelled a bunch of peas and cooked them in butter on the stovetop. I cooked some farfalle and mixed a bit of the starchy water with some pesto and the peas, adding salt and pepper. I tossed it all together, and Alex and I had it for lunch.

I hate to toot my own horn, but my invention was a much better use of these gorgeous peas than that asparagus dish was… not that I’m giving up on it yet. I know that my market vendor will be more than happy to sell me some more fresh spring veggies!

This is my submission to April’s round of Eating with the Seasons. Feel free to head over and send your own submissions until April 20th!

For more stories about my market adventures, feel free to check out my post about my local Place Monge market at my travel blog, Bordeaux and Palmiers!

Spring Pea Pasta

Because I just sort of threw this together, I don’t have a real recipe. It’s very easy to recreate at home, though!

First, measure out enough dry pasta for two people. Begin cooking it in boiling, salted water.

Next, measure out an equal amount of freshly shelled peas. Heat some butter in a skillet, and add the peas, stirring to coat. Add some salt and pepper. Cover the skillet and cook over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, for about eight minutes, or until the peas are cooked through.

Reserve a ladleful of pasta water and drain the rest of the pasta. Add it to the skillet with the peas, along with a few tablespoons of storebought pesto (use as much as you like.) Add as much pasta water as you need to thin out the sauce, and add salt and pepper to taste.

Remove the pasta from the skillet to a serving bowl, and tear some fresh basil leaves over the top. Serve with parmesan cheese if you like!

March 26, 2009

Sweet Potato, Goat Cheese and Balsamic Onion Tart

Filed under: Pie, Vegetarian Main Dishes — Tags: , , , — emiglia @ 11:30 am


There aren’t a lot of things that smell better than onions slowly caramelizing in butter.

I’m not necessarily telling you all of this just so that you are immediately aware (if you weren’t before) of the joys of butter and onions slowly cooked together until they harmonize into something so sweet and so soft it’s almost spreadable. Rather, I am writing this to let my future self know that if I ever have a bad day, the first thing I should do is start caramelizing some onions.

Caramelized onions were part of my dinner plans for tonight anyway. Slicing my hand open as a glass I was washing shattered in my grip was not. I held my hand above my head for an hour, contemplated stitches and bemoaned the time I was wasting on my stupid finger when I could have been: 1) Blogging, 2) Doing the online crossword puzzle, 3) Grocery shopping. I was kind of glad that I got to stop doing the dishes and that Alex did them for me when he got home, but that’s beside the point.

Luckily, caramelized onions changed all that. Sure, I still have a pretty impressive gash in the back of my hand, and sure, when I spilled the boiling soup that was supposed to be my lunch all over myself, including said gash, I still let off a string of expletives that would make a sailor blush, but when I think about the caramelized onions… well… none of that really seems to matter anymore.

I suppose I should move on: you see, caramelized onions were not meant to be our whole dinner. I love them, but not that much. Rather, the onions were one layer in a tart that I was constructing with sweet potatoes, goat cheese and balsamic vinegar.


Served simply with a green salad (as are so many things in my kitchen), this was our dinner. The potatoes were thinly sliced and turned crispy on the top, guarding the goat cheese and allowing it to melt through the caramelized onions. The crust was a homemade one that I seasoned with black pepper, and the butteriness of it made it somewhat decadent for a weeknight…

I deserve it. I’m wounded.

Sweet Potato, Goat’s Cheese and Balsamic Onion Tart

For the crust:
1 1/8 cup all purpose flour
8 tbsp. butter
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
cold water

Combine the flour, salt and pepper in a bowl. Cut the cold butter into the flour, using your fingertips to rub it together until it is pebbly. Add cold water by the tablespoon, gently incorporating it, until the dough just comes together. Wrap in plastic wrap and keep in the fridge until ready to use. Meanwhile, prepare the filling.

For the filling:
1 sweet potato, thinly sliced (use a mandoline if you have one)
60 g. (about 2 ounces) goat’s cheese
2 onions, thinly sliced
2 tsp. balsamic vinegar
2 tsp. olive oil, separated
1 tbsp. butter
salt and pepper

Begin by heating the butter and 1 teaspoon of olive oil in a skillet over low heat. Add the onions and the vinegar and season with salt. Allow them to cook and gently caramelize for about twenty minutes, stirring occasionally. Allow to cool slightly before assembling the tart.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Assemble the tart by rolling out the dough and placing it in the bottom of a pie pan. Spread the onions over the dough, moving quickly so that the butter in the dough does not melt. Sprinkle the goat cheese evenly over the onion layer. Then, assemble the rounds of sweet potato in circles over the cheese layer. Press down lightly, and season with salt, pepper, and the remaining teaspoon of oil.

Bake for thirty minutes, until the crust is golden brown and the potatoes are cooked through.

March 18, 2009

Wednesday How Tos: Mac and Cheese

Filed under: Pasta, Vegetarian Main Dishes, Wednesday How To, cheese — Tags: , — emiglia @ 8:02 am

Macaroni and cheese is definitely one of my (and many other people, I’m sure) comfort foods. It can come in any form: Stouffer’s reheatable, Kraft bright-orange-in-a-box, hell, some shredded cheese on top of pasta stuck in the microwave was my go-to meal in the high school cafeteria.

The thing is, homestyle baked macaroni and cheese is actually not that hard to make. I like mine complete with a crunchy breadcrumb crust and parmesan cheese, but you can do whatever you like.

First off, you have to pick a pasta shape. I usually go with shells, like in this picture, but I’ll use whatever short pasta I have lying around. Tube pasta like penne or maccheroni are great for getting even more cheesy sauce.

The first thing you have to learn about baking a classic macaroni casserole is how to make a white sauce.

White sauce, also known by the French name béchamel or the Italian name besciamella. Making white sauce can seem difficult at first, but while the sauce can be fussy, it’s actually not too hard to make. Simply heat a tablespoon of butter with a tablespoon of flour in the bottom of a pot (this is called a roux). Stir until smooth, but don’t allow it to darken. Then add a cup of heated milk, slowly, whisking until it’s encorporated and the sauce is thick. If you keep these proportions, you should have no problems. The only issue I ever have is sometimes the flour in my sauce clumps. You can either pass the clumps through a strainer and then mix them slowly back in, or you can do what I do (which is probably breaking about a hundred culinary laws) and stick your immersion blender in there for a second.

Remove the sauce from the heat: now it’s time for cheese.

Once you have removed the sauce from the heat, add whatever cheese strikes your fancy. Grate it or at least cut it into a dice before adding it to help the melting go more quickly: if you have to turn the heat back on to melt the cheese, your sauce may get grainy.

The classic macaroni and cheese uses cheddar or American, but you can really use any cheese you want. Once you have the basics down, you can try a variety of different versions.

Adding parmesan and nutmeg will give you a macaroni that tastes more like alfredo sauce than a typical casserole, but it’s quite delicious. I prefer to serve this version without baking, like in the second picture.

A mix of cheeses and spices can make your macaroni and cheese taste Tex-mex (try pepper jack, cheddar, cumin and black pepper).

Throw in some veggies, and mac and cheese gets a little healthier.

The possibilities are endless!

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