Archive for the 'veg' Category
I haven’t made scalloped potatoes in over a decade. It’s nothing personal, it’s just that I never made scalloped potatoes that weren’t disappointing. I made them with warmed milk, and by simmering the potatoes in the milk first, then baking the partially cooked milky potato sludge. No dice.
Tonight I made scalloped potatoes because I was baking a ham, and I figured I’d best get back on that horse. (W asked me to roast him a ham as a bedtime snack earlier this week, and so because entire baked hams are not standard bedtime fare, I promised one on the weekend.) The two go together, don’t you think? And can only be served on a Sunday. All is well with the world when you find yourself at a table full of people, a sticky baked ham and a big pan of warm scalloped potatoes on a Sunday.
As it turns out, the two are soul mates, requiring the same time and attention in the oven – perhaps the reason they have come to be companions at the table.
The ham was a cinch. Unwrap, dump in pan, put in the oven. Go about making scalloped potatoes, slide them into the oven alongside. (350F is fine.) After about an hour, slide both out. Brush the ham with glaze (any kind) and take the foil off the potatoes. If you like, scatter a handful of grated cheese (cheddar, Gouda, Gruyere – whatevs) overtop if you like. Turn the oven up to 375F and slide them both back into the oven for another 20 minutes or so, until the top of the potatoes is bubbly and golden, and the ham is sticky and glazed.
Because there was a large jar of apricot jam in the fridge that wasn’t going anywhere fast, I used some – spooned about 1/3 cup into a ramekin, microwaved it enough to be brushable, and stirred in a couple tablespoons of brown sugar, a splash of balsamic and squirt (a tablespoon?) of grainy mustard. You can really do what you like here – the key is to brush it on toward the end, as sugary glazes can burn if they spend too much time in the oven.
This is likely the standard formula for scalloped potatoes out there – thinly sliced potatoes layered with a bit of onion, baked in a creamy plain white sauce – but mine came from Canadian Living.
(I opened up the oven and tossed a handful of cheese overtop toward the end. A good idea, no?)
Classic Scalloped Potatoes
4-5 russet or large Yukon gold potatoes, scrubbed (don’t bother peeling them)
1 small onion
Sauce:
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 1/2 – 3 cups milk
1 tsp. fresh or 1/2 tsp. dried thyme (optional)
salt & pepper
1/2-1 cup grated cheese (cheddar, Gouda, Gruyere or a combination – optional)
Thinly slice the potatoes and onion – use a mandolin if you have one; you want them as thin as possible. In a medium saucepan, melt the butter and whisk in the flour. You should have a thick paste. Whisk in the milk (I started with the 2 1/2 cups the recipe called for, but wound up adding another splash because I thought it seemed a little thick) along with the thyme and some salt and pepper. Bring to a simmer and cook, stirring, for a minute.
Layer the potatoes and onion in a buttered baking dish; about a third of the potatoes, half the onions, another third of the potatoes, the rest of the onions and the rest of the potatoes. Pour sauce over top, and move a few of the potatoes around with the tip of a knife to let some of the sauce ooze between the layers.
Cover with foil and bake at 350F for 1 hour. Uncover, scatter with cheese if you like, and bake until lightly browned and potatoes are tender, about 20 minutes longer. Let stand for 5 minutes before serving. Serves 6-8.
We finished with a pan of warm chocolate chunk browned butter blondies at the table with coffee – inspired by the remains of a solid Easter bunny that had been taking up space on the kitchen counter. With a few extra around the table, I figured a little something sweet for dessert was in order. Blondies, like brownies, are dense and chewy – but are even quicker to mix together and bake. I stirred the batter together (browning the butter first) and slid the pan into the oven as we ate, so that they were warm and I needed only to bring the pan to the table after dinner. If only we had a tub of vanilla ice cream…
April 15 2012 | pork and veg | 14 Comments »
I used to have a Belgian Grandma named Elza who played a lot of solitaire.
(On the other side of the family – no relation to my (only) Grandad.)
Unfortunately I have no memory of her cooking. I have somewhere a three-page hand-written receipt on foolscap for Carbonnade of Beef, and I know she used to make braised red cabbage, but having lived the last of her years in the southern states and not wanting to fly, I don’t think she ever made it for me. I never got her recipe. Then again, I have no idea if it was any good.
My pal Sue is now the authority on braised red cabbage in my world. She makes it with Okanagan cherries she dries herself every year, but not completely – she leaves some moisture in them, so that they’re a little bit squishy and juicy, like a raisin that has been plumped in booze. Because they aren’t completely dry, they need to be frozen. It was the discovery (most likely by force of gravity) of a small baggie of said cherries in my freezer (and half a ginormous red cabbage in my fridge) that prompted me to make a batch. It’s one of those things – like beef bourguignon – that’s ever so satisfying to simmer in a cast iron pot over the course of an afternoon.
And its bright purpleness and tang somehow brightens up those bleak midwinter veggie blahs.
Braised Red Cabbage & Cherries
adapted from Sheila Lukins’ All Around the World Cookbook
2 Tbsp. butter
1 small red cabbage, cored and thinly sliced
1 cup dried cherries
1/4 cup red wine
2 Tbsp. apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup apple juice
1/4 cup honey
1 cinnamon stick
salt and coarsely ground pepper to taste
Preheat the oven to 325F.
Set a large heavy saucepan or Dutch oven over medium heat and heat the butter until it melts. When the foaming subsides, add the rest of the ingredients and cook over low heat until warmed through, then put the lid on and pop it into the oven for an hour or two – closer to two. The cabbage will be cooked through, and the liquid thickened a bit. Taste and add a little more honey and/or vinegar as you like to suit your taste (or apple juice if it needs a bit more liquid) and bake a little longer or simmer on the stovetop with the lid off if you want to cook it down a bit.
It’s better after a day or two in the fridge; serve immediately or cool and refrigerate until you’re ready for it. Serves 6-10.
March 24 2012 | veg and vegetarian | 8 Comments »
See that lovely skillet full of bacon, cream and kale? After taking that photo I set it back on the burner to heat through again and went upstairs to check my email. And answer a few. And work on a story that’s overdue… and yep, I burned the hell out of it. My cast iron skillet has gained another half inch of solid blackness that will take some serious chipping at to remove. Par for the week.
Regarding the snooty name, bacon béchamel sounds far better than bacon sauce, which sounds like something you might pump out of a vat at 7-11. Béchamel is just a hoity-toity name for that white sauce your mom may have made when you were a kid in order to make cheese sauce to pour over your broccoli. It’s just white sauce. Unless you’re a contender in Top Chef, in which case you’d better know your béchamel from your velouté.
Traditionally a basic béchamel is made by whisking milk into a roux (equal parts butter and flour – really, do we even need a fancy name for butter and flour?) and in this case, made with bacon drippings instead of butter. If you feel weird about this, remember that lard – pig fat – has 40% less saturated fat than butter.
It appears that I – who loves to not waste food – have wound up with a surplus of cream and pre-chopped veg left over from our day of soup making on Wednesday, when a bunch of you -and you know who you are- came down to the Cookbook Company to chop, sauté and stir up twenty six batches of soup to photograph for the Soup Sisters Cookbook, a fundraiser for the organization that’s scheduled to release in October. It was a fantastic afternoon with lots of laughs, and we all had the opportunity to do what we love, together, for a great cause. And I got the chance to meet more of you, which is always so awesome. I couldn’t have asked for a better day. Half of the 40 photos are done (!) with more of the prepped soup still to photograph and a few left to make, it looks like we’ll actually make our end of the month deadline. Thanks to all who came to chip in at the soup sweatshop.
And now to tackle the contents of the fridge…
Creamed Winter Greens with Bacon Béchamel
inspired by this one here – which with its browned butter sounds fantastic too – but I needed to streamline it a little bit, and given the opportunity couldn’t not make bacon béchamel to go atop winter greens..
4-6 slices bacon, chopped
2 Tbsp. flour
1 1/2 cups milk
2 Tbsp. minced shallot or onion (optional)
1 bay leaf (optional)
6 black peppercorns (optional)
1 large bunch of winter greens such as kale or beet greens
canola or olive oil or butter, for cooking
1 onion, chopped
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 garlic cloves, minced
pinch red chili flakes
salt and freshly ground black pepper
In a large, heavy skillet, cook the bacon until crisp; remove with a slotted spoon and set aside.
Whisk the flour into the bacon drippings. Whisk in the milk and if you like, the shallot, bay leaf and peppercorns. Bring to a boil, whisking often. Let simmer for a few minutes and then pour it into a bowl to set aside. If you added the flavour bits, you’ll need to pour it through a sieve to get rid of them. Wipe out the pan.
Roughly chop the greens, ditching the tough ribs.
Heat a drizzle of oil and/or butter in the pan and sauté the onion for 5 minutes, until soft and starting to turn golden. Add the kale (or other greens) and cook until it starts to wilt; add the garlic, béchamel, cream and chili flakes and stir to coat; cover and cook for 5-7 minutes, until the greens are tender. Season with salt and pepper and serve with the bacon scattered on top.
Serves 4-6.
February 25 2012 | veg | 12 Comments »
Let me tell you a story about a cauliflower. It was a sad and depressed cauliflower, who lived in the back of the fridge, and was quite neglected, much like its cousins living in other refrigerators, in other houses in other cities. Despite its inoffensive flavour and nutritional benefits, no one much liked it. Few people disliked it, mind you, but no one truly loved it.
Then one day, it got together with some oil and Parmesan cheese, and peoples’ opinions of it changed. It made a lot of friends. People started to see its delicious potential. And it moved up from the back of the fridge to one of the penthouse drawers up front, and hardly ever saw the inside of the compost bin again. The end.
If you want to rekindle your relationship with the cauliflower in the back of your fridge – get to know it better, even fall in love with it – break it into florets and spread it out on a baking sheet.
Drizzle it with oil – olive or canola – sprinkle with salt and pepper and toss it about with your hands.
Roast it at 425F for about 10 minutes, until it’s starting to sizzle and turn golden. Take it out, toss it a bit and shower it with freshly grated Parmesan cheese.
Slide it back into the oven for another 10 minutes or so, or until the cheese melts and the edges of the cauliflower are good and golden.
If you have a few lime wedges sitting around from those G&Ts you were so enamoured with last night, a squeeze overtop is not a bad thing.
I’ll leave you alone with your cauliflower now.
February 18 2012 | veg | 23 Comments »
I know, it’s just slaw. Or is it? Stick with me – there’s something shiny at the end.
Usually I just wing it when I make slaw. Which admittedly is not very often. Usually it’s the Ichiban noodle kind, with the cabbage part out of a bag. But this holiday slaw came into my inbox, along with a gift I get to pass on to you, and the combination of thinly sliced fennel, radishes and cabbage with a maple-cranberry dressing inspired me to actually make it. We ate it with roast chicken, and because it was already getting dark at 3:45 (!!) I managed to get exactly one usable photo.
Ironically, I left my food processor at JPL (d’oh!) and I miss it terribly. It would have come in handy to make this slaw. I do have a mandoline, but my fingertips are afraid of it – I don’t think I’ve touched the thing in years. So I sliced it the old-fashioned way, with a knife. But I thought about my food processor and how much I love it.
So guess what? I have a new free stuff for you. Hint: it’s shiny! It whirs! It makes recipes like holiday slaw so much easier to make! It will help with your holiday baking! It’s from KitchenAid!
Pop on over to the free stuff page to see…
Holiday Slaw
adapted with thanks to KitchenAid!
1/2 large green cabbage, cored
1 small fennel bulb, trimmed
8 large red radishes, trimmed
6 green onions, trimmed
1 red pepper, cored and thinly sliced
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup white wine or rice vinegar
1/3 cup canola or olive oil
1/4 cup maple syrup
2 Tbsp lemon juice
1 Tbsp Dijon mustard
salt
Cut the cabbage into 5 or 6 wedges. Position the adjustable slicing disc in the work bowl and, using the thin setting on High speed, push the wedges through the feeding tube. Transfer to a large bowl. Switch to the coarse side of the reversible shredding disc. Cut the fennel into quarters. Push the fennel and radishes through the feed tube; add to the bowl.
Cut the green onion and green pepper into chunks. Use the multi-purpose metal blade to chop finely. Add to the cabbage mixture. Combine the cranberries, vinegar, oil, maple syrup, lemon juice, mustard and salt in a small saucepan set over medium heat; bring to a boil. Pour over the cabbage mixture and toss to coat. Chill for at least 1 hour or up to 4 days. Makes about 12 cups.
November 29 2011 | salads and veg | 13 Comments »
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