tilted skillet

favamole

Much has changed since I last chronicled my kitchen adventures in this space. There’s been a wedding, honeymoon, busy times at work, and a seasonal CSA hiatus (the horror!). I also temporarily lost interest in reading books, but it took little more than new works by the inimitable Michael Pollan and David Sedaris – plus plenty of free time lounging on the beach in Hawaii – to pull me back from the mind-numbing abyss of blogs, magazines, emails, and the instruction manuals to our new toaster oven and waffle iron.

I didn’t stop cooking during this time, but doing so became less about creativity and relaxation, and more about getting dinner on the table STAT. I realize the latter is an everyday reality for plenty of people, and know that I’m fortunate to count cooking both as a welcome daily task and a leisure activity.

It should come as no surprise that the temptation to register for a library’s worth of cookbooks was great. In a feat of unexpected self-control, I limited myself to one, only bought one with a registry gift card, and instead registered for three types of bowls.

Momofuku and The Sprouted Kitchen Cookbook, in conjunction with my bowl trifecta, will likely inspire future posts. But today is about fava beans, one of the usual stars of my spring produce lineup. In the hubbub of wedding and honeymoon, I managed to miss most of their fleeting season. The seasonal loss has been a tragedy I mostly bear alone. For George, fava beans evoke a sort of PTSD from the hours of double-shucking for which he’s naively volunteered over the last couple of years.

I’ve incorporated favas in a few spring vegetable sautés and stirred them in to scrambled eggs here and there, but one of my favorite methods of fava preparation involves mashing them with lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper, and fresh herbs for a chunky hummus of sorts. The version I’m sharing today also includes avocado, which adds welcome creaminess, complements the favas’ vibrant green color, and handily stretches what is often a too-meager volume of fava beans. I’m pretty proud of what I’m sure isn’t an original name for this dish – favamole. It’s a reasonable pinch hitter for hummus, guacamole, or pesto.

Start shucking, friends!

 

favamole

1 cup double-shucked fava beans

1.5 cups avocado flesh

zest and juice of one lemon

¼ tsp each sea salt and black pepper

2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

½ cup flat-leaf parsley leaves

a few basil leaves, roughly torn

Put all ingredients in a food processor and pulse to combine to a chunky consistency. Serve.

Treat leftover like you would guacamole – add an avocado pit to the bowl and cover with plastic wrap pressed against the surface of the favamole to prevent the avocado from browning.

delicata squash fries with Sriracha mayo

It’s life’s little discoveries and epiphanies from which I derive great satisfaction. I still remember when I made the connection between Target and its eponymous logo. I remember because it wasn’t very long ago. Or the time I discovered that the big pot of ‘green garlic’ I inherited last year was actually a variety of non-flowering tulip. I remember because I put tulips in my omelet, and it turns out most people consider tulips inedible. My stomach agreed with that assessment.  

More recently, after years of roasting and sautéing Brussels sprouts, I had a Brussels sprouts awakening at a restaurant in San Diego. I ate two orders just to be sure, but now I know that the fast track to addictive Brussels sprouts involves frying them in pork fat, and serving them with lots of cheese and, of course, more pork.

We’ll save the Brussels sprouts for another day, because last Tuesday was the day I had an epiphany while standing alone in my kitchen with a delicata squash. Doing so is hardly an unusual event, given my love of winter squash and decorative gourd season. As its name suggests, the delicata squash is delicate. Its skin, unlike the skin of most winter squash, is edible. A medium delicata squash is the perfect size for one person, unlike many monstrous winter gourd specimens.

The funny thing about delicata squash is that I’ve only ever seen them cut into little half moons. The half moons are lovely and the textural contrast between crunchy skin and soft flesh is appetizing, but why is it that everyone – from prep cooks and home cooks to fancy chefs and cooking instructors – thinks the delicata is an one-trick squash?

Alone in my kitchen with the delicata squash, I went rogue. I rotated that squash 90 degrees and sliced it into long, lithe spears. Tossed with warming spices and roasted at high heat, the squash fries emerged from the oven caramelized and slightly crispy on the outside with soft, creamy interiors. Dipped into a quick Sriracha mayo (with homemade Sriracha and homemade mayo!), the long delicata spears were nothing short of a minor miracle.

beef and bacon Bolognese with roasted spaghetti squash

In college, the pinnacle of my culinary creativity involved mixing various cereals together to create a special blend that I ate in place of, or as a supplement to, many dining hall meals. Quaker’s Life and some sort of granola with severely dried raisins usually filled most of my bowl, but on special occasions the dining hall staff would, to the delight of many, mix things up with the addition of Kashi or Puffins. It was an exciting time.

Although I now live less than three miles from my former cereal mecca, my culinary endeavors have expanded to new horizons – horizons that include turning on the stove, using a chef’s knife, and treating my refrigerator and freezer like stationary pack mules. Old habits die hard, but with a twist: while you won’t find a box of Life cereal in our house, a jar of homemade granola has a permanent residence nestled behind the fruit bowl on our kitchen counter.

Last weekend, many hands and spoons were dipped into the granola jar as I had a couple college friends staying with us for our five year reunion. While we spent most of our time tailgating, catching up with former classmates, and brunching, I managed to fit in a few home-cooked meals for the gang. One dinner turned into a cooking lesson with a dear friend who, now in graduate school across the country, has taken an interest in learning to cook.

Over her last couple visits, I’ve taught her a few basic dishes, including vinegar-braised chicken and Thai curry. On Sunday, I showed her how to make a streamlined and admittedly non-traditional beef Bolognese with roasted spaghetti squash. It’s a basic version of the type of hearty fare that seems right for the season, especially for people who live in regions with distinct seasons. I am not one of those people, but I find myself craving lots of warming, meat-based meals this time of year.

As she packed up Monday morning, I tucked a couple homemade blueberry muffins into her bag for the long flight back home. I took her to the airport, and came home to an eerily quiet house. I heated up the leftover Bolognese and ate it for breakfast. Special cereal it was not, but I couldn’t help mixing it up by topping my bowl with a few shavings of hard goat cheese and a handful of Marcona almonds. Old habits die hard.

Middle Eastern-spiced roasted sweet pepper dip

fried eggs on a homemade brioche bun with plenty of Middle Eastern-spiced roasted sweet pepper dip...breakfast perfection!

Since my brother Jimmy moved up to the Bay Area about six months ago, I’ve settled into a nice routine of cooking and sharing many meals with him and George. The three of us usually consume a quantity that would feed about six normal people, so I tend to favor hearty, filling fare. The nights of passing off a large bowl of roasted cauliflower and cheese as a meal are relics of my past life as a single girl in the city.

By no means am I complaining. Frequent dinners with my guys afford me the chance to cook new foods for an audience that will eat anything. I cook more meat, pork, and poultry, and have enjoyed expanding my culinary repertoire to include many members of the animal kingdom.  

Although I eat more animal protein now than I did a few years ago, my disinterest in plain food – be it cauliflower, chicken, or cod – hasn’t changed. I’m not the type to willingly eat a big slab of anything sans a sauce, dip, or spread. Some of my favorite combinations are the simplest: roasted chicken with garlicky aïoli, flaky white fish with pesto, grilled sausages with mustard, anything with peanut sauce. I’d be hard pressed to think of an animal protein that, in my estimation, wouldn’t be improved by a dollop of something with a contrasting flavor and texture.

Last week, with Jimmy and George both out of town, I revisited my single girl meals of yore. Instead of a few heads of cauliflower, I had a roasted chicken (and all of the skin to myself!) that I planned to enjoy throughout the week. I thought about making aïoli, but I also knew that with no one around, I’d end up eating not only the whole chicken and all of its skin, but the entire batch of aïoli – which includes over a cup of olive oil – in a matter of two or three days.

In the interest of health, I decided to make a big batch of a vegetable-based sauce to enjoy with my chicken. The Middle Eastern-inspired red pepper dip I settled on simultaneously dispatched with most of my three pounds of CSA sweet peppers, and replaces much of the fat of my beloved aïoli with smoky, lower fat roasted peppers. Earthy cumin, salty preserved lemon, and tangy pomegranate molasses contribute lots of interesting flavor.

I call this a dip as it’s rather thick, but you could thin it out with olive oil for a more pourable consistency. I like plating a crispy-skinned chicken thigh and a handful of roasted or blanched green beans with a couple big spoonfuls of the pepper spread. It contains such a high percentage of vegetable matter that it could even be a fitting side dish. Keep in mind that using mixed color peppers like I did (red, green, purple, etc.) will yield a brown sauce. Pureeing pretty colors together does not a pretty sauce make.

This recipe makes a lot of red pepper dip, which isn’t a problem for me. It would also be great spread on sandwiches, swirled into a bowl of soup, or tucked into an omelet. The possibilities are endless! And thank goodness, lest a piece of protein sit on my plate naked.

slow-roasted tomato, onion, and garlic frittata

I really should’ve stayed home this weekend. My garden, currently dominated by watermelon vines dying a slow death (WHY?) and monstrous kale trees, needed tending. Our CSA box was actually overflowing this week, and I’d just picked up a month’s worth of meat, seafood, poultry, and pork from Real Food Bay Area. A box of stationery and these pieces of oddly-shaped paper called ‘envelope liners’ laid in wait on top of our printer, ready for a save the date printing extravaganza.

It was almost a three-day domestic goddess blitzkrieg, but instead I headed south to the land of sun, beaches, and more sun: San Diego! Between trips to visit the grandparents (affectionately termed by our family The Geriatric World Tour), quality beach time, and skeet shooting at my uncle’s secluded house in Alpine, I managed to fit in a bit of cookery.

We went to the farmers’ market and I marveled at the unusual produce we don’t often see in the Bay Area: green-shelled macadamia nuts, passion fruit, vibrantly-hued eggplants the size of my thumb, and thimble-sized gherkins that looked more like tiny watermelons than they did heirloom cucumbers.

I picked up some of the usual suspects, including pastured eggs, garlic, and fragrant cherry tomatoes. Before the skeet shooting and sunbathing commenced at my uncle’s house, I whipped up a frittata that perfectly complemented a big watermelon-strawberry salad and my uncle’s homemade smoked pork sausage.

Although I prefer to finish frittatas in the oven, there’s no reason you can’t cook them all the way on the stove if you don’t have an oven-safe skillet. If you go stove-only, keep the heat a little lower and prepare to keep lifting up the edges to let the uncooked eggs run underneath. A larger skillet will speed things up, but isn’t necessary. If you want to get really fancy, you can try to flip the whole thing over. This is a great way to throw 10 expensive eggs on the floor, if you’re into that kind of thing. Sometimes I am, but not when I’ve got a house full of hungry would-be skeet shooters.

roasted eggplant salad

Dow Chemical, everyone’s favorite multinational chemical corporation, has developed a plant-based cellulose that mimics the function of gluten in gluten-free baked goods. In this video, a Dow food scientist talks about the company’s commitment to helping people follow healthy lifestyles. I laughed my way through the video and its perversely campy title, When Great Ideas Rise. Dow’s particular brand of ‘solutionism’ is one that relies on extensive manipulation of odd ingredients to create compounds that are not food. It wasn’t too long ago that Michael Pollan made nutritionism – and its proponents – his scapegoats. Dow’s PR people should’ve done their research before landing on solutionism as the benevolent face of their food science division. Too late, Dow! Nutritionism = solutionism.

As I prepared dinner the other night for vegetarian, gluten-free, and dairy-free friends, I thought about the role extensively processed gluten-free products play in our diets. For me, that role is pretty much nonexistent. To extend the analogy, I’d say these food-like substances are extras on the movie set of my plate. Not even non-speaking walk-ons.

I’d made a cool and silky watermelon-tomato gazpacho, a big batch of fried padrón peppers with flaky sea salt, and a robust eggplant salad redolent of roasted garlic and toasted tahini. We weren’t hurting for food, but for a moment I felt like the texture of the eggplant salad and soup dictated a bread or cracker for dipping and scooping. I didn’t have time to buy or make anything, and the bread monster (aka fiancé) had done some serious damage to our carbohydrate stocks since my last grocery trip.

I rummaged around in the crisper drawer and emerged with a head of radicchio. I carefully peeled individual leaves from the head to form cups for holding eggplant salad. What a solution(ism)! The bitterness of the radicchio cut through the richness of the tahini and eggplant, and made the meal a little more interactive.

I guess I should say a few things about the eggplant salad, since this has been my meandering way of offering you its recipe. For this dish, I use a number of ingredients common to the eggplant spread baba ghanoush, add my own touches, and throw the standard proportions of eggplant to tahini out the window. I treat the salad as more of a main dish, and accordingly cut back on the tahini so the final product is not overly rich. The eggplant salad is great on its own, dipped into with crackers (made from real food, please!), or scooped into lettuce leaves.

grilled sweet pepper and tomato soup with avocado pesto

I have a shopping addiction, and it involves my CSA. While some women pine for new bags and shoes (who am I kidding; I’ve been there, too), I generally sate the shopping bug with weekly add-ons from our CSA’s web store. The web store, a members-only online catalogue of artisanal foods, bulk produce, locally-roasted coffee, and other goodies (Monterey Bay sea salt with kelp? Yes, I needed that), is available for three days each week. Shopping these limited-time offerings is as exciting for me as it is for a normal person to score a great deal via Groupon or Gilt.

In recent weeks, summer’s bounty has made the offerings in the web store unbearably attractive. I have no self-control with pints of organic blueberries, hearth-baked breads, and, my newest addiction, grab bags of mixed sweet peppers. The sweet peppers, which range from the size of my pinkie to the size of my whole hand, come in a kaleidoscope of colors. Although I’ll crunch on one like an apple, I prefer them grilled or roasted. 

Despite my desire to eat them all whole, I convinced myself that I could spare one of the two bags of peppers I bought last week for a recipe in which their sweet flavor would really shine. I thought soup would be nice, but the reality of slaving over a hot stove in a hot house is always unappealing. Instead, I sent my favorite grill master out to the Weber with said peppers, an equal amount of dry-farmed CSA tomatoes, sliced sweet onions, and a handful of unpeeled garlic cloves wrapped in foil. Coated in olive oil and smoky spices, the grilled vegetables form the base of a soup that requires very little subsequent time on the stove.

Topped with sliced radishes and a cold and creamy avocado pesto, this soup – served hot – still fit the bill for a warm summer night’s meal. I lamented the disappearance of yet another bag of peppers, but the good news is that I only have to wait two more days to re-up my horde.

roasted potato salad with basil, scallions, and mustard-walnut vinaigrette

Does anything bring our finicky tendencies to the surface more than food? Recently, after setting a bowl of just-picked cherries in front of my brother, he popped one off the stem into his mouth, thoughtfully chewing. “This is the first cherry I’ve ever had.”I looked at him like he was a crazy person, but then admitted that I didn’t remember a bowl of cherries ever gracing the family table of our childhood.

A few days later, I discovered the source of our family’s collective cherry aversion. “Oh, I’ve never liked cherries,” my mom said, “but I’ll eat them cooked in desserts, as long as it’s not cherry pie.” I had a flashback to cherries jubilee, a decidedly non-pie cherry dessert that my parents would serve for dinner parties. It always wowed both sophisticated guests and my pajama-clad brother and me with its boozy flammability. Besides the incendiary alcoholic ones, nary a cherry crossed my path until I became a farmers’ market fiend a little over five years ago. 

I encountered the same food funniness while serving potato salad the other night. Mine was not the oft-hated goopy, mayonnaise-drenched mess, but I was a little nervous when I heard my mom and brother nonchalantly chatting about their dislike of potato salad. My friend, after thoughtfully chewing her first bite, said “I mean, I really don’t like potatoes, but I like this.” Throughout the meal, I stole furtive glances at my guests’ dinner plates, trying to make out in the fading light if the piles of food left on their plates were chicken bones or unloved potato salad. 

Turns out I needn’t have worried, as the six of us put away the better part of over four pounds of mixed marble potatoes that night. In my unusual take on potato salad, mini spuds are roasted at high heat while a pleasantly bracing mustard and walnut oil vinaigrette is quickly whisked together. Tossed with plenty of toasted walnuts, fresh basil, and sliced scallions, this potato salad is best eaten at room temperature. I recommend gently smashing some of the potatoes to break their skins and allow the vinaigrette to better penetrate the starchy goodness.

Everyone decided that the potato salad was the best part of the meal, although even the non-cherry lovers agreed that dessert – salted caramel ice cream topped with homemade, uncooked brandied CHERRIES – might have been the sleeper hit. My take-home from all of this? When someone says they don’t like something, feed it to them anyway.

chicken stock- and honey-glazed carrots

Last week, I ate about three pounds of carrots. Supplementing our weekly CSA share with additional vegetables is not unlike a game of Russian roulette: we have a three-day window over the weekend to take advantage of the farm’s online store – which sells products ranging from bulk orders of certain fruits and vegetables, to locally-roasted coffee and artisan jams – but we don’t find out what’s in our weekly box until Tuesday. This means that when I opt to add two pounds of baby artichokes to my weekly share, I have no way of knowing if my CSA will giveth baby artichokes of its own. 

This time around, my fridge runneth over with loose carrots. I’d thought it sounded like a good idea to have a couple pounds of carrots laying around for snacking and whatnot, but I didn’t think that, hidden under the bushels of leafy greens, there’d be two more pounds of beta carotene powerhouses.

I did my best with the carrots. I pickled, shaved, and roasted. I dipped, sautéed, and nibbled them like a bunny. By far the best thing I did with the little orange sticks, though, was glaze them with slightly-fatty homemade chicken stock, fresh herbs from my struggling herb garden, and wildflower honey. Reducing two and a half cups of chicken stock and honey until it barely glazes the bottom of the pan can only do wonderful things for the flavor of your dish, and the honey adds a sweet and floral note. 

roasted beet and goat yogurt salad with olives and oregano

Last weekend was a whirlwind, thanks to a roughly 36-hour trip down to LA for a dear friend’s wedding. I could go on and on about the wedding itself, but I’m here to write about food so am going to cut myself off RIGHT NOW before I go down the rabbit hole of wedding fantasyland. We ate well both nights, which, let’s be honest, is somewhat unusual as weddings go. The Mediterranean/California fusion menus were ingredient-driven, seasonal, and mildly innovative yet straightforward enough to appeal to the hundreds of captive diners. 

Due to unfortunate work schedules, we had to skedaddle back up to the Bay Area before the main course was served. Entranced by the first dance, speeches, and salad course, I looked at my watch and was shocked at how fast time was flying. Soon, a catering attendant was shoving into my arms two salmon entrées to-go as we rushed out to pick up our luggage from the valet and slip into a waiting taxi.

The to-go boxes were a nice touch, and I managed to keep them intact both while hopping in and out of heels at security, and while undergoing an unnecessary full pat-down and bomb-swabbing. Ravenous, we finally sat down in a café near our gate to eat and watch the basketball game. Recognizing my impending low blood sugar meltdown, George claimed he wanted a hot dog, leaving me to take down – with haste – two portions of wild king salmon with Meyer lemon-green olive salsa and fennel-herb salad. Bless him.

Sleepy and sated on the short plane ride home, I found myself thinking about goat cheese, which naturally led me to thoughts of the carton of goat yogurt I’d picked up on a whim at Whole Foods last week. Years ago, a friend, and incidentally the bride, had introduced me to goat cheese and thus helped spawn my deep and enduring relationship with what is now one of my favorite foods. Goat yogurt is faintly reminiscent of goat cheese, with a slightly grassy (euphemism for goat-y) taste. I love it, but consider yourself warned.

Tangy yogurt is a perfect match for sweet, earthy beets. In fact, I find that I crave acidic and salty components anytime I eat beets. For this salad, a twist on the traditional beet and goat cheese combo, I lightly coat roasted beets in faux-vinaigrette and top them with oregano-spiked yogurt. The salad is not unlike the wedding menu: mildly innovative yet not so far out there that no one will touch it. Keep in mind that red beets stain anything around them, so heed my advice to enjoy this salad cold and top the beets with the yogurt just before serving to avoid a preemptively pretty-in-pink salad.