Food Simply Simple

I was reading Rozanne Gold's 1-2-3 Cookbook over the weekend and found a great recipe for Eggplant Souffle, using only 3 ingredients.  Since it's past eggplant season and I have lots of winter squash in storage for the winter, I adapted the recipe.  I believe most eggplant recipes can be adapted to winter squash, assuming you choose the right squash.  It worked!  I changed the eggplant to roasted and pureed squash and the feta to gruyere.  It worked, and we figured out options for variations to modify flavor and texture.  We will use this recipe again and again.

Squash is an incredibly inexpensive, easy to work with, non-processed food.  We lose a few each year, but we keep our winter food bills way down by investing in a lot of different kinds of winter squash and using them inventively.  So far, we've created about 100 recipes.

Squash “Souffle” – with options

Serves 4-8

6-8 cups winter squash, pre-roasted and pureed (Hubbard, sweet meat, golden delicious) – measure after pureeing

NOTE:  Choose a squash with some moisture versus a buttercup type that is quite dry

NOTE:  Most squash will puree easily if roasted and then stirred well.  Sometimes, a hand beater or hand-blender or even a food processor will work, depending on whether the squash is fiber-y.

5 large eggs

8 oz. gruyère or other Swiss cheese, shredded (medium cheddar will also work)

If squash puree is not smooth when you begin, stir or beat squash until it is smooth.  Add eggs and beat by hand or with mixer until eggs are fully incorporated.  Stir in the cheese.

Place mixture in oiled 9x13 pan.  Bake 350°F, 45 minutes, until set.

Options:

Sprinkle with lemony-y gremolata before serving.

Gremolata is an Italian way to add flavor:

Remove the peel of a fresh, washed, and dried lemon.

Mix the lemon peel with finely chopped parsley (2-4 Tablespoons), either flat leaf or curly.

Mix with 2-3 cloves garlic, chopped.

Chop the three items very finely and sprinkle on top of the dish just before serving.

You can add very finely chopped toasted nuts.

Serve with cranberry relish on the side.

Add 1-2 tsp. cumin when mixing.  Serve with some chutney on the side.

Add 2 tsp. ancho, chipotle, or cayenne pepper spice to the mix with the cheese and make sure it is mixed in well.  Top the soufflé with dollops of plain, no-fat Greek yogurt.

Enjoy!

LinK

We gathered our final CSA collection of veggies yesterday, and as usual, we ran out of time to do anything but cook fast.  What do you cook, though, when there’s pretty much just a hodge podge of things, some needing to be used now, and some more flexible?

I started to aim for putting a lot of veggies – turnips and potatoes and beets and fennel – into a nice sauce and cooking on low for an hour or so, and then I remembered I had chard stems, lots of gorgeous rainbow chard stems.  It’s gloomy lately, and they tend to be excellent.  How to make a dinner of chard stems?

The approach was quick and satisfying.  I will do this again with lots of variations:  hot peppers, or not; more varieties of vegetables such as daikon or regular radishes sliced; cabbage; radicchio.  Herbs would add a lot, as would some nice pesto mixed with plain yogurt to dollop on top.

Chard Stems Dinner

Chop coarsely a lot of onions and garlic, about 6 small to medium onions and half a head of garlic.  Sauté in olive oil while chopping chard stems (1”), fennel bulb (thinly, thinly sliced), 3 medium potatoes (thinly sliced but not peeled ), 3-4 red and green peppers (thinly sliced).   Once the onions have wilted a bit, add the potatoes and stir well to coat them with the oil already in the sauté pan.  Put the lid on and keep on low heat 10-15 minutes.   Add everything else and stir well, again distributing the oil.  Cover and cook on low 15-20 minutes until chard stems are tender.

Serve with grated cheese.  We used aged provolone, and it would work well with goat’s cheese, mild blue cheese, romano, or parmesan. 

Now, the challenge is to select from many options what to do with the gorgeous turnips, the last of the collard greens, and the thick bundle of curly kale.  There are probably some mustard-y stews and soy-saucy mixes just ahead.

LinK

Nothing is French about zucchini. Zucchini doesn’t exist in France. France has courgettes, and we have entered the season of courgettes. However -- about ten years ago, I was in southern France on a business trip with a great friend, and we ventured out into a tiny medieval town tucked into a hill. The hotel had recommended the restaurant for offering food that would please the two of us, both vegetarians. We took a taxi and entered the little village and then the restaurant, a medieval building that had been adapted to a wonderful restaurant. The owner and chef greeted us and took us to a table in the back, through the kitchen. He moved the long table, disrupting somewhat a German couple already seated at the other end, and asked us what we wanted. We negotiated in not terribly polished French, and left ourselves in his hands. It was a wonderful meal, and the one single food that stands out in my memory remains the courgettes in mustard sauce. The dish was simple, a whole courgette sitting in the middle of mustard sauce.

Courgettes, our zucchini, is often under-cooked and can lack flavor, particularly when it is late season or overgrown. This zucchini was tender, flavorful, and very zucchini-ish. The mustard sauce was creamy and a great setting for the vegetable. It was such a simple preparation, and I’ve wanted to re-create it ever since.

It doesn’t sound like much of a challenge, but research gives dismaying results. Mustard sauce appears to be heavy cream with mustard added. Heavy cream is not exactly healthy, and I avoid using it except when it’s the only option, and those tend to be treats. Zucchini in heavy cream is hard to justify when there are so many wonderful ways to cook and enjoy zucchini without heavy cream. But the wish to re-create the courgettes I tasted in the south of France remains.

How to cook zucchini – without cream?

Sauté very thinly sliced zucchini in olive oil with several sliced cloves of garlic and as the zucchini softens and becomes transparent, cook the pasta. If you love butter, add a tablespoon with the oil to create a buttery taste without adding tons of butter itself. Drain the cooked pasta and combine with the sautéed garlic. For 4 people, use 4-8 medium zucchini, or as much as you enjoy.

Zucchini is full of water, so you can use a lot of zucchini to start and end up with not so much zucchini to consumer. If you use yellow zucchini or yellow summer squash, expect more liquid from the vegetable as it cooks and be prepared. You can pour off the extra liquid, add some bulgur wheat and let it sit a while the pasta boils. The bulgur will soak up a lot of liquid given time.

Variation? Add 1-2 cups of ricotta cheese and some of the pasta cooking water as part of the mix.

Variation? Crumble 4 ounces of feta cheese on top of the zucchini, add some pasta cooking water, and toss with the pasta.

Variation? Add 1 /4 - 1/3 cup of lemon juice when mixing the zucchini with the pasta.

Variation? Top any version with freshly grated cheese and/or toasted bread crumbs.

How can you go wrong?

Well, we went “right,” finally, last week and created the Courgettes and Creamy Mustard Sauce (I wonder if that would be Courgettes en Sauce Moutarde? My French is pretty rusty). It’s as good or better as any zucchini dish I could imagine. Yum. It is the heavy cream abuse for the summer.

Zucchini in Mustard Sauce

4-6 medium zucchini, cleaned, sliced ½”

2-3 T. olive oil

½ c. heavy cream

2 T. Dijon mustard

Toss the zucchini slices in the oil and sauté them, letting them a bit brown and also soft. You should be able to smell the zucchini, and they will be somewhat transparent.

Place the zucchini in a 9x13 or other casserole dish – to allow the zucchini to cover the bottom but not be in thick piles. Mix the cream and mustard and pour on top of the zucchini, distributing the sauce all over. Bake at 450° for about 15 minutes, or until the sauce reduces and thickens and starts to brown at the edges.

Enjoy! And if the guilt is too much, adapt with less-high fat yogurt:

Zucchini in Mustard Sauce – with less guilt

4-6 medium zucchini, cleaned, sliced ½”

2-3 T olive oil

½ c. high fat plain yogurt (4-10% milkfat, a lot less than 35-45% milkfat in heavy cream)

2 T. Dijon mustard

Follow the instructions above.

The alternative has some fat, but less fat, and lots of flavor. I tried it with Greek yogurt, no fat, plain, also, and it was nice, but not creamy enough. I’d use the no fat Greek yogurt again, but given a chance, I’d set my compromise on high fat yogurt and enjoy every taste.

Who could complain about excess zucchini?

LinK

We have never liked peas.  We know that when fresh, peas are supposed to be sublime.  But we'll take sugar snaps and snow peas any day and traditionally, we avoid peas.  This year, though, we are committed to saying "yes" to every vegetable we come across, and this week, we committed to peas.  We bought five quarts of peas and we made a salad, and we are converts.  I don't think I want to spend every weekend shelling peas, but once a year, this will be our indulgence.

Actually, shelling the peas is not very hard, and if I work with friends and family, it's a great social moment that leads to great eating, too.

Pea – Feta – Israeli Couscous – Mint Salad

4-5 quarts of fresh peas, shelled

4-5 oz. feta, crumbled

2 c. Israeli Couscous (cooked in 2 c. water until just cooked)

3 T. olive oil

2 T. rice wine vinegar

2-3 T. dried mint or 1/3-1/2 c. fresh mint, in bits

Cook the peas very briefly, just until they turn bright green. Let them cool off the heat.

Stir the olive oil and rice wine vinegar into the couscous gently to distribute and stir in the mint. Stir well, but gently.

When the peas are cool, gently stir the peas into the couscous and then stir in the feta.

If for some reason you can't find or don't want to deal with Israeli couscous, use a small pasta shape, about a half pound.  We found that adding a bit more olive oil and rice wine vinegar at the last minute dressed it up with a fresh taste and didn't make it oily or sharp.

Enjoy!

LinK 

Exploring great ways to make and enjoy food tends to compete with finding ways to keep income rolling in.  It was challenging to get excited as winter wore on and spring kept delaying its arrival.  But suddenly, we're there!  We have two CSA shares -- two different farms.  And we have discovered that is the season of kohlrabi.  What to do with kohlrabi?  It's an amazing vegetable.  First, it's two foods:  the greens and the bulbs -- the satellites, as Farmer Rose says.

Kohlrabi is low calorie, tasty, and excellent raw or cooked.  Its nutrition profile is high!  But so few people know what to do with it.

Use the greens pretty quickly.  You do have to remove the thick stems, but after that, soak the leaves and make sure they're clean.  Slice them into ribbons or squares, and steam/saute them with oil and garlic.  Use them with pasta.  Use them in quiche.  Use them as a tasty, garlicky side dish.  Use them with the crustless quiche recipe below.

The satellites store for a bit.  The purple ones are a titch sweeter than the green ones, but you probably won't notice unless you do a taste test.  The purple ones are a purer white than the green ones when peeled.  I use them interchangeably.  Cut off the outside of the bulb.  As you cut, you will be able to see that the skin is pretty thick.  Cut off any part of the outside that is woody/fibrous.

Eat the bulb raw, sliced thinly, with a mustardy or garlicky dip.

Or use the recipes below!

Kohlrabi Greens Crustless Ricotta Quiche

Serves 4-6 – main dish

Greens from Kohlrabi – 1-2 bunches, cleaned, thick stems removed, sliced in ½” ribbons

2 c. plain, no-fat Greek yogurt

3 eggs

1 T. chili sauce

2 T. olive oil

1 c. ricotta cheese

Preheat oven to 350°F. Lightly oil a 10” pie pan or 10” square pan. Sauté the kohlrabi greens in oil until they wilt. Cover the pan and leave on low for 5 minutes. Turn off heat and leave covered.

Mix the yogurt and eggs. Mix in the chili sauce. Add kohlrabi greens and mix well. Pour into oiled pan. Drop ricotta on top in spoonfuls. Bake 45-60 minutes until lightly browned and firm in the middle. Serve in wedges.

Kohlrabi and Mustard Cream Sauce

Serves 4 – Side Dish

2-3 kohlrabi bulbs, purple or green

1/3 c. plain, low-fat Greek yogurt

2 T. mayonnaise

1-2 T. Dijon mustard – or horseradish mustard

1 tsp. olive oil

Remove leaves from kohlrabi and save for another recipe. Peel the kohlrabi and slice it thinly. Stack the thin slices and cut them into ribbons. This is very easy to do. Mix the yogurt, mayonnaise, and mustard and toss with the sliced kohlrabi.

Oil a pie pan. Spread the kohlrabi around the pie pan to an even depth. Bake 475°F 15-20 minutes. The sauce will bubble and brown. Serve hot or room temperature.

 Kohlrabi and Lemon Tahini Sauce

Serves 4 – Side Dish

2-3 kohlrabi bulbs, purple or green

1/3 c. plain, low-fat Greek yogurt

2 T. tahini (sesame seed paste)

1-2 T. lemon juice

1 tsp. olive oil

Remove leaves from kohlrabi and save for another recipe. Peel the kohlrabi and slice it thinly. Stack the thin slices and cut them into ribbons. This is very easy to do. Mix the yogurt, tahini, and lemon and toss with the sliced kohlrabi. Mix the yogurt with the Tahini first and then add the lemon. Tahini thickens the yogurt and the lemon will brighten the flavors and thin the sauce a little bit.

Oil a pie pan. Spread the kohlrabi around the pie pan to an even depth. Bake 475°F 15-20 minutes. The sauce will bubble and brown. Serve hot or room temperature.

So go to your nearest farmers' market and buy  kohlrabi and indulge!  Two for one, and many ways to use it.  Plus, they look great on a bowl, stored until you're ready to work with them.

LinK