Ratatouille

As I mentioned a while back, I have a ton of marinara sauce. But at the same time, I'm watching what I eat pretty carefully these days, which means I can't be eating too much pasta. So what to do?

Somehow, I thought of doing a fake lasagna with some zucchini thin-sliced horizontally, with the Morningstar Farm Grillers Prime or Sausage Recipe Crumbles (or whatever they're called) and some low fat ricotta or cottage cheese. Though I was not too keen on the cheese portion. My neighbor and trainer Heather, pointed out that this is basically rataouille, if I added eggplant and red bell pepper.

Not a fan of that vegetable, by the way. My stepmother is the only person that's actually made me eggplant that I liked and it was seriously fried, so I dunno if that counts.

I decided to give it a shot. The first effort, san eggplant, was really pretty good. I did a bit of experimentation, even trying some eggplant I found at the farmer's market. I got the small zucchini-sized ones (not japanese eggplant, smaller versions of the regular). I think I have a really winner here. After all that, I finally opened a cookbook and found that I was making pretty close to authentic ratatouille.

Oh, and I freaking love my ScanPan saute pan. More on that another day, but my God, it's like magic.

Here's my first shot at writing a recipe:

1 small, narrow eggplant
1 medium yellow squash
1 medium zucchini squash
1/2 yellow onion
1/2 red ball pepper
2 cloves garlic
1 tbsp olive oil
kosher salt
1 cup marinara sauce
1+ tbsp fresh oregeno
2 tbsp fresh basil

Slice eggplant into thin disks. Place in single layer in a colander (over a paper towel or plate to catch the liquid) sprinkled with kosher salt. Sprinkle kosher salt across top as well. Let sweat for ~45 minutes.

Slice onion and red bell pepper into sticks. Slice yellow squash and zucchini into thin disks. Using the back of a chef's knife or pastry scraper, mash peeled garlic cloves with kosher salt into a paste (salt crystals will act as an abrasive). Mince herbs. At the end of the 45 minutes, pat the eggplant dry with paper towels.

Heat saute pan to medium high. Add olive oil. When oil starts to shimmer, add onions. When onion softens, add mashed garlic. When garlic is browned, add zucchini and summer squash. Heat until both start to soften, turning a bit translucent. Add eggplant and heat until that starts to turn translucent as well. Add red bell pepper. Heat until bell pepper begins to soften. Pour marinara into pan around the edges and sprinkle the herbs across the top. Gently fold in the sauce to the vegetables until heated through.

Serves 4 as a side, 2 as a main course.

* This seems to be all the rage these days. I learned it at the Chopping Block and have since see it on How to Boil Water with Tyler Florence and, yes, America's Test Kitchen

Black Bean Quinoa Salad

First off, it's pronounced "KEEN-wa."

A few weeks back, I went to a dinner party with a friend who's in Yoga school. As you might expect, all vegetarian. Which, frankly, is fine by me. I found a long time ago that, if necessary, I could go meatless, assuming that included fish, eggs and dairy. Vegans, however, are crazy.

Everything was good, but the one hands-down standout was this dish. I'd never had quinoa before and there were a lot of diced tomatoes, which to this day are my kryptonite. But, damn, this is good. Quinoa is a grain which is apparently a "super-food." It's whole grain, so lots of fiber, but chock-full of protein as well. Usually, I think these kinds of food suck. I'm looking at you, kale. But this actually tastes good and has a nice texture. It's kind of like cous-cous. In fact, I bet you could sub it in very easily. It cooks up kind of like rice, so that's easy.

The recipe does feed an army, though. I succumbed to temptation and and made a double batch, to help work down our tomato and peppers crop. Don't do that. Seriously. As good as it is, it gets tiring eating it twice a day for a week just to finish it before it can go bad.

This recipe was actually my first exposure to the Moosewood Restaurant Low-Fat Favorites cookbook. Fortunately, I had made it before trying the Gingered Broccoli, so I still have a good feeling about this book.

Saag (Indian Spinach) Quesadillas

You know, I've always claimed that Indian and Mexican foods have a strong common base - heavy use of cumin, cilantro and serrano and jalepeno peppers.

With this, I made my first venture into the fusion and nailed it.

I had promised Channing we'd have Chicken Quesadillas for dinner, only to get home and find that I had left the chicken filling out all day. It went very bad. So, rather than dooming him to another night of microwaved Grillers Prime, I searched around for something I could make quesadillas from beyond the cheese and tortillas I knew I had.

In scrambling through the fridge, I came across the leftover saag panir (Indian creamed spinach with cheese) from our dinner a few nights before. I can't claim the saag for myself - it was frozen from the store, btw.

So I took that, removed the panir chunks (because those basically wouldn't melt) and mixed in the shredded monterey jack cheese we had. It was still a bit soupy, so I threw in some cheddar to get to the right consistency for quesadillas (basically, just enough cheese to bind the rest when melted).

Pre-cooked, it tasted pretty good.

When properly grilled up, amazing. Wow. I'll make this on purpose, for sure, though I may try with just the jack cheese, to see. But it's a definite winner. And as I want to start actually creating recipes, I think this Indian/Mexican fusion is a great direction that will work.

P.S. I'm starting to teach Channing some basic kitchen techniques, so he can have some of the things he likes if I don't happen to be home (slicing meats, etc). We did these collaboratively, with him manning the grill after the first one, and he did a great job. While I don't think that cooking will be an interest for him like it is me, it was fun and I think we might take one of the Chopping Block's couples classes just for grins.

Treebeards' Mushroom Soup

I've been literally been meaning to make this soup for years. I ordered it once at the restaurant when I was feeling a little coldish. Stuffed up, but not enough to stay home from work. I was not expecting the pepper kick and I'll be damned if it didn't completely clear me up. This wasn't a bland cream of mushroom soup, but a blast of flavor and spice with large, delicious chunks of mushrooms.

The only think that held me back was the use of whole milk (or half & half) in the recipe and Channing's hatred of whole mushrooms. Do you see a pattern in what I have to work with here? It's a texture thing, actually.

I knew I needed a soup course for Thanksgiving and I'd made the Eastside's Curried Corn Chowder too many times before (and he doesn't like that, either, because of the whole kernels of corn and the spice). So, I threw this on the menu.

There were enough dishes that anyone who wasn't interested in it wouldn't go hungry (only hurt my feelings), but wanted as many people to enjoy it as possible, of course. I realized that I now have an immersion blender, so I could make it a mix of regular and creamed soup. That way, I could serve the cream-only portion to Channing and still have the basic recipe for us.

Preparation was pretty fast and easy, the hardest part being cleaning 2.5 lbs of mushrooms. I'm pretty fast on these and it still takes about 15 minutes, just for that.

While the result wasn't quite what my 15+ year old memory led me to expect, it was quite good. There was definitely a pepper kick in there which, with the other spices, kept it from being anything like the canned Cream of Mushroom. Most of the heaviness of the liquid was a function of my having blended half of the recipe and using the the half & half itself. I think you could easily go with a lighter milk and it would be fine.

While eating dinner, I did find that there were a few lumps of flour in the mix. They didn't taste too different from the softened mushrooms, so not a big deal, but it was a little embarassing. I need to be more careful with the flour next time. I had made two batches - I'm pretty sure the first was fine, but I was rushing through the second one and I'm willing to bet that I just got careless.

Creative Experiment: Low(er) Fat Saag Panir (Indian Creamed Spinach)

I never posted this recipe from the Indian Meal mainly because the book it comes from, the Art of Indian Vegetarian Cooking, is a monster and, consequently, kind of hard to get onto the scanner. It's a very interesting read - it only suffers from a lack of pictures.

I've had mixed to bad results with the recipe. These are all related to consistency - the flavors are good enough that I keep coming back for another try. The first time, it was kind of oily. That was also my first-ever attempt to cook Indian at home, so there were other things going on, including making ghee from scratch with the baking method I mentioned before. I also took the recipe very literally and fried the panir by hand. I found later that you can buy fried panir frozen at the Indian market, thereby skipping that messy and oily step. Note that you can also buy fresh panir at the market as well, so you can fry it yourself if you want, but you don't have to make it. Fortunately, I figured that out before the first attempt.

I tried again for the dinner and it came out frighteningly stiff. I'm still not sure how, other than I may have simply added way too much cream cheese.

In either attempt, it was tasty, but seriously unhealthy. So, I figured I'd try to de-fat it as much as possible. My intent was to use just a bit of ghee (~1 tbl) to cook the spices and skip the cheese and cream entirely.

Well, that didn't work out so well.

As soon as I added the spinach I knew I was in trouble. I used thawed chooped frozen spinach from which I'd squeezed out the water, just like I have been instructed in every other recipe I've made that uses it. Right away, it was way too dry. So, after it cooked for about 8 minutes, as instructed, I stirred in 3 tbl of cream, just to loosen it up a bit. The flavor was a bit strong. This was because, without bothering to read the spinach package, I had doubled the seasonings assuming that my big bag of Goya frozen spinach was twice as much as what the recipe called for. Not. true. I tried adding only half, but it was a guess. To cut the flavor, I went ahead and added some frozen fried panir I had. The result was fine tasting, but not the lowfat creation I had envisioned.

Looking back, I think my big problem was squeezing out all of the water from the spinach.

PALAK PANIR SAK
Chopped Spinach with Panir Cheese

One of the most popular vegetable dishes in North India is palak panir sak. Every temple and household has its own variation. Sometimes it is made exclusively with spinach, and at others with mixed greens - spinach and mustard, collard, fenugreek or beet greens. Some variations attain notoriety by pureeing cooked spinach and simmering it with cream and fried panir cubes. Other renditions remain textured, matching equal amounts of fried cheese with buttery, wilted chopped spinach. It is a moist, succulent dish that is delicious with hot flatbreads. Bite-sized pieces of flat bread are used to scoop up bits of cheese and spinach. Try palak panir sak with Griddle-Baked Village-Style Corn Bread, Mixed Bean Salad with Fennel or chopped tomatoes with herbs and oil and Golden Pumpkin Toovar Dal Soup for a delicious, nutritious meal.

Preparation time (after assembling ingredients): 5 minutes
Cooking time: about 30 minutes
Serves: 5 or 6

1-2 hot green chilies, cut into pieces
1/2 inch (l.5 cm) piece of fresh inch ginger root, sliced
4 tablespoons (60 ml) panir whey or water
1/2 tablespoon (7 ml) ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon (2 ml) turmeric
1/2 teaspoon (2 ml) ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon (l ml) paprika
6 tablespoons (90 ml) ghee or nut oil fresh panir cheese (page 313) made from 6 cups (l.5 liters) milk, cut into 1/2-inch (l.5 cm) cubes (about 6 ounces/170 g)
2 pounds (1 kg) fresh spinach, washed, trimmed and finely chopped, or two 10-ounce (570 g) packages of frozen chopped spinach, defrosted
1/2 teaspoon (2 ml) garam masala
1 teaspoon (5 ml) salt
3 tablespoons (45 ml) cream or cream cheese, cut into small pieces

1. Place the chilies, ginger and whey or water in a blender or food processor bowl fitted with the metal blade. Process to a smooth puree. Add the coriander, turmeric, cumin and paprika and pulse to blend well. Set aside.
2. Heat the ghee or oil in a nonstick wok or 5-quart/liter saucepan over moderate heat until it is hot but not smoking. Gently add the panir cheese and fry for about 5 more minutes, constantly turning the cubes with a gentle hand, to evenly brown them on all able sides. (If you use a stainless steel pan, the cubes invariably stick to the pan and tend to easy spread apart.) When the cubes are golden brown, remove with a slotted spoon and set aside.
3. Carefully add the wet spice (masala) to the hot oil and then pack in the freshably spinach leaves. Reduce the heat slightly, cover, and cook for 8 minutes. Using two forks, turn the spinach over so that the cooked leaves on the bottom change places with the leaves on top. Cover and cook for another 8 minutes. (If you are using frozen, defrosted spinach, cook it for only a total of 8 minutes.)
4. Add the garam masala, salt, fried panir and cream or cream cheese. Cover and continue to cook for about 5 minutes. Stir well before serving.

Dal Soup

Things are starting to get a little out of order here, but this was from the Chopping Block class. I think this soup has potential, but as prepared in class, it was pretty bland. At very least, it needs some salt. As soups are wont to do, it did get better after a day or two in the frig.

DAL SOUP

2/3 cup picked-over split skinned mung dal or toovar dal

Wash dal in several changes of water until water runs clear and drain well in a sieve. Cook dal at a bare simmer in 6 cups water in a heavy soup pot until dal is soft and cooked through, 40 minutes. Whisk until the dal is creamy.

2 tablespoons ghee
1 1/2 teaspoons black mustard seeds
2 tablespoons ginger, minced
1 fresh hot red chili such as serrano or Thai, seeded and halved lengthwise
1 cinnamon stick
1 bay leaf
5 cups vegetable stock
2 cups canned tomatoes, seeded and chopped
1 teaspoon ground coriander
2 teaspoons tamarind concentrate
1 teaspoon turmeric
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

In a heavy pot over medium high heat add the ghee. When hot, but not smoking, add mustard seeds, ginger and red chili, stirring, until seeds begin to pop. Add remaining ingredients including dal and whisk to break up the dal. Bring to a boil, and reduce the heat to a simmer, stirring occasionally. Cook uncovered for about 10-15 minutes. Season with salt and garnish with fresh cilantro sprigs.

Bengali Red Lentil Dal

Oh wow. Wow. Wow. Wow.

A while back, I bought a honkin' big bag of red lentils (masoor dal). Then I never got around to cooking them. Mainly because I was thinking that I was going to have to soak them overnight. I don't plan meals that well in advance unless it's a big deal. So, thanks to the oft-mentioned Chopping Block class, I realized that was very unlikely to be true.

Sure enough. I poked around on the web and found this recipe for Bengali Red Lentil Dal. There are a TON of recipes for Indian food out there, I presume because of a) the large number of expatriots wanting a taste of home and b) the general spread of Indian culture into the Western mainstream. The only thing I care about is that I benefit.

This is a great recipe. I was strangely taken with the prospect of a new spice mix, panch phanon. This is a mix of "equal proportions of whole cumin, fenugreek, anise, mustard, "Indian black onion" seeds (kalunji)." It's my new favorite.

The only change I made to the recipe is that I held back on the peppers. 6 serranos seemed like an awful lot to me, so I put in, I'd guess, about 4 (~2/3's of the ones I'd chopped). I bet I could have gone with all of them.

Aloo Ghobi

This is one of the last of the Chopping Block class recipes. It was, actually, my favorite for eating, but due to the logistics of the class, it's the one I had no hand in the cooking. Jenni and my station partners were really good about keeping us updated on which step they were on, but it's not quite the same. I did get to practice my knife skills from the previous week and I am making progress on breaking my bad habits. It's a shame about the cooking part, because I have been curious about making Aloo Ghobi specifically since I saw the DVD extra of Bend It Like Beckham where the director makes it while her mother and aunt. But this recipe is a proven winner to me, so I'll be giving this one a shot myself, but in the meantime...

ALOO GOBHI
1 cauliflower, cut into flowerettes
1/4 cup grapeseed oil
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 tablespoon fresh ginger, minced
2 teaspoons garlic, minced
4 potatoes, large dice
1 tablespoon turmeric powder
1/2 teaspoon cayenne
1 teaspoon garam masala
3 tomatoes, chopped or 1 1/2 cups canned crushed tomatoes
2 tablespoons cilantro, rough chopped
Salt to taste

Heat a saute pan over medium low heat and add oil. Saute cumin seeds, ginger and garlic until tender. Add the potatoes, turmeric, chili powder and garam masala. Allow the spices to toast, about 1-2 minutes. Add the tomatoes and simmer for about 5 minutes. Add cauliflower and simmer covered for 15 minutes (add 1/2 cup of water if too dry). Finish by adding the chopped cilantro and season to taste with salt.