Black Bean Enchiladas

These Black Bean Enchiladas were on the roster for the Deborah Madison feature months on 101 Cookbooks Library.  I was a day late in making them, but since I already had the Black Bean Chili made and this exact quantity set aside in the freezer, as well as some tomatillo sauce that I had frozen from a canning session a few months ago, it was just a matter of assembly and a brief baking time.  Who can say no to a quick and easy dinner?  I ended up trying this with both the black bean chili and the black bean and butternut squash chili as fillings - I liked Deborah Madison's black bean chili better in the enchiladas.  The cotija cheese was oozy and gooey but I felt I went a little overboard with the amount.  The tomatillo sauce was an interesting sauce, but it didn't really envelop the enchiladas, even though I used more than the amount called for in the recipe.  Ultimately, this was an OK dish - A+ for ease and speed, but not so interesting to eat.  Ken had some leftovers for lunch and seemed to like it.  I would like to try enchiladas again, maybe with the red sauce that Deborah Madison recommends as a substitute for the tomatillo sauce, but I'm not in a rush to have them anytime soon.

Mediterranean Baked Eggs

These Mediterranean Baked Eggs are in a blue box off to the side of another recipe.  While the recipe takes up a whole page, it's set off to the side, not a featured recipe.  The book is Ancient Grains for Modern Meals, and these baked eggs have no grains in them.  However, they've stuck in my mind since I got the book.  This is funny for a few reasons - one is the sheer number of recipes I see.  For any to stick in my mind means they must be something special.  The second reason?  I'm not big on eggs.  Specifically egg yolks.  But... these were delicious.  Granted, I did not eat my yolk (which cooked too much to be good, anyway), but I still enjoyed the eggs.  The tomato sauce was extremely flavorful, despite my forgetting to "season" it with red wine vinegar and brown sugar.  You can make the sauce ahead, so this makes a perfect brunch recipe - keep an eye on it in the oven, then take it out and let it finish cooking while you're finishing up everything else.  The toast is essential, but you can multitask in the oven and just lay the slices across the racks to toast.  What a great little weekend brunch this was for the two of us, and I expect to be adding it to my spread the next time I host a brunch for friends.

PS: note my Le Creuset Mini-Cocottes.  A birthday present that I absolutely adore.  :)

Peppers Stuffed w/ Israeli Couscous and Basil Pesto

I made the Stuffed Peppers with Israeli couscous and pesto featured in the Recipes for Health column a few weeks ago.  These have been on my list for a while and I haven't gotten to them.  Now that they're done I'm not sure what I was waiting for.  Since I already had pesto and tomato sauce (home)made, it was just a matter of cooking up some couscous and cutting the peppers.  The prep time was minimal (I prepped the peppers and watched the clock while the couscous was cooking) and the cook time, about 45 minutes, was actually a good opportunity for me to go and do something else.  We still ate dinner at a reasonable hour.  As an added bonus, the recipe makes six servings, so there's a lunch in store for each of us tomorrow, plus one more for lunch or dinner or in-between.  For a more substantial meal I'd recommend a nice sweet Italian sausage.

My original plan was to try this recipe with Heidi's "Magic Sauce" which I have been meaning to try in some capacity.  But the pesto was made, and given the flavors of the Roasted Tomato Marinara I used, I'm glad I stuck with the pesto.  I'd like to try it with the Magic Sauce, but I'll have to think of an alternative sauce.  A plain tomato sauce might work, or one flavored with some of the same herbs as are included in the Magic Sauce.

Stuffed Shells

Heidi at 101 Cookbooks made these Stuffed Shells on the first night she moved into her new apartment.  I made it for Ken - he loves meals like this.  I used Roasted Tomato Marinara from the freezer and added some chopped spinach to the filling for a few extra nutrients.  We made about half the shells for dinner and froze the rest.  This was a great meal - comfort food at its best.  And best of all, I've got a whole dinner in the freezer for a night when I don't feel like cooking.  One quick note - Heidi puts lemon zest in her ricotta mixture.  I personally loved it and barely noticed it at all, but Ken thought it was too lemony.  Next time I might cut back just a bit.

Pasta with Roasted Tomatoes and Garlic

I stopped at the farmers' market around the corner the other day and ran straight into a big stack of cartons full of small, brightly colored tomatoes. Each carton held a mix of several different colors and I picked up two right away, almost forgetting what I had stopped for in the first place. I didn't have a plan for them, but I knew I could find one.


Ken mentioned (again) that he doesn't like sun-dried tomatoes. He did tack on the end of that statement this time that he does like roasted tomatoes. That got me thinking of the roasted cherry tomatoes I made for the Red Pesto Ravioli over the summer.

I consulted my handbook (HTCEV) for roasting instructions, then added extra olive oil and thinly sliced garlic (thank you Pampered Chef Garlic Slicer!). This went on my stoneware into the oven for a while. We tossed it with a long thin pasta. The garlicky olive oil and tomatoes made a lovely sauce.

Next time I will try to remove some of the seeds since they were a little out of hand. Maybe I will try again with my second carton of tomatoes... or maybe I will think of something new.

Orzo with Tomato Artichoke Sauce

Tonight I came home wanting a gourmet meal. I didn't want to go to the store, and I shouldn't have to since I constantly have my pantry stocked with deliciousness. I had a Greek salad on my mind which I had no recipe for, so I started googling some ingredients to find recipe inspirations. (Here is one.) I ended up with a very interesting pasta dish instead.

Ingredients:
1 small jar grilled marinated artichoke hearts
about 10 kalamata olives, pitted
2 tomatoes
2 cloves garlic
juice of one lemon (about 1/4 cup)
1/4 cup liquid from the artichoke hearts (or a little less of olive oil)
1/4 cup sunflower seeds
1/4 cup feta cheese
1/2 box orzo

Instructions:
1. Cook orzo according to package directions.
2. Put artichoke hearts, kalamata olives, tomatoes and garlic in food processor with lemon juice and liquid from artichoke hearts. Process (but not too much) to chop everything up. (Keep it chunky!)
3. Toast sunflower seeds (350* for about 5 minutes).
4. Mix the contents of the food processor with cooked and drained orzo over a tiny bit of heat (just to warm) and mix together.
5. Spoon orzo mixture into bowls and top with sunflower seeds and feta.

Now - I will say a few things. I processed too much (I always do), and it is not too pretty... next time I might use the food chopper instead, or a good knife. This was really intended to be chunky. Also, you may not need all the dressing, or you may need less lemon juice depending on your personal preferences (it was pretty lemony). The tomato was kind of overpowering as well. I did eat a bowl of this, but it wasn't very good in the end. I am posting it anyway because I think it had some potential.

I made this entirely with things I had lying around, so adjust to what you have on hand and your personal preferences. This may actually be better (or at least less tangy) with black olives instead of kalamata olives, or canned artichoke hearts instead of grilled/marinated. I also intended to add red onion to this, but I guess I forgot! There is plenty of room for adjustment here. It made about 4 servings.

Bucatini with Mushrooms

I get Cooking Light every month and a lot of the recipes have meat in them. I just don't care much for meat anymore (but I do love seafood...), and while I am not a vegetarian exactly I don't care for cooking meat either, so I am always on the lookout for vegetarian recipes in there as well as stuff from other cultures. The current issue (probably November 2009) has a whole beautifully photographed section on how to create the perfect noodle bowl from a variety of cultures. I chose a little trip to Italy with Bucatini with Mushrooms.

By now my very few readers are probably familiar with my addiction to the Rutgers Gardens farm market, and I may have mentioned the guy who sells mushrooms. A whole stand dedicated to mushrooms - cremini, portobello, oyster, shiitake... and you can buy a mix of them as well. I immediately thought of this when I read this recipe and I made the plan to make it on a Friday so I would have wonderful fresh mushrooms to use. Of course I picked up the mix and got straight to work.


This recipe was a lot of work so of course I had a little assistance from my sous chef (Ken). In addition to the mushroom mix, the recipe calls for dried porcini mushrooms. According to many (including one of my favorites, Mark Bittman) the dried mushrooms add an extra dimension to the flavor profile of the dish. The 1/4 cup of heavy whipping cream was an interesting addition also, but it gave the sauce a creamy texture which happens to go well with mushrooms.

I might make this again, but it was a lot of work. A special occasion might warrant it, but it would be necessary to have access to a mushroom blend like this one. The market is unfortunately only open until the end of October.

Chicken and Eggplant Parmesan

Since school started I have been very busy and haven't really made anything new. But since it's a long weekend, I decided to try out a new recipe that I have been wanting to try for a while - Chicken and Eggplant Parmesan from Food Matters. I bought eggplant at the Rutgers Gardens Farmers Market on Friday (as well as some yummy white peaches and a pint of yummy homemade sour pickles) specifically for the purpose of trying this recipe. I like eggplant and I want to look for more ways to cook with it, but eggplant parm seems to be common so I think it was a good recipe to start with.

We started out trying to broil the eggplant, but we really don't have the proper cookware for that, so we quickly switched to our electric grill. Rather than making the All-Purpose Tomato Sauce, we used my Nonna's homemade sauce. The result was OK, but I didn't love it. Ken didn't like it. The parmesan was really good, since I used real parmesan, and the mozzarella was good too. I think one cup of bread crumbs was way too much, though. I would probably use half of that next time. I also totally forgot to mix in the olive oil, salt and pepper to the bread crumbs. Oops! I might make this again, but maybe not. I am trying to eat less meat, so this is probably the only chicken I will be having for a while, and I will definitely be eating veggie meals for the rest of the week.

Honey Soy Dipping Sauce

I found veggie dumplings in the freezer section of the grocery store and I wanted to try to make a dipping sauce for them. I googled and found several recipes, but settled on Emeril's Honey Soy Dipping Sauce. It is one of the easier recipes I found and used mainly ingredients that I already had on hand.

All that really needs to be done is grating ginger and toasting sesame seeds, then measuring a few things and mixing it all up. I cooked the dumplings by steaming them, which I did per package directions for just under 15 minutes. You can make the sauce in this time and still have time to clean up, too.

This sauce was delicious. I may have slightly over toasted the sesame seeds, but they looked good! The sauce was just a little thick because of the ginger, and the sesame seeds added another dimension of texture. I dipped the dumplings in the sauce using chopsticks and everything was great. I almost doubled the recipe thinking I would run out of sauce, but this was plenty for 6 dumplings and I am positive will be enough for the other 6 in the package as well.

One day I will try making my own dumplings, but for now I find these frozen ones (Stop & Shop's Nature's Promise line) to be absolutely delicious. (I also love the Stop & Shop vegetarian spring rolls - just don't use the microwave instructions or they will be soggy and gross. Dip those in Thai sweet chili sauce, which you can find in the Asian section.)

Now that I am done with my internship, I will have a lot more time to cook and hopefully will be posting more! I am looking forward to making falafel, hummus and baking my own bread (maybe even pitas!).

Rustic Pine Nut Sauce

The recipe for Rustic Pine Nut Sauce can be found on page 796 of How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman. Since it's a copyrighted recipe from a book I can't copy it in here, and obviously I can't link to it either. Some of the pages of the book are available on Google books, but unfortunately page 796 is not one of them. So you will have to follow along as best you can knowing only the ingredients and what I did with them!

This sauce was on a list somewhere else in the book of sauces that would go nicely with whole wheat pasta. We used Barilla Plus, which I was expecting to be a little whole wheat-ier than it actually was, which is probably because it isn't whole wheat pasta. Anyway, that was my motivation for making this sauce. Another plus is that the ingredients don't go bad that quickly. The sauce includes chopped pine nuts, chopped basil or parsley, bread crumbs, red onion, garlic, salt and pepper, olive oil, and wine (red or white). Optionally, you can add capers, but I don't like them that much, so I left them out. One of the cool things about this book is all the variations offered on each recipe. One of the variations I wanted to try was the lemony version, which calls for replacing the wine with lemon juice, and the capers with lemon zest. I wanted to use wine, though, so I decided to add only the lemon zest, since it is one of my new favorite flavors. Ken helped a little by slicing up the onion for me. My poor little basil plant is dying, I think, because he is very droopy lately, even though I set him up outside where he might actually get some sun. I took several leaves from the plant for the sauce, so at least I will get some good use out of him. I never had a green thumb; all plants in my care die shortly after I get them. :(

I cooked the ingredients, following the recipe as closely as possible. The cooking times in the recipe seemed a little too long, so I moved things along a little more quickly. I also halved the recipe because I only had 1/2 the amount of pine nuts, and we are only two people (most recipes feed 4). Towards the end of cooking, I added the halved amount of wine. It disappeared almost instantly! At this point I became very concerned. How could this be a sauce? It had no liquid! I added more wine, and more olive oil. It just fizzled right out. I was getting nervous, so I picked up a bit and tasted it. It was a little strongly wine flavored, but good. After a few minutes I turned off the heat and stirred in the basil. We decided to just use it as is and hope it was good.

I mixed the "sauce" in with my pasta as well as I could and made sure to get some in every bite. Lucky for us, it turned out delicious. This is when we realized what "rustic" means. It doesn't have to be liquidy to be a sauce! Plus, pine nuts are a little creamy as is, which gives a very nice texture to the sauce. It was some wonderful chunky goodness. I think the lemon zest was a nice little touch and I didn't feel that I was really missing anything by leaving out the (optional) capers. I might try this with lemon juice, but the wine turned out quite good. (I used some Fish Eye Pinot Grigio left over from a while ago. This is a cheap brand and has a screw top, so if you keep it in the fridge it should be fine for cooking, or even drinking, up to a few weeks. That way you can use a little at a time, as needed, and you don't have to open a new bottle for each recipe.)

I wish I could post the recipe for you... but I don't think it would be copyright violation for me to share it with you privately - so if you would like the recipe, I would be happy to share my cookbook. However, it is a fantastic reference book, so I highly recommend looking into obtaining your very own copy.