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5-minute Meatless Chorizo Quesadilla? Try this!

7 Apr

 My book club has reunited after a winter hiatus. Our first get-back-together was at mine after work and while I wanted to put on a nice spread for these women I adore, I also didn’t want to work too hard. I remembered a puff pastry snack I learned from a Spanish friend, Rosa Cassano. The combination of smoked mozzarella and sundried tomatoes in a melty package tasted astonishingly like Spanish chorizo with pimentón. I didn’t have time for puff pastry, but I figured I could melt them together in a flash on the stovetop in flour tortillas. It worked deliciously as a finger food, as the smoked mozzarella firms up very well after melting. And there truly is no meat in them, though no one will believe you…

 ¡Sabroso! ¡Olé! 

Sundried Tomato and Smoked Mozzarella Quesadillas

Four 8-inch flour tortillas

8 oz smoked mozzarella cheese sliced thin

4 oz sundried tomatoes in oil, drained and chopped

Spritz of olive oil or cooking oil spray.

Heat a small amount of oil in an 8-inch nonstick skillet. Place a tortilla in the skillet. Cover half the tortilla with a layer of cheese and a generous sprinkling of tomatoes, leaving a bit of a margin at the edge. Fold the empty half over, press down and heat through, turning several times during cooking. When the tortilla is just turning golden and stiffening, it’s done. Repeat with remaining tortillas and allow to cool just enough for the melted cheese to firm up for cutting into triangles. Serve with guacamole/salsa/sour cream.

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Stir-fried Vegetables (Faster and better than ordering out)

2 Apr

Saturday lunch -crisp and light and zippy

When I am in the mood for some crunchy, spicy Asian vegetables, my first instinct is not to pick up the phone, but to open the refrigerator door.

I am forever buying virtuous items that I mean to use right away, but that slip into the deep recesses in of my mind and the even deeper recesses of the fridge. A good stir-fry is a way to use up just about any crunchy vegetable in a way that will bring the virtue right back (nothing should go to waist or waste!).

Such was the situation today, when my dad started pulling out vegetables for a raw salad, and my mom and I convinced him it would have more flair in a hot and spicy variation.

So we got to chopping and measuring and whisking and in very little time (about 20 minutes) we were crunching and nodding and going for seconds. While there is a place in every household for Chinese takeout menus, it is so easy to make your own, without the gelatinous goopiness that passes for brown sauce, that this is really worth making part of your repertoire. I can see tossing in some peeled shrimp just as the vegetables have cooked in the first step….on this occasion, my dad seasoned and sauteed strips of chicken breast separately as the vegetables were cooking, rather than incorporate the chicken. As a result, the chicken played a gentle counterbalance to the sizzle of the vegetables.

Here’s what we did (adapted from a Cook’s Illustrated recipe for Stir-Fried Broccoli)

Stir-fried vegetables in brown sauce (serves four for a light meal or as a side)

A:

1/2 Cup low sodium vegetable broth

2 Tbs dry white wine (or dry sherry, if you’ve got)

4 tsp low-sodium soy sauce

2 tsp olive oil (or one toasted sesame oil)

2 tsp cornstarch

2 tsp Thai chili sauce (can be increased, depending on your sauce AND your tolerance for hot and spicy; the one we used is already prepared as a marinade, so is sweet. If you use straight Thai chili – like a sambal – it could be stronger!)

B:

6 cloves garlic, minced (you can play with this proportion, especially if your chili sauce has a lot of garlic)

¼ tsp red pepper flakes

2 tsp vegetable oil

C:

2 Tbs vegetable oil

2-2.5 lbs mixed stir-fry vegetables, cut into ¾ inch pieces (we used onions, broccoli, carrots, cabbage, red peppers, green peppers, but you can play around with this!)

½ tsp sugar

Whisk ingredients in A (broth, wine, soy sauce, olive/sesame oil, cornstarch and chili sauce) in a small bowl. In another small bowl, mix up ingredients in B (garlic, pepper flakes, and 2 tsp vegetable oil).

Now for the ingredients in C. Heat the remaining two Tbs vegetable oil in a 12 inch skillet with a heavy bottom, until just rippling and just beginning to smoke. Add vegetables and sprinkle the sugar over, coat with the oil and cook, stirring frequently, for about eight minutes, looking for caramelization on the vegetables. Lower the temperature to medium if you get a lot of sticking.

Push vegetables to the side and add the garlic mixture (B), stir to heat, then mix with the vegetables. Add vegetable broth mixture (A) and stir for a bit less than a minute, or until warmed and the sauce gets a bit thicker. Serve with rice.

 

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Ice Pops (so simple, it’s almost stupid)

30 Mar

From left: apple; cranberry-pomegranate; orange-mango

Here comes the warm weather (I hope, anyway) and with it powerful thirsts. 

For playdates and general snacks, I always have  home-made ice pops in the freezer. They remind me of the limber my abuelita (grandmother) used to make for us when we spent part of our summer with her in Puerto Rico, although she made hers in ice cube trays. She’d fill the trays with different juices, cover the tray with foil and stick sturdy toothpicks through the foil for handles. They were a bit precarious and our hands and arms ended up sticky with juice, but we loved them (and she got us to try different tropical juices that way).

Today I have some ice pop molds from IKEA (I believe they cost $1 for six molds in a little tray) that I keep rotating and filling. I do half water/half juice (because fruit juices have loads of sugar too, albeit natural). Once they have frozen, you can take them out of the tray and lay them wherever they fit in your freezer.

It’s a terrific alternative to ice cream or the commercial colored sugar water in tubes that we often overdose our kids on at this time of year. It’s why Leandro got out of the apple juice-only cycle and into more varied flavors (Abuelita’s wisdom lives on).

I haven’t yet tried to add vodka, as I am afraid I might hand the wrong pops to the kids in a playdate frenzy, but I bet you could!

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Banana Bread – Share the Love (Easy Family Baking!)

28 Mar

I’ve never been much of a baker – I’ve probably mentioned that I am no good at following instructions – but this banana bread is very forgiving of people who are more “more or less” than precise.

It’s very child-friendly. Leandro and I put it together often and he takes slices to school to dip in yogurt. I especially like to double it (using about 8 bananas total) and slice up some for his caregivers and my colleagues – everyone feels appreciated and esteemed when they are on the receiving end of home-baked loaves of something. I get a lot of requests for this recipe, so here it is! It also freezes well; check the bottom of the recipe for storing instructions.

Easy, Moist and Yummy Banana Bread

4-6 overripe bananas*

1 Cup sugar (1/2 light brown and ½ white works well, but any combination will do; we’ve used a bit of dark brown as well)

2 eggs, beaten

½ Cup vegetable oil

2 Cups flour (up to one cup whole wheat, but beware stone-ground as it may be too coarse)

1 tsp baking soda

¼ tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350°. Mash bananas in mixing bowl. Add sugar, eggs and oil, one at a time, mixing well with each addition. Sift dry ingredients together (I use a big strainer) and add to banana mixture. Pour in greased 5×9 loaf pan (or 8×8 oven dish) and bake 55-60 minutes, or until a knife inserted in the middle comes out clean.

*We eat a lot of bananas here, but sometimes I buy too many and they get overripe, even for my son, who likes them sweet and eats the dark spots. Or he just wants half of one and I don’t want the other half. Any overripe or half-bananas get thrown into a plastic freezer bag and when I have approximately six, I make banana bread!

Storage notes: Banana bread should be cooled completely before slicing (I know, fresh-out-of -the-oven warm is so cozy! But it slices much better later on). It stays fresh tightly wrapped out of the fridge for two or three days. The refrigerator isn’t great for it, but you can warm it up a bit before serving. To freeze, slice first, then wrap in foil or plastic wrap and then place in a freezer bag. It’ll keep for at least a month and you can take out a slice at a time when you need a treat.

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Greta Garbanzo (chick pea and ginger salad – keeps in the fridge!)

14 Mar

Saucy! Gingery! Healthy!

I try to make one of my daily meals a salad and I have to admit, I’ve been in a not unpleasant but not particularly exciting rut: nice lettuce, grape tomatoes (if I have the heart to buy tomatoes out of season) and cucumbers with one of those dressing mixes you make in a cruet that my mom got me addicted to and I am only somewhat ashamed to admit to. I might add some cheese, some walnuts and cranberries, red onion, but don’t really vary it much. Sometimes I make the major move of opening a can of chick peas (we call them garbanzos in Spanish) and add some.

The other day though, I remembered how easy it is to make garbanzo salad and how long it lasts in the fridge getting tastier and tastier. A scoop of this salad (a slight variation on Molly Katzen’s version in The Moosewood Cookbook) adds spice, texture and protein to an otherwise boring salad (and eliminates the need for dressing). I also take it to BBQs and other potluck affairs where I know there will be plates and forks. It is also really nice mixed with rice and eaten cold.

I named my version for Greta Garbo because the name lends itself rather obviously, but also because it is distinctive, has a subtle and intriguing spiciness, has ginger (for her ginger hair) and because no one can ever leave it alone.

Greta Garbanzo (chick pea and ginger salad)

2 15 oz cans chick peas (aka  garbanzos or ceci) rinsed and drained

2 Tbs finely grated fresh ginger root (more if you like!)

½ cup red onion, minced fine

3-4 cloves garlic, minced fine (I tend to use more)

Salt to taste (you might not need it if the garbanzos are salty)

Pinch of cumin (optional)

¼ cup extra virgin olive oil

1 Tbs red wine vinegar (cider vinegar subs in just fine. Reduce amount if using regular white vinegar)

¼ cup lemon juice (about half a juicy lemon’s worth)

Place chick peas, ginger, and red onion in a medium bowl or plastic storage bowl with a cover. In a small bowl mix the oil, vinegar and lemon juice with a whisk or a fork until emulsified (blended together). Pour dressing over chickpea mix and stir to coat. Cover and refrigerate.  It’s best made at least a day ahead, but you can also make it on the fly and it will be delicious. Gets better and better over the next week.

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Cheesy Chard Pasta

7 Mar

Chard is one of those leafy greens everyone should eat more of. It’s actually as delicious in winter as in summer and provides calcium and all sorts of other nutrients and has a bit more body than spinach (but can be used in much the same ways with a little extra cook time).

My son loves spinach pasta (which appears in an earlier post “My kids loves spinach” https://hotcheapeasy.wordpress.com/2010/11/02/my-kid-loves-spinach/) and never notices the difference when I serve the chard variation. He especially digs in when I use curly, frilly or curvy pasta that he can get his eager litle fingers all over– I am attributing that to a chromosomal enthusiastic male response to visual stimuli that I have been hearing a lot about lately.  That’s hot!

It is also fast and easy and really hearty-comforting.

Chard Pesto for Pasta (serves four)

1 lb. fiore (pinwheel) pasta

2 Tbs extra virgin olive oil

3-5 cloves garlic, chopped

(1/8 tsp hot red pepper flakes, optional)

1 lb. chard, washed, stems removed and chopped fine*

1 Cup broth or water

Salt and pepper to taste

Several Tbs grated cheese (preferably parmigiano reggiano or gran padano) or crumbled feta or, why not both?

Cook pasta according to package directions. While pasta is cooking, heat olive oil in a generous skillet with a cover. Add garlic and stir around for a minute or until turning golden and fragrant. Add hot red pepper flakes if desired. Add chard and stir to coat. Sauté chard until bright and beginning to wilt, then add water or broth. Bring to a simmer and cover, turning occasionally. The idea is for the chard to really soften, which will take 10-15 minutes. If you run out of cooking liquid, add a ladleful of water from the pasta pot. If I want the chard really fine (to encourage more consumption by my toddler, I will spread the cooked chard on a cutting board and chop some more when it is a bit cool.

 Drain pasta and mix with sauce and a generous amount of grated cheese. Add salt and pepper to taste and serve.

*Save the stems, chop and use in another recipe; they are delicious as part of a stir-fry or just sautéed with onions to top burgers.

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Egg Salad: Classic Comfort in No-Time-Flat

28 Feb
I’ve been on a bit of an egg kick lately. While eggs can do marvellous food-science type things if separated and whipped just so and folded in just right at just the right temperature, right now I am celebrating their simplicity.

 

When was the last time you had a light and easy egg salad? This version is creamy and light and a bit tangy, thanks to the yogurt and the mustard. I took it to a friend’s for a playdate, where it met with success! It makes a good addition to any party buffet table too.
Egg Salad (makes four generous sandwiches or four big scoops to top green salad)

Eight fresh eggs*

3 Tbs mayonnaise

1 Tbs non-fat or low-fat plain yogurt

1 Tbs your favorite mustard

Pinch of salt/pinch of cayenne pepper/sprinkle of parsley/grating of pepper, if desired

Place eggs in a pot with cold water to cover. Bring the water to a boil. Lower heat to simmer for five minutes, then cover and remove from heat. Leave covered for ten minutes, then drain and soak in ice water.  The yolk turns green from overcooking, so if you find that your yolks are turning green, next time skip the simmer, remove from heat and let sit covered for 15 minutes.

When the eggs are cooled, crack them and peel. Chop roughly and place in bowl. Add mayo, yogurt and mustard and mix well. Play around with the amount of wet ingredients until you get it the way you like. Season to taste and serve on crackers, toast or salad.

*(if you are not sure whether your eggs are fresh, put them in water to cover. A fresh egg will sink. A fresh-enough egg will float up on one end while the other end stays on the bottom. A rotten egg will float.

Also, I purchase organic eggs regularly and farmer’s market/friend’s eggs when I can get them. Large-scale egg production in this country is way out of scale with what is safe. I don’t want to be the heavy on this one, so if you are interested, you can visit food expert Marion Nestle’s blog and read it for yourself. http://www.foodpolitics.com/tag/eggs/  In any case, if you are buying conventional/supermarket eggs, please cook them thoroughly )

 

 

 

You are just four ingredients away from happiness.

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Roasted Eggplant, Feta and Sundried Tomato Sandwich

23 Feb

Roasted eggplant and friends on whole wheat English muffin. Don't worry about the verticality; it smushes down to a reasonable, biteable size.

Take Back the Lunch (a poem)

There are those who enjoy

spending money they don’t have,

to wait with time they don’t have,

for a food order that they don’t really love,

cooked by people who don’t love them,

to choke down

during what remains of their precious lunch hour.

I am not one of those.

Are you?

Yeah your takeaway order may be tasty and juicy, but do you really know what you’re eating?

Yeah, a $6.99 lunch special may seem like a good deal, but does it tell you how special and important you are, the way a home-cooked meal does? Of course not.

So at least once this week, try to make yourself a home-cooked lunch that gives you a nutritional hug (or make enough of it for dinner that you have leftovers the next day).

I make this pretty often in winter; it’s a cross between an antipasto and a sandwich and is pretty cheap! I am admittedly not great at crunching numbers, but if I get a pound of eggplant at $3; a 1/2 lb. of feta at $1.80 (Costco bulk); and 8 sundried tomatoes at Fairway for about $2 – I’ve paid about $7 total (plus a bit for side stuff) and then I make four meals for myself out of it…well you do the numbers and tell me it doesn’t beat the bejesus out of the steak and broccoli lunch special at Asian Kitchen…

So please, please, please…show yourself some love and try this really, really, really easy and delicious sandwich/wrap thing really soon. You can skip the bread if you are watching carbs!

Roasted Eggplant  with Feta and Sundried tomatoes

1 lb eggplant (or two if you want to make extra for the week), wiped clean and sliced into ¼ inch rounds*

2 Tbsp olive oil per pound eggplant

8 oz feta cheese, sliced fairly thin

8-10 sun-dried tomatoes packed in oil. Drain slightly and slice into thin strips

(optional – if your sundried tomatoes don’t come with seasonings, use a tsp or more of dried herbs – oregano, basil, thyme, or other Mediterranean flavors are best)

Wrap-style bread, pitas or hearty thick toasted bread slices

Preheat oven to 350°. Dip eggplant into (or brush with) olive oil until well-coated. Lay eggplant as flat as possible in oven dishes and bake for 20-30 minutes, turning occasionally, until eggplant is tender (I consider this a craft that is best learned by experience. Fortunately for me, I like my eggplant slightly browned, ‘cause I always seem to cook the hell out of it before it’s truly done. Don’t worry about a bit of overcooking.)

When the eggplant is done, place a layer of rounds on your chosen bread. Top with feta and sundried tomatoes (and herbs, if desired). Roll up, if using a wrap-style bread. Toast for a few minutes in a toaster oven or under the broiler and serve (reheats well with a blast in the office microwave).

*Notes: if you have time, sprinkle the slices with a pinch or two of salt, put in a colander and put a weighted bowl on top to squeeze out extra moisture – it becomes less absorbent that way – 15-30 minutes. This step is not really necessary with really tight-skinned, firm, fresh eggplant).

I do a lot of eggplant at a time and either eat it this way all week, or strip the rounds of peel and stir into hummous or just eat it out of the fridge when I need a snack. Can be chopped and added to red sauce for pasta! You can also substitute other roasted veg.

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No Crust, Less Fuss: Broccoli and Feta Quiche

18 Feb

 

I love eggs, I love broccoli and I love cheese. They are so flexible and useful that they are natural convenience foods and I usually have all of the above in my fridge at any given moment. Like today, when I got a craving for a simple dinner with some charm. Quiche would’ve been perfect, except that the crust is a big pain, and adds more dough than I really want after a long winter of indolence.

 Then I remembered a Vegetarian Times recipe that eliminated the crust. I thought, “Hey! Why didn’t I think of that?” and adapted it to what I had in the house.

Fifteen minutes of prep (and about 40 minutes in the oven) yielded a tasty and light combo of my favorite things. It was cozy out of the oven, but crumbly to cut proper slices. I will have more tomorrow morning for breakfast — quite possibly cold. My son is demonstrating great interest, so we’ll see if we can tempt him into giving it a try, ’cause it has potential to be good breakfast food for eating in the car (heavy sigh). If not, well I have the leftover yolks mixed with a bit of water and stored in fridge for scrambled eggs for his breakfast.

No Crust Broccoli and Feta Quiche

1 lb. broccoli crowns, cut into tiny little trees

½ Tbsp olive oil

1 onion, peeled and quartered

2 cloves garlic, peeled

5 oz. feta

2 large eggs

5 large egg whites

Preheat oven to 425°. Grease a 9”x5” baking pan (you will put it in the oven to warm up a few minutes before pouring in the egg mixture). Toss broccoli with oil in a bowl.

Put onions and garlic for a spin in the food processor until they are minced. Then add the feta and process until creamy.  Add eggs and egg whites* and process until smooth. Crack a bit of pepper over it.

Remove warmed pan from oven, add broccoli, then pour egg mixture over, stirring to mix. Cook about 35 minutes (40 if using a glass baking dish) or until the top is light brown and a tester inserted comes out clean.

*To separate whites from yolks, crack the eggs and gently pass the yolk from one half to the other, allowing the whites to drain into the bowl. Save the yolks for another purpose by mixing with water (just a bit) and storing tightly sealed in the fridge overnight.

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Oatmeal, Cranberry, Raisin, Walnut COOKIES

17 Feb

Feeling my oats

The phrase “do it right the first time” is especially relevant for dealing with food cravings.

If you want a cookie, don’t pretend, don’t justify, don’t explain, don’t wait. Eat the damn cookie. And don’t eat anything that just pretends to be a cookie or pretends that it is a virtuous cookie; you will have to eat twice as many to get any real satisfaction, then you’ll eat the cookie you wanted anyway.

Let’s face it; most cereal bars are cookies masquerading as health food. So many of them contain an incredible variety and amount of sugars (high fructose corn syrup, dextrose, sucrose, etc, etc, ad nauseum) and weird processed ingredients and preservatives packed into in incredibly small and — to me — unsatisfying, serving sizes — bars the size of a couple of my fingers —  and they still get to say things like: “heart-healthy” or “0% saturated fats” on their tidy foil wrappers. Really. 

So, rather than futile attempts to make homemade cereal bars that would somehow be more virtuous, me and Leandro just make sugar-laden cookies that don’t pretend to be anything else.

Don’t let the oatmeal, nuts and fruit fool you: this is a sweet treat with plenty of sugar and butter, with tartness, chewiness and crunch to keep it interesting. Eat too many and you will get a tummyache. Eat them frequently and you will get fat. But make them every so often, pass on a few to neighbors, colleagues or the other people who make your life liveable, save a few for yourself to dunk in milk or tea or coffee and everything will be alright.

The recipe is an adaptation of the classic “Quaker Oats Vanishing Oatmeal Raisin Cookies.” I dedicate it to Canadian comedienne Andrea Martin, (very) late of SCTV and recent of kid’s program, Dino Dan, where she looks weirdly young and smooth-skinned, with what appears to be a surgically modified schnozz, but who is as kooky and loveable as ever as the bizarrely attired art teacher who gets tends to get lost in her “creative zone.” Here is why she gets the dedication: My son — who loves Dino Dan and everyone in it — turned to me the other day and said, “When we bake you and me are in the same creative zone, right Mommy?” and everything felt right with the world.

Oatmeal, Raisin, Cranberry, Walnut Cookies

½ Cup plus 6 Tbs butter, softened

¾ firmly packed brown sugar (I like to mix dark and light brown, but use whatever is on hand)

½ cup granulated sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1 ½ Cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp ground cinnamon

¼ tsp salt

3 Cups quick or old-fashioned oats

½ Cup raisins

½ Cup dried cranberries

¾ Cup coarsely chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350°. In a large bowl, beat butter and sugars until blended and kind of creamy (I don’t have an electric mixer – yet—so I just use a big fork). Add eggs and vanilla and beat well. In a separate bowl combine flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Then add the oats and the fruit and nuts and mix well until all the oats are damp.

Drop rounded tablespoons of dough on ungreased cookie sheets and bake for 10-12 minutes or until light brown. After a minute cooling on the baking sheets, move the cookies to wire cooling racks and cool completely. Store in tightly covered containers.

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