slow-roasted tomatoes

From my brother:

This is without a doubt the best way to prepare a grape, cherry, or plum tomato. You’ll never regret buying a full case of tomatoes from Costco again. Bittman’s book has essentially the same recipe, but he recommends you put the tomatoes cut side down on a wire rack over a baking pan. Cut side up on baking parchment worked well for me. The recipe says you should go easy on salt, pepper, and herb, and they aren’t kidding. Trace amounts of the stuff is all you need, as the tomatoes are so flavorful by the end anyways.

slow-roasted tomatoes at smitten kitchen
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slow-cooked green beans

Known to me as Southern-style green beans. Bittman has a similar recipe in HCE but with less bacon, and he says it’s Greek. I’m surprised that you can assign any origin to the dish; I would have thought that everyone cooks green beans like this.

• 2 lbs green beans
• 1 can diced tomatoes
• 4 slices bacon
• 1 large onion

If using slow cooker, then put green beans and tomatoes in crock pot and turn to high. Cut the bacon and dice the onion. Brown the bacon and soften the onion in the bacon fat. Add bacon and onions to green beans and cook on high for 6 hours.

If not using slow cooker, starting by browning the bacon and softening the onion in a deep saucepan. Add green beans and tomatoes to bacon and onion. Simmer until the green beans are soft, adding water as needed. (I think this took about 2 hours, but I don’t remember.)

Salt and pepper to taste.

asparagus stromboli

I made the King Arthur Flour asparagus stromboli over the last few days, and we ate some for lunch today. It was good—definitely something worth making again.

The recipe was fortuitously brought to my attention while we had about 1.5 lbs of grilled asparagus in the fridge, and if a recipe is sent to you just as you have the nonstandard ingredient it calls for, then you almost have to make it, right?

I say “over the last few days” because we grilled the asparagus on Thursday, caramelized the onions on Friday (which we spread out with the asparagus), made the dough on Saturday, and assembled and baked the stromboli on Sunday.

The dough I put in a bag and refrigerated after the first rise, and every 8 hours or so, I’d deflate it. One thing I would change the next time I make this: if I refrigerate the dough, then I’ll let it warm up while I have it rolled out. I assembled the stromboli with straight-from-the-fridge ingredients, and it took nearly three hours to rise. Another “problem”: I definitely overloaded the stromboli with ingredients. I don’t think I would change that, though.

Also, the dough was excessively wet and tough to handle. I measured a bit fast and loose, though, so may have added a bit more water than the recipe recommended.

kaddo bowrani (Afghani pumpkin)

I got a recipe for kaddo bowrani from a Chowhound forum post by Allstonian. I never did find the original recipe that they referenced. Because it was so delicious and I want to be able to replicate it in the future, I will duplicate the post exactly below.

This dish came up on the Boston board – it’s one of the standouts on the menu at the Helmand. I adapted my recipe from one I found on boston.com – don’t know if it came from an article about the restaurant or not, but that’s where I found it.

We eat it a lot in the fall and early winter when sugar pumpkins are available. I’ve done it with other winter squashes such as acorn or butternut – it works, but it’s best with pumpkin. Butternut, especially, makes for a notably wimpier dish. (Nonetheless, we’ve been known to do it with butternut squash after the fresh pumpkins disappear from shops.)

One 2 to 2.5 pound sugar pumpkin
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 cup plain yogurt
1 clove garlic, crushed
Salt & pepper to taste

2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 medium onions, chopped
1 pound lean ground beef
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 cup tomato sauce
1/2 cup water

Set the oven at 350.

Cut the pumpkin into quarters. Remove seeds and strings, peel the skin with a vegetable peeler, and cut down into about 2-inch chunks. [DH, who usually gets this job, points out that a harp-style (or "Y-style") peeler works best on the hard pumpkin - the straight vegetable peeler is much more difficult to use.]

Heat 2 tablespoons oil in a skillet [I actually use a cast iron dutch oven, which saves transferring to a different pan later on.] Brown the pumpkin pieces, turning frequently, until golden brown (about 5 minutes.) [I brown the pumpkin pretty aggressively in this step, while taking care not to scorch it.]

Transfer pumpkin to a roasting pan. [Since I use the dutch oven, I don't do this!] Mix sugar and cinnamon, and sprinkle over pumpkin. Cover [with foil if using a roasting pan] and bake for 30 minutes, or until tender.

[This seems like an awful lot of sugar, but go with it - the dish doesn't really come out sweet in the end, and it just isn't as tasty if you cut down on the sugar.]

While the pumpkin is baking, make the yogurt sauce and the meat sauce.

Yogurt sauce: mix together yogurt with one clove of crushed garlic in a bowl; season to taste with salt and pepper.

Meat sauce: in a skillet, heat 2 tablespoons of oil and cook the onions until lightly browned. Add ground beef, the second clove of crushed garlic, and salt and pepper. Mix well and cook until beef is browned. Add tomato sauce and water, mix thoroughly and bring to a simmer, lower heat, and cook about 20 minutes until it cooks down to a thick sauce.

To serve: spoon yogurt sauce onto dinner plates, add a portion of the cooked pumpkin, and top with meat sauce. Serves 4.

This is so tasty, and really easy. It’s one of those meals where the different steps fit together really well – knocking out the yogurt sauce and the meat sauce fits just perfectly into the time that the pumpkin takes to cook in the oven.

portobellos and pork chops on the BGE

pork chops

rubbed 2 chops w/ mustard and curry powder paste, seasoned other 2 with only salt and pepper

350F
• 2m, flip
• 2m, flip
• 1m, rest

portobellos

broke off stems and put them on skewers. cut each in half. rubbed all of it with olive oil and garlic.

400F
• 3m, flip
• 5m, flip
• 5m, flip
• 3m

roasted carrots with curry powder

HCE, p 278-279

• 3 lbs carrots
• 5 t curry powder from Spice Islands
• 1/2 c olive oil
• salt

1. Heat oven to 425 F.
2. Peel carrots and cut into 1.5″ lengths.
3. In large bowl, toss with oil and curry powder.
4. Spread out in roasting pan(s), not tightly packed.
5. Roast until well browned (nearly an hour for me).

This was an amazing vegetable dish I’ve ever had. It rivals Thanksgiving green beans. Truly. I tripled a recipe that Bittman said was 4 servings, and six people had no trouble eating all of it.

chickpeas with baby spinach

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/18/health/18recipehealth.html

We followed the recipe with 3 minor changes:

1. 1) 2 tbsp tomato paste (instead of 1)
2. 3 cloves garlic (instead of 2)
3. frozen, chopped spinach (instead of fresh baby spinach)

This was a good dish. It looks a little sludgy–maybe because I used frozen spinach, which isn’t nearly as perky in appearance as fresh baby spinach–but the flavor of the spinach sauce/mush was great! The chickpeas were a bit dry, and, though they added a bit of flavor and a lot of substance, they were extraneous. Next time, I’ll leave the chickpeas out and serve this as a vegetable side for chicken.

luxurious weekend lunch

cream of tomato soup, HCE, p 130-131
salmon roasted in butter, HCE, p 583
roast asparagus, HCE, p 258-259
Jim Lahey’s no-work bread, HCE, p 833
chocolate-caramel tart, HCE, p 940 (chocolate tart crust, HCE, p 930; vanilla pastry cream flavored with chocolate, HCE, p 943; chocolate glaze, HCE, p 921; creamy caramel sauce, p 922)

• cream of tomato soup: I followed the recipe exactly. It was delicious.
• salmon roasted in butter: I followed the recipe exactly. It was delicious, though I think I like grilled salmon much more, both in texture and in flavor.
• roasted asparagus: I followed the recipe exactly. Again, it was delicious. Again, I prefer grilled asparagus to roasted asparagus.
• Jim Lahey’s no-work bread: I followed the recipe more or less exactly. (The “more or less” refers to all the travel and associated temperature fluctuations it experienced during the first rise.)
• chocolate-caramel tart: This was the most difficult. I’d never made anything like a chocolate tart before, so nearly all the steps were new. I pressed the tart crust (quite unevenly, unfortunately) into a round cake pan rather than rolling it out and placing it into a tart pan. Baking that was straightforward. Making the pastry cream was also easy, and it turned out excellent. Making the caramel was the biggest challenge, and one that I didn’t entirely overcome. I thought that I followed the recipe exactly, but clearly not. At first, the caramel wasn’t browning, even though it was nearly at the target temperature (245 F). Then, all the liquid evaporated and I was left with a grainy sugar-cream paste. Finally, the sugar melted rather suddenly and browned. When it cooled, it was hard. I’d gone past soft caramel and made a hard candy. Next time, for the caramel, I’ll heat up the sugar until it’s a light caramel, and then I’ll add the cream; hopefully, that will make a softer caramel. Finally, making the chocolate sauce went well, though I accidentally used granulated sugar instead of confectioners’ and nearly double what the recipe called for. This made for an extremely sweet and slightly runny chocolate glaze. Because it was poured on top of the tart, I think this was more a change of style from the original than an actual mistake.

tajadas de platanos (fried sweet plantain strips)

SCC, p 147

We followed the recipe, except we left out the cheese. They were delicious, but I need a bit more practice frying. The plantain chips didn’t brown quite evenly, and some even burned a touch.

spinach croquettes

HCE, p 354

We followed the recipe exactly, except I drained “like a 1970s shower”, as opposed to “thoroughly”, which is what is called for in the recipe. Therefore, we had a little (a lot) more liquid than called for and I had to triple the amount of bread crumbs just to hold everything together. Nonetheless, it was delicious. Next time, however, I’ll do a bit more draining.