Lentil Walnut Salad, and new book review!

I've finally written another diet book review - this time for "Slimmer - The New Mediterranean Way to Lose Weight" by Harry Papas, over in my Much Ado About Diet blog.

Go check out the lovely Lentil Walnut Salad recipe!

Gluten-free tag disclaimer: obviously, leave out the croutons, or choose a gluten-free version, and otherwise label-read as usual.

Chicken Pot Pie, Biscuit Top

I love chicken pot pie. I don't love it when it comes with too many peas, or a leathery, greasy pastry top, but if it has a quality pastry (which hasn't been allowed to get soggy), or better still, a biscuit topping, then it has got to be right up there with my favourite comfort foods.

It's also pretty easy, really. You make a creamy stew with chicken and vegetables of your choice, add the top, and pop it into the oven for a good 25 to 30 minutes on high heat, and voila! What could be better?

Well, I suppose it could be healthier than some of the versions out there, but there's loads of tricks to make the filling lower in fat, and if you use a slightly thinner layer of (lean) biscuit or scone dough over the top, you're setting your setting yourself up nicely to have a guilt-free wallow in a delicious dinner. Or lunch. Or supper. Whatever you want to call it, really.

The biscuit pie methodology works pretty much the same for any filling. Beef stew, chicken stew, vegetable stew - pretty much anything that can take the hit of being in a hot oven for half an hour makes a great biscuit pie. And, if you're the sort of cook who likes convenience and buys packets of biscuits instead of making your own, well, that works too. So really, it's all about the filling.

I like my chicken (or turkey, or pheasant) pies to be creamy, and I like to use kernel corn instead of peas. I also like to have uses for leftover roast chicken, although, to be fair, I have plenty of those already (but another is always welcome). The pie at the top of this post came about after eyeing the recipe in the Cook This, Not That! Kitchen Survival Guide, which I've posted about before. For example, in my last post, Gyoza Stir-Fry. I've made some minor seasoning changes to suit myself, and of course the use of biscuit instead of puff pastry is not from CTNT's receipe.

Chicken Pot Pie, with a Biscuit Crust
Serves 4

1 tablespoon butter
2 cups pearl onions (recipe calls for frozen, which I couldn't find, so I used fresh)
2 medium carrots, diced
2 garlic cloves
2 cups sliced cremini mushrooms
1 cup frozen corn kernels
meat from 2 roasted chicken legs with thighs, skinless, diced
1/4 cup flour
1 teaspoon chicken base (Better than Bouillon)
1 1/2 cups water
1 cup 1% Milk
1/4 cup half & half
1 bay leaf
1/8 teaspoon ground thyme
1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds

Make up the water and chicken base into a hot broth. Rinse corn kernels with hot water, in a sieve, so they drain instantly, and set aside.

Heat the butter in large skillet over med heat. When melted, add the onions, carrots and garlic. Cook until onions are translucent and carrots begin to soften, about 5 minutes. Add the bay leaf, thyme, and mustard seeds, and stir well. Add the mushrooms and cook, stirring occasionally for another 5 minutes. Stir in the chicken and the flour, using a silicone spatula or wooden spoon to stir well, so that veggies and meat are evenly coated with flour.

Slowly pour the warm broth in, either using whisk to help avoid clumping, or stirring well with your spoon/spatula while you pour. Once the broth is incorporated, and the sauce is smooth, add the milk (does not need to be warmed, but can be) and simmer for 10-15 minutes or until the sauce is thickened. Stir in corn. Season with salt and pepper, as needed.

Mix up your biscuit dough and roll out to fit the top of the casserole dish you will be using. Slice the biscuit into quarters, or leave it as one big sheet (if so, use a fork to poke some steam-release holes).

Heat over to 400 F. Pour chicken into a 1 1/2 quart casserole dish, and cover with the biscuit dough. Bake uncovered for 20-25 minutes until golden brown. If your casserole is really full, place a tray under to catch any drips, or you will need to spend some of your evening cleaning your oven floor!

Gyoza Stir-Fry

This recipe is my version of the Chicken Pot Stickers in the highly useful Cook This Not That! Kitchen Survival Guide by David Zinczenko and Matt Goulding. It is fast, tasty, and relatively healthy. It makes a light meal, so if you want something more substantial, you might consider serving it over rice or noodles, but it's also good simply on its own.

To be sure, it's more of a recipe concept, since it revolves around a pre-made ingredient (the pot stickers themselves), but you can easily outfox that by making your own dumplings. I've gone with my favourite recipe for pork gyoza, a Japanese-style dumpling that is kissing-cousin to the Chinese pot sticker, making up a batch of 36 dumplings. The stir-fry recipe calls for 24, leaving me 12 to stash in the freezer. If you don't want to do that, there's always the ones from the freezer section of the supermarket, totally up to you.

The stir-fry, then, is pretty much self-explanatory from the photo above:

You start by par-cooking the frozen dumplings for a couple of minutes in boiling water (you could also steam them), although if you're using freshly made non-frozen dumplings, you can skip this step and just add a couple of minutes to the stir fry time.

Next, heat a small amount of sesame oil in a large non-stick skillet, and add some sliced shittake mushrooms, a couple of cups' worth. A few shreds of fresh ginger are great at this point, too, but not necessary. Stir fry those for a minute or two, then add the dumplings, cooking for 2 or 3 minutes per side until browned.

Add a couple of cups of trimmed snap peas (or snow peas, if you prefer) for one more minute of cooking, then remove from the heat and stir in a tablespoon of low sodium soy sauce, a tablespoon of rice vinegar, and however much sriracha you fancy (more sriracha can be used as a condiment, of course).

Stir it all through, and divide between four bowls. Sprinkle with toasted sesame seeds (I use a combination of black and white sesame seeds, because I like the effect) and throw a sliced green onion on top for a burst of fresh flavour. I totally forgot the onion in the above picture, as you can see - it's not necessary, it is tasty.

Easy, yes? If you have the dumplings already in the freezer (one way or another), it only takes about 15 minutes to make, including waiting for the water to boil for the dumplings, and prepping the vegetables.

Aloo Matar (Dry) and Samosa Pie

My generalized dislike of green peas is almost legendary in my family, even though by age 10 or so I had conceded that peas in the context of a dish that was not only about the peas was entirely acceptable. I fell for snap peas and snow peas early and hard, as most kids do, but the pyramid of naked green peas as the vegetable du jour remains on my least beloved list. Split peas, however, were never on my bad list, as I've always categorized of them more as a lentil than anything else.

When I cook with peas, I tend toward using snow peas or snap peas, and I like them equally well (slightly) cooked or raw. I don't usually buy frozen peas, because I have so little use for them. However, I can think of a few uses for peas where they really shine, and the dish wouldn't be the same without them: 1) My mother's Spring chicken noodle soup, 2) raw in a salad or straight out of the garden (shelled, of course), and 3) potato-pea samosa filling.

Lately, I've found myself eyeing every restaurant listing for samosas that I can find. I prefer to know ahead of time what style of samosa is available, so I usually need to ask questions. Phyllo is not my favourite pastry for the samosa oeuvre, nor is puff pastry - the first being too shattery (or leathery), and the second being too rich and too thick. Since I am both fundamentally lazy and afraid of frying things, I decided that I should simply make one big samosa - i.e. a pie - using my usual all-purpose pastry shell, and make up my own filling: potato and pea, of course - my favourite samosa.

Having never made samosas before, I started looking at recipes for fillings and concluded that they were simply a dry aloo matar (mattar, muttar, mutter), and simply made up my own recipe as I went along. I was thrilled with the filling, and happily mounded it into the pie crust to bake in the oven.

The samosa pie was quite pretty, I think, and absolutely delicious - with one caveat: the peas were overcooked. Now, this wasn't the end of the world (although overcooking peas is a kind of tragedy) largely because I have an aggressive hand with the seasoning, which concealed some of the sins of overcooking. Now that I've considered the problem (and re-heated leftover pie a few times) I think I have the solution. Cook everything but the peas, allow the filling to cool, stir in frozen peas, mound into pastry shell and bake. As I was starting with a hot filling, and then baking it at 425 F for 45 minutes, of course the peas got overdone. But with a pre-cooked, cool or cold filling, and frozen peas, the outcome should be much better. I will be sure to report back when I try it again.

If you are not making pie, however, and just want a delicious, substantial dry curry, follow the directions for the peas below.

Aloo Matar

Serves 6—8

4 large yellow potatoes (about 2.75 lbs / 1300 g) peeled and diced medium
1/2 red onion, finely diced
1 cup frozen peas
2 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
1 tablespoon olive oil or mustard oil
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon masala of your choice (garam, tandoori, madras, etc.)
1 teaspoon yellow mustard seeds
2 teaspoons ground coriander seed
1 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/2 teaspoon cayenne (or more)
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger (or equivalent fresh)
pinch of ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt (less if your masala contains salt)
pinch of turmeric if you want a yellow-y colour boost (not pictured)

Set the peeled and diced potatoes to cook until tender - about 10 minutes for simmering. Meanwhile, in a large skillet, heat the olive oil and saute the onion and garlic until translucent. If you want, you can add some finely diced hot chiles here, too. Add the cumin seeds and mustard seeds, and about half the rest of the seasonings (you can mix all of the ground seasonings together beforehand). Add the frozen peas, stir and saute until the peas are all nicely covered with the oily spices, and either turn off the burner or set on a very low flame until the potatoes are ready. When the potatoes are fork-tender, drain them in a colander and spoon them into the skillet. Sprinkle the rest of the spices evenly over the potatoes and, using a spatula, carefully fold the potatoes through the peas mixture until everything looks evenly distributed. Serve with mango or tamarind chutney.

As always, feel free to tinker with the spices to best suit your tastes.

For Samosa pie, make the filling as above, omitting the peas. Cool the potato filling, stir in the frozen peas, and mound into the pastry shell of your choice. Bake at 450 F for 40 - 45 minutes, checking periodically, or until the crust is a lovely golden brown. For gluten free and/or vegan, you will need to accommodate those factors in your choice of pie crust, naturally, but the filling meets both requirements on its own.

Miso Halibut Cheeks

I know this looks like yet another pasta recipe, but really it's about the lovely bit of fish perched on top of the gingered noodles. The noodles could easily have been a bowl of Japanese rice, and possibly will be, next time.

You may have noticed that I do not tend to post a lot of fish or seafood recipes, and when I do they are usually for prawns, which is hands-down the most common type of seafood cookery for me. There is a reason for this: When I was a child, I had an allergic/food sensitivity reaction to finned fish. Shellfish were fine, but rare in our household, so I learned to like them without any adverse effects intruding. For finned fish, however, I grew to hate even the smell in the air, raw or cooked, however fresh. I would try to hold my breath in disgust, as I angrily ate my fried egg while the rest of the family had fish. When I eventually grew out of the physiological reaction to fish, I had no idea how to cook it, and little desire to learn, because the smell was so off-putting.

Sushi was the thing that broke the barrier for me, in the late 1980s. I started with the predictable California rolls, and eventually worked up my courage to try the others. The Japanese preparations tended to control the objectionable fishiness quite excellently. From there, I found myself eating fish as part of elaborate tasting menus at places like (the now-defunct) Lumiere, where elegant little morsels of sablefish might be cooked with sake and maple foam, for example. Tiny portions just right for sampling and exploring, which opened the door to other cooked fish preparations. When I started ordering fish in fine dining restaurants during departmental lunches for work, it was a real eye-opener in terms of how skilled preparation and bright flavours can make all of the difference. I even learned to like fish and chips (although I am particular about what fish it is, preferring mild, creamy white fish).

So, finally, when I saw the Miso Cod recipe in Cook This Not That! Kitchen Survival Guide, I was intrigued. I prefer halibut to cod, so that's what I hand in mind when I went to my local fish monger, The Daily Catch. They had halibut fillet, no surprise, but they also had halibut cheeks, and I knew in a blazing flash that they would be perfect for this dish. Halibut cheeks are boneless, which is part of the appeal, but they also possess a sort of delicacy of texture that appeals to me.

The recipe also included the marinated cucumbers shown to the side of the fish, which were a simple preparation of salt, sugar, rice vinegar and chile flakes that I enjoyed, but found overly salty. The spinach and sesame salad (goma ae) was thrown together to use up some spinach.

Miso Halibut Cheeks
Adapted from Cook This Not That! Kitchen Survival Guide
Serves 4

4 medium halibut cheeks (about 4 oz. each)
1/2 cup white miso (shiro miso)
2 tablespoons mirin
2 tablespoons sake
1 tablespoon brown sugar

Combine the miso, mirin, sake, and sugar in a non-reactive bowl that is large enough to also hold the fish. Rinse and pat dry the halibut cheeks, and add them to the miso mixture, turning gently to ensure that each piece is well coated. Cover well, and refrigerate for up to 12 hours.

Preheat your broiler with a rack set at 15 cm (6 inches) below the flame, and prepare an edged baking sheet by lining it with foil and misting with cooking oil. Remove the halibut cheeks from the miso, and place, evenly spaced, on the prepared sheet. Brush a little extra miso mixture over the top of each cheek, to ensure it is evenly coated. Broil, watching carefully, for about 8 - 12 minutes, depending on your broiler, removing when the miso glaze begins to caramelize, and the fish begins to flake under gentle pressure. Garnish with a sprinkle of black sesame seeds.

Halibut cheeks may be a little pricy, depending on where you live, but fillet, such as in the original recipe, or any other mild, creamy white fish should work nicely - check out Ocean Wise for any other fishies you might want to use. My fish monger is an Ocean Wise partner, and only uses sustainable seafood, which is reassuring because I don't need to do in-shop analysis before I pick my fish.

Meatball Macaroni with Chipotle

This dish brings together two things I adore: meatballs, and pasta. I did not grow up with spaghetti and meatballs, although I was aware of the dish as a matter of cultural immersion. Our spaghetti was always a baked affair, made in a deep pot (using soy noodles, although I didn't learn that was abnormal until I was older), and slabbed with cheese for the last few minutes in the oven. That dish is one of the first things that I learned how to cook, in fact, and I still have the laboriously written out recipe card from noting down each step as I watched my mother in the kitchen. There was plenty of beef in the recipe, but no meatballs.

Most of the pasta dishes I make these days are not baked (although there are certainly some exceptions). My macaroni and cheese is strictly stovetop, and I'm a big fan of vegetable-strewn fresh pasta using raw (or barely cooked) ingredients as an ad hoc sauce. Meatballs, on the other hand, are almost always baked. It frees you up to do other things (make a salad, drink some wine, whatever you want to do) and it guarantees beautifully round shape to the finished meatballs. So, if I am going to have meatballs with my pasta, I suppose it was a no-brainer to combine cooking methods, eventually.

Essentially, it's a two stage process. Mix up the meatballs of your choice, such as the always-popular-at-our-house Pork & Turkey Meatballs (also used to make meatloaf) and space them out in a larger-than necessary casserole dish to bake. While the meatballs are baking, mix up the pasta. In this case, I went with a Chipotle Macaroni Casserole dish that I hadn't made in a while, although I've tinkered with the settings thusly:

Chipotle Macaroni

Serves 4-6 (with meatballs)
Total Prep & Cooking time: 60 minutes

1 onion, finely minced
2 roasted red peppers
1 teaspoon chipotle powder
1-2 tablespoons unbleached flour
2 cloves of garlic, minced or crushed
2 chipotle chiles in adobo sauce
1-2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon oregano leaves
398 mL canned diced tomatoes
1 cup milk (1% is fine)
1 cup ricotta cheese
1 egg
3 cups grated tasty cheese
2 cups uncooked macaroni, small shells, ditali, or similarly sized pasta

Sautee an onion with a couple of roasted red peppers (rinsed, seeded, and diced), until the onion is softened slightly. Sprinkle with chipotle powder and a little flour (about a tablespoon or two) and stir in some minced garlic, and minced or pureed chipotle in adobo sauce, along with some cumin and oregano.

When the mixture starts to stick, add a 398 ml / 14 oz. can of diced tomatoes with their juice, and stir well until thick and bubbly. Add a little water if it's sticking, to loosen it up. Next, combine a cup of milk with a cup of ricotta mixed well with a beaten egg, and beat until smooth. Add to the tomato mixture and stir well. Add the tomato paste and stir again. Reduce heat to low and continue to stir until everything is well integrated. Mix in a couple of handfuls of cheese - Pepper Jack and edam went in here - and turn off heat. Taste the sauce and adjust for salt and pepper, and hot sauce (chipotle or ancho are best here).

Stir in hot, cooked pasta - approximately 4 cups of cooked macaroni or its equivalent, such as the ditali shown here. Spoon the pasta over the cooked meatballs in the casserole dish. Top with a little more cheese and bake at 350 F for about 20 minutes to half an hour, or until bubbling and browned.

Horiataki, Horiatiki, or Greek Salad

If you've ever had one, you don't need me to provide a recipe for a Greek salad (unless you're from Toronto, where I understand they add lettuce, of all things!).

It's a pretty simply process, essentially being a large-particle chopped salad, generally constructed from cucumber, bell pepper, red onion (or white), tomato, kalamata olives, and feta. The quantities of the foregoing are up to you, but I like a nice balance of the vegetables, perhaps leaning slightly light on the onions if they are particularly fierce.

A sprinkle of oregano is lovely, and if you need a salad dressing, I recommend either a lemony or a red wine vinaigrette. Even just a squeeze of fresh lemon juice and a glug of good olive oil will do it, and in some places in Greece, this salad is not dressed at all. If you are cheese-free, a pinch of coarse salt to finish the dish will tie everything together nicely. On the other hand, if you are seriously pro-cheese, you might consider serving the feta in a magnificent slab across the top of the vegetables, and drizzling the olive oil over that. I had it served that way in a taverna in Greece, and was suitably impressed.

So, consider this not so much a recipe, as reminder of an excellent way to get your vegetables, round out a meal, and have a really fantastic salad.

Cincinnati Chili

I've never been to Cincinnati. My only points of reference for the city, I confess, are watching WKRP on tv and Cincinnati Chili (only the former of which I've experienced first hand). So, as you can see, this will be a bold adventure down chili avenue, and at the end I won't really know whether I've succeeded or not in creating an at-home version of "Cincy/Cinci Chili"; all I'll know is if I've made a tasty dinner. To be fair, that's usually my primary goal, so I'm not too worried about it.

My interest in Cincinnati Chili is based on two things: a deep appreciation of American regional cuisine, which I explore whenever possible, and a recollection of a pastitsio I once ate in Mykonos, which contains a similar combination of pasta, meat and spices, albeit without the cheddar cheese, kidney beans, or oyster crackers. I loved that dish so much, that I've tried to make a version of it before.

Ah, oyster crackers. You can't really get them here, I've discovered (unless you have an account with Sysco Restaurant suppliers, I suppose), so unless I want to visit one of the local oyster bars and clandestinely make off with a packet (or, you know, ask them nicely for an extra packet) I'm forced to either a) make my own from the dubious recipes floating around the internet (not happening today!), b) substitute soda crackers/saltines, despite numerous websites cautioning me against doing so, or c) use the also-dubious looking oyster crackers available from Carr's in the entertainment 9-variety pack.

I've opted for c) and the scant offering of suspiciously flat oyster crackers it is. For the purists, I apologize that I'm not easily able to meet the simple standard, but perhaps I can gain a little credit for not just using goldfish crackers?

My starting point was this recipe from Allrecipes, which is claimed (by a commenter, not the original poster) to be the very recipe for Skyline Chili as was posted in the newspaper in the 1970s. It seemed like a pretty good place to start. Yes, I did my reading, and understand that Empress is widely recognized as the first cincinnati chili, but at the end of the day, after all the reading, I couldn't find a version of that one available. Skyline seemed just the thing. When I eventually make it to Cincinnati, I will have to taste test Skyline, Empress, and Gold Star, just to truly understand the differences. I read a lot of recipes, and a lot of comments, and am impressed by how passionately Cincinnati folks love their chili. Food that is subject to hotly debated opinion, contested between strangers and friends alike in the quest for the perfect representative version, is always worth investigating.

I halved it, because I wasn't feeding 10 people, and I have finite freezer space, so I hope that doesn't compromise the flavours and/or textures. I also found it necessary to substitute dark cocoa powder for the chocolate (not going to the store again today), and upped the cinnamon. I use an unsalted tomato sauce, so this will likely be a bit less salty than other, more accurate versions.

So, the only remaining question was...one-way, two-way, three-way, four-way, or five-way? Which, of course, isn't a question at all; five-way, hands down. For those completely unfamiliar with this dish, it breaks down like this: one-way is just chili in a bowl. Two-way is served on spaghetti. Three-way is served on spaghetti with cheddar cheese. Four-way is three-way plus chopped onions (raw). Five-way, the ultimate version as far as I can tell, is all of the forgoing plus beans, either in the form of chili beans or kidney beans, warmed separately and added either on top of the spaghetti, or on the bare plate before the spaghetti. Well, how could I opt for anything less than the full experience? Five-way it is.

Cincinnati Chili
Adapted from Allrecipes
Serves 5

454 grams lean ground beef
4 cups filtered water
*****
200 mL unsalted tomato sauce
1 medium yellow onion, finely grated
1 tablespoon vinegar
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped or crushed
1/2 tablespoon dark cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon cumin (ground)
3 whole cloves
3 whole allspice berries
1 bay leaf

The night before, break up the meat into a medium-sized pot and cover with water. Bring the mixture to a low boil, and cook for about a half-hour, or until the meat is finely broken down and cooked through. Top up with more water as needed - it should be a bit watery. In fact, it looks kind of awful. That's okay, it gets better tomorrow. Cool it down, and then refrigerate overnight, in the same pot.

The day of, skim the solidified fat from the top and discard. Or make candles, or bird feeders, or whatever it is you do with tallow. Re-heat the meat and water mixture, and add everything else. About half-way through grating the onion, I couldn't hold it without risking grating my fingers, too, it was all so slippery with tear-inducing onion juice, so I wimped out and tossed the rest into the min-prep and let the sharp blades finish mincing it for me.

Simmer over a low heat for three hours, to allow time for all of the flavours to develop, adding water as necessary to keep it from drying out. The texture should be more along the lines of a pasta sauce, so it needs to stay "loose".

For five way, drain and rinse your beans, and reheat them separately in a little water. Cook up however much spaghetti you want to use - we go for smaller portions here, so a half-pound (225 ml) spaghetti gives me 4 servings, leaving one "serving" of chili leftover to make a "cheese coney" in the middle of the night. Ahem. So, beans, spaghetti (in which ever order you want to put them), topped with a full portion of the chili (1/5 of the pot), topped with finely chopped onion, and finished with a whole lot of cheddar cheese (I used sharp cheddar, because that's how I roll). Oyster crackers on the side, to be added by the various diners.

I didn't have a grater that would give me the kind of long, fine strands of cheese that I wanted, so I simply went with a fine shred. The overall effect is not the same, but it seemed a better option than using a coarser shred.

So, the verdict: The two-stage meat cooking yielded a texture that was very silky, almost fluffy, and I cannot imagine a way to get that without the lengthy cook time. The combined seasonings were incredibly tasty, although for my tastes I could have upped the allspice and clove (perhaps with a little pinch of ground spices, instead of whole), and I could have easily upped the cocoa to a full tablespoon, too. However, even exactly as written above, it was fragrant, rich, and satisfying, and a dish I'd be happy to have again. A tasty dinner, indeed.

Now I just need to get myself to Cincinnati, and check out the real deal.

Pork & Turkey Meatloaf

If you're thinking that you've seen this combination of meats from me before, you're right: Pork & Turkey Meatballs is the exact same recipe, so check it out if you would like to make this. The only change is that you're making one big meatball, so to speak, and it takes longer to cook.

I use lean ground turkey thigh and lean ground pork, and cut the meatloaf into 12 slices, effectively making each slice the same food value as one of the meatballs (approximately 133 calories* per slice, if you're counting). It makes a great dinner centrepiece, and the leftovers make predictably delicious sandwiches. In fact, I urge you to make a grilled cheese sandwich in which a very thin slice of this meatloaf is placed between layers of cheese; you will doubtless eat it dangerously fast, if my experience is anything to go by.

For cooking the meatloaf, preheat your oven to 350 F, and shape the meat mixture into a loaf with your hands before placing it gently into a loaf-pan. Bake the meatloaf, uncovered, for 45 minutes. Paint with a little soy sauce or worcestershire sauce, bump up the temperature to 400 F, and bake for another 15 minutes. Carefully remove the meatloaf from the pan (I use two flipper-type spatulas, one on each end) to a warmed plate or a cutting board.

I recommend letting the meatloaf stand for ten minutes when it comes out of the oven before slicing, for optimum slice cohesion. You can tent it with foil if you're worried that it will cool down too much. Slice only what you need right away, and let the rest continue to cool until dinner's over. Then slice the rest, and store how you wish. You'll find the completely cooled meatloaf slices much more neatly and tidily than the first ones.

One of the great things I discovered about this recipe is that it freezes incredibly well. We had a few slices left over after the dinner that you see above, and the aforementioned sandwiches, and I wrapped the slices all together in plastic wrap, which I then bagged up in a freezer bag with the air squeezed out. Two weeks later, we hauled out the bag, defrosted it, reheated the slices on medium power in the microwave, and had a yummy dinner that took very little effort. Somehow, that sort of thing always makes me feel like I'm getting away with something.

What kind of sides you serve with meatloaf is entirely up to your preference. I don't usually go for mashed potatoes, because I don't put a sauce or gravy on the meatloaf. In the picture above, the potato-half you see is a very simple twice-baked potato, wherein the insides of a baked potato were scraped out and mixed with a little monterey jack or edam cheese, some smoked paprika, and a dollop of sour cream. The filling was smoothed back into the baked potato shell, and briefly broiled, topped with a tiny bit more sour cream, and some green onion. You could also go with a nice rice pilaf, or even macaroni and cheese, a creamy orzo side dish, or even french fries. The other side, broccoli, is a no-brainer in our household. Need a veggie? How about broccoli?! We eat a lot of it, either plain steamed with a pinch of kosher salt, or drizzled with a little toasted sesame oil (especially for an Asian-flavoured dinner). In asparagus season, that makes a great choice too, but any veggie side will do: crisp green salad, corn on-or-off the cob, green beans, spicy carrot coins...even green peas, if that's your thing (but I'll pass, frankly). And the end of the day, you know what you like; serve it with this meatloaf.

*calorie information from an online calculator, the accuracy of which I cannot vouch for.

Pasta Alla Mizithra

This pasta dish is almost blindingly simple, to the point of being a little...incomplete, shall we say, on its own. But oh, how tasty! I recommend pairing it with a big, colourful Greek salad, and a nice glass of wine. The salad will take longer to make than this dish.

For those of you whose only experience with mizithra is the Spaghetti with browned butter and mizithra at The Spaghetti Factory (where it is one of the tastier items on offer, as I recall), you can make this dish so easily and quickly at home that there's no need to order it out; you just need to get your hands on the cheese itself. Mizithra can be had by the chunk, or pre-grated. The pre-grated stuff is usually so fluffy and finely textured that it disappears entirely into the pasta, instead of giving you the delightful little flecks that you get when you grate it yourself. I recommend buying a small chunk, and grating it yourself, so you can get the size of shavings you prefer.

Pasta Alla Mizithra
Serves 4

250 grams long pasta of your choice (such as the linguine shown here)
1/4 cup butter
60 grams grated mizithra cheese

Melt the butter slowly (ie, over a low temperature) in a skillet or saucepan. Once the foaming stops, and the butter has melted, allow the colour to darken to a dark gold. Do not stir or disturb the sediment in the pan. Once the colour is dark gold/light brown, remove the pan from the heat. If you like a very clear browned butter, carefully pour the liquid off of the solids (and discard the solids), but I confess I like the toastiness of leaving the solids in. You can do all this while the water boils for the pasta.

Cook the pasta and drain. Toss the pasta thoroughly with the browned butter, making sure every strand is coated.

In a large serving bowl, spritz a little olive oil, then sprinkle 1/4 of the grated cheese. Layer three more times with buttered pasta and grated cheese, ending with cheese. Present at table, and toss gently while serving up portions. Finish with parsley, if you like a bit of green, and lots of black pepper.

You can see how a nice, bright vegetable salad will perk this right up. If you want to go into butter overload territory, add garlic bread on the side, too. A glass of wine will cut the richness of butter and cheese nicely. I recommend a crisp white, or a lighter bodied red - such as sangiovese, gamay noir, or cabernet franc, for example.

The portions indicated here are smaller than you'd get at a restaurant, but that's because I usually serve modest portions of pasta, in the Italian model (although I don't usually serve it as a first course for a larger meal). It's an approach that particularly makes sense for a rich dish, such as this one. If you want the "big pasta experience", I guess this would serve two people, by North American standard serving sizes.

Enjoy!

Artichoke & Feta Quiche

Perhaps you recall back in December 2010, when I reviewed a cookbook called Cook This, Not That! (subtitled "Easy & Awesome 350 Calorie Meals") by David Zinczenko and Matt Goulding on my (sadly neglected) other blog "Much Ado About Diet" or the other recipes that I have made since then, either straight from the book, or somewhat adapted therefrom. In fact, it should be noted that many of the recipes that I've made from the book (each one a success) which haven't made it onto the blog are simply because either a) the photos were crummy, and I need to take better ones next time, or b) I am a lazy blogger who sometimes forgets that I haven't already written them up.

This recipe is not from that book. This recipe is from the other Cook This, Not That! cookbook by the same duo, subtitled "Kitchen Survival Guide." As a test recipe, it was a big hit, and I'll definitely be making it again (or other versions inspired by this one). In the spirit of "use what you have", I substituted thick-cut dry cured bacon for the recipe's turkey or chicken sausage, and, not having any frozen pie crust hanging about, I used my mother's basic recipe for a simple pastry shell. Since I knew I would be making this on Sunday, on Saturday I mixed up the crust, rolled it out, and stuck it (in the pie pan) in the fridge overnight.

Artichoke, Feta & Bacon Quiche
(Adapted from Cook This! Not That! Kitchen Survival Guide)

Serves 6

3 large eggs
1 cup 1% milk
3 canned artichoke hearts, drained, chopped, and squeezed dry
60 grams feta (I use sheep feta)
2 tablespoons sundried tomatoes, chopped
4 slices of thick bacon, fried until crisp and well drained

While the oven is preheating to 350℉, chop and cook the bacon, and set aside. Mix the eggs and milk together until smooth. In an unbaked pie crust, arrange the chopped artichoke hearts, sundried tomatoes, bacon, and crumbled feta for even distribution. Pour the egg and milk mixture over the filling, and bake for 45 to 50 minutes, or until the crust is golden and the filling is slightly puffed and firmly set. Allow to stand for 5 minutes before cutting, for easy removal.

Next time I do this, I will at the very least add some snipped chives or fresh parsley or basil (or chile flakes!) to the the mixture, I think, but it was very good on its own, too. We finished the individual slices with black pepper and a tiny drizzle of truffle oil.

I was using paler-yolked eggs than I usually do, so the quiche was rather lighter-coloured than my quiches ordinarily are. I imagine that if you use orange-yolked eggs you will have a more golden quiche.

For those of you who don't have a frozen pie crust lurking about, and would like an easy one to make yourself, here's mine:

Single Pastry Crust
for a 8 or 9" pan

3/4 cup all purpose (unbleached) flour
1/4 cup butter
pinch of salt
1 tablespoon vodka
1 1/2 tablespoons cold water

Place the flour in the bowl of a small food processor fitted with a metal cutting blade. Add the pinch of salt and the butter (cold is best) in chunks, and pulse until well mixed, and the butter is in pieces no larger than a piece of confetti. Add the vodka and the water, all at once, and pulse again, continuing to pulse until the dough comes together and pulls away from the edge of the bowl. Dump it out and massage the dough, as minimally as possible into shape. Chill the dough for 10 minutes, then roll out as needed. This recipe can be doubled to make a double crust pie.

The recipe was published as containing 250 calories per slice. My bacon-y adaptation with a freshly made crust (and using 1% milk instead of 2%) clocked in at 237 calories (based on an online recipe calculator), so at least I didn't damage the healthiness of the recipe with the few adjustments that I made.

Ají De Gallina: Peruvian Chicken with Chile & Cheese

If you have been following this blog for a while, you will know that I have made this dish before, using Cesar's recipe (or a modestly adapted version thereof).

This time, I was moved to streamline the recipe a little more, at least partly due to the fact that I had two whole chicken legs' worth of meat (leftover from a roasted chicken) waiting in the fridge to be turned into something tasty, and had actually made a nice stock out of the bones. I also had a jar of ají amarillo sauce lurking in the fridge, and some ground almonds in the freezer. When I realized that I had pretty much everything that I needed for the dish on hand, I sprang into action. I note that I used Portuguese buns because they were the only plain white bread we had in the house, but they worked beautifully.

Ají De Gallina

Serves: 4
Total Prep & Cooking time: 45 minutes

2-3 cups shredded cooked chicken
1/2 medium yellow onion, minced
3 cloves garlic, minced
3/4 cup 1% milk (or skim)
1 1/2 Portuguese buns (or three slices of bread)
3 tablespoons aji amarillo sauce
1/4 cup ground almonds
1 tablespoon chicken fat
1 cup chicken stock
1/2 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese
1/4 tsp Kosher salt
Ground black pepper to taste

Tear the buns or bread into pieces, soak in the milk for about half hour, then puree. I soaked the bread right in the mini-prep bowl, fitted with the metal blade, to minimize mess. If you are serving this traditionally, with plain rice and/or potatoes, you probably want to get them started now, along with the hard boiled eggs for garnish.

While the bread soaks, prepare the rest: shred the chicken into long threads, and set aside, and chop the onions and garlic.

Heat the chicken fat (or olive oil) in a skillet and add the minced garlic and onion. After 2-3 minutes add the ají sauce, and cook for 2 more minutes, stirring. Add the blended bread, stirring constantly. Add salt and pepper.

Little by little, pour in one cup of broth, still stirring. If the mix is too thick, add more broth (or hot water). Cook for a few more minutes, always stirring.

Add the chicken threads, parmesan and ground almonds, and stir well. Remove the skillet from the heat for a few minutes before serving, so the flavours integrate.

Serve with white rice and potato slices. Decorate with hard-boiled egg wedges and olives.

I should note that the kind of olives that should be served here would be closer to California Mission olives, or Mexican black olives, than the kalamatas shown here. *shrug* I like kalamatas better, and I had them on hand. Radishes also make a lovely garnish. We also had some red bell pepper strips, just to give us a little more vegetable in our dinner. Leftovers re-heated well for lunch, which was also a bonus.

This version is fairly potent - if you want a milder hit of the chile flavour, use 1-2 tablespoons of the sauce, instead of 3.

Vegetarian Lasagna

For a while, it seemed like the default vegetarian option at any pre-set or group menu at restaurants in this town was vegetarian lasagna. Not being vegetarian myself, I had more options to choose from, but I recall sitting next to any number of folks who would fork disdainfully through their entrees muttering about the general lack of anything resembling a vegetable other than tomato (in sauce form) and perhaps a sliced mushroom (if they were lucky), or mushy cube of something indeterminate, and which might have once been zucchini, or possibly bell pepper. Mostly, they were bland and unimaginative, as far as I could determine from the reactions. I avoided the dish at all costs, personally, because I never, not even once, heard anyone say that it was delicious.

But really, there are so many reasons that vegetarian lasagna could be fantastic, that I became determined to work one out. This is the vegetarian recipe that has been my staple for the past 15 years.

Notes: The idea of grated zucchini and chopped mushrooms standing in for ground meat comes from from Anne Lindsay's Lighthearted Everyday Cooking. The idea of roasted fennel comes from the now-defunct Cafe S'il Vous Plait on Robson Street (although, I'm not sure they roasted it). Mixing the cheese and egg with the spinach is a tip I stole from my sister. The rest is pretty much classic!

Vegetarian Lasagna

Serves: 8
Total prep & cooking time: 2 to 2 1/2 hours, depending on your level of organization

1 tablespoon olive oil, divided
1 foot-long zucchini, grated
500 grams mushrooms, button or cremini
1 large onion, finely chopped
3 cloves of garlic, minced
796 mL canned diced tomatoes (no sodium added)
2 cups tomato sauce (no or low sodium)
1 fennel bulb, thinly sliced
200 grams mixed wild mushrooms
2 tablespoons tomato paste
2 cups part-skim ricotta or 1% cottage cheese
300 grams chopped frozen spinach, thawed
1 egg
pinch grated nutmeg
9 lasagna noodles (or equivalent fresh noodles)
200 grams mozzarella, grated
1/2 cup parmesan, freshly grated
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon white pepper
pinch of chile flakes
1 teaspoon fennel seed
1/2 teaspoon oregano leaves (less, if using powdered)
1 teaspoon dried basil leaves (or 1/4 cup fresh)

Pre-heat the oven to 400℉. Spritz a 9x13" glass baking dish lightly with cooking spray, or rub lightly with canola oil. Toss the sliced fennel bulb with 1/2 tablespoon of olive oil and a tablespoon of water, and add a pinch of salt. Roast uncovered in the oven for about 30 minutes, until the fennel is completely tender. Remove from oven, scoop the fennel onto a plate or bowl, and set the oily pan aside to build the lasagna in, later. Start heating your water to boil the noodles.

In the meantime In a medium bowl, combine the ricotta, the spinach (squeeze out excess water first), the egg, and the nutmeg, and mix thoroughly with a fork.

Prepare the wild mushrooms by cleaning, removing any woody stems, and slicing into large, recognizable pieces.

Use a food processor or mini-prep to finely chop (pulse) the button mushrooms until the pieces are mostly roughly the size of green lentils. In a large skillet, heat the remaining olive oil, and begin to saute the onions and garlic. Feel free to deglaze with a little splash of water or wine as you go, to keep them from sticking. Once the onions are starting to turn translucent, add the grated zucchini, and the chopped mushrooms. Stir and saute until the vegetables are tender, and any excess liquid has evaporated. Add the wild mushrooms, and stir them through. Add the salt, white pepper, chile flakes, fennel seed, and oregano, and continue to stir and saute. When the herbs are all nicely integrated in, add the diced tomatoes with their juices, the tomato paste, the tomato sauce (except for about a half-cup), and, if the mixture instantly looks too thick, a half-cup to a cup of water. Add the basil, and let the sauce cook gently, covered, over low heat, while you boil up the noodles.

Get the noodles going, and drain in a colander once just barely tender. Lay the noodles out on a cutting board or sheet, if you want to keep them from sticking to each other.

Layering time!

In your oily 9x13" baking dish, put down the reserved bit of tomato sauce, and spread it out to cover the bottom of the dish. Add three noodles to cover the sauce, and then add 1/3 of the simmered vegetable sauce, spreading it out evenly. Next, add all of the roasted fennel bulb, spreading it out into a nice even layer. Add half of the mozzarella cheese, sprinkling it over the fennel. Lay down the next three noodles. Lay down half of the remaining vegetable sauce, spreading it nice and evenly. Add the ricotta cheese and spinach mixture, carefully spooning it around the dish, and then using the back of the spoon to smooth it all into a layer. Top with the last three noodles, and the last of the sauce. Cover the top of the dish with the remaining mozzarella and the parmesan. If you like a little green, you can throw some chopped parsley in there, too.

Cover the dish with foil (spray the underside lightly with canola oil or rub it with olive oil first) and bake for 40 minutes, or until bubbling and hot. Remove from the oven and let it stand, uncovered, for about 10 minutes before you cut it, to make sure that it serves up nicely, and doesn't just slide apart. You can use that time to knock together a salad, or some garlic bread or something.

Enjoy with a nice glass of wine, and the comfort of knowing that you will eat well for days to come.

Does it take a while? Yeah. But, you can make it in advance for a dinner party, and it freezes well, too.

I'm currently contemplating a version that includes some coarsely/medium-ly chopped chickpeas somewhere in the mix, but I'm undecided if I should add them to the vegetable sauce or the cheese-and-spinach layer. I'll report back, once I've taken a crack at it.

Beef Fried Rice Noodle

(Belated) Happy Year of the Dragon! How about some 乾炒牛河?

This was the very first dish I had in a Chinese restaurant, and I both adore it and hold it to high standards. It's a tricky one to be sure - careful handling is needed to ensure that the noodles do not become either greasy or mushy. It's also often overloaded with bean sprouts, which puts a lot of people off it entirely, but I don't mind bean sprouts, actually. There's none in the picture simply because I don't tend to keep them around generally, and I didn't remember to pick some up on my way home from work. The loss is negligible, really, especially if you serve the dish with some nice gingered broccoli. It really does need a vegetable on the side, in my books, to feel like a meal.

Now, it should be noted, that while I mentioned that I am picky about this dish, my version includes an ingredient which is not usually found in it (black bean sauce), but I do enjoy the depth of flavour that it brings, so I'm keeping it. Since I use a low sodium version of soy sauce, my dish is not as darkly coloured as some, so if you want a darker overall look, substitute some dark soy sauce in the sauce mixture. Do keep in mind that this is a very sodium-intense dish, though - a little less is probably better for you.

Now, I suspect some of you may be saying "wait a minute! She's got "convertible to vegan" in her tags!" Yep. To convert this dish to vegan, all you need to do is use a combination of sliced mushrooms and/or fried tofu (atsu-age) instead of the beef, and a vegan-friendly sweetener (such as agave). It's still going to be delicious, but it might need a new name.

As for Gluten-Free? Simply ensure you are using one of the GF versions of soy sauce and black bean sauce (or skip the black bean sauce and use a little extra soy sauce in that case, right at the end).

Beef Fried Rice Noodle
Serves 4 (as part of a meal)
Total Prep & Cooking Time: 45 minutes

2 tablespoons peanut oil, divided
200 grams thinly sliced beef
600 grams fresh wide rice noodle (ho fun)
1 cup trimmed bean sprouts
1 medium yellow onion
2 cloves garlic, sliced
2 green onion

Marinade for beef
2 tablespoons low sodium soy sauce
1 teaspoon sugar
2 teaspoons cornstarch
1 tablespoon Chinese cooking wine (or dry sherry)

Sauce
1/4 cup low sodium soy sauce
2 tablespoons water
1 tablespoon black bean sauce
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 teaspoon beef concentrate

Combine the marinade ingredients in a bowl, and add the beef, stirring well to make sure it is thoroughly coated.

Wash and dry the sprouts (trim the dragging tails, if you like). Wash the green onions and cut into matchstick-lengths (full disclosure - in the picture above, I erred by forgetting to prep the green onions, so I sliced them thinly and added them as a garnish, after the picture was taken). Slice the yellow onion (pole to pole) in long slices.

Combine the sauce ingredients in a measuring cup and set aside.

Separate the noodles onto a plate - if they are really stuck together, place them in a large pot of almost-boiled water (the heat should be off) and let them sit for about five minutes, giving a stir occasionally, until they separate. Drain immediately into a colander. If the noodles separate nicely without the soaking step, give them a quick microwave-zap for a minute or two, until they are hot. This will prevent over stirring later.

Heat a tablespoon of peanut oil in a large non-stick skillet over high heat. Add the garlic, then the bean sprouts and green onions, fry for a minute or two, then remove them to a warm plate. Lift the beef slices out of the marinade, and quickly stir fry them until they are mostly cooked. Remove the beef to the plate with the bean sprouts. Add the second tablespoon of peanut oil, and quickly stir fry the onions until just tender-crisp - they should be translucent, but not too floppy. Quickly add the hot noodles, the reserved marinade from the beef, and the sauce ingredients, and stir and toss the noodles until thoroughly coated and hot throughout. Add the beef and sprouts back into the pan, and continue to stir and toss until everything is nice and integrated. Serve hot, with extra soy sauce and/or chile oil on the side (and a nice green vegetable, too, ideally).

Enjoy!

Mujaddara

Mujaddara sure has a lot of different spellings: mujadarrah, mudardara, mejadra, moujadera...the legacy, I suppose of translating from an alphabet with so many more options for the letter "r" alone, than English. The name derives from the Arabic word for smallpox, apparently because of the way the lentils interrupt the rice surface is said to look like a pockmarked face (another example of this imagery in cooking is in the Chinese dish MaPo Tofu, in which chile flakes stand in as pockmarks). It is a relative of kushari, biryani, and probably a dozen other rice-based dishes, and can be dressed up or dressed down as desired.

In any language, Mujaddara is one of those beautifully simple dishes that is both incredibly healthful and eminently affordable. It is a staple in the Middle East that is, even in its simplest form, popular amongst people of every walk of life. Each cook makes adjustments based on his or her preference, availability, or cultural norm: what starts as a dish of rice and lentils topped with fried onions finds infinite variability in the type of lentil, the ratio of lentil to rice, the type of rice or grain, the medium for frying the onions, and the seasonings. It can be served as a complete meal unto itself, plain or garnished with yoghurt sauce, or beside meat or other vegetables for a more complex meal.

It is delicious. It is easy to make. We served it for dinner with a little leftover roasted chicken mixed in, and curry-roasted cauliflower on the side. I want to try making some of the infinite varieties out there, but first I want to make it again, just like this:

Mujaddara

Serves 4

2 medium yellow onions
2 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup basmati rice
3/4 cup brown lentils
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1 teaspoon ground cumin
125 grams roasted chicken thigh meat (optional)
2 tablespoons flaked almonds or pine nuts
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon Baharat* (optional)

Slice one onion, and dice the other. Fry the onions rings in 1 1/2 tablespoons of olive oil, until dark brown, 25 to 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, bring 4 cups of water to a boil in a medium pot, and boil the lentils for ten minutes.

Fry diced onions in 1 tablespoon of oil in a large pot. Once translucent, add the salt and spices. Add the rice, and stir it about for a couple of minutes, and then add two cups of boiling water (from the microwave, or a recently boiled kettle). Drain the lentils, and add immediately to the pot of onions, rice and water. Stir well, and bring back to a boil, reduce heat, and let simmer on the lowest temperature for 25 minutes.

If using chicken, remove meat from bones and skin and set aside. Toast the almond flakes or pine nuts in a dry skillet.

Remove lentils and rice from the heat. Stir in chicken and almond pieces, and half the onions. Top bowls with remaining onions and almonds, and serve, sprinkled with Baharat if you like.


*Baharat: Technically, baharat simply means "spices" in Arabic (bahar means spice), and versions vary from place to place. The one I use is a rather simple one made of cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, cardamom and black pepper, and I use it in the dish, too, in place of the cinnamon and allspice. It is very fragrant. I add the cumin separately, although some versions of Baharat include it in the mix.

Chorizo Succotash

January often marks a fresh attempt at better eating habits, and my house is no exception. The luxuries of the holiday season, some of which are still piled up on the dining room table, have become a menacing responsibility - the need to value the efforts which went into making the various treats, both mine and others, and the wish to refrain from waste, all jumble together against the knowledge that December was full of exceptions and indulgence, and that January had better feature some strategic planning.

My reactionary meal-planning almost always skews to the quickly prepared items, generally brightly coloured dishes which feature the greatest variety of vegetables that I can pack into my skillet. This Succotash fits the bill.

A side dish in the American South, succotash generally features a trifecta of lima beans, corn, and peppers, and varying amounts of butter, cream, bacon, or ham, depending on the cook and the needs of the moment. This version adds a small amount of chorizo to bump it up to centre plate, and is served over rice. Leftover succotash can be stirred right into the rice for a pleasing lunch, too.

Don't let the words "lima beans" put you off, either! I use the bitty little frozen ones, and they are tender and tasty, not bland and starchy. Plus, the combination of bacon and chorizo gives you plenty to take your mind off any childhood lima-induced trauma.

Chorizo Succotash
Adapted from "Cook This! Not That!"
by David Zinczenko and Matt Goulding

Serves 4 (over rice)

2 pieces thick, dry-cured bacon
150 grams dry-cured chorizo, diced
300 grams baby lima beans (fresh or frozen)
2 cups frozen corn
1 medium yellow onion, diced
1/4 cup half & half or light cream
1 medium red bell pepper, diced
1/4 teaspoon ground white pepper
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Chop the bacon into lardons, and fry gently over medium heat until crispy. Remove the bacon pieces from the pan, but leave a tablespoon of the drippings. Add the onions and chorizo to the skillet, and saute for about three minutes, or until tender. Add the lima beans (no need to defrost, if using frozen), and stir and saute for another three minutes. Add the frozen corn, and stir and saute again.

Season with cumin and cayenne, add the bacon pieces back to the pan, and taste to see if you need to add any salt (the chorizo and bacon may have added enough). Add the red pepper, and a dribble of water, and saute for three more minutes. Continue to cook and stir until vegetables are tender (test the beans). Add the half & half, and cook and stir until liquid boils off to a thin sauce, almost evaporated. Remove from heat and serve over basmati rice.

Could you make this dish vegetarian? Absolutely. Simply omit the meat, and use a tablespoon of olive oil to saute the vegetables. To give a little more depth of flavour, you might want to add a splash of liquid smoke. Alternatively, you could also use an extra-firm smoked tofu, diced moderately finely, in place of the chorizo. For vegans, follow the vegetarian instructions, but also replace the half & half with either vegetable broth or a non-dairy milk (such as almond or rice milk), possibly thickened with a little cornstarch, to give it body. Please note that I haven't yet tried making the vegetarian versions, but these are my best estimates. If you give it a try, or have other suggestions to veg-ify this recipe, please do leave a note, and tell me how it went.

Nasu Dengaku - Miso-Glazed Eggplant

I first had this at a little Japanese restaurant in my neighbourhood, one which is both one of the best in town in addition to being one of the closest restaurants to my house. Vancouver is awash in a sea of sushi joints, often of middling quality, so one that offers dishes that go beyond the California roll are a joy to see.

The restaurant version of this tends to be deep fried, but lightly done, but the home version, simply popped under the broiler, is just as delicious, with a sweet and salty glaze that either revs up your taste buds as an appetizer, or beautifully complements a main course. It's also great in a bento (see below), either at room temperature or re-heated. I went a little light on the sauce, as you can see, and would probably use a little bit more next time. You can also use dark purple, smallish, round eggplants for this, which do tend to keep their colour a bit better, if elegance of presentation is important to you. Really large eggplants are likely too tough for this type of dish, however.

Nasu Dengaku
Serves 4

2 medium-small asian eggplants (thin skinned if possible)
3 tablespoons miso (I like red miso, but any will do)
1/2 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon mirin
1 tablespoon sake
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1/2 teaspoon soy sauce

Wash and trim your eggplants, and halve lengthwise. Cut a large diamond pattern into the fleshy cut side with a sharp knife, not going down through the skin. Brush the cut side with sesame oil, and roast or broil, cut-side-down, for 10 to 20 minutes. You can also dry-roast the eggplant in a skillet on the stovetop, if you prefer.

Mix up the dengaku sauce of miso, sugar, mirin and sake, until thoroughly blended, and heat in a small saucepan. Beat vigorously with a wooden spoon, until the sauce turns glossy, thinning with a couple of drops of water, if needed. Divide the sauce between the four pieces of eggplant, brushing it into the diamond cuts. Broil the eggplant very briefly to caramelize the edges of the sauce, slice into chopstick-friendly pieces, and serve. As you can see, I favour green onion as a garnish, because it looks very pretty, and the mild pungency of the onion is a nice contrast to the salty-sweet of the sauce.

The sauce also works as a lovely glaze for pan-seared tofu, or sauteed or broiled mushrooms.

Like the dinner plate above, this bento contains a layer of thinly sliced sesame beef with beech mushrooms on Japanese rice in the one tier, and nasu dengaku, black sesame carrot kinpira, and a mini cucumber in the other.

Happy New Year, everyone! May your year be filled with deliciousness.

Margarita Chicken

This is a great little recipe, which I've only slightly adapted from Cook This! Not That!, and really mostly in terms of adding a few more beans (the two to three tablespoons in the original recipe hardly seemed adequate for a serving), and a side dish of simple red rice.

Now, while the recipe shows you how to easily doctor up a can of black beans (drain, add cumin, heat, add lime juice), if you happen to have some left over Spicy Thick Black Beans, simply use two cups of those, instead - you won't be doing any damage for the extra onion, garlic and pepper in the mix.

Margarita Chicken
Adapted from "Cook This! Not That!"
by David Zinczenko and Matt Goulding

Serves 4

Bean Bed
2 cups of black beans, drained
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
juice from one lime

Chicken
1/2 tablespoon olive oil
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (about 4 oz. each)
1 cup salsa verde (warmed up, ideally)
1 cup grated Oaxaca cheese
Salt & Pepper as desired
cilantro, for garnish

If you are serving this dish with rice, get it started right away, and you should be able to easily do the rest in the time it takes the rice to cook (unless you're using instant rice, which I can't recommend). A tasty, simple version of red rice is to just add minced onion and a good sprinkle of ground annatto seed, cumin, and a pinch of salt to your regular steamed rice recipe.

Preheat your oven to 450 F, with the oven rack set to the middle. Heat the drained beans in a small saucepan, with the cumin, until thoroughly heated. Add the lime juice and stir through. Turn heat to low (or off), cover and hold until needed. Preheat your salsa in a small saucepan or in a cup in the microwave.

Salt and pepper your chicken lightly on both sides, and sear in a pre-heated skillet until deep golden brown on the first side - about 3 or 4 minutes - then flip over. As it sears on the second side, for another three minutes or so, gently spoon a little salsa verde over each chicken breast, spreading it with the spoon to just reach the edges of the chicken. Sprinkle with grated cheese, and then place uncovered in the oven for about five minutes, or until the chicken is cooked through and the cheese is bubbling.

To serve, spoon a quarter of the beans onto a luncheon-sized plate, and carefully place a chicken breast atop. Garnish with freshly chopped cilantro. Add the red rice to the side of the plate, and a couple of slices of avocado, and serve with lime wedges on the side for extra lime goodness. Leftovers work beautifully for lunch - I recommend slicing the chicken breast before stashing it away in the fridge, so it can reheat evenly (and more quickly!). I also deeply suspect that any leftovers, should you be so lucky, would make fantastic burritos. I intend to double the recipe next time, and find out.

The original recipe clocked in, according to the author, at 330 calories per serving. increasing the black beans to 1/2 a cup per serving, and adding a modest amount of red rice (3/4 cup of cooked rice) and even adding a quarter of avocado, raises the meal total to a mere (approximate) 525 calories for the whole meal (roughly 24% of those calories from fat) - absolutely still qualifying as a terrific, healthy dinner.

Quite a few of the other recipes from the book (and its companion publications) are available over at Men's Health.

Peanut Butter Cookies

These are such a classic cookie.

Some months ago, I promised a colleague that I would make peanut butter cookies for his birthday, which is coming up this week. Fortunately, I remembered ahead of time (for once), and so set about finding a recipe.

I looked high and low, and considered all kinds of exciting variations - some of which included chocolate, or oatmeal, or even quinoa (!), some of which were flourless, low-fat, or otherwise dietarily tweaked to suit what people are looking for these days. None of these were what I wanted, so I did what I should have done in the first place: dusted off my childhood recipe box, dug up the recipe that I have been making since I was eight years old (albeit, not recently), and made those.

They're awfully good.

I use smooth peanut butter, but you could use crunchy if the spirit so moves you. I am currently using an organic, unsalted peanut butter from the company "Nuts to You", which I'm finding to be an excellent cooking ingredient, and remarkably tasty just on its own.

Peanut Butter Cookies

Makes: 36 cookies
Total Prep & Cooking Time: 45 minutes

1/2 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup golden sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/4 cups unbleached flour
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Those of you who have read other cookie recipes from my childhood will know that the directions actually written down are astonishingly brief. This recipes says "Press with fork and bake 10 minutes @ 350℉".

Here's a bit more detail, for those who want it.

Cream together the butter and peanut butter, either by hand or using an electric mixer. Add the sugar, and beat again. Add the egg and the vanilla, and beat again until nice and smooth. Stir together the flour, salt and baking soda, and add to the peanut butter mixture. Beat until evenly combined and there are no more streaks of flour.

Roll into walnut-sized balls, and place on ungreased baking sheets. Use a greased/oiled fork to press lines or crosses into the balls of dough, flattening them into disks. Bake one sheet at a time at 350℉ for 10 - 14 minutes, depending on your oven (and the size of your "walnuts"). When golden around the edges, remove to cooling racks.

Caponata & Polenta

These two dishes make excellent friends. The starch of the polenta creates a filling sense of satisfaction, and its creamy solidness plays counterpoint to the vegetable frenzy that is the caponata.

Of course, you can tell (I'm quite sure) that the polenta rounds in the picture were not from a polenta that I had made myself, but rather from one of those prepared tubes that you can buy. We didn't find it an entirely acceptable substitute, by the way, but once we drowned the grilled-up rounds with the deliciousness of caponata, it sufficed for the evening. Homemade polenta would have made this absolutely heavenly.

The real story here is the caponata. I've been making this for a few years, now, since I first saw a recipe from Giada De Laurentiis for Caponata Picnic Sandwiches. I've tweaked it a little to reduce the oil, and upgraded it from side dish to feature, although any leftovers certainly do make wonderful sandwiches (particularly if you have some leftover garlic bread and bocconcini). I like a piquancy in my caponata, so I reduce the sugar, but your mileage may vary. More sugar emphasizes its sort of sweet-and-sour character.

Easy Caponata
Adapted from Giada De Laurentiis
Serves 4 as a main dish

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium Italian eggplant, diced
1 to 2 stalks celery, diced
1 red bell pepper, diced
1 tablespoon dry white vermouth (optional)
1 medium red or yellow onion, diced
1 1/2 to 2 cups unsalted canned diced tomatoes (with juices)
4 tablespoons raisins
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano leaves
4 tablespoons Italian Red Wine Vinegar
1-2 teaspoons granulated sugar
1 tablespoon capers
1/2 teaspoon Kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 - 2 branches fresh basil, stems removed

This dish comes together very easily. Heat the oil in a large skillet. Add the celery and saute a little, then add the eggplant and continue to saute until it begins to soften. Add the salt, and then the red pepper, and splash with a little vermouth if it is sticking (you can also use water). Stir and saute a little more, and then add the onion. Continue to saute, and once the onions are starting to get tender, add the tomatoes, raisins, oregano. Reduce the heat and simmer for about 20 minutes.

Taste, and season with salt and pepper to taste (I don't usually add any more salt here). Add the vinegar, one teaspoon of sugar, and the capers (rinsed and drained, please!), and stir through. Simmer very gently for a couple of minutes, then taste again. If needed, correct by adding more vinegar or sugar. Garnish with torn up basil leaves.

I note that this is much more colourful a dish than it may actually seem from the picture, which I blame on the inordinately, festively coloured (and busy) plate that I served it on.

That's it. Easy, right? And you can grill your polenta while it simmers, or you can make the caponata first, and serve it at room temperature once the polenta is grilled up - it's full of flavour and equally tasty warm or cool - and therefore, excellent picnic fare, as the recommended original application. You could also serve this warm over hot, soft polenta, rather than the firm version.

Now, I haven't mentioned the scruffy looking mushrooms on the other side of the plate, yes, I know. They are simply broiled mushrooms - tasty, but not very glamorous (or photogenic, apparently). Portabella mushrooms cut into slices, tossed with soy sauce and olive oil, and popped under the broiler until tender. That's it! Although, it does lead to another lovely possibility for serving the caponata: brush whole, gills-removed portabellas with a little olive oil and roast until tender, then fill with warm caponata, garnish with basil, and present triumphantly, perhaps with a nice crusty loaf of bread on the side.