Three Quick Recipes, Weekend Edition

We had guests this weekend. The kids were over the moon with extra friends on hand to play with, and Phil and I got to visit with two people we adore and who we don't see nearly enough of. When they left, the house was quiet(er), and it was too hot to cook. Sylvie and I tackled our out-of-control basil and made pesto for the first time ever while Phil and the boys were swimming.

When the men got home, the kids had a quick dinner, during which Tommy complained of a sore throat. He went to a MedCheck that confirmed strep. This left me about 15 minutes between getting his prescription filled and the start of Mad Men to make dinner for the local friends who come over for Don Draper and dinner every Sunday night. Fortunately, the pesto made a delicious pasta dish that whipped up quickly and was consumed in about 10 minutes.

Monday, back to work, Tommy home with Grandma, I didn't think of what to make for dinner until I was driving home. The pantry and pressure cooker let me make dinner in about 10 minutes.

One day I'm looking to get back to lingering over cooking. Not now. I've made peace with that.

Pesto
Fill a food processor with four (packed) cups basil leaves, 1/2 cup olive oil, 1/3 cup pine nuts, and two peeled garlic cloves. Whir up until it's a smoothish consistency. Then stir in 1/2 cup grated Parmesan and a couple good-sized pinches of course sea salt. If you're not going to use it immediately, put it in the fridge covered by about 1/2 inch olive oil.

Pasta with Pesto, White Beans, and Sun-Dried Tomatoes
Start boiling about 8 to 10 ounces pasta like rotini. Meanwhile, heat up 2 Tbsp. olive oil and gently cook 1 minced garlic clove for about 2 minutes. Now throw in 1 can drained cannelini beans, about 1/3 cup pesto, about 1/2 cup white wine, and about 1/2 cup drained sliced sun-dried tomatoes in oil (I buy dried and reconstitute in olive oil). Let this simmer/bubble for about five minutes while it cooks down. By this point, the pasta's done, so drain it, add it to the pan with the tomatoes and pesto, stir it around, grab a bowl, and go check on the progress of Stirling Cooper Draper and Price.

Crazy-Quick Rice and Beans
Dump 1 cup jasmine rice, 1 can coconut milk, 1 can drained black beans, and 1 (14.5-oz) can diced tomatoes into a pressure cooker. Cook on high 7 minutes. I didn't add spices, lest the kids turn up their noses (which they did anyway; sigh), but sprinkled some Adobo seasoning and chili powder when it was done. Despite what the kids insist without trying it, I found it delicious.

Some Recipes for Local Meat, and M Gets a Chance to Interview

Nikki Royer of Royer Farm Fresh was kind enough to take time from their busy spring farming schedule to answer some questions I had about local, sustainable farming and meat supplies. Today, she answers a question from M, age 5, whose been known to eat half a pound of Royer bacon in one sitting. And she shares some of her favorite recipes.

Asks M, age 5, with a mouthful of bacon and some greasy fingers he's wiping on his pants, “Why is your bacon so good?”
Taste and quality are a bigger focus than speed and cost. The bacon is cured with a sugar-based cure and smoked with hickory flavor. Plus the pigs get fresh air, sunshine, and exercise while eating a simple, balanced diet.

And believe you me, it's some good bacon. The one thing Nikki warned me about when I first bought it was that less-processed bacon cooks much more quickly than shrink-wrapped bacon from the grocery store because it contains less "stuff." She's right. I've got a good bacon-cooking rhythm down now, but it took a little bit to get used to how quickly fresher bacon cooks than the Eckrich we were used to.

But enough of my yakking. Let's get onto some of Nikki's favorite recipes.

Wild Mushroom Beef Roast

A great mix of flavor and texture, easy to make and special enough for company!

2.5 lb roast (chuck, arm, tip, or rump)
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
1/2 tsp. thyme leaves, crushed
3/4 cup ready-to-serve beef broth
1/4 cup tomato paste
1/4 cup dry red wine
2 bulbs garlic, minced
8 ounces assorted mushrooms, such as shitake, cremini, oyster, and button, cut into quarters Fresh parsley (optional)

1. Combine flour, salt, pepper and thyme in small bowl. Place beef in a 4-1/2 to 5-1/2 quart slow cooker. Sprinkle with flour mixture; toss to coat.
2. Combine broth, tomato paste, wine and garlic in small bowl; mix well. Add to beef. Add mushrooms; mix well.
3. Cover and cook on HIGH 6 to 7 hours or on LOW 8 to 10 hours, or until beef is tender. Do not lift the lid. (No stirring is necessary during cooking.) Stir well before serving. Garnish with parsley, if desired.

Mexi-Lamb Tortilla Lasagna
This recipe, from the American Lamb Board is a fast way to get multiple food groups in one dish. If your family doesn’t like sour cream, just eliminate it and double the amount of salsa. So that we can have leftovers, I usually double the recipe and bake it in a 13 X 9 pan.

1 pound ground lamb
1 cup salsa
1 can (15 ounces) red kidney beans, rinsed and drained
1 cup (8 ounces) light or regular sour cream
1/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1 Tbsp. all-purpose flour
3 10-inch flour tortillas
1 cup shredded lettuce
1 medium tomato, chopped
Toppings: shredded cheddar cheese and salsa

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

1. In a skillet, cook and crumble the ground lamb until it's no longer pink. Drain well. Stir in the salsa and beans, and set aside.
2. In a bowl, mix the sour cream, cheese, and flour.
3. Spray a 10-inch pie plate with nonstick cooking spray. Place one tortilla in the bottom of the dish. Top with 1/3 of the meat mixture and 1/2 of the sour cream mixture. Top with a second tortilla and repeat with 1/3 meat and remaining sour cream. Top with a third tortilla and remaining meat.
4. Bake for 25 minutes or until heated through. Let stand for 5 minutes before cutting into wedges. Top each serving with shredded lettuce and chopped tomato. If you like, garnish with the additional cheese and salsa.

Fall-off-the-Bone BBQ Pork Ribs

Another slow-cooker family favorite that came from the October 2006 issue of Good Housekeeping.

1 medium onion chopped
1/2 cup ketchup
1/4 cup cider vinegar
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 tomato paste
2 Tbsp. paprika
2 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
1 Tbsp. yellow mustard
1tsp. salt
1 tsp. pepper
4 pounds pork spare ribs or country style ribs

1. Coat a 4 -1/2 to 6 quart slow cooker with nonstick cooking spray, and then add in and stir together the onion, ketchup, vinegar, sugar, tomato paste, paprika, Worcestershire, mustard, salt, and pepper until mixed.
2. Layer spare ribs or country style ribs over sauce and cook for 8 hours on low. Do not lift lid while cooking.
   

Many thanks to Nikki for shedding a little light on sustainable farming. If you’re in the Indianapolis area, stop by one of the farmers markets that features Royer Farm Fresh meats. If you're not, check out www.localharvest.org to see what local and sustainable options are available in your area.

By the choices we all make regarding what we're willing to put on our table, we can change the cruel and sometimes toxic meat industry. If you can, do try to buy local, where you can know how the animals were treated and how the meat was processed. I can attest that it makes a huge difference in taste, and it will support a meat industry that is humane, safe, and carries a much smaller carbon footprint.

Faster than a Speeding Delivery Man

Tonight while the boys were winding down for bed, I took a few minutes and prepped what has become for us an at-home fast food option: pre-baked sourdough pizza shells. This isn't anything new; these are basically homemade Boboli crusts sans the preservatives, packaging, and price. When I get home from work, I grab one or two from the freezer, top them with pizza sauce and grated cheese for the boys and anything Phil and I are in the mood for -- goat cheese, spinach, prosciutto, whatever -- and pop them in the oven for about 15 minutes.

One of my friends freezes unbaked pizza dough that she just rolls out when she's ready to use it, but I love that these are pre-baked. The pre-baking eliminates both rolling out the dough and a bit of baking time. For those of you without kids underfoot, this relatively little timesaving might seem insignificant, but it's not. When making dinner with two hungry boys just in from daycare, every extra kitchen task is an opportunity for distraction when kissing boo-boos, righting sibling wrongs, or explaining why you can't go find the red Power Ranger right now. These pizzas are in the oven, literally, in about 90 seconds, and unless a head is split open or an arm broken in four places, a kid can wait 90 seconds for my attention.

Here's how to do it.

Sourdough Pizza Shells

2 tsp. yeast
1 tsp. sugar
1/4 cup warm water -- 110 degrees, or just slightly warmer than a warm bath
3 Tbsp. olive oil
1 cup sourdough starter
1 tsp. sea salt -- or regular salt
1 cup whole-wheat flour
2 cups, plus maybe a little more, white flour

Stir together the yeast, sugar, and water, and then let this sit for 10 minutes to get the yeast proofed and bubbly. Add in the olive oil, sourdough starter, sea salt, whole-wheat flour, and 1/2 cup white flour. Combine this well; now add the other cup of white flour, 1/2 cup at a time. If the dough is still sticky, add a bit more flour until it feels elastic and like Play-Doh.

Put a tiny bit of olive oil in a clean bowl, rub it around the bowl, and plop the wad of dough in. Flip the dough over so that it's covered on both sides with the oil. Cover the bowl with a damp towel and set in a warm place for about an hour, until the dough has doubled.

Punch down the dough, and then cut it into four basically equal pieces. Roll each piece into a circle. Don't worry whether you're making perfect circles; lopsided pizzas look rustic and pretty.

Bake these pizza shells for about 10 minutes at 400 degrees. They should be solid but not browned. Cool the shells and wrap in plastic wrap; if you won't be using them in the next day or two, store them in the freezer.

When you're ready to use them, pull what you need directly from the freezer, top as you'd like, and back at 425 degrees for about 15 to 17 minutes, or until the cheese is nicely browned.

If you're not into whole-wheat flour, just substitute in all white flour for the mixture of whole-wheat and white. Once the pizzas are in the oven, be horrified to hear your mom's voice from 35 years ago coming from your mouth, stating, "I don't know where the red Power Ranger is; it's wherever you left it." Then go comb the house for the red Power Ranger.


This morning before work I finished Ruth Reichl's Garlic and Sapphires, which is about her adventures as the restaurant critic for the New York Times -- including the costumes and personas she would assume to experience restaurants as they truly are, not as they are when the NY Times food critic is in attendence. All three of her memoirs (the other two being Tender at the Bone and Comfort Me with Apples) are so delightful. Despite poisoning T with one of the recipes in the book, I absolutely loved this book. Few people can write about food like Ruth Reichl. The second I finished it, I subscribed online to Gourmet, the magazine she edits -- a magazine I later wondered if perhaps it might be a bit beyond my abilities. Stay tuned...

"Key Who?" or Cooking with Grains You Can't Pronounce

I've been seeing "quinoa" popping up a lot lately -- apparently this is some SUPERGRAIN that makes a perfect protein all by itself (no pesky pairing of grain + legume), is easy to prepare, and can take on the character and taste of whatever it's paired with. I've seen recipes for very savory, very sweet, and very neutral quinoa dishes. So a few days ago I dragged T to Wild Oats with the promise of a Sunrise smoothie to pick up some bulk quinoa.

As it turns out, this isn't pronounced "Kwi-NO-ah" as I had been referring to it, but "KEEN-wah." Go figure. Not unlike when I first asked for a book by "a-NAY" Nin and was condescendingly told (by the woman working the mall bookstore), "you mean 'anna-EES?'" But I digress.

What I know about quinoa could fill a thimble, but my reading on this grain told me that it has a bitter outer layer, which apparently is a naturally occurring pesticide. Consequently, you need to rinse quinoa well before using it, or the resulting dish will retain some of that bitter flavor. To rinse mine, I just put it in a fine seive and ran water over it for a minute or so.

I started with a basic recipe for Quinoa Pilaf from How to Cook Everything, and then gussied it up a little, adding the garbonzo beans I'd been craving, sprinkling in some spices, and finishing it with the Nigella seeds I'd picked up at Dean and Deluca last fall and never quite known how to use.

The result was amazing. I'd like to think I'll be taking it in my lunch next week, but I'm not positive it'll make it through the night. Phil's off at an Eisenhower Field Day gig, I rented Borat for the evening, and I can completely see that the evening could end up with me bloated and moaning on the TV room couch, the deep skillet that held enough quinoa for four lying abandoned and empty next to me. It's that good.

If you haven't tried quinoa and want to give it a whirl, why not try this easy recipe? I used this as a main dish, but it would be great without the garbonzo beans (or with, if you're on a protein bender), eaten as a side dish with meat.


Quinoa with Garbonzo Beans and Nigella

2 Tbsp. olive oil
1 small onion, chopped small
1 cup quinoa, rinsed thoroughly
1 3/4 to 2 cups broth (I used chicken)
1/2 tsp. or so sea salt
a few grinds of pepper
1/4 tsp. or so ancho powder, garam marsala, or any other spice you like
1 15-oz. can garbonzo beans, drained and rinsed
a few sprinklings Nigella

Heat the oil in a deep skillet over medium heat. When it's hot, add the onion and stir around for about 5 minutes, until the onion softens. Add the rinsed quinoa and stir around for another 5 minutes. Add 1 3/4 cups broth, as well as the sea salt, pepper, and ancho powder; stir; and cover. Let this cook for about 15 minutes -- until the liquid is absorbed and the quinoa is no longer crunchy. If the quinoa isn't yet soft but the liquid is gone, add another 1/4 cup broth and give it another couple minutes to cook, covered. Once the quinoa is soft, if there's still liquid left, uncover it and stir until the liquid is largely absorbed.

Stir in the garbonzo beans. Sprinkle with the nigella seeds. Devour.