chickinthekitchen.com

Summer Squash Ribbons with Pesto

I spent a weekend in Boston earlier this summer and my dear friend Rachel showed me this simple, delicious dish. Use a vegetable peeler to make ribbons out of your yellow squash and zucchini, rotating the squash after each ribbon or two so you get even pieces. Leave over the seeded middles. Blanch the squash ribbons (that’s dropping them into boiling water briefly and then dunking them in ice water to stop the cooking) and drain them well. Toss with your favorite pesto.

Please don’t pretend you’re eating pasta, because you won’t be impressed. However, as a vegetarian side dish or a way to highlight your CSA or farmer’s market finds, this simple dish is perfection. Slightly salty and rich from the pesto; fresh and light from the squash. With some sliced CSA tomatoes, it’s a perfect summer dinner.

August 24, 2011

Chana Saag (Indian Chickpeas & Spinach)

When J. and I lived in Stamford, CT, we went through a phase where we ate at or ordered in from our local Indian restaurant a lot. As in, at least weekly. When we moved to our current home there were fewer Indian restaurants that were as convenient, and J. became less enamored of Indian food overall. We hit an Indian food drought.

I do occasionally try my hand at cooking Indian at home. I’ve made Crock-Pot Indian-Spiced Chicken with Lentils & Potatoes; Dimer Dalna (Egg Curry); Vegetable Jalfrezi; Tandoori Tofu; and Cabbage, Red Pepper, & Zucchini Palya (Dry Curry) over the past several years.

Now I have a new dish that I’ll repeat: Chana Saag (Chickpeas & Spinach) from Danielle at Moderate Oven. I already have a huge collection of spices, but I was lacking most of the whole versions that kick off her recipe. So I modified. I skipped straight from the canola oil to the onions. I also used an equivalent amount of diced plum tomatoes instead of canned, and I omitted the dairy altogether as J. is not a fan of creamy food. I put our new Vitamix on the job of pureeing the spinach mixture, and it did a fantastic job of creating a smooth, saucy spinach base for the chickpeas. This is a very straight-forward recipe and it yields great results even when altered, so I’d recommend it as a great place to start if you’re new to cooking Indian food.

J. liked this dish and ate it as leftovers twice, which is pretty exceptional since he’s not a fan of reheated food. (It may have also been the case that there was nothing else to eat in the fridge. I prefer to think it’s that he liked it.) Although I found my preparation to be lip-numbingly hot (using two large jalapeño peppers from my farm share), J. couldn’t feel the heat and he liberally squeezed sriracha over the top.

I knew we would not finish this whole recipe before we tired of eating it meal after meal, so I vacuum sealed and froze separate packages of the Chana Saag and cooked brown rice. Together, they will be an easy and delicious vegetarian dinner to pull from the freezer in the future.

8 Comments August 16, 2011

Roasted Eggplant & Red Pepper Dip

The recipe for this Roasted Eggplant & Red Pepper Dip (or spread) comes from the beautiful blog The Cilantropist, and I am not surprised the author says it is one of her favorite foods to make in the summer.

I followed the recipe as written, except that I doubled the quantities of everything but the oil — I kept that at a third of a cup in the doubled recipe. I did have to puree the dip in two batches, as my Cuisinart couldn’t handle all of it at once. That gave me an opportunity to go a little heavier on the tomato paste in one batch, and lighter in the other — the one with less tomato paste was better, with more of the roasted eggplant flavor shining through.

I knew this spread would be a hit with my mother-in-law, who adores eggplant, but it went over well with all of the adults in my extended family. We ate outside on a hot night, smoothing this creamy, tangy spread over bagels. I served hard-boiled eggs and a salad made from romaine lettuce, marinated onions, feta, and sliced beets, too. It was indeed a perfect summer meal.

1 Comment July 20, 2011

Bok Choi & Sesame Noodles

We received a big head of bok choi in our farm share a couple of weeks ago, and I usually just do a simple stir fry when I get this vegetable. It combines well with red pepper and onions; saute and add a splash of soy sauce and you’re done.

This time I went a bit further and made Stout Oak Farm’s Bok Choi & Sesame Noodles. I didn’t have any pea shoots, so I omitted them. I also used a smaller noodles-to-bok choi ratio than the recipe calls for, and subbed whole wheat spaghetti in place of the buckwheat noodles. I do like buckwheat soba and can get them at the Mrs. Green’s (a local Whole Foods-type store), but the spaghetti works just as well.

Whenever possible, I serve noodles separately from whatever is being mixed in to make the meal. So, a nice big bowl of the bok choi, and noodles on the side. This way my kids will at least eat the noodles, and might try the sauce, meatballs, or whatever else makes the pasta a complete dinner. They’re both much more willing to try green vegetables lately, but declined the bok choi at this dinner. Then, a couple of hours later when J. got home and was eating, A. decided the combined recipe did indeed look tasty. He got his own bowl and although he picked out most of the vegetables, he slurped up the sesame noodles and loved it. Since he eats my Spinach Lasagna Roll-Ups greens and all, I’m pretty sure I could make this recipe again with spinach and have him eat the whole thing.

2 Comments July 5, 2011