Monday, November 30, 2009

thanksgiving redux

Every time I update the blog, Kenny's facebook and twitter automatically update with the name of the post, a link and the first couple words of the post, up to the character limit. Sometimes words get cut off. Sometimes it's unintentionally hilarious:


Ha! Anyways... I had leftover roasted butt salad from thanksgiving and I decided I should make something else with it before the arugula got wilty and gross. I had not tossed the salad w/the orange vinaigrette so I had a clean slate to come up with something totally different. I separated out all the pomegranate seeds and tossed the arugula, walnuts and butternut squash in a simple cream sauce with some pasta shells. The sauce was about 1 cup soy milk, 1/4 cup of parmesan, 1/4 cup of nutritional yeast and 2 Tbsp soy yogurt. Wilt the leftovers with some olive oil and then toss everything together.

Friday, November 27, 2009

thanksgiving

Here are the recipes I made for our annual Thanksgiving potluck this year:


No-cream creamed spinach from the White House via the NY Times.

some screwed up combination of these two carrot soup recipes: Carrot soup from 101 Cookbooks, and Carrot and red lentil soup from What For Lunch, Honey? (Btw, just found that blog and it's beautiful!). It's my family's tradition to serve a first course of soup at Thanksgiving. So for the last three years that I've been out in SF, I've made soup to bring to our annual potluck. And every year I manage to screw up the soup and need to scramble to save it. This year involved too much salt in the broth and a last minute run to the corner store for a bottle of Odwalla pressed carrot juice and a bag of baby carrots. Next year... I might just skip the soup.

All of these recipes are of course seasonal, using ingredients from the CSA box and they all happen to be vegan and (I believe) gluten-free, though I'm not super familiar with what's allow or not allowed in the gluten-free diet so I could be wrong on that one.

No photos because I suck. Seriously, I don't even have an excuse for our lack of blogging lately- we just really suck.

So, how was your Thanksgiving? What did you make? Any awesome seasonal recipes we should check out?

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

epic dinner



Fenneled Colcannon


Ingredients:
2 1/2 pounds of potatoes, cut into 1 inch chunks
1/2 head of napa cabbage, thinly sliced
1 bulb of fennel, thinly sliced
1 cup of unsweetened soy milk (or milk)
2 Tbsp of Earth Balance (or butter)
salt and pepper to taste

Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Add potatoes and cook until fork tender, about 12 minutes. Remove potatoes and add the cabbage and fennel to the pot, and cook until soft, 3-4 minutes. Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and mash the crap outta them!



Traditional Pot Roast


Ingredients:
1 piece of beef (We used a 1 1/2 pound piece of london broil. Light on the fat, and quick cooking.)
1 large shallot, thinly sliced
1/2 pound of baby carrots
2 ribs of celery, roughly chopped
1 cup of red wine
2 cups stock
2 Tbsp double concentrate tomato paste
3 Tbsp canola oil
salt and pepper to taste

For gravy:
3 Tbsp Earth Balance
3 Tbsp all purpose flour

If you have a dutch oven, you should use it for this recipe. If you don't, just follow along. In a large pan, heat the canola oil on medium high heat. Season both sides of the meat with salt and pepper, and sear all sides in the hot pan, about 2 minutes a side. Yes, all sides, use some tongs and hold the meat so you can get the ends and everything- we aren't trying to let ANY juices out! When the meat is seared, set it aside in a pyrex baking dish. Add the shallots, celery, carrots, and tomato paste to the pan and cook until translucent, about 5-7 minutes. De-glaze the pan with the wine (afraid of losing eyebrows and armhair? Pro-tip- turn off the fire underneath the pan.) and using a wooden spoon, make sure you get all the meaty bits from the bottom of the pan to dissolve into the wine by scraping them up. Allow this liquid to reduce by half and then add your stock. Pour all of this over the meat, cover, and place into a preheated 350 degree oven until it reaches 165 degrees, about 1 hour.

After the tasty roast is ready, remove the meat and veggies from the remaining sauce and allow to rest on a plate for 8-10 minutes before cutting against the grain and serving. Meanwhile, melt the Earth Balance in a pan and use it and the flour to make a roux. Once the roux is complete and smells like buttered toast, add the remaining cooking liquid into the pan. Make sure to stir or whisk thoroughly so the roux dissolves completely in the liquid (no lumps here Ma!), and allow to come to a boil. Continue stirring until it does so, it shouldn't take long, the liquid is already piping hot. Allow to boil for 1-2 minutes, until gravy thickens up and coats the back of a spoon.





Sourdough Bacon Shallot and Sage Stuffing

Ingredients:
4 cups of fresh sourdough bread, cut into 1 inch cubes
3 slices of bacon, cut into 1 inch pieces
2 ribs of celery, cut in 1/4 inch pieces
1 shallot, thinly sliced
2 cups stock
4 dried sage leaves, finely chopped (or 2 tsp. dried sage)
1/2 tsp dried thyme
salt and pepper to taste


In a large pot on medium heat, add bacon and saute until crispy and delicious, about 10 minutes. Remove cooked bacon leaving oil in pot. (I removed about 1 Tbsp of the leftover bacon grease, I know- sacrilege, but I didn't want it to be too bacon-y.) Add celery, and shallots and cook until shallots are translucent, about 6-7 minutes. Toss in your herbs, and then the bread. Slowly add stock 1/4 cup at a time while stirring the mixture. Stop adding stock when you start to notice excess stock not being soaked up by the bread. Add in half of the cooked bacon, taste and season with salt and pepper. Put the entire mixture in a baking dish and top with the rest of the cooked bacon and then cover with foil. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 45 minutes covered, and then 10-15 minutes uncovered until the top is golden brown.




weekly delivery 11/11

Lots of greens this week:

1.5 lbs red Norland potatoes
4 Satsuma Mandarin oranges
1 leek
1 head Romaine lettuce
1 butternut squash

1 bunch broccoli rabe rapini
4 red beets
5 Starkrimson pears
1 bunch cilantro

1 bunch arugula
5 golden delicious apples
1 bunch dinosaur kale
2 heads broccoli

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

dolmas and caramelized leek hummus


Ingredients:
Hummus:
3 leeks, white and light green parts only, sliced in half length wise then 1/4" chopped
1/4 cup butter (Earth Balance)
2 Tbsp water
1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
juice of 1/2 a lemon
1 Tbsp cayenne pepper
salt to taste

Melt the butter in a small pot, then add in the leeks and toss to coat. Add the water and a dash of salt, cover and cook on low heat until the leeks soften and begin to caramelize, about 25 minutes. Remove from the heat, dump in a can of chickpeas and puree with an immersion blender. Or you could add everything to a food processor and puree that way, but why make more dishes? Season to your liking with lemon juice, cayenne pepper and salt. Transfer to a small bowl and stick it in the fridge to cool down.


Dolmas:
1 cup white rice, cooked
juice from 1 1/2 lemons
2 Tbsp olive oil
1/4 cup scallions, thinly sliced
2 leaves fresh mint, chiffonade
salt, pepper and garlic powder to taste
1 bunch chard

Cook the rice and let it cool. Toss with lemon juice, olive oil, scallions and mint. Season with salt, pepper and garlic powder to taste. The rice needs to be a bit sticky for this recipe. To assemble to dolmas, remove the rib from a leaf of chard, place a dollop of rice on the leaf, tuck the sides in and then roll like a burrito. Traditionally, dolmas are braised in oil but we like to keep it health-conscious around here (uh... sometimes) so we simply steamed them. Place the dolmas, seam side down, in a steamer basket over an inch of boiling water and steam for about 2 minutes. Allow to cool before serving.

weekly delivery 11/04

Here what we got this week:

1 head broccoli
4 Satsuma mandarin oranges
1 bunch rainbow chard
5 bartlett pears

1 bulb fennel
10 Russian banana potatoes
1 head red leaf lettuce

4 Fuji apples
1 head Napa cabbage
1 bunch fresh cilantro