today: quick recipe with a mystery ingredient.

i came home starving today after a trip to the grocery store.

(no, it isn't wise to shop for groceries while hungry, but believe or not, i didn't realise that i was hungry at the time.)

anyways, i found this concoction quick and hearty. it reminded me of something between a chili and a minestrone, of all things.

as a heads up, one of the ingredients is NONSTANDARD.

ingredients.

1/2 block firm tofu, diced,

1/2 can black beans,

1 clove garlic, smashed beyond recognition and chopped,

either
    (a) leftover sauteed veggies
(i used extra green bell peppers, mushrooms, and red onion from an earlier omelette)
    (b) 1 cup frozen veggies, defrosted in warm water and drained

a big spoonful of sofrito [1] sauce;
store-bought is fine, and i used the Goya brand.

salt/pepper to taste,
frying oil; canola will do.

directions (10 minutes).

saute tofu with garlic in oil and a little salt: medium heat. include the veggies if they were previously frozen, otherwise when the contents seems a little dry, add the black beans (with a little of the liquid) and leftover veg.

** it should always look like a stew; add a little water if things look a little dry.

when the contents are simmering, make a shallow hole in the middle, and add sofrito. wait for gratifying sizzling smell, then stir and add pepper. if dry, add more water, and at the next simmer, shut off heat.

feeds one starving person, or two normal people.
enjoy with warm bread.


[1] i found a jar of spanish sofrito [wiki] on sale at the produce station, and it tastes like concentrated minestrone flavor, in sauce form.

today's lunkfast, in 3000 words ..

.. or equivalently, 3 photographs.

( i didn't take a close-up of the banana; it may be ripe and sweet, but it remains brown spotted and unpretty \: )

left: toasted paesano bread of the zingermann variety, but bought cheaply at the produce station. yes, that is drizzled honey on top!

right: a rustic 2-egg omelet made from ..

1/2 roma tomato,
3 asparagus stalks, chopped,
a sprig of curly parsley and a sprig of cilantro (both coarsely chopped)
a garlic clove, smashed,
salt and pepper to taste.

i was deliberately cracking the eggs into a pan on medium heat, stirring them sparingly for the sake of additional color. (:

the importance of food bases.

this morning's mathematics was .. confusing. i came up with ideas, though i ended up chasing absurdities.

[if you're really that curious,
i wrote about it here]

at any rate, i thought to make myself lunch, but then one thing led to another, and it became a lengthy cooking session. among other things, i simmered a decent vegetable broth.

---

i never consciously realised it, but when cooking it's key to do several things at once. for example, one chops tomatoes and onions while the pasta is boiling, or stirs the muffin mix while the oven is preheating: simple enough.

the thing is, you can simmer broth while doing something else. for example, you could chop vegetables or yams. afterwards, you can simmer broth AND make a brown rice and yam porridge in the rice cooker .. while doing something else.

in fact, as long as there's liquid in the big pot at a simmer, you can throw in potatoes to parboil for hash browns, and fish them out when you need them.

or you can toss in a few roma tomatoes for less than a minute, so that you can peel them and then dice them for a pasta salad. you can also toss in a few peeled cloves of garlic, because the flavor mellows with boiling .. similar but not the same as roasting garlic, but equally easy to make into paste and stir into pasta.

better yet, you can toss in the stems from spinach leaves for extra flavor into the broth, because you need the spinach both

* for a pasta salad .. the same pasta salad which uses the tomatoes,
* and for a spinach omelette, which will accompany the hash browns to come.


the moral: never underestimate a big pot of water. it gives and it takes, fairly and understandably.

late-night foodies (a no-recipe post).

speaking of food .. say, from a post on the other blog, among other times .. late night cooking is a very fickle thing. i almost never cook anything, but on occasion, hunger and creativity stir simultaneously in me, and at 1am i get the urge to stir something up.

sometimes i do, but more often i don't. were it my bedroom that was closest to the kitchen, then fate might have turned otherwise, but that bedroom remains luis fernando's and his circadian rhythm is shifted 4-6 hours earlier than mine.

i'm serious: he has the discipline to wake at 5-something and sleep at 9 in the evening.

---

for late night cooking: sometimes i bake corn muffins, which is reasonably quiet, or maybe omelettes, because they're quick and not too messy. occasionally it's angel-hair pasta, though lately i've been snobbish and insist on making my own pasta sauces from scratch ..

..give or take a tin of good, preserved tomatoes, of course.

but some things i never do: roasting potatoes takes too long, and i'd be tempted to make a grand production and wake up luis. no sauteing veg, either; smoke and a blaring alarm are too great a risk: the curse of the dry saute!

quick things are fine, though, even sautes.

for instance, if i can summon up the willpower, i might fry up some really ripe plantains later tonight, and eat them with ice cream!

a surprise substitute, in curried lentils.

today, as a distraction from work, i attempted to make curried lentils to accompany last night's brown rice.

it was a tolerable curry: i had an onion and lentils, and it was the usual cocktail of curry powder, cumin, allspice, salt, and chile, to be simmered in a pot ..

.. but instead of coconut milk (i didn't have any in the house) i used a heaping teaspoon of condensed milk. the outcome was strange: a little too sweet, and it muted the other flavors more than i liked.

i still don't know what to make of it;
the jury's still out.

sauteed green beans with basil.

last night was a jaunt at leopold bros brewery, and tomorrow are two math-grad barbeques and a movie night at a postdoc's apartment. so tonight was a perfect time for cooking.

sauteed basil is an intoxicating scent. the method below is dry saute, so have your exhaust fan on or your windows open.


ingredients:

• 1 bunch green beans, snapped into pinky-sized pieces (say as much as you can grasp with one hand, without forcibly trying)
  
  
• 1/2 red bell pepper, sliced; a full pepper will do, but i was making two batches of green beans in one session.
  
  
• 3 good sprigs of fresh basil leaves, coarsely chopped.
  
• about a mouthful of peanuts; pre-roasted is fine.
  
  
• canola oil for frying,
  
• sesame oil for dressing,
  
• salt and pepper to taste,
  
• rice wine vinegar,
  
• enough honey to drizzle lightly over a pan,
  
• a little water, to cool things off.
  

some rough directions:

UNO. dry saute the green beans (no oil, high heat). then add sliced peppers; after one minute, add the peanuts, and stir well.

DOS. this has to be done promptly: a minute after the peanuts, add the oil, switch to medium heat, stir well to coat, and quickly stir in the basil while the oil still coats the mixture visibly. add a little salt, to help open up the flavors.

TRES. once you smell the joy of frying basil, drizzle honey and stir. the pan should be hot enough that the honey will caramelise in about a minute; at that point, add a shake or two of vinegar.

CUATRO. add about a mouthful of water, watch the pan sizzle, and promptly turn the heat off. it should be just enough water to steam up a little moisture into the pan, without losing any of the flavor.


let cool for five minutes, and serve.

penne with cherry tomatoes, capers, garlic

Since I was recently invited to contribute to this blog (thanks!) and I just cooked something wonderful tonight, I thought I should grab the initative here and share it.

I've been in a cooking rut lately too, so this was a really nice surprise. I do almost all of my own cooking, and have for a long time, but I go in and out of these phases of being sick of my own stuff or feeling un-creative. Using almost nothing but the crock pot all winter also did a number on me.

Anyway, I stole this recipe from a recent issue of the New York Times. The original link is here, but I am vegan and alas this recipe is not - it is all about anchovies. My hunch was that capers would be a nice substitute because they are quite salty/briny/savory. I have no idea if they are in fact a good substitute for anchovies, having never eaten the latter, but this did indeed turn out delicious with some minor modifications.


Ingredients:
Olive oil (as much or little as you like)
Salt and pepper (to taste)
Several good shakes of crushed red pepper (more or less depending on how spicy your taste is - I love salty, spicy, flavorful food, so I use a heavy hand with my dashes)
3/4 lb. penne or other short thicker pasta
2 cups cherry or grape tomatoes, halved
3.5 oz container of capers
10 garlic cloves, whole, peeled
Chopped fresh parsley to go on top


Instructions:
1. Boil water, and halve the cherry tomatoes and peel the garlic while you're waiting. Add the pasta and cook until al dente. Drain.

2. While it is cooking, heat the olive oil and put in the garlic and optional red pepper. Cook for about 5 minutes, until the garlic begins to brown.

3. Add the capers and cook on medium heat for another few minutes.

4. Add halved cherry tomatoes and cook them until they become "saucy" (according to the original recipe). I don't know if mine ever became saucy per se - they don't generate a lot of liquid - but once they become soft and mushy and start to fall apart a little when you stir them around. This took about 5 - 8 minutes.

5. Add the penne and stir around to mix thoroughly with the sauce. You can drizzle some more olive oil on at this point if it is sticky. Add salt and pepper to taste.

6. Top with a generous handful of chopped fresh parsley.


After eating this, I thought it might have also been delicious with some sliced black or kalamata olives.

"kill it with kindness" spinach penne, with mushrooms.

every time i write about cooking pasta, it sounds like i use same method, time and time again. it doesn't matter if i add a little variation. maybe i just find myself boring.

anyways, tonight's pasta used a slightly different trick than usual, but uses the common theme of consistently keeping one uncooked ingredient in the recipe.

"kill it with kindness" spinach penne, with mushrooms

(the 'killing' part refers to how raw spinach is wilted into a half-cooked state)

you'll need:

1 bunch fresh spinach, coarsely chopped
3 big handfuls of whole wheat penne
1 tin diced tomatoes (about the size of a pepsi can; if you really insist, four chopped roma tomatoes will do the same)
1 package of white mushrooms, sliced
1 small onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, smashed with the side of a knife and chopped
1 glass white wine (i used a german white called liebfraumilch)
honey
canola oil for sauteing,
good olive oil for dressing,
cornstarch or flour for thickening,
nutmeg, dried oregano, basil, salt, pepper

a few large bowls,
a saucepan with spatula or wooden spoon,
a medium pot,
a chopping board with a good chef's knife,
a wineglass,
bowls to contain chopped veg,
a can opener,
anything else which i missed and you find useful.

rough directions:

ONE. while boiling the penne, wash and chop the spinach, then place in a large bowl. when the penne is ready, drain and do a quick cold water wash. cover the spinach with the warm penne, dress with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and stir.

this is a delicate situation: the spinach won't mix well with the penne, and it will only wilt a little. it's also important to dress the pasta while it's hot.

had you not done the quick cold wash, then left unchecked, the penne will become one big clump on the bottom, and the spinach not fully wilted, sitting like fall leaves atop of the pasta.

TWO. sprinkle oregano and nutmeg on a hot saucepan, to open up the flavor oils. add mushrooms in a dry saute, stirring mildly. add garlic and onions. add oil only when the onion begins to change color; when you do, keep the exhaust fan on and stir quickly.

i would open the tin of tomatoes, before adding the oil. the last thing you want to do is fumble with an opener and a can, when really, you should be stirring a saute.

drizzle with honey to add a glaze (use your own judgment and taste; some like it sweet) and when you can smell the honey, add half a glass of wine; enjoy the other half as you stir a wonderful, sizzling concoction.

when most of the wine has evaporated, add the whole can of tomatoes, liquid and all mix 1/3 of the tin's volume of water with a few spoons of cornstarch and stir very well before adding to the pan. after adding thickener, turn off heat and stir well.


THREE. when sauce has stopped bubbling, add to the pasta/spinach mixture, and stir. serve immediately, and i suggest a baguette as accompanying bread.

anthology: food posts from "the other blog"

last week(?) a friend of mine thought i had four blogs, and i corrected her automatically (but tactfully): three.

you see, it's not hard to keep the count:

1. the mathematics blog,
   
2. the vegetarian cooking blog,
   
3. the other blog.
   

i like to keep them separate, if only because it makes it simpler to focus on what to write. i like writing about mathematics and about vegetarian cooking, and i also like to rant about life and the universe without any real purpose.

otherwise, there would only be two blogs. \:

---

running through my livejournal tags, though, it seems like i have more food posts on the other blog than one can shake many sticks at! so for the foodie readers out there, here they are, to the best of my archival abilities.

8th December 2005: life with an office.

mostly pedestrian. the third part discusses juok or more commonly on menus, congee.

14 May 2006: you can't be too careful .. with cereal.

in which i laud the universality of cereal.

9th August 2006: trix are for kids.

two ideas for summer breakfast. (nothing too interesting.)

15 August 2006 living on the cheap.

what my last five purchases were, on a "random" day: they were all food-related, and with one exception, they were all food or grocery purchases.

4th September 2006: about cooking.

ruminations on my cookbooks.

3rd October 2006 teaching, and later, cooking.

in the second half, two recipes.

25 December 2006: in response to: herb-based sauces.

unsolicited advice about how to make such sauces.

4th January 2007: from WiseGEEK: what does 200 calories look like?

in which i steal photos from a wiseGEEK article, where 200-calorie servings of various foods are shown in photographs.

21 January 2007: a rave (about the Produce Station)

exactly as titled. it's still worth reading, if only to be informed of the wonderful paradise that is the Produce Station. (:

28th January 2007: about food, and an article post.

in which i mention michael pollan of the omnivore's dilemma fame, as well as a new york times article of his.

4th February 2007 on food.

in which i mention a dinner at jo's apartment, and my endeavors at lunkfast.

1st March 2007: on eating, and not being eaten!

in which i discuss uglyripe tomatoes, fresh florida fruit, baklava from a greek neighborhood, and how i was narrowly eaten by an alligator.

18 March 2007: homage to good olive oil, and the potato!

in which my commentators and i gush over the beauty that is a baked potato, dressed simply.

25th March 2007: a weekend of wine, eating, and good company.

self-explanatory. among other things, i cooked my trademarked green beans.

5th April 2007.

in which i eat fashionably, and to the envy of others.

15 April 2007: a good day, and a good meal: recipe included.

a recipe for a veggie pasta sauce, which is more like a tapenade than anything else: still good, though.

21st April 2007: what else, on a summerish day?

ice cream for dinner, among other things.