I know…
By admin | April 19, 2008
It has been so long! I have so many pictures and things to add, I just can’t seem to get caught up. I will be back with more posts soon!
Topics: Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
Boulangerie Beans, Two Ways
By admin | February 18, 2008
One of the things I like about How to Cook Everything Vegetarian is that many of the recipes include multiple variations. So instead of one recipe it is 3 recipes or in the case of Boulangerie Beans with Potatoes you are given 6 recipes. But it is such a simple formula, there are so many variations you can easily come up with. Fantôme Chocolat and I enjoyed this so much the first time I made it that I ended up making another variation the second week.
According to Mark Bittman, the author, Boulangerie Potatoes is a classic French dish. Potatoes were left in the local baker’s oven with stock for a long time. The long cooking period causes the stock to form a glaze over the potatoes as it reduces. From some digging around I did, Chef Tom Colicchio relays a variation on this history in one of his books.
As I mentioned, the formula is simple- 3 cups of beans, 3 medium potatoes, and 1 cup of stock. You also use some herbs, spices and butter. The beans should be drained but still moist. I suspect if you use canned ones, they will turn very mushy here due to the long cook time.
For the first attempt at this recipe, we used pinto beans (the ones from the slow cooker in the bean post) and sweet potatoes (for those of you with the book reading along at home, we did not use all the suggested spices or sugar… I do not like adding sweet to my sweet potatoes, I prefer them on the savory side).
We started off with three cups of pinto beans seasoned with salt, pepper, homemade anchovy free Worcestershire sauce and…
… a tablespoon of fresh thyme (yum).
While I got the beans ready, Fantôme Chocolat thinly sliced some sweet potatoes.
The sweet potatoes were then layered on top of the beans and a cup of vegetable stock was added. More salt, pepper, and fresh thyme was added as well as some butter. (That is the recipe called for 3 tablespoons. It looks like a lot now and it tasted like a lot too… Fantôme Chocolat and I don’t use butter all that often and we could certainly taste it!)
Cover with foil and cook at 325 degrees Fahrenheit for 45 minutes. Remove the foil and cook for another 45 minutes so the potatoes can brown and glaze. The dish can be served hot or at room temperature.
We made a salad to go along with this with some fresh carrot and cabbage I had around.
I had cut these in a shred and prepared them for a cold salad…
…but Fantôme Chocolat was in the mood for something warm so I sauteed the salad with some sesame oil and gave it a dash of rice wine vinegar.
In the end, this was a simple yet satisfying Sunday meal.
The following Sunday, I decided to make this again while doing some things around the house. Fantôme Chocolat never got to try this one because I ate it and all the leftovers during the week (and I am a reluctant leftover eater). This time, I used white beans, red potatoes, and leeks.
The leeks need to be trimmed, chopped and rinsed well. I opted to slice mine thinly in rings. Cook them in butter until they are very soft (20 minutes or so).
The potatoes also need to be thinly sliced. Cut them in half lengthwise then into half circles. The recipe says to peel them, but I did not.
The recipe here suggests white beans so I used great northerns. I mixed them with fresh thyme, salt and pepper.
Once the leeks were cooked, I layered them on top of the beans.
Then I layered on the potatoes, added a cup of stock, and seasoned with more salt, pepper, and fresh thyme. I put a little butter on top.
The same cooking instructions as above apply, 325 degrees Fahrenheit for 45 minutes covered by foil the 45 minutes without.
I ate this one with a salad of greens and fava beans that I did not take a picture of unfortunately.
I have not decided what the next variation will be yet. Maybe I will skip the book ones and do my own… I see black bean and sweet potato coming!
Topics: beans, bittman, potatoes | 3 Comments »
Beans, Beans, they’re good…
By admin | February 18, 2008
They’re good. (We will just leave it there.) They are low in fat and a fabulous source of complex carbohydrates, fiber, and protein. And they are cheap too, especially if you buy dried ones in bulk. And, by buying dried ones can also reduce the amount of sodium in them and they will taste a lot better overall. Trust me, it is worth cooking your own beans.
Which is just what I did one Saturday afternoon.
There are many methods out there for cooking dried beans- quick soak, long soak, slow cooker, pressure cooker. I am sure there are more. I used two different methods, a quick soak method and the slower cooker method Fantôme Chocolat filled me in on.
The quick cook method I used was from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. I used this for some black beans and great northern beans. First, you need to rinse and pick through your beans to make sure there are no pebbles, miscellaneous items, or otherwise discolored beans in the batch.
Place the beans in a large pot and cover them with cold water so the water rises 2 to 3 inches above the beans.
Bring them to a boil and let them boil for 2 minutes. Cover the pot with a lid and turn off the heat. Allow the beans to soak for 2 hours.
After 2 hours, check the beans for tenderness. They should be tender, but not completely done. If they are tender, season the water with salt and pepper and make sure the water level is about 1 inch above the beans. If the beans are not tender and still seem a bit raw, do not add any salt and bring the water level to 2 inches above the beans.
Bring the beans to a boil again then reduce the heat so the beans bubble at a gentle simmer.
Partially cover the beans with the lid. Stir occasionally and check the beans for the desired consistency every 10-15 minutes. Add water if necessary and if you have not previously added salt, add it when the beans start to turn tender. When the beans reach the desired tenderness, turn off the heat and season to taste.
I also cooked a batch of pinto beans in the slow cooker. I started with the water level about 1 inch above the beans per Fantôme Chocolat’s instructions.
I turned the slow cooker on low and let them go. At about the same time the quick cook beans were at the end of their 2 hour rest, I checked the slow cooker beans. They were about the same tenderness but running low on water so I added a little more. In the end, they took about the same time as the stove top beans (just over 3 hours). However, you end up with less cooking liquid in the end so if you are going to freeze your beans you may need to add some water.
One 16 ounce bag of dried beans will yield 5-6 cups of cooked beans (the pintos were closer to 5 cups, while the black and great northerns were closer to the 6 cup yield). You can use them right away, keep them in the refrigerator for up to five days, or freeze them into portions to use later. When freezing, a small splash of white vinegar or lemon juice is supposed to help keep them intact. I find the great northerns still like to slip their skins no matter what though.
As much as I like black beans and love having black bean tacos or burritos for a quick meal when I am hungry, it is great to always have fresh cooked beans in the freezer. They really do taste better than the canned ones and for some longer cook recipes they really hold up a lot better. Enjoy!
Topics: beans, preserving | 3 Comments »
I Can’t Believe it’s Not Worcestershire Sauce!
By admin | February 18, 2008
One thing that is off limits to veg*ns that pay attention is Worcestershire Sauce. Why? Well, if you didn’t click that link to read the interesting history of the sauce, I will tell you- anchovies are a main ingredient. Kind of puts a crimp in your Bloody Mary drinking since so many places seem to use it as an ingredient. (Travel note: if you find yourself in Washington, D.C. craving a veg*n safe Bloody Mary as well as a veg*n friendly brunch, head to Asylum. I can vouch for the menu. Just be patient with the service.) Plus, it is just nice to have occasionally to cook with… I used to use it in sauces and marinades a lot as well as put a dash into my black beans on occasion.
There are commercially produced Vegan Worcestershires out there. I just haven’t seen them carried in stores all that often and then I have to remember to order online, etc., etc.
Well, How to Cook Everything Vegetarian has a recipe! And I just happened to have fancy little bottles that Fantôme Chocolat’s sister had given me a while ago and I had absolutely no idea what to do with that would be perfect to put the sauce into.
Take a look at this line up of ingredients:
We have: Dulse, brown sugar**, soy sauce, tamarind paste, Chinese black vinegar (Chinkiang Vinegar), molasses, cloves, black peppercorns, red pepper flakes, and black licorice. Have you ever read the ingredient list on an actual bottle of Worcestershire sauce? Malt vinegar (from barley), spirit vinegar, molasses, sugar, salt, anchovies, tamarind extract, onions, garlic, spices (including cloves), and flavoring. So this recipe isn’t all that weird.
Now onto some of the more exotic ingredients… up first we have Dulse! I had to look it up. It is a sea vegetable (you can also use kombu).
It apparently is from the Maine area and that link, as well as the package, will give you lots of handy recipes on what to do with your sea vegetables including adding them to soups, salads, sandwiches, and stir fries. I found the dulse at my Whole Foods. I also picked up the tamarind paste there.
For the Chinese black vinegar, I actually went to the Asian grocery store in D.C.’s sad remnant of a Chinatown (development and the resulting rise in property taxes and rents has pushed most of the Chinese owned businesses out so now there are a lot of non-Chinese businesses with Chinese characters on them). I amazingly found parking on a Sunday and was amazed at the incredibly low price (I am sure I would have paid three times the amount if WF had it).
The recipe is fairly simple. Put everything except the soy sauce, molasses, and licorice (which is optional) in a pot and bring it to a boil.
Once it boils, remove from heat. Add the soy sauce, molasses and licorice. Steep until it is cool. Strain it and you are done.
You can store it for up to 6 months and refrigeration is optional.
As far as I remember, it tastes and smells like what I remember Worcestershire sauce tastes and smells like. I even had a really odd moment the other night when I threw it in something I was cooking and walked away for a minute- I caught the smell of it and for a fleeting second was reminded of steak (I used to frequently eat Worcestershire with steak in my omni days).
**The box of Domino’s brown sugar is for illustrative purposes only. It is so old that it was rock hard. I found out a while ago that Domino likely processes its refined sugar with bone char and I never did get a conclusive answer on the brown sugar. So instead I use the following substitute: 1 cup of known vegan sugar + 1 1/2 tablespoons of molasses for each cup of brown sugar required.
Topics: Worcestershire, bittman, condiments | 1 Comment »
Would you pay $200 to have the same environmental impact as driving a Prius?
By admin | February 7, 2008
If your answer is yes, today is your lucky day.
On January 27, The New York Times published an article by Mark Bittman called Rethinking the Meat-Guzzler. I have been contemplating mentioning it here but wasn’t sure what to say. I really wanted to focus on this one part of the article:
To put the energy-using demand of meat production into easy-to-understand terms, Gidon Eshel, a geophysicist at the Bard Center, and Pamela A. Martin, an assistant professor of geophysics at the University of Chicago, calculated that if Americans were to reduce meat consumption by just 20 percent it would be as if we all switched from a standard sedan — a Camry, say — to the ultra-efficient Prius.
In the event you missed it before, I am a vegetarian. However, I am also a realist- it isn’t for everyone. I am not going to preach that everyone should be or make you feel bad if you don’t convert- it is your decision. I will make food that looks tasty though which may encourage you one day to cook a vegetarian meal or vegan dessert. You could just as easily throw meat or chicken stock into the meals I show here. You may not even be willing to consider giving up 20% of your meat consumption. But, I am going to make you an offer.
Have you heard of carbon offsetting or emissions trading? If you haven’t, click on the link there. If you want the real quick overview, you give money to a company to do good in the world to offset the carbon/ emissions you contribute to the world for things like air travel. There are no formal standards yet for companies who do this kind of work so it is a bit of a crap shoot on what they are really doing with your money.
Well, according to the statistic from the article (and the whole article is worth reading… Bittman is not vegetarian so there is no hidden propaganda there on my part) my eating habits are the equivalent of 5 Priora on the road. And I am not some nebulous company without formal regulation… I am a fairly ethical person going on 4 years of vegetarian eating.
So here is my offer- I am selling four 20% shares of my eating habits for $200 each (I am keeping the 5th for myself). $200 gets you the right for one year from date of purchase to say that you have carbon offset 20% of your meat consumption. I pledge that I won’t eat meat. How does that sound? Seems like a bargain compared to the price of a Prius.
(Yes, I really am serious. I can invoice you via PayPal and can take credit cards on my PayPal account. Just leave a comment below if you want to talk about it some more. And in the interest of full disclosure- your money will go to buy me more tech toys, most likely an iPhone. Edit: Ok, while I really want an iPhone, that would be bad use of the money. If anyone is really crazy enough to take me up on this because you have some weird sense of guilt over eating meat and won’t actually do something about it, the money will be donated to Clagett Farm. You could of course donate to them yourself and get the tax deduction. Or, maybe join a CSA near you.)
Picture from Wikipedia.
Topics: bittman, carbon offsets, environment | 4 Comments »