From Bittman to Plate

I’m a huge fan of Mark Bittman’s “The Minimalist” 101 series in The New York Times – reading it, that is. A few times a year, Bittman comes out with this fabulous list of 101 delicious-sounding items, all described in just a few sentences. I frequently print out the entire list.

And then I don’t cook from it.

I love the idea of the list, the way it moves cooking away from a strict recipe. Instead, you get a heap of ingredients and some suggestions for how they fit together. I’m a fairly competent cook; I can sort out proportions. Yet that lack of an extensive recipe is daunting, I admit it. I very rarely truly make up a new recipe based on what’s in the fridge and the pantry – more often I see what I’ve got, then troll the internet for a recipe, then adapt it. That I’m totally comfortable with. This is a step beyond.

This season’s list is billed as “101 Head Starts on the Day” – Thanksgiving, of course. Last night, I didn’t need a feast, I just needed a quick and easy dinner.

I chose #28: “Toss cooked Israeli couscous with toasted pecans, orange zest and juice, chopped mint, cider vinegar and honey. Bake in an oiled dish or use as stuffing.”

Between the fridge, the pantry, and the garden, I had all those things. But it wasn’t going to be enough for dinner. However, the fridge revealed several butternut squash haunting its far corners – relics of our farm share. Squash will store practically forever.

Roasted butternut squash would surely go well with pecans and orange.

In the spirit of the list, I didn’t measure anything, so my recipe is a bit of a guess. As for why half an orange, well, because that’s what I had in the fridge (the other half went to garnishes for Aperol aperitifs last weekend – yum!).

Israeli Couscous with Roasted Butternut Squash, Pecans, Orange, and Mint

1 butternut squash

1 cups Israeli (pearl) couscous

1 T butter

1/3 c pecans, chopped

½ orange

1/3 c fresh mint, chopped

2 T cider vinegar

1 T honey

Peel, seed, cube, and roast a butternut squash, tossed with olive oil, salt, and pepper, in a 400 degree oven for about 45 minutes, until completely soft and slightly caramelized.

While the squash roasts, bring 1.5 cups of water to boil, couscous, and butter to a boil. Cover and reduce heat to low so that the couscous continues to simmer. Simmer for 10 minutes. Remove from heat and keep covered for 5 minutes. Fluff.

While the couscous simmers, toast the pecans in a dry skillet over low heat for about 5 minutes, until they have darkened slightly and smell lovely. Do not burn.

Zest the half orange and then juice it. Add the vinegar and honey (both to taste), and salt and pepper. Whisk.

Combine couscous, pecans, mint, and squash in a large bowl. Drizzle with dressing and toss. Adjust seasonings to taste.

Delicious. Thanks, Mark Bittman, for the inspiration.

Battle of the Pumpkins

One day when I was in high school a friend came over while my mom was making a pumpkin pie. She watched curiously as mom seeded, peeled, chopped and finally steamed the pumpkin before mixing it up into pie filling.

“My mom always uses canned pumpkin,” she said.

Then my mom got out the jiffy pie crust mix.

“You do the pumpkin from scratch but the crust from a box? That’s so weird. We always do the crust from scratch.”

Well, my friend was right – it was weird – although as with so many other family habits it took an outsider to point out the strangeness of my tribe’s cultural practices.

I make my pie crust from scratch – and with all butter. Yum. I also make my pumpkin pie, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin cheesecake, kaddo bowrani (Afghan pumpkin), and every other pumpkin dish from real pumpkin.

I’ve tasted pumpkin pie from the store. It doesn’t taste right.

But this also means that we don’t have pumpkin-based deliciousness all that often. Let’s face it – it takes time and work to get from a lovely whole pumpkin to the pumpkin mush that’s only one ingredient in a recipe. It would be so much easier to open a can.

I did some reading. I trust Cook’s Illustrated, so I went there first. They claim that canned pumpkin is just fine, and recommended some brands (Libby’s 100% Pure Pumpkin and One-Pie Pumpkin tied for first). I looked on Chowhound.com, another favorite source for foodie musings. Chowhounds seem to go for canned pumpkin as well.

Finally, I ran a test. I looked for the Libby’s canned pumpkin at my local Whole Foods, but came up empty handed, so I bought the 365 Everyday Value store brand. I also bought a sugar pumpkin.

A pumpkin pie would have been the best test. But I was in the mood for pumpkin cake – plus I had plans to eventually make the sage ice cream recommended as an accompaniment (more on that later). I went through the skinning, the seeding, the chopping, and the steaming required to make pumpkin mush from a pumpkin. Then I got out a can opener and in under 30 seconds I had a second quantity of pumpkin mush. I started to hope that the canned pumpkin would win – or even tie. A tie would be just fine.

The canned pumpkin was darker orange and certainly more dense. The steamed pumpkin was clearly a bit watery by comparison. Unadulterated, they both tasted like pumpkin – different from one another, but neither obviously superior.

I mixed up two half-batches of pumpkin cake (dirtying many bowls in the process), and made a divider for my 13” x 9” pan using aluminum foil. Then I marked the from-canned batter with a “C” and the from-fresh batter with a “P” – of sprinkled pumpkin seeds.

Baked, the “C” cake was slightly darker and denser than the “P” cake.

For taste – drum roll, please – IT WAS A TIE.

Different, yes, but neither better than the other. I don’t think I can say I’m 100% won over to canned yet – I think a pie contest is in order first. But I’m definitely leaning…

Takes Time, Not Effort

Time has been in short supply these past weeks, as you can tell from the lack of blog posts. I really have been cooking, though -- I'll tell you about the Sage Ice Cream soon, I promise.

I worked from home one day recently, and that meant I had time to get some lovely long-cooking dinner going. I still had to work all day, so I needed a dish that didn’t actually take a lot of time to make, but wanted a long, slow braise to make it delicious.

Falling-apart tender chunks of lamb. Peppers and tomatoes cooked down nearly to sauce consistency. Pillows of gnocchi. Perfect.

This recipe for Gnocchi with Lamb and Pepper Sauce met my needs perfectly. Plus it’s a great cold-weather meal. And it takes about 2.5 hours. Don’t let this deter you, though – a full two hours of that is time you can spend doing anything else (in my case, work), all while enjoying the warm scent of dinner as it permeates your home and whets your appetite.

For the last hour, you can open a bottle of wine and let it breathe – and imagine the moment when work is through and dining can begin.

Gnocchi with Lamb and Pepper Sauce

(Adapted from The Seasons of the Italian Cookbook http://www.amazon.com/Seasons-Italian-Kitchen-Diane-Darrow/dp/0871136570 , which I believe was Nick’s very first cookbook and has instructed us on many a fine meal of the years.)

1/2 lb. boneless lamb, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
salt & pepper
2 T olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 bay leaves
1/4 c dry white wine (I often use dry Vermouth for cooking)
2 large bell peppers, any color, seeded and julienned
1 14 oz. can diced tomatoes, drained, juice reserved
1 lb. package frozen gnocchi

Heat the olive oil in a 10 inch skillet. When hot, add the garlic and bay leaves
and saute briefly, just until fragrant. Season the lamb with salt and pepper.
Add it to the pan and brown the pieces well on all sides (about 5 minutes). Pour
in the wine and cook, stirring occasionally, until it evaporates, about 10
minutes.

Add the peppers and tomatoes and a generous sprinkling of salt. Bring to a
simmer, cover, and cook very gently for two hours. Check from time to time, and
if the liquid has evaporated so that the lamb and veg are flying in the oil, add
a few tablespoons of the reserved tomato juice (or water, if you forgot to save
the tomato juice). The lamb will become falling apart tender and the peppers and
tomatoes will cook down into a chunky sauce.

Cook the gnocchi as directed on the package. Dress them in the sauce and serve
at once.