Rasika Dinner

Rasika is an Indian restaurant in DC at which I recently enjoyed a delicious meal.  It wasn't the standard Indian menu.  They had lots of unique offerings, like flash fried spinach with tamarind yogurt dressing.  I couldn't bring myself to do any frying last night, so we just had raw spinach with tamarind yogurt (yogurt mixed with samosa sauce.)  But the stand out dish of the evening was the Chestnut Fava Bean Korma.  Below is my attempt to recreate it.  It wasn't as quite as dreamy or nearly as creamy, but it was just the right compliment to the salad, aloo gobi, and black rice pictured above.

Clock wise from top:  Crushed almonds, shelled fresh fava beans, cardamon in and out of it's pod, shelled roasted chestnuts.

 

 

 

Chestnuts are hard to find sometimes, but I hoarded a few jars at Thanksgiving time.  I've also had some success finding them at the Asian grocery stores.  Strangely, I never seem to have trouble finding fresh fava beans around here.  But if you do, the canned ones are fine.  The cardamon seeds are what you want.  Break open the pods to remove the seeds, and discard the pods.  A pinch worth of seeds is all you need, as this spice is quite strong in flavour.  Rasika used cashews, but I didn't have any, hence the almonds.

Ingredients:
20 or so cardamon seeds
1 small onion, diced
20 or so roasted chestnuts
1 cups of fava beans
1 cup of chopped nuts (preferably cashews)
1 can coconut milk or cream
1 T oil, butter or ghee

Directions:
In a saucepan, heat oil and toast cardamon seeds for a minute or two.  Add onions and saute for about 3 minutes.   Add beans, chestnuts, and nuts and cook until onions are brown.  Add coconut milk and allow to stew for about 20 minutes.  Keep on low heat until ready to serve.

Raw Kale Salad

This salad is my current obsession.  I had it first at the Whole Foods salad bar.  But theirs has too much oil and too many cranberries for my tastes.  Mine is all savoury, uses less of a more flavourful oil, and is a blank slate for whatever crunchy additions strike your fancy.   Warning: It's so addictive you won't be able to stop eating it.  But it doesn't matter because there is no such thing as too much of this stuff.

Base Ingredients:
1 bunch kale (well washed in water vinegar solution)
1-3 T pumpkin seed oil (olive oil is also fine, just not as nutty)
2 T apple cider vinegar
2-4 cranks of sea salt
4-? cranks of black pepper (as much as you think you can handle, and the coarser the better)

Additional Ingredient Options:
(Here you see what I had on hand that day, but anything works.  I've tried the following with success.)
Carrots
Radishes
Tomatoes
Bell peppers
Onion
Almonds
Sunflower seeds

Directions:  Dry the kale as much as you can so the dressing can adhere to it.  Tear it into one inch pieces and place in a large mixing bowl.  Drizzle on the oil and toss.  Splash on the vinegar and toss.  Grind on the salt and pepper and toss.  Fire in the veggies and nuts and toss.  Taste it!  If it needs more of anything, add it! 

Seitan Stew

Take everything you see here (potato, celery, parsnip, onion, dried mushrooms, seitan, salt, bay leaf, carrot and garlic) and horse it into a big pot.  Cover with water and boil until veggies are cooked to desired tenderness.  Add vegetarian gravy granules and stir until dissolved.  I know using them is a cop out, but I can't think of any better way to get the broth to turn brown and "beefy."  Suggestions welcome.

Cauliflower Sauce

I used to be completely addicted to Fettuccine Alfredo.  But when I went to cook it for the first time, I was horrified by how much fat is involved.  So now, if I want the real thing, I go to a restaurant, and suspend my disbelief for the time it takes to eat it.  But I also really like trying out healthier versions of things and using bizarre substitutions.  This is one that turned out pretty well.  It doesn't really taste like Alfredo sauce, but it almost has the same mouth feel, and lots of depth of flavour. 

 Ingredients:
1 head of cauliflower (broken into florets)
1 cup of milk (I almost always use goat)
Parmesan cheese (to taste)
Horseradish (to taste)
Garlic (to taste)
Truffle Oil (to taste)
Olive Oil (for roasting)
Salt and pepper

Place florets and peeled garlic cloves in a baking pan and drizzle with olive oil and salt.  Bake until cauliflower is lightly browned and fairly soft.  Once cooled, transfer them into a blender with remaining ingredients and blend until smooth.  Add salt and pepper to taste and serve with your favorite pasta. 

Celariac Soup

 

Ingredients:

1 large celery root, peeled and cubed
1 large yellow onion, peeled and diced
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 quarts vegetable stock

1-2 teaspoons sea salt
Freshly ground pepper
Dry sherry

Directions:

Slowly saute onions and celery root in olive oil, stirring often, for about 20 minutes.  Add stock and boil until thoroughly cooked, about 45 minutes.  Remove from stove and puree in batches in a blender and season with salt and pepper to taste.  To serve, place a dash of sherry in each bowl and top with cream or garlic crouton (shown.)

Bleu Cheese Souffle

I had never made a souffle before.  And the only reason I finally did is because I needed an excuse to buy more ramekins.  I served this as a 3rd course and put it in the oven just as we sat down to our 1st course.  Perfect timing.  Couldn't believe it.  I forgot to take the picture when they came out of the oven, so that's why this one isn't puffy. 

Ingredients:

3 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened, plus more for greasing the ramekins
3 tablespoons flour
1 cup milk, warmed
5 eggs, separated
Pinch salt
Ground white pepper
1 T dry mustard
1 cup crumbled blue cheese
Pinch cream of tartar

Directions: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.  Prepare 4 (8oz) or 8 (4oz) ramekins by greasing them with softened butter.  Make a bechamel sauce base by melting the 3 tablespoons of butter over low-medium heat in a thick-bottomed pot. Just as the foam subsides, add the flour, stirring constantly with a whisk to prevent lumps. Cook for 2 to 3 minutes until flour is "cooked." Add the warm milk to the mixture and continue to whisk until smooth and thick. Remove from the heat. Beat in the egg yolks 1 at a time. Season with salt, pepper, and mustard.  Stir in the cheese until incorporated evenly.  Very small lumps ok.  Chill the mixture while whipping the egg whites.  In a separate bowl beat the egg whites and cream of tartar just until soft peaks form.  This takes a while.  Fold 1/3 of the beaten whites into the bechamel mixture.  Then gently fold in the rest.  Place ramekins on a cookie sheet and distribute the batter evenly.  Do not overfill!  Bake on the middle rack for about 25 minutes.  The souffle is done when it has puffed above the rim and the outside is golden. 

Quartet of Bruschetta

While in Montalcino last month, we had a very unexpectedly enjoyable lunch at a little wine store that you wouldn't even expect served food.  We had riboletta, bruschetta and a cheese plate, and it was one of the best meals we had in Italy.  So that's what inspired this little plate. 

 

Two are recreations and two are my own inventions.  Clockwise they are: 1) mushrooms sauteed in olive oil and seasoned with thyme and sea salt 2) white beans and garlic seasoned with rosemary 3) chopped green olives, tomatoes and gorgonzola 4) artichokes with parmesan and little bit of mayonaise.  

Tomato and Barley Risotto

I recently discovered an extremely elegant vegetarian blog called The New Vegetarian on the The Guardian website.  And I'm always on the lookout for an alternative risotto like the cauliflower one I had at this amazing New York restaurant.  So while browsing through all of Yotam's beautiful recipes, I found this one, and it was going to make a perfect 5th course at my upcoming dinner party.  However, I really only used the recipe for inspiration, as I left out the sugar, feta and coriander, and added spinach and delicata squash.  And I only used 12 cloves of garlic, not TWO WHOLE HEADS like the recipe calls for.  Is he crazy?  I would have to stay in solitary confinement for a week.

Carrot Fennel Soup

I've been making the same curried carrot soup for so long that almost everyone I know has had it.  So I thought I would mix it up when I had my in-laws over for dinner.  I had a bunch of fennel in the fridge so I figured I would either make a fennel salad or soup.  Then the oven broke, and I needed another hot course, so that was that.  I was going to wing it, which has never done me wrong with soup, but then I found a Gourmet recipe and followed it (mostly.)  I added an apple I had laying around and I didn't bother making the fennel seed oil.  I used pumpkin seed oil I already had instead.  And a little sprinkle of paprika to top it all off.

Stuffed Tomato and Delicata Squash

Simple to make Sunday dinner. I wanted to make "Baked eggs in Tomatoes" but the husband is weird about eggs, so I swapped out the egg for a rice and mushroom mixture. I chose those because that's what I had in the fridge. You could stuff it with anything though. The delicata squash only appears for a few weeks every fall, so every year I mess with the recipe a little more. Serve these separately or together with a salad (frisee and arugala shown here.)

For the tomato:
Sautee mixed mushrooms with diced onion and garlic, mix with a little parmesan and cooked brown rice and set aside.
Cut off top and hollow out the tomato of all liquid and seeds. Then sprinkle the inside with salt.
Stuff tomato tightly with rice and mushrooms and place on oiled baking sheet.

For the squash:
Halfway mash some white beans with some finely chopped spinach and ricotta cheese. You could mix in an egg, but it's not essential.
Halve the squash and scrape out seeds. Pack in the bean mixture and top with panko breadcrumbs. Place on baking sheet.

Bake either or both at 400 degrees until tops are brown.

ONE jalapeno harvest

One jalapeno plant produces far more peppers than one person can possibly use. I picked a bag this big at least 4 times this summer. Most of the time I would just use one per night for dinner. I also did some jalapeno vodka infusions. But the bulk of them are going to my friends Bridget and Brian so they can make more of their delicious hotsauce, with which I liberally top most of my meals.

Tempeh Cakes

I have been obsessed with Terrene's tempeh cakes for some time now. These ones were almost as good. I served them with brussels sprouts and mashed butternut squash and spuds. It's also super easy to make if you are willing to be a little carefree with your recipe. You could pretty much use any vegetables (corn, peppers, olives) or herbs (nori, basil, oregano, sage) and steer the flavour in whatever direction you wanted i.e. southwestern, Mediterranean, Asian. I think I steered the flavour in a sort of home-style direction.

Ingredients:
I pack tempeh
3-4 ribs celery diced
1 large carrot diced
1 large dollop of vegan or normal mayonaise
1 T wholegrain mustard
1 1/2 cup Panko breadcrumbs
1 T minced parsley and thyme
salt and pepper

Directions:
Reserve breadcrumbs, celery and carrots and place all other ingredients in blender and blend until almost smooth. If mixture is too thick, add a little olive oil. Transfer blended mixture to a mixing bowl and stir in reserved ingredients (reserving half the breadcrumbs.) Form mixture into cakes and dredge in remaining breadcrumbs. Place cakes on oiled baking sheet and bake at 425 until both sides are lightly browned. These can also be pan fried if you prefer.

Vegetarian Cassoulet

So I'm not going to lie and act like I made this up out of my head. Never let it be said that I don't give credit where it is due! I've never even had a regular cassoulet so I had nothing to draw from. The husband has been requesting I try to make a vegetarian one for over a year, so I used this recipe from Gourmet magazine. I did add some Field Roast sausages though, because I knew I would hear about it if I didn't. I served it with roasted brussels sprouts and toasted wheat bread with my guilty pleasure - provel cheese. Sorry about the unattractive squareness of it.

Last Caprese Salad of Tomato Season

A Vom Fass recently opened here. They sell all kinds of delicious vinegars and oils and I am like a kid in a candy store there. You can taste anything before you buy it, and it is physically impossible to walk out of there without a bottle of Maletti balsamic vinegar after you've tasted it. It is easily three times as thick as normal balsamic and the flavour is unreal. It made our caprese salads that much more wonderful this summer. Since my stupid tomato plants didn't do anything all summer but take up space, the tomatoes you see here are courtesy of the Amish farmers at TGFM.

Mini Savoury Pots

Lentil Pie
While teaching in Co. Cavan at this years Scoil Eigse, I had the pleasure to inhabit and dine at the Cavan Crystal hotel for 8 days. The default vegetarian entree was a puy lentil pie. It was delicious and I had it three nights in a row before I asked if the chef might mix it up a bit for me. The only thing I changed was using sweet potatoes instead of normal ones. Either way it's yummy.

Ingredients:
1 sweet potato peeled, boiled and mashed with some yogurt and herbs
1/2 cup puy lentils fully cooked
1/2 yellow onion sauteed until brown

Mix lentils and onions and pack tightly into bottom half of a ramekin. Top with mashed potato and bake until lightly browned on top.


Oyster Mushrooms Rockafeller
I ripped the idea for this recipe off from the Vegetarian Times. But their recipes aren't always authentic enough for me, so I looked up a recipe for Oysters Rockafeller, and switched in the oyster mushrooms for the oysters. I like when nature provides the perfect substitute for a non-veg item. Sort of like the lentils are for ground beef.

Farmers Market Dinners

Here are two dinners I made out almost exclusively out of stuff I bought at the market in the park accross the street. They aren't rocket science; just a bunch of sauteed vegetables really; both served with polenta two different ways.
Zucchini, tatsoi, yellow tomato, smoked eggplant, carrots, smoked onions, and polenta cakes coated in panko and baked. Thanks to Bridget for the photo styling! The limes were for drinks.


The corn didn't make the cut for this particular dish, but it was delicious. Precious precious sungold tomatoes, chantrelles and shitakes from ozark forest mushrooms, patty pan squash, kalamata olives, chinese broccoli, pumpkin blossoms stuffed with taleggio cheese on a bed of herbed polenta.

Slightly Out of Control Pumpkin Patch

One halloween pumpkin left to rot on side of house = yard full of pumpkins!

Chilled Spicy Cucumer and Avocado Soup

It is crazy hot out, so much so that the thermostat is ten degrees behind itself. So I had the girls over for dinner for some wine and summery food. Rebecca shown here accenting the soup with her awesome shirt.

2 cucumbers - peeled and seeded
2 avocados - chopped
3 cups water
2 tsp. green curry paste
1 serrano pepper - seeded
10 oz. coconut milk
juice of 1 lime
salt and pepper to taste
cilantro and finely chopped green onion for garnish

Put each ingredient in blender in order until fully blended. Place soup in fridge and chill for at least an hour. Handiest to store it in a pitcher for serving ease.

Smoky Spicy Fava Bean Dip

I recently purchased a stove top smoker and I've been smoking everything I can get my hands on since. I've also got a cherry tomato and jalapeno plant that won't quit, so I have to keep making up recipes that include them. And I'm constantly looking for ways to reinvent hummus, so that's how this recipe came about.

6 cherry tomatoes - halved and smoked
1/2 yellow onion - smoked
3 smoked jalapenos de-stemmed and de-seeded
1 can fava beans - rinsed and drained
1 generous handful cilantro
2 T Braggs liquid aminos
1 t tumeric - just because this might be true

Salad Towers

After my gig at the farmer's market near my house, I bought a few treats for myself and incorporated them all into one dinner, the second course of which I forgot to photograph before I gobbled it. It was whole wheat rotini with fresh chanterelle mushrooms and a light garlic cream sauce. The first course was this salad:

1 large yellow patty pan squash - sliced in 1/8 inch slices and sauteed until lightly browned

1 smoked or carmelized onion sliced - i did smoked

1 homegrown tomato sliced

1 head bibb lettuce

bleu cheese - melted into more of a sauce if you like

black pepper and sea salt

balsamic vinegar (optional)

layer them in the following order - lettuce leaf, tomato slice, squash slice, cheese - then sprinkle the onions all around.