Cooking Marathon Mondays

So this semester I have Mondays off (yay!), so I try to plan my menu in such a way that I can do my more labor intensive cooking on Monday, before my school week starts. I'm at the beginning of a new menu cycle, and I spent a lot of time in the kitchen today, absorbed in preparing broccoli-potato soup and sausage cassoulet. I had to hang around the apartment anyway, because the annual termite inspection guy was going to show up. He surveyed my (luckily clean and tidy) apartment for all of two minutes with a flashlight. No termites. That's heartening news of course, but as I am going to be moving soon, I wasn't overly concerned with the termite population. As to the moving soon, more about that in a future post.

First I need to rate the recipes from my last menu.

Miso Shrimp and Rice:

This was something I threw together with things I had on hand, and it was OK, but doesn't merit a recipe.

Convenience: 5

Deliciousness: 3

Value: 4

Left-over worthiness: 4

Good for you-ness: 4

Roasted Potatoes in Romesco Sauce:

I adapted this recipe from Smitten Kitchen, and I must admit I was a bit in over my head here. The Romesco sauce was complicated but ultimately amazing; the potatoes a hot mess. Prepared properly, the deliciousness quotient would certainly be more on this one.

Convenience: 2

Deliciousness: 3.5

Value: 3

Left-over worthiness: 3

Good for you-ness: 2

Pork Carnitas Tacos:

Convenience: 2

Deliciousness: 5

Value: 3

Left-over worthiness: 4

Good for you-ness: 2

Spinach and Mushroom Frittata:

Convenience: 5

Deliciousness: 4

Value: 4

Left-over worthiness: 4

Good for you-ness: 3

Baked Polenta with Mushrooms:

Convenience: 4

Deliciousness: 4

Value: 5

Left-over worthiness: 5

Good for you-ness: 3

Skillet Black Beans and Potatoes:

Now, I will probably post the recipe for this eventually, because the first time I made it I was so pleased with the results. It was one of those meals that I was sad about when there wasn't any left. This time around I made it with presoaked as opposed to canned black beans, and I really didn't prepare the beans that well. The result was disappointing. However, I know the potential is there.

Convenience: 3.5

Deliciousness: 4

Value: 5

Left-over worthiness: 4

Good for you-ness: 5

Patchwork Pasta (Penne with Chicken and Spinach):

This reheats pretty well; the only negative is the spinach--pleasantly wilted on the first go--is listless and sad on subsequent re-heatings. I added a little bit of fresh spinach to my leftovers to brighten it a bit.

Convenience: 4

Deliciousness: 5

Value: 4

Left-over worthiness: 4

Good for you-ness: 4

Here's my menu for the next two weeks. I am incorporating made-from-scratch recipes with frozen leftovers, in an effort to clean out my freezer as much as possible pre-moving day:

Broccoli-Potato Soup x 4

Sausage Cassoulet x 4

Achiote Chicken and Rice (made with frozen achiote paste from Puerco Pibil) x 4

Ethiopian-style Yellow Split Peas (repurposing frozen Yellow Split Pea and Sweet Potato Soup) x 2

Broccoli and Sausage Strata x 4

Onion Galette x 4

Cheesy Polenta with Roasted Root Vegetables x 4

Black Bean and Sweet Potato Enchiladas (premade, frozen) x 2

As I mentioned above, my day was mostly taken up in the preparation of two rather labor intensive but satisfying culinary endeavors: Broccoli-Potato Soup and Sausage Cassoulet. Here are recipes for both.

This soup is at once light and healthy as well as pleasingly rich and creamy, thanks to pureeing, without the addition of any milk or cream. It's also quite easy to prepare, provided you have a food processor or immersion blender. It can be made vegetarian or vegan by subbing vegetable broth for the chicken broth, olive oil for the butter, and omitting the Parmesan cheese. A tasty vegan alternative to the cheese might be a topping of crushed toasted almonds or some kind of nut cheese.

Broccoli-Potato Soup

2 cups broccoli stems, peeled and diced into ½ inch chunks

2 cups red potato, peeled and diced into ½ inch chunks

2 Tbsps butter

1 onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 cups chicken broth

3 cups water

¼ cup almonds, toasted and ground in a food processor or spice grinder

2 cups broccoli florets, finely chopped

½ cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese, divided in half

Salt and pepper to taste

Melt the butter in a large pot and sauté the garlic and onion about five minutes. Add the potatoes, broccoli stems, chicken broth, water, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat; simmer about ten minutes, or until the broccoli and potatoes are “crisp tender”; that is, tender but not mushy. Using an immersion blender, or in batches in a food processor, puree the soup to your preferred thickness. Stir in the broccoli florets, almonds, and half of the Parmesan cheese and simmer for five more minutes. Serve garnished with remaining Parmesan. Four servings.

If you're unfamiliar with cassoulet, it's kind of a cross between a stew and a casserole. It's a hearty French peasant dish made with white beans and some kind of fatty meat (often a combination of duck and sausage). I adapted this recipe from Real Simple. This humble version, which takes advantage of inexpensive winter root vegetables, carrot and parsnips, is an easier take on the more complicated all-day-long version. Still, it's quite satisfying. It's very flavorful, perfect for a cold winter's day, and preparing it will make you feel like Julia Child.

Sausage Cassoulet

2 large sausage links, casings removed (I used Polish, but Italian would be fine, too)

3 cups prepared white beans, drained (about 1 and 1/2 cans)

2 medium carrots, peeled and diced

2 medium parsnips, peeled and diced

1 red onion, diced

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 cup chicken broth

1/2 cup crushed tomato

1 tsp dried thyme

Dash of Cayenne pepper

Salt and black pepper to taste

1 cup buttered breadcrumbs (I used sourdough, which I recommend)

In a Dutch oven or lidded, range-top safe casserole dish, brown the sausage over medium heat, breaking it up with a spoon. When the sausage is browned, drain off excess fat. Add all remaining ingredients except breadcrumbs to the pot. Stir well to combine. If needed, add more chicken stock and/or tomato to the pot to keep the vegetables moist. Simmer covered until the carrots and parsnips are tender, at least 30 minutes. While the pot is simmering, preheat the oven to 400 degrees. When the vegetables are tender, top with the butter breadcrumbs and bake uncovered for 10-15 minutes, until the breadcrumbs are toasted. 4 servings.

As Julia Child would say, bon appetit!

Short Cuts

Hello, blog readers. I apologize for my absence, but it has been a busy week in grad school land. But now that I'm more or less caught up with my work, I can more or less catch up with my blog, too.

This week I made two meals that are each very classic in their own way--Louisiana red beans and rice, and Kofta sandwiches (an ubiquitous Middle Eastern fast food). For convenience's sake, I did not prepare them in the classic way, however. I'm not going to pretend for a minute that taking a short cut with a venerable recipe is going to result in something that tastes as good as the traditional version. But sometimes a tasty approximation is good enough, and I think I achieved tasty approximations with my simplified recipes this week.

No-Soak Louisiana Red Beans and Rice with Andouille Sausage

A traditional recipe would use dried beans soaked overnight. Dried beans yield more flavor and better texture than canned, and they're not difficult to prepare. They just require advanced planning. Sometimes I end up changing my plans at the last minute, so I didn't want to take the chance of leaving beans to soak overnight only to not use them--they don't keep well uncooked (which takes additional time) after they have been soaked. One time I soaked a pot of beans and ended up not using them when I planned to, and they started to ferment and I had to throw them away. Ew. Traditional versions of this recipe often call for a ham hock or other stew meat to be added to the cooking beans to add more flavor and richness. I didn't have that, so I didn't do that, but I did add some chicken broth to the cooking liquid.

1/2 pound to 1 pound andouille or smoked sausage, 1/4-inch slice (I bought fresh andouille from Sunflower Market's meat counter, and the grind of the meat was not as fine as I think you will probably find with a commercially produced sausage. In my case it was necessary to remove the casings, which resulted in chunkier bits than the sausage "coins" you might expect in this dish...just FYI)

1 medium onion, diced

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 green bell pepper, diced

3 celery ribs, leaves removed, diced

2 cans red kidney beans, drained and rinsed

1 bay leaf

1 tsp oregano

1 tsp thyme

1/4 tsp cayenne (I'm serious about this! Any more and you will not be able to taste the different flavors, but only the hotness of the cayenne. I speak from personal experience. If you like your food spicy, add hot sauce to the finished dish. Over spicing in the pot will ruin the taste, in my opinion.)

salt and pepper to taste

Fully cook the sausage in a large pot over medium heat. Remove from the pot and keep refrigerated until ready to add back in. Add the onion and garlic to the pot and cook until they begin to soften in the sausage drippings. It may be necessary to add a splash of vegetable oil to the pot to prevent sticking. Add the bell pepper and celery to the pot and cook until crisp-tender; add the beans and spices and stir well to combine. Pour in 6 cups of water, or a mixture of water and chicken stock. Bring the liquid to a boil and then reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, for about an hour, stirring occasionally, until the mixture has cooked down to the consistency you want. It may be necessary to add more water. After about half an hour of cooking, use your spoon to mash the beans against the side of the pan. This will add a pleasing thickness. Throw the sausage back in the pot for the last fifteen minutes of cooking. Remove the bay leaf and serve in a bowl topped with a scoop of hot white rice. Season with hot sauce and garnish with chopped green onion if you desire. Yields 4-6 servings.

Kofta* sandwiches with tahini sauce

Middle Eastern kofta (as opposed to Indian and central Asian versions) is a highly spiced grilled meatball, made either of ground beef or lamb. The typical way to prepare it is as a kebab; the meat is formed in a long sausage shape around a skewer and grilled. In Egypt, along with taamayya (aka falafel), shish tawook (chicken kebab), shwarma (thinly sliced marinated beef or lamb, similar to gyro meat), and koshary (lentils, rice, and macaroni topped with fried onions and spicy tomato sauce), kofta is one of the more readily available and cheap fast food options. When I lived in Alexandria, I would buy kofta kebabs as a platter with a side of rice pilaf, or in pita-style sandwiches. Not having skewers or grilling capabilities, I improvised and made baked meatballs with kofta-style seasoning, which I put into pita sandwiches and topped with homemade tahini sauce.

Kofta balls

1/2 lb lean ground beef or lamb (I used very lean beef)

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 tbsps onion, grated

2 tbsps chopped fresh Italian parsley, or 1 tbsp dried parsley

2 tsps ground coriander

2 tsps kosher salt

1/2 tsp cumin

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp cardamom

a pinch of black pepper and a dash of cayenne

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Mix the garlic, onion, and spices into a paste. Using your hands, work the paste into the ground meat until well combined. Shape the meat into balls, about an inch in diameter. You should have about eight of them. Place the meatballs on a foil lined baking sheet and bake for 20 minutes. While the meat balls are baking, you can prepare the tahini sauce. Serve with rice and a salad, or in a pita with lettuce, tomato, and cucumber. Makes 2 servings.

Tahini sauce

In addition to use as a condiment, this tahini sauce can be used as a salad dressing (with the addition of more lemon juice and water), or as a marinade for chicken or fish. It will keep in the refrigerator for a couple of weeks.

1/4 cup tahini paste (Tahini paste is made of ground sesame seeds. It is a key ingredient of dips hummus and babaganoush. Mixed with a little honey, it is yummy spread on bread. You can find this in the Middle Eastern or Kosher foods section of your grocery store. A common brand is Joyva, and it comes in a 15 oz. tub.)

1/4 cup lemon juice

1 garlic clove, minced

1/4 tsp salt, or to taste

Combine all ingredients together until smooth. Tahini paste should be a little thinner than mustard; if it is too thick, add a few teaspoons of water until the desired consistency is reached.

*Arabic word borrowed from Persian meaning ground meat. It is also transliterated "kufta," "kafta," "kefta," or "kofteh," depending on the dialect.