Revelations

You may or may not have noticed that I disappeared from the blogosphere for about 10 months. I can't really say where I've been or what I've been doing that would keep me away so long. (Oh, I did get engaged to Special Someone -- how could I refuse? -- but it's not like we don't eat.) I have been cooking just as much as ever, if not more, and have come up with a bunch of new recipes for my repertoire. But every time I would start a new post, its content would feel flimsy and my writing style too self-conscious. I'm sure this post does nothing to change either of those things, but I don't care, 'cause I'm mad as a March hare for lentil sauce.

Here's how it began, all in one whirlwind day. I stopped at Whole Foods during lunch to fill up on free samples (the key is to make several laps - disguises your gluttony while burning calories) and on my way out picked up their newsletter. Despite Whole Foods' reputation for catering to the country club set, the recipes in the newsletter are usually cheap to make, surprisingly inventive, and far from fancy. I came across one called "Linguine with Spinach, [Canned!] Artichokes, and Red Lentil Sauce." After reading about the lentils -- "when simmered until they're velvety soft, lentils make a surprisingly creamy sauce for pasta" -- I nearly slapped myself on the forehead. Lentils! Of course they would be a delicious and nutritious pasta sauce. Dal is da bomb, yo - let's Italicize it and throw that joint on some noodles! I just had to try it, that very night.

Other than the lentils and linguine, I was not at all faithful to Whole Foods' recipe. I didn't have spinach or artichokes at home, but I did have sweet potatoes, ground turkey, and broccoli and threw those in the mix instead. Sorry, Whole Foods - I realize the whole point of these recipes is to inspire people to buy your stuff, but I just raided your free samples and your free newsletter. Thanks for the inspiration, though.

I also made my lentil sauce a bit differently, with the addition of tomato paste and subtraction of lemon juice. I had some leftover tomato paste that needed to be used up immediately (learn from my mistakes and always buy yours in the tube), but no lemons. When life hands you no lemons, use tomato paste! I realize tomato paste and lemon juice could not be more different (eh...I guess they are both acidic to varying degrees and fruit-based, though that's about it), but tomato paste seemed like a nice little Italianate touch and it never hurts on pasta. Without the tomato paste, and with the addition of lemons, this would've been a whole 'nother sauce.

The lentil sauce melded deliciously with the sweet potatoes, turkey meatballs, and broccoli, but it’s so good that it doesn’t really matter what you add it to. I think it would be excellent plain over pasta, rice, or a baked potato. The vegetables, meat, or whatever else you want to throw in there are just a bonus. I’m sure the artichokes and spinach called for in Whole Foods’ original are also scrumptious. Again, sorry Whole Foods – I failed you, but it was a big win for me.

Recipe: Pasta with Lentil Sauce, Vegetables, and Turkey Meatballs

Makes 4 servings.

It looks like a lot of ingredients, but doesn’t need to be – other than the lentil sauce, everything is variable, and even the lentil sauce could be easily modified. The turkey meatballs here are incidental – I had made turkey burgers the other night and had some leftover meat. But they were really good in this dish, so if you have some ground turkey I recommend using it here. Sweet potatoes are merely a seasonal addition and a good source of nutrients. They absorbed the sauce well, but you could use another root vegetable or none at all. Same goes for the broccoli. I can’t wait to try other veggie combinations. Next up, collards and cauliflower (for the alliteration, of course), red peppers and olives, and butternut squash and green beans. And in case you want to be extra rebellious, you could even use split peas in place of the lentils if you don’t mind the homely colors. Oh! And gnocchi. The sauce would be incredible atop some gnocchi if you are so inclined. Or fish! Seriously, it would be delicious over fish, or chicken cutlets, or maybe even pork. Heck, heat some up and drizzle it over your ice cream like it’s a sunset-colored hot fudge! Okay, I think I found the limit.

For the lentil sauce:

2 t mustard seeds
2 t olive oil
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 C chicken broth (Whole Foods calls for 1 C vegetable broth and 1 C water, which is more economical. Use whatever you have.)
3/4 C red lentils
2 t turmeric (I thought this would brighten the color. Not necessary though.)
2 T tomato paste
Salt and pepper to taste

For the rest, if you want to follow what I did beyond the lentil sauce:

2 T olive oil for sauteing, more as needed
2 sweet potatoes (the smaller kind, or one yam), cut into bite-size pieces
1/2 t ground nutmeg
2 t ground cumin, divided
1/2 lb ground turkey, room temperature
1 t Adobo seasoning
1/4 t salt
2 t Worcestershire sauce
2 T chopped flat leaf parsley (only if you have it)
1/2 lb whole wheat linguine (or any pasta you half)
1 stalk broccoli, cut into bite-size pieces

The lentil sauce and sweet potatoes take roughly the same amount of time to cook, so get these started in tandem. For the lentil sauce, put a small-to-medium-sized pot on the burner and turn to medium heat. Add the mustard seeds and cook a few minutes – they are supposed to pop after a few minutes but might not. It doesn’t matter. Add the olive oil, garlic, and onion and cook for a minute. Add the lentils, broth, turmeric, and tomato paste, stir everything around, turn heat to high, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and cover the pot – these should simmer for about 20 minutes or until lentils are very soft.

Meanwhile, for the sweet potatoes and the rest, heat a large skillet to medium heat and add the olive oil. When the pan is hot, add the sweet potatoes and saute for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally to keep from sticking. While sweet potatoes are cooking, form the meatballs: in a medium size bowl, gently mix the ground turkey, 1 teaspoon of the cumin, the Adobo seasoning, salt, and Worcestershire sauce (do not overmix or the meat will get gooey and gross!) and roll into balls about 1 inch in diameter. (If you have extra onion, use it up in the meatballs.) Move the sweet potatoes to one side of the pan and sprinkle them with the nutmeg and 1 teaspoon of cumin. Add extra olive oil to the pan if it has dried up, and add the meatballs to the other side. Use tongs to turn them, making sure they get browned everywhere, about 10 minutes. Cut into one to make sure it is done (i.e., not pink, or only a teeny bit pink on the inside) - if not, keep sautein'. Check the sweet potatoes - if they are soft enough that you want to eat them, they're done! Add a little salt and pepper if you like.

In another pot (yes, I know we're up to three pots now - this is not such an economical dish for your stove or dishwasher), cook whatever pasta you are using according to package instructions. Drain and stir in the lentil sauce, which should be done by now. It will seem like a lot of sauce, but remember, you will also be adding the meatballs and vegetables.

Add the sweet potatoes and meatballs to the pasta and lentils, stir around, and cover the pot to keep it warm. In the pan you used to cook the sweet potatoes and meatballs, add a bit more olive oil and turn the heat to medium-high. Add the broccoli and stir-fry it until bright green and slightly softened. (Feel free to cook broccoli any other way - steamed, roasted, microwaved, etc. - this is just how I like mine.) Salt it a bit and throw it into the pasta. Voila! Enjoy.

Lynne Rossetto Awesome

I listen to a lot of public radio - begrudgingly. To me, it's ten times more tolerable than any other news radio, but this declaration comes with a lot of caveats. For example, I detest that faux-everyman windbag Garrison Keillor, yet his sinister droll still wakes me up every morning (WAMU airs The Writer's Almanac at an ungodly hour). I think This American Life tries too hard to look for the deeper meaning, but I subscribe to their podcast anyway (if you haven't heard "The Breakup" episode, you must). I think the hosts of Morning Edition are shrill snotfaces, but they nonetheless keep me company on every morning commute. I get annoyed when NPR reporters over-enunciate foreign words and names, but I still like how they cover corners of the world that most mainstream news sources avoid.

The one blameless thing public radio has to offer is Lynne Rossetto Kasper. If you ever saw "The Delicious Dish" skits on SNL (see Alec Baldwin's "Schweddy balls" if you can't immediately recall), they were designed to mock Lynne's show, The Splendid Table. These skits were funny but unfair, because The Splendid Table is NOT for boring cat ladies. Oh, wait...

Not surprisingly, I love Lynne and I love her show. Every episode begins with a visit from Jane and Michael Stern of Roadfood, who travel the country in search of the best local dives (I've tried a number of Roadfood recommendations, and the Sterns have never steered me wrong). Then Lynne usually does a few interviews with food experts, and gets into the hows and whys of such titillating topics as waxed versus unwaxed cheese. Okay, I admit it's not for everyone, but you have to appreciate Lynne's great big guffaw and her genuine interest in her guests' and callers' seemingly trivial gastronomical concerns. Listen with Lynne, and you too can become impassioned about the history of ramen, the politics of bananas, and the art of knife-sharpening. Plus, she often has cool guests like Amy Sedaris (though Lynne did seem a little unsure how to react when Amy kept mentioning her drug dealer). And lest you think this show is for food snobs, even The Splendid Table's resident wine critic, Josh Wesson, is credited for helping cheap wine earn some respect in the oenological domain.

Every week Lynne sends me (along with thousands of other public radio nerds with cats and M.A. degrees) an email with a recipe that she usually comes up with herself. I always read them through to the end, where she signs off "Have a great week" (you have a great week too, Lynne!), but seldom follow them. There was one that caught my eye a few weeks ago, a recipe Lynne adapted called "Salad of Pineapple and Winter Greens with Warm Roasted Chile-Coconut Dressing." The title was a bit lengthy for my taste, but what sparked my attention was the pineapple. A certain Special Someone I know is such a big fan of pineapple that he even puts it in lasagna. I hadn't cooked him anything other than a fried egg sandwich, if that even counts as cooking, so I set out to follow Lynne's recipe and make him a Splendid Table-quality first dinner.

The pineapple fan liked it (he even ate the soggy, dressing-logged leftovers for the next two days), which I guess was the whole point, but I was underwhelmed. But, as I stated before, Lynne is blameless, so I'm sure I did something wrong. Using the leftover ingredients I had bought for the salad -- peanuts, Thai basil, fish sauce, daikon radish -- I created a different salad a few nights later, one that I'm thrilled to include on this blog. It's just a remnant of Lynne's, and doesn't even have the titular pineapple, but it's definitely worth sharing. Have a great week.

Recipe: Lynne Rossetto Kasper-Inspired Crunchy Salad with Peanut Dressing

I'm having deja vu: I think I write about salads like this about 25 percent of the time, as they are my staple for weight loss attempts. But each one always seems better than the last one, so I can't resist posting them. This one contains two of my new favorite ingredients - daikon radish and fish sauce. I'm really late in jumping on the daikon radish and fish sauce bandwagons, but I'm glad I finally did. Fish sauce adds that mysterious umami taste (Lynne, as you may have guessed, loves talking about umami) and daikon is that delicious not-too-sharp radish you find in banh mi sandwiches and some Thai salads. Both are really inexpensive at Asian markets. I also used red cabbage in this salad; normally I buy green cabbage since it tends to be cheaper, but red and green are both 99 cents a pound at H Mart, so I went with the more visually appealing red. As with any salad I create, proportions are up to individual tastes, so this recipe is just a guideline.

Makes 4 generous servings. Lasts up to five days in the refrigerator. Add chicken, shrimp, or tofu to make it a more filling meal.

For the salad:
1/2 head of red cabbage (use green if you prefer)
1 carrot, shredded or cut into matchsticks
2 green onions, sliced (use green and white parts)
1/2 daikon radish, cut into matchsticks
1 handful Thai basil, cut into julienne, or cilantro
1 handful roasted, salted peanuts, chopped (food processor makes this much easier; cashews or macadamia nuts would also be good)
juice of 1 lime

For the dressing:
3 T peanut butter
2 T rice vinegar
1 T honey
1 t fish sauce
1 clove garlic, minced
a good sprinking of crushed red pepper flakes
1/4 t salt
water to thin the dressing, if desired

Mix together the salad ingredients; add the lime juice. Whisk together the dressing ingredients; add a few drops of water if you like a thinner consistency. Check seasonings and adjust as needed. Toss dressing with salad.

Spanx Salad

If you don't know what Spanx are, you are probably not a woman between the ages of 18 and 55 (beyond 55, we get into girdles). Spanx are high-tech undergarments that help to smooth out our squishy bits. Since I have been eating catered cocktail party food almost every night for the past month, and wearing form-fitting dresses on most of these occasions (I'm a salesgirl, not a callgirl, but sometimes there's not much distinction), Spanx tights have been indispensable.

I was outraged when a now-former gentleman caller of mine boneheadedly suggested it would be better to "just get rid of" the jiggly parts than hide them under Spanx. To paraphrase the great Destiny's Child, he wasn't ready for this jelly. Still, it would be nice to not feel bloated and gelatinous all the time*, so last night I created this powerhouse salad to help me recover from a month's worth of Christmas cookies, vodka tonics, bacon-wrapped canapes, and things served with Tartar sauce. It's delicious and filling, and it will make me svelte - not that I expect to get rid of my Spanx any time soon.

*Yes, I'm singing the same old song - see here, here, and probably elsewhere for more posts of this kind.

Recipe: Spanx Salad
Makes 2 hearty main course servings. Can be served warm, cold, or at room temperature. The main ingredient is quinoa, the seed with superpowers. Apparently you can subsist on a quinoa-only diet and live to be 120, it's got so many life-sustaining nutrients. With the addition of broccoli, spinach, and nuts, now you can live to forever - and look good doing it!

1 C quinoa
2 C water
1 T olive oil
1 head of broccoli, florets and stalks cut into bite-sized pieces
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 C nuts (any kind - I had a leftover mix of almonds, walnuts, and pecans), chopped
a hearty sprinkling of red pepper flakes
2 C fresh spinach, tough stems removed
juice of half a lemon
a sprinkling of ground nutmeg (I'm thinking ginger would also be great, and turn this into a whole 'nother salad)
salt and pepper to taste
1 handful chopped fresh parsley (optional)

In a saucepan, add the quinoa and water and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer, cover pot, and cook for an additional 10 or 15 minutes, or until water is mostly absorbed. Fluff quinoa with a fork and remove from heat.

While quinoa is cooking, heat olive oil in a frying pan on medium heat. Add broccoli, increase heat to medium-high, and stir-fry for five minutes (add more olive oil if the pan dries out). Add the garlic and red pepper flakes and stir-fry another few minutes. Reduce heat to low-medium and add spinach, cooking until it's wilted. Remove from heat and stir in lemon juice. Mix in the quinoa, nutmeg, salt and pepper, and parsley.

Not Talkin' Turkey

Thanksgiving is only three days away, but this year I refuse to add to the Best Side Dishes and Turkey Techniques blogversation. I am still bristling over last year's stuffing episode. Bored of the perennial basic bread stuffing from Joy of Cooking, I went to the trouble of also making a sausage and cornbread stuffing. It was both completely delicious and completely untouched. (Republicans...I should've known.) Maybe your relatives are more adventuresome than mine, but if not, then I recommend you temporarily stop culling the food blogs - except for this one, of course - and stop dreaming up newfangled renditions of sweet potato casserole. Remember, it's only once a year that marshmallows get their place at the dinner table.

Better to leave the improvisation to chili (with apologies to Texans and Cincinnati residents), because chili, unlike stuffing or gravy, doesn't have to mark a special occasion. A couple weeks ago my parents came back from Savannah, Georgia, where they had serendipitously stumbled upon a chili cook-off. My dad raved about a sweet potato chili he tried and said it seemed like it could've been a "Diana Owen Original" (his words). I only wish I had thought of it myself! It sounded so good that I set to making one, and it turns out there are already about 200 sweet potato chili recipes on the internet. Mine loosely borrows from a few of these, but it is mostly a DOO (Diana Owen Original). Not to brag, but it's delicious and really good for you -- and it hits the spot when you're watching the Redskins break another little piece of your heart.

Recipe: Sweet Potato Chili
Makes about 12 servings. Like other kinds of chili, it gets better after a day or two. I've tried to make it a complete meal by adding kale for greenery. Cornbread is a welcome accompaniment, of course. I'm an enthusiastic recent convert to Alton Brown's creamed corn cornbread.

Whatever cooking oil you want, enough to cover the bottom of a large pot
2 large onions, chopped
4 large yams or 7 small sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped into 1-inch cubes
about 6 cloves garlic, chopped (no need to mince)
2 T chili powder
1 t cumin
1 t ground coriander
1 t ground nutmeg
1 t ground ginger
1 t cayenne pepper
1/2 t chili sauce (I used homemade Mao Zedong Chili Paste)
zest and juice of one orange (sounds weird, but gives this chili a unique flavor and a great scent)
1 28-oz. can tomatoes, not drained (I used whole plum, but crushed or even diced would probably be fine)
1 can cheap beer
1 28-oz. can kidney beans, not drained
1 28-oz. can black beans, drained (so they don't turn the chili an unappetizing color)
1/2 lb. kale, coarsely chopped
1/2 C fresh cilantro, chopped
salt and pepper to taste

In a large pot, heat the oil over medium heat and add the onions. Cook for about 5 minutes, stirring frequently, then add the sweet potatoes, spices, and chili sauce. Cook for another 15 minutes or so, or till the sweet potatoes begin to soften (add more oil if the pot starts to dry up). Throw in the orange zest and juice, tomatoes, and beer, bring to a boil, and reduce heat and simmer for about 40 minutes. Adjust seasonings if you want. Add the beans and kale and cook another 25 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in cilantro and salt and pepper to your taste.

International Potato Week 2009: Friday

I probably should be writing about potato soup instead of potato salad, given how cold it is today, but I don't think Potato Week is complete without this recipe (also, all the potato soups I've made are pretty run-of-the-mill variations on baked potato soup). However, my potato salad is the best there is, and here's why: it's not actually my potato salad but that of Ina Garten, also known as the Barefoot Contessa.

Say what you will about Ina's unabashed love of all things East Hampton, but the lady can cook. If you've ever watched her Food Network show, you may have noticed she's also really good at befriending gay Broadway producers, finding new uses for Pernod, and making eyes at her elfin husband, Jeffrey. But an economical cook she is not. She makes scrambled eggs with cream. She tops spaghetti with caviar. She fills pot pies with lobster tail. She makes cheese steaks with New York strip. And her house! Good grief, it's one of those cedar-shingled, Dutch-style, 8,000 square foot "cottages" that's practically dangling in the ocean. Oh, Ina, won't you let me spend the night? I can picture it now: the aroma of fresh-baked coffee cake and "good quality bacon" will find its way to one of the guest rooms, where I'll be slowly waking up from the best sleep of my life, on crisp, white, $400 sheets. I'll come downstairs, help myself to a Campari Orange Spritzer, and make cheerful chitchat with the two or three gay friends who've stopped by en route to Manhattan. In the afternoon, we'll set out in your gleaming silver Benz and hit the farm stand, the bakery, the butcher shop, and the fishmonger. Then we will come home, "assemble" our lunch -- I know how you favor assembling over cooking -- and carry it out to the beach in a wicker picnic basket. When the day is done, cute little Jeffrey will give me a lift to the LIRR, we'll talk about his Henry Kissinger days, and I'll be depressed the whole train ride home and probably for the next month. Oh, Ina, I want your life!

But I can't have Ina Garten's life, so I will have to live vicariously through her recipes - at least the few I can afford, such as this one for potato salad. This is not the hardboiled-egg-and-mayo-drenched version that ends up at every potluck and barbecue. That stuff is for the proles. This kind is high-class, with a punchy vinaigrette and a smattering of fresh herbs. There's a lot of ingredients, but you can definitely cut some of them out and still make a damn good potato salad. Here's Ina's recipe, with my tried-and-true suggestions for cheapening things up in parentheses.

Recipe: Aspirational Potato Salad
Adapted from The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook. Makes 4 to 6 side dish servings.

1 lb small white boiling potatoes
1 lb new potatoes (you can make this with just one kind of potato; Ina happens to like the color)
2 T good dry white wine (I say you can use bad wine, or none at all)
2 T chicken stock (I've left this out before because I didn't have any. NP. You can also leave it out if you want to make this a vegan dish.)
3 T Champagne vinegar (who has Champagne vinegar? Use whatever vinegar want, but definitely use it.)
1/2 t dijon mustard (crucial -- I might even bump it up to a whole t)
2 t Kosher salt (or table salt if that's all you've got)
3/4 t freshly ground black pepper (non-negotiable)
10 T good olive oil (if, by "good," you mean the huge $5.49 bottle at TJ's? Then, yes, good.)
1/4 C minced scallions, white and green parts (hey, at least she's using the whole plant. I prefer to leave these in, but I've made the salad without. If you have some of the other herbs, they won't be missed too much.)
2 T minced fresh dill (Ina LOVES her dill. It definitely goes well with potatoes, but again, if you have some of the other herbs you can leave it out.)
2 T minced fresh flat-leaf parsley (ditto scallions and dill. You can also use the declasse curly parsley, if that's what you got.)
2 T julienned basil leaves (ditto scallions, dill, and parsley)

Put the potatoes in a large pot and fill with enough water to cover them by a few inches. Bring to a boil and continue boiling for 20 to 30 minutes, until they are just cooked through. Drain in a colander with a towel over it and allow them to steam for another 10 minutes. Once they are cool enough to handle, cut the potatoes into quarters (alternatively, you can cut them before boiling and then boil for a shorter time, as I prefer to do). Toss them with the wine and chicken stock (if using; if not, just set aside, or mix in the dressing if you have already made it).

To make the dressing (which you can do while the potatoes cook), whisk together the vinegar, half a teaspoon of salt, and the pepper, and slowly whisk in the olive oil to make an emulsion. Add the vinaigrette, the rest of the salt, and the herbs to the potatoes, and toss. Serve warm or at room temperature (cold is also just fine).

Above photo from Ina's column for House Beautiful

International Potato Week 2009: Wednesday

Yesterday our potatoes took us to the Canary Islands; today we are off to Calcutta. Amazing how a tuber can transport you from your dingy office in doleful NoPe to a vibrant exotic locale. The following South Indian recipe is adapted from Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Cooking, and it produces the most pleasantly piquant potatoes you will ever eat. Seriously. If you don't take my word for it, take Madhur's: "Can you imagine cubes of potato encrusted with spicy, crisply browned ginger-garlic paste? Add to that a hint of fennel, if you want it. That is what these potatoes taste like." As she suggests, they are the potatoes of your dreams.

Recipe: Sookhe aloo (dry potatoes with ginger and garlic)
Adapted from Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Cooking (1983). Makes 2 servings.

If you already have the spices, this dish costs about 50 cents to make. Madhur Jaffrey's recipe has you boiling the potatoes "in their jackets," then letting them cool, peeling them, and finally frying them. If you are a purist about ethnic recipes, go ahead (all Madhur's potato recipes involve this long process), but I find it's a whole lot quicker to just peel the potatoes raw and fry them -- and the results are still delicious. I add a few glops of plain yogurt at the end, for tartness and texture. The spice paste would also be great as a marinade.

5 T vegetable oil
1 t fennel seeds (optional, but highly recommended)
2 large baking potatoes, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes
3 cloves garlic, peeled
1 2-inch piece of fresh ginger (or 1 t ground ginger)
1/2 t ground turmeric
1 t salt
1/2 t cayenne pepper
2 T water
A few spoonfuls of yogurt (optional)

Special equipment: mortar and pestle or food processor

Heat the oil in a nonstick or cast iron skillet over medium-high heat. Add the potatoes and cook, stirring occasionally, till they are starting to brown, about 20 minutes. While the potatoes are cooking, make the spice paste: in a food processor or with a mortar and pestle, grind together the garlic, ginger, turmeric, salt, and cayenne, and add the water a little bit at a time. Set aside. Add the fennel seeds to the pan and cook for an additional two minutes. Stir in the spice paste and cook for yet another two minutes. Remove from heat and stir in yogurt, if using. Serve warm.

International Potato Week 2009: Tuesday

This next potato recipe comes from Jose Andres, owner of Jaleo and a few other DC-area restaurants and boisterous personality behind the PBS cooking show, Made in Spain. I always order the papas arrugas -- baby fingerling potatoes with a to-die-for cilantro and cumin mojo verde -- so I was delighted to catch the Made in Spain episode where he shows you how to make them at home. They're easy, cheap, and positively divine, or "astonishing!" as Jose would say. I do not have exact directions for the original recipe so the following is my own interpretation, and it has served me well. Also, you should definitely watch Made In Spain, even if you don't like to cook. You will find yourself talking like Jose and dreaming of Iberia.

Recipe: Papas Arrugas
Adapted from Jose Andres. Makes 4 side dish servings.

The sauce alone is a keeper. You can serve it with anything -- chicken, fish, other veg, bread. I eat it with a spoon. My stomach growls at the very thought. Baby fingerling potatoes are hard to find, but you can use any fingerling or even boiling potatoes. Right now Trader Joe's has bags of these cute little mini boiling potatoes, which I have been using.

Don't be afraid of the amount of salt you are using; it's more a part of the cooking process than the actual flavor. The salt is used to make the skin cute and crinkly -- apparently how they do it in the Canary Islands, where this dish originates.

2 lbs. fingerling or boiling potatoes
kosher or sea salt, lots of it
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 bunch of cilantro, well-washed, including stems
1 t ground cumin
1 t pimenton (smoked paprika)
1/2 C olive oil
1 T sherry vinegar (optional -- but Jose adds this to everything)
salt and pepper to taste

Special equipment: mortar and pestle or food processor

Add the potatoes to a large pot, and add enough water to the pot to just barely cover them. Add about a quarter cup of salt, and cook on medium-high heat for 25 minutes, or until most of the water is evaporated and the potatoes are soft. Drain in a colander and set aside. If the potatoes have too salty a coating for your taste, you can wipe them off with a paper towel.

While the potatoes are cooking, make the sauce: with a mortar and pestle or the food processor, grind together the garlic, cilantro, cumin, and pimenton. Slowly add the olive oil, grinding all the while, till everything is fully incorporated. Add the vinegar if you're using it and salt and pepper to your taste, and serve with the potatoes.

Eat more beets

From whence this back flab and these love handles? I thought we were supposed to lose weight in the summertime.

But the summer is over, I'm about to turn 27, and I'm fatter than ever. Well, probably not fat by American standards, but heavier than appropriate for my frame. I think I'm even starting to grow jowls.

Time to stop making this and that, and stick to just vegetables, legumes, and whole grains. In particular, I must stop baking so much. Even when I bake for the sole purpose of gift-giving, I end up eating the raw dough equivalent of about 12 cookies. I also need to stop buying lunch, so that's adios to tacos con chivo and empanadas from NoPe's many fine dining establishments. And I really need to cut back on the alcohol, or at least modify my habits. By the way, did you know a frozen margarita contains roughly 700 calories? Vodka martinis from here on out, hold the vermouth and olive. Better yet, I'll just have ice water and get bored after 30 minutes at the bar. What fun my 27th year is going to be.

I can seek both consolation and a smaller waist in the crunchy deliciousness of good salads, like this one I made recently. Partially inspired by a recipe in Gourmet's September issue, it contains beets, which took me all of 27 years to learn to like. The beet was just about the only vegetable I disliked, and wrongfully so. I mean, it's a cheap root vegetable with some edible greens attached! It's like we were made for each other! In this salad the beets are chopped into cute little matchsticks, making the transition to beetlove a lot easier than it might be if you tried to boil up a bunch and eat them in one sitting. It's similar to dating: you think the guy's ill-mannered and unattractive at first -- and let's not even talk about his sweating problem and tendency to overuse "whatnot" -- but slowly, surely, you will cave, and come to appreciate that he's actually good for you and has a nice dark pinkish-purple interior. I get a little crazier with every passing year. Happy birthday to me!

Recipe: Beginner's Beet and Apple Salad

Makes 6 side dish servings. Inspired by Gourmet, whose recipe is just beets, parsley, and goat cheese. No goat cheese in my version, and it's fine without. But I still wanted it to be a fairly substantial salad, so I added some greens and an apple, which is also chopped into matchsticks like the beets. This salad is really good, really good for you, and really crunchy! To make it more filling, consider adding walnuts, sunflower seeds, or almonds. Also, unlike most dressed salads, this one actually tastes better the next day. Oh, and if you have just gotten a manicure or you are having tea with the Queen tomorrow, don't make it -- or wear gloves if you do. Beet juice stains like whoa.

2 small beets, peeled and chopped into matchstick-size pieces, plus their greens
juice of half an orange
1 apple, chopped into match-stick size pieces (squeeze a bit of lemon juice onto these -- it will keep them from browning right away)
1 quarter of a medium onion, thinly sliced
1 C loosely packed, chopped fresh parsley (I think some mint in here would also be good)
juice of one lemon (or a bit less if you want to lemonize the apple)
1/2 lb salad greens (arugula, spinach, frisee, or whatever you want)
a big drizzle of olive oil
fresh ground pepper

In a large bowl, stir the orange juice into the beets, then add the apple, onion, parsley, and lemon juice. Add the salad greens and a big drizzle of olive oil and toss everything together. Finish with some pepper.

Quick Post About Pasta

I can't remember if I've ever posted a pasta recipe, with the exception of one the first recipes I ever put on this blog. That is strange, considering how cheap pasta is and how much of it I eat (apparently in secret). More often I write about beans. The following recipe contains both beans and pasta, and produces an easy and filling dinner that segues easily into a cold or room temperature lunch the next day. The mix of flavors here is not particularly original, but there's a reason we continue to combine garlic, tomatoes, and basil: they're delicious together!

Recipe: Pasta with Chickpeas and Tomatoes
Makes 4 servings.

1 C dried chickpeas, soaked overnight; or 1 can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
1/2 lb. farfalle (bowtie pasta); may also use penne or rigatoni or some other pasta of similar size
salt
1 T olive oil
2 medium tomatoes, coarsely chopped
1 t hot or smoked paprika (if you don't have hot paprika, mix 1 t regular paprika and a pinch of cayenne)
1/4 C loosely packed fresh basil, chopped
2 T chopped fresh parsley
1/4 C aioli; if you don't feel like making it, or if you are vegan, use about a tablespoon of minced garlic (the dish will not be as creamy, but you could add a splash of half and half or cream at the end if you want); however, I strongly recommend making aioli if you have time, as it has many uses and tastes heavenly!
salt and pepper to your taste

If using dried chickpeas, boil them in a large pot in the water you used to soak them (why waste?) for an hour or so, or until soft. Drain and set aside, rinse pot, and fill with 2 quarts of water to boil the pasta. Place on burner and set heat to high.

Once water is boiling, add a hearty sprinkling of salt and the pasta. Boil till al dente, about 10 minutes, and drain, reserving a tablespoon or so of pasta water. Add beans to pasta and reserved water.

Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a small or medium frying pan over medium heat. If using raw garlic (not aioli), add it now and cook for two minutes. Add the tomatoes and paprika and cook for two more minutes (tomatoes should not be cooked, just heated). Remove from heat and add the herbs and aioli. Stir tomato-aioli mixture into pasta-beans, season with salt and pepper to your taste, and serve.

Nothing beats free

When it comes to cookbooks, we economical epicureans often find ourselves in quite a predicament. They beckon to us, the same way red wine does, and we cannot resist. They are expensive, sometimes upward of $40, especially the pretty, famous, or encyclopedic ones, but we rationalize them as a necessary expense, or at least a sensible, self-improving one. Yet -- and this may not apply to all economical epicureans, just the capitalized Economical Epicurean -- we rarely maximize their utility. We may refer to the same four recipes again and again, neglecting the remaining four hundred. Did we really pay $40 for four recipes, we sometimes ask ourselves in horror?

Then, we realize, we are using the first person plural rather peculiarly, and so we scratch our head, think maybe it's time to seek therapy, decide it's too expensive, and revert back to "I."

Almost a year ago, I wrote about the cookbook-buying success I've had at used bookstores and book sales. Among my better finds are Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Cooking, Pam Anderson's The Perfect Recipe and How to Cook Without a Book (ironic title, I know), and Molly Katzen's Moosewood Cookbook and Enchanted Broccoli Forest. But such successes were the result of a combination of simple luck, hawkish bargain-hunting strategy, and occasional violence. Most of the time, if a cookbook is good, its owner wants to keep it, and so the good ones seldom end up on the $5-and-under shelf.

For this same reason, the library is a great place to find cookbooks. It doesn't seem to occur to people that you even can borrow cookbooks from the library, and why would you want to anyway, many cooks might wonder. Cookbooks are reference items, and what use is a reference item if you have to return it in three weeks? Note, for example, how the reference books in the library are not in circulation. But for those of us who are promiscuous with our cookbooks -- using them a few times, then moving on to the next pretty hardcover -- checking them out at the library is the most economical way to bake our cake and eat it, too. You could also treat library cookbooks as test drives: if the thought of returning a particular cookbook sends you into depression, you might as well buy it. At least you know you are paying for something you will actually use. I, for one, have paid full price for way too many cookbooks that turned out to be lemons. If only I'd had the good sense to test-drive them first.

On recent trips to the Rockville and Kensington branches (both part of the Montgomery County system), I encountered the entire collections of just about every celebrity cookbook author whose newest release you might see propped up on a display table at Barnes and Noble. From Nigella Lawson to Mark Bittman to Rachael Ray, they were all sitting there, glitzy covers in need of a good dusting, rarely if ever reshelved. More exciting for me, one of those annoying cookbook snobs, was what I'll call the NPR collection -- cookbooks with a scholarly approach, one that is more concerned with a recipe's authenticity than its ease. (I can't believe I just wrote that.) These books can be hard to find in bookstores, but at the library they're as ubiquitous as loud cell phone conversations. By the way, since when did librarians stop enforcing the quiet rule?

Anyway, at the 'brary you'll find Claudia Roden's Arabesque and New Book of Middle Eastern Cooking, Diana Kennedy's many books on Mexican food, Peter Berley's outstanding vegetarian cookbooks, and Cecilia Chiang's recent The Seventh Daughter, with recipes from her famous Chinese restaurant in San Francisco. If you're really high-falutin', you could borrow the roughly 200-lb Larousse Gastronomique, which retails for $75. Also, just about all of the America's Test Kitchen and Best Recipe books are in circulation, so I can finally outfox that smug, bowtie-bedecked Chris Kimball, who's always hitting me up for more money.

I was most pleased to find the entire collection of Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid's beautiful cookbooks, based on recipes they've encountered on their years of wandering through Asia. I started with Seductions of Rice because of the sexy title. It's full of great anecdotes, gorgeous photographs, and, oh yeah, a lot of rice, which indeed is a lot more seductive than I had previously thought. I made one of the first recipes, a scorching hot chili paste based on a version that Alford and Duguid encountered in the hometown of Mao Zedong (certainly a spicy character in world history). I had every intention of using Mao Chili Paste in another Seductions recipe, the Spicy Cucumber Surprise, and tossing it with some rice and beans to make a full meal. Unfortunately, the cucumber in my fridge had turned into Fuzzy Blue Surprise. Ergo, my recipe is a full departure from Alford and Duguid's, but still uses Mao Chili Paste, and is -- if I may say so myself -- a delicious, healthy, and inexpensive dinner. I just may buy Seductions of Rice, or maybe I will just keep renewing it till the Montgomery County Libraries hunt me down.



Recipe: Mao Chili Paste
Adapted from Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid's Hot Chile Paste from Seductions of Rice. Dried red chilis are very cheap, especially at Asian grocery stores. Alford and Duguid, who seem pretty trustworthy when it comes to the cuisines of Asia, say this is better than any store-bought chili paste they've ever tried. It's extremely hot, so if you don't like spicy food, don't even go near it. Just being in the kitchen while it's on the stove will make anyone's eyes water. I halved Alford and Duguid's recipe, and my proportions are below. Makes about a half cup.

1/2 C loosely packed dried red chilis, rinsed
1/2 C boiling water
1/2 t salt
1/2 t sugar
1/2 T peanut oil or vegetable oil
2 T minced shallots (optional)
1 t rice vinegar or cider vinegar

Place the chilis in a medium bowl, pour the boiling water over them, and use a wooden spoon to press the chilis into the water. Let soak for at least 20 minutes or up to 2 hours. Transfer the chili/water mixture to a food processor or blender and puree; add the salt and sugar and puree again. Set aside. Heat a wok or heavy skillet to medium-high heat and add the oil once the pan is very hot, then add the shallots, if you are using them, and stir fry for about until soft, 2 minutes. Add the chili mixture and stir fry for another 20 seconds, then remove from heat and stir in the vinegar. Allow it to cool, then transfer to a well-sealed container, where it will keep well in the refrigerator.

Recipe: Spicy Rice and Beans Surprise (pictured at top of post)
Inspired by Spicy Cucumber Surprise, also from Seductions of Rice. The Cucumber Surprise sounds great, so if you have a cucumber handy, just chop it up and stir fry it with all the ingredients for a couple minutes. I used red rice and chickpeas because I had some already, but you could use any rice or beans for this dish. Makes two servings.

3/4 C rice
2 C water
1 C chickpeas, soaked overnight and boiled for an hour and a half or till soft
1 T peanut oil
2 t ground ginger
1 t sugar
1 T soy sauce
1 t Mao Chili Paste (less for a milder version)
1/2 t salt
2 T chopped basil or cilantro (optional)

In a heavy medium saucepan, boil the water. Rinse the rice in a strainer and add to the boiling water; wait for it to return to a boil, then reduce the heat to low-medium, and cook, stirring occasionally, till the water is absorbed and the rice is slightly soft. Remove from heat, fluff with a fork, and let sit a few minutes. In a frying pan, heat the oil over medium-high heat; once it's very hot, add the garlic and stir fry for a minute. Add the beans, ginger, sugar, soy sauce, and chili paste and stir fry another minute. Remove from heat, and stir the bean mixture into the rice. Add the salt and basil or cilantro, if using.