Braised Leeks

Sorry it has been so long since I last posted new recipes. Never fear, I have been cooking away, and stockpiling food pictures and recipes, so there should be a number of good things coming your way soon.

Here is an excellent new recipe for braised leeks from Smitten Kitchen. It's supposed to be served as a side with her breaded chicken thighs, but I've made it twice now without the chicken, and it's great on its own. (In case you were wondering, braising is a cooking technique that involves searing or cooking at high heat to brown something, then cooking it for a longer time in the oven with liquid). It may not look like much, but the flavors are amazing and the leeks become soft and tender.

The recipe calls for chicken stock, but that could be easily replaced with veggie stock. Though I will say that the recipe was amazing when I used homemade chicken stock, and merely good with the carton one.

The recipe below reheats well, and can easily be cut in half since 6 leeks makes a lot of food.

Braised Leeks

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen

Serves 6-8


Ingredients
6 large leeks
About 3/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 cup peeled and sliced shallots
1 tablespoon thyme leaves or powdered thyme
3/4 cup dry white wine
1 1/2 to 2 cups chicken or vegetable stock or water
kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Equipment

Stove

Pot holders

Oven

Knife and cutting board

Measuring cup and spoons

Tongs

Large saucepan

Relatively tall-sided baking dish that can go in the oven

Towel or paper towel

Instructions
1. Preheat the oven to 400°F.
2. Trim the roots off the leeks, but leave as much of the bottom bulb as you can. Remove any brown or nasty looking outer leaves. Trim the tops of the leeks to remove the tips and any dried-out green parts. Rinse the outside of the leeks and shake dry.

3. Cut the leeks in half lengthwise, and then in half widthwise. Rinse again, peeling the layers apart slightly to get out deeply embedded dirt (but try not to pull the leeks entirely apart - you still want them in their nested quarters for frying).

4. Place the leeks, cut side down, on a towel and pat dry completely. Turn the leeks over so their cut sides are facing up, and season with 2 teaspoons salt and a few grindings of black pepper.

5. Heat a large saute pan over medium-high heat for 2 minutes. Pour in 1/4 cup olive oil, and wait 1 minute. Place the leeks in the pan, cut side down, as many as you can layer to cover the whole bottom of the pan without overlapping. You will probably need to saute them in batches (it took me 4 batches with a pretty large pan). Add more olive oil to the pan as needed, for each batch. Sear them 4 to 5 minutes, until they are golden brown. Season the backs of the leeks with salt and pepper, and turn them over to cook another 3 to 4 minutes (until brown on the other side). When cooked, transfer them to a large baking dish.

6. Pour 1/4 cup olive oil into the pan and heat over medium heat. Add the shallots, thyme, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and a pinch of pepper. Cook about 5 minutes, until the shallots are just beginning to color.

7. Add the white wine and reduce by half (cook until half the liquid has evaporated). Add 1.5 cups stock, and bring to a boil over high heat.

8. Pour the liquid over the leeks in the baking dish. The stock should not quite cover them; add more stock if necessary.

9. Cook in the oven 30 minutes, until the leeks are tender when pierced. Serve hot with the liquid.

Roasted Butternut Squash

If you thought the curry was easy, this recipe will knock your socks off. Roasted veggies in general are unbelievably easy. Basically you cut them into smallish pieces, toss with olive oil, sprinkle with salt, and roast at 400 degrees for as long as it takes to cook and start to get crispy. That's it.

Butternut squash is particularly good roasted because as it cooks it caramelizes. The end product is squash that tastes like candy (no, really).

Roasted Butternut Squash

Ingredients

1 large butternut squash (You can buy pre-cubed if you're lazy or don't own good knives. Seriously, don't hurt yourself by trying to cut a squash with bad knives.)

3 Tbsp olive oil

sea salt to taste

Equipment

A big knife

Cutting board

Vegetable peeler

Metal spoon

Measuring spoon

Silpat/foil

Baking sheet

Oven

Tongs/fork

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

2. Peel your squash with the vegetable peeler, making sure to get the whitish part underneath the shiny skin peeled off too because it's kinda hard and flavorless.

3. Chop your squash in half lengthwise and scrape out and discard the seeds and stringy bits. Chop into 1/2 to 3/4 inch cubes.

4. Spread squash cubes on foil or silpat lined baking sheet and drizzle with olive oil. Use your hands to toss and coat evenly. Sprinkle with salt.

5. Place squash in oven and cook for approximately 40 minutes until cooked through and beginning to brown, removing every 15 minutes to turn the squash with the tongs so they don't get stuck to the bottom or burn. Enjoy warm or cooled.

Eat More Kale (Kale Salad and Kale Chips)

Last weekend I gave you ice cream, so it's only fair that I do something healthier this weekend. And kale isn't just healthy, it's awesome. If you missed it, kale is so great that the people at Chik-fil-a felt threatened and tried to shut it down. Really.

My great discovery of the week was kale salad. What is that you might ask? Basically you replace your regular lettuce (or arugula for the snobbish among us) with strips of raw kale. You need to marinate the kale in an acid to break down some of the fibrousness, but at the end, you get a delicious salad made with a superfood. I had my kale salad plain, but I bet it would be amazing with dried cherries, toasted pecans, and crumbled goat cheese, or with avocado and tomato. You can also add any sort of protein you like - shrimp, chicken, tofu, tempeh, slices of lunch meats, etc. - to make it a full meal.

Delicious Kale Salad

A previous, but no less exciting discovery, was homemade kale chips. You can buy them at stores like Whole Foods, but they're ridiculously expensive, and a large head of kale costs about $2, so you decide. Kale chips don't taste or have the exact same texture as regular chips, but they're pretty good in their own right.

Kale Salad

Ingredients

Kale

Olive oil

Lemon juice or balsamic vinegar (or other vinegar you like in your salad dressing)

Sea salt (optional)

Other salad toppings if desired

Equipment

Cutting board and knife

Large bowl

Instructions

1. Wash your kale and shake off the excess water. Cut off the tips of the stalks if they look brown or dried. Then slice the kale into 3/4 inch ribbons and place cut kale into the bowl.

2. Drizzle with olive oil and lemon juice or balsamic vinegar. I just did it by eye, but I would say if you need quantities, about 1 Tbps of acid and 1 Tbsp of olive oil is good for a very large salad for one person or a regular sized salad for 2.

3. Massage the oil and vinegar or lemon juice into the kale leaves with your hands to get it thoroughly mixed. Let sit for 15-20 minutes (now is a good time to prepare your other salad toppings if you have them).

4. Sprinkle with sea salt if you want (I have found this adds some great flavor, but you really don't want too much), then add any toppings you might have, and enjoy.

Kale Chips

Ingredients

Kale

Olive oil

Sea salt

Spices (garlic powder, onion powder, black pepper, paprika, or whatever other flavorings you want)

Equipment

Salad spinner or towels to dry the kale

Cutting board and knife

Baking sheet (lined with a silpat if you have one or parchment paper)

Oven

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

2. Wash your kale and shake off excess water. Use your knife to de-stalk the kale - cut along each side of the thick stems to separate them from the large leaves. [The stems won't cook into nice thin crispy chips so you want to take them all out. But don't throw them away - save the stems, cut into 1/2-3/4 inch pieces and saute with olive oil and garlic for a great and easy side]. You can also even use your hands to rip the leaves from the stems. Then use your knife or hands to cut p kale into chip-size pieces.

3. Dry the kale leaves in the salad spinner or with towels [you need as much moisture gone so they will get crispy when you bake them].

4. Place kale on the lined baking sheet so that the leaves, when spread out, don't overlap (you will likely have to bake in multiple rounds or with multiple baking sheets at one time). Drizzle with olive oil (probably about 1 Tbps per sheet) and toss with your hands to coat all the leaves, or you could spray with cooking spray, ideally olive oil cooking spray, to coat evenly. Sprinkle with sea salt and any spices (I've used garlic and onion powder and liked that, but the plain are good too).

5. Bake until edges are brown but not burnt (about 10-15 minutes).

6. Eat still warm from the oven for the best chips, or allow to cool fully before placing into an airtight container (tupperware or ziploc bag), in which you can store them for a week or so.

Pan Fried Eggplant

I like eggplant may ways - grilled, roasted, curried, in bhaba ghanoush, in eggplant parmesan, and even

fried. Fried eggplant is so tasty, and a lot faster than roasting in the oven for an hour. It is not, however, very healthy. And, if you salt the eggplant first, which you usually have to, it's not even that fast. Enter my new technique, which will give you delicious and healthy pan-fried eggplant in about 20 minutes.

Ingredients

One eggplant

Cooking spray or a small amount olive/canola oil

Salt (to taste)

Equipment

Knife and cutting board

Stove

Saucepan (the wider it is, the more slices you can do at once)

Fork

Instructions

1. Wash your eggplant and cut off the stem (don't peel it or your slices will fall apart in the pan). Slice into 1/4 inch thick rounds.

2. Turn your saucepan on to medium heat and mist with cooking spray. Place into it as many slices of eggplant as you can without overlapping them, then mist again with cooking spray to cover the tops.

3. Cook for 2-3 minutes, until they begin to steam. Press down pretty hard on the top of each slice with a fork so the moisture begins to seep out, moving around the surface of the slice to get the moisture out of the entire slice. Flip the slices.

4. Cook for another minute, then press down again with the fork along the whole surface of each slice. Flip again.

5. Repeat 1-3 rounds of cooking for a minute, depressing with a fork, and flipping until each slice is cooked through (it should be translucent, with no whitish patches).

6. Give each slice a nice crispy edge by cooking for 30 seconds on each side without pressing down with the fork, then transfer to a plate to cool. Sprinkle with salt.

7. Repeat cooking process for remaining slices.

While you can eat the fried eggplant plain, I would also recommend cutting the slices into pieces and adding to a pasta dish (I'll send out a recipe for what I did with mine), using in a panini, or making eggplant rolatinis by wrapping each slice around ricotta or fresh mozzarella (perhaps with some sundried or fresh tomato, roasted red peppers, or hot peppers in the middle).

Sweet Potato Fries

While she may be the queen of unhealthy cooking, Paula Dean's recipe for sweet potato fries is both delicious and actually not horrible for you (and shockingly doesn't feature a sour cream/mayonnaise/heavy cream dipping sauce). My version is slightly modified from hers, and vegan. I can't say if they are tasty eheated because I ate all the fries that night off the baking sheet while hot. My guess is that they will lose a lot when they cool off and get soggy, but unless you cook up 5 potatoes for yourself, that probably won't be an issue because you won't have any leftovers, they're that delicious.

Sweet Potato Fries

Ingredients

2-5 sweet potatoes (depends totally on how much you want to make)

olive oil for tossing (~1 Tbsp per potato)

sea salt

freshly ground black pepper

garlic powder, onion powder, cayenne pepper, paprika, and other seasonings optional

Equipment

Sharp knife and cutting board

Vegetable peeler (semi-optional)

Oven and oven mitts

Tongs

Baking sheet + silpat or foil/parchment paper

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 450F.

2. Peel the potatoes, or wash and carefully dry if you're leaving the skin on (I usually peel, but up to you). Cut off any bad spots or eyes, then cut in half the long way. Place the cut side down so it doesn't roll around, then cut into 1/4 inch wide slices. Cut slices into 1/4 inch thick fry-sized strips.

3. Place your silpat on the baking sheet or cover your baking sheet in foil or parchment paper. Place potato strips on the baking sheet and drizzle with olive oil, then toss with your hands to coat. You want the strips to be a little slick, but not sitting in puddles of oil, so add oil accordingly.

4. Spread the potato strips out on the baking sheet (bake in two rounds if you have too many fries to fit without overlapping them). Sprinkle with sea salt and black pepper to your tastes. You can also add a sprinkle of other spices like garlic or onion powder, paprika, or cayenne pepper. I would recommend going without spices the first time you make them, or adding them after baking once you've tried a plain fry and decide what flavors you want.

5. Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes until potatoes are tender and golden brown (cook more depending on how brown you like them), taking them out at least once to toss with tongs. Cool for a few minutes before eating so you don't burn your mouth (this is the hard part).

Roasted Broccoli with Lemon and Parmesan

The original recipe calls this the best broccoli of your life. I might not go that far, but it is mighty delicious and oh-so-easy. It's tastiest right from the oven, but still very good reheated later in the week, and could be done without the parmesan if you want a vegan version. My recipe is an adaptation of the recipe here: http://www.amateurgourmet.com/2008/11/the_best_brocco.html

Ingredients

2 heads of broccoli (you can do it with more stem-heavy or floret-heavy broccoli, totally your preference)

4 cloves garlic

1 lemon

Olive oil

Salt (kosher or sea salt is recommended, but regular table salt is fine too)

Pepper

Parmesan cheese

Equipment

Knife and cutting board

Baking sheet (cookie sheet with sides)

Oven and oven mitts (or dish towels)

Tongs (or 2 forks in a pinch)

Grater/Zester/Microplane zester

Silpat or tin foil

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 425. If you don't have a silpat, line your baking sheet with tinfoil.

2. Wash and dry your broccoli, then cut into somewhat small pieces. Peel and chop your garlic into small chunks.

3. Put the broccoli on the baking sheet and sprinkle the garlic over it, then drizzle with olive oil and toss until coated (the original recipe says 5 Tbsp of oil, that is way more than I use, which is usually more like 2 Tbsp). Sprinkle with salt and pepper based on your tastes (you can always add more at the end, so if you're not sure how much to add, go light).

4. Roast in the oven for about 20-25 minutes until some of the broccoli begins to brown (you can let it go a little longer if you like more browning). Probably once during the cooking time or twice if you're worried, take the pan out of the oven and toss the broccoli with tongs so nothing sticks and different parts get exposed to brown.

5. When the broccoli is done, remove it from the oven and zest the lemon over it, then cut in half and squeeze the juice over the broccoli (if you don't like too much lemon, feel free to only zest and juice half). Sprinkle with parmesan cheese (they recommend 1/3 cup, I don't really measure, just pour as much as I want).

Butternut Squash Soup

This recipe is an adaptation of a butternut squash soup recipe that my family loves to make, which I thought would be particularly popular given that it's about 10 degrees and snowing right now. I'm not exactly sure where it was originally from; I think my uncle Jamie got it from a cooking magazine a while back, but I just have a printout of it with no source. The original recipe uses chicken broth and milk, making it neither vegetarian nor vegan, but I frequently make it with vegetable broth and omit the milk, and it turns out great, so choose your ingredients based on your preferences.

Butternut Squash Soup

(Note: you can easily double or half this recipe. It freezes really well, so I would recommend making a large pot and freezing what you can't eat in the following few days.)

Ingredients

1 lb butternut squash (the recipe says you could use pumpkin instead, I've never tried this but go ahead if you want)

4-5 cloves of garlic

4-5 green onions (plus extra for garnish if you want)

1-2 Tbsp olive oil

2-3 Tbsp of flour

3 cups vegetable/chicken broth

1 cup of tomato sauce (the kind that is totally smooth and comes in a can, not the chunky one you put on pasta, or alternatively, one small can of tomato paste)

2 tsp- 1 Tbsp of chili powder (2 tsp. is usually enough, but this is very much based on your personal spice perference)

.5 tsp each cumin and oregano

1 cup milk

dash cayenne pepper (optional)

plain greek yogurt for garnish (optional)

Equipment Required

Stovetop burner

Chopping knife and cutting board

Vegetable peeler/paring knife (optional)

Measuring cups and spoons

Large pot

Wooden spoon/spatula for stirring

Blender/food processor/immersion blender (potentially optional)

Instructions

1. Peel and dice (cut into large chunks) the squash. If don't have a good knife to cut the squash, this will be very difficult and possibly dangerous, so I would recommend buying peeled pre-diced squash (which is also faster and easier if you're short on time).

2. Wash and dry the green onions, cut off the gross root part at the very bottom and any brown or shrively bits at the very top, then chop into relatively thin (maybe 1/4 inch wide) slices.

3. Peel the garlic, cutting off any brown hard bit on the bottom. Chop into very small pieces.

4. In a very large pot over medium-low heat, saute the garlic and green onions in enough olive oil so everything is coated and doesn't stick to the bottom (I would guess 1-2 Tbsp should be plenty).

5. When the green onions and garlic are mostly cooked (the green onions will have become more translucent and the garlic will not yet be browned), add the diced squash. Pour in the broth, tomato sauce, chile powder (if you're unsure about the spice level, add less than you think you will want and you can taste and add more later on when things are cooked), cumin, oregano, and flour. Stir so the spices and flour are not just floating on top and try to break up with the spoon any flour lumps that form.

6. Simmer (this means put on whatever heat level is necessary to keep it bubbling a little but not with the big bubbles of a boil) 20-30 minutes until the squash is tender (you should be able to easily put a fork through all pieces). Don't worry about over-cooking it since that won't hurt it, but do be sure the squash is totally cooked because hard squash will be really gross.

7. Turn off the burner when the squash is done and allow to cool slightly. Pour into a blender or food processor and puree (blend until smooth) or keep in the pot and blend with your immersion blender if you are so luck as to have one. (If using a blender or food processor you will likely have to blend in several batches unless you are only making a small pot of soup). If you are adding in the milk, you should add it now (just add to the blender with the broth and cooked squash). If you have no blender or like soup with chunks, you could leave it as a broth with squash cubes, in which case I would make sure to cut the squash into quite small pieces at the beginning. But I think the soup is a lot better pureed, so I would go that route unless you really can't.

8. Test your soup for spice-level. Add salt, cayenne pepper, and/or more chile powder if you want.

9. Serve garnished with a dollop of greek yogurt or sour cream (I love greek yogurt with this soup) and a sprinkle of chopped green onion if you would like, or allow to cool a bit more, then pour into individual containers and freeze (the individual containers make reheating for a future meal much easier than having to reheat a huge block of frozen soup to get one cup or trying to cut off a hunk from a soup ice cube).