Black Bean Chili

It’s 52 degrees here in the Pacific Northwest, March 30^th -- looks like we are going out like a lion. Since I work at home and have no inclination to leave the house to brave the rain and wind, chili makes perfect sense for dinner. And, since chili ingredients are always on-hand in my house, it’s a no-brainer!

What with chili cook-offs and chili cooking contests, I guess that everyone has a favorite chili recipe. Once I discovered this one in the October 2002 issue of Sunset Magazine, I haven’t used another recipe since.

The only change I make to the recipe is that instead of three cans of black beans, I use two cans of black beans and one can of pinto beans. If I have hamburger on hand I’ll use it, or tofu crumbles, or more-often-than-not, I make the vegetarian version.

When I discovered this recipe, I also discovered canned chipolte chiles in adobo sauce--you’ll find them in the Mexican section of the grocery store. The Sunset recipe says that the puree you make from the chiles lasts up to one week in the refrigerator, but mine keeps well for at least a month. I sometimes put a bit in sloppy joes or Asian stir fries, but it’s mostly around just for chili.

Chile is such a great make-ahead, cold-day, hearty, and tasty recipe, I’m surprised that I don’t make it once week. What's in your favorite chile recipe?

A is for Asparagus

Kate in Rotenburg

 I learned to love asparagus when we lived in Germany for four years. Each spring, it seemed as though every village had an asparagus festival and you could get an all-asparagus meal at any German gasthaus.

Me at a gasthaus

Germans prefer white asparagus, and that’s what we ate in soups (spargelsuppe), with ham (spargel mit schinken), with hollandaise sauce (spargel mit hollandischer) or with buttered and parsley potatoes (spargel mit butter).
 

Many years later, my daughter Kate introduced me to grilled asparagus -- she likes to barbecue hers. These days, I mostly roast it in a 400 degree oven for 10 or 15 minutes, depending on the thickness of the spears, or I make soup, which is ridiculously easy.

 

Our street in Richen

Although I don’t eat it for every meal like the Germans, I do like to use asparagus as often as possible during the season. When Don was trying to lose weight, he told me that asparagus is extremely high in fiber and so is filling for dieters. My mother has fond memories of cold asparagus with mayonnaise that she ate as a child in the California Delta town of Rio Vista, so I eat leftovers that way.



 Click here for my Asparagus Risotto recipe.

Click here for the asparagus and fried egg recipe.

Asparagus Soup – for 2 people

You can sauté ½ of a chopped onion first or just toss it raw and cut into pieces  in a pot with  about 8 or 9 thick spears of cleaned asparagus and 2 cups of chicken or vegetable stock.

 Let the mixture simmer until both vegetables are soft. Then just put the mixture in a blender or food processor and liquefy. (Be careful.)

Return the broth back to the pot and add 1 cup of milk (or half milk and half cream). Add salt and pepper. (Julia Child favors white pepper so as not to mar the look of the soup with pepper bits, but I kind-of like seeing the pepper.) A dollop of sour cream and a bit of chopped chives look lovely on top.

Pizza for Dinner

When I bought a can of artichokes at the grocery store recently, I envisioned myself making some sort of creamy crab-spinach-artichoke dip, but that has never happened. Instead, a few artichokes ended up in a salad. Since they were the unmarinated kind, it didn’t really work out. That bowl of unfinished artichokes was my inspiration for pizza.

I discovered frozen pizza dough a few years ago and love to use it now and then. My plan yesterday was to stop at the grocery store before going to the gym at around 12:30. The problem with the plan was that even though it was the middle of March, the temperature was in the mid-forties – far too cool for the dough to begin thawing in the car. But wrapped in its plastic bag, I thought it might get a head start in my gym locker in the toasty woman’s locker room!

 Unfortunately, after my workout, the dough was still pretty frozen. What did the trick was placing it on a metal baking sheet. The metal conducts heat from the air to the frozen item or disperses the cold molecules away – I’m not sure which, but food thaws faster than if left directly on the counter.

My pizza recipes vary. For this one, I made a basil pesto and topped it with mozzarella, mushrooms, and the artichoke hearts.  I like to add salt and pepper, and sometimes some red pepper flakes. What made this pizza really great was dried tomatoes--they have a very strong and bright taste.  I bought my dried tomatoes in the bulk section at the grocery store, but I think I'll try making some from fresh tomatoes from this recipe. I'll let you know how it goes.

Corned Beef and Cabbage for St. Patrick’s Day – sort of

Recent I saw a recipe for a corned beef sandwich topped with cole slaw in a magazine and thought it would be a perfect dish to celebrate the day. But when I got to the store, I just couldn’t do it. Corned beef is so . . .odd.   I’m not a fan.   I had to make a substitution.  After tasting a sample of chicken pastrami (ick!) and looking at the prosciutto (maybe?), I finally settled on roast beef.

I grilled the sandwiches and added big dollops of horseradish to give them a kick. Mashed sweet potatoes got the same kick of horseradish and, in honor of the day, lots of chopped parsley to give them a festive appeal.  We had coleslaw on the side because I thought it might slip out of the sandwiches, but next time I plan to add it directly. Beer, of course, although not Guinness.

Dessert was an apple pie without the top, glazed by some orange marmalade jam and topped with vanilla yogurt.  Yum!

Am I the only person who has a problem with corned beef?

Caesar Salad with Tofu Croutons

I had some mushrooms that needed to be cooked and I felt like chicken, so last night I made chicken stroganoff.  I sautéed diced onions, a bit of garlic, sliced mushrooms and chicken cut into small pieces. I set these ingredients aside in a separate bowl. I made a roux, added chicken stock and stirred in 1 Tbsp. of tomato paste (from a handy tube), then added everything back into the pan and heated it up again. After turning down the heat and stirring about ½ cup of sour cream into the heated mixture, I also added some lemon zest and the juice from ½ of a lemon.  I even took the time to sprinkle the stroganoff with chopped parsley!  But it was the lemon that made all the difference.

Countless TV chefs and cookbook authors regularly recommend adding lemon to dishes, talking about lemon “livening up” a dish and I guess that’s what the acidity of the lemon did for the stroganoff. It contrasted with the richness of the sour cream and the mushrooms, giving the dish a more complex array of flavors.  Don didn’t recognize lemon juice as an ingredient, but he was pleased, as always, with the result.

I have added lemon zest to banana bread, to risottos, to sautéed broccoli and to Caesar salad, but I am going to try and remember to add it to other dishes as well. I think it would also brighten up chicken salad, salmonfish sandwiches, maybe even waffles and pancakes, and who knows what else. Besides that, I like having lemons around to look at—they’re so perky and fresh sitting in my fruit bowl.

Does anyone have other ideas for lemon zest and lemon juice?

Caesar Salad with Tofu Croutons

I’m not sure where I got the recipe for this, probably a magazine or cookbook, but after initial skepticism about the tofu croutons, Don agreed that they were quite tasty.

Romaine lettuce

¼ cup olive oil

 Minced or pressed garlic –2 cloves or so

A few shakes of Worchestershire sauce

Juice from ½ lemon

Grated Parmesan

½ block of firm tofu

Cornstarch

Anchovies—cut into small bits

Any left over salad additions—tomatoes if you have some, beets, cold broccoli, etc.

Let the garlic sit in the olive oil while you get the rest of the salad ready.  Press out liquid from the tofu by placing it in a dishtowel with something heavy on top -- I use a frying pan with a teapot set inside it. Let the tofu sit for at least 10 minutes. Cut the tofu into crouton-size cubes. Coat them with cornstarch, knocking off the excess as best as you can. Sauté the cubes, letting them get golden and crunchy.  Drain the cubes while you toss the salad, beginning by tossing the lettuce and any other ingredients with the olive oil.  Then add the Worchester, lemon juice and Parmesan and toss again. Top with the croutons.

Summers at the Ranch

My family spent most holidays and weeks at a time during the summer at my grandmother’s ranch in the California Delta town of Rio Vista. The Central Valley swelters in the summer (as opposed to Daly City and the Bay Area where the frigid summer fog regularly arrived in the afternoon--winter and summer alike). I like hot weather, and I really loved being at the ranch.

We spent time running through the sprinkler; gathering eggs from the hen houses with my grandmother; sitting in the cleaning room listening to the women chat while they wiped off the eggs; climbing in the apricot and pear trees;  exploring the sheep barn; “helping” Uncle Louie (Lewis, officially); and riding on the tractor over the rolling hills, trying not to fall onto the dreaded star thistle.

What I remember most about those hot, idyllic days is making root beer floats in mayonnaise jars and drinking them while reading comic books we bought in town-- Archie, Betty and Veronica, Richie Rich and Baby Huey.  I must have felt stuffed from so much root beer, but I just remember feeling completely satisfied.

My sister and I refused to drink the milk from my uncle’s cows—my mother had to bring store-bought milk from town. We ate Portuguese sweetbread for holidays, spinach with spicy linguisa sausage, and 1950’s jello salads. If we were visiting during the Holy Ghost Festival in Rio Vista, there was delicious barbequed lamb. Unfortunately, I didn’t appreciate the fresh figs from the fig tree and maybe ate only a handful during my entire childhood—if only I had a fig tree now!

We must have eaten the occasional chicken or two that had stopped laying, but I don’t remember doing that. I do remember once watching my uncle butcher a chicken by hanging it from a tree and chopping off its head—then tossing the head to me.  I watched in horror as the head bounced along the ground and the carcass continued to flap its wings for a few minutes after the gristly deed took place.

Fat Tuesday

From the Latin: carne vale = goodbye meat or farewell flesh. From the French: Mardi Gras = fat Tuesday.

Not that I will begin any fasting or penance tomorrow on Ash Wednesday--those Catholic days of my youth are long gone. But I do still like to celebrate historical and liturgical holidays anyway. Check out this article if you want to explore the origins of Mardi Gras  -- http://www.ehow.com/about_6318429_fat-tuesday-history.html

For Don and me, Mardi Gras was steak and chocolate cake. For nutrition sake, I added brocolini sautéed with garlic, a salad and strawberries with dessert.

I'm not sure where I learned this technique, but when I pan-fry steak, my method is to turn it constantly every 20 seconds or so. A nice char begins to develop after a few minutes and I can easily control the cooking until it reaches the rare stage that we think is best.

Palomino

I know that Bainbridge teens head to this restaurant for prom nights, but I had never been until last night. Don and I met Julie and Jamie who are in town for the Emerald City Comicom convention. Palomino has an odd mix of fine dining ambience combined with the feel of a food court . (The same vibe happens for me at Cutter's in Pike Place Market or PF Chang's in EveryCity, USA.)

Don't get me wrong--the food was good. Just not outstanding or surprising. We shared a crab artichoke dip with thin flat bread—creamy, rich, tasty, and similar to what we had at Thanksgiving. Jamie’s dish worked best—deconstructed lamb lasagna, with noodles, tomatoes and mushrooms while the mahi-mahi that Don and I ordered was bit overdone and, well, good. . . but not anything I couldn't cook at home.  Julie had a flatbread pizza and a plate with an assortment of salami and prosciutto.

I loved the warm chocolate lava cake with raspberries and crème fraiche ice cream and am looking forward to going back and trying every one of the other desserts too—tiramisu, Sicilian donuts with orange honey-ricotta cream, bread pudding and apple-ginger crumb cake. (Note to self: come back here for dessert at the end of a long day shopping in Seattle.)

Palomino is an accessible, easy place to get to--there were other Comicom groups of folks, what looked like a bridal shower group,  young folks and tourists. It has both a regular restaurant and also an area just outside the restaurant proper--the "food-court," with an abbreviated menu including sandwiches and flatbread pizzas.

We really love to see Julie and Jamie when they come to Comicom. I'm already thinking of where we can go out to dinner next year--besides Palomino.