7 posts tagged “vegetables”

This was an experiment with importing a post from a MT blog -- it worked beautifully. Then I felt compelled to futz with it, which was also fine. Now, on to my blather about tonight's supper:

First we were planning to eat nothing but guacamole and Tostitos Gold corn chips for dinner, something we are very happy to do periodically, especially with the absurdly perfect out-of-season avocados to be had at Costco. This is not our ecologically finest moment, to be sure, but perhaps we are just spending a bit of seasonal-eating credit that we built up by eating all that celery root? Anyhow, on this occasion I was suddenly seized with the unusual sensation of minding the not particularly supperlike qualities of chips and guacamole alone.

Then I thought perhaps I should make fideos, since they look so pretty and sound so good and have the curious advantage of being a genuine meal, but it turns out that I lacked several of the criterial ingredients, so that was out. Then I thought I might make tostadas with black beans and some of those nice fideos toppings, but of course I don't have any corn tortillas in the house, either. However, I do have the aforementioned Tostitos Gold, which are not so classy but are, I think, actually quite tasty. They're nice and thick and taste of corn (and salt, of course).

Avocado dinner

So I took a couple of pasta bowls and put a handful of corn chips at the bottom of each one, and put these in a 200°F oven to warm through while I made a quick batch of black beans -- onions and garlic and peppers in oil, a can of black beans and a shake of ground chipotle, salt, and pepper dumped on top and cooked until thick instead of runny. Meanwhile I also made a little bowl of pickled onions: thinly sliced onions with salt, a little bit of sugar, and plenty of cider vinegar. When the beans were ready, the dishes came out of the oven. The beans were ladled over the chips and topped with the onions, some peeled and sliced avocado, and a crumbling of white cheese (queso blanco). Lemon juice (no limes in the house) over all, and hot sauce passed at the table. Heating the plates and chips was a good idea, as it did a lot to preserve an interesting contrast of temperatures and textures. Sour cream would have been a nice addition for those who like it, too, no doubt.

Now, you might say that what I had there were nachos. I submit that they were not quite nachos, though they did of course bear a passing resemblance. After all, there are several dishes in the California-Texas-Mexico matrix that differ not so much in their ingredients as in the configuration of these ingredients. Whatever it was that I made tonight differed from nachos in that we ate them with forks, in the proportion of chips to other things, and in the lack of both melty cheese and salsa.

Tonight I made chilaquiles with some of the salsa verde I'd made over the weekend. Properly I should have been using stale tortillas that I fried up myself, but instead I used my current favorite commercial tortilla chip, the happily thick and toothsome Tostitos Gold. I did not regret it. And I read a post on eGullet recently, actually, in which someone said a Mexican friend of his, whose family tends to demand chilaquiles every single day for breakfast, whether there are extra tortillas lying around or not, uses Fritos (!) in a pinch.

Chilaquiles are not exactly what you would call health food, being essentially the components of nachos in a different proportion and preparation, and I did not stint with the cheese, but it is hard to feel like putting away that much pureed pure vegetable at one time can be too terrible. Tomatillos feel more sparkling and filled with good things than tomatoes do, and the brightness of chile adds to the effect. Anyway, these were super delicious and very easy, and only used up a third at best of the total salsa proceeds. That giant $3 basket of tomatillos was a great deal. If we manage to use it up this week, I'll buy them Saturday too and do it all over again.

We've been away and busy so much of late that it's been quite a while since we've been able to eat proper homemade food consistently. I'm very happy that this week will be different, and have been cooking all day today, as I like to do, so that eating well during the week is largely a matter of heating up and assembling elements I already have on hand. Then I can feel like I have a kindly attendant who just happens to always cook the things I know and like. ("I have taken the liberty, madam, of preparing these delicious vegetables for you." "Oh, Bunter, you're a wonder.") This week, so far I've made:

• Ratatouille (we especially like this decanted into a little casserole, with two little indentations into which I crack an egg apiece before grating a little cheese over top and putting the whole thing in the oven to cook through)
• Little corn puddings in ramekins
  
• A truly remarkable quantity of salsa verde -- chilaquiles in our future!
• A massive frittata, which we will mostly eat for lunches, I think
• Roast vegetable and pine nut spread, once again
• A cute little baking dish's worth of eggplant parmesan
  

There are also fixings for tomato salad, and if we get bored, I could throw together some kind of quinoa salad, too. In the house as well are the supplies for various legume curries and mapo tofu. In fact, though, I suspect that at least one of these nights we're going to wind up eating glorified drinkie-nibbles as supper -- crackers and cheese and go-alongs of various sorts -- because we've got an awful lot of things that work well for that in the house at the moment.

So it turns out that all those nice Middle Eastern dips you make with various things plus tahini are rendered infinitely more wonderful if you use the same principle but grind up your own toasted pine nuts instead. Today I made one with roasted zucchini, which is a lovely thing to make into a puree, as it becomes beautifully creamy in both color and texture. It tastes nice too. The basic method goes like this:

1. Slice the vegetables you want to roast -- I think eggplant and zucchini or some other young squash probably do the best as the base here, but there's no need to stop with them. Add some peppers, maybe, or onions. (About three quarters of a pound of veg to start is about right.) Or of course you could use chickpeas or some other legume as the base. Brush the vegetables with olive oil and pop them under the broiler, or grill them.  If they aren't cooked through by the time they're golden brown, you can take them of the heat and stack them so they steam to completion.
2. Meanwhile, toast a handful of pine nuts in a dry skillet until they're all roasty-toasty.
3. While the vegetables go on cooking, grind the pine nuts in your mortar and pestle with a clove or two of garlic and some salt, until you have a rough pine-nut-and-garlic butter.
   
4. Chop the vegetables roughly.
5. Now, if you have a nice big mortar, you can do this all in there. That will give you the nicest texture, to  my taste, but a food processor will do as well. Either way, add the vegetables to the pine nuts and grind or whirr to a rough puree.
   
6. Taste for salt and add some chopped herbs: mint, basil, parsley, what you like. Add lemon juice too if it pleases you, or some olive oil, or both, or neither.

By the way, my pine nut secret is Costco. I can get a ridiculously large bag of perfectly nice pine nuts for $11 or something, and so my fridge is always well supplied.

Tomatoes, mozarella, basil, balsamic vinegar (the old, thick stuff), salt, and pepper.

Crackers heaped with a spread made from roasted eggplant, toasted pine nuts, garlic, mint, and basil.

Recently I took some money that I'd been given in return for a bit of editing and spent it on a bottle of Serge Lutens perfume, Fleurs de Citronnier. The bottle arrived this morning, which works out very nicely as today is serving as my mock-birthday, thanks to our having been out of town on my birthday itself (and actually my spending most of the day at a conference). Happy unbirthday to me! This was rather a decadent purchase, but given my attachment to the tiny vial of the stuff I'd gotten as a sample and have been wearing more and more often all summer, I don't think I'll regret it. It's a smooth, golden orangeflower-based scent with a bit of bright citrus on top and honey underneath, and not too much "throw", so as to avoid the phenomenon of the cloud of scent invading other people's space. I do love the smell of orangeflower -- some shampoo we bought while we were away is scented with it as well and I was continually burying my face in S's hair after he used it.

Farmer's market today. No tomatoes, alas, but eggplant, peppers of various sorts, kale, basil, squash (just a little one, thanks), and garlic.

Another drawing made with the tablet. It's not as sexy as the frilly-headed carrot, but I like the poster-y quality on this one. Mise en scene, if any, to be decided. Please make suggestions. It's fun!

Maybe it should be towering over a dense grey cityscape, or maybe some small creatures should be resting in the shade of its leaves? I haven't forgotten about the other carrot options either.

Broccoli