Squash soufflés

Can you make it fall?

The kids heard some-where that you could make souffles fall flat by jumping in the kitchen while they were baking, and they tried it, but the souffles rose anyway. So don’t worry.

How to make squash souffles:

Preheat oven to 400 F. Cut a butternut squash in half and scoop out the seeds; put both halves in the oven to bake for an hour. Meanwhile, butter ten ramekins or teacups and arrange them on a baking sheet.

When the squash is soft and a little caramelized (browned), take it out and let it cool. Meanwhile, separate five eggs. Melt six tablespoons of butter in the microwave in a medium-sized mixing bowl. Peel the skin off the squash and add the cooked squash to the butter and mash it with a potato masher.

Add the five egg yolks, 1 teaspoon of salt, 1/2 teaspoon of pepper, 1/2 teaspoon of cayenne, 3/4 cup of flour, and 3/4 cup of whole milk (or a cup of 2% milk and 1/4 cup of Greek yogurt). Mix all together. If you want, add a cup of chopped red bell peppers.

Beat the egg whites until they are stiff and fold them in to the squash mixture. Ladle the squash mixture into the buttered ramekins nearly up to the tops. Bake the souffles about twenty minutes. They’ll be all puffed up with hot air. Serve immediately, before they begin to deflate, with cranberry sauce on the side.

Vegetarian or Vegan?

These make a great vegetarian main course with a salad on the side, but they’re not vegan. For a seasonal vegan substitute, try squash risotto.

What can I do with leftover squash souffles?

They’re a little chewier and less puffy, but still very good reheated in the microwave the next day, or really for about a week.

Squash risotto

Oh, Risotto’s not that hard!

People avoid making risotto because you have to keep stirring it and stirring it, but it’s not really that bad if you’re hanging out in the kitchen anyway.

This makes a good solid winter main dish, fancy enough for company.

How to make leek and squash risotto:

Set the oven to 400 F. Slice a winter squash (I usually use a butternut squash) in half and scoop out the seeds. Put it in the oven, cut side up, and roast for an hour or until tender. Let cool, peel off the skin, and mash. Peeling off the skin is a nasty tiresome job, but cooking the squash first makes it easier.

In a large saucepan, boil water with chopped carrots and celery and miso in it. If you don’t care about it being vegetarian, you can use reheated chicken soup for this, or throw in a chicken bouillon cube.

Meanwhile, heat 1/4 cup of olive oil in a large frying pan. Add 2 chopped leeks (or substitute a chopped onion) and stir over medium heat until softened. Increase heat to medium-high and add 1 1/2 cups of rice. Stir the rice for one or two minutes, and add a cup of white wine. Stir two more minutes until most of the wine has evaporated, and add two ladles (about a cup) of the simmering miso soup.

Keep stirring and adding cups of soup until the rice is tender, about half an hour. In the last ten minutes, add the mashed squash. When the rice is done, fold in a cup of grated parmesan or asiago cheese, and add salt and pepper to taste. Serve with a large green salad.

Vegetarian or vegan

This risotto is vegetarian, but if you want it to be vegan substitute silken tofu for the cheese at the end.

Can I keep squash risotto for later?

Yes, this will be better the next day, and you can keep it in the refrigerator, well sealed up in a tupperware, for a week. It won’t freeze well though.

Spinach ravioli

Not Chef Boyardee

There was a time in my life, preparing for qualifying exams in graduate school, when I ate nothing but cold Chef Boyardee canned ravioli straight out of the can for about a month. I am so happy that those days are behind me now, and in middle age I can take an hour to make homemade ravioli for my family for dinner. These ravioli taste a lot better than Chef Boyardee, and they’re much healthier too!

How to make homemade ravioli:

First make the pasta:
In a medium-size mixing bowl, mix 3 cups of flour, 6 eggs, 1/3 cup of olive oil, and a pinch of kosher salt. Add water if needed. Mix with a wooden spoon until the dough forms a ball and pulls away from the walls of the bowl.

Turn out the dough on to a floured surface and knead for two or three minutes, until the dough is smooth and stretchy. Divide the dough into two halves and set aside, covered by a dishtowel.

Now make the filling:
You can put pretty much anything in your ravioli filling, from chopped lamb to mashed peas. I often do mushrooms and spinach, or shrimp and spinach. For shrimp and spinach, just take frozen precooked shrimp out of the freezer – no need to defrost them – and pick the leaves off a bunch of spinach (compost the stems).

For mushrooms and spinach, set a medium-sized frying pan on medium heat, and put in two tablespoons of olive oil. Slice up four mushrooms and saute the mushrooms in the olive oil until they soften. Meanwhile, pick the leaves off your spinach as above.

At this point, put a large casserole of water on to boil over high heat. Use a rolling pin to roll out one of the balls of dough until it is at least as big as a cookie sheet. The dough should be about as thin as you can get it without tearing it. When it seems hard to get it any thinner, pick it up and turn it over, and try again. You’ll need to turn it over three or four times.

Put a few leaves of spinach down where you want the centers of your ravioli to be, dotted all over your pasta. On top of the spinach, put either shrimp or mushrooms (or both!). Now, on a different part of the counter, roll out the other half of the dough about the same size. Brush water on the bottom layer between all of the dabs of filling, and gently lay your top sheet over the top of the ravioli.

Press down between the dots of filling so you can see where the fillings are. The water will help seal the raviolis. If you have a ravioli cutter, roll it between the ravioli to cut them apart and seal them at the same time. Otherwise, use a knife or a pizza wheel to cut the raviolis apart, and then use your fingers to pinch the raviolis closed around the edges (this is the tedious part).

By this time your water will probably be boiling, so gently drop the raviolis into the boiling water. Stir them gently with a wooden spoon, and let them boil for about five minutes. Lift them out of the water with a slotted spoon, or pour them into a colander to drain, and run cold water over them briefly to get the starch off so they don’t stick together. If some of the ravioli come apart, that’s okay.

Serve the ravioli plain with a little olive oil splashed over them for a sauce, or serve in tomato sauce, or in pesto sauce. We usually have ravioli just with a salad because by the time I’m done making ravioli I don’t have the energy for real side dishes. But you could also get fancier and serve ravioli with sauteed pea pods or grated carrots.

Vegetarian or vegan?

Ravioli’s vegan as long as you only use vegan stuff for the filling and the sauce. It makes a good vegan main dish.

Will ravioli keep?

You can certainly keep leftover ravioli in a sealed tupperware in the refrigerator for a couple of days, and reheat it for lunch in the microwave. It’s not as good as it is fresh, though.

Spicy Thai pork salad

Great for company

This has a lot of ingredients, so it takes a while to make. But you can do it ahead and have it ready when your guests show up, and it’s very pretty to serve. Plus, it’s gluten and lactose free, if that’s an issue. This would be hard without a food processor, though.

How to make the pork:

Put all of these things in your food processor: the white part and half the green part of a bunch of green onions, half a bunch of cilantro, a teaspoon of brown sugar, two cloves of garlic, a teaspoon of grated ginger, a teaspoon of lemon (or lime) zest, two tablespoons of canola oil (or peanut oil), a tablespoon of soy sauce, a tin of anchovies, and a teaspoon of red pepper flakes (or a chopped jalapeno). Blend into a sauce.

Grease a roasting pan. Slice one thin pork tenderloin into slices about half an inch thick and arrange them in one layer in the roasting pan, then spoon half the sauce over the top of the pork slices. Set the oven to broil, and cook the pork for about five minutes, turn the pieces, spoon the other half of the sauce over the other side, and cook until done. Keep an eye on it so they don’t get overcooked.

While the pork is cooking, make the salad:

Rinse out the food processor and switch to the chopping blade. Chop half a head of cabbage into slaw and lay it out on a large platter. Slice half a cucumber into thin sticks and arrange them on top of the slaw. Sprinkle about half a cup of chopped green onion and half a cup of chopped cilantro on top. Sprinkle about two teaspoons of dried basil and two tablespoons of dried mint over the salad.

When the pork is done, arrange the pieces on top of the salad, and ladle the sauce over the top. Scatter 1/2 cup of crushed cashew nuts and 1/4 cup of coconut flakes on top. Serve warm or cold, with slices of melon or mango, or fried zucchini dredged in flour, or both.

Vegetarian or vegan?

Neither – this is really a meat dish, even though it has a lot of vegetables in it. I guess you could do it with chik’n or something too.

And will this salad keep?

The salad will be better the same day, though you could eat the leftover meat in sandwiches the next day or anytime for three or four days.

Sole and chive oil

Fresh chives

In early spring, chives are one of the first fresh greens you may have growing in your garden. Chives are easy enough even for me to grow: plant them once, and they just come back every spring, and they spread too so there are more every year. You’ll need a couple of good handfuls of chives for this recipe.

How to make Sole with Chive Oil:

Preheat the oven to 400 F. Boil a large saucepan full of water over high heat. Chop half a head of cauliflower into small pieces. When the water boils, put in the chopped cauliflower and reduce the heat to medium-high; let the cauliflower simmer until it gets soft, about ten minutes.

While the cauliflower is cooking, make the chive oil. Take two bunches of chives and cut them into quarter-inch bits. Put all the chive bits in a small bowl with 1/2 cup of olive oil and a large pinch of kosher salt and mash with the immersion blender until the olive oil is quite green. Dump the mash into a strainer held over another small bowl or cream pitcher to catch the chive oil. Push the chive mash around with a fork and press on it to get all the chive oil you can, then compost the remaining chive stalks. If there’s not enough oil for your needs, add more olive oil, but it will dilute the chive taste.

When the cauliflower is pretty much done, pour a spoonful of olive oil into a roasting pan and lay out the sole on top of the oil. Put the sole in the oven to bake while you pour off the water from the cauliflower. Add 1/4 cup of whole fat Greek yogurt to the cauliflower, and puree with the immersion blender.

The sole won’t take more than 3-5 minutes to cook. When it is more opaque than translucent, take it out of the oven and serve with the pureed cauliflower. Pour chive oil over the cauliflower and the sole; you’ll want cole slaw or grated carrots or a green salad on the side.

Vegan or vegetarian?

No, this is fish. But you can serve chive oil over cauliflower without the fish, too. That’s vegan.

Will chive oil keep?

Not really. All of this – the fish, the cauliflower, and the chive oil – is best eaten fresh.

Shrimp quenelles

Fish meatballs

French people call these quenelles but most Americans might think of them as fish meatballs, or as fish-flavored matzo balls. So whatever. A way to make fish a little fancier. Or, looked at another way, a way to make fish stretch a little further.

How to make shrimp quenelles:

Put on a large pot of water to boil, and start a separate pot of rice on the side (twice as much water as rice, cover, let it come to a boil, then reduce to a simmer until the water is all soaked up and the rice is soft).

Take half a pound of tiny cooked shrimp and mash them with the immersion blender. Add half a cup of thick drained yogurt, salt, pepper, and an egg white. You can whip the egg white or not. If the mixture is thick enough to form little balls, good. If not, add tablespoons of flour until it gets that thick.

When the water boils, form little balls or logs out of the fish paste and drop them gently in the simmering water. Continue until the pan is crowded or all the fish is gone. Simmer until they float and turn over, about ten minutes. Remove gently with a slotted spoon.

Meanwhile, make the sauce. In a medium-size frying pan or small saucepan, melt 1/4 stick of butter. Add a half a cup of white wine. Then add half a cup of thick yogurt and the leftover egg yolk from the quenelles. Stir until it forms a sauce. Add a teaspoon or two of tomato paste, and stir again. Serve the quenelles over the rice, with the sauce on top.

Vegan or vegetarian?

Nope. How to make it vegetarian? Maybe mix seitan with powdered nori flakes (dried seaweed) to make a seafood-tasting base. Then mix that with the egg and yogurt to make the quenelles. If you used egg replacer, and vegan yogurt, you could make it vegan. Good luck! But it would be easier to just make something else.

Can I keep this for later?

Yes, but the quenelles will be denser and less tasty as leftovers.

Shakshuka

What’s a shakshuka?

It’s a common breakfast all over North Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean: spicy tomato sauce with eggs broken into it, basically. This version adds vegetables and cheese to make it filling enough for dinner, because life is too short to make complicated things for breakfast very often. But this makes a quick, easy dinner with things you may already have in the house.

How to make shakshuka:

Preheat oven to 425. In a frying pan over medium heat, saute a whole chopped onion and a chopped green pepper in olive oil until they are soft. Meanwhile add three cloves of garlic, chopped, two large teaspoons of cumin, and large pinches of salt, black pepper and red pepper flakes. When the peppers are soft, add about a cup and a half of tomato sauce and stir, then simmer for about five minutes to thicken up the tomato sauce.

How to make naan

While it’s simmering, make naan to go with it. In a medium-size mixing bowl, mix three cups of flour, 1 tsp. salt, 1 1/2 tsp. baking powder, 1/4 olive oil, 1/2 cup of yogurt and a cup of water until it forms a ball (add more water if necessary). Turn out the ball onto a floured surface and knead for a few minutes. Form the dough into golf-ball size balls and roll each ball out about half an inch thick with a rolling pin . If the dough sticks, sprinkle a little more flour on it. Lay the breads on an ungreased cookie sheet and bake until they puff up and begin to get golden-brown.

When the tomato sauce is thickened, or once you have the naan in the oven, make a small indentation in the tomato sauce and crack an egg into it. Repeat four or five more times, so you have a circle of raw-ish egg all around the top. Sprinkle crumbled feta cheese or homemade ricotta over the whole top, and cover the frying pan with a lid.

Turn the heat down low and let the pan sit for about five minutes, or until the whites of the eggs are white but the yolks are still runny. Serve with green salad, and with naan, and with Greek yogurt on the side.

Vegetarian or vegan

Shakshuka is vegetarian, though not vegan because it’s basically an egg dish.

Can I keep shakshuka for later?

Yes, it’s even better warmed up the next day for lunch, except that microwaving it makes the egg yolk hard-boiled rather than runny.

Scallops primavera

Are scallops sustainable?

Yes! Scallops, whether wild or farmed, are a “best choice” according to the Monterey Aquarium’s ratings. Plus, they’re a good source of protein, vitamins, and calcium, and very low fat.

Doesn’t primavera mean spring?

Yes, it does, but you make scallops primavera with zucchini and tomatoes, and actually zucchini and tomatoes don’t grow in the spring but in the summer, at least where I live. Maybe they’re earlier in Italy.

How to make scallops primavera

Start by making the noodles. In a bowl, mix 3 cups of white flour with six eggs, 1/3 cup of oil, and as much water as you need to make a dough. Knead well, and roll out thin. Slice the noodles into thin strips and leave them to dry while you make the sauce.

Put a large saucepan mostly full of water on to boil. Chop an onion. Put a medium-size frying pan over medium-high heat, and pour in 1/4 cup of olive oil. Saute the chopped onions. While they soften, chop two zucchinis and add them. Then cut a cupful of cherry tomatoes in half and add them.

When the zucchini is almost done, add the scallops. You’ll need about ten sea scallops (the big, expensive kind. Frozen is fine). Season with salt and pepper, and a tablespoon each of chopped basil and oregano. Don’t move the scallops while they cook, so they can brown on the side touching the pan.

After about a minute, turn the scallops over, add a half a cup of white wine, and cook the other side for a minute. Turn off the heat under the scallops and put the noodles into the boiling water. Let the noodles cook for two minutes, then drain them and rinse them in cold water quickly to keep them from sticking.

Serve hot, right away, ladling the sauce and scallops on top of the noodles. As a side dish, sliced cucumbers or a green salad would be nice.

Vegetarian or vegan?

Nope, but you can just leave out the scallops and add chickpeas instead and it will be vegan. If you’d rather not eat noodles, just make more zucchini and tomatoes and eat it without the noodles.

And will scallops primavera keep?

If you refrigerate it in a sealed tupperware, you can eat scallops primavera the next day, but really it is best fresh right out of the pan.

Salade Niçoise

Salad for dinner?

If it’s hot, sometimes a cold dinner is just what you want. This one can be served warm or cold.

How to make salade Niçoise:

Start by making homemade bread to serve on the side.

While the bread is rising and the oven preheating, make three hard-boiled eggs: gently place three eggs in a small saucepan and add cold water to cover them. Bring to a boil, and then simmer for twelve more minutes before running the eggs under cold water to stop them from cooking. Peel them and set aside to cool.

While the eggs are cooking, peel and chop three baking potatoes, or the equivalent amount of small boiling potatoes (these don’t have to be peeled). Put into cold water in a big saucepan and bring to a boil, then simmer.

Meanwhile, break the tips off a handful of green beans (string beans) and then add them to the simmering potatoes. When the potatoes are soft, drain in the colander and run cold water over them until they’re just warm, not hot. Don’t forget to keep an eye on those eggs, and put the bread in the oven as soon as the potatoes are done.

While the potatoes and green beans are cooking, arrange some chopped lettuce on a platter. Or, saute some chard or kale and use that as the bottom layer. Arrange the potatoes and green beans on top of the greens. On top of that, sprinkle the contents of a can of tuna, and/or a can of anchovies. Around the sides, arrange slices of the hard-boiled eggs, and slices of raw tomatoes, and black olives. Sprinkle liberally with salt, olive oil, and vinegar, in that order.

Vegetarian or vegan?

Neither, unless you substitute canned chickpeas for the canned tuna and capers for the anchovies. Then it is vegetarian and vegan, and also gluten-free if you don’t eat bread.

And will the salad keep?

If you’re going to make this ahead and serve it the next day, don’t add the olive oil or vinegar until just before serving. But as leftovers, it will keep for a week and make lots of yummy lunches.

Roast chicken

People make it complicated

You can find all kinds of instructions for roasting chicken and they’ll tell you to turn the temperature up and down, or turn the chicken around in the oven, or cover the chicken and uncover it. But really, if you don’t do any of those things, your chicken will still be fine.

How to make Roast Chicken:

All you really have to do to roast a chicken is put it in a hot oven and wait a while. Preheat the oven to 400 F. Take your chicken and put it in a 9×12 roasting pan. Stick a hand inside the chicken to make sure there aren’t any chicken bits in there – sometimes stores put the heart, the neck, or the liver inside the chicken. If they’re there, take them out.

Put the chicken in the oven. Come back an hour later, and poke the chicken in a bunch of places with a fork. If all the juice runs out clear, the chicken is done; if some of it is pink, leave the chicken in a little longer.

When the chicken is done, take it out of the oven and let it sit on the counter for ten minutes – this will make it taste better. Now slice it up.

Another approach

But in real life, most grocery stores sell chicken already roasted for the same price as raw chicken. And it’s hard to see why you would bother roasting your own chicken in that case. I usually buy chicken pre-roasted. You can heat it up at home. I mostly only buy raw chicken if I want to poach it, which is a different story.