Healthy Beans and Rice

It's a typical story but true - after gorging on food of all sorts over the holidays, I actually couldn't stand the thought of any more sugar and started craving whole grains and greens. So I devised this healthy version of rice and beans, with spinach, brown rice, and quinoa for added nutrition. For flavor, I tossed in salsa and cheddar cheese, but plenty of other cheeses would work well with this. Likewise, feel free to swap in an onion for the leek depending on what you have on hand.

Jesse called it his "favorite thing you've ever made." Of course - this is exactly the kind of one pot dish he loves - a creamy bowl of hearty grains, protein and greens. I only wish I had made more because he ate about 3 straight servings, leaving me without leftovers, so next time I might double the recipe.

Healthy Beans and Rice

1 cup dried black beans (or 2 cans black beans)
1/2 cup brown rice
1/2 cup quinoa
1 leek
1 bunch spinach
1/4 cup grated cheese
1 cup salsa
salt
pepper
crushed hot pepper
cumin

Soak dried beans overnight (or bring to a boil and then let soak for one hour). Rinse beans and then return to pot covered with two inches of water. Bring to a boil and simmer until tender, about 60-90 minutes.

Combine rice, quinoa, and 2 1/2 cups water in a small pot, and simmer for about 40 minutes until rice is tender.

After about 30 minutes, rinse and chop the leek into half moons. In a large pan, sautee leeks over low heat. Then rinse the spinach, chop into small pieces, and sautee until wilted. Add salsa to pan to warm.

When rice and beans are done, combine in pan with spinach, grated cheese, salsa, and spices. Makes about 4 servings.

Tortilla and Tomato Time!

As soon as tomatoes and corn both came into season last week, I couldn't wait to make tacos with beans, fresh salsa, and homemade tortillas. And then I liked my tacos so much that I couldn't wait to make them again for dinner last night.
I am not happy that most tortillas I can find in stores around here are filled with incomprehensible ingredients, including the dreaded high fructose corn syrup. Then I saw Liz making her own tortillas and wanted to give it a try. After all, it is easier and faster than making bread because yeast isn't even involved!

I ended up adapting Orangette's recipe and cut it in half because I didn't want to push my luck on this floury experiment; replaced half the flour with local whole wheat flour; and replaced the shortening with butter. My first time around, I made the mistake of greasing the skillet and dividing the dough into too few tortillas, so I ended up with some huge greasy creatures. On my second try last night, I cooked the tortillas dry in my cast-iron skillet and they came out a little more uniform and pliable. They were not at all like store-bought tortillas, but were thick, hearty, and chewy, owing to the high proportion of whole wheat flour. Once I pick up more all purpose flour, I will try making lighter versions of these tortillas. Nevertheless, I liked them enough to gobble up the extra tortillas plain (both times I made them!) Oops. All the more reason to make them again!

And so, last night's dinner: tacos with homemade tortillas made with local whole wheat flour; dried pinto beans soaked and simmered until tender (not local); fresh salsa featuring sweet farmers market tomatoes, corn, and onions, cilantro from my deck, along with a handful of the meager tomato harvest from my deck (so far just one Big Boy and a bunch of tart cherry tomatoes); and a touch of grated Bobolink cave-aged cheddar. And lucky me, I have two more tacos all wrapped up in foil awaiting me for lunch again today!
Whole Wheat Tortillas
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup water
3 tbsp butter
3/4 tsp salt

Bring about 1 cup of water to boil. Meanwhile, combine flour and salt in a bowl, and mix in butter. Add half of the boiling water and stir to combine. Continue to add water slowly, using only enough water as necessary until it comes together into a dough. With floured hands, knead the dough for 3-5 minutes in the bowl (this is my trick - your bowl is probably big enough to just knead in the bowl instead of dirtying another surface). Form dough into a ball, place back in bowl, and cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let rest at least 20-60 minutes. (Or up to one day in the fridge, and then let the dough come to room temperature again before rolling out.)

With floured hands, divide dough into about 10 small balls. Heat a dry skillet. On a floured surface, roll out tortilla as thin as you can get it. Cook on skillet over medium low heat for 1-2 minutes until it puffs slightly and the bottom turns golden brown. Flip tortilla and cook 1 minute longer, until the other side turns golden brown. While this tortilla cooks, roll out the next one so that it is ready to place on the skillet as soon as the first one is done. The idea is to keep rolling out the next tortilla while the previous one cooks. Repeat until you are finally done with all that rolling and flipping, and you can sit and fill your tortillas and feast. Makes 10 fajita-size tortillas (I like to eat my tacos on fajita-size tortillas - but I'm guessing this would probably made about 15 taco-size tortillas or 7 burrito-size tortillas).

Fresh Tomato and Corn Salsa
3 tomatoes
2 ears of corn
1 onion
1 handful cilantro
salt
pepper
cayenne pepper
pot of water

Bring a pot of salted water to boil. Meanwhile, shuck the corn. Once the water is boiling, add the corn to the pot, bring it back to a boil, and then shut off the heat and let it sit for five to ten minutes before removing corn with tongs to cool.

Meanwhile, dice onion, cilantro, and tomatoes and combine in a bowl. Once the corn is cool enough to handle, slice the corn off the cob and mix it in with the rest of the salsa, along with salt, pepper, and cayenne pepper.

Locavore Potluck

Last Saturday was my much anticipated locavore potluck. I had been awaiting the day since I first thought up the idea sometime over winter - to bring together my friends for the most noblest of potlucks, encouraging them to seek out local food sources. I'll have it in March, I planned, naively expecting that by then the bounty of spring would appear in the farmers markets. And when March continued in winter's fashion, I hoped April would bring fresh vegetables. Until April also did not seem flush enough with green. I almost had a date set in May, once asparagus and lettuce appeared, but scheduling conflicts pushed it back another month.

Then of course nature pulled a trick and jolted into summer with a heat wave, thick and oppressive and blowing hot air and sweat around our bodies. But the show must go on, so I planned to get most of the cooking done in the morning with the hopes that the apartment would cool off before the party. The morning found me at Union Square (bizarrely with larger crowds at 9am than I'd ever seen on a Saturday) to pick up a pork roast from Flying Pigs. Stupidly I hadn't asked for it to be defrosted when I ordered it, so it was frozen solid. Luckily after an hour an and a half in a water bath at home, it seemed mostly defrosted, so into the crockpot along with a sliced onion, barbeque sauce, salt, pepper, and a little water. This is my usual method for making pulled pork, and it couldn't be easier. You just leave it in there for hours and hours on low in the crock pot, maybe turn it up to high for a couple hours, and then back to low, and after about 8-10 hours it shreds when you go to cut it.

While the pork defrosted, I got to work on buns for the pulled pork. I thought the heat would help these babies rise into fluffy buns even more beautifully than last time, but instead they refused to rise and ended up as tight undercooked mini buns. I have no idea what happened, but they sufficed for the purpose. And the mini buns meant that people piled less pulled pork onto their sandwiches, leaving me with more leftovers (muhaha!)

While the oven preheated for the buns, I also roasted some potatoes into fries. Now common sense would dictate that you would not be silly like me and turn your oven on and instead buy hamburger buns and make something like a cold potato salad. But I was determined to use my local flour for the buns. And Jesse insisted on having roasted potatoes since he doesn't like potato salad, and since we had an overflow of potatoes from last week's party, I had to do something with them. So all my sweating in a sauna of a kitchen was my own fault.

I also picked up garlic scapes, which are young garlic shoots, at the market that morning. They are often transformed into garlic scape pestos, but I thought they would be perfect in aioli for dipping the fries. Aioli is essentially garlic mayonnaise, and I found it to be easier to make than I expected. I noticed, though, that I didn't seem to need as much olive oil as the recipe called for, probably because my eggs were on the smaller side. So I recommend slowly whisking in the oil and stopping when the mixture has reached the right consistency, even if you have some oil left over. Mine was creamy and thinner than commercial mayonnaise, but with a much brighter, richer flavor. Now that I know how easy it is, I'll definitely be making my own mayonnaise again, except this time I'll store some in the fridge right away so I can enjoy it later in the week - instead of leaving it all out in my 90 degree living room for more than three hours during the party and then tossing the leftovers from fear.

Although I finished cooking by 2pm, the apartment wasn't any cooler by partytime, but everyone seemed to have a good time despite the heat. Now, the party wasn't entirely local - the invitation just asked that everyone try to bring something incorporating at least one local ingredient. Eating locally is new to most of my friends, so I wanted it to be an encouraging, not daunting, challenge. I was impressed that my guests all made an effort to bring something local, and enjoyed trying all their great food. There was nary a bag of chips or can of PBR to be found.

My sister (who is working at Bobolink for the summer since it's only a 5 minute drive from our parent's home - how cool is that?) brought rosemary bread she'd baked that morning, and one of Bobolink's new spring cheeses, Tarte de Vache (Cow Pie), which was medium soft, grassy and pungent. Two vegetarian couples coincidentally both brought tortellini salad, and another standout was a jar of curry-pickled baby turnips and radishes. There was also a brilliant strawberry rhubarb bruschetta with fresh mint. As well as my pulled pork sandwiches, fries, and heavenly aioli, all local except for the yeast, barbecue sauce, salt, pepper, lemon juice, and vinegar.

For dessert there was a chocolate chip loaf from a Greenmarket bakery, ice cream from Ronnybrook and 5 Boroughs (warning: their Cha Cha Chocolate is super spicy), strawberries, and locally made marshmallows from Whole Foods. And of course, a few bottles of New York state wine, and lots and lots of Brooklyn, Bluepoint, and Southampton beer. The party didn't end until late in the night when all the booze ran out and I was ready to slip into a food and drink-induced coma.


Garlic Scape Aioli

2 stalks garlic scapes
1 tbsp fresh parsley
salt
pepper
1 egg yolk
1 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp vinegar
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

Combine garlic scapes, parsley, salt, and pepper in a food processor. Alternately, you can mince them finely, or use a mortar and pestle, but my mortar and pestle doesn't seem to do much so I went the mechanic route.

Scrape garlic mixture into a bowl and whisk in egg and then lemon juice and vinegar.

With one hand, pour olive oil very slowly into the bowl, while whisking briskly and continually with the other hand. (Not as hard as it sounds.) If you add too much oil at once, just pause your pouring and whisk until it is incorporated. Taste occasionally, and once the mixture has reached your desired consistency and taste, stop adding oil.

Store immediately in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to five days. Serve with fries, fish, asparagus, or spread on sandwiches.

Brooklyn Bike Tour

Last weekend Jesse and I braved the cold and ventured on a 16 mile bike ride throughout Brooklyn, from Williamsburg, whizzing under the Williamsburg bridge (above) through prettier neighborhoods of Brooklyn, including Fort Greene below. Maybe we live in the wrong neighborhood, we pondered during our ride.

We stopped in Park Slope to visit Bierkraft, because I was really interested in checking it out. It was a bit overwhelming at first, but I like that the beers are organized by region so that was able to focus on selecting a New York state beer, because I am trying to drink local whenever I can. And the cheese selection! What a great idea to sell beer and cheese - it's not just all about the wine and cheese anymore. I came up with this plan that we should get beers and cheese and have a picnic in Prospect Park. It was cold, but we managed, on a lovely bench by the lake as the sun set. Our favorite cheese is Doddington, a cheddary English cheese, so we asked to try a new cheese that would similarly appeal to our palates and were given a cheese called Licolnshire, but Doddington still remains the champion in our cheese quest. Taste it, you won't be disappointed!


And by the way, Prospect Park is amazing! This was my first time, and I had no idea it was so woodsy and spacious. It fills that void in my life that Central Park just doesn't because Central Park never allows you to feel that you've escaped the city, but Prospect Park does. I can't wait to take my dog there.


After a ride around the park, and craft beers at some bars on 4th Avenue that did not live up to their reviews, we capped off the evening with dinner at Flatbush Farm , which I have been looking forward to for a while. Their menu is filled with seasonal vegetables and organic meat, sourced from New York state farms, at least I think so. As a burgeoning locavore, I was very excited to support this restaurant. To my dismay, there was a 30 minute wait for the restaurant room. But no problem! They simply directed us next door to the bar where we were still able to have a table and order from the restaurant menu. I don't really understand why they bother having a bar separate from the restaurant.


We both really love oysters, but haven't been able to indulge as much since oyster prices went up. Hence only five oysters as an appetizer below, but delicious they were. Slurp!




Since we'd been munching all day, I convinced Jesse we should split one entree, and we chose the half chicken with collard greens. It was the most delicious, meaty chicken I've had in a while, and the collard greens were as good as ... greens are. I try, but I just don't like greens like kale as much as Jesse. I could say more, but by that point in the night I was sufficiently liquored up that I don't remember much more than the dark, warm, ambience of the restaurant (which lent itself to a nice romantic dinner) and warm fuzzy glow in my stomach from the food.




PS. I'm watching TV as I watch this and I would just like to rant that I hate Sears' new ad campaign: "Don't just give a gift, give a wish." Encouraging people to spend money up the wazoo for the holidays, on things like a complete set of tools for your garage or a complete new wardrobe for a teenage girl! What??!! No one needs a whole wardrobe for Christmas except for poor children who have no clothes. Ads continue to trick people into thinking they need to spend shitloads of money to make themselves and oher people happy. When really what we need is to calm down and enjoy the simpler things in life. Sigh.