The Dinner Files

Yes, it’s yet another veggie-heavy pasta/one-pot meal. You know you love them. Well, I know I do, anyway. They are a working girl’s best friend.

This one is a bit different because it used the last bit of the tomato paste I made last summer. It came from an almost-empty half-pint jar in the back of the fridge. That last bit was well covered with oil and had avoided any mold or mildew.

Now that the fridge is clean and I know for a fact that there is not more tomato paste in there, I’m white-knuckling it to tomato season. I can live without caprese for awhile longer, but I find myself oddly psychologically dependent on having that tomato conserva at hand.

Kale tomato pasta

The tomato paste in this sweetens and softens the kale.

1 pound pasta (fusilli is my favorite for this)

2 bunches Dino/lacinato/black kale

3 cloves garlic

3 Tablespoons olive oil

1/2 teaspoon red chili flakes (optional)

2 Tablespoons tomato paste

Salt

Parmesan for garnish

Bring a pot of water to a boil. Add salt to make it taste as salty as sea water. Cook the pasta until tender to the bite or according to package directions.

Meanwhile, clean the greens and chop them. Slice garlic cloves as thinly as you can – don’t stress it too much, it will be tasty no matter how you cut it.

Heat a frying pan large enough to hold the pasta or a medium pot over medium high heat. Add olive oil. Add garlic and chile flakes, if using. Cook, stirring, until garlic is just barely starting to turn golden.

Add tomato paste and stir to combine with the garlic and oil. Add 1/3 cup of water and stir to combine.

Add chopped kale, stir to combine, cover, reduce heat to medium low, and cook until kale it tender, about 5 minutes.

Add another 1/3 cup water if mixture seems dry or kale is sticking to the pan.

Pasta should be ready to drain or already drained at this point. Add drained pasta to kale mixture. Stir to combine. Taste and add more salt, if you like. Top with Parmesan.

A month ago I was whining on Facebook about not knowing what new to do with beets. I got some ideas from well-meaning folks, but in the end I think I just needed a little beet-break. Having had just such a hiatus, the rich earthy sweetness of red beets called to me anew. The dull dirt-red ords and their dramatic red-slashed greens stood out at the market, begging to be eaten. So I grabbed a bunch and did something I’d been thinking about for awhile: I cooked them together. Starting with the beets, then adding the stems, and finally the dark leafy greens that I cooked just long enough to wilt.

The resulting warm beet salad, as I’ve decided to call it, was a big hit at my house last night. We just grated a bit of meyer lemon zest on top and called it a day, but some hazelnuts or a bit of goat cheese – globs of fresh chevre or gratings of an aged version – would be a lovely addition if you’re feeling fancy.

East Coasters, Midwesterners, even Pacific Northwesterners might want to turn away. I went to pick up our farm box yesterday and for the second week in a row there was a bunch of green garlic in it. Yummy, delicate, fragrant, aromatic green garlic. Since my dashing husband was out for the evening, I let Ernest choose which vegetable we would cook up to go with the noodles I knew he would want. He chose the collard greens. Yep. The collard greens. So, because he’s had a bit of a hard time of it lately what with us demanding that he actually pay attention in class and listen to his teacher (we are big fat bummers, no doubt), I added prosciutto to the greens and, because I’ve had a bit of a hard time of it lately what with having to demand that my five-year-old boy sit still for 6 hours a day, I added chopped green garlic. I passed on the noodles and just had a big old plate of the yummy yummy greens. See the recipe, if needed.

I’m girding my loins for the holidays. We have a great Christmas planned and it sounds like tons of fun. But even with all the fresh air and exercise my Minnesotan family will seek out, plenty of time will be spent sitting around noshing. My mother-in-law will bring delicious cured and smoked fishes, friends and neighbors will inundate the house with cookies and candy, and then there will be the actual meals.

I’m not complaining – it’s part of what the holidays are – but I have been purposefully keeping dinners simple. Last night, with greens and pasta, was no exception. 

Looking for simplicity at the table too? Bring a pot of water to a boil. Add more salt than you think you should. Drop in the leaves from a bunch of dino kale (the straight, very dark kind) and cook until they bend more than they did when you put them in. Use tongs or a slotted spoon or two forks to fish them all out and drain them. Now boil up 1/2 to 1 lb. of pasta depending on how hungry everyone is. Cook until just tender, scoop out about a cup of the pasta-cooking liquid, and drain. While the water come to a boil and things cook, thinly slice a few cloves of garlic (I use 4 – you may want more or less). Squeeze the excess water out of the kale and chop it.  Put the pot back on the stove and add a few tablespoons of olive oil. Add garlic and cook until just starting to look like it might turn golden. Add a handful of pine nuts, if you’re so inclined, and a sprinkle of red chile flakes, again, if that sounds appealing. Alternatively you could use a fresh chile, or add a filet or two of minced anchovy, or nothing at all. Really, it’s your dinner.

Add the greens and the cooking liquid and cook until liquid is reduced by about half. (FYI: If you have a cup of chicken broth on hand you can use that in place of the pasta-cooking liquid for extra flavor.) Stir in the noodles and cook until liquid is absorbed. Stir in as much grated parmesan, pecorino, or asiago as you’re inclined to add (I tend to stir in about 1/3 of a cup or so, one could certainly add more or leave it out entirely).  Sprinkle more of said cheese on each serving.

It’s a dinner that’s simple to make, simple to eat, simple to clean up (one pot, baby!). Enjoy.

Yum. Shell beans, collard greens, and turnips greens cooked with a bit of chorizo and garlic in some homemade chicken broth. It was my version of Melissa Clark’s tempting recipe from this week’s New York Times. Corn bread on the side.

It’s really only Minnesotan because I made it in Minnesota. And because I added chopped leftover brats at the last minute. Yes, it was a serious clean-out-the-fridge sort of dinner. But it was also pretty damn good. All the more so because I located the soy sauce. My mom keeps it in the fridge. I was all, “she’s crazy, who keeps soy sauce in the fridge?” until I read the side of the bottle: Keep refrigerated once open.

Oops. Have I been risking life and limb (or at least stomach) for years by not refrigerating soy sauce? Seriously, it never even occured to me to do so. All that salt, how could it go bad? What could grow in that environment?

[Addendum for the Lovely Luisa:  Honestly, it never occurred to me that someone would want to make this. Start with leftover cooked rice. The leftover part is key since you want the rice a bit dried out--the better to get it to brown up. If I know I'm going to use leftover rice for fried rice I even spread it out on a pan and let it air-dry for a few hours (in the fridge can get too dry if spread out, making the whole thing crunchy in the uncooked-rice way).

Beat an egg or two with a pinch of salt and a few pinches of sugar. Heat some oil in a frying pan, add the egg, and use a spatula to pull the cooked parts in towards the center of the pan, letting the uncooked egg flow onto the now-exposed pan. Continue doing that until the egg is almost completely cooked (the top will still be a bit wet). You can flip it to cook the top or not, depends on how you like your eggs. Turn this omelet onto a cutting board and chop.

Put the pan back on the heat, add more oil and saute plenty of minced garlic, finely shredded fresh ginger, and chopped green onion. I also throw in a chopped serrano chile or some red pepper flakes. After that mess it all awesome smelling, add any vegetables or chopped meat you want in the rice (if these are already cooked let them get hot before adding the rice; if they aren't cooked, cook them until they aren't letting off any liquid before adding the rice). Then stir in the rice. let it sit and brown a bit, then stir it up good. Repeat until it's hot and as browned as you like. Stir in soy sauce to taste and then stir in the chopped egg.

Chopped cilantro makes a nice garnish, if you have some.

Note: unless you use a lot of oil and have a very hot stove, it will not look like restaurant fried rice. It's a much lighter, cleaner tasting version--unless, that is, you use leftover bratwurst....]

When my dad used to go out of town it meant eating tuna casserole (which I LUVED) or this awesome faux-souffle my mom would make with eggs and cheese and it would bake up puffy with crispy edges (and I LUVED that too) at the kitchen table with the TV on. It was awesome.

When my dashing husband, semi-vegetarian that he is, goes out of town it means meat. Sausage one night, beef the next. I saw some bee-u-ti-ful little white turnips with their greens still attached at the market the other day. I knew immediately I would make Beef Baked with Turnips and Black Pepper from Madhur Jaffrey’s Spice Kitchen.

First of all, it contains lovely little turnips and BEEF. Second, I’ve had this dish before and it is unbelievably delicious (although, admittedly, no beauty contestant). Third, I hadn’t cooked from someone else’s recipe in so long I was starting to really miss it.

So I cooked the recipe as is. Pretty much. I streamlined some technique because that is my way. Poke 10-15 little turnips with a fork. Toss with 3/4 tsp. salt and let sit while you do the following. In a large heavy pot (like a Le Creuset) heat a bit of vegetable oil and brown 2 to 3 lbs. trimmed boneless beef chuck cut into 1 1/2- to 2 -inch pieces. You’ll need to do this in batches and watch it closely. Take your time. Deeply browned meat is the secret to delicious stews of all sorts.

As each batch browns, transfer it to a bowl .When all done preheat oven to 350. Meanwhile, cook 3 minced onions and 6 cloves minced garlic in the oil and browned (almost burnt!) bits in the pan. The almost burnt bits will loosen right up. Cook, stirring as you like, until onions start to brown. Add 1 Tbsp. ground coriander, 1/2 tsp. coarsely ground black pepper, 1/4 tsp.cayenne, and 2 tsp. salt. Cook, stirring, for a minute. Stir in 1 1/4 cup yogurt and 1 cup water. When everything combines into a sort of sauce, add turnips and beef (plus any liquid that’s accumulated in the bowl). Bring just to a boil. Sprinkle with 1 tsp. garam masala. Cover pot with foil and its lid to seal it as much as possible. Bake 1 1/2 hours without so much as thinking about looking at it.

Madhur Jaffrey has you then “reduce” the sauce on the stovetop, but I’ve never found there is so much sauce to reduce. Instead I let the whole thing sit in the turned-off oven until dinner time (5+ hours – no food poisoning yet!) and reheated it on the stove, resulting in a nice second-day stew effect, which we all know is way better than fresh stew.

We had it with plain basmati rice and turnip greens quickly cooked in a bit of olive oil and a sliced clove of garlic.

Ernie did not really care for the turnips, but he loved the greens–especially while he was allowed to play “twirling greens” (related to twirling strawberries – food item is twirled before eater’s mouth and then eater tries to bite it best they can) so I could take pictures. Once they were snapped he was told to use his fork. How’s that for some awesome parenting?

Someone got creative with the oil, that’s all I can say. Week after week of beets. I’ve roasted them, boiled them, souped them, saladed them. I’ve even grilled them (yes, it works quite nicely). So now I’ve fried them. As chips. Guess what? They were a big hit. Ernie snarfed down a ton and my dashing husband joined him.

And anyone who has deep-fat fried can tell you: once you have the oil going, you might as well keep frying. So the sweet potatoes–sitting so innocently, thinking they were going to be turned into a spicy gratin–were next. Cut into fries and fried. Delicious. Not as crispy as potato french fries, but really good. A bit of chile “lava salt” we got in Kauai was just the ticket to sprinkle on them.

You would think that after five days in New Orleans, I’d want a break from the fried.* And I thought I did. I do. So dinner began in earnest with this gloriously simple but labor-consuming fava bean and pecorino salad. Shell a shit-load of fava beans. Blanch them. Shell them again (seems like torture, I know). Toss with a bit of delicious olive oil and top with tiny cubes of fresh pecorino cheese and a sprinkle of salt. This is a dish best made if you have staff. Staff to do all the shelling and blanching and re-shelling. Today I had that staff in the shape of my lovely intern.

Isn’t it just lovely? Stay tuned next week when we develop a whole slew of fava bean recipes.

The main thrust of the meal was some simple grilled asparagus (brush with oil, grill until charred and tender–about 10 minutes total (covered) and some braised greens with a poached egg on top. Yes, you caught me, that’s a total fall-back meal for me. We all eat it, we all like it, my dashing husband can customize it with hot sauce. I highly recommend it.

* To be honest, I’ve been a bit obsessed with some sweet potato fries I saw at Parkway Bakery and Tavern while I was eating a giant po’ boy–a dining companion saw them too and made a bee line for the counter to order some for us. Alas, the line was long by then, and he gave up. It was for the best, but I’ve been thinking about them ever since.