The Dinner Files

One good friend just started a full time job after freelancing for years. Another friend has twins who are old enough now to eat real food so they’ve been trying to have family dinners most nights. Still another friend’s husband had a change at work and is no longer home in time to make dinner, which has always been his gig. In short, three friends in quick succession have asked for fast dinner ideas.

I’m going to try and keep them in mind in the coming weeks. Faster, quicker, easier. The fact of the matter is that I often cook that way and, due to some work-life circumstances this spring I’ll be cooking like that more anyway. At our house getting dinner on the table in a hurry often manifests in the form of pasta. Pasta with a lot of vegetables in it. I’m working on expanding that mindset (it’s difficult, though, since such pasta dishes are always a hit with all three of us).

This mushroom soba noodle soup is sort of a departure, right? Sure, it’s pasta and vegetables, but they’re in a soup! Hey, I’m trying here.

It may not be revolutionary, but it is delicious. Fresh, light, and perfect for this time of year when heavy winter foods don’t sound so great anymore but when you still need something to warm you up come dinner time.

Mushroom soba noodle soup

This noodle-y soup-y creation was inspired by a recipe for a mushroom hot pot in Japanese Hot Pots by Tadashi Ono and Harris Salat. It’s a great resource – especially if, like me, you like to make (and eat) big bowls of delicious.

4 cups broth (I used a mix of chicken and pork broth; one or the other or dashi would have been good, too)

1 cup sake

1/2 cup mirin

1/3 cup soy sauce

3 cups shredded Napa cabbage

1/2 pound shiitake mushrooms

1/2 pound oyster moshrooms

1/2 pound wild arugula (regular arugula or spinach would also work just fine, although with less bite)

1 pound tofu (firm, soft, silken – whatever you like) cut into three or four big pieces

1/2 pound soba noodles

some type of chile powder for garnish (we used ground ancho chile because it was in the cupboard)

Heat the broth in a medium pot. Add sake, mirin, and soy sauce. Bring to a simmer and cook, partially covered, for about 10 minutes. Taste and adjust seasoning – adding more mirin for sweetness or more soy for salt, if you like.

Add cabbage, cover, and cook until cabbage is wilted, about 3 minutes.

Meanwhile, bring a pot of salted water to a boil and trim mushrooms and cut into bite-size pieces if they are large.

Add mushrooms to the pot, cover, and cook until mushrooms and cabbage are tender, about 8 minutes. Add arugula, cover, and cook until the arugula leaves are wilted, about 3 minutes. Put large pieces of tofu on top of everything else, cover, and simmer until tofu is heated through, about 2 minutes.

Meanwhile, cook soba noodles in the boiling salted water until tender to the bite. Drain and divide between three or four large bowls.

Top noodles with the vegetables, one piece of tofu each, and broth. Garnish with chile powder, if you like. A few thinly sliced green onions would be tasty, too.

I’ve got the blue pumpkins blues. See the pretty blue pumpkin? See how it almost glows in the dull light of my kitchen? Now, I know that the inside of blue pumpkins isn’t also blue. I know the inside of blue pumpkins is just as bright orange and non-blue as any other pumpkin, but the naive child inside me is always a wee bit disappointed when I cut in and see no blue, no deep purple, no shimmery gray. Take heart, though, I cheer up almost immediately because that orange has a magical power all its own.

So I cut the top off the blue pumpkin, much as one would for a jack o’lantern, had my weird let down at the sight of orange winter squash flesh, scooped out the fat pumpkin seeds (again, as for a jack o’lantern), put about 6 oz. of fresh shiitakes (trimmed and halved) inside, sprinkled them with 1/2 oz. porcini that I’d soaked in hot water for 15 minutes and then chopped up, added a pinch of salt and some generous grinds of black pepper, and then drizzled on about a 1/3 of a cup of cream.

That all got popped in a 375 oven until the squash was tender and everything was bubbling and yummy looking, which took about an hour. It all seems a bit soupy because the mushrooms have let off their liquid into the cream:

It is quite tasty just like that, no doubt. But, if you can control yourself and not eat it while it sits (covered with foil to keep it warm) for 20 or 30 minutes, the cream and mushroom liquid gets all soaked up by the squash and the mushrooms and something magical happens:

You get this creamy, sweet, floury, earthy, savory delight. I liked mine with a poached egg and a bit of spinach salad. A great shared side dish – with everyone scooping their share from the baked gourd at the table – for Thanksgiving, no doubt. Also, in a smaller, individual, acorn squash (or similar sized) halves? I’m thinking that is a pretty sweet vegetarian main dish for the annual feast.

Yesterday was a very gloomy gray by the Bay. It’s the last weekend in May, the farmers market is absolutely overflowing with cherries and peaches are coming in at a quick pace behind, but the produce couldn’t quite convince me that summer was anywhere in the air. It was a day for spring flavors and winter comfort, which happens a lot in San Francisco, where chilly winds pick up in time for dinner on even the most promising sunny spring days. So the morel mushrooms I bought were not simply sauteed in butter or tossed with asparagus spears in a spring-y / early summer way. I chopped them up and cooked them with rice and broth and a bit of cream and a generous handful of cheese for an easy, calming morel mushroom risotto. Since it is spring, though, I topped the whole thing with chiffonade of mint (that’s thin slices or “ribbons” of mint to you and me) and a few minced green onions (chives would have been even better). A bit of lightly steamed spinach topped with finishing salt and burnt caramel ice cream from an unidentified source completed our dinner. All were pleased with the dinner, but my dashing husband proclaimed the ice cream the best he’d ever had. Too bad it isn’t for sale. And too bad we don’t have any more in the freezer. Perhaps I’ll get to work on figuring out how to make my own….

What a great way to end our lakeside getaway. A giant puffball mushroom, just like my grandma used to fry up in butter, found in the driveway. No, we decided, we couldn’t eat that.

1) My Aunt Nancy, a nurse and steady voice of reason and extreme caution, told a story of an experienced mycologist poisoning dinner guests and the resulting multiple liver transplants.

2) That puffball looked too big to be tasty. Aren’t they supposed to be small? And the big ones are just dusty inside? And are we sure it’s a puffball? Might it be something else?

3) That’s a few too many questions to dig into something we found growing in the driveway….

So we’re headed back to San Francisco, where the only thing we find in our driveway is used condoms.

Doesn’t sound like a good combination, does it? I spent the day flying cross-country with a broken hand and an almost-five-year old (talk about relying on the kindness of strangers–thanks strangers!) to arrive at friends’ house dazed and confused. Is there any better feeling than someone cooking for you after weary travels?

Part of the meal was mushrooms sautéed and sweetened with maple syrup. Not my cup of tea, I’m afraid, but only because I don’t particularly care for maple. I can see others really digging the earthy-woodsy-sweetness of it all as my hosts did.

More tempting treats to me were the grilled calamari–sweet and meaty with plenty of bright lemon–and a great big fresh green salad with thinly sliced small, tart apples and crumbled mild feta. One host lamented the lack of hearts of palm in the house, as did I, but, despite the deprivation, the meal, when combined with a G+T and such dear friends,  fixed everything. Everything except, of course, my hand.