Eat your veggies.

Apparently, mothers will never stop telling you the importance of eating your veggies. Recently my mother has complained that my blog is too meat-centric. There is some truth to that. So, I invited my vegetarian friend Kailee over for dinner and it was the perfect opportunity to experiment with some new all veg meals.

Before I delve into the recipes I want to share my thoughts on vegetarianism, veganism and the raw food diet craze. First off, if you're a vegetarian and you eat fish sometimes or buffalo chicken wings, but only when it's wing night at the dining hall, you're not a vegetarian. I'm sorry but an animal is an animal even if it's ugly. I can't root for the Red Sox 3 games a month and in good conscience call myself a Yankees fan so you can't call yourself a vegetarian if you eat fish. I'm glad I got that all out.

Newton's third law states that forces occurs in pairs, one called the action and the other the reaction. However, I don't believe Newton's laws are limited to physics. To me, the explosion of vegetarian, vegan and raw diet culture is a direct result of the sad state of meat production and the prevalence of the fast food industry in the United States. It is easy to see how McDonald's and KFC can turn people off to meat. Not only because they serve either fried reconsituted chicken bits or greasy and grey pre cooked beef patties but because there is no soul or effort put forth to respect the animal that has been killed. If you're going to eat chicken you should cook the best chicken you possibly can. If a chicken has to die it shouldn't be for a nasty soulless nugget. I imagine that if the widespread use of animal protein was more respectful to the dead animal, if we used all the parts, if we cooked it well with some love and soul, and treated it as if it were once alive there wouldn't be such aversion to meat.

Now enjoy these veggie recipes you dirty hippies.

Sweet Potato and Turnip Curry with Spiced Kale

For the curry:

4 white turnips (slice into 1/4'' semi circles)
2 large sweet potatoes (cut similarly)
1 large onion chopped
3 cloves garlic minced
1 tbsp ginger minced
2 cups vegetable broth
1 cup crushed tomatoes
1 cup yogurt
1 tsp cruish red pepper
1 tsp cumin 3
tbsp of your favorite red curry paste
2 tsps olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Place a heavy bottomed pot over medium heat, add the olive oil. Saute the onions, garlic and ginger until they are softened and lightly brown. Add the cumin and crushed red pepper and lightly brown the spices for a minute. Add the vegetable stock, tomatoes, yogurt and curry paste. Stir until combined. Bring the mixture to a simmer. Season with salt and pepper. Add the sweet potatoes and turnips to the mixture cover and continue to simmer on low for 20 minutes.

For the Kale:

1 1lb package frozen kale (spinach works too)
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp crushed red pepper
1 tsp garlic powder
2 cloves garlic minced
2 tsps fresh ginger minced
3/4 cup vegetable broth
1 tsp olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Place a saute pan over medium heat. Add the olive oil and when it is warm add the fresh ginger, garlic, garlic powder crushed red pepper and cumin. Brown for 1 minute. Add the vegetable broth and stir. Season with salt and pepper. When the liquid comes to a simmer add the Kale. Cover and let cook for 8 minutes.

Serve these along side steamed jasmine or basmati rice.

Curry:



Jack says:

Dirty hippie recipe deserves dirty hippie music -

"When I Woke" by Rusted Root

My Big Fat Greek Preplanned Week Long Supply of Dinner

There's no point in cooking unless you're going to cook a lot. Sure I'm only one person, but recipes for one are (a) not worth the effort and (b) make you feel lonely... That's why I like to cook in big batches because I can have a lot of food prepped for the week. If a day comes along and I'm too tired to cook at least I have a delicious pre-prepared meal that saves me money as opposed to eating out.

Over the weeks I've put up a lot of heavy dishes and stews, like meatloaf and chili but as the weather turns warmer people want to eat lighter and suddenly that big old slab of bacon wrapped meatloaf is less appealing. The following recipe for Greek roasted chicken and potatoes doesn't have to be a preplanned dinner for the week, that's just how I use it. It's perfectly fine for any light supper. Here we go:

Greek Chicken and Potatoes

2 lbs assorted chicken parts bone in and skin on (legs, breasts, thighs, whatever you like but you need to buy bone in skin on pieces or the chicken will be dry and tasteless)
1 lemon
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large sprig of rosemary, leaves chopped roughly
2 tsps salt
2 tsps pepper
2 tsps garlic powder
2 tsps dried oregano
2 lbs red potatoes, quartered

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Rinse the chicken pieces and pat them dry with a paper towel. Wash, dry and quarter the potatoes. On a baking sheet arrange the chicken and potatoes so they fit. Drizzle with olive oil and squeeze all the lemon juice out over the top. Sprinkle the rosemary and remaining seasonings over the top and toss the chicken and potatoes until coated. Place in the oven for 25 minutes. After 25 minutes at 400 degrees, place the baking sheet with the chicken and potatoes under the broiler for 5 more minutes. Done.

Before:



After:



Musical Pairing:

Jack says, "Steely Dan, "Aja," for no other reason than I like to listen to Steely Dan when I cook, especially one-dish or one-pot wonders."

Not for the purist.

We've already tackled green chili, so it's about time we moved on to the red stuff. Now, if you're a chili purist, this post probably is not for you. The purists will talk about making sure you use small chunks of beef instead of ground, and insist on using a variety of dried peppers to make a complex "gravy" as they call it. That is all fine and well, it's just not what this is. My chili has ground beef. My chili has tomatoes. My chili has okra? Yeah, I threw some in one day to ramp up the veg count and it came out well, so I kept it. It's also quick and dirty. Sometimes you don't have 5 hours to fire up a bowl of red and you need to get dinner on in an hour or so. If it helps the chili traditionalists out there, think of this more as a thick chili like stew than actual chili. Then again, to hell with the purists. They probably would not regard the green chili I made as chili either. No matter what you call it though, green or red, beans or not, it's delicious.

My 'not' Chili

1.25 lbs ground chuck
1 large onion chopped
4 cloves garlic minced
1 medium green bell pepper chopped
1 28 oz can of crushed tomatoes
1 12 oz can kidney beans (rinse off the nasty bean liquid)
2 tsps cumin
2 tsps crushed red pepper
2 tsps salt
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 lb okra sliced (fresh or frozen)
2 tsps olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

This is easy. Place a heavy bottomed pot over medium-high heat and add the olive oil. Saute the onion, bell pepper and garlic until lightly browned, 4-5 minutes. Add the ground chuck and brown, 10 minutes. Add the garlic powder, cumin and crushed red pepper. Lightly cook the spiced meat mixture for 2 minutes. Add the tomato paste and incorporate into the meat mixture. Stir in the crushed tomatoes. Season with salt and pepper and add the beans. Cover, lower the heat to low and simmer for 45 minutes. Add the okra and stir (if the okra is frozen it will only take about 3-4 minutes to come to temperature, if fresh it will take about 7-8 minutes to cook). Serve with yogurt or sour cream.




*UPDATE*

Jack Every, a trusted music and radio buff, will be providing complimentary musical pairings with each post to enhance the culinary experience.

Jack says, "Seeing that this looks like a good southern-style chili, I'm going to have to go with a good southern-style album, and I promise, it won't be, or ever be, ZZ Top. Listening selection-- "Live Alive" by Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble."

There you have it. ZZ Top out, Chili and SRV in. Enjoy

Sauce me properly.

If you ask around you'll find that the secret to high quality tomato sauce is shockingly simple. The secret: tomatoes and carrots. Let me explain. Since your sauce is minimalist in nature it should be made with high quality ingredients so that the few ingredients may accentuate the pasta. Fortunately, when it comes to canned tomatoes, finding quality is easy. Every Italian cook worth his/her weight in lira will tell you you that San Marzano tomatoes are the best in the world. San Marzano isn't a brand, but rather the name of a commune, nestled in the volcanic soil near Mt. Vesuvius, where the first San Marzano tomato was grown. The tomatoes are especially good for sauce making for two reasons. They are less acidic and sweeter then say, Roma tomatoes, and have a deeper tomato flavor.

However, no matter how less acidic one tomato is than another tomato, it was always be acidic. That's where the carrot comes in. Carrots, much like beets, are full of natural sweetness and using a small amount of carrot in your pasta sauce imparts a sweetness that will offset the acidity of the tomatoes. Since I've already provided a recipe for simple tomato sauce in my fresh pasta post I decided to use make a meat ragout still erring on the side of simplicity.


Bucatini with Turkey Ragout

* Bucatini is a thick spaghetti like pasta with a hole running through the center

1 lb Bucatini
1.25 lbs ground turkey
1 medium size carrot diced
3 cloves garlic minced
1 28 oz can San Marzano tomatoes (crushed, if whole make sure to chop the tomatoes first)
1 tsp ground sage (if you have poultry seasoning leftover from thanksgiving, that works too)
1 tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Cook the pasta according to the package instructions. Place a heavy bottomed pot over medium heat and add the oil. When the oil is heated add the carrot and saute 4-5 minutes until tender. Add the garlic and continue cooking for 1-2 more minutes. Add the ground turkey and saute until brown and cooked through. Season thoroughly with salt and pepper. Add the tomatoes, sage and a ladle or two of the pasta water. Stir, then lower the heat, cover, and simmer for 45 minutes.

Serve immediately with chives or parsley.

Animals wrapped in other animals: Meatloaf wrapped in duck bacon.

My friend Jason, aware of my lack of pork consumption recently turned me on to duck bacon, much like turkey bacon but actually delicious. If you're like me and think that anything with duck fat is delicious, you will love this recipe. This is more decadent than your average meatloaf, so I made a nice accompaniment that balances the richness of the meatloaf.

Duck Bacon Wrapped Meatloaf

2 lbs lean ground beef (93% lean)
1 large onion minced
4 cloves garlic minced
1 medium carrot minced
1/2 cup dry bread crumbs
2 eggs
1/4 cup milk
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1/2 tbsp salt
1/2 tbsp pepper
1/2 tbsp garlic powder
2 tbsp flour
1/2 cup water
1 1/2 cups chicken broth
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the over to 325 degrees. In a large mixing bowl mix the ground beef, eggs, onion, carrot, garlic, milk, Worcestershire sauce, milk, bread crumbs, salt, pepper and garlic powder until combined. Set aside. In a loaf pan layer the duck bacon on the bottom and sides of the pan.



Add the meatloaf mixture and spread evenly. Cover the top with remaining bacon.



*Note I ran out of duck bacon so I had to use turkey bacon...bummer.

Place the meatloaf in the oven for 1 hour. After one hour, the loaf will have shrunk away from the sides of the pan and a large amount of duck fat will have accumulated. DO NOT THROW THIS OUT. Carefully, pour the excess duck fat into a bowl and set aside. Put a baking rack upside down over the top of the meat loaf and flip it over much like you would a cooled cake. Place the rack with the meatloaf on top of the loaf pan. This way the the underside of duck bacon is exposed and can brown in the oven, while the loaf pan catches any more drippings. Place back in the oven for 40 more minutes.

Meanwhile, in a heavy bottomed pot add the duck fat and drippings and chicken broth. Place over medium heat and bring to a boil. In a bowl mix together the flour and water and add to the pot. Bring to a boil, add salt and pepper to taste. Remove from the heat and cover. That's gravy.

When the meatloaf has finished cooking remove it from the oven and let cool for 10 minutes before slicing.







The recession has forced people to be more economical and stretch their budgets when it comes to food and while this meatloaf is clearly not a reflection of that, the accompaniment is. True or false, you can eat broccoli stems? True, and they're delicious when you pickle them.

for the the pickled broccoli stems:

3 cups broccoli stems
2 teaspoons rice vinegar
2 clove of garlic, peeled and minced
1 fresh chili pepper sliced
1/2 teaspoon fresh ginger
1/2 teaspoon coriander seeds, crushed
1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds, crushed
1/2 teaspoon salt

Using a sharp knife, peel away the fibrous skin of the broccoli.






Then cut the pale inside trunk into matchstick-size batons. Blanch for one minute in boiling water, drain and cool under cold running water.

Whisk together the remaining ingredients, pour over the broccoli stems in a large bowl, toss and chill. Refrigerate for two hours before serving.

Serve the meatloaf with the gravy and some of the pickles on the side. The pickles match the meatloaf perfectly. The acidity and brightness of the pickles goes well with the richness of the meatloaf. Enjoy.

Shanking the Lamb.

My father loves lamb. He affirms that it's the main part of his hypothetical last meal. I'm sure it has to do with connecting to his childhood in Pakistan where goat and lamb were as commonplace as chicken and beef. Olfaction is said to be the most acute of all the senses in terms of conjuring memories. So it was no surprise when I cooked dinner for his birthday that the gamy smell of slow cooking lamb wafting throughout the house would bring up pleasant memories for him.

The shank of the lamb, or any animal for that matter, is the section between the knee and the ankle. Lamb shanks have tons of flavor as well as connective tissue and marrow. This makes lamb shanks conducive to slow cooking methods. Slow cooking helps the connective tissue and marrow in the shank really melt and break down into pure deliciousness. Enough talking.

Slow Braised North African Lamb Shanks with Israeli Couscous

for the lamb:

4 Lamb Shanks (about 1.25 lbs. each)
1 large onion sliced
4 large tomatoes chopped
4 cloves garlic sliced
2 cups beef broth
1/2 cup red wine or beer
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 ground coriander (you can substitute an extra 1/2 tsp of cumin)
1/4 tsp chili powder/cayenne pepper
olive oil
salt and pepper
chopped chives for garnish

for the couscous:

2 cups Israeli couscous (it's just like regular couscous but it has larger grains)
2 cups beef broth
1/4 cups slivered almonds
2 tsp olive oil

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Place a large heavy bottomed all-metal pot or dutch oven over medium heat. Coat the bottom of the pot with olive oil. Meanwhile season the shanks on all sides with salt and pepper. Brown the shanks, in batches of two, on all sides, 1o minutes per batch. Remove the shanks from the pot and set aside. Add the onions and garlic and saute until soft and translucent, 3-4 mins. Add the wine or beer and using a wooden spoon scrape off the little bits on the bottom of the pot. Add the tomatoes, beef stock, cumin, coriander, chili powder and season with salt and pepper. Bring the mixture to a boil. After the mixture comes to a boil nestle the shanks in the pot. Cover and place in the oven for 3 hours.

The shanks will be tender and almost falling off the bone. Remove them carefully from the pot. Strain the braising liquid to remove the solids. Return the remaining mixture to the pot and place over medium heat. Simmer the liquid until it reduces by half.

To prepare the couscous place a pot over medium low heat and add the olive oil. When its heated add the couscous. Stir the couscous continually until it turns a light brown color and has a nutty aroma. Then add the beef broth. Bring the mixture to a boil then turn the heat off cover the pot for 7 minutes. Fluff the couscous with a fork and add the almonds.

To serve, scoop some couscous onto a plate. Place the shank on top and pour a few spoonfuls of the reduced braising liquid on top. Sprinkle with the chives.

Marxism, mmmm spicy.

When I was volunteering in New Orleans, after Hurricane Katrina hit, I met this guy Jeff, perhaps the biggest anarchist I ever met. Jeff had this theory that any unnatural societal order was unnecessary. He felt that people would fall into the roles they were best suited for naturally, without having to rely on a government or leader to place them there. While Jeff's theories were often outlandish this one was particularly salient. After two days of gutting houses I was starting to get fed up with the sub par meals, provided for the volunteers, coming out of the makeshift kitchen. On the third day, I went into the kitchen and let the staff know that I had some culinary experience and I would like to lend a hand. As it turned out, most of the people working in the kitchen had little if any cooking experience so they bolted the kitchen to get back to gutting houses. Jeff, it seems, was right.

Left in the kitchen was myself, one assistant and a surprisingly well stocked kitchen, with most of the equipment provided by locals who survived the storm and volunteers. We had 4 industrial sized burners, a refrigerator and a giant steel drum barbecue, but no ovens. Most of the raw ingredients were provided by other relief organizations and local vendors who just wanted to lend a hand. For instance, after gutting one crawfish fisherman's house, he brought about 200 lbs. of crawfish to our site as a thank you. But more often then not we were dealing with produce that was about to turn and that needed to be used immediately. For some reason we always had way too much cauliflower. We would cook it up as hash-browns for breakfast, blend it into beans for stew and so on. But as it it turns out, cauliflower doesn't taste like much. What it does have going for it is that when blended it takes on an incredibly creamy consistency. Which is great in soup and one of these days I'm putting it in ice cream. So here is a recipe we came up with for the volunteers. I've scaled it down from army-of-hungry-volunteers proportions.

Curried Cauliflower and Sweet Potato Soup

1 cauliflower, cut into small pieces
1 sweet potato, cut into 1/2'' cubes
1 medium onion, chopped
3 cloves of garlic chopped
2 tsp of curry powder
1 tsp chili powder or cayenne pepper
1 15 oz. can of chicken broth
1 cup of milk
2 tsp olive oil
salt and pepper

For this recipe do not worry too much about the cut of the vegetables because they are going to get buzzed in the blender. Place a heavy bottomed pot over medium heat and add the olive oil. When the oil is hot add the onions and garlic and saute until tender, 3-4 mins. When soft add the cauliflower, sweet potato and stir in the curry powder and chili powder. When the vegetables are coated add the broth and milk. Simmer over medium heat for 12 mins. Add the soup to a blender and buzz until smooth. That's it. The sweet potato is a nice addition because it adds a pleasant orange color and the natural sweetness offset the spice.