Sweet Potato and Black Bean Cakes

I've started this post over several times now.  It's just not coming, but I so want to tell you about these.

I started by thinking that instead of economic depression, I wish these would sweep the world.  Then I wanted to tell you about how they're an all-in-one package.  Inexpensive ingredients, kitchen basics mostly, healthy, tasty, satisfying.  And if you ever find yourself in an adorable Chicago apartment with an only minimally equipped kitchen (as I did last weekend while visiting my sister), you can still pull them off.  Yes, you might have to buy a $4 box grater at the grocery store while you're there getting your sweet potato, but it will be worth it.  A sweet potato, a box grater and a little pan for the garlic and green onions.  The only other thing really is a can of black beans, plus, you know, some spices.  One spice, actually.  Cumin.  So you see how approachable they are? Hardly anything to buy and they're ready quick, too.

I found the recipe on Esi's wonderful blog Dishing up Delights.  She got it from Martha Stewart, but I so prefer to imagine it coming from her kitchen.  Every time I see Martha on television I'm struck by how much interrupting of her guests she does, how overbearing she is.  Esi's blog is not overbearing.  I imagine that cooking with her in California would a relaxed experience.  And this is a relaxed little dish.

While Esi made 4 cakes, I decided to divide the mixture into 8 smaller disks that were intended for pitas.  I'll post the recipe as I made it here, but Esi garnished her patties with a lime and jalapeno spiked sour cream, which sounds delicious.  I decided not to push my luck in the little Chicago kitchen, and popped a can of salsa instead.  So if you want the sour cream, you'll have to go visit Esi to get it.

Sweet Potato and Black Bean Cakes

Oil for the pan

3 scallions, sliced (half a bunch)

4 garlic cloves passed through a press

1 jalapeno pepper, chopped, with seeds and ribs removed

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin

1 15 oz. can black beans, drained and rinsed

Salt and pepper

1/2 sweet potato, grated

1 egg, lightly beaten

1/4 cup breadcrumbs

Warm the oil in a saute pan over medium heat.  Add the scallions and cook for about a minute until they're soft.  This will only take about a minute.  Add the scallions, garlic and cumin and stir until fragrant, about 30 seconds.  Place this mixture into a large bowl.

Add the beans and mash the mixture with the back of a fork, mashing about 75% of the beans, but leaving some of them whole for texture.  Season with salt and pepper.  Add in the rest of the ingredients.  Divide into 8 balls and flatten them between the palms of your hands into patties.

Lay the patties on a greased cookie sheet and broil on one side for about 8 minutes.  Carefully flip, then broil on the other side for about 3 minutes more.  If you're my sister and using that rip-roaring hot broiler of yours, the total time will be 3 minutes, and you won't be able to flip.  They'll still be good.

Pepper and Onion Roast with Soft Indian Spices

I love the sound of "soft indian spices."  It makes me think of ornate fabrics of complimentary colors like pink and orange.  It makes me want to snuggle.  The idea of the title, according to Lynne Rossetto Kasper and Sally Swift in their rightly lauded The Splendid Table's How to Eat Supper, is that the spices here are not overpowering.  But they are flavorful.  And they don't elicit snuggling, they elicit diving.  They lead to the kind of ravenous eating in silence that proves you're both comfortable with the food and with the company.

So this is a good dish to share.  It made me feel appreciative.  When is the last time you can say that about your dinner?  Actually, I can think of one more time, but it hasn't been posted yet, so you'll have to wait and see.  Soon, darlings, soon.

But in the meantime:

Pepper and Onion Roast with Soft Indian Spices

3 large cloves of garlic

2 tightly packed tablespoons of cilantro

1" piece of fresh ginger, peeled and thinly sliced

1 large red bell pepper, chopped into 1/2" pieces

2 large yellow bell peppers, chopped into 1/2" pieces

1 large or 2 medium red onions, chopped

1 cup tightly packed arugula

One 15 ounce can chickpeas, drained and rinsed

1/4 teaspoon cumin

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

1/2 teaspoon ground coriander

2 teaspoons lime juice

Generous pinch of sugar

Salt

3 tablespoons olive oil

To Finish (all are optional)

Lime juice

Cilantro leaves

Plain yogurt

Preheat the oven to 450, and put a large shallow pan (like a baking tray) onto the middle rack.  The pan will preheat with the oven.

In a food processor, combine the garlic, cilantro and ginger and process until fine, but not pureed.  

In a large bowl, combine this mixture with all of the other ingredients except for the finishing elements.  Toss to mix.  Carefully spread the mixture in the pan which is already in the oven.  Roast for 40 minutes, stirring often and scraping up the brown bits on the bottom.  The peppers should be tender, and the chickpeas should be crisp.

Transfer the roast to a serving bowl and top with the finishing elements.  Serve.

Filet Mignon with Red Onion and Tarragon Relish

It occurred to me while making this, that I've made two dishes from Jerry Traunfeld's The Herbfarm Cookbook and both included tarragon.  Which is significant, because I don't cook with tarragon much.  It doesn't seem to have quite taken this country by storm.  As I was chopping the herb for this recipe, I thought it smelled like vanilla.  But as anyone who's tasted it knows, it thinks of itself as anise's more sophisticated older sibling, sharing that same distinctive essential oil tasting of licorice, but combining it with an herbal headiness and mouth-awakening spiciness.  All of this from one little herb.

When buying tarragon, you should look specifically for French tarragon, as opposed to Russian tarragon, which is not as potent in flavor but is easier to grow.  The Russian type will have lighter colored leaves which will be longer, even over two or three inches.  If you can get the good stuff, you'll be rewarded.

And about this dish, I know there's a recession, and so what am I doing preparing filet mignon at home.  I mean seriously.  But these steaks (and several more cuts, actually) were Christmas gifts from my family.  Lucky little girl.

If you're not interested in steak, R ate the leftover relish on potatoes and they would be a unique, assertive addition to a sandwich.

Filet Mignon with Red Onion and Tarragon Relish

Olive oil for the pan

1 large red onion, peeled and thinly sliced

1 tablespoon sugar

1/2 teaspoons salt

1/2 cup red wine, such as Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot

1 1/2 tablespoons sherry vinegar

1/2 cup coarsely chopped fresh tarragon

Pepper

2 - 4 filets mignon

Salt and Pepper

Olive oil for the pan

For the Relish

Heat the oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat, then add the onion, sugar and salt. Cook until the onion is soft, but not brown, stirring often. This should take about 5 minutes. Add the red wine and allow the liquid to gently simmer until evaporated, stirring often. About 5 - 10 minutes.

Add the vinegar and tarragon, stirring briefly. Season with salt and pepper, then set aside.

For the Steaks

Season both sides of the steaks with salt and pepper. Don't hold back, do this like you mean it. Heat the oil in the pan over high heat until the oil starts to smoke. Carefully place the steaks in the skillet using tongs, and cook on the first side for about 4-5 minutes. Flip once that side is a deep brown. Continue to cook on the other side until done to your preference. This was about another 3-4 minutes for me (medium rare).

Transfer the steaks to a warm plate and allow to rest for 5 minutes before serving.

To serve, mound the relish on top of each steak and enjoy.

Notes:

* Remember to bring your steaks to room temperature before cooking so that they heat evenly.

Low Fat Sweet Potato and Ginger Pudding

If you've ever had sweet potato pie, or pumpkin pie, for that matter, you'll be right at home with these puddings.  They're creamy, spicy little sandcastles of sweet potato and ginger, made even more luscious by real maple syrup and one little egg (okay, one large egg).  

These certainly don't taste low-fat, they taste like the best childhood memories of down-home pie without that pesky crust to get soggy.  The addition of candied ginger is not too shabby, either, like a little prize of flavor at the bottom of your cracker jacks.  

The original recipe is meant to serve 8, a bit excessive in this apartment of two.  So I cut the recipe into 1/3, always a risky proposition.  Below is what I did for two puddings.  They were a bit difficult to unmold, and I had to do a little patchwork salvaging once they slipped from the ramekins.  So do remember to butter your dishes well.  If you don't want to deal with flipping them over, you really could just eat them straight from the dishes.

Low Fat Sweet Potato and Ginger Pudding

Serves 2

1 sweet potato

1/2 cup low fat milk

1/4 cup maple syrup

1 large egg

1 1/2 tablespoons flour

3/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground allspice

pinch salt

Scant tablespoon candied ginger, chopped

Extra candied ginger for garnish

Grease two ramekins (I used two different sizes, but all was fine) and set aside.  Clean the sweet potato, cut in half, and drop it into a pot of boiling water for about 25 minutes, until it is very tender.  Remove the sweet potato from the pot and run it under cold water briefly so that it's cool enough to handle and slip off the skin.

In a separate bowl, mix all the other ingredients except the candied ginger.  Put this mixture, along with the sweet potato, into a blender or food processor and blend until smooth.  Mix in the chopped candied ginger by hand.

Pour the mixture into the ramekins (it's fine to fill them to the top), then place the ramekins into a bain marie, in other words, into a large baking dish that is filled with warm water which should come halfway up the sides of the ramekins.  

Into an oven preheated to 350, place the puddings and bake for about 1 hour, until the sides just pull away from the edges (not as much as a cake might, in my experience) and a knife inserted in the center comes out almost clean.

Remove the ramekins from the bain marie and place on a cooling rack for at least 20 and up to 45 minutes, but no more.  Invert onto serving dishes and enjoy.

Notes

* Sweetened or flavored whipped cream would be dreamy on these!

Nantucket Cranberry Pie

There's something I don't understand.  I don't understand why we don't take more notice of the cranberry.  Why it appears in November for Thanksgiving, then inexplicably drops off the face of the earth for the rest of the year, especially since cranberries are harvested in September and October.  In hindsight, I should have put out a notice back at the beginning of the holiday season to grab a few bags and freeze them, since they freeze so exceptionally well.  Then, when it's dark and gray and there isn't a bit of mood-lifting tartness to be had, you can pull them out by the handful and defrost only the ones you intend to use.

I've been hawking this recipe all over town.  Because it's easy.  Because it's beautiful.  Because it redeems the cranberry from mere relish status, moves it over to the center of the plate for once.  No longer the maligned little sister to the attention stealing turkey.  If, however, you're kicking yourself for passing up bags of these ruby jewels a few months ago, this cake has been made with blueberries to great acclaim.  Of course, that leaves the problem of finding blueberries.  

This is a rustic dessert, so don't expect perfect slices.  Just embrace the mound of cranberries and cake that falls onto your plate.  When it's cool, a thin layer of craquelure forms on the top, ready to shatter then dissolve.

The recipe comes from Laurie Colwin's More Home Cooking where it's called Nantucket Cranberry Pie.  Evidently in Nantucket, they're a bit confused about distinctions between pies and cakes.  Or maybe distinctions just don't matter when the outcome is this good.  After all, we're all about breaking down barriers with this one.

Nantucket Cranberry Pie

From Laurie Colwin's More Home Cooking

2 cups chopped fresh cranberries

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

1 1/2 cups sugar, divided

2 eggs

3/4 cup butter, melted

1 cup flour

1 teaspoon almond extract

Spread the cranberries, walnuts and 1/2 cup sugar in the bottom of a 9" or 10" cake pan (or skillet or anything else you might have lying around).  Mix the rest of the ingredients in a separate bowl to form a batter.  Pour the batter over the cranberry mixture and bake in an oven preheated to 350 for around 40 minutes.  Cool a bit in the pan, and enjoy.

Notes:

* Pecans would also be good instead of walnuts

* This is a rustic dessert, so don't expect perfect slices.  Just embrace the mound of cranberries and cake that falls onto your plate.

Baked Spinach Chips

This isn't really a recipe, it's more of a suggestion/experiment.  One which I thought went quite well, actually.  A light, healthy snack for when you're craving salt, but not oil.  They're cheerful, bright green, and paper thin.  The crispiest melt on your tongue like tissue paper in the rain.  Some remained a little more on the moist side (god, I hate that word.  I don't know why.  But I have to use it because that's what they were), but were still salty and tasty.  Please don't expect potato chips, though.  It's still spinach, after all.

And it's not a bad way to put down a bag of baby spinach, either (if you're lazy and buy the bag, and why not?  It's not a real recipe, so you don't need to hold yourself to any standards of hard work).  I stuck with salt for most of them, but one batch got the royal treatment with a little dried basil.  Turns out, spinach loves basil.  And I do too.

Baked Spinach Chips

One bag of baby spinach

Salt

Herbs of your choosing (I tried basel, but experiment and see what you like!)

Pepper, if you like

Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper and lay the spinach in a single layer on top.  Sprinkle with salt, pepper, herbs...

Bake in an oven preheated to 350 for around 7 minutes.  Maybe a bit more, maybe a bit less.  They should turn crispy and wafer thin.  Carefully peel off the paper and enjoy.

UPDATE:  Some readers have had trouble with the spinach sticking.  It's important that you use parchment paper on your baking sheets, as stated in the recipe, to avoid this.  Wax paper and tin foil won't work, and obviously a bare baking sheet won't do it, either.  You can find parchment paper in most good grocery stores or baking shops.

Orange and Apricot Couscous

There is a way to make couscous, an authentic way, described by Paula Wolfert, which requires not only a specialized couscousiere, but many steps of washing, drying, steaming once, drying and steaming again.  You can imagine with each step the little beads swelling more and more completely, filling themselves up with fragrant steam rising from the rippling stew below.  

This process coaxes flavor slowly and patiently into the couscous, without allowing it to clump.  I am sure the results are worth it.  One day, I will be certain.

But for this recipe, the name of the game is quick and easy.  Actually, the name is flavorful and delicious, or bright and summery, or healthy and satisfying.  All of these things, in one delicious package.  Actually, I kind of can't get over how flavorful this couscous is, and that might be because of it's unlikely source.  I'm admitting to my slight hippie tendencies when I tell you that I found the original recipe in Jessica Porter's The Hip Chick's Guide to Macrobiotics.  And if other recipes from this slightly wacky work end up being this good, it will officially be a hidden little gem.  I'll be sure to let you know.

In the meantime, embrace your inner Bohemian and enjoy.

Orange and Apricot Couscous

Adopted from Jessica Porter's The Hip Chick's Guide to Macrobiotics

1 cup couscous (regular or whole wheat)

1/2 cup water

1 cup fresh orange juice (juice from about 1 1/2 large navel oranges)

1/4 cup olive oil

4 1/2 teaspoons red wine vinegar

1/2 teaspoon soy sauce or tamari

Salt

6 dried apricots (or more)

2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger

2 tablespoons raisins (or more)

1/4 medium red onion, diced

toasted pine nuts, optional

Place the couscous in a medium size bowl.  In a saucepan combine the water, orange juice, olive oil and 4 teaspoons of the vinegar, seeing 1/2 teaspoon aside, and a pinch of salt.  Bring the mixture to a boil, then add the dried fruits and ginger.  Let simmer for about 1 minute, then pour the mixture over the couscous and give it a quick stir to make sure to get rid of any dry pockets.   Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and allow the couscous to cook off the heat for about 20 minutes.

In a small pot, bring some water to a boil (about a cup should do) and drop in the diced red onion.   Let it boil for about half a minute, then remove with a slotted spoon to a small bowl.  Toss the onion with the remaining 1/2 teaspoon vinegar and with the soy sauce.  As you stir, the onion with turn a lovely pink color.  When the couscous is finished cooking, fluff it with a fork and add the onion and nuts.  Enjoy with a great big smile.

Notes:

*  This couscous goes particularly well with White Steamed Fish with Fennel and Lime

Steamed White Fish with Fennel and Lime

Sometimes, I manage to make a meal so delicious that I want to shout it from the rooftops.  I'm tempted to call those closest to me just to describe it, just to try to get them to understand how desperately they need to make it too.  It's hard, over the phone, or on gchat, or through e-mail, to really get my point across.  But I'm hoping it will be easier here.

And the reason this is a true winner, something as special as it is, is because not only will the flavor wake you right up out of your winter grays, but it's actually healthy.  This is not the kind of thing that's satisfying because it's forbidden.  It's not about reveling in the momentary pleasure of truly indulging (and of course, there is a place for those more intense encounters in every diet).  Instead, it's the kind of thing you can invite back again and again, knowing it will always serve you well, and leave you feeling nourished and light and thrilled.  This, my dears, is the kind of reciprocal relationship - fun and exciting and healthy - that we always dream of finding.  I wish all of my meals could be like this one.

First, the Steamed White Fish with Fennel and Lime (slightly renamed by me) from Jill Norman's Winter Food.  This is not the shoe leather-dry baked fish you might remember from your childhood or the occasional all you can eat buffet.  It is succulent.  Succulent because it's juicy, flavorful and melt in the moth.  The kind of thing that might run down your chin if given a chance.  And all of this without a moment spent basting.  Pure magic.

Norman makes the recipe with a whole sea bass, but if you're even kind of pinching pennies, tilapia fillets will serve you perfectly well.  And tomorrow, I'll give you the yin to this yang, the Beatrice to this Dante, the Angelina to today's Brad: Orange and Apricot Couscous.  As they say in the biz, stay tuned.

Steamed White Fish with Fennel and Lime

Adopted from Jilll Norman's Winter Food

Serves 2 - 3

1. lb. tilapia fillets

1 teaspoon fennel seeds

2 teaspoons zested lime peel (basically the zest from one lime)

1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes

salt

2 tablespoons olive oil

4 tablespoons fresh lime juice (about the juice from one lime)

On a large piece of tin foil, spread 1 tablespoon olive oil.  Place the fish filets on the oiled foil, making sure there's enough left on the sides to make a package.  Mix the fennel, zest, red pepper flakes and a pinch of salt together.  Make several shallow slits in the fish fillets, and spread the fennel mixture over the top.  Pour the lime juice and the remaining 1 tablespoon oil over the fish.  

Wrap up the fish and place on a baking sheet, then into an oven preheated to 350.  Bake for 25 minutes, then remove the fish, uncover, and return to the oven for another 5 minutes, or until the fish is cooked through and flakes when cut with a fork.  If the fish is done after the first 25 minutes, you don't need to return it to the oven uncovered.  Serve and revel. 

Notes: 

*  Any flakey white fish will do, like tilapia, cod etc.

*  Orange and Apricot Couscous is the perfect accompaniment to this dish

*  If you would like to share the love and feed this to guests, you can prep the fish a bit early, wrap in the tin foil and refrigerate.  Then just slide the package onto a baking sheet and pop it in the oven.

Mango Maple Lassi

When is a smoothie more than a smoothie?  When it's a lassi, of course!  

I always order a mango lassi at Indian restaurants.  But they're dead simple to make at home.  I've given a little spin to the recipe, to capitalize on the beautiful jar of Vermont Maple Syrup I made off with from the farmers market.  

While not traditional, neither am I, so this lassi and I have that in common.   The other thing we have in common is that you're sure to enjoy our company.  You do enjoy our company, don't you?!

Mango Maple Lassi

Makes 1

1 cup plain yogurt

1/2 cup milk (any kind you like)

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon cardamom

1 mango, peeled and chopped

1 tablespoon maple syrup, or more to taste

Chuck it all into a blender and, well, blend.  Drink.  Smile.

Spinach Bouillabaisse

Sometimes space can liquify.  Sometimes, there is almost no distinction between objects and the space they inhabit, or the space that inhabits them, and sometimes space is palpable.  The space that's instantly charged when it's bookended by two people in the throws of infatuation, the intervals between naked branches that form their own irregular shapes on the sidewalk when the sun passes through.  When it is very hot or very cold, space can be heavy or biting, but it is most definitely present.

What happens when you start with a piece of lightly fried (or toasted) bread, on top of which is perched a lightly poached egg?  Two completely separate entities, the quivering yolk still held in place by the thinnest of whites.  But when you ladle a rush of broth and spinach, punctuated by pieces of falling potato, space liquifies and boundaries erase.  Yolks break apart and everything soaks up everything else.  

While the fish bouillabaisse of Marseilles may be more familiar, spinach bouillabaisse is equally traditional and surprisingly satisfying.  Although perhaps not that surprising, since the base is that lightly fried piece of day-old bread and a poached egg.  One way to take the classic breakfast combination into afternoon and evening.  

Spinach Bouillabaisse

Adopted from Jill Norman's Winter Food

2 pounds spinach, discard thick stems

Olive oil for the pan, and a bit more for the bread

1 onion, chopped

2 medium sized potatoes, sliced into 1/4" slices

Salt and Pepper

A few saffron threads, crushed in a morter and dissolved in a bit of water

2 garlic cloves, passed through a press

1 bouquet garni (see note) 

4 slices bread

4 eggs

Cook the spinach in boiling water for 5 minutes, then drain well, reserving the cooking liquid.  Measure out 4 cups (maybe a bit more) and keep warm.  Wring the spinach out, then chop.  In a large pan, heat the oil and sauté the onion for 1 minute.  Don't allow to brown.  Add the spinach and turn in the oil for 5 minutes over low heat.  Add the potatoes, and season with salt, pepper and the saffron.  Add all of this into the still-warm cooking liquid.

Add the garlic and the bouquet garni/herbs in a tea bag, cover the pot and simmer over low until the potatoes are cooked.

Remove and discard the bouquet garni.  In the meantime, heat a bit of oil in a pan and lightly fry the bread.  Poach the eggs in the soup, this will take about 3-4 minutes. 

To serve, place a piece of fried bread in the bottom of each soup bowl, and a poached egg on top of each slice of bread.  Ladle the soup over the top and enjoy.

Notes:

*  I didn't have a bouquet garni, so I put a bay leaf, some herbs de provence, some dried thyme and a bit of rubbed sage into an empty tea bag and allowed it to steep in the soup.  Amounts are up to you based on what you like!

*  The easiest way to poach an egg is to break each egg individually into a small dish like a ramekin and then edge it into the soup.  I submerged one side of the ramekin so that the broth filled it up, and then just slid it out from under the egg.

*  Rather than use canned stock or plain water, I drained the spinach and reserved the water it was cooked in, then measured out 4+ cups for the soup.

*  Need something even quicker and easier?  Buy baby spinach, boil in the water and skip the straining/cutting/sautéing step.  Simply add the rest of the ingredients as written to the boiled spinach in its cooking liquid.

Quick and Smoky Miso Soup

This is a smoky, full-bodied miso soup, with a raspy voice and a penchant for half truths and white lies.  It's the kind of thing you plunge into, like a lake at midnight after the water has turned ink black and you can no longer see the bottom.  It is that enveloping.  If you didn't know better, you'd guess that it came to be only after long hours of building flavor through endless boiling and straining.  You'd guess that this soup really made you work for that first soul encircling sip.  And if you serve this to anyone else, you may as well let them think it.

The secret to this soup is in the stock.  Where usually you might find a recipe calling for dashi, a kind of Japanese soup stock, here you flavor the water with bonito flakes, which are flakes of dried, smoked bonito fish.  After the bonito gives up its salty/smokey flavor to the water, you strain it out for a near instant and deeply flavored broth.  And after all, it is the broth that keeps us plunging back in.

This particular recipe doesn't contain either the typical green onions or tofu, but feel free to add either or both.  Instead, I've given it a shot of arugula, whose assertive personality mellows alongside the wakame.  You might also consider watercress.

I found both the bonito flakes and the wakame at Whole Foods, so they're not so obscure to keep you from creating your own personal pool of miso.

Smoky, Soul Satisfying Miso Soup

Adapted from here

6 cups water

30 grams dried bonito flakes

3 dried shitake mishrooms

3 tablespoons dried wakame, shredded

6 tablespoons miso paste, in this case, red

2 cups arugula

Heat the water in a pot until just ready to boil, then add the bonito flakes.  Turn the temperature down a bit and simmer for two minutes.  Remove from the heat and let stand 5 minutes, then strain the bonito flakes out and discard.  

Add the mushrooms and the wakame and return to heat.  Simmer the soup over low for 20 minutes.  Spoon out the mushrooms and cut into thin strips, discarding the stems.  Return the mushrooms to the soup.

In a small bowl, whisk together the miso paste and a bit of the broth from the post, then pour back into the soup.  Continue to let the soup simmer.  Just before serving, add the arugula and heat just so it wilts.  Serve and dive in.

Persimmon Flowers

This is just a quick note with a not-quite recipe. I first saw this on Esi's wonderful blog Dishing up Delights. But I sliced a few firm persimmons with a mandolin, laid them on a baking sheet and sprinkled cinnamon over the top. Into a 350 oven for 8 minutes on one side, 6 on the other.

UPDATE: When making these, it is very important that you buy the round persimmons, the ones that look more like tomatoes. These can be eaten while still firm. Whereas with the heart-shaped persimmons, you must wait until they are mushy to eat, or they will be too astringent. Baking won't help with that. Nothing will. So remember, if you want to eat them or cook with them while they're still firm, get the round ones.

They puckered up into little flowers when baked, pulled toward the center by that starfish pattern on the raw fruit. If you don't just eat them by the handful, I can imagine them gracing the tops of salads, ice creams, cakes, anything. They're not crunchy, but pleasantly chewy. If you have a dehydrator and crave a real chip experience, that might be a better way to achieve it. But if you're a sucker for cute, here you go.

Super Healthy, Super Duper Tasty, Teriyaki Chicken

I've been trying to be healthy lately.  It's hard.  It's especially hard in the winter, for me, because in the winter my oven calls to be used, calls to slowly warm veggies braised in butter, cakes or cookies.  I find winter fruit harder to eat consistently, and I tire of root vegetables eventually.  Winter flavors.

But it doesn't have to be like this.  For instance, this Teriyaki Chicken is a year-round pleaser and tonight, I discovered that leftover sauce makes steamed kale to die for.  I assume it could do much the same for any wonderful, green vegetable that might not quite stand up on it's own.

So even if you're not interested in the chicken, I hope I can interest you in the sauce.  It's healthy, it's flavorful, and it's sure to brighten up the grayest of days and the grayest of diets.

Teriyaki Chicken

Adopted from here

Teriyaki Sauce

2/3 cup balsamic vinegar

2/3 cup agave syrup

2 teaspoons freshly chopped ginger

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

2 teaspoon red miso

2 teaspoon mirin

2 tablespoons water

In a small saucepan, over medium heat, bring the balsamic vinegar, the agave and the pepper to a boil.  Reduce the heat and simmer for 10 minutes.  Allow to cool, then add the rest of the ingredients.

For the Chicken

2-4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (depending on how many you want to make, of course!)

Cilantro, for garnish

Scallion, for garnish

Place chicken breasts into a gallon ziplock back along with most of the sauce.  Keep some sauce aside to serve with the chicken, and if you make fewer breasts, you can keep even more for some veggies.  Marinate the chicken in the refrigerator for a few hours, and up to overnight.

Either grill or panfry the chicken (time depends on the size of the piece) and serve with a sprinkling of cilantro, scallion and a drizzle (or a flood) of the reserved teriyaki sauce.

Beet Leaf Holopchi for Recipes to Rival

This month, with this recipe, I have had my horizons sufficiently broadened.  While we're used to the concept of bread as a main ingredient in such dishes as egg-soaked pain perdu, tomato-soaked panzanella, and fruit-soaked summer pudding, in the Ukrainian dish holopchi, bread isn't soaked at all.  Instead, it's baked in a wrapping of beet greens, which bar the dill-spiked cream sauce, added just before serving, from fully infiltrating the center.  

Pure peasant food, defined by using what's left.  If you're wondering where to find beet greens, think the tops of beets, which you can save for another purpose.  And in the absence of meat, a fluffy bread dough expands the packages into little pillows of green and red: beet leaf and vein.  Since R and I don't have any fields or farms to tend, the sauce provided a bit more sustenance than our lives require.  So instead of 2 cups heavy cream, I used light.  And instead of 1/2 cup butter, I coated the pan with about a tablespoon.  The dill is the real star of the sauce anyway, so don't skimp on the fresh stuff.

  

If you think you don't like this kind of thing (and how would you know, really, as I for one have never seen anything like it), be open to the possibility that you're wrong.  It's surprisingly tasty, although not particularly assertive.  But isn't white bread meant to be mellow?  Mellow and nourishing, a so-old-it's-new-again use for the staff of life.

You can find the recipe here.  It makes a huge amount, seriously, huge.  So either plan on feeding the farm or cut it in half.  However, I'd suggest making the full sauce recipe.