white bean asparagus gratin with saffron

It's late October, and I'm casserole-ing like an aproned housewife. Minus, of course, the large quantities of cream of mushroom soup that so defined my childhood. Ew.

Dinners on Walnut Street pose a special, satisfying challenge. I'm a vegetarian, she's iffy on cheese. I need protein, she hates tofu. I will cook meat as long as I don't have to cut it, look at it or smell it.

So we eat a lot of vegetables.

I am a goddess of stir fries. I have sauteed so many vegetables with so much garlic. My cast iron wok is old and tired. I boil white rice, black rice, green rice, short grain, long grain, couscous, quinoa, freekeh, wheat berries, kasha, farrow. There are infinite combinations of grains and greens, and they are all somewhat boring.

I crave interesting and well-rounded dishes that can stand alone, because lord knows I don't have time for side dishes (when you're a vegetarian, everything is a side dish!). In the summer, I love grain and bean salads, but crunchy red onions are incongruous with these blustery evenings. I want something warm, oozing and piled high with woodsy carbohydrates. The combination of honeyed wheat bread, ricotta cheese and saffron made this casserole subtly sweet and spicy, indulgent, but no surprises.

Recipes that fill my apartment with the smell of earth and buttered bread are in high demand this season. Fall 2009 has been one of startling and disturbing surprises, where the universe has taken my need for measured, gradual transition and blown big, spity raspberries all over it. Amid the sudden change of weather, the sudden death of my grandfather, a sudden car accident and a host of other "suddens", I am finding my self gratefully reminded that my various frets and frowns are largely useless given the frailty of life, and through it all, I'm desperately craving casseroles.

I'm not sure if gratin is truly a casserole, but I'm calling it that because I feel like gratin deserves to be served in something that is flawless, elegant and porcelain, and not my mom's ancient pyrex pan flecked with baked-on remnants of lasagna. This dish was cooked and served in the latter, and is, as such, a casserole.

white bean asparagus gratin with saffron

1 onion, chopped
1 bunch asparagus, cut into 1 inch pieces
2 cups canned or cooked white beans (of your choice)
2 cloves garlic, mashed
several threads saffron
several dollops ricotta cheese
salt and pepper
4 slices honey wheat bread
butter
olive oil

Preheat oven to 350. Soak saffron in hot water for 20-30 minutes. Saute half of the chopped onion and garlic in olive oil until tender. Add in chopped asparagus, and season with salt and pepper. Stir in beans and set aside. Toast 4 slices of bread and crumble in to bread crumbs. Saute the other half of the onion in a good amount of butter, then add bread crumbs. Place bean and asparagus mixture in a buttered baking dish and top with soaked saffron threads. Nestle small amounts of ricotta in the mixture and top with bread crumbs. Bake for 15 minutes, or until bread is brown and crusty.

Wil-Mart

Not doing too much cooking this week cause I'm in sunny San Diego for a work meeting [not to say I haven't been eating, though. Much posting about San Diego restaurants to ensue] I did stumble across this article on the Newsweek website that I found interesting.

As America changes, so does the store where America shops. In Dearborn this week, the world's largest retailer opens a store like no other among its 3,500 U.S. outlets. Walk through the front door of the 200,000-square-foot supercenter and instead of rows of checkout counters, you find a scene akin to a farmers market in Beirut. Twenty-two tables are stacked high with fresh produce like kusa and batenjan, squash and eggplant used in Middle Eastern dishes. Rimming the produce department are shelves filled with Arab favorites like mango juice from Egypt and vine leaves from Turkey used to make mehshi, or stuffed grape leaves.

My extended family loves Wal-Mart, much to my dads chagrin. My Aunt Sana's broken english is the subject of many of our family jokes, and calls it Wil-Mart. We crack up every time.

Believe you me, if Wal-Mart sold fresh fava beans or green almonds in Philly, I would be there in a minute. But rest assured, Wal-Mart and this article are full of bullshit. There is no shortage of kusa in Dearborn. Every corner is either an arabic bakery or produce vendor...their schpiel about not wanting to put out the small businesses is complete crap. Its also nice that they are hiring Arabs at $5.50/hr to stock shelves. Its like saying that Taco Bell is hiring Mexicans to make soft tacos...great!

wilted spinach with fresh cayenne

This dish is my ultimate comfort food. Like all good recipes, it has a history.

During my days with the Student Environmental Action Coalition a few years back, my comrade Markio and I planned a field organizing trip visiting 8 different schools, without having access to a car. The first commandment of student organizing: make lofty, ridiculous plans with no means of implementation.

Our strategy: hop a Greyhound to Cincinnati and beg my mom until she let me use her old Dodge Caravan, a relic of her band mom era. The second commandment of student organizing: when in need, mooch off your parents.

Needless to say, it did not go over well. She refused to let me use her car and my life was over. We had an epic 24 hour screaming match. Not letting me use her car turned into not supporting my activism turned into not loving me for who I am, blah blah. From her perspective, I was a sponge, ungrateful, presumptuous, blah blah. It was one of the worst fight we ever had. And we've fought a lot.

My dad, ever the good guy, felt terrible about the whole ordeal. At 6am, before driving me to the rental car agency at the airport [only to discover that being under 25 made it impossibly expensive] he made me a huge breakfast. I couldn't really stomach the 'iggit el badounis or the strawberry yogurt parfait because I was so upset. It was so sweet of him to do, but it all tasted like cardboard, a terribly unusual phenomena for me. The best I could muster was mushing it all together with my fork to make it seem like I was enjoying them.

But I feasted on these soft, spicy greens with great enthusiasm. They calmed me down, mellowed me out. I ate three, maybe four servings. The nerves left my stomach and I was able to think us out of our predicament.

The moral of this story is not that my mom sucks and my dad rocks. The moral of this story is that your parents love you so you should love them back.

The fact that I made this yesterday has nothing to do with the state of my mental health. I just happened to have a bag of spinach in my fridge that had two days left, max, and some beautiful, waxy cayenne chilies, fresh from Hanako's friend's garden.

I'm certain my dad used Serrano peppers, but I was working with what I had. I used three peppers for one big bunch of spinach and I wish I used two. I also used too much oil...good olive oil is potent stuff and should be used sparingly.

Wilted spinach with fresh cayenne

1 bunch unwashed spinach [not the stuff in plastic bag]
2 fresh cayenne peppers
1tbsp olive oil
1 clove garlic
salt
lemon

Mash garlic with a bit of salt. Saute in olive oil. Chop peppers into largish chunks, and saute with garlic. Turn heat down and let cook slowly for 30 minutes.

Get out another pan to wilt your spinach. To wilt spinach, wash the spinach leaves gently in cold water. You don't need to add water to the pan as the water clinging to the spinach is enough. Put the spinach in the pan and turn on the heat to high and shake the pan until the spinach has wilted.

Add the spinach to the peppers and saute for a few minutes. Put in bowl and toss with a bit of lemon and salt.