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.

sweet potato wraps

One might term this dish "weeknight" dosa.

One might think of flour tortillas as dosa's fat, balding cousin.















Subbing tortillas for the delicate, lacy crepes of which dosa are traditionally made is, without a doubt, cheating. I happen to know, however, that a similar shortcut is practiced by a certain Indian restaurant that sells fantastic samosas to my dad's store, which, on cold market Saturdays, are snatched off the shelves by noon. Customers clamor for the pockets of potatoes and curried peas, the deep fried tortilla crusts go unnoticed, if not adored.

Somehow, knowing this secret makes me feel less dirty.

Tortillas brushed with a cumin-infused roux will hardly offer the crisp crack of an authentic dosa. The tortillas were a little gummy, and lacking that satisfying give a properly browned crepe offers. But having neither fermented rice flour, nor any real knowledge of South Indian cooking, these wraps were a hearty, tasty weeknight substitute for a meal normally reserved for special occasions. [Like Christmas 2008. My dad doesn't know a christmas turkey from a christmas tagine, and so we ate rice cakes at Udupi Cafe in Cincinnati with the Indians and Jews on December 25th of last year].

Provided that you can stomach a little cultural inauthenticity, these wraps are complex, flavorful and fast.

masala sweet potato wraps

1 large sweet potato, cubed
2 large leeks
2 cloves garlic
2 tbsp. ginger
turmeric
mustard seeds, toasted
2 tortillas
a small bowl of water combined with 2 tbsp of flour, a bit of cumin, tumeric and mustard seeds, mixed to a thin paste

Parboil sweet potatoes for 5-7 minutes, or until tender. Heat oil in a pan, saute garlic and ginger, and when garlic sizzles, add leeks. Add in cooked sweet potatoes, and top with turmeric and mustard seeds. Set aside.

Brush tortillas with paste. Heat a large skillet with a good amount of oil until sizzles when a drop of water is added. Fry tortillas until they are browned on both sides. Spread with coconut chutney and add sweet potato filling.

lazy american coconut chutney

2 tbsp grated coconut, chopped fine
1 tbsp coconut milk
1 tsp mustard seeds, toasted and popped
dash curry powder
dash red pepper flakes
bit of salt

mix ingredients together until they are a thick paste, and spread on dosas before adding filling.

How to eat for a week....

On two boxes of grape tomatoes, and a hunk of cheap mozzarella

You may have noticed that I haven't yet posted my supposedly fabulous recipe for vegetarian kibbeh. Yeah, it needs a little work. The end result was a delicate touch of parsley and mushroom sauté [actually leftover filling from stuffed mushrooms] sandwiched between two think layers of a gummy, grey mass. My lousy rendition of kibbeh used barley couscous mashed with a potato and half a jar of cumin and coriander each, to make it taste like something. Whole-grain barley couscous was not a hit at my dad's store, and as such, I have about 15 boxes on my shelf. As much as I wanted couscous and bulgar to be the same thing, they clearly are not.

My kibbeh was...heavy. I ate it, of course, but it wasn't very good.

And then there was "fun with indoor grilling" adventure I had last week. Thinking that I could fashion my own inexpensive grill pan by placing the teensy rack from our toaster oven directly on our gas stove gives me points for ingenuity, but I was not winning any cooking contests. I brushed corn on the cob and red peppers with a spicy yogurt based marinade and chard them until they were black. And they tasted, well, burnt. And chewy. And boring. My roomates were also not thrilled that I f-ed up the toaster oven rack, and it took a full week until the kitchen was restored to full usability.

It was time, I decided, to do something simple. There are whole books written about how to cook with three ingredients and a drizzle of olive oil. As fun as it is to invent new combinations of flavors and textures, its important to honor the old standbys, the tried and trues. And so, here is one weeks worth of tomato basil ideas, all of which were fabulous and satisfying.

For all of these, I used quality Lebanese olive oil and generous sprinklings of course sea salt. Good olive oil is key. If you wouldn't take a shot of it straight, its probably not worth your time.

Monday: Tomato Basil Mozzarella Salad
Ann took the reigns on this one, diced the tomatoes and mozzarella, and chopped the heck outta some basil. It was almost as fine as being run through the food processor. My original vision was a chunkier salad, but this turned out to be really great, almost like a salsa that you can eat on its own, or spooned on a cracker.

Tuesday: Tomato Basil Sandwich
Just like it sounds, with a smear of mayo and some salt and pepper.

Wednesday: Tomato Basil Omelet
What a little light cream can do. I wisked 3 eggs with about 2 tbsp light cream and my eggs were rich and fluffy. I considered sauteeing the filling before I put it in the omelet, but I decided on putting them in fresh instead. It was a good choice-the tomatoes were tender in the omelet, but still had some shape and the basil was fragrant and pungent.

Thursday: Bruschetta
On rosemary bread,and diced tomatoes again, but I just tore the basil and sliced the mozzarella because I was short on time. The key with this was to drizzle the bread with olive oil before and after adding the tomatoes and basil and sticking it under the broiler until the cheese melted and the bread got crispy. Oh my, was it a treat.

Friday: Tomato Basil Pasta

Olive oil. Salt. Spaghetti. Thats it!

Saturday: Tomato Basil Couscous
I used fresh tomatoes, but it would be particularly tasty with sundried tomatoes.

Sunday: Stuffed Tomatoes
The last of my basil will get mixed with breadcrumbs and cilantro and set stuffed into the hollowed out shell of a tomato. Recipe to follow [provided that all goes well].

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.