hmm

I should probably update this blog!

Ratatouille

From 2008-food

Last summer I first started to fall for eggplant. I had always disdained them except when disguised under mounds of cheese in eggplant Parmesan. I'd reluctantly eat a few spoonfuls of baigan bharta when my sister made dinner. Baba ghanoush was just a sad substitute for hummus. Then on a warm summer evening in Washington D.C. at Zaytinya--I tried Ímam Bayildi, roasted eggplants with tomatoes and onions. It was creamy, fragrant with garlic...basically, really good! I'm not sure why I started liking eggplant, but I've bought them almost every week this summer and made steamed eggplant with lemon vinaigrette, thai curry with eggplant, sauted eggplant with lots of olive oil, baba ghanoush, (broiled eggplant from Moosewood Low-Fat Favorites--it wasn't very good), and now ratatouille.

Ratatouille is a wonderful late summer dish since zucchini, eggplants, tomatoes, and bell peppers are abundant and perfectly ripe in the farmer's market at this time of the year.

Makes about 3-4 cups (enough for 2 main courses or 4 as sides)*

3/4 lb small eggplants (preferably the long, skinny ones, but any kind should be ok)
3/4 lb zucchini (any kind--I used a mix of pattypan and eight ball)
1 large onion
1 large bell pepper (red, yellow, or orange)
4-5 large cloves garlic, coarsely sliced
2 medium tomatoes
2-3 tbsp good olive oil
fresh herbs (thyme, oregano, parsley, chives) or dried thyme and oregano
salt and pepper
a little tomato paste (probably 1/2 - 1 1/2 tsp)

some additional fresh herbs and grated fresh Parmesan cheese for garnish (optional)

1. Cut up eggplants, zucchini, onion, and bell pepper into medium to large dice (bite size).


2. Boil some water, cut an X through the skin in the base of the tomatoes, and boil for about 30 seconds each. Remove the tomato skins. Coarsely chop the tomatoes.


3. Heat the oil on medium high heat in a large pan, preferably a large, enamel-coated, cast iron dutch oven. Add all the vegetables except tomatoes and brown them.


4. Once they start to brown lower the heat a bit and continue to saute until the onions are softened and translucent. Add some salt and pepper to taste (I think I used about 1/2 - 1 tsp total) during this time. At this point add the tomatoes and any herbs you want (I'm guessing about 1/2 to 1 tablespoon fresh or 1/3 that amount dried). Once the tomatoes cook down more, taste, and if the mixture doesn't take 'tomato-y' enough, add some tomato paste, 1/2 tsp at a time. Continue to cook until all the vegetables are softened, covering if necessary and/or adding some water to un-stick anything from the base of the pan.

(adapted from Smarter Than Pancakes's version and Mark Bittman's in How to Cook Everything)

Notes:

• I'd use the full 3 tbsp since eggplants absorb a lot of oil.
• While fresh herbs are the best for this dish, dried thyme works fine, too.
• Parsley and freshly grated Parmesan cheese make a nice garnishes.
• Should easily double, though you may want to brown the veggies in two batches (using half the oil each time) to make sure they brown vs just steam.
• Amount of vegetables is flexible. I used roughly equal amounts of eggplant and zucchini and slightly less onion and bell pepper.
• As Shaye suggests chickpeas would be a good addition for protein. Also her suggestions to use as a main with polenta, rice, or quinoa or as a filling for omelettes sound good, too. :)

Really fast, crispy roast potatoes

From 2008-food

I am impatient. I also love potatoes. This is how to turn potatoes into crispy nuggets of happiness.

1 or more* pounds of waxy potatoes like reds, Peruvian purples, or Yukon golds
1 or more tablespoons olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Poke some holes in the potatoes (so that they don't explode) and either boil in salted water until just cooked through (should be able to stick a fork in the potato without too much resistance) or microwave until similarly cooked through.

Preheat the oven to 425F.

Let the potatoes cool slightly and cut into bite-size chunks. (Gently) toss with oil (about 1 to 2 teaspoons per pound). Spread out on a piece of parchment paper (or silpat) on a jelly roll pan (10" x 15", I think). Sprinkle with salt and pepper--be generous with the salt if you didn't use salted water to cook the potatoes. Potatoes need a lot of salt.

Bake for 15-30 minutes** until crispy on the outside. You may want to flip the chunks over half way through the cooking time so both sides brown evenly.

Serve with ketchup. :)

*Make more. You will eat them all.
** I wasn't paying attention at the time, so I'm not sure how long it took. It was at least 15 minutes and less than 30 minutes.

Other notes:

• If the potatoes are finishing too quickly, remove from the oven when they are just about done. Put them back in 5-10 minutes before serving to re-crisp them.
• You can also use left over boiled potatoes. They may take slightly longer to bake if they are room temperature or colder.
• You can toss the potatoes with other herbs like thyme, rosemary, chives.
• Crash-hot potatoes are another great crispy roasted potato recipe.

A nice (Indian) beef curry

From 2008-food

I love Indian food, but I'm a little more wary of eating it out because I find I have a hard time making sure it's actually safe for me to eat--although most dishes should be fine. I regularly read the blog Tigers & Strawberries* and saw Barbara's post for "a nice beef curry" and knew I just had to try it. It came out really well and seems to be very freezable, so I'm sure I'll be making it again. It reminded me a little of rogan josh, a very rich, meaty sauce, a little creamy, very indulgent...for me it tasted like something I might get a restaurant (that's a good thing). I made it pretty much as written, with a few changes since I'm cooking for one person and I didn't have some of the ingredients at home. My notes:

• halving it turns out about 4 1 cup servings.
• substituted: 2% yogurt for whole milk yogurt, 1/4 cup Muir Glen tomato sauce for the 1/2 cup diced tomatoes, some dried ginger for fresh, and left out the fennel seeds and paprika since I didn't have any.
• Really, really have everything ready to go because you'll burn your seeds if you put them in and hope to quickly chop up the beef before the seeds pop.
  
• It's probably not the best idea, but I pureed the paste and onions in my coffee grinder because I didn't want to dirty another dish. Next time I might just add all the liquid, remove the meat, and use my hand blender.
• I needed to brown the meat in batches since my stove doesn't get super hot, and I didn't have a huge surface area.
• I cut the pieces smaller (closer to 3/4" cubes) which I liked. It was falling apart after about 2 hours of simmering. I had to add some water to thin the sauce.

*I love her blog. Pretty much every week I see something that I'm just dying to make.

Zadin and Coco 500 Reviews

I ate at Zadin and Coco500 recently. Both were great gluten-free experiences. I'm sure I'll be back to Zadin very regularly. I've linked to my reviews on Yelp, and I started a list to track restaurants that are Gluten-free friendly. I imagine I may need a *not friendly* list at some point as well.

Pizza, first attempt

Friday night I decided I was going to try to make gluten-free pizza, using this pizza crust recipe from Recipezaar that Debby found. I even went the store and bought vegetables and pizza. Sadly, I forgot the cider vinegar and yeast until after the store was closed. Not one to give up over such minor problems, I decided to try this pizza crust recipe from Bob's Red Mill instead since I had all the ingredients. I used the Bob's Red Mill GF flour mix instead of the garfava and tapioca flours it called for. It seemed like a reasonable substitution to me since the flour mix has a lot of garfava and tapioca flour in it.

Not that I have lots of experience, but gluten free bread is weird: it seems like most recipes call for at least one egg and they are often batter-like in consistency. I used Muir Glen pizza sauce (super yummy), grated mozzarella and parmesan cheese, and a mix of onion, mushrooms, and red bell pepper that I sauteed before adding to the pizza. The crust turned out, well, just ok. It was edible and made a good surface for the pizza toppings but I had no desire to eat the crust. It was weird and slightly egg-like. I'm sure it's a good recipe for what it was: no yeast, no gluten, but I'm going to keep looking.

So far I've been happiest with foods that are naturally gluten free like rice noodles in Asian food. I did have the most amazing chocolate chip cookies at work; apparently they buy them from a local business in Palo Alto, so I might see if I can convince them to make a special batch for me. The cookies didn't taste funky at all and were a little crisp. It's good that I miss cookies more than bread. I may try thick corn tortillas as a pizza crust next time; another blog recommended the idea and Primavera makes some nice, thick, homemade ones at my grocery store.



Here's the crust right after the initial baking: it looks more like a puffed pancake than bread (I think that's the egg effect). I should have taken a picture before baking: it's this stick batter that you spread out over the sheet.




A close-up of the tasty part of the pizza. Still, all-in-all it was nice to sit down (very late) with a slice of pizza, glass of wine, and bowl of the Rocky Road ice cream that was left after Dad's visit. And I'm sure I'll eat the leftovers.

Now gluten free...

So yeah, I have celiac sprue, so maybe I'll finally post more often. Gluten free foods that I like so far (beyond the obvious naturally gluten free stuff like fruits, veggies, and meat):

• Corn thins. So far I haven't tried any bread. This substitutes fine for me. I wasn't much of a bread eater except for in really good wood-fired pizza and really fresh baguettes.
  

Well, that's about it so far. I've made some pancakes from Pamela's Pancake and Baking mix. They're ok, especially if liberally coated in maple syrup. I also made her brand of brownies. If they are very cold I like them pretty well, though they sometimes taste a little gritty to me...which is not a texture I'm generally expecting in brownies.

I've had to give up my two favorite kinds brands of chocolate bars: Valrhona (sp?) bittersweet and Cacao et Chocolat's Guarya and Cascabel bars. The latter are only available in Paris but were soo good. I think the deal is that both companies mold their chocolate in wheat starch. gah. Fortunately there's still good stuff like Dagoba that's safe to eat.

Next up: I'm going to try to make banana bread (or muffins) and rice krispie treats--turns out regular rice krispies have malt flavoring or something which is a no-no. Malt is derived from wheat.