Goat Cheese and Beet Dip

We attended a birthday party recently where one of the guests brought a delicious roasted beet and goat cheese dip. Even the beet-haters loved it, so we asked for the recipe. Turns out it was from Dave Leiberman of the Food Network.

The flavor of the beets is enhanced by roasting the beets and by the addition of chives and thyme. Here's the recipe:

Ingredients

• 2 medium beets, leaves trimmed, or 1/2 pound roasted beets from deli or salad bar
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 4 sprigs thyme
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 4-ounce goat cheese
• 1 small bunch chives, finely sliced
• 1/2 lemon, juiced
• Crostini, crackers or bread sticks

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

If using raw beets, wash them clean of sand and dirt. Set aside to air dry or dry well with a towel or paper towel. If using roasted beets, proceed to food processor step.

Toss the beets in a mixing bowl with oil, thyme, a few pinches of salt and about 15 grinds of pepper.

Turn the beets out onto a baking sheet and roast until fork tender, shaking the pan occasionally to insure even cooking, about 40 minutes.

Remove beets from oven and set aside to cool. (You can do this up to a couple days ahead of time if you store them sealed in the refrigerator.)

Remove and discard the skins from the beets. Cut beets into quarters. Add the beet quarters to a food processor or blender. Pulse a few times until beets are roughed up into small but still chunky pieces.

Dump the blended beets into a serving bowl. Crumble the goat cheese into the beets and add the chives and lemon juice. Toss together and season with salt and pepper, to taste.

Serve with crostini or breadsticks.

A Gorgeous Veggie Centerpiece

For a recent dinner, our friend Chris Stinson dispensed with flowers and made a beautiful centerpiece featuring ruffly green kale, svelte red peppers, and curly leaves of purple cabbage. The deep colors and rich textures of the vegetables combined for a mouthwatering still life and put us much more in the mood for dinner than any flowers could have. At the end of the evening, Chris split up the centerpiece and gave the goodies to her guests. Naturally, we made kale chips.

Freaky Freekeh (Yes, You Read that Right)

We thought we knew every edible grain that the planet had to offer, but guest blogger Amy Friedman proved us wrong. Check out her recipe for freekeh (also known as "farik." (This is also a good example of the "try, try again" approach to cooking.)
Amy writes:
I did some experimenting a few weeks ago with freekeh, which is smoked, unroasted wheat (the same kind that's used for bulgur). Some friends had raved about it, so we bought some, but I hated it—just thought it tasted awful. So I decided to think up a way to make it palatable and came up with a solution that wound up being quite tasty.  Last night I cubed some chicken breasts and mixed them in, and it came out great. It's good on its own or as a side dish or quick lunch. (Next time I'll see if diced tofu works in there.) I suspect any hearty grain would work in the mix—just substitute cup for cup.


Freaky Freekeh

1 c freekeh, soaked per instructions
1 medium chopped onion
3-4 oz. mushrooms, chopped
1 8 oz can creamed corn
1 16 oz can diced tomatoes
½ cup (appx) chicken broth
olive oil for sautéingspices to taste: white and black pepper, red pepper flakes, garlic powder, cumin, fennel


Sauté onions and mushrooms in olive oil for three to five minutes over med-high heat.
Pour in creamed corn, continue to sauté until combined and starting to simmer.
Pour in diced tomatoes, continue to sauté until combined and starting to simmer.
Pour in the grain, stir to combine.
Pour in the chicken broth. Should feel like a thick-ish stew, not watery. Use less broth if it starts to get watery – you can add more later. 
Simmer for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the grains seem cooked through. 

Balsamic-Parmesan Salad Dressing

Are you as sick of balsamic vinegar salad dressings as we are? Don't get us wrong—the mellow, aged vinegar is wonderful stuff, but we unthinkingly overused it for years, to the point that we almost stopped tasting it. And when we did taste it, the rich flavor seemed cloying. So our big bottle of balsamic vinegar gathered dust on the back of the shelf.

That changed when we came upon a recipe that added a bit of Parmesan cheese, adding an extra layer of flavor to a pretty simple balsamic-and-olive-oil dressing. This has become our go-to salad dressing in recent weeks, but we're going to be careful not to overuse it and get sick of it.

The recipe is from the tiny but excellent Very Salad Dressing, by Teresa Burns.

Italian Parmesan Salad Dressing

1/3 cup balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1 1/2 T. lemon juice
2 scallions, green part only, chopped
2 t. Worcestershire sauce
2 cloves garlic
1 T. fresh oregano or 1 t. dried oregano
1/2 cup plus 1 T. olive oil
Dash of hot sauce
Salt and pepper

1. Using a food processor, combine the vinegar, cheese, lemon juice, scallions, Worcestershire sauce, garlic, and oregano. Blend until the scallions and oregano are finely chopped.

2. While the food processor is running, slowly add the olive oil, and combine until the mixture is emulsified.

3. Stir in hot sauce, and salt and pepper to taste. Chill.

4. Let stand at room temperature for five minutes before serving.

Makes 1 1/2 cups.

No Need to Knead This Delicious, Easy Bread

Mark Bittman's recipe for No-Knead Bread may end up being his greatest legacy to cooking. Removing the tedious chore of kneading from breadmaking, the recipe is justifiably famous and has spawned scores, if not hundreds, of imitations.

We tried it ourselves not long ago, and although we were pleased with the bread we made, our friends Chuck Miller and Phil Van Kirk tweaked Bittman's recipe and came up with a version we like even better. Incorporating wheat germ, this bread is a bit denser than Bittman's, and it's tastier when it cools. Like Bittman's bread, it features a crackling, crunchy, irresistible brown crust. And it's jaw-droppingly easy. All you need are a few hours to let the dough rise.

Because the recipe requires us to run the oven at 450 degrees for almost an hour, we like to save energy by making two loaves at a time and freezing one until we need it.

No-Knead Bread

1/2 t. yeast
1/2 t. sugar
1/4 cup warm water
2 cups warm water

4 cups unbleached flour
1/2 cup wheat germ
2 t. salt

1. Mix yeast and sugar in 1/4 cup warm water, and stir to break up any yeast lumps.

2. Put two cups of warm water in a large bowl, and add the yeast/sugar mix. Stir a little to distribute the yeast.

3. In a separate bowl, mix the flour, wheat germ, and salt.

4. Slowly pour the flour mixture into the yeasty water, mixing with either a wooden spoon or your hands.

5. Cover the mixed dough with plastic wrap and set in a warmish place. (We've found that if we put it in the oven with the light on, that works great.)

6. After five hours or so, the dough will have risen considerably. Turn it out on a floured work surface, dust it with flour, and fold it over itself a few times. (The dough will be extremely sticky.) Put it back in the bowl, and return it to its warm spot.

7. After two more hours, the dough will have risen again. Remove it from the oven. Turn the oven on to 450 degrees, and put a Dutch oven or another covered dish into the oven to heat up. Make sure that the pot you use can withstand the high temperatures; plastic handles will melt. We use a Calphalon Dutch oven, but Le Creuset would also work well.

8. When the oven (and pot) are hot, carefully remove the pot from the oven and, using a spatula, scrape the dough into the pot. Let it bake with the cover on for 35 minutes.

9. After 35 minutes, remove the cover and let the bread bake for an additional 15 minutes.

10. When the bread is done, let it cool on a rack as long as you can stand it before tearing off a piece for yourself. Butter and honey make particularly fine accompaniments.

Makes one good-size loaf.

Make It Yourself: Vinegar

Yes, vinegar is plentiful and often cheap if you buy it in the store. And we do: rice, sherry, balsamic, pear, you name it. But we've had trouble finding a good red wine vinegar. The cheap stuff is sour and awful, and even the expensive stuff can taste a little harsh if you grab the wrong bottle, as we so often seem to do.

At the same time, we frequently end up with dribs and drabs of leftover red wine—the end of a bottle that never manages to get used for cooking, the half-glasses abandoned after a dinner party.

We were ruefully tossing a guest's half-full glass one evening when we remembered that back in Connecticut our friend Ruth Lively made her own red wine vinegar using a little oak cask she'd bought. We remembered that the little barrel made mellow, lovely vinegar. So we decided to get one of our own.

We turned to the Internet, which did not disappoint. Two-liter (and larger) casks were available at Oak Barrels Ltd.

The company recommends buying toasted oak for red, robust vinegar and non-toasted for white.

 The process of vinegar making is incredibly simple: Simply add your base (wine, cider), your starter (appropriately called "mother of vinegar" and also available online), and some water, and wait two months.

We waited eagerly for the weeks to pass, and after they had, the resulting vinegar was just as smooth and rich as we remembered Ruth Lively's to be.

So there will be no more wasted wine at this house, and lots more delicious salads.

* Photo from oakbarrelsltd.com/

Mindful Eating: You Don't Have to Be a Monk to Try It

Today's New York Times Dining section has a wonderful story on mindful eating that ranges from the techniques of Buddhist monks to everyday tips for the rest of us. Check it out! You'll be inspired to spend more time noticing what you put in your mouth.

Be sure to check out the story today if you aren't a NYT subscriber; tomorrow it goes behind the paywall!

Last Minute Appetizers: Quick & Easy Bean Dips

We would find it hard to believe that the Super Bowl crept up on anyone, but let's imagine for a minute that the host of a party got sick and you volunteered to take on the hosting duties. Here are two very easy dip recipes for the big game that will tax neither your wallet or your cooking ability.

Complementary white bean and black bean dips for chips: preparation time, mere minutes.

Ingredients:
1 can (15.5 oz.) white Great Northern, Navy or Cannellini beans (Great Northern or Navy preferred), drained
1 can (15.5 oz.) black beans, drained
1 medium onion, divided into two halves and chopped
1/2 teaspoon salt, divided in two
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon white pepper (or black if you have no white pepper)
1/2 teaspoon ground sage
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
3 Tablespoons Parmesan cheese
4 garlic cloves
1 4.5 oz. can chopped green chiles, drained
1/4-1/2 cup sliced green onion tops

Recipes:
For the White Bean Dip
In a food processor, combine the white beans, half the onion, Parmesan, half the salt, white pepper, and 2 garlic cloves and pulse until smooth. Taste for seasoning and adjust. Then remove to a bowl, cover and refrigerate.

For the Black Bean Dip
In the food processor, combine the black beans, half the onion, green chiles, black pepper, cumin and 2 garlic cloves. Pulse until smooth. Taste for seasoning and adjust. Remove to a bowl, cover and refrigerate.

Assemble
In the spirit of opposing teams, spoon the black dip into one half of a serving dish. Then spoon the white dip into the other half. Garnish the dish with the sliced green onion tops, especially covering the middle where the two dips meet.

Serve with your favorite chips.

Our Wine Philosophy

 "Drink good wines habitually and fine wine occasionally."

—Andre L. Simon, wine writer and author of A Concise Encyclopedia of Gastronomy

Use Gourmet Cookware As Plateware

We saw a clever idea for a dinner party in the latest issue of Wine Enthusiast magazine. Use your special gourmet cookware or some other non-traditional item as a serving platter or as plateware.

For example, you could use a picture frame with an appropriate photo as a serving platter, e.g. Sushi served on a frame with a photo of a beach or the sea.

Or if you have similar Le Creuset pans, use them as plates for a hot entrée.

One we've seen in restaurants lately is the small-single serving of dessert in a shot glass for those who don't want to overindulge in sweets.

Bargain Wine of the Week: 2009 Bordeaux?

As a blog that preaches “eat cheap,” and exalts good wines costing less than $10, Eat Well, Eat Cheap doesn’t get much of a chance to talk about wines from Bordeaux, the most acclaimed wine region in the world.

It might not be the birthplace of wine, but it is certainly the Mecca of wine. Both because of the marketing value of its name and the actual greatness of its wine, Bordeaux wines are so expensive that four figures is not an unusual price.

But if you’ve been watching your online wine bargains lately, you would be excused for wondering whether the decimal point had been misplaced. $10.99, or even $9.99, is not uncommon for more than a few 2009 and 2010 Bordeaux bottles.

So, what gives? Are these wines any good? The answer, as is so often the case, is yes and no. Yes, there are Bordeaux bargains to be had. But no, not every $10 Bordeaux is worth even that miserly price. The new, lower prices are the result of lots of factors, but mostly it’s because the world’s wine regions produce an oversupply of wine and because 2009 and 2010 were good years in Bordeaux, both in quantity and quality. Only bad wine makers shipped bad Bordeaux in these years, so that’s good news for wine drinkers who want to try a Bordeaux that they normally wouldn’t even consider.

What to do? It’s somewhat difficult because the big names of Bordeaux are not dropping anything on the market at a reasonable price. And when you get into the unknown cousins of grand cru who live out in the Bordeaux burbs, the names are mysterious and the quality can be anything from rags to silk.

There are lots of DOCs (appellations or sub-regions) even within Bordeaux. Some you might look for are: Cote de Castillon, Cote de Blaye or Entre Deux Mers. These DOCs are all on the right bank of the Gironde River that splits the region. As with all Bordeaux output, the wines are blends of several grapes, but the Right Bank wines are typically Merlot blended with Cabernet Franc.

You still might have trouble finding a good Bordeaux for less than $10, but you could certainly find good bottles for less than $20 or $30.

These outlying DOCs, including the ones mentioned above, are the place to look. And while there is a big argument in rarified wine circles about whether ’09 or ’10 is the better vintage, our recommendation in the short-term is to go with an ’09, because they tend to be slightly fruitier and less tannic than the ’10s. The 2010 wines will be great, but they probably need a little time in the bottle.

Still confused about what to buy? Good, because there’s a lot of Bordeaux swill out there on the shelves.

With some help from our friend Paul Spring and lots of reviews, here are two suggestions:

1. If you see one or two reasonably priced ’09 Bordeaux bottles on the shelf of your local store or at your favorite online merchant, Google that wine and vintage to see what other online merchants and reviewers are saying about it. If they’re silent, stay away. If several are praising it, buy away.

2. Go to the biggest wine merchant in your area — one where they sell at least some Bordeaux wines — and tell them that some knucklehead who writes a wine blog said there are good ’09 Bordeaux wines to be had at decent prices and could he recommend one or two?

Take a chance. Buy a bottle or two at whatever price you can afford. Better yet, buy two and lay one down for 10 years in your cool cellar. If the first one tastes great now, go buy a case and put it away for a while. It will only get better.

You might not get a chance again for many years to put some inexpensive but good Bordeaux bottles in your cellar or on your table.

Can't Argue with This

Gawker says it better than we ever could.

Pantry Project: Barley and Mushroom Risotto

The pantry project continues apace! We've had a jar of pearl barley kicking around the shelves for a long time; even though we love barley, we never seemed to get around to using it. Then we saw a recipe from Bon Appetit that used barley in place of rice to make a chewy, rich risotto.

We were skeptical at first—wouldn't the barley get tough? But it nicely absorbed the vegetable stock, and the final addition of sautéed mushrooms made for a satisfying winter dish.

Barley and Mushroom Risotto

4 1/2 cups stock (vegetable, chicken, or meat)
2 t. butter
1 cup finely chopped onion
1 cup pearl barley
2 t. chopped fresh thyme or 3/4 t. dried
1 bay leaf
2 t. olive oil
1 pound assorted fresh mushrooms, sliced (we used Chinese shiitakes)
1 minced garlic clove
2 T. chopped Italian parsley (we used curly because Ruth hates Italian parsley)
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Bring stock to boil in a heavy saucepan. Remove from heat, cover, and set aside.

2. Melt butter in a large nonstick skillet over low heat. Add onion and sauté until translucent, about five minutes.

3. Add barley, thyme, bay leaf, and two cups of hot stock; bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until most of the stock has been absorbed, stirring frequently (about five minutes).

4. Add remaining stock 1/2 cup at a time, allowing it to be absorbed by the barley before adding more, and stirring frequently (about 45 minutes).

5. While the barley is cooking, heat olive oil in large skillet over high heat. Add mushrooms, and sauté until brown. Stir in chopped garlic. Reduce heat to medium and cook until mushrooms are tender (about five minutes).

6. When the barley is done, add the mushrooms, mix in parsley, and season with salt and pepper. Serve immediately.

Serves four.

Pantry Project: Great Cold Side Salad

In looking for a barley recipe (to use some of the multiple bags of grains in our overstuffed pantry as part of our pantry-reduction project), we stumbled into a great cold side salad recipe from cooking.com. It is one of those sides you could serve anytime, and it uses the sorts of ingredients that most people typically have around the pantry.

Our only problem was that our barley canister was short by a quarter cup. We quickly realized that this salad recipe's barley could be replaced by just about any grain or rice. We remembered that we had an overabundance of black rice, also called forbidden rice.

The consistency of black rice is about the same as cooked barley. You just have to make sure that you rinse it well so that the reddish-black cooking liquid doesn't color everything else in the recipe.

(We cold have substituted quinoa or faro or any of a number of other grains. But the black rice was crunchy and colorful.)

This salad would be particularly good in the summer, but it worked well in the cold depths of January as well.

Ingredients

2 cups cooked rice, barley or other grain
2 cups frozen corn, thawed
1 red pepper diced, or 1/2 red pepper and 1/2 green pepper, diced
3 scallions, sliced or chopped
2 Tablespoons chopped cilantro or parsley

Dressing
2 Tablespoons lemon juice
2 Tablespoons olive oil
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/8 teaspoon ground pepper

Recipe
Cook the rice, barley, faro or other grain. A good rule of thumb is to cook the grain in twice as much water or stock, with a little salt, and simmer for about 40 minutes. Toward the end you might have to add a bit more liquid or drain off any excess. Just taste for doneness with a bit of crunchiness.

In a bowl, mix the first five ingredients.

In a small container with a tight lid, mix the dressing ingredients and shake well. Pour dressing over the salad and refrigerate for a couple of hours.

We've Got Worms

That may not be the most appetizing post title, but it's true: determined to keep making compost during the slow winter months, we've started a worm farm to make use of our abundant kitchen scraps.

Our homeowners' association short-sightedly restricts the size of compost makers that residents can use. This limits us to one of those small drum units that are better than nothing, but not much better—especially for two cooks who prepare and eat a lot of vegetables and produce a lot of coffee grounds. Last winter our compost maker had filled up by December, and because the compost process goes dormant in the winter, we were looking at the wretched and wasteful possibility of tossing our kitchen scraps until spring.

We tried saving scraps in a covered container on the patio. That handled the overflow well, but the spring thaw was very smelly and messy.

Then we remembered that our friend Chuck, a fine gardener and veritable compost king, had built a worm farm in his garage to handle kitchen overflow. A helpful website showed us how to make our own worm farm with nothing more than a couple of Rubbermaid containers, a drill, a scrap of cardboard, a few pages of newspaper, and a handful of yard dirt.

We ordered a pound of red worms online, and soon our farm was up and working. Although the worms slow down a bit in the cold months, we can see that they're doing exactly what they should be doing: eating, digesting, and making more worms.  Come spring, we'll add their efforts to our garden; in the meantime, we'll keep our new friends happy with buckets full of coffee grounds, eggshells, and other kitchen scraps.

The Pantry Project Redux

Not too long ago we decided to concentrate on using up our pantry supplies, and although we made a fair amount of progress, our shelves still groan with containers of rice, grains, and beans, and our freezer is equally stuffed. Between our compulsion to try new ingredients, the abundance of fascinating ingredients at local ethnic markets, and our hatred of waste, we always seem to end up with Too Much Stuff. Now, in honor of the new year, we're resolved to draw down our supplies with renewed vigor.

So far we've gone through our freezer and pantry and made lists of what we found. As we hadn't completely emptied either place since moving into this house two years ago, this proved an interesting exercise. Apparently, we secretly expect a coming worldwide shortage of hot sauce—we found four unopened bottles. Our resolution to save bean-cooking liquid resulted in three-count-'em-three containers of white beans and their liquid. We found three large unopened packages of rice vermicelli—perfect for spring rolls, and enough to carry us deep into next year.

Does anybody have good recipes for black rice? Somehow we ended up with two bags of this mysterious grain, which was rare enough to be called Forbidden Rice long ago in China. Tim encountered it once in an Italian restaurant, but it seems to lend itself to Asian dishes.

Our plan is to "eat down" as much of this stuff as we can, preferably by using ingredients in combination.

Befuddled by how to use black rice in a nondessert dish, we threw a dart and tried this recipe from the blog Eat Make Read. Although the black rice dyed the edamame a scary dark color, the flavors were simple and lovely, and we'll make this recipe again. (Thanks to Trader Joe's, we always have bags of frozen edamame, which makes a great quick lunch or snack.)

When we picked through our giant basket of noodles, we discovered several bags of soba. Some of the noodles looked fairly new, though we honestly couldn't remember buying them, but another package seemed to date back to the last decade. Our common sense told us to compost it, but our frugality encouraged us to try it. So we mixed the new—well, newer—soba noodles with a handful of the old ones and were delighted to find that the old soba was just fine! Stir-fried with red pepper, onions, collard greens, and our all-purpose Chinese sauce, the noodles made a good fast dinner.

Still in a Chinese mood—and wanting to use up the beautiful but aging green cabbage we got in last summer's CSA box—we made a vegetarian version of Moo Shu Pork, using Boca crumbles we'd found in the freezer, shredded cabbage, slivered carrot, bamboo shoots, and some old tree ears we'd discovered in a Ziploc bag in the pantry. Served on flour tortillas slathered with hoisin, this dish made a swell end-of-the-weekend meal and had the distinction of using up three of our old pantry and refrigerated items.

Tonight we have another leftover trifecta: we're making a soup out of those old white beans and broth, some cooked collard greens, a single sausage patty we discovered in the back of the freezer, and canned tomatoes. Combined with a fresh batch of cornbread, this will make a delicious yet frugal dinner.

We'll keep you posted on our progress as we move through the stockpile!

Eat-Well Eating During the Holidays

The holidays are a time that we mostly think about eating well in a context that we don't typically mean it here at Eat Well, Eat Cheap. With all of the celebrations and parties and plates of treats, we all tend to eat well around the holidays. Maybe a little too well.

Like us, you probably have a love-hate relationship with holiday food. It's mostly love, of course. We have a great excuse: We're celebrating — and it's only once a year. Well, only one season, but it goes on from Thanksgiving to New Year's.

The hate part is that we all know we're eating things we shouldn't. And so we pledge in our New Year's resolutions that we'll clean up our act just as soon as the  champagne and chocolates are finished.

Because of our pantry-emptying project (post to come), we'd been thinking a lot about what we've been eating — with more than a little horror. So we decided to try to put together a healthy Christmas dinner that was in keeping with our year-round philosophy here at Eat Well, Eat Cheap.

We had a wonderful meal, which we did not intend to be vegan, but in a healthy, happy coincidence, it  turned out that way, much to everyone's surprise and astonishment. Here's what was on the table:

We roasted brussel sprouts: trimmed, cut in half, and cooked in a 400-degree oven with a bit of olive oil and salt and pepper for about 20 minutes. When they were hot out of the oven, we doused them with a  little balsamic vinaigrette. Nutty and delicious.

We boiled potatoes and mashed them with about 1/3 cup of soy milk and two tablespoons of Earth Balance butter substitute. We know that these butter-substitute things can range from awful to OK, but Earth Balance rarely lets us down when we use it in cooking.

We made a mushroom gravy that got lots of raves at the table. We'll follow this up with the recipe, along with some variations, depending on what you're having with this essential sauce. For the extreme skeptics at the table, who didn't believe that gravy could be good without meat, it was a revelation.

For a bit of relief from the warm, traditional servings, we served Laurie's Cranberry Conserve, which we'd made the day before.

But what about the main dish? you're wondering. We bought something from the Field Roast company called a Cranberry-Hazelnut Roast En Croute. It's sort of a paté or meat-like loaf in a pastry crust. It's only available at holiday time—we found ours in the freezer case at Whole Foods—but it is available online.

The roast will surprise you, as it did us. (Some skeptics will never buy it. But just tell them it's full of meaty goodness and they'll love it.) When we took stock of the meal with our guests, we all agreed it was one of the best, and certainly the healthiest, Christmas meals we'd had in a long time. And then we realized there wasn't even any dairy in it. A vegan Christmas. Who would have guessed?

But it really was delicious and satisfying.

Laurie's Cranberry Conserve: Start Your Own Holiday Tradition

The holidays are right for cranberries. They help cut through the typical celebratory turkey, gravy and spuds. The stores are full of cranberries, and if you time it right, you can get them pretty cheap.

Some people love the cranberry jell, right out of the can. Others prefer homemade cranberry sauce. It of tens depends on your family's tradition. The right cranberries will take you right back to mom's table and happy memories.

Want to start your own cranberry tradition with a cranberry conserve that most guests will rave about? Here's a recipe from our friend Laurie Sloan. It's not too sweet, and it's full of citrus, crystallized ginger and Grand Marnier liqueur.

Ingredients

3 cups cranberries (one bag)

1 cups water

1 cup sugar

1 small orange, cut in pieces and coarsely chopped in food processor (reserve juice)

1 small lemon, cut in pieces and coarsely chopped in food processor (reserve juice)

2 T coarsely chopped crystallized ginger

½ cups pecans, coarsely chopped

3 Tablespoons Grand Marnier (most of one mini-bottle)

1.     In large heavy pot, cook cranberries in water over medium high heat until they pop

2.     Stir in the sugar, oranges and juice, lemons and juice and ginger. Bring to a boil. Reduce eat to medium and simmer, stirring frequently, until mixture is thick and clear. Place a small amount of the syrup on a spoon and raise it from the pot; if large drops form on each side, the conserve is ready to remove from the heat.

3.     Stir in pecans and Grand Marnier

4.     Pour mixture into hot sterilized half-pint jars, seal and process in a boiling water bath according to manufacturer’s directions.

5.      

Makes 2 pints

Holiday Cookie Ideas: Are These the 10 Best?

This is our favorite cookie all year around. Our version of the chocolate chip classic. But cooking.com is suggesting 10 other cookies for the holidays.

Cooking.com sent its daily eLetter to us this morning. Its topic was "The 10 Best Holiday Cookies." We would differ with its choices of cookies, but if you are looking for some quick ideas for cookies to make for the upcoming holidays, here are 10 you might want to try.

What Will Food Be Like in 100 Years?

Michael Pollan, who has written three of the most important food books of the recent past — Omnivore's Dilemma, Food Rules, and In Defense of Food — answered readers' questions in a New York Times Magazine special on Food and Drink.

One of the questions, and his answer, intrigued us enough to post it here. Good food for thought, as they say.

Q: What will our food system be like in 100 years?

A: My best guess is that the food system will look very different in 100 years, for  the simple reason that the present one is — in the precise sense of the word — unsustainable. It depends on fossil fuels that we can't depend on and exacts a steeper price in human and environmental health than we can afford. So it will change, whether we want it to or not.

We certainly won't be eating nine ounces of meat per person per day, as Americans do now — there won't be enough feed grain, worldwide, to continue that feast, and presumably we will have faced up to meat-eating's disastrous toll on the environment. If we haven't, we'll have much bigger problems on our plate than what to have for dinner.

What do you think? Crystal ball or ignorant negativism?

Mashed (Sweet) Potatoes with Garlic

Few foods are better for you than sweet potatoes. Yet many people  associate the yellow spuds only with maple syrup and marshmallows at holiday meals.

We think that there are lots of ways to better appreciate the flavor and healthy goodness of sweet potatoes than the overly sweet, often gloppy Thanksgiving dish.

We came across an old Vegetarian Times sweet potato recipe for garlicky mashed sweet potatoes the other day in a VT eNewsletter. We had four of the tubers in our pantry and needed a side for dinner, so we, ahem, whipped some up. They tasted very good and were a great accompaniment to savory piece of protein.

With four peeled and diced sweets, along with two peeled and diced apples, and teaspoon of balsamic vinegar and two teaspoons of salt, you're almost ready to go.

First you cut the top off a head of garlic, drizzle it with olive oil and rosemary, and then roast it in the oven for an hour.

Meanwhile, put the diced sweet potatoes, apples and salt in a dutch oven, and bring it to a boil on top of the stove. Lower the heat to medium and simmer until the potatoes are soft. About 10 minutes.

Drain the spuds, saving a cup of liquid. Squeeze the garlic out of its peel into the potatoes, add the teaspoon of balsamic and whip or mash the mixture. Add some cooking liquid if it is not creamy enough. Add some ground pepper and serve hot.

Here's the recipe on the VT website.

Great App(etizer): Brie with Honey and Thyme

Here's a great — and quick — appetizer that will satisfy cheese lovers and also guests with a sweet tooth at the same time. It comes from Chris Kimball, editor of Cook's Illustrated.

Buy any old brand of Brie cheese in an 8-inch round. With a serrated knife, carefully slice off the top rind, leaving the side and bottom rind. Place the round on a microwave-safe serving plate, drizzle the brie with honey and sprinkle thyme or rosemary on top.

Heat in a microwave until the brie bubbles, probably about a minute or two. Serve with crackers to the delight of your guests. Easy, peasy!

For this recipe and other holiday cooking tips from Chris, click on this link, then click on "See the Recipes."

Video: A Fresh Side of Pears, Cauliflower, Sage and Hazelnuts

Here's another recipe video from John Ross. He made it for Fine Cooking, the magazine and website. It features pears and cauliflower in a delightful side dish that is perfect for the holiday season — and very simple, too. Unfortunately, our layout cuts off part of the video, so we've included the link, so that you can go to finecooking.com to see it in wide screen.
Watch the video at finecooking.com

A Beautiful Banana

This beautiful banana photo was taken by our friend John Ross, an up-and-coming food videographer whose recipe videos we have featured here (pasta w/ pumpkin, sausage and kale) and here (easy baked eggplant) on Eat Well, Eat Cheap. The banana photo was chosen as Photo of the Day by featureshoot.com. See it in all of its glory at the link below:
http://www.featureshoot.com/2011/11/photo-du-jour-7/#comments

Bargain Wine of the Week: 2010 Pacific Rim Riesling

If you're in a quandary about wine for Thanksgiving dinner, here's a last minute tip that'll get you by with the dozen or so people gathered around your turkey on Thanksgiving.

Pacific Rim winery in Washington state is making superb Rieslings. If you think that Rieslings are too sweet for serious wine drinkers, here's the catch: Pacific Rim makes four 2010 Rieslings varying from dry to sweet and only one of them is too sweet for our palates.

There are two more notes about these wines that are worthy of mention. The first is that the three we like all scored 90 or 91 on Wine Enthusiast ratings. These are seriously good wines, no matter how sophisticated your mouth.

The second is that at our local liquor store, they range in price from $9.99 to $12.99. That's a tremendous bargain for three such high rated varietals from the same winery.

The three we like are Pacific Rim 2010 Dry Riesling, rated 90 points by Wine Enthusiast magazine. It's got only 1% residual sugar.

The next is Pacific Rim 2010 Riesling, which is an medium-dry wine that your sweet-wine friends will enjoy. It garnered a 90 from Wine Enthusiast. It's got a colorful label that says only "Riesling," without characterizing its level of dryness.

The third is Pacific Rim 2010 Organic Riesling, which is also medium dry and we find it the best of the three — as did the Wine Enthusiast folks who gave it a 91 rating. Look for the totally white label and the word "Organic" at the bottom. This bottle is three bucks more at $12.99, but well worth it.

Buy one of each and see which one is the favorite at your holiday meal.

Happy Hippie Eggplant Casserole

Ro Ann Redlin sent us this wonderful sounding—and wonderfully named—recipe in August, when tomatoes were ripening on the vines, and we're sorry to only be posting it now. Blame France, work, general life stresses, but this recipe has been in the back of our minds all along: whenever we spot a sleek, fat eggplant, we think, "We've got to try Ro Ann's recipe." She assures us that it's just as good in the cold months as in the summer. On this, as on all matters of cooking, we trust her. 


Happy Hippie Eggplant  Casserole

2 large eggplants, peeled and cubed ( I don't salt and wipe my eggplant. No need.)
1 large onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 to 2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
A handful each of fresh basil and thyme, chopped
2 medium tomatoes, sliced

1. Throw the eggplant cubes, onion, garlic, basil and thyme into a cast-iron skillet or heavy skillet. Cook it down until the eggplant cubes are soft and the onion is translucent. 


2. Spread half of the eggplant mixture into a baking dish and top with sliced tomatoes and half of the cheese. Spread the remaining eggplant mixture on top of the tomatoes and cheese. 


3. Top the casserole with crushed butter crackers. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. 


Yum.

Don't Toss That Old Cast-Iron Pan! Restore It

It seems that for our entire cooking lives we've heard, "Nothing cooks better than a cast-iron pan." But we associated cast-iron with the heavy, rust-prone, pain-in-the-neck pans of our parents, so we went on to amass a collection of Circulon, Calphalon, All-Clad—anything but cast-iron.

But when Ruth's mother moved into assisted living and Ruth had to clean out her house, she found the old skillet that her father had used to fry sausage, eggs, pastrami, and other cholesterol-laden delights under the disapproving eye of his health-minded wife. The pan had fallen into neglect since his death, covered with rust and dust, but Ruth could not bring herself to put it in the Goodwill box. She took it home and—well, we'd like to say that she used it religiously, but she put the skillet in a out-of-the-way cupboard where it went on to collect years' more rust and dust.

Then we moved to a different house, leaving a few things behind for our occasional trips back to Connecticut. On these trips we discovered that we needed a good frying pan, and we remembered the old skillet in the back of the cupboard. Could it be restored?

Indeed it could. We were amazed by how easy it was to clean—and how well it cooked. We feared food, particularly proteins, would stick, but the cast iron released food at the perfect moment of doneness. The skillet held heat evenly—better, in fact, than our much more expensive pans in Virginia.

The handle is smooth from decades of use; the inside is scarred from decades of spatulas; the outside is as rough as an old ship's bottom. When we use it, we remember Ruth's father defiantly cooking his beloved sausage in a long-lost kitchen in upstate New York. We love this pan.

How to Restore a Cast-Iron Pan

First, we gave the skillet a good scrubbing, washing off as much of the accumulated crud as we could.

Then we set the empty pan on top of the stove, added about a quarter-inch of vegetable oil, and heated it at a medium setting until the handle was too hot to touch. That took about ten minutes.

We added about a third of a cup of kosher salt and—wearing a rubber glove on one hand and clutching a potholder in the other—rubbed the oil-and-salt mixture into the pan with a wad of paper towels, making sure we cleaned every bit of the inside surface.

We washed the pan with soap and water, then dried it completely and—important!—wiped a tiny amount of olive oil onto the cooking surface to prevent further rust.

As long as we apply that small dab of oil after each washing, the pan stays rust-free.

Did we say that we love this pan? It's true: Nothing cooks like cast-iron.

If you don't have a pan of your own, it's worth checking your local flea market or thrift stores, which always seem to have a lot of them, in varying stages of rustedness. Don't let their abused appearances scare you; chances are they can be salvaged.

Make It Yourself: Pizza Dough

Actually, this may be a pointless post, as we are possibly the last people on earth to have figured out that there's nothing easier, and few things cheaper, than making your own pizza dough.

Why did we put off trying this? Maybe we thought it was a time-consuming process, with lots of kneading and rising times; maybe because we feared that the dough wouldn't rise. We don't even remember our thinking; we just got in the habit of buying raw dough from the supermarket. To be fair, there's a lot of good dough out there (as well as some bad dough—we're looking at you, Trader Joe!).

But when we went to the store the other day, there was no raw dough to be had. As we were craving pizza, we decided to take the leap.

Boy, did we feel stupid. What could be easier than this:

Homemade Pizza Dough

3 cups flour
2 t. salt
2 t. yeast
1 cup warm water (let your faucet run until it's almost hot)
2 T. olive oil, plus a little extra for the dough bowl

1. Put flour, salt and yeast in the bowl of a food processor. Give it a quick spin to mix things up.

2. Turn the processor on, and pour the water through the feeding tube, followed by the oil. After about 30 seconds, the ingredients will form a clump. (It will be pretty sticky at this point.)

3. Turn the dough out on a floured surface and knead it for just a few seconds until it's a smooth ball.

4. Oil a bowl, drop in the dough ball, and turn it until it's covered in oil. Cover with plastic wrap and let it sit for an hour or two, until it doubles in size.

5. Remove the dough from the bowl and let it rest on a floured surface, covered, until it puffs up again (maybe 20 minutes). Then it's ready to use.

Makes one good-sized pizza or two small ones.

The Frugal Pantry: Brown Rice Syrup

This liquid sweetener is less sweet than honey or maple syrup, with a rich caramel flavor that works well in many desserts. The other night we sautéed some apples that had turned mealy, as we sometimes do, and we decided to try our brown rice syrup instead of the usual brown sugar. The resulting dish tasted fantastic, like a hot, soft caramel apple.

Brown rice syrup is also a good addition to oatmeal cookies and quickbreads—basically, to any recipe that would benefit from a shot of caramel.  You can find it in health food stores or, if you're lucky, near the honey and molasses in your supermarket.

Caramel Sautéed Apples

2 T. butter
Three apples, cored and sliced into crescents (we don't mind skins, but if you do, pare away!)
1/4 cup brown rice syrup
Pinch of salt (more if you like the flavor of salted caramel)

1. Melt the butter in a frying pan. Add the apple pieces and turn them until they are covered in butter. Stirring occasionally, let them fry until they are soft and golden, about 20 minutes.

2. When the apples are cooked, add the brown rice syrup and let them fry for another few minutes, until the syrup and apples have gotten to know each other.

You can either eat these plain or use them as a topping for cake or ice cream. Enjoy!

What Happened to Us?

This photo pretty much shows how we feel when we consider our poor blogging output of the past month or so. But we hope to get some new posts up this week—please bear with us!

How to Mince Lemongrass

Sorry for the long drought of blog posts—it's our damn jobs; they really cut into our free time! Anyway, it's good to be back, and we'll start with a small but important tip that we discovered just today.

Much as we love Asian food, we've never found a good way of cutting lemongrass. No matter how much we peeled it, no matter how far down the stem we cut, we always ended up with woody little pieces that stuck out like bits of toothpick in whatever we were cooking. We tried lemongrass paste, but that was expensive and lacked flavor.

However, today we watched the Food Network show Chopped during lunch. If you haven't seen it, the premise is that contestants must whip up delicious dishes in very short time periods for the usual panel of picky foodies. On today's episode a contestant attacked a stick of lemongrass with efficient genius—she didn't bother chopping it, she simply grated it. Genius!

We'll cook something Vietnamese or Thai this week just so we can try this.

Château de Nages in Costières de Nîmes

We have for some time admired the red Réserve from Château de Nages. A Syrah and Grenache blend from the Rhône, it is a superb bargain at less than $10. It's white sister, made from Grenache Blanc and Roussanne, is also a very good bargain.

So when we found that on our trip to southern France we would be staying within 15 miles of the winery and its vineyards, we made an appointment to visit. Michel and Tina Gassier agreed, but apologized that since they were in mid-harvest, something less than a full winery tour was to be delivered. We understood, and showed up at the appointed time.

Michel is the great grandson of Joseph Torrès, who started the winery. Michel is the wine brains. Tina, his wife, is the marketing brains and described by everyone there as the "dynamo." We found that to be the case. But instead of the shortened tasting-sans-tour we were promised, Tina took us on a "no BS" tour that started in the vineyards to walk in the Grès, the rolled pebbles on red clay, and to taste the (in this case Carignan) grapes that were about to be harvested.

We have been on a lot of winery tours, but this apologetically shortened tour was our best yet. (Unlike the U.S., where it is typically OK to just show up at a winery, in Europe the custom is to call ahead or arrange your visit beforehand.)

As we noted earlier, this 2011 harvest is a puzzling one, and we saw that in the overripe seeds swaddled in under-ripe meat and skins.

Back in the winery, we toured the wine storage tanks as well as a carbon dioxide filled room of viognier filled oak barrels that left us all woozy. Deep inside the winery bowels, a small room of glass vessels and implements serves as Michel's chemistry lab, next door to the room that holds the framed photograph of JT, Joseph Torrès and the three bottles of wine that Michel seeks to emulate: a Chateauneuf du Papes from the other side of the Rhône, a German Riesling and a Burgundy from La Tâche.

Michel and Tina believe that their Mediterranean terroir should speak loudly in their wines; that "we do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children;" and that since turning to organic farming, their grapes and wine are better than they have ever been.

After all of the touring and answering some questions from us, Tina turned us over to a lovely woman who led us through Michel's lines of wine. The Réserve is more of an entry to the line, which rises in quality through the Chateau de Nages Vieilles Vignes, the Château de Nages JT (for great grandpa Joseph Torrès), the Nostre Païs, and the chin-out aggressive Lou Coucardié.

Michel is one to watch, because he's always thinking, always inventing, but always letting his land and his grapes speak loudly.

The winery's website is michelgassier.com.

Green Olive and Caper Sauce for Meat, Fish & Tofu

At the exquisite Chaverdille restaurant in the little village of Caveirac, France, Tim's rare tuna steak came with a zesty sauce. He thought it would also be a great sauce for lighter fare such as pork, chicken or even grilled or sauteed tofu.

So, we tried to recreate it for our grilled tofu "steaks." The result was pretty close. This is a somewhat acidic sauce (but in a good way, as it helps take a somewhat bland piece of protein to a more interesting place. This is not a creamy sauce in the usual sense of what we typically think of as a sauce. It is more a collection of mildly pickled items blended in oil and wine.

We started with 2 Tablespoons of olive oil and 1 Tablespoon of butter or butter substitute in a medium-hot skillet. We added three diced shallots, three diced garlic cloves, and let them soften and become translucent. Then we added 14 diced green olives (we left the pimento in) and a Tablespoon of capers, followed by 1 Tablespoon of diced tomato (we used canned for convenience). After about 3 minutes of cooking, the mixture was ready for a quarter cup of white wine, which we let reduce and flavor the sauce. A little salt and pepper, and the sauce was ready to go.

It was great on the tofu we had marinated in red wine, soy sauce and olive oil, and it would have tasted great on the white meats and fish mentioned above.

This sauce would be good with either a crisp, non-oaky white (Sauvignon Blanc, unoaked Chardonnay or a Viognier).