Little Lettuce Cups: Big Burst of Flavor

Traditional Thai restaurants often serve a tasty offering that is part salad, part grazing buffet and part appetizer. Those three parts equal a whole lot of flavor in your mouth, and a great way to turn on your taste buds.

It's a very simple idea: some sour, some sweet, some salt, some fruit.

For our cups we used baby romaine leaves, but any green will do. We've had them in cabbagey Asian greens, Boston lettuce leaves and green leaf lettuce.

The idea is to put a little of each of seven ingredients into the leaf along with an Asian sauce, then roll it up and pop it in your mouth. A wonderful, before-meal treat.

The sauce can be sweet or savory. For ours, we mixed two Tablespoons of Hoisin sauce, two Tablespoons of crunchy peanut butter and one Tablespoon of soy sauce. If you want spicy, add a teaspoon or less of rooster paste or srirachi sauce.

The seven tasty ingredients:

Coconut, sweet or savory, toasted in a small dry pan
Peanuts, not salted, toasted in a dry pan
Ginger, chopped
Lime, chopped into small pieces, skin included if you want
Peppers, chopped, any degree of heat from jalapeño to bell. We used banana pepper
Onion, either raw or toasted
Shrimp, either cooked or dried. If you're vegetarian, keep the sea taste by including dried seaweed used for sushi rolls.

When we make ours, we smear the sauce on the lettuce to act as a kind of paste. Then we add about a half teaspoon of coconut, a couple of peanuts, a pinch of onion, a pinch of peppers and one piece each of ginger, lime and shrimp.

Roll it up and pop it in your mouth for a fresh and wonderful burst of flavor.

A nice crisp wine such as a Sauvignon Blanc, Viognier, Pinot Grigio, or unoaked Chardonnay is a nice accompaniment.

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.

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."

Arugula Pesto: Pesto di Rucola

Why all of the pesto recipes? Well, mostly because Saveur magazine celebrated pesto by publishing dozens of recipes. But also because you get a lot of ideas by exploring one type of food and seeing how subtle ingredient changes make for big flavor differences. It also helps when you crave a dish, but the key ingredient is missing from the pantry or fridge.

In wine, you'd call it a vertical tasting. Sip a bunch of chardonnays or syrah side-by-side and compare the difference between France, Chile, Spain and California — or between northern California and southern California.

We have a friend who loves pesto so much that she probably eats it weekly. We have another friend who loves it so much that he wants to be slathered in it when he's buried (presumably to have something good to eat in the hereafter).

This might be our favorite pesto. Since making it from the recipe in Saveur magazine's paean to pesto, we've tried it on pasta, vegetables, tomatoes, toast, tofu and chicken. This spicy concoction makes them all taste better.

Admittedly, we like arugula. We've mixed it with lettuce and spinach in salads to add a peppery flavor. We've put it on pizzas. We've even had salads that consisted of nothing but arugula and dressing. So, yes, we like it.

But this is arugula in a totally different context, and many people who eat it have to ask what the green ingredient is in this pesto. Along with the cilantro pesto, this was the most popular when we served a spread of pestos. The magazine says it's great drizzled over steamed artichokes or grilled fish.

Pesto di Rucola

2 cups packed arugula
1 cup extra-virgin olive oil (we used 3/4 and it was fine)
1/2 cup finely grated percorino or romano cheese
1/2 cup finely grated parmesan cheese
1/3 cup pine nuts
1 Tbsp. lemon zest
1 clove garlic, chopped
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Process all ingredients in a food processor and season with salt and pepper to taste.

A Great Pesto Spread: Pesto Calabrese

Some pesto doesn't look or taste like pesto at all. But this great spread is from Rocco Arena, owner of San Rocco Restaurant in New York, and Rocco swears it is pesto. We found the recipe in Saveur magazine's big article in praise of pesto.

The magazine says this pesto is spicy, but we didn't find it spicy at all. We found it pretty bland, in fact, so our suggestion is to add a little hot red pepper to the mix. But even in its bland state, this spread will be a hit with your guests.

Pesto Calabrese

1 small eggplant, peeled and cut into 1/2 -inch cubes
2 tsp. kosher salt, plus more to taste
1/4 cup olive oil
1 red bell pepper, stemmed, seeded and minced
1/2 small yellow onion, minced
2 plum tomatoes, cored and minced
1/2 cup ricotta cheese
1/3 cup packed basil
Freshly ground pepper to taste

Place eggplant in a colander, toss with 2 tsp. salt and let sit for 20 minutes.
Drain and dry on paper towels, and set aside.

Heat oil in a 10-inch skillet over medium-high heat, add pepper and onion, and cook, stirring often, until soft and lightly caramelized — about 10 minutes.

Add eggplant and cook, stirring occasionally, until soft, about 8 minutes. Add tomatoes and cook, stirring, until soft, about 5 minutes. Transfer to a good processor and add ricotta and basil. Puree until smooth.

Season with salt and pepper.

Cilantro Pesto: A Happy Marriage of Mexican and Italian Flavors

As we've said many times before, pesto does not have to be made with basil. Instead you can use parsley, arugula, sun-dried tomatoes, asparagus, pistachio, sage, broccoli, red pepper, garlic scapes or cilantro.

We gave Mark Bittman's recipe for Light Cilantro Pesto that can be used as a dressing on vegetables or as an underlayment for any entree that needs just spark of pep. For example, we've smeared it on the plate under the stuffed roasted peppers we serve as an appetizer.

Saveur magazine's celebration of pesto includes a cilantro pesto made heartier by the inclusion of roasted pepitas (pumpkin seeds). This pesto was the biggest hit when we laid out several pesto spreads as appetizers before a recent dinner party. It's salty. It's hearty. It's aggressively tasty. Saveur recommends it with roasted squash or grilled fish.

We made a lot of this cilantro pesto, so we've used it as a sauce on pasta (delicious!), as a dressing on blanched green beans and as a topping for fresh sliced tomatoes. This is a very versatile pesto indeed!

Pepita and Cilantro Pesto (from Saveur magazine)

2 cups packed cilantro
1/2—2/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/3 cup toasted pepitas
1/3 cup finely grated parmesan cheese
2 Tbsp. fresh lime juice
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste

Pulse cilantro, oil, pepitas, parmesan, lime juice and garlic in a food processor until finely chopped; season with salt and pepper.

Pesto Rosso: Substituting Red for Green in Delicious Pesto

We normally think of pesto as being green and made with lots of basil right out of the garden. Saveur magazine's recent celebration of pesto noted that it is merely a paste, usually made in using a mortar and  pestle, so it can be made with lots of different ingredients.

Today we tried a pesto that doesn't even depend on fresh greens from the garden (except a small amount of rosemary). Instead it's foundation is sun-dried tomatoes. We found it to be absolutely addictive and a wonderful hors d'oeuvre when spread on a nice slice of crusty peasant bread — or a cracker.

Pesto Rosso

1 cup virgin olive oil
1/2 cupe toasted almonds, chopped
2 Tbsp. rosemary leaves, minced
2 tsp. balsamic vinegar
2 tsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. paprika (or Aleppo pepper, if you've got it)
20 pitted oil-cured black olives
10 sun-dried tomatoes in oil, chopped
4 cloves garlic, chopped
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Process oil, almonds, rosemary, vinegar, sugar, paprika, olives, tomatoes and garlic in a food processor until finely chopped; season with salt and pepper.

Best Bought Veggie Burger Ever!

As you know—indeed, as you are probably tired of hearing by now—we avoid processed food whenever possible, for reasons of flavor, cost, and health. But every once in a while we discover a processed product that is so wonderful—that's so much better than we can make ourselves—that we have to blab about it. Vegenaise is one. Morningstar Farms Chipotle Black Bean Burgers are another.

There are a few inherent problems with veggie burgers. Homemade ones can taste great, but they tend to be too soft to grill, so they can't provide the full burger experience. Processed burgers, on the other hand, too often are dry, bready, and tasteless.

But Morningstar Farms' chipotle-spiked black bean burgers grill beautifully, developing  a "meaty" crust that could satisfy the most bloodthirsty carnivore. They're firm, flavorful, and, at a quarter pound apiece, satisfyingly large. They are heaven.

We discovered them at Costco, promptly finished a box, then went back for more, with some trepidation; Costco has a habit of dropping products that don't quickly catch on. Up and down the frozen aisle we prowled, worried that we'd never see the burgers again at a Costco price. Nothing . . . until we turned a corner and saw that Costco had devoted the entire "end cap" of its freezer section to a gigantic display of the burgers! As Costco is hardly a vegetarian paradise, we have to assume that this product is catching on with everybody.

Try them! You may never go back to hamburgers.

Burning Man ... in Spirit, Anyway

August is here, and Burning Man is almost upon us. Admittedly, we won't be there—broiling in the Nevada desert is pretty much the last thing we want to do, even for the sake of art, community, and countercultural frisson.

Still, we're glad that other people go to Burning Man, and the website is a joy to explore. We particularly like the section on how to cook well for yourself in a place with no piped-in water or fuel. The tips and recipes would work just as well for camping, and some of them would be great even for air-conditioned suburbanites like us, looking for some easy, delicious, healthy food as the hot summer unfurls . . .

More Hot-Weather Relief: Mango Salad

Though the humidity has backed off a bit, it's still late July in Northern Virginia, which means we're disinclined to turn on the stove or the grill. The solution: light, refreshing salads that make use of all the great produce that's available. All you need is a good knife and, if you're lazy like us, a food processor that can quickly handle the tedious job of shredding.

The other night we shredded a green mango and made a salad that was tart, sweet, a little hot, and completely delicious. This recipe makes two very decent portions; if you want to feed more people, it's easily doubled or even tripled.

Green Mango Salad

1 green mango (if all you have is a firm orange mango, go ahead and use that)
1/2 cup chopped cilantro
1/3 cup chopped basil
2 scallions, minced
1/3 cup roasted chopped peanuts

Dressing:
2 T. fish sauce
3 T. lime juice
4 t. brown sugar
1 t. chili garlic paste

1. Shred the mango, either using a grater or (much quicker) the shredding blade on a food processor.

2. Mix with the cilantro, basil, scallions, and peanuts.

3. Pour dressing over all, and serve immediately.

Serves two.

Good Fast Food: White Beans with Greens and Sausage

How versatile is this dish? For one thing, it can be served cold as a salad* or hot as a stew. Room temperature also would work just fine. The ingredients are nearly infinitely adaptable, depending on what you crave or happen to have on hand.

Our last batch was inspired by some leftover greens from the CSA box. We still haven't identified them—they resembled broccoli raab sans blossoms—but after we sautéed them we decided that they were a bit too chewy and strong-tasting to eat on their own, even with a splash of fruity fig vinegar. Though we were definitely not crazy about them, we're committed to using every molecule of our precious (and not inexpensive) CSA produce, so tossing them was out of the question.

We remembered that greens go well with white beans, so we cooked a pound of Great Northerns with plenty of crushed garlic and sage. When the beans were done, we removed most of the cooking liquid (saving it for soup) and added the mystery greens (cut in smaller strips to mitigate the bitterness), a can of fire-roasted tomatoes, four crumbled veggie sausages, a drizzle of olive oil, salt, and pepper.

(Though we cooked our beans from scratch, you could use a few cans of rinsed white beans for a nice fast meal.)

Our impromptu stew was wonderful; the bitter greens played well with the mild beans and salty sausage. But any kind of greens would do—chard, kale, collards—and roasted red peppers would have made an excellent substitute for the tomatoes. Plain diced tomatoes or halved grape tomatoes also would have worked. Chunks of Italian sausage (or Tofurky!) would have been delicious.

The lesson: Don't give up on something you've cooked, no matter how much it has disappointed you—chances are that with a little tweaking, it can be part of another dish that you'll like much better.

If you opt for a cold salad, remove all of the bean cooking liquid and add a little more olive oil.

Omelet in a Bag: Great for Large Groups

Depending on how seriously you take your omelet-making, it is either fairly easy or really difficult. But there's one thing about omelets that is always difficult: making them for a lot of people so that everyone can eat at the same time.

On our recent trip to a wedding in South Dakota, all of the family members of the bride and groom were invited to breakfast the following morning at the couple's newly expanded house. On the menu? Omelet-in-a-bag.

Some were skeptical, but we were all game, because it meant that no chef had to stand over a hot burner and we could all sit down to eat at one time — all 12 of us. And every omelet is unique and made-to-order.

It starts with a one-quart freezer bag, like a Zip-Loc. (They have to be freezer bags; the lighter sandwich bags won't hold up.) Break two or three eggs into the bag and squish them around until the yolks and whites are mixed. Then have a table full of omelet ingredients such as chopped mushrooms, tomatoes, peppers and onions — along with shredded cheese and cooked ground sausage and chopped ham.

Each diner selects the specific ingredients and exact amounts of what they want in their omelet. Merely throw it in the bag for the omelet of your choice.

Next comes a pot or two of boiling water. The pot should be big, like a stock pot, and the water should be boiling rapidly. You just drop in the bags and wait a short while for breakfast to be served.

Here's the part you have to remember: No more than six bags in each pot at a time; and leave them in the boiling water for 13 minutes. When the timer alerts you, pull each one out with a long set of tongs — or use your fingers if you have construction hands.

(One of our bags opened up during the cooking, but the omelet stayed inside and was perfectly delicious.)

We rolled the omelets out of the bag onto a plate, where they looked almost as good as any we would have made in a skillet. Then we each added salsa and fruit to our plates and gathered around the table at the same time for a fine post-wedding breakfast.

Another Reason to Avoid Fast Food

Yep, we're bashing on fast food again. But how can we not, when we read stories like this? (Check out the photo gallery!)

Road Food: Visit Farmers' Markets to Avoid Junky Restaurants

We've written quite a bit about eating on the road—basically, how to avoid junky fast food. This past week we've
been traveling around Boulder, Colorado, and the city's splendid
farmer's market has allowed us to eat particularly well.

Boulder's residents love both food and the environment, so the local market features almost exclusively organic produce and baked goods. We loaded up on tomatoes, peaches, bread, and cheese, confident that we would have some great picnics.

For the next few days we ate lunch in local parks, tearing apart our crusty bread to make impromptu sandwiches as we gawked at the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains. The September air was clear and crisp, and the peaches were the juiciest we have ever eaten; afterward, we had to douse ourselves with bottled water to keep the yellow jackets at bay.

Our lunches here have ranked among our best lunches ever  . . . and proved yet again that road food can be delicious and life-affirming, especially when it's eaten outdoors. If you find yourself traveling through a city with a farmer's market and have time to stop and shop, you're guaranteed of getting a better lunch than any fast-food or chain restaurant can provide. (The Local Harvest website will tell you if there's a market in the area you'll be visiting.)

Easy Baked Eggplant Video

Our friend John Ross has made a smashing video of how to bake an eggplant with five other ingredients for 30 minutes to make an fairly healthy, and certainly enticing, vegetable side.
In addition to giving you everything you need to know to make and bake the dish, he's made a food video that has no voiceover, is easy to follow, and is just a joy to watch.


Roasted Eggplant from John Craig Ross on Vimeo.

Another Quick Summer Treat: Strawberry-Rhubarb Pops

On the same day that we were posting the easy ice cream recipe, NPR ran a story about two guys in Washington, DC, who started a popsicle company called Pleasant Pops (because Popsicle is a trade name). Their pops are decidedly different, with fruit and herbs mixed to bring about great taste. Imagine Watermelon-Black Pepper or Peach-Ginger.

They revealed one of their easy recipes: Strawberry-Rhubarb pops that can be made in the freezer. No machines needed.

New Mexico Green Chile

When traveling, we rarely pass up an opportunity to taste the local fare. We can't remember too many times when a local dish disappointed in a serious way — with the possible exception of the salty fingernail-sized fish served for breakfast in Malaysia.

When Tim biked his way through the mountains of New Mexico a few years ago, he made a point of delving into the local cuisine, which is laden with red and green chiles. His favorite was New Mexico Green Chile Stew, which happens to be incredibly quick and easy to make. This recipe is taken from "Real New Mexico Chile" by Sandy Szwarc (Golden West Publishers)

.

New Mexico Green Chile Stew
8 ounces lean pork, cut into half-inch or 1-inch cubes
1 Tbsp. flour
1 Tbsp. canola or olive oil
1 large baking potato, cut into half-inch or 1-inch cubes
1-1/2 cups chopped tomatoes
1/2 cup chopped, roasted and peeled New Mexico chiles (or two small cans of diced green chiles)
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 tsp. New Mexico red chile powder (or to taste)
1 quart chicken stock
1/2 tsp. ground cumin

Coat the pork lightly with the flour.
In a saucepan or dutch oven, heat the oil over high heat and fry the meat until golden.
Add the remaining ingredients and lower the heat to medium low.
Cover and simmer until the meat is very tender, about 4 hours.
Serve with flour tortillas.

What could be easier? And, it tastes great.

Is Your Veggie Burger Poisoning You?

We don't know how many of you eat veggie burgers, but you probably all know somebody who eats them, as Ruth does from time to time.

It turns out that there are good veggie burgers and bad veggie burgers. A study by the Cornucopia Institute says that non-organic veggie burgers often contains the neurotoxin hexane, a petroleum byproduct that is bad for those who work with it and can cause explosions in wastewater and is an air pollutant.

The bottom line is that you should "look for Boca Burgers "Made with organic soy"; Helen's Kitchen; Morningstar "Made with organic"; Superburgers by Turtle Island; Tofurky and Wildwood."

Here's a report from Change.org's Sustainable Food blog. Thanks to Ramin Ganeshram and Jean Paul Vellotti.

With so many recalls of tainted meat it's tempting to think of food safety issues as another reason to eat a vegetarian diet. But sadly, recent news from the Cornucopia Instituterains on that parade as well. Its new report, "Behind the Bean: The Heroes and Charlatans of the Natural and Organic Soy Foods Industry," reveals that many top-name brands of veggie burgers contain the neurotoxin hexane, a petroleum byproduct listed by the EPA as a hazardous air pollutant.

So what's it doing in our food?
Writing for Mother Jones, Kiera Butler explains that soybeans are submerged in hexane in order to separate the oil from the protein — a trick processors have been using in order to reduce the fat content of the food. There's good and bad news here. The good news is that all products certified as USDA organic are not allowed to contain hexane bathed ingredients. The bad news is that if it's not organic it most likely has hexane-extracted ingredients in it. The report states, "The soy protein ingredients in most nonorganic foods such as vegetarian burgers and nutrition bars are processed with the use of hexane."

In Butler's story, she quotes Cornucopia Institute senior researcher Charlotte Vallaeys who explains that the ingredients to look out for on non-organic foods are soy protein isolate, soy protein concentrate, or texturized vegetable protein. Not only are you getting a dose of it when you eat these foods, but the industry is contributing significantly to air pollution. The report states that two-thirds of hexane emissions in the U.S. are from grain processors and the single largest emitter was an Archer Daniels Midland plant in Illinois. Solae, a major supplier of soy protein ingredients, is not far behind, with one of its plants coming in 7th on the list of top emitters.

Hexane can also cause explosions when released in wastewater and is documented to be hazardous to workers' health, too.

Unfortunately, for those of us eating soy products the EPA doesn't have a requirement for food manufacturers to test for hexane residue and little research has been done on the effects of consuming it. The Cornucopia Institute's report names these products as having hexane-extracted ingredients: Amy's Kitchen; Boca Burger, conventional; Franklin Farms; Garden Burger; It's All Good; Lightlife; Morningstar Farms; President's Choice; Soy Boy; Taste Above; Trader Joe's; and Yves Veggie Cuisine.For hexane free food, instead look for Boca Burgers "Made with organic soy"; Helen's Kitchen; Morningstar "Made with organic"; Superburgers by Turtle Island; Tofurky and Wildwood.

You can read more about hexane in the Cornucopia Institute's report.

There's Good Fast Food at the Supermarket

Moving to Virginia has meant longer car trips to visit family and friends. Although we like to think of ourselves as the kind of people who are so well organized that we leave the driveway fully armed with delicious, healthy meals and snacks to sustain us in the hours ahead, we're really the kind of people who are always rushing around, and we tend to hit the road with little more than a bottle of water and a couple of cups of coffee.

This means finding food on the road, and as we've written, we try to avoid fast-food restaurants. But on a recent trip back from Upstate New York, we were starving, and pulled off the interstate into the usual neighboring sprawl of Wendy McBurgers, resigned to the usual fries and soda. But as we approached McDonald's we saw that there was a supermarket right next door. We could escape the fast-food rut!

In less time than it would have taken to order and receive our greasy fast-food bag, and for approximately the same amount of money, we grabbed baby carrots, hummus, and a bottle of water. If we'd been a little hungrier, we would have gotten pita bread, olives, and fruit to round out the meal. But the cold, crunchy carrots and tart hummus were incredibly satisfying, and we happily ate them with the knowledge that the next time we found ourselves road-bound and starving, we would have a delicious alternative.

Snow: Here We Go Again!

We thought that the big snowstorm before Christmas was the big one for the year — and significantly deeper than normal for the mid-Atlantic region. But we're in the middle of our second of the season. And this one is worse.

We're at two feet deep and counting. The weather service says we're supposed to get six more inches. It's a good excuse to stay in and cook what's in the house. Our only fear is that the power might go out, as it has to 200,000 others in the area. Thank goodness for the gas grill.

Yesterday at noon, the grocery store, which is new and usually short on customers, was so picked over that there was literally no meat on the shelves. The storm mentality that grips even the most snow-weary regions was exacerbated by tomorrow's Super Bowl. What would have been a run on chips and beer today and tomorrow was pushed up to Thursday because of Friday and Saturday's storm. It left the parking lots packed and the counters empty.

So we're challenging ourselves to make due with our stores of dried beans, veggies and other staples.

Last night we roasted peppers and eggplants on the grill and roasted potatoes in the oven. Tim also put a couple of small pieces of tuna steak on the grill. Served with wasabi mayonnaise, along with a Zabaco Zinfandel from California and a Sangiovese from Italy, it was a delicious way to spend a snowy night.

One more late-night trip outside to shovel snow and stay ahead of the storm, and we slept like babies. (No, we did not wake up every hour and cry.)

Even the dogs settled in for a good eight-hour snooze.

Today, maybe cauliflower curry and dhal.