Switching Kitchens, Part II: Spices

We have about a week and a half left in this kitchen, so the time has come to pack up the spices we're unlikely to use and ditch the ones we know we'll never use. It's safe to say we probably won't be needing the Old Bay spice or the celery salt (we have two containers of this ingredient and can't remember why we ever bought it—maybe for brunchtime Bloody Marys in our devil-may-care younger days?). Why do we have a big container of yellow mustard seeds? All our recipes call for the black variety.

Even though we'll eventually use our star anise and chaat masala and celery seeds, we're pretty confident we can live without them for the next few weeks. And given that we'll be cooking quick, easy meals for a while as we pack up this house and unpack into another, we probably won't need such standbys as bay leaves, nutmeg, coriander seeds, and marjoram.

Indian and Mexican dishes are our quick-and-dirty fallbacks, so as we head into our last days here, we'll wait until the last minute to pack the ground cumin, cumin seeds, chili powder, dried chilis, fenugreek, oregano, cinnamon, cardamom, fennel seeds, and smoked paprika.

Human nature being what it is, we're sure to get a craving for a dish that makes use of five-spice powder or black salt, but at this point we're willing to risk it. For one thing, we have to move on to the vexing question of which cookbooks to pack.

What about you? What spices would you need to keep at hand until the last minute?

Switching Kitchens

Because we're moving to a house with a smaller kitchen, we have to think hard about what to take and what to leave behind. Some decisions are obvious—we couldn't cook without our giant nonstick skillet, our Dutch oven, our jelly roll pans, and our mini-whisk. But what about the tortilla maker that's been used only a handful of times because it's so easy to buy good tortillas from the market, or the apple-peeling device that comes in handy perhaps once a year, when we're feeling ambitious enough to make tarte tatin? Or the juicer?

The juicer is tricky because it is, to use the current annoying buzzword, aspirational. We would like to be the kind of people who prefer freshly made organic juices to coffee, who would rather sip a big glass of liquified spinach and carrots than nurse a Liberator. So we keep our Juiceman at the ready, usually dusting it off on New Year's Day to accommodate our latest batch of resolutions. For that reason, we'll be taking it with us to Virginia.

The same impulse that makes us cling to our Juiceman has led us to become fascinated with the controversial raw food movement. Though we know we could never exist on raw diets, we have to admit that the raw foodists have developed some excellent recipes. Take, for example, Dan "the Man" McDonald, whose Life Regenerator YouTube channel offers a bushelful of instructions for making smoothies, salad dressings, and other delicious things. One of our favorites is his take on V-8 juice.

You may not agree with Dan's take on nutrition, but you'll probably be captivated by his attitude—he is so happy to be alive that he's fun to watch.

Blog Love: Adventures in the Pioneer Valley

We've been meaning to plug Valley Writer's excellent food blog, Adventures in the Pioneer Valley, for months now. Finally, with the Deadline over and the Move almost complete, we can. Check it out! She's doing some great seasonal recipes these days, and we plan to try this one soon.

Teresa's End-of-the-Long-Ride Squash Soup

Our friend Teresa Bobbitt is passionate about many things, including gardening, cats, and homeopathy, but she is particularly interested in cycling and cooking. (It should go without saying that her greatest passion is her husband and fellow cyclist, Bob.) She thinks nothing of riding 100 miles, then coming home to whip up a healthy meal that's as delicious as it is organic. This recipe is the perfect ending to an autumn ride.

Squash Soup

1 winter squash (such as butternut or acorn), peeled and cubed

2 sweet potatoes or yams, peeled and cubed

2 carrots, cut into chunks

half a large onion, chopped

3 to 5 cloves of garlic

1/2 t. minced fresh ginger

1 t. chopped herbs (coriander, basil, and thyme are all good)

1 t. curry powder, or more to taste

6 cups vegetable broth

salt and pepper to taste

6 T. sherry

Half and Half

croutons

1. Simmer squash, sweet potatoes, carrots, onion, garlic, ginger, herbs, and curry powder in the broth until the vegetables are soft, about 45 minutes.

2. Puree the mixture until creamy, using either a hand blender or a food processor. If using a processor, return the soup to the pot. If it's too thick, add more broth.

3. Reheat the soup. Add the sherry and adjust the seasonings. Before serving, add Half and Half to taste and garnish with croutons.

Serves six.

The Frugal Pantry: Hominy

Whenever we mention that we use hominy in soups and stews, we usually get the same response: what in tarnation is hominy? People know that it has something to do with grits, but that's misleading, as "grits" makes people think of corn mush, whereas hominy adds chewiness, texture, and a delicious tortilla-like flavor to any dish.

Even though we've been using hominy for years, we had to go to Wikipedia for an explanation, which we're sorry to say does not do justice to this wonderful ingredient. Nonetheless, in the interest of full disclosure:

Hominy or nixtamal is dried maize kernels which have been treated with an alkali.

Commercially available canned hominy may have a slightly stronger scent when compared to the traditional preparation. The traditional U.S. version involves soaking dried corn in lye-water (sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide solution), traditionally derived from wood ash, until the hulls are removed. Mexican recipes describe a preparation process consisting primarily of cooking in lime-water (calcium hydroxide). In either case, the process is called nixtamalization, and removes the germ and the hard outer hullfrom the kernels, making them more palatable, easier to digest, and easier to process.

OK, that doesn't sound very appetizing. But the other night, using up our last batch of produce from this year's CSA box, we made a giant pot of vegetable soup. It included the usual suspects—onions, garlic, carrots, celery, potatoes, tomatoes, spinach—and even though it tasted perfectly serviceable, it needed something. Fortunately, our pantry contained a big can of white hominy, which we added to the simmering pot. Twenty minutes later we had something that tasted much more interesting than vegetable soup.

Most supermarkets carry hominy in their canned vegetable or "Hispanic" sections, and you can also find it at Hispanic groceries.

Organic Popcorn

There's no need to buy oversalted, overprocessed, overpriced microwave popcorn. Guest blogger Jim Randall has an excellent recipe that's easy on your taste buds, your arteries, and your wallet:

Remember the good old days when popcorn was made in a kettle on the stove with popcorn, oil, salt, and butter instead of the microwave stuff with the chemical names you can't pronounce? Well, for old times' sake, rent a movie or put on a ball game and make some old-fashioned popcorn like dad used to make, only with a few changes to make it healthy and great tasting.

First, you'll need to get some organic virgin coconut oil. It's sold in health food stores or online at tropicaltraditions.com. You may have heard through the years that coconut oil is not healthy. In fact, it has medium chain fatty acids/triglycerides such as Lauric acid (found in mother's milk), which studies say increase metabolism, fight viruses and bacteria, and have antioxidant properties. We like the expeller pressed coconut oil for this recipe as it has a blander, less "coconutty" taste and is less expensive.

While you are at your local health food store, pick up some organic popcorn and some unrefined sea (or Himalayan) salt. Don't use ordinary table salt. Unrefined salt is in its natural form and has not been altered by man. It contains more than 80 minerals and elements necessary for life, in contrast to refined salt, which contains two ingredients: sodium and chloride. Unrefined Himalayan salt is mined in the Himalayan mountain range and has additional minerals and elements that give it a distinctive pinkish color. It's delicious on everything. Get it at mercola.com if you can't find it locally. (Note: TJ Maxx is another good source.--Ruth & Tim) The extra money invested in unrefined salt is worth it to your health.

Now, for the popcorn:

You'll need a large, heavy kettle with a lid.

Heat 1/4 to 1/2 cup virgin coconut or expeller pressed coconut oil in the covered kettle over medium-high heat with 2 or 3 kernels of popcorn. When the kernels pop, the oil is ready.

Add enough popcorn to cover the bottom of the kettle without crowding the kernels too much—1/3 to 1/2 cup should do it. (Trial and error will tell you how much to use so you don't run out of room in the kettle and have unpopped and wasted kernels. It will also tell you how much oil to use. This is a matter of taste; we like to use the larger quantity for a moister batch of popcorn.)

Keep the kettle at nearly its highest heat—you want the kernels popping very quickly when they start to pop. Shake the kettle, using a side-to-side motion to keep heat distributed. Pause every so often and loosen the lid to let the steam escape. When popping slows (be careful not to scorch!) remove from heat and let the corn finish popping with the lid loose or off.

Salt immediately with unrefined sea or Himalayan salt. Toss the popcorn in the kettle to distribute. This is an art form that can be mastered so you lose no kernels! Salt and toss one more time.

You will be addicted. No butter will be necessary. Popcorn keeps for days fresh in the kettle on the stovetop . . . if it lasts that long.

Salsa Casserole

Any family that eats meat invariably has leftover chicken, pork or beef after a big meaty meal. The meat can be used to make sandwiches, but that doesn't stretch it as far as, say, a casserole that could healthily feed more with the addition of some vegetable add-ins.

We came across this idea when Tim had to help feed a large family contingent at the annual Reunion of Three Dozen. This year, because a memorial service for a beloved uncle was tacked on, it was more like Four Dozen.

The dish started out as turkey chili, but for ease of serving morphed into a chicken casserole, which has now morphed again into Any-Leftover-Meat-and-Salsa Casserole.

Pre-heat the overn to 350. Coarsely chop two cups of leftover chicken, pork or beef. Add 2 tablespoons of onion or shallot and a half cup of chopped celery (optional). Add one 15 oz. can of black or great northern beans, a 15 oz. can of diced tomatoes (with juice), 8 oz. of grated cheddar cheese, 8 oz. of any bottled salsa, 1 teaspoon of ground cumin, 1/2 teaspoon of ground coriander, 1/2 to 1 teaspoon of chili powder, 2 tablespoons of chopped cilantro, and salt and pepper to taste.

(You can add just about anything to this: chopped roasted red peppers, frozen corn, and leeks instead of the onions. You can also saute the onions, leeks, shallots and celery to add some depth. We added just a bit of smoked gouda for additional complexity.)

Mix it all together in a casserole dish and put in the oven for 30 minutes uncovered. This is a quick meal in one pot that takes advantage of leftover meat plus food you probably already have in your pantry.

'Cabernet Sauvignon in Silk Pajamas'

For a long time we considered Chilean Carmenère our own little secret. Not because we were hiding it, but because no one seemed to be writing about it. We discovered a great (and cheap) Carmenère about two years ago.

The New York Times reviewed the wine and noted that its favorite was $70, but its second favorite was less than $10. It was Mont Gras and we quickly ordered a case. We paid much less than $10, and we loved it.

Now, Saveur magazine's David Rosengarten has written a piece about the "Long Lost Grape" that is "finally getting the attention it deserves."

The carmenère grape is actually one of the six grapes that in the 19th century France's Bordeaux winemakers blended to create the red wine that was, and is, considered the world's best. The six: cabernet sauvignon, merlot, malbec, cabernet franc, petit verdot and carmenère.

But carmenère was the Eddie Haskell of the gang. It was troublesome because it ripened far later than the others. Why wait for this late bloomer? Deep burgundy color and complex herbal contributions.

In the 1880s, the Mrs. Cleavers of the French vineyards gave up on the grape because it was just too much trouble during the phylloxera epidemic. Today, red bordeaux is a blend of five grapes.

When Europeans began to plant vines in Chile in about 1900, they didn't always know exactly what grapes they planted — hard as that seems to believe. And current owners don't always know what they have. "Such was the case with Chilean carmenère, which was," says Rosengarten, "for most of the 20th century, identified as Chilean merlot."

Only recently, in 1994, was this Chilean merlot, identified correctly for what it was. The grape is fruity, deep in color and light in the tannins. Rosengarten notes that this has led some wag to proclaim that it is "cabernet sauvignon in silk pajamas."

"What you end up with," Rosengarten says, "is a wine with lots of fruitiness up front that magically turns dry and suave."

This wine can stand up to any meat, any spice, any mad adventure of a meal. When you're looking for carmenères, your wine merchant is as likely to be lost as you are, so pick up one from the Colchagua Valley, a diamond of a little valley in Chile that produces exquisite wines at reasonable prices.

Spaghetti with Garlic, Sage, and Olive Oil

Ruth's steak-loving sister is visiting, but between the Deadline, the Move, and a general lack of time for food shopping, we've been forced to scour our meatless pantry each evening for dinner fixings. The other night we remembered an Italian classic: spaghetti with garlic and oil, which is pretty much just that. It's also simple, delicious, and fast.

Mark Bittman's variation incorporates fried breadcrumbs, which provide wonderful texture to the slithery pasta. We added a handful of whole sage leaves just because we had them.

1/3 cup olive oil

2 T. minced garlic

1/4 cup whole sage leaves

1/2 cup breadcrumbs (either fresh or dried are fine)

salt and pepper

1 pound spaghetti

1. While the spaghetti boils, heat the oil in a saucepan, then fry the garlic over medium heat until it's golden—keeping a watchful eye on it, as just a few seconds can turn mellow deliciousness into scorched nastiness. Remove with a slotted spoon.

2. Add the sage leaves to the hot oil, and let them fry until they are dark and curly. Remove them from the pan.

3. Add the breadcrumbs, and fry until crispy and brown.

Once the pasta is cooked, drain it and pour it into a large bowl. Top with the fried garlic, sage and breadcrumbs, and add more oil if you like your pasta on the slippery side. Season with salt and pepper. Serve proudly to even your staunchest meat-eating guests.

It's Almost Halloween

"Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and caldron bubble."

—Macbeth, Act IV, Scene 1

What's bubbling or burning in your caldron?

Again with the Kale Chips

This will be our last post on this subject, we promise. But last week's CSA box offered up a gigantic, ruffly head of curly kale, so we decided to try making chips again. Our first attempt, with dinosaur kale, resulted in delicious but very fragile chips; we wondered how the tougher leaves would work. So we cut away the stems, tore the leaves into palm-sized pieces, tossed them with about a tablespoon of olive oil and a little salt, and roasted them for about 40 minutes at 250 degrees.

The results were even better than our first batch: the thicker leaves resulted in more-substantial chips, and the longer roasting time made them so addictively crunchy that we ended up consuming the whole batch in about 24 hours.

Usually we split our CSA box with Kevin and Cynthia, but Cynthia had given us the whole bunch of kale, claiming that she didn't like it. But once she tasted the chips, she was astonished and converted.

Guest Blog: Prasad, an Indo-Caribbean Treat

Guest blogger and photographer JP Vellotti thought for sure that prasad would be served at the end of the Diwali parade in Richmond Hill, Queens, NYC last weekend. At least, that was the promise that his wife Ramin made to him in exchange for his photo services at the event. But prasad was not served for a very simple reason -- Diwali this year is actually on Saturday, Oct. 17th and the parade was a week early for traffic control reasons. Luckily, Ramin promised she would make prasad for Diwali, and you can too by following Ramin's recipe.

The recipe is from Ramin Ganeshram's, "Sweet Hands: Island Cooking from Trinidad and Tobago," (Hippocrene Books, 2006). Although the first edition is sold out, a second edition with an updated and expanded recipe section is slated for February 2010.

Prasad

8 servings

When I was a child visiting Trinidad, the only way my father could persuade me to go to the many Hindu prayer meetings was with the promise of prasad, a sweet dessert that is given to guests at the end of a Hindu religious ceremony. The basic “pudding” is garnished with coconut, raisins, and nuts, which are collectively called panjaree. It’s generally accepted that panjaree is only for actual religious functions although plain prasad—called mohan bohg—can be served any time.

2 cups ghee (clarified butter)

1/2 cup raisins

2 cups farina

2 cups whole milk

3 (12-ounce) cans evaporated milk

2 pounds sugar

1 teaspoon peeled and grated fresh ginger

1 teaspoon ground cardamom

Raisins, grated fresh coconut, coarsely chopped almonds, and a few cooked chickpeas, for garnish

1. Heat all but 2 teaspoons of the ghee in a large, deep frying pan. Add the raisins and fry over medium-low heat until they plump. Add the flour 1/4 cup at a time, stirring constantly, until it becomes light brown.

In a separate pan, combine the whole milk, evaporated milk, sugar, ginger, and cardamom. Bring just to a boil, stirring constantly. Remove from the heat and add the milk mixture to the flour mixture, 1/4 cup at a time, until the prasad forms semi moist clumps. Remove from the heat. Garnish with grated coconut, almonds, and raisins. Place a few chickpeas on top.

Candles on Ice

Our friend JP, who has written here before, snapped a shot of these Dias at the Indo-Caribbean Diwali parade in Brooklyn a couple of weekends ago. They look a bit like clams on the half shell on ice. They're actually candles that the celebrants light and walk around with at the celebration.

Bargain Wine of the Week: 2008 Maipe Malbec

When we first opened the Maipe Malbec, we thought it okay but not spectacular. Certainly not spectacular enough for this $8.99 (retail) bottle to warrant a 90 from Robert Parker and others.

It was near the end of a course of ravioli with Marinara sauce, so the wine worked well. But we just wondered what about it warranted a 90.

We vacuumed it shut for the night and opened it again the next night with another pasta and red sauce meal. That little extra time of breathing in a bit of 2009 air made all of the difference.

"The 2008 Malbec is a glass-coating purple color with a striking perfume of violets, black cherry, and black raspberry," Parker had written. "Exhibiting surprising complexity for its price category, the wine has gobs of fruit, savory flavors, and excellent depth and length. It is an outstanding value for drinking over the next 3-4 years. Alberto Antonini (think Altos Las Hormigas) is a consultant at Maipe which in and of itself is an indicator that the winery is focused on quality."

This is a Malbec you can afford to drink every night. It tastes of chocolate and coffee, with a finish full of ground pepper.

We would easily pay twice as much for this wine from Argentina. You should pick it up at its price of $8.99.

The World Is a Delicious Place

We may not be writing much this week, but we're glad to see that plenty of other people are. Check out this fine essay on home cooking by Jonah Lehrer. Our favorite paragraph:

And then there's the next meal. Who knows what we'll want to eat? Because we cook, we don't just see things as they are, raw and tough and fibrous. We look at what is and we glimpse the possible - that ugly fish can have crispy skin, and that bitter broccoli rabe would be delicious with garlic and oil. The pretty radicchio belongs in a risotto and those leftover scraps of meat will make a perfect stock. The world, it turns out, is a pretty delicious place. All it needs a little attention, and maybe just a pinch of salt.

Rasa: The Essence

The Sanskrit word rasa is sometimes translated as "flavor," but it also means "juice" — the delicious essence of something. The sweet taste of a ripe peach is its rasa, its essence. Applied in a deeper sense, rasa is the juiciness in life, the subtle lusciousness that gives the world its taste. Without rasa, life would feel dry and flavorless.

—from Vegetarian Times and Yoga Journal

Apologies . . . and a Request

We apologize for the scant postings this week. In addition to the Move and the Deadline (both fast approaching!), we also had to contend with the Sick. We'll be better next week, we promise.

In the meantime, if any of you have a delicious cheap recipe or tip to contribute, please do! We're always interested in what other people are cooking.

Favorite Kitchen Utensils: Mesh Strainer

Our plastic mesh strainer, bought years ago in a dollar store, gets used almost every day. It hangs on the wall in our kitchen so that it's always close at hand. We most often use it to sift flour, or wash rice and other bulk grains. We just measure a cup of rice into the strainer and run it under cold water for a minute or two. This washing not only cleans the grain, but also helps with digestion, believe it or not. The strainer makes it easy: pour, rinse, and drain.

Strainers are also great for incorporating a paste into a larger pot of liquid such as soup, sauce, or gravy.

Tonight when we were making Tom Yum Gai, a spicy Thai soup that calls for a couple of tablespoons of hot and sour paste, we heated four cups of stock (veggie or chicken). Then we added some tofu (you can also use shrimp or chicken, or omit the protein altogether), mushrooms, and mung bean sprouts. When those ingredients had softened, we added scallions and then used the strainer, dipping it almost fully into the liquid, to incorporate two tablespoons of the hot and sour paste.

The strainer keeps the paste from getting lost as a blob in the bottom of the pan. You know whether it has been incorporated, because you can see it in the strainer.

Finally, sprinkle chopped cilantro on the top of the soup and serve.

This is not only a wonderful quick dinner but also a good tonic when you feel yourself coming down with a cold.

Bargain Wine of the Week: 2008 Coteaux du Languedoc Hugues de Beauvignac Picpoul de Pinet

As we've said all too often, the wines of Languedoc are a two-edged dilemma: they can be great wine bargains — or they can be really lousy imports.

When they are great, these wines from the part of southern France that is hard against Spain and Catalonia are the last real bargains from France. When they are bad, they are an unmitigated waste of money. Often the only way to know is to "buy and try."

Unless, of course, a particular $8 wine from Languedoc has been rated 89 by Wine Advocate. That is the case with this wine, which we found at our local wine warehouse. It didn't seem like much of a risk with that endorsement.

This dry white would work with chicken, seafood, and pasta. Tonight it stood up incredibly well to the spicy Thai soup called Tom Yum Gai. It has the aroma of melons and granny smith apples and grapefruit, which also comes through in the citrus-forward flavor.

This wine is crisp, light, and a bargain at $7.99

Florentine-Style Baked White Beans: Fagioli all Fiorentina

Our absolute favorite thing to do with baked white beans is to make Florentine-Style White Baked Beans. It's a casserole that we much prefer these to the sweet pork and beans served at summer picnics throughout America. Serve these once and you'll have people asking you to bring them to the next outing or dinner.

The complexity of the flavors in this pot go with fish, pork, hamburger, beef ... you name it.

Start with the cooked white beans we made a couple of days ago. Put half of the beans (probably three cups) in an oven-proof casserole, along with enough of the cooking liquid to make them slightly wet but not drowning. (Do NOT discard the cooking water. We'll deal with that in a future post.)

Pre-heat oven to 375-degrees F. Add 1-2 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil, a 15 oz. can of tomatoes, preferably fire roasted. (We use the kind with green chilis added because we like just a touch of heat, but the chili part is certainly optional.) Add 5 oz. of prosciutto cut into short strips (optional; we don't add this, given Ruth's vegetarianism), 2 cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed, along with 3-5 fresh sage leaves. Season to taste with salt and pepper. If the liquid isn't up to the top of the beans—don't drown them—add enough liquid to just reach the top of the beans.

Put in the oven uncovered and bake for 30-45 minutes. Serve with any fish, chicken, pork or beef. Or just about anything vegetarian.

This pot of white baked beans can also stand up to a crisp chardonnay or a hearty red wine.

(You can make this with canned Cannellini beans if you're in a hurry or just don't want to make the dried beans.)

Bargain Wine of the Week: 2007 Oak Grove Chardonnay Reserve

We buy a lot of wine under $10, much of it rated highly by someone or other in the wine trade. Our mantra is: High rating, low price. We also buy a fair amount of wine that costs more than $10, which we don't write about here.

Every now and then we forget which is which, and sometimes when that happens we open a bottle we've had around for a while but never tasted and exclaim what a great bottle of wine it is. Usually we just assume that it's one of the more expensive bottles.

But the other night we opened a bottle of a little known (at least to us) chardonnay that had been in the cellar for a bit. It was oaky and toasty and was not unlike the chardonnays from Carneros that we love so much. The fruit forward taste, followed by a pleasant aftertaste of vanilla, was glorious. It even stood up against the very hot Indian food on the evening's menu.

We checked our wine store receipts and were shocked to find that this better-than-pleasant wine was not only $7.99 a bottle, but it was also available in 1.5 liter bottles for $13.99. Now that's a bargain.

We had it again the next evening with more subtle vegetarian fare, and again it was superb.

The wine was 2007 Oak Grove Chardonnay Reserve from California. The people at Beverage Dynamics, whatever that is, rated it 87. We think it's too low.

Good Fast Food: Pseudo-Tabbouli

Between the Deadline and the Move, we haven't had much time to shop or cook. Fortunately, our share of a CSA box keeps us in produce, but the other day we found ourselves with little to eat beyond carrots, garlic, and potatoes. Though we could have devised a meal from those humble ingredients, we didn't have time to prepare one.

Looking through the pantry, we found a jar of bulgur that had been ignored for a long time, waiting to

be made into tabbouli. We had no time for that, but we remembered that bulgur can be cooked in just a few minutes by covering it with boiling water. So we did that.

Once we had the hot bulgur, we improvised: a drizzle of olive oil, a few squirts of lemon juice, salt, pepper. We still had some mint, basil, and parsley in the garden, so we chopped a few leaves and tossed them in, along with some crumbled feta cheese.

We loved the result. Though it didn't have the pungent greenness of real tabbouli, which normally includes a hefty dose of minced garlic and scallions, it did have the basic flavors, and the higher proportion of bulgur resulted in a heavier, chewy salad that went well with the sudden influx of fall weather.

We'll make this again, even after the Deadline and the Move.

Incredibly Versatile White Beans

The Tuscan version of a pot on the stove could be ribollita, a thick twice-cooked bread soup that has a foundation of white beans.

White beans are very easy to make and very versatile, for everything from appetizers to main courses.

We see a lot of people on the cooking shows using canned white cannellini beans, but although they work OK in a pinch , but generally they taste too, well, canned. Our favorite recipe comes from Saveur, a food magazine that we loved to read, but admittedly rarely used for actual cooking.

Here's the recipe:

1 lb. dried cannellini or navy beans

4 T. extra-virgin olive oil

2 cloves garlic, crushed

4 or 5 fresh sage leaves

3 to 5 whole black peppercorns

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

1. Sort through the beans, discarding any small stones; then rinse the beans under cold running water. Place them in a large casserole, cover with at least two inches with cold water, and set aside to soak for four hours or overnight. (You can also use the quick-soak method on the dried-bean bag.)

2. Drain beans; then add 12 cups cold water, two tablespoons olive oil, garlic, sage, and peppercorns. Cover the casserole, bring to a boil, then simmer over medium heat for about one hour. Season to taste with salt, reduce heat to medium low, and gently simmer, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon, until the skins are tender and the beans are soft, about one more hour.

3. Remove from heat, set aside, and let beans cool in the cooking liquid. To serve, reheat beans in the liquid over medium-low heat, drain them, and season to taste with salt and pepper. Add the remaining olive oil.

You can eat these right out of the pot, drizzled with a bit more olive oil. Add a piece of sourdough toast and a roaring fire, and you have a simple but wonderful winter dinner.

Bargain Wine of the Week: Château de Nages Costieres de Nîmes Red Rhone

We've just about given up on finding good French wines under $20, let alone for less than $10. The southern regions of the country known as Langeudoc-Roussillion or Corbieres, just north of the Pyrenees Mountains and Spain, offer some inexpensive wines. But you have to know what you're doing or else test a lot of wines to find the bargains that are worth drinking.

Wines from the more famous regions are getting out of reach when it comes to price. Most of us looking for bargains have moved on to Spain, Chile, and Argentina. The great wines of Bordeaux and Burgundy seem to be regularly reaching the $100+ range. Too green for our palates and pockets.

We were trying out a new warehouse wine store in an unfamiliar city the other day, looking for some wine to take to a dinner party. In the Côte du Rhône section, with the Chateauneufs and other expensive burgundies, we spotted a $12 bottle that was highly rated—along with a $7.99 bottle of Côte du Rhône that was also rated in the mid-80s by somebody or other.

Well, the $7.99 bottle was certainly worth a try. And what a surprise. The first thing that hits you is that the wine is dark as night. Not what you expect from what should be a lighter red. The next sensation is the smell of berries, followed by the taste of dark, black berries. Then the taste of licorice. Just a bit of sweet and dark and licorice.

But the wine—a 2007 Château de Nages Costieres de Nîmes red Rhône wine—was not heavy. It went very well with pork tenderloin, white-bean casserole and fresh tomatoes.

When you find a rated Côte du Rhône for less than $8 and it tastes like at least a $20 bottle of wine, it's time to go back to the store and stock up.

Easy Pork Tenderloin in the Oven

We recently put up a guest post from our friend Kevin, who wrote about foolproof pork tenderloin on the gas grill, using the 7-6-5 method.

Last week we added pork tenderloin to a menu, but did not have a gas or charcoal grill handy, so we decided to see how simply we could make a pork tenderloin (two actually, because they always come two to a package) in the oven. Turns out, it's fairly easy.

Here's how we did it:

We heated about a quarter cup of olive oil and 1 Tablespoon of butter over medium-high heat in an ovenproof sauté pan, and rubbed a small amount of kosher or sea salt (1 teaspoon) on the tenderloins, along with about 2 teaspoons of ground pepper from a grinder that included all colors of peppercorns.

We quick-fried about a dozen sage leaves and drained them on paper towels. This is optional, but you'll like it if you do it.

Next, we browned the two tenderloins on all sides in the fat, about 5 to 7 minutes.

We put the pan in an oven preheated to 375 degrees, in the middle of the oven. We roasted them for exactly 15 minutes (until a thermometer in the loin read about 140 degrees). Then we put the loins on a plate or cutting board and covered them with foil; they continued cooking while we made a sauce.

Kevin marinated his tenderloins in a mustard vinaigrette, which we think is a great idea. But we decided to make a mustard-wine sauce to pour over the meat.

First we poured the fat out of the pan and returned it to the stovetop over medium-high heat. We deglazed the pan with about a cup of red wine and reduced it by half. Then we added salt and pepper.

During the reduction process, we whisked in a few tablespoons of mustard. One T of mustard makes a great, mellow sauce; 3 T makes a spicier sauce.

Then we cut the loins on the diagonal, about 5/8-inch thick, and finished them with a fried sage leaves and a drizzle the wine-mustard reduction.

Serve with a Pinot Noir or a Côte du Rhône.

Vegetable Hash

With an influx of vegetables every week, thanks to our CSA membership, we've had to develop a triage system for avoiding waste.

First, we eat the lettuce and greens. If we can't get to things like chard and kale, we cook them and freeze them to use later in soups or polenta. Then we move on to the broccoli, cauliflower, peppers, and leeks, which can last a week or more in the fridge. This system means that the vegetables with staying power, such as potatoes, onions, garlic, and carrots, tend to pile up.

So last night we made a big vegetable hash, and it turned out great. You know how sometimes you throw something together without a recipe, and it's so good that even as you eat it, you're worried that you will never be able to re-create it? This hash was like that.

And it couldn't have been simpler. We cut five small potatoes into tiny dice, for fast cooking, then tossed them into a couple of tablespoons of hot olive oil. Next we sliced four small onions and added those.

A small cauliflower had spent a lonely week on the refrigerator shelf, so we chopped that into small pieces and added them to the pan. Finally, we had a couple of cups' worth of green beans that were a bit past their prime but tasted wonderful cut into small pieces and added to the mix. We sauteed everything until it was brown and a little crispy, salted and peppered it, then served it with a generous dollop of ketchup.

Poached eggs would be really good on top of a pile of this hash. If you had leftover meat, chicken or cooked tofu, those would be fine additions.