Paper Chef was re-invigorated a few months ago (now with its own blog!), and I’ve been meaning to participate in it ever since, but I kept missing it for various (lame and not-so-lame) reasons. But not this month! I finally pulled off an entry.

The idea behind Paper Chef is that you have a weekend (nearly a week now) to design and execute an original dish — or an original take on a classic — using four ingredients revealed at the kick-off. Three ingredients are chosen randomly from a list, and the fourth is chosen by the host / judge for the month.

I didn’t exactly follow Hank’s specifications (this month’s judge). The ingredients for Paper Chef 31 are fresh oregano, walnuts, chickpeas or chickpea flour, and a fish steak. I’m not big on walnuts, but I have a ready supply of pecans (from my dad’s backyard trees) so I planned to make that substitution. Also, he listed certain kinds of fish steak, but I already had some salmon in the freezer so I used that instead of buying one from his list. But I just now (while typing this up) see he was actually more keen on it being a fish steak than fillet. I guess I’m really off base, but not for the reason I thought. Woops!

I decided to use chickpea flour to make a breading for the fish. “Chickpea flour” makes me think of Indian food, so I wanted to go with some Indian spicing - but the oregano sort of throws a monkey wrench in that plan. But I proceeded apace nonetheless. Poking around in the cupboards turned up some hazelnut meal, so I decided to use that for the nuts (rather than toast and grind some pecans). I had some fresh oregano from my CSA share, so I was set (even though slightly off track from the Regulation Ingredients). Read on for what I made.

hazelnut meal - chickpea flour swirl

Mix together:

• 1/4 cup chickpea flour
• 1/4 to 3/8 hazelnut flour
• 1/4 to 1/2 tsp powdered cumin
• 1/8 to 1/4 tsp cayenne or powdered chiles

Grind together in mortar and pestle (or with a spoon, if your m&p is still packed away due to a long-lasting kitchen remodel):

• 1 Tab fresh oregano (or more!)
• 1 tsp cumin seed

and add to the flour.

I dredged the fish in the flour mixture, then remembered some ill-fated attempts to try breading without eggs. So then I beat 1 egg with a glop of milk (2 tablespoons, perhaps?), put the fillet in that, then dredged again in flour.

Heat up skillet, film with olive oil and add a tablespoon of butter.

Cook salmon in skillet.

And this is where things kind of went wrong. I don’t know if my skillet was too hot (I wasn’t using my ideal sauté pan - the person who’d made eggs for breakfast had not washed it!) or one of the ingredients was prone to burning or what, but the breading burned. Both sides! However, all was not lost. It didn’t taste burned - in fact, it was really quite good! The crunch of the breading was nice against the fish, and the cumin was distinguishable but not overwhelming. Cumin with salmon: this I will do again!

If I’d made this meal on the weekend instead of after work, I might have made “chickpea pancakes” or “chickpea pizza” from my favorite cookbook, but instead, I served this with naan (sticking to the Indian angle!). And to throw in a “traditional” flavor, I also served tossed green salad.

I didn’t take a picture because it looked pretty sad in its charred stated - I suppose I could have passed it off as “blackened salmon” but that wasn’t my intention, so I skipped the photo.

Here’s an alternative idea that I didn’t make: Prepare Spanish-style Spinach with Chickpeas (fabulous dish!), adding in a big handful of oregano with the greens. Prepare fish steak in a straightforward fashion (salt & pepper, then grill or broil or sauté). Serve on top of the greens and chickpeas, and top with toasted walnuts and/or a drizzle of walnut oil. Too bad I didn’t think of this earlier - I could have used up more greens from my fridge! Hmmm, maybe I’ll do it this coming weekend…

I was a bit startled last week to see rhubarb in the Farmer’s Market. For some reason I thought it was a May into mid-June crop, but I guess that’s more like the asparagus season. According to the rhubarbinfo site, the rhubarb growing season is April to September.

Of course, this detail wasn’t really all that crucial, because I had a bunch of rhubarb in my fridge, purchased many weeks ago! I’d seen a recipe for rhubarb chocolate chip cake in my local newspaper, and wanted to make it. But then, when we had buttermilk in the house, I couldn’t find the recipe. The search feature for our newspaper’s online presence is rather lame, and didn’t locate it. I searched for awhile in my pile of newspapers yesterday, and then I searched online, and despite a handful of newspaper hits, none of those articles were online either. I guess it must be syndicated content and not allowed to remain on newspaper sites.

what was left after the block party...

Anyway, the search was not in vain, because I found this recipe (and found it cited elsewhere), and made it Sunday for a neighborhood block party. We thought it was really tasty, and most people who ate it raved about it. I don’t know if it’s the same one that was in the paper, but it’s a keeper! If you eschew nuts in your desserts, I’d skip the topping step completely, and maybe dust with powdered sugar (or cocoa?) instead.

Sometimes I think I should just start a Madhur Jaffrey fan club. So many of the vegetable recipes I cook are from her World Vegetarian cookbook. And here’s another one! Like the spanakorizo recipe a page earlier in the cookbook - another way to use up lots of greens! - this ends up being pretty rich, I guess from all that olive oil. But hey, if you want to be authentic, you gotta use all the olive oil. :^)

My modifications: I used canned chickpeas (unsalted, so I didn’t modify the salt in the recipe, but if you use salted beans you might want to leave out the salt). Since I drained the beans and didn’t have cooking liquid, I added 2 cups of water with the beans. Instead of just spinach, I used a wide variety of greens - spinach, braising greens, tatsoi, and whatever else I found in the fridge. (I’ve gotten behind in greens consumption, I guess!) The greens get cooked way down in all that time on the stove, plus the seasoning combination is great, so the overall effect was wonderfully rich and flavorful. I served this with a mildly spiced couscous and some manchego cheese.

Spanish-Style Spinach with Chickpeas (espinacas con garbanzos)
From Casa Ruiz in Triana, Seville

3/4 cup (5 oz) dried chickpeas
1/4 cup olive oil
5 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped
2 lbs fresh spinach, washed and cut into wide, ribbonlike shreds
2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
1.5 tsp paprika
1/8 to 1/4 tsp cayenne or crushed red pepper flakes
1.25 tsp salt

Soak the chickpeas overnight in cold water to over by about 3 inches. Drain.
In a medium pot, bring the chickpeas and 2.5 cups of water to a boil. Cover, lower the heat, and simmer for 2.5 to 3 hours, or until the chickpeas are tender.
Put the oil in a wide, medium pot and set over medium-high heat. When hot, put in the garlic and stir once or twice. Add the spinach and stir until the spinach has wilted. Add the chickpeas with their cooking liquid, the cumin, coriander, paprika, cayenne, salt, and 1 cup of water. Mix well. Cook on medium heat, uncovered, for 20 to 30 minutes. Stir occasionally. There should be a little thick juice left at the bottom of the pan. Serve hot or at room temperature.

Spanakorizo is a great dish to make if your CSA box is overrun with spinach (in our case, due to mild and wet spring). I got this recipe from Madhur Jaffrey’s World Vegetarian (big surprise, I know! Why do I even bother keeping the rest of my cookbooks?). She writes “For a simple Greek meal, you could serve this dish with some kalamata olives, some goat or sheep’s milk cheese (drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with fresh or dried oregano or thyme), a bean dish, and some crusty bread.” I had Manchego, which is a sheep’s milk cheese, but Spanish instead of Greek. I also threw together a simple bean dish: a can of garbanzos heated with can of chopped tomatoes and green chiles, with some feta added at the end.

The final dish was very tasty and rich, probably from all that olive oil! (Just so you know, it’s much more spinach than rice.) I thought I might have cooked the spinach too long in the first step, because I didn’t have my colander set up ahead of time, but it didn’t ruin the final product. It did seem a bit too salty - or maybe too lemony? Next time I’ll skip the last addition of salt. And I have another giant bag of spinach, maybe I’ll make it again before next Wednesday’s CSA pickup!

Elena Averoff’s Spinach with Rice (Spanakorizo)
p 227 in World Vegetarian by Madhur Jaffrey

1.5 lbs spinach
6 scallions, cut crosswise into fine rings all the way up to the green section
5 Tablespoons olive oil
Salt
3 Tab Italian risotto rice or any medium-grain rice
2 Tab finely chopped fresh dill (I don’t like and didn’t have anyway, so happily left out)
1 Tab fresh lemon juice (or more, if desired) (I squoze the half lemon in my fridge directly into dish, so didn’t measure)

Trim the spinach and separate the leaves. Wash well and drain. Bring 12 cups of water to a rolling boil and drop in the spinach leaves. Cook for 1 to 2 minutes, or until they are just wilted. [Although you won't ruin the dish if you go a bit beyond this.] Drain. Run under cold water and drain in a colander.

Put 2 cups of water in a wide pot and bring to a boil. Put in the scallions, oil, 1/2 tsp salt, and the rice. Cook on med-high heat, stirring now and then, for 10 to 12 minutes, or until the rice is just done and the liquid in the pot is reduced to a little thick sauce. [See photo above - mine didn't really look like a sauce, but I couldn't see how it was going to get any saucier so I moved on to the next step!]

Put in the spinach and another 1/2 tsp salt. Stir and cook for 2 to 3 minutes. Add (the dill and) lemon juice and stir to mix. Serve hot.

Serves 4

A few weeks ago, T-boy’s preschool had their end-of-year picnic. I was excited to be assigned a dessert, since I usually end up with main dish or side. I made rhubarb crunch - ’tis the season! - but then I left it cooling on the counter. Alas!

I’ve bought rhubarb twice more since then. I intended to send some home with my mother-in-law, so she could make a rhubarb pie for someone in her church who misses rhubarb, but alas we forgot. Tomorrow is another pot luck (this time, a “moving on” ceremony for the 2nd graders in a pair of 1st/2nd grade classes), so I realized I had another opportunity to use rhubarb!

After more pondering than was probably necessary, I settled upon “Rhubarb and Raspberry Crunch” at the rhubarbinfo recipe compendium. I had close to 1.5 lbs of rhubarb, and I’m sure any raspberries I might have in the freezer were long-suffering and sad-tasting, so I left out the raspberries. For “digestive or ginger biscuits”, I used some ginger cat cookies from Trader Joe’s (cat-shaped cookies, not cookies intended for cats!).

I won’t get to try it until tomorrow night, so I can’t report on the tastiness. But Leila has been poking me to post, and I want to remind folks out there in rhubarb land to cash in on the seasonality, so here it is. (Look, Michele, no strawberries! :^)

Gingery Rhubarb Crunch

Ingredients:

100g (4oz) butter, melted
100g (4oz) rolled oats
100g (4oz) ginger cookies, coarsely crushed
50g (2oz) chopped pecans
175g (6oz) demerara (raw) sugar, divided in half
Pinch of cinnamon
650g (1.5 lb) rhubarb, cut into 2.5cm (1in) lengths

Procedure:

• Mix together butter, oats, crushed biscuits, nuts, half sugar and cinnamon.
• In another bowl mix remaining sugar and fruits together.
• Place half fruit in bottom of a 1.1 litre (2 pint) greased ovenproof dish. Sprinkle with half biscuit mixture.
• Repeat layers.
• Bake: Conventional (or convection) Oven preheated, 375F, 35 mins.
• Serve hot or cold with ice cream or cream.

Exploiting St Patrick’s Day for nefarious nutritional purposes:

◊ ◊ ◊

(click on images to see complete comics)

Just watch out for green skittles - buying or selling them could get you kicked out of school in New Haven, Connecticut! (and subsequently reinstated, but that probably won’t make quite as many newspapers…)

I heart breakfast - at least on Valentine’s day!

Orange Chocolate Chip Scones

1 1/4 cup white flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup butter, warmed to room temperature
1 egg
2 Tab orange juice concentrate, thawed
2 tsp grated orange peel
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips

Thaw orange juice and warm butter. Preheat oven to 350° F. Combine dry ingredients. Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. In separate bowl, combine egg, OJ concentrate, and orange rind; mix well. Add wet ingredients and chocolate chips to dry ingredients. Shape dough into a ball and place on a lightly floured surface. Pat dough into a circle about 1/4 inch thick. Cut circle into 8 wedges (or 10 if you’re a family of 5) (or however many hearts you can manage if making for a special treat) and place on a foil- or parchment-lined cookie sheet. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown.

I think these originally came from a website called “Baking Bits”, but I no longer have the source written down. Z-boy called them “breakfast cookies” when he was little, so the entire family adopted the name. They’re yummy, and simple to make! Although they’re best fresh out of the oven and slightly warm, I made them Wednesday night so they’d be available for a special Valentine’s Day breakfast. (I don’t believe in early rising, not even for making special breakfast treats!)

If you like wheat thins ™, you’ll probably like these crackers. Z-boy and Jonski Papa enjoyed them, as did a next door neighbor boy. They were sweeter than I had hoped for - I guess I was aiming for the wheat weaver taste rather than wheat thins. But anyway, I’ll probably make them again some time, with a little tinkering.
Original recipe on the Wyoming Cowgirl web site.

WHOLE WHEAT CRACKERS
350-degree oven
makes about 60

3 cups whole wheat flour
2 cups rolled oats
1-1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 cup shortening
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup honey or sugar
About 1-1/2 cups milk

Stir together flour, oats, and salt; set aside.
Beat the shortening, butter and honey/sugar until golden and fluffy.
Stir in flour concoction, alternating with the milk. [I did not quite use the full amount of milk] Your dough still will be soft and fairly sticky, but go on ahead and turn it onto a floured countertop and knead lightly.

Divide in fourths and refrigerate (or not) for a spell (chilled dough just works easier). [I did not]

Roll out each piece to 1/8-inch thick and cut into 1-3-inch round crackers. Poke all over with a fork, slap onto an ungreased cookie sheet, and bake in a 350-degree oven for about 20-25 minutes (or until golden brown).

Notes: I searched the cupboards high and low looking for honey, and turned out a tiny little glass jar that came in some high-end gift basket, plus two honey packets from a fast food joint (real honey, not the fake stuff they serve at KFC). So I had to use sugar for about half the sweetener.

I made a half batch, since I wasn’t sure if we would like them. I used a small biscuit cutter to cut out the crackers (about 2 1/2″ diameter), and ended up with about 4 dozen crackers. They were kind of tough (due to the sugar? too much handling of the dough?) so I might knead them less vigorously next time, and cook a shorter amount of time (wyoming cowgirl said “just a smidgen less” so I stopped at 20 minutes, but perhaps she cooks even less than what she recommends in her recipe). Square crackers would be even quicker to prepare, and would require less dough-handling, so that might be something else to try.

[Aside to the other TJ in town who sometimes reads my blog: I often find myself spontaneous reciting your cracker poem that was published in Babybug. Like just now, as I typed square crackers. Will I recite it to my grandchildren some day? I wouldn't be surprised!]

2008 is the International Year of the Potato and January 2008 was declared NATIONAL RUTABAGA MONTH by the Advanced Rutabaga Studies Institute (ARSI). I’m pretty sure the latter doesn’t have the same level of backing as the Potato folks (one has the backing of the UN, the other hosts their site on tripod - that’s the first clue), but they do have a streaming rutabaga webcam! How fun is that! (Fun in the whimsical sense, not in the side-splitting raucous entertainment sense…)

All of this is timely because the recently reinvigorated Paper Chef featured these four ingredients: potatos, rutabagas, tomatoes, and bacon. My first thought on reading that was “potato-rutabaga gratin! But what to do with the tomatoes?” My second thought was “do I still have a rutabaga in the fridge, from my CSA?” Clearing out the produce drawer revealed no rutabagas, but plenty of turnips (way past their prime storage life, but they are local and organic and still appear to be in fine shape…).

Anyway, for a variety of reasons, I didn’t pull things together to participate, but if I had, this is what I would have done:

half pound potatos, cut into chunks (peeled if so desired, but I probably wouldn’t)
nice sized rutabaga, peeled and cut into chunks equivalent in size to the taters
sun-dried tomatoes, chopped
4-6 slices good quality bacon

Cook some bacon to generate bacon grease. Crumble the bacon and set aside. Preheat oven to 400 F. Toss the potatoes and rutabaga with some bacon grease (or olive oil, if you don’t want to be true to Paper Chef and are concerned about the source of your fat calories) and green chile salt (if you have it, I do) or powdered red chiles and salt. Roast in the oven. At about 30 minutes, stir the root chunks and toss in your diced up tomatoes. Cook another 15 to 30 minutes, until the roots are fork tender. Toss the bacon crumbles on for the last few minutes in the oven. Serve warm.

So I guess this truly is a “paper” chef entry, since it exists only in theory (electronic chef? imaginary chef?).

If you want to see what real participants made, go read the round-up at Lucullian Delights.

While cruising the after Christmas aisles at Target, I encountered “peppermint bark” style cookies. Even at 50% off, they were rather pricey, and decidedly over-packaged (individually wrapped for those few remaining ultra-hygiene-concerned people who still eat sweets!). So I bought some half-price candy canes and decided to make my own cookies.

I found a recipe titled “Candy Cane Cookies” in Christmas Cookies ((c) 1986, Oxmoor House) and fiddled with it a bit. The original directions call for adding red food coloring to half the dough, then shaping teaspoonfuls of dough into rolls, twisting them together, then shaping into canes. 48 times! Too much work for me! I just wanted the taste, not the look of candy canes. Another recipe in the same book (Mint Chocolate Snaps) had melted chocolate and crushed peppermints in the dough. I was less keen on that recipe overall, but inspired by the melted chocolate. So I decided to flatten balls of dough, then dip the baked cookies into melted chocolate and the crushed candy. Yum! Everyone in the family liked them, except perhaps Jonski Papa, who confessed to not liking the combo of chocolate and peppermint bits, and requested I leave some without the candy. T-boy asked me to make 8 more batches. I might make 2 more (especially since I have peppermint bits left), but certainly not 8!

Cookies ala Peppermint Bark

1/3 cup finely crushed peppermint candy (about 6 canes)
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup shortening
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
1 cup sifted powdered sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp almond extract
2.5 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt
4 to 6 oz chocolate chips

Combine candy and 1/3 cup sugar in a small mixing bowl, mixing well. Set aside.

Preheat oven to 375 F.

Cream shortening and butter in a large mixing bowl; gradually add the powdered sugar, beating until light and fluffy. Add egg; beat well. Stir in flavorings. Add flour and salt; mix well.

Using the scoop thingie your mother-in-law gave you for cookie making, scoop balls of dough onto cookie sheets. (I tried both greased and ungreased, and both worked fine, so go with your preference.) Flatten a bit (the cookies do not spread much).

Bake cookies at 375F for 9 minutes or just until edges begin to brown. While cookies are baking, melt chocolate chips (I used the microwave method). Remove cookies from cookie sheets while warm; immediately dip into melted chocolate and then into candy mixture. Cool completely on wire racks.

Yield: about 4 dozen

Note 1: One of my September Mom friends used a food processor to crush candy canes for minty hot chocolate mix, so I did that. It’s noisy, but it makes quick work of the crushing. And for what it’s worth, I only used about half the mixture. Your coverage may vary!

Note 2: If you don’t have one of those scoop thingies, just use your own tried-and-true method for getting balls of cookie dough. Make sure to flatten them, though!

Note 3: This dough recipe reminded me a lot of butterballs, one of my Christmas favorites. Maybe I’ll post that recipe next…