Simple and few ingredients are what make this dish stand out. Calabria is a coastal region in Italy which has a rugged geography where fishing is their bread and butter and where farming is difficult due to an expanse of mountains. Because of agricultural challenges, residents have developed a simple cooking style that makes best use of sparse – but good – food resources.
Essentially all you’re doing is pan-frying (I used a cast iron pan) potatoes and red/yellow peppers for a really long time in a healthy amount of oil (I used sunflower oil for its health properties and ability to cook at relatively high heat compared to olive oil). Somehow, cooking alchemy takes place during the frying process and the sweetness of the peppers melds with the creamy potatoes and you end up with an excellent, easy side dish.
Over the last month, my husband and I have been caught up in what feels like the never-ending process of moving house. But after the stacks of boxes began to diminish, I was able to find a work-appropriate pair of shoes, and the cat came out from behind the dryer, we suddenly realized that it was still summer and we now have the ultimate cooking tool for summer: a deck with a bbq. Our past house had no outdoor space at all so grilling has become a huge novelty. Conveniently, Vegetarian Food for Friends has an entire section devoted to outdoor grills.
The marinated tofu recipe looked easy and cheap – perfect for this month. I easily mixed up the marinade sauce in the morning, it was a fragrant mixture that included a great deal of ginger and sesame – yum. The amount of spice is up to you and for me that means a new experience each time since I don’t tend to measure spice. This recipe called for serrano chile but I was lazy and just used red pepper flakes. The tofu was left marinating throughout the day. By the time I got home from work and grabbed the tofu from the fridge, the marinade has seeped into all pores of the tofu, turning it a rich dark colour. I grilled it on a medium-high bbq for about 5 minutes per side, and was finished. It was delicious. Even my dad, a self-professed tofu hater may have considered eating this meal.
Black rice is something I have rarely bought, so this was an intriguing recipe. North Americans tend to eat white, brown and maybe basmati rice, but rice options are much more plentiful – thousands of varieties exist. http://www.ricegourmet.com/About_RiceVarieties Though most of these are likely not available it’s nice to know that rice is so diverse! I discovered by trial and error that black rice takes significantly longer to cook than the package states (an hour as opposed to 40 minutes).
Quite a bit of lead time is required for the recipe, although most of that time is for cooking the rice and baking the tofu. I spent that time relaxing and playing with the cat so it wasn’t too onerous. Had I been super-organized I could have done all the other prep early on, but I’m not in a hurry. The category “Formal Dinners” probably should’ve been a signal about the level of complexity.
The carrots were to be chopped matchstick style, which is pretty much the most labour-intensive preparation possible. My carrots turned out extremely uniform since I had bought baby carrots due to a lack of space in my backpack while picking up groceries on the way on my bike.
Frying the black rice patties called for a significant amount of oil – I reduced that quite a bit, which perhaps impacted the time to cook them. Eventually they started to firm up into a crispy patty, though by that time I was a bit concerned about the amount of oil they had soaked up! Also, they were starting to burn because ironically, there wasn’t enough oil left. I think the trick with eating fried foods is to let someone else do the frying – out of sight, out of mind. But tasty…
Served on a bed of steamed bok choy, the rice cakes had a wonderful chewy consistency, a great contrast to the slightly crisp carrots. The tofu and mushrooms were elegantly soaked in a hoisin-based sauce which sponged nicely into the rice cakes. Although time-consuming and a great way to dirty your kitchen, this meal was definitely worth it.
Even though this recipe is more an idea than a recipe, it’s a great one for summer: simple, includes chocolate and fresh berries, and doesn’t require you to turn on your oven in the heat.
Local strawberries and cherries are both found in the stores this week, so I’m taking advantage. Both these berries have the benefit of a stem that can easily be grasped for dunking. The book suggests melting the chocolate, each colour separately, in a sauce pan over another pot of boiling water. I decided the microwave would be simpler.
A few minutes to melt, some dipping, and you’ve got a pretty fancy looking dessert that will impress and taste delicious. With in season local berries and high-quality chocolate, you can’t go wrong. The only issue I encountered was that the consistency of the white chocolate made it very challenging to dip. The slightly unfortunate result was that the white chocolate berries were somewhat lacking visually.
We had our new neighbours knock on our door and give us their moving boxes (we’re only going to be neighbours for a month as we are moving), so for some good karma we gave them a plate of the milk and dark chocolate. The white chocolate ones are only for family.
The brilliant sunshine that woke me up today at the ridiculous hour of 5am reminded me that it is, very clearly, summertime. So after covering my head with a pillow to try and snatch another hour or so of sleep, I decided tonight would be the perfect time to delve into the Summer Entertaining section of my book.
Both the look and the taste of this salad depend on not overcooking the snap peas and green beans. The snap peas are pretty delicate and need less than a minute of blanching. You are aiming for maximum greeness – soggy snap peas won’t do. Green beans are a bit less finicky.
In terms of preparation beyond the blanching – there’s not much. Mixing the veggies together with the feta provided a great contrast of white green. Chop up and throw in the remaining ingredients and toss together the dressing and you’re done. The dressing base is greek style yogurt, and the fresh mint really pulls together the flavours – simple, but good. The sweet snap peas pair really well with the salty feta, so I tried to match up a bit of both on each forkful. I served the salad to a group of friends and most asked for the recipe. It was so good I made it again the next night.
In our house, peanut butter rules. Second only to our late night addiction to cereal, a peanut butter and jam sandwich is an easy way to solve the absence of dinner or lunch. So even though I just chose the gado gado with peanut sauce, I couldn’t resist trying out this recipe, which includes a peanut-based dipping sauce to accompany the wedges.
Let’s be honest – sweet potatoes aren’t as pretty as their close cousin, the yam. However, nutritionists swear that sweet potatoes are crammed full of vitamin goodness. A choice of either baking or deep-frying is given with this recipe and being the healthy type, I chose baking.
The sauce recipe includes a spicy chile pepper but advocates seeding the pepper. I’m not sure why you would take away the source of the spice so I left most of the seeds.
I served the wedges with some baked snapper and steamed chard. Together, it made a simple meal that you could serve to friends or family even on a weeknight where you don’t have a chance to start cooking until after 6pm (like me tonight).
The sweet potatoes turned out creamy and the sauce was addictive, a perfect amount of spice and not too heavy. Although the recipe was supposed to serve four people, we ate pretty much everything, even with our fish.
I have to admit I’ve been a bit lazy to date with this project, because I’ve been only choosing pretty simple recipes. Today’s choice seems appropriate for a hot day and since it’s Saturday I have a bit of time on my hands. There is an entire page of directions which is a bit daunting.
Gado Gado is a mainstay of Indonesian cooking, essentially a vegetable salad distinguished by a spicy peanut sauce, usually poured over the salad with a heavy hand. In Indonesia, you can find Gado Gado in hawker’s stalls and have a fresh batch – even the sauce – cooked right in front of you.
The salad itself is cold and consists of a medley of unexpected vegetables such as white cabbage (which I couldn’t find so I’m using savoy cabbage, which is a good substitute because it’s also a mild cabbage), green beans, cucumbers and bean sprouts.
New potatoes provide the foundation for the salad. I began a bit badly by over-boiling the potatoes. But by immediately rinsing them in cold water, draining and then putting in the fridge I think I’ve salvaged them, although I think the texture may be a bit mushy for a salad. The satay sauce has an extensive list of ingredients but makes a fair batch so you could use it for a second meal.
I bought dry roasted peanuts instead of roasting my own. I decided to crush the peanuts as requested the old-fashioned way – with a rolling pin. Easier than cleaning the food processor!
The eggs were a bit fiddly, basically you need to cook an omelette, let it cool, then cut into strips for the desired shape and texture. Dave demonstrated to correct way to flip an omelette, unfortunately I missed the shot.
With a pile of multi-coloured vegetables topped with steaming satay sauce, the salad was visually appealing as well as really tasty. Impressive fare for a dinner party. The recipe is supposed to serve 4 as a main course but I have likely over-estimated the amount of veggies needed because we ended up with enough veggies for the week…
Having never cooked a cauliflower the way the recipe suggests, this recipe appealed to my sense of curiosity. The basic idea is to steam the cauliflower slowly, giving all the ingredients an opportunity to meld together. The book instructed to not cut the cauliflower at all before cooking, simply pull off the green leaves and then use them to line a heavy sauce pan.
Then, place the cauliflower on top with the remaining ingredients and place on low stovetop heat for quite a while. I’m skeptical how this will turn out. The amount of green olives seemed a bit obscene but I’m willing to give it a chance….
To be honest, the cauliflower was a bit strange. Not only did it take twice as long as suggested to almost cook, but it was a bit challenging to eat. But it looked good before we started eating and would make a nice addition to a buffet table… Or, better yet it would make a good participatory appetizer for the beginning of a casual dinner party because all your guests could gather round with a fork and dig right into the one serving plate. The combination of flavours leaned a bit heavily towards green olives. Next time I would decrease the amount of olives in order to achieve better flavour balance.
The final product:
Although it’s supposed to be spring, I was inspired by the cold and wet this week and decided to make soup. Although I’ve been a soup-making fanatic for several years now, I’m a bit ashamed to say I’ve never made a good onion soup. I had a package of thyme in my fridge so this soup recipe seemed the way to use it up. Because of the large number of red onions to cut up, I recruited Dave to do the deed. His eyes stung, but I had a plate of beautifully sliced red onions.
Onion soup relies on good quality ingredients and this recipe relies on simplicity but does have a few added touches that make it simple to make but gorgeous to look at (ahem, red wine?). After a day at work, it’s great to come home to make a soup that calls for red wine – not that I should need an excuse to open a bottle. A little for me on the side always helps with the cooking creativity.
As suggested by the cookbook, I served the soup with goat cheese (I actually subsituted feta from the fridge) and crusty french bread. And we didn’t let the rest of the bottle go to waste. On a rainy evening the soup was divine – not too heavy, but full of flavour. Because there was so few ingredients, each one contributed significantly to the flavour. I tossed in probably several times more thyme than the recipe called for and we both loved the strong flavour.
It was, however, a bit on the runny side, even with the addition of cornstarch. Perhaps not a first date or boss entertaining item, as it got a bit slurpy, with the long pieces of onion. The leftovers, after being in the fridge for a few days, tasted even better.
To go along with the portobello mushrooms, I decided to keep with the grilling theme and do another simple recipe from the Outdoor Grills section at the same time. The arrival of asparagus signals the beginning of spring and in Vancouver, which is currently draped in pink and white cherry blossoms, it finally feels like spring. The flavour and appearance of this recipe masks it’s simplicity. You can easily impress people by serving food in season because the ingredients themselves are just asking to be eaten. The beauty of this recipe is you can substitute whatever vegetable happens to be in season and is suitable for grilling. Simply snap off the ends of each asparagus spear before marinating and tossing on the grill. The spear will break naturally where it should.
Both the mushrooms and the asparagus were delicious accompaniments to our main course – our after-work standby of veggie burgers! It was nice to have some elegant sides to an otherwise commonplace meal.
Vegetarian Food for Friends