Fresh Tart

I love tofu.  Love the creamy texture and the slightly sweet, mild taste.  And of course love how beautifully it soaks up whatever lovely flavors you decide to surround it with.  I particularly like spicy firm tofu - it's all about the contrast of heat with the chewy-silkiness of sauteed tofu with the crunch of veggies and peanuts.  I crave it.

My go-to version is extremely clean and simple - no sauce, but lots of flavor.  I start with paper thin slices of jalapeno, thicker slices of sweet onion, a thinly-sliced clove of garlic, a tablespoon of crushed peanuts, and 3/4-inch cubes of firm tofu, pressed dry on a few paper towels (for one person, half a package).  I heat a tablespoon or so of olive oil in a nonstick pan (wok works great, no surprise), add the garlic and jalapeno, and saute for a few minutes.  I loosely push the pepper and garlic off to the side and add the tofu, leaving it untouched for 3-4 minutes so that it browns a bit.  I turn the pieces and allow them to brown on a second side.  At some point I add a generous sprinkle of salt.  In goes the onion for a brief saute (I like it crunchy).  Finish with peanuts. (Good with sauteed cabbage as well - add the cabbage after sauteeing the jalapenos and garlic, stir around until wilted, plate the cabbage, then saute the tofu and onions.  Add the cabbage back in, toss it all together, season with salt and pepper, enjoy.)

And here's a fantastic-looking NYTimes recipe, similar idea but with more complex flavors - Crispy Tofu with Shiitakes and Chorizo.  Can't wait to try it, rarrr. In fact, there's a whole tofu recipe section on the site, check it out.

Happy First Day of Spring!  (Freezing rain here, ha, hopefully sunshine where you are!)

Mmm, tomato soup, so comforting and so incredibly easy to make from scratch, blowing the condensed version away.  We eat it often, different variations.  I often make a quick, brothy version for lunch, stirring in spinach or broccoli or whatever veggies sound good.  There's always delicious pappa el pomodoro (tomato and bread soup), quick to make, yet thick and luscious.  And tonight's version, a Michael Chiarello classic, with lightly roasted tomatoes and aromatic vegetables, simmered together and pureed with a bit of cream.  I grilled bread to float in the soup and that, my friends, was dinner.  (Note: I find this recipe really serves two people, not four, especially if one of them is a hungry guy.  Named John.  I also skip the butter and use half the cream - or less - with great result.)

My goodness there are few things in this world tastier than a garlicky, crusty lamb chop.  John returned from a long weekend in New York, and with Nathan away visiting his grandparents in Florida, it was just the two of us for din.  In other words, a nice night for lamb chops.

I either buy them or trim them into two-chop pieces.  That way, after grilling (and carving), each individual chop has one crusty and one tender side, the perfect combination of textures and flavors, I think.  I smear them with a paste of minced garlic, dried herbs, and olive oil, as well as a generous sprinkle of coarse salt.  On a hot grill they go, approximately 6 minutes/side for rosy.

I made up a potato-eggplant-tomato gratin, which was fine but not lovely enough to produce a recipe for (thin slices of potato and eggplant, layered with a chunky tomato sauce and Parmesan cheese, baked until tender.  Eggplant was quite bitter, despite salting, rinsing, and drying it, that was the biggest problem.  So it goes.  For excellent tips on how to prepare eggplant for cooking, see here.)

One delicious flavor note in the gratin was the generous grating of fresh nutmeg I included - if I haven't said it before, it's very worth grating nutmeg yourself.  It's also very worth experimenting with nutmeg in your favorite savory dishes - it's my "secret ingredient," hiding sneakily and deliciously in potatoes, tomato sauces, omelets, chicken broth-based soups, pork chops, and grated over spinach and kale.

Toasted breadcrumbs, duh!  (Slaps head...)  Why do I always forget about them?  So easy, so incredibly delicious, and quite light to boot, since one piece of bread and a couple of teaspoons of olive oil make enough garnish for three servings of eggs or vegetables or pasta or fish or potatoes.  In fact, there are few dishes that wouldn't be elevated by a spoonful of humble toasted breadcrumbs.  The toasty flavor, the crunch, the punch of garlic and salt (I add garlic and salt).  Sublime.

Like in the simple dish pictured up top, which I just consumed for lunch.  I know, I know, you're thinking, how many versions of eggs and greens can this woman consume?  What can I say?  Fast and easy.  Cheap and nutritious.  Light yet filling.  And most important, so gorgeously delicious, eggs and greens just belong together.

I should back up and say that I don't always eat eggs with greens.  I usually hard-cook a few eggs each week, to have on hand for a quick snack or meal, most often happily eaten straight up (well, with a sprinkle of salt and pepper).  But sometimes, as you might imagine, that's a bit boring.  Plus, this image of sauteed hard-cooked eggs nestled into a bed of greens kept popping into my head...  Did I dream it up myself?  Unlikely.  Did I see them in a magazine, a cookbook, online?  Couldn't recall.

After a bit of poking around on Google, I figured out I'd seen it the cookbook sitting right next to me, Lynne Rosetto Kasper's How to Eat Supper.  In it she reproduces a Jacques Pepin recipe for Pan-Crisped Deviled Eggs on French Lettuces.  A clever recipe, quite simple, so pretty (very Jacques Pepin).  Following the recipe is a suggested variation, Sardinian Hard-Cooked Eggs, where unstuffed halved eggs are sauteed in olive oil and vinegar and finished with toasted breadcrumbs - even simpler and equally delicious sounding.  As I may have mentioned before (ahem), I'm always looking for ways to eat my greens, so I innovated and served the egg on a bed of quickly sauteed spinach.  Topped with toasted breadcrumbs, yes.

Completely humble and tasty.

Recipe for Pan-Crisped Deviled Eggs here.  Recipe for Sardinian Hard-Cooked Eggs with Spinach here.

Sunday morning, a cup of hot coffee, a sunny forecast for plus 50 degrees, a few leftovers to mess around with - life is good. I can't wait to scoot out the door for a long afternoon's walk.  Granted, there is still plenty of snow stubbornly sticking around.  But not enough for complete ground coverage, which means bits of spring are peeking through.  (Some people call it brown grass, I call it spring, la la la!)

I had decided last night that the bread-salad croutons and wild mushroom sauce from Friday's dinner party would make for pretty awesome Sunday eggs of some sort.  Fried, scrambled, souffle?  I settled on a frittata as the best (easiest) vehicle, so frittata it was.  I started by preheating the broiler and drizzling a little olive oil in a small nonstick saute pan.  Over medium heat I quickly sauteed a minced scallion and a handful of spinach leaves until wilted (sprinkle of salt, grind of pepper).  I pushed that off to the side and added the croutons (diced quite small first) to heat and crisp them up a bit.  Then an egg, lightly beaten.  I let the bottom set (takes only a minute or two when cooking just one egg) then ran the pan under the broiler to set the top.  A spoonful of warm mushrooms to finish and oh yes, a Sunday brunch was born.

What have you got in your fridge to make a frittata?  Bet you'd be surprised - almost any vegetable, a few gratings of cheese, diced ham or crumbled bacon, a few slices of potato...  The options are pretty endless.  And inexpensive (this is seriously cheap eats).  And perfect for breakfast, lunch, or dinner.  And clearly easy and fast.  Get creative, stir something up, and enjoy!

My favorite vegetable these days is...okra.  It all started last year, when I discovered a recipe for a saute of okra with bacon, tomatoes, and sweet onion, as I hungrily perused the wonderful The Gift of Southern Cooking cookbook.  Being a Northerner and all, my only previous experience with okra was, well, slimy and uninteresting.  But I could see in the book's pic that a quick saute, allowing the okra to even crisp a bit, eliminated the slime factor and achieved deliciousness.  And it most definitely does, oh yes.  The crispy bacon makes the dish insanely good - you'll be glad to know that a little goes a long way.  I confess I didn't have the tomatoes last night, but the dish is absolutely delicious with just okra and onions.  Or even just okra, which is how I often prepare it to have alongside quick chicken gumbo.

While I would have happily tucked into a pan of okra and called it dinner, the rest of the family?  Um, no.  So I also sauteed some boneless thin-cut pork chops (sprinkled with thyme and salt first) and made a quick little pan sauce with a splash of chicken broth, finished with a tablespoon each of black cherry jam and Dijon mustard.  Polenta (grits) would have been the crowning touch, but no one else is a fan, so I boiled and drained a few red potatoes, lightly crushed them, and finished them with a very brief saute in a bit of butter, just on one side to add a little crispness.  Finished with a shower of parsley, they're tasty and pretty, in a jumbled, deconstructed, potato-y sort of way.  Even a little - dare I say - Springy?  Just a little, mind you, wouldn't want to go too far and get our hopes up or anything...

Farewell to Fugaise, now in its last week of business, although certainly not the last act for talented chef Don Saunders.  John and I, along with Genie & Joe Dixon, Kathleen Ruhland, and Angela & Mark Lageson, joined Fugaise regulars Debbie & Stu (The Wine Genius) Wiliams and Sue & Lou Ainsworth for a last-hurrah tour through Fugaise's menu.

I had a delicious piece of pan-fried skate over Israeli couscous and baby vegetables.  I tasted, admittedly a bit hesitantly (too close to "pet" in my mind, I guess), Stu's roasted tenderloin of kangaroo, which was quite rich and delicious.  I loved the bite of seared salmon offered as an amuse bouche (which is unusual - I've pretty much given up eating salmon in Minnesota, both at restaurants and from every store I can think of...pre-frozen and/or not-fresh-enough...fishy...yuck).  Served over a sprig of greens and a slice of pink grapefruit, the taste was clean and silky with a wonderful grilled char, mmmmm.  Man when salmon's good, it's so good.  We of course drank great wine and pretty much had a total blast.  Best of luck to the chef and terrific staff!

Such a precise, beautifully composed dinner compared to my (typical) one-pan (hot mess?) lunch!  As I've said before, I'm always looking to work as many veggies into my lunch as possible.  I love salads, but oh no, I can not eat a salad every day for lunch.  No.  In the same vein as my quick soups, beans, and pastas (below), if I have a spot of leftover rice I put together a simple fried rice, quick and filling.

I started yesterday as I usually start, by sauteeing a bit of garlic and onion in a drizzle of olive oil. Carrots too this go-round. A few pea pods or mushrooms would have been nice, but I didn't have them.

I did add a pinch of Chinese five-spice powder to the pan, although curry powder would work as well.  I cracked an egg into the pan and scrambled it all around with the veggies.  Then I added the rice, a bit of chopped chicken, and a handful of spinach leaves, stirring around until hot.  To finish, I whisked together a tablespoon of soy sauce with a tablespoon of hoisin sauce and a teaspoon of vinegar.  Teriyaki sauce would work too, or oyster sauce - basically any Asian condiment with a bit of sweetness.  I poured the sauce over the rice, stirred around a few times, and voila, really fast fried rice.

I just happened to have some crushed peanuts left from the previous night's stir-fry, they made a lovely topping.  There was nothing precise or particularly elegant about it, but it made for a hot, healthy lunch - something other than salad! - and that was nice.