Muhammara

I don't know how I went so many years without even hearing of muhammara

but when I found it on a vegetable antipasto at my favorite local restaurant,

it was love at first bite.

Muhammara is a Middle Eastern dip but I've used it in sandwiches of grilled eggplant, 

in quesadillas, or mixed in to a little pasta.  It's versatile.  If I were to describe it to

someone who's never had it, I would say it's like a sweet red pepper pesto.  

When time allows, I like to do everything from scratch but I've added a few shortcuts in red

that will allow you to whip this up in a few minutes with things can keep in your pantry.

                    Ingedients                         (Quick-n-Easy alternative in red)              

                    1 cup walnuts, toasted  (toasting optional to save time)                      
                    3 sweet red peppers, roasted (or use one 12-oz. bottle roasted red peppers)        
                    2/3 cup plain bread crumbs (or throw one piece pita bread in food processor)          
                    3 cloves garlic
                    3 T. fresh lemon juice (don't you dare use the fake stuff)
                    1 T. paprika
                    1 tsp. cumin
                    1 tsp red pepper flakes (to taste)
                    1 tsp. salt
                    1/2 tsp black pepper
                    2 T. pomegranate molasses* (2 T. pomegranate juice, optional)
                    3 T. olive oil

                    Extra olive oil, moroccan black olives and spring of mint for garnish

                   * See recipe for pomegranate molasses below

Brush peppers with oil and roast in 400 F. oven.  Roast about 30-35 minutes,

flipping once or twice so they brown evenly.  When tender and collapsed, set aside

to cool.  Remove stems, seeds and skin.

On another baking sheet, toast the walnuts for about 7 minutes.

Watch them closely; they burn quickly!  Set aside to cool.

1 16-oz. bottle of pomegranate juice

1/3 cup sugar

1/3 lemon juice

Heat pomegranate juice to boiling.  Add sugar and stir to dissolve.

Add lemon juice and reduce heat to a simmer.

Simmer until liquid is reduced to about one cup.

Remove from heat and cool.

Extra molasses can be stored in a glass jar in fridge for a few months.

In a food processor, start with the walnuts, bread and dry ingredients to make sure

they're well integrated.  Add the peppers and wet ingredients and puree until smooth.

Use a spatula to push ingredients down a few times

End with the olive oil and add one tablespoon at a time.  You may not need all the liquid

and it's a great place to cut on calories if you want to.

Can be served immediately or stored in refrigerator for a few days.

Garnish with moroccan black olives and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.

Serve with any kind of bread.  I love toasted pita points because there's

something satisfying about eating something with a little crunch.

Enjoy!

Beet It

I must have been about seven years old, but I can clearly remember sitting at the dining room table crying over a helping of beets.  We were required to ask permission to be excused from the table and any food left on the plate was reason for denial of the request.  My brother, having already choked down his beets, was laughing at something on TV in the living room.  I thought my torture had ended at bedtime when I was finally dismissed from my uneaten beets.   

They reappeared on my plate the next night. 

I've never much eaten them since.

But watching the national news the other night, Lester Holt interviewed Yoko Ono about her new film project called #SmilesFilm.  You can tweet a photo of you smiling and the collection of smiles will be assembled and the confluence of smiles will change the world.  Lester asked her what John Lennon would think of the Smiles Project.  They cut to a video of John and Yoko singing and John's words spoke to me.  

"All we are saying is give beets a chance."

Having been "called" by John Lennon, I went to the farmer's market

last weekend and picked up a little purple bundle.

I have to admit they're quite beautiful.

I always loved the greens.

They were boiled, as I recall it, and served with vinegar.

I thought I would do them two ways.  If I hated one, I'd still have the other.

Way 1:  I spiralized about 1/3 of a vidalia onion.

I peeled two beets with a vegetable peeler and used a spiralizer attachment

that made wide, flat strips of beet kind of like fettucini.  

I sauteed the onion for a few minutes, added the beets and sauteed about five minutes.  Add a little salt, pepper, butter (or Earth Balance) and I called them done.

Way 2:  I prewashed the greens really well and cut them in about thirds and set aside.

When the beets were about done, in another pan, I fried one sliced clove of garlic in about a tablespoon of oil and added the greens, tossing them around a few minutes until they're wilted but still a little crunchy.  Splashed on a little vinegar and I was ready to eat.

Beets two ways:  Beet "fettucini" with sauteed beet greens, garlic and vinegar.

Beets two ways.

Beet fettucini with wilted beet greens, garlic and vinegar served with a little dill sour cream.

I have to admit.  I really loved the beets.  They're really sweet.  And alongside the greens with vinegar, there was a sweet-sour thing going on that was really nice.

Beet "fettucini" with chicken apple sausage

I had the remaining beet for lunch the next day with a chicken-apple sausage and a peppered little sour cream.  Again, really enjoyable.

So if you think you hate beets, send Yoko a smile and give beets a chance.

Tom Ka Soup

If you'd like a vegan version of this soup, go to this post.

I was supposed to go out with friends for dinner the other night but I called them and told them I was sick and shouldn't go out.  About an hour later, they showed up at the door with some Tom Ka soup from the Thai place in Harvard Square.  Isn't that sweet?

It helped my sore throat and I really felt like it was really restorative so I thought I would make a batch of my own so I could have it again.  This isn't vegetarian but I did find recipes online for it.  I think you could just use vegetable stock and leave out the fish sauce.

You could also add chicken which is called Tom Ka Gai.

There are a lot of different recipes on line.  This is how I made mine:

To make the broth I used:

1 quart chicken stock

1 thumb-sized piece of ginger, diced

2 tablespoons lemongrass, chopped

I added the ginger and lemongrass to the stock and heated just to boiling.  I let the ginger and lemongrass steep in the hot stock for about 1/2 hour and then added:

1 14 oz. can coconut milk

Juice of two limes

4 tablespoons of fish sauce

2 tablespoons Sriracha (to taste or optional)

(If you think the soup is too sour, you can add a little (1 Tbl.) brown sugar to balance it.)

These are the vegetables I used for my bowl of soup.

I was feeling like (lucky) sevens would be good for me so I used 7 pea pods, 7 green beans, 7 pieces of raw zucchini, 7 slices of onion, 7 pieces of baby corn, 4 cremini mushrooms (cut into 7 slices), a few broccoli florets, 7 slivers of ginger root, 7 carrot flowers, and some cilantro leaves.

To make carrot flowers, just cut several V grooves down the length of a carrot and then cut slices.  How could carrot flowers NOT instantly make you feel better?

This stuff all stays raw...

...but I blanched the brocolli, green beans and carrots for two minutes to soften them.

Assemble all of the veggies in a bowl, ladle on the broth and top with a few extra cilantro leaves.

(Damn, it's hard to take pictures with my left hand while pouring broth!)

Piping hot Tom Ka Vegetable Soup.  It's good for what ails you.

North End, Boston

Today, we're taking a detour from the usual stuff for quick tour of the North End of the Boston.  Even though it's Little Italy today, this old part of the city was a hotbed of activity during the Revolutionary War.  Above is Paul Revere's house.  Built in 1680, it's the oldest structure in downtown Boston.  It was from here he began his legendary ride to warn "The British are coming."  

Just a few blocks away, it was the Old North Church that displayed two lanterns to warn Charlestown of the British troops' movement.  "One of by land, two if by sea."  Even though these important Colonial sites are meshed into a modern commercial and residential part of the city, I wanted to focus on just a few of the vintage parts of Little Italy that make it so charming to me.

Even though many of the restaurants and shops are corporate business ventures, there are still many family-owned ristorantes, bakeries and markets that have been here for decades. 

And on a beautiful day, they open up their fronts so their patrons can enjoy the outdoors.

I met up with some friends for a weekend lunch.  All of our birthdays are within two weeks so we usually get together a few times to celebrate.  If they would only put away the iPhones.

After lunch, we hit the Salumeria Italiana which is one my favorite Italian markets.  I used to live less than a block away from here and I really miss this place.

A large selection of imported pastas...

...olives and salt-packed capers...

...cheeses...

...the most incredible cured meats...

...and canned goods.  

One of my friends is a San Marzano tomato aficionado so we have to come here to buy them.  He says they have to say "D.O.P." on them to be real.

Just about a block down the street is Polcari's Coffee.

This is a place that time forgot.

They sell coffees, teas, spices, imported nuts, cheeses, pastas, condiments, canned goods, and other assorted imported food items.

Isn't like something out of a movie?

And before finishing our visit, we make the obligatory stop at Modern Pastry.

Cannoli to go.

If you ever visit Boston, I hope you'll take a few hours to check out this gem of a neighborhood.

Zucchini Spaghetti

Check out this post for another version of zucchini "pasta." 

A few years ago a friend of mine decided she'd try a raw diet.  Whatever.  It seemed fine with me until I learned that every time she left home, she had to drag her cooler on wheels with her so she always had raw food to eat.  On one of her visits to Boston she came, cooler in tow, and proclaimed that I would eat raw for the weekend.  Resistance was futile.  Breakfast was a juice of kale, tomatoes, garlic, lemon and hot peppers that left me feeling nauseous.  She claimed it was a buzz from eating food that was "alive."  Okay.  But her dinner of zucchini "pasta" with a fresh sauce of tomatoes, onions, herbs, etc., even though it took two hours of chopping, was really quite delicious.  I recall wanting to go back a revisit this idea of zucchini pasta but I had forgotten about it until I recently saw a spiralizer.

I did a little bit of research and found several different versions.  Some of the metal ones are a few hundred dollars but after reading the reviews, I chose the $36 World Cuisine 48297-99 Tri-Blade Plastic Spiral Vegetable Slicer found here.  It arrived about a week ago and I really love it.  I've eaten zucchini "spaghetti" almost every day.  It's great raw or cooked.  My favorite is raw zucchini "pasta" salad with sliced sweet red peppers, carrots and scallions with a Thai peanut sauce.  I've sauteed it with onions and garlic as a side dish which is also very good.

Today I'm feeling lazy so I'm going to make quick zucchini "spaghetti" with bottled sauce.  Let me show you how it works.

The machine attaches to the counter with four suction cups.  It has three different cutting blades all of which attach right to the machine so there's no looking for the attachments.

I washed one zucchini, cut off both ends and loaded it into the machine.

Start cranking and the "spaghetti" just rolls out.

Ten seconds later the entire zucchini is done and ready to go into boiling water.  I chose to leave the skin on but if you peeled the zucchini, it would look almost exactly like real spaghetti. 

Cleanup is really pretty easy.  The blade pops out, the crank portion slides right off and machine itself just needs wiping off and rinsing.

I boiled the "pasta" for about two minutes in salted water and heated up some marinara in another pan.  In less than 15 minutes, I was eating a healthy, low-calorie, (and vegan!) dinner.  Boiling the water takes the most time.

I may tire of my new gadget but during this time of year with fresh vegetables readily available, I'm taking advantage or it.  And it's helping me eat a lot better.

Do you spiralize?  If so, what do you make?