Spring supper (or breakfast)–with asparagus

IT WAS NEARLY DINNER TIME and I had just decided what to have. Asparagus with baked or fried eggs, a few roasted potatoes and some buttered toast. That sounded about perfect, as I had just bought some nice asparagus the day before.

My daughter taught me you could put asparagus in a glass or jar with cold water and it would keep really well. And in the meantime, it looks good too.

Asparagus and eggs seems like a natural combination. Nutritionists go back and forth about whether eggs are good for you or not. But in any case, one egg won’t kill you. I remembered that I once wrote a blog post about this dish, so I looked it up. Yes, it’s funny that I had to consult my own blog — but when you think about it, it’s just like consulting all those little recipe cards I’ve kept over the years.

The original inspiration for the dish came from something I’d read that had baked eggs on top of steamed asparagus. I never did find the recipe I was looking for, (though I later saw a similar recipe for asparagus with eggs that was called “Asparagus Milanese.”) — but I ended up making a variation with roasted potatoes and asparagus.

Here’s how it went: I cut up a few Yukon Gold potatoes and half an onion, tossed them in a tablespoon or two of olive oil and some salt and pepper and put them on a cookie sheet in the oven (400 degrees) to roast……

After about 15 minutes or so (20?) I tossed some asparagus on top of the potatoes (I also drizzled a little oil over them, and sprinkled on some salt) and then, after those were mostly done — the timing so far doesn’t need to be really precise–I cracked open an egg and carefully let it sink over the asparagus (if I’d had the asparagus a little flatter, the egg might have looked even better.) The original recipe called for one egg for each person, by the way.  I just kept checking to see if the egg was as done as I like it, the yolk still a little runny (but not so much. It’s hard to order an egg like this in a cafe, by the way. You have to say “over medium — plus a little more). A guideline for the eggs is somewhere between 8 and 12 minutes.

In the last minute or so, I sprinkled on just a tiny bit of  grated cheese. Parmeggiano, Romano, pecorino or sharp cheddar — any of these would do.  Or skip it.

In the original post,  I baked the eggs, but this time I didn’t feel like waiting and checking the oven so often, so I opted to simply fry them in the pan, while I melted a bit of Parmeggiano over the asparagus in the oven.

I had some nice bread to make toast with this tonight, but in my original post I was more ambitious and made biscuits. You might have noticed that I have a lot of posts about biscuits, but just in case you’d like that recipe again and don’t want to search for it, I’ll keep it here as well. Happy asparagus season to you all.

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Years ago I wrote about biscuits in an essay called “Still Living with a Biscuit State of Mind.”  (published in Christian Science Monitor). That essay still applies, except I now dispense with the two knives and just use my fingers to “cut,” or more precisely, rub the butter into the flour….

And here’s that biscuit recipe once again:

Biscuits

• 2 cups flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 4 tablespoons cold butter, cut in four pieces
• 3/4 cup cold buttermilk

Heat the oven to 450 degrees. Mix the flour, salt, baking powder and soda together in a bowl and cut or rub in the butter until it’s in little pieces. Stir in the buttermilk with a fork until the mixture comes together as a moist, but not sticky dough.

Turn onto a floured board and knead just a couple times (you never want to overwork a baking powder/soda dough). Roll out the dough about 3/4″ thick with a rolling pin (or a wine bottle if you don’t have a rolling pin), cut into biscuit shapes with a biscuit cutter or the rim of a glass dipped in flour. You’ll have 10 to 12 biscuits or so. Any leftover dough can be just formed by hand into a little patty (or you can make them all this way).

Bake on an ungreased cookie sheet for about 10 minutes, or till they’re golden. The time will vary depending on the size of your biscuit cutter. Serve hot.

Tip: I like to roll out the dough, then fold it in half and roll again. This makes it so the biscuits break open neatly in the middle when you want to put on some butter, jam, honey, etc.

This is my favorite biscuit cutter, which I’ve had for about 100 years. Well, at least 25.

Summer’s salad days

Farro, asparagus, navy beans and chives

Summer is certainly salad season, with its rich selection of fresh vegetables and herbs. Nearly every salad I make has a simple basic dressing: olive oil, lemon juice and salt. Sometimes I use another oil (a little walnut oil, perhaps?) or vinegar or even lime instead of the lemon, and sometimes I add a little mustard, garlic, lemon zest  or Parmesan to the dressing — but I never get tired of the basic threesome of oil, lemon and salt! Here are some of the salads we’ve been enjoying recently.

Karen’s chives

It’s so nice to have fresh herbs in the garden (or in a pot). These chives belong to my generous next-door neighbor, Karen, who lets me cut all I want. I’m growing thyme, oregano, tarragon, mint, basil and dill, and they often find their way into my salads.

My basil harvest

Broccoli, potato, red pepper, basil

Potatoes, rapini, carrots and dill

Many of the vegetables are from the farmers’ market or fruit and vegetable stands.

Rapini looks like broccoli tops but is actually a member of the turnip family. Go figure.

Here’s a good article about how the Italians cook rapini.

Green salad with sockeye salmon, eggs, beets, cannellini beans and fresh herbs.

It was difficult to save a piece of the Copper River salmon from dinner the night before, but we restrained ourselves and had this great salad for lunch the next day.

Tuna with cannellini beans, preserved lemon and green onions, on lettuce. Tasted better than it looks.

I see I’ve been making a lot of salads with white beans, cannellini if I can find good ones, or navy beans.

It’s not much trouble (but takes a little planning) to soak them overnight in some salty water, then drain the next day, cover with cold unsalted water,  a bay leaf and a  couple cloves of garlic and cook until tender. But it’s easier and also fine to use canned beans.

Broccoli, white beans, and red onions

And today’s lunch: The salad was black beans (from a can) and corn kernels, with chopped red onion, raw chard, a little bit of chicken and lots of cilantro and lime. It was nicely set off with a corn-flour tortilla and a couple of slices of melon.

I’ve also been making some salads with bulgur as well as classic cucumber salads with vinegar, dill, salt and a touch of sugar. I just bought some beautiful green beans, fennel and purple carrots from the farmers’ market. . . so I am thinking about the next salads.

Let the vegetables be the inspiration. Purple carrots with orange insides would look great with a deep green of broccoli or green beans.

What salads have you been making? Happy 4th of July and enjoy these salad days of summer!

Also see:
Salads, salads, salads (and a riot of color)
Road trip salads

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All-in-one supper

The one-dish meal is usually a pot of soup or stew (and sometimes a salad) but another way I’ve found to do this is an all-in-one supper roasted in the oven on a cookie sheet. (The clean-up is super easy too if you line the cookie sheet with foil.)

Because asparagus is in season, I’ve been making this meal recently with roasted potatoes and onions, asparagus and fish.

Lately, Dover sole is the least expensive fish on offer at our favorite fish store, and I’ve found that it’s so quick and easy to cook it in the oven.

Simply rub a little oil on top of the filets, then season with salt and pepper and a scattering of herbs if you like (I used fresh thyme here; dill or chives or parsley would be fine too) and a squeeze of lemon juice. It takes only five minutes or so to cook the thin fillets.

I like to top the fish with lemon slices, caramelized in a skillet with a little butter or oil. It’s an extra step, but worth it.

The only trick to this all-in-one meal is the timing. I heat the oven to 400 degrees, start with the potatoes (tossed with a slick of oil), and then (when they’re getting soft), add the onions (also with a bit of oil). About 20 minutes in, I’ll add the asparagus (yes, a little oil and salt) and finally (when everything is about 5 minutes away), the fish, which cooks very quickly. If you are making this meal for more than two people, you will likely need two cookie sheets.

The potatoes and asparagus are forgiving (a little extra time in the oven won’t hurt) but check the fish often, as you don’t want to overcook it! It won’t hurt to open the oven every minute or two. If the filets are very thin or small, they may even take less than five minutes. As soon as the flesh turns white and flakes apart when touched with a fork, it’s done.

And so is supper. All you need is a plate and a fork.
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Fast food (and good for you)

When it’s 6 o’clock and I don’t know what we’re going to have for dinner, I turn to some seasonal vegetable to inspire me to make a quick one-dish pasta supper. The other night asparagus did the trick, along with some fresh mint, a few fresh fava beans I’d cooked up (another night I substituted frozen peas, much simpler and also good), and some garlic and green onions.

But this is more of a basic method than a recipe: take some sliced or chopped vegetables, some type of garlic or onion or both, some minced fresh herbs if you like. If you want more protein, you could add cooked beans, chicken, fish or shellfish.

Saute the vegetables, garlic and onions in a generous amount of olive oil. If you’re using beans or chicken or fish, cook them beforehand and add after your vegetables are nearly as tender as you like them, just to re-heat.  Salt and pepper to taste.

Meanwhile, cook your pasta al dente (or however you like it) and drain it, reserving several tablespoons of the cooking water. If you use whole wheat pasta, as I did here, you can feel extra virtuous about your fast supper. (Actually, I like my ratio of veggies-to-pasta to be a little higher on the veggies than it turned out in the photo above.)

Add the cooked pasta to the pan, along with the pasta-cooking water as needed. Some like to use cream here to make a richer dish, and Cathy made a delicious version with leeks, asparagus, and a little half-and-half.  You can also add some grated hard cheese, such as parmesano or peccorino, or a soft melty cheese such as Roquefort or chevre for an entirely different flavor.

Add the fresh chopped herbs if you have them (basil is always great, but I really liked the freshness of the mint in this combination) at the end to keep their flavor. Some lemon zest would be good too.

Stir it all together and add more salt if it needs it. After you serve it up you can sprinkle the dish with more fresh herbs or grated cheese or toasted breadcrumbs as they do in the south of Italy. Or nothing at all.

I bet a lot of readers make some version or other of this vegetable-pasta already. What’s your favorite?

Buon appetito!

Spring supper (or breakfast)–with biscuits

My ratio of cooking/baking to blogging is about 20: 1. I’m not one of those people who has to take photos of every meal or blog about it.  And usually, Steve is not a big fan of the blogging impulse.

So, the other evening, when I more or less threw together a supper that looked a lot like  breakfast and put it on the table, I was really surprised to hear Steve say, “Aren’t you going to blog it?”

Okay, then. I took a couple quick photos before we dug in.

The inspiration came from having some asparagus around.  I remembered making something that had baked eggs on top of steamed asparagus. I never did find the recipe I was looking for, (though I later saw a similar recipe for asparagus with eggs that was called “Asparagus Milanese.”) — but I ended up making a variation with roasted potatoes and asparagus.

Here’s how it went: I cut up a few Yukon Gold potatoes and half an onion, tossed them in a tablespoon or two of olive oil and some salt and pepper and put them on a cookie sheet in the oven (400 degrees) to roast……

After about 15 minutes or so (20?) I tossed some asparagus on top of the potatoes (I also drizzled a little oil over them, and sprinkled on some salt) and then, after those were mostly done — the timing so far doesn’t need to be really precise–I cracked open an egg and carefully let it sink over the asparagus (if I’d had the aspagus a little flatter, the egg might have looked even better.) The original recipe calls for one egg for each person, by the way.

I just kept checking to see if the egg was as done as I like it, the yolk still a little runny (but not so much). A guideline for the eggs –between 8 and 12 minutes.

Oh, in the last minute or so, I sprinkled on just a tiny bit of  grated pecorino cheese. Parmeggiano, Romano, or sharp cheddar would do as well. Or skip it.

While that was in the works, I decided some biscuits would go really well with this supper. The timing to do both these dishes and serve them hot is a little tricky though, unless you have two ovens (I don’t!).

I won’t write much about biscuits here, because years ago I wrote about that subject as well as I could, in an essay called “Still Living with a Biscuit State of Mind.” (it was published in Christian Science Monitor).

All of the above essay still applies, except I now dispensed with the two knives and just use my fingers to “cut,” or more precisely, rub the butter into the flour….

Oh, do you want the recipe?

Biscuits

• 2 cups flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 4 tablespoons cold butter, cut in four pieces
• 3/4 cup cold buttermilk

Heat the oven to 450 degrees. Mix the flour, salt, baking powder and soda together in a bowl and cut or rub in the butter until it’s in little pieces. Stir in the buttermilk with a fork until the mixture comes together as a moist, but not sticky dough.

Turn onto a floured board and knead just a couple times (you never want to overwork a baking powder/soda dough). Roll out the dough about 3/4″ thick with a rolling pin (or a wine bottle if you don’t have a rolling pin), cut into biscuit shapes with a biscuit cutter or the rim of a glass dipped in flour. You’ll have 10 to 12 biscuits or so. Any leftover dough can be just formed by hand into a little patty (or you can make them all this way).

Bake on an ungreased cookie sheet for about 10 minutes, or till they’re golden. Serve hot.

Tip: I like to roll out the dough, then fold it in half and roll again. This makes it so the biscuits break open neatly in the middle when you want to put on some butter, jam, honey, etc.

This is my favorite biscuit cutter, which I've had for about 100 years. Well, at least 25.

Time for quinoa

Quinoa (pronounced keen-wah) is an ancient plant from the South American Andes, grown mainly for its edible seeds. The plant has green leaves like spinach and big clusters of seeds. It can grow in high altitudes, and was a staple of the Aztec and the Inca peoples.

When quinoa seed is processed, it’s washed in alkaline solution to remove bitter toxic compounds. And most cookbooks will tell you to wash the quinoa very well to be sure all the bitter compounds are removed.

Some folks say you can eat quinoa on Passover; others caution against it (because it could be milled with wheat).  I’m siding with the former — perhaps because it’s been nearing the end of the 8-day holiday and I have eaten more than my fill of matzoh and potatoes!

Last night I made some quinoa pilaf with a little fresh mint, and I sauteed some mushrooms, garlic and asparagus to serve on top. Yum.  Aviva made me a lovely quinoa salad, with dried apricots and pine nuts and more — here’s what she says:

The quinoa salad includes : chopped dried apricot and almonds (or hazelnuts, pine nuts), chopped red or yellow bell pepper, sauteed onion, lemon juice, salt and pepper, paprika, cumin, corriander, parsley

…. Any other quinoa recipes out there?

Quinoa Pilaf

• Saute 1/2 a cup chopped onion or green onion in 1-2 tablespoons of olive oil until soft
• Add 1 cup of washed quinoa and stir for 4 or 5 minutes; then add salt and pepper
• Add 1 3/4 cup of broth or water; cover and cook until the quinoa is tender and most of the water is absorbed; about 20 minutes. If the quinoa is not cooked yet, add another 1/4 cup of water and continue cooking. If there’s too much liquid, remove the lid and increase the heat, stirring till the liquid evaporates.
• Fluff with a fork, and add — if you like — a bit of butter and some fresh finely chopped herbs, such as mint, parsley or chives.