Vegetarian – Page 3 – Experiments in my New World Kitchen and Garden

Simple Stuffed Poblano Chiles with Rio Zape Beans

We all know the indulgent version of chile rellenos, filled with gooey cheese or picadillo, deep fried in a delicious egg batter. But all chile relleno really means is “stuffed chile” and if you don’t feel up to deep frying, you can stuff the roasted chiles with just about anything good.

You’re going to ask me for the recipe but there really wasn’t one. I took Rio Zapes, cooked potatoes and some grated mozzarella and stuffed them into plain, roasted Poblano peppers and baked them for about 20 minutes at 350F. I added a dollop of yogurt but this wasn’t really necessary.

This chile isn’t likely to win any beauty contests but you can make them mostly in advance and stuff them with leftovers like beans, potatoes, wild rice, brown rice, meat or even salad if you’re brave.

Cecilina: Italian Chickpea Dip

I saw this recipe in the old Dried Beans and Grain book from the the seminal Good Cook series by Richard Olney with Jeremiah Towers, among others. It seemed a little strange and forgotten and that’s very appealing to me. And it used two cups of cooked garbanzos. I love garbanzos but when I cook a pot, sometimes it seems like too much of a good thing. I love hummus. I love Caldo Tlapeño. But what do you do with that last bit?

The recipe has you process the beans in a food mill or food processor. I love my food mill so I used it, in conjunction with my bean masher. When I served this to the family, one of the comments was how great the texture was. If you can, I would avoid the processor and go manual.

The original recipe calls for pine nuts but they’re so expensive and I had black walnuts already toasted, so I used them. The original also suggests serving with corn tortilla chips. I don’t understand this at all. I used good crackers.

I’ve found very few references to Cecilina. I doubt an Italian who knows this dish would recognize it as cecilina, but if you know anything about it, I’d love to hear.

Recipe: Cecilina
Adapted from a recipe in Dried Beans and Grains (Time/Life Books, 1980) from a recipe by Alex D. Hawkes, A World of Vegetable Cookery (Simon and Schuster, 1968)

2 cups cooked Rancho Gordo Garbanzo beans (also known as Ceci or chickpeas), drained
3 tablespoons butter
1 small yellow onion, chopped fine
2 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley
3 tablespoons toasted black walnuts, coarsely chopped (or pine nuts)
1 teaspoon Rancho Gordo Oregano Indio
salt, pepper to taste
Rancho Gordo Rio Fuego or other hot sauce, to taste
2 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds

Pass the garbanzos through a food mill. Use a bean masher to get rid of any unmashed beans. Or briefly puree in a food processor. Try and keep some texture.

Melt the butter in a skillet over medium heat for about five minutes, until the onion starts to become translucent. Mix the onions with the garbanzos, the parsley, the nuts, the oregano and a few dashes of the hot sauce. Chill until serving, at least 30 minutes.

Put the mixture in a serving bowl and sprinkle the sesame seeds over the top.

Serve with crackers or flatbreads.

Stuffed Chayote

This is adapted from the book Frida’s Fiestas and you can clearly improvise beyond the basic recipe. Ground meat of some kind would be great but chayote are a mild, delicious vegetable and I wouldn’t want to go to far from their original flavor.

Take the chayote and cut them in half lengthwise. Steam them for about 30 minutes or until fork tender. Once cool enough to handle, scoop out the interiors and reserve, leaving a meaty cup for filling.

Chop the scooped out chayote and add some tomato sauce, Oregano Indio and chopped black olives. Mix well and fill the chayote cups with the filling.

Mix bread crumbs with crumbled cotija cheese and a little olive oil. You can use Parmesan if you like. Mix well and and top off each of the chayote halves.

Heat in a 400F oven for about 10 minutes and then finish under the broiler for 5 minutes or until the tops are brown. Serve immediately.

Notes: If you’re unfamiliar with chayote, the whole vegetable is edible, even the cooked seeds and skin.

They can be a little watery, so after scooping out the centers, rest them on a sieve and allow them to drain before mixing with the tomato sauce. A gentle push will help.

I used black olives from our tree, which only gives about 2 cups of olives a year. I salt-cured them by packing them in sea salt in a Mason jar and shaking daily. After about three weeks, they’re ready once rinsed.

Another variation would be to add toasted black walnuts to the topping. I like this.

Yellow Indian Woman Beans with Shallot Pickle and Goat Cheese

I hadn’t cooked Yellow Indian Woman beans for quite awhile. They’re small and dense but somehow creamy at the same time.

I think they’d be great in a chili but as usual, a simple bowl with little garnish is my preferred way to enjoy them.

Macerated shallots are my current obsession. You thinly slice them, add a bit of salt and then douse them with banana or pineapple vinegar. Some Oregano Indio is nice as well. Let them rest about 15 minutes and you have a sweet little bite that adds acid, texture and flavor. It’s not as harsh as a plain onion would be.

For this meal, the Yellow Indian Woman beans met with the shallots and a few crumbles of goat cheese. As the whole mess settles and melts you get what is almost a sauce and the beans have never been happier.

Herb-Steamed Potatoes and New Olive Oil

By chance, I discovered that steaming new potatoes gave them a superior texture. They weren’t water-logged and since I have a big steaming pot, this technique was easier. I’ve also steamed russets and the jackets come off with no effort. As an aside, steamed hard-cooked eggs are done in 14 minutes and much easier to peel.

David Tanis has a recipe in his book One Good Dish. The potatoes aren’t cooked in a separate steamer but the idea is similar. I copied his idea of using fresh herbs but I put them right in the water and then placed the potatoes in the steamer attachment above them. I had russets that were on their way out, if you know what I mean and I think you do. I peeled them.

To the water, I added some slivers of garlic that were on hand. You know those center pieces that are too irritating to peel because they’re so thin? Cut them in half and add them to the herb bath.

After about 35 minutes, they were done. I let them rest another 10 as I finished goofing around the house and then drizzled some Olio Nuovo from Olive Queen over the sliced potatoes. Parsley, salt and pepper. I know this isn’t much of a recipe but it’s proof when you have good ingredients, you don’t need much of a recipe.

Leftover Soup from Marcella Beans, Rapini and Wild Rice Broth

I can’t take too much credit for this. These were the components leftover in my fridge.

2 cups Marcella beans and some of their liquid
1 1/2 cups broth from making wild rice
1 roasted red pepper
1/2 cup chopped broccoli rabe (rapini) that had been tossed in olive oil and then pan roasted
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
drizzles of lemon juice and olive oil
rye bread crutons from stale bread that had been dried in the oven

The beans were about to “go” (if you know what I mean and I think you do) so I pureed them with the wild rice broth and red pepper. Then I heated them through with the broccoli rabe, tomato paste and Wooster sauce. I placed the stale bread croutons in the bottom of each bowl and then poured the very got sauce on top. Drizzles of lemon juice and olive oil were the icing on the cake.

For me, this was so delicious but the best part is that these were all ingredients sitting around. I used to toss stale bread loaves but not anymore. I rip them apart into bite-sized pieces and then lay them on a rack to dry. My old Wedgewood stove has a pilot light and is perfect for this but I think any dry place would work.

Beans for Breakfast (with Mushrooms, Ricotta and Good Olive Oil)

A few leftovers and some milk that was about to expire led to this really fine breakfast.

Ayocote beans are runner bean. Phaseolus coccineus. This family includes Scarlet Runners and Royal Corona. They tend to be big and go from starchy to creamy. They don’t mind a little rough handling, which makes them great for salads but Ayocote Negros (which I used here) have a really beefy broth that’s excellent on its own. Ayocote Morado are the purple version but once cooked, they’re pretty interchangeable.

If your milk is about to go, heat it to 180F and then add some acid, like lemon or our Pineapple Vinegar with a pinch of salt. Leave it for 10 minutes and then strain it through cheesecloth. It’s good! And it beats wasting milk. There are many recipes and techniques on the web but we like this version from The Kitchn best.

Also on hand were a batch of Paula Wolfert’s great and easy Sandpot Mushrooms.

The mushrooms met the beans and a little thyme and some Anson Mills Carolina Gold rice. The whole mess was topped off with a healthy dose of The Olive Queen’s very limited Olio Nuovo and all was right in the world.

Greens for Beans

I like them all: dandelion, kale, chard, lambsquarters….all of them. I could live without spinach but I would never make a fuss if it was offered.

Sauteed greens are a natural with cooked beans. Or as a filling in a tortilla. The last bit can be used in a soup. I love them and usually have several cooked in my fridge, waiting to be used.

I’ve seem recipes that have you boil them but that seems a bother. I wash the greens and add them to a wide pan of sauteed onion and garlic. Sometimes I use a little pancetta but mostly not. The washed greens cook down and the water that clings to the leaves meets the sauteed aromatics and they become a sauce.

Of course, I have to do everything the hard way so I have a dedicated clay cazuela for braised greens. It’s really not necessary but I like to pretend it is.

Pickled Shallots in Pineapple Vinegar

I’m enjoying David Tanis’ new book Market Cooking. At first glance, it’s a little disappointing. Market fresh seasonal vegetables blah blah blah. Haven’t we heard this a million times before? Maybe. And some of the recipe may seem basic but as you dig deeper, it’s some of the more obvious things that mean the most. Shallots in vinegar. So what? Well, I did have a bag of shallots. What the hell? I decided to get wildly creative and add some Rancho Gordo Oregano Indio and instead of wine or sherry vinegar, I used our pineapple vinegar. This might make Tanis cringe but it might make him smile. Either way, it was delicious and I’ve been using it on everything and even two days later, there’s still a good crunch form the shallots.

Shallots, pineapple vinegar, salt, Oregano Indio, pepper. Macerate for about 20 minutes and you’ve got something nice.

I served these at Thanksgiving and while I’m a fan of traditional gravy, or at least I think I am, I much prefer the brightness of a pickle like this.

The rest of the book is similar. Some of it is obvious to a seasoned cook but more often than not, it’s a gentle reminder about which things go together and how to keep out of the ingredient’s way. I’ve never met David Tanis (we have mutual friends) but I think every American needs to master this book and his other two before they start to make fussier food. Making fussy, “chef-y” food is fun, but so many of us have ignored the basics for the sake of novelty. This book is here to help.

Slow Baked Garbanzos

One of my favorite books from the last years has been The Blue Zones (National Geographic, 2008) by Dan Buettner. Statistics for longevity are examined and there are some not so surprising conclusions reached, my favorite being that those of us lucky enough to make it to the old folks stage tend to eat beans.

The Greek Island of Ikaria is mentioned a lot and it’s referred to as the place where people forget to die. Citizens work, garden, eat whole foods, little meat and of course eat beans (and drink wine.) Works for me. Diane Kochilas’ book on the cuisine is Ikaria: Lesssons, Life and Longevity from the Greek Island Where People Forget to Die (Rodale Press, 2014) and there are a lot of solid recipes, making it worth your consideration. It’s a serious cookbook from someone who clearly loves good food.

Like many great dishes, it just takes a few ingredients to make something grand. In this case, almost cooked chickpeas are the foundation, followed by layers of onion, garlic, bell peppers, carrot and tomato.

This is slow-cooked for nearly three hours.

The vegetables end up with a great melt-in-your-mouth texture and create a sauce with the garbamzos and olive oil.

The original recipe says you can serve it hot, warm or at room temperature. Straight out of the oven, I think it just tastes like heat. Be sure and allow it to cool down. It tasted best at room temperature to me and leftovers the next day were tossed with some ham. Might fine, but perhaps gilding the lily.

Recipe: Slow Baked Garbanzos Beans
adapted from a recipe by Diane Kochilas’ Ikara (Rodale Press, 2014)

1 pound Rancho Gordo Garbanzo beans
6 medium sprigs of fresh thyme
2 medium sprigs of fresh rosemary
3 Rancho Gordo bay leaves
salt and pepper
3 large red onions, half and sliced
3 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced thin
1 each of red, green and orange bell peppers, cleaned and sliced into 1/4-inch rings
1 stalk celery, sliced into matchstick-sized pieces
2-3 large tomatoes, sliced
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

Cook the garbanzos in plenty of water with one of the bay leaves. Bring the pot to a rapid boil and continue cooking for 15 minutes. Reduce the heat to medium low. Gently simmer the beans until they’re almost soft, about an hour to an hour and half. (Timing will vary wildly if you are using older beans or a brand other than Rancho Gordo.) Strain the beans and reserve the cooking liquid.

Preheat the oven to 325F.

In a oven proof clay pan, like a cazuela, add the drained garbanzos followed by enough of the reserved cooking broth to reach 2/3 of the way up the beans. Add the herbs and lightly salt.

Over the chickpeas, layer the onions, followed by the garlic, then the peppers, the celery and finally the tomatoes, very lightly salting each layer as you continue. Finish with the olive oil. Cover the pan with a lid if you have one, otherwise cover with a piece of parchment paper and aluminium foil. Bake for 2 and half hours. Remove the top and continue baking for another 30 minutes. The liquid should be absorbed and top just starting to char. Remove and allow to cool to warm or room temperature. Crack plenty of black pepper over the top and serve.

(The original recipe calls for a carrot. I had celery on hand, so here it is.)