Category: Vegan

Ellen Kanner is the author of Feeding the Hungry Ghost: Life, Faith, and What to Eat for Dinner – A Satisfying Diet for Unsatisfying Times (New World Library 2013) and you may recognize her byline from the Huffington Post and Miami Herald.  She has generously adapted her Caribbean Pigeon Peas and Rice for our luscious Domingo Rojo beans.

I was just discussing Domingo Rojos with Eric, our Customer Service expert, and he said it’s one of those beans that flies off the shelves when we sample it here at Rancho Gordo. We always make our basic beans vegan with just a few aromatics and a little olive oil. We think it tastes better and allows the glory of the beans to shine through. And it fits in nicely with Ellen’s master recipe.

Ellen notes, “The recipe can be made entirely in advance and reheated when you’re ready. Keeps covered and refrigerated for several days, and flavor improves over time.”

Caribbean Red Beans and Rice

Serves 4 to 6, doubles like a dream.

• 2 cups cooked Rancho Gordo Domingo Rojo beans
• 2-½ cups brown rice, cooked and cooled
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 3 garlic cloves, chopped
• 1 green or red pepper, chopped
• ¼ habañero (Scotch bonnet pepper) or 1 to 2 jalapeños, seeded and chopped, depending on how hot you like it*
• 2 celery stalks, chopped
• 1 tomato, chopped (or 1 cup canned diced tomatoes, drained)
• 1 teaspoon allspice
• ½ teaspoon cumin
• 1 small handful fresh thyme leaves, or ¼ teaspoon dried
• 1 small bunch cilantro, coarsely chopped
• sea salt and pepper to taste

In a large skillet, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add the onion and garlic, and sauté until softened, about 5 minutes. Add the pepper, habañero, and celery, and continue cooking, stirring occasionally, for another 5 minutes. Stir in the diced tomato and season with the allspice and cumin.

Add the cooked pigeon peas and rice, stirring until the mixture is well combined. Reduce the heat to medium and continue cooking, stirring occasionally, until the moisture from the vegetables is absorbed, about 10 minutes. Add the thyme, cilantro, sea salt, and pepper.

*(Wear gloves when handling fresh chiles, no matter how manly you are. – Ellen)

This is one of the easiest salsas imaginable. It’s nutty and has a very mild heat. I’ve been putting it in a squeeze bottle and smothering my eggs with it. Last night I used it with a little beer to de-glaze a pan that had turkey cutlets frying in it earlier. Adapted from a Diana Kennedy recipe.

Take about 10 cascabel chiles and remove the stems and seeds, reserving the seeds. Toast on a hot comal or grill untul gently toasted. Don’t let them burn or they will be bitter and inedible but if you don’t toast them they will have a raw, inpleasant taste. Remove the toasted chiles and place them in a blender jar. Now toast the reserved seeds until brown. Add these to the jar, along with 2 cloves of garlic, a little salt and about 3/4 cup of water. Blend well, adding more water if needed. Allow to stand for a few minutes so it can thicken up. You can add a little water if it’s too thick. It’s that simple.

 

To really show you how easy it is, here’s a quick video:

Rancho Gordo Cooking: Cascabel Salsa from Steve Sando on Vimeo.

It would seem that August is Paste e Fagioli month here at Rancho Gordo. I just can’t get enough of it and I am obsessed with perfecting the dish. My family and friends love my Mexican food obsession but I can tell they’re happy I’m back in Italy, so to speak.

Part of the magic is the pasta. Either my tastes have become more particular or the pasta we have available here in the states if getting worse. In general, I prefer white durum wheat pasta and apparently our hard U.S. flour is perfect for this. I have never been too keen on whole wheat pasta (except for one dish I had in Firenze with fresh green bell peppers cooked to death in massive amounts of olive oil that still haunts my dreams) and the whole grain pasta I’ve had has been almost putrid. Then I met Baia Pasta. The spelt and other ancient grains they are using are as satisfying as the durum versions and in certain dishes, I even like them better.

I’ve been focusing on two shapes, the Accordion and the Sardinians. Both hold a good amount of sauce and have a dreamy texture. Of course you want to cook them until just al dente but I have been making extra and keeping it in the refrigerator for salads mostly but for a quick meal, leftover beans, leftover pasta and some tomatoes make a great dish and this pasta still shines. Inferior pasta would be rubbery or fall apart.

We are featuring a sampler with 2 pounds of Baia spelt pasta and 2 pounds of Rancho Gordo heirloom beans. You can order them from our website. We also have a durum wheat version.

Want more? Our ebooklet The Pasta e Fagioli Manifesto is availble. You can download it for free, here.

Do you remember the first time you had quinoa? I wasn’t sure about it. I think I liked it but I was sure it wasn’t going to replace rice anytime soon. Once I got over my idea that this was a substitute for rice, I started to fall in love with it.

Now we have red and black quinoa. My preference is to mix all three as the white alone is not a great color on the plate and I think the texture of the darker grains is better.

Tired and cranky? Heat up some quinoa and heirloom beans and allow your body to be happy in about 10 minutes. Flavor and protein are a potent combination.

In an effort to make everyone happy, especially our newer customers, I’ve been concentrating on recipes for our beans. I think a simple bowl is the best way to go, but many want lots of recipes. I think it’s because they don’t trust that a simple bowl is all that great and considering the beans they’ve been forced to eat over the years, you can hardly blame them.

This last weekend I decided enough with the recipe testing for awhile and I made of pot of Eye of the Goat, an old favorite I haven’t cooked for years. What an idiot I’ve been! The beans, a bay leaf, some garlic and a spoonful of olive oil with water. That was it and my romance with Eye of the Goat has been reignited. Thick, dense and solid and yet creamy and indulgent. It’s just about the perfect bean.

I am in love!

 We get a lot of people who love our banana vinegar but don't quite have the confidence to use it in the kitchen. The idea is good, but the execution isn't clear. It's understandable. It's new, strange and intriguing. 

In a mortar, start with garlic, salt and oregano Indio. Mash with a pestle until you have a paste. Then drizzle in olive oil and banana vinegar and whisk until you have a sauce. Of course, the whole mess can go into a food processor but that's not nearly as much fun and it's harder to clean. 

I've had great success with this on turkey breast fillets and pork tenderloin. Let them rest in the marinade for a few hours before cooking. 

 

 

There’s not really any recipe here to share. It’s too simple!
I really love red bell peppers in jars. They’re intense, delicious and easy to use.
The nopales come from my local Mexican grocer and I’ve gone from being butch and cleaning and removing the spines myself to spending a few extra cents and buying the cleaned and cut paddles in a bag. You could easily substitute fresh, cooked green beans and this dish would still be great.

Domingo Rojo beans have an easy-to-love bean broth so you really can just mix this all together and call it a snack or a meal. You could also saute the vegetables in olive oil with garlic and then toss in the beans when the vegetables are soft.

Domingo Rojo beans can be a part of your life, too! Buy them here today.

Our local market again had xoconostle, the super sour prickly pears that are loaded with good nutrition and are a hoot to cook with. 

If the light in my kitchen looks angelic, it's because it is! A foggy morning makes my photos look as if a professional took them. 

These are the xoconostle roasting on a clay comal (pan). You can see that the pan has a slip of cal on it to protect the clay. This is handiest for making tortillas but I have a dedicated comal to tortillas, another for vegetables and another for chiles. I'm a little obsessive and I love my toys.

It takes a while for the fruit to roast, even on a moderate heat. They should be soft and hissing as they release some of their juices, but not burnt. 

Cut them in half and scoop out the seeds and center pulp. I put them in a pitcher with some honey and water and in about a week I should have some mead. 

I had company this morning. 

My friends in Hidalgo use the skins in their salsa and I've started doing the same. I was in a rush this morning, so I threw the xoconostle in a blender with some onions, garlic and fermented serrano chiles I'd made earlier, with a splash of water. 

The resulting salsa is plenty sour so there's no need for limes. I have pork chops in the fridge for tonight and I think they have a date with this salsa. 

Everyone seems to have fermenting fever these days and I'm no exception. Kraut, beets, kombucha and kimchi are all my companions in the kitchen. I'm sure this is a healthy thing but even if it isn't, I love the off-the-grid self sufficiency and the delicious flavors. In the unlikely event that kombucha is the equivalent of a Pepsi, I still choose the homemade drink. 

In the photo you can see my latest batch of serrano peppers, onions and garlic in a 5% brine. I used to add some dried Mexican oregano but I didn't like the way so much would float to the surface and the whole point seems to be to keep everything submerged. Adding later actually tastes better to me. The fermentation takes about a week but I like to keep it going as I can. Too long and the chiles can turn to mush. This isn't a horrible thing. You can just gently strain the jar and put the remaining vegetables into the blender and call is salsa. 

The top of the Mason jar is secured with a very clever gadget called Kraut Source. I was in on their initial Kickstarter funding and it's one of the very few new gadgets that has stood the test of time. I have three and I'm considering more.