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Soy-Glazed Green Beans with Toasted Almonds

By on June 28, 2009 in Gluten-free, Recipes, Side Dishes, Vegan

We got a bunch of string beans in our Greenling box last week, and I was planning to make honey-soy-ginger pork tenderloin anyway, so I thought that doing an Asian twist to go with the pork might be nice. I just carried over the some of the flavors that were in the pork to the green beans.

These green beans were so fresh that they honestly didn’t need doctoring up like this, but it was a nice change of pace from the normal steamed or sauteed green bean.

Ingredients:

  • 1 tsp. canola oil
  • 1 tsp. sesame oil
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 lb. green beans, washed and trimmed (Mine were particularly long, so I also cut them in half.)
  • 1 Tbsp. low-sodium soy sauce (The flavor gets pretty concentrated, so low sodium is key here — otherwise, your beans will be way too salty.)
  • 1/4 c. toasted sliced almonds

Directions:

  • Heat the canola and sesame oils in a skillet over high heat, then add the garlic and green beans and saute for ~4 minutes.
  • After the green beans are almost done (al dente), add the soy sauce. It’ll deglaze the pan. Let it simmer and reduce for ~30 seconds.
  • Remove to a plate, top with the toasted almonds, and serve.


For the pork recipe, click here.

Verdict:
Yum! The soy sauce was reduced just enough to make a nice glaze over everything and make the almonds stick to the beans, while the beans were just cooked enough to still regain their crispness and freshness. The flavor of the beans was accentuated by the other ingredients, rather than hidden. This is a great side dish for any meal, Asian-inspired or not.

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Scallion-Corn Pancakes

By on June 26, 2009 in Appetizers & Snacks, Recipes, Side Dishes

I’m a member of a group called Cooking Away your CSA, and one of the group members emailed us a recipe for scallion pancakes. To me, scallions make everything better, and I thought corn would be a good addition for another dimension of texture.

This recipe makes ~10 pancakes.

Adapted from Dolores Riccio

Ingredients:

  • Pam spray (if necessary)
  • 1 bunch scallions
  • Kernels from 2 ears of raw sweet corn
  • 1 c. buttermilk (you can make your own by adding 1 Tbsp. lemon juice to a scant cup of milk)
  • 1 c. boiling water
  • 3/4 c. cornmeal
  • 1 1/2 c. sifted all-purpose flour
  • 1 Tbsp. baking powder
  • 1 tsp. salt
  • 1/4 tsp. baking soda
  • 2 eggs, slightly beaten
  • 3 Tbsp. vegetable oil

Directions:

  • Heat a griddle over medium-high heat and spray with Pam if it’s not a non-stick pan.
  • Thinly slice scallion bulbs and about 3 inches of the green part.
  • Whisk the cornmeal with the boiling water, then add the flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda to the cornmeal mixture.
  • Mix the buttermilk, eggs, and oil together, then whisk into the cornmeal mixture. Fold in the scallions and corn kernels.
  • Drop the mixture onto the hot griddle as pancakes and cook until they are lightly browned on each side (it took me ~3 minutes per side).

Verdict:
You know how some people have a sweet tooth? Well I have a scallion-corn pancake tooth. These have the same comfort food flavor as cornbread, but in breakfast food form, which automatically makes it better. I thought that this would be the perfect vessel for an hors d’oeuvre if you made the pancakes a bit smaller and more like blinis — maybe with a red pepper or black bean relish?

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Carrot-Ginger Soup

By on June 24, 2009 in Gluten-free, Recipes, Soups

Soup in June? Oh, yes. I’m usually freezing in the summer when it’s 100 degrees outside. My office cranks the A/C way up, so I’m often craving soups come lunchtime. There’s a cute little deli near my office that makes fantastic carrot-ginger soup, so I thought I would re-create theirs at home.

The carrots I used in this soup came from our Local box and they were HUGE! Each one had to be at least 18 inches long.

From A Full Belly

Ingredients:

  • 2 Tbsp. canola oil
  • 1/2 c. minced onion
  • 1/4 c. minced peeled fresh ginger
  • 3 c. chicken stock
  • 4 c. peeled and sliced carrots (about 1 1/2 pounds)
  • 1/2 c. orange juice
  • 1/2 c. half-and-half
  • 1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
  • 1/8 tsp. ground nutmeg (I used more like 1/4 tsp.)
  • Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

  • Heat the oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add the onions and ginger with some salt and pepper and sweat them for ~5 minutes, or until the onions become translucent.
  • Add the chicken stock and carrots and bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for ~30 minutes.
  • Remove the soup from the heat and puree with an immersion blender or food mill.
  • Put back on the burner and add the half-and-half (so pretty when you swirl it into the soup!), orange juice, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Taste and add salt and pepper as needed. Bring back to a simmer before serving. This can be made a day in advance and refrigerated.

Verdict:
That picture totally does not do it justice. This soup is beautifully light orange in color and is flecked with spices in the same way that you know vanilla bean ice cream is good because it has vanilla beans running through it. =) It’s such a warm soup, not only because of the temperature but because of the ginger and cinnamon. It’s truly comfort food, but doesn’t have the same heaviness that most comfort foods do. It also freezes well, so save some for a cold, rainy day!

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Egg White Omelette with Sorrel and Tomatoes

By on June 19, 2009 in Breakfast, Gluten-free, Main Dishes, Recipes

Our Greenling box last week came with sorrel, which I never had before. The best way to describe it is kind of a green and kind of an herb (a gerb?). It looks much like a green but has a much sweeter and more pronounced flavor than any green that I’ve had. It’s most closely like spinach, so if you’re got a recipe that calls for spinach, try sorrel instead and see what you think.

My favorite omelette is spinach and mushrooms with some cheddar, so I thought I would sub sorrel for the spinach. Omelettes (and eggs in general) are kind of a personal thing, and everyone makes them differently. So if you have your own omelette recipe, use that! But definitely try to find sorrel.

Ingredients:

  • 1 tsp. olive oil
  • 1 medium shallot, sliced into rings
  • 1 bunch of sorrel, washed and trimmed of stems
  • Salt and pepper
  • Pam spray
  • 1 whole egg, plus 3 egg whites
  • 1 Tbsp. milk (This is optional, but I always make my eggs with milk.)
  • 1 handful of grape tomatoes (or ~1/2 c. chopped tomatoes)
  • 1/2 c. grated cheese

Directions:

  • Heat the olive oil in a pan over medium-high heat, then add the shallots and saute for ~2 minutes until they are lightly browned.
  • Reduce the heat to medium-low, then add the sorrel, a pinch of salt and a few grinds of pepper and cover the pan to allow the leaves to wilt. Toss every minute or so until the bunch is completely wilted (~2 minutes). Remove the wilted sorrel to a small bowl.
  • Spray a non-stick pan with Pam (I’m sure you could use the same pan, but then your omelette would taste entirely like sorrel and would be made with olive oil.) and heat over medium-high heat.
  • Beat the egg and egg whites together, then add the milk, a pinch of salt, and a few grinds of pepper. Add the egg mixture to the hot pan and let it sit for a few minutes until it becomes a bit opaque, then add the sorrel, tomatoes and cheese to one half of the eggs. Let sit a few minutes more, then flip the empty half over and remove the omelette to a plate.


My omelettes are never pretty. Sorry.

Verdict:
The sorrel has a strong lemon overtone, so this was a great citrus-y pick-me-up in the morning! The acidity from the tomatoes cut through the lemon nicely though, and rounded out the dish. I didn’t have any mushrooms on hand, though I think a chopped portabella might be nice in here. I kind of made this on a whim, so next time, I think I’ll try keeping the sorrel raw and seeing what happens. I’ll keep you posted!

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Mango Mini Cheesecakes

By on June 18, 2009 in Desserts, Recipes

We’ve been getting mangoes in our Greenling box for a while now, and I hadn’t yet had the opportunity to pair it with ginger (I love pairing fruit with ginger, as evidenced by my cranberry-ginger sorbet). Plus, given that I have very recently found the inserts to my mini-cheesecake pan, I’ve had a hankering to make mini cheesecakes. Perfect — I’d use mango in the cake batter and ginger in the crust. It was settled.

I found a number of recipes for mini cheesecakes online and most of them didn’t call for a water bath. I had debated on and off about using one, but eventually decided not to. Using a water bath allows you to better regulate the temperature of the cake, thereby preventing cracks, but as I was garnishing the top with chocolate shavings anyway, I didn’t really care. Plus, I always manage to splash the top of my cake batter with the water.

I want to say that this recipe yields 24 mini cheesecakes, but I make pretty thick crusts, so I think for me it would only yield ~18 cheesecakes. I only made 1 batch (12 cheesecakes) and I had a ton left over.

You can adapt this recipe to fit a large springform pan, but if I’ve motivated you to bake minis and you need a mini-cheesecake pan, I purchased mine from Williams Sonoma about 2 years ago. I’m not sure if they still have it, but if they don’t and you’re in the market for one, make sure you get one with a non-stick surface (making for easy clean-up) and with removable inserts in the bottoms of the cups (making it easy to remove the cheesecakes from the pan).

Adapted from Cake on the Brain

Ingredients:
For the crust:

  • Pam spray
  • 8 graham crackers, crushed (yields ~1 c.)
  • 2 Tbsp. sugar
  • 3 Tbsp. butter, melted (The original recipe called for 2 Tbsp. butter, but the crust just didn’t have the right consistency. I’ll probably add another Tbsp. for a total of 4 next time.)
  • 1/4 tsp. ground ginger
  • Pinch of salt

For the batter:

  • 16 oz. cream cheese, room temperature
  • 2 eggs
  • Puree of 1 large mango, yielding ~3/4 c. (for best results, puree with a food mill)
  • 1/4 c. heavy cream
  • 1/2 c. sugar
  • Pinch of salt

For the garnish:

  • I used bittersweet chocolate shavings, but a bit of chopped mango or candied ginger would be nice also.

Directions:

  • Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Place the inserts in the mini-cheesecake pan and spray each cup with Pam spray. Set the pan aside.
  • Combine the crust ingredients in a small bowl.
  • Add ~1 tsp. of the mixture (I used ~1.5 tsp. because I like crust) into each cup of the pan. Press the crust mixture into the bottom of the cup with the back of a teaspoon or your fingers.
  • Bake the crusts for ~10 minutes (took closer to 12 minutes for me), or until they have browned and baked together.
  • Set aside on a rack to cool.
  • Reduce the heat to 300 degrees.
  • In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the cream cheese on low speed for ~2 minutes until it’s smooth.
  • Increase the speed to medium-low and add the eggs one at a time and mango. Blend until the mango and eggs are fully incorporated.
  • Add the heavy cream and mix until fully incorporated.
  • Add the sugar and salt and mix until fully incorporated. You may need to scrape down the sides of the bowl.
  • Pour the batter into the cups on top of the crusts. Bake for ~20 minutes (mine actually took 23 minutes) until the batter has set (it may still be a bit jiggly). Set aside on a rack to cool, then keep in the fridge for at least 2 hours before attempting to remove the mini cheesecakes form the pan.
  • When they’re fully cooled, remove the cheesecakes from the pan by pushing them straight up with your fingers. Remove the insert from the bottom of the crust and garnish the top of the cheesecake before serving.

Verdict: These were actually pretty light and fluffy instead of a dense mass of cheesecake, which I was really excited about. The mango worked beautifully in the recipe and turned the batter a beautiful shade of light yellow, while the ginger gave the crust a subtle nuance of heat; together, the mango and ginger gave the cake a bit of an Indian vibe. Some of mine sunk in the center =( probably because I got distracted and let the mixer mix the batter for a bit too long, which aerated it instead of mixed it. Still tasted great though!

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