Tag Archives: Side Dishes

Chipotle Quinoa with Corn, Black Beans and Shrimp

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Currently cooking out of The Food Matters Cookbook by Mark Bittman

After the decadence of November and December (the candy! the desserts! the chocolate!), I was feeling the need to eat simply. I craved vegetables and fruit and grains; pretty much anything but flour and refined sugar, so I started looking around. I’m a regular reader of Mark Bittman’s column in the NYTimes, and I’ve got a couple of his other cookbooks. I find his cooking to be simple, but not boring. Bittman manages to coax maximum flavor from just a few ingredients. His recipes aren’t long and complicated, and most of them use ingredients that I tend to keep on hand.

Not long ago, Bittman wrote a book about changing his diet to a more plant-based, vegan diet (that book is called Food Matters) and using sustainable, whole foods (in other words, buy as local and seasonable as possible, eat mostly vegetarian and stay away from processed foods). I haven’t read that book, but I’d heard enough about it to know that that kind of diet appealed to me. The Food Matters Cookbook is a companion to Food Matters and includes something like 500 recipes. Vegetables, grains and beans are emphasized, with meat showing up in a supporting role, if it shows up at all. Almost all of the recipes include vegan/vegetarian options.

I find this type of cooking challenging. I like meat, and I find I need some sort of protein, especially at lunch and dinner, to keep me feeling full. And a vegan diet is simply too restrictive for me. I’m hoping to find a balance that feels right, grains and vegetables gradually displacing the meat.

So, The Food Matters Cookbook. I’ve started off with a quinoa salad that combines corn and black beans with a bit of shrimp. Unfortunately, when I was making my shopping list, I completely forgot the chipotles. I ended up using some fire-roasted green peppers I had in my pantry. This turned out to be a tasty mistake.

The dish starts of by softening onion and garlic in some oil, then adding in canned chipotle peppers and some of the adobo sauce they come in (or canned green peppers if you are a forgetful dork like me). Next comes the quinoa which is sauteed for a few minutes to toast the grains. Finally, canned black beans, frozen corn and vegetable stock (or water) is added to the pan. The whole thing simmers until the quinoa is done. I followed the variation to add some chopped, peeled shrimp to the pot when the quinoa was almost done. Right before serving, I squeezed half of a lemon over the pot and adjusted the seasonings.

I found this dish to be light but hearty, and I was really glad I added the shrimp. In my mind, this turned the dish from a side salad into a main dish. Chopping the shrimp into small pieces allowed me to make a little shrimp go a long way. And I didn’t miss the chipotles at all. The green chiles were milder than the chipotles would have been. You got flavor with just a bit of heat. Leftovers were fabulous, and we found that we actually preferred the dish cold.

Parmesan Chicken with Cherry Tomato Salad

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Currently cooking from The Best Simple Recipes from America’s Test Kitchen

I could tell you how easy this was, but I’ve already done that with most of the other recipes out of this book. I could tell you how tasty it is, but I’ve done that with just about every other dish out of this book as well.

Instead, I’ll just say, “Go make this. You won’t be disappointed.”

Chicken cutlets are covered in flour, dipped in egg and coated in a mixture of panko bread crumbs and grated parmesan cheese. Then you saute the chicken in a bit of olive oil, a couple of minutes per side.

While the chicken is cooking, cut up some tomatoes (the recipe called for cherry tomatoes, but I used small regular tomatoes and quartered them) and chop some fresh basil. Toss the tomatoes with the basil, olive oil and salt and pepper.

When the chicken is done, serve it with a pile of the tomato salad. So good.

Roasted Cabbage and Potatoes

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sc_cabbage_potatoesCurrently cooking out of Make It Fast, Cook It Slow by Stephanie O’Dea

These smelled yummy as they were cooking, but the final product was just okay. For me, these veggies were an excuse to consume massive amounts of sour cream.

It wasn’t pretty.

The dish is pretty simple. You cut a small green cabbage into wedges and toss it with chunked potatoes, garlic, balsamic vinegar and salt and pepper. The lot gets slow cooked until the potatoes are tender, which in my slow cooker took about 6 hours on low.

The vinegar flavor didn’t really come through, so if you like vinegar, I’d up the amount. Also, I wouldn’t core the cabbage wedges as my wedges fell completely apart. I ended up fishing out bits of cabbage from the potatoes.

Here’s the link to the recipe on O’Dea’s blog: http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/2008/03/roasted-cabbage-and-potatoes-in.html

Garlic Baked Potatoes

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garlic_potatoesCurrently cooking out of Make It Fast, Cook It Slow by Stephanie O’Dea

So when I told Bryan that I was making baked potatoes in the slow cooker, he laughed at me. I was a little skeptical myself, because, come on, baked potatoes in the slow cooker? Why not just microwave them?

I’m still not convinced that just baking potatoes in a slow cooker is the easiest way to go, but I gotta say, these potatoes were fantastic! They were garlicky, smoky and moist, not the least bit dry. And any excuse I have for eating tons of sour cream is a big hit with me.

You start off by cutting the potatoes almost all the way through, about every inch. Into those cuts, you put thin slices of garlic. Salt, pepper, olive oil and butter are sprinkled and poured on the potatoes. Then, slow cook the spuds until tender. In my slow cooker, that took about 4 hours.

Baked potatoes. Slow cooker. Who woulda thought?

Here’s the link to the recipe on O’Dea’s blog: http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/2008/05/crockpot-garlic-baked-potatoes.html

Braised Celery with Crunchy Bread Crumb Topping

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braised_celeryCurrently cooking from All About Braising by Molly Stevens

Thanksgiving left me with a surplus of celery, so I took a suggestion from a commentor and tried Stevens’ braised celery recipe.

You start off by trimming and cleaning a bunch of celery stalks and making a celery stock with the trimmings. The stock is poured over the celery stalks and then braised for just over an hour. Once the celery stalks are tender, you top them with bread crumbs and gruyere cheese and bake the dish until the cheese is melted and the top is crunchy and brown.

Honestly, this was a little too much celery-ish for me. I ate a couple of the stalks, then just picked the topping off the rest. The dish felt very one dimensional (celery!) to me, even with the flavorful topping. In a book full of really good dishes, this one was disappointing.

Cauliflower, Potatoes & Peas Indian-Style

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indianish_cauliCurrently cooking from All About Braising by Molly Stevens

I’m on the fence about this vegetable dish. I didn’t love it or hate it. It made a nice side to hamburgers, but I don’t think I’d go out of my way to make it again. To me, cauliflower tastes best when simply roasted with salt and pepper.

In Stevens’ recipe, you start out by frying traditional Indian spices such as cumin, coriander, ginger and tumeric in vegetable oil. Then cauliflower, potatoes and water are added to the spices and braised until the veggies are tender. At the end of the braise, peas are added to the dish.

The Simplest Potato & Leek Braise

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potato_leekCurrently cooking from All About Braising by Molly Stevens

You can’t get much simpler than this side dish. It packs a flavor punch without much work.

Leeks and potatoes are braised in chicken stock until tender. Then, cream is poured over the veggies and baked until the whole thing is bubbly brown. At the end, you’re rewarded with nicely browned potatoes that are soft and creamy inside. The leeks seem to meld with the cream, contributing a sweet, faint oniony taste.

Creamy Braised Brussels Sprouts

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sproutsCurrently cooking from All About Braising by Molly Stevens

During a visit to our local food warehouse store, I stumbled across some Brussels sprouts. Recalling that there was a recipe for Brussels sprouts in Stevens’ book, I threw a bag into our cart.

On a side note, I’ve always called them brussel sprouts, but my dictionary primly informs me that the correct spelling is Brussels sprouts. Throwing that extra “s” in there twists my tongue up.

These braised Brussels sprouts are easy to make and easy to eat. You trim the stem and any ragged outer leaves off the little guys and cut them into quarters. The sprouts are browned in some butter before being braised into sweet meltingness in heavy cream. Once the sprouts are tender, you season them with salt and pepper and lemon juice. Then you eat as many as you can before your husband gets home and wants to share them.

On a side note, taking pictures of braised food is much more challenging then I thought. Although the picture of the cooked sprouts looks like something the cat might have coughed up, it really did taste good.

World’s Best Braised Green Cabbage

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Currently cooking from All About Braising by Molly Stevens

img5_1My next book goes hand-in-hand with fall and winter. All About Braising was made for long, cold evenings, when your body craves slow-cooked comfort food. I love to make these kind of dishes, where you do a little prep work at the beginning, but the majority of the time, the dish bubbles away either on the stovetop or in the oven, unattended.

According to Stevens, braising is basically putting food into a heavy pot with a little bit of liquid, covering the pot and gently simmering everything until it is tender. By cooking food in a covered pot, all the liquid that the food releases is trapped, so it mingles with the braising liquid, creating a flavorful sauce. In addition, by cooking the food slowly and gently, you can use tougher, cheaper cuts of meat that tend to turn dry and stringy when cooked in other ways (think pot roast).

This is another book I’ve had for some time, but hardly ever used (probably because there are no baking recipes in it). The one and only recipe I’ve made from it is this green cabbage dish. I don’t have a picture because I forgot to charge my camera battery. So just imagine a pile of light green cabbage wedges, lightly charred and draped with soft onions and dotted with chunks of carrots. Yes, this dish is as good as it sounds.

You start by coring and cutting a green cabbage into eight wedges. The cabbage is arranged, in a single layer, in a 13″x9″ dish. Over the top of the cabbage, you scatter a sliced onion and a carrot cut into rounds (I usually use 3-4 carrots, because those are my favorite part of this dish). The whole dish is drizzled with olive oil and chicken stock and seasoned with salt, pepper and red pepper flakes. You cover the dish with tinfoil and  braise the vegetables in the oven for two hours. At the end of the braising time, you remove the tinfoil and cook the dish for another 15-20 minutes, just until the vegetables start to brown.

This dish is good warm or at room temperature and is even better the second day.

Cabbage and Noodles

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cabbage_noodlesCurrently cooking from Tasty by Roy Finamore

This dish isn’t much to look at, but it is probably the best thing I’ve cooked out of Tasty.

If you’ll recall, the last recipe(s) I tried out of this book weren’t so successful. I was ready to go onto the next book, but decided that I needed to get one last review from Tasty. I didn’t have high hopes for this one; how good could a recipe be that only had cabbage, egg noodles, butter, sour cream and some seasonings in it? I expected this dish to be boring and bland.

I was so wrong.

You start off by cooking a shredded green cabbage in butter until it starts to brown. Along the way, you throw in some crushed caraway seeds, salt and pepper. Once the cabbage is meltingly tender, you added cooked egg noodles and toss the whole thing with a cup of sour cream. Finamore recommends that you save some of the pasta water to help loosen the sauce up. I’m glad I did, as it was a little dry at first. I used about 3/4 of a cup of the pasta water.

Comforting and filling, this dish was a home run. It is so easy to make, and I could have eaten just this for dinner.

My final impression of Tasty? Before this dish I would have shrugged and probably not come back to Tasty. Now I’m wondering how many other sleepers are in there.