How much more awkward-sounding can the name of this salad be?

A mixed-bean salad with garbanzos, kidney beans and green beans and a pickled-tasting sauce is a common player on potluck tables in my area. It's an old standby, everyone sees the contents and knows what the salad is going to taste like. I felt like making one that had a bit more crunch, no obvious sweetness (my least favorite part of some versions of bean salad) and used the spicier pickle flavor of my own home-canned green bean pickles. 

The bean pickles are one of my favorite recipes from the Bernardin Guide to Home Preserving, one of my souvenirs from living in Canada. The original recipe is called Dilled Beans, but I use the variation called Hot 'n Spicy Beans, skipping the red pepper strips and the dill. The recipe also worked this year with purple beans, which make me sad by doing the same thing purple asparagus does: turn green when cooked.

When asked at the potluck supper what name this dish has, I responded, "Bean, uh ... bean and bean salad." There are three beans, but do you think my brain could add them up in the necessary moment to say something succinct like Triple-bean Salad? Uh ... nope. 

Bean, Bean and Bean Salad with Carrots
serves 6 to 8

1 15-oz can garbanzos (chickpeas)
1 15-oz can Great Northern beans
3 small garden carrots, julienned (about 1/2 cup julienne)
1/2 pint home-pickled spicy green beans with garlic 
1 clove pickled garlic from the jar of home-pickled beans
4 to 5 Tbsp pickle juice from the jar of home-pickled beans
4 Tbsp olive oil
2 pinches dried epazote
salt and pepper to taste

Place all beans and carrots together in a bowl. Whisk together pickle juice with minced pickled garlic, olive oil, epazote and some salt and pepper. Pour over beans and mix thoroughly. Add more salt and pepper if required. Allow salad to sit overnight in the dressing before serving.

Note: the epazote could be replaced by dried basil, savory or thyme for a different flavor.

Read more...

Easter leftovers idea: orange stew

This stew gets its name not because it has oranges in it, but because it is a bright-orange-colored, warm and nutritious resting place for the last bits of ham left over from Easter dinner. Since our balmy spring weather of March this year turned chilly and wetter as April went on, a new soupy dish was exactly what I needed to stay invigorated.

Orange Stew
2 Tbsp butter
2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and chunked (about 2 to 2.5 pounds)
4 medium-sized carrots, peeled and chunked
2 cups chicken stock
1/2 tsp ground sage
seasoning salt (such as Lowry's) to taste
black pepper to taste
1/2 pound leftover Easter ham, diced

Melt the butter in a large pot. add the vegetables, stock and seasonings (go easy on the salt, the ham will add more later) and bring to a boil. Turn down the heat, cover and simmer until the vegetables are tender enough to mash. Add additional stock if stew is too thick for your liking. Mash vegetables, add ham and cook over medium-low heat until ham is heated through. Reseason if needed.

Read more...

On the 14th Day of Christmas, my true love sent to me / An updated blog entry

Sorry for the unexpected one-month hiatus, all. This past December was a time of action, not written words. Much baking and cooking took place, but none of it was documented here at the time it was happening.

Some highlights of the Christmas season in my kitchen:
1. Testing out a household favorite, tofu-carrot scramble, on a potluck group. Positive comments from people who liked the gingery taste. The basics of how Andrew and I make this recipe come from the recipe in the Vegetarian Times Complete Cookbook. We just don't measure things anymore and I think I dropped an ingredient or two from the recipe long ago before I taught it to Andrew. I'm still debating on whether I should make this dish at work. Its appearance is not as good as its taste, I'm afraid. It's a bit like chunky yellow-orange vomit on rice. Maybe a nice garnish of chopped cilantro and using julienned carrot instead of grated would make it look more appealing.
2. The 15th-century pie recipe that looked doomed to fail until the moment I put some in my mouth. Another potluck experiment, going from a historical recipe that gave zero amounts or proportions, just a list of what ingredients to add when (and I think even these were out of order, so I adjusted based on the order of instructions in similar recipes from other sources from the same country). This pie was like a savory custard with dried fruit for sweetness. I messed up baking the crust blind (forgot the parchment paper under the pie weights), the crust shrank considerably, the custard took much longer than expected to even start pretending to set, I used far too much beef marrow so the filling looked a bit greasy while baking, I added the spices during the wrong step of the process (no matter, it seems). I couldn't believe how good it tasted after all those mistakes and how ugly it looked. And the crust was the flakiest I've ever made. Gives a whole new understanding of a "foolproof" recipe. However, my version needs some serious revising before putting it out here for others to try.
3. Are krumkaker still good after being frozen? This year's batch of Norwegian Christmas cookies was donated to science. I have also learned that the plural of krumkake is krumkaker. I packed the cookies in a box and gave them to one of the owners of the cafe/kitchen store where I work so she could experiment with how long they are still delicious when wrapped tightly in plastic (she reports the batch from two days before Christmas was still good on New Year's Day) and whether they could maintain crispness after being frozen and thawed. Still waiting on the lab results from the frozen portion of the batch.

Read more...