an open cupboard

My first batch of home canned cranberry sauce is processing as I type. Cranberry sauce is remarkably easy to prepare, and almost as easy to can. I used these recipes as guidelines, just to get an idea of how much sweetener and liquid to use. The general rule seems to be two parts cranberries to one part sugar and water. The National Home Canning web site gives useful guidelines on processing times, which vary depending on the volume of your jars. Additional guidelines on recommended equipment and the necessity (or not) of pre-sterilizing jars can be found here.

I had planned to set aside some sauce for freezing, in case something went wrong with the canning process. Of course I forgot. No matter. I’ve got four half-pint jars of sauce. If they’re all bad, I’ll just make a new batch a day or two before Thanksgiving. I know, I’m very confident.
Here’s the recipe if you’d like to give it a try.

home canned cranberry sauce

4 half-pint canning jars and lids, washed
16 oz. organic cranberries
1 c water
3/4 c brown cane sugar
2-4 TBS honey
spices: ground cardamom, nutmeg, cinnamon, ground cloves, ground allspice, about 1/8 well rounded tsp each

• Wash the jars and lids in hot soapy water and set aside.
• Combine the cranberries, water, sugar, spices, and half the honey in a small pot or sauce pan. Simmer until most of the cranberries have burst, stirring occasionally. Taste the cranberry sauce and add more honey if necessary.
• While the cranberries cook, boil the jars (not the lids) and a pair of tongs in a large pot for about 10 minutes. You can use a canning pot or a large pasta pot with a drainer insert to hold the jars.
• When the jars have boiled, turn off the flame and remove the jars with the sterilized tongs, draining the water from the jars as you remove them. (If the cranberry sauce is still cooking, leave the jars in the hot water until the cranberry sauce is ready.)
• Pour the hot cranberry sauce into the jars, making sure to leave enough space at the top (usually about 1/4 to 1/2 inch, check the instructions that come with the jars). Run a non-metal spatula around the sides of the jar to remove any air bubbles.
• Wipe the tops of the jars and seal them well.
• Put the jars back in the pot and bring to the boil. Once the water has boiled, cover the pot and process the jars for 15 minutes. Note that processing time varies depending on your altitude and jar size.
• When the jars have finished processing, turn off the flame and let the jars rest for five minutes. Then remove the jars from the pot and cool on a dry towel for 12 to 24 hours.
• Remove the bands from the jars after cooling for 12 to 24 hours. Lids should be somewhat concave and difficult to remove with your fingertips. Clean the jars with a damp cloth and label and store the contents in a cool, dry place.

Makes 4 half-pint jars of sauce.

I tried, I really did. I just couldn’t get a good photo of this evening’s side dish. So for your amusement, I’ve created a stylized (*ahem*) rendition of a green bean with a strawberry. They look rather happy together, don’t they? Each in its own lopsided way.

What’s a green bean got to do with a strawberry, you may ask? The truth is, I have no idea. I just needed something to lend a little chutzpah to the skinny, sedate French beans I served with supper. I spotted the basket of forgotten strawberries from the corner of my eye and thought “yeah, that’ll do.” It did indeed. I’d forgotten how wonderful strawberries taste with freshly ground black pepper. They’re also a soft, juicy contrast to turgidly crunchy beans.

This is one of those non-recipes that’s too simple to really be a recipe. The only rule is to try to balance the green beans with the strawberries. A ratio of two to one is about right, I think.

green beans and strawberries

1 bunch green beans, washed and trimmed
strawberries
olive oil to taste
salt and pepper to taste

1. Place a large sauté pan or skillet on a medium flame and toss a bunch of green beans into it.
2. While the green beans are cooking, rinse and trim some strawberries and slice them in half. Then slice the halves into thick matchsticks.
3. Toss the green beans around periodically, and cook until they just turn a bright shade of green.
4. Transfer the beans to a large bowl, combine with strawberries.
5. Drizzle with good olive oil, and season to taste with salt and pepper.
6. Taste and correct seasoning. If you’d like the salad to be sweeter, add more strawberries.

Variations:

• Dress with balsamic vinegar and olive oil.
• Instead of freshly ground black pepper, use freshly cracked black pepper for more pronounced heat and black pepper flavor.
• Try shaving or grating some parmigiano-reggiano on top.
• Crumble some good quality freshly fried bacon on top.
• Serve with prosciutto.
• Deconstruct the dish by cooking the strawberries separately with balsamic vinegar and reducing them to a sauce. Season liberally with cracked or ground black pepper. Spoon the hot or cold sauce over the green beans. (This is the most peculiar, yet intriguing suggestion I could think of. If anyone tries it, do let me know how it turns out.)
• Reduce the green beans to a sauce, and spoon it over the cold strawberries. Just kidding.

Falafel’s lesser known little sister is sabikh. Sabikh is a pita sandwich with fried eggplant, a sliced boiled egg, chunks of steamed potatoes, salad, hummus, tahini sauce, and amba, a sort of sour mango pickle sauce. Traditionally, sabikh was eaten by Iraqi Jews on Saturday morning. According to lore, the sandwich didn’t really have a name back in Iraq. It was named sabikh by the Iraqi immgrants who opened the first kiosk in Israel to sell the sandwich. Filling, tasty, and messy, sabikh is a favorite street food among Israelis today.

Sabikh is inherently fun to eat. With its abundance of ingredients, it’s an everything but the kitchen sink type of sandwich. Every bite yields a combination of flavors and textures, and often a dribble of tahini down your chin. Keeping the full-to-bursting pita in one piece is always a delicate balance. (The trick here is to use slightly thick, soft, pliable pita, not the sort of thin cardboardy stuff you find at the supermarket).

Sabikh was one of A’s favorite street foods when we lived in Israel. So on the morning of his recent birthday, I made sabikh with homemade pita. Sabikh makes a tasty breakfast served with Middle Eastern cucumber and tomato salad. And pita is much easier to make than you’d think. You can finish the meal with a small glass of strong Turkish coffee, or sweet mint tea.

sabikh with middle eastern cucumber and tomato salad

Hanit has a recipe for pita here, which you can halve. Or you could make the entire recipe and freeze the remainder for later.

1 small or medium eggplant, preferably the multi-cleft heirloom variety known in the Middle East as “baladi”
2 hard boiled eggs, sliced or coarsely chopped
good quality plain hummus, such as Sabra brand, or homemade
prepared tahini sauce (prepare according to instructions on the jar of tahini paste)
2 steamed potatoes coarsely chopped, or several bite-sized steamed potatoes
amba (optional)
2 good quality pitas
Middle Eastern cucumber and tomato salad (recipe below)

• Place a heavy frying pan on medium heat and melt a good tablespoon or two of coconut oil in the pan. Alternatively, you could use olive oil (not extra virgin).
• Fry the eggplant slices until browned on both sides. Remove from pan and drain.
• Slice the tops off the pitas so that you now have two D-shaped pocket. Gently separate the walls of the pockets to make them easier to stuff.
• Invert the sliced pita tops and nestle them at the bottom of each pita. These pita tops reinforce the sabikh, preventing dripping from the bottom (for a while, anyway).
• Hold the bottom of a pita, gently squeezing the rounded edge in your hand so that the pocket opens.
• Smear a bit of hummus in the pita, then add the eggplant, eggs, potatoes, and salad.
• Drizzle tahini sauce and amba into the pita.
• Serve with salad on the side.

Serves 2

middle eastern cucumber and tomato salad

Middle Eastern cucumber and tomato salad resembles salsa in that its ingredients are diced very small, creating a cohesive cross between a salad and a chunky sauce. The tartness of the lemon juice, the bite of the olive oil, and the freshness of the parsley meld with the sweet juices of the tomatoes and the crispness of the cucumbers. It just isn’t the same if you chop the vegetables any other way except a tiny dice. A salsa style salad is made to be eaten in a pita.

2 Mediterranean, Persian, or small pickling cucumbers
2 medium sized very fresh tomatoes
parsley
1 lemon, sliced
good olive oil, preferably Middle Eastern or Greek
salt and pepper to taste

• Trim the ends of the cucumbers.
• Dice the cucumbers and tomatoes. You want a very small dice, say, a quarter of an inch.
• Finely mince a handful of parsley and add to the cucumbers and tomatoes.
• Squeeze some lemon juice over the salad, and drizzle a good glug of olive oil.
• Season to taste with salt and pepper.
• Taste and correct dressing.

Serves 2

N.B. If you’re in NYC, you can get sabikh at Taïm. If you’re in the San Francisco bay area, you’re out of luck. But you can get Sabra hummus at Berkeley Bowl, and baladi eggplants at the Ferry Building farmer’s market. Check the farm stand across from Point Reyes Preserves.

beurre d’isigny sainte-mère

I recently bought a tub of fancy French butter from the local high-falutin’ shop. It was on sale for three dollars, so I picked it up (kind of a bargain for fancy butter, and I couldn’t resist the cute wooden basket in which it was packaged). I hadn’t realized that butter can have its own AOC, but apparently it can in France. I took it home, intending to have a little schmear on a slice of sourdough. I ended up eating several schmears, and even tasting it plain. It’s that good. Naturally, the butter disappeared pretty quickly, as I used it on bread as well as in every meal I cooked until it was gone. There’s nothing quite so heavenly as spinach, chicken, anything at all cooked in really good butter.

where to get it: your local gourmet food shop, Todaro Bros., Wally’s, Amazon, Sainsbury’s (U.K.)

wine grapes

While shopping at Berkeley Bowl one day, I happened upon some pinot noir and cabernet grapes. These grapes are smaller, darker, and much more intensely flavored than ordinary table grapes. They also have seeds, which you may not mind eating as they have a slightly acidic taste that complements the natural sweetness of the fruit. Wine grapes have tremendous culinary potential. You could stuff a chicken with grapes and garlic cloves for a roast. You could use them with lamb in a tagine. You could dry them outdoors or in the oven for some really flavorful homemade raisins. Or you could just snack on them along with some almonds.

where to get it: If you live near an area featuring vineyards, you can look for wine grapes at the local farmer’s market or perhaps at the vintner’s.

broccoli with butter and grapes

This is more of a non-recipe, as it’s so easy to prepare. The butter and grapes really make the dish (and the garlic doesn’t hurt). You could substitute spinach, asparagus, or even artichoke hearts for the broccoli. Remember, the grapes do have seeds. You can discard them while eating or just eat them along with the fruit.

1-2 heads fresh broccoli or broccolini, chopped into longish florets
very good butter, copious amounts
wine grapes or ordinary grapes
1 clove garlic
salt and pepper to taste

• Steam the broccoli until it’s nearly ready. It should almost turn bright green, but not quite.
• Melt the butter in a heavy skillet on a medium to low flame. Toss the broccoli in the butter, allowing it to cook a little and absorb the butter.
• Throw in as many grapes as you like.
• Press the garlic clove over the broccoli and stir. Cook to slightly soften the grapes and mellow the garlic, about a minute or two.
• Season to taste with salt and pepper and serve right away.

Here’s a little snack I put together the other day:

1 ginger biscuit or ginger snap
a shmear of almond butter
2 little squares of dark chocolate with ginger bits

• Shmear almond butter on cookie, top with chocolate. Eat with a glass of milk or tea.
• Optionally, toast (if you can wait that long), and spread the melted chocolate over the almond butter.

It’s like an open-faced s’more, but not quite. This little number combines the best features of the dessert genre—it’s richly chocolatey, creamy, nutty, and crunchy. Sweet, but not too sweet, with a sharp bite of ginger that awakens the palate. In a word, delightful. You could use regular chocolate, particularly if you don’t like your chocolate to wear sexy footwear.

Autumn has arrived, sort of. One day it’s rainy, the next sunny. It’s too cold for t-shirts, but not cold enough for sweaters. Such is the schizophrenic nature of the weather in California. If it were honestly cold in these parts, a hot bowl of fresh beans would be the perfect vehicle for taking the bite off the chill. But alas, a dish such as Boston baked beans is simply overkill. What to do?

Cook the last of the summer tomatoes with the first of the autumn beans. Throw in some sharp goat cheese to spike the sweetness of the tomatoes, and a handful of greens for color and contrasting texture. The result is a warming, yet light stew, alive with both delicate and strong flavors.

I used the remainder of a local bucheron I found at the bottom of the cheese section in the fridge. Bucherons harden with age, and their flavor sharpens dramatically. As is usually the case, I just used whatever I happened to have on hand. You could use another goat cheese, good old parmigiano reggiano, or Västerbotten, if you’re so inclined.

cranberry bean stew

1 c shelled cranberry or other large, fresh beans
water to cover
4 sprigs fresh thyme
olive oil
5 small tomatoes, coarsely chopped
2 cloves garlic, peeled
about 3-4 oz. of a hard goat cheese, or other strong-flavored cheese, chopped or grated
handful of fresh spinach, chopped into coarse ribbons

• Place the shelled beans in a small pot or saucepan and cover with water. Add the thyme sprigs and bring to the boil.
• When the water has boiled, adjust the flame to a low simmer and cover the pot. Simmer until beans are tender but still al dente.
• Remove thyme sprigs and drain excess water. Place pot on a low flame, and pour in some olive oil, about half a tablespoon.
• Add about half of the chopped tomatoes to the pot and stir.
• Crush the garlic into the pot, season to taste with salt and pepper, and stir.
• Add the cheese and stir.
• Cover the pot and simmer, stirring occasionally.
• When the tomatoes have melted down into a sauce, add the remaining tomatoes. Cover and simmer to soften the tomatoes slightly.
• Add the spinach ribbons and stir. Taste and correct seasonings, then turn off the flame.
• Serve with a drizzle of olive oil.

Serves 2

When I’m feeling lazy and the weather is warm, a light dinner of assorted mezze is very satisfying. Here are some ideas for small dishes, followed by a couple of recipes. Combine a few of these dishes with toasted country style or flat bread and cured meats and cheeses for a light supper or lunch.

• Halved tomatoes, fried in olive oil with sliced garlic, sprinkled over with salt & pepper and a basil leaf
• Zucchini blossoms lightly sauteed in olive oil, seasoned with salt and pepper with a squeeze of fresh lemon juice
• Steamed stinging nettles (or spinach), mixed with butter, sauteed garlic, seasoned with salt and pepper and garnished with grated parmesan

chickpea and fennel mezze

1/4 can chickpeas
1/4 large fennel, diced
1 clove garlic
juice of half a lemon
olive oil
salt and pepper

• In a bowl, lightly mash the chickpeas. Toss in the fennel.
• Press the garlic clove and squeeze the half lemon over the mixture.
• Pour olive oil on the meze and season to taste with salt and pepper.

Serves 2-3 (small, mezze style portions)

cucumber, yogurt, and blueberry mezze with lemon thyme

1 large Persian or other long cucumber, finely diced
2 tsp fresh lemon thyme, pounded in a mortar and pestle or finely chopped fresh mint
about 1 c natural, unflavored, full fat yogurt
about 1 TBS fresh lemon juice
1/4 c fresh blueberries
salt and pepper to taste

• Put the diced cucumber and herbs in a medium bowl.
• Pour over some of the yogurt, then squeeze in the lemon juice and toss. You want to balance the acidity of the lemon juice with the tartness of the yogurt, but you don’t want the mixture to be too runny. Add more yogurt as needed and taste as you go.
• Add in the blueberries and toss carefully, so as not to smash the fruit.
• Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Serves 2 as part of a mezze style meal

P.S. Stay tuned for more reports on NYC and Stockholm…

Here’s a recipe for a light summer supper.

spinach, ricotta, and gorgonzola not pesto with pasta
1 lb pasta, cooked and drained, 1-2 cups reserved cooking water
butter
1 bunch fresh spinach, washed, trimmed, and coarsely chopped
1/3 lb fresh ricotta cheese
3-4 TBS crumbled blue cheese (I used Point Reyes)
1 ripe tomato, roughly chopped
salt and pepper to taste
dash of nutmeg

• Melt a little butter in the pot you used to cook the pasta, and add in the spinach.
• Cover, and cook on medium heat. If the spinach gets too dry, add a little splash of pasta water.
• When the spinach has just wilted, turn off the flame. If there is visible liquid in the pot, you can drain it, save it for soup, or use it to moisten the pasta.
• Crumble in the ricotta cheese.
• Blitz the spinach and ricotta with a stick blender until it turns into a sauce. Don’t make it too liquidy, stop as soon as the spinach and cheese begin to meld. You might want to experiment a bit with the texture, leaving some spinach leaves unblitzed.
• Crumble in the blue cheese and stir. Taste. If you like a stronger blue cheese flavor, add more.
• Toss in the tomatoes and season to taste with salt and pepper. Sprinkle in a dash of nutmeg, stir, and taste to correct seasoning.
• Plate pasta and moisten with a splash of cooking water. Toss pasta with the not pesto and grate parmegiano reggiano cheese on top.

Serves 2-3

Remember that weird looking vegetable I bought at Berkeley Bowl? It’s up there on the right, looking potato-like in an anemic sort of way, and somewhat hairy. Nagaimo is its Japanese name, and the Japanese turn it into a pancake called okonomiyaki, or “pancake made of weird slimey root vegetable.” If you thought tapioca was slimey, bubble drink pearls ain’t got nothin’ on nagaimo. Aliens exploding from Sigourney Weaver’s belly are less slimey than this. Seriously.

Still, slime can be an asset when you’re trying to get pancake batter to stick together. Hence okonomiyaki: a thick pancake filled with thinly sliced cabbage, scallions, pork belly, and shrimp. Okonomiyaki is crisp on the outside and soft on the inside, and—unlike Sigourney Weaver—exploding with contrasting flavors. The pancake is topped with sweet and sour sauce and sprinkled with seaweed flakes. It is then decorated with thin lines of Japanese mayonnaise, sliced like a pizza, and served. Nagaimo is both a binder and a starchy filler for the batter, which is rounded out with some flour and eggs.

My attempt at okonomiyaki was tasty, if not entirely authentic. I didn’t have any pork belly, shrimp, or scallions on hand, nor did I have any Japanese maonnaise (or any mayonnaise at all, for that matter). But I’m the type of person who insists on baking chocolate cake when I’m fresh out of chocolate and eggs. Once I’ve got an idea in my head, well, that’s it. Equipped with the basics—nagaimo, flour, eggs, and cabbage—I came up with a pretty tasty dinner pancake in the okonomiyaki style.

Here’s what I did. Using this traditional okonomiyaki recipe as a guide, I:

• Quadrupled the recipe, producing 2 large pancakes and one small pancake, enough for about 4 servings
• Substituted natural, full fat yogurt for half the water
• Omitted one egg
• Substituted grated cheddar cheese for the meat and shrimp
• Substituted minced miniature leeks for the scallions (white part only)
• Substituted ripped, toasted nori squares for the seaweed flakes
• Cooked the pancakes in coconut oil
• Topped the pancakes with my own sweet and sour sauce made by cooking fresh, whole tomatoes with soy sauce, vinegar, and mustard, salt and pepper

The result was an interesting mix of flavors and textures, the somewhat crunchy cabbage playing against the softness of the pancake, the gooeyness of the cheese and the crispness of the pancake on the outside. The aged cheddar added tang and depth, while the leeks lent an onion flavor with a slight bite. The sweet and sour sauce and the seaweed provided a counterpoint to the strong flavors on the inside of the pancake. The beauty of okonomiyaki, it seems, is its encapsulation of (almost) all flavors—sour, sweet, salty, umami—and contradiction of textures—crisp and soft, gooey and crunchy.

The vegetarian okonomiyaki was fun to eat, but I imagine that the original is a much more adventurous exercise in flavor and texture. Removing the pork belly and shrimp is like taking the filling out of pain au chocolat. You’re left with a croissant—a treat in itself—but it isn’t pain au chocolat.

Here’s what I did with those funny little mini-cucumbers I recently bought. I fried them with spices and eggs and served them with potatoes for a Sunday breakfast. Tindoras are fun to eat, they’re crunchy like cucumbers, but with an almost okra-like flavor (without the slime). I used hawaiyij, one of my favorite middle eastern spice mixtures, instead of curry powder. I also used curry leaves, but feel free to omit them if you can’t find at your local market. Thanks to Mahanandi for the inspiration!

tindoras and eggs

1-2 TBS ghee, butter, or coconut oil, or a combination
1 tsp brown mustard seeds
1 tsp cumin seeds
2 cloves garlic, minced
4 curry leaves
~1/2 lb tindora, quartered lengthwise
1 tsp hawaiyij
salt and pepper to taste
3 eggs
splash of kefir or natural yogurt
3-4 sprigs of sea beans, minced

• Melt the fat in a large cast-iron pan on a medium flame.
• Fry the mustard seeds and cumin. When the spices are toasted and just barely fragrant, add the garlic and stir.
• Toss in the tindora and stir. Season with hawaiyij.
• Thoroughly whisk three eggs with a splash of kefir or natural, whole fat yogurt. Season with salt and pepper.
• Pour into the pan with the tindora. Allow the egg mixture to settle until the bottom begins to solidify, then scramble the eggs from the edge of the pan towards the center. Let the eggs sit for a minute, then scramble again.
• Repeat just until the eggs are no longer liquid and immediately turn off the flame.
• Sprinkle minced sea beans on top and serve with toast or potatoes.

Serves 2