baked eggs over croutons

Monday: baked eggs over croutons with mushrooms and asparagus.

Wow. Pretty much everything I've made from Vegetarian Suppers has been a success all around, and this was no exception. We made the recipe as directed and I dry sauteed some asparagus tips (left over from a chop salad last night - I only like to eat the stalks raw; the tips need cooking, IMO). The combination of flavors and textures pretty much knocked my socks off.

eggs baked on a bed of mushrooms and croutons with asparagus tips
adapted from Vegetarian Suppers

• 2 Tbsp butter, divided into halves
• 2 slices bread, cut into small cubes
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 large finely diced shallot
• 1/2 lb mushrooms (cremini or portobello)
• 1 Tbsp chopped parsley
• 2 tsp chopped rosemary
• salt & pepper
• 1 Tbsp tomato paste
• 3/4 C red wine
• 2-4 eggs (adjust to fit your appetites)
• asparagus tips from ~2 lb asparagus
  

Preheat the oven to 400F. Prepare two shallow baking dishes (we used pasta bowls) by spraying with cooking spray or coating with butter.

Melt half the butter in a medium skillet, add the bread, and toss to coat. Cook over low heat, stirring often, until browned and crisp but not hard (8-10 min). Divide the croutons between the dishes and set skillet aside.

Over medium heat, melt the remaining half of the butter in a large skillet with the olive oil. Add shallot and cook for about 3 minutes, stirring to prevent burning. Raise the heat to medium-high and add the mushrooms and most of the herbs. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Saute until the mushrooms have started to brown, about 5 min. Stir in the tomato paste. Add the wine and use it to deglaze the pan. Lower heat and simmer until the sauce has reduced to about 1/4 C. Season with a bit more salt and pepper and divide the mushrooms between the dishes.

Meanwhile, heat your first skillet over medium heat with just a tiny bit of additional oil (or use a squirt of cooking spray). Cook the asparagus for about 10 minutes. You don't need to move it around in the pan until it starts to sizzle. The asparagus is done when it's tender and tasty.

Make a shallow depression in the center of each mushroom mound, and break 1 or 2 eggs in each dish. Add a bit more salt and pepper. Bake until the eggs are to your liking (about 15 minutes). Remove, sprinkle with the remaining herbs and maybe a bit more salt and fresh-ground pepper, and serve.

makes 2 servings

Mid-Spring Menu

Sunday: fried rice (Victor's own recipe...); vanilla quinoa pudding
Monday: skillet-seared tofu; oven-roasted asparagus (topped with miso sauce from tofu); rice
Tuesday: cook's holiday
Wednesday: lentils; eggs; bread (Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day)
Thursday: Aloo Paratha (Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day)
Friday: spiced kibbe & herbed yogurt (both from Urban Pantry); pita (Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day); red pepper sticks
Saturday: leftovers

red-hot rhubarb

Well, not really red hot, but very cinnamon-y nonetheless. This cinnamon-rhubarb jam was my favorite of the quartet of rhubarb preserves I put up last August. For some reason, that batch of jam set up very hard, but this year's didn't. Whatever - I love cinnamon, and I love this jam. The last jar disappeared a few weeks ago, so I'm happy to have it back in stock, so to speak. This month's Can Jam (which called for either rhubarb or asparagus) was a great opportunity to make it again. (I actually am planning to make something with asparagus, too, but won't have a chance until the weekend.)

One thing to note - it definitely does get spicier as it ages, so that the last batch was, by the end, really quite hot. If you're not a fan of strong cinnamon flavors, I'd recommend eating within six months or so (or don't add the cinnamon sticks to the jars prior to canning).

Rhubarb and Cinnamon Jam
adapted from Sensational Preserves

• 2 lbs rhubarb, sliced
• 2 lb sugar
• 4 cinnamon sticks
• juice of 1 lemon

Stir the rhubarb and sugar together in a nonmetallic bowl, cover, and let macerate in refrigerator overnight. Transfer to a saucepan and add the cinnamon and juice. Heat over medium heat, stirring often, until sugar has dissolved. Increase the heat and bring to a boil; boil for 15-20 minutes until the setting point is reached (220F). Remove the cinnamon sticks, put one in each jar, and ladle jam into hot jars, leaving 1/4 in headspace. Process in boiling water canner for 15 minutes.

yield: about 4 half-pint jars

slow-cooker compote

We made this compote as the finish to a simple Sunday supper menu. Simple, yes, but with many different dishes. Given the demands on our time (and on our stove), it seemed best to leave the dessert to the crock-pot. One of the guests brought the ice cream to go with it, and we served the compote warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Rhubarb-Strawberry-Vanilla Bean Compote
adapted from Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker

• 1/4 c OJ
• 1 c sugar
• 1 lb rhubarb, sliced
• 1 vanilla bean, cut in half & seeds scraped out
  
• 2 tsp fresh lemon juice
• 2 pints strawberries, hulled & cut in half

Combine orange juice through vanilla bean (with its seeds) in slow cooker. Cover and cook on LOW 3-4 hours. Add the lemon juice and berries and stir to distribute. Continue cooking on LOW for up to another hour (though you can just mix in the strawberries and serve, I thought they were better cooked a bit).

serves 6-8

Vegetarian Borsht

This Borsht (she spells it "Borshch") was absolutely incredible the day I made it. Neither of us liked the leftovers all that much, however, and it makes a truly heroic quantity of soup. Plus, it's a ton of chopping (even if you use a food processor, which I did). Unclear whether I'll make it again at some point.

Vegetarian Borshch
adapted from The Winter Vegetarian

• 2 large onions, peeled & finely chopped
• 4 garlic cloves, peeled & minced
• 1 large carrot, peeled & finely chopped
• 1 parsnip, peeled & finely chopped
• 1 turnip, peeled & finely chopped
• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• 6 medium beets (1 1/2 lb), peeled & finely chopped
• 3 medium potatoes, peeled & finely chopped
• 1 small celery root (1/4 lb), peeled & finely chopped
• 1 lb cabbage, shredded
• 1 c pitted brine-cured black olives (I consider this an optional ingredient, but add more salt if you omit it)
• 1 tart apple, peeled, cored, & finely chopped
• 8 C water
• 1 28-oz can tomatoes in puree
• 2 Tbsp tomato paste
• 10 black peppercorns
• 3 allspice berries
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 Tbsp lemon juice
• freshly ground black pepper
• minced fresh dill (as a garnish)
• sour cream (as a garnish)

In a huge stockpot, saute the onions, garlic, carrot, parsnip, and turnip in the oil until soft. Stir in beets through salt and bring to a boil. Reduce heat a simmer, covered, for 1 1/2 - 2 hours. Just before serving, stir in the lemon juice and pepper. Serve hot, garnished with dill and sour cream.

serves 10-12

miso miso miso

Monday: skillet-seared tofu; oven-roasted asparagus (topped with miso sauce from tofu); rice

Before you begin messing with the tofu, start the oven preheating to 400F. Wash and trim the asparagus (if I can find really fat stalks, I trim a bit off the bottom and then peel them as high up the stalk as seems necessary - I test by just eating some of the fresh asparagus and seeing if it's fibrous). Toss with some olive or peanut oil and a bit of salt and pepper.

While you're making the tofu and its miso sauce, roast the asparagus. After it's softened but not quite done (about 10 minutes), remove from oven and top with a thick-ish layer of the sauce. Continue roasting for another 5-7 minutes, until sauce looks cooked (and maybe even blackened in a few places) but not burnt.

Urban Pantry

Wow, I love this book. I just got it from the library and I've already made one thing out of it, even though it completely didn't fit with the meal we were having. Fried rice followed by vanilla-quinoa pudding? The combination was a little weird, yes, but oh-so-good.

I think I must share a similar palate and a similar sensibility with the author - I want to make every single recipe in the book AND I love her down-to-earth approach to eating. I'm not actively looking to adopt a particular eating philosophy (beyond being very much pro-home-cooking), but "thrifty, sustainable, and seasonal" (the book's sub-title) definitely matches up with where I'm at right now, food-wise.

Take the pudding, for example. Pennington writes that she loves the flavor of "rich cinnamon-scented rice pudding" but that white rice really doesn't work for her - "not nutrient-dense enough." I couldn't agree more. This recipe isn't health-food, exactly (it is dessert, after all), but I don't feel guilty eating it, either. Also: yum! I made a few additions, and I'll likely continue to tweak it. This is definitely a recipe I'll be making again, and soon.

Vanilla Quinoa Pudding
adapted from The Urban Pantry

• 1 C quinoa, washed and rinsed VERY well
• 3 C milk (I used a combination of skim and half-and-half, since I needed to use up the half-and-half, and we don't have whole milk in the house - she calls for whole milk)
• 1 vanilla bean, split, beans scraped into pot (I saved the bean and put it in a jar of sugar for vanilla sugar...)
• 1/8 tsp orange flower water
• pinch kosher salt
• 1/4 C raisins
• 1/2 C sugar
• 1 cinnamon stick

Combine all ingredients in a large sauce pan and bring to a low boil over medium-high heat. Lower heat and simmer, covered, for 30 minutes (stir occasionally to prevent scorching). Remove from heat and allow to rest, lid on, for another 30 minutes. Serve warm.

makes 4-6 servings

update 5/17/10: it also makes a delicious breakfast the next day!