Category: Vegan

Eggplant Caponata

August 20, 2010

Although I was a good eater as a child, I had a list of things I did not like.  Turkey was at the top of the list.  Closely following were mushrooms, zucchini, peppers, and eggplant.  As I moved into vegetarianism and my taste buds grew up, I learned to love mushrooms in just about any form, zucchini almost all ways (not raw unless thinly sliced like this), peppers as long as they are cooked way down, and eggplant…  Well, still working on that one.

I like eggplant more than I did when I was a kid but that isn’t really saying much since I hated it then.  I’ve said this before here but I tend to like it best when it kind of hides in the background a bit.  It’s harder for me to tolerate when it is front and center.  (Although I do have a great Eggplant Parmesan recipe that I love and there is just no explaining that.)

Caponata is the thing I tend to ignore on the antipasto platter.  It stands between me and the marinated mozzarella or the garlicky mushrooms.  So why did I make it?  I have eggplant lovers in my life and this recipe comes from a most-trusted cookbook.  I made it during one of those weeks when I needed appetizers for several different things and this recipe makes a lot of caponata.  It also keeps really well.  I’ve tasted my share of them and this, in my humble opinion, is the finest version.  Some are too salty, some are too sweet, and most are too greasy.  John Ash finds the perfect balance here.  Sweetness from raisins and a bit of brown sugar, salty from capers and olives, acidity from tomatoes and red wine vinegar, and not too much olive oil.  It’s delicious with crackers or bread and I would head straight for it on my next antipasto platter.

One Year Ago: Heirloom Tomato Salad with Burrata (a knock-it-out-of-the-park dish)
Two Years Ago: Succotash

Roasted Eggplant Caponata
Adapted from From the Earth to the Table
Makes about 2 cups

In the heading of this recipe, Ash mentions that you can toss this mixture with pasta too.  Yum!

2 pounds eggplant, peeled or not as you please, slice lengthwise ¼-inch thick
3 tbsp. olive oil
1 small yellow onion, chopped
5 cloves roasted garlic
½ cup diced celery
1 14-oz. can chopped tomatoes
2 tbsp. rinsed capers
3 tbsp. toasted pine nuts
2 tbsp. golden raisins or currants
1/3 cup chopped Kalamata olives
2 tbsp. light brown sugar
1/3 cup red wine vinegar
Kosher salt and red pepper flakes

Preheat the oven to 400ºF.  Lay the eggplant slices on a baking sheet in a single layer.  Roast for 15 to 20 minutes or until tender and lightly browned.  Remove, coarsely chop, and reserve.

In a large sauté pan, heat the olive oil over medium heat and sauté the onion, roasted garlic, and celery until softened  but not brown, stirring occasionally.  Add the tomatoes and cook for 2 to 3 minutes.  Add the capers, pine nuts, raisins, olives, brown sugar, and vinegar.  Over medium heat, cook for 6 to 8 minutes, stirring frequently.  Add the eggplant and season to your taste with the salt and red pepper flakes.  Serve at room temperature.  Can be stored, covered, in your refrigerator for up to 5 days.  (DT: The flavor gets better as it sits.)


Category: Appetizer, Party Food, Quick and Easy, Vegan
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Good Green Beans

August 17, 2010

I tend to like my green beans pretty plain.  Like broccoli.  I could pounds and pounds of those two veggies just steamed with a healthy sprinkle of salt.  Maybe a squeeze of lemon.  That is how my husband likes them too.

But the green beans are so gorgeous at our markets right now.  Plump, long, incredibly fresh.  I felt like I wanted to celebrate their beauty more and make something a little more substantial.  I found this recipe in my new Plenty cookbook but knew instinctively that some changes had to be made to the method.  I was instructed to toss cooked beans, snow peas and peas in a warm spiced oil, then scatter crushed garlic, lemon zest, chopped chile and tarragon over the top.  I don’t know about you, but crushed garlic and lemon zest don’t “scatter” too well for me.  I wouldn’t welcome a big bite of raw garlic-laced green bean or a fuzzy lemon-zested one.  I certainly am not interested in getting a big bite of jalapeño either.

Instead of following directions like a good oldest child, I made more of a dressing including the juice of the lemon as well, and poured tossed the mixture with the vegetables.  I am not a huge snow pea fan and would normally have substituted snap peas, but instead I just upped the green beans and threw in a diced avocado.  The oil with crushed coriander seeds and mustard seeds really made this dish.  I loved their smoky flavor and subtle crunch along with the tartness of the lemon.  I guess I could eat pounds of green beans this way too.

One Year Ago: Sharlyn Melon Soup with Cucumber Chile Ice
Two Years Ago: Chilled Tomato Red Pepper Soup with Mint

Green Bean Salad with Mustard Seeds and Tarragon
Loosely adapted from Plenty
Serves 4

1½ pounds green beans, ends trimmed
1 cup frozen peas
2 tsp. coriander seed, roughly crushed with a mortar and pestle
1 tsp. mustard seeds
3 tbsp. olive oil
1 large shallot, finely chopped
1 large avocado, chopped
1 jalapeño, seeded and finely chopped
1 garlic clove, pressed
Grated zest and juice of 1 lemon
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tbsp. chopped tarragon, plus more for garnish

Fill a medium saucepan with water and bring it to a boil.  Have a large bowl of ice water ready.  Add 2 tablespoons of salt and then the green beans.  Cook for 3 minutes, then add the peas.  After 30 seconds, scoop all the vegetables out into the ice bath, adding more ice if necessary.  When cool, drain well, then place in a large bowl.  Add the chopped shallots and avocado.

Put the coriander seeds, mustard seeds, and oil into a small frying pan and turn the heat to medium.  When the seeds begin to pop, remove the pan from the heat and allow to cool slightly.  Meanwhile put the garlic, lemon juice and zest, chile, and tarragon in a bowl or jar.  Add a large pinch of salt and a few grinds of pepper.  Pour the oil over and shake or whisk to combine.  Pour the dressing over the vegetables and gently toss to combine.  This dish looks best on a platter garnished with additional tarragon leaves.


Category: Salad, Seasonal, Side Dish, Vegan
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Impulse Buys

August 5, 2010

I’m a careful Costco shopper.  Did you know Costco started in Seattle?  We’ve been members for as long as I can remember.  We go about every other month and I buy the same things over and over.  Paper towels, toilet paper, canned tomatoes, chickpeas, garbage bags, olive oil, string cheese, Diet Pepsi, beer, wine.  Occasionally I buy Ziploc bags, dish washing detergent, kids vitamins, ibuprofen, butter, Dijon mustard, dried pasta, some kind of cookbook, and nuts.  I am very very happy to tell you that I no longer need to buy diapers or wipes.  Or formula.  Hallelujah.

My point here is that I don’t get sucked in.  I know what I need and what I have room for.  I see people’s carts and wonder “where are these people putting all this stuff?”.  I am lucky in that I have plenty of room for impulse purchases, but I hate to have things on hand that I know I won’t use.  So there is not a lot of impulse shopping at Costco.

Once in a great while, I see something and I pounce without thinking too carefully.  I get sucked in by cheap pretzels and quinoa.  About a year ago, I found a 5 pound bag of Israeli couscous and very happily put it in my cart.  I love the stuff and it is not always that easy to find in regular grocery stores.  That 5 pound bag has been mocking me from the basement storage room.  Yes, thankfully I have a basement storage room for things like giant bags of Israeli couscous, but still.  What I have realized is that, while I love Israeli couscous, it’s not something I use all that often.

In my searches for a salad for the summer yoga retreat, I was thrilled to remember this one tucked away in one of my notebooks.  The flavors sounded wonderful, all things that I love, and it uses a lot of Israeli couscous.  Because I knew there were going to be 18 of us, I doubled the recipe.  The salad was a hit and partly because I loved it and partly because I still had lots of couscous, I made another giant portion of it to bring to a block party.  I even held back some of it so I could serve it as a side dish at a dinner party the night after the block party.   And yes, I still have couscous in that bag.  A lot of it.

Israeli Couscous previously on Dana Treat: Couscous and Mograbiah with Oven-Dried Tomatoes
One Year Ago: Grilled Potato Slices with Salt and Vinegar

Israeli Couscous with Olives and Roasted Tomatoes
Adapted from Gourmet
Serves 6-8

For roasted tomatoes and dressing
2 pints red grape or cherry tomatoes (1½ pounds)
3 large garlic cloves, left unpeeled
¼ cup olive oil, plus extra for drizzling
¼ cup warm water
Juice of ½ a lemon
1 tsp. kosher salt
½ tsp. freshly ground black pepper

For couscous
2½ cups vegetable broth
2 cups Israeli couscous
½ cup Kalamata olives, pits removed and sliced in half
½ cup basil, thinly sliced
¼ cup parsley, chopped

Roast tomatoes and make dressing
Preheat oven to 400ºF.  Place tomatoes and garlic, still in its peel on a baking sheet.  Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with a healthy pinch of salt and a few grinds of pepper.  Bake in the oven until the tomatoes are quite soft and starting to brown, about 20 minutes.  Remove and allow to cool slightly.

Peel garlic and purée with oil, water, lemon juice, salt, pepper, and ½ cup roasted tomatoes in a blender until dressing is very smooth.  Set aside.

Make couscous
Bring broth to a boil in a large heavy saucepan and stir in couscous.  Simmer for about 3 minutes then cover pan and remove from the heat.  Let stand for 10 minutes.  Spread couscous in 1 layer on a baking sheet and cool 15 minutes.

Transfer couscous to a large bowl and stir in remaining ingredients, dressing, roasted tomatoes, and salt and pepper to taste.  You may not need all the dressing so hold a bit back.

(DT: I found it best mix this salad with my hands so the tomatoes don’t get too squished.  You can make the couscous and dressing a day ahead and store them separately.  The couscous will stick together but add some of the dressing and work it with your hands before adding the rest of the ingredients.)


Category: Salad, Side Dish, Vegan, Yoga Retreat Food
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Good Enough To Repeat

July 17, 2010

With notebooks full of food magazine recipes dating back to 1993 and well over 100 cookbooks, I don’t repeat recipes often.  There is always the next thing to try.  So it should tell you something significant that I made this salad twice in one week.

Spinach salads are not my favorite.  I find raw spinach to be kind of gritty texture-wise and kind of a zero in the flavor department.  Not that lettuce is so flavoful but at least it has crunch.  I love the idea of a wilted spinach salad because I do like cooked (or at least softened) spinach, but my experience of those is that they contain bacon.  Who knew you could just roast cauliflower and use that as your spinach softener?

Amongst the many treasures to be found in the Ottolenghi cookbook, this is one of the first recipes I flagged.  Originially the cauliflower was meant to be grilled, but I roasted mine in the oven so I didn’t have to watch it too carefully.  The ingredients may sound pedestrian but the result is not.  The dressing is so good that I just kept adding to it over the course of the week and combining it with different things until I made this salad again.

One Year Ago: Gnocchi with Mushroom Sauce
Two Years Ago: Zucchini Stuffed with Goat Cheese and Mint

Roasted Cauliflower with Tomato, Dill, and Capers
Adapted from Ottolenghi, The Cookbook
Serves 4-6

I served this as a salad but it could be a side dish as well.

2 tbsp. capers, drained and roughly chopped
1 tbsp. wholegrain mustard
1 garlic clove, pressed
2 tbsp. apple cider vinegar
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/3 cup olive oil, plus more for the cauliflower
1 medium cauliflower, divided into florets
1 tbsp. chopped dill
4 oz. baby spinach leaves
1 cup cherry tomatoes, cut in half

For the dressing, place the capers, mustard, garlic, and vinegar in a medium sized jar.  Add a big pinch of salt and a few grinds of pepper.  Give the jar a vigorous shake.  Add the olive oil, then shake again.  Taste for balance of flavor and adjust accordingly.

Preheat the oven to 425ºF.  Place the cauliflower florets on a baking sheet and drizzle them with olive oil, then sprinkle them with salt and pepper.  Roast in the middle of the oven until cooked through and deep brown in spots, turning once, about 25 minutes in total.

Place the spinach, tomatoes, and dill in a large bowl.  Once the cauliflower is done, and while it is still hot, add it to the bowl as well.  Drizzle in about half the dressing and toss to coat.  Add more dressing as necessary.  Can be served warm or room temperature.


Category: Salad, Salad Dressing, Vegan
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Partying with Potatoes

July 15, 2010

Once upon a time, long long ago, I was a yoga instructor.  In the fall of 2001, I got laid off from a job that I hated in Seattle.  I decided to go to San Francisco for an Ashtanga yoga teacher training.  I worked my ass off, got good at what I did, then landed back in Seattle and found work.

My very first job was teaching in a gym that had a studio which housed mostly aerobics classes.  Consequently, it was freezing, glaringly lit, and kind of stinky.  My first class there had two students.  One I never saw again and the other came to almost every single class I taught thereafter.  He was an enormous African American man named Vester who had been a pro football player.  He set his mat down in the very same spot every class and even if he wasn’t there, which was extremely rare and only when he was on vacation, no one took his spot.  One day, Randy and I were walking downtown when I spied Vester on the sidewalk.  He had on leather chaps, leather jacket, bandana, combat boots, and black eye-hiding glasses.  The guy was about 6′8″ and probably 300 pounds.  I know Randy thought I had taken leave of my senses when I ran over to him and gave him a big hug.  But that was the thing about Vester.  He looked mean but was actually incredibly sweet and sensitive.  He was an intergral part of my class.

As much as I hated that space, I loved those students.  I had Lisa who was a stage manager for the Seattle Rep Theatre and whose body was so flexible that I would often have her demonstrate things rather than me.  I had Stephanie who, with her fabulous friendly energy, changed my class from people sort of eying each other nervously to actively engaging with one another.  I had Lindsey who had recently been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and who wore her bald head with grace and pride.  And I had Brooke, a Pilates instructor for the University of Washington dance department who brought her sweet boyfriend David to class.  At first I knew he didn’t want to be there but over time, I think he grew to like me and my style.

After two years of teaching (there and elsewhere), making friends, building my class from two to forty students, Randy and I moved to London.  I lost touch with almost everyone.  I have run into Stephanie who is now teaching yoga classes all over town.  I have not heard about Vester, Lisa, or Lindsey.  Through the power of blogs and the internet, I got reunited with Brooke.  She reads my blog.  She and David (now married) opened a Pilates studio not far from where I used to teach them yoga.  She is a devoted foodie and francophile.

Those good folks recently had a party for their students and the ever-thoughtful Brooke asked me to cater it.  Brooke is allergic to eggs and cow milk, so I wanted to make things that she could eat.  Sometimes I just get an idea and my head and have no idea where the inspiration comes from.  I decided I wanted to make potatoes with a Romesco dipping sauce.  In my head I saw a bowl full of potatoes and a bowl full of sauce and a cute tin of bamboo toothpicks to unite the two.  Then I realized that it would not be easy to eat.  No Pilates studio needs Romesco sauce on their floor.  I changed my approach to hollowing out the potatoes and putting the Romesco sauce directly inside.

How to prepare the potatoes…  Boiling, in my opinion is not kind to potatoes.  It is fine if you are making a salad with them where they will be cut up or mashed.  But if you want them whole, the potatoes get kind of wrinkly and the skin separates from the flesh.  They also taste kind of water-logged.  While the flavor is better if you roast them, the same skin separation thing happens.  I remembered seeing a recipe where you roast the potatoes at a relatively low temperature on a baking sheet filled with coarse salt.  I was so excited about this approach, anticipating crispy exterior and creamy interior, that I bought a couple of extra boxes of salt for the future.

Ultimately, the potatoes didn’t end up as fantabulous as I had hoped, but they were certainly good.  The skin was still more shrively than I would have liked.  Still, I would try this method again but only if it is not 94ºF outside.  Maybe on a normal day when I don’t mind the oven being on for a significant amount of time.

Moving on.  This Romesco sauce is ah-may-zing.  It’s not just this recipe.  Just about any Romesco that includes fried bread, almonds, roasted red pepper, tomatoes, and a significant amount of sherry vinegar is something I want to eat.  I remember making this version when I was a much less experienced cook.  It was the suggested accompaniment to a chickpea stew and at the time, I thought it was an awful lot of fuss for a sauce.  Then I tasted it.  These many years later (and it has been a lot of years), my brain told me Romesco sauce and it told me to find this recipe.

One last note.  Be sure to save the trimmings of the potatoes.  Just put them in a container and refrigerate them for a day or two.  You can use them for a Spanish style tortilla you can top it with some of the leftover Romesco sauce.  Recipe coming tomorrow.

One Year Ago:  Honeyed Goat Cheese Tart with Pistachio Crust
Two Years Ago:  Green Goddess Salad with Romaine, Cucumbers, and Avocado

Romesco Filled Potatoes
Dana Treat Original (mostly)
Makes about 30

This is how I cooked my potatoes but feel free to use any method you like.  Just make sure they keep their shape.

2½ pounds small red potatoes
Approximately 3 lbs. kosher salt

For the Romesco: (Inspired by Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone)
1 large slice country bread, toasted
½ cup almonds, coarsely chopped
1 clove garlic
1 tsp. red pepper flakes
4 Roma tomatoes
1 tsp. sweet paprika
1 roasted red bell pepper (jarred is fine)
¼ cup sherry vinegar
Olive oil

For the potatoes:
Preheat the oven to 350ºF.  Pour a thick layer of salt onto a large rimmed baking sheet.  Place the potatoes in rows, making sure they don’t touch.  If necessary, pour salt in between each potato.  Bake in the oven for about 30 minutes, or until tender when pricked with a paring knife.  Remove from the oven, allow to cool, then brush off the excess salt from the potatoes.

For the Romesco:
Put everything except the vinegar and oil into a food processor.  Sprinkle with a large pinch of salt and a few grinds of black pepper.  Process until smooth.  Add the vinegar and process again.  Add just enough oil to keep loosen up the mixture but not so much that it becomes runny, about ¼ cup.  Taste and adjust to make sure the sauce has plenty of piquancy and enough salt.  (You will have a lot of sauce which is not a bad thing.  It keeps for up to a week, covered, in the refrigerator.)

To assemble:
Cut a very thin slice off what you want to be the bottom of each potato.  (This will help the potatoes stand upright.)  Cut a larger slice off what you want to be the top.  Using a small melon baller or a paring knife, scoop out some of the potato innards.  Leave a shell of the potato and don’t take too much of the inside out – you will want to still taste the potato.  Using a small spoon, carefully fill the potatoes with the Romesco sauce and top with a parsley leaf, if desired.


Category: Appetizer, Dana Treat Original, Party Food, Potatoes, Vegan
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