Eggplant Dirty Rice

When the chef of a two-star Michelin restaurant concocts a dish that is entirely vegetarian and made in one pot, you should cross off whatever main course is currently on your dinner menu and make that dish instead.

That's what happened here. I was scrolling through Food and Wine's website and came across this humble, strange-looking recipe for dirty rice - a New Orleans staple - with absolutely no shellfish, with absolutely no fussing. Adam said it was the best vegetarian meal he'd eaten in a long time. I wanted it to be the best vegetarian meal I'd eaten in a long time. So I scrapped my menu of sun-shaped spinach pie (though, how cool does that pie look?!) and harissa hummus, in favor of David Kinch's eggplant dirty rice. Mistake? Not even a little.

1-DSC_0908

1-DSC_0914

1-DSC_0916

It's hard to believe this dish is completely vegan. The flavor comes from the NOLA trinity - onions, celery, and green pepper - and plenty of umami from sou sauce and tomato paste. And guys, seriously, the whole thing happens in one big ol' pot. Don't you have to cook the eggplant separately, as one of our guests asked? Why no, you don't. You just pile it all in there. And somewhere between the vegetables sweating and browning and the rice cooking, the eggplant turns into something soft and silky and amazing, all with absolutely no effort. I don't know what else to tell you.....besides you must make this.

1-DSC_0935

Menu planning: I've been mulling over adding a section to the website where I document the menus from dinner parties and other times we've hosted. For me, the hardest part of getting a meal together is figuring out the menu. I struggle to figure out what dishes go together, and I often end up feeling like I've made either one too many or one too few dishes. If you'd like to see more menus up here, give a shout in the comments. Meanwhile, let's try it on for size. Here's what I served for Saturday lunch with the dirty rice:

• Caramelized onion focaccia(recipe forthcoming. Awesome.)
• Salad (brought by our friend Ron: a mixture of lettuce, beet and sunflower sprouts, carrots, and peppers. Basic vinaigrette. Delish.)
• Pepper-crusted seared tuna with soy-avocado sauce based on the one in this recipe
• Brussels sprout hash with poppy seeds and lemon
• Lemon custard cups with whipped cream and graham cracker crumbs (recipe forthcoming)

I thought the meal worked well, and it's nice to have the template recorded for the next time I'm totally lacking inspiration and have to cook.

1-DSC_1058

Without further ado, your new favorite weeknight dinner:

Eggplant Dirty RiceAdapted from David Kinch's recipe in Food and Wine

First, know that this recipe makes a ton. We had a huge pot, enough to serve 6 people as a side dish with tons left for weekday lunch. You won't hear any complaints from me about the quantity, but if you're having 8 people, unless it's a main course with little else on the side, you probably don't need to double the recipe. Second, you really do need the 1/4 cup of oil. Can you use less? Yes. Will it be as creamy and silky as it would with the full amount? Probably not. Plus, think of it this way - the recipe serves 8-10, which means there's 1/2 a tablespoon or less in each serving. However, if you'd rather use olive oil, I won't tell David Kinch on you. Third, depending on how salty your broth and soy sauce are, you may want to reduce the quantities of salt I recommend. Consider starting with a 1/4 teaspoon at each interval and adding more later. Finally, do make sure you bring the rice to a boil before sticking it in the oven. If you don't, the rice on the bottom of the pot will cook perfectly but the top layer will be pretty raw after 17 minutes in the oven. Not that I would know...okay, I made the mistake so you don't have to. xo -r

1/4 cup canola oil 3 celery ribs, finely chopped 2 medium green bell peppers, seeded and finely chopped 1 medium onion, finely chopped Kosher salt 1 medium eggplant (about 1 pound), cut into 3/4-inch cubes 1 tablespoon dried thyme 1/2 teaspoon finely ground black pepper 1/4 teaspoon finely ground white pepper 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper 3 garlic cloves, finely chopped 1 tablespoon tomato paste 1/4 cup soy sauce 1 1/2 cups medium-grain white rice 2 1/2 cups vegetable broth 1/4 cup chopped parsley, for serving Hot sauce, for serving

Preheat the oven to 350°. In a large, heavy-bottomed pot (I used a Dutch oven), heat oil over medium heat until it shimmers. Add celery, bell peppers, and onion, and season with about 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt (less if using table salt). Cover pot and cook 5 minutes, until onions have softened. Uncover and cook 10 minutes more, stirring occasionally, until vegetables have browned slightly.

Add eggplant, thyme, and all three peppers, along with 1/2 teaspoon more of kosher salt. Cook on medium heat for 6-8 minutes, until eggplant has softened considerably but maintains its shape. Add tomato paste and garlic, stir to combine, and cook for 1 minute. Then add soy sauce, rice, and broth, and bring to a boil over high heat.

Cover pot, transfer to the oven, and bake for 17 minutes, until the rice is just tender. Remove from the oven and let stand, covered, for 10 minutes. Fluff the rice and serve with hot sauce and chopped parsley.

Barley Salad with Green Olives, Walnuts, and Raisins

The latest installment of my Weekday Lunch series, making midday meals the best part of your work week.

This time of year, our house is mostly a calm shade of grey. The scarce daylight hours feel like borrowed time, where after lazing around for a few two many minutes, I suddenly freak out that the sun is half gone, and drag my sluggish, slippered feet into the kitchen to bask in what little brightness is left before dusk. Hey there, January. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

As winter has tightened its hold, I've taken comfort in the various components of meals I've stowed away in our freezer. There are bags of cooked barley and brown rice, blanched green beans, and even kabocha squash braised in coconut milk. There is plenty of stock -- some poultry, leftover from Thanksgiving, and some vegetable, made from my carrot peelings and celery and leek scraps. These bits find their way into dinners and lunches: the stock becomes soup, the rice gets tucked under my new favorite aloo muttar (recipe soon!), and that kabocha -- I ate it alone, because it was perfect.

1-DSC_0106

Just before we left for Berlin, I took half a bag of the frozen barley and made this lovely salad that Heidi shared in the December issue of Food and Wine. Yes, I'm talking about salad. In January. Pick that jaw up off the floor.

Barley salad mise

1-DSC_0131

In my neck of the woods, non-kale greens are many months away. If a girl is gonna eat salad in January, she needs some variety. That's why I took a page from Heidi's playbook: Heidi is the queen of "grain bowl"-type dishes that combine all sorts of grains with whatever vegetables, nuts, seeds, and fruit are in season. I've been inspired by many of her concoctions, and this one is no exception. It's the sort of salad that flexes to meet the needs of your pantry and the occasion. You could double the barley and have a nicely-flavored grain side dish, or increase the amounts of the other ingredients to make it heavier on the fresh stuff. If I were doing that, I might add some diced celery, which would fit right in.

On substitutions: Heidi calls for farro, which I love, but man, is it expensive. I use it from time to time, but barley is a more economical choice. She also calls for Pecorino cheese. I rarely have it in the house, but I always, always have Parmesan. As tempted as I was to swap, I didn't, and I'd recommend you don't either. The Pecorino brings a clean, bright saltiness to this salad - one that doesn't overpower the olives and goes so well with the walnuts. Stick to Heidi's guidance on that one; she won't steer you wrong. Ditto on the Castelvetrano olives. Castelvetranos are juicier and fruitier than other olives, and much less salty and briny than the ones with pimento tucked inside, for example. They sound exotic, but they're actually quite easy to find: they're the big forest-green ones with taut skin. You can find them (pitted and ready to go!) at the Whole Foods olive bar, and TJ's also carries jars of them on occasion. Go forth.

Make it vegan: This salad becomes vegan in a snap. Skip the pecorino, add an extra quarter-cup or so of olives, boom.

it's a beaut

Barley Salad with Green Olives, Walnuts, and RaisinsAdapted from Heidi Swanson's recipe in Food and Wine

1 1/4 cups farro or barley (1/2 pound) Fine sea salt 1 cup walnuts (3 1/2 ounces) 2 1/2 cups pitted Castelvetrano or other green olives, chopped (11 ounces) 4 scallions, white and light green parts only, finely chopped 1/3 cup minced chives 2 tablespoons golden raisins 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice 1 tablespoon honey Shaved Pecorino cheese, for serving

Combine the farro or barley with 4 cups of water and 1/2 teaspoon of salt. Bring to a boil and simmer, partially covered, until the grain is tender, about 20 minutes for farro and 45 minutes for barley. Drain, and spread it on a baking sheet to cool.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Spread the walnuts on an unlined rimmed baking sheet, and toast for 7-9 minutes, until very fragrant. Let cool, then chop coarsely.

In a large bowl, combine the farro, walnuts, olives, scallions, chives, raisins, crushed red pepper, olive oil, lemon juice and honey and season with salt. Toss well. Transfer the salad to a platter or serving bowl, garnish with the cheese, and serve.

Heidi says the salad can be refrigerated overnight - just bring it back to room temperature, and add the cheese just before serving.

Blueberry Oat Muffins

A couple weeks ago, before our (glorious!) trip to Berlin, I got a group email from a cook friend asking if anyone had a favorite recipe for blueberry muffins. We all wrote back with our favorites, and a few themes emerged: good blueberry muffins need the tang of sour cream, yogurt, or buttermilk. They need a good amount of sugar (sorry, I know I'm breaking the cardinal rule of healthy January blogging, but it's true). A crumb topping can be polarizing: some swear by it, while others (cough) think the craggy, sturdy top of a blueberry muffin is delicious as is and best unadulterated. (Though, before you peg me with hard, pale, winter tomatoes, let me say that I'm still very much on team crumb-topping for everything else. Coffee cake is best when the ratio of cake to crumb makes you furrow your brow and ask whether the thing can honestly be called a cake.)

To this inquiring friend, I sent along my all-time favorite Cooks Illustrated recipe. Another friend swore by Ina Garten's formula. And then, even though there wasn't enough flour in the tub, and only three of us were eating breakfast, I yanked a ziploc of blueberries out of the freezer (yes, I freeze summer blubes in portions perfect for blueberry muffins, everyone does that right?) and whipped up a batch of fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants, substitutions-galore blueberry muffins, 12 for the three of us. And guys? They were perfect.

1-DSC_0912

I know this is the umpteenth oat recipe I've posted recently. And yes, I know, you all have blueberry muffin recipes you love and swear by, you don't need others. I still love the CI originals, and I'd still recommend them to anyone in search of a keeper. But these, with their oat flour and a tiny bit of almond flour, were perfect in a Kim Boyce, Good-to-the-Grain kind of way. They tasted toasty and nutty; as my brother said, they tasted like they were loaded with brown sugar (nope).

1-DSC_0913

Now they're here, which means they're in the permanent collection. I hope you'll make and love them as much as we did.

Back from Berlin! I know it's been quiet around here for the last couple of weeks, but boy, did our vacation do me good. I can't wait to share all the delicious little nuggets of our trip with you. There's so much deliciousness to share! Stay tuned.

One year ago: Monkey GingerbreadTwo years ago: Adobo Black Bean Soup Three years ago: Duck Confit Four years ago: Thai Cabbage Salad with Cashews and Chili-Coconut Dressing Five years ago: Sicilian Caponata Six years ago: Lawsuit Muffins with Mango

Oat and Almond Blueberry Muffinsheavily adapted from a basic Cooks Illustrated recipe

1 cup (4.5 oz.) unbleached all-purpose flour 1/2 cup (1.75 oz.) oat flour 1/2 cup (1.75 oz.) almond meal 1 tablespoon baking powder 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 egg 7 ounces (1 cup) sugar 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled 10 ounces sour cream, yogurt, or buttermilk (whatever you have on hand, though I especially like buttermilk here) 1 1/2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries

Preheat oven to 350. Line muffin tin with paper liners and grease with either butter or nonstick spray.

Whisk flours, almond meal, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl. Whisk the egg in a second medium bowl until uniformly pale colored, about 20 seconds. Add the sugar and whisk vigorously until thick and homogeneous, about 30 seconds; add the melted butter in 2 or 3 additions, whisking to combine after each addition. Add the sour cream in 2 additions, whisking just to combine.

Add the berries to the dry ingredients and gently toss just to combine. Add the sour cream mixture and fold with a rubber spatula until the batter comes together and the berries are evenly distributed, 25 to 30 seconds.

Divide batter among greased/lined muffin cups. Bake until light golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes, rotating the pan front to back halfway through the baking time. Invert onto a wire rack and cool 5 minutes.

Chicken with Butternut Squash and Lime

A certain one of the two people who inhabit this apartment would like the other one of us to make chicken more often, where the certain one of us is not me, and more often is every day. Alas, we can't always get what we want, if we're not the ones who do the cooking.

But lucky for her, two of our friends had babies in last two weeks, and the holidays have had everyone out of the office, leaving me with loads of downtime and plenty of reasons to cook. So last week, I made a big, tasty mess in the kitchen. I mixed and rolled and baked and oops! ate too many of three batches of cookies, and I made enough mujaddara to feed a medium-sized army, and because the elf on the shelf was watching, I made a big pot of chicken with enough for our friends and D. The best part? It's chicken that smells and tastes like an involved weekend project but comes together like a quick weeknight dinner. Just in time for your New Year's resolution to cook more at home. We know each other well.

1-DSC_0266

I started with a recipe for butternut squash khoresh (stew) from Food of Life, a Persian cookbook whose recipes my Persian friends swear by. Tweak tweak, etc etc. I wound up with something simpler and less fussy: browned chicken, soft butternut squash, and plenty of tang from lime juice and a bit of julienned lime zest. If I hadn't been making it for families with young kids, I might have added some diced fresh red chile. Still, the dish works great as is.

1-DSC_0272

These drumsticks made great dinner one night. The second night, I took the meat off the last two drumsticks and tossed them with some rice and greens for dinner #2. The bones went straight into the freezer, waiting for the weekend to become stock - which I used to cook more of that butternut squash with a little coconut milk. That's stowed away in the freezer for a day not in January where the laziness has set in.

1-DSC_0311

1-DSC_0324

*

I've never been big on New Years resolutions (which is good since it turns out, people rarely keep them). However, I do see this time of year as an opportunity to recommit myself to small but important things I value. For example, over the next few weeks, I'll be bringing Tamar Adler back into my kitchen. I love the way Adler cooks and prepares several basic components in advance, and combines them in different quantities and styles over the course of the week to make eating diversely and excitingly at home a stress-free proposition. If you missed her elegant, dare I say sexy? video on the topic from a couple years ago, it's worth a quick watch. That's my grand plan for Jan.

And then, because we all need a bit of inspiration and aspiration, I've refreshed my Kitchen Resolutions with a bit of a wish list for 2014. If you're up for crossing any of them off my list along with me, let me know. Maybe there's a group project lurking in there somewhere.

January: Let's do this thing, shall we?

More great January fare:

One year ago: Fasolakia, Greek-Braised Green Beans Two years ago: Mujadarra with Spiced Yogurt Three years ago: Mushroom-Pea Curry Four years ago: Crispy Kale Chips (remember when these were brand new?) Five years ago: White Beans with Caramelized Sweet Potatoes Six years ago: Whole Wheat Sables

Chicken with Butternut Squash and Limeinspired by a khoresh recipe from Food of Life serves 6

I made this in a big roasting pan and loved how easy it was to brown the chicken and cook off the stew all in one place, without having to brown the chicken in batches. That said, a heavy-bottomed pot or dutch oven would work well here, too, as long as you make sure to brown the chicken in batches to ensure caramelization.

2 1/2 lbs. drumsticks or other chicken pieces 1 1/2 tablespoons vegetable oil (or substitute canola or olive) 1 teaspoon cinnamon 1 teaspoon tumeric 1 teaspoon sea salt 1 teaspoon pepper 1 red or yellow onion, halved and sliced juice of 3 limes (about 1/4 cup) zest of 1 lime 1 cup water 1 tablespoon brown sugar or honey 6 cups of cubed butternut or kabocha squash (about 1 1/3 lbs.)

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Add oil to a roaster, a heavy-bottomed pot, or a dutch oven, and set over medium-high heat.

Combine cinnamon, tumeric, salt, and pepper in a small bowl. Pat chicken dry and set on a clean plate in a single layer. Sprinkle spice mixture all over chicken.

Brown chicken in a single layer (in batches, if necessary) for about 3 minutes per side, until golden and starting to crisp. If using a pot or dutch oven, remove browned chicken to a plate while you brown the remaining pieces.

If you're using a pot, once you've browned all the chicken, add onions to the pot, toss to coat with drippings, and cook 5 minutes, until some pieces have started to brown. If using a roaster, it's fine to add the onions in once you've flipped the chicken and brown them simultaneously.

Add chicken back to the pot/roaster. Add lime juice and zest, brown sugar/honey, water, and squash. Stir once or twice to combine everything. Cover pot/pan, transfer to the oven, and cook covered with foil for 20 minutes, then another 25-30 minutes uncovered, until everything is cooked through and juices are bubbling.

Serve immediately, or reheat in a 350-degree oven for 10-15 minutes before serving.