Mushroom Tacos with Tomatillo-Chipotle Sauce

I've been traveling a bunch for work, which has left our fridge less packed than usual. It's a bummer to open the fridge and so few bags of produce, but D gets positively gleeful about all the open space. O.C.D Organized people just love empty fridges, am I right?

With less time at home, I'm on the lookout for quick weeknight dinners that make use of whatever precious little food I've got in the fridge. Bonus points for dishes that aren't pasta, which is a fallback too often.

This week, I barely cooked at all. I only had one night in town when I wasn't working late, and our friend Abby was visiting from NY, so we met her at El Chucho, the new Mexican restaurant in Columbia Heights. It's got a dimly lit interior, tall tables and bar stools, and lots of bearded dudes in plaid shirts walking languidly around with plastic baskets in hand. Walk in, and you feel like you've walked into Brooklyn; Abby felt right at home. The food wasn't bad, the ambiance was fun, and margaritas were on tap. Of course. I bet we'll be back soon. Meanwhile, we're copying their dishes at home.

El Chucho had tacos de calabacitas on order, made with breaded fried squash. They were so addictive, we didn't miss the meat. When the weekend rolled around, I was hungry for more Mexican food but didn't have any squash on hand (it tends to be limp and sad in wintertime). I did have a bag of mushrooms that needed using, and a handful of tomatillos left over from the previous week's dinner party. I braced myself for a bit of fussing, figuring it was worth it - a craving is a craving, yes? But much to my surprise, dinner came together quite quickly. Corn tacos were heated. The mushrooms were tossed with a quick sauce of tomatillos and canned chipotles. Everything cooked through while I mashed up an avocado's worth of guacamole and opened a jar of the salsa I made this summer. We didn't have any queso at home, so I topped the tacos with a pinch of feta cheese, which in retrospect wasn't at all necessary. Done and done: dinner on the table in 20 minutes.

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What I like most about these mushrooms is their versatility. I can see stuffing them into burritos or enchiladas, folding them into short vermicelli for a Mexican riff on fideos, or even adding some to a handful of melty cheese, piling the mixture into a flour tortilla, and making a mean quesadilla. They can go on pretty much anything. Come to think of it, they're the sort of thing I'd make a big bowl of, then tuck in the fridge for a busy day's dinner. Cooked mushrooms are smaller than raw ones; everyone's happy.

Mushroom Tacos with Chipotle Serves 4

For the mushrooms: 2 tablespoon olive oil, divided 2 cloves garlic, smashed and chopped 1/2 lb. tomatillos, husked, rinsed, dried, and roughly chopped 1 canned chipotle, chopped, plus 1 tablespoon of the canning sauce (start with half a chipotle if you're sensitive to heat) juice of half a lime 1 lb. cremini mushrooms, wiped clean and sliced salt

For serving: a big pile of small corn tacos guacamole and salsa (purchased is fine) queso fresco or feta cheese, optional

Put a large frying pan over medium heat and add 1 tablespoon olive oil. When oil shimmers, add garlic. Stir around to distribute, and cook for 1 minute. Then add tomatillos, stir into the garlic, and cook until they break down slightly, 2 minutes. Add chopped chipotle, stir through to incorporate, and cook until the mixture softens and becomes mostly smooth, about 2-4 more minutes. Spoon the sauce into a bowl, taste, and add salt or pepper as needed.

Give the pan a rinse and wipe it dry, then return it to medium-high heat and add the other tablespoon of olive oil. When oil shimmers, add mushrooms. Toss to distribute evenly, and then let them sit there for a few minutes, until the mushrooms on the bottom of the pan develop some color. Every couple of minutes, give the pan a shake to move mushrooms from top to bottom and vice versa. After 5 minutes or so, the mushrooms will have emitted enough water to shrink slightly, and the pan will be less crowded. When this happens, spoon in the tomatillo-chipotle sauce, stir it around to coat the mushrooms, and cook 1 or 2 more minutes, until mushrooms are coated and browned. Squeeze the half a lime into the pan, stir to incorporate, and turn off the heat. Scrape the mushrooms into the bowl that held the tomatillo-chipotle sauce. Wipe the pan out a bit, and return it to the heat.

Heat corn tortillas one at a time by leaving them in the hot pan just until warmed through (or, if you're crazy as I am, until the bottom of the tortilla is a bit brown and crispy), then stack them on a plate as they finish warming. When you've warmed enough tortillas for either one or two per person (depending on preference: I like two per taco, D prefers one), put the tortillas on plates, spoon some of the mushroom mixture onto the tortillas, and top with guacamole, salsa, and/or cheese. Serve immediately.

Herb Salad with Dates and Sumac Croutons

Every January, I tell myself I'll eat more salads. The catch: when I'm not saying this with my mouth full of muffin, I'm swearing it in between bites of spaghetti. The cold months make it tough to get it up for leafy greens. Still, I don't back down so easily. I empty my pockets for Next Step Produce's arugula, which is not at all cheap - an insurance policy against wasting the stuff, I guess. I buy good olives and Asian pears, thick, aged balsamic and salty, herby Pecorino. I put all the ingredients in the fridge, nod knowingly. I will make salads. And then, when I get home from a long day at the office where the heat is broken and the air registers a nice comfy 50 DEGREES, I open the fridge, pull out the arugula, the olives and pears, that lovely pecorino, and pile it all on a square of puff pastry for a delightful winter tart that has nothing at all to do with salad. Oops.

For problems like these, dinner parties were created. If a plate of food gets served to company, it better have something fresh. Armed with a shred of dignity (I can't actually serve them all just pasta, can I?), I finish the pureed sweet potatoes and green beans and quiche, take a deep breath, and toss together a salad. I tell myself that people will be warm enough, they will want to eat it. Sometimes, I'm right.

A couple weeks ago I made this number, a riff on a few different salads in Ottolenghi's books Plenty and Jerusalem. Ottolenghi is really big on seasoned croutons (as am I), and in Jerusalem, he really doubles down on them. He's got a bunch of different varieties. My personal favorite (you can see why) combines bits of broken pita, almonds, sumac, and plenty of chile. The mixture is the sort of thing I tend to double, then put on everything I make that week. You can see how croutons this flavorful work as well in salad as they do on a bowl of hot soup...not that I need any other reasons to choose hot food over salad.

I was out of pita the last time I whipped up this salad, so I substituted baguette. I'll tell you, I think the baguette croutons beat out their pita siblings; they were crunchier, and better vehicles for the sumac- and chile-flavored oil. They also contrasted nicely with the almonds.

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Ottolenghi has you pile these sumac croutons on raw spinach, but I'm in the "spinach is a dish best served cooked" camp, so I usually go with arugula or another leafy green. This time, though, I had huge piles of herbs that needed to be used up before we headed out of town. I tore them up, tossed them into a small salad bowl, and made a really lovely salad at the spur of the moment that even this hot-food lover was happy to eat. It came out so good, I served the leftovers for brunch the next day, alongside this pear danish and these migas - my favorite - from Jennifer. Oh, and plenty of bloody marys:

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The croutons made the salad, for sure. But equally important were chopped medjool dates, which manage to be sweet, sticky, and distinctly fruity all at the same time. I highly recommend them in this salad - in any salad, really. My friend Jess wholeheartedly agrees about the whole dates-in-salad thing, and her rendition - with fresh ricotta! - has been on my to-do list for some time.

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So I guess that's the game of salads in winter. They're never going to be the thing I run to eat first, but I've got tricks up my sleeve to make them delicious. Especially alongside a big bowl of spaghetti.

Herb Salad with Dates and Sumac Croutonsinspired by a few recipes from Yotam Ottolenghi in two of my favorite books, Plenty and Jerusalem

For the Croutons: 1 tablespoon olive oil 1 tablespoon butter 1/2 baguette, cut into 1/2-inch cubes or, better yet, ripped into pieces roughly that size 2/3 cup sliced almonds 2 teaspoons sumac 2 teaspoons Turkish or Syrian chile flakes, or other flavorful chile flakes (mild paprika will do in a pinch) 1 teaspoon salt, to taste 1 clove garlic, smashed

For the Salad: 8 dates, pitted and sliced 1 small red onion (or half a medium one), halved and sliced into thin rings 1 tablespoon white wine, champagne, or other mild vinegar 1 bunch (2 cups) dill, roughly chopped 1 bunch (2-3 cups) parsley leaves and chopped stems 1 bunch (1-2 cups) mint leaves zest and juice of one lemon, to taste 2 tablespoons olive oil salt and pepper

In a small bowl, combine dates, onion slices, and vinegar. Set aside to marinate while you make the croutons. By the time you're ready to make the salad, the vinegar will have been absorbed. If not, pour out whatever remains (or add it to a sauce - it'd be pretty delicious).

In a large shallow frying pan, heat the butter and olive oil over medium heat. Add garlic; it should sizzle when it hits the pan. Add baguette pieces and almonds, stir to coat with oil, and then add chile and sumac and stir to combine. Cook for 4-6 minutes, until bread and almonds have browned and everything smells wonderfully fragrant. Transfer crouton mixture to a bowl, and sprinkle salt overtop, starting with 1/2 teaspoon and adding more to taste. Set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, combine herbs, dates, onions, and croutons, by the handful, until the balance of green to crunch looks right. Save whatever you don't use for a meal later in the week; these croutons make everything taste good.

Before serving, whisk together lemon zest, lemon juice, and remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil. Add salt and pepper to taste (but remember that croutons have salt of their own, so go light on the salt). Dress salad, toss to combine, and serve.

Fasolakia: Greek Braised Green Beans

Well clearly, it's January. I got to the gym yesterday morning and my god was it crowded! You can practically taste the hope in the air. So much ambition, so many plans. Resolutions abound.

It's the second week of January, so I trust we've moved past the "I only eat raw vegetables" phase and are drifting back to real life. By real life, I mean "it's 6:30 and I just got home and I'm hungry enough that if I don't eat actual dinner right now I'm gonna go medieval on the chocolate bar in the drawer." That kind of real life.

For days like those, consider this fasolakia. Faso-what? It's a Greek dish of  green beans braised in tomato sauce. It's healthy. It's easy. Not only can you make it in advance, you should; it gets better with time.  And - here's something you can't say about that many dishes made of green beans - it's addictive. It's also gluten-free and can be vegan very easily. What other boxes can I check?

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I've no clue what's traditional - stovetop or oven. What I can tell you is that both work very well: the trick is to go low and slow. Gentle heat coaxes these green beans into velvety, sweet submission. The dish starts with onions and some herbs and spices, but tomatoes do a lot of the work here, transforming into a mellow, luscious sauce for the beans with just a few soft pieces left whole.  I'm guessing the Greek way is to serve this atop rice, which soaks up the sauce. I just serve it as a vegetable alongside fish or a savory tart.

If I'm being honest, I should call these not-strictly-Greek green beans. My brother spent last year in Ankara, Turkey, and he brought me back a huge bag of the best urfa biber I've ever had. It's sweet and smokey, redolent of chocolate and berries. I've been putting it on everything, and these green beans were no exception. I love how it made an ordinary can of chopped tomatoes taste really special. If you don't have or can't find urfa biber, you can use any sweet-smelling chile or paprika. You may want to cut the quantity, though, if your chile is spicy; my urfa is pretty mild.

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On serving them vegan: the first time I made these green beans, I forgot that I'd set aside some feta to sprinkle overtop. No one noticed, and the beans didn't suffer one little bit. They're so flavorful as is, they don't even need the cheese.

And while I'm dispensing tips, make a double batch, or even a triple. You can keep the beans in the fridge for at least a week with no problem, and they freeze beautifully as well. Hello, new favorite weekday lunch.

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Fasolakia: Greek Braised Green Beans

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil 1 large red onion, diced 3 cloves garlic, smashed and then chopped 2 tablespoons urfa biber or other very fragrant mild chile flakes (less if using something spicy) 1 1/2 lbs. green beans, trimmed and cut into bite-sized pieces 1 28-oz. can diced tomatoes or, if you'd like a more irregular texture (which I do), canned whole tomatoes that you cut or tear yourself 1 teaspoon dried oregano 1/2 cup chopped parsley 1/2 cup chopped dill 1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese, optional

If using the oven, preheat to 285 degrees. If planning to cook on the stove, no need to preheat the oven.

In a large pot or deep pan, heat the olive oil over medium heat until it shimmers. Add onion and a big pinch of salt, and cook until soft, about 7 minutes. Add garlic and chile flakes, stir to combine, and cook another minute or so.

Add green beans, tomatoes, oregano, another big pinch of salt, and a few grinds of the pepper mill, and stir a few times until everything is well mixed. Bring to a very gentle simmer over medium heat.

At this point, cover the pot, and either turn the heat down as low as it'll go, or stick the pot into your preheated oven, and cook the green beans until soft an velvety, about 1 hour. When the green beans are cooked, taste and adjust seasoning, adding more salt, pepper, or chile, to taste. To serve, reheat green beans to a very gentle simmer, then stir in parsley and dill, reserving a bit of each to sprinkle overtop. Finish with the rest of the fresh herbs and a sprinkle of feta, if using, and serve hot.

If not serving immediately, store green beans either at room temperature (for up to a few hours) or in the refrigerator (for several days). These green beans also freeze very well.

Vietnamese Roasted Leek and Eggplant Salad

Perhaps I'm the only one who stresses about these things, but I've been away from the blog for some time. Actually, I've been away from the kitchen for some time. October has been a busy month for me at work, and getting a big project out the door meant fewer of those fall nights where my slippered feet pad into the kitchen searching for something to cook. Now that the project is finished, I'll be on the road a fair amount across the next couple months, presenting the research to hungry executive teams. If only they were hungry for pie.

In months like these, I browse recipes and write shopping lists on the tail ends of plane flights, wrack my brain to remember what's in all those jars in my fridge, and just try my best to squeeze a few home-cooked meals in between trips.

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Still, weekends exist for a reason. Once I have a to-do list in order, I'm up and at 'em, cooking as many dishes as I can without exhausting myself and spoiling the fun. This past weekend, after a quick trip to the gym, I got Vietnamese chicken stock blurp-blurping away on the stove, mixed up the dough for Luisa's yeasted plum cake and left it to rise, and then got going on today's recipe, a spicy-sour-salty-sweet eggplant and leek salad that will leave you wishing you were coming with me to Vietnam in December. (!)

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That's right: we're heading to Southeast Asia this winter. I'm doing my best not to jump out the screen and shake you, but people, I am excited. And while one member of this household would like to preserve her appetite for Vietnamese and Thai food until we actually arrive, that's not how I roll. Gearing up means cooking the food we'll be eating - or some riff on it - so that by the time we arrive, I'm all primed and ready for the real deal. D told me that we'll be watching The Bridge on the River Kwai to prep, which - hmm, not on my list of movies I must see? I fear I've just lost important points with my father-in-law - but I will do it. I will watch that movie. And D can count on eating lots of fish sauce this month.

Hate fish sauce? Don't worry; today's recipe doesn't call for it.

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I first saw the recipe for this salad in the Times, and -- I kid you not -- was so charmed by it that I clicked right over to Amazon and bought the book from which it came. That book is Vietnamese Home Cooking, and it's easily the best impulse-buy of the month (though, had this been an impulse-buy and not an eagerly anticipated purchase, we'd have a tighter race on our hands. More about that another time.)

The man behind Vietnamese Home Cooking is Charles Phan, chef at The Slanted Door in San Francisco (which quite possibly is the first place I ever experienced authentic Vietnamese food. Went once, never turned back.) Phan waited more than a decade to write this book, and I'm glad to finally have his recipes and stories in print. The book is organized by cooking method, and it has helpful chapter markers running along the side of each page. Scattered throughout the book in little blue boxes are recipes for key components of many Vietnamese dishes, like pickled carrots, crispy shallots, and nuoc mam. If you closed your eyes and chose three pages from the book at random, then made whatever was on those pages, you'd wind up with a pretty awesome dinner. Like I said, a great purchase.

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So, the salad. The version that appears in Phan's book looks slippery and soft and perhaps even a bit mushy, in that good way that eggplant gets if you leave it in the oven forever. The Times' edited version makes for faster prep, and I've made my own changes on top of those, to add in more textural contrast and to utilize regular globe eggplants instead of the baby eggplants that are all but gone from the market these days. I also couldn't find baby leeks, so I used regular leeks and cooked them longer. The result is truly memorable. It's spicy and crunchy and sour and a bit sweet, but not cloying. And even though the only greens are a sprinkle of cilantro, the salad tastes really fresh. Go ahead: make a double batch. Serve half today, store the rest in individual containers and mix it right before tomorrow's lunch.

Vietnamese Roasted Eggplant and Leek Salad

This recipe initially called for baby leeks, but I couldn't find them, so I bought the thinnest leeks I could find and cooked them for a bit longer. I also used regular ordinary eggplant, because the small ones were gone. Use whichever suits your fancy.

Last thing: fried shallots. Not essential, but delicious. You can either buy them at an Asian grocery store, or you can -- you know -- fry 2 sliced shallots in a whole lot (1 cup) of peanut oil just until browned, then strain and set aside on a paper towel until ready to use.

1/4 cup soy sauce 1/4 cup sugar 1/4 cup water 1 tablespoon white vinegar 1 tablespoon Vietnamese chili-garlic sauce or sriracha 1 tablespoon fresh lime juice 1/4 cup olive or peanut oil 1 to 1 1/5 lbs. leeks (about 4), the thinner the better 1 2-lb. globe eggplant salt and pepper 1 1/2 cups loosely packed cilantro leaves, roughly chopped 1/4 cup chopped roasted peanuts 2 tablespoons fried shallots, optional

First, make the dressing: Combine soy sauce, sugar, water, vinegar, chili sauce, and lime juice in a jar. Seal and shake vigorously for about 60 seconds to help the sugar dissolve. Set aside, and shake from time to time as you proceed with the rest of the dish.

Heat the oven to 450 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper or silpat.

Next, roast the leeks:Trim the root ends of the leeks as minimally as possible, and cut off the dark green tops. Slice the leeks lengthwise in half, and rinse each half under running water to loosen and remove any grit between the layers. As you rinse them, take care to keep the leeks intact. Place them cut-side down on the lined baking sheet in a single layer. Drizzle 2 tablespoons olive oil over the leeks, then sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast for 12 minutes, then carefully turn the leeks over using tongs or a spatula and roast for 12 minutes cut-side up. The leeks should be charred in spots and very soft. Transfer the leeks to a plate, cover with plastic wrap, and set aside to soften further.

Prep and roast the eggplant: Rinse the cutting board to rid any grit from the leeks. Trim stems off eggplant, and cut into half-inch slices. Cut each slice into half-inch strips, and cut these strips into 1/2-inch cubes. Distribute eggplant on lined pan in a single layer, drizzle with remaining 2 tablespoons oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and roast for about 20-25 minutes, turning pieces once, until soft and charred in spots.

Assemble salad: Transfer warm, softened leeks to the cutting board and chop into 1-inch pieces. Put eggplant and leeks into a shallow serving dish or bowl and use your fingers to incorporate gently. Sprinkle cilantro, peanuts, and shallots (if using) over vegetables, and drizzle half of dressing overtop. Taste and add more dressing as necessary. Serve immediately.