Spaghetti with Ramps

Hello out there! Sorry to have abandoned ship for the past week -- due to Passover, I've been subsisting on a strange diet of matzah, farmers cheese, avocado, and salad. Not exactly the stuff worthy of a blog post. Most people would rather clean their bathroom than volunteer to host a dinner party the day after Passover ends, but moi? I've been itching to get back in the kitchen something serious. So yesterday, I did just that. I cooked up dinner for some of D's law school friends and relished every minute of my time with my dishes, my kitchenaid, and best of all -- FLOUR.

As if eating carbs again weren't cause enough for celebration, have you looked outside? It's Spring! The cherry blossoms here in DC are in full bloom (many are already past their bloom, which means the grass is blanketed in pink) and the weather this weekend has been just gorgeous -- a perfect 76 and sunny today, in fact. I couldn't be happier about the weather; so you better believe last night's menu took full advantage not only of the end of the holiday, but of the start of my favorite season.

I've got many recipes to share with you -- my mind's been bursting with new ideas that I haven't been able to test out in the past couple weeks! -- but first and foremost, an ode to one of my favorite spring vegetables: ramps. I've waxed poetic about ramps before, and this surely won't be the last time: ramps are a variety of green onion that grow wild during the first couple weeks of Spring. Their season is literally only a couple weeks long so you gotta grab 'em while you can. I spent way too much on ramps at last week's farmers' market, but Friday night was the big payoff: I served them in a simple preparation a la Mario Batali, tossed with linguini (he actually recommends spaghetti), olive oil-toasted breadcrumbs, salt, and crushed red pepper. The dish may sound dead simple, and it is -- I have to restrain myself from blanketing the whole thing in parmigiano reggiano -- but it's also absolutely delicious.

I promise more recipes this week, including a great simple way to make salmon (but alas, no pictures -- it was eaten up before I had the chance!) and a perfectly tangy lemon tart (with some nice pictures, too). For now, hit up your weekend farmers' market and get yourself some ramps. Happy spring, everyone!

Spaghetti with Ramps adapted from Mario Batali

Coarse salt 1 pound dry spaghetti or linguine 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, 2 more tablespoons if toasting breadcrumbs (see below), plus more for drizzling 8 ounces fresh ramps, white root ends and green leafy tops separated 1 to 2 tablespoons crushed red pepper flakes 2 tablespoons breadcrumbs (Batali says to use dry, but I used fresh, and toasted them in a pan in 2 tablespoons of olive oil until golden brown, then transfered to a bowl)

Bring 6 quarts of water to a boil in a large saucepan over high heat. Add 2 tablespoons salt and return to a boil. Add spaghetti and cook according to package direction, until tender but still al dente. If using fresh bread crumbs, heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in a 12-to-14-inch skillet over medium-high heat. Add breadcrumbs and cook, tossing regularly, until golden brown. Transfer to a bowl and wipe out pan with paper towel. Add 3 tablespoons olive oil and allow to heat up. Add root ends from ramps to pan and cook, stirring, until tender. Season with red pepper flakes and salt. Add leafy greens from ramps and cook, stirring, until wilted. Drain pasta and add to skillet. Toss gently to coat pasta with sauce. Divide pasta evenly between 4 warmed plates. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with breadcrumbs. Serve immediately.

Building a Flavorful Vegetarian Soup

Winter has no better antidote than a hearty bowl of soup. On nights when all I want to do is cuddle under a blanket with tea, I often fill a bowl with soup and slurp it instead of chai. The choice there is easy: soup warms your insides and double-serves as dinner.

I've been intently focused on perfecting my soup technique. As you can probably tell, I've been eating a mostly vegetarian diet lately, and when you don't have meat or poultry broth to work with, building layers of flavor becomes much more important. I've found that my best soups are the ones where I really think hard about flavor combinations before starting, and where I ensure that every layer of flavor gets substantial attention, so that it can make as full a contribution to the overall flavor as possible.

Rule no.1 and most important: when building a vegetarian soup, you must roast or saute your vegetables, in stages, before adding liquid. Most vegetables have natural sugars that will remain latent until drawn out with heat. Sauteing or roasting your vegetables will bring those sugars to the surface, and through prolonged exposure to heat and fat, the sugars will start to caramelize. The deeper the caramelization, the more complex the flavor. If you can get those onions, peppers, and garlic to turn a deep amber color without burning, your soup is on the road to deliciousness. I used to prefer saute, because I could do it in the same pan as I eventually made the soup, thus not losing any of the fond (those brown bits of flavor that gather at the bottom of the pan). Lately, I've taken to roasting, as I find it draws out the caramel flavor more slowly and evenly. But there's nothing wrong with a good saute, you hear?

Rule no. 2: to borrow a lesson from Indian cuisine, toasting spices can elevate the flavor of your soup. It's really that simple: by toasting spices, you're intensifying their flavor, and thus, the flavor of whatever broth they are seasoning. Some spices actually change flavor when toasted; nuts, for example, become far more fragrant and nutty as they brown. They're a wonderful addition to soups, by the way. Whole spices can be dry-toasted in an empty saute pan before being ground; toss powdered spices into your mix of oil and aromatics (onions, garlic, carrots, celery, etc) to amplify their flavor. Either way, you won't be sorry. Cooks illustrated has a great spice guide that I was able to find online, here.

Rule no. 3: in the absence of meat or poultry broth, use a mix of good vegetable stock, water, and, sparingly, wine or juice. Canned vegetable stock sucks, but in a pinch, it'll do, as long as you supplement its relatively flat flavor with lots of other things. Usually, I prefer water to canned vegetable stock; I find it makes for a cleaner-tasting soup with more pronounced flavors. Wine is fundamental to my soup-making. It adds much-needed acidity, bitterness, complexity, and umami (which helps round out the other flavors). It should be used sparingly, because its flavor is quite pronounced and even a few glugs in the pot will speak plenty. that said, it's as close to a well-rounded flavor as we've got and should be exploited. For lentil and tomato-based soups, I'll add some of whatever's open in the fridge. For more delicate soups like white bean, squash, and vegetable, I'll use white wine. Orange juice makes a lovely addition to lentils as well as squash, sweet potatoes, and carrots. Apple juice and pears/pear juice play nicely with parsnips, turnips, and rutabaga. These combinations are hardly exhaustive.

A couple more tips:

• dried porcini mushrooms are a vegetarian cook's best friend. Their flavor is strong, meaty, and complex; I add them to about 75% of all the soup and stew I make.
• a drizzle of flavored oil on a bowl of vegetarian soup goes a long way. I especially like white truffle oil and my new favorite, walnut oil.
• the same goes for garnishes. a dollop of yogurt and a sprinkle of herbs or herb croutons adds yet another dimension of flavor, texture, and visual appeal.

The list really goes on, but that's a good start. Have any favorite tips or advice for vegetarian soup-making? Leave them in the comments.

I'll leave you with a truly wonderful recipe for Moroccan Vegetable Soup called Harira that comes from Moosewood Low-fat Favorites. It's one of my all-time fave soups -- highly recommended.

Harira Soup from Moosewood

1 cup onions, choped 4 cups vegetable stock 1 tsp cinnamon 1 tsp turmeric 1 Tbsp fresh ginger root, grated 1/8 tsp cayenne 1 cup carrots, peeled and diced 1/2 cup celery, diced 1 cup canned tomatoes undrained, chopped 1 1/2 cup potatoes, diced 1 pinch saffron 1 cup lentils, cooked 1 cup cooked chickpeas, drained 1 1/2 Tbsp fresh cilantro, chopped 1 Tbsp fresh lemon juice salt and pepper lemon wedges

In a covered soup pot, simmer the onions in 1 cup of the stock for 10 minutes. Combine the cinnamon, turmeric, ginger, and cayenne in a small bowl and add 2 to 3 tablespoons of the hot liquid to form a paste. Stir this paste into the pot along with the carrots, celery, and the remaining stock. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat, cover, and simmer for 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes and potatoes and continue to cook, covered, for 15 to 20 minutes, until the potatoes are tender. Crumble in the saffron. Stir in the lentils, chickpeas, cilantro, lemon juice, and salt and pepper to taste. Reheat.

Serve with lemon wedges.

Edamame Cabbage Slaw with Sweet Potatoes

Hello from vacationland! We're in Israel for the next few days and beyond thrilled to be back. It's been way, way too long -- almost two years since I lived here. I've missed every bit of it. Yesterday, I spent the most lovely afternoon at the shuk (market) with my dear dear friend S. We met up in my favorite corner of the shuk... A little cafe tucked in the back portion that's locals only and serves up a mean cup of coffee. After lots of hugs, kisses and catch up, we ran around to the different vendors so that I could grab my favorite spices (more on those in a future post...) And met up with her mom, where I freshened up on my slightly-rough but actually not-too-bad Hebrew. We spent the past 24 hours hanging out with family and friends, relaxing and eating copious amounts of food. Tonight we're planning on hitting up another of my favorite restaurants, Tmol Shilshom. There's something at once familiar and refreshing about being in a place I used to call home; it's wonderful to be back.

But less about my getaway, more about the recipe -- which, indeed, is a fabulous lunch staple (I'm on a new kick, can you tell?). I've made cabbage slaw before, but this one's got a little bit more character and substance. It's got a new addiction of mine, edamame (frozen-shelled -- one of the easiest and tastiest sources of protein in the grocery store) and sweet potatoes, as well as some fake beef strips (feel free to use the real thing if you're so inclined). In all, it made a great one-dish dinner and was even better the next day for lunch. Just don't dress it all at once, or it'll go a bit mushy.

Hope you've all had a lovely weekend; I'm here until Sunday, and early Monday morning we leave for Paris, where we make the most of our 24-hour layover before heading back to DC. More recipes when I'm back....

Edamame Cabbage Slaw with Sweet Potatoes

1 savoy cabbage, shredded (by hand) 2 scallions, chopped 2 sweet potatoes, sliced into matchsticks 2 Tbsp olive oil 2 cups (ish) frozen edamame, cooked according to package directions and left at room temp 1 package Morningstar Farms, TJ's or other brand fake meat strips Handful sliced toasted almonds (to be added just before eating)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Spread the sweet potato sticks in a single layer on a rimmed baking sheet, and drizzle olive oil overtop. Toss to incorporate; roast for approximately 30 minutes, until soft and browned in spots.

Cook fake meat in a frying pan with a drizzle or two of olive oil until browned in certain spots. I also like to add a few drops of soy sauce and/or pomegranate syrup, date syrup, tamarind paste, honey and rice wine vinegar, etc -- something to give it that sweet/savory taste. Bottled teriyaki will do the trick, but don't overdo it -- a Tbsp or so max.

Mix all ingredients in large salad bowl; top with almonds and dressing (recipe below). Toss to incorporate. Serve in big, deep bowls. Enjoy.

Dressing 1/4 cup soy sauce 1/2 cup rice wine vinegar 1/4 cup mirin (if no mirin, substitute 1/8 cup plus 1 Tbsp brown sugar) several dashes sesame oil

Mix; shake. Note: in place of sesame oil, feel free to experiment with walnut oil or other nutty-flavored oil.

Braised Pearl Onions

Readers Dearest, In a few short hours, I will be heading off for an all-too-short but nonetheless-exciting week-long vacation. While this means awesomeness for me, you're probably not as excited. Here's something to perk up your day: the post below is about a recipe that's delicious and easy to make, best combo ever. Also, I've done my best to stick a couple posts in the wings, so as to keep you entertained and sated in my absence. Keep reading -- more importantly, keep cooking -- and I'll be back in no time.

You can stop reading now if you're an onion hater. Clearly, this isn't for you. Where were we? Ah yes, pearl onions. They're baby onions, basically. They're a bit larger than pearls -- at least, any pearls I can afford -- but they're certainly elegant. They come in red, yellow, and white -- just like large onions -- and you can get all three colors mixed together at Trader Joe's.

Pearl onions make an effortless side and a perfect complement to a beef main course. The only annoying (ahem, time intensive) part of preparing them is that you need to peel off their skins individually. It's a pain, I admit, but the results are worth it. Basically, you blanch them in boiling water for about 60 seconds, until the skins turn soft. Then you peel off each skin -- one by measly one -- until you have some naked little onions ready for baking. Then, in a frying pan big enough to hold them, you heat up a bit of olive oil til hot, drop in the onions, saute until fragrant. Add a couple cups of red wine, a couple Tablespoons brown sugar (1 Tbsp per cup) and some salt and pepper, and simmer over low heat for about 15 minutes, until wine is reduced by about half. Taste and adjust: does it need more sugar? More salt? You decide. They really are that easy.

File this under recipe-free cooking...