White Bean Burgers with Tomatoes and Basil

Posted on January 10, 2016 by makehastenotwaste

I am so excited by how well this recipe turned out. It’s not every day that the leftovers of my meals are crave-able, but these veggie burgers were gone in a snap.

The source of inspiration for these burgers was leftover basil.

I try not to buy basil in the winter. In the summer, I’m blessed with abundant basil that can be snipped as needed from the garden. But when I buy basil from the store, I’m always faced with leftovers in the fridge drawer. Which means I’m faced with the guilt of potential waste.

But I bought this basil for a special occasion. My husband and I have a tradition of spending the early evening hours of New Year’s Eve at home, making fresh pasta together. Romantic right? (Then we hustle off to a local friend’s house to attempt to be a little more “cool” and social). This time we made a fettuccine with bolognese sauce that was enhanced by the herbal touch of fresh basil leaves.

A few days later, I was on the lookout for recipes using basil, and settled on this one.

White Bean Burgers with Tomatoes and Basil
Adapted from oh my veggies

1 can (15 ounce) cannellini or other white beans, drained and rinsed
1/4 Cup sun-dried tomatoes, coarsely chopped
4 Tablespoons olive oil
1 Tablespoon tomato paste
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/3 Cup packed basil leaves, torn
1/3 Cup shredded mozzarella cheese
1/4 Cup panko
2 Tablespoons parmesan cheese, grated
Salt and pepper to taste
1 egg, lightly beaten

For serving:
4 buns (hamburger, kaiser rolls, challah rolls, etc – whatever you have leftover in your freezer after your husband is overzealous and claims that more people will show up at the party!)
Optional accompaniments:
Fresh basil leaves
Romaine or butter lettuce
Fresh mozzarella or provolone
Optional sauces:
Balsamic reduction
Pesto
Basil Mayo

Basil Mayonnaise recipe
From the kitchn
Proportions roughly followed:
1/4 Cup packed basil leaves
2 Tablespoons olive oil
1/2 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
1 medium garlic clove, chopped
Zest of about half of one large lemon, about 1 teaspoon
1/2 Cup mayonnaise
Combine in a small food processor or blender.

Preheat the oven to anywhere between 385F and 400F (my oven runs hot so I opted for lower.)

For the burgers, prepare your chopped sundried tomatoes and basil leaves.

Store-bought basil can be extremely dirty. Be sure to thoroughly wash by swishing in a bowl of cold water and then lifting out to leave the sand at the bottom of the bowl.

In a food processor, puree together 1 Cup of the beans with the sundried tomatoes, olive oil, tomato paste, and garlic powder.

The original recipe called for sundried tomatoes in oil, and less added olive oil, but I had regular sundried tomatoes. So I added some olive oil at first and discovered the mixture was still too dry and was difficult to puree, so I added more olive oil, up to the approximate amount above. Be on the lookout for the mixture seeming too dry. Next time I may experiment with adding some other wet ingredient to bring up the moisture content. Tomato sauce, perhaps?

In a medium bowl, add the remaining beans and mash them with a fork. Stir in the pureed bean-tomato mixture, and add the basil and remaining ingredients, with the beaten egg added last.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Using a measuring cup as a scoop, drop the burger mixture into 4 mounds on the sheet, and then shape each mound into a patty.

Note: this scoop-mound-shape method for forming a veggie burger was a worthy lesson on its own–thank you oh my veggies!

Bake the burgers until they’re lightly browned on the outside and feel dry to the touch in the center, 20-25 minutes.

Mmmm yes to the melty mozzarella.

In the meantime, make your sauces! I made the basil mayo. I could have made pesto…but I still had some of the summer stock in the freezer.

Prepare your choice of buns with your choice of toppings.

Basil mayo followed by lettuce….

…followed by burger, topped with balsamic glaze and more basil!

How could you NOT crave this?

Green Tomato Curry

Posted on December 30, 2015 by makehastenotwaste

Season’s Greetings!

I won’t dwell on the fact that there has been a significant lack of recent content here. The second half of 2016 has been exciting and eventful; the activity simply has not taken place in my kitchen.

At minimum, I wanted to share with you a recipe I had executed a few months back, during the transition from summer harvest into fall/winter hibernation.

When I had a job with a normal, local work week, I would frequently travel on the weekends. Now that I’m gone many weeks, I have tried to keep the weekend plans limited. Plus there was the 9 months I spent with class on Saturdays–the weekends finally started feeling solidly long (that is, when I wasn’t traveling for part of them). So on a Saturday in mid-October I gave in to the cooler weather and spend much of the day retiring the garden for the season. Does anyone experience some sense of relief when this happens? No more weeding. No more tomatoes rotting before I can use them. No more weird gross evidence of bugs.

The wintering over meant the last big batch of jalapeños and–yes–tomatoes, green ones. Lots. Of the options for cooking green tomatoes, I had already once made the requisite fried green tomatoes, and as for pickled tomato relish? Um, I still have some from last season. So I wanted to mix it up.

My husband is a fan of curries and spiced foods, served over rice, so I wondered if there was anyone who had documented an attempt to make a green tomato curry. Of course there was! Other than a few basic substitutions, I followed the version described by Kerry from Classic Cookery on the kitchn, and was mostly content with the result — it just needed more spice! Nothing a little chili-garlic sauce can’t help.

Looks seasonally appropriate to me!

Green Tomato Curry
Adapted from recipe on the kitchn

Tool needed: immersion blender

2 Tb clarified butter (ghee)
2 Tb shallot, minced
1 tsp curry powder
2 Cups green tomatoes, chopped
Salt and pepper, to taste
As many roasted peppers as desired, up to 5 Cups (I scrounged up less than 2 Cups)
2 cloves garlic, roasted and smashed
1 can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
Cayenne pepper
Cumin
Coriander
1 Cup light coconut milk
1 Tablespoon Asian chili-garlic paste, to taste
Brown or white rice or naan, for serving

Preheat the oven and roast your garlic cloves and peppers, if starting from scratch. I usually cook these at around 375F.

These peppers could have gone a little longer.

Stem, core and chop your tomatoes.

There was some parts of the tomatoes I sliced and tossed because they didn’t really seem edible.

Taste the rainbow!

In a soup pot or high-sided saucepan, melt butter. Add shallots and cook on low heat until soft and fragrant.

Add curry powder, add tomatoes, and season with salt and pepper. Allow tomatoes to warm fully and start to soften.

Next add the roasted peppers, peeled and smashed garlic, and garbanzo beans.

Add about a teaspoon each of cumin and coriander, and then start adding cayenne pepper to taste–this can get very hot. The amount of spice you will need depends on the amount of peppers you end up using.
Cook for a few minutes until hot, and add coconut milk. Bring to a simmer and add seasoning.

Use an immersion blender to blend the “soup” until mostly smooth but leaving some chunks of tomato, pepper, and whole beans. Taste again and add spice as needed.

Serve in a bowl over rice. Be sure to transfer desired amount to freezer containers for later meals!

K-Cup Crusade

Posted on September 20, 2015 by makehastenotwaste

Have you heard about the crusade against K-Cups? In the unlikely case you need a refresher, “K-Cups” is the abbreviated term for those little vacuum sealed pods of ground coffee used with a Keurig machine to produce a single serving of coffee with the push of a button and less than a minute. A few years ago, Keurig machines were the it product, the must-buy at holidays or for weddings or housewarming. The crusade itself is even old news now. Way back toward the beginning of 2015, one of the founders declared his regrets for inventing a product that in a single year (2014), produced enough waste to circle the globe more than 10 times. The Internet rallied. First of all, what a novel thought, that there exists an entrepreneur who thinks about more than his net worth, who admitted he wished he did something differently. Secondly, how could he have been so thoughtless? We, millions of followers, succumbed to the promotions and temptations of technology and then were FORCED to buy billions of pods that could not be recycled. What a calamity! Oh have we learned our lesson.

The reactions I came across were fairly unanimous in their abject hate toward K-Cups. There was little controversy over the suggestion to eliminate K-Cups from your diet for the betterment of the world and your taste buds. I stood by, a little irked. Why such consensus about K-cups? Couldn’t we all unite over something more significant?

I was reluctant to take another side in the crusade, until now. A little more recently, I read a Thrillist post shaming K-Cup users that was so terribly done it made me angry. Now I will have my piece. No, I won’t heap praise on the product, but I would like to point out why this topic seems overblown.

#1 Which is worse?
How many people have used Keurig machines in their offices? In my opinion, adding Keurig machines can have a positive impact. Yes, with businesses subsidizing cups for their workers, some people may have had cups they

Don’t even get me started about how ineffective Starbucks cup lids are against leaks.

wouldn’t otherwise. However, in some of those places, before the machine arrived, do you know what those regular drinkers would do? They would go elsewhere, purchase a brewed cup that came in a paper or styrofoam cup with a plastic lid, bring it back to their office, and then toss it in the bags headed for a landfill. How many times around the world would those go?

#2 Convenience Factor
In one of my recent jobs, we placed a Keurig machine on top of a tiny table next to a tiny fridge in the hallway outside our various shared offices. Now, you might say (or as Thrillist is pretentiously exhorting), put a coffee maker there and use fresh grounds! I say, are you kidding? What a mess. Do you know how rarely this area was cleaned? To get to the closest sink, you had to walk down the hall, through one set of doors, across an atrium and through another door…and that was for a bathroom sink. Washing a pot and filter and any other components was unlikely to happen.

#3 Simplicity
Let’s acknowledge that since many of us require caffeine to function effectively, coffee is probably here to stay for awhile. If you clicked on the Thrillist link, you’ll see that the #1 listed reason to quit K-Cups is “You shouldn’t make coffee like a monkey.” Really, this is your argument? “Our ability to use complex tools is what separates us from other primates.” I guess the author is a fan of those fancy corporate espresso machines that are so complex that they can impossible to figure out.
My thought is if K-Cups provide a quick source of caffeine to get someone’s brain functioning in order to use other complex tools to solve critical world problems, then it’s OK that they didn’t have to use much of their brain to make that cup!

#4 Bigger Picture
What frustrates me the most is that the Atlantic interview that got everyone riled up was actually somewhat balanced. The reporter pointed out significant facts about how other home coffee machines use more electricity, brew inefficiently and result in plenty of wasted water [update: I came across a study that was externally-reviewed (yet, of course, commissioned by a biased source) that found single-serve coffee capsules have a lower overall environmental impact)], how non-renewable resources are used to transport coffee to places like Starbucks and for the customers to drive themselves there, and how coffee itself is a water-intensive crop. “Thinking about all of this has been almost enough to make me feel like every coffee method is so far from perfect that I should just give up entirely,” Hamblin said.

When other media outlets picked up the story, did they include these facts? Not so much. Not Business Insider, not CNN, not The Washington Post, to name a few.
It goes to show, take any news story about your grains of coffee with a grain of salt.

Summer Soups – Roasted Corn and Chilled Zucchini

Posted on September 5, 2015 by makehastenotwaste

Wasn’t August delightful? For those of us with access to fresh vegetables like corn, zucchini, tomatoes, peppers and more, this late summer time feels special.

New recipes, of course, can take some time to explore. And of course, the past few weeks of August were a bit packed for me. Let’s just say there were a fair number of tomato sandwiches. When I did some cooking prep for the first time in awhile, I was so rusty I even sliced my finger while chopping onions!

I was faced with the reality that if I wanted to do my work, complete my final class assignment with any degree of quality, fulfill other obligations, AND prepare myself healthy meals, they were going to have to be fairly simple. The corn soup I made with leftover roasted corn? Not so simple. The chilled zucchini soup I made the following week was more reasonable. Though you might guess which was more delicious in this case. I’ll describe both here, in case they appeal to you.

Starting with the zucchini soup: the recipe has wonderfully few ingredients, all of which I could get my hands on at home. I had almost forgotten about the garden zucchini in my fridge, which I acquired in a trade with my mom; she snagged some of my own garden tomatoes.

Chilled Zuchinni Soup
Adapted from the James Beard Foundation’s Isabela Wojcik

2 large zucchini
2 Tablespoons olive oil
1 small onion, sliced thinly
1 teaspoon fresh oregano, minced and divided
scant 1/4 teaspoon red chili pepper flakes
1 Cup stock, chicken or vegetable
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
1/2 Cup plain greek yogurt (or other dairy such as sour cream or milk)

Mise en place! Prep onion and oregano. To prepare the zucchini, trim, split in half lengthwise and thinly slice into half-moons.

While slicing the zucchini, a couple of things dawned on me: my food processor could probably do this even faster, and the slices would be great for ratatouille. Next time.

In a medium sauce or sauté pan, heat the olive oil over medium. Add the sliced onion, half of the oregano (about 1/2 teaspoon), and red pepper flakes.

Careful with the red pepper flakes.

Cook until the onion softens and becomes translucent.

Drop in the zucchini and cook through for several minutes, on lower heat. As soon as it starts to look dry, pour in the the stock.

Let the mixture cook until the zucchini is tender and the stock is boiling. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Take off the stove and transfer to a blender or food processor. Purée.

Add yogurt and blend. Taste and add more salt.

Chill, and then serve with other seasonal foods and a hunk of bread. You could also eat it warm. I won’t judge.

Roasted Corn Soup with Guacamole and Bacon
Adapted from Epicurious, Lourdes Castro

Soup
3 Cups of corn kernels, I used 2 Cups from 3 ears of leftover roasted corn and 1 Cup frozen, divided
1.5 Cups chicken or vegetable broth
1/2 to 1 Cup water, as needed, for extra liquid
2 Tablespoons olive oil
1 garlic clove, minced
1/2 onion, chopped
1 jalapeno, stemmed and chopped
Salt and pepper to taste

Topping
1 slice of bacon, cooked until crisp (separate)
1/2 Cup roasted corn kernels (from above)
1/2 jalapeno, stemmed, seeded and chopped
1/2 avocado
1 Tablespoon shallot or red onion, minced
zest and juice from 1/2 lime
Cilantro, if you have it!

If using whole corn, remove kernels from cob.
This is one of those recipes that uses the leftover corn cob to infuse a soup with more corn flavor. Everybody’s doing it! The corn itself was leftover from a picnic, and I removed the kernels for the soup. So while prepping other ingredients, get your corn cobs simmering low in your broth plus some extra water.

This is how I keep broth on hand!

If using fresh corn, roast at least half of it in the oven at 450°F, on a lined baking sheet. Reserve some of the roasted corn for the topping, and put the rest in a blender.

Cook the bacon and prepare the avocado, onion, pepper, and lime for the remaining topping.

In a saucepan, heat the olive oil and add the garlic, onion, and jalapeno.

Season with salt and pepper, cook until soft, at least 5 minutes.
Transfer to a blender with the corn.

Pulse to combine.

Remove the cobs from the stock and if possible, squeeze any liquid out of them. Transfer the corn mixture into the liquid and combine.

Bring up the temperature to a boil while stirring frequently, and then lower heat. Simmer for about 10 minutes. You may need to add additional water at this point. Don’t worry–the flavor’s still there.

Ladle into bowls, garnish, and serve!

See how dark it is? This took awhile to make.

See how dark it is? This took so long to make.

Feta-Brined Roast Chicken with Chimichurri Sauce

Posted on August 9, 2015 by makehastenotwaste

Brine is a magical thing. Besides its obvious role in pickled vegetables, an overnight brine has the ability to transform your average weekly roast chicken or even your holiday turkey from a bland or dry entrée to a juicy flavor bomb.

That is what I was thinking when I saved the brine from my feta cheese. The cheese was long gone, but it struck me that there had to be a use for that intensely flavored liquid, other than a future down the drain.

Once again, The New York Times Cooking website delivered. A recipe for feta-brined roast chicken, how perfect! Turns out Melissa Clark demonstrated it back in January. Her recipe includes instructions for creating the brine from scratch with chunks of feta cheese. Having some of the actual brine is even better.

What’s my twist? This time of year, it makes sense to make use of fresh greens and herbs and tangy sauces to brighten up rich meats. Herbs are thriving in the garden. I planted the oregano on a hot dry day in May and thought I killed it. Turns out it’s resilient, almost as resilient as the weeds!

Along with parsley and some leftover cilantro, I blended together some quick chimichurri. You can do the same, with any combination of those three herbs, and with or without added heat.

Feta-Brined Roast Chicken
from Melissa Clark of The New York Times

Leftover feta brine (7 oz)
Water to bring the total amount over 4 Cups (3.5 Cups)
2.5 teaspoons salt, divided
1 whole chicken
2 Tablespoons freshly ground black pepper, to taste
2 Tablespoons dried oregano
2 large or 3 small lemons, including zest
¼ Cup olive oil

To prepare the brine, add feta liquid, additional salt and water to a blender and whiz to combine. Select a container that will allow the chicken to sit mostly submerged in the brine; you can also use a large sealing plastic bag. Pour brine over chicken.

Place in refrigerator for at least 8 hours.

When ready to cook, discard brine and dry the chicken with paper towels. Allow to sit at room temperature for 1 hour.

If you are hand-grinding the pepper now, settle in for the long haul! It took me forever to get 2 Tablespoons. Instead, I suggest using an electric spice grinder.

Combine the pepper, 1 1/2 teaspoons salt, oregano and the zest of the lemons.

Rub the mixture all over the bird. Cut the lemons in half and place at least 3 halves inside the chicken. Tie the legs together with twine.

While the oven heats to 450 degrees, place an oven-safe skillet on a burner over medium high heat. Turn on your hood vent! Add oil, and once hot, set chicken in pan, breast-side up.

Place the pan in the oven and cook for 50-60 minutes, checking once or twice to spoon the pan juices over the bird.

The chicken is done when the juices run clear and/or temperature at the thickest parts reaches 165.

Let chicken rest for about 10 minutes. Slice and serve with the pan juices, a little chimichurri sauce, and vegetables.

How about some slightly burned yam fries on the side?

With any luck, you’ll be enjoying both crispy wings and some of the juiciest white meat you’ve ever had. Enjoy!

Tastes of Summer – Watermelon and Ice Cream

Posted on July 30, 2015 by makehastenotwaste

I bought a whole watermelon the other day. I needed it to make a delicious heirloom tomato watermelon gazpacho recipe I planned to bring to a potluck.

I was surprised that I could actually make such a delicious gazpacho!

I tasted the recipe after it was demoed by Chef Harold Deiterle, who recently released a cookbook, Harold Dieterle’s Kitchen Notebook Techniques. It won me over.

But mostly I wanted the watermelon for snacking. Fresh watermelon is one of those distinctly summer foods, a flavor I associate with backyard spitting contests of my childhood. The heat and humidity of summer bring on a kind of thirst that only watermelon can truly quench.

There are a few other flavors I lately connect to summer–even if I may in fact indulge all year long. Iced tea, ice-cold beer, and ice cream.

On the day I had about a quarter of my watermelon left, I heard someone mention watermelon rind as one of those trimmings that you’re going to be stuck composting, since there’s not much you can do to make it edible, sellable, and appealing. Not that I disagree. But I took it as a challenge. I was going to make watermelon rind pickles.

Watermelon Rind Pickles
Adapted from Food.com for 1/4 watermelon
About 2.5 lb watermelon rind (flesh mostly removed, shell included)
For the brining:
1⁄4 Cup salt
1 quart water
For the pickling syrup:
2 Cups white vinegar
2 Cups water
4 Cups sugar
1/3 lemon, sliced thin
Spices:
1 cinnamon sticks
1/3 teaspoon whole cloves
1/3 teaspoon whole allspice

Remove all the juicy watermelon flesh and reserve for another use. (Admittedly, I will miss having the rind as a handle when I eat the remains later. Oh well.)

At this point, I had 2 lb 8.5 ounces.

Next you will need to peel the outer hard rind from the softer white portion. It took a fair amount of muscle power and time to remove the green shell. I used a combination of peeler and knife. Your knife should be very sharp for this, and it’s important to be very careful. Cut away from yourself and always keep hands and fingers behind the direction you are cutting!

After 5 minutes of labor, the green parts were gone. The next step is to remove any remaining pink, and slice into 1 to 2 inch by 3/4″ pieces. This took about 7 minutes.

Final weigh in? 1 pound 8.6 ounces of rind. So 1 pound was still going to the compost, but if I had planned to use the whole watermelon’s rind (which would make more pickles than I would know what to do with), I would have saved more than 5 pounds.

Make a brine by dissolving 1/4 cup of salt into 1 quart of water.

I could have used less for this rind, and you may need to scale up for more.

Allow to brine in refrigerator overnight.

Drain and rinse soaked watermelon rind.

At this point, I used the scale of 0.375 to approximate the other ingredients: allspice, cloves, cinnamon, and lemon. I could have scaled down a little less on the sugar, water, and vinegar that made up the syrup; in the end it would have helped to have more for inside the jars.

If you’d like, combine the spices together in a cheesecloth.

Combine the syrup and spice ingredients and bring to a boil for about 5 minutes.

Add half of the rind and simmer until it becomes translucent. It took about 36 minutes for my first batch.

Spoon rind out of the pan and into a clean jar. Be sure to sterilize, if you plan on preserving longer term.

Repeat the simmering step with remaining rind.

Remove spice satchel and discard. Pour boiling syrup to cover the rind in jars. Why not include the lemon?

Taste test results: Not bad. The cloves were a little more noticeable than I would like (I’ve complained about this before). Otherwise, the flavor resembled those Vlasic sweet and crunchy pickles, which were once the only type I could tolerate.

Looking for other ideas for the watermelon flesh? Real Simple posted this yesterday:

onethread design via Real Simple

Returning to the topic of ice cream….this same week, I thought I better make some before National Ice Cream month ends!

Ice cream (or sorbet) is another dish that can incorporate whatever you have around. Even cucumber. This time, I’m went to the herbs in my garden, and incorporated them into a rich base made with egg yolks.

Is tomato ice cream in my future?

Mint Ice Cream
Adapted from Melissa Clark’s New York Times recipe

1 Cup mint leaves
⅔ Cup sugar
1.5 Cups heavy cream
1.5 Cups milk (I used my skim)
⅛ teaspoon sea salt, finely ground
6 large egg yolks

Combine mint leaves and sugar in a food processor. Grind together until fully combined and green.

Pour cream, milk, sugar mixture and salt into a small saucepan and cook until the sugar dissolves. Whisk yolks in a separate heat-proof bowl.

When the sugar has dissolved, remove pan from heat and slowly whisk in about a third of the hot mixture into the yolks.

Then pour the yolk mixture back into the pan and whisk with the remaining hot cream.

Place pan back on a medium-low burner and cook slowly, thickening at about 170 degrees Fahrenheit.

Turn off heat and allow mint to steep in the mixture for about 30 minutes.
Pour through a sieve to catch any solids.

Cool mixture to room temperature and then chill in refrigerator for at least 4 hours.

Follow the directions for your ice cream machine and churn away.

After 20 minutes in this frozen-bowl style, you’ll have soft-serve.

Transfer to a freezer container to harden.

Happy summer!

Christmas in July

Posted on July 15, 2015 by makehastenotwaste

This is embarrassing.

I still have a Panettone I received as a holiday gift.

How terrible is that? For one, it’s an embarrassment of riches to be able to say “woe is me, I have extra cake/bread that I haven’t felt like eating!” This problem is not unique to me, as I confirmed from subsequent Googling. The part that makes it so embarrassing is that I have come to JULY without touching it.

At one point, the cake was tucked in a cubby of a shelf while the months ticked by. Oh, it wasn’t hidden from sight. Just from my apparent consciousness.

Now I’m determined. Cautiously excited. I’m not sure how wise it is to eat the cake so late, and I’m not sure if it would be accepted as a donation. I will justify using it by pointing out that the cake was labeled by someone to be good for about 5 months. What’s another 2.5?

I slowly removed it from the packaging, inspecting for decay. So far, so good.

The perfumey smell of fruitcake hit me as I removed the paper covering around the sides and bottom. Determination: good to go.

French toasts and bread puddings are the top ways to use this sweet, cake-like bread studded with dried fruit. Since I love soaking bread until it becomes a custard consistency, I’m all for it. But with whom am I going to share a large, rich casserole any time soon? To my delight, PJ Hamel’s blog and recipe came up in my searches. It transforms the cake into the form of moist bread loaves, a much more convenient way to keep (i.e. freeze) and share!

The original recipe calls for 9 to 10 cups of diced bread. The full cake totalled about 13 cups for me, so I scaled the recipe accordingly.

Panettone Bread Pudding Loaf
Adapted from King Arthur Flour

4 large eggs
2 2/3 Cups of some combination of milk and cream (I used 2 Cups skim milk and 2/3 Cup heavy cream)
1/4 Cup plus 1 Tablespoon granulated sugar
1 Tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 panettone or about 13 Cups panettone or other bread, diced into 1″ cubes
about 1 1/4 Cup fresh lemon curd, split (recipe below-prepare ahead of time to allow for chilling, or purchase pre-made)
coarse sparkling sugar, for sprinkling on top; optional

Microwave Lemon Curd Recipe
Also from King Arthur Flour
Makes at least 2 Cups (more than needed; feel free to halve the recipe, if preferred)

1 Cup lemon juice, freshly squeezed
1 Cup granulated sugar
1/2 Cup (8 Tablespoons) butter, melted
2 large eggs

I ended up using 2 large and 3 small lemons to reach 1 Cup of freshly squeezed juice.

In a large microwave-safe bowl or measuring cup, melt the butter. Add the remaining ingredients and mix well to combine.

Place bowl in microwave and cook in 1-minute increments. After each minute, remove from the microwave and stir to combine.

The curd is done when it is thickening and coating the back of the spoon. Or, when it reaches 185°F – the instant-read thermometer is your friend!

Mine took about 6 minutes to reach 185, but after 3 minutes some of the egg already cooked! Straining is required in this case. I happen to notice my new pasta scoop might have the right size holes for simply scooping out the solids–and it was!

Stir, transfer to a container, and refrigerate (or freeze, if in a rush) until firm.

On to the bread pudding!

Prep your bread by cutting or tearing into pieces.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs, dairy, and vanilla. Pour the mixture over the bread and stir. Allow the bread to absorb much of liquid-anywhere from 30 minutes to, in my case, 90+ minutes.

When the soaked bread and curd is ready, preheat the oven to 350°F. Butter up some loaf pans.

Mix the soaked bread some more, and then scoop 1/4 of it into each pan. Plop a heaping 1/2 Cup of lemon curd on top of that layer.

Cover with the rest of the bread/custard.

Now more fun stuff: the recipe calls for sprinkling with white sparkling sugar. It makes me laugh how out of season this is!

Put the pudding loaves in the oven and bake for 40 to 50 minutes, until the top becomes golden brown.

Allow to rest and cool at room temperature for at least 1/2 hour.

Another reason why the title of this post is so appropriate: one of my go-to loaf pans has this festive design!

Slice the loaf and top each slice with a little sifted confectioners’ sugar, for good measure.

The verdict? Delicious. The lemon curd adds some nice freshness to counteract the intensity of the dried fruit. The richness of the dessert goes a long way. The recipe author suggests serving the pudding with some less-sweet vanilla ice cream or whipped cream. To me, it begged for an espresso or coffee or black tea on the side.

Now I just need some classy holiday dinner party guests. Are you in?

I decided to commemorate my “Christmas in July” in yet another way: dropping off donations to the Salvation Army. It was probably around the holidays that I last dropped off my extensive collection of rejected clothing and shoes.

The cat sitting on the sweatshirt? That’s Riley. I didn’t give her away.

The piles were doing no good in my closet. Here’s hoping they find a good home!

Championing Food Waste Reduction

Posted on July 10, 2015 by makehastenotwaste

Have you noticed the flurry of activity and media coverage about food waste? At some point during this recent lull in my blog, it felt like everywhere I turned I encountered an article or conference or event related to individuals, companies and governments making efforts to use what is normally tossed.

A few highlights:

At the Blue Hill WastED pop-up in March, I dined on fried fish cartilage, salad made from discarded fruit and vegetable peels, and a vegetable burger that was a total mashup of scraps — from the vegetable pulp to the bread trimmings that made the bun. Nearly every regional media outlet reported on the restaurant.

Chefs across the world are following suit — this past June, a Barcelona restaurant served an inspired four-course “Gastro-Rescue Dinner” that took advantage of tomato squeezings, misshapen eggplant, and the meat scraped from skeletons of filleted salmon, to name a few.
“Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life” is the theme of Expo Milano 2015, the Universal Exposition which runs from May 1 – October 31, 2015 in Milan, Italy and expects to have more than 20 million visitors. For three months, some of the Expo leftovers are being served to needy people in an abandoned nearby theatre, in partnership with the local Catholic charity. 40 prominent chefs will pitch in for one of the months, creating gourmet meals out of the leftovers.
Chef Dan Barber is being recognized further for his book, The Third Plate, now a James Beard Foundation Book Award winner. From reading it, I learned how complicated it can be to fish, farm, cook, serve, and eat responsibly, and how deeply connected our menu preferences are to the earth’s ecological system.
Kangaroo tail, anyone? Chef Curtis Stone is a champion for maximizing ingredients, which he showcases at his James Beard Nominated LA restaurant, Maude, also a James Beard Foundation Award Nominee.
Governments are taking action to reduce food waste! France’s legislative body passed a measure that bans supermarkets from destroying or tossing edible unsold food. When foods were nearing “sell by dates,” supermarkets found them difficult to sell and therefore threw them away–and sometimes went to extreme measures to keep foragers out of the bins. The law requires the stores to donate food to charities or for animal feed; otherwise they face fines and jail time. Here in the U.S., Massachusetts’ commercial food waste ban went into effect on October 1, 2014. The regulations require institutions and businesses disposing more than one ton of organic waste per week to donate or reuse the edible food and compost the rest. (One ton still seems like a lot, does it not?)
Blue Apron continues to expand its following. It announced $135 million in new funding this June. According to Eater’s published analysis of its prominence, “Blue Apron built its empire on the idea of reducing food waste.” Not only does it help customers be more efficient, it also supports sustainable farming practices among its farmers.

I’m encouraged to think that public awareness is increasing. The issues aren’t brand new, of course, and have been in the news for many years. Last month, the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future (CLF) released the results of its 2014 research on U.S. Consumers’ perception of food waste. In terms of knowledge and awareness, 42% of respondents said they saw or heard information about wasted food in the previous year. 16% looked for information about reducing food waste. 24% of respondents characterized themselves as “very knowledgeable” about ways to reduce their personal levels of food waste, and 38% say they are “fairly knowledgeable.” Do more people know more in 2015?

It can get lonely to sit at my computer and read and write about food waste concerns and my personal quests. I’m thrilled to reach any one person with my blog, and to encourage any friend or acquaintance in person. But do enough people really care? What else can I be doing?

I’ve been fortunate to meet and discover a growing community of regular people who are creatively and smartly making things happen. They keep me inspired:

Finally, a grocery store chain in the United States (out in California of course) and a start-up venture called Imperfect Produce plan to sell less-than-perfect produce at a discounted rate. This adds value to the perfectly edible product farmers sometimes find easier and cheaper to throw away (Via NPR)
Others are creating a marketplace for surplus food; through a website or app, they connect those with excess food with organizations poised to use it. In Massachusetts, there’s Spoiler Alert. In Northern California, there’s CropMobster.
What about all that packaging we waste? A pair of entrepreneurial designers created a product called Loliware, which are flavored, edible, biodegradable cups that serve as an alternative to single-use cups that get tossed into a landfill.

These are the champions! I can’t wait to see what’s next.

Bok Choy, Bean, and Tomato Stew

Posted on March 16, 2015 by makehastenotwaste

I keep meaning to make soup. It’s so simple and productive for using up leftovers. For some reason, I continue to be intimidated. I wish I could be more like my Mom, who, hours after I had left her with a bunch of green tops from leeks, produced a lovely puréed leek green soup.

In my defense, I recall bad experiences cooking soup. I added a variety of ingredients, mixed things in at different times, seasoned initially, and what was I rewarded with? Bland taste. I’m also a big texture person–I love some crunch and chew to most of my meals. So I’m not necessarily drawn to the idea of cooking down my pantry to mush. Don’t get me wrong, I know there are ways to achieve texture in a soup. And if you don’t incorporate crunch in the soup itself, you can always get satisfaction from the toast you serve alongside!

Speaking of soup, check out this Edible Manhattan article about the ladies of the Soup Club. “Formalized food-sharing,” how great is that? If I started a soup club, I’d probably get pretty comfortable with making soup.

Last week I had my eye on some CSA bok choy that I had blanched and frozen in the fall. I was also scraping the bottom of a bag of dried Great Northern beans I wanted to use. Time to get creative! Except I couldn’t resist the urge to scan the internet for recipes using bok choy with beans. The selected recipe inspiration happened to help me use up some green onions, tortillas, and cheese too!

Bok Choy, Bean, and Tomato Stew with Homemade Tortilla Chips and Gruyere
Adapted from The Kitchen Paper

1 tsp olive oil
2/3 sweet onion, chopped
2 small carrots, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced

Diced heirloom carrots I had to use up.

2 Cups stock, (I used chicken)
1/2 Cup dried Great Northern beans , cooked and then incorporated with the bean broth(about 2 Cups cooked beans)
1 14oz can diced tomatoes
¾ tsp ground coriander
⅛ tsp ground cloves
2 corn or flour tortillas, or prepared restaurant-style tortilla chips
3 Tbsp olive oil
¼ tsp white pepper
salt to taste
about a handful of sliced bok choy, fresh or previously blanched
2 green onions, sliced
Gruyère, gouda or sharp cheddar cheese for topping (at least 1/2 Cup shredded)

If you’re starting with dried beans, you’ll need to start well in advance to have them cooked. I did both my soaking and cooking the day before, and had the cooked beans in their broth ready to go.

In a Dutch oven or large soup pot set over medium heat, add the olive oil. Add the onion and carrots and cook for about 2 minutes.

I didn’t realize that the purple in the carrots would be so dominant!

Stir in the garlic. Saute for a few more minutes to soften the vegetables. Pour in your stock.

Add the beans, tomatoes, ground coriander, and cloves.

Raise the temperature to bring the soup to simmer. Taste for seasoning and add a little salt. At this point, I also added a little dried basil and oregano.

This would be an excellent time to toss in one of the Parmesan rinds you have in your freezer. Of course I forgot. I might need to resort to the old post-it-note-reminder-stuck-to-the-stove-hood trick!

While the soup simmers, cut up your tortillas in to wedges to cook.

Turn the oven to 350 degrees F. Spray or coat the tortillas with a little olive oil and put on a baking sheet. Bake until lightly browned, checking frequently and turning once, halfway through.

Remove and sprinkle with salt.

Taste the stew and add more salt and pepper. Add the bok choy and bring up to temperature to finish.

Yep, that’s an interesting color.

Top with some shredded cheese and a few tortilla chips.

Braised Leek with Chickpeas, Saffron and Marjoram

Posted on March 1, 2015 by makehastenotwaste

Today’s recipe is brought to you by this lonely leftover leek.

This leek has a story, as many of my leftovers do. It traveled back from Central New York, where Matt and I spent the Presidents’ Day holiday weekend. Saturday was Valentine’s Day, and our original plan was to dine at a restaurant a few miles outside of Ithaca. First we spend a little time at my sister’s house, gathered cozily around the family’s large rustic table, blazing wood burning stove nearby, celebrating my niece’s 6th birthday. As Matt and I started to head into town, the snowstorm began. This particular weekend’s snowstorm (because anyone in the Northeast can attest to the fact they have been weekly occurrences) featured periods of whiteout conditions. The drive was challenging. Glumly, I agreed to nix the plan for dinner out. Our sensible revised plan was to enjoy a leisurely stop at Wegman’s to shop for dinner ingredients!

We opted to plan for fish and vegetables steamed in parchment hearts (how appropriate!), which required a bunch of leeks. And that brings me to this leek! And the recipe from the leek section of Alice Waters’ cookbook, The Art of Simple Food II.

Only a few pantry additions were required for my to make this little dish. I recommend keeping cooked chickpeas on hand for times like this, because they can enhance other leftover vegetables to make a more solid meal meal.

Braised Leeks with Chickpeas, Saffron and Dried Marjoram over Couscous
Adapted from Alice Waters, The Art of Simple Food II
Makes 2 large servings

1 large leek
1/2 sweet onion, sliced or chopped
1/4 teaspoon saffron threads
1/2 Cup light chicken stock, or water
2 Tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1/2 teaspoon dried marjoram
dried chile flakes
salt to taste
1.5 Cups cooked chickpeas
1 garlic clove
Couscous, cooked according to taste/package instructions
additional extra-virgin olive oil, for drizzling

Prep your leek and onion. In my case, I had leftover chopped onion that needed to be used.

Cut off the root end of the leek, and most of the greens, leaving about 1 inch.
Slice in half lengthwise and dip in cold water to swish out any dirt or sand. Pat dry. You could slice the leeks in half lengthwise again, to quarter.

Prep the saffron mixture.

See my saffron? It might be as old as the number of years I have been living on my own…seven plus? *Gasp* That means that the expensive price of $17.50 seems much more reasonable if you calculate its per-year value.

Of course dried herbs aren’t supposed to be kept that long, to be truly flavorful. But the old saffron will still be effective at adding the golden color. And hey, we eat with our eyes, right?

With a mortar and pestle, crush the saffron threads.

If the vessel is large enough, stir in the 1/2 Cup broth, a generous pinch of salt, and 2 teaspoons of EVOO and set near the stove.

Smash the garlic clove and set aside for heating with the chickpeas.

Set a large pan with a heavy bottom over medium heat; pour 1 Tablespoon of olive oil. Arrange the leeks cut-side down and allow to brown slightly, about 6 minutes. After about 4 minutes of the leeks cooking, add in the onions.

Turn the leeks over. Sprinkle with salt, marjoram, and a pinch of dried chile flakes.

Pour in the saffron stock. Add more water to be sure the leeks are sitting in liquid, but not submerged. Partly cover the pan, and cook about 12 minutes, until leeks are tender. Remove the lid and allow the liquid to reduce for about 5 minutes. Meanwhile, heat together the chickpeas and puréed garlic.

Season the leek mixture with salt as needed.

To serve, plate some couscous and spoon chickpeas over top. Spoon some of the leeks and onions, and the braising juices, on top of that. Drizzle with extra-virgin olive oil.