Making The Most Of Lenten Fridays

 Lenten Fridays can be a bit of a cooking challenge for observant home chefs. Meat is off the table so what do you do?  Go meatless for one day. There's enough recipes out there that are perfect for the weeks leading up to Christian Easter.

Eating less meat is good anyway. It's a chance to infuse more veggies into the diet. A simple but flavorful meal is ratatouille. This is a classic French Provencale dish of eggplant, tomatoes and onions. It can be varied to include bell peppers and squash coins. Its zinged up with such herbs as thyme and basil. Garlic is a must because it amps up the flavor. What's great is that you can make a lot for a Friday dinner and have some left over for A Saturday or Sunday meal. Make it special with a just from the oven focaccio or a loaf of garlic bread. You could even make a ratatouille pizza for something different. It's putting  all the veggies on the dough and adding sauce and shredded mozzarella.Pizza is another tasty idea, even without the pepperoni. You can add shrimp or make it more luxe with lobster. Shred and put boiled tail meat on the dough along with the rest of the ingredients. Another way to go is healthy with spinach and kale. You could also have it with just onions and scallions for a different , more allium flavor.

If you're tired of pizza then think vegan shepherd's pie. If you're wondering about the filling.don't. You can use the plant based Beyond Beef for the filling. Add some carrots and peas along with tomato sauce. The topping is mashed potatoes used as a crisp crust. Dot with butter for a more flavorful topping. You can also do a vegan beef or chicken pot pie. All it takes is Beyond Beef mixed with different veggies like tomatoes and zucchini , baking potatoes and white mushrooms. Tamari and rice wine vinegar give it zing. Veggie broth makes the gravy that is a pot pie's signature feature. Two sheets of Pillsbury Crescent dough rolls  create the flaky top. You can also make Beyond Burgers too. They're just as good as the real thing. You can go totally vegan by adding slices of vegan cheddar for a tasty cheeseburger. Make it a fun Friday night meal by adding French fries. Another vegan meat idea is Beyond Beef meatballs with spaghetti. It's an easy make because they come already made. You can also make them into tasty subs, another fun Friday night dinner.

Lenten Friday's don't have to be fraught. There are so many different veggie, fish and plant based meat recipes out there. You can choose any of these for a great and meatless way to end the week.

A Dinner Trip Italian Style

 Many of us are longing for a culinary trip to Italy or at least a good meal out  at our favorite Italian restaurant. However it's not happening soon enough and with that we have to look to our own kitchens for culinary travel. Any home chef can easily recreate a good Italian dinner from antipasto to dessert. It's having the right recipes with fresh ingredients.

David Tanis offered this in yesterday's New York Times Food section He has the perfect week night or Sunday meal, complete with home baked  Sicilian almond cookies. The meals starts with a mozzarella and charred radicchio. Salsa verde, the  classic Northern Italian sauce is drizzled on top for a sharp jolt of flavor. This is an easy antipasto which also can make for a light lunch too.Start with fior di latte or Italian mozzarella. You can use the American type if you can't find it. It's paired with charred radicchio, an easy cook. Cut it into wedges and grill under the broiler if you don''t have a cast iron pan to cook it in. The salsa verde is simple to create.Parsley, cilantro, chives  and capers are put into a small bowl with lemon zest,olive oil lemon juice and sumac. It's blended and then spooned over the mozzarella and radicchio. Another easy make are the Italian or Sicilian almond cookies. These are similar to macaroons , chewy on the inside and crunchy on the out. They made with egg whites (but you could use aqua faba here) along with granulated sugar and almond extract. They're finished with a dusting of confectioner's sugar and either a whole unblanched almond or Amarena cherry in the middle. These pretty cookies would be perfect for Easter too.

The star of this whole meal is the main course.It's rigatoni al forno with cauliflower and broccoli rabe. There's nothing like a baked pasta and add to that the healthy kick of cruciferous veggies. What makes this dish stand out is a creamy white bechamel sauce made with half and half and virgin olive oil along with nutmeg.Home made tomato sauce, is also added but at the table when it's being served. This is the classic recipe with tomatoes, onion garlic and basil cooked with olive oil and then blended down into a rich , thick sauce. The pasta and veggies are cooked in the same pot, with the rigatoni being boiled first then the cauliflower and broccoli rabe. These are mixed with the pasta and bechamel sauce along with garlic, rosemary and red pepper flakes. More olive oil is drizzled one. Pecorino and Provolone cheeses are added too and then all of this transferred to an oiled baking dish, It's baked in a 400 degree Farenheit oven for forty minutes until it's nicely browned and crisp on top. It's served in either bowls or plates, each serving should have a nice crispy top. The tomato sauce is spooned around the pasta and more cheese is sprinkled on top.

A trip to Italy is a long way off. Even visiting an Italian restaurant can be chancy. Yet we can recreate a three course meal with the flavors of both the North and South right in our kitchen. It's a fun culinary trip, that's easy to recreate.

The Cookbooks That Sustained Us

 The best sellers of 2020 were not thrillers or romance - although they certainly had thrills and love in them. They also had flavor. What sold during the pandemic year? Cookbooks. Thousands of them. They helped us get through some of the most difficult times.

Kim Severson wrote about this phenomena of sorts in today's New York Times Food section.Cookbooks were everyone's go to , starting almost exactly a year ago. They comforted us, taught us how to cook comfort food as well as exotic dishes,Best of all they were simply a friend to home chefs, looking for an escape from a scary new normal.It's no wonder that sales were up seventeen per cent from 2019. The stars were predictable. Joanna Gaines and Ina Garten were at the top. Samin Nosrat, a regular contributor to the New York Times Food section. Her Salt,Fat, Acid, Heat, (Simon and Schuster) was number five on The New York Times non fiction best sellers list. Others, like Claire Saffitz's Dessert Person: Recipes and Guidance for Baking with Confidence (Clarkson Potter) also rose to the top ten, speaking to our need for sweet comfort last year. Trends emerged too. Sales of vegan cookbooks soared as did  ones revolving around health. This was due to people concerned about the planet and their own Covid-19 threatened lives. Vegetable Kingdom: The Abundant World of Vegan Recipes by San Francisco chef, Bryant Terry sold 30,000. African American cookbooks like   Toni Tipton -Martin's Jubilee Recipes From Two Centuries of African American Cooking, a mix of history and cooking also sold.

Of course books about baking bread soared. People wanted to join the sourdough trend. Yet other trends emerged too. There was a run on canning and preserving books because many home chefs went out and bought canning equipment. The same was true for grilling. The sales of pellet grills and smoking cookbooks were simultaneous. That's why Franklin Manifesto : A Meat Smoking Manifesto written by Aaron Franklin and Jordan Mckay was a breakout hit. The book sold a whopping 360,000 copies with 500,000 in print.Pizza cookbooks were other big sellers. Flour,Water, Salt, Yeast : The Fundamentals  Of Artisan Bread and Pizza written by Ken Forkish and published by the food centric Ten Speed Press became the top selling baking book on Amazon with 600,000 books in print. Home chefs wanted to travel too and they did it through cookbooks.In Bibi's Kitchen: The Recipes and Stories of Grandmothers From the Eight African Countries That Touch The Indian Ocean shows  the different comfort recipes from Eastern Africa along with Dan Buettner's The Blue Zones Kitchen which combines lush photography from around the world with international recipes.

Cookbooks will always be a source of comfort. They not only teach us but take us away from what had been the scary normal. They were godsends in a truly turbulent year.

Away From The Sauce

 A homemade tomato sauce is many a home chef's go to. It's an easy make and cook. Yet it can be too much , especially if it's made often. I had to break away with a mushroom. sauce that works perfect with polenta or pasta. I decided to go with the polenta  - again because sometimes too much pasta is just that - too much.

I started out with sixteen ounces of spinach and two pounds of chopped baby bellas.

I added Morningstar Farms soy chicken strips for protein and flavor.

The sauce was going to be served  with grilled polenta slices.

The sauce was an easy make. The mushrooms and spinach were washed and put into a mix of simmering olive oil and tablespoons of I Can't Believe It's Not Butter. 

Use about three glugs of olive oil and about three to four generous tablespoons of I Cant' Believe It's Not Butter. I also added a Not Chick'n bouillon cube and half a cup of water to make it more gravy like.

Try to get fat cloves of garlic I used two for optimum flavor. They're then chopped.

The chicken was cooked separately in the microwave for about three minutes

Then as all these components were cooking I sliced and fried the polenta.

They were fried in olive oil for a few minutes.

The finished product was a tasty light sauce that was chock full of flavor. The mushrooms and spinach  are a perfect marriage and adding the fake chicken broth was inspiring. I even dunked some Italian bread into the sauce.It was that good. I plan on making this with fettuccine the next time around.

If you're tired of tomato sauce, then try this tasty mushroom, spinach and chicken sauce. It's a nice departure from the usual tomato sauce. It's refreshing and light, perfect for pasta or polenta.s

The Versatile Vegetable Garden

 It is March and that means Spring planting is just around the corner. Yet what to plant? The answer is simple - veggies  that will be the most versatile and the most useful. Plant produce that can be used in several different recipes - not just one.

You can start your versatile garden right away and expect crops in late April or early May. One of the best to plant relatively soon is lettuce. Try Romaine and butterhead because they're the most hardiest right now, Romaine lettuce is the base of Caesar salad but it's also good grilled and then tossed for a different spin. Lettuce can be used for Asian style wraps and cups along with gracing BLT's and any cold hero. Another early and versatile veggie you can plant in a few weeks is spinach. This is a home chef's best friend.It's perfect giving color and flavor to soups such as the Italian classic stratticiella  but it also is great filling a crepe or omelet. The leaves can also be wrapped in a buttery dough for spinach tart or turned into a filling but delicious salad. Just add hard boiled eggs and bacon along with a tangy vinaigrette to the last.Keep in mind that spinach can be added to smoothies  and juiced on its' own for extra iron. Beets are another versatile veggie that can be planted right now. They can be transformed into a tasty borscht or be served cold in a mouth watering salad.

Of course the garden stars, peppers and tomatoes should be planted by mid April or early May. These are definite garden musts.Any color of bell pepper can be stuffed with any kind of ground meat and breadcrumbs for a tasty main course. Of course pepper strips are a wonderful snack with seasoned Greek yogurt and they add color and sweetness to any salad. They are wonderful charred on the grill with only a drizzle of olive oil and sea salt. Everyone should plant tomatoes. They are vital to any home chef's repertoire.A bumper crop is useful in making a winter's worth of freezable sauces. You can also turn them into homemade salsas and ketchup.Grow a variety.That way you have them for different dishes. Have one corner of the garden dedicated to grape or jelly bean tomatoes. These are perfect in summer salads and just good snacks on their own. Another patch can be staked out for Opalka or Black Prince varieties. These produce tomatoes with a deep rich flavor perfect for making tomato paste. The best of these tomatoes is , of course, the San Marzano. The ruby red gems can be eaten fresh from the vine or cooked into a mouth watering sauce. Then there's everybody's favorite  - the beefsteak. These are just the thing for that classic summer sandwich - sliced beeksteaks on mayo slicked ,salted and peppered white bread.

Now is the time to start planning your versatile vegetable garden. Pick kinds that you'll use in a variety of different recipes. Doing such is a great way of making that garden grow!!!

So Many Sheet Pan Recipes

 It's time to think about easy meals now that we're heading towards long and busier days. These are an easy assembly and cook in the oven. They require minimum fuss. Even better is that you can make them for any meal breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Where can you get these recipes? The Sunday New York Times  has a special section this Sunday This is a great keeper because it has twenty  recipes  of all sorts along with the history of the sheet pan dinner. We have Martha Stewart to thank for them. It started twenty years ago when she was regularly using them on her show. Viewers noticed. A sheet pan meal is easy to throw together.It's a cousin of those classic one pot meals where veggies, starch and protein are mixed together to form a tasty and substantial meal.Social media glorified this humble kitchen must have.Its' non reflective aluminum surface proves to be a good backdrop for caramelized carrots, burnished  or a roast chicken. As far as the sheets themselves, you can use a whole or a half. It doesn't matter. Sheet pans are also inexpensive. A good one is less than twenty dollars so it pays to have two or three. As for the recipes you can use these or be inspired and create your own. These are really good ones. Pati Jinich , the celebrity chef and star of the PBS series, Pati's Mexican Table offers the mouthwatering recipe for bricklayer nachos, a yummy blend of roasted tomatoes cooked with bacon, beef sirloin and chorizo.There is also homemade pizza , the first sheet pan meal made wholesome with the addition of arugula and asparagus.

Of course there is the original sheet pan recipe. This is a marriage of chicken, broccoli rabe and sweet potatoes, the chicken crunchy and juicy while the sweet potatoes are deliciously tender. The broccoli rabe becomes crispy and zingy thanks to being tossed with olive oil and hot pepper flakes.The  chicken gets its' flavor from being rubbed with mustard butter. However you can vary it. Try the chicken with squash and dates, Crispy chickpeas give it more protein and flavor You can even skip the chicken for a flavorful meal. Sheet pan meals aren't just limited to chicken. Try a shrimp boil that has seasoned shrimp, broiled corn and roasted potatoes. Another recipe involves cumin roasted pork chop with Brussels sprouts.It's a mix of sweet , thanks tot he brown sugar and spicy , due to the red pepper flakes and cumin. There are also tofu sheet pan dinners that are tempting tries. The tofu and green beans with chili crisp look like a great dinner to liven up a week night and there's also crisp tofu with sweet potatoes. This is a Melissa Clark recipe and she coats the tofu in cornstarch before roasting for a crispy bite.There are also breakfast recipes., One is a simple bacon and eggs one , perfect for larger families. The other one is buttermilk pancakes, made even more delicious with the addition of mini chocolate chips. The recipe is from chef Jerrelle Guy who makes the pancakes even more fluffier by cutting the cold butter into the flour.

Get tomorrow's Sunday's New York Times and keep the sheet pan section. These are keeper recipes that are easy to make any time of day, Try them and see what the whole fuss about sheet pan dinners are about

The Backbone Of Vegan Soup

 Many may think that vegan and vegetarian chefs have it hard especially when it comes to making homemade soups and stews. However , there's a little ingredient they use that helps tremendously. It's Not Chick'n and Not Beef bouillon cubes. They are a lifesaver.

I've been using the chicken flavored one for some time.This is great from making everything from the family classic pompeist - Piedmontese breadcrumb soup and straticciella. Italian spinach soup. It's also the base of my celery and cauliflower soups.

I've recently discovered the company's Edwards and Sons beef version. I love this on its' own .It has a rich , definite flavor exactly like the real thing.

I plan on using this in French onion soup and slow cooked beef stew. As you can see, the cubes are a little bigger than the average bouillon cube and two work added to five cups of water. You could use vegetable stock but to be honest it's not as flavorful as these. They can also be used for gravies  and even chilis, producing a much richer version than what most vegans make. Stop & Shop carries these but you can also get them at H-Marts and Shop Rites in the New York City metro area.

These are should be the backbone of any vegan soup and stew. They are perfect for creating copies of much loved and tasty meat stock based ones. Try them today.