I came across a recipe that caught my attention in Anna Getty’s soon-to-be-released Easy Green Organic.* It was a recipe from a family friend, which in my mind is always a good sign, and the last sentence in her headnote stated, “the ingredient list is long, but these are the best green beans you’ll ever make.” Green beans, crème fraîche, garlic, golden raisins, almonds, a ranges of spices…in all, seventeen ingredients, of which I had sixteen.

So I wanted to give this general idea a go, and it’s not exactly green bean season, but I made them anyway. And they were so insanely good, even though, admittedly, the green beans I used were sad, sad, sad. My advice? Make this recipe, like this, the next time you see good green beans in your market. In the meantime, make the exact same recipe substituting something that is in season in your corner of the world. I’m going to make it with cauliflower. Like tomorrow. Or the brussels sprouts I bought the other day? Those would be good too. And asparagus season isn’t far off. I’m confident there are any number of substitutions you could make here that wouldn’t disappoint.

I made a few tweaks to the recipe in Anna’s book, reflected below. I like slicing green beans into little o-shapes, so I did that here. I also wanted to make this more of a one-pan meal, so I cut back significantly on the raisins and introduced tiny tofu cubes. I suspect little pan-fried paneer cubes or tempeh would also work. The version in her book is named John Pepper’s exotic green beans, I renamed them here in case someone is looking for the original version – so there wouldn’t be any confusion. Thanks for the inspiration Anna, your book turned out beautifully, I’ve enjoyed spending time with it.

*I’m sure a few of you have noticed, as of this posting, Anna’s book hasn’t shipped (yet!). I provided a quote for the back of the book and received an early copy. I checked with Chronicle Books this morning, and it looks like pre-orders will ship the first week in March.

Continue reading Feisty Green Beans…

Wayne and I regularly frequent a place called Kasa. It takes just about ten minutes to get there on foot. It’s casual, fast, and I know exactly what I like – kati roll, paneer, unda-style with side of daal. The other day I was chatting with Anamika, one of the owners, and she mentioned that she was teaching a cooking class as part of a fund-raiser.

I have to admit that I’m always checking the Kasa blog with the hope that Anamika will post some of her recipes. So when she mentioned she was going to be teaching palak daal – spinach and lentils, and then offered to email me her recipe, I was pretty excited. I’d take a cooking class with Anamika any day, and in the meantime, this was the next best thing.

So, I’m excited to share my attempt at Anamika’s daal – it’s rich, filling, and nutritious. The fragrant spices filling the house were welcome (on yet another) rainy day. Thank you for sharing the recipe Anamika, big congratulations on your new location, and if you ever teach another class I hope to be first in line!

Continue reading Palak Daal…

I’ve been looking forward to running this list for quite some time. Rachel and I met a few years back when she was working toward her Master’s degree in Holistic Health Education. At the time she was interested in learning about some of the work I was doing, and I was happy to let her help me as she worked toward her degree.

Let me start by saying, Rachel is no slouch. She’s involved in a wide range of things, but I’d say the over-arching thread that seems to run through much of what she does is planning events that bring people to the table to reconnect with food, themselves, and each other. She’s the program director of 18 Reasons, Bi-Rite Market’s not-for-profit community center focused on engaging San Francisco residents through art and food. She created Edible San Francisco Magazine’s Edible Pursuit (which was a total blast, btw). And (way back) formed a community potluck series, called Grub, which inspired people of all ages to get back into the kitchen and break bread with their neighbors.

Thanks for taking the time to share this list Rachel, I’m looking forward to attending a good number of your events this year

RACHEL’S COOKING STYLE (in her own words):

My cooking style is simple, intuitive, and seasonal. I was raised in a family that loved two things above all else: cooking & books. We had shelves full of cookbooks and my parents would give my sister and me a new cookbook each holiday season, signed not from Santa Claus, but “From: Julia Child”. And yet while I love cookbooks and find them tremendous sources of inspiration, I honestly can’t remember the last time I followed a recipe.

I have a bent towards whole foods, but I’m no purist, and above all I believe in cooking whatever it is I am craving. The ingredients we have here in the Bay Area are so wonderful they don’t require much fuss (but yes, we do more than put figs on a plate). I eat meat, but not much, and I rarely cook it myself. Cooking and eating vegetarian just suits me. It doesn’t take much more than a warm bowl of dal, Massa rice, and caramelized vegetables to make me happy.

Like many people I have limited time to cook. When I was in grad school, most of my classes were at night, and so I mastered the brown-bag meal. I’m just as busy these days, and I’ve had to perfect the art of “home from work/low-blood sugar/feed me now” cooking. I live on my own and while I’d like to say I spend as much time and care cooking food for myself as I do when feeding friends, it’s not so. When it’s just me, I choose simple fare made with great ingredients and minimal steps…and leftovers are my best friend.

I find I am happiest when I get to cook for and with others. This past Thanksgiving was a perfect example; I was invited to a friend’s house for the dinner and only asked to bring one dish…I showed up with five: an arugula, persimmon, walnut salad, blue cornmeal sage muffins, orange sugar-cube buttermilk biscuits, a citrus, red onion, olive salad, and a blood-orange marmalade tart. Note to self: feed others more often.

RACHEL’S FAVORITE COOKBOOKS:

I moved into my current apartment in November of 2008; life got busy and I didn’t unpack the last boxes until late January. Those boxes contained my cookbooks and unpacking them was like being reunited with some of my closest friends. Here are a few of my favorites:

- The Joy of Cooking: This is the first stop — often referred to as the Bible and rightly so. I think it should be mandatory reading in schools. I’ve read it cover to cover several times and am always amazed to learn something new. It includes everything from directions for table setting to a butcher’s anatomy of a pig. Oh, and it has one of my favorite words to say, “Cockaigne,” which appears in the name of recipes that were favorites of the Rombauer and Becker families. Of course this book is as far from food porn as you can get, and maybe that’s part of why I like it. It’s full of simple, time-tested recipes that don’t need to be in a glossy centerfold to be good.

- Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone: This book gives The Joy of Cooking a run for its money when it comes to being a go-to resource. It was popular in my house growing up and the sticky-fingerprinted margins of my own copy are evidence of its treasured place in my kitchen. I love recipes that are written for people who don’t use recipes. Deborah Madison’s guides to improvising a good vegetable broth, salad, or sandwich are reason enough for every cook to own this gem of a book.

- Fanny at Chez Panisse: My sister and I were encouraged to cook from a very young age and this was one of my first cookbooks. I have vivid memories of making cucumber raita, pasta with parsley and garlic, and “vanilla snow” all on my own. I remember sitting at the kitchen table for long periods, staring at the beautiful Ann Arnold illustrations. It seems as if Alice has always been in my life. My sister, now a chef, had a Chez Panisse poster on her bedroom wall, although we were 3,000 miles from the landmark restaurant. Almost 15 years after I first started to cook from this book, I moved to Berkeley and ended up working at Café Fanny, occasionally serving food to Alice and the real Fanny. The list of great children’s cookbooks is short, and this one is head and shoulders above everything else I’ve seen. I wish every young cook could have a copy.

- The Gourmet Cookbook: The back cover of this cookbook quotes Ruth Reichl saying “Our goal was to give you every recipe you would ever need.” I can’t say that this book has every recipe I’d ever need — that’s a pretty ambitious goal — but I would call it a valuable and much-loved resource. Plus, I am enamored with Ruth. She is the one person I would most want to dine with, meet, and interview. Having her cookbook in my kitchen is a little like having her watching over me at my stove.

- Full Moon Feast: In a world often beaten down by the anti-fat, anti-meat mob, Jessica made it safe, and sensible to begin to incorporate some of these foods into our diet without guilt (and unlike Mr. Atkins she’s a big proponent of carbohydrates too). In this book, Jessica reminds us the importance of reconnecting with natural rhythms of our world through the kitchen. Many of the books I am drawn to allow a window into someone else’s personal journey to nourishment, and that is true of this book. Having just received a Harsch fermentation crock for Christmas this year, I’m eager to finally give her Slow Kraut recipe a go.

- The Hip Chick’s Guide to Macrobiotics: My first thought when I saw this book on the shelf at a used bookstore was that some teen fashion magazine probably published it. But there’s a reason they say “don’t judge a book by it’s cover” because it turned out to be a wonderful introduction to macrobiotic eating and cooking, a topic that had always mystified me. Jessica’s writing is vibrant, funny and she communicates this approach to eating (and life) in an accessible, straightforward way. Books like hers represent my eclectic approach to eating. I love brown rice as much as I love brownies. There is room for it all and this book is a great resource for finding balance.

- How to Cook Everything Vegetarian: I hope Mr. Bittman won’t be offended when I say that I expected not to like this cookbook. I just felt like there wasn’t much left to say on the subject. Did we really need another book to help us make beans and rice? Well, apparently we did. This book is a success in large part because it goes way beyond beans and rice, and because it’s designed in an uncommonly user-friendly way. The recipes are written so that beginner cooks and advanced cooks can both utilize them. They provide solid guidance, but also lots of options and variations for making a dish yours while reminding you that a recipe is just a starting place. One of hidden gems of this compendium is the recipe for Tofu Croutons, which, if you live in the Bay Area, are terrific when made with Hodo Soy Beanery’s tofu.

- Super Natural Cooking: You had to know that Super Natural Cooking would be on my list, right? I’m including it not because this is Heidi’s site, or because I completed one of my graduate internships in her kitchen, but because this is an exceptional book, like no other I’ve seen. For those of us who like nothing more than to surround ourselves with cookbooks, to stack them high on our nightstand and curl up in bed to read them cover-to-cover, Heidi’s book is tops. It is infused with beauty, cover to cover, because Heidi has impeccable style and chose to raise the bar on cookbook design. It is full of whimsical (Animal Crackers), inspired (Savory Amaranth Soufflé), and delicious (Otsu) recipes. Her food is sexy and unapologetically good for you.

- The Big Sur Bakery: A Year in the Life of a Restaurant – This is my newest cookbook, purchased on my first visit to Big Sur. I admit that it’s rare that I buy cookbooks anymore. A book has to say something new, bring fresh energy to my kitchen, and have recipes that are both practical and inspiring if it wants to keep company with me. This book does all that and more. I love it because it has recipes like Hazelnut Flan with Roasted Cherries (who wouldn’t want to make and eat that?!). I love how the chapters are organized by season, the way I cook. I love that it gives a glimpse into a restaurant’s BOH (back of the house) world that so rarely gets its due. And I love it because the incomparable Sara Remington took the photographs — I find it hard to resist any book that has been brought to life by Sara’s camera.

Photos of Rachel and Rachel’s apartment by Bart Nagel.

Continue reading Favorite Cookbooks: Rachel Cole…

I came across a cookie when I visited Portland a couple years back. It was a crackle-edged puddle of chocolate with a texture that made me think of a collision between soft meringue and a fudgy brownie. I kid you not, love is not too strong a word to use here. I fell hard for this cookie.

Without getting too serious, I’ve been having an internal debate about whether or not I should post this recipe. When I post sweets or treats, I like them to have some sort of whole grain twist, or feature a natural sweetener. I mean, that’s usually how I cook and bake. But I have a big-time crush on this cookie, and I figured I’d post the recipe in all it’s powdered sugar, chocolaty glory in case some of you want to make a batch for your Valentine’s Day sweeties. In short, there are just six ingredients between you a batch of these, no mixer necessary – just a big bowl and wooden spoon.

As far as the origins of this recipe? I came across a recipe shortly after my return from Portland that sounded very close to the cookie I tasted there, but the recipe didn’t actually work for me. The good news is that while it didn’t actually work, it did provide a good starting point. I adjusted a few ingredients and my technique, and now I’ve been able to make them reliably. That being said, please read the head notes before making these, they have a few quirks that aren’t like other cookies – and I’ve outlined the exact ingredients I’ve tested and had success with.

Continue reading Chocolate Puddle Cookies…

Last weekend Heather (my sis) and I waited for a break in the rain, loaded little Jack into the stroller, and headed toward the Mission district. We made lots of stops along the way – coffee, lunch, and The Curiosity Shoppe included.

The Curiosity Shoppe always has all sorts of neat things in stock. This time I came across a really sweet, unassuming cookbook titled SoupLove. It’s by chef Rebecca Stevens, just 30 pages in length, single color, and features twelve simple, seasonal soup recipes including this Kabocha French Lentil Soup. The illustrations by Nabil Samadani send the charm factor to a ten.

The soup? It is anise and ginger-spiked, with a broth thickened by lots of roasted winter squash. And for those of you keeping track, I promise, this is the last lentil soup for a while I made a double batch, and we ate generous bowls for dinner topped with lots of extra-garlicky croutons. Then I put enough for one more meal in the refrigerator, and froze three freezer bags worth of leftovers.

For those of you who are interested in tracking down a copy of SoupLove, Nabil has posted a list of stores that are (or will be) stocking it. Or you can order it through Etsy for $8 – there you can see the cover, and a couple of the illustrations.

Continue reading Kabocha French Lentil Soup…

I have Molly Watson to thank for the inspiration here. A while back she posted a recipe featuring a miso-harissa slathered roasted delicata squash. Quite frankly, a combination of ingredients that had never crossed my mind. Building on her idea, I decided to do a roasted squash salad of sorts. I used the pretty, scalloped-edged cross-cuts of the delicata squash, a few small potatoes, chopped kale, radishes, Marcona almonds – and her miso/harissa idea. You know it was good, right? It really was. The flavor was bold and vibrant and it was a breeze to make – no need to peel this type of squash. The vibrant yellow-rimmed slices along with pink-skinned radishes and flecks of green kale were a nice way to bring some color to the winter table.

I suspect you could do endless riffs on this depending on what you have on hand, or what is in season. I hapened to grab for the kale to get some green in the mix, and the nuts for their texture and crunch, but feel free to play around with general idea.

Thank you Molly for the inspiration, lunch is on me next week …

Continue reading Roasted Delicata Squash Salad…

I spent the night at my mom and dad’s house last week. I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before, but they live an hour south of San Francisco in Los Gatos. It’s nice cooking in their kitchen this time of year because the view from the sink is quite beautiful. The hills surrounding their house are an electric shade of green and the old craggy-skinned oak trees are covered in moss and lichen. They say coyotes have been out recently, but when I was growing up it was mainly deer, skunk, and raccoon, (and the occasional rattle snake). I made a big pot of farro and bean stew for them – simple, hearty, and straightforward. They both went back for seconds, and I took that as a good sign.

This recipe below ended up being quite a departure from the recipe I photocopied, folded, and slipped into my overnight bag – regardless, I wanted to mention the book the inspiration came from – La Cucina: The Regional Cooking of Italy. I’ve been reading through it at night. It’s the culmination of the work of the Accademia Italiana della Cucina – an organization of thousands of members who would visit villages, towns, and farms all across Italy to document cooking techniques and ingredients – in order to preserve the culinary heritage of their country. The resulting volume is 930+ pages huge.

The farro soup section has five or six recipes and I thought, a wintery soup along these lines would be something everyone would like – particularly if each bowl had a nice dusting of grated Parmesan, and threads of olive oil on top.

Update: I made another pot of this last night for a friend, we had it drizzled with harissa/olive oil and a good amount of feta cheese. Highly recommended for those of you sitting on fresh harissa supplies from last week . Just do about 1/3 harissa paste to 2/3 olive oil – whisk well.

Continue reading Simple Farro & Bean Stew…

So there was a moment last week when I looked in the freezer, then closed the door. Looked again, winced, then reached a hand into the frosted landscape and extracted a petrified bag of eight Parmesan rinds. Back in for more, next came the stack of frozen rye crepes, one pack of Sambazon acai juice (expiration date 9/2004), gallon-sized freezer bags of cherries from my sister’s tree, and pound after pound of frozen heirloom beans. By the time the excavation was complete I’d regained a square foot or so of freezer space, and had the inspiration for a hearty pot of ribollita defrosting in front of me. Ribollita is a thick Tuscan stew – dark greens, lots of beans, vegetables, olive oil, thickened with day-old bread.

For those of you who are curious, I made note of everything in my freezer: five types of chili powder; three serrano chile peppers; kaffir lime leaves; white popcorn kernels; cooked chickpeas, mung beans, flageolets, and marrow beans; lots of Massa brown rice; pasta sheets; unidentified cookie dough #1; unidentified cookie dough #2; cooked posole in one bag, red sauce in another (for this); 2 pounds wild huckleberries; 1 sweet whole wheat pastry tart shell, round; 1 sweet whole wheat pastry tart shell, rectangle; 6 small spelt-semolina tart shells; small bag of ginger juice; 2 pounds Straus European-style butter; plenty of this green soup – I puree it and make a tart filling; one pack of three-grain tempeh; a stack of frozen rye crepes; cooked farro, pound of green beans; pack of expired acai juice; 8 Parmesan rinds, and roughly five pounds of cherries from my sister’s tree.

Phew. So after deciding to put some of those beans to use, I made this ribollita. I should mention, it’s one of those things where there are as many ways to make it as there are cooks. I normally use whole canned tomatoes this time of year – torn up. But had crushed tomatoes onhand, and they worked out nicely. As far as guidelines go? Your ribollita should be thick – eventually. The photo up above is a little deceptive. It was shot just after I made the ribollita, five minutes after I turned off the heat. Things hadn’t finished thickening up entirely. You can see it is quite brothy around the edges. This changed substantially in the hours to follow, and this morning a glance at the leftovers told me I might be able to stand a fork up in it. I add abit of lemon zest at the end for a bit of brightness, and because I can’t help myself. And I like the saltiness of the olives alongside the kale, so that’s a little bonus as well.

Continue reading Ribollita…

This is a thank-you note to Pam Corbin. Pam wrote the lovely River Cottage Preserves Handbook.* And in the very back of this exquisite little book, long past the rhubarb relish, and well beyond the piccalilli and winter fruit compote, she proposes a simple idea: make your own bouillon blend. I’m not sure why this never occurred to me, but until I reached page 207, it hadn’t. She outlines a list of ingredients that are pureed into a concentrated paste of vegetables and herbs, preserved with salt. I’ve been cooking with a version of it all week, and it is infinitely better than any canned vegetable stock I’ve tasted. And the best part about it? I can build on the general idea and tweak it based on what is in season and my own personal preferences – which is what I did.

Technically a bouillon cube is a dehydrated cube or powder used to create an instant vegetable stock. Pam calls her version “souper mix”….but you use it in a way similar to bouillon cubes. To make quick, flavorful broth, for example when cooking soups, risottos, curries, whatever really. Just keep in mind it is quite salty and concentrated – I mention in the recipe I’ve been using 1 teaspoon per 1 cup of water/liquid to start. This first batch was made primarily with ingredients from my refrigerator, but I’m really excited to try other versions using different herbs and ratios of the base ingredients. In fact, if you have any suggestions or ideas give a shout in the comments – I’d love to hear them .

That’s it for now. Last week our friends Hadley and Philip visited from New Zealand with their two kids, so I found myself on a perfect January day ferry-bound to Alcatraz. I brought my camera, so I’ll post a few shots to my Flickr stream for those of you who are interested.

*The U.S. edition of the River Cottage Preserves Handbook will be available this summer.

Continue reading Homemade Bouillon…

There are a number of reasons I love working on books. I love being able to live with recipes and images for months, or even years. Something about revisiting and working on them over time just feels right. I love taking photographs for print. I enjoy the collaborative process of working on a book. I love holding a finished book in my hands…there are a lot of reasons.

I’m sitting here looking at a document dated December 18, 2005, it is my author agreement with Ten Speed Press for Super Natural Cooking. I don’t know how four years passed so quickly, but it has. I delivered the manuscript and photography in August 2006, the book was published the following spring. I loved working on that book. And now, looking back on it, I’m realizing I sort of never stopped.

Not long after submitting the manuscript for Super Natural Cooking, I started setting aside photos I loved, and continued to keep notebooks of my favorite recipes, ideas, and inspirations. I wasn’t sure what I would do with them, or what would emerge over time, but I had a hunch something might. Or not. Either way, I don’t like the idea of rushing these sorts of things. I’ve come to believe you can’t really rush inspiration, it comes on its own schedule, emerging and intersecting my life when it sees fit. I just try to keep my eyes open.

Keeping it local: Aaron Wehner, now publisher of Ten Speed Press, also happens to be a friend and neighbor. It’s nice to be able to casually throw ideas around with him at the playground in the park across from my house, or over coffee up the block. I suspected (and hoped) that if I was going to work on another book, it would be with Ten Speed. They’re located in Berkeley, and there’s nothing quite like being able to share font inspirations with your designer face to face, or hang out with your editor over lunch or drinks. I’ve been very fortunate in that regard.

Now, there’s a big difference between thinking about a book, and turning an idea into an actual book. I’m not sure if it is like this for everyone, but speaking for myself, committing to a book project is both exciting and terrifying. There was a point last year when my excitement about the prospect of making a new book tipped the balance away from terrified, and I started attempting to wrangle things into something real and cohesive. Something I was excited to share.

A new cookbook: I’m working on one I’ll submit the manuscript and photography to Ten Speed this summer, and it will be published in spring 2011. It will be a follow up to Super Natural Cooking, and the working title is Super Natural Everyday. In short, it’s a glimpse into my everyday cooking and everyday life. All new recipes, all new photography. In equation form: Me + Northern California + cooking with natural foods + my kitchen in San Francisco = Super Natural Everyday.

The recipes: The recipes are rooted in whole and natural foods. They typically feature a handful of seasonal ingredients, some inkling of nutritional balance, and most come together with minimal effort. At times it’s tough, but I’ve resisted the urge to include any over-the-top, special-occasion creations. I also skipped any that had lots of components, or required elaborate time commitments. Instead, I went back to my notebooks and have anchored the book in my favorite everyday creations. The recipes I revisit over and over.

There is so much more I’d like to tell you about it, so much I’m excited to share. I was thinking I might write a series of posts focused on the creative process of making this book if you’re interested? I was thinking: photography; the manuscript; the design process; inspiration; the recipes….? Let me know what you think.

And most importantly, this post wouldn’t be complete without a heartfelt thank you to all of you who embraced Super Natural Cooking. Simply stated, without your support, I wouldn’t be working on another book.

Continue reading A First Look…