Brooklyn Forager

Too hot to cook.  Too hot to write.  Too hot to even think about the back-logged posts that I have with some delicious recipes waiting to share.  And yet, here I am with a new post! A suitably frozen one, at that. 

Over the past few weeks, A and I have been independently reading and discussing the various problems that people have with dairy.  Don't worry - I'm not giving it up (although I am as convinced as ever that organic is really the only way to go for milk if you're partaking).  I did, however, pick up some rice milk at Trader Joe's to give it another try.

I had tried rice milk on its own quite a few years ago and found it tasted like watery rice.  Which it is, so I guess I got what I deserved. I'm not sure how vegans take their rice milk, but I think that once one is committed, you might not be craving a glass of milk with your PB&J in quite the same way that I do now.  After this attempt, as an ingredient with other tasty ingredients, I'm sold on rice milk. 

The other thing that made the rice milk enjoyable is that I bought myself a little treat.  I love toys.  That's why I have too much stuff in the kitchen, but this one additional purchase may have made my whole summer.  I got myself the Fit & Fresh Smooth Blend Mixer.  We have a blender, but it's full size and makes great smoothies for four.  This is much like the ones you've seen on TV where it is a single cup that attaches to a machine and then you can take it on the go with you.  Love the toys.  

So, to give my new toy a test drive, I threw together some vanilla rice milk, fresh squeezed orange juice (I wanted lime, but alas had none and it was too hot to leave the house), frozen pineapple (I bought one fresh a few weeks ago and cut it up and threw it in the freezer), and frozen mango (Trader Joe's).  A quick buzz and voila! A tropical orange julius-like smoothie that definitely helped take the edge off the heat.  Except to see more smoothie recipes in short order.  Yum! 

(Please forgive me the photo quality - some poor battery charging planning and I was left with only my phone's camera.)

Pineapple Mango Smoothie

• 1/4 c. fresh squeezed citrus juice (orange, lime, lemon, maybe even grapefruit!)
• 1 c. vanilla rice milk
• 1 c. frozen pineapple chunks
• 1/2 c. frozen mango chunks
• fresh mint leaves (optional)

1. Add ingredients into your mixer according to the directions (mine called for liquids first, then heavier ingredients, so I added in the order listed above).
2. Blend it.  
3. Garnish with additional mint if you'd like. 
4. Enjoy!
5. This makes 16 ounces of smoothie. 

I have a confession to make. Some nights, I just don't want to cook. Period. I know that happens to us all, but somehow the guilt comes rushing in every time.

For nights like those, I am trying to amass easy, tasty and healthy meals to save us from the call of takeout pizza. One of my favorite sources for inspiration for these meals is The Splendid Table Weeknight Kitchen emails. They're not always as simple as you'd like for a Tuesday, but the recipes are almost always a success.

This one was particularly successful because I mostly have the ingredients on hand at any given time. I haven't solved the wrap/flatbread as a pantry item yet since we don't go through them quite fast enough, but they are easy enough to pick up on the way home.

For me, the yogurt sauce is the star here, but the flexibility of heat and flavor for the garbanzos is great. There is so much potential for variety! If you play with it, let me know how it goes!

Spicy Garbanzo Bean Burritos with Cucumber Yogurt Sauce (adapted from the Splendid Table e-mail)

• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• 1-1/2 cups thinly sliced onion (about 1 medium onion)
• 2 teaspoons ground coriander
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• Two 15-ounce cans garbanzo beans (chickpeas), drained
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
• 6 large flour tortillas

Cucumber Yogurt Sauce 

• 1/2 cup plain greek yogurt (I used 2%)
• 1 small Persian or English cucumber, peeled and grated on medium holes (about 1/2 cup)
• 1/2 teaspoon paprika
• Salt and pepper to taste

1. Heat a large sauté pan over medium and add the oil. Add garlic and onion and cook for 6 minutes. Add the coriander, cumin, red pepper flakes, and paprika and mix well. Add the garbanzo beans and cook for about 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Season with salt and pepper and then stir in the cilantro.
2. As the garbanzo beans finish cooking, make the sauce. Mix together all of the ingredients in a small bowl.
3. Spoon 1/2 cup of the garbanzo bean mixture onto each tortilla and top with some yogurt sauce. Fold up tortillas on one end, roll tightly and serve. 

Occasionally I've posted about our trips up to Vermont.  Aside from the fact that anyone could find a bounty of local food stuff in that region, I've also mentioned that we are lucky to have (currently) Vermont-local family who also greatly appreciate great local products.  That family also happens to be the source of my most authentic Chinese recipes. Again, this combination has served me well.  

We arrived home from our last Vermont trip laden with a multitude of greens picked right from the family garden and a carton of the oddest shaped (and tastiest!) eggs I've ever seen courtesy of Earl.  I've cooked with spinach and arugula a million times, and so these were slotted into familiar recipes.  What, however, would I do with the great abundance of Chinese chives? 

Chinese chives are also known as garlic chives which should give you a pretty decent sense of their flavor profile.  When I took a nibble of the uncooked chives, they tasted like ramps on crack with a heavy dose of garlic.  Yes, please! Once cooked, the flavor does become more subtle, but not much.  

In the past, I've pretty much exclusively had these lovely greens chopped up in pork dumplings (and maybe once sauteed on their own).  Life has been busy and while dumplings are on the list for future adventures, this was not happening in the middle of the week without planning. 

Action shot: A shoots while I whisk.Once accompanied by Earl's eggs, the chives pretty much cook themselves.  In a traditional family interpretation, I scrambled four of the largest, most golden yolks you have ever laid eyes on with a mountain of chives.  Usually a side dish, we ate it as a main course served over rice with a spicy cucumber and radish salad.  

It would have been satisfying even without the esteemed provenance of our eggs and chives, but the flavors were elevated to fabulous by keeping it close to home.  If you don't have access to my particular purveyors, good farmers' market eggs will do and I have seen the Chinese chives at the Union Square Greenmarket.  Give it a try! 

Earl's Eggs with Chinese Chives

• 1 large bunch of Chinese chives, chopped in roughly 2 inch lengths 
• 3-4 farm-freshest eggs you can find, beaten
• 1-2 tbsp light tasting oil (olive oil is fine, but something light is preferred), divided. 
• pinch of sea salt

1. Heat half of oil in large pan. Pour beaten eggs into oil and cook about halfway.  Remove eggs from pan and set aside. 
2. Heat remaining oil in same pan.  Add chives and stir fry over high heat.  When almost cooked and still bright green, add eggs to chives.  Sprinkle with salt and cook until just formed, but still moist. 
3. Enjoy over rice. 

I love Momofuku anything.  Needless to say, then, when I saw this recipe written up here and here, I knew it would be a matter of time before I made it myself.  

My favorite noodles at Momofuku noodle are the Cold Spicy Noodles for which I have yet to find a recipe (blogsphere - is it out there?).  Since I can't make those, these were a decent substitute for my ramen noodle craving. 

In order to make this a more complete meal, I marinated some shrimp in soy sauce, sriracha, garlic and lime juice briefly and stir-fried them with shredded carrots.  As has been suggested in other interpretations of this dish, you would do well to try the noodles topped with stir-fried chicken, tofu, bok choy or even a gooey poached egg.  

(Side note re: shrimp - I didn't write down my recipe before some useless fact replaced it, but the marinade was good enough to try again.  Look for a recipe in the future.)

The dish also gave me a chance to showcase our very own homegrown scallions! I did use some from the market since I wanted to get some whites in there, but it was nice to have the local touch from the garden.

The taste of these noodles is undeniably good.  My chief complaint is the effort involved in mincing massive quantities of ginger and the hefty kick of eating all the minced ginger left in the bottom of an otherwise empty bowl.  I may experiment with larger slivers of ginger to minimize chopping time and ginger exposure.  Otherwise, with David Chang, how can it not be wonderful? 

Ginger Scallion Noodles
adapted from Momofuku

• 2 1/2 cups thinly sliced scallions (greens and whites; from 1 to 2 large bunches)
• 1/2 cup finely minced peeled fresh ginger
• 1/4 cup grapeseed or other neutral oil
• 1 1/2 tsp light soy sauce
• 3/4 tsp sherry vinegar (try with Shaoxing rice wine!)
• 3/4 tsp kosher salt, or more to taste
• 1 pound ramen noodles

1. Combine scallions, ginger, oil, soy, vinegar, and salt in a bowl. Taste and check for salt, adding more if needed. If possible, let sauce sit for 15-20 minutes before dressing noodles.
2.  While sauce sits, prepare the noodles according to package directions. Drain and toss with Ginger Scallion Sauce.  Enjoy!

I started out my enjoyment of cheese in a very limited fashion - all Cracker Barrel Cheddar, all the time.  While there are still some cheeses that I'm not rushing out to try, I have expanded my tastes greatly over time.  For my new love of feta, I credit my husband.  A friend showed me that feta really isn't all that strong and really is good, but his insistence on Greek salads for much of the last year at a local pizza joint made me actually start craving feta on my own. 

This salad came about because of one of those cravings.  I have had a box of Trader Joe's Israeli couscous on my shelf for awhile and wanted to use it.  I also have relatively unfettered access to mint from our herb garden (I've been instructed to let the other herbs have a chance to grow before I dive in).  With these three ingredients, I found myself with an interesting couscous salad and a new way to make shrimp.  By combining these two recipes, a regular dish in our household was born. 

I served this with an interesting value wine that I picked up on the $12 and under table at Brooklyn Wine Exchange.  I've found myself looking for white wines as the weather turns bright, but I'm over a lot of the oaky buttery chardonnays that I used to enjoy.  Enter the 2008 Ermita de Nieve Verdejo, a Spanish white with a lot of floral perfume and some pineapple notes that made it crisp enough and bold enough to be very enjoyable with food.  It is touted as a great alternative to sauvignon blanc.  I recommend checking it out if the weather ever heats up again!

Roasted Sea Salt Shrimp (adapted from The Barefoot Contessa, see above)

• 12 jumbo shrimp, peeled and deveined
• olive oil
• sea salt
• fresh cracked black pepper
• 2 cloves garlic, minced or pressed

1. Preheat oven to 400F. (If you have a convection or toaster oven, think about that since it heats up the kitchen way less!)
2. Toss shrimp with olive oil, garlic, sea salt and pepper to taste.  Spread evenly in foil-covered baking dish. 
3. Roast for 5-6 minutes.  (Watch closely.  It's easy to go just a touch over the edge and end up with dry shrimp). 

Toasted Israeli Couscous with Feta and Mint (adapted from Fine Cooking, see above)

Serves 4

• 1 1/3 cup Israeli couscous (one Trader Joe's package)
• 1/4 cup plus 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil, divided
• 1/2 cup coarsely chopped mint (spearmint, peppermint or pineapple mint work well)
• 1/2 English cucumber or regular cucumber, peeled, seeded (if necessary) and diced
• 1 cup grape tomatoes, sliced in halves or thirds depending on size
• pickled red onions or sliced red onions
• juice of 1 lemon
• 1 tbsp pickling liquid from onions or red vinegar
• freshly ground black pepper
• 1 cup finely diced or crumbled feta cheese
• 1 tsp. lemon zest, optional

1. Add two tablespoons olive oil to heavy saucepan (or large skillet if you want to dirty two pans).  Add couscous and saute gently until golden brown. 
2. Add water or broth as directed by couscous package, roughly 10 minutes. (See original recipe for suggestions if needed.)  Drain and rinse under cool water.  Add couscous to large bowl and toss with cucumber, tomato, onions and mint. 
3. In a small bowl, mix 1/4 cup olive oil, lemon juice, vinegar and black pepper.  (Add zest if using.)  Add feta to dressing.  Toss dressing with couscous. 
4. Add roasted shrimp or another protein.  Consider grilled chicken, seasoned tofu, pine nuts or other options as well. 
5. NOTE: We ate two servings on the first night and the leftovers one day later.  The dish still tasted fresh and maybe even a bit better as the flavors melded.