Dinner

Ah, now to get down to brass tacks.  A blog about something I actually cooked.  A simple dinner tonight:  bruschetta, green salad and whole-wheat orecchiette with pinto beans and pesto.

 I quick-soaked half a pound of pinto beans for nearly 2 hours then boiled them until they were pretty much done, adding salt and pepper for the last few minutes of cook time.  Meanwhile, I boiled water for the pasta and prepped the salad.  The salad had red leaf lettuce, alfalfa sprouts, scallions, celery, julienned carrots (thanks to my new swissmar julienne peeler) and my standard homemade vinaigrette:

Combine:
1 clove garlic, minced
juice of 1/2 lemon
1 Tbs. coarsely chopped parsley
1 Tbs. sherry vinegar
1 tsp. grainy mustard
1 tsp. honey
salt and freshly ground pepper
Slowly add 2 Tbs. good extra virgin olive oil while whisking with a fork to emulsify
Toss with salad.

I also made the topping for the bruschetta:

2 ripe Roma tomatoes, diced
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 Tbs. coarsely chopped parsley
splash of sherry vinegar
drizzle of good extra virgin olive oil
salt and freshly ground black pepper

I let that sit while I finished things, and close to the end toasted some of the bread I bought at Eataly, rubbed the toasts with a raw garlic clove, drizzled on some more olive oil, and spread them with some homemade pesto (made at the end of the summer and frozen).  The pesto toasts were topped with the tomato mixture and served.

Once the beans were done, I drained them and sauteed up another clove of coarsely chopped garlic in some olive oil.  I put the pasta up and added to the browning garlic the cooked beans, a good amount of pasta water, red pepper flakes and some chopped sun-dried tomatoes.  When the pasta was al dente, I drained it, squeezed half a lemon into the beans and tossed the pasta with everything in the pan.  I added half a cup of my pesto a sprinkling of salt and pepper and some chopped parsley for garnish.  Not too shabby for a little dinner for 2!

Dinner was delish, and I actually have leftovers because I made the whole pound of orecchiette.  The dressing came out especially good, I think because I used one of my really good olive oils, not just the standard supermarket extra virgin.  The pinto beans were so pretty before they were cooked, I was hoping they would stay spotty but, alas, they just turned pink.  Still, that won't stop me from using them again.

Eataly

I spent the day in Manhattan yesterday.  Visited the Frick Collection uptown, then took the 6 train to 23rd to check out Eataly, a food center for all things Italian.  It is basically a walk-through market divided into sections for produce, dairy, cheese, fish, meat, wine, kitchenware, etc. peppered with several restaurants dedicated to different aspects of Italian cuisine.  There are some stands for take-away, an espresso bar, a pastry shop, a gelateria, a "standing table enoteca", a pizza/pasta restaurant, a fish restaurant, a meat restaurant, and (predictably where I ate) Le Verdure, an all-vegetable restaurant.

Le Verdure leaves something to be desired in the way of atmosphere.  As all of the Eataly restaurants are, it is open to the rest of the market, so I dined next to a shelf full of bottled syrups and fruit juices.  I'm not picky, but I'm not totally psyched over spending $50.+ a person to sit in a plastic chair 50 feet from the checkout counters.  I was with my boyfriend, so we split a bottle of their cheapest white wine ($28. and quite enjoyable), shared the salad special (a spring concoction of lettuces, fava beans, radishes and things in a nice basil dressing), and the bruschette of the day, which were excellent (one with grilled spring onion and red pepper puree, the other with a pea and mint puree and some very nice fresh peas).

The boyfriend ordered a roasted fennel dish with parmigiano, tomato and olives and I ordered the mixed plate which came with a cup of the day's soup, a bit of farro salad, a citrus-y shaved vegetable salad and some amazing battered and fried veggies.  The fennel dish was good, but a little puny for $19.  My soup was a tasty vegetable and bean number, the two salads were alright, nothing to write home about, but the fried vegetables were excellent--so good that I threatened the waiter torture if he wouldn't tell me what was in the batter.  Turns out the secret is Wondra flour, salt and pepper, fried in olive oil.  Seriously delicious.  One day when I'm feeling adventurous I'm going to try cooking it myself.  There were fried asparagus, scallions, zucchini, radish, onion, and sweet potato from what I remember.  I just found this recipe by Lidia Bastianich which, minus the seafood, I'm sure is pretty close to what I was served.

We hit up the gelateria for dessert, taking our wine with us, which was novel.  I wanted to head over to the pizza restaurant to split a pie instead of gelato, but the man wasn't up for it.  The gelato was nice, almost as good as what I had in Italy.  He got coconut, I got hazelnut.  Pizza would have been better, but it's a good excuse to go back.  I've heard good things about their pizza ovens and the guy at the espresso counter said they are supposed to have the best pizza in NY, or America, or some such other improvable claim.

The market was mostly way too costly for me to justify buying much.  I would have considered some cheese or yogurt (they had nice stuff from an organic NY dairy), but I didn't think it was wise considering the hour I had getting home via public transportation.  I did get some nice Italian licorice drops for my mom, and some violet scented ones for me, some "thirst quenching" mints, and a gorgeous gigantic loaf of bread.

 

This bread is seriously huge.  It was their Wednesday special called Miche.  It's made from mostly whole wheat flour with a sourdough starter and some rye flour.  It's pretty much all the bread I will use for a month, so I cut the thing in half, froze one half, sliced the other and portioned it in ziplocs for the fridge.

Definitely worth the $6. and change I paid for it.  In fact, the bread counter had some of the best prices in the place, although their slicing machine was down.  I was kind of disappointed by the lack of samples anywhere in the market.  If I had gotten to sample some of the other breads, I might have left with more than one loaf.  Ditto to the cheese area.  In markets overseas they love for you to taste things, Eataly needs to get up on that if they really want to impart that true Italian experience.  I guess they'd rather have you just go to one of their restaurants.  

All in all, It was an enjoyable experience.  I will definitely go back to try out the pizzas and maybe splurge on some fancy olive oil once my supply runs low (another thing I probably would have bought if they were giving samples--I'm an olive oil-addict).  Certainly, I will make it a point to return on a weekday.  Wednesday night there was crowded enough, and I've read about 2 hour long waits for restaurants and terrible service on weekends.  We were seated within 15 minutes, and found the service to be fine.  I was a bit skeptical about going, but had a lovely meal and a look at what is probably a thriving business.  Whatever they don't sell in the market, they can cook and sell at three times the price in the restaurants.  And I'm sure my bread will show up as part of recipes in blogs to come.

The Veggie Blog

Nearly a year ago, I decided to give up meat.  Several factors contributed to this decision, but I've always been like 80% vegetarian anyway.  Lots of things happened once the meat was gone.  I lost about 15 pounds, began noticing every gastric event my body took part in, and got sort of bored with food.  That's when I started avidly cooking--all right, I really taught myself how to cook one boring summer in high school when all I did was watch the Food Network for 8 hours a day and try to bang out dinner to the groans of my parents--but this was when I really got serious.  I was living alone and started cooking meals for myself--breakfast, dinner, things to bring to work with me (and I work in a restaurant)--you name it, I was cooking it. 

But I still felt a bit limited to pastas, tofu stir fries, salads, the basics; I was using vegetables I already knew how to cook, and techniques with which I was familiar.  So I started reading recipes, and experimenting, and keeping a food journal.  The biggest change came over the holidays when I was given a couple of excellent vegetarian cook books.  The one I refer to as "the Bible", Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, and Rose Elliot's The Complete Vegetarian. 

Bittman opened up my world.  I started soaking my own beans, buying gigantic squash without fear, even baking.  But like I said, I've known how to cook since high school, so I was able to riff on the recipes and add my own style.  That's why I've decided to start this blog, as a guide to other enterprising vegetarians who won't settle for just a veggie burger, and as a reminder to myself of what I've cooked, what I want to cook, what works, and what doesn't.  Let the blog adventure begin...