Recipes, Main Dish
August 19, 2007
Avocados Again
I love avocados. I love them just about every way I've tried them. I love them in guacamole and milkshakes. I love them in this very easy appetizer a woman from Japan once served me:
Slice an avocado into thin but not-too-thin segments. Fan out on a plate. Douse in soy sauce, then sprinkle liberally with freshly ground pepper. Provide toothpicks for spearing.
I also love them in sandwiches. When I lived in Iowa City, home of the marvelous New Pioneer Co-op (which was only one of the many reasons it was much easier to be an almost-vegetarian there than in NW PA), I liked ordering the vegan Rock & Roll Avocado Tofuwich (scroll down to find this sandwich). I tried recreating this sandwich myself, and made an acceptable substitute. And then I just started making avocado sandwiches.
Currently my favorite sandwich is this:
Avocado and Jam Sandwich
two slices wheat bread
raspberry jam
one half of an avocado
white cheese of your choice; I used swiss for a long time but currently prefer a nice sharp cheddar
cinnamon
Spread the raspberry jam on one slice of bread. If you want to melt the cheese, put it on the other slice. (I melt the cheddar but didn't melt the swiss, mostly because the swiss came in big slices but the cheddar I buy comes in little wedges and the slices fall off the bread unless I melt them.) Mash or slice the avocado up and spread over the cheese if melted or on the other slice of bread if it's not melted. Sprinkle cinnamon liberally on the avocado. Smash both sides together and eat.
The flavors are all fairly strong but they blend together well. It's really good. I think I'll make one right now.
Posted by Holly at 11:07 AM | Comments (5)
March 10, 2006
Sylvia's Taco Filling
A couple of weeks ago I got a profound hankering for tacos, so I went to Wegmans, bought all the ingredients, then headed home and started cooking. I was browning the ground beef and thinking about the fact that although I try to avoid eating meat, sometimes it can't be helped because sometimes I just need tacos, when it occurred to me that I could substitute some sort of textured vegetable protein for the hamburger in this recipe and it would turn out just fine--and that I already knew this because my friend Matthew and I did precisely that while I was visiting him last November in Brussels.
My mother made sure her young children got plenty of protein: we had meat--usually red--at almost every meal: bacon for breakfast, some sort of beef for lunch and dinner. Nowadays I eat less meat each week than I used to eat each day. Considering how carnivorous my upbringing was, I think I could use the slogan of those old Virginia Slims ads--"You've come a long way, baby"--but instead of raising a cigarette casually to my mouth as a sign of my very admirable and enviable progress, I'd be holding a bowl of spicy tofu and vegetables, contemplating the meal with glee.
I am opposed to meat consumption on so many grounds: it is very expensive to grow the food to fatten animals for slaughter; farm waste, ranging from manure to offal, is a significant source of pollution; most animals raised for meat in the US are treated very badly while they are alive; and last but certainly not least, in order to eat animals, you have to kill them. The only reason I'm not opposed to meat is that I really like the taste of beef, but I keep hoping that will go away.
Because I still occasionally enjoy a good steak or a fine reuben and there's no adequate substitute for filet mignon or good corned beef but there are decent substitutes for hamburger, I should use those substitutes. (Mad cow disease is more of a risk with ground beef, but I buy very expensive ground beef that's supposed to be free of all sorts of ickiness, so I pretend that's not a problem.) I'm not quite ready to become a vegetarian, but I can still severely limit my meat consumption. The next time I make this recipe, I'll do it with some sort of vegetable protein in place of the ground beef.
I got this recipe in high school, from a friend's mother whose tacos were WAY better than the tacos my mom made. (Mom makes a fantastic pot roast and the best mashed potatoes in the world, but her Mexican food has never been great.) I don't suppose it's terribly authentic, but it's still good.
Sylvia's Taco Filling
1 pound ground beef or appropriate substitute
1 clove garlic, minced (or more if you are one of those smart people who likes a lot of garlic)
1 large onion, diced
1 15 oz can tomato sauce
1 can diced green chilis
1 large can olives, sliced
salt, black pepper and cayenne pepper
Brown hamburger or meat substitute; add garlic and onions and fry until everything is thoroughly cooked. Drain off excess fat, then add tomato sauce, chilis and olives; season to taste.
If you are a traditionalist, you can buy taco shells or make your own by frying corn tortillas, one side at a time so they curve, until they are crisp. (My mom used to do this, and I'll admit that there's a bit of a trick to it and that she was good at it.) Anyway, take this traditional vehicle for taco filling, add filling, then top with grated cheese, shredded lettuce, more olives, diced tomatoes, salsa, guacamole, etc.
I am too cheap and lazy to insist on such trappings when I make tacos at home. I like to put a portion of filling in a bowl, top it with cheese, then use substantial blue corn chips to scoop it all up, with a salad on the side. Also, I like eating real food every day but don't like cooking it every day, so on the rare occasions when I make this dish, I double the recipe, then freeze individual portions. It reheats nicely.
Posted by Holly at 8:09 AM | Comments (9)
November 8, 2005
Beef in Guinness
I'm not a vegetarian. I wish I were. I feel about vegetarianism the same way St. Augustine felt about celibacy when he made his famous prayer: "Oh Lord, give me chastity, but not yet." I really want to someday really want to be a vegetarian.
In the meantime, I try to limit my meat consumption to a meal or two a week. This is in sharp contract to my upbringing, where we had meat at least once every day--often at every meal. That much meat isn't good for you, and it's really expensive, and it's hard on the environment.
One easy way to limit how much meat I eat is to avoid cooking it for myself. I'll order it at restaurants, but except for a very few things I sometimes just have to have, my cooking is meat-free.
One such exception involves a recipe my friend Matthew gave me five or six years ago, for Beef in Guinness, which he, being British, found in some British cookbook. He passed it on to me because he knows I love both beef and Guinness. I also really like hearty peasant fare, and that's exactly what this dish is. I make a big batch once a year, in the fall, and either invite someone over to share it with me, or else freeze the leftovers so I can enjoy it in future weeks, or both.
Here's the recipe, in case anyone is interested.
Beef in Guinness
2 lbs lean stewing beef
two tablespoons flour
salt, freshly ground pepper, pinch of cayenne
cooking oil
2 large onions, coarsely chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 small can tomato puree, dissolved in 1/3 cup water
1 12-ounce bottle of Guinness
3-4 carrots, cut into chunks
a little fresh or dried thyme
Trim the meat of any fat or gristle, and cut into one- to two-inch cubes. Season the flour with salt, pepper and cayenne, and toss the meat in this mixture.
Heat two to three tablespoons oil in a large frying pan over high heat. Brown the meat on all sides. Add the onions, crushed garlic and tomato puree to the pan, and cook gently for about five minutes. Transfer the contents of the pan to a large casserole dish or crock pot, and pour some of the Guinness into the frying pan. Bring to boil and stir to dissolve the caramelized meat juices in the pan. Pour onto the meat with the remainder of the Guinness; add the carrots and thyme. Stir, taste, and add a little more salt or pepper or cayenne desires. Cover and simmer very gently until the meat is tender, about three hours. If cooked in a casserole, cook at 300 degrees. Before serving, taste and correct seasoning; if desired, scatter with fresh parsley or dill. (Also if desired, you can substitute several large eggplants, cubed, for the beef; I like to saute some eggplant and add to the mixture, just for variety, and because vegetables are good for you.) Serve with colcannon.
Colcannon
four or five large potatoes
half a head of cabbage
one large onion
one clove garlic
Boil vegetables together until tender; mash with salt and pepper. If prepared ahead of time, or if you have used leftover potatoes or cabbage (which work perfectly well), put into casserole dish and cook at 350 degrees until heated through, 30-45 minutes, before serving.
Posted by Holly at 8:13 AM | Comments (1)