Side Dishes and Appetizers
July 4, 2008
Worth the Bother Green Beans
I'm not one of these people who loves to cook. I like it just fine, and I've reached a point where I'm able to please my own palate most of the time, which is good because the place where I currently live is something of a culinary wasteland. But for me, the real pleasure afforded by cooking occurs at the table after the fact, not at the stove while you're doing it.
I rarely cook something that requires a lot of planning or preparation. There are really only two situations in which I do: if I'm feeding guests, or if I am making huge batches of some elaborate meal or dish which I can then freeze in individual servings, so that later, I can just microwave it and have a meal ready. I don't want more than 20 minutes to elapse from the moment when I decide I'm hungry enough to make a meal, and the point at which I sit down to eat it. I also don't want to wash too many dishes afterwards.
By those standards, this recipe for green beans should be something I don't make--and truth be told, I rarely make it. It's not that it's hard; it just takes a lot of time to cut up all the beans, and it involves dirtying a lot of dishes. But it's so good that I go ahead and do it anyway from time to time.
I will say that these beans are really good left over and chilled--if you can make enough to have them left over. When I make them for guests, there are never any leftovers--and when I make them for myself, well, I still manage to eat a lot of them.
A mess of green beans
1 or 2 tablespoons olive oil (you know, enough to coat the pan but not so much things get oily)
two cloves garlic, minced
fresh lemon
salt
fresh cracked pepper
Parmesan cheese
Wash the green beans and cut them into bite-sized pieces. (That's my least favorite part. I don't know why I find it so annoying to cut up scores of green beans, but I do.) Put them in a steamer and steam long enough that they're hot but not so long that they get tender--they should still be crisp. (In other words, three or four minutes after water begins to boil--certainly not more than five.) Heat one tablespoon olive oil in a heavy skillet over medium high heat. When oil is hot, add minced garlic and fry for about 30 seconds--just until oil becomes fragrant. Dump in green beans and saute until coated with the garlicky oil. Turn off heat and squeeze a tablespoon or so of fresh lemon onto the beans. Then season with salt and pepper, and, as a final step, add a liberal dose of grated parmesan--do this last when pan is still very hot but no longer on an active flame, so the cheese doesn't get gummy.
I've tried cooking the beans entirely in the skillet, but they get too oily. I've tried just adding a little garlic infused olive oil after steaming them and not sauteing them, but the flavor isn't the same, and the cheese doesn't melt as well if you don't stir it into a hot pan.
So I do it the way I've discovered works well, and deal with the fact that I have all these pots and pans to wash just for one vegetable dish, because as I said, the real pleasure afforded by cooking occurs at the table, and for that, you have to sacrifice from time to time.
Posted by Holly at 7:58 AM | Comments (3)
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)
June 29, 2006
Holy Guacamole
For me to endorse a Mexican restaurant, it has to supply the following:
--Decent homemade chips and salsa, provided free as appetizers
--Savory red enchilada sauce, complex enough that you can taste something besides chili powder
--Spicy red chili made of cubed or shredded (not ground) beef and thoroughly free of filler like beans
--Real cheese, not any kind of processed cheese food or cheese sauce
--Tacos of shredded roast beef that aren't too greasy
--Yummy guacamole
Lots of people think guacamole is really easy to make--and it is. But it's also really easy to screw up, and the main way people screw it up is by adding stuff that shouldn't be in guacamole in the first place.
The primary offending ingredient is sour cream, which people usually add because they are either ill-informed or cheap. Sour cream goes WITH guacamole, not IN it. The proper way to eat a chimichanga, for instance, is WITH guacamole AND sour cream, not WITH guacamole CONTAINING sour cream.
I make pretty damn good guacamole, and as it has been a while since I've posted a recipe, I thought I'd share it my guacamole recipe here.
Mistake-Free Guacamole
--two or more avocados
--at least one clove of garlic for every avocado you use, minced
--coarse ground pepper
--salt
--a healthy squirt of fresh lime juice (lemon juice is not an appropriate substitution--it won't be tangy enough)
--chopped fresh oregano, if you've got it, and maybe a minced scallion as well
--a fourth to a third cup of chunky salsa for every avocado you use (Make sure you have good salsa. Check the ingredients: it shouldn't have sugar in it, because that's just wrong.)
Mash the avocados by hand and add everything else listed above, stirring well with a big fork or a whisk. Don't add any kind of powdered spice mix. Don't add chopped fresh tomatoes, because tomatoes are disgusting unless they've been cooked, plus the texture is too different from that of the smashed avocado. Don't add chunks of raw onion, because the flavor detracts from the garlic, and again you make the texture weird. Don't add cilantro unless you can't find oregano--even minced fresh rosemary is better than cilantro in guacamole. Mostly the rule is, keep it simple. Guacamole should taste, first and foremost, like avocado. And don't put it through a blender, either. (My mom does that and it drives me nuts.) Even though I object to chunks of crunchy stuff in guacamole, it shouldn't have the consistency of a milkshake.
That's all! And in case you didn't know, guacamole won't turn so thoroughly brown so fast if you store it with the avocado pits in--just put them, whole, back in the bowl after you've mixed everything up.
Posted by Holly at 12:36 PM | Comments (14)
March 22, 2006
Ultra Easy Artichoke Dip
Sometimes at a restaurant someone will order artichoke dip as an appetizer, and say something when it arrives like, "You gotta try this! It's really good!"
The dip is often not bad, but it's not anything like this recipe, which I got a decade ago or so, in grad school, from a friend. She got it from her mother, who found it in a cookbook called something like One-Step Delicious Dishes Using Processed Foods, with most of the ingredients being, well, pre-processed in some way or another. In this case, the ingredients were:
one large can artichoke hearts, drained and quartered
one half cup mayonnaise
one half cup grated parmesan cheese
one teaspoon pre-minced garlic
coarse ground pepper to taste
Mix all ingredients in oven-proof casserole dish, taking care to mash artichokes. (Wipe any spills or smudges from the rim and sides of the dish or you'll end up with baked-on crud you'll have to soak for days to remove.) Bake at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes or until top is golden. (A sludge of oil may also appear on the top.) Serve with crackers, bagel chips, or fresh bread. I typically double recipe and use four or five cloves of freshly minced garlic. You can also add other kinds of cheese if you like, but I prefer it with just the parmesan.
I made this for a party following my dissertation defense. My friend Matthew flew from Luxembourg to attend the defense and help me with the party (how's that for devotion!) and he commented that he had an artichoke dip recipe much like this, only it wasn't baked, and that baking made a lot of difference. It really does: the cheese gets all melty, the flavors and substances blend, and the garlic mellows. However, once it has been baked, it's also pretty good cold, though it reheats easily in the microwave.
A year and a half later, I visited Matthew in Luxembourg/Brussels (he was dividing his time between the two places) and we made this dip for his birthday party. Failing to understand the spirit of the recipe--that it uses unassuming processed foods--he went out and bought fresh, locally made mayonnaise, fancy marinated artichoke hearts, and a big block of parmesan cheese, which he insisted that I grate, because he was busy doing other more demanding tasks. I was indignant about the extra work, but I had to admit, the better ingredients made for a more delicious dip. It was the first thing at the party to be entirely consumed, and towards the end, some people didn't even use bread or crackers to eat it--they just dug in with a spoon.
These days I bring it to the occasional pot luck and every time I do, there's someone who says, "Oh, is that that great artichoke dip you make?" I always tell them how easy it is and provide them with the recipe, but for some reason there are people who won't make a recipe that has about 500 calories per teaspoon and raises your cholesterol just by its existence. But if you're not such a person, I really recommend you try this dip. (And at least it's vegetarian, although not vegan.)
Posted by Holly at 10:06 AM | Comments (2)