Wild Mushroom and Roasted Garlic Frittata

24 04 2010
I made a huge batch of roasted garlic a while back and froze them. They are great to have on hand to add to all sorts of recipes. Roasting the garlic mellows the flavor and adds a subtle garlic taste to your dish rather than the pungency of raw garlic. Look to my next post on how to roast garlic. My family ate this for dinner last night and loved it. You can use any mixture of mushrooms like shiitake, portobello, oyster, or chanterelles. The jalapeno adds a little kick but it can be omitted if you prefer a milder dish.

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Categories : breakfast, Main Dish

Marinated Goat Cheese with EVOO Tuscan Herb Olive Oil, Garlic, Basil, and Orange Zest

29 03 2010

Marinated Goat Cheese

This cheese is great on crackers as an appetizer. It would be delicious as a topping for a green salad. You could also make a classic French salad with this called a Salade de Chevre Chaud (warm goat cheese salad). Place a slice of the marinated goat cheese on top of a thickly sliced piece of French bread. Place in a hot oven and warm through until the cheese just begins to melt. Remove from the oven and place atop a green salad dressed with a Sherry shallot vinaigrette. Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : Appetizer

Spaghetti with Beets and Greens and Garlic Chips

16 03 2010

Spaghetti with Greens and Beets

I had to use up some Swiss chard, beet greens and leftover roasted beets I had so I came up with this recipe. You could use any greens such as kale, spinach, or collard greens. I like a mixture of the hardy bitter greens and the tender greens like chard or spinach. This spaghetti turned such a beautiful pink color that even my boys commented on it. My husband’s comment was mainly “outstanding!”. If you don’t have roasted beets, you can omit them and just make it a spaghetti and greens recipe. You can drizzle oil over the beets and wrap individually in foil and roast in a 400 degree oven for about 1 hour until tender. Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : Main Dish, pasta

Enchilada Sauce

12 03 2010
This recipe goes nicely with the Tofu, Broccoli and Spinach Enchiladas. It is quick and easy to make using a commercial salsa.

½ onion

1 (14 oz) can whole tomatoes in juice

3 cloves garlic

3 to 4 tablespoons commercial hot salsa

1 red bell pepper, charred, peeled, stemmed and seeded (optional)

1 tsp salt

Combine all ingredients in a food processor and buzz until smooth.


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Categories : Sauces/salsas, Southwestern/Mexican

Italian Salad Dressing

12 03 2010
This is an easy dressing that is delicious and will keep about 1 week in the refrigerator.

1 large tomato

1 clove garlic

¼ cup water

¼ cup olive oil

2 tbsp lemon juice

1 tsp fresh basil

½ tsp fresh oregano

½ tsp Celtic sea salt

In a blender, process all ingredients until smooth and creamy.


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Categories : dressings

Broccoli with Walnut-Garlic Browned Butter Sauce

10 03 2010
This is the final recipe to be posted from the first cooking class. I taught the students about browning butter to make a rich and simple sauce for steamed broccoli. This would be good on asparagus, cauliflower and broccoli rabe as well.

1/3 cup butter

5 large garlic cloves, peeled and very thinly sliced

1/2 cup walnuts, chopped

1 head broccoli, cut into florets

sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Heat the butter in a small skillet until the foam subsides. Add in the garlic slices and saute until garlic begins to brown. Then add in the chopped walnuts and brown them as well. The butter should begin to brown throughout this process.  Season with salt and pepper.

Steam the broccoli and serve topped with the galicky-nutty butter.


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Categories : Vegetable side dish

Vegetable Stock

1 03 2010
In order to make the risotto we did in class or any great vegetable soup or stew, you need to begin with a good vegetable stock. I think  homemade stock is far superior to any stock you buy in the store. Making stock is a great way to use up vegetables in your refrigerator that may go bad. What’s even better is that you can customize it to your recipe. So if you are making a Mushroom risotto, add more mushrooms to the stock, or if you are making a soup that would go nicely with fennel, add fennel to the stock. The options are endless. This is only an example of a stock. Of course some of the ingredients are optional, but you will need to add at least carrots, onion, celery, parsley, bay leaves, peppercorns, thyme and salt if nothing else. If you want a slightly thicker stock, then add potatoes. Don’t use too many cruciferous vegetables like cabbage, broccoli or kale because their flavor is too strong.
Remember, when making a stock, begin with cold water then add all the vegetables and bring it to a boil. By starting with cold water, you will extract all the flavor from the vegetables into the stock. This is different from just boiling up some carrots to eat where you want the flavor to remain in the carrot.

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Categories : Soup

Spinach Sauteed with Olive Oil and Garlic

12 01 2010

Leave it to Marcella Hazan, the guru of Italian cooking, to turn a simple recipe into a gourmet delight. This spinach is so full of flavor and great as a side vegetable dish. Tonight I made it with a combination of spinach and beet greens. This is really good with any greens but if using tougher greens like kale, you may want to parboil it first.

2 pounds fresh spinach

Sea salt

2 large cloves garlic, peeled

4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

Discard the hard end of the stems of the spinach or if tough, remove the leaves from the entire stem. Rinse the spinach leaves in several changes of cold water and drain. Cook the spinach leaves in a covered pan with 1 tbsp salt.  Cook until tender. Drain well but do not squeeze.

Put the garlic and olive oil in a skillet, turn the heat to medium high and when the garlic becomes a light nut-brown color, remove from the pan. Add the spinach and toss in the garlic flavored oil. Taste to adjust seasoning for salt. Transfer to a warmed platter and serve at once.


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Categories : Greens, Italian, Vegetable side dish

Grinach Bread

11 01 2010

Last night we made this cool looking green spinach garlic bread, inspired by Rachel Ray. We just saw Jim Carrey in the Grinch and so we named it Grinach Bread. Very popular amongst all our guests from teens to adults and even one meat-eater who was a little intimidated by our green way of eating. (I think I really through her for a loop when I sat her down near the kombucha jar with its floating alien fungus staring up at her.)

This version of garlic bread is super colorful and a great way to get extra greens into the pickiest of eaters. Try it, you’ll like it.

Grinach Bread
Ingredients:
4 cups baby spinach
1 stick softened unsalted butter (maybe a little more to help it puree in the food processor)
sea salt to taste
pepper
4 cloves garlic
1 cup Parmesan cheese (optional)
1 loaf good Italian bread, French batard, or even a sourdough whole wheat.
Puree the spinach with the butter, salt, pepper and garlic in a food processor until smooth. If you like your garlic bread cheesy, add the Parmesan cheese and blend together. Cut the bread in half horizontally. Place the two halves on a baking sheet and spread with butter mixture. Heat in a hot oven until warmed through and then broil last minute to lightly crisp the edges. Slice and serve warm.

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Categories : bread

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