Spinach and Black Bean Enchiladas

Mexican cooks fry their tortillas in oil to make them pliable and so they don’t easily absorb the sauce. This spray and bake technique is a reduced fat way of getting a similar result. Green enchilada sauce marries well with the filling and but is generally more picante than the milder red sauce.

1 bunch fresh spinach

2 tablespoons oil, olive, canola or peanut

1 medium onion, diced in 1/4-inch pieces

1 or 2 cloves garlic, minced

1 jalapeno chile, seeds removed, minced

¼ cup chopped cilantro leaves

1/2 teaspoon dried or 2 tablespoons fresh minced oregano

1 ½ cups (one 15-ounce can, drained) black beans

1 tablespoon balsamic or red wine vinegar

Salt

12 corn tortillas

Cooking spray, purchased or from your oil “misto”

8 ounces grated Monterey jack cheese

2 cups enchilada sauce, green or red, purchased or homemade

Wash the spinach well, then chop coarsely into 1-inch strips. Heat the oil in a skillet over medium heat. Stir and cook the onion, garlic and chile, for 5 to 10 minutes, until the onion is translucent. Stir in the spinach, adding a portion at a time, letting it wilt  between additions, until all of the spinach has wilted. Add the cilantro and the oregano; cook and stir a few more minutes. Stir in the black beans. Season with balsamic vinegar and plenty of salt.

Pre-heat oven to 350° F.. Place tortillas on baking sheets, 6 tortillas to a pan. Lightly spray both sides of the tortillas with oil. Bake about 5 minutes, until pliable.

Spread a small amount of oil in a 9 x 13-inch baking dish. Sprinkle a heaping tablespoon of the spinach and bean mixture in a row in the bottom half of a tortilla. Sprinkle about the same amount of cheese on top. Roll the tortilla around the filling and place it seam side down in the baking dish. Repeat with the rest of the tortillas. You can cover the pan at this point and refrigerate overnight.

Pour the enchilada sauce over the rolled tortillas, making sure to cover the ends. Sprinkle with more cheese, if you wish. Cover and bake until heated through, 20 to 25 minutes.

Makes 2 to 6 servings, depending on who is eating and what else you are serving with the enchiladas.

Read Full Post »

Crimson Lentil and Garlic Scape Salad

Crimson or red lentils are really orange in color but we call them red. They require no soaking and take less than 15 minutes to cook, but beware that red lentils fall apart quickly and turn into puree or dal: Do not overcook unless you want red lentil soup. Garlic scapes are the first hint of this season’s crop, the shoots that poke out of the ground from the growing garlic bulb. John, our intrepid farmer, detaches the scapes, allowing the bulb to continue its growth, and gives them to us Ranui CSA benefactors. Wash the scapes and break off and discard the less-tender woody part, like you would for asparagus. This recipe makes enough to take to an Independence Day potluck party.

2 cups red lentils, picked over and rinsed

6 cups water

3 tablespoons plus 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

1 to 1 1/2 cups (1/4-inch dice) garlic scapes

1/3 cup red wine vinegar or freshly squeezed lemon juice

½ teaspoon Dijon-style mustard

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 teaspoon Real Salt

¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

¾ cup finely chopped red onion

1 red bell pepper, seeded and cut into ½-inch pieces

1 cucumber, peeled and seeds removed, cut into thin slices

3 tablespoons chopped fresh dill and/or cilantro leaves

Put the lentils and water in a large pot. Bring to a simmer over medium heat and gently cook until the lentils are just tender, about 15 minutes. Thoroughly drain the lentils and let cool.

Meanwhile heat 3 tablespoons of the olive oil in a medium skillet. Add the chopped scapes and cook and stir until they are tender. Add them to the cooled lentils.

Whisk the vinegar and the mustard in a bowl. Stir in the garlic, salt and pepper. Drizzle in the remaining 1/3 cup of olive oil, whisking. Pour this vinaigrette over the lentils and scapes. Add the red onion, bell pepper, cucumber and dill, tossing the salad until everything is well coated with the dressing. Refrigerate at least one hour to allow the flavors to blend. Serve chilled. If the salad is prepared more than a few hours ahead, taste and adjust the seasonings before serving.

Makes 8 to 10 servings.

Read Full Post »

Basil, Goat Cheese and Sun-dried Tomato Muffins

Recently someone pointed out that this blog is muffintalk and I have not posted muffin or baking recipes. Here is a muffin for you all—gleaned from my baker girlfriend Cindy Mushet, who gives a feta, basil and roasted red pepper muffin recipe in her award-winning cookbook The Art and Soul of Baking. I have that big log of goat cheese as well as a 2 # jar of sun-dried tomatoes from Costco to employ and we have the first basil of the season—hooray it is finally summer! These muffins are fabulous with soup.

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup whole-wheat flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder


1/2 teaspoon baking soda


1/2 teaspoon salt


3/4 cup (3 ounces) soft goat cheese, cut in ½-inch dice


1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes, chopped


3 tablespoons finely chopped fresh basil


1 cup buttermilk


1/4 cup olive oil


1 large egg

Preheat the oven to 375°F. Line 12 muffin cups with paper cupcake liners, or coat the muffin tins with melted butter and dust with flour, or spray generously with cooking spray. So the baked muffin can release with ease, coat the top of the pan as well as the inside of the cups.

Whisk both flours, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large mixing bowl. Set aside. In another bowl, gently stir together the goat cheese, sun-dried tomatoes, and basil. Set aside.

Whisk together the buttermilk, olive oil and the egg until well blended. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients. Pour the buttermilk mixture into the well and stir gently with a spatula. Mix only until there are no more streaks of flour or pools of liquid and the batter looks fairly smooth. A few small lumps scattered throughout are fine—they will disappear during baking. Gently fold the goat cheese mixture into the batter until evenly distributed.

Divide the batter evenly among the prepared muffin cups. Bake for 18 to 20 minutes, until the muffin tops feel firm and a skewer inserted into the centers comes out clean. Cool for about 5 minutes, then remove from the pan–careful, these are tender while hot. Serve warm.

Makes 12 muffins.

Read Full Post »

Ranui Greens and Arugula Salad with Goat Cheese Vinaigrette

The 11-ounce roll of goat cheese from Costco in my fridge begs to be made into this dressing. Use a mixture of greens and arugula.

¼ cup extra virgin olive oil

summer savory at Ranui Gardens

3 tablespoons sherry wine or red wine vinegar

1 tablespoon chopped summer savory leaves

1/3 cup goat cheese

Salt and freshly ground pepper

Whisk the olive oil, vinegar and savory in a bowl with a fork. Add the goat cheese, smashing and whisking it into the dressing. Season to taste with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Read Full Post »

Lemon Pasta with Chive Oil

I have always said that when I no longer work at Deer Valley I will join Wasatch Mountain Food and Wine Society. I only want to be invited to one banquet—the annual Sunday luncheon created by Deer Valley’s most senior chefs and pastry chefs. The banquets are usually in early June, between seasons for us, and we have the time to perfect our menu ideas; I want to be seated and served because I know the effort, expense and love that goes into each course.

Last Sunday, Shane and Kristine, who in the winter oversee the Fireside Dining kitchen at Empire Canyon Lodge, served a lemon pasta roulade filled with chicken and vegetables, in a bowl of chicken broth sprinkled with chive oil and Hawaiian lava salt oil. They called it Chicken Noodle Soup!

This is Shane’s chive oil recipe with my very simple but sexy lemon pasta in broth. I have an inexpensive hand-cranked stainless steel pasta machine that I bought at a garage sale years ago—and I drag it out of the corner of my pantry when I have the time to flatter my guests with elegant homemade pasta. Truly it is not that time consuming a project—it takes me about an hour to prepare the noodles from dough to finished dish. The food processor mixes and kneads the dough in seconds. While the dough is resting, heat the broth, make the chive oil and set the water to boil.

Lemon Pasta with Chive Oil

The chive oil can garnish soup or salad (of Ranui greens), be basted on grilled meat or fish, and though I am reluctant to say it, dress up a dish of boxed fettuccini.

1 ½-1¾ cup unbleached all purpose flour

3 large eggs

2 teaspoons grated lemon zest

1 teaspoon Real Salt

3 cups flavorful vegetable or chicken broth

½ cup chopped fresh chives

½ cup extra virgin olive oil

1 tablespoon fresh squeezed lemon juice

2 tablespoons chive blossoms or chopped chives, for garnish

Put 1 ½ cups of the flour in the work bowl of a food processor fitted with the steel knife blade. Add the eggs, lemon zest and salt and process until the dough forms a ball. The dough should not be wet—if it is, add the remaining flour, 1 tablespoon at a time and process the dough for about 30 seconds, or until it is smooth. Wrap the dough in plastic and let it rest for 30 minutes.

Chive Oil and Blossoms, Pasta resting

Heat the broth and keep hot on the back burner of the stove. Put the chives and the olive oil in a blender. Whir until the oil is warm, a minute or so. Set aside with a strainer nearby. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Salt the water generously—Italian cooks say it should be as salty as broth.

Divide the rested pasta dough into eight pieces. Keep them covered with plastic so they don’t dry out. With a pasta machine or by hand, roll out and stretch each piece into a rectangle about 1/16 inch thick, using flour sparingly as needed to keep the dough from sticking to the rollers. Cut the pasta on the noodle setting of the machine or about ¼ inch thick. Separate the strands and let the pasta dry, stretched out on towels or a pasta drying rack.

pasta rolling

noodle cutting

drying lemon pasta

Strain the chives from the oil, discarding the pulp. Add the lemon juice to the broth. Drop the pasta into the boiling salted water and cook it for 30 seconds after the water returns to a boil—fresh pasta cooks very quickly and you want it to be just firm to the bite (al dente).

Drain and divide the pasta into 6 serving bowls. Pour about 1/2 cup of broth over the noodles, drizzle generously with chive oil and garnish with chive blossoms or chives. Serve immediately.

Read Full Post »

Bok Choi and Carrot Stir-Fry with Toasted Cashews

Bok Choy at Ranui Gardens

Most cookbooks spell it Bok Choy, but the seed packet from which John sowed must say Bok Choi because that is how he spells it. It’s Chinese cabbage with crisp white stems and slightly bitter tender greens. Deborah Madison, in Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, gives a variation with Roasted Peanuts. Serve on a bed of soba noodles, rice or wheat-free rice noodles.

2 teaspoons plus 2 tablespoons peanut or canola oil

¼ cup raw cashews, chopped

Pinch red pepper flakes

Salt

1 teaspoons arrowroot or cornstarch

2 carrots, sliced thinly on a diagonal

1 pound bok choi

4 cloves garlic, minced

4 teaspoons minced ginger

2 tablespoons soy sauce

Heat 2 teaspoons of oil in a skillet. Add the cashews and stir and cook until they are light golden. Add the pepper flakes and salt. Set aside.  In a small bowl, mix the arrowroot with 3 tablespoons of water to make a slurry; set aside. Trim the leaves off the bok choi stems. If they are small, leave them whole, if larger, cut into 3-inch ribbons. Cut the stems into 1-inch lengths.

Heat the remaining 2 tablespoons of oil in a skillet or wok over high heat. When hot, stir in the garlic and ginger and stir-fry about 30 seconds. Add the carrots and stir-fry several minutes, until the carrots are almost tender. Then add both the bok choi stems and leaves and stir-fry until the leaves are wilted. Add the soy sauce and the arrowroot slurry and stir-fry until the vegetables are glazed. Stir in the cashews. Season with more pepper flakes of your heat quotient runs on the hot side. Serve immediately.

Read Full Post »

Will Write for Veggies

Ranui Gardens CSA–this post marks the first week of the 2010 summer season. CSA is the acronym for Community Supported Agriculture, meaning we all sort of gamble with the farmers: buying into the program in late winter to help with seed money and then enjoying the harvest throughout the season, with weekly boxes of fresh produce, depending on the weather and what the farmer planted. Our farmers are John Garafalo and Sue Post and their team. Ranui Gardens is all about high altitude gardening so we enjoy cool weather crops–the frost-free window of opportunity is very short in Hoytsville and Oakley Utah. John does have greenhouses for heirloom tomatoes and summer squash and more, and we will see crops that require a longer growing season in our boxes around late August and early September. But leafy greens are his specialty. Always salad greens and cooking greens—so many that we get spoiled and come October we feel deprived without our vitamin-packed super fresh and flavorful greens.

Ranui Gardens lettuce beds

Ranui Gardens has been around since 1984. When founders Steve and Jenny Erickson moved to New Zealand, John G took over. Steve and Jenny certified the farm both as organic and biodynamic. John continues these practices of no chemical fertilizers, pesticides or herbicides as well as following biodynamic principles, but he no longer jumps through the bureaucratic hoops required to maintain the certification.

Each week here on muffintalk you will find two recipes using our weekly veggies. John gives me a hint of what he is picking the day before and I try to inspire and help us use up our produce. The recipes are lacto-ovo vegetarian for the most part—and vegan at times, and they range from quite simple to lots-of work gourmet. You will find that I refer to my favorite food-writers and their books often.

To help get dinner on the table faster, I use and incorporate into the recipes several tools, namely the Cuisinart food processor, a pressure cooker and an immersion blender. Some might call it cheating, but I use purchased vegetable stock concentrates, both the cubes and the paste. I work full time as pastry chef at Deer Valley and I want flavorful, healthful and easy dinners, especially when I have sampled too much sugar at work. The time-consuming recipes are for days off.

Feel free to share this blog with your friends and to write me with your comments. Local and organic, our season has begun.

Read Full Post »