Admittedly, it all started with apricot curd. I know, I know…more curd? You must think I’ve gone mad. But consider the humble apricot, whose thrilling tang and sultry sweetness lies pretty much dormant until cooked. Rhubarb is much the same, and you’ll remember how that turned out – so can you blame me for trying again? No, you can’t. And let me tell you, that apricot curd was really, really good.

But then it got really, really hot in DC. When it’s 100 degrees out with 99% humidity, it’s hard to rationalize making anything but cold soup and ice cream. So I turned back to my humble apricots, wondering if I could turn them into something sweet, tangy, and frozen.

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When it comes to Passover and any other diet-restricting events or circumstances, I’m a firm believer in eating things you’d enjoy any other time. Forget matzah-meal muffins and “Passover rolls.” I’d rather eat undressed lettuce and oranges for a week straight than endure those lame excuses for bread. Gluten-free folks may feel differently, since their restrictions aren’t temporary; for the rest of us, I strongly recommend sticking to recipes for delicious things that happen not to call for flour.

For our eating pleasure, I’ve compiled a small list of flourless baked goods. These are recipes I’ve gathered over the years — one as recently as last week — that help ease the annoyance of going without bread for a week (or more).

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Not everyday is as productive as last Friday. In about 2 hours, I made a fantastic salad, discovered a new cooking technique, and finally learned how to achieve that elusive sweet-salty-tangy-spicy balance in a Thai vinaigrette. It’s all thanks to Lynn Rossetto Kasper. As if I’m surprised.

I am a huge fan of Lynn Rossetto Kasper. I’m a loyal listener to her “The Splendid Table” podcast, and I absolutely loved her pithy and clever “How to Eat Supper” podcasts, which she co-hosted with TST producer Sally Swift (until recently, when they suddenly stopped coming out…) So I’m sort of embarrassed to admit that it took me until last week to sign up for Lynn’s “Weeknight Kitchen” newsletter. Now maybe it’s too soon to pass judgement, seeing as I’ve only gotten two issues. But this is Lynn Rossetto Kasper. Every recipe is a run-to-your-kitchen recipe. As expected, just one day after the email landed in my inbox, I was at the counter, surrounded by heaps of green cabbage.

The recipe in last week’s edition was for a Thai cabbage salad with tofu, cashews, and pineapple. D was quick to point out that I cut my pineapple slices so large as to intimidate my guests (sorry, ya’ll! Hope the yellow didn’t scare you away) so in the future, I’ll make my pineapple more….welcoming. But aside from that, I found this salad delightful. It’s got really well-layered flavor: the bitter freshness of cabbage, the tangy sweetness of pineapple, a generous handful of cashews, scallions and herbs, and a biting vinaigrette rounded out with fish sauce (one of Lynn’s favorite ingredients: it’s got tons of umami, or glutamate, which helps give that extra something to…well, almost anything.)

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Hello there readers, and hello 2010! I’m back from Israel and hope you enjoyed the dispatches from abroad. In truth, there’s so much more to tell: a dear friend took D and me on a fabulous tour of the Old City’s Christian Quarter, where we ate amazingly fresh hummus, climbed down to secret underground cisterns, and visited a tucked-away Austrian hospice for excellent cappucinos and Jerusalem’s best apple streudel. And that was just one morning!

But now we’re back to the grind, and besides, you must be tired of my rants about my travels. You come here for recipes, and I aim to please. So let’s talk about kale chips, shall we?

I think I first read about crispy kale in the late Gourmet Mag. The recipe was as simple as they come — kale, olive oil, salt, pepper — and accompanying it were stunning photos of long, evergreen-colored leaves shooting out of a tall glass. Gourmet said the kale was the perfect cocktail party food, and looking at the pictures, I had to agree. I could envision these beautiful vases of kale chips placed on a long table, giving height to the usual array of flat cookie platters and cheese plates. Yum.

One evening, I had a bunch of kale to use up and decided to give the recipe a go. If it was a success, I figured, I’d make it at my next dinner party; the beautiful chips were certain to impress.

But then I ate one.

Can we discuss the fact that my entire mouth, like every single tooth, had green flecks all about? And flecks is an understatement. I might as well have colored my smile with green marker, it was that bad. Cocktail party food my #$@*^%!!! Kale chips are absolutely delicious — they’re crispy, and salty, and perfectly peppery, utterly addictive in short — but they’re something to be eaten at home alone, or with someone who really, really likes you. Either way, be prepared to laugh.

Don’t let me green teeth scare you away completely, though: these kale chips truly are delicious. If any of you have made New Year’s resolutions to eat more vegetables, consider this recipe a belated holiday gift. You can easily polish off an entire batch of kale this way.

Kale Chips
adapted from Gourmet

These chips are delicious just so, but they really pop with a last-minute squeeze of lemon, if you have it handy.

1 bunch kale, cleaned and dried, center stems removed
olive oil
salt
pepper
wedge of lemon, optional

Put the kale in a large plastic bag, drizzle about 1/8 cup olive oil inside, and shake and massage to combine. Add more oil to the bag as needed until all leaves are coated in the oil. Spread kale leaves in a single layer on as many baking sheets as you need, and sprinkle generously with salt and pepper. Bake at 300 for 20-25 minutes, until kale is crispy all over. Cooking time depends on age and dryness of kale, so watch carefully and remove when every piece is crispy. Serve immediately, and squeeze lemon overtop just before serving, if desired.

© rivka for Not Derby Pie, 2010. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
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When the New Yorker lands in my mailbox each Tuesday, the first thing I read is the weekly restaurant write-up, Tables for Two. It’s short and sweet, and usually contains a brief description of one or two stand-out dishes. Every once in a while, I hear one of the descriptions and think, that sounds like something I should try to make. Even more rarely than that, I actually get off my derriere and try to make one of the recipes. This is one of those times.

The idea came from The Vanderbilt, a restaurant in Prospect Heights. According to the New Yorker, “the best dish might be the roasted Brussels sprouts, dressed with sriracha, lime, and honey, each bite a perfect combination of sweet, spicy, and tart.” They really did sound perfect, and given a) how simple the ingredient list sounded and b) the fact that I happened to have all four aformentioned ingredients in my house, I decided to give it a go. What better use of a snow day than turning dish descriptions into great food?

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Is it Monday? I’m pretty sure it’s Monday. The last two weeks have been a blur of sniffles, tissues, and gallons (I mean it) of chai. I came down with a cold just around the start of the month. Chalk it up to a late recovery from August’s crunch time at work. I took a couple of days on the couch to recover, and when it started to fade, I headed back to the office. But the cold wasn’t finished yet, and by trying to rush it, I only invited it to extend its stay. Sure enough, it hung around, bringing a sinus infection to the party, and before I knew it, two weeks passed. Well now I’m better, but in anticipation of the many unwelcome colds sure to pay visits this summer, I’ll share a godsend of a recipe with you. It’s for a soup so simple, yet so restorative, that I probably wouldn’t have made it through the past half-month without it.

One morning when I was feeling unusually chipper, I shelled some fresh cranberry beans and threw them in a pot. I added a couple teaspoons of olive oil, half an onion chopped, 2 whole cloves of garlic, water, and, about 20 minutes in, a big bunch of sorrel leaves (NOT the stems, which, I learned the hard way, separate into sharp spindles that are incredibly NOT fun to eat, especially when glands are swollen. Ouch.) I let the whole thing boil away for 25 minutes total; by then, the beans were pretty soft but not mushy, the sorrel was fully cooked, and the broth was incredibly fragrant and a bit tart from the sorrel.

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Folks, I’m finding it hard to contain my excitement about NDP’s second-ever guest post. Guess who wrote it? MY MOM!

That’s right: in the post below, NDP Ima tells you all about easy-to-make, hard-to-stop-eating pickles. You’ll see from her intro paragraph where I got my taste buds. These pickles are salty, tangy, and really bright from the addition of fresh dill. So read up — then go make some pickles!

I am really not a salt lover. I don’t use much when I cook, and in restaurants great food that’s well-seasoned is often too salty for my taste. I don’t care for chips or french fries, and I prefer nuts spicy or au naturel. Nonetheless, I do love briny salty things – olives, capers, and sour pickles. So when I was leaving town for a long weekend and had a lot of small cucumbers that wouldn’t last until my return, I decided to try my hand at some pickles. I wanted spicy, garlicky, dill pickles that would make themselves in the refrigerator while I was gone. I remembered the ones a family friend used to make with cucumbers from his garden and my dad’s. He didn’t use shortcuts, though – he put his pickles in huge crocks of brine and alum in the basement for weeks.

I cut the cukes into thick, chunky slices and placed them in a quart jar with pickling spices and garlic. I didn’t have any fresh dill, so my first batch just had dill seed from the pickling spice, but it still tasted authentic. I prepared the vinegar brine and filled the jar, leaving it upside down on the counter overnight. The next morning, before rushing to the airport, I put the jar in the frig. When I returned four nights later, the pickles were done to perfection!
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From a vege-mostly-tarian’s perspective, spring and summer are the seasons to beat. Fresh fruit and vegetables are available in abundance, and the variety, especially in summer, is simply unmatched. I make at least one salad a day; using anything from the usual lettuce and Israeli cucumbers to radishes to carrots to tomatoes and nectarines, mushrooms and garlic scapes and beets and even raw kale (my newest addition), I rarely repeat ingredients two days in a row.

It’s in this light that barbeque food confuses the hell out of me; why, when there are so many beautiful fruits and vegetables available, do we resort to coleslaws and potato salads that are literally choking on my gloppy, quivering, nemesis, the devil named Mayo? Those thick, white dressings are a “no, thanks” for me, but if we’re going to use them, why not when we’re on our 20th batch of kale and need to get creative about masking the taste of winter? I simply don’t get the desire to coat delicious summer vegetables in all that goop. …And the Mayo gripes resume.

While I almost always serve a leafy green salad with meals these days, I did buy some really beautiful tiny tomatoes at the Foggy Bottom market last week, which gave me an occasion to reconsider the merits of potato salad. I’m not a huge potato person, but I get the appeal of having a side dish that’s got some starch and substance but isn’t the same old rice or other grain. However, instead of putting the potatoes front and center, I decided to make room for other vegetables to share the limelight. Happily, the market provided many options. I settled on some pattypan, small summer squash that are shaped somewhat like a flying saucer, as well as some nice-looking green beans.

After boiling, shocking, and slicing the potatoes, I sliced and blanched the zucchini. I left the green beans raw, for crunch, and I’m glad I did — they provided a much-needed contrast to the softer vegetables. I coated the salad in a light, tangy, slightly spicy shallot-mustard vinaigrette, which complemented the slight bitterness of the zucchini and gave otherwise boring potatoes some real character. All in all, this is the type of potato salad I’d actually go for: it highlights summer produce instead of masking it, and its tangy flavors will make a great addition to any barbeque.

Not So Potato-y Salad

1 pound small (like, really small) red and yellow potatoes
2 long summer squash (yellow or green), sliced into 1/2-inch slices
1 pound green beans, halved
2 shallots, diced finely
2 teaspoons coarse dijon mustard
1 teaspoon honey
1/4 cup sherry or white wine vinegar
1/8 cup olive oil
1 teaspoon walnut oil, optional
salt and pepper

Boil potatoes in 4 cups water until soft but not mushy, about 10 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, remove potatoes and transfer to serving bowl. Let cool 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, blanch squash slices in potato water about 2 minutes, just until soft. Drain and run under cold water for a couple seconds to stop cooking. Transfer to serving bowl.

Slice potatoes into rounds, and transfer to serving bowl. Add green beans and toss to mix.

In a small bowl or dressing jar, combine all remaining ingredients except oil. Pour oil in a slow stream, whisking to combine. If using jar, shake vigorously to emulsify. Add dressing to salad and toss about 10 minutes before serving. Serve at room temperature.

© rivka for Not Derby Pie, 2009. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
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Short post today, but I wanted to offer a recipe that puts the tamarind puree I recently posted to good use. These meatballs are really a cinch to make; they’re studded with rich, nutty pine nuts, and the sweet-tart sauce, with fresh and dried sour cherries and plenty of tamarind, is downright addictive. The recipe is a combination/adaptation of two recipes, both from Aromas of Aleppo, that beautiful Syrian Jewish cookbook I mentioned in my post on tamarind puree.

Sour cherries are done for the season here in DC; if they’re over in your area as well, you can substitute frozen sour cherries, available at some grocery stores, or replace the fresh ones with more dried cherries, and add a bit of extra apple cider or wine or even water to compensate for smaller amount of cherry juice.

I served these with saffron rice, which provided both flavor and color contrast to the meatballs. The combination was perfect, and I highly recommend it.

Sour Cherry Meatballs
adapted from Aromas of Aleppo

1 pounds ground beef, preferably NOT lean (if lean, add a couple Tbsp. olive oil)
1/2 cup chopped pinenuts
a couple sprigs of parsley, leaves removed and chopped
1 1/2 teaspoons allspice, divided
3 onions, diced
1 pound sour cherries or 2 cans/jars pitted cherries, including liquid (NOT pie filling!)
3 tablespoons tamarind puree
juice of 1 lemon
1 tablespoon sugar
1 cup red wine
1/2 cup crushed tomatoes
3 tablespoons vegetable or olive oil, divided

Combine beef, pine nuts, parsley, and 1/2 teaspoon allspice in a medium mixing bowl. Using a fork and a light hand, break up ground beef and incorporate other ingredients; do not overmix or press too hard, as you want beef to stay light and airy.

In a medium saucepan, saute meatballs in 2 tablespoons olive or vegetable oil over medium heat, until lightly browned, turning gently to brown on all sides. Remove meatballs and set aside.

Using the same saucepan, saute the onions in the remaining tablespoon oil over medium heat until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add liquid from cherries (if fresh, use 1/2 cup water or apple cider instead), lemon juice, tamarind puree, red wine, 1 teaspoon allspice, and crushed tomatoes. Stir to combine; bring to a boil. Add meatballs and cherries back into the pan. Cover, reduce heat to low, and simmer for 1 hour, or until sauce has thickened.

Serve hot, either over pita or over saffron rice.

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This rich, flavorful gratin dish makes a fantastic light supper or lunch main course. It also happens to be gluten-free and kosher for passover — go figure.

Spinach and Roasted Red Pepper Gratin
adapted from Epicurious

4 10-ounce bags fresh spinach leaves
3 red bell peppers
1 1/2 tablespoons butter
1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
3 medium leeks (white and pale green parts only), thinly sliced (about 3 cups)
1 large shallot, chopped (about 1/4 cup)
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 cup whipping cream
4 large eggs
1 cup part-skim ricotta cheese
1/2 cup grated Swiss cheese
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

Heat large deep nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Working in batches (about 10 cups at a time), sauté fresh spinach in dry skillet until bright green and wilted, about 2 minutes per batch. Transfer spinach to strainer. Squeeze spinach dry; roll in kitchen towel to remove excess water.

Char peppers directly over gas flame or in broiler until blackened on all sides. Enclose in paper bag; let stand 10 minutes. Peel, seed, and slice peppers into 1/4-inch-wide strips.

Melt butter with oil in heavy large skillet over medium heat. Add leeks, shallot, and garlic; cook until soft, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat. Whisk cream and eggs in large bowl to blend. Whisk in all cheeses, salt, and pepper. Stir in spinach, leek mixture, and 2/3 of roasted red peppers (reserve 1/3 of peppers for topping). (Can be prepared 1 day ahead. Cover and refrigerate.)

Preheat oven to 350°F. Generously butter 13x9x2-inch baking dish. Transfer spinach mixture to prepared dish. Bake gratin until knife inserted into center comes out clean, about 50 minutes. Arrange remaining red pepper strips decoratively atop gratin and serve.

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