The Coming of Fall

Cold weather makes me moody, but what turns me around in fall and winter is a big bowl of soup or stew bursting with goodness and warmth. Also, it helps that most soups and stews are one pot meals that rely on layers and layers of flavors. Good crusty bread to dip in the broth is a must, as is a nice glass of red wine.


One pot meals are a staple in my home when school starts. Instead of eating out I devise a weekly plan for cooking that is comprised of many one pot meals. I hate eating out. Aside from the obvious reasons, such as unhealthy amounts of sodium and fat and the cost, the food never tastes as delicious and satisfying as a bowl of carefully, lovingly crafted homemade meal.



I picked up some chard at the farmers’ market the other day as I was inspired by Sarah at In Praise of Leftovers, and Dana at Dana Treat. A beautiful stew of chickpeas and chard, seasoned with ras el hanout ensued. So beautiful, simple, and fulfilling. It filled our home with so much warmth.

On another note, I just finished reading Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (hence, the long absence these past few days). It is one of those books that will always stay with me. Heavy, tender, beautifully written, sparse and desolate like the world that inhabits it. About half way through it I turned to Bryan, eyes welling with tears, heart pounding:

“I want to like McCarthy, but he has no faith in humanity.”

Bryan smiled: “Keep going. Then we’ll talk.”

I’m glad I did.

Read it. You’ll love it too. Especially if you read it on a cold, rainy day, with a cup of this stew.

Chickpeas with Chard and Ras el Hanout*

2 tablespoons of olive oil
1 onion, roughly chopped
3 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1 cup green peppers cut into small rings**
1 15 oz can crushed tomatoes
2 cups soaked chickpeas, or 2 cans of drained and rinsed chickpeas
3 teaspoons ras el hanout
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper
4 cups of vegetable broth
2 ½ cups chopped chard
Juice of 1 lemon – about 2 tablespoons
1 tablespoon honey
½ cup chopped cilantro

Preparation:

Heat the oil in a large Dutch oven. When hot, put the onions, garlic, and peppers in the pot, and sauté for about 3-5 minutes on medium high.

Add the tomatoes, chickpeas, ras el hanout, salt, and pepper, and stir to combine. Add the broth, stir well, place a tight fitting lid on the pan, and simmer on medium low for 1 ½ to 2 hours, if using the soaked chickpeas. If using the canned chickpeas, simmer for 15 -25 minutes on low heat, tightly covered pan.

Add the chard, lemon juice, and honey. Stir to combine and simmer for about 2-5 minutes, until the chard has wilted and the flavors have blended.

Add the cilantro, and mix thoroughly.

Serve warm with good crusty bread and wine.

Notes:

*Ras el Hanout is a Moroccan spice blend that varies in its contents depending on who is making it. I purchased mine online, but you can also make your own. Here is a link for an easy ras el hanout blend, and for a harder version.

**The peppers I used were the small ones that Jack is holding, pictured above. They are not spicy and their flavor is similar to Anaheim peppers, which you can use as a substitute. I think any type of pepper would do here though, especially Ancho peppers. In fact, I think that Anchos would make a great addition to the bouquet of flavors, adding heat and smokiness.

Ju bëftë mirë!
E.

I am a fiddler; I dip my toes into everything that interests me. Photography? Check! Writing? Pottery? Food? Teaching? Check check check....

It is especially rewarding when my interests intersect and collide. As I was perusing the pages of Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris, trying to pick an essay for my students to read, I came across a piece titled "Today's Special." It's about food! It's well-written and oh so funny. I thought I'd share a passage that had me laugh hysterically. I hope it lightens your Monday.

Excerpt from David Sedaris' "Today's Special."

As a rule, I'm no great fan of eating out in New York...SoHo is not a macaroni salad kind of place. This is where the world's brightest young talents come to braise carmelized racks of corn-fed songbirds or offer up their famous knuckle of flash-seared crappie served with a collar of chided ginger and cornered by a tribe of kiln-roasted Chilean toadstools, teased with a warm spray of clarified musk oil. Even when they promise something simple, they've got to tart it up - the meatloaf has been poached in seawater, or there are figs in the tuna salad. If cooking is an art, I think we're in our Dada phase.

I've never thought of myself as a particularly finicky eater, but it's hard to be a good sport when each dish seems to include no fewer than a dozen ingredients, one of which I'm bound to dislike. I'd order skirt steak with a medley of suffocated peaches, but I'm put off by the aspirin sauce. The sea scallops look good until I'm told they're served in a broth of malt liquor and mummified litchi nuts. What I really want is a cigarette, and I'm always searching the menu in the hope that some courageous young chef has finally recognized tobacco as a vegetable. Bake it, steam it, grill it, or stuff it into littleneck clams, I just need something familiar that I can hold on to...I order a [hot dog] with nothing but mustard, and am thrilled to watch the vendor present my hot dog in a horizontal position. So simple and timeless that I can recognize it, immediately, as food."

Hop for a Recipe

When my friend and fellow food enthusiast Chrissy asked me if I could develop a seasonal recipe for the Morning Glory Yoga newsletter, I squeaked like a squirrel and giggled like a little school girl.

That Saturday I headed to the farmers' market to find the perfect ingredient for a delicious vegan dish. I found some gorgeous eggplants, but what really grabbed my heart were the red potatoes. They were all over the market. I love potato salads, especially ones that are not mayo based, so it was no surprise that I ended up with a delicious Red Potato and Fennel Salad.



Head over to Morning Glory Blog to view the recipe on their newsletter.

I hope your Saturday is lovely!
E.

Cookie Crumbs and Reading the Future

My infatuation with coffee started as a very young child in a small town at the foot of Tomorr mountain in Albania. Poliçan (I have spoken of it before here) was a very small town, bitterly cold in winters, cool and bright in summers, with people from different areas of Albania who were brought there by the Party to work in the gun factory. My father worked there as a mechanical engineer. Vlora was the place that had my parents’ heart though, and even though my family enjoyed lasting friendships with many other families, like Lot’s wife they always looked back.

Winters were long and my paternal grandmother, Nënë Nxhiko, always spent them with us. She was a strong woman of whom I have very few memories, unfortunately. One of her favorite times of the day was coffee time; once in the morning, and once in late afternoon. As was customary, my mother made the coffee and she always served it with a little butter cookie placed on the small saucer.



Nënë Nxhiko always gave me the cookie, and, after I finished my happy munching, she would pour some of the dark liquid in the saucer for me to drink. I slurped the coffee with the intensity of a seasoned coffee addict, always getting a got-milk mustache, always dripping coffee on my shirt, smiling at my mother who did not want to laugh but who could not help herself.

Nënë Nxhiko liked to read the future in the patterns the coffee grounds made when the cup was placed upside down on the saucer. She was often joined by the other old women in the neighborhood. I always sat close to hear their predictions, wondering how they could see anything in those grounds. Number seven meant in seven days? A trail of liquid which had opened a thin line among the grounds meant unexpected travel in the near future?



Once I was a teenager and once my sisters had left the house, as the youngest woman of the household, I was supposed to make the coffee, but my mother disregarded traditions like that which she considered ridiculous and patriarchal. She never asked me to make coffee for guests. She was the one who would make it and I would serve it on a silver tray, drawing smiles from everyone once they saw the foam riding the edge of the cup. “Good girl,” they thought, “She’ll make a fine bride.”

My secret was out the first time I returned from the US after being away for two years. A family friend came over for an impromptu visit. He was a very traditional man who valued the customs much more than my parents did. Mom was not in the house, and as he sat down I asked:

“What would you like to drink? Raki? Juice? Water? Coffee?”

I should have skipped the last offering because coffee is what he wanted. I chuckled inside and said:

“Xhaxhi Luli [name changed], mom will be back in just a minute and she’ll make your coffee. I never learned how to make it alla Turka.”

Xhaxhi Luli proceeded to lecture me on the value of knowing how to make coffee, the honor that a good wife brings upon the house, and how one day I would have to make coffee for my in-laws.

The two of us, my mom and I, had a good laugh afterward. Not because we don’t honor good traditions, but because some are funny and because our family is different.

When I asked her this summer to teach me how to make Turkish coffee, she smiled and said:

“Are you ashamed of Xhaxhi Luli?”
“No, I just want to read my fortune,” I responded winking.

Good laugh resumed.

On my way back from Albania this past August I smuggled a Xhezve, the little pan where my parents make their coffee. I know how to make it now, and I can bake the cookies that go with it. The only thing I have yet to figure out is how to read the future. Perhaps on my next trip.



Butter and Cardamom Coffee Cookies

Ingredients:

14 tablespoons of butter at room temperature (200 g, or 1 stick + 6 tablespoons)
1 cup of powdered sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons of vanilla

3 cups of all purpose, non-bleached flour
½ teaspoon of baking soda
1 ½ teaspoon of ground cardamom
1/8 teaspoon of salt

1 egg yolk + 2 teaspoons of water for brushing
Walnut halves for decorating
¼ cup of powdered sugar for dusting

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 350 F

In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, cardamom, and salt. Set aside.

In a large mixing bowl mix the butter and sugar with a hand mixer on low speed until the sugar has been incorporated and the mixture is light and creamy. Add the eggs and the vanilla and mix until combined.

Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and thoroughly mix using a large spoon and your hands, forming a soft dough. Refrigerate the dough for about 15 minutes.

Take 1/3 of the dough and roll it into a ¼ inch thick sheet. Using a cookie cutter (1-2 inch in diameter), cut the individual cookies, brush the tops with the egg and water mixture, place a walnut half on top and set them on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet, 1 inch apart. Repeat these steps with the rest of the dough.

Bake for 12-15 minutes, or until golden. Let the cookies cool down, dust with powdered sugar, and enjoy with a warm cup of coffee or as a delicious snack.



Turkish Coffee (as made in Albania)

¾ cup of water
1 teaspoon of sugar
2 teaspoons of finely ground espresso beans

Equipment:
Xhezve (pictured below)

Preparation:

Place the water in the xhezve along with the sugar. Place the xhezve on medium high heat. Stir to melt the sugar.

Once the sugar has melted, add the coffee, stir to combine and let it on the heat until just before it boils. You will see the volume raise and bubbles on the side, but don’t let the water boil otherwise the foam will go away.

Pour in small espresso cups and serve with small butter cookies.

Note: The recipe above is for a bittersweet cup. You can adjust the amount of sugar to your taste.

Ju bëftë mirë!
E.

[This is a Xhezve - an itty bitty pan. This one is not the most traditional-looking one, but it makes good coffee]

Weeknight Noodles

It has been a week since I sat down to talk. I secretly hope you have noticed, too, but more importantly, I hope that you are still my friend. I apologize, and my excuses involve a full-time teaching gig that I love and which has been occupying all my time. The days have come and gone. I have written. Cooked more delicious things. Stressed over countless to do items on my ever-growing list. Rejoiced when a student seems to understand and follow my lecture.

I teach them how to write, and I noticed that the past two sentences have been fragments. I can't help myself. Right now I watched myself attack the computer screen with a red pen. It looks like the Albanian flag; the screen, that is. Not really, but you get my point.

And I am still a mommy and wife. Jack has been going to daycare everyday and he is handling it very well. Better than his mommy. I pick him up at 1 and I get to spend the rest of the day with him. Still, I miss those slow mornings when the two of us would cuddle and eat breakfast at the little table or on the couch, music playing softly in the background, Jack talking about all his imaginary feats. Now, I look forward to those lazy afternoons, coming home after a tiring morning, hungrily eating with Jack who is eating his second lunch. Afternoons are my new mornings.

Needless to say, weeknight dinners are quick, like these Asian inspired noodles. They were such a welcome meal after a long day. Quick, easy, and satisfying to all the taste buds; they are perfect and delicious.



Asian Inspired "Pirate" Noodles

14 oz of thin spaghetti*

For the Dressing:

1 tablespoon of Balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons of Tamari or dark soy sauce
2 teaspoons of toasted sesame seed oil
1 teaspoon of Ume Plum Vinegar (optional)
½ tablespoon brown sugar
2 tablespoons of honey
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Juice of ½ lemon

For the Chicken**:

1 tablespoon of canola or vegetable oil
2 chicken breasts, thinly sliced against the grain
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 ½ tablespoon of finely grated fresh ginger
½ teaspoon of salt
1/3 cup of chopped fresh cilantro
2 green onions, chopped

Toasted Sesame seeds for sprinkling.

Preparation:

Cook the noodles in a large pot according to the package instructions.

In the meanwhile, mix all the dressing ingredients in a mixing bowl. Set aside.

Heat the canola oil in a large skillet. Add the garlic and ginger and sauté stirring for about 1 minute. Add the chicken and salt and sauté until the chicken is cooked through. Set aside.

Drain the noodles and place them in a large mixing bowl together with the chicken, dressing, cilantro, and onions. Mix thoroughly and serve the noodles sprinkled with the toasted sesame seeds.


*I prefer to use Barilla Plus.
**You can substitute the chicken for Extra Firm Tofu for a vegetarian version.

E.

May It Nourish You

“Babushi si e bëre këtë gjellën?” (Dad, how did you make this gjellë?)
“Është secret!” (It’s a secret!) He replies winking at me and smiling.

He hovers around the table watching as I and my two nephews (7 and 11 years old) hungrily eat after a long day at the beach. My dad is the best cook and he has the generosity of spirit and love to share nourishment that characterizes any great chef. He is not eating; watching us enjoy his creation, he asks me occasionally:

“Të pëlqen?” (Do you like it?)

Of course I do, and he knows it by the not so graceful way I am dipping the bread in the broth and making a mess. But he is brimming with joy watching us enjoy his food and he offers seconds of the okra dish as soon as the plate becomes near empty, eyes welling with satisfaction. He has satiated us, filled our souls.

Gjellë is the most typical Albanian dish: take a mixture of vegetables and veal and simmer them together for a long time on the stove top, or cook in the pressure cooker to accelerate the cooking process. Either method creates delicious dishes.

Gjellë comprises the main component of the meal and it is usually accompanied by a seasonal salad: lettuce salads, tomato, cucumber, and pepper salads in the spring and summer, and cabbage, olive, and roasted winter vegetables in the fall and winter. Bread is the third component of a typical Albanian meal. There are bread bakeries (Furrë Buke or Bukë) on every block and the bread is delicious.

This particular gjellë recipe follows my dad’s instructions and it is delicious. Even though I kept mmmm-ing in satisfaction after every bite I felt that my dad's okra was better.

“How can it get any better than this?” asked Bryan, slurping the broth.

I did not have an answer then, but I know now that it lacked my dad’s hovering around the table, watching us eat, ready to heap joy and nourishment on our plates.



Gjellë me Bamje (Okra Stew)

Ingredients:

1 lb of fresh okra, ends cleaned, cut in halves if too long
½ lb stew beef, cut in 1 inch or bite size pieces
1 medium sweet yellow onion, chopped
1 15 oz can of petite diced tomatoes
3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Equipment:
Enameled cast iron Dutch oven, or any heavy Dutch oven that has a fitted lid.

Preparation:

Place all the ingredients in the Dutch oven, mix to combine, cover tightly, and cook in low heat for about 1 hour. Stir occasionally (not more than 3 times) to prevent sticking. Serve with a green lettuce salad with a lemon and olive oil dressing, and good, warm crusty bread to mop up the broth of the okra.

Ju bëftë mirë!
E.

P.S. Previously I have translated “Ju bëftë mirë” as Bon Appétit, but the literal translation is “May it nourish you!” So, Ju bëftë mirë!!!

Impatience

I could not wait to tell you about tonight's meal, even though I have three posts coming up waiting publishing. Can you think of anything better than cubes of creamy, crunchy, sweet polenta, rounds of spiced sausage, and roasted vegetables, tossed together with a splash of lemon to brighten up the flavors? I can't. It's the perfect weeknight meal; light, beautiful, and satisfying. Make it - I know you'll love it.



Warm Polenta and Italian Sausage Salad

Ingredients:

1 zucchini, cut in 1/4 inch half rounds
1 summer squash, cut in 1/4 inch slices
2 carrots, peeled and cut in 1/4 inch slices
1/2 red onion roughly chopped
1 teaspoon of salt
2 teaspoons canola oil

1 roll (1 lb) of ready-made polenta*, cut into 1 inch cubes
6 oz of fully cooked Italian sausage, sliced into 1/4 inch thick slices
2 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil
zest of one lemon
Juice of half a lemon (about 2 tablespoons)
1 jalapeno, finely diced (optional)
2 tablespoons of fresh oregano leaves
1/2 teaspoon salt

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 400 F.

Toss the vegetables with the salt and oil and place in a large baking dish, spreading them evenly. Place in the oven and bake for about 20 minutes.

Heat the olive oil in a large skillet and saute the sausage for about 2 minutes on medium high heat. Remove from pan and place in a large mixing bowl.

Saute on medium high heat the polenta cubes carefully turning them to golden brown all sides, about 3-5 minutes. Place them in the large mixing bowl.

Place the roasted vegetables in the mixing bowl with the polenta and sausage; add the jalapeno, oregano leaves, salt and lemon juice.

Carefully toss everything together to combine and serve immediately.

Ju bëftë mirë!
E.

*You can make your own polenta a day in advance and let it sit in a square container overnight. Cut in 1 inch cubes just prior to cooking.