Summer Vegetable Ragout

I've been in a cooking slump. Work has been crazy, school is insane, the garden is demanding, the kids' activities have us running all over. Between work, yardwork and homework, Panda's class and rehearsals, my class and rehearsals, Redman's games and practices, I'm in no mood to make dinner. Let's just order Chinese Food. 

But suddenly, Panda's two recitals were finished, and last week was her last ballet class in Ridgefield. And suddenly I have Monday, Tuesday and Thursday nights free. Welcome back, Kotter! I can actually plan a dinner. I can plan a week of dinners and there will be people here to eat them! We can eat on the deck! I can put flowers on the table on the deck while we eat the dinner I planned!

Life is great.

So all my cookbooks are stacked up next to my bed again and I'm getting reacquainted with some old friends. Diving back into one of my very favorites, Fast, Fresh & Green, here's a simply awesome recipe for Summer Vegetable Ragout with Zucchini, Green Beans and Corn. This is a lemon-bright, elegant succotash of sorts. I doubled the recipe below, substituted asparagus for green beans because it's what I had around, and I used frozen corn instead of fresh. A little bit of prep time goes into this, but then it's 1-2-3 in the skillet and just totally delicious. Redman really liked it, which surprised me. Then again, he's always surprising me.

Summer Vegetable Ragout

• 1 tsp fresh lemon juice
• 1/2 tsp finely grated lemon zest
• 1/4 tsp Worcestershire sauce
• 1/4 cup chicken broth
• 2 tbsp heavy cream (I used half-and-half)
• 1 tbsp Canola or Olive oil
• 1 cup fresh corn kernels
• 3/4 cup sliced baby zucchini (slice baby zucchini straight across; if you don't have baby, use regular, sliced lengthwise in quarters and then straight across)
• 3/4 cup sliced slender green or yellow wax beans (I used 1/2 bunch of asparagus, cut on the diagnol into 1" pieces)
• 1 cup medium-diced yellow onion (I used a red onion because I had half a one hanging out in the fridge)
• 1/2 tsp kosher salt
• 1/2 tsp finely chopped garlic
• 1 tbsp chopped fresh herbs (I used parsley, basil, chives, thyme and just a little bit of mint)
• Freshly ground black pepper

Combine the lemon juice, lemon zest, and Worcestershire sauce in a small bowl. In a liquid measuring cup, combine broth and heavy cream. Set these aside.

Heat oil in skillet over medium-high heat. Add the corn, zucchini, green beans, onion and salt. Cook, stirring frequently, until the bottom of the pan is browned, 4 to 6 minutes. Add the garlic and cook, stirring, just until well combined. Turn the heat to low, add the broth-cream mixture, stir well to scrape up the browned bits from the bottom of the pan, and cover. Simmer until the liquids have reduced to 1 or 2 tbsp, about 4 minutes.

Remove the pan from the stove, and stir in the lemon juice mixture and most of the fresh herbs. Season with pepper and stir again. Transfer to a serving dish and garnish with the remaining herbs.

This and a cranberry-radish slaw, along with two rotisseries chicken, were dinner on the deck.

Brown Butter Summer Squash "Linguine"

Unless you have exceptional knife skills, you do need a julienne peeler for this recipe from Fast, Fresh & Green. I got mine in a set of 3 peelers from Panda last Christmas, but a single one is not expensive and quite a worthy investment. Consider asking Santa for one.

As usual I was a little short of a few key ingredients: I didn't have any chopped almonds or hazelnuts that were called for, so I went in a more Italian direction by using chopped garlic and adding some halved cherry tomatoes as well. To be honest, I was a little underwhelmed by the finished dish. The recipe cooking time is 2 minutes but both Jeeps and I found it sort of undercooked. I also may have used too much lemon. But I loved the very concept of it, and it will definitely be something I fool around with.

Brown Butter Summer Squash Linguine

• 1 1/2 lbs summer squash, mix of yellow and green
• 2 tbsp unsalted butter
• 2 tbsp finely chopped almonds or hazelnuts
• 1 tsp kosher salt
• 2 tsp chopped fresh parsley or tarragon
• 1/2 lemon

Wash and dry the squash and trim off the ends. Using a julienne peeler, peel the squash lengthwise all the way around, dropping the strips into a bowl. Continue peeling until you reach the seed core. Discard the core and peel the other squash in the same fashion. Give all the strips a little toss in the bowl and separate any that are clumped together.

In a straight-sided saute pan, melt the butter over medium-low heat. Add the almonds and swirl the butter around in the pan. Cook the butter until it reaches a nutty brown color, about 2 minutes. Immediately add the squash and salt. Toss the squash gently with tongs until it is well coated with the butter. Continue cooking just until the squash becomes slightly limp, about 1 minute.

Remove the pan from the heat, stir in half the chopped herbs and a squeeze of lemon. Toss, taste, and add more lemon if desired. Transfer to a serving dish, sprinkle with more of the herbs, and serve.

Again, it was good, but not quite right. This strikes me as a very summery dish. It cozied up fine to a baked potato here, but I began to imagine blanching the julienned squash, just to get the right consistency, then tossing it with a vinaigrette and serving at room temperature with grilled shrimp.

Hmm... Hold that thought.

Green Beans with Lemon Pepper Oil

The full name of this recipe (another from Fast, Fresh & Green) is "Provencal Green Beans with Lemon-Pepper Oil and Herbed Sea Salt." It sounds fancier than it is and I did not stay completely true to the recipe for a few reasons. 

1) The lemon-pepper infused olive oil sounded awesome, but my kids would not eat anything that spicy. Green beans are one of the surefire veggies that they will wolf down, so I try not to get too adventurous with them.

2) The herbed sea salt is made by combining the salt with lavender buds. I have no more lavender in my garden, but even if I did, I'm not sure it would go over well. The alternative was to use crushed rosemary, but Jeeps has a funny thing with rosemary.

So I will give you the full recipe here, but just know my version was green beans tossed with lemon olive oil and sea salt. They were perfect alongside some grilled apple sausages and pan-roasted red and blue potatoes. They'd also be great just as an appetizer.

The sausages, by the way, were served with cider-beer mustard made by my amazing friend Becky (who brought me the pyrex dishes full of barbecued chicken, potato salad, and love). We attended her family's incomparable Oktoberfest a few weekends ago, and I left her house with a ziplock bag of bratwurst and 3 darling little jars of cider mustard, cranberry mustard, and dill relish.

Provencal Green Beans with Lemon-Pepper Oil & Herbed Sea Salt

The lemon-pepper oil is made by combining 2 tbsp of olive oil with a tablespoon of lemon zest, and 8 grinds of the pepper mill. Make this first and let it sit for 15-2o minutes to let the flavors infuse the oil. The oil keeps well in the fridge so double or triple the recipe if you like and use it on grilled fish or any steamed vegetable.

The herbed sea salt is made by combining 1/4 tsp chopped fresh lavender buds or rosemary leaves, with 1/2 tsp sea salt. Use a coarse salt like fleur de sel.

Then you simply steam or blanch a pound of green beans until they are tender to the bite but still have their nice green color. Drain, let cool a few minutes, then transfer to a serving dish. Drizzle most of the lemon-pepper oil over them.  Sprinkle with some of the herb salt. Taste a bean and add still more salt if you like ("Be generous!" says Susie Middleton).

They went so fast I could barely snap a picture.

On the subject of lemons, its essential oil is a great thing to keep around the house. Jeeps likes to mix vinaigrette into hummus and add a few drops of lemon EO to make a really tasty salad dressing. Mixed with baking soda and vinegar, it makes a great all-purpose cleaner. And I love to use it when I make soap, especially blended with geranium and rose oils.

The team at OilingPoint.com has a great article about the benefits of using lemon essential oil. You can read it here.

Debbie's Vanilla and Cardamom Squash

Can I tell you how much I love this book? It's become my bible of late, and I have three truly great dishes to share with you. 

I'm sorely tempted to pack all three into one post but I realize that a good backlog benefits the cadence of the blog, so three separate posts it shall be.

Tonight I'll be telling you about Vanilla and Cardamom Glazed Squash, and this post is dedicated to my friend Debbie. I smile with a great deal of irony as I write that because I do consider Debbie my friend, and certainly my foodie soulmate, but I've never met her. We "met" on Facebook through a mutual friend, got to know each other through various comments on food, NPR, scrabble, and such, and then she friended me and I accepted and there we went and there we were. The bond was only strengthened when I was posting about something or other and made reference to the fact that cardamom is my favorite spice. Debbie commented that I was the only other person she knew whose favorite spice was cardamom.

I really should meet her someday. In the meantime, Debbie, I made this for you...

Vanilla and Cardamom Glazed Acorn Squash Rings

The recipe calls for 1 small acorn squash, which I didn't have. I had 2 smallish "carnival" squashes, seen here. Actually I had 3 and they were part of the Halloween display on my kitchen pass-through shelf, but 1 rotted. I'm still killing the fruit flies. Let's not talk about it.

• 1 small acorn squash, or 1 to 1 1/4 pounds any type winter squash
• 2 tbsp unsalted butter
• 2 tsp pure maple syrup
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/8 tsp ground cardamom (mmmmmmm...yes...yes...and no, I don't have an 1/8 measuring spoon, I just eyeballed a few judicious sprinkles)
• Kosher salt

Preheat oven to 475. Line a baking sheet with a piece of parchment paper.

With a sharp axe (aka a chef's knife), cut the acorn squash in half lengthwise (through the stem end and the pointy end). PLEASE be careful! Scrape out the seeds and fibers with a spoon. 

Put each half, cut side down, on a cutting board. Slice off about 3/4" from each end and discard. Slice the squash crosswise into 1/2" half-rings. If you want, trim off any remaining fibers and goo. Put the rings on the parchment paper.

In a small saucepan, melt the 2 tbsp butter over low heat. Add the maple syrup, vanilla and cardamom. Lean over the saucepan and inhale deeply.  Deeply. Make room for the girl who will stagger into the kitchen, eyes glazed, breathing deeply, wondering aloud, "What is that?" 

Breathe it in again, it's divine.

Use a pastry brush to lightly brush the squash pieces with about half the butter mixture. Sprinkle lightly with salt and turn them over. Brush this side with the other half of the butter mixture but save about 1 tsp if you can, or add another tsp or 2 to the pan for later. Season this side lightly with salt.

Roast the squash for 15 minutes. Use tongs to flip the pieces over. Your kitchen is going to smell amazing. 

"What is that?" Jeeps cried when he and Redman came in from soccer practice. Smile knowingly. You are a goddess.

Roast another 15 minutes until they are nicely browned (the bottoms will be browner than the tops) and tender when pierced with a paring knife. Move to a serving dish.

Reheat the butter mixture briefly over low heat if necessary. Brush the butter mixture over the squash slices and serve.

Some quotes from the dinner table:

"This is like pumpkin pie."

"This is like dessert for dinner."

"You could eat this for breakfast."

"It's almost too sweet."

Oh, and most interestingly, "The skin is the best part!" Yes indeed, you can scoop the squash flesh away from the skin and eat, but amazingly, the skin is perfectly edible and really really tasty. Don't you agree, Debbie?

I thought so.

Smoky Carrots & Fennel

My friend Potter got married a couple weeks ago on Governor's Island. It was an exceptionally lovely wedding withe three (3) kinds of cake: red velvet, carrot and key lime. One of them had bride-and-groom rubber duckies on top.

On the way home, we had time to kill in Grand Central before catching our train. The boys went into the MTA museum while Panda and I wandered through Pylones, which is a funky little store with no end of cool things. Often they have great little books. And sometimes great great books. I got a present:

I read it the whole way home, with visions of vegetables dancing in my head. This is a great book—awesome recipes and mouth-watering photos. Vegetable porn. It's too great, actually, because I end up dog-earing every page and then when it comes time to actually cook, I can't make up my mind. I want to make everything. Or I lack some essential ingredient to make the one thing I've been dying to try.

Finally tonight I told myself to be sensible and use up the oldest vegetables in the fridge, which in this case was a head of fennel. I thumbed the pages and decided upon...(drum roll):

Smoky Spanish Carrots and Fennel with Toasted Hazelnuts

Minus the hazelnuts because I did have them, but not toasted. Toasting hazelnuts is a thankless, high-maintenance job which involves babysitting the nuts in the oven, and then giving them a brisk rubdown with a dish towel to remove all the skins. My cleaning lady came today and the last thing I wanted was bits of hazelnut skin all over my pristine kitchen, it was bad enough I was making breaded chicken. Always, always the day Celia comes to clean, I end up making breaded chicken on my immaculate stovetop.

So this dish, sans hazelnuts, uses the "Walk-Away Sauté" method.  As Susie Middleton says:

“It does take time—about 30 minutes—to get the carrots and fennel to the perfect texture. But like most of the walk-away sautés, there’s not a heck of a lot you have to do during that time. Stir. Sip wine. Stir. Sip wine. That’s all. Oh, and you can fret a little when you think the pan is getting too brown. But it isn’t really a problem, I promise.”

I'm in love.

Susie Middleton's Smoky Spanish Carrots and Fennel

• 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 lb (455 grams, and bless her heart, she gives measurements in standard AND metric) carrots, peeled, trimmed, and sliced.
• 1 small fennel bulb, trimmed, cored, and cut into 3/4" slices
• 1 tsp kosher salt
• 1 tbsp sherry or rice wine (I used sherry)
• 1/2 tsp Spanish smoked paprika (I don't know if mine is smoked paprika or sweet or what, I just used what I had)
• 3 tbsp coarsely chopped toasted hazelnuts (blah blah blah)

In a straight-sided sauté pan, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the carrots and fennel and season with the salt. Stir well with a silicone spatula to combine. 

Continue to cook, stirring occasionally at first, and more frequently as the pan begins to brown. Be patient, as it will not look like much is happening in the beginning. Keep stirring and cooking (and don't worry about the pan browning), until the carrots have shrunken quite a bit, are tender (test with a paring knife) and somewhat browned, and the fennel is tender—28 to 30 minutes.

Add the sherry to the pan and stir until it has almost evaporated. Sprinkle the paprika over the vegetables and stir for just a few seconds to incorporate the spice and release its flavor. Remove the pan from the heat and let cool a minute. Transfer to a serving dish and garnish with the toasted hazelnuts.

This was a perfect dish, Jeeps and I ate every bit. The fennel was smooth as silk and it and the carrots had great, smoky autumn flavor. This would be amazing over polenta. I can see where the hazelnuts would have added that extra something special so I will make a point of having them, pre-toasted, on hand, to make this again. Oh yeah, I'll make it again.