greens, beans, and bags

I have been on a real greens kick lately. Collards, endive, escarole, chard...anything leafy. I've always liked these veggies, but an article by Christina Pirello (inspiring vegan cook, and new contributor to my employer Intermezzo) has really reawakened my interest.

First, take a look. How beautiful is that.

These are collard greens, my go-to green. I started using them a lot when I lived in Boston, after eating them at a Brazilian restaurant and falling in looove. They were sliced into ribbons and sauteed with, well, I don't know. Probably meat drippings. But in my house, they are stacked up, sliced into thin ribbons, and sauteed in garlic and olive oil until bright green and still pretty crispy. When I moved to Austin, I started using them more and more. I think I like the idea of collard greens because they are so Southern.

A couple weeks ago I bought a ton of different greens for a salad. I'm still shopping at Central Market without plastic, so I was just putting them in my shopping bag and sticking the printed labels on a piece of paper. This hasn't been working so great at home though. Without the plastic bags, my veggies have been deteriorating quickly, especially leafies.

I decided to make an investment. One of my friends used to have these special plastic bags she kept her produce in and swore it kept it fresh for ages. They kind of disturbed me, as it just seemed like spinach shouldn't last for ten days. But I saw the bags, by Peak Fresh, in CM and decided to give it a shot. I have to say, they are working amazingly well. Apparently they let out the gasses that would cause veggies to wilt and go bad. They are reusable too, of course.

So I don't have to use the wasteful plastic bags, and my stuff lasts longer. What a deal. I can buy a week's worth of greens and other veggies in one shot.

I have lots of recipes for greens, but here is a quick soup for today. This is a really vague and simple recipe, even for me...maybe we should think of it more as "inspiration" than a recipe. It barely even qualifies as guidelines. But it raises some interesting points, and this is exactly how I eat it.

Bean and Green Soup

Olive oil
1 chopped onion
a couple cloves chopped garlic
head of collard or other cooking green, sliced/chopped as you prefer
about 2 cups cooked white beans
water, salt, pepper

Saute onion and garlic in olive oil until softened.

*point one: you can use more or less olive oil, depending on how much flavor and fat you want or don't want. If you're on a diet, use just a tablespoon or so; if you are not concerned (and this soup is VERY healthy) use more. I use...a generous three-glug pour.

Add greens. saute until they collapse and are bright green.

Add beans and water.

*point two. I am never buying boxed or canned broth again. It is a waste of money and packaging. I will make my own veg or chicken stock if I feel like it, but I have been making really good soups with just water. If you cook your own beans, which I have been doing, you can also use some of the bean cooking water.

Cook this all over low for about half an hour. The beans will eventually start falling apart. Season with salt and pepper.

To serve. Add Parmigiano-Reggiano! this is a better source of flavor than all the canned broth in the world. Parm has "umami," that Japanese-identified fifth flavor group. It is a packaged, imported food I will never give up. Then, if you are crazy, add spice, either red pepper flakes, or, as I did, Sriracha.

OK, that looks absolutely revolting and I admit it. But it was really good. Scott ate it with a lot less parm and zero spice and loved it, as he does all my various water-based bean soups. With a piece of multi grain bread it is a very healthy meal. I also sometimes cook a chicken sausage for Scott that he throws in his portion, since he doesn't always like to eat veg.

You are a better cook than Paul Newman, I promise

Homemade tomato sauce is a big source of drama and mystique for many people. As my beloved Marcella Hazan says, somewhere in Marcella's Italian Kitchen--but I can't find the exact quote so I'll have to paraphrase--"there is nothing so false as the image of the old Italian matriarch, stooped over her hot oven for hours, stirring a simmering pot of tomato sauce." While there are some slow-cooking and complicated sauces, a tasty and basic tomato sauce can be made with little fuss. There are even delicious uncooked tomato sauces.

However, my method should not be mistaken for a Great Italian Masterpiece, either. One thing I have learned about Italians in my years working on a cooking magazine (and being half Italian, and visiting the country several times) is that they are very opinionated about food, to put it really mildly. But at the end of the day, we're all just people trying to turn vegetables into something healthy and tasty with a minimum of fuss. I believe my sauces accomplish that, and that you can make good sauce too.

To begin: the most important thing, and any Italian would agree with me, is quality ingredients. There are a lot of different kinds of tomatoes, and where they grow and how ripe they are really determines their flavor. The store can be overwhelming--which ones will be tasty? which ones are going to be mealy and flavorless?

Sometimes I luck out and sometimes I fail. I can't really guide you towards the best varieties because I just don't know. My only advice would be to not think a tomato will taste good just because it looks great--some of the scary looking heirloom ones are the best (but some are gross)-- and buy something locally grown, which will mean totally different kinds for different regions. Local tomatoes will be fresher, and it's nice to support your community. (Eating local is a big subject that deserves more attention but...later...and anyway, it's pretty well covered in the food press right now.) And, maybe your local tomato actually won't be that great, but hey--at least it didn't have to fly all the way from Holland just to suck.

(We are not going to discuss San Marzanos or other canned tomatoes here, but I can tell you more about them if you are interested.)

Whatever tomatos I buy, I like to let them sit around for a few days--at room temperature. NEVER refrigerate your tomatoes. Don't do it. And don't buy tomatoes that are in the refrigerated section. It totally messes them up and makes them spongy and bland. Let them sit around on the counter for a few days. If they get wrinkly, no problem. I've actually seen recipes that call for wrinkled tomatoes. This is one that I got at the Triangle farmer's market after it sat for a couple of days.


One more thing. Before I started my sauce, I tasted the tomatoes. These were really acidic. Good, but wow. Tongue searing. Good to know, as I would add some sugar to the sauce later. So, taste.

Along with tomatoes, a sauce can have just garlic, basil, and olive oil, and/or onions, and/or celery...whatever you want. Of course you can read and try different recipes, but at the end of the day, it's your choice.

I've learned that I really like my sauce with onion, garlic, celery and carrot. Not too much carrot, just one small one or less. It also gives a nice bright color. But if I don't have carrot or celery, that's OK. But I HAVE to have garlic and onion. That is the bare minimum. So chop your stuff up...(I used half this carrot) (garlic not pictured for some reason) (I was out of celery):


And put it in a pot with some olive oil.


Some recipes will say that onions and garlic should go first, then carrots, or whatever but--I just put it all in together. You know the other night while I was making this sauce I was also making a turkey meatloaf for Scott's lunches, and granola for the week. I have to be efficient.

Cook all your stuff up in olive oil over medium heat until it's soft. Stir often so it doesn't stick and brown. Maybe about 15 mins depending on if you have carrots or not (they are slow). And..oh...olive oil. Another ingredient where you need to consider quality. Sorry, no room to talk about it here. Just make sure you like the flavor of the olive oil you are using. "Lite" olive oil really has no flavor (that's what is "lite" about it) and I do not recommend it.

(Side note: of course onions, carrots and garlic all should be chosen carefully and taste good too, but as they aren't the star ingredients, it's not so important to spend time on them here.)

When the onions etc are soft, add your chopped tomatoes. For this amount of stuff I did...I don't know maybe a pound and a half of tomatoes. Some recipes say to seed and skin the tomatoes, but I don't do this, surprise surprise.

Let it all cook up for awhile. Lower the heat so it's not bubbling out of control. Add salt and pepper, and sugar if you think your tomatoes need it. Don't go hog wild with adding all kinds of spices from the spice rack. Choose a fresh herb or two and add that toward the end. If you don't have a fresh herb, well, I don't know what to tell you. Maybe you can use dried spices to come up with some combo that makes it really "your" sauce, and that is fun.

Lately I have been really into using rosemary, which I used to only do in the winter but am now doing all the time (until I get sick of it). I had some basil plants all summer, but I recently let them die. They really struggled in the heat, I had to water them constantly, and after awhile they just didn't taste that great. So instead I just sneak down to my neighbor's apartment and snip a length of rosemary while the tomatoes cook. It grows everywhere in Austin, which I found truly magical when I moved here (but, I think it is common like, everywhere but New England where I grew up).

Of course, I pushed it all the way in, this is just so you can see it.

If you are using basil, don't add it till the very end. Rosemary I think needs a longer simmer. But the flavors of basil really pop if not cooked too long. Throw in some chopped or whole leaves right at the end.

Let the whole thing simmer about half an hour. When the sauce is done (which I determine somewhat arbitrarily and by it smelling really good) you can fridge it, as I did, or use it right away, or put it in the blender to make it really smooth (which I did the next day before reheating) (take out the rosemary if blending or before serving, too!). You can also stir in a little tomato paste, which is kind of a cheat to the no packaging experiment, and I didn't do it but...I do have a jar in the fridge. It's like a shot of tomato essence and can be a nice touch. This rosemary sauce also is nice with a drizzle of balsamic vinegar, per Marcella. I didn't do it this time though.

So that's it for sauce, for now. There really is so much to say, and there are books written on it and everyone makes a big fuss about having"the best" sauce, and having grandmas secret recipe for "gravy" and blah, blah, blah. All that stuff is fun, but it shouldn't put you off making your own. All you have to do is love and respect your ingredients and enjoy your time in the kitchen and you'll do just fine.

A word about bread (but it's never just one word with me)

When you think of cooking at home, from scratch, one of the first things that comes to mind is baking your own bread. However, keen readers of this blog (all two of you) will observe that I bought bread, rather than made it, and already mentioned this as an example of something that it was better for me to buy than make. Let's look at that in more detail.

Some people don't even eat bread anymore, though this trend has mostly passed--right about when Robert Atkins did. I'm not laughing or even smirking. But it should be noted that if everyone on this planet ate the amount of protein that the Atkins diet advocated, we would run out of land, water, fish and animals in about five minutes. No, that isn't very well researched, but I know that this planet can not support six billion people eating meat three times a day. It's already struggling mightily. (And that's not even considering the monetary side of things--people expect meat to be cheap--it shouldn't be! The affordability of meat--high quality, muscle meat--hides a lot of unpleasant truths.) We gotta try to eat from lower on the food chain.

Anyway, I love carbs and think they are part of a healthy diet, particularly in the form of whole grains. And while I can roll out my own pasta and make tortillas and other basic stuff, I don't think I can bake good bread. I don't have the skills, ingredients or equipment to do it right. Plus, is heating my oven up to high when my AC is already working full-time just to keep this place at 81 degrees a very pleasant or environmentally sound idea?

Central Market sells a million different kinds of breads that are not wrapped, so the only packaging used is a paper bag. I thought about just chucking it in my shopping bag, but then I was like, have some damn dignity. I think that unless I get a designated bread bag, I don't need my unwashable food mingling with everything else. I think one paper bag is ok.

The bread I bought is called ten-grain, and it is so good. I highly recommend it--it is chewy and not coarse, and has a really nice and mild flavor, despite the hippy-high grain count. I would have to buy TEN different grains to get the nutritional benefits of this one loaf. No fun.

Just to share, here is one way that I have enjoyed this bread this week. I made a fried egg, put it on a piece of bread and topped the whole thing with leftover tomato sauce that I made last week. Sounds kind of weird, but it was delicious. I will give my recipe for easy tomato sauce at another time, but it's basically just olive oil, tomatoes, onions, garlic and in this case, rosemary, because I have been on a big kick with it lately and there is a shrub of it growing in front of my neighbor's apartment. It makes everything taste like it comes from a fancy restaurant.

Here is my bread working hard for me. Tasty!

Kneading, chopping, cooking, eating

When I got home from the store with my groceries on Sunday at seven, I had a lot of work to do in a short amount of time.

First thing would be to start the pasta. How is homemade or fresh pasta different from store bought dry? Well, the main difference is that it is made with flour and eggs, whereas most dry pasta from a box is made only with flour and water (noodles and some fettucini being notable exceptions). It tastes lighter and softer but also springier than pasta from a box. The other difference of course is that it takes a lot longer than opening a box! I do it often, but usually for special occassions. It was interesting to just do it as part of my bang-it-out-get-it-done worknight cooking routine.

The type of flour used in pasta is debated a lot. 100% durum...semolina...type 00...there are so many terms floating around, and a good deal of misinformation and misnaming. I think its enough to put people off trying to make it, which is unfortunate, because at the end of the day you can get fine results using just all-purpose flour, and making it is not difficult. I won't go into the techniques here, but I learned do to it from Jamie Oliver and Marcella Hazan--they are both very opinionated and quite expert, and sometimes contradict each other. I actually find this useful...it forces you to go into it with an open mind and try new things. There is no 100% ultimate formula--and its supposed to be fun!

Anyway, I decided to use half all-purpose and half whole-wheat flour, to make it a little healthier, and to make a double batch. The doubling was a terrible idea. I heaped up a big mountain of flour, made a well in the center, cracked in four eggs and...they leaked out and made a huge mess. It was pretty sad. Egg running down the counter attracting roaches (I could do a whole blog about those little bastards!), my hands already covered in sticky dough...ugh. But I salvaged it. The dough felt firmer than usual because of the whole-wheat (and the volume I suppose), but I just kept kneading it and beating it to death for about 15 minutes. It's a good workout. Anyone who thinks pasta is fattening should try making it--the calories in probably equal the calories out.

I saved half the ball of dough for another time, and rolled out the rest. It made a ton and was perfect, didn't need any reflouring. Here it is, honey-blonde thanks to the whole-wheat. A nice departure from the usual platinum.

While the pasta was resting (before I rolled it out) I did a bunch of other things.

Granola: I mixed up all the stuff from before shopping with roasted pecans that I crushed by hand, shredded coconut, and rolled oats. Not sure about any quantities. Think there was about as much oat as there was everything else. I heated up some canola oil and honey, mixed it together, and spread it out on two baking sheets. 300 degrees for about 45 minutes, and the house kind of smelled Christmasy. Delicious! When I packed it in Scott's lunch the next day, I added chocolate chips.

So, I also had to consider the beverage side of things. We don't drink alcohol at home, but we do drink other bottled bevs, especially Scott: the new sugar-free vitamin waters, diet Coke, and my favorite, Topo Chico mineral water. But this would have to stop, or at least reduce. So I made a big pitcher of hibiscus tea, using Nile Valley tea bags. I just found the flowers in bulk, but had these bags on hand. I fell in love with hibiscus tea in Mexico (it is also called flor de Jamaica). I add a little sugar but keep it pretty mild. Scott loves it too. So we've been chugging that the last two days.

At some point in all of this I got the lettuce ready for the week. This is part of my usual routine but thought I'd share since it's a good trick. I chop it up and wash it and spin it dry, and then store it in the salad spinner in the fridge. It keeps it pretty fresh all week and is always ready for sandwiches and salads. A tip: the less you can cut it, the better, as it's the cut edges that turn brown. Isn't it pretty?

Finally, time for dinner. I had decided to do the pasta tossed with shrimp and collard greens. So first I had to peel and devein the shrimp, a chore about which I am extremely thorough. My father and I had a big fight about this on vacation once, as he doesn't do it. Lots of people and restaurants don't. If you are eating a shrimp that doesn't have a cut down the outside of its back, it hasn't been deveined.

(If you don't know what this is all about,

deveining is removing the shrimp's intestinal tract, basically. Pretty much a bunch of gross brown grit. It won't harm you to eat it, but sometimes you can taste/feel the grit, and I just simply refuse to eat any amount of shrimp excrement, no matter how small. Call me uptight, I don't care. My shrimp are always tender and NEVER gritty.)

So I did all the stupid shrimp, sliced the collards into ribbons, and chopped up about half the parsley. I sauteed about three cloves minced garlic in olive oil, then added the shrimp and greens at the same time.I had enough shrimp and collards and parsley that I only cooked half. There would be enough to make this again tomorrow. When everything is all cut up and ready to go, it's almost as easy as leftovers.

The pasta only had to boil for a few minutes. Tossed up half with the shrimp and greens, and let the other half cool uncovered before covering and fridging. We did add grated parmesan (wrong, I know...and it wasn't even Parmigiano Reggiano...hey that stuff is like 15 dollars a pound! I can't buy it every time) and I seasoned liberally with cayenne because I am a jackass who always craves the spice. It was great, both Sunday night and Monday when we had it again.

I finished everything by 10 pm. Outrageous to most, normal for us. (And don't tell me it will make me fat because I have lost about 25 or 30 pounds in the last two years and eat between 9 and 10 almost every night!)

Pasta with Collard Greens and Shrimp

Serves 2 twice, or serves 4

Medium pour of olive oil

6 cloves garlic, minced

1 bunch collard greens, sliced into thin ribbons and chunkiest part of stem removed

1 pound shrimp, peeled and deveined

1/3 (about) bunch Italian parsley, chopped

About 1 pound pasta of your choice, homemade if youwant

In a heavy bottomed pot big enough to hold everything, heat olive oil and garlic, cooking till garlic is soft and fragrant. Add shrimp and greens (or, if you like the greens softer, add them first) and cook until shrimp is cooked through, about 5 or so minutes. Season all with salt and pepper. Serve with pasta of choice, and grated parm if you want to laugh in the face of tradition.