The Pressure's On

Have I told you yet that Greg organized a chapter of the National Kickball league right here in New Haven? This was to be a summer of sports and outdoor recreation. We had plans, oh there were plans for fitness and getting in shape... well, poor guy, things don't always go as planned. Greg had a youtube-worthy moment this weekend, and it might have been worth it if only someone had a camera on them. I was working on Saturday so I did not get to witness the event myself, but, apparently, he made a spectacular swan dive towards the giant bouncing rubber ball in order to tag someone out. Unfortunately, by making this amazing save, he landed awkwardly on his side and broke his shoulder.

In case you ever break your shoulder, here's what to expect: horrible pain for the first seven days, an uncomfortable sling that rubs your skin raw, Vicodin, and no use of your arm for 6 weeks. This, and the ER doctor said that his was the slightest injury he could have made. (Better than dislocating a shoulder, apparently).

Greg has been a real trouper about the whole ordeal. There's not much he can do at the moment except watch movies and be uncomfortable on the couch. There's not much I can do for him, either, which makes me feel helpless. So I decided to make him something uber-healthy for Greg to eat on Sunday.

I'm not really a "gadgetty" kind of kitchen person, but a friend of our's gifted us a pressure cooker recently. She passed it along with constant assurances that her husband makes spectacular tofu dishes using it. I haven't quite been able to duplicate the dish that she described (she said it becomes dense and spongey, with a texture akin to frozen tofu), but I have found this new kitchen appliance useful for cooking things rapidly. I've found that, in the last, final stages of cooking, when the grains are drying up and absorbing moisture from every source possible, the tofu can get a little drier and hole-ier.

Pressure cooker tofu is nothing dramatic (for me, so far), but it the method I used to make this healthy salad is simple and the resulting dish is delicious and refreshing. The tofu has a wonderful texture that contrasts nicely with the wild rice, and the flavor creeps up on you: first nutty and grainy, then a burst of citrus flavor and olive oil. Next time I might add a little cilantro. Other possible additions? Toasted chopped walnuts, a little feta, pine nuts, or a squeeze of lemon juice.

 

Wild Rice Salad with Citrus and Tofu

What I liked better than the texture of this tofu (although that was good too) is the flavor. By cooking the tofu in the pressure cooker with orange juice, the citrus flavor thoroughly infused each cube of tofu. No weird sour/beany taste left.

 

Slice into 1/2" cubes:

1 package firm tofu

Add tofu to pressure cooker pot, along with

1 cup wild rice

1 cup orange juice

1.5 cups water

A glug of olive oil

Fit the lid onto the pressure cooker, turn the stove to high, and wait for the steam valve to open. Lower the burner so that the pot emits steam in steady spurts (~medium heat), and cook for ~15-18 minutes. (Keep an ear out and nose out for the sounds and smell of a dry pot/burning rice. Better to stop the pressure cooker sooner and finish the rice on the stove if need be). Meanwhile, wash and slice:

1 bunch beet greens (substitute spinach or arugula)

Peel and slice into 1/4" cubes:

2 oranges (I used one Valencia Orange and one Blood Orange)

When the pressure cooker is done, release the steam valve. Let  the rice and tofu cool for a minute (taste the rice; if it doesn't seem done, continue cooking on low heat). In a separate pot, steam the greens until wilted (~5-7 minutes) then shock in a bowl of ice water. Squeeze out the excess water and chop finely. Whisk together:

1 tbsp honey

1 tbsp cider vinegar

1 tbsp olive oil

1/2 cup orange juice

1/2 tsp ground sea salt

1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper

Add the dressing, along with the greens and orange slices to the tofu and rice. Toss together and adjust seasoning if necessary.

Leftovers Three Ways. Way #1: Roasted Vegetablesand Quinoa Soup

Passover is a symbolic and ritualistic event. The Passover seder and subsequent meal includes many different foods - all of which have meaning. Among other traditions, Passover should include roasted meat (to commemorate the lamb blood that the Jewish slaves smeared over their doors), fresh peas or other springtime vegetables (renewal), and, of course, no wheat is permitted (to remind ourselves that upon escape, the Jewish slaves were not able to wait for their bread dough to rise, or, to remind ourselves that the Jewish slaves ate poor, unenriched bread, depending on your tradition).

Since our house is mostly veggie, I chose to roast springtime vegetables (asparagus, peas, carrots, zucchini), braise tofu, and serve it all over quinoa drizzled with olive oil and seasoned with salt and pepper.

This Passover was a sad event for me. I was rushing through an animal experiment whose timing was out of my control; it could not be postponed no matter what. I spent my entire weekend in lab, hunched over a bench-top with a sterile mask covering my mouth so that I could do something that I hate and find engrossing all at the same time: do brain surgery on 40 rats. For a cultural holiday designed to make you aware of the how you are enslaved in your own life - and remind you that your ancestors have, on more than one occasion, escaped from what opressed them, and that cultures (and animals) across the world experience slavery even today- this was a travesty. I felt terrible. I was both the one doing the enslaving and feeling enslaved. I felt denied the one yearly event that is important to me.

Yet, somehow it all worked. I finished my surgeries at 5pm on Sunday and raced home to assemble a small seder dinner by 7pm. Greg, myself, my officemate Audrey (who had never been to a seder before), and our Jewish friend Josh sat down to a lovely evening where we swapped stories of religion, discussed the symbolic importance of everything we ate, and had more than a glass of wine or two.

When we finished our meal, there was enough leftover roasted vegetables and quinoa (among other dishes!) to feed a small army. I used these roasted vegetables in three ways this week, and I thought I'd share the ideas with you. These are, of course, all very loose recipes.

Roasted Vegetable and Quinoa Soup

Serves 4

Certainly this recipe calls for improvisation. This is a kitchen soup sort of soup! What I like best is the contrasting flavor of lemon and Quinoa

Combine the following ingredients in a medium sized soup pot:

2 cups mixed ratio of roasted vegetables and Quinoa, with tofu if you prefer

4 cups good vegetable stock

2 cups water

Cover, turn the heat to medium and simmer for 15-20 minutes, or until the stock thickens slightly. Add

The juice of half a lemon (or, lemon juice to taste)

Sprinkle with

A handful of chopped cilantro

And serve!

Golden Lentil and Bulgur Salad with Grilled Lemon Quarters (sans leftovers)

I'm going to begin this blog entry with a story about my dog, Tori. Four and a half years ago, I lived on my own in Arizona. I was working towards my bachelor's degree and wanted some canine companionship. I found my companion at the Arizona Animal Welfare League: short, black, furry and friendly, when she saw me walk by her outdoor enclosure, she rushed to fence and forced her nose through the chain links, curling her long pink tongue as far as it could reach around the cold metal. She tried, in every way her doggy language permitted her, to tell me that she would make a very good friend if I would just take her home and let her try. Her many remarkably and doggy-like qualities maker her my perfect companion: energetic, social, loving and cuddly, everyone who meets Tori agrees that she is sweet and good-natured.


But there is something else that everybody agrees on: if a goat ever challenged Tori to a tire-eating contest, the dog would win, hands down. Tori will eat anything that she can fit into her mouth, edible or not, with speed quicker than Greg can say "kitchen remodel". One day we walked in on her gnawing off chunks of freshly spackled drywall. She's gotten batches of cookies, bags of chocolate, pans of brownies, many types of clothes, socks, dish towels, sticks, dirt, small rocks, fruit, nuts, and whole lemons - and yes these words are all plural as in On More Than One Occasion. She has been known to eat an entire 7lb eggplant Parmesan casserole, a platter of deli meats, and, months later, a 9x9" pan of lasagna cooling in a still-rather-warm-oven. One time the soap in the dishwasher overflowed, and I came running when I saw her eagerly slurping up the suds. Tori's teeth rather regularly pierce the heavy duty metal of dog food cans destined for recycling. Pounds of cheese, cups of butter, loafs of bread - you name it, she ate it.


Which brings me to today's post, a topic that, even one day later, is still making me tear up slightly: Tori ate the leftovers from the best dish I've made all year. Now "best dish I've made all year" (indeed, the leftovers-of) sounds like a rather bold proclamation, and it is. Maybe it was because the dish was exactly what I was craving that evening, or that I was hungry and the dish was healthy, or that it was a brand new dish, something I expected to fail, and something I made without a recipe. Or, maybe it was because the dinner actually turned out really good. Whatever it was, Tori ate it all, in her sneaky, quiet-as-a-mouse manner, while I sat 10 feet away, distracted and oblivious to the delicious food rapidly reaching her insatiable stomach.


Fortunately we ate our first helpings far before her hungry teeth reached the platter, giving me an opportunity to rave about how simple and delicious this dinner truly was. I assembled vegetable kabobs the night before (yellow pepper, red pepper, parboiled carrots, baby bellas and sweet onion) and marinated them with herbs, olive oil, garlic and balsamic overnight. The next day, I assembled baked tofu with quarted lemon slices, started the bulgur salad and left Greg to deal with the grill.


Why was this dish so good? Two words: caramelized lemons. Wow. This idea is one taken directly from 101cookbooks (my second reference in two weeks, I know), and just like sauteed versus boiled gnocchi, I can promise you I will never, ever go back to raw lemon. The juicy, sweet, grilled-marked bites of lemon were A-w-e-s-o-m-e with a capital A. Really. Seriously. Try it. Just quarter lemons and throw them on the grill with everything else - in the words of Martha Stewart, it's a good thing. Grilling these lemon chunks gave them a sweet, warm, mellow flavor that would be perfect for squeezing over any vegetable, seafood, or grain based salad.


Which brings me to the actual recipe provided here. This Bulgur salad was healthy and delicious, speckled with bits of green parsley and yellow lentils. It was easy to prepare and tasted amazing, with a nice balance of bright and mellow, salty and sweet, and chewy and tender. The flavors and textures worked well together. My only comment will be about the balsamic. I don't claim to know what makes any particular balsamic vinegar a "good" vinegar, but I do know that my cheap balsamic happens to be sharp and tart and my smaller bottle of slightly-more-expensive stuff is mellow and sweet in flavor. This recipe requires something mellow and sweet to balance with the salty, nutty Bulgur. I served this Bulgur salad warm on a big platter, surrounded by Arugula (which was a perfect spicy complement to such a mellow salad) with chunks of tomatoes and oil cured olives, and topped by the skewered kabobs whose lemon quarters served to dress the whole dish together.

I really wish I had those leftovers!!


Golden Lentil and Bulgur Salad
Serves: 4

1/2 cup Bulgur Wheat, rinsed
2 tbsp olive oil
1 shallot, chopped
1/2 cup Yellow, or Golden, Lentils
2 cups water
1/4 cup loosely packed flat leaf parsley, roughly chopped
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar (preferably sweet)
Salt and Pepper to taste
Suggested for serving: two cups baby arugula, olive oil for d, grilled quartered lemons and chopped cured olives

1. Add olive oil to saucepan over medium heat. Add shallot and cook until softened, stirring frequently (about 3-4 minutes). Add Bulgur, a sprinkle of salt, and cook over medium-high heat, stirring constantly, until lightly browned (about 5-6 minutes)
2. Meanwhile, rinse lentils and add with 1 cup water to a small saucepan. Cover and cook until tender, about 5-10 minutes.
3. When Bulgur is toasted, add 1 cup water and simmer until Bulgur is al dente (about 15 minutes, depending on the size of the Bulgur). Add 3 tbsp balsamic and continue cooking until Bulgur is tender and the balsamic is absorbed*. Stir in parsley, remaining 1 tbsp balsamic, and salt and pepper to taste.
4. Stir yellow lentils and Bulgur together. Serve warm, drizzled with extra olive oil, next to fresh baby arugula, chopped olives and grilled lemon quarters.

*If the cooking times don't add up right, just add a little extra water and continue cooking until the Bulgur is done

Settled on Spicy Spinach (with a Couscous Crust)

This is a recipe that led me astray: I started in Japan and ended up on the West Coast. Even though I normally despise Teriyaki-anything, being one of those bastardized and way over-used flavors, I wanted Teriyaki Salmon the other night. Then I decided on spinach as a side dish, then I thought I'd do something quiche-y, then I wanted something healthy... and if you're like me at all that means nixing the cheese and heavy cream and using Tofu instead. Actually, if you're truly like me, you'd intend to add an egg to the tofu/spinach creation and instead accidentally crack it on the side of the cutting board only to spend 10 minutes cleaning up the goopy mess... but I digress. In the absence of egg, my Spinach Tofu creation headed vegan and curried.


Why curry? Well, the honest to god truth is that I had a "What Would Heidi Do" moment, and flavors likely to be found in a California Kitchen popped into mind. Then of course, my Teriyaki Salmon sounded terrible and I went with a Ginger glaze instead.


Were the Curried Spinach with Tofu and Ginger Glazed Salmon the the best palette combination ever? Not really, which is why I am not including both recipes here. But individually the dishes were great and I figured I'd post the spinach recipe rather than the salmon. My favorite feature of this recipe, and something I will definitely be working on for an ultimate baked dish, is a What I Think Is Quite Clever invention of my own: using couscous for a "crust" of sorts. It's a good way to get in some carbohydrates without loading up on buttery dough, and the couscous gets flavored by the spinach/tofu/shallot drippings as it bakes at high heat. This whole recipe comes together in a snap, and as with most of what I post here, I'll add the comment that this is a perfect base for playing around with flavors. There are few spices that would go wrong here. Other ideas? If I wasn't so lazy, I would have pureed the tofu rather than crumble it (baked pureed tofu has a texture that is remarkably similar to quiche), and if there were mushrooms to be found in my fridge, I would have added some bellas to the shallot step.



Curried Spinach with Tofu
Serves: 2, as part of a main course, or 4, as a side dish

2 shallors
2 cloves garlic
1 package firm tofu
1 large bag fresh spinach
1-2 tbsp curry powder*
1 tsp cumin
salt and pepper to taste

2/3 cup couscous
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup water or broth

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Add shallot and olive oil to large pan and cook over medium-low heat until shallot is translucent (about 3-4 minutes). Add garlic, curry and cumin and reduce heat to low, cooking for an additional 2 minutes.
3. When the garlic/shallot mixture is cooked through, add spinach to the pan. Crumble tofu on top. Turn pan to medium-high heat and cook, stirring often, until the spinach is completely wilted. Salt and pepper to taste. Continue stirring and cooking until some of the tofu liquid has evaporated (about 5-10 minutes total). Make sure to crumble up the tofu as it cooks.
   
4. Meanwhile, add olive oil to a shallow baking pan. Toss couscous with salt and pour into pan. Top couscous with the tofu/spinach mixture, pressing carefully to ensure even distribution of casserole ingredients. Pour water or broth into pan corners.
5. Bake, covered with silver foil, for 20 minutes. Remove foil and broil for an additional 3-4 minutes.

*Note, I've got a thing for spice lately. I used an ton of curry powder in this recipe - Greg started hiccuping when he tasted it. Really, truly, honestly, do this one to taste. All curry mixtures are individual and composed of many different spices with varying levels of heat, so where you buy your curry and also what your personal spice limit is will affect how much curry you should add to this recipe... I'd start with 2-3 tsp and work your way up. It's best to cook spices like curry in oil first since their flavors are fat soluble, but if you're not sure about the spice level it's easy to add in some curry powder at the tofu step too.