Easy Polenta with Prosciutto and Tomatoes

For when you're low on energy and motivation and just wish there was something easy to cook that would magically turn out comforting and healthy and gourmet, all at once. (If you do have energy, you can always substitute a chopped tomato and fresh spinach and throw in a little fresh basil. But this lazy version is pretty darn delicious as is.)

Ingredients (per person)

1/2 cup polenta/coarsely-ground cornmeal

1/3 can chopped tomatoes

1/3 cup organic frozen spinach*

2 slices prosciutto, in small pieces or strips

1/4 cup coarsely grated Parmesan cheese

Olive oil, salt, and black pepper 

Heat 1 1/2 cups water in a small pot until it boils. Add the tomatoes, wait a moment for them to heat through, then sprinkle in the polenta, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon. Turn the heat down a little and simmer, stirring, for two minutes, then add the frozen spinach and a pinch of salt. Continue cooking and stirring for another two minutes or until spinach is completely defrosted and polenta begins to pull away from the side of the pan. (If the pot starts to dry out before the spinach is done, you can add a splash more water to slow things down.)

Turn off the heat, stir in most of the Parmesan and prosciutto, and serve. Drizzle with a little olive oil, and sprinkle with black pepper and the remaining prosciutto and cheese.

*Good-quality organic frozen spinach (I like Woodstock Farms) is pricier than regular frozen spinach, but worth it for the no-hassle prep and taste—you can usually just throw it into whatever you're cooking, rather than having to pre-cook and drain it to avoid that spinach-water flavor of most major brands.

Moonfish with Coconut Milk, Zucchini, and Chard

Coconut milk, ginger, and basil give this dish a Thai flair. You can use any fatty, mild white fish, or substitute chicken or tofu if you prefer. Serve over steamed rice cooked with a little sauteed shallot, and pair with a glass of Torrontes or Viognier.

Ingredients
Olive oil
8-10 oz moonfish (opah) or another fatty, mild white fish
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 small zucchini, sliced lengthwise into thirds and then cut crosswise into strips
1 tbsp grated fresh ginger
1 clove garlic, sliced
15  fresh basil leaves
2 handfuls young chard, beet greens, or spinach, sliced crosswise into ribbons
5-6 oz light coconut milk
1 tsp onion blossoms or one scallion, white and light green parts, thinly sliced

Rub each side of the fish with a pinch of ginger, and sprinkle both sides with salt and pepper. (You can cut it into cubes or leave it as a whole steak—whichever you prefer. Cubes will cook much more quickly, and will retain less of their own moisture but absorb more of the sauce. We left ours whole, just because it's easier.)

Heat a glug of olive oil in a large nonstick frying pan over medium heat. When hot, add the zucchini and stir a few times, then saute, stirring once or twice a minute, until it starts to turn golden brown in a few places. Add the garlic and a pinch of ginger and saute for a minute more, then add the basil leaves and saute for 10 seconds or until they have just wilted. Decant into a bowl and set aside.

Replace the pan over the heat and add another glug of olive oil. Add the fish and cook, shaking the pan occasionally, until golden brown on the bottom, then flip and cook the other side until golden as well (if your fish is cubed, just brown one side and then skip to the next step).

Add the greens to the pan, sprinkle them with salt, and pour the coconut milk over the top of everything. Cover immediately, turn the heat down to medium-low, and steam for a minute or so until the greens start to wilt.

Uncover the pan, scatter the ginger over the greens, and stir to combine. Replace the cover and simmer until the fish is very nearly cooked through. (I can't tell with moonfish unless I cut it in half at some point to see how pink it still is in the middle, which is the other reason I like leaving it as one whole piece to start with...I end up cutting it in half or quarters by the time I'm done checking it.)

Add the zucchini back into the pan, sprinkle with the onion blossoms or scallion, and cook for about 30 seconds to reheat, stirring occasionally. Remove from the heat, and serve immediately over rice.

Serves 2.

Purslane Salad with Tomatoes and Arugula

The sweetness of ripe tomatoes sets off the lemony taste of purslane in this summertime salad, while arugula and onion blossoms give it a little kick.

Ingredients

4 big handfuls purslane

2 handfuls baby arugula

1 cup ripe cherry tomatoes, halved crosswise and sprinkled with salt

1/2 onion blossom, pulled apart into strands (or sub 1-2 tbsp finely chopped spring onion or red onion)

Nasturtium flowers for garnish (optional)

 Vinaigrette

Good-quality extra virgin olive oil

Juice of 1/2 lemon

1 large spoonful sherry vinegar

Salt

Freshly ground black pepper

Pinch or cut the purslane into bite-sized pieces, discarding the bottom of the stems if they seem at all tough when you break them (if the sprigs are on the small/young side, this won't be a problem). Wash gently and dry thoroughly in a salad spinner.

Whisk about 1/4 cup olive oil or a little more together with the rest of the vinaigrette ingredients in a bowl (you want an olive oil to lemon-and-vinegar ratio of about 3:1) until they form an emulsion.

Toss the purslane and arugula with the vinaigrette in a salad bowl. Scatter the tomatoes over the top and drizzle lightly with olive oil. Sprinkle with the onion blossoms and a little extra black pepper, and garnish with nasturtium flowers.

Serves 3-4.

Spring Pea Risotto with Pancetta and Lemon

Next to fresh fava beans, peas are a cinch. Shell a few handfuls for this light and flavorful risotto that pairs them with pancetta and a hint of lemon for a perfect complement to a warm, summery evening.

Ingredients

26 oz chicken and/or veggie broth

Pinch or two saffron threads, crumbled

Olive oil

1 onion, chopped

3 cloves garlic: 2 chopped, 1 lightly smashed

2-2.5 oz pancetta, sliced into short strips or cubes
(or sub good-quality, thick-cut bacon)

1 rounded cup Arborio rice

1 cup fresh shelled green peas

1/3 cup dry white wine

2 handfuls baby spinach or baby arugula, coarsely chopped

Zest of one Meyer lemon

3 tbsp chopped flat leaf parsley, plus a little extra for garnish

1/2-2/3 cups grated Parmigiano Reggiano

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Heat broth and smashed garlic clove in a covered pot until it simmers. Add the saffron, stir once, cover, and turn off the heat.

Heat a large pot over medium heat. When hot, turn the heat down just a bit and add the pancetta. Cook, stirring occasionally, until some of the pieces begin to show a lightly golden sheen. Remove the pieces from the pan with a slotted spatula and place to the side on a plate lined with a paper towel. Remove some of the bacon grease from the pot, but leave about a tablespoon to cook with.

Add a glug of olive oil to the pot and let heat for a moment. Add the onion and a pinch of salt and saute, stirring, until translucent, then add the garlic and saute about 2 minutes more. Reduce the heat to halfway between medium and medium-low.

Stir in the rice and saute in the onion-garlic mixture for a minute or two longer, then add the white wine and continue to saute, stirring, until liquid is absorbed. Add half the pancetta back into the pot, and save the rest for later.

Begin adding broth by the ladleful, stirring the rice regularly until the liquid is absorbed and then adding more. Adjust the heat up or down as needed—you want the liquid to come to a gentle simmer when you stop stirring for a few seconds.

When there is about a cup of broth left, add the peas to the risotto and cook, stirring and adding broth when the rice dries out, as before. When there is one ladleful of broth left, add the chopped greens, 1/2 of the lemon zest, parsley, and salt and pepper to taste. Stir to combine, then add the last ladleful of broth and the cheese, and turn off the heat.

Let sit 3-5 minutes for flavors to blend, then adjust lemon zest, salt, and pepper to taste. Serve into preheated soup plates, and garnish with chopped parsley.

 Serves 2-3.

Carrots and Snap Peas with Ginger and Fried Basil

Remember that good old food pyramid from the USDA, stolidly pointing skyward from its foundation of pasta and white bread? Well, it's gone. In its place—a new icon and new recommendations. The upshot? 50% of your plate should be fruits and vegetables.

What a good excuse to cook more of our favorite things.

Ingredients
3-4 carrots, sliced at a diagonal and then halved
1 tsp julienned fresh ginger
10-12 smallish basil leaves
Handful sugar snap peas, ends snapped, strings unstrung, and sliced at a diagonal
Olive oil
Salt

Heat a wide nonstick pan over medium heat. When hot, add a generous glug of olive oil. Scatter the ginger into the pan, stir a few times, then sprinkle in the basil leaves and stir once again. Let fry about 10 seconds, then add the carrots and stir to combine. Let cook for 4-5 minutes, stirring every minute or two (you want the bottom of the carrots to start to turn a little golden in a few places, but you don't want to wait so long before stirring that they stick to the pan). Cover for a minute if the pan if it starts to get dry.

When the carrots are just starting to get tender, add the snow peas and a pinch or two of salt and saute, stirring, for another minute or so. When carrots are desired tenderness (we like them and the snow peas still slightly crunchy), turn off the heat and serve.

Serves 2, and works very well as a quick-and-easy veggie complement to take-out sushi or Thai.

Simple and Elegant: Nasturtiums and Snap Peas

Found before dinner: A rioting cascade of nasturtiums in our backyard and sugar snap peas in our produce box. The two together make a quick and light springtime salad that's easy enough to throw together for a one-person meal but also stunning enough to display at a dinner party.

Ingredients

Sugar snap peas, ends snapped and strings removed

Nasturtiums, rinsed and dried*

Olive oil

Kosher salt

Arrange snap peas and nasturtiums together on a plate, drizzle lightly with good-quality olive oil, and sprinkle with salt before serving.

*Nasturtiums are reminiscent of radishes, and are spiciest when grown in full sun and fully opened. For a more delicate taste, choose nasturtiums that are just opening or growing in part shade.

Saffron Risotto with Fava Beans and Prosciutto

Fava beans, meet prosciutto. Prosicutto, fava beans. Let's throw some rice at them and toast the happy couple.

Ingredients
Olive oil
1 red onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 rounded cup Arborio rice
1 ladleful white wine
28 oz chicken and/or veggie broth
1 generous pinch saffron
2 lbs fava beans, shelled
3 oz prosciutto, sliced crosswise into strips
2-3 big handfuls baby arugula or spinach, chopped
1 handful flat leaf parsley, chopped (about 1 tbsp, or a bit more to taste)
1/2 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
2 tbsp pine nuts
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Bring a pot of water to a boil. Add the shelled favas and blanch for 2-3 minutes till the skins turn white (2 minutes for medium-sized beans and 3 minutes for large ones). Drain, run under cold water to cool, and peel.

Heat the broth with the pinch of saffron in a pot over medium heat until it begins to boil. Turn the heat down and simmer for a minute, then turn off the heat. Keep covered so it stays warm.

Meanwhile, heat a large dutch oven over medium heat. Add a glug of olive oil, wait a few moments for it to heat, then add the onion and saute, stirring, until it softens. Turn the heat down just a little. Add the garlic and saute for another 2-3 minutes, then stir in the rice and continue sauteing for 2 minutes more. Add a little more olive oil if needed.

Stir in a ladleful of dry white wine, and cook the rice, stirring occasionally, until the liquid is absorbed. Add a pinch or two of salt. Begin adding broth by the ladleful, allowing the rice to simmer (turn the heat down a touch more if it's more than a gentle simmer) and stirring every 30 seconds or so until the liquid is absorbed before adding the next ladleful.

Lightly toast the pine nuts in a pan and set aside.

When there is about a cup of broth left in the pot, head a glug of olive oil in a nonstick pan over medium heat. Add the prosciutto, scattering it in the pan so it doesn't stick together, and the fava beans. Saute, stirring, for a minute, then add the greens and a pinch of salt and continue to saute until the greens wilt. Turn off the heat, and douse liberally with freshly ground black pepper.

When there is just one ladleful of broth left to add, gently stir the fava beans and greens into the risotto. Add the last ladleful of broth, stir, then add the parsley and Parmesan and turn off the heat. Adjust salt and pepper to taste.

Serve into soup plates, sprinkle with a few pine nuts, garnish with parsley, and serve. Best eaten when it's still very warm but not piping hot.

Serves 2-3.

Lemonless Halibut

We grabbed some halibut last night from our co-op to throw together a quick dinner, but forgot about lemon entirely until it was too late.

Usually, you see, there are lemons in the fruit drawer. But last night, when we opened the fruit drawer, and looked inside all full of hope and expectation, there were not. There was parsley in the garden (though only just, because it keeps attempting to bolt), but absolutely no lemons in the fridge. Not even when we closed the fruit drawer in confusion, shut the door of the fridge, paused, opened it, and checked again. Still no lemons. None at all.

Here is what we decided to do about it. You could garnish this dish with lemon wedges...I'm sure they would only make it better...but you don't (as we stated proudly last night in a burst of sophisticated articulation) need no stinkin lemons to make it good.

Ingredients
1 cup black forbidden rice, simmered with a bit of chopped shallot for 25 minutes in 1 1/4 cups water (or sub brown rice)
0.6 lbs fresh wild halibut
1/4 cup stone ground whole wheat flour
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp olive oil
1 medium clove garlic, pressed
6 Castelvetrano olives, pitted, halved lengthwise, and sliced (or sub another kind of unpickled green olive)
1 tbsp chopped flat leaf parsley
Slosh white wine

Liberally sprinkle the fish with salt and pepper, then dredge in the flour. Heat a glug of olive oil in a nonstick pan over medium heat, then add the fish skin-side down and pan fry until golden on the bottom.

In a small pan, heat the butter and olive oil over medium heat. Add the garlic and turn the heat down to medium low. Simmer for 20-30 seconds until it softens, then add the olives and parsley. Stir a few times, then add a slosh or two of wine and a pinch of salt. Simmer until the liquid is reduced by about half (3 minutes or so), then turn off the heat.

Meanwhile, flip the fish and continue cooking until golden brown on both sides (or all sides, if it's thick enough to cook on four sides) and until it's almost but not quite cooked through. Serve immediately over a bed of rice (it will finish cooking as it sits), and spoon the sauce over the fish and a little over the rice as well.

Serves 2, with a couple of side vegetables (like a big bunch of roasted Red Russian kale and a salad).

Smoked Salmon on Sourdough with Eggs and Kale

Let's say you have a big package of wild smoked salmon on hand, from Costco, and a few pastured eggs, and some Red Russian kale growing in your garden.*

And let's say you have very little energy, but feel compelled to make something whole-foody and home-cooked because you vaguely remember that there's some reason you tend to find that important, on days when you're not too tired to think, and you strongly suspect that one of those days is coming up sometime in the next few weeks and that Untired You will look back on Tired You with sad disapproval if Tired You doesn't cook something today, and you can just imagine the sad, sorrowful shake of the head that Untired and Disgustingly Energetic Future You will throw back in the direction of Tired and Somewhat Pathetically Lethargic Past You, and you cannot bear it. You cannot. And also you cannot bear the thought of something oversalted and processed, because you've gotten addicted to deliciousness and you just can't stop eating it.

If such a thing should happen, I suggest you make this. Future You will be totally jealous.

Ingredients (per person)
2 slices sourdough or multigrain sourdough bread
A few slices smoked salmon (enough for one layer on the sandwich)
1 egg
Olive oil
1 small clove garlic, chopped
A generous handful of sliced kale (that's been cut into thin ribbons and washed carefully)
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper

Heat a nonstick pan over medium heat. Add a glug of olive oil, then add the garlic and saute for 20-30 seconds until soft. Add the kale and saute, stirring occasionally, until the leaves begin to wilt and the stems begin to soften a bit. Sprinkle with a pinch of salt and push to the side of the pan.

In the other side of the pan, drizzle a bit more olive oil and then break the egg directly into it. Let sit for a moment, then slowly push the spatula through the egg once to break the yolk. Let sit for another moment, then repeat, so that you're slowly stirring the egg to cook evenly while only partially blending the yolk and the white (at the end, there should still be some distinct white and yellow parts). Stir the kale once or twice in the meantime.

Toast the bread.

When the egg is no longer runny, turn off the heat, and assemble the sandwich in layers: Smoked salmon over the bottom piece of toast, then egg, then kale. Sprinkle with freshly ground pepper. (If the toast is on the dry side, sprinkle the bottom and/or top piece with a little olive oil.)

Cut sandwich in half, and serve hot.

*Incidentally, kale is both easy to grow and keep producing year-round, or at least nearly year-round if you live in frosty climes...and fresh baby kale from the garden is amazing. Grow it. Future You will thank you.

Sauteed Pea Shoots with Garlic Butter

There were pea shoots in our CSA box this week.

Not little baby pea shoots, like the ones that come in a nice safe-looking plastic container from the store. No, these were big, emphatic pea shoots. Pea shoots that meant business. Young and tender, yes, but still. There was no mistaking them for sprouts. No pretending they were not, basically, large pieces of a vine.

The box insert seemed to imply that they were edible. At least, I assume that a recipe for chicken and cilantro with pea shoots suggests you should put the pea shoots in with the chicken, and eat them both.

 
The internets said sugar snap pea shoots are edible, and other pea shoots are poisonous.

We said: "Surely our beloved CSA box wouldn't poison us."

And then we said: "Surely our beloved CSA box wouldn't poison us intentionally."

We Googled "sugar snap pea shoots" and compared and contrasted the pictures with our bowl full of loosely identified vegetable matter. We tilted our heads and squinted. We reassured each other about the similarity of the leaf shape in the photograph and the leaf shape in our hands. We reiterated the point about our CSA box not poisoning us. We made courageous declarations about boldly going where smarter people might not be particularly inclined to go. We steeled our steadfast stomachs.

We cooked the pea shoots. We ate them.

So far, you will be happy to know, we are decidedly alive, and these were decidedly delectable.


Ingredients
A big bowl full of young sugar snap pea shoots, cut or pinched into 3-inch pieces
(if you pinch them apart with your fingertips, you can tell if they're tender -- if you come across a tough piece, toss it out)
1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp olive oil
1 clove garlic, smashed
1 tsp black mustard seeds
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper

Heat butter and olive oil in a nonstick pan over medium heat. When hot, add the garlic and mustard seeds and saute for about 2 minutes. Add the pea shoots, sprinkle with salt, and saute, tossing from time to time, for 2 minutes or until most of the leaves have just wilted. Turn off the heat, toss once more, and season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve hot.

Serves 2-4, and pairs well with Sri Lankan dal curry or fish.