Rosemary-Scented White Beans with Butternut Squash and Prosciutto

Here's an easy, different, and delectable use for leftover butternut squash.

Ingredients

4-6 slices leftover roasted butternut squash*

Olive oil

1 small shallot, chopped

1-2 cloves garlic, minced

1 can cannellini beans, rinsed and drained

Splash dry white wine and/or broth

1/2 tsp chopped fresh rosemary

1-2 tsp chopped flat leaf parsley

Salt and freshly ground white pepper

2 oz. prosciutto

Set a nonstick frying pan over medium heat. Sauté the shallot and garlic in a glug of olive oil for 2-3 minutes, until they soften. Add the cannellini beans and cook, stirring occasionally, for 2-3 more minutes. Next, add a splash of wine and a splash of broth, and stir in the rosemary and parsley. Continue cooking for about 3 more minutes, stirring from time to time.

Remove from the heat and sprinkle with a pinch of salt and some white pepper.

Meanwhile, reheat the butternut squash in the microwave, then arrange the slices at the bottom of two soup plates. Top with the white bean mixture, and layer a slice or two of prosciutto over the top.

Serve warm.

Serves 2.

 *To roast the butternut squash, halve lengthwise, scrape out the seeds, and slice into 1" half-circles. Brush with olive oil, arrange on a baking sheet, and roast at 425° until just tender, flipping the pieces after 20 minutes or so (wait until they brown on the bottom before flipping). Alternatively, just halve the whole squash lengthwise, scrape out the seeds, and roast face-down until tender.

Roasted Rosemary Potatoes with Goat Cheese and Sage

Autumn has arrived, with crisp mornings and reddening leaves. Let the roasting begin.

Ingredients

Purple or yellow potatoes, cut in half (if small, you can leave them whole; if large, you can cut into thirds or fourths if you want to reduce cooking time)

Olive oil

Fresh rosemary and/or sage

A little goat cheese or feta, for crumbling over the top

Preheat the oven to 425°F.

Toss the potatoes with a generous glug of olive oil and stir to coat evenly. Set a piece of tinfoil, shiny side up, on a baking sheet and brush the foil lightly with olive oil. Pour the potatoes onto the foil, scatter liberally with rosemary and sage leaves, and then pull the edges of the foil inward to form a partially-closed container. (You can adjust the openness of the foil as you roast them—if they start to dry out, close the foil more to retain more moisture. If liquid starts to collect at the bottom, pull the edges outward to let it evaporate.)

Roast the potatoes until browned on the outside and soft on the inside, stirring every 15 minutes or so to prevent them from sticking (as a point of reference, purple potatoes cut into approximately 1" chunks take around 45-60 minutes). You want these a little softer than you'd want a baking potato to bring out the creaminess—the potato should smoosh a bit when you pinch it gently.

Serve hot, topped with crumbled feta or goat cheese. Pairs well with braised broccolini and roasted carrots.

Butternut Squash and White Bean Soup

Found in the cupboard: Cannellini beans. Found on top of washing machine: 1 butternut squash (don't ask). Found in freezer: Spinach. Solution on a wintry evening while fending off a cold? A hearty, soul-warming soup (adapted from here).

Ingredients
Olive oil
1 large shallot, chopped
1 small butternut squash (2-2.5 pounds), peeled and diced
1 tbsp chopped fresh rosemary
1 bay leaf
3 cups chicken broth
1/2-1 cup frozen spinach
1 can cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
Salt to taste (less if the chicken broth is highly salted)
2-3 pinches Meyer lemon zest
White pepper
A little Pecorino or Parmesan cheese (optional)*

Heat a soup pot over medium heat. Add a glug of olive oil and the shallot, and saute for 2-3 minutes until soft. Add the squash and saute, stirring occasionally, for about 5 minutes. Add the rosemary and bay leaf, and saute for a couple minutes more.

Pour in the chicken broth, stir once, and cover the pot. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 12-20 minutes (depending on how big your cubes are), until the squash is just tender. Add the spinach and the beans, return the soup to a simmer, and cook for about three minutes more.

Add salt and lemon zest to taste (there's enough salt when the broth tastes flavorful, and there's enough lemon zest when you can taste just a hint of it). Ladle into bowls, sprinkle with white pepper, and grate just a very little cheese over the top if desired (like 2-3 passes across a microplane per bowl).

Serves 2-4.

*If you live near the Sacramento Co-op, there is a cheese there called Pecorino Moliterno with Truffles. Buy it, revel in what happens when you eat it alongside a tart apple, think of it obsessively the entire next day, and also use it here.

Baby Arugula Salad with Grilled Peaches and Strawberries

If you're making this pizza, this salad almost makes itself. If you're not making a grilled peach pizza, you need to (a) think carefully and deeply about why you would deny yourself such indescribable happiness and (b) decide to make one after all. But let's say your flour has been abducted by muffin-obsessed aliens and it's a national holiday and your neighbors have locked their doors and shuttered their windows in a selfish strategy to hoard all their own flour for their own grilled pizzas and they've removed the ladder that used to go up to your Plan B secret entrance on their second floor so you really, really, really can't make any pizza. None at all.

In that case, you are allowed to make this salad without its grilled pizza accompaniment. Note that you can use just peaches or just strawberries or both, depending on what the aliens have left you. And sorry about the aliens. And the paranoid flour-hoarding neighbors. Especially if I'm one of them.

Ingredients
2-3 handfuls baby arugula
Olive oil
1 handful of strawberries, halved lengthwise and sliced
Half a peach, or two halves, grilled and sliced
A couple slices of prosciutto, torn or cut into pieces or strips (optional)
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 pinches chopped fresh rosemary, or more to taste
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar, simmered until volume reduces by half

Toss the arugula in enough olive oil to coat very lightly, sprinkle in a pinch of rosemary, then arrange on salad plates. Top with the fruit and add prosciutto here and there if desired. Sprinkle with another pinch of rosemary, a pinch of salt, and some freshly ground pepper, and drizzle with balsamic reduction.

Serves 2.

Roasted Beets and Turnips with Fresh Rosemary and Balsamic Reduction

Okay, yes, I'll admit it. I don't have anything to hide. I love beets. Love them. And no, I don't even recognize myself when I look in the mirror anymore. I'm a beet-loving shadow of my former self. But really...why look in the mirror when you could be eating roasted beets??

Here's a variation on a previous theme that incorporates turnips, if you happen to have them, and somehow tastes even more amazing.

Ingredients
5 medium beets, peeled, halved lengthwise, and cut into chunks or wedges
1-2 medium turnips (ideally golden turnips), peeled and cut into chunks
Olive oil
2 cloves garlic, slivered
1 tsp chopped fresh rosemary
Salt and freshly ground white pepper
Several handfuls arugula
3 tbsp balsamic vinegar
2 oz. goat cheese

Preheat oven to 400° F.

Toss the beets and turnips with the olive oil, garlic, rosemary, and a liberal sprinkling of salt. Pour into a nonstick baking pan (sized so that the beets are 1-2 layers thick). Roast for 25 minutes, then stir. If the beets are dry, crowd them together in the pan; if there's liquid at the bottom, spread them out more thinly. Return to the oven and roast for an additional 35-40 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes or so.

Meanwhile, reduce the balsamic vinegar by gently simmering in small pan over medium-low heat until the volume is reduced by half. Coarsely chop the arugula and arrange it as a bed on the plates.

Just before serving, zap the arugula in the microwave for 10-15 seconds until it just starts to wilt (this takes the bite off the greens and reduces the volume a bit). Sprinkle with a little olive oil and balsamic reduction. Arrange the beets over the top, drizzle with balsamic reduction, and sprinkle with freshly ground white pepper and crumbled goat cheese.

Serve hot. Works as a complete meal with a little fresh bread and some roasted kale, or serve as a side dish. Pairs well with a good zinfandel.

Serves 2-4 (depending on whether it's a main dish or side dish).

Grilled Peach Salad with Rosemary Vinaigrette

We took a cooking class at our co-op recently and finally learned how to grill peaches. This is important, because as far as we can tell, there was Life Before Grilled Peaches and then there is now. (Now is decidedly better, as time periods go. We have thought carefully about this, while a breeze scented with caramelized peaches wafts from the grill, and while gazing at grilled peaches, and while eating them. Mouths full, hyperventilating slightly from the big gulps of peach-scented air, we say to each other "Mrahmaba gralled pashas." And it's true. Gralled pashas are certainly mrahmaba. Just make some. You'll see.)

Here is what you do: Find some peaches that are ripe but fairly firm -- they should be fragrant, yielding a bit to pressure from your thumb, but not yet very soft. Cut each one in half along the seam (which I'm sure is not what it's actually called on a fruit, but you know what I mean). Remove the pit.

Preheat your grill to 500 degrees.* Set each peach half cut-side down in a plate of sugar, then lay face up on a plate or cutting board (or sprinkle the cut side with a little sugar, if you prefer to use a bit less). This helps the peaches caramelize later on the grill.

When the grill is hot, brush with olive oil, and place each peach half cut-side down, oriented so that the grill marks will go crosswise (perpendicular to where the seam was). Grill for 5-7 minutes until there are golden grill marks along the underside. To prevent the peaches from sticking, you can move them back and forth just a bit every couple minutes (so that they slide along the grooves of the grill marks, rather than making new marks).

Remove the peaches from the grill and let cool for a few minutes, then slice into wedges (parallel to where the seam was). You can grill these an hour or two ahead of when you want to use them, but don't slice till just before you serve (the slices get a little brown if they sit for too long).

Use to top a salad. This recipe is especially good for when you have guests and want to serve something that looks fancy but is actually pretty easy to throw together. It is also good for when you don't have guests and want to eat lots of grilled peaches.

Ingredients
Vinaigrette:
3 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp sherry vinegar
1/2 tsp minced fresh rosemary leaves
Pinch salt
Freshly ground black pepper

1/4 lb mixed baby greens (or sub baby arugula if you want a bit more of a kick to it), washed and dried well in a salad spinner
1 oz mild goat cheese (e.g., North Valley Farms Chevre)
2 tbsp sliced almonds, toasted (scatter in a pan over medium heat on the stovetop and toast for a few minutes, shaking from time to time, until golden brown and fragrant.)
2 peaches, grilled and sliced as above

Whisk the oil and vinegar together to form an emulsion, then stir in the rest of the vinaigrette ingredients. Drizzle about three-quarters of the dressing over the baby greens and toss well to coat the leaves.

Serve in a big bowl or on individual salad plates. Crumble the goat cheese over the top, sprinkle with almonds, and top with the grilled peaches. Drizzle the remaining vinaigrette over the peaches, and serve.

Serves 4.


*You can also do this in a grill pan, which is what our cooking instructor did, and she had it on medium heat.

Grilled Veggies and Chicken over Quinoa

Hey guess what? It's summer. I'm not quite sure how it happened, but it's clearly high time we put things on skewers and grilled them.

Also, just in case you've been pining for new ways to express your support for the blog, voila: Visit this website, and click "Like" near the top of the page. And as always, you can Follow the blog by clicking the button to the right, either to actually follow via Google or as just a virtual wave to say hi and that you enjoy it here.

Incidentally, I'm completely delighted by the wave of new readers (hello!) as well as by those of you who have been regulars for awhile now and keep coming back. I kept thinking, when I started this, that either nobody was ever going to read it, or that to get readers, I'd have to do one of those advertising thingies (so that someone somewhere would put up a link to my blog in exchange for me advertising Rice-A-Roni or whatever at the top of the page...which struck me as slightly ridiculous for a blog that's purportedly about whole foods). So, let me just take a moment and thank you all so much for reading and cooking along with me. Without you, I would've gone back to easy microwave dinners sometime last October and thought back nostalgically from time to time to the few months I actually did what I wanted to do with food and cooking.

But that wasn't the point. The point was skewers. This combination is delicious, and I like that the meat ends up being a complement to the meal rather than the main focus.

 
Ingredients
Chicken
2 pastured chicken breasts, cut into 1 1/2" cubes
Zest and juice of 1/2 Eureka lemon
1 tbsp chopped green garlic (or sub 1-2 cloves garlic, pressed)
1-2 sprigs rosemary, chopped
Ñora pepper (if you have it)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/2 red onion, sliced in half again lengthwise and then quartered into wedges (you want squares that are about as big as the chicken pieces)
1 bell pepper, cut into squares (same as above)
Olive oil



Veggies
Olive oil
1 tbsp chopped green garlic (or sub 1-2 cloves garlic, pressed)
2-3 sprigs fresh thyme, chopped
Ñora pepper
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
2-3 portobello mushrooms, brushed clean and stems cut off
Summer squash (.25 lbs or a bit less), thickly sliced (about 1/2" thick -- cut pattypans crosswise into circles; zucchinis lengthwise into long strips)



Quinoa
1/2 cup red quinoa
1/2 cup white quinoa
1 cup veggie or chicken broth
A little less than 1/2 cup water
4-6 sorrel leaves, thinly sliced crosswise into ribbons (optional)



Whisk together a glug or two of olive oil with the lemon juice, and then stir in the zest, garlic, rosemary, ñora, salt, and black pepper. Pour over the chicken, toss to coat evenly, and let marinate for an hour or two in the fridge.

About half an hour before you want to take the chicken out, rinse the quinoa and then soak in room temperature water for about ten minutes. Next, whisk together the ingredients for the veggie marinade, and brush over the vegetables (including the onion and pepper). Make sure to let a little marinade soak down into the gills of the portobellos.

Take a couple pieces of the onion and pepper and chop them (I use any pieces that ended up too small or weirdly shaped for the skewers). Rinse and drain the quinoa. Heat a smallish pot over medium heat, and add a glug of olive oil, followed by the onion and pepper. Saute until soft. Stir in the quinoa, saute for another minute, and then add the broth and water. Bring to a boil, cover, and reduce the heat. Simmer for 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, preheat the grill on high. Push the chicken onto skewers, separating each piece with a pepper on one side and an onion on the other. Grill the skewers, mushrooms, and squash slices, turning to let all sides cook evenly.

Just before serving, stir the sorrel into the quinoa. Use as a bed for the chicken and veggies.

Serves 3.

Roasted Rosemary Potatoes with Caramelized Onion

This is really, really good, and goes very well with lamb. It probably goes with other things, too, but right now all I can think about is lamb and rosemary potatoes. And lamb. And rosemary potatoes. I may be stuck in a loop....

Ingredients
Olive oil
1.5 lbs smallish yellow or purple potatoes, halved
1/2 yellow onion, sliced into half rings
1 tbsp or so chopped green garlic (or sub 1 large clove garlic, pressed)
Needles from 2 sprigs fresh rosemary, separated
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Toss ingredients together in a nonstick roasting pan (big enough so that the potatoes are about 2 layers deep). Roast in the oven for 45-60 minutes until potatoes are well-browned and soft when poked with a fork, turning every 15 minutes or so. (If after about half an hour, the pan is still wet at the bottom, it means the potatoes are clustered too close together -- try spreading them out a bit more to let them brown. If the potatoes start to dry out instead, try clustering them closer, or cover the pan with some aluminum foil.)

Sprinkle with salt and black pepper.

Serves 2.

Melon and Prosciutto with Pink Pepper and Rosemary

Pink peppercorns, it turns out, are not peppercorns at all. Which explains how they can taste completely different (peppery, but also fruity and spicy with a kind of white chocolate thing going on in the background). It also explains why they pair so well with chocolate, and why they can do such interesting things to a recipe like this one.
 
Ingredients
1/2 ripe cantaloupe, cut into 1-inch cubes
2-3 oz thinly sliced prosciutto, cut into strips
Freshly ground pink peppercorns
Small sprig rosemary, finely chopped
Spoonful balsamic reduction (optional)

Wrap each piece of melon with a strip of prosciutto and arrange on a plate. Sprinkle with a pinch or two of chopped rosemary, and then grind the pink peppercorns liberally over the top. Dab each piece with just a drop of balsamic reduction if desired, and serve.

Serves 2 for an appetizer, or spear each piece with a toothpick for hors d'oeuvres.

(To make a balsamic reduction, heat a tbsp of balsamic vinegar in a small pot until it simmers. Turn heat down and simmer until volume is reduced by half.)

On the Grill: Roasted Potatoes and Summer Squash

Found at Trader Joe's: Local tri-color potatoes
Found at the Coop: A panoply of summer squash, in season and on sale (zucchini and yellow, but also gray, pattypan, and a round, zucchini-like hybrid apparently called eight ball squash), portobello mushrooms, fresh garlic*

*Apparently, garlic comes from a plant. This may not have occurred to you, if, like me, you had never actually seen, felt, or tasted garlic that wasn't at least a week old. That hard, papery, tough wrapper was once soft and translucent and plantlike, almost moist, and the cloves inside were so fresh that the juice splattered when you pressed them. They taste better, too (garlicky in a crisp, clean kind of way, and less strong than their aged counterparts). Worth finding at a coop or farmer's market.

Ingredients
Assorted summer squash, cut lengthwise (for oblong squashes, like zucchini) or crosswise (for round squashes, like pattypan or eight ball) into half-inch thick slices. Try to avoid the smallest pattypans, which might be easy to lose in the grill.
Portobello mushrooms, stemmed and left whole, or any other vegetable that strikes your grilling fancy
2 cloves garlic, peeled
Olive oil
Salt & pepper

Assorted small to medium potatoes (yellow, red, and/or purple), whole if small and halved if medium
5-6 more garlic cloves, not peeled
Sprigs of fresh herbs (e.g., oregano, sage, thyme, rosemary)

A little meat, as a side dish rather than the main course (e.g., local lamb andouille sausages)

Bring a pot of water to a boil, add potatoes, and boil until just soft (a fork should go in fairly easily, but they shouldn't be mushy). Drain in a colander, rinse briefly with cool water, and leave in sink to dry off.

Press 2 cloves of garlic into a small bowl and mix with some olive oil, salt, and pepper. Brush lightly onto summer squash and mushrooms, and set aside. (If you have fresh thyme, you might chop some and rub it onto the mushrooms with some salt and pepper.)

Preheat the grill.

Brush a large piece of foil with a little olive oil, pour the potatoes onto it, and then brush the rest of them with a little more olive oil (or toss them with olive oil in a separate bowl, depending on the lengths you will go to in order to avoid having to clean an extra dish). Add the unpeeled garlic cloves and sprigs of herbs, sprinkle with salt and freshly ground black pepper, and close up the foil.

Set the potatoes on the grill for 10-2o minutes, depending on how much time you have and how roasty-on-the-outside and soft-on-the-inside you like them to be. Grill the vegetables and the sausages, and serve. (Note that you can eat the garlic cloves -- they will be all sweet and mushy and should come right out of their skin with a knife and fork -- and the herbs, for that matter.)


If you cook extra potatoes and veggies, lunch the next day is easy:
Heat the potatoes on a plate in the microwave for a minute or two, sprinkle with a little crumbled feta or cheddar, and heat a little more. Serve with leftover grilled summer squash (cold or also heated).