Risotto-style Barley (a dilemma)

I feel a little uncomfortable about this - it's a rather public forum for me to be gushing over someone I don't even know. But I love 101cookbooks, and its creator, Heidi Swanson, by extension. I rarely actually follow her recipes word-for-word, but they never fail to inspire me, and it's only a matter of time before this blog just turns into a clearinghouse for her recipes. My aunt gave me her cookbook, Super Natural Cooking, a few years ago and it took me a while to connect the cookbook and the blog, but it was a pretty exciting day for me to find a whole bunch more recipes like those in the book.

I was on a bit of a barley kick (actually I just had a bunch of barley to use up from the soup) and had always wanted to try her risotto-style barley. What a novel idea! Something as delicious as risotto, made with a whole(r) grain (the barley you'd use for this is still polished, but not as much as the rice, I'm assuming - it starts out browner, anyway). I followed the recipe to the letter (well, I used yogurt instead of sour cream), and I didn't like it. Not one bit. It was at once bland and unpleasantly sour. Rarely am I unable to finish the leftovers of something I've made (so frugal!) but there's still some of this left in the fridge from two weeks ago (good thing it's garbage day).

So here's my dilemma: I think of this blog as a space for tested recipes that are known to be good, or at least happy experiments. Sharing something here means it's worth replicating. So, do I post the recipe for something I thought was awful? I decided to - I had a pretty photo! And maybe you can suggest where I went wrong.

Risotto-style Barley with Winter Citrus and Arugula
from Super Natural Cooking by Heidi Swanson

3 T extra-virgin olive oil
1 yellow onion, chopped
1 or 2 shallots, chopped (optional - I did not take the option)
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 tsp fine-grain sea salt (okay, I used Morton's iodized, but I long for the day I'm discerning enough to detect iodine in my food)
2 cups lightly pearled barley
1 cup good-quality dry white wine (I actually have no idea what I used here, but I wonder if it wasn't a good choice)
6 cups water
1 orange
grated zest of 1 lemon
1/2 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese
1/2 cup creme fraiche or sour cream (yogurt)
2 handfuls of arugula, coarsely chopped
handful of chopped toasted walnuts, for garnish

Heat the olive oil in a large, heavy pan over medium heat, then add the onion, shallots, garlic, and salt, and sauté for about 4 minutes, until onion begins to soften.

Add the barley to the pot and stir until coated with a nice sheen, then add the white wine and simmer for a few minutes, until the barley has absorbed some of the liquid. Adjust heat to maintain a gentle simmer.

In increments, add about 6 cups of water, 1 cup at a time, letting the barley absorb most of the liquid between additions; this should take around 40 minutes all together. Stir regularly so the barley at the bottom doesn't scorch. You'll know when it's done because the barley won't offer much resistance to chewing (although it will still bill chewier than arborio rice). Don't worry if there's some unabsorbed liquid in the pot.

Meanwhile, grate the zest of the orange and peel and segment it. Cut the segments in half, reserving any juice. When the barley is tender, stir in the orange zest, segments and juice, lemon zest, Parmesan, and creme fraiche. Taste and adjust seasoning, then stir in the arugula. Top with the toasted walnuts before serving.

Easily serves 4 to 6.

A proper dinner (including dessert)

One night last week, I had 3 cookies for dinner. And a beer. In bed.

Clearly this had to change.

So tonight, I have soup simmering on the stove, flatbread rising in the oven, and frozen yogurt (the inaugural use of the ice-cream maker!) ripening in the freezer.

This soup, Sweet Potato Kale and Corn Chowder, is one of my all-time faves. Partly because it's pretty much entirely vegetables (in addition to those named, it also contains celery, red pepper, carrot, onions, and tomatoes...so much to love), and partly because I first made it with Kate's mom, who I mentioned earlier. It's not a chowder in the traditional sense, but then, I'm not from New England, so I'm not troubled by the fact.

Jean taught me to cook during the summer after my freshman year in college. I'd always been interested in the kitchen, and had made a fair number of batches of cookies and cinnamon rolls, but for some reason I was always intimidated by anything else. Maybe it's because I'm so good at following directions, and most recipes don't say exactly what I should do. Chop an onion? Okay, how? How many layers of the skin should I peel off? Should the resultant pieces be a half inch or a quarter inch? Wait, what color onion are we talking here? Sometimes there's the opposite problem, too: no matter how hard I try, there's just no way I can chop a butternut squash into uniform 1-inch cubes, even if a recipe says that's the way to do it.

Anyway, Jean taught me several lessons that got me over these apprehensions and have helped me ever since, and I think of her often, especially while chopping onions. First, her advice for how to chop the ingredients for this soup was into bits "the size you'd want to encounter in your soup." Clearly! The cookbook authors are not going to come to your house and measure, so you might as well do it the way you like it. She also told me it was okay to not slice and dice as quickly and accurately as you see on a cooking show; those people are professionals and you are not, so you might as well work carefully and enjoy the process. Jean was a believer in "cleaning up as you go" and I try to practice this, too. She always had a bowl reserved for peels and stems and other waste, which made it a lot easier to clean up (compost!) at the end - so what if you have to wash one more bowl? And finally, Jean taught me the value of sharp knives, which I now find to be kind of like running shoes - yes, you can run/chop without them, but it's much more pleasant if you have good equipment.

So, go make this soup, the way you like it, and take this spirit to all your cooking endeavors.











Sweet Potato, Kale, and Corn Chowder

1 Tablespoon canola oil
2 medium carrots, peeled and chopped
1 medium red onion, chopped
1 rib celery, chopped
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 large sweet potato, peeled and chopped (I like thick stews so I used more)
1 sprig fresh thyme, minced
3/4 teaspoon ground turmeric
1 medium tomato, chopped (I used canned diced tomato because winter tomatoes are sad)
5 cups vegetable broth or water
1 cup fresh or frozen corn kernels
3 cups stemmed and chopped kale leaves (as you can tell by my photos I used a whole bunch of purple kale and I don't regret it)
Salt and ground white pepper, to taste (someday I will be fancy enough to have white pepper)
Cayenne pepper, to taste
1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley (eh, I'm sure it's good but not really necessary)

Thickening options:
1 Tablespoon cornstarch
1 Tablespoon tepid water
or:
1/2 cup cashew pieces

Heat oil in a large nonreactive pot over medium-high heat. Saute carrots, red onion, celery, bell peppers, and sweet potatoes for 3ish minutes. Add the thyme and tumeric and stir it around so it's well distributed in the veggies. Add the tomatoes and broth, and simmer for 20 minutes.

Add corn, kale, salt, and white pepper. Simmer 5 minutes. Season with cayenne pepper.

Thicken either of two ways: Combine cornstarch with 1 tablespoon water. With soup simmering, stir in cornstarch mixture. Continue to stir and simmer 3 minutes to thicken. Remove from heat and stir in parsley.

I used the cashews - it's really cool, if you're not allergic. Blend the cashews with a bit of the soup so you have a thick cashew soup slurry and then add it back to the soup, stirring it in. The color of the soup will lighten and it will thicken a bit. Then remove from the heat and garnish with parsley.

The flatbread and yogurt recipes are here.

Cranberry Orange Almond Yogurt Cake

The first post of the new year!

This cake had two inspirations: one, the simple and delicious french yogurt cake from Chocolate and Zucchini (you'll recall, I made her raspberry almond version for our first-ever Friedman potluck, and people accused it of being "healthy"), and two, the memory of my friend and kitchen mentor Jean Logan, who was my friend Kate's mom.

Kate and I met in when we were two years old, and have been the best of friends ever since, even though we've never been in school together since preschool. Kate's house was the setting for many sleepovers, campouts in the backyard, and craft projects throughout my childhood. It was also one of the places I was introduced to good food. With a small, simple kitchen and everyday equipment, Kate's mom produced such exotic and yummy things: prosciutto-wrapped melon, homemade pasta, shepherd's pie. So in our house, if we ever made something that was really delicious, even better than just good enough for company, we'd say it was "good enough for the Logans." We were honored when Jean asked for my mom's cranberry orange bread recipe after we'd made it one Christmas, and now I always associate cranberry-orange-anything with her.

The Logans made us a new year's dinner when I was home last weekend (wild rice soup, awesome beets, and popovers), and I made a cranberry orange almond version of the yogurt cake above for the occasion. I make it a lot because it's incredibly simple, not too sweet, takes to a lot of different seasonal ingredients, and never fails - except if you try to make it with low-fat yogurt.

Cranberry Orange Almond Yogurt Cake (that's a mouthful)

1 c plain yogurt (must be full-fat; either Greek or regular will do)
1 c brown sugar
1/4 c vegetable oil
1.5 c flour
1/4 c ground almonds (pulse them in a food processor)
3 eggs
1 T baking powder
2 T orange zest
1 c fresh cranberries, plus more for garnish

Grease and flour a 9 or 10 inch cake pan, ideally with a removable bottom or springform. Preheat oven to 350F.

Stir together the yogurt, brown sugar, and oil in a bowl. Add the eggs one at a time, stirring after each one. In another bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, and ground almonds, and then add this to the wet ingredients and stir until just combined (don't overmix). Finally, stir in the cranberries and orange zest.

Turn into the pan and bake 50-60 minutes, or until it looks done. Let cool on a cake rack and run around the edges with a knife, then turn out onto a serving plate (or just skip this part, of course.)

Kate and I garnished it with candied cranberries (kind of a failed version of these), slivered almonds, and lightly-whipped cream flavored with amaretto.