Spicy Italian Sausage & Kidney Bean Soup Recipe

I'm not big on most convenience foods, but I am a fan of sausages. I always keep a package or two in the freezer. They are quick to cook and combined with a few other ingredients they can take the leading role in soup, stew, casseroles or pasta dishes. I’ve paired them with everything from pears to rapini to make meals on the fly. During the Fancy Food Show  last month I got a chance to try Mulay’s Sausage at Food Fete . I was impressed by their products and especially founder Loree Mulay’s dedication to using high quality ingredients. Her Italian sausages were juicy but not greasy. “No one should see how laws or sausages are made” goes the Otto von Bismarck quote, but I'm not so sure about that. Loree spoke passionately about the sourcing of meat that goes into her sausages made according to her family’s recipes. She uses meat from animals never treated with anitbiotics. She doesn't use nitrates, MSG, soy, dairy, sugar, artifical flavors or colors and her produ......

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Christmas Lima Bean & Butternut Squash Stew Recipe

One of my new year's resolutions is to use more of the food stored in my pantry. My shelves are overflowing with packages of grains, heirloom beans, dried pasta, Asian sauces, jams, mustards, sardines, cans of tomatoes and more. My goal is to cook with something that is languishing in the pantry or my equally stuffed-to-capacity freezer, every single day. Yesterday I chose some Christmas lima beans to transform into a vegetarian main dish. Eat less meat and more vegetarian food! That is yet another new year's resolution. Christmas lima beans are sometimes called chestnut lima beans. When uncooked they are beautifully speckled like a calico horse, and when cooked they are more uniformly brown like chestnuts--but they really don't taste like chestnuts, despite what you may have heard. They have a texture a bit like russet potatoes and a mild earthy flavor but none of the characteristic sweetness or dry crumbly texture of chestnuts. Beans are often used in salads or so......

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Healthy Deviled Eggs Recipe

Deviled eggs are a favorite for Easter (and more importantly, the day after!) but really there's no reason not to eat them whenever you want. I was looking for a way to make them a little bit healthier and found an ingredient that is creamy, mimics the texture of hardboiled egg yolks and has a very mild flavor--cannellini beans! I remove 1/3 of the yolks, then puree white beans with the remaining yolks, a little mayo, mustard, horseradish and some hot sauce then I fill the egg whites as usual. You would never know these are "light" deviled eggs, but they have 1/3 less fat yet plenty of protein and some added fiber.   Deviled eggs are fun to make because you can customize them however you like. Someone came up to me after my demo at Macy's this weekend and told me she makes deviled eggs with pesto. I've made them with wasabi and also with curry powder. But the sky is the limit! Another option is just to top them with different garnishes. Some garnishes inclu......

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Roasted Corn & Black Bean Salad Recipe

This recipe for Roasted Corn and Black Bean Salad is brought to you by the fresh corn, leftover cotija cheese and a can of beans. And that lazy feeling that strikes during the Summer for something delicious yet easy. Like most everyone, I love fresh corn. Eight ears for 2 dollars? Sold! When corn is sweet it's a cinch to prepare. In addition to adding it to a salad, my other favorite ways to prepare it are making corn chowder (I make a different version just about very time) and on the cob, slathered with mayo and dredged in crumbled cheese served with a wedge of lime. While corn should be cooked soon after picking or purchasing, cotija cheese is the exact opposite. I bought cotija for some recipe or another and found the leftover cheese lasted and lasted. Like other Mexican cheeses, it's inexpensive, and easy to use. Cotija is a crumbly cheese, less salty than feta, but a little goes a long way. The beans in this recipe make the salad feel hearty and substantial. I ......

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Vegetarian Green Chili recipe

Vegetarian green chili was the request for dinner the other night. Chili is very popular at my house. But I rarely make it the same way twice. It might be red or green made with white beans or black beans. I have made it with pork, beef, bison, turkey and chicken, but I like the challenge of creating a truly satisfying vegetarian chili. Somewhere a Texan is not very happy about that. For this version of vegetarian green chili I knew I wanted to use Green Pepper Tabasco sauce which is made with jalapeños. Fresh jalapeños can vary greatly in heat, but the jalapeño version of Tabasco is always consistent. In addition I used many other green ingredients, some traditional like roasted chiles and tomatillos and one very non-traditional ingredient, spinach. I know that might sound strange, but it's really good. The slightly sour edge of spinach and tomatillos cuts through the starchy sweetness of the white beans. This recipe is a keeper and I know I will be making it again. By they w......

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Endive with White Bean Dip Recipe

It's exhausting being a celebrity! Ok, maybe I'm not famous, but I felt like I was this weekend. On Saturday I spoke for about 45 minutes to a sold out crowd at the Larkspur Library , and then demonstrated four "no cook" recipes, including one adapted from New Flavors for Appetizers . On Sunday I was at the Palo Alto Williams Sonoma store signing copies of my book. We sold about 40 copies! It was fun chatting with customers and accepting compliments on the two recipes that were being sampled, Chilled Green Pea Soup and Dates Stuffed with Chorizo and Aged Goat Cheese. Both of those just happen to be "no cook" as well. If you'd like to attend my next talk and cooking demonstration at the Larkspur Library it will be on April 4th from 4:30 - 6:30 pm. Tickets are $10 and include a donation to the Friends of the Library, tasting of four appetizers (plus the recipes), St. Supery Sauvignon Blanc and Bionade (non-alcoholic beverage). The recipes I'll be ......

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Franks & Beans: Recipe

Last week it was so cold I was desperate for recipes that would warm the kitchen and the house, so I made baked beans. It was a long slow recipe that took 7 hours of baking. I used salt pork, onions, molasses, brown sugar and spices. The beans were good, but I got tired of eating them plain, so I made my version of franks and beans. I hesitate to post this recipe because, it is pure white trash cooking, not exactly my specialty. But the truth is, it's delicious! I've seen this recipe called something like "Hawaiian Beans" which is kind of interesting because of course pineapple comes from Hawaii, and beans are very popular in Hawaii, especially in Portuguese Bean Soup. But also because this recipe has frankfurters in it. All kinds of processed meat--specifically Spam and hot dogs are very common in Hawaii and make their way into fusion food like Spam musubi and hot dog maki sushi . While my parents have very sophisticated tastes, I credit them with this very bud......

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Pasta Fagioli: Hunger Challenge Recipe

No question, I learned what frugal cooking was all about in Italy the land of "la cucina povera." Soups and salads made from stale bread, beans, pasta with nothing but olive oil, garlic and parmesan cheese and the most microscopic portions of meat were all part of my Tuscan diet. But I ate extremely well. I also learned many ways to cook beans. They don't call the Florentines "mangiafagioli" or bean eaters, for nothing. Could this dish be made with heirloom beans from Rancho Gordo and bacon from the Fatted Calf? Absolutely and it would still be a very cheap meal, though not quite $1 per person cheap. Pasta Fagioli $1.98 for 2 healthy servings Ingredients 1 cup pinto beans, 50¢ 2 slices bacon 30¢ 1/2 onion 17¢ 2 cloves garlic 5¢ 1 cup macaroni, 11¢ 1 bouillon cube 14¢ 7 ounces canned diced tomatoes, 50¢ 1 Tablespoon grated parmesan cheese 21¢ Instructions Soak the beans in 3 cups of water in a saucepan overnight (or boil for 2 minutes, cover t......

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Lentil & Mustard Greens Soup: Hunger Challenge Recipe

I was really optimistic that I could make a successful lentil soup on a budget. I was pretty sure it would be tasty and it took very little time to make. It was filling and healthy and comforting. Lee said it was delicious. I used 2 bouillon cubes to try and get flavor into the soup, but what it really needed was spices and a bit of lemon juice. Some aromatics like carrots and celery would have been good too, but I was afraid it would push me over budget. Lentil & Mustard Greens Soup Total: $1.81 for 2 servings Ingredients 8 ounces lentils 62.5¢ 2 bouillon cube 28¢ 1/2 organic onion 17¢ 1 clove garlic 2.5¢ 5 cups water 1 Tablespoon Smart Balance 9¢ (you could use butter or oil) 5 ounces, frozen mustard greens 62¢ Instructions Chop the onions and garlic. Heat a large saucepan and add the Smart Balance. When melted, add the onions and cook stirring for 5 minutes over medium heat. Add the garlic, water, bouillon cube and lentils. Bring to a boil then reduce and si......

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Cool Quesadilla Combos:Recipe

Somewhere along the line I seem to have forgotten about quesadillas. But recently a couple of factors lead to me rediscovering them and their potential. One is the Organic Whole Wheat & Corn Flour Tortillas available at Trader Joe's . Each tortilla has only one gram of fat, five grams of fiber and is high in iron. They fit into my "try to eat more whole grain foods" resolution. A little experimenting lead me to discover that the nutty flavor of whole wheat tortillas is really good with non-traditional, not-necessarily Mexican fillings. The other bit of inspiration came from a recipe I read in Sara Foster's Casual Cooking for Grilled Shrimp and Goat Cheese Toastadas. That jumping off point lead me to create a shrimp, avocado, radicchio and goat cheese quesadilla with a drizzle of chimichurri sauce. It was truly outstanding. I know quesadillas were all the rage about five years ago, but if you haven't played around with them in a while, they are defini......

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Two Bean Salad: Recipe

Consider this my heartfelt apology to the leeks, rutabagas and beets languishing in my fridge. I'm sorry. It's not that I don't love you. I'm just so bored of Winter right now. I yearn for Summer tomatoes, bright fresh herbs, spicy chilies and a little more vibrant color than say, beige, olive drab and reddish-brown. And I'm not the only one feeling this way . Last night we went to a birthday party for a fabulous cake maker . Our instructions were to bring something vegetarian for a potluck. Why don't all my friends throw potlucks? A potluck party is so much fun. You get to meet interesting people and their cuisine. It's a whole other component to the matching up face-name-personality game. So faced with a fridge full of Winter vegetables I headed for the pantry where I found chipotle salsa, white beans, black beans, and yellow corn. I threw in a couple of chopped scallions, a green pepper, a pinch of cumin and a crumble of dried tomatoes. A garnish of......

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Indian Style Chickpeas Recipe

When Is My Blog Burning #19 was announced I started looking for vegan recipes and what I found was a lot of fake food. Fake meat, fake milk, fake cheese, even fake bacon. That just made me sad. If people want to eat fake stuff, so be it, but not me! So I turned to a cuisine that has a lot of vegetarian and vegan food and there's nothing fake about it. Indian food. Besides all the fakery, the other problem with vegan food can be finding a way to get protein. Without protein a meal can feel less than satisfying. Fortunately beans make a terrific vegan friendly protein option so I went with that. In Indian cuisine you sometimes see the name chole and other times kabuli chana or channa. Same thing. Garbanzo beans. Also known as chickpeas or ceci beans. In addition to being a good protein source, chickpeas are also high in manganese, folate, copper, phosphorus, iron and dietary fiber making them very healthy indeed. While relatively mild-flavored, chickpeas are slightly nutty ......

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Chinese Style Green Beans: Recipe

Fried foods. I hadn't really contemplated fried foods until the current Is My Blog Burning was announced "Summer's Flying, Let's get Frying" . They just seem so taboo to me. That's not to say I don't eat fried foods. If I go out to eat mussels I am more than likely to eat frites. On a super late night if I pass Bob's Dounts and they happen to be putting out a fresh batch I've been known to partake. But frying food at home? Nope. Anthony Bourdain neatly outlines the difficulty of frying French fries at home in the Les Halles Coobook and why it is such a bother--there is the quantity of the oil necessary, the disposal of oil, the lack of a professional "fryer", the difficulty of maintaining the right temperature, the resulting sogginess of the fries and oiliness of your kitchen. While I will probably never make fries at home, there is one solitary dish that I do fry at home--string beans. Have you ever had dry fried string beans at ......

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Chipotle Chili Recipe

A chipotle pepper is really just a jalapeno. No, really, it is. A smoked jalapeno . Jalapenos are sneaky little guys. They can be mild or hot, you never know until you taste them. Jalapenos go from being juicy, crunchy and green to red if left to ripen, then when dehydrated and smoked they turn dark reddish-brown and distinctly smoky. Native to Mexico, twenty percent of jalapenos grown there supposedly end up as chipotles. Chipotles aren't as trendy now as they were a couple of years back, but they are still as wonderful a chile to cook with as they ever were. You can buy them dried whole, in powder, in paste or in "adobo", a sauce of tomatoes, vinegar, spices, garlic and as if they needed it--more chilies. They are smoky and mellow and only when prepared in adobo does the heat drastically intensify. But I like the heat so I don't shy away from chipotles in adobo. It's also a very convenient way to use chiles. Over time a dried chile or chile powder can lose ......

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Beluga Beauty Soup Recipe

Do you make impulse purchases? Sometimes when I buy things on impulse, I have no idea what to do with them. For example--black lentils. These tiny glistening little jewels are so pretty to look at, they might just call out to you too, if you saw them on the shelf. Once I got home I looked through various cookbooks and online for recipes using these gems. What I learned was that black lentils are also called beluga lentils because they look like caviar. They are also more "meaty" flavored than other lentils. They hold their shape well and make good salads or soups. I didn't actually find that many recipes, though you can use them pretty much in place of an other type of lentil. A big thanks to Cathy of My Little Kitchen for hosting Is My Blog Burning: Beans, giving me the perfect excuse to break open the bag of black lentils and create a new recipe. Combining a recipe from Judy Rogers of Zuni Cafe and an Indian curried soup, I came up with this quick and easy vegetar......

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Syrian Lentil Chard Soup Recipe

When I was growing up, "leafy green vegetable" meant spinach. At some point swiss chard was added to the repertoire and then bok choy. But that was really it. Oh sure, we had salad every night, but no other cooked leafy greens. Later on I discovered the sharp bite of mustard greens, the silky mellowness of cooked escarole and the spicy bitterness of turnip greens. These days my organic market delivery brings me kale and collard greens too. But I still like spinach and swiss chard for sentimental reasons. Another category mainly skipped over in my childhood was legumes. We ate Mexican refried beans, chili beans, and baked beans, but that was about it. I guess if I had been raised in the South I might have been exposed to more beans and greens, but I wasn't. In college on a budget I lived on black beans, and in Italy I discovered white or cannellini beans. Out on my own I experimented with lentil stews and soups of all kinds until I discovered a recipe for Syrian lentil ......

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