Wilted Kale with Garlic, Puy Lentils and Thyme

One of the 2008 new year's resolutions in the A&N household was to eat less meat. Frankly, I don't subscribe to new year's resolutions so I wonder in what moment of mental unclarity this declaration came about, but it's firmly out there and we're trying to heed it. We've set ourselves the goal of eating 3 vegetarian dinners a week, which has been more successful some weeks and less so others. Since we are so used to being raging carnivores, I'm finding it's taking me much more time to plan recipes and stock up on ingredients, rather than just defaulting to a meat-and-two-veg position.

A birthday or two ago I received Dennis Cotter's Paradiso Seasons, a great veggie cook book from a well-respected vegetarian chef. His recipes are grouped seasonally so you can get the best of what's currently on offer, and I've been referring to him a lot lately. Granted, this isn't the sexiest season to be vegetarian ('OOoh, cabbage AGAIN!') and since neither of us eat heavy cheeses or creams our choices are limited to an almost vegan diet. Meaning that if we are going to stick to this 3/7ths vegetarianism, we'd better get used to proclaiming "OOoh, cabbage!'.

This week's cabbage moment comes in the form of wilted kale with puy lentils, thyme, and tomatoes. It's a very easy recipe to make, and with parmegian cheese grated on top, it edged its way to being a stew with lovely salty tomatoey stock. We plumped up the quantities of everything listed so that we could have this as a main course with enough for leftovers (though I've listed the original recipe, below). The problem, in Mr A&N's eyes, was that this was a vegetarian meal that smacked of old-school, sandal-wearing, dubiously-cleansed vegetarians. So we cracked and added some bacon to the mix. We're still getting the hang of this thing.


Wilted kale with garlic, puy lentils, and thyme
From Dennis Cotter's Paradiso Seasons

2 Tbs puy lentils
2 Tbs olive oil
1 onion, thinly sliced
4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
2 large handfuls kale, roughly chopped
2 tomatoes, diced (note: we used a tin of tomatoes)
2 small sprigs of thyme, leaves only
salt and pepper to season

1. Boil the lentils in plenty of boiled water until just tender (about 12 minutes)
2. heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a wide pan and cook the onion for one minute over medium heat.
3. Add the garlic and kale, increase the heat and cook for two minutes until the kale hs wilted and turned a dark glossy green.
4. Add the tomatoes to the pan with the cooked lentils and the thyme.
5. Continue cooking, stirring often and adding a splash of water occasionally, until the tomatoes are soft and the kale is tender.
6. Add another tablespoon of olive oil at the end, along with salt and pepper to season.

Buttercup Squash Bake

With the onslaught of autumn vegetables showing no sign of abating, I'm still happily buying up the squashes and cruciferous veg that come my way. With each passing week and each additional bagful of vegetables, though, I'm trying to find more and creative ways of serving them in order to keep myself from feeling vegetable-based boredom. This week's item for the creative treatment was the buttercup squash.

Buttercup squash sounds like butternut squash but is actually quite different; while butternut squash is on the watery, pumpkin-y side of the spectrum, buttercup squash is much more creamy in texture, something like a sweet potato (though more solid). With visions of pumpkins and sweet potatoes floating through my head, nutmeg danced into my thoughts as well.

And so I give you buttercup squash bake, with a nutmeg flavored bechamel sauce - very easy to tie together once you have peeled and sliced your squash and made your bechamel. I like Delia Smith's basic bechamel recipe, though I added a clove of garlic and a half a grated fresh nutmeg in lieu of the peppercorns and mace. I also like to stir in a healthy spoonful or two of ricotta cheese at the end of making the bechamel, though I don't always have it on hand or remember to buy it.

A word of warning if anyone happens to use soya milk or lactose free milk: the milk can go funny when it boils (particularly the lactose free version) so do try to keep it just below bowling point if you want to keep it separating and looking as if it's curdled.

I'm submitting this post to Beth at The Expatriate's Kitchen as part of Weekend Herb Blogging.



Buttercup Squash Bake (an approximate recipe)

• 1 serving of bechamel sauce, a la Delia
• 1 average-sized butter cup squash, peeled and cut into thin, half-moon slices
• 2 slices of bread, whizzed through a blender
• 50-60g parmesan cheese, grated

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180
2. Layer the slices of the squash in an oven-proof dish so that they are slightly overlapping - most of the dish should be taken up by squash
3. Pour the bechamel sauce over the squash
4. Cover with the breacrumbs, lightly patted down
5. Cover with parmesan cheese (if there isn't enough cheese to cover the whole thing, grate some more)
6. Place uncovered in the oven and cook for about 25 minutes or until the squash is tender. If the cheese starts to cook too quickly, cover with tin foil and uncover for the last few minutes.

White Bean and Chestnut Soup

One of the few things on which Mr A&N and I disagree is the notion of long walks. I can only presume his parents subjected him to some torturously long walks in horrible weather, over rugged terrain, and with no shoes to protect his delicate, child-sized feet, because the way he reacts to the question "Would you like to go for a walk?" tells me that there are some deep scars that are nowhere near healed. We've recently come to the agreement that if I'm to be successful in getting him to join me for a walk, there needs to be a reward involved in it: a pint of beer at the end, a slice of cake, a bacon sandwich thrust into his hand.


I'm willing to make the compromise because I love going for walks, and using it as time to enjoy the seasons. In autumn, I love finding piles of leaves and kicking and crunching my way through them, or finding shocks of color thrown against the normal landscape, nature's last dramatic gesture before the bareness of winter. Autumnal walks also provide the chance of gathering pocketfuls of edible goodies, which only adds to my joy in being out during this season.


It turns out, rather happily, that Mr A&N will accept as his walking-reward time spent hunting for food. I know, reader, I know - I'm as shocked by this turn of events as you are, but I'll confess that I couldn't be more pleased. So during our recent walk around Hampstead Heath, with our pockets full of chestnuts (and our hands cut and scratched from handling their casings), we both returned home content and thinking of how we could put our bounty to good use.


White Bean and Chestnut Soup (an approximate recipe)
Serves 2 for a main course, 4-6 for a starter

• 300 g white beans
• 1 onion, chopped finely
• 1 clove garlic, roughly chopped
• 250 g (approx) of unsmoked bacon
• 200 g / 20 chestnuts, peeled and roughly chopped
• 1 1/2 litres stock
• 1 bay leaf
• (optional: milk or cream)
• (optional: truffle oil)

1. First, soak the beans over night to soften them. After soaking, drain and rinse the beans.
2. Heat some olive oil in a stock pot, and add the onions, garlic, and half of the bacon (roughly chopped). Stir occasionally and allow the onions to soften and the bacon to mostly cook.
3. Add the chestnuts and beans, and stir.
4. Add in the stock and the bay leaf, and bring to a gentle boil.
5. Allow to simmer away gently until the beans are well softened, about 45 - 1 hour.
6. When the beans are near to finished, grill the remaining strips of bacon until crispy and chop up - these will go on top of the soup.
7. Turn off the heat, remove the bay leaf from the soup, and blend about 3/4 of it.
8. Return the blended soup to the pot with the rest of the soup, and stir together.
9. Turn the heat back on to low, and add salt and pepper to taste.
10. At this point, you may want to add a touch of milk or cream to the mixture if you want to making the consistency creamier; I prefer to leave it as it is since it is naturally quite creamy.
11. Spoon into bowls and garnish with a handful of the grilled bacon.
12. If you have truffle oil, you might want to drizzle a bit in each bowl in order to deepen the autumnal flavor of it.

Rack of Lamb, Port and Cranberry Jus, and Parsnip and Horseradish Mash

I'm sitting in a cold, herb-less, husband-less house. Cold, because now that the evenings are chilly the empty, bricked-up shell of our extension sucks out all the heat from the rest of the house. Herb-less, because all the construction material in the garden has rendered my herbs a) impossible to get to and, more dramatically b) dead. And husband-less since Mr A&N has just started a new contract and is already working long nights and weekends. I tell you, between cooking for one and not having any herbs to make things taste special, sitting on the sofa (under blankets) and eating fish fingers sounds the smart thing to do.

But I persevere, and tonight I have tried to snap myself out of this rut in a grand way. To whit, I have enjoyed a lovely rack of lamb with a bit of port and cranberry jus, with parsnip and horseradish mash on the side. The combination of flavors is one I return to a lot – the rich and flavorful lamb, the slightly fruity and rich jus, and the mash with the astringent horseradish cutting through the starchy and sweet parsnips and potatoes. It did feel silly going to all this effort just for myself, and without a voice of reason I was very tempted to polish off the whole rack of lamb – it was there, I was there, we shared a special moment. But I was an adult and only ate my portion, leaving Mr A&N the chance for cold lamb chops when he got home at 11pm.

It was my first time for several of the things on the menu: first rack of lamb, first time working with fresh horseradish, first time making a real jus. The lamb was wonderfully easy to get right – a bit of quick browning on the stove, a bit of time in the oven, and a bit of time resting. All the recipes I looked at advised letting it rest for 10 minutes; perhaps because I spent a further several minutes setting up my camera and taking pictures it rested a bit longer than intended and it had cooled down by the time I got to it. I’d think of letting it rest for a little less time in the future and seeing what happens.

I expected the horseradish to be pungent in its raw form: Horseradish is in the mustard family, and I'm familiar with the sensation of eating too much horseradish or wasabi and feeling like someone has punched you between the eyes. However, I didn’t expect working with it to feel like I’d taken a piece of wool scouring pad and rubbed it on the inside of my eyelid. I’m delicate to begin with (onions always make me cry), but grating the horseradish made me weep in a way I don’t recall weeping since we put my childhood dog to sleep. I concluded I would have liked to taste a touch more horseradish in the mash, but to get it in there would have pushed me to the edge and beyond. May all of you not be as disfigured by it as I was. For my feat of daring-do with the horseradish, I'm submitting this post to Weekend Herb Blogging, this week hosted by Pille at Nami-Nami.

Rack of Lamb with Port and Cranberry Jus and Parsnip and Horseradish Mash
Serves 2

Tip: you should get the jus cooking first, since this takes the longest

Port and Cranberry Jus

• 1 ½ C port
• 2 tsp brown or muscovado sugar
• 1 shallot, finely chopped
• 1 clove garlic, finely chopped
• 2 tsp dried cranberries
• 1 ½ C chicken stock
  
• Knob of butter

1. Combine the port, brown sugar, shallot, garlic, and cranberries over a medium-high heat. Stir to dissolve the sugar and bring to the boil.
2. Allow to boil until the mixture is almost syrupy or is almost reduced, about 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally.
3. Add the stock to the mix, and stir well. If stock is already salted, you may need to add more sugar in order to balance out the salty taste.
4. Allow to continue boiling, again until mixture is thick and just about halved – another 15-20 minutes. Stir occasionally.
5. Once nicely thickened and reduced, turn off heat and stir in a knob of butter.
6. Strain to remove onions and cranberries if you would like a smooth sauce, leave rustic if not.
   

Simple Rack of Lamb

• 1 rack of lamb (about 8 chops)
• Oil

1. Pre-heat oven to 170
2. Heat up a bit of oil in a heavy pot or frying pan
3. Brown rack of lamb for a minute or two on all sides, although don’t brown the ends
4. Transfer to an oven-proof dish and cook for around 20 minutes; a thermometer should read 120 when it’s done
5. [de-glaze the pan the lamb was browned in by pouring in a bit of the jus, and then returning this mixture to the pot where the jus is simmering]
6. Remove from oven and let sit for 10 minutes

Parsnip and Horseradish Mash

• 4-5 parsnips (depending on their size)
• 2 medium potatoes
• Fresh horseradish
• Butter
• Milk
• Salt and pepper to taste

1. Boil a medium-sized sacepan full of water
   
2. Peel and roughly slice up the parsnips and the potatoes to prepare for boiling.
3. The parsnips will take slightly longer to boil than the potatoes will, so either place the parsnips in the boiling water a few minutes before you put the potatoes in, or cut up the parsnips into smaller pieces than the potatoes.
4. Boil for 10-15 minutes or until the largest pieces are tender enough to stick a fork in.
5. Drain the parsnips and potatoes and transfer to a large bowl for mashing.
6. Make as you would normal mash, although with a bit less milk since the parsnips tend to take on more water.
7. Peel some of the skin off the fresh horseradish, and using the fine side of the grater, grate about a tablespoon of horseradish into the mash (you might want more than this, or you might find yourself incapable of achieving the 1 Tbs because of the agony to your eyes).
8. Stir thoroughly, and add salt and pepper to taste.