Category — Recipes

This meal is a standby at our house because it’s simply delicious. The necessary ingredients are almost always on hand in our pantry and freezer. Monterey Beans and Cheese is also extremely flexible so we can easily use up leftover meat or vegetables. This time of year we use ripe tomatoes from our garden. Here’s our take on the recipe from the More-With-Less Cookbook (World Community Cookbook)
by Doris Janzen Longacre.

Monterey Beans and Cheese

Fry, drain, and break into pieces:
• 2 slices bacon
Set aside. Sauté in bacon fat until tender:
• 1 medium-sized onion, sliced
• 1 jalapeno pepper, diced
Add:
• bacon bits
• 2 cups cooked black beans
• 1/4-1/2 lb. shredded cheddar cheese
• 2 ripe tomatoes, diced or 3/4 c. tomato sauce
• 1/4 c. beef bouillon or tomato juice
• 1 Tablespoon chili powder
• 1/2 t. salt
• dash of pepper
Cook slowly, stirring constantly, until ingredients are blended and cheese smooth — about 5 minutes. Serve with rice.

Variations:
•This dish can be made vegetarian-style leaving out the bacon altogether– we don’t make it that way, however. Even for an omnivore, this dish contains just a little meat and you get a whole lot of flavor from that.
•You can use whatever type of beans you like best. Kidney beans or white beans work well, but black beans are our favorite kind.
•The cheese used can also be varied.
•Different peppers can also replace the jalapeno. Chipotele add a smokey flavor. Green or red pepper make a less spicy dish.

We like the spicy element, however, so we tend to make Monterey Beans and Cheese on the spicy side, sometimes adding a chili pepper as well. Summer or winter, this meal is easily prepared in the 20 minutes it takes to make the accompanying rice.

Ichiban (sometimes called “Japanese-style”) eggplant remind me of small carnival balloons, the kind that clowns twist into animal shapes, though I’ve never seen one this shade of purple. They’re the perfect eating size this time of the year, and if you didn’t plant any in your garden, these long slender fruit are readily available at the Farmers’ Markets around town. Although they might look exotic, don’t be scared. This recipe is an easy introduction to putting the ichiban eggplant on your table.

Wash the fruit and cut off the stem. I take this opportunity to delight in their shape and color and the feel of their resilient flesh. If we’re grilling, we slice them in half lengthwise and put them on for a few minutes for each side, just long enough for the flesh to get tender. It’s all too easy to grill them ‘til they’re soft bordering on mushy which is a texture I don’t enjoy. For your first experience, I suggest slicing them widthwise into wheels about a half inch thick. The cooks on TV would suggest olive oil but honestly a squirt of nonstick cook spray works as well. Saute until tender in a nonstick pan. The color changes a little but the best indicator is the texture of the flesh.

While they’re cooking, whip up this sauce. It’s my favorite kind of recipe, that is, it’s proportional so it can be easily scaled up or down.

Special Miso Paste Sauce
- one part red Miso paste
- one part mirin
- one part sugar
Simmer on the stove for 20 minutes or microwave it for 4 minutes stirring periodically. If you have four eggplant, try using a 1/3 cup for each part.

Miso is another product of the miraculous soybean and mirin is a sweet rice wine used exclusively for cooking. Both miso and mirin are available at the People’s Food Co-op or any of the Asian grocery stores around town. But now that I think about it, they’re probably available wherever you do your grocery shopping, although you might have to ask.

This potent sauce is both sweet and tangy, and since it’s a favorite around our house, we apply it like a glaze to the cooked eggplant.

You might want to keep the sauce on the side, until you hear the verdict at your house. We serve these glazed eggplant over rice as a side dish for grilled shrimp or chicken. The sauce also works well with other cooked vegetables, like broccoli, carrots and green beans. It also stores well in the fridge.

There are plenty of other (lower-carb) ways to serve this remarkable vegetable so you might consider growing a few eggplant in your garden. The plant itself is quite handsome, with a relatively contained growth habit and charming flowers. The purple fruit contrasts the green of the leaves beautifully so you might sneak a couple in among your ornamentals. The only real pest it suffers are flea beetles but we’ve found a way to outwit them that we’ll share next spring.

The third week of July is when the Ann Arbor Art Fairs take over our town. Our family deals with the traffic and the crowds on a daily basis because of our proximity to downtown and the substantial crowd the Art Fair draws. Although we might whine as much as the average townies, we also enjoy four days of festive atmosphere and visit the readily available “fair food court” a couple blocks away from our front door.

We also usually have some company this week, either to visit us or the Art Fairs or park for free in our conveniently located driveway. Friends came to see us and the Fair, and we served a grand meal with lots of garden produce.

The menu included:
• marinated grilled chicken legs & thighs
• black bean patties
• tabbouleh
• steamed broccoli
• yellow squash sauteed with garlic
• grilled eggplant with special miso sauce
• mesclun salad

Other than the chicken and black beans, most ingredients came from our backyard. The bean patties were flavored with fresh herbs from the garden. I’m including some of the basic recipes below.

Marinated grilled chicken legs & thighs
also works well with breasts or whole cut up chicken

3-4 pounds of chicken
1/2 cup soy sauce
3 cloves of garlic, mashed
juice of one lime
3 quarter-sized pieces of ginger

Mix soy sauce, garlic, lime juice and ginger together. Place chicken in a bowl or a ziploc bag and pour liquid over the chicken. Seal or cover, and place in the refrigerator for 4 to 6 hours, or overnight, if you wish. Drain chicken and grill.

Black Bean Patties
We’ve just discovered that we love making and eating these! Our vegetarian guests warmed them up over the grill and they seemed to like them too.

1 can of black beans, drained
1 cup of oatmeal
1 egg or 2 egg whites
1/2 medium onion
1 clove garlic
1 jalapeno
fresh oregano, basil and thyme

Put onion, garlic and jalapeno in the food processor, and pulse until finely chopped. Add beans and pulse. Add eggs and mix. Add herbs. Add oatmeal and mix to combine. The mixture should be fairly thick and chunky– not smooth. Form at least 4 patties on a non-stick cookie sheet. Bake patties at 350F for 10 minutes. Turn and bake 10 minutes more. Enjoy right away or store in refrigerator for quick meal later.

Grilled Eggplant with Special Miso Sauce

Slice Japanese eggplant (the long slender kind) lengthwise and brush with oil or spray with cooking spray. Grill until the eggplant is tender. Serve with special sauce on the side.

Special Miso Sauce
Excellent with grilled eggplant or other vegetables. Or bean patties. Or chicken. Just about anything on your plate really.

Combine 1/3 cup each of miso, mirin and sugar in glass bowl. Stir to dissolve sugar. Cook over low heat on stove for 20 minutes or microwave for 3 to 5 minutes, stopping and stirring after each minute. Serve warm or at room temperature.

This recipe can easily be increased or decreased to suit your needs.

We’ll be enjoying more garden-filled meals and I’ll be posting more recipes here.

Sometimes a taste can get stuck in your mouth in the same way a song can get stuck in your head. When the hankering for that taste keeps popping up, you can’t feel satisfied until you get yourself some of whatever it is that’s haunting you.

So it was with me and Thai soup with coconut milk recently. That was what I was hungry for so I had to try cooking some. We are trying to lighten up our meals this summer by including more vegetarian choices, so I did a web search for “Thai vegetarian coconut soup” and found this recipe, which I used as an outline. I scanned what I had on hand and what I could use from our garden, which included kale, broccoli, lemon balm and basil– more than I would have guessed– and I was good to go.

Here’s the recipe I made. My apologies to anyone of Thai descent or with the slightest experience with Thai cooking. With all of my substitutions, I really don’t have the right to use the “Thai” adjective on this recipe. I considered adding “Faux” or “Mock” but that’s just dumb. But Thai or no, this delicious soup satisfied my craving.

Thai Vegetarian Soup with Coconut Milk

* 6 cups homemade strong-flavored stock
* 6 lemon balm leaves, chiffonaded
* 2 tsp. chili sauce
* 4 cloves garlic, minced
* 1 Tb freshly grated ginger
* 1 cup fresh mushrooms, sliced
* 2 cups kale, chopped
* 2 cup broccoli florets, chopped
* 2 tomatoes, chopped
* 1 can light coconut milk
* 1 tsp. brown sugar
* 3-4 Tbsp. soy sauce
* 1 Tbsp. fresh-squeezed lime juice
* 1-2 cups soft tofu, sliced into cubes
* 1/2 cup fresh basil, roughly chopped

1. Pour stock into a soup pot. Add the lemon balm, chili, garlic, and ginger. Bring to a boil and continue boiling for 5 minutes, or until broth is very fragrant.

2. Add the mushrooms. Reduce heat to medium and simmer for 5 minutes, or until mushrooms are soft.

3. Add the kale, broccoli and tomatoes. Gently simmer 1-2 more minutes (kale should remain on the crisp side).

4. Reduce heat to low and add the coconut milk, sugar, soy sauce, and lime juice. Finally, add the soft tofu and gently stir.

5. Do a taste-test. Add more chili sauce if not spicy enough. If not salty enough, add more soy sauce or a little more stock cube/powder or salt. Add 1 more tsp. sugar if too sour. If too salty or sweet, add another squeeze of lime juice.

6. Serve soup in bowls with fresh basil sprinkled over. Enjoy!

It’s officially summer because we just had our first fresh basil pesto pasta meal of the year.

I don’t know if it’s the particular type of basil we planted or the weather conditions (lots of rain, lots of sun) so far this summer or some wacky combination of both, but this year’s basil plants are looking especially good. The individual leaves are extra large– I don’t remember so many huge leaves on the plants in seasons past. I easily picked the 2 cups of fresh basil leaves needed for the recipe.

If you’ve never made pesto, the process might seem a little intimidating. In truth, it’s really easy. If you have a food processor, a blender, or ever a mortar and pestle, you are all set. Out of habit, I most often use the blender for making pesto, even though it’s a little tricky to scrape all of the pesto out of the area around the blades– but that doesn’t stop me from trying! Working with a food processor with its removable blade makes that part a bit easier.

Fresh Basil Pesto

3 cloves of garlic
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup olive oil
2 cups fresh washed basil leaves
1/4 cup pine nuts
2 tablespoons soft butter
1/2 cup parmesan cheese

1. Put garlic, salt and olive oil into the blender. Blend until smooth.
2. Add washed fresh basil leaves, preferably straight from the garden. Push the basil down with a wooden spoon or scraper tool, with the blender off. Blend until smooth.
3. Add pine nuts and blend until the mixture is smooth. Then add soft butter and blend.
4. Move mixture to a bowl and stir in parmesan cheese. Thin with a little water or broth if you’d like.

Variations: Walnuts can be used instead of pine nuts, if that’s what you prefer or what you have on hand. Romano cheese can be used for some or all of the cheese for a slightly different pesto.

Our favorite and simplest way to enjoy pesto is on pasta. The flavors are so intense and so fresh that the dish really doesn’t need anything else to make a great meal.

There are, however, a multitude of other ways to eat pesto. Sometimes we add grilled chicken or shrimp to pesto pasta. Vegetables like asparagus, broccoli, fresh or sun-dried tomatoes can also be added alone or together for a delicious pasta meal. Pesto can also be spread on bread for sandwiches or bruschetta; for a fantastic and special grilled cheese sandwich, a layer of pesto can be added. It’s great on pizza. Pesto is so popular at our house in the summer that it’s a challenge to keep it on hand.