Farro & Greens Casserole

I got the idea for this dish from Heidi at 101 Cookbooks, who has posted several lovely farro dishes, including a baked farro risotto. Her recipe calls for uncooked farro which is slowly baked until al dente in a mixture of homemade tomato sauce, vegetable broth, onion and Parmesan. That's a wonderful idea if you have a stash of sturdy grains like farro or kamut in your pantry and no idea what to do with it (one of those well-intentioned bulk bin splurges, sadly resigned to staleness in the cabinet); I've been eating a lot of whole grains lately, and so had a pot of cooked farro in the fridge and no idea what to do with it. When I realized that I also had half a tub of homemade tomato sauce, some leftover Parmesan cheese and a bunch of wilting kale in the fridge, I formed a battle plan.

Skipping the broth, which is only necessary if you're using uncooked grains, I sauteed an onion in some olive oil until softened, added a couple of cups of cooked farro and chopped lacinato kale, stems and all, to the pan, and cooked that until the kale was softened and bright green. I then tossed in the tomato sauce and maybe 1/4 C of Parmesan cheese and let the flavors blend, stirring, for maybe five minutes. Adjust for salt and pepper.

Following Heidi's lead, I rubbed an 8X8 baking dish with olive oil and scattered the zest of one lemon on top of the oil. Don't skip this step. The lemon zest adds enormous flavor and aroma, and imbues the dish with a bracing brightness that contrasts nicely with the rich tomato and Parmesan flavors and the bitter kale. I then dumped the farro mixture into the dish, scattered the top with the remaining cheese, and baked it in the oven at 400 degrees for twenty minutes. The casserole came out golden brown, with a wonderful lemony steam and chewy texture.

What's fun about this dish, and whole grains in general, is that they're so versatile. I could easily have combined cold farro with avocado, citrus, feta and a lemon dressing for a light but filling salad, or warmed it up with a bit of olive oil and garlic, and added pink beans, salsa and sour cream for a taco bowl. I've been making an effort to keep a small pot of whole grains (I like to switch it up, but chewy grains like kamut and farro are my favorite) and one of beans (this week they're pink, just for the prettiness of it) in the fridge each week for easy, healthy meals. Add some roasted veggies or stir-fried greens, and you have a near-instant meal.

Plus, when you eat such healthful meals, you can afford to splurge. Coming next: the easiest, cocoa-iest scones, for you and your sweeties, courtesy of Alice Medrich, cocoa queen.

Something to Blog About: Brown Butter Cocoa Brownies

I have a growing collection of unfinished blog posts and random pictures of recipes in mid-process, but nothing that I've felt like publishing. I've been busy with work and the holidays and shows, and then I got a cold that just won't quit last week, and the house always needs to be cleaned, and you know how life goes. We've eaten plenty of good meals, and there's political fodder galore for a rant, but somehow writing just gets pushed aside in favor of bed and a few minutes with Alison Weir's fantastic volume on the wives of Henry VIII. But tonight I made what may be the best brownies on earth, and I want to share them with you.

We're going to start trying to get me pregnant (T hates the "we're pregnant" trend, since it's physiologically untrue) in a few months, so I've been making a concerted effort lately to cook more wholesome meals and fewer treats and breads featuring white flour. I am in love with black bean chili with squash and bulgar wheat, and Mark Bittman's tomato sauce featuring squash, ground lamb and cinnamon. Roasted beet salads with feta, avocado and oranges have been making routine lunch appearances. I've also been experimenting with brown breads full of seeds and nuts, trying to replicate the amazing seeded whole wheat from Whole Foods, to some success. But the February Bon Appetit arrived with the Brown Butter Cocoa Brownies on the cover, and I knew they needed to be baked, by me, immediately.


The fact of the matter is, I love chocolate. Not to the chocoholic extent (mostly because I hate the images of romance novels and minivans that the term conjures), but I can't imagine a more satisfying close to pretty much any meal than a square of dark chocolate, or a homemade treat studded with the stuff. These brownies rely on plain Hershey's cocoa powder for their oomph, but contrary to most expectations, cocoa powder creates a more intensely flavored dessert than you would get using bar chocolate. It's also a little more affordable than high quality chocolate, and a little goes a long way. Bon Appetit advises that one use plain as opposed to Dutch processed cocoa, which is darker but apparently less flavorful than unprocessed cocoa. As for the walnuts in this recipe, you could easily omit them, but then why eat a brownie? (I jest, though slightly. There was a time when I wouldn't touch a baked good with nuts in it.) If you do like them, however, the slightly bitter walnuts in this recipe cut the richness of the chocolate and brown butter just enough so that you can appreciate both flavors alone and savor their partnership, simultaneously.

Bon Appetit's Brown Butter and Cocoa Brownies

• 2 eggs, chilled
• 3/4 C cocoa
• 1/3 C plus 1 T flour
• 1/4 generous tsp salt
• 2 tsp water
• 10 T butter (1 and 1/4 sticks)
• 1 1/4 C sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Line a 8x8 inch pan with aluminum foil or parchment paper (leaving an inch or two draping over the sides of the pan, for easy removal), and grease lightly.
2. Melt the butter over medium heat in a large pan. Stirring frequently, wait until the foam subsides and the bottom of the pan starts collecting little browned butter bits. Take off of the heat and add the cocoa, sugar, salt, water and vanilla. Combine well.
3. Add the eggs one at a time, stirring well to incorporate.
4. When the batter looks glossy, add the flour and stir well.
5. Beat the batter 60 times (do it by hand for a nice, quick workout).
6. Pour the batter into the pan and spread into the corners, leaving a nice, even top.
7. Bake for 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out with a few fudgy crumbs clinging to it. Let cool in the pan on a rack.
8. Once cool-ish, lift brownies out of the pan using the paper or foil and let cool completely before slicing and enjoying.

Brownies can be made up to 2 days in advance. Store cooled brownies in an airtight container.

Buttermilk Biscuits and Portobello Gravy

I first encountered biscuits and gravy at Humps, one of the greasy "family dining" restaurants my mom loves to stop at on road trips to the Oregon coast. Oregon greasy spoons are like retro Mystery Spots. They transport the diner back to a time when jello on a lettuce leaf constituted salad and everything came with canned green bean casserole. Our ultimate greasy spoon experience, the one that lives on at family dinners and college plays (cough) and any time we cook coq au vin, was in Dexter, Oregon, not at the coast at all but on the way home from Mt. St. Helens.

When we pulled into Dexter we were starving and tired from a long hike--and a terrifyingly close call on what my mom calls dot-dot-dot roads. The one cafe in town had a giant hand-painted sign declaring, "Deadheads Welcome!" and a lot of cheerful hallooing coming from the bar. Thrilled by the surprisingly leftist local culture, my parents shooed us all into the cafe side of the building, where we were met by a tiny middle-aged lady with a big black beehive and cat-eye glasses. That should have been the first clue.

The second was that nothing on the menu was actually on order except for burgers, fried chicken and the evening special coq au vin, which our hostess whispered to us conspiratorially, "has wine in it, you know, but don't worry, it evaporates." She sighed and looked reflective for a moment. "I sure wish the cook would make something I can pronounce!"

The third was when the two gentlemen who arrived shortly after us ordered "hamboogers."

The fourth was that, despite the welcome sign, there were no hippies in evidence; we were decidedly out of our element.

And the fifth was when our lady of the elevated locks cocked her head toward the kitchen window and hollered, "Velma, heat up the oil!"

All of this is true. And the chicken came with a jello mold on leaf of iceberg lettuce, canned wax beans, and some suspiciously hard biscuits.

But at Humps, although there was no adorable hostess in a fifties pants suit--or any deadheads, there was biscuits and gravy. Lumpy, fatty sausage gravy that congealed quickly on top of rich Crisco biscuits. I had the worst stomachache after that meal, and decided I was allergic to biscuits and gravy, which was probably a good call for my heart but a bad one for my mouth, because my word, biscuits and gravy can be good.

Take tonight's dinner, for example. With homemade buttermilk biscuits and a vegetarian portobello mushroom gravy, this country dish takes a slightly sophisticated turn while staying true to its comfort food roots. I'm not going to lie--this isn't health food (though the gravy recipe is from Eating Well magazine and would be healthy served over mashed potatoes or some lean meat), but it is delicious and perfect for cold nights when its pouring (Portland) or snowing (east coast) and you want something warm and simple to eat with a salad. Or a jello mold on lettuce, your choice.

The biscuit recipe is taken from the FoodDay section of the Oregonian, given to me by my father-in-law, and it's one of the best biscuit recipes I've tried (and perfect biscuits are a minor passion of mine). I think the trick is rolling the biscuits in melted butter, so that both top and bottom get a little crunchy while the inside turns into soft, flaky layers. Be sure not to overwork the dough, and to press down lightly on the flour mixture just after integrating the butter. This creates flaky layers during the baking process.

Note: get the gravy simmering before assembling the biscuits. Biscuits are best eaten fresh out of the oven, so you want to wait until 20 minutes or so before the gravy is done to get started on them. The gravy can be made in advance; unbaked biscuits can be chilled in the fridge for up to an hour before baking.

BUTTERMILK BISCUITS AND PORTOBELLO GRAVY

For the biscuits:

1. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F and melt 4 T butter in an 8-in square baking dish. (I just stick the dish in the oven as it heats up.) Set pan with melted butter aside.
2. In a large bowl, mix 2 C flour with 2 tsp baking powder, 1/4 tsp baking soda, and 1/2 tsp salt.
3. Cut 4 T of cold, unsalted butter into small chunks and toss into the flour. Using a pastry cutter, two butter knives, or your fingers, work the butter into the flour until the mixture resembles coarse cornmeal. Gently press your palm against the mixture once or twice.
4. Make a well in the center of the flour mixture and pour in 3/4 C buttermilk. (I found I needed 1-2 more T of milk to make the dough cohere.) Using your hands, mix the dough just until it forms into a ball and leaves the sides of the bowl.
5. Dump the dough onto the counter and knead no more than 10-12 gentle times before rolling the dough out no less than 1-inch thick. Using a biscuit cutter or a drinking glass, cut the dough into 2-3 inch biscuits. Gently gather up the scraps to make more biscuits until all of the dough is used up. You should get between 6-9 biscuits per batch.
6. Roll each biscuit in the melted butter so that each side is buttered, and nestle all of the biscuits into the pan (you want them to touch). Bake for 12-15 minutes until risen and golden brown.

For the portobello gravy:

1. Finely chop one small onion, two cloves of garlic and 2 medium-sized portobello mushroom caps.
2. Heat 1 T of olive oil in a pan and gently cook the onion and garlic until soft and translucent, roughly 5 minutes.
3. Add the mushrooms and saute, stirring occasionally, until they release their juices, around 10 minutes.
4. Add 2 1/4 C vegetable or chicken stock to the pan, along with 3 T of tamari or low sodium soy sauce and a couple pinches of dried thyme and dried sage. Let simmer for 10 minutes.
5. In a separate bowl, make a slurry of 4 T water and 2 T cornstarch. Mix until well combined.
6. Add slurry to the gravy and simmer for another 10 minutes, stirring frequently.
7. Pepper and salt to taste.
8. Split open a hot biscuit and add a couple ladlefuls of mushroom gravy. We ate ours with a raw broccoli and apple salad, but any fresh green veggies will cut the richness of the dish and add some vitamins.

Banana Cranberry Cupcakes with Dark Chocolate Ganache

I love birthdays. I don't understand people who hate to celebrate their birthdays, or who hide the day from well-wishers, misanthropically defying community celebration. After all, unless one has a genuinely traumatic memory associated with his birth date (and I did know one such boy), isn't it nice to be alive for another year? And to have a day on which all of the people who love or even just know you celebrate the fact?

This debate came up during the most recent Leadership Meeting at work. In a discussion about how to boost morale around the warehouse, I suggested making a birthday calendar. (Which, incidentally, I thought to be an embarrassingly innocuous suggestion. I just figured that a pizza party and raises for everyone was a pipe dream.) Immediately, half of the lame indie posers I work for asserted that no one would want to participate in this, people hate sharing their birthday, it was a terrible idea, how would they fit into their skinny hipster jeans if they ate cake, etc. I like how no one wondered how this crushing criticism might affect my morale. I also thought the objections stupid.

"Why not make it volunteer?" I asked, "Besides, doesn't the fact that the leadership team won't assert the warehouse as a caring community suggest an origin for the low morale levels?"

One day, prior to speaking, I'll just remove my shoe and sock and insert my foot into my mouth. Unfortunately, at the meeting, I exacerbated my blunder by staring stubbornly at the management team, silently daring them to come up with a better idea.


I won, ironically by dint of the management's genuine lack of interest in employee happiness; the lanky wonders who boss me around all day were too antsy for a smoke to continue arguing. I'll be sure, however, to honor their original wishes by ignoring their birthdays. Which is a shame, because tomorrow someone else will get these cupcakes.

Banana Cranberry Cupcakes with Dark Chocolate Ganache
Adapted from How To Be A Domestic Goddess by Nigella Lawson

This cupcake batter is assembled in one pot, and bakes up with delicious results. The moist little cakes taste like banana bread, with bursts of cranberry and a wonderfully deep, adult dark chocolate lid.

For the cupcakes:

3 overripe bananas, mashed
1/2 C unsalted butter
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 C sour cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 eggs
1 1/3 C all-purpose flour
3/4 C sugar
1/2 C dried cranberries

For the frosting:

1/2 C dark chocolate chips or pieces(I used Ghiardelli 60%)
100 ml heavy cream

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Put 12 cupcake wrappers into a muffin tin and light mist cups with cooking spray.
• Melt the butter in a large pot. When melted, pull off the heat and whisk in the sugar, vanilla and mashed bananas until blended. Next, whisk in the the eggs and sour cream until incorporated. Add the salt, baking soda and baking powder, and mix well. Finish by adding the flour and cranberries and mixing until just blended.
• Bake for around 20 minutes, or until the cupcake tops are golden and springy, and a toothpick inserted into the middle of one comes out relatively clean (a few moist crumbs are fine, you just don't want batter still clinging to it).
• Let cupcakes cool in wrappers on a rack.
• When the cupcakes are cool, add the chocolate pieces to the cream and heat to a boil in a saucepan. As soon as the cream boils, remove from the heat and whisk until smooth and thick. You can adjust the texture by adding more chocolate or cream.
• Using a spoon, frost the top of each cupcake, smoothing with the back of the spoon. It may run a bit, so place a sheet of wax paper underneath your baking rack.
• Let cool and enjoy! (Or, as I did below, take a gigantic bite while the chocolate's still warm and resign yourself to happiness.)
  

Grape and Gorgonzola Pizza

Last Friday night T and I had a date with my parents and sister at Zupan's yearly champagne gala. No one knows why we keep getting invited; we don't know anyone else present, and only my father buys champagne. But we go, because you can taste as many glasses of fancy champagne as you like and there's a phenomenal oyster bar, along with other delicacies like smoked scallops and manchego with quince paste. Besides, it's fun to dress to the nines and then watch all the trophy wives struggle to remain upright against the weight of their diamonds.

But the party begins late, and by 6:30pm our stomachs were growling. We wanted something satisfying, but fast and light enough to brook a 10pm oyster splurge. And that's how our grape and gorgonzola pizza was born.

I love the combination of of sweet and savory on pizza, and often bake pizzas with pears or figs and crumbles of sharp cheese, or slivers of prosciutto. I make these pizzas with an olive oil base, lightly rubbed with garlic, and then drizzle the toppings with more olive oil and large sea salt crystals. I love a good tomato-sauce and cheese pizza, too, but those tend to be heavier, and T and I are locked in a permanent pepperoni vs sausage debate that nearly always results in Canadian bacon. Last Friday all we wanted was a snack, something to add substance to a green salad. A quick trip to the store yielded red grapes on sale, a tiny wedge of raw gorgonzola, and premade pizza dough. (I know, LAZY.) I thought the high heat from the oven would wilt the grapes and make the strong cheese run a bit, permeating the crust with pungent salt and sweet juice.

It did. The grapes do release a little more juice than is desirable, but you can always pre-roast them to prevent the juices from running all over the top of the baked pizza. As with all pizzas, make sure not to overburden this one with toppings. A healthy smattering will do. Reducing the number of toppings to 2-3 helps you to taste each one individually as you eat, which also allows you to appreciate how they combine to create new, complex flavors. Go easy on the cheese, too; while not a delicate foodstuff, you don't want your pizza to be a gut-bomb.

Grape & Gorgonzola Pizza

1 batch homemade or store-bought pizza dough

1 clove garlic, peeled and halved

healthy handful of red or concord grapes, halved

healthy handful crumbled strong blue or gorgonzola cheese

smaller handful of good-quality Parmesan

extra-virgin olive oil

sea salt

Balsamic vinegar (I used white)

• Preheat oven to 500 degrees. If you have a baking stone, put it into the oven now so that it can thoroughly warm up.
• Roll your homemade or store-bought dough into a large circle. The thickness of the crust is up to you--I like them on the thin side, because I enjoy the toasty flavor of caramelized flour.
• Prick the dough all over with a fork to encourage it to remain flat.
• Rub the surface of the dough with raw garlic and then spread a thin layer of olive oil on top.
• Scatter the top with grape halves and gorgonzola crumbles.
• Sprinkle Parmesan cheese over the toppings, and add a few sprinkles of coarse salt.
• Drizzle a small amount of olive oil over the top, followed by an even smaller drizzle of balsamic vinegar.
• Bake pizza for 8-10 minutes, or until golden brown and bubbly. Cool slightly and enjoy.

Warm Bread

T passed his national and Oregon boards today! Which means, of course, that he's out celebrating with the other soon-to-be doctors, and the wives are at home doing...whatever it is we all do when left to our own devices. Or at least I'm at home. Drinking rum. Watching romantic independent films. Baking bread.

Now that the CSA box is coming to an end, and with it the weekly free loaf of Grand Central bread, there's flour in the kitchen crevices again, and the sleeve ends of my house sweaters are caked in dough. (Oh, don't grimace. I do launder them. Occasionally.) This is homely bread--you can see the giant crack in the loaf above--but it's soft and tender, and very convenient. I mix a big batch, store it in the fridge for days, tear off a piece and let a loaf rise in the evening for a late baking. It's not as precise or professional as the breads I make with the Merry Bakers, but it's good and the house smells divine. Plus, a warm slice of bread is perfect for sopping up the rum before bedtime. And the tears, if that movie's kind of sad.

The Humble Loaf
adapted from Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day

6 1/2 C flour: 3 1/2 C white and 3 C white whole wheat
2 C warm water
1 C warm milk
1 1/2 packets of yeast
1 1/2 T coarse salt
a handful of sesame seeds (optional)

1. In the bowl of your standing mixer, combine the yeast and warm liquids. You can let sit until frothy, or proceed--as I do--with no regard for that chemical process.
2. Add the 6 1/2 C flour, the 1 1/2 T salt, and the sesame seeds, if using. Stir with the paddle attachment (or by hand) until integrated.
3. Do not knead! Once the flour and liquids are well-mixed, top the bowl with some plastic wrap and set aside to rise for a few hours. You'll know it's done when the the dough has risen and fallen into a large, flat-topped mound.
4. At this point, stick your dough in the fridge for up to 2 weeks, or bake a loaf immediately. The chilled dough is easier to work with, and gains more flavor the longer it ferments in the fridge.
5. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees at least 20 minutes before baking. (If the dough is cold, pull off a loaf-sized chunk--1-2 lbs--and shape it and put it into a greased loaf pan to come to room temperature...around 1 hr and 40 minutes.)
6. Place the loaf pan in the hot oven and bake for 35-45 minutes, The loaf should be risen and golden, with a firm crust and corners. When tapped, the bottom should feel hollow. If it doesn't, or the corners seem soft, remove the loaf from the pan and stick back into the oven for 5-10 minutes.
7. Let cool completely before slicing for optimal crumb.

Beans and Freedom

Those two words, analyzed from a global socio-political perspective, can be seen as opposites. After all, and I don't mean to be glib here, impoverished people the world over eat legumes while their political leaders misdirect foreign and domestic capital to their pleasure yachts. But for me, beans are a symbol of a smaller freedom, the personal sort, because they're one of the first things I cooked when I moved into my own apartment; dried beans are the graduate student's Platonic ideal of dinner because they're cheap, you feel hip shopping the bulk bins, and a big pot of beans yields an incomprehensible number of meals.

Tonight, however, beans are synonymous with neither the third world (I'm beginning to suspect that analogy is tasteless, no pun intended) nor my college days. Tonight I happened to meet with my book group to discuss Jonathan Franzen's new novel Freedom and then came home, realized there's no lunch for tomorrow, and threw together a black bean, butternut squash and kale stem (yes, stem) stew in the crockpot. I hope it's good. If it is, I'll post the recipe.

You might want to read Freedom. It's very good, and that's coming from someone who'd thrown Jonathan Franzen into the detested Jonathan Safran-Foer Over-Rated Writers Club. A.k.a. Authors Who Write About Things They Know Not Club. A.k.a. You Tricky Little Man, I Read Yet Another Of Your Novels And It Took Me Until The End To Realize What A Senseless Dodo You Are AGAIN Club. You get the picture. I don't like Foer's gushy sentimentalism or Franzen's condescending "oh I'm so not the elitist white liberal I am (but if you're not like me, you must be a hillbilly)" subtext. But I liked this book a lot.

Maybe because Franzen owns and explores liberal pretensions (while obviously fantasizing about being a rock star). Though I think the book is much more about the true limits of the American freedom concept, applied to romantic and familial relationships. We had a really nice discussion, which included the female readers' fascination with the rock star and the male readers' attraction to Connie. It was fun. I spend so much time sticking labels on books and reading papers about "the Islams" and terrorism (no joke) that I sometimes feel my brain cells holding tiny hands over tiny ears, mouths wide and howling. I enjoy having an outlet for my under-stimulated brain.

So here's to beans and Freedom. May the stew be as tasty as the reading!