The Good, the Bad, and Sometimes, the Ugly

I don't know what went screwy with cooking in the 60's and 70's.  I almost came to you empty-handed this week, admitting failure to find a recipe from the 70's.  I spent the past few days going through not one or two, but five cookbooks, looking for something.  It was not easy.  My friend in Ohio graciously put up with my texted photos of dishes from the 'Better Homes and Gardens Salad Book', where there's a chapter called, 'Salads from the Freezer.'  And despite her insistence that I make a frozen salad...I just couldn't.  I couldn't.  But...hey, it's not summer yet, I may be inclined give it a go in a month or two...we'll see.

The decade strikes me as a time of brown food.  I know I've mentioned it before.  Look through any illustrated cookbook from then and tell me if you don't agree.  Everything has a brown or overly warm tint.  A very unappetizing tint, like they were trying to coordinate with every kitchen done in paneling and full of appliances and kitchenware in avocado green, mustard, or chocolate brown.  

After trying to find a feasible recipe in book after book, I pulled the 'Tassajara Cooking' book down from the shelf.  It even has a brown cover!  Released by the Zen Center of San Franciso, it is a vegetarian cookbook that is more guide than traditional step by step recipes.  From the first page, the laid back attitude is in evidence:  'The way to be a cook is to cook.  The results don't have to be just right, measuring up to some imagined or ingrained taste...Just feed, satisfy, nourish.'

The recipe I chose is the Bulgur-Tahini Casserole.  (Casseroles are so 70's.)  As written, the ingredient list and directions barely make a full paragraph, with an additional two longer paragraphs of variations!   So I varied.  I substituted red winter wheat berries for the bulgur.  The dish is not an attractive one once ready.  It was very brown from the wheat berries.  I'm tempted to try again using rice or millet.  It's got a quiche-y kind of consistency from the eggs, but has a chewiness from the wheat berries.  The tahini is a winning ingredient, because sesame is one of my favorite flavors.   Serve with a salad and you're good to go.

If you decide to give this a try, I would LOVE to see photos or hear what you think of it.  

Wheat Berries-Tahini Casserole

Adapted from the Bulgur-Tahini Casserole recipe in the Tasajara Cooking book

Serves 4

1 cup wheat berries (dry)

3 cups water

1 tbsp olive oil

1 small onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/3 cup tahini

1/2 tsp salt

2 eggs

1/4 cup milk

Bring water to a boil in saucepan, add wheat berries, and cook over a low simmer until done to chewiness.  Drain any remaining water.  Grease a casserole pan (I used an 8 inch round Pyrex baker), and preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Saute onion and garlic in pan until translucent, remove from heat and let cool for a few minutes.  In a medium bowl, crack eggs and beat lightly.  Add milk, tahini, and salt, whisking until relatively smooth.  Add onions and garlic, mixing well, then add wheat berries, stirring to thoroughly combine all ingredients.  

Pour mix into casserole and bake for 25-30 minutes.  Remove from oven and let cook for a few minutes before serving.  

'Tis the Season, Part Two

[Note:  I started writing this post yesterday, hence the 'Thanksgiving Eve' mention.  I'm letting it be.  To everyone out there...Have a beautiful Thanksgiving, full of too  much food and thankful to be surrounded by family and friends.]

 Here we are on Thanksgiving Eve where people are busy preparing for one of the biggest eating holidays of the year, if not the biggest.  The good china is coming out for the table, people are fighting the craziness of the grocery stores, and kitchens are Command Central for the festivities.

I am not making dinner for Thanksgiving, but I am responsible for bringing appetizers for thirteen, which is an infinitely easier task than dinner.  There's a good chance that during this holiday season, I will make a turkey breast so I can have my own cache of leftovers and make stock.  But before any of that happens, let's go back a couple of weeks to my last post.  It was all about the pumpkin and I warned you that there would probably be another pumpkin post because I still had pumpkin to use.  This is that post.

I made gnocchi once before and for a first attempt it was a little disappointing.  They were heavy little lumps of dough that tasted okay, but beyond that...well, I wasn't happy.  So this time around, instead of using regular all purpose flour I used '00' flour.  A much better choice.  They were hearty without being heavy.  Serving pumpkin gnocchi in a brown butter and sage sauce?  The best choice.

Pumpkin Gnocchi in Brown Butter and Sage Sauce
(Adapted from this recipe)
Serves 2-4

1/2 cup pumpkin puree
2 cups '00' flour  (plus extra for rolling out)
1 egg
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
3 Tbsp butter
2 Tbsp sage, chopped

In a bowl, mix the pumpkin, flour, egg, nutmeg, salt and pepper.  With a fork, bring all the ingredients together to give you a sticky, but not overly wet dough.  Add a little more flour by the tablespoon if you need to.  

Working in small portion, roll each piece of dough out into a hotdog shaped log, about 12 inches long.  With a knife or dough scraper, cut the dough into little pillow shapes about and inch long.  On the cut side, press down with the tines of a fork to form ridges and give you that slightly oval shape.  Spread gnocchi on a flour dusted pan until you work through all your dough.

In a pot, bring salted water to a boil and add enough gnocchi, but don't crowd the pot.  The gnocchi will cook within 3-5 minutes and they'll float to the top when they're done.  In a skillet, add the butter and melt over medium high heat.  Allow it to foam and begin to brown.  When little brown bits form and it smells nutty, add the sage.  Let the sage crisp for about 20 seconds, turn off the heat then add the gnocchi.  Mix to coat the pasta and serve.