Edamame Hummus

I always like to have a bag of edamame in the freezer as a backup snack. On more than one occasion, I’ve used it to quickly throw together some edamame hummus. Since it’s March, and St. Patrick’s day is coming up next weekend (where is time going? Wasn’t it just the new year?), even though I’m not Irish I thought I’d throw in with something green!

Edamame Hummus

Ingredients (yields 2 1/2 cups):

  • 1 one pound bag of frozen shelled edamame
  • 1-2 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed
  • 6 tablespoons of lemon juice
  • 1/2 cup tahini (stir well before measuring). Tahini is a sesame paste so an alternate is to use sesame oil, but I have never tried this so you’ll have to try it to taste. I have a jar of it and it lasts months- just like peanut butter. Make sure you stir it up before measuring it out!
  • 1/4 – 1/3 cup or so of water
  • 6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
  • 1/2-1 teaspoon salt, or to taste
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
  • 2 tablespoons chopped parsley
  • 1/4 teaspoon of cumin, optional
  • 1/4 teaspoon of cayenne pepper, optional
  • To garnish: smoked paprika, freshly ground black pepper, extra virgin olive oil, sesame seeds, reserved edamame… your choice!

Directions:

  1. Simmer the beans in salted water for 4 to 5 minutes until it is heated through, or microwave, covered, for 2 to 3 minutes. Drain before using. If you’d like, set aside a handful of the beans for garnish.
  2. In a food processor, puree the edamame, garlic, lemon juice, 1/4 cup of water, and tahini. Process until smooth. Add in a little more water to thin as needed based on what texture you’d like- I am approximating that I used about 1/3 cup.
    Edamame Hummus
  3. With the motor running, slowly drizzle in 4 tablespoons of the olive oil and mix until combined. Add in the salt, coriander, parsley, and the optional cumin and cayenne pepper to taste and mix until incorporated.
  4. Transfer to a small bowl, and drizzle in the last 2 tablespoons of olive oil, and garnish as desired.
    Edamame Hummus

You can serve this immediately with pita, crackers, bread, or vegetables of your choice. Or, maybe eat it with a spoon, like I did, let’s cut out the middle man here. I know I seem all fancy with the various meals I’ve been having lately, but edamame hummus is sooo satisfying and simple. You can also choose to cover and refrigerate overnight and eat this up to 1 day later if you’d like. Honestly, this never lasts longer than 24 hours in my house.

Edamame Hummus

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Washington’s Birthday and Peanut Soup

President George Washington loved cream of peanut soup, so here is my vegetarian take on a presidential peanut soup in honor of the upcoming Presidents’ Day holiday. Unlike the version I tried at Mt. Vernon or later at Gadsby Tavern (which is where the painting below is photographed from), this peanut soup version does not use chicken stock. The soup serves about 6 people.

George Washington in a painting at Gadsby Tavern

Ingredients:

  • 2 tablespoons and 2 teaspoons of butter
  • 2 tablespoons minced onion
  • 1/2 teaspoon of minced garlic
  • 2 teaspoons all-purpose flour
  • 3/4 cup peanut butter
  • 2 2/3 cups broth – the original recipe calls for chicken but I used vegetable to be vegetarian
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 2/3 cup heavy whipping cream
  • 1/3 cup ground peanuts

Directions:

  1. In a heavy soup pot melt the butter on medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and saute a little until the onions are translucent. Then add the flour and peanut butter. I had crunchy peanut butter, so I added that first and then after the peanut butter had softened and incorporated the onion and garlic did I add the flour. Stir until very smooth.
  2. Beat in the stock and season well with salt and pepper. Simmer over low heat and it will thicken, about 20 minutes.
  3. Stir in the cream and heat through. Serve warm with ground peanuts.

For my main, I decided to make a vegetarian chicken in a lemon butter white wine sauce. So, while I was simmering the soup to thicken it, I took 1/4 cup of olive oil and a 1/2 teaspoon of garlic and sauteed some Gardein chick’n scallopini that I had floured, then removed the chick’n to a plate. With the leftover oil still in the pan, I turned off the heat, then I added 3/4 cup of white wine and 1 tablespoon of chopped herbs (I used fresh tarragon and sage) and 2 tablespoons of butter and 2 teaspoons of lemon juice. Turn the heat back on, return the chick’n, and reduce the sauce to half or whatever is tasty for you, and this was the sauce I topped the chick’n off with when I plated.

I was purposely leaving out carbs this time, but rice would be great- both for the sauce or with the peanut soup.

Gardein Chicken Scallopini and Washington's Peanut Soup Peanut Soup Gardein Chicken Scallopini

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Honoring President Lincoln with vegetarian Chicken Fricassee

President Abraham Lincoln’s birthday is February 12, and his favorite foods (at least per the first page of google results of my internet research) included simple plain food like fruit, nuts, crackers and cheese, as well as Chicken Fricassee with biscuits, oyster stew, and apple pie. So I decided to make a vegetarian version of chicken fricassee.

As my base, I decided to follow this recipe of Thomas Jefferson’s Chicken Fricassee via CD Kitchen in order to also pay respects to also past awesome president Thomas Jefferson (sometimes called “America’s founding foodie” because he was such a lover of food) and which seasons the chicken at the start, while also reducing it to feed 4 people. Reducing the recipe made it easier mathematically so I could also combine it with what was the deliciousness of Martha Stewart’s version that uses a mirepoix and fresh tarragon. I knew that since I was using fake chicken instead of actual chicken that meant I needed to up the flavor of the broth in some way.

Cooking fricassee is in between making a sauté and a stew where you need to let the flavors get absorbed over a long time- so the first half is all sautéing, and then there is 30 minutes of just letting the flavors open up while it all stews together.

I happen to like Quorn‘s chicken (which they call chik’n) the best- they have both basic meat substitute options like what I’m using here so I can cook my own versions of recipe but I also love their prepared meal options particularly their breaded fake chicken line that includes cutlets that are with gruyere or stuffed with jalapeno and three cheese. Clearly it doesn’t taste like real chicken, but even for someone like me that still knows what meat tastes like (unlike F who has been without for more than a decade), the taste is still pretty good.

The original recipe called for various pounds of chicken, which I loosely translated to two 12 ounce packages of the frozen chik’n pieces Quorn offers. Each package is listed to supposedly have 4 servings, but I think that is only possible if you are serving the chik’n in the same quantities as you would actual chicken meat as part of a meal that included other dishes- and consider that each serving is 80 calories.

Ingredients

  • 2 12 ounce packages of Quorn “chik’n tenders”, which you can find in the healthy/natural freezer section
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
  • 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
  • 1/2 teaspoon paprika
  • 4 tablespoons butter, separated in 2 2-tablespoons
  • 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 cup of diced onion
  • 1/2 cup of diced carrot
  • 1/3 cup of diced celery
  • 8 ounces of fresh cremini mushrooms, sliced
  • 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
  • 1 1/3 cups water
  • 1 cup white wine
  • 2 sprigs fresh flat-leaf parsley, or 1 teaspoon of dried chopped parsley
  • 2 sprigs fresh thyme, or 1 teaspoon of dried chopped thyme
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 2/3 cup half and half cream
  • 1 tablespoon chopped fresh sage
  • 1 tablespoon chopped fresh tarragon
  • 2 tablespoons lemon juice
  • biscuits or noodles or rice, dealer’s choice

Directions

  1. Sprinkle the chik’n pieces with salt, pepper, nutmeg and paprika and mix.
    the still frozen Quorn chick'n, seasoned for vegetarian chicken fricassee
  2. On medium high heat, melt the 2 tablespoons of butter with the tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil in a good size pot as everything is going to eventually go into this pot, use a Dutch oven if you have one. I don’t, so I used my super XL deep pan. Warm the chik’n until it no longer looks frozen and could passable look like chicken pieces and is fragrant, depending on how much surface area you have try to brown the chik’n if you can. I admit I added a little smidge more of butter because it got absorbed to get a little hint of browning, but I was also heating this in a pot to start until I realized I had a giant pan. Remove just the chik’n to a plate.
    cooking Quorn chick'n, seasoned for vegetarian chicken fricassee cooking Quorn chick'n, seasoned for vegetarian chicken fricassee
  3. Next, add the other 2 tablespoons of butter and melt, and add in the mirepoix (onion, carrot, and celery) to your Dutch oven/humongo pan and let it sit on the heat for a while until the onion is golden and has specks of brown. Be patient, as sweating these down will take about 8 to 10 minutes and you only want to stir every once in a while to scrape/even out the brown bits.
    Mirepoix Mirepoix sweating
  4. Now add in the mushrooms and continue to stir occasionally until the mushrooms have darkened and begun to release their liquids. At this point, reduce heat to medium, and add the 2 tablespoons off flour, and cook for another minute until all the flour disappears.
    mushrooms ready as they release juices for flour step of chicken fricassee
  5. Add in the water and wine. Return the chik’n to the pot and add the parsley and thyme (I used dried herbs here) and bring everything to a boil. Now cover and reduce heat to a simmer. Simmer, simmer, simmer it for 30 minutes. While this is happening, feel free to make your biscuits, or noodles, or rice, whatever you want to serve this chicken fricassee with.
    dry white French wine making chicken fricassee, adding wine and water and beginning the stew part making chicken fricassee, adding wine and water and chik'n and beginning the stew part
  6. Now, the finishing touches. Reduce the heat to your lowest setting possible, and slowly pour in the cream to thicken the sauce, stirring constantly (so you could possibly use other options such as yogurt or silken tofu in theory).  Add the fresh tarragon and sage, and the lemon juice.  Bring to a simmer, stir gently to combine, and serve.
    sage and tarragon making chicken fricassee, after 30 minutes or so of simmering Adding sage, tarragon, lemon juice after a touch of cream to chicken fricassee

Let me assure you now that even though this uses chik’n, this dish is phenomenal tasty. F liked eating it just out of the pan, so the carbs are quite optional. But President Lincoln liked it with biscuits, so here we are. Lincoln didn’t really drink, but feel free to enjoy the rest of the dry white wine (I used a French bottle of Vignobles Fontan Domaine de Maubet Blanc Sec) with your meal.

Chicken fricassee, with vegetarian chik'n by Quorn Chicken fricassee, with vegetarian chik'n by Quorn

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Grilled Cheese Please to honor FDR, and more cheese opportunities

Ever since I made those asparagus and cheese sandwiches based on Homesick Texan for her Parmesan coated toasted bread, I have been also using that parmesan coating for regular grilled cheese too sometimes when feeling like I want a hug from the gloomy winter weather. You can tell it was one of those days based on the poor lighting in my kitchen 🙁

All you have to do is sprinkle shredded parmesan on the buttered part of the bread. The upgrade is easy, and it adds a bit of crispy cheesy crust to the toast and oozy cheese inside for a textural upgrade to a normal grilled cheese. I don’t have a toaster oven so I melt my cheese in the oven, and I will flip the sandwich and top the other half with parmesan once the color looks right (depending on the bread). I prefer making grilled cheese in the oven rather than a pan or griddle because I can be sure the cheese will get melty and oozy, which doesn’t always happen when I’m using the pan before the bread is already toasted and starting to take the approach of getting burned.

Besides, that gives you time to heat up your soup or stew, or prep a side salad. Mmmm, winter hug with food. And, it ties in nicely with this month and upcoming Presidents’ Day- grilled cheese was one of FDR’s favorite foods. Franklin D Roosevelt is one of the most quotable presidents of history, and his quotes reveal his introspection and understanding of the nature of humanity and the path America was on – including stating several warnings about the rise of private power and how poverty and unemployment and a culture of fear was the enemy of democracy.




And… back to food. I always have a preference for seedy oat bread, which is what you see here, as well as two slices of smoked provolone- and a bit of melted butter and pinch of parmesan on each side, that’s it! I have historically always kept it simple, using a really nice cheese that is flavorful so that I only need a couple slices in it rather than stacking up a multi-cheese sandwich.

parmesan crusted grilled cheese parmesan crusted grilled cheese parmesan crusted grilled cheese

parmesan crusted grilled cheese

Though now, looking at all the food porn photos of grilled cheese at Grilled Cheese Social and whenever I glance at the Grilled Cheese recipe books by Laura Werlin, it is something I might reconsider.  These ladies really puts together some incredible sounding grilled cheese combinations. Now Laura Werlin has a new Mac and Cheese book out too. I’m so jealous of her life. Her ability to just remember and list out recommendations of various amazing cheeses is something I aspire to- which is why starting this year I am now starting a cheese notebook to track what I try.

I’ll aspire but probably never be cheese champions like Laura or Steve of Cheese Bar, but I hope to be more conscious of learning instead of just eating it! But of course, I will continue to just love it even as F points out the contradiction of trying to eat healthier but never ever being able to give up cheese and wanting more cheese. One of the best ways I learned about cheese was during Steve and Ten 01 (since closed) one time event the Cheese Bar Spectacular in summer 2010. 100 cheeses is a lot to try and even I got cheesed out, but it made me hone in what I liked and didn’t like though comparisons.

There is an upcoming event that can help you (and me) with this though: the annual Boys & Girls Clubs’ Showcase of Wine and Cheese. Every year this is a ticket that grants you entrance to a room in the Oregon Convention center where you can sample hundreds of wines and there are cheese vendors and an appetizers buffet. I missed this event last year because I was traveling internationally for work and the year before that because of family in town, but I plan to support them again this year. The cheeses are not going to be artisan cheeses as they are too small to donate to the hundreds that attend this event, but I don’t discriminate against any cheese and it is still a great way to get introduced and practice your palate.

Also consider this kickstarter for a community cheese club that Cyril is starting:

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Ham and Cheese Slider Melts

I thought I would share my take of one of the first recipes I saw when I joined Pinterest that I immediately pinned: Ham and Cheese slider melts, highlighting Hawaiian sweet rolls and ham and cheese and mustard and butter. It’s great for a quick but simple recipe that is also very comforting and good for a group (say… an upcoming Sunday Superbowl party… or using up leftover holiday ham). Or you can just eat it all yourself, that’s fine too. I did both.

The recipes that you can find sometimes have onion but sometimes not.  I did not use the versions of the recipe that used mayo. As to be expected of home cooks, there are lots of variations of the recipe out there tailored based on personal taste (and they really vary on how many sliders the recipes yield). Naturally I still made my own variation.  I decided to make two different kinds of the sauces- one for the slider insides that has the onion, and then a separate one without the onions that I would use to top the sliders because I didn’t want sweet caramelized onion everywhere on my hands/wasted on plate and napkins, just enfolded in the sandwich.

ham and cheese slider melts with Hawaiian dinner rolls

In the photos below you will see there is a lot of ham in the sandwich so you might want to reduce further to about 12 large slices- depending on the cut of your ham this will vary the weight. You can also substitute fake meat aka vegetarian deli slices like from Tofurky or Yves or Lightlife, or if you can’t find Hawaiian sweet rolls then regular dinner rolls will work and add a tablespoon of brown sugar to the dijon butter mix topping for some sweetness. Not that the substitution will make this a healthy sandwich. For my get together, it was the main snack I was serving (along with chips and baguette slices topped with a cauliflower parmesan spread) and the sliders are a great absorber for alcohol which is exactly what I was looking for as my friends and I shared a growler and a few pint sized bottles of beer one evening!

Ingredients:

  • 10 tablespoons of unsalted butter, divided into 6 tablespoons and 4 tablespoons: I made two batches, using most inside and another smaller version as topping.
  • 1 small onion, minced
  • 3 tablespoons Dijon Mustard, and 1 separate tablespoon of mustard
  • 3 teaspoons Worcestershire Sauce, and 1 separate teaspoon of  Worcestershire
  • 3 teaspoons of poppy seeds, and 1 separate teaspoon of poppy seeds
  • 1 package of 12 Hawaiian sweet rolls
  • 1  pound of shaved deli ham- I used Black Forest. You need at least a minimum of 12 slices
  • 1 cup shredded cheese + 6 slices of cheese of your choice- popular options might be Swiss or Havarti or Provolone or Monterey Jack, or indulge with Gruyere. I used shredded Monterey Jack and slices of Swiss

Directions:

  1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. In a saucepan melt your first half (3/4 a stick or 6 tablespoons) butter. Add onion and cook until soft and translucent. When this occurs, now add the 3 tablespoons Dijon mustard, 3 teaspoons Worcestershire, and 3 teaspoons poppy seeds. Stir and then simmer for 5 minutes.
    sautéed onion sautéed onion sautéed onion
  2. Meanwhile, open the package of Hawaiian sweet rolls and slice them all down the middle. Place the bottom part of the rolls in a greased baking dish, or you could use a lined pan. Now, pour this onion mustard Worcestershire and poppy seed mixture on the bottom part of the rolls
    ham and cheese slider melts with Hawaiian dinner rolls ham and cheese slider melts with Hawaiian dinner rolls
  3. Now time to assemble the rest of the roll with the ham and cheese. I wanted cute chubby sliders so I used a lot of ham, and then I used a cup of Monterey Jack and 6 slices of Swiss on top of the shredded cheese to add a little complexity to the melted cheese layer. Put the top half back on the sweet rolls.
    ham and cheese slider melts with Hawaiian dinner rolls
  4. In the saucepan you used before, melt the second half of portion of butter (4 tablespoons), and stir in the separated single teaspoon of Worcestershire, teaspoon of poppy seeds, and the tablespoon of mustard. Pour this mixture on top of all the tops of the rolls.
    mustard butter sauce mustard butter sauce
  5. Bake for ~25-30 minutes,  until the cheese has melted and the butter mixture starts to caramelize. . Cut the sliders where each roll already was in the package and serve warm and gooey.
    ham and cheese slider melts with Hawaiian dinner rolls ham and cheese slider melts with Hawaiian dinner rolls

But, you don’t have to buy the 12 pack of rolls either – you can buy a 4 pack and make a smaller portion. You can even do a lazier version using just the microwave and oven and no stovetop if you leave out the onion. When I did this another time a few weeks later just for a lazy weekend dinner, I used the

  • 1 package of 4 Hawaiian sweet rolls,
  • two 90 calorie 2 oz deli packages of ham,
  • 4 slices of reduced fat Swiss (no shredded cheese this time round),
  • 4 tablespoon of melted butter (nuked in the microwave) which I then mixed
  • 1/2 tablespoon each of dijon mustard and Worcestershire and
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons each of brown sugar and poppy seeds.

Spoon part of the mixture on the bottom half of the rolls that have been placed on a greased baking dish, top with the ham and cheese, put the top of the rolls on and spoon the rest of mixture on top. And then eat all of these yourself, ha ha!

ham and cheese slider melts with Hawaiian dinner rolls  ham and cheese slider melts with Hawaiian dinner rolls

What make these ham and cheese slider melts so much more than just a regular hot ham and cheese sandwich are the buttery toasted tops of the buns while it is still all soft and all oozy and gooey inside, be it fresh from the oven or warmed up the next day, and then the mixture of tang and sweetness with an undertone of sharpness from the mustard all from the sauce. Mmmmm.

If you are looking for other Super Bowl recipe possibilities, you might consider beer cheese, spinach or squash pinwheels, ranch oyster crackers, or the slightly healthier cucumber topped with ricotta (you can buy ricotta and don’t need to make it like I did).

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