Green beans with almonds

Every summer, I wind up freezing nearly all the green beans from Drumlin's PYO share. There's just such a bounty at that point, and few things freeze as well as green beans. I wash them, give them a quick trim, blanch, shock and then pack in bags. I've served them to people who can't believe they aren't fresh.

Sometimes I prepare them the way I describe in this post, or sometimes the Greek-style pictured in this post.

But sometimes you just want to go back to basics, like the traditional "Almondine" style. Here's my very simple version with my home-frozen beans.

Thaw beans for an hour or so on the counter. Heat generous tablespoon of butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add green beans and slivered almonds--anywhere from a couple of tablespoons to 1/3 of a cup, depending on how much you have and what else you're serving. I leave the heat nice and high and just shake the pan often. Grab some tongs and move it all around to be sure nothing's burning in the bottom. Add a few pinches of salt and keep it all moving. Test them after 3 or 4 minutes to see if they're hot or tender enough for your liking.

New Year's Day black-eyed pea fritters

Just jotting this up here for future reference: I make a lot of veggie-burger type things (as I may have mentioned once or twice). Here's the one that materialized today when I wanted to serve black-eyed peas on January 1.

1 onion, chopped
1 large daikon, grated
1 rib celery, chopped fine

3 cups cooked black-eyed peas, mashed
1 1/2 cups soft bread crumbs
1/3 cup mayonnaise

Saute first three ingredients till soft. (NB: I grated the daikon on the large holes of the grater and it wound up a little stringy. I was afraid the kids would object to the strands in the fritters, but they didn't seem to notice.)

Combine with the rest of the ingredients and add salt and pepper to taste.

Generously coat a cast-iron skillet with oil and fry till golden on both sides. Delicious with or without ketchup, and served alongside kale chips for a true New Year's feast. Luck and riches for all!

Crisp spice cookies

For many years I kept two otherwise-unused ingredients in my house for a single family recipe: crisp spice cookies my grandmother, and then my mom, used to make for Christmas. The two ingredients? Crisco and Karo syrup. But I was determined to find a way to make the cookies without using trans-fats or high fructose corn syrup. Molasses, brown sugar and a combination of butter and Spectrum's organic shortening did the trick. (I found that butter alone made the cookies spread too much.)

I also tweaked the spice blend a bit.

(Of course, I once scandalized my dad regarding those cookies. He asked me what my favorite cookies my mom made at Christmastime, confident that my answer would echo his: oatmeal-date cookies. Though delicious, my favorites since childhood have been these little gingersnap-like goodies.)

1 stick butter
1/4 cup vegetable shortening (preferably non-hydrogenated)
1 cup brown sugar
3 Tablespoons molasses
1 egg
2 cups flour (you can use a combination of all purpose and whole wheat pastry flour)
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp ground cloves
granulated sugar (about 1/2 cup)

Preheat the oven to 375. Cream butter, shortening and brown sugar till light and fluffy. Beat in molasses and egg. In a separate bowl, combine dry ingredients and gradually combine them into the egg and sugar mixture.

Shape the cookies into little balls, about 3/4" in diameter. Roll them in granulated sugar and place them well-spaced on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.

Bake for 12 minutes; allow to cool on the pan for 4-5 minutes, then remove them to a rack.

You may need to adjust the baking time a bit to get the right degree of crispiness, but in my experience, no one complains about a slightly soft, chewy cookie.

Vegetable Stock

Usually when I make soup I use water. I always use tons of vegetables, and I let them get nice and caramelized in the oil or butter when I'm sauteing them, so I figure, it sort of turns into its own stock, right? Plus, you know I'm a bean-cooking fiend, so I always have plenty of "bean stock" to round out the soup with flavored broth.

But.

Sometimes one needs a good stock (I'm thinking particularly of the stuffing I made last month for Thanksgiving, or this baked dish with beans and potatoes I've been making from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, or, even, sometimes, to add depth to soup.)

So, how to proceed?

I've been making one that's very close to Mark Bittman's roasted vegetable stock, where you roast the usual suspects (onion, garlic, celery, carrot, maybe a potato and/or a parsnip, if available), plus mushrooms, in plenty of olive oil in a really hot (450!) oven, till they get nice and browned. I de-glaze the pan with some white wine, then throw in several cups of water and a little soy sauce. Dried herbs or a couple of sprigs of fresh (parsley, thyme), plus a bay leaf help round out the flavor. I let it gently simmer for about an hour before cooling and straining.

Squash bread, a.k.a. "vegan challah"

The circumstances:

1. I wanted to take bread to a pot luck a couple of weeks back
2. I had a plethora of squash (that's the understatement of the year)
3. At least one vegan would be attending, and, as a sometime/semi vegetarian, I am highly sympathetic to the plight of "oh, crap, the only thing I can eat in this entire spread of food is the thing I brought myself!"

I decided braided loaves would be nice for presentation, but of course I didn't want to use eggs, butter or milk. Beard On Bread has a recipe for sweet potato bread that my sister and I have riffed on for years, often subbing in squash for the sweet potato. And for what it's worth: I don't think it matters at all what kind of winter squash (or pumpkin) you use.

Preparing the squash: I usually halve the squash, scoop out the seeds, oil the cut surfaces lightly, and then bake, face down, at 350 or 375 till soft. Lately, I've been putting a cup or so of water in the roasting pan as well. I think it cooks better when there's some moisture in there.

Next, I let the squash cool, then scoop out the flesh and run it through the food mill. I know people who skip this step and use the processor instead, but I wouldn't just mash it by hand. Strings or lumps will mar the quality of your bread!

If your squash is particularly watery, you may need to adjust the quantity of water in the bread. (For pies, I generally cook the puree down in a skillet; for bread, it doesn't much matter because you can just add less liquid.)

To make the breads (this recipe makes two loaves):

6 cups flour
1 1/3 cup squash
1 scant T yeast (I use instant)
1 T salt
1/3 cup oil
3 T maple syrup
1 1/3 cup water

Mix all ingredients till you have a nice, elastic dough. Knead then shape into a round; cover the bowl and let rise till doubled.

Divide the dough into six equal pieces (I use a scale but you could just eyeball it). Braid into two loaves and cover and let rise again, about half the time you let it rise the first time. Brush with water and sprinkle with poppy seeds, if you like.

Bake at 375 for 45 minutes to an hour.

(Note: the first time I made this I did an overnight [about 12 hours] rise on the counter and only used 1/4 tsp of yeast. Given how cold my kitchen is overnight in November, I probably should have used a touch more yeast, but it did okay.)

I liked this bread so much (and I still had the plethora of squash) that I used it for my Thanksgiving stuffing.

Thanksgiving prep, etc.

It goes without saying that I'm hopelessly behind on posts, but I wanted to say what's cooking TODAY (it's Tuesday, and Thanksgiving is just a couple of days away!)

Cranberry sauce (I used this recipe, but cut the sugar down to 1.5 cups and added two peeled, diced apples). I particularly like this because you add the bourbon after it cooks, making it nice and boozy.

Preserved lemons (I have my eye on this recipe, to help deal with my plethora of squash--I used his recipe for the lemons, too, which is linked somewhere in the recipe).

Pumpkins, baking for pie.

Toasted bread cubes, from a new recipe I made up for bread. I will post the recipe in a day or so--I've now made it twice and it got good reviews at a pot luck I took it to on Saturday. This is the recipe I use as a guide for stuffing amounts and proportions--but I don't think I'm including apples or walnuts this time. And I may just use Penzeys poultry seasoning for the herbs!

Last but not least: rice krispie treats.

Last chard? (for my own reference)

I just wanted to make a note that I just harvested what might be the last of my chard. It's clear and cold, and I'm thinking that's a recipe for a hard frost, so I just cut down nearly all of the plants. I still left the "hearts" of the plants out there, in case I'm wrong about the frost, so it can keep growing. I love that I'm still getting food from my yard on the 18th of November!