Risotto with Brussels Sprouts, Sausage and Feta

You know what I love? Risotto. Especially the muy rico kind that my friend Charlotte makes that has tons of Italian sausage, parmesan, butter, and wine. Yum.

You know what's not half bad? Makeshift risotto incorporating those CSA brussels sprouts you cooked and froze last fall, a bit of the white wine that you happen to be drinking at 4 p.m. during your daughter's third nap of the day, the smoked chicken sausages that you always have on hand for makeshift meals just like this here one in question, and of course feta, because feta kind of makes everything better.

If you were going to make this tomorrow, you might also add juice from half of one of those lemons in your refrigerator.

I sure would.

Otherwise it's pretty darn good as written. A good weeknight meal, easily modifiable in order to use up whatever vegetables you have in that freezer of yours.

Just don't skip the sausage. Unless you're using bacon instead.

Risotto with Brussels Sprouts, Sausage, and Feta

Cake and Edith Original

Yield: 6 servings

1 medium red onion or 2 shallots, coarsely chopped

2-3 cloves garlic, minced

2 tablespoons butter or olive oil

1 cup white wine

3 cups chicken or vegetable broth

1 tablespoon bouquet garni or other dried herb mix

salt & pepper

2 cups arborio rice

2 more tablespoons butter or olive oil

2 cups brussels sprouts, fresh or frozen and thawed

½ pound smoked chicken sausage, preferably an herby kind, like sage, cut crosswise and sliced

2 oz feta

In a large saucepan over medium heat, saute red onion in 2 tablespoons of butter or oil until soft. Add minced garlic, dried herbs, ½ teaspoon salt and a good amount of freshly ground pepper and cook for 1-2 minutes. Add white wine, increase heat if necessary to bring it to a quick boil, and then simmer for about 3-5 minutes, until the wine has reduced by about half. Add arborio rice and 2 cups of the broth and stir for about a minute. Let mixture come to boil and let it simmer for about 20 minutes, adding additional broth whenever the rice starts to look dry. If you ultimately need more liquid than 3 cups to reach your preferred consistency, use more broth if you have it or just add water, about ¼ cup at a time, stirring the mixture and scraping the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon each time you add more liquid.

Meanwhile, once the rice has been simmering for about ten minutes, put your other 2 tablespoons of butter or oil in a large skillet. Saute the brussels sprouts and sausage in the butter over high heat until both are warmed through and browning a bit, about 6-8 minutes.

Once rice is cooked through and the consistency of the risotto is to your liking, pour the risotto into a large serving bowl. Add the browned brussels sprouts and sausage to the bowl and crumble the feta cheese on top. Serve as is or garnish with freshly chopped parsley.

This is good the first day but even better the second. To reheat leftovers that have dried out a bit, sprinkle with a little water or broth before placing in microwave.

Rustic Raspberry Cakey Pie

I was so excited about this pie. It was not too sweet, not too tart. It had a great texture. It was relatively simple to make, especially for being a pie. And I kind of thought that my modifications to the recipe on which it was based (which called this dessert a cake rather than a pie) were substantial enough to make it a Cake and Edith Original. But then, literally the day after I made it, an uncannily similar pie recipe was posted at Smitten Kitchen (where the dessert was called a tart rather than a pie).

So the only thing original about my creation, evidently, is that I consider it a pie. It involved two layers of crust, a fruit filling, and it lived in a pie dish before it was devoured. Hence, pie.

I fancy myself quite fancy for making a homemade pie.

Having said that, the crust isn't flakey or buttery like a regular pie crust. It's softer and more cake-like than the typical old-fashioned pie crust, plus I included coarsely ground cornmeal in my experiment, which made it a little crunchier than the usual. That's why I'm calling it a cakey pie.

Also, like cake, it goes v. well with vanilla ice cream.

Rustic Raspberry Cakey Pie

Adapted (loosely) from Darina Allen via New York Times via The Wednesday Chef

Yield: 8-10 servings

For crust

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup stoneground cornmeal

1/4 teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons sugar

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 stick unsalted butter, cut into pieces, at room temperature

1 egg, beaten

1/2 cup buttermilk

For filling

2 cups fresh or frozen, thawed raspberries

1/4 cup sugar (or more, up to 1 cup, if you want a sweeter pie)

To finish

1 egg

1 teaspoon water

Cinnamon-sugar, for dusting (about 5 teaspoons sugar + 1 teaspoon cinnamon)

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9-inch pie plate with butter or spray.

In a bowl, whisk together flour, cornmeal, salt, 3 tablespoons sugar, and baking soda. With fingers, rub in butter until mixture is sandy. Add the egg and stir to incorporate. Add the buttermilk and stir until all ingredients are well combined. Turn dough onto a floured surface and knead until dough comes together. Form into two balls and roll each piece, using a floured rolling pin, to fit a 9-inch pie plate. (The dough will be pretty sticky, but not unmanageable.) Line the bottom of your greased pie plate with one of the rounds. Pinch together any tears or patch up holes - it's supposed to be rustic!

Evenly distribute the raspberries over the bottom layer of pie dough. Sprinkle at least 1/4 cup of sugar over the raspberries. Place the second sheet of dough on top and pinch the edges together. (If you'd like, use a fork to do this, like in the picture above.)

Beat remaining egg with 1 teaspoon water and brush it on dough. Generously dust with cinnamon sugar.

Place the baking dish in the oven and bake until crust is golden, about an hour. For even browning, rotate the pie 180 degrees after a half hour. The Wednesday Chef says to cover the cake with a piece of aluminum foil if the crust browns too soon, but I did not encounter that problem.

Serve warm, with whipped cream or ice cream. Great for dessert, and certainly not bad for breakfast.

Udon & Tofu with Peanut Sauce

This is another favorite of mine adapted from Vegan with a Vengeance. Since it's comprised of a lot of things that I typically have in my kitchen (and maybe you have in your kitchen) and can be easily modified to include whatever random vegetables you have in your refrigerator, it ends up being a fairly inexpensive weeknight dinner. And it's delicious. Likely because the main ingredient is peanut butter, God's greatest gift other than family and 30 Rock and shoes. And then as if peanut butter weren't enough, it's blended with a whole host of other delicious things, including fresh (i.e. jarred) ginger, soy sauce, maple syrup, and toasted sesame oil (if you have it).

As stated in the recipe, the veggies I included are pretty unimaginative: celery, carrots and green onions. That's what I had on hand, however, and the whole point of this meal was to work through our perishables before, well, you know. I think it would be great with cucumber and bell peppers and mung bean sprouts (or any bean sprouts), as the original recipe suggests, or with edamame, baby spinach, and something crunchy - sugar snap peas or broccoli or cabbage, maybe. The sauce is so freaking good in and of itself, you could really try anything and it'd be hard to ruin.

Finally, I used the tofu that you buy already baked. Mine was sesame-flavored and it was great, and the Trader Joe's teriyaki- or thai-flavored baked tofu would be great too. But regular firm tofu or shrimp or chicken or seitan (which the original recipe calls for) would work, and, come to think of it, the peanut sauce would be a great dipping sauce with any of those items as well as with veggies.

Udon and Tofu with Peanut Sauce

Adapted from Vegan with a Vengeance

Yield: 6 servings

Peanut Sauce

2 teaspoons oil

2 cloves minced garlic

1 tablespoon fresh (jarred) minced ginger

1 cup water

2 tablespoons soy sauce

1 teaspoon curry powder

1/2 teaspoon amchur powder or lime zest (optional)

2/3 cup peanut butter

2 tablespoons maple syrup

3 tablespoons rice vinegar

2 teaspoons Sriracha (or less if you are a spice lightweight)

1 teaspoon sesame oil (optional)

Noodles

10 ounces udon noodles

2 carrots, coarsely chopped

3 ribs celery, coarsely chopped

4 green onions, sliced

6 ounces baked tofu, cut into 1/2" cubes

Optional garnishes: sesame seeds, coarsely chopped peanuts, fresh chopped mint, parsley, thai basil, cilantro, lime wedges

Cook the noodles according to package instructions. (Actually, check them after about half the time has gone by that the package instructions specify. Mine were done after about 7 minutes, and the package said 13. This has happened before too.) Once done, pour the udon into a strainer and run cold water over the noodles. Set aside.

While the noodles are cooking, in a small or medium saucepan, saute the garlic and ginger in the oil over low-medium heat. Once the garlic is soft, fragrant and starting to toast a bit, add the water, soy sauce, curry powder, amchur powder or lime zest (if using), and bring to a boil. Add the peanut butter and turn the heat to low. Whisk or stir until well-combined. Mix in the maple syrup, vinegar and Sriracha. Remove from heat and stir in sesame oil, if using. Set aside.

In a skillet or the pan you used to cook your noodles, saute the tofu until warmed through and browning a bit.

In a large bowl, combine the noodles, chopped vegetables, and tofu. Dress with the peanut sauce and toss until everything is well coated. This is good at room temperature, but the cold leftovers were great too. Keeps well in the refrigerator for up to four days.

Enjoy!

Green Flash Smoothie

In addition to being inspired by cookbooks, magazines and food blogs, I often find myself wanting to recreate things I've eaten at restaurants. In fact, I do this so often that, lately, I only like to go to restaurants where they offer things that I know I can't recreate (e.g. Bar La Grassa's Calamarata with Raw Tuna and everything else on the establishment's fantastic and mysterious menu) because then I feel like it's worth it because I am savoring something special rather than thinking, "this is good, but I could probably make this at home" and then being preoccupied with just how exactly I could do that for the rest of the meal. It's stressful being me. You have no idea.

(That was a joke. I live about the least stressful life of anyone I know. (Knock on wood.))

So what I'm sharing today is one of the little gems I have crafted in an effort to imitate a restaurant offering. Even if I didn't mind eating things at restaurants that I could make at home, I'd be in a bit of a pickle trying to eat this particular treat from its restaurant of origin because the restaurant is on the Big Island of Hawaii, where my husband and I babymooned last March and where we are unlikely to go again in the foreseeable future. (Yep. I said babymooned.) The menu item and restaurant in question: a Green Flash Smoothie from a tiny, lovely little coffee shop called Green Flash Coffee, offering tons of smoothies and a croque monsieur sandwich made with French toast (kind of like a Monte Cristo but better) and named after Hawaii's Green Flash phenomenon, which I have only seen pictures of and is described here. As I understand it, when certain conditions are met (and I think they are only met in Hawaii), a sunset can create a mirage effect resulting in the appearance of a green flash of light above the ocean right where the sun has just set. I bet it's wonderful, but I'm in no position to say whether it's as impressive as the drink which is its namesake.


I just found the list of ingredients on the coffee shop's website, and apparently I'd not committed the list to memory with the level of accuracy that I'd thought. (I was 5 months pregnant at the time. We can blame it on that.) For what it's worth, I make this smoothie a lot (like, a lot) and I frequently mess with the juice and fruit additions and it pretty much always tastes the same. Tropical and refreshing and healthy.


Green Flash Smoothie
Yield: One 16-oz smoothie or two small ones (for those of you who care: only 200 calories in the whole thing and quite a filling breakfast)

1/2 banana (ideally from freezer or refrigerator) or apple
1/2 cup frozen pineapple or mango chunks
large handful fresh spinach* (about 2 cups)
about 10 leaves of fresh mint
small handful fresh parsley (about 1/3 cup) (optional)
1 cup juice, using one or a combination of the following: mango, pineapple, papaya, passion fruit (or Mango Good Belly if you like probiotics in your smoothies)

Put everything in a blender and blend until smooth. If your banana or apple is not cold, add a couple of ice cubes. Sometimes I add flaxseed oil just for a nutritional boost. It doesn't add anything in terms of flavor, but it makes it a little bit creamier.

*I have substituted swiss chard, all kinds of lettuce, and watercress for the spinach. They all work fine. What does not work fine is KALE. Too damn bitter. But don't you worry... when kale season comes around, I have a kale smoothie recipe to share as well.