Szechuan-style Green Beans

Green beans is one of these ingredients that has always stumped me. Whenever we get a big bag of them in our CSA box, I inevitably throw them in the fridge, ignore them for as long as possible, and then wind up just blanching them and eating them in giant dinner-size salads. Which, admittedly, is not such a bad thing every once in a while, but even I can’t bring myself to eat giant dinner-size salads more than once or twice a week.

It seems, then, that I need an alternative green bean strategy. For a while, I attempted the ‘French tactic’ – by purposely calling them ‘haricot vert’, I thought it would make them sound much more exotic and delectable. But sadly, I found that while I did enjoy saying the phrase (especially many times in a row), I still had no good ideas on what to do with this giant pile of now-fancy ‘haricot vert’.

So when we recently got another big bag of green beans (ahem, ‘haricot vert’), I opted for a ‘Chinese tactic’. I had eaten a Szechuan-style dish featuring slightly charred green beans in this deliciously salty/sweet/tangy sauce a long time ago and I decided to try to recreate this dish. After some research, I learned that the biggest trick is to ‘dry-fry’ the green beans until they get slightly soft and blistery – this actually takes longer than you would think for a vegetable that usually only takes a few minutes to blanch. But while you wait, you can mix up a sauce and chop up big piles of garlic, green onions, and ginger. Then you just throw everything together and the solution to the Green Bean Dilemma will be literally at your fingertips.

I will never dread the arrival of green beans again.

 

Roasted Broccoli with Shrimp (a la NYT)

I have to admit that when I first saw this recipe, I was skeptical. I mean I’m all for simple and quick foods, but this? This looked beyond simple – so far beyond that I doubt it can be anything but meh.

But then I saw it mentioned again, not once but twice, by two of my favorite bloggers no less. Luisa over at The Wednesday Chef called it a ‘minor miracle’ (!) and all Molly over at Orangette would say was that it was so perfect she’s still thinking about it. Really, can just throwing broccoli and shrimp in the oven really be that good? The only way to know is, of course, to try it for myself.

The result? Well, let’s just say that I recommend some slight amendments to your schedule tomorrow: cancel your dinner plans, run by the market on your way home, make a giant pan of this, and proceed to laugh maniacally at how you must have cheated the cooking gods by making something so amazingly delicious in less than half an hour.

So yeah, it really is that good.

 

Savory Bread Pudding (a la 101 Cookbooks)

As you can probably tell by the infrequent posting, life has been a bit hectic lately and I’ve been having trouble finding the time to share my cooking adventures with you. What with a wedding to plan and grad school work ramping up, I haven’t been attempting many ambitious cooking projects at home. (Case in point: you should see my poor sourdough starter, which has been sadly sitting in the fridge unused for a couple of months now when I’m sure all he wants to do is come out and play. Hopefully, I won’t have to keep him pent up much longer.)

Of course, all of this doesn’t mean I haven’t been cooking – it’s just the focus lately has been on simple, easy, super quick meals. After much internal debate, I’ve finally decided that I would write about these anyway and hope that one day, it’ll help someone (possibly even me, since I have the worst memory in the universe) whip out a quick dinner without running to the store. So you’ll start seeing posts about these improvised “recipes” soon – although I hesitate to even call them recipes since I’m never that careful with measuring things when I’m improvising.

But before I start busting out the improv (ha), I want to encourage all of you to try this awesome recipe from none other than Heidi at 101 Cookbooks, one of my all-time favorite recipe blogs. Take advantage of those gorgeous asparagus before they go completely out of season!

Of course, you can replace the asparagus and mushrooms with any other vegetables your heart/stomach desires that day. In fact, I’m day-dreaming about how mighty fine a bread pudding like this would be with some wilted leafy greens, capers, fresh tarragon, and maybe even some roasted fennel. Why, what a lucky coincidence – I have those exact veggies sitting in the fridge at home!

 

Baked Eggs (Oeufs en Cocotte)

Recently, I’ve been having another bout of my so-called ‘brunchitis’, an unfortunate condition where I cringe at the thought of going to brunch. You see, brunch and I have what you might called one of those complicated love-hate relationships.

If you know me, you already know that I love brunch and have been known to declare this fact loudly and often. And let’s be honest here, if you don’t love the idea of a lazy morning lingering over cups of coffee (or Bloody Marys) and munching on deliciously eggy dishes with perhaps a ribbon or two of crispy-chewy bacon, I will most likely declare you to be a bit loco, especially if I’ve had a couple of those Bloody Marys. But like any relationship, my relationship with brunch every so often comes across an obstacle, one which makes my love falter and questions my devotion.

This obstacle is what is commonly known as the San Francisco Brunch Scene.

Like myself, it turns out that the city of San Francisco loves brunch. The overall result is, unsurprisingly, huge crowds gathering at brunch-serving locales all across the city, leading to over-an-hour waits and lines so long that I would feel bad doing any sort of lingering over anything. It only takes a few encounters with the SF Brunch Scene for me to develop this rather terrible condition of ‘brunchitis’ and I’m quarantined at home on weekend mornings.

Being a veteran of this condition though, I’ve developed a few trusty ‘home-opathic’ remedies, one of which is these baked eggs. I first had these in a little French cafe I lived near and have been absolutely addicted to them ever since. A while later, I saw Ina Garten prepare them on TV and committed the basic method to memory. Trust me, baking eggs is so easy that once you’ve done it, you won’t even need to look for a recipe next time – well, if you can even call what’s written below a recipe.

If ‘brunchitis’ should strike you too, baked eggs like these, enjoyed luxuriously slowly with a steaming cup of coffee, will cure you in no time and reaffirm your love of brunch. Before you know it, you’ll be back out there with the rest of the city, writing your name on that little clipboard at Zazie’s.

 

A Pretty Good Veggie Burger

So remember how I was wondering about wedding presents not so long ago? It turns out I must be really, really good at foreshadowing….because I have to talk about weddings again this time. This is, of course, my way of letting you know that Nathan and I are engaged!

Speaking of weddings, it was almost a year ago that my friends Brian and Michelle had theirs up in Banff. On top of the gorgeous mountains, beautiful wedding ceremony in this amazing castle, and yummy reception food (with sushi!), another thing I remember from that trip is this veggie burger recipe.

You see, Nathan and I got together with some friends and shared a vacation rental apartment up there. So while the boys were out on their bachelor’s party/hiking in the snow, I spent some quality time in the warm and cozy apartment with Food Network Canada. Did you know they have a bunch of Canadian-specific shows up there? Some of them are pretty good and definitely way better than that scary, creepy Sandra Lee. One in particular was by this chef Michael Smith and he was the one with this awesome recipe for veggie burgers, loaded with mushrooms, tofu, miso, and soy sauce. (To be honest, I think this should be called umami burger because that’s probably a way more accurate description.) He even showed how you can grow your own sprouts from various grains to serve with this burger – cool!

Anyway, yes, I’m one of those meat eaters who willingly eats veggie burgers because I like the taste, so imagine how excited I was to try this recipe. And this recipe really does not disappoint, although the first time I tried to make it, I made it way too mushy so I’ve now adjusted the recipe accordingly. Also, these burgers are a lot easier to pan-fry than to grill. But being the sucker that I am for grill marks and grilly flavors, I finally discovered that if you freeze the patties before you throw them on the grill, they tend to hold together a bit better. But still I say, grill at your own risk!