Green curry wontons

When I was home visiting my parents, one of our family friends gave me a Thai cookbook as part of a graduation gift. I was pretty excited about this, since I love Thai food but don't know much about Thai cooking. As I was flipping through the book, I found myself especially drawn to the appetizer section, and decided to try a couple of the recipes this week. These green curry wontons were the first thing I made. They have a flavorful potato and vegetable filling, kind of like a Thai twist on samosas. I decided to bake them instead of frying, which ended up being a good decision - the wontons ended up perfectly crispy at the edges but weren't greasy at all. These were pretty easy to make, and I could definitely imagine serving something like this next time I have a party. With the success of this recipe, I think it's safe to say that you'll be seeing more Thai recipes on this blog as I experiment with more recipes from my new book!

Sweet potato, kale, and black bean enchiladas

As a kid, enchiladas were my favorite thing to order when my family went out for Mexican food. For some reason though, I hadn't ever cooked enchiladas myself until recently. I guess I usually make tacos or burritos when I have a Mexican craving, and I never really thought about making enchiladas instead. But I was doing a freezer cleanout recently, and found a package of corn tortillas that needed to be used. I had also been wanting to experiment with making chile sauces, and enchiladas seemed like the perfect way to kill two birds with one stone. It took a couple tries for me to come up with a good chile sauce recipe, and I am thrilled with the final result that I am sharing with you here. It has a nice deep chile pepper flavor that is tempered by tomatoes, and it isn't too spicy. It worked really well with the sweet potato, kale, and mashed black bean filling that I used (spring is almost upon us, but until spring vegetables arrive, I'm perfectly happy eating kale and sweet potatoes!). I'm really glad I made a batch of 16 enchiladas for dinner - Andrew and I have been really enjoying the leftovers and I don't think they're going to last very long...

In other news, I finally created a Facebook page for my blog so that I can stop spamming my whole friend list with blog updates. You can "like" the page here if you are interested in following via Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/4SeasonsOfFood.

p.s. I know it's St. Patrick's Day, and enchiladas are really not Irish. Sorry. They do pair well with beer though!

Is there a dish that you love eating at restaurants but have never tried making at home?

Three party dips

Thank you for the nice comments on my last post! My mom and I cooked like crazy for the celebration party that we threw last night. We both love cooking, so we had a lot of fun with the preparations. All the food came out great, and the party was wonderful! Here are some photos of the spread:

Clockwise from the top left: blue cheese tart, butternut squash and apple bruschetta, zucchini and goat cheese rolls with raisins and pistachios, Italian stuffed mushrooms. The bruschetta recipe can be found here on Tri to Cook, and the zucchini rolls recipe can be found here on Cara's Cravings.

On the dessert table, we had monster cookies (peanut butter oatmeal cookies with chocolate chips and M&Ms), chocolate-whiskey cake, gingerbread whoopie pies with maple buttercream, and cranberry pecan caramel bars.

We also made three dips that we served with pita chips and veggies. We had roasted red pepper and eggplant dip, Persian yogurt and spinach dip, and herbed lima bean hummus. I promised to tell you about all the party recipes, and I'm going to start with these dips. I've already posted the roasted red pepper and eggplant dip recipe, so you can check that out if you want. The lima bean dip is a great twist on traditional chickpea hummus, and is super flavorful due to garlic, cilantro, parsley, dill, mint, and cumin. The spinach and yogurt dip is creamy and delicious, and went especially well with the veggies. The three dips all had unique and distinct flavors but still complemented each other very well. Well, without further delay, here are the recipes!

Roasted red pepper and eggplant dip

Earlier this week, Elina hosted a fun get-together for some of her blogger friends. She asked everyone to bring an appetizer to share, and since it was a midweek event, I knew that I wanted to make something that wasn't too complicated, would be easy to transport, and didn't need to be cooked or heated immediately before serving. I also wanted to make something vegetarian, preferably vegan, and gluten-free, so that everyone would be able to try it. And finally, I wanted to make something featuring seasonal vegetables because I thought it would be nice for my dish to really reflect the theme of my blog. Well, that long list of requirements pretty much ruled out the apps I've made for my own parties in the past, so I started looking at new recipes. When I found this roasted red pepper and eggplant dip recipe in The Gourmet Cookbook, I knew it was perfect. The best part was that it is supposed to sit in the fridge for at least a day before serving so that the flavors can blend, which meant that I could make it over the weekend!

I loved the balanced blend of flavors in this dip - it has sweetness from the roasted veggies, tanginess from the lemon, and a bit of a kick from the garlic and chile pepper. It's great with pitas or crackers, but it also makes a nice addition to pasta sauce and pairs really well with eggs. Although I was initially nervous about what dish to bring for a group of foodies, I think I chose wisely and I was glad to see that everyone else seemed to enjoy the dip as much as I did. I'm definitely going to think of this one next time I need a simple but interesting appetizer for a party!

Do you have a favorite dish to bring to potluck gatherings? 

Grain salad with roasted corn and poblano chiles

I bought poblano chiles for the first time on Saturday at the market and wasn't quite sure what to do with them. One look through the trusty Gourmet Cookbook and I found the perfect recipe. The original recipe was for a pasta salad, but I had some kamut (a type of wheat) in the pantry, so I decided to use that instead. I'm glad I did - this recipe is fantastic as a grain salad. I'm sure wheat berries, farro, barley, or brown rice would work beautifully as well. If you are like me and have several hippie whole grains in your pantry, now is the time to use them! This dish is packed with late summer produce - tomatoes, peppers, and corn. It's a bit of a pain to roast each vegetable separately, but it really doesn't take that long. I had fun roasting the chiles over an open flame on the stovetop - I was a tad nervous that they would catch on fire and fill the air with chile smoke, but I didn't have a problem. I also really enjoyed the dry-roasted onions - I've never cooked onions this way before. I was very very happy with how this dish turned out - it is sooo good! Healthy and colorful and just packed with flavor. Oh, and the leftovers make perfect lunches.

Green beans with crisp onions, chile, and mint

We love green beans in this house and eat them with dinner at least once or twice a week during the summer. We usually eat them cooked with just olive oil, salt, and pepper, but that gets boring after a while so I'm always keeping an eye out for more unique preparations to try. I found this recipe in Gourmet Today. It has an interesting combination of ingredients that I wouldn't have thought to combine with green beans, but the result is really good. I like the combination of the hot chiles with mint, which I think of as a cooling herb. And it is pretty hard to go wrong with fried onions!

Green beans with crisp onions, chile, and mint
Adapted from Gourmet Today
Serves 4

1 1/4 pounds green beans, trimmed
Salt
2/3 cup vegetable oil
6 ounces small onions or shallots, very thinly sliced and separated into rings
1 fresh hot chile, such as Thai or serrano, thinly sliced (remove seeds if you are sensitive to heat)
1/2 cup chopped fresh mint

Bring a large pot of well-salted water to a boil. Add beans and cook until just tender, about 5 minutes. Drain and run under cold water until beans are no longer warm.

Heat oil in a small saucepan over medium heat until hot but not smoking. Fry onions or shallots in 3 batches, stirring often, until golden brown, about 3-6 minutes per batch. Working quickly, remove onions/shallots from the oil with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towels. They will get crisp as they cool.

Transfer 1 tbs of frying oil to a large skillet and heat over medium heat. Add chile and cook until softened, about 2 minutes. Add the beans and toss until beans are warmed through. Remove pan from heat, toss with mint, and add salt to taste. Top with fried onions/shallots and serve. This dish is best served immediately so that the onions/shallots stay crisp.

Marinated eggplant

The photo of this dish in The Silver Spoon makes eggplant look so delicious and tempting - in fact, that photo was what got me going on the streak of eggplant recipes I've been trying lately (I'm looking at the photo right now and it's actually making me hungry, even though I just ate a pretty big dinner). Sadly, eggplant will be out of season soon, and then I guess I'll have to find a more autumnal obsession...

This recipe is easy to put together and has an interesting combination of flavors. We ate this over pasta, but it would be even better on top of toasted slices of hearty bread, kind of like an eggplant bruschetta. The only major change I made to the recipe was to broil the eggplant instead of sauteing - just decided broiling was easier and would require less oil. I'm sure grilling the eggplant slices would work well too.

Potatoes with green chile-cilantro salsa

I love potatoes. I always have - when I was a child, my parents would try to get me to eat other starchy vegetables by telling me that they were types of potatoes (plantain potato, etc. - and yes, it worked). This summer, I have been buying potatoes every week at the farmers' market, but I rarely do anything more creative than roast or pan fry them in a little oil. This blog is good motivation for me to find some more interesting potato dishes to try!

This one is another recipe from Gourmet Today. I'm not a big fan of mayo-based potato salads, so it's nice to find an alternative dressing, like this fresh and spicy green salsa. It was good tossed with boiled potatoes, and I bet it would be even better as a topping for potato pancakes. I'll let you know if I get around to trying that. This dish made a nice accompaniment to eggs, and would also work well with a number of other things - in particular, these potatoes could help liven things up if your main dish is on the plainer side.