Tomato chutney

The last couple weekends have been filled with family time - Andrew and I spent last weekend at the Cape with some of my family, and we were at my cousin's wedding last night in Boston. My family is a lot of fun, so I'm always happy to have the chance to spend time with them. Getting to eat homemade Indian food makes it all the better. Family recipes are one of my favorite sources for blog inspiration. I love trying new recipes in general, but it's extra special to learn how to make a family favorite. When we were at the Cape, my mom made a batch of her tomato chutney one day. After snacking on it all afternoon, I decided that I needed to learn how to make it, and that I had to do it while tomatoes were still in season. My parents were staying at our apartment this past weekend because of the wedding, so I had the chance to go to the farmers' market with my mom and pick out some gorgeous tomatoes for this dish. She taught me how to make it, and the batch she made disappeared pretty fast! Good thing I know how to make it myself now so I can whip it up whenever I want. This chutney is absolutely addictive with bread, crackers, and cheese, and as my mom says, a glass of wine makes it even better!

Mango fried rice with cashews and shrimp

You might have noticed that I've been posting a lot of original recipes lately. I'm officially done with grad school now, and I am taking some time off to relax and do some career-related introspection, along with lots of cooking, of course! Creating my own recipes is a little project that I've been working on now that I have more free time. I still spend plenty of quality time with my cookbooks and reading food blogs/websites, but the recipes I see serve mostly as inspiration as I develop my own ideas.

This inspiration for this fried rice recipe came from both a cookbook and a blog. I was flipping through one of my favorite cookbooks, Ottolenghi's Plenty, last week and a recipe for mango and coconut rice salad caught my eye. And then I saw Lauren's recent post about kale salad with mango and avocado which also looked pretty tasty. I don't know if it was the incredible warm weather last week, but I was really craving tropical fruit! Anyway, those two salad recipes ended up getting merged in my mind and morphing into this fried rice. It's got shrimp, cashews, mango, toasted coconut, onion, red bell pepper, kale, ginger, and loads of cilantro and basil (if there's one lesson I've learned from Plenty, it is that I shouldn't be afraid to really amp up the amount of herbs I use in my cooking). I'm very proud of this recipe - it's pretty freaking delicious. The mango ends up kind of melting into the rice and adding a great sweet fruity note to the sauce. I really loved the combination of the tropical mango and coconut flavors with the local New England kale - all the ingredients really come together into a well rounded, filling, and flavorful meal.

Socca with caramelized onions, potatoes, and parmesan

Often when my parents come to visit us in Boston, my mom will cook up some delicious Indian food for us to eat (I'm a good cook, but my skills don't even come close to my mom's when it comes to Indian food!). One of these times, she bought a big bag of chickpea flour to make bondas, which are fried balls of spiced mashed potatoes dipped in chickpea flour batter. Mmmmmm, I'm getting hungry just thinking about them...Anyway, when my mom left, I had no idea what to do with the rather large quantity of chickpea flour that remained. It's been sitting in my pantry ever since. But this past week I came across a couple recipes for socca (also called farinata), which is a pancake made of chickpea flour, often seasoned with rosemary. Even though socca is traditionally eaten without toppings, the recipes I saw added some veggie toppings to make the dish more like a complete meal. I immediately knew that I had to try something similar. Based on the ingredients that I had around, I decided to top my socca with caramelized red onions, thinly sliced roasted potatoes, and Parmigiano Reggiano cheese. Both Andrew and I loved the result - it made a lovely light meal with a green salad on the side, and the toppings worked really well with the rosemary and thyme seasonings that I used. I'm definitely going to be experimenting with more socca toppings in the future!

Do you have any suggestions for how to use chickpea flour?

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?

Salmon cakes

I still have a couple more party recipes to tell you about, but I'm going to save those for another time. For today, I'm going to tell you about a healthier recipe that is more appropriate for an everyday dinner. I ended up making these salmon cakes after buying canned salmon for the first time last week. Although I know that fish is very healthy, and I love the taste of seafood, I don't really cook fish that often. I would like to, but my local grocery store doesn't have great options for fresh fish, especially if you're concerned about sustainability. But recently I have been hearing a lot about canned salmon as a good alternative - it's easy to find wild rather than farmed, and it's a heck of a lot cheaper than fresh. Of course, canned salmon can't replace fresh for all applications, but it's perfect if you are making something like these delicious salmon cakes. I was thrilled with how these came out, and I am definitely going to start buying canned salmon more often from now on!

This recipe was adapted from one that I found on Epicurious. I cut down the amount of mayo and adapted the ingredients a bit based on what I had on hand. The cakes are full of flavor, soft and tender on the inside, with some veggies adding texture. The leftovers were fantastic for lunch the next day, and from the reviews online, it sounds like leftover cakes freeze well too. I love finding dishes like this that are simple, cheap, tasty, and healthy all in one!

Have you ever cooked with canned salmon?

Lentils with roasted tomatoes and Gorgonzola cheese

As a person who eats a lot of vegetarian meals, I tend to keep a few varieties of lentils in the pantry. The problem is, outside of Indian food, I don't have a lot of good ideas for how to use them. Especially when it comes to main dishes featuring lentils, I'm usually at a loss. One of the reasons that I am so obsessed with Plenty is that it has such great, creative ideas for ingredients like lentils that get me thinking in new ways when I hit a mental block. This recipe is a perfect example - I never would have thought to pair lentils with Gorgonzola cheese and ample amounts of parsley, chives, and dill, but it works. And it tastes really good (well, assuming you like moldy cheeses). It's earthy and rich, with sweetness from the tomatoes, crunch from the onions, and lots of fresh flavor from the herbs. It's also very filling and makes a great main course.

Do you have any favorite vegetarian main courses featuring lentils?

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.

Pasta with lentils and kale

Okay, so this is definitely a dish to eat after a night, or weekend or whatever, of excess. You'll feel virtuous just by eating it. And lucky for you (and me), it also tastes good. The flavors are clean and simple, and everything blends together nicely. It's not fancy restaurant food, but it's good, healthy, tasty home cooking. And it has a short list of mostly pantry ingredients, which is great. I'll admit that I was a little skeptical about the recipe at first. I thought that it wouldn't be flavorful enough, so I added a cheese rind to the pot as the lentils cooked. It was a good addition, giving a flavor boost without overpowering the other ingredients. If you're looking for more (and I don't think the recipe really needs it), you could add herbs to the lentil pot or to the finished dish. Just don't go overboard - remember that the strength of this recipe is that you can really taste each individual ingredient.

French onion soup

Happy New Year! Starting this blog was one of the best things that I did in 2010 (not the very best thing I did though - that would be marrying Andrew). It's been a wonderful experience so far - this space has truly helped me focus my interest in food, explore new recipes and ingredients, and develop my own ideas about responsible and healthful eating. I'm very much looking forward to this new year of cooking and blogging. I want to take a minute here to thank everyone that has visited this site. I was really nervous about putting myself out there in this way, and your comments and encouragement have meant a lot to me. I wish you all a happy and healthy year, filled with good things to eat.

There's no particular reason why this post is the first one of the new year. It just happens to be something that I made recently that is fitting for dinner on a cold winter night. Better make it a weekend night though, because it starts out almost 40 minutes of cooking onions...it's worth it though. This soup may not be much to look at, but it is gooood. The soup is tasty on its own, but the cheesy toasts on top really make it special. And locally grown onions are plentiful right now, so it's nice to let them be the star of the show for once.