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?

New domain

Hi everyone,
Just a bit of housekeeping - I got my own domain at www.4seasonsoffood.com. All traffic to the old blogspot address will be automatically redirected. Please update your bookmarks and feed readers (the new feed URL is http://www.4seasonsoffood.com/feeds/posts/default ), and do let me know if you experience any problems with the website or the feed. Thanks!

Peach butter

Last week I was reminded that one of my goals for my second year of blogging is to make preserves, and that the time to preserve summer fruit is quickly running out. I've made preserves in the past but I never got around to it last summer, and I didn't want to miss my chance again this year. Luckily, I had a pretty free weekend with plenty of time for a couple canning projects. I decided to focus on peaches first and ended up choosing a peach butter recipe from the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving (in case you are wondering, this does not contain any actual butter - the "butter" in the name comes from the soft, smooth texture of the finished spread). It's a delicious spread with pure, summery peach flavor. Perfect stirred into yogurt or spread onto English muffins. I know these jars are going to be a real treat in the middle of winter!

I know canning can be intimidating if you've never done it before, so I'm going to include fairly detailed information and instructions here. It is time consuming, but it's not difficult, and I encourage you to give it a try! I highly recommend the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving if you are interesting in canning - it has detailed information about how canning works, and hundreds of really great recipes for jams, salsas, sauces, relishes, pickles, fruit in syrup, condiments, and more.

The basic idea behind canning is that in order to keep food from spoiling, you need to make sure that it is free of microorganisms (bacteria, molds, yeasts), and that no microorganisms can get in. To do this, the filled jars are put in a boiling water bath long enough to kill any microorganisms that might be present. Then, when the jars are removed from the bath and cool down, gases are released from the jar, which creates a vacuum seal.

The boiling water sterilization method is only valid for high-acid foods (pH of 4.6 or lower). For low-acid foods, a pressure canner must be used to ensure safety. Because of this, be very, very careful if you want to alter a canning recipe. You need to make sure that the alterations do not change the acidity of the food.

One last note: make sure you use fresh, good-quality fruit. Cut out any bruised areas and do not use overripe fruit. 

Canning equipment:
1. Jars with flat lids and screw bands - I always buy regular mouth Ball Mason jars.
2. Canner - I don't have a real canner and just use a large stockpot.
3. Rack to keep the jars off of the bottom of the canner, allowing water to flow underneath the jars - I use the steamer rack from my rice cooker. Another idea is to tie a bunch of extra jar screw bands together until they cover the bottom of the pot.
4. Jar lifter - this is one thing that I recommend buying. A real jar lifter makes it much easier to get the hot jars out of the boiling water. You could try using tongs, but it's tricky (I speak from experience. A broken jar experience, to be specific).

That's all you need! Any other equipment (funnels, magnetic lid lifter, etc.) is strictly optional. Let me know if you have any questions!

Have you ever tried canning? What are your favorite things to preserve?

Fresh corn polenta with eggplant sauce

A few weeks ago I found myself in the Harvard Coop bookstore with some time to kill. Yotam Ottolenghi's cookbook Plenty was featured on the display table in the cookbook section, so I picked up a copy to flip through. I'd heard of the Ottolenghi restaurants and had seen this book mentioned on a couple other blogs, so I figured I'd take a few minutes to check it out. Well, I probably spent 45 minutes sitting in the Coop with that book - I couldn't put it down until I had looked at every single recipe. Every dish was so creative, with mouthwatering combinations of ingredients that I never would have thought of. It really got my brain was buzzing with inspiration and new ideas. It was the most exciting cookbook I had seen in a long time, and for me, that is saying a lot. I knew I had to have it.

But...here's the thing. I buy too many cookbooks. And after the last round of cookbook buying, I promised myself that I would not buy any more cookbooks this year unless the price was drastically reduced (as in less than $5). I knew I could ask for Plenty for my birthday, if I could just hang on till October. So, with great force of will, I convinced myself not to buy it.

So for a few weeks, I contented myself with looking at Ottolenghi's The New Vegetarian column in The Guardian. And then...I found out that I was selected for a pretty sweet graduate fellowship that comes with a monetary reward. So I figured that I deserved to treat myself to a little something...and I bought Plenty. And also another cookbook. Oh, and some new baking pans. Um, so yeah...my resolve doesn't last too long when I prohibit myself from buying food-related things!

Anyway, that is the long story of how I came to own Plenty, my new obsession. This book is genius. I've made two recipes from it this week and I can't wait to try more. The first thing I made was the corn polenta with eggplant sauce, made with fresh corn kernels. Fresh corn - my other obsession! I loooove soft polenta and was really curious to try this version. Well, it was fantastic. Like Ottolenghi says in the intro, it's kind of like baby food, but in the best possible way. So comforting. And the eggplant sauce is quick and easy to put together and adds rich flavor.

What cookbooks are on your wishlist right now?

Roasted peppers and tomatoes baked with capers and olives

I am desperately holding on to summer in my kitchen. This weekend it really hit me that summer produce will be gone from the markets soon, and I had a minor panic attack about all the recipes I haven't made yet and won't be able to make until next summer - an eternity away! (yeah, yeah I know, #firstworldproblems). But then I remembered that even though Labor Day has come and gone, summer growing season hasn't actually ended yet. I calmed down and made an epic cooking plan for the week, making the most of the summeriest of fruits and vegetables. I even made some preserves, which I'll tell you about later. For now, I'm going to focus on this tomato and pepper dish, from Deborah Madison's Local Flavors. Big strips of roasted peppers and tomatoes are baked together with herbs, garlic, capers, and olives. The final product is a colorful, incredibly fragrant and flavorful dish that makes you feel like you are in some sunny Mediterranean country. It's very versatile - we ate it plain, on top of toasted bread, and stuffed into pitas with a spread of goat cheese. It would also pair well with hummus and would make a delicious sandwich with some mozzarella cheese. This recipe is definitely making it onto my Favorites page!

What are your favorite end of summer recipes?

Roasted tomato sauce

As much as I hate to admit it, I can't deny the fact that summer is starting to transition into fall, as evidenced by the fact that socks, boots, and sweaters all came out of my closet this week. Now, fall is actually my favorite season, but I don't like seeing the end of summer veggies and fruits, especially tomatoes. This time of year is when I eat as many tomatoes as possible, before it's too late and they're gone from the markets! Plum tomatoes are overflowing at the farmers' market now and they're pretty cheap, so now is the time to make big batches of tomato sauce to eat immediately freeze for the cooler months ahead.

This is my go-to tomato sauce recipe, which I first saw on an episode of Good Eats. The tomatoes are roasted at medium heat for a couple hours, then at high heat for a bit so that they caramelize, to deepen the flavor. Then they are put through a food mill, and the resulting peel-free puree is simmered with some white wine, to draw out alcohol-soluble flavor compounds, according to Alton Brown.

The first time I made this was a complete disaster. First, I used out-of-season tomatoes, which barely had any flavor (*shaking my head at the cluelessness of my former self*). I didn't have a food mill, so I threw the roasted tomatoes in the blender, which meant all the burned caramelized bits and skins got mixed into the sauce. And I didn't have any white wine around, so I used vermouth, which did not work well. I ended up with a very boozy, bitter, burned sauce that didn't even taste like tomatoes. Oh boy. Seriously, it was bad.

Once I got a food mill, I tried the recipe again with much more success and have since made some modifications. I don't bother with onions, garlic, or herbs during the roasting, and I cut down on the amount of wine by quite a lot. The result is a sauce with pure, sweet tomato flavor, with some extra depth from the wine. It's really pretty great.

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.