BeanPlate

Day 8: Cubanesque Black Bean Baked Potatoes

2009-08-24T16:17:00.000-07:00

Life is short, so let's not beat around the tuber:

That is going to happen. To a potato.

The stuff-your-own baked potato dinner is a classic cheap-eating standby, and for good reason. These big, beautiful russets were snagged on sale, three pounds for a measly buck. But, instead of the usual Cheddar or butter or inexplicably costly bits of desiccated bacon-food, let's do something a bit saucier, a bit unexpected, a bit Cubano. I must emphasize bit, here. Let's call it Cubanesque, or as Cuban as one can get without a giant ham hock and some good rum and hours of simmering time.

But before we get to the black beans and caramelized onions and lime and pickled jalapenos, let's get these tubers in the oven.
For the perfect baked potato, drizzle a tablespoon of olive oil over your (very, very well-scrubbed) potatoes and...

...sprinkle with several shakes of coarse salt and toss well to coat. Before popping the spuds into a 400 degree oven, you can pierce the top of each once or twice with a fork. I've read that this isn't actually necessary, but then I've also read a Laura Ingalls Wilder story in which Almonzo gets a face-full of exploding hot potato. So, two things: 1. just poke the potatoes, better safe than sorry and 2. the knowledge you gain as an eight-year-old is with you forever.
Just plunk the potatoes right on the oven rack--no foil, no pan--four about forty-five minutes to an hour. While that is at work, let's assemble toppings!

We need sour cream, and in this case I'm strongly suggesting you look for crema agria. At my grocery store, this stuff is the exact same price as the regular sour cream, but it is a thicker, creamier, infinitely tangier version of sour cream. Plus? PROBIOTIC CULTURES.

I like to make a little sauce by thinning out a cup of crema with the juice of half a lime, but you certainly don't have to.

I decided to go for kind of a green and white look, so also included...

...limes, sliced scallions (I would have rather used cilantro, but already had scallions in the fridge, all waiting and paid for)...

...pickled jalapenos (which I LOVE in Cuban pork sandwiches, because they add that balanced sweet, tangy, slightly spicy element that cuts through richness like a little, pickled knife)...

... and crumbled or shredded cheese. I used cojita, which is a salty, robust, crumbly Mexican cheese, somewhere in the ballpark of feta. (Again: this is a score from the Discount Cheese Basket. I'm shameless, really.) You can easily substitute feta, but cojita is its own kind of cheese excitement and worth a try sometime.

And, lastly, let's not forget the sauce. For the pallete and theme, I went with my beloved salsa picante, which is basically a pureed version of those pickled jalapenos up there. It is really well-balanced (not too spicy, nicely vinegar-y, slightly sweet) and super cheap. Look for it on the Latin food aisle or at a specialty market. It lasts forever in the fridge, goes a very long way, and costs less than two dollars a bottle.

During the last fifteen minutes of potato-baking time,s let's make some bean! First, throw one sliced sweet onion into a large, hot, nonstick skillet with a little vegetable oil. Sweat the onions over high heat for a few minutes, stirring frequently, and then reduce the heat to medium and just let them hang out to caramelize.

Meanwhile, drain two cans of black beans; rinse well.

After the onions have developed good, deep color (about seven minutes), you can loosen them up and deglaze the pan with a little liquid. Secret trashy ingredient confession time: I used Coca-Cola. I did. But, honestly, cola kind of works with onions and black beans and I'm not going to apologize. (No, I'm sorry.) You could also use: sherry, rum, chicken stock, or water. Just a few tablespoons, enough to make things a bit saucier. Add the beans, toss gently, and heat until the beans are warmed through and the liquid thickens, just a few minutes. Don't forget to taste the beans and season with a little salt if needed.

Potatoes are done! Remove them from the oven when they are sizzling and crisp on the outside but gently yielding to a squeeze. The contrast of crispy outside/creamy interior is really the Magic of Potato, right?

Now, for stuffing purposes, make a little length-wise slit on top of the potato, grip each end with tongs, and...

...give the tongs a little squeeze. Perfect potato pocket! For pumping! Full of potables!

Fill each potato with several large spoonfuls of beans. (You can see that I've placed my potato on a plate artfully dotted with salsa picante, as if I'm eating in some chi-chi restaurant that serves baked potatoes as haute cuisine. This is my version of Recession Fun.) Collect all the bean-stuffed potatoes on a platter and let your diners add their own toppings.

Top!

Eat!
(Aaaand...sleep. Who can stay away with a gullet full of delicious starchy potato? Goodnight!)

Day 7: Spiced Lentil Soup with Lemon-Herb Yogurt and Bacon

2009-08-15T13:08:00.000-07:00

Aaaaaah...the lentil. The humble, earthy, slightly frumpy, a bit dowdy, no-I'm-not-looking-for-a-date-I'm-staying-home-and-washing-my-Birkenstocks lentil. And brown, so very broooooowwwwwwn is the lentil. But! With a little love, a few spices, and a bit of simmering the humble lentil becomes something entirely different.

The lentil becomes rich and thick, falling-apart tender in aromatic broth. And, once topped with a tangy, citrusy, herb-studded yogurt sauce that gently melts at the edges, streaking the grassy-yellow soup with....oh, my.

And the bacon doesn't hurt, either.

This easy, nutritious lentil soup is criminally inexpensive, made with just dry lentils, pantry veggies, and water. (You know that when a recipe involves FIVE CUPS OF FREE WATER you're barking up an appropriately cheap tree.)

So, first, rinse a cup and half of plain brown lentils or green French lentils (if you're fahncy) and set aside. Tell those lentils to look smart: it's almost time to de-frump.

Finely dice one large sweet onion, two carrots, and one rib of celery. In the interest of speed, I ran mine through the food processor, which explains their mulchy appearance. This is also an solid strategy for feeding the picky or veggie-adverse. ("What onions? You're crazy.")

Warm three tablespoons of olive oil in a big, heavy stockpot or Dutch oven.

Saute the veggies (or Secret Agent Veg E. Mulch) over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, until tender and beginning to brown, about seven to ten minutes.

While the veggies sizzle, measure out the seasonings: salt, pepper, cumin, and ground coriander. If you don't use coriander, do give it a try. It has big flavor (nutty, lemony, lightly spicy) for just a couple bucks, and one jar has lots of applications in Latin, Indian, Moroccan, and Asian recipes. Coming attractions!

Add the spices to the pot and, stirring constantly, cook until everything is warm, fragrant, and pasty, about forty-five seconds.

Stir in the lentils and five big cups of (FREE) water. You are, of course, welcome to use chicken or veggie broth, but I think you can get away water and save a few bucks in the process. With the heady spices and caramelized vegetable base, the soup will have plenty of flavor as-is.

Bring the whole thing to a boil, reduce the heat to medium-low, and cover. That's it! You can now walk away for about forty minutes, tend to your business, watch exactly one episode of LOST online, build a fort with your children, spay your cat, etc. But save five minutes for...

...making a delicious yogurt sauce, OK? Into one cup of plain (not vanilla) yogurt, mix six tablespoons of fresh chopped herbs, namely cilantro and mint. If you don't like cilantro, go with parsley instead. Or try experimenting with dill. ("Experimenting With Dill!" A Time Life Series...)

Now, add the juice of one lemon to the yogurt/herb mixture. The earthy flavor of cooked lentils really begs for the brightness of some acid--vinegar, wine, citrus--at the end of cooking, and most lentil soup recipes call for a splash of vinegar. The lemon and yogurt will do the trick here and wake things right up. (Perhaps this the culinary equivalent of that part in certain movies where the Frumpy Girl takes off her glasses and lets down her hair and magically becomes the Hot Chick? It's like that, but more tasty, less trite.)

Spoon the lentil soup in bowls and top with a generous dollop of yogurt.

And, if you're dining in the company of meat-eaters and feeling particularly sassy, top that yogurt with a bit of salty, crispy bacon.

Serve with toasty warm pieces of pita or flatbread. No frump in sight, baby.

Spiced Lentil Soup with Lemon-Heb Yogurt and Bacon from Beanplate
(serves four to six)

1 1/2 cups dried brown lentils (or French green lentils)
3 T. olive oil
1 large sweet onion, finely diced
2 carrots, peeled and finely diced
1 rib celery, finely diced
2 tsp. kosher salt
1 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
3 tsp. ground cumin
2 tsp. ground coriander
5 cups water
1 cup plain yogurt
4 T. chopped fresh cilantro
2 Tbs. chopped fresh mint
juice of one lemon
six strips of bacon, cooked and crumbled (optional)

Sort and rinse lentils; set aside. Heat olive oil in large, heavy stockpot or Dutch oven on medium-high heat. Cook onion, carrots, and celery until tender, about 7 to 10 minutes. Add salt, pepper, cumin, and coriander and cook, stirring constantly, for about 45 seconds. Add lentils and water, bring to a boil. Reduce heat to a low simmer and cover pot. Let cook for about 45 minutes, until lentils are tender.

Meanwhile, combine yogurt, herbs, and lemon juice to make yogurt sauce. Top each bowl of soup with large dollop of lemon-herb yogurt and a strip of crumbled bacon. Serve with warm pita or flatbread.

Day 6: Black Bean and Corn Summer Salad (Plus! Sexy Tacos!)

2009-08-09T20:59:00.000-07:00

Sing with me now: It's summertiiiiiime, and the produce is cheaaaap-y! And today's recipe features everything good and plentiful and gorgeous about late summer (vine-ripened tomatoes, corn right off the cob, fresh herbs, perfect avocados) and synthesizes it into a healthy, vegan salad/dip/super-sexy taco filling.

And how could you possibly say no to that? You're only human.

But first, the not so sexy: rinse two cans of black beans and allow to drain. Wonk, wonk.

But, then! Shuck about four ears of sweet, fresh summer corn and...

...slice off the kernels. I like to do it standing the ear on one end inside a big mixing bowl which eliminates the picking wee corn niblets (ew) from underneath both your appliances and bare feet. I am taking a strong no-niblets-in-the-toes stance, here.

Warm about two tablespoons of olive oil in your largest skillet over medium-high heat and...

...saute the corn for about five minutes, letting some good browning action happen there on the bottom. You'll know when it's done by the change in color and the overwhelming toasty smell of corn. Remove the pan from heat and set aside.

While the corn cools slightly, chop up two summer tomatoes. Set aside.

Next on the chopping board: silky green avocados! Avocados seem ridiculously luxurious (the color! the texture! the fatty-fat creaminess!) but are such a fantastic deal in the summer. And while they are not as cheap as, say, beans (wonk, wonk), these beauties are essential and should not be omitted. So, grab two and chop them up, chop chop.

Throw the beans, cooled corn, avocado, and tomatoes into a large bowl and try not to positively wet yourself over the colors. In fact, take a picture so you can remember these colors come the bleak middle of January. (Bonus tip: put it in a blue bowl and tell your small kid that you're making RAINBOW SALAD and then watch said kid try not to wet themselves.)

Time for dressing! And a little pile of limes, three to be exact.

The juice of three limes is the base of the dressing, so juice away. I use this old glass juicer just like the one my great-grandmother used, and I do love it. It is sturdy and solid, perfect for limes or lemons or oranges, charmingly sculpted with a little pouring spout on the side and little nubs for straining out seeds, and I think it set me back about five dollars. Keep your fancy citrus-specific presses, Mr. Williams of Sonoma: this cheap dame is keeping it ye olde skool.

Next, you'll need one or two fresh jalapenos (or even three or four, depending on your spice preference.) Jalapenos vary wildly in spiciness (on the Scoville scale, to be exact, smartypants), so taste a little sample and choose the number accordingly. Slice open, scraping out the veins and seeds with a spoon, and...

...give the pepper a fine dice.

Mix the diced jalapenos with the lime juice in a small measuring cup.

Next, whisk in one teaspoon of honey for a little sweet balance, and then, drizzling slowly while whisking constantly, add 2 tablespoons of olive oil to make a nice emulsion.

Pour the dressing over the salad, add salt and fresh pepper to taste, and...

...sprinkle with a few tablespoons of fresh chopped cilantro before gently, gently mixing, being careful not to excessively smoosh the beans and avocado.

Now at this juncture, you have a perfectly gorgeous salad that can be eaten straight-up. Or spooned over a nice piece of grilled meat or chicken or fish or tofu. Or served with chips and dipped upon with abandon. Or...

...place it on top of two small, lightly pan-fried, corn tortillas for a fresh, filling, So-Cal-style meal for about one hundred pennies a plate.

You will not even miss the expensive animal products one teeny bit. The flavor profile has it all: sweet, sour, salty, spicy, creamy, crunchy...bliss.

It's the sexiest cheap thing you'll put in your mouth all summer and THAT'S A PROMISE, mister. (Unless you're going to Cabo: all bets are off.)

Black Bean, Corn, and Avocado Summer Tacos from Beanplate
(serves 6 to 8)

2 T. olive oil
4 ears fresh corn, kernels removed
2 cans black beans, drained and rinsed
2 avocados, diced
2 tomatoes, diced
2 T. cilantro, chopped
salt and pepper to taste

Dressing
juice of 3 limes
1-2 fresh jalapenos, diced, seeds and veins removed
1 tsp honey
2 T. olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Heat oil in large skillet over medium-high heat. Add corn and cook for five to seven minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat and set aside to cool. Once cooled, combine corn with beans, tomatoes, and avocados in large mixing bowl.

To assemble dressing: mix lime juice, jalapenos, and honey in a measuring cup. Slowly whisk in oil. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Pour dressing over salad. Add cilantro, mix gently to combine all.

For tacos, pan-fry small corn tortillas two-at-a-time in a small amount of oil in a large non-stick skillet. Spoon filling over tortillas and serve.

Day 5: World's Smoothest Hummus

2009-06-28T23:13:00.000-07:00

Hummus is a funny (but not ha-ha funny) thing: though nearly everyone eats and likes hummus, and it has reached nearly ubiquitous status in our grocery stores and snack tables, most hummus is kind of....eh? Shouldn't something everyone is eating taste really phenomenal? But store-bought hummus (and a whole lot of the homemade variety, too) just misses the mark and is either too bland or too garlicky or too mealy or too thick or just too eh. Plus, for something made out of dirt-cheap beans, store-bought hummus is spendy, and that's just adding insult to injury.

So here's a recipe adapted from my favorite Yankees at America's Test Kitchen for a really smooth, beautifully balanced, painfully simple hummus that will see you through parties, barbeques, and mindless snacking for the rest of the summer. This makes 2 cups, but I suggest doubling it just to have on hand. There is hummus! Ammung us!

Let's start with fresh lemon juice, a very good place to start. Juice a lemon or two: you'll need about four tablespoons. Mix the lemon juice with the 1/4 cup water in a small bowl and set aside.

Next, you'll need tahini (which is basically a paste made from roasted sesame seeds), and make it the jarred paste variety, not the dehydrated. This is the spendiest ingredient in the recipe, but a) it's essential and b) you'll be able to keep it in the fridge and make several batches of fresh hummus for the same price as one tub of crappy store hummus. Win! Crack open your jar of tahini, stir well so the oils are evenly mixed, and measure out six-ish tablespoons in another small bowl. (Be advised: tahini does not like to have its picture taken. In every photo I took, it looked sullen, pale, and listless.) Add olive oil, whisk together, and set aside, somewhere over by that lemon water if you feel like it.

Crack open your can o' chickpeas, drain, and rinse well.

Throw the chickpeas, garlic, salt, and cayenne in a food processor bowl...

....process for about fifteen seconds...

...until you get this coarse, crumbly bean paste. This is, obviously, not the texture we're shooting for, so scrape down the sides of the bowl, start the machine...

...and slowly drizzle the abandoned lemon water into the feed tube with the processor running. You're making an emulsion, and you will not be able to handle the resulting creaminess.

Once you've added all the lemon water, stop the processor, scrape down the sides (always with the scraping!), and process for another minute...

...while slowly adding your tahini/oil mixture. Continue processing for another fifteen to thirty seconds until...

...you have creamy, velvety, pale-tan hummus! If it looks too thick, you can add a little water and process to desired consistency.

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Spread the hummus into a shallow bowl and drizzle with some olive oil...

...sprinkle on paprika...

...and finish with minced parsley.

Serve with fresh cucumber slices, peppers, and pita breads. Dippable!

This is obviously great for snack food or appetizers, but I like to add a piece of grilled meat or chicken for a nearly effortless, no-hot-oven-required dinner. Plus, children love dipping various things in tasty paste, it's a fact. Evidence:

OK, well, sometimes "love" looks like "grimace."

Enjoy! (I'll have printable pdf up just as soon as I reload farking Office. Please excuse my hard drive failure and address all complaints directly to Dell.)

Smooth Lemon Hummus (adapted from America's Test Kitchen)
makes 2 cups

4 T. fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup water
6 T. tahini
2 T. olive oil
1 (14 oz.) can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
2 small garlic cloves, minced
1 t. salt
pinch cayenne
olive oil for drizzling
1/8 tsp paprika
parsley leaves, chopped

Mix lemon juice and water in small bowl; set aside. Mix tahini and oil in another bowl; set aside. Process chickpeas, garlic, salt, and cayenne in food processor for 15-30 seconds. Scrape down sides of bowl. With machine running, slowly add lemon water via feed tube. Scrape down sides of bowl. With machine again running, slowly add tahini/oil mixture via feed tube. Process for about one minute, until mixture is creamy and emulsified. Top with drizzle of olive oil, paprika, and parsley.

Day 4: White Bean & Chorizo Soup

2009-05-18T08:38:00.000-07:00

Behold: the return of the Beans! Sorry for the break, folks; life gets messy, just like a plate of you-know-whats. Let's pick right up, shall we? Prepare for Breakneck 30 Days of Beans. One bean recipe, every weekday, for the next 25 days!

Next up: a quick-cooking, flavorful soup of white beans, chorizo, tomatoes, onion and celery in a light broth. This soup is exactly the kind of thing I like to eat: hot, spicy, and filled with suggestive-looking meat. (I keed.)

First of all: I didn't feel good about these raw chorizo pictures on many levels. I debated about even posting them, but...here for your edification: raw chorizo. Lurid, I know. If graphic tube meats give you the vapors, this soup also tastes great with smoked bacon or no meat at all: just cook the veggies in some extra olive oil. Now, let's get down to beany business, shall we?

First, we handle some meat. Either pull off the chorizo casings and crumble the meat or cook them whole and chop them up later: your choice. Render the fat from the chorizo in a little bit of olive oil in a large Dutch oven or stock pot set over medium-high heat. After about seven to ten minutes, remove and drain chorizo on a paper towel. (I will spare you the greasy orange paper towel photos.)

While the chorizo cooks, dice one sweet onion...

...and chop four or five stalks of celery.

Add the onion and celery to the pot and cook, stirring occasionally, until the celery is tender and the onion is beginning to nicely caramelize. Add two cloves of chopped garlic and cook, stirring constantly to avoid scorched, acrid Garlic of Failure, for one minute.

Now add about 8 cups of chicken stock...

...and one 15 ounce can diced tomatoes for a little color and acidity to wake up the beans. Once the broth is warm...

...bring in the beans. You'll need about three cups of white beans. If you're short on time, canned is fine. Just rinse them thoroughly before adding to the pot.

Bring to soup to a gentle simmer, add the chorizo back to the pot, and cook for about 20 to 30 minutes. Check your seasoning and add salt and black pepper to taste. Nice, but not mandatory: garnishing with a handful of chopped, flat-leaf parsley for color and brightness of flavor.

Voila. This is one of those quick, under one hour recipes that tastes like you cooked all day, particularly without expensive, processed convenience foods. Or weird mugging from Rachael Ray. Enjoy.

White Bean and Chorizo Soup from BeanPlate
serves about 8

1 lb. beef and pork chorizo (or smoked bacon)
2 tsp. olive oil
1 large sweet onion, diced
4 ribs of celery, diced
1 can diced tomatoes
2 cloves of garlic, minced
8 cups low-sodium or homemade chicken broth
3 cans of Great Northern (or any small white) beans
kosher salt
freshly-ground pepper
flat-leaf parsley, minced for garnish

Pull off the chorizo casings and crumble the meat. Render the fat from the chorizo in a little bit of olive oil in a large Dutch oven or stock pot set over medium-high heat. After about seven to ten minutes, remove chorizo from pot and drain on a paper towel.

While the chorizo cooks, dice onion and slice celery. After removing chorizo, add onion and celery to the pot and cook, stirring occasionally, until the celery is tender and the onion is beginning to nicely caramelize. Add two cloves of chopped garlic and cook, stirring constantly to avoid burning, for one minute.

Add chicken stock and tomatoes to pot. Bring soup to a simmer and add beans and chorizo. Once beans are warmed through, season with salt and pepper to taste. Add chopped parsley before serving.

Day 3: Tuscan White Beans with Crispy Sage and Garlic

2009-02-03T14:22:00.000-08:00

Let's get things rolling with a most basic, rustic bean dish: Tuscan White Beans. It involves just a handful of basic ingredients--oil, garlic, sage, beans--combined for maximum flavor. This dish is an interpretation of a traditional Tuscan preparation, fagioli al fiasco which, given the Collapse Of Everything, seems really appropriate these days, no? (Fiasco is actually Italian for "flask" because the beans are slow-cooked in a giant flask of olive oil, but that isn't funny at all.) These beans, adapted from Sally Schneider's recipe in A New Way To Cook, are very low in fat and calories, criminally easy, and astonishingly tasty. You can use any white bean (Great Northern, navy, cannellini) you have on hand.

Though this simple preparation is a ideal for flavorful, freshly-cooked beans, you can certainly use canned. The consensus among foodie authorities is that GOYA brand are the tastiest canned option. If you can't find them on the bean aisle at your supermarket, try looking with the Hispanic foods.

If you do use canned, be sure to give them a thorough rinse and drain before proceeding.

First off: thinly slice several heads of garlic, six or even more if you love garlic.

Add the garlic to your largest non-stick skillet, warmed over medium-low heat with two tablespoons of olive oil. Cover the pan and let the garlic cook for about five minutes, untouched.

When the garlic is toasty and golden, transfer it to a small bowl with a slotted spoon, leaving the oil in the pan.

Now you'll need a half-cup to cup of fresh sage leaves, either a handful of wee little leaves or large leaves sliced on the bias. Or a combination of both; just use whatever you have!

The fresh sage is potentially the most expensive part of this dish, but is damn near free if you grow it yourself. Also, it looks exactly like lizard skin but tastes lovely and smells like Thanksgiving and how many foods can say that?

I love sage and, like so many things in life, it is only going to be more magical after we fry it. Add the sage leaves to the hot oil in one layer and let them sizzle away. Little bubbles will form around the edges and the sage will gradually darken. No need to turn them: just let them cook. After the leaves are crispy (about five to eight minutes)...

...transfer them to a paper towel to drain.

Now you have one pan coated with hot, garlicky, sage-y oil. To this pan add about 1/4 cup to 1/2 cup of chicken or vegetable sauce and bring to a low boil. If you like things on the saucy side, err towards more stock.

Add your drained beans to the hot pan and warm through, stirring gently, for about three to five minutes. I like my beans piping hot, but not so hot that they turn to mush. Once warm, liberally salt and pepper the beans to your taste. I go a little aggressive on the seasoning to combat the unrelenting natural blandness of beans.

Divide the beans into four servings and sprinkle each liberally with crispy sage and garlic.

Serve with some nice crusty bread, and you've got dinner for four, or a nice side dish to a piece of grilled meat. (Enjoy that job while it lasts, lucky.) It is rustic and warm and filling, and the crispy sage really elevates the whole affair, completely eclipsing the reality of a meal that costs just a few dimes per serving. Fiasco? What fiasco?

(Print-ready recipe here.)

Tuscan Beans with Crispy Sage and Garlic
serves 4 as a main dish

3 cups cooked white beans (or 2 cans, drained and rinsed)
2 tablespoons good extra-virgin olive oil
6 large garlic cloves, sliced thin
30-ish small leaves of sage (or about 1/2 cup sliced sage)
¼ to ½ cup low-sodium chicken (or vegetable) broth
kosher salt and ground pepper

Warm the olive oil in a large non-stick skillet set on medium-low heat. Add garlic and cover the pan, cooking until garlic is golden, about 5 minutes. With a slotted spoon, transfer the garlic to a small bowl and set aside.

Increase heat to medium, add the sage leaves to the oil, and cook until the oil is fragrant and the sage becomes darker and crispy. With a slotted spoon, transfer the sage to a paper-towel-lined dish to drain.

Add the chicken broth to the pan, bring to a boil, and add beans, tossing gently until heated through. Add salt and pepper to taste. Divide beans into four bowls, topping each serving liberally with frizzled sage and garlic.

Day 2: Cooking Basic Beans

2009-02-02T11:02:00.000-08:00

Now, take your soaked beans and follow four basic steps for fully-cooked, delicious, ready-to-use beans :

1. Put them in a large pot with water to cover. For extra flavor, add a bay leaf or a few peppercorns or a few whole cloves of garlic to the pot: just whatever herbs or aromatics you have on hand. (But no squirrels, please. Save that for when the recession really deepens.)

2. Bring the pot to a boil over high heat, skimming any foam off the top. (The foam is a result of water-soluble proteins from the beans and is allegedly bitter, but I think it's mostly unattractive. Skimming is not mandatory, though.) Reduce heat to a simmer and partially cover the pot.

3. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the beans are tender. (For an excellent chart of cooking times by bean-type, go here.) Part-way through cooking, be sure to add 2 teaspoons of salt per pound of beans. (It's an old wives' tale that that you shouldn't salt beans during cooking; be sure to use salt. They will still soften and taste approximately four hundred times better. That said, let it be know that this blog still appreciates and endorses old wives.)

4. If planning on using right away in a recipe that calls for cooked or canned beans, just drain, pick out the spices, and use immediately. Otherwise, you can store these beans in their cooking liquid for up to 3 day in the fridge or 3 months in the freezer. To minimize the slavish farmwifery of it all, just cook up a couple pounds of a basic bean and freeze them in small containers for quick meal prep.

Now, on to the recipes!

Day 1: The Beany Basics

2009-02-01T15:33:00.000-08:00

First, let's get this out of the way: I am not that into beans. I mean, I love the idea of beans, the thrifty, shelf-stable, environmentally correct, nutritious Tao of Beans, and the sweet people in my little family love beans, but when fork hits the plate I am often a bit...underwhelmed.

The beans, they are not so sexy. (And neither are recessions, but I find them marginally sexier than legumes.) So, really, a big part of the 30 Days of Beans is a personal quest to embrace the bean, love the bean, and gussy the little bastards up a bit. But before we can do that, I thought we should discuss the most basic of bean lovemaking rituals: the Sort, Rinse, and Soak. (With nearly all of the upcoming recipes you can use either soaked or canned beans, but give the soaked a shot at least once, OK?)

"What's with all this bean soaking, any-who?" you may be asking, and I have to agree with you. It seems terribly old-fashioned and farmwifey, but dried beans are incredibly economical, gentler to the environment, and taste noticeably better than their canned counterparts. And, honestly, the overnight soak requires minimal effort, just a bit of planning ahead.

Which brings me to the most important reason for soaking dried beans and it is, simply, because beans are filthy. Honestly.

As they are threshed and sifted and dried and bagged and Lord knows what else, beans come into contact with dust, dirt, bacteria, insect larvae, and fertilizers. And those dried beans, sitting innocently on the supermarket shelf, have never been washed because even a little contact with water could cause sprouting or mold growth. (This just keeps getting sexier, right?) So, without further ado, I give you The Sort, Rinse, and Soak.

First you sort through the beans, sifting them with your fingers.

A bag of beans frequently contains things like this: broken, split, generally funky-looking beans and the occasional rock. (Not. Sexy.)

Take this rock, for instance. See? The sorting process is crucial to rid your pot of beans of teeth-cracking pebbles...

...or other foreign objects. Sorting is critical, is what I'm telling you.

Now rinse those babies off, being sure to get rid of all dust and dirt and squirrel dander.

Dump your rinsed beans into the bottom of a large pot...

...and cover with eight cups of cold water for each pound of beans. Put a lid on it (or a Ring On It, depending on your intentions) and let those beans soak overnight. If you're in a hurry, there are lots of quick-soak methods we will explore at a later date.

And, the next morning, you have...

...plump beans in slightly murky bean water! Dee-lish!

Back into a colander for one more good rinse...

...and you have soaked, rehydrated beans! These beans will cook a bit quicker, and quick-cooked beans mean more nutrients, better texture, and earlier dinner. They also feel really wonderful in this stage, like wet, slightly bouncy pebbles from The Sea of Pinto. Run your fingers through them, revel in all the cheap eating possibilities, and think, "Hey, is it just me or is this a tiny bit sexy?"

Maybe.

Putting The Bean In "Beanplate": 30 Days of Musical Fruit

2009-01-23T17:01:00.000-08:00

Hang on to your shortpants and wallets, good people, because, in honor of the deepening, increasingly soul-sucking recession and my new president's urging to sacrifice, tighten my belt, and eat more fiber (I'm paraprahsing), Beanplate proudly announces 30 Days of Musical Fruit (The Electric Legumaloo). Every week day for the next six weeks, Beanplate will feature a new bean recipe, some traditional, some globally-inspired, all dirt-cheap.

So, my fellow Americans and citizens of the world, vegans and veggies and meat-eaters alike, the jobless (holla!) and the downsized and the precariously still-employed, let us join hands together and unite for thirty glorious days of nothing but beans. Trust me: when it's all said and done, your bank account and cardiologist will thank you, even if your spouse/partner/roommate moves out.

Party On The Cheap: Blue Cheese Salata & Crackers

2008-11-24T11:44:00.000-08:00

The holidays are upon us, cheap eaters, and that means holiday parties, and that usually means booze 'n apps.

Whether you're hosting or bringing something to share, this Blue Cheese Salata dip-type-thing will be a hit, I guarantee it, and tastes great with white wines. Composed of a thin layer of sharp cheese, minced red onion, and parsley dressed with a light, lemony oil, this ridiculously easy appetizer can be thrown together in less than five minutes and utilizes mostly pantry staples. Best of all, it comes in at a significantly lower price point than a lot of holiday appetizers (think shrimp, crab, nuts, cheese boards), particularly if you purchase store-brand blue cheese or a large container from a club store.

Have you got five minutes? Then let's get this party started.

Start off by doing all the cutting board work in one pass: dice one, smallish red onion, mince two cloves of garlic, and finely chop about three tablespoons of flat-leaf parsley. While you've got the knife out, slice a lemon in half and juice that sucker.

Now spread your cheese in a layer over the bottom of a small serving platter or plate, about ½ inch deep. Sprinkle the onion evenly over cheese, then add a thin layer of parsley across the top. (We'll save the garlic and lemon juice for the dressing.)

And, speaking of dressing, whisk together about one-quarter cup olive oil, the juice of one lemon, and minced garlic in a small bowl or Pyrex cup. Mix well. Pour the dressing over the plate of cheese. Grind lots of black pepper over the top and...

...done. You can let this sit at room temperature for an hour or two before the party or cover and refrigerate for up to six hours; just be sure set it out early to take the chill off. Serve with crackers (try the store-brand Carr's Water Biscuit knock-offs) and wine.

Final suggestion: make sure that everyone at the party eats at least a little so that no guest has to worry about garlic/onion breath under the mistletoe. Cheers!

(Click here for printable recipe.)

Blue Cheese Salata Dip from BeanPlate
serves about 10-12 as appetizer

16 oz. blue cheese (or Gorgonzola or feta, crumbled)
1 small red onion, minced
3 tablespoons parsley, finely chopped
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
juice of one lemon
2 cloves garlic, minced
freshly ground black pepper

Spread the cheese in a thin layer over the bottom of a small serving platter or plate, about ½ inch deep. Sprinkle the onion and parsley evenly over cheese. Whisk together olive oil, lemon juice, and garlic. Pour over cheese mixture. Grind lots of black pepper on top and serve with an assortment of crackers. Can also be made ahead and refrigerated, covered, for up to six hours.

.

Cheap & Easy: Slow-Baked Shoyu Chicken Thighs

2008-11-21T14:02:00.000-08:00

If you're looking for a inexpensive, fool-proof protein to round out your weekday meals, look no further than the lowly chicken thigh. (Do you know why? Chicken thigh.) At my grocery store, bone-in chicken thighs have been on sale nearly every week in recent months and I purchased an entire tray (10-12 small thighs) for around five dollars. And though thighs are sort of the red-headed-stepchild of the chicken carcass, they have it got all over breasts when it comes to flavor and moisture. Even a Picky Pete who normally shuns the flesh of the poultry thigh won't know the difference once it is slow-roasted in a tasty shoyu sauce.

This recipe for shoyu (Japanese/Hawaiian word for soy sauce) is a variation on the kind my Hawaiian family members have been making for years. And it meets all requirements of the BeanPlate Trifecta: cheap, tasty, simple. The shoyu sauce is mostly made up of just three ingredients in equal proportions:

Brown sugar, soy sauce, sherry. (If these ingredients were dwarves, they'd be Sweet, Salty, and Boozy.) (And remember how I promised another use for that sherry I pressured you to buy for the chicken pot pie? I am making good on that promise, people. Bust out the sherry.) The equal proportions make this recipe incredibly easy to remember and, depending on how much chicken you're making, effortless to halve and double.

I like to add a tablespoon or two of fresh-grated ginger. Fresh ginger root is one of those big-flavor items that also happens to be cheap, cheap, cheap; a good-sized hunk will only set you back fifty cents and it keeps (tightly wrapped) in the freezer. Crush a couple cloves of garlic, too, and...

...stir the sugar, soy, sherry, ginger, and garlic together. The sauce, she is done.

After removing the skin from the thighs (too graphic!)...

...place them on a broiler pan in two neat little rows.

Brush each with an ample amount of sauce and pop in a 325 degree oven. Bake for one hour and fifteen minutes but--here is the crucial step to keep them from drying out--every fifteen minutes or so, flip each piece over and add more sauce. Flip, flip, baste, baste, close the oven. Steam some rice and make a salad (or read blogs and watch illegal Top Chef clips on YouTube) between flips.

During the final fifteen minutes, you can sprinkle the tops with a few teaspoons of sesame seeds. After removing the chicken from the oven, you can pour off the extra sauce and pan drippings into a wee saucepan with the leftover marinade and quickly bring it to a boil over medium-high heat. Pour a little of this sauce on each piece of chicken and sprinkle with chopped green onion before serving.

The sauce will be caramelized and gorgeous and really tasty with a pile of sticky steamed rice.

And just check out these tender thighs, huh? Not bad for five bucks.

(Click here for printable recipe.)

Shoyu Chicken from BeanPlate
serves 6, 2 thighs apiece

1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sherry
1/2 cup soy sauce
1-2 T. fresh ginger, grated
2 cloves garlic, minced
10-12 bone-in chicken thighs, skin removed
sesame seeds(optional)
green onion (optional)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Combine brown sugar, sherry, soy sauce, ginger, and garlic in small bowl. Arrange chicken thighs on a broiler pan and lightly baste with sauce. Bake for 1 hour 15 minutes, flipping and basting the chicken every fifteen minutes. (If desired, sprinkle thighs with a few teaspoons of sesame seeds during final fifteen minutes of cooking time.) After removing chicken from oven, combine pan juices with remaining marinade in a small saucepan and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Garnish chicken with sliced green onions and serve with steamed rice and warm shoyu sauce.

Little Splurges: Spiced Candied Pecans

2008-11-17T12:48:00.000-08:00

I know, I know: pecans are most certainly not a cheap eat, but hear me out on this one.

You know how nearly every restaurant in the country has some form of salad with candied nuts and blue cheese and dried fruit on mixed greens? And those salads, though tasty, will cost you somewhere between eight and eighteen dollars? Well, for less than the price of one restaurant salad, you can make a great, big batch of these pecans that will turn plate after plate of your humble, home-tossed greens into something special. Plus, this recipe couldn't be simpler. Many candied nut recipes call for deep-frying the nuts or lots of added butter, which isn't really necessary or worth the mess/cost/added fat calories.

So, please: check out my nuts, won't you?

Start with a pound of raw pecans.

Whisk together one egg white and one tablespoon of water.

In a large bowl, toss the watery egg whites with the pecans and then transfer the nuts to a colander and let them drain for five minutes. Failure to properly drain your nuts will result in excessive nut goo, and nobody wants that.

While the nuts drain, round up your spices. Here we have cinnamon, cayenne, powdered ginger, and salt. Mix the seasonings together with about one cup of sugar. (For the best sugary adhesion, superfine sugar is the ticket. If you don't have any--and why would you?--just run granulated sugar through a food processor or blender for one minute. Voila!)

In a large bowl, toss the nuts together with the sugar-spice mixture and then spread evenly on two cookie sheets lined with parchment paper. The parchment paper, besides preventing sticking, encourages a nice crispy, lacy, caramel-y exterior on the nuts. Plus, you don't have to wash your pans, which is just plain thrilling.

Bake for about 50 minutes in a 275 degree oven, stirring once half-way through and rotating the pans for even toasting. Added bonus: your house is going to smell fantastic.

The nuts will come out toasty and dry, perfectly coated and crispy, knocking around on the pan with a satisfying crunchy sound not unlike fallen leaves. After letting them cool for about half an hour, toss some of the nuts with mixed greens and vinaigrette, or just store them in an airtight container for a week. (FYI: they will never, ever survive the whole week.)

It probably goes without saying that these nuts are also perfectly delicious straight-up. Put them in a pretty bowl on your coffee table, mix a cocktail, and pretend you're in the bar of a fahncy boutique hotel. Or package some in a little bag and give them away as cheap holiday or hostess gifts. Or put the whole pound in your own mouth in one fell, decadent swoop: what you do with your nuts in the privacy of your home is entirely your business.

(Click here for print-ready recipe.)

Spiced Candied Pecans from BeanPlate
yield: about 4 cups

1 lb. raw pecans (or walnuts)
1 egg white, lightly beaten with 1 T. water
1 cup sugar (or 2/3 cup superfine sugar)
2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. cayenne pepper
1 tsp. ginger
1 tsp. salt

Preheat oven (with one rack in the upper and and one in the lower-middle positions) to 275 degrees. In a medium mixing bowl, toss nuts together with egg white mixture. Transfer to a colander and drain for 5 to 10 minutes. Combine the sugar, cinnamon, cayenne, ginger, and salt. Toss the sugar-spice mixture with the drained nuts. Spread nuts evenly on two cookie sheets lined with parchment paper. Bake for about 50 minutes, stirring once and rotating the sheets half-way through baking time. Once crisp, remove nuts from oven and allow to cool completely on cookie sheet. Store in an airtight container.

Global Cheap Eats: Mulligatawny

2008-11-11T14:38:00.000-08:00

Soup weather is officially upon us and just in time, right? There are few eats cheaper than homemade soup, and tonight the starring soup is mulligatawny, an Anglo-Indian chicken soup with lots of veggies and a warming curry kick in every bite. Not only is this soup bright, filling, and incredibly inexpensive, but it is flexible: omit the chicken and swap vegetable broth for stock, and you've got an even cheaper, vegan meal. (Here's looking at you, my vegan sisters.) Can't do spicy? Just dial back the spices to your taste. Too broke for one of those ridiculous, winter-hot-house, two-dollar red peppers? Leave it out, baby.

Are you in? Let's make some mulligatawny magic.

First off, you'll need one peeled, chopped, crispy apple, like a Fuji or Braeburn. Once cooked, the apple will be kind of like potato, easily taking on the curry flavors but also adding a slight sweetness to the finished product. You may be skeptical of fruit in soup, but let's just run with it, OK?

Next, chop up a healthy mess of vegetables: carrots, celery, onion, green pepper, and red pepper. You'll need about 4-5 cups of fruit and vegetables total, so there is certain flexibility according to what you have on hand. Got some mushrooms? Throw those in, too. Not much celery? Just use what you have.

After heating about 2 tablespoons of butter and 1/2 tablespoon of vegetable oil in a large stock pot or Dutch oven, add your fruit and veggies to the pot. Sauté over medium-high heat for about ten minutes, stirring occasionally and being sure to pat yourself on the back for making something with six(!) different types of fruit and veg. You are a top-drawer, fully actualized human being, no doubt about it.

While the vegetables cook, measure out your dry ingredients: flour, curry, ginger, red pepper flakes, and salt. Once the vegetables are soft, add the dry ingredients to the pot and stir until the spices are fragrant and the flour toasty, about one minute. The vegetables will be coated in a thick, dry, spicy paste. Now, slowly add your assembled liquid ingredients: chicken stock, tomato paste, and mango chutney.

Though BeanPlate is not about purchasing expensive specialty ingredients for the sake of a single recipe, the chutney is mission critical. And you don't have to go to a specialty market; most stores carry some kind of chutney on the mustard/ketchup/pickle aisle. If you want chutney on the cheap, though, go to your local international market. One jar will last in the fridge for ages and has scads of other uses (hint, hint: BeanPlate coming attractions).

But, back to the soup! Bring it to a strong simmer and add about one pound of raw, chopped chicken breast. Simmer until the chicken is cooked through, about twenty minutes. Now, if you want things to be slightly more decadent, you can finish the soup with a splash or two of cream or half-and-half. If you'd rather keep things squeaky clean (and vegan) don't add any dairy...

...just garnish with chopped flat-leaf parsley and enjoy! Mulligatawny is also delicious topped with a few tablespoons of toasted cashews or almonds, or possibly with a scoop of steamed rice in the center of the bowl. Your Mulligatawny options: they are endless.

This recipe is particularly great the second day and will freeze beautifully, guaranteed. And one final note: chutney sometimes contains whole raisins, so if you (like me) have a loved one who is morally opposed to hot raisins, you can fish the one or two stray raisins out before serving. Or, if you prefer culinary passive aggression, just leave those swollen little babies alone.

Which begs a closing question: hot, cooked raisins: tasty treat or bloated devil fruit? Discuss.

(Click here for print-ready recipe.)

Mulligatawny (Indian Chicken Soup) from BeanPlate
serves 4-6

2 T. butter
1/2 T. vegetable oil
1 cup apple, chopped and peeled
1 large sweet onion, chopped
1/2 cup carrots, chopped
1/2 cup celery, chopped
1/2 cup red bell pepper, chopped
1/2 cup green pepper, chopped
2 T. flour
2 T. curry (or less, to your taste)
1 tsp. ground ginger
1/2 tsp. crushed red pepper
1/4 tsp. salt
28 oz. low-sodium chicken broth (or vegetable broth)
1/3 cup mango chutney
1/4 cup tomato paste
1 lb. boneless, skinless chicken breast, cut in bite-sized pieces

1/3 cup cream or half-and-half (optional)
flat-leaf parsley, chopped

Heat butter and oil in Dutch oven or large pot over medium-high heat. Add apple and all vegetables and sauté about 10 minutes, stirring frequently. Add flour, spices, and salt. Stir well, cooking about one minute, until fragrant and toasted. Add broth, chutney, and tomato paste; bring to a high simmer. Add chicken and simmer until chicken is cooked through, or reduce heat and cook over very low temperature for a few hours. If creamier soup is desired, stir in cream or half-and-half and gently warm through. Sprinkle with parsley and serve.

Vintage Eats: Shoo-fly Pie

2008-11-09T22:19:00.000-08:00

This entry is from BeanPlate contributor Nora Bee, our resident maven of authentic Great-Depression-era recipes. From homemade bread to pie to scrapple(!), Nora will deliver the old-timey baked goods in style. She also writes at her blog, Whopping Cornbread, lives in Seattle, and takes good care of one adorable, pie-scented baby boy.

Shoo-fly pie is a traditional Pennsylvania Dutch pie/coffee cake/breakfast/dessert thing. Growing up in rural eastern PA, our neighbor and grandma-equivalent was Mrs Nicholas. She was a real life farm wife, and made shoo-fly pie every week for her man to have for his breakfast. I've never had anything else like it anywhere: the molasses-i-ness, the cakiness, the wet bottom (oh! the wet bottom!). If you can get it to make a wet bottom of gooey molasses yum, that is--it can be sort of elusive.

There are as many shoo-fly pie recipes as there are cooks, I think, but this is Mrs Nicholas's recipe:

Start with an uncooked pie shell of some sort. I made my own crust here, because I was trying TO IMPRESS YOU, and it was fine, but I'm not convinced it was better than a frozen crust from the store. Some people can make great pie crust, not me. Also, this recipe is for a smaller pie, like the pre-made pie crusts in the foil tins (8 inches, I think). I have messed this pie up several times trying to use a bigger more "modern" deep dish pie pan and adjusting the ingredients.

OK, got your pie shell? Cool. Let's go then.

You have The Goo and The Crumbs. Both are easy and cheap. Once you have both, you pour The Goo into the pie shell, and sprinkle the crumbs on top, and right into the oven it goes. It's magic.

The Goo:

1 cup hot water
1/3 cup molasses
1/3 tablespoon baking soda

Mix above together until molasses is dissolved. I usually do it on the stovetop, but I don't think you have to as long as the water is hot enough to mix with the molasses. That's it! No, seriously, that's it. There's hardly time to stare at your sleeping baby or ponder the state of your laundry, which is how I often spend my cooking wait times.

It also makes a really stupid photo.

Now, The Crumbs:

1 cup flour
1/4 cup butter
1/3 cup sugar

Mix together with your hands until the texture of sand. That's it!

Extra cute if toddler in red PJs can help, but not necessary.

Now pour The Goo into the pie shell...

...and then sprinkle The Crumbs on top of The Goo. Do not mix! Just sprinkle. You want to avoid a mountain of crumbs in the center of The Goo. Nice, even sprinkling. (Apparently this crumb-sprinkling is what makes the gooey bottom layer at the end).

Now--be careful transporting to oven because The Goo is watery--bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. That's it! Done! Best served at room temperature, but if you are impatient to dig in, as we usually are, give it 15 minutes or so at least.

Great Moment In Cheap Eats: Welsh Rabbit

2008-11-06T20:59:00.000-08:00

Grilled cheese, like so many cheap meals, is also quintessential comfort food. Who among us hasn't enjoyed a grilled cheese when we were at our littlest, or our brokest, or our middle-of-the-night-college-drunkest? Grilled cheese, besides being the affordable kind of default, pantry-staple dinner or snack we can count on, is just plain good eating.

But, while reliably tasty, grilled cheese is lacking a certain something in the excitement department. It is, sometimes, a smidgen boring. The cheesy answer? (Lactose intolerant readers, avert your eyes.)

Welsh Rabbit! Welsh Rabbit is basically an open-face grilled cheese sandwich, but the cheese is melty and boozy and spicy, sort of like a robust fondue. It utilizes any variety of flat or past-its-prime booze you happen to have around the house: traditional Rabbit calls for flat ale or beer, but I use leftover white wine most often.

I'm telling you: undrinkable wine never had it this good.

And why is it called Welsh Rabbit? It is a joke, a joke that is likely at the expense of the Welsh. (Welsh readers, avert your eyes.) According the aged tomes of Ye Olde Wikipedia:

It may be an ironic name coined in the days when the Welsh were notoriously poor: only better-off people could afford butcher's meat, and while in England rabbit was the poor man's meat, in Wales the poor man's meat was cheese. It may be a slur against the Welsh, since the dish contains no meat and so was considered inferior. Then again, because the word Welsh was at the time used by the English to describe anything inferior or foreign, it may allude to the dish's Continental European origin.

To recap: obscure English cultural joke, vague Euro-flair, booze, spices, cheese. Welsh Rarebit has it all!

Side note: you see some cookbooks refer to this dish as Welsh Rarebit, but as grammarian H.W. Fowler stated in the 1936 edition of the Dictionary of Modern English Usage, "Welsh Rabbit is amusing and right. Welsh Rarebit is stupid and wrong."

Glad we settled that, then. On to the Welsh Rabbit!

First, you'll need a double boiler or, in the true spirit of broke-ass ingenuity, you can make your own with a medium saucepan and a metal mixing bowl. Bring an inch or so of water to a boil in the saucepan and let the mixing bowl warm up.

Carve off one tablespoon of butter...

...and add it to the mixing bowl.

Once the butter is melting, round up a cup of beer or wine and add that to the bowl, too.

Warm the butter and beer, being sure to savor the exquisite, hedonistic aroma of warm, buttery booze. Try not to drink it.

While the liquid is warming, grate about three cups (or one pound) of a nice, sharp Cheddar.

Gradually add the cheese to the warm beer, stirring constantly with a fork until melted and fairly smooth.

Now, quickly add one lightly beaten egg, one teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce, and some dry spices, which you'll want to have all pre-measured, like this...

...which will both prevent you from leaving your cheese unattended and make you feel like the host of your own low-to-medium budget Food Network show. The spices include a little sweet paprika, dry mustard, curry powder, salt and a pinch of cayenne.

Whisk everything together and cook for about a minute, until the cheese sauce thickens slightly.

Grab some toasty, crusty slices of bread...

...and pour your Rabbit sauce over the top. If you like pepper, why not go nuts and grind a little over the top? We're living now!

I like to serve Welsh Rabbit with a green salad and tart vinaigrette, you know, for health and as a palette cleanser during this...

...whole situation. This dish really does scratch some primal, juvenile itch, that craving for unadulterated hot cheese and warm bread, rich and sharp and crunchy and smooth all at once. The egg gives the sauce a particularly nice texture (just look at that ooze!) and the Worcestershire, curry, and mustard give it some surprising complexity. All this goodness after about five minutes of work!

And, above all, this recipe is absolutely perfect for all those rainy, lazy Sunday afternoons when you find yourself just fresh out of rabbit.

(Click here for print-ready recipe.)

Welsh Rabbit (or Rarebit)
Serves 4 to 6

3 cups Cheddar cheese, grated
1 T. butter
1 cup flat beer, ale, white wine, or champagne*
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 t. Worcestershire sauce
1 t. salt
1/2 t. paprika
1/4 t. dry mustard
1/4 t. curry powder
a pinch of ground red pepper
8 slices of toasted bread

Fill bottom of double boiler with an inch of water, bring to a boil. Melt butter in top of a double boiler. Add cup of beer (or wine) and heat until warm. Gradually add cheese, stirring constantly with a fork until melted and smooth. Add egg, Worcestershire, salt, and dry spices. Cook sauce, stirring constantly, for one to two minutes, until sauce thickens slightly. Pour cheese over toast and serve.

*If you'd prefer not to use alcohol or don't have any alcohol on hand, you can substitute tomato juice for the beer and make a "Blushing Bunny." Very virtuous, still tasty.

Perfect Pot Pie (With Chicken, Sherry, & Hope)

2008-11-05T00:17:00.000-08:00

Before you read the following recipe, I will tell you this: forget everything you know about chicken pot pie, or all pies of the potted variety, for that matter. This is not like any frozen, salty, sad-bastard chicken pot pie you've ever eaten, or like that bland, faintly gray, federal-institution chicken pot slop. This is not your mother's chicken pot pie. (Well, maybe it is. I don't really know your mother, but I'm sure she's lovely.)

This chicken pot pie is the epitome of comfort food, filled with a tender vegetables and shredded chicken in a creamy sauce, a sauce redolent with thyme and garlic and sherry, baked under a golden, buttery pie crust. Though homey and simple and affordable, this chicken pot pie is good enough for company, visiting heads of state, and/or Barack Obama. This is the Platonic ideal of chicken pot pie. This is Chicken Pot Pie, big C, double big P.

Are you in? Good. Let's make some potted magic.

(I'm going to present this with minimal measurements because, honestly, there is so much room for error and personal taste here. Obsessive measurements suck all the joy out of cooking, don't you think? If you must have fiddly, anal retentive measuring, clearly you should be baking. A cake. For me.)

First up, we have some carrots. How many? About this many:

Six or seven small carrots. Scrub them, halve them lengthwise, and then chop them into little half-moons.

Next, finely chop one large sweet onion or two small yellow onions.

Then cut up some celery, just one or two ribs.

After melting about 1/2 stick of butter in a large dutch oven or stock pot, add all your vegetables. Pretty. And cheap. Saute until all the vegetables are soft and tender, about six minutes. Now mince about three cloves of garlic...

...and a heaping tablespoon of fresh thyme and add both to the pot. Cook for about 30 seconds, until fragrant.

Now it's time to create an exciting, roux-type scenario. Add 1/2 cup of flour, stir, and you get this:

...delicious, paste-coated veggies. Continue stirring and cooking this for about one minute, or until the flour is lightly toasted. Now, we shall deglaze! The excitement!

Grab some cooking sherry. Honestly, you can go with the inexpensive stuff without a problem. (Unless Barack Obama is coming. In that case, go top shelf.) I use this brand:

And, with all apologies to the good people at Fairbanks, this is some cheap-ass sherry, about five dollars a bottle. (In keeping with the BeanPlate Code of Thrift, we'll be passing along some more recipes that use the same sherry. Waste not!)

Pour 3/4 cup of sherry into your pot, scraping up the browned bits from the bottom.

Now, slowly stir in 1/4 cup half & half (or whole milk)...

..and 2 1/2 cups of low-sodium chicken broth...

..and two bays leaves and fresh ground pepper and salt to taste. Simmer the filling for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until noticeably thickened.

Now, fetch about 3 pounds of that fully-cooked, boneless, skinless, organic, free-range, chicken breast meat you prepared yesterday in between re-grouting the tub and coating assorted gourds with crystalline Bavarian fairy wings. Yes, that chicken. Add it to the filling and cook until the chicken is warm.

Pull out your bay leaves and try to resist licking them.

Add about 1 cup of frozen green peas the the hot mixture. IMPORTANT: do not use canned green peas. Canned peas will not make sweet, sweet, pot pie love with your mouth and should be avoided at all costs. No canned peas, Obama or not.

At this point, I also like to add a few tablespoons of chopped parsley for color. If you are one of those people who find parsley offensive, feel free to omit, but know that I am a little suspicious of you. Spread the hot filling into a large-ish (about 9x13) baking dish.

I think this is the "potted" part, right?

You can top the hot filling with either one pie crust (a refrigerated crust will work great, but homemade is practically free if you have the time) or a sheet of phyllo dough. That's phyllo in the finished photo, but I personally prefer the plain old pie crust to the phyllo, even if it does look gourmet and flaky and fahncy. Another note: make sure the filling is piping hot when you top it, otherwise you'll end up with a gummy crust.

Pop your potted pie into a 425 degree oven for about 20 to 25 minutes. The crust will be brown, the filling will be bubbly, approximately eight people will be comforted. And be sure to let it stand for about 5 minutes before serving the future President, won't you?

Oh, yeaaah. And there you have it...

...pot pie we can ALL believe in.

Welcome to BeanPlate!

2008-10-01T19:23:00.001-07:00