Grits Gratin with Arugula, White Beans, and Garlic

Last week, when we made the Fried Chickpeas with Chorizo, I went out to the store to try to find another kind of sherry.  We only had really dry sherry, and Mark Bittman explicitly said not to use dry sherry for that recipe, but to use a sweeter one (Amontillado, or Oloroso were the two he suggested, but I couldn't remember those names at the store of course).  Well, I came home with a bottle, only to be dismayed when Joe pointed out that I had purchased a very nice bottle of sherry VINEGAR.  Crap.  I wasn't even in the right part of the store.

In the end, we used the dry stuff in the Chickpea recipe and it turned out just fine.  I picked a recipe this week that specifically called for sherry vinegar - since I bought such a nice one, might as well make the most of it!

First, you need to make Polenta, so that's the first recipe.  Next, combine your polenta with garlic, white beans, and arugula (or spinach, if you are like me and can never find arugula when you need it, but see it all the time when you don't!) and you'll get a really warm and yummy meal!

Grilled or Fried Polenta
adapted from Mark Bittman - How to Cook Everything Vegetarian
Serves 4

1/2 cup milk, preferably whole
Salt
1 cup coarse cornmeal

In a medium saucepan over medium heat, combine the milk, two cups of water, and a large pinch of salt.  Once it is just boiling, slowly pour in the polenta while whisking to break up clumps.  Turn the heat down to low, simmer, whisking often, for about 10-15 minutes or until thick.  Add more water if the mixture becomes too thick.  When it's done it should taste soft and smooth (not crumbly), and be the consistency of thick oatmeal.  Pour into a loaf pan and smooth out the surface as best as you can.  Let cool for at least 10 minutes (he says it can sit there all day, so that gives you an idea of how far in advance you can make this).

Grits Gratin with Arugula, White Beans, and Garlic
adapted from Mark Bittman - How to Cook Everything Vegetarian
Serves 4-6

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil, plus more for the pan
3-4 cloves garlic, crushed
1/2 teaspoon sugar
4 cups arugula leaves (our store didn't have any, so we used spinach)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 cup cooked white beans
2 tablespoons balsamic or sherry vinegar
1 recipe Polenta, made with grits and molded according to Grilled or Fried Polenta
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Preheat the oven to 400 F.  Lightly oil a shallow 2-quart gratin dish or oblong baking pan (we had to use a 2 qt. square baking pan because that's all we had).

In a large, deep skillet, heat two tablespoons olive oil over medium-low heat.  Add the garlic and sugar and cook, stirring occasionally, for about 10 minutes, or until the garlic is soft and starting to color.  Turn off the heat.  Add the arugula, beans, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and stir gently a couple of times.  Spread the contents of the pan onto the bottom of the prepared baking dish.  Drizzle with the vinegar.

Turn the grits out of the pan and slice into 1/2 inch slices (I had to clean the knife off halfway through, it got all gummed up with grits).  Sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste.  Carefully lay them on top of the arugula, overlapping if necessary.  Drizzle with the remaining two tablespoons of oil and sprinkle with the cheese.  Bake for about 20 to 25 minutes, or until golden and bubbly.  Serve with lots of black pepper.

Lamb Chops w/ Mint Yogurt Sauce and Soy Sesame Wax Beans

I've started making my own yogurt each week, so I wanted to make a dinner that included a yogurt sauce of some sort.  This one was really simple and yummy, and it allowed me to do a major harvest of the mint in my Aerogarden.  Does anyone have a favorite sauce they make out of yogurt, perhaps for Indian or Greek style meals?

I think this was my first time cooking lamb chops.  They were nice and tender, and I felt good about buying them because they were local, grass-fed, and free-range.  I heart my Co-op!  They even provided a brochure of the farm right by the meat case so I can verify for myself (dear Trader Joe's, as awesome as your prices are, you are lacking in that department!  I am more than willing to pay more for local meat and shop at a grocer who freely discloses where and how it was raised!)

The main recipe for the lamb chop yogurt sauce was from Epicurious, but the rub and cooking method I used for the chops came from a comment that someone posted for that recipe.  I liked how the cooling, tangy flavors of the yogurt mixed with the juices of the meat and the spices of the rub as I was eating it.

To go with the chops I made Robin Miller's Soy Sesame Green Beans with Ginger.  In her cookbook (and TV show, if it's still on the Food Network?  I don't have cable anymore) she focuses on prepping ingredients on the weekend when you might have more time, such as cooking all the pasta for the week or cooking enough pork tenderloin for several meals.  There are a lot of helpful time-saving tips like that throughout the book, and she is very health conscious.

Anyway, in this recipe you can use fresh or frozen green beans, and it just so happened that we had one bag left of the beans we froze from our summer CSA!  They were actually wax beans, which are yellow, but you treat them just like green beans and to me they taste the same.

We also made some super lazy and quick sourdough toast.  While you toast the slices in the toaster, peel a clove of garlic and cut it in half.  Rub the toasted bread with the garlic, then butter the toast as you normally would.  Sprinkle with some grated Parmesan, and it will melt while you finish getting dinner together.

Lamb Chops with Yogurt Mint Sauce
adapted from Epicurious
Serves 2 (just double the recipe if cooking for more people)

1/2 cup fresh mint leaves, finely chopped
1/2 cup plain yogurt
1 garlic clove, minced
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
2-4 1-inch thick rib lamb chops (I say 2-4 in case they are small.  The package I bought looked like two reasonably sized chops until I opened it, and it was actually 4 small ones)  
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 tablespoon each of Paprika, Cumin, Salt, and Pepper

Preheat oven to broil.

Combine the mint, yogurt, garlic, and lemon juice in a bowl.  Taste and season as needed with salt and pepper.  Set aside.

Combine the paprika, cumin, salt, and pepper in a bowl.  Press the rub onto both sides of the chops.  Drizzle a foil wrapped baking pan with the oil, and rub the chops with the oil on both sides.

Broil, about 3 minutes per side, until it's cooked to your liking.  For us, it was done when our probe thermometer measured 160 F in the center.  Just a touch of pink in the center and still nice and tender.  Not that I've ever had lamb chops any other way, because like I said earlier, this is my first time cooking with lamb.

Let the chops rest for about 5 minutes before serving.  Top with yogurt sauce, and pass the extra at the table.

Soy-Sesame Green Beans with Ginger
adapted from Robin Miller's Quick Fix Meals
Serves 4

2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil (or substitute sesame oil, canola, or vegetable oil if that's what you have, but toasted sesame oil is a good investment; buy the smallest amount you can so it doesn't spoil before you use it all)
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon peeled and minced fresh ginger
2 cups fresh or one 10-ounce package frozen green beans (no need to thaw)
1 tablespoon sesame seeds
1/2 cup reduced sodium vegetable or chicken broth (I like to use bouillon cubes for making up small amounts of broth like this)
2 tablespoons soy sauce, reduced sodium if you like
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

In a large skillet, heat the oil over medium-high heat.  (Note: If using jarred ginger like we did, seriously consider patting it dry between paper towels if it looks very liquidy.  We had a serious spatter problem when we added it to the pan)  Add the garlic and ginger and cook for about a minute.  Add the green beans and cook for about two minutes, stirring often.  She has you add the sesame seeds here too, wanting them to toast, but our pan had a lot of liquid in it from the frozen beans and/or the ginger, so they didn't really toast at all.  I think it would be better to toast the sesame seeds separately in a dry skillet and stir them in at the end.

Add the broth and soy sauce and cook for another couple of minutes, until the beans are crisp-tender.  Stir in the sesame seeds, if you toasted them separately.  Season with salt and pepper.

The straw that broke the pizza stone

We actually made this on Sunday, I'm a little behind on blogging.

Usually we order pizza as a treat or because we've lost all motivation to cook for ourselves.  But pizza is a typically a huge splurge when you're trying to watch what you eat, so we don't do that very often anymore (I'm better than I used to be though, I used to pig out and eat about four slices, with pepperoni the primary topping).  Now if we pick it up from Papa Murphy's, our usual place, we often order the Delite pizza with just cheese and pineapple, and add our own turkey pepperoni at home before we bake it.  We also have a salad with it.)

However, we have since learned that it can be incredibly satisfying to make our own pizza from scratch, and a whole lot healthier too because we have complete control over all the toppings!  I think everyone should try it at least once.  Also...get a pizza stone!  It makes all the difference.  It creates a cooking atmosphere that is more like a stone oven.  The pizza stone helps to keep the oven very hot, and keeps the temperature from fluctuating, which results in a crisp crust.

Upon removing our delicious pizza from the oven, we realized that our pizza stone of about 3 years finally kicked the bucket.  It had cracked completely in half.  Actually, we will probably keep using it until we get around to buying a new one, it just stores more compactly now than it used to. :-)      

This time we chose a thin crust pizza recipe out of the America's Test Kitchen Family Baking Book.  It's actually used for making "Pizza Margherita", but we wanted to just make the dough and top with other things, so we just ignored the other steps.  We already had some whole wheat flour and whole wheat pastry flour that we had ground ourselves at the Co-op so we used those instead of the flours they called for.  I'm no expert on whether these were equivalent substitutions or not, but we were happy with our crust so I would say they worked fine.  

For the pizza sauce, we used the "Quick Pizza Sauce" recipe from the same book. It was basically can of crushed tomatoes that you dressed up with garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper.

We topped the pizza with Mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses, kalamata olives and roasted red peppers.  After it baked, we sprinkled it with thinly sliced basil and sorrel (a new item in the CSA that I'd never heard of before, it's a leafy green but usually considered more of an herb, so I'm guessing that means you should use it sparingly).  You add the herbs after the pizza has baked to preserve their flavor.  I'm trying to add fewer toppings to pizza than I used to, because I read that if you add too many ingredients, the flavors will blur each other out.  You'll get a more flavorful pizza if you stick to just a couple of ingredients.  

This recipe makes two 12-inch pizzas, so we were all set for lunches for the next couple of days!   

To make the dough:

In your food processor (fitted with a dough blade if possible), pulse together 1 3/4 cups of all purpose flour (or whole wheat flour), 1 cup cake flour (or pastry flour), 2 teaspoons sugar, 1 1/2 teaspoons table salt, and 1 1/4 teaspoons rapid rise yeast.  Keep the processor running, and slowly pour 1 cup warm water (110 F) through the feed tube until a rough ball forms, which should take about 30-40 seconds.

Let the dough rest for about 2 minutes, the process for 30 more seconds.  If at this time the dough is still sticky and clinging to the side of the bowl, add up to 1/4 cup all-purpose flour, 1 tablespoon at a time, as needed, pulsing to combine.  Joe says he didn't need to add any more flour (I should probably add that I was actually at the store while he was making this dough).

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured counter top and form it into a smooth, tight ball.  Lightly oil a large bowl and place the dough inside.  Cover with plastic wrap and put the bowl in a warm place.  Take a good look at it now because you are going to let it rise until it doubled in size, so try to get an idea of what that will look like.  It will take 1 to 1 1/2 hours.  Go relax, play a board game, or get some chores done in the meantime.  

When the dough looks about the right size, make sure your oven rack is in the lower-middle position and place the pizza stone on the rack.  Preheat the oven to 500 F.  Let the stone heat in the oven for 30 minutes (up to an hour at most).  If you don't own a pizza stone yet, you can substitute a rimless baking sheet, or a regular baking sheet flipped upside down.  Preheat in the same manner as the pizza stone.

To make the sauce:

Saute two minced garlic cloves in two tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat.  When the garlic is sizzling and smells awesome (about 1 1/2 minutes), stir in one 28-ounce can of crushed tomatoes and simmer until the sauce has thickened, about 15 minutes.  Taste and season with salt and pepper as needed.  

By the way, I think it's funny that this recipe makes enough sauce for three large pizzas, but the dough recipe only makes two pizzas.  So, after making your two pizzas tonight, you could either keep this cycle going and make more dough, and then make more sauce, OR you could just use the leftovers as a dipping sauce for soft garlic bread sticks on another night.  The sauce keeps for up to four days refrigerated.

To assemble the pizza:  

Line a rimless (or inverted) baking sheet with parchment paper.  This is what you will prepare pizza on, and the parchment will help you transfer it into the oven.  If you have a pizza paddle, you should use that instead of the baking sheet.  We have one that came with our pizza stone.

In the bowl, divide the dough into two equal pieces.  Leave one half in the bowl, covered with plastic wrap, and turn the other piece out onto a lightly floured counter top.  Press and roll the dough into a 12-inch round (it doesn't have to be perfectly round).  Carefully transfer the dough onto the piece of parchment paper you laid out earlier.  Reshape as needed.  

Lightly brush the outer 1/2 inch edge of the dough with oil.  Spread about 1/2 to 3/4 cup of the tomato sauce over the pizza, leaving a 1/2 inch border around the edge.  Top with whatever cheese and other toppings you want.  Slide the parchment and pizza onto the hot pizza stone.  Bake for 7-8 minutes, or until the cheese is melted/golden, and the crust edges have browned a bit (while the first pizza is baking, prepare the other one).  

To remove the pizza from the oven, slide the parchment and pizza back onto the baking sheet or pizza paddle.  Transfer the pizza to a cutting board, discarding the parchment.  Sprinkle with herbs, if using.  Let the stone reheat for about 5 minutes before starting the second pizza.  Slice and serve hot.  

Fun Memory: when my sister and I were kids, my dad would sometimes cut the pizza into weird, unconventional shapes for us, rather than the usual pie slices.  We got the biggest kick out of that, I think because kids love seeing adults "break the rules" and be goofy.