Introducing…the Ooto!

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Well, I said I was going to invent my own version of a flat bread/pancake along the lines of injera, tortillas, pita, roti, dosas, moo shu etc, etc. And I HAVE DONE IT!! *THUNDERCLAP* I feel like John Cleese in the brontosaurus sketch. This flat bread, which is mine, belongs to me and I made it.

But let’s start at the beginning… I’ve always loved foods you could eat with your hands. Indian, Ethiopian, middle eastern – any cuisine that involves lots of little delicious dishes you mix and match, and eat with a bit of bread that you tear off, or a big piece of bread that you wrap around. It’s the best, most enjoyable way to eat. I’ve made (or tried to make) injera, pita, roti, crepes, etc, with varying levels of success, but it’s never quite as good as you can get at the restaurant. And yet, I’d like to eat this way more often. And so I decided to try to invent a new type of bread of my very own. Here was my criteria… I wanted it to be crispy on the outside, but softer and chewier on the inside. I wanted it to be smoothish on one side, but have crumpet-like holes on the other. I wanted it to hold together well enough to be a useful utensil, but not be too dense. I wanted it to taste good all on its own, but not be too distracting from other tastes on the plate. I wanted it to be fairly easy to make, and not fall apart frustratingly when you tried to cook it. I wanted it to have little toasty patterns on it.

And here is what I came up with. I’m calling it the ooto (it’s an acroynm!) because I like the sound of the word. But I suppose I might reconsider that in days to come. It’s made with semolina flour and regular flour, which gives it a nice taste & texture. It’s got black pepper in it, but no other distracting herbs or spices. Black pepper goes with everything! The first pancake fell apart, but after that it was a breeze to make. Although it did smoke up my kitchen a little, since I used olive oil, which is tasty but does get smoky. And that’s pretty much the news about that. My family liked it. And it tasted good today toasted and crispy – nice with scrambled eggs.

Here’s The Ethiopians with ONE. Why? Because I love it, that’s why! And this post, which is mine, belongs to me!!
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Roasted cauliflower and potato soup

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Potatoes roasted with rosemary and garlic – such a perfect combination. So completely comforting. This soup combines these flavors, as well as the equally perfect combination of cauliflower roasted with brown butter and caraway seeds. It’s not an elegant soup, but it is a delicious and substantial soup. We ate it on the coldest day of the winter, so far, with warm goat cheese rolls fresh out of the oven. Exactly right! I had actually roasted the cauliflower the night before, and cooked the potatoes in a clay pot at the same time. But I’m going to give you this recipe as though you were starting from scratch. It will work equally well either way.

Here’s Papas by Mr Loco. That means potatoes, doesn’t it?
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Goat cheese rolls

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Goat cheese rolls

I never know quite how something will turn out when I start making it. (Last week I had a cake turn green when I added something red. I asked an expert, she asked a chemist. Nobody had an explanation. It’s a culinary mystery.) I was quite excited about the idea for these goat cheese rolls, but they were the product of a spate of sleepless nights, so you can’t be quite sure how it will play out in the real world. I thought of making a sort of savory version of a cinnamon bun. With a brioche/babka type of dough. And on the inside…goat cheese and thyme, a classic combination for a reason! And I wanted balsamic, and brown sugar. But just a bit of each. And butter, of course. And then I had all sorts of wild ideas for additions – nuts, olives, rosemary (I want to put rosemary in everything lately! Everything!) raisins, cheese which actually melted… I decided to keep it simple, and I’m glad I did. These turned out better than I could have expected. I’m so pleased and proud. And I wouldn’t say that, because it sounds boastful, but I did make a disappointing green cake this week, so I think I’m allowed. These were really nice with a bowl of soup. Very flavorful, with a hint of sweet, a hint of acidic, and lovely little nuggets of goat cheese. And fun to eat, too, the way a cinnamon bun is, because you can peel the layers apart in a big circle. My son Isaac (who doesn’t like much that I make) said, “Mom, I don’t like these. I love them!” (For the record, you could add any of the items I thought of adding. Or another cheese altogether if you don’t like the cheese of the goat. Gorgonzola would be good! With little chopped up pear and walnuts… Hmmmm…..)

Here’s Rico Rodriguez with Gunga Din. It has nothing at all to do with goat cheese or rolls, but I’m completely infatuated with his music at the moment. He’s a ska trombonist (he played the trombone on the Specials Message to you, Rudy) His album Man From Wareika is phenomenal, and I can’t stop playing it (thanks, Tony!). So sweet and soulful.
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Cauliflower steaks roasted with brown butter, caraway seeds and rosemary

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Usually when I roast cauliflower I cut the florets into small pieces, so that everything gets crispy and brown. Sometimes, however, it’s nice to leave them thick and steak-y. The outside gets caramelized and the inside stays tender and juicy. They can take the center of attention on your plate, like a real steak, but they’re equally comfortable sitting off to the side as well. I drizzled them with brown butter, which I’d mixed with fresh rosemary and chopped caraway seeds. Fast and delicious!

Here’s Mr Brown, by Bob Marley, one of my favorite songs ever!
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The elegant leftover scheme

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In which we outline a cooking plan for the new depression.

french lentil egg-fried mujadara

Times are hard. We know this because we hear it every time we turn on the radio. It’s been a rough year. It’s been a rough couple of years. Well, I’ve always enjoyed trying to make the most of the food I have – trying to think of something inventive to make with the contents of my cupboard, and trying to use every bit of food I cook, in one form or another. This hearkens back to the way people cooked during the first depression. The food was often vegetarian, and people found ingenious ways to stretch it to feed as many as possible, or to use simple leftovers to make a meal so good even meat-eaters didn’t miss their meat. Left-over mashed potatoes would become croquettes, leftover beans would go in a stew. Some of the most memorable dishes from around the world were initially devised as money-saving ingredient-stretching feasts. Over the years, I’ve developed a scheme for using leftovers creatively. It’s not just the dishes that are elegant in this scheme – although you’ll feel like you were dining at William Powell’s night club – it’s the way everything fits together. If, say, you make a big batch of french lentils on Saturday, and you make a dish with rice on Sunday…on Monday you can make a delicious mujadara-like dish. Add one beaten egg, and you have a tasty mujadara egg-fried rice. The flavorings are sage, rosemary and thyme, and are enhanced with shallots and onions. Very satisfying! On the night I made this, I also cooked some potatoes in a clay pot, and made brown-butter-roasted cauliflower, and a simple salad of arugula and goat cheese. Everything tasted wonderful together. And the roasted cauliflower and potatoes will show up another day in a soup, (stay tuned!) which will take a fraction of the time to cook, because they’re already roasted!

Here’s Times is Tight Like That, by Bo Carter, and a recipe for french lentil mujadara fried rice is after the jump.
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Chipotle chickpeas

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Still life with chickpeas

Tortillas, injera, dosas, jamaican roti, moo shu pancakes, crepes. Why are they so fun to eat? Why is it so fun to wrap all your food into a tasty bundle and eat it with your hands? These were the thoughts going through my head last night during my 8th night in a row of infuriating insomnia. Then I thought, wouldn’t it be fun to invent a completely new form of flatish bread that you could use as a utensil? And I’m determined to do it! (I even thought of a name for them!) And then I thought about inventing completely new methods of cooking. Like the first time somebody realized that if you whip egg whites they get stiff. Is it possible to invent something absolutely new? Yes it is! In award-winning restaurants in Spain or Norway, maybe. Sigh.

Anyway, last night was a back-to-normal-after-the-holidays meal. Chickpeas and broccoli sauteed with chipotle, sage, oregano and smoked paprika. Smoky, spicy, good. We had them with warm tortillas, lettuce, tomatoes, grated cheese and basmati rice. Ready in minutes and fun to eat.

Here’s Move Move Move from Nacho Libre we listened to during dinner last night. I love this soundtrack!
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Say happy new year with lentils!

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I’ve been reading up on foods that are considered lucky eating for New Year’s Eve. Seems that legumes and greens are consumed throughout the world in various guises. Fascinating! Green french lentils are deemed especially lucky in many countries. As it happens, french lentils and greens are among my favorite foods!! Fancy that! And round foods are also seen as fortuitous, for a variety of reasons. I happened to have a big box of large white mushrooms, so I decided to stuff them with a mixture of french lentils, greens, and cheese. And I made a sauce with the lentil-cooking broth and the leftover lentils. Yummy!

This morning we had pancakes in the shape of a circle, because circular foods are universally considered serendipitous as well.

And here’s Grace Cathedral Hill, a beautiful song by the Decemberists. It’s about New Year’s Day, and it’s a lovely story of a day when nothing in particular happens, but everything feels significant. I love those days! And one of my favorite parts (of course it’s food-related) is when they’re both a little hungry so they go to buy a hot dog. It’s not the best meal you ever had, but you remember it, and it becomes important, and it fills you up when you need it.
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Spinach pesto croquettes

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pesto croquettes

You know what I love about these very green croquettes? They combine something very wintery (mashed potatoes leftover from Christmas dinner) with something very summery (pesto I made back when basil was abundant, and have stashed in my freezer for just such an occasion.) At the end of the summer I gathered armfuls of basil, and as I turned it into pesto, I imagined myself on a cold winter’s day, after the festivities of Christmas, with nothing but months of bleak winter ahead…sniff…sob…taking out spoonful of pesto and being reminded of a glowing late-summer day.

Other than that, though, these are uncomplicated, comforting war-ration-we-can’t-afford-any-meat fare. I tried to make them very simple, so that my sons would eat them, so it’s just potatoes, breadcrumbs, pesto, and mozzarella. But there’s nothing in it that you don’t like!!

These are easy, pretty, and very green. A good way to use up leftover mashed potatoes! I served them with a bright red simple tomato sauce, that I made quite smoky and spicy with paprika and red pepper flakes.

Here’s Blackalicious’ Green Light, Now Begin.
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Roasted butternut pies with a beer crust

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Butternut beer pies


These pies are crisp and flaky on the outside, and soft and yummy on the inside. They combine roasted butternut squash, roman beans, and pistachios. The squash is sweet, the beans are earthy, and the nuts provide a nice flavor and a little crunch to the proceedings. There’s beer in the crust and beer in the pies. So use a beer you like! Roman beans are very similar to pinto beans, in appearance, taste and texture. They’re largish, and you partially mash them here, so you have a nice contrast of refried-bean texture and the occasional solid yet tender bean.

These pies have sharp cheddar, which holds everything together and adds an edgy yet melty flavor. And they’re seasoned with thyme, sage, rosemary, paprika, nutmeg and fennel. They’re nice to take to a party, because they transport well, and they’re substantial enough that they can make a meal. That’s it! I’m done talking about them! I’m going to tell you how to make them now. Except that I should mention that I took them to a party, and as I sat with them on my lap – they were warm and fragrant, and they smelled like butter and beer, and it made me think of butter beer. That’s from Harry Potter, right?

Here’s Roman Blue by Danger Mouse and Daniele Lupp. I’ve just heard it for the first time, but it’s lush and Ennio Morricone-y, and I think I’ll listen to it again!
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Roasted butternut pudding soufflé

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Butternut squash soufflé

Not a pudding, not yet a soufflé, but tasty nonetheless! I saw a recipe in a very very old cookbook for squash pudding. It sounded good, but a little stodgy. So I thought I’d lighten it up a bit with some sneaky soufflé-making techniques. And I added some goat cheese and tarragon, because I think they taste wonderful with butternut squash. The result was something between a pudding and a souffle. I baked it in a large flat bowl, so that it would have a good crispy-outside to soft-inside ratio. It never got as impressively lofty as a normal soufflé, but it was quite delicious. It had a pleasing, comforting texture, perfect for a day of freezing rain, and the flavor was subtle and complex in a way that made you want to keep eating more and more. Serve it with something green and crunchy and flavorful, like an arugula salad.

Here’s New York Herald Tribune, by Martial Solal from A bout de souffle. I know, I know, but it’s a killer track!!
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