Beans are kind of like Meat

People think I am meat obsessed. They are right. But, that doesn't mean I can't enjoy a fine vegetarian meal. Just not everyday please. The problem is that while I will eat nearly anything with fins or feet, my wife doesn't. We eat a lot of chicken at home, and quite a bit of turkey too. But, for the most part, beef and pork aren't what's for dinner at our house.

Most days I can live with that, but sometimes I feel like if I have to eat one more chicken I might explode. It's gets old, even if you love chicken. So, I'm always struggling to find stuff to cook that can break up the monotony without having to make two separate meals. Enter kidney beans.

Kidney beans have significant amounts of protein, which is important both for big men in aprons as well as pregnant women (we have one of each in our house). And, of course, they have no cholesterol and are high in fiber, which regulates blood-sugar, keeps you full longer, and is just all around good for you. Oh, and by the way, they taste pretty damn good.

So, I throw tofu into the mix sometimes to get us away from poultry for a day, and occasionally I just make a vegetable pasta dish, but right now I'm really into trying to find more uses for kidney beans, since they seem to pack a lot of nutritional punch and can be used in some dishes where tofu isn't appropriate. In general, I find that tofu is great when it's done well, but it's very easy to do poorly and that just makes me want to eat the chef who served it. Total dinner guest faux pas.

So, I've already given you a pork and bean noodle dish. But I think this one is better, and it has no meat in it. It is inspired by Orangette's recent recipe for Tagliatelle alla Romagnola, which is essentially pasta, butter, Parmesan, and prosciutto. I was so excited that Orangette had posted something and I really wanted to try it out, but I needed to find something to replace the prosciutto. I also had some leeks that were getting to the "love 'em or leave 'em" phase of our relationship.

Anyway, this dish could be served hot, as I did serve it, or it could be chilled and eaten as a salad. Then again, at 39 degrees outside right now, chilled pasta might not be at the forefront of your priorities right now.



Kidney Beans and Ziti in Butter

Ingredients
1/2 lb. uncooked Ziti
5 Tsbp Butter (4 Tsbp to melt with the pasta, 1 Tsbp to saute the garlic and beans)
1 Tsbp fresh chopped basil
4 Cloves of fresh chopped garlic
1/2 cup of coarsely chopped Leeks
1 15oz. can of Kidney Beans
Grated Parmesan Cheese to taste
Salt and Pepper to taste

Boil a pot of water. You can chop your garlic, leeks, and basil as well as drain and rinse the beans during the time the water is heating up. When the water is near boiling, melt butter in a pan over medium heat. As soon as the butter is mostly melted, add the garlic. Be sure not to let the butter get too hot before adding the garlic, otherwise it will burn. Stir the garlic into the butter for about 1 minute. Add Leeks, stir and cook for about 2 minutes. Add the beans, stir gently and cook for about 5 minutes. By the time you've added the beans, your water should be boiling and ready for the ziti. The ziti is best served al dente, so give it about 6-7 minutes in rapidly boiling water, uncovered in the pot.

When the ziti is ready, drain thoroughly and return to the pot. Put the pot on low heat and add the mixture of beans, garlic, and leeks. Also add the chopped basil and 4 Tsbp of butter at this time. Stir the pot gently, making sure to coat all of the pasta with melting butter, while taking care not to crush the soft kidney beans. As soon as the butter is completely melted, it is ready to serve. Best to serve immediately, since this dish is light and doesn't retain heat the way a heavier dish might.

Add Parmesan if desired. I didn't, but it would be good either way. Resist the urge to add more vegetables or ingredients. The beauty of this recipe is its simplicity. It's nice to actually taste the beans and the leeks. They both have a lot of flavor to contribute that would be drowned out if you added too many other ingredients. Serves 4.

Good Friends, Good Pie, Good Life

Tonight, my wife and I had some friends over, mostly to revel at our new crib. I've been so excited about cooking lately, though, that I woke up really resolved to prepare something outstanding for them. I think they were all expecting that we would just order a pizza or something, but instead this is what they got:

Homemade Pizza with Fresh Basil and Oregano
Roasted Chicken with Gravy
Braised Kale and Spinach
Gâteau au Citron (French Lemon Yogurt Cake)
Pecan Pie

The pizza came out OK. It was kind of soggy in the middle, but I think I can fix that with practice, and maybe less cheese and more dough in the center.

Did you catch that part in the menu about the pecan pie? For those of you following the plot, you'll remember that for Thanksgiving, I'm making beer, cranberry sauce with port and cinnamon, and pecan pie to bring to my in-laws. I did my test pecan pie tonight. It was damn good.

The only thing better than putting all of your heart and soul into preparing a meal is getting to share it with friends. Tonight was no exception. We had new friends and old friends all sitting around the table together, perhaps for the last time before our little guy comes into the world. I'm sure they'll be far less time for pie baking once he's born (and for blogging for that matter). But like I said when I started this blog, let's just see what happens.

Anyway, as promised, I've taken pictures. These dishes certainly didn't come out perfectly. I've actually never made a cake from scratch before. So, not surprisingly, my lemon cake doesn't quite look like Orangette's.



I was following Orangette's Lemon Cake recipe. It really just looked too good not to try. Plus, I think we should just admit at this point that I am somewhat obsessed with that site. I love the writing and I love the cooking. Reading Orangette, for me, is sort of like how the little bee girl in that Blind Melon video must have felt when she discovered that there was a whole field full of other people dressed in bee costumes who understood her. Only in my case, I'm not wearing a bee costume. Instead, I'm biding my time before I can get the equipment necessary to make my own sausage.

Back to Lemon cake... So, I followed the recipe on Orangette, and for a first try, it was really very good. It was very moist, relatively easy to make, and was everything that I love about cake and nothing that I don't. As advertised, it was simple, but elegant in its simplicity. Except for one thing. I think I used too much lemon juice.

The recipe calls for lemon juice from 2 lemons, so perhaps my lemons were bigger than average lemons. It occurred to me, also, that if I was in a lemon squeezing competition against Molly Wizenberg, chances are I would win. In other words, perhaps I've over-squeezed my lemons. So, I would say that if you're making the yogurt cake, squeeze 2 lemons per Molly's recipe, but if you've spooned the juice all over the cake and there is still some leftover, don't be afraid to leave some left unused. Unless, of course, you really love lemons. This was pretty tart though. Not bad, but a little more tart than you look for in a dessert.

The recipe that I want to share with you tonight is the pecan pie. Thanks to Melinda for sending me some recipes. Here's what I ended up doing:

Pecan Pie

Ingredients:
3 eggs (do not beat, just stir)
1/4 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup white sugar
3/4 cup white Karo corn syrup
1/4 cup melted butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
About 6oz. of halved Pecans
1 Graham cracker pie shell


Spread pecans into an unbaked pie shell. Pour in mixture of sugars, corn syrup, butter, and vanilla. Bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes then lower temperature to 325 degrees for 35 minutes. Allow to cool completely before serving.



That's just the pecans spread into the pie crust.



This is what it looks like after you pour in the mixture. Notice that some of the pecans float to the top. So, don't worry if you haven't filled up the pie crust with pecans. I just used 6 oz. because that is how much came in the bag that I bought.



There is the completed masterpiece. I know I told you to let it cool completely before serving, but I couldn't resist. I had a hot gooey piece before it cooled. The only thing that happens is that the pie isn't set, and it can be somewhat liquefied. I was able to live with that, but you should make it in advance under normal circumstances.

More and Better Pictures Please

Look at Orangette. Now look at Big Man with an Apron. Besides the fact that she actually writes recipes in a clear and concise manner, the biggest difference between her posts and mine are that she's got fantastic pictures (people also read her posts, although I guess if you're reading this, then I have readers. Wow!). So, I'm trying to remedy that (the part about the pictures, not about the readers, cause I already know now that you are reading).



Bam! There's a picture! See how easy that was?




There's another one! Same dish, of course, but you get the idea. That was a fun night, by the way, making Chinese food for family in Texas. Don't worry, we got some BBQ the next day.




Tricked you that time! That's my dog. She sits in the kitchen while I cook because she thinks that I will drop some food on the floor. She is usually right.



This was one of my most favorite lunches ever. It was at the Franciscan in San Francisco during my honeymoon.

Hopefully I'll do a better job of adding more pictures and getting better at taking them. This will be practice for parenting anyway, since apparently I'm supposed to take pictures of everything that the baby ever does.

Amazing Discoveries!

Today, I've learned three important pieces of information for all foodies.

First, while I have no reason to think that my beer won't be totally awesome, I have noticed, at least in some of the bottles that I filled later in the process, that there is a small amount of white sediment at the bottom of the bottle. This appears to be the same gross looking stuff that was at the bottom of the fermenting bucket; so my guess is that to some extent this is leftover from the fermenting bucket. Not a big issue, but if I have a way to get rid of that, I'm interested in finding out. I've heard that Irish Moss is used as a clarifying agent in beer and I'm beginning to wonder if it is for clarifying that white stuff. We'll see. Of course, I'm not sure that it's an issue for the beer that was bottled first. This is all just an experiment, so we'll have to wait and find out.

Second, I discovered a blog called Orangette. It is freaking amazing. In fact, you shouldn't even be reading my blog right now, you should be reading Molly's blog. While I'm busy screwing up homemade beer, she just opened a restaurant. Plus, even if you like my blog, she does far more desserts than I ever will. Plus she has fantastic pictures (which I'm not allowed to reprint, so I can't show them to you). It really boggles my mind when someone who is the same age as me becomes my hero. It is approximately the same feeling I get when I find out that professional football players who are my age should start to think about retiring.

Incidentally, I discovered her blog by reading her column in Bon Appetit, a magazine that I have often said is like porn for foodies. Well, in this case folks, I was reading Bon Appetit for the articles, so there! Here is a link to her Bon Appetit bio . Go Molly!

Third, I hope it comes as no shock that a man who can cook is already married. Indeed, that is the case. And to boot, we've got a little bun in the oven, a soon-to-be little man with an apron. So what good fortune and intrigue did find me when I was sitting in class today and a classmate was picking at what looked to be an amazing sort of french pastry that surely has a name, but not one that I know (because of my bad manners, the classmate also falls into this category of nameless yet intriging encounters today). Anyway, I asked her where she got this amazing looking thing and she told me and now I will tell you. Ladies and gentleman, today's third amazing discovery for today is Patisserie Claude, a pastry chop in New York's Greenwich Village.

This is no joke, my friends. I came. I saw. I conquered. When I arrived, I knew that the thing that my classmate was eating was not for me. One of the few things that I really dislike eating is anything that too closely resembles whipped cream or jello. Her pastry seemed a bit creamy for my taste, but I knew by the looks of it that whoever made this pastry cared about what they were making. In sum, while her pastry was not for me, I knew there would be other pastry's at Claude's that WOULD be for me. In fact, four of them are in a box, waiting for me to take them home to my wife, who I hope will elect me as most popular husband. Nothing scores domestic points better than bringing desserts to pregnant ladies (as long as your bringing the desserts to the right pregnant ladies, otherwise its trouble).