I’ve had a lot of borscht since then.  I took three years of Russian in college, and I spooned up many bowls of buffet line borscht while listening to poetry readings I could only half understand.

I’ve only recently started making borscht myself, but I’m not sure why it took me so long. Borscht is old-fashioned peasant food.  Like a lot of peasant food, it’s a hearty, inexpensive dish that gives you a lot of nutritional bang for your buck.

There are many different variations of borscht out there.  Hot and cold, chunky and shredded and blended, with potatoes and cabbage or without. Sometimes it has little chunks of beef in it, and it’s often made with beef broth.

For me, borscht is all about the beets.  I could take or leave the meat.  I make my borscht with lots of beets and red cabbage, along with thickly sliced mushrooms for some meaty chew.  I use red cabbage instead of the usual green to give the soup an extra punch of color.  Borscht is good hot or cold, and it’s even better the next day.

This vegetarian borscht is a perfect use for that quart of homemade vegetable stock you’ve got stashed in the freezer.  If you don’t care about making the soup vegetarian, chicken or beef stock would also work.  You can even use plain water if you’re in a pinch.

The amount of herbs called for in this recipe is quite small, but the herbs do really make the borscht taste like borscht.  Unless you’re a caraway or dill fiend (I am a dill fiend), I recommend shopping for these spices from the bulk section of your supermarket so you can purchase just the amount you need.

This soup would go very well with potato piroshki or a slice of toasted black rye bread.

Wolverines!

Red Dawn Vegetarian Borscht

makes about 8 servings

3 tablespoons canola or olive oil
1 large onion, peeled and diced
4 medium carrots, chopped
1 package of cremini mushrooms, thickly sliced
5 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 teaspoon caraway seeds
1 teaspoon dried dill
1 bundle of beets, peeled and diced
half a red cabbage, shredded or thinly sliced
1 quart vegetable stock, preferably homemade
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
salt and pepper to taste
sour cream or plain yogurt, for topping

Heat oil in a large soup pot over medium heat.  Add the onions and sauté until translucent.  Add the the garlic, carrots, dill, and caraway seeds and sauté until the garlic is fragrant, about a minute.  Add the cabbage, beets, and mushrooms and cook for about 5 minutes, until the vegetables begin to soften.

Add the quart of vegetable stock and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat and simmer for 30 to 45 minutes until the vegetables are tender.  Add the vinegar.  Salt and pepper to taste.

Serve topped with a dollop of sour cream or thick yogurt.  If you opt out of the dairy topping, this is a vegan soup.

Here is how to make food out of things that will otherwise be thrown away.  Namely, how to make vegetable scraps into homemade vegetable stock.

Making vegetable stock is very, very easy.  It’s even easier to make than bone-based stocks, because vegetables take less time than stubborn bones to release their flavor and nutrients.

I keep a big plastic bag in my freezer and dump vegetable scraps in there as I cook.  I eat a lot of vegetables, so I can generally make a gallon of vegetable stock every two weeks.

I have used homemade vegetable stock to cook beans, as a base for miso soup, and to make a mean vegetarian borscht.  (More about that borscht next week.)  You can also use homemade vegetable stock to cook rice or noodles.  Go crazy with it.  It’s free, after all.

Things that are very good in to throw in vegetable stock: mushroom stems, carrot tops, celery hearts, herb stems, hearty greens stems, onion ends, potato peels, ect.  A parmesan rind is nice too if you have one lying around.

This is a stock, not a broth, so it’s pretty light on the salt.  If you want to use it as the base of a broth soup, you’ll probably want to season it further when you cook with it.

Very soon this pile of garbage will become delicious stock.

Scrappy Vegetable Stock

a large dutch oven or stock pot
a colander or mesh strainer
a big pile of vegetable scraps
herb scraps or stems (parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, bay leaves, and peppercorns are all good)
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

1) Arrange the vegetable and herb scraps in a large pot.  Add water until the vegetables are covered by about an inch.  Add salt and vinegar.  The salt and vinegar help the vegetables break down and release their vegetable goodness.  Salt and vinegar also makes everything taste better, whether it’s potato chips or vegetable stock.

2) Bring the mixture to a boil.  Immediately turn down the heat so that the water is barely simmering.  Cover and let the stock cook for about an hour.

3) Taste the stock.  It should taste richly vegetal, not watery.  If it seems weak, uncover and let it cook down for a few minutes.

4) Strain the stock through a colander to remove the solids.  If you want a less cloudy stock, strain it a second time through a cheese cloth or clean kitchen towel.  The stock will keep well in the fridge for a week, and it freezes beautifully.  If you freeze it, use plastic containers, not glass, and give the stock an inch of headroom to expand as it freezes.

5) The boiled vegetable scraps can now be tossed or composted.

This weather is, frankly, gross.  It’s the kind of weather that makes me want salads.

Salads made with baby greens are fine as a token vegetable side with dinner, but for a main meal I prefer salads made with heartier vegetables.  Cabbage, kale, root vegetables, and greens beans all make fantastic salads.  Especially when they’re slightly pickled in their own dressing so that they become perfectly crisp and tender.

I really love Vietnamese-style herb salads, so I looked around the internet and found a couple of recipes that could help me make it at home.  It turned out that it’s not terribly difficult.  While this recipe requires making your own dressing, it’s very much worth it.  You’ll have more Momofuku fish sauce dressing that you need, and that’s a very good thing.  It’s as equally good on stir fries, cold noodles, and grilled vegetables or meat as it is on raw cabbage.  The salad itself makes excellent cold leftovers because the cabbage is resistant to wilting.

Goi chay has the best flavor-to-effort ratio of anything I’ve made recently.  The ingredients are simple, but the salty, sweet, crispy, herbal punch of it is really something.

Mmm, fishy.

Momofuku Fish Sauce Vinaigrette

from Momofuko, via Serious Eats
makes about 1 cup

1/2 cup fish sauce
1/4 cup water
2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
juice of 1 limes
1/4 cup sugar
1 finely grated garlic clove
1 to 3 bird’s eye chilies, thinly sliced with seeds intact

Combine all ingredients in a jar and mix well.  The vinaigrette will keep for a week in the refrigerator.

Bird’s eye chiles are very, very hot. Depending on your spice tolerance you may want to use less than the recipe calls for, or substitute milder jalapeno chiles. If you like lime, I also recommend doubling the amount of lime juice.

Mint and basil everywhere.

Tofu Goi Chay

generously adapted from The Kitchn
serves 4

1 head red or green cabbage, shredded
2 carrots, peeled and shredded
1 bunch basil and 1 bunch mint, leaves loosely torn or chopped
1 lb extra firm tofu
1/2 cup peanuts, crushed
vegetable oil

1) Cut the tofu into bite-sized pieces and press between clean kitchen towels or paper towels to remove excess water.  Heat vegetable oil in a skillet and fry tofu until golden brown.  Put the fried tofu on a toweled plate to cool and drain excess oil.

2) Toss the vegetables, herbs, and tofu together in a large bowl, along with a generous amount of the fish sauce dressing.  You’ll probably need about 1/2 a cup dressing, depending on the size of your cabbage.

3) Let the salad sit at least 15 minutes, or refrigerate for up to a day before serving.

4) Serve over vermicelli rice noodles or with a side of sticky rice.  Top with crushed peanuts.

The original version of this recipe uses a vegetarian, soy-based dressing instead of the fish sauce one. If you’re avoiding fish sauce for whatever reason, try that instead.

This recipe, transcribed directly from The Kitchn, was the first meal I made in my new house.  It depends heavily on a quality bottled pesto, but it’s a nice, simple meal that makes excellent leftovers.  If you don’t use salted almonds, you may want to add a pinch of coarse or flaky salt to the final product.  It’s a vegan recipe as written, but a little grated parmesan or pecorino would be a nice addition.  Most places that sell frozen edamame also sell the pre-shelled kind, so I recommend buying that as opposed to unnecessarily shucking your own.

Pesto Pasta with Lemon, Spinach, Edamame & Toasted Almonds
serves 4-6

8 ounces spaghetti
1/2 cup pesto
8 ounces spinach
2 cups edamame (shelled and shucked, the peas, not entire pods)
juice from 2 lemons (plus fresh lemon wedges for serving)
3/4 cup almonds, crushed and lightly toasted

Heat a large pot of water to boiling, cook pasta until al dente. Remove from water, strain and rinse with cold water. In a large bowl, stir pasta, pesto and spinach until combined (some spinach will wilt, some will stay firm — this is a nice contrast of textures). Finally, stir in the edamame and squirt the lemon all over the finished dish. Reserve a few lemon slices for people to add more if they like. On a low heat, toast crushed almonds until just fragrant. Garnish pasta with the toasted almonds.

Oh, cast iron, you're my only friend.

I recently moved.  A small move, practically down the street, but a move nonetheless.  This fall, I’m likely doing a bigger move – out of state to parts unknown.  While I’ve lived in S.E. Portland for the past five years, this is my six residence.  As I unpacked my kitchen, I thought about the cookware that I’ve carried through nearly all six of those homes.  Colanders come and go, but cast iron is forever.

Chef’s Knives

If you have decent knife skills, you can use a chef’s knife for just about everything.  The blade is long and heavy enough to chop piles of vegetables and sweep them into a pot.  The slender tip of the blade is fine enough to pop between the joints of a chicken or core bell peppers.  I have two, which is probably one more than I need.  The first is a  Pure Komachi 2, which is of exceptionally good quality for a ten dollar knife.  It’s light and nimble, and, most importantly, hot pink.  The second is a heavy duty Victrinox.

I also bring their honer/sharpener along to keep them fresh.  Don’t get an electric one, as they’ll chew up your knives.  A simple manual one is all you need.

Cast Iron Skillet

Lodge is generally considered the best.  Mine’s a no-name skillet from a restaurant supply store.  Sautes and stir fries, shallow frying, steaks, cornbread, frittatas, eggs and bacon, dutch babies…  If you can make it on top of or inside a stove, you can probably make it in a cast iron skillet.  Cast iron has a lot of nice properties.  It’s sturdy, holds heat well, and develops a nonstick patina, or seasoning, over time.  Unenamled cast iron also leaches small amounts of iron into your food, naturally supplementing your diet.  They can go straight from the stove top to the oven, or vice versa.  They require a little extra love, but if cared for properly they can last a lifetime or two.

Enameled Cast Iron Dutch Oven

Braises. Bread. Casseroles. Deep frying. Soups and stews. Stocks. Boiling water for pasta.  In a pinch, I’ve even used it as a mixing bowl.  I was lucky enough to inherit a battered Le Creuset, but Lodge also makes fine ones.  Enameled cast iron dutch ovens are relatively expensive compared to other pieces of cookware, but I think they’re worth it for their versatility alone.  Like unenamled cast iron, they can also last a lifetime if cared for properly.  Unlike unenamled cast iron, you don’t have to worry about keeping them seasoned.  My Le Creuset is probably as old as I am.

But

These don’t, of course, make up my entire cooking kitchen.  I have cutting boards, a non-stick frying pan, a wok, paring knives, a bread knife, a box grater, steamers, a colander, sheet pans, and a roasting pan.  I’ve got plenty of stuff.

But the things above are the only ones that have followed me from home to home like loyal, iron pets.  And they’re the only that’ll come with me when I move on from Oregon.

Nice Resources for Setting Up A Minimalist Kitchen

The Minimalist (of course)

Stone Soup

Now that spring is approaching, I’ve found myself craving some latkes.  Rather than the usual potato ones I make in winter, though, I wanted to try something a little more nutritious.  I settled on sweet potatoes, which have a similar texture to regular potatoes and a lot more color.  I wanted to play against the sweetness of the sweet potatoes with some spicy, smokey flavors: cayenne, cinnamon, cumin, smoked paprika, and black pepper fit the bill.  Instead of sour cream, I stirred up a garlic-spiked yogurt.  If you wanted something a little sweeter, you could try them with apple sauce.

My mom, who’s not particularly Jewish, did a lot of the latke making when I was growing up.  Her latkes were a little more like hash browns than pancakes: lacy, crisp, and made with little to no egg-and-flour binder.  I still prefer this kind of latke to the denser varieties.  While these latkes use a little bit of egg and flour as a binder to hold everything together, they really let the vegetable base shine through.

I served this with some simply sauteed greens, but they’d also be great with a salad.

Mmm, latkelicious.

Sweet Potato Latkes with Garlic-Spiked Yogurt

serves 2-3

2 medium sweet potatoes
1 small yellow onion
3 tablespoons flour
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon smoked paprika
a pinch of cinnamon
a pinch of cumin
a pinch of cayenne
a few grinds of fresh black pepper
canola oil, for frying

1 cup lowfat plain greek yogurt
1 clove garlic, pressed or finely minced
1 tablespoon olive oil

1) Coarsely grate the potatoes and onions.  Put them in a colander and let them rest for a few minutes.

2) While the vegetables are resting, mix the yogurt, olive oil, and garlic together in a small bowl.  Put it in the fridge for later.

3) Squeeze out as much liquid as you can from the grated vegetables and transfer them to a large bowl.  Add the eggs, flour, and spices.  Mix thoroughly.

4) Cover the bottom of large skillet (preferably cast iron) with canola oil and heat over medium high heat.  When the oil starts to shimmer, you’re ready to fry.

5) Add a spoonful of vegetable mixture at a time, pressing them flat with the back of a spatula.  Don’t crowd the pan.  Fry both sides of each latke until golden brown.  You may need to add more oil between batches.

6) When the latkes are done, put them on a layer of paper towels to drain.  Serve immediately, topped with the yogurt.

It might be fun to try these with different vegetables, like zucchini or turnips.  I suspect that these would be very, very good with a poached egg on top instead of the yogurt.

You could halve or quarter this recipe to make an excellent meal for one.

You could easily substitute the flour for matzoh meal if you make these during Passover.

The original recipe didn’t specify whole wheat pasta, but I think the nutty heft of a whole wheat pasta really compliments the super savory elements of the sauce.  To brighten up all those salty, nutty flavors, I added lemon juice as well as an enormous amount of flat-leaf Italian parsley.

I recommend serving this with a vinegary green salad on the side.

A plate of ultra-umami.

Whole Wheat Linguine with Anchovies, Walnuts, and Parsley

adapted from Recipes for Health

1 lb. whole wheat linguine or fettucine
1/4 cup walnuts, finely chopped
1 tin anchovies in olive oil
olive oil
a few big handfuls of Italian parsley, roughly chopped
juice of 1 lemon
4 cloves garlic, minced
black pepper, to taste
parmesan or pecorino romano

1) Generously salt an enormous pot of water and bring it to a boil.

2) While you’re waiting for the water to boil, heat a large skillet over medium heat and gently toast the walnuts until fragrant.  Keep a close eye on them and make sure they don’t burn.

3) Drain the anchovies and add them to the skillet, along with a generous glug of olive oil and the garlic.  Stir occasionally until the anchovies dissolve and the sauce is fragrant.  Turn the heat to very low and keep warm until the pasta is ready.

4) When the pot of water comes to boil, add your pasta and cook until barely al dente.  Drain the pasta, reversing 1/2 cup of the starchy pasta water.

5) Put the drained pasta back in the pot.  Add the skillet sauce, 1/4 cup of pasta water, black pepper, most of the parsley, and the juice of one lemon.  Toss to combine.  If the pasta looks too dry, add a little more pasta water.

4) Serve with grated cheese and a sprinkling of fresh parsley.

I inherited my Endless Jar of Lentils.  This gallon jar of lentils originally belonged to some old housemates of my boyfriend.  When they moved back to California, they left the lentils.  My boyfriend and his highly carnivorous housemates ate the lentils occasionally for about a year.  When my boyfriend moved out of his old house and into our current home, he took the jar of lentils with him.  We currently share a home with four other housemates.  The lentils are a communal resource, but between the six of us we still haven’t been able to use them up.  As far as we know, three different households have been trying to use up this very same jar of lentils for over two years.

Lately I’ve been trying to find new and exciting recipes for lentils, which is exactly as difficult as it sounds.  Luckily, I have access to resources like the NYT’s Recipes for Health.

While the recipes of this feature are usually solid, the main thing I like about Recipes for Health is the way its archives are organized: by main ingredient.  Whenever you have something sitting in your pantry or fridge and you don’t know what to do with it, Recipes for Health is ready to tell you about six different ways to prepare it.

I decided to try this Lentil Chipotle Soup, mostly because I already had all of the ingredients in my pantry.  I’ve made it twice in the past two weeks.  It’s a hearty, warming vegan soup that’ll convince even the lentil doubtfuls.

This recipe is almost a direct adaptation from the NYT version.  The only difference is the vinegar.  I think a good lentil or bean soup requires a splash of acid at the end to balance out the earthy flavors of the legumes.  Apple cider or rice vinegar works well, as does lemon or lime juice.

If you are very sensitive to spice, use only half a chipotle pepper or substitute 2 tablespoons of smoked paprika for the pepper.

Smoky Chipotle Lentil Soup

1 1/3 cups lentils
6 cups water
1-2 canned chipotle peppers in adobo, diced
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 small onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, diced
2 teaspoons cumin
2 tablespoons canola oil
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
salt to taste

1) In a large pot, saute the onions in the canola oil over medium heat until soft, about 5-10 minutes.

2) Add the garlic, tomato paste, and cumin, and saute until fragrant.

3) Add the lentils and water.  Bring to a boil, then simmer for 45 minutes until the lentils are very tender.  Add the chipotle peppers and simmer for about 5 minutes.

4) Coarsely puree the soup with an immersion blender, or puree half the soup in a regular blender.

5) If you used a regular blender, add the soup back to the pot.  Turn off the heat and stir in the vinegar.  Salt to taste.

6) Serve with tortilla chips and diced avocado, if you have any lying around.

In fact, I didn’t try making a sprout sandwich until last summer.  During a particularly hot week, I wanted to eat nothing but refreshing, cold foods.  Sprout sandwiches fit the bill.

Even now, in the middle of winter, I still love a good sprout sandwich for lunch.  You can make the sprouts yourself, or buy a tub of them from the store.  Alfalfa is a classic, but I also love a flavorful microgreens mix.

Sprout Sandwich

2 slices hearty bread, like whole wheat or rye
Neufchâtel, light cream cheese, or fresh goat cheese
a few big handfuls of sprouts
coarse salt
black pepper
dried dill

Spread both slices of bread with a layer of soft cheese.

Grind fresh black pepper over one slice of the cheese-smeared bread.  Sprinkle a small pinch of coarse salt over the same slice of bread, followed by a few generous pinches of dried dill.

Pile a a few handfuls of sprouts on the bread.  Use a lot of sprouts.  Seriously, make a sprout mountain.  Put the other slice of bread on top and gently compress the sprout mountain until the sandwich looks manageable.  Eat with something crunchy on the side, like snap peas or carrots.

If you’re not a cream cheese fan, try substituting a thick layer of garlicky hummus.  That also makes this veggie sandwich vegan.

Grated carrots, thinly sliced cucumber, and chopped red bell pepper are nice additions to this sandwich is you want it to taste of something other than sprouts.

I am strangely intimidated by the scales and measures involved in baking, by the preciseness with which the recipes must be followed.  I cook by smell and taste the way other people play piano by ear.  I generally use recipes as a set of loose guidelines or a source of ideas, and I can’t resist making little improvisations and improvements while I cook.  This is usually not such a good idea for baking, and has in the past resulted in lackluster cookies and bland pecan pies.  The only thing I ever bake is cornbread, which for some reason I feel doesn’t count because I make it in the same cast iron skillet I use to fry eggs.

It doesn’t help that many of my friends and relatives are wonderful bakers, so that I can count on eating a loaf of fresh-baked something pretty often without actually having to work for it.

But last week I finally tried my hand at no-knead bread.  I had bookmarked the recipe when it first hit the internet years ago and then proceeded not to make it.  I had been intimidated by even the simplest bread recipe.

Then I read Sandor Katz’ Wild Fermentation.

Katz is a really neat guy.  He lives at Short Mountain, a queer commune in Tennessee, and travels the country teaching people how to make sauerkraut.

He also writes his essays, recipes, and commentary in a way that is wonderfully clear and encouraging.  Sandor encourages improvisation and experimentation, even in the supposedly exact science of bread baking.  He admits in his book that he never actually measures anything, just mixes things together until the texture seems right and the whole thing smells good.

Katz recommends trusting that the friendly bacteria you’re culturing want to turn into something delicious, and all you have to do is let them.  That’s what I’ve been doing with my kombucha, and it’s been turning out pretty well.  Why shouldn’t it work for other things?

Katz made me desperately long to start my own sourdough culture and start baking bread.  And brew my own beer.  And culture my own kefir.  But we’ll save those projects for a different week.

So I followed this recipe.  I then proceeded to do all of the following things wrong.

1) Thought that the dough looked way to wet when I first mixed it, but instead of trusting my instincts and adding more flour, proceeded to follow the recipe exactly because I was trying to be a good baker.

2) Kept my house too cold.

3) Compensated for the cold by letting the bread rise for 14 hours, rather than six.

The bread turned out okay.  Certainly better than a loaf of store-bought white bread.  It had a yeasty funk to it and a nice chewy crust.  The interior, however, was a little too dense and oddly moist.  When I consulted with my sister, a champion baker, she asked, “Was your dough too wet?”

So my biggest mistake was following the recipe exactly.

THE MORE YOU KNOW.

I’m going to try to make another batch of no-knead bread sometime this week.  And this time I’ll trust my instincts.

I made a bread.

No-Knead Bread, with Commentary

adapted from The Kitchn

3 cups white flour
3/4 teaspoons yeast
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 cup warm (not hot) water

1) Mix your dry ingredients, including the yeast, in a large mixing bowl.

2) Make a well in the dry ingredients and add the water.  Stir until the liquid is incorporated into the dough and the dough is thick, rough, and shaggy.  Does your dough seem too runny?  If so, add a little more flour until the dough looks rough and shaggy.  Seriously.

3) Brush the ball of dough with olive oil, turning it in the bowl to coat all sides.

4) Cover the dough with a layer of plastic wrap, and then cover it with a kitchen towel to help keep it warm.  Set the bowl in a warm corner of your home.

5) Allow the bread to rise for 6-14 hours, depending on how warm your house is and how strongly flavored you like your bread.  I prefer a longer ferment.  The dough should look bubbly and stretched out when it’s ready.

6) Remove the dough from the bowl and turn it out on a clean, oiled cutting board.  Fold the dough over on itself at least once.  Cover the dough with plastic wrap (you can use the same sheet you used before), and allow it rise again for an hour.

7) While the bread is rising, put a large, oven safe pot with a heavy lid in the oven and preheat it to 450 degrees.

8)  After the bread has risen, take the hot pot from the oven.  Roughly shape the dough into a ball and throw it in the hot pot.  Put the lid on the pot and the pot back in the oven.  Bake for 30 minutes.

9 ) After 30 minutes have passed, remove the lid from the pot and continue to bake the bread, uncovered, until the top is golden brown.  This will take about 15-20 minutes.

10) When the bread is done, the top will feel hollow if you knock on it.  Serve hot with lots of butter or olive oil.

This bread goes stale quickly because it doesn’t have any preservatives in it.  Share it with friends, or use the stale leftovers for homemade bread crumbs, french toast, bread salad, or savory bread pudding.