Cilantro Pesto

One thing about all of this making-lots-of-new-recipes business is that you end up with a lot of leftover ingredients in your fridge. And sometimes they end up going to waste. And that is annoying. But I have a new tactic. I go to Google or to some cooking website like Epicurious or Smitten Kitchen (new reference - thanks Susan!), and I type in the ingredient I'm looking to use. Voila! I get a bunch of recipes.

Today's secret ingredient was cilantro. (I feel like I'm on Iron Chef.) I came across a cilantro pesto recipe on allrecipes.com. Perfect!

I made the cilantro pesto with two changes. It called for 1/2 cup of olive oil. I used 1/4 cup. Secondly, I replaced the white wine vinegar with lemon juice. I left it in the fridge for a day to "let the flavors come together," tossed it with some whole wheat pasta, and wow! The cayenne gives it a real kick. It is VERY cilantro-y. For me that's a good thing, but you should definitely not make this if you don't love cilantro.

I'm looking forward to trying this recipe again with more modifications. A friend made it yesterday, and she used curry instead of cayenne. She also didn't simmer it and said it was still terrific on hot pasta.

So when a recipe calls for two tablespoons of chopped cilantro, don't worry. You can just throw the rest of it in the food processor with some basic ingredients and get a delicious sauce.

Irish Car-Bomb Cupcakes

My friend Sarah (one of my most favorite people ever) bakes all the time. All. The freaking. Time. It's awesome. I see the things that she bakes and usually am just jealous of the people that get to eat them or intimidated by how fancy her baked goods look. But sometimes, I am inspired to bake things myself. Like these: Car-bomb cupcakes from Smitten Kitchen!

Guinness chocolate cupcakes, filled with whiskey ganache, topped with Baileys buttercream frosting. What downside could there be to baking these? None, my friends. None at all.

My baking adventure got off to a slightly rocky start - the initial Guinness/butter/cocoa mixture didn't exactly look like I thought it should, but I figured it would all get mixed in anyways, so it probably wasn't a big deal. And I was right! The cupcakes, pre-whiskey ganache and Baileys frosting looked (and tasted) delicious!


Then it was time for the ganache. I was excited because A) I had never made a ganache before; and B) Saying "ganache" makes me feel fancy. Simple pleasures. Anyways, I ended up having to use some bittersweet chocolate chips instead of baking chocolate because our grocery store did not have bittersweet baking chocolate (ridiculous). I used about 2.5 tbsp whiskey, and I think it turned out really well. The whiskey essence was there, but it wasn't too boozy.

As for the frosting - usually I can't stand making home-made buttercream frosting. The sugar is always impossible to mix in and it takes forever. But thanks to the lovely SK recipe notes, this frosting was not bad at all! I creamed the butter, added the sugar little by little, and then when it looked thick enough, I added a tablespoon of Baileys and a tablespoon of heavy cream. And then another tablespoon of Baileys. And then some sugar. And then another two tablespoons of Baileys. Who knows how much Baileys is actually in that frosting? Not me, that's for darn sure.


I think the finished product turned out really well - very rich but extraordinarily delicious, which is good because baking these cupcakes is pretty much the only thing I accomplished today. Tasty!

Sweet Potato And Black Bean Burritos

So I've just recently completed a PhD and a move to Louisiana. I'm hoping to revive this blog with the help of some new friends that share a passion for cooking fun things. This blog will become "Academicooks." You can look forward to hearing from more of us about what we've been cooking -- good, bad, and yucky.

Today we made a recipe from the Moosewood Restaurant Low-Fat Favorites cookbook. These Sweet Potato And Black Bean Burritos were my first experience using a food processor. The consensus on the dish is that it was pretty good. We think that leaving the filling slightly chunky might be more pleasant. We also felt the filling could use another flavor, maybe another vegetable. Not sure what. Finally we definitely think it could use a sauce. While we served it with the fresh tomato salsa featured in an earlier entry of this blog, the burritos were quite dry coming out of the oven.

Overall, I think idea of a bean and sweet potato filling is a good one, and I can imagine lots of uses for this filling. I suggest you give it a try!

Sweet Potato And Black Bean Burritos
5 cups peeled and chopped sweet potatoes
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons canola oil
3 1/2 cups diced onions
4 large minced or pressed garlic cloves
1 tablespoon minced fresh green chile
4 teaspoons ground cumin
4 teaspoons ground coriander
4 1/2 cups cooked black beans (3 15 oz. cans, drained)
2/3 cup lightly packed cilantro leaves
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon salt
8 eight-inch tortillas
Salsa

Preheat oven to 350.

Place sweet potatoes in a medium saucepan with the salt and water to cover. Cover and bring to a boil, then simmer until tender, about 10 minutes. Drain and set aside.

While the sweet potatoes are cooking, warm the oil in a medium skillet or saucepan and add the onions, garlic, and chile. Cover and cook on medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, until the onions are tender, about 7 minutes. Add the cumin and coriander and cook for 2 to 3 minutes longer, stirring frequently. Remove from the heat and set aside.

In a food processor, combine the black beans, cilantro, lemon juice, salt, and cooked sweet potatoes and puree until smooth. Transfer the sweet potato mixture to a large mixing bowl and mix in the cooked onions and spices.

Lightly oil a large baking dish. Spoon about 2/3 to 3/4 cup of the filling in the center of each tortilla, roll it up, and place it, seam side down in the baking dish. Cover tightly with foil and bake about 30 minutes, until piping hot. Serve topped with salsa.

Black Bean Couscous

This is SO easy and so delicious. Plus I made it up myself. I like to eat this cold, but it would be good warm too -- especially with some cilantro-lime fish or shrimp.

Black Bean Couscous
2/3 cup whole wheat instant couscous
1 cup veggie stock
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tsp. olive oil
1/4 cup chopped onion
3/4 cup canned black beans, drained and rinsed
1 cup frozen corn
1/4 tsp. cumin
1 tbsp. red wine vinegar

Bring the veggie stock to a boil. Add couscous and garlic, remove from heat, cover and set aside for 5 minutes. Meanwhile, chop onion. Then whisk together oil, cumin, and vinegar. Toss onion, black beans, and corn in oil mixture.

When couscous is cooked, stir in veggies. Add salt to taste! If you add the corn while frozen, it cools the whole thing off very quickly.

Simple Salsa

The Gourmet Cookbook has a recipe for fresh salsa using Serrano peppers. I bought some cilantro last week to make this salsa, but I couldn't find the peppers in the store. I found them this week, so I just got finished making the salsa. It is delicious - aromatic, fresh, crisp. Quite spicy. Like hit-you-in-the-back-of-the-throat spicy. So if you're sensitive to heat cut it back to one pepper instead of the two I used. I'm letting the flavors come together in the fridge, and then I'm going to have a mushroom omelette topped with fresh salsa for breakfast. Yum!

Fresh Salsa
1/2 pound plum tomatoes
1/2 cup chopped white onion
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
2 minced serrano peppers with seeds
1/2 clove minced garlic (optional)
Kosher salt to taste
3 tbsp. water

Finely chop the tomatoes, and stir in the other ingredients. Enjoy!

Sunday Double Feature

This Sunday was a busy cooking day for me -- I made a lentil stew and stuffed manicotti.

This morning I made lentil and brown rice stew - a recipe from The Gourmet Cookbook. It was kind of an afterthought -- I planned it at the last minute before making my grocery store trip. I had extra celery in my fridge and some lentils and brown rice lying around, so I thought the stew would be a good clean-out-the-fridge dish. It was very easy to make. At the same time, you throw in celery, brown rice, lentils, carrot, onion, some spices, and a can of whole tomatoes into a pot. You simmer it for 45 minutes, finish it with some cider vinegar and chopped cilantro, and you're good to go. The stew is a little bland, but it's very hearty and warming. All of my soup seems to look the same on camera. :-)

Lentil and Brown Rice Stew
1 can whole tomatoes in juice
5 cups veggie stock
3 cups water
1 1/2 cups lentils, picked over and rinsed
1 cup brown rice
3 carrots, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1 celery rib, chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme
1 Bay leaf
1/3 - 1/2 cup minced fresh parsley or cilantro
2 tablespoons cider vinegar, or to taste
salt and pepper to taste

Combine tomatoes, with their juice, stock, water, lentils, rice, carrots, onion, celery, garlic, thyme, and bay leaf in a 6-quart pot and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer, stirring occasionally, until lentils and rice are tender, 45 to 55 minutes. Stir in cilantro (or parsley), vinegar, salt, and pepper and discard bay leaf.

The big endeavor of the day was Manicotti Verde with a Tomato Wine Sauce from Moosewood Low-Fat Favorites. I made the sauce this morning. It was easy -- onion, red wine, fennel, oregano, basil, tomato puree. The manicotti was quite labor intensive -- mostly because I don't have enough counter space or large pots to make several big things at once. The filling consists of leeks, spinach, garlic, and a blend of cheeses. It was my first experience cooking with leeks, so I was a little slow chopping them. The most annoying part by far was the spinach. The recipe called for 20 ounces of spinach. This is A LOT of spinach. Rinsing and coarsely chopping this much spinach was interesting. The end product was quite good, though. I think when I make this recipe again, I will use more cheese and perhaps a saltier, more flavorful cheese. The dish needed salt, but just adding lots of salt results in a fairly flat flavor.

Stuffed Manicotti Verde
1 tbsp. olive oil
2 garlic cloves, minced
5 1/2 cups chopped leeks
3 tbsp. water
20 oz. fresh spinach, rinsed and coarsely chopped
1 tsp. dried basil
1/2 cup grated reduced-fat mozzarella
1/3 cup grated Parmesan
1 1/2 cups nonfat ricotta
salt and black pepper to taste
14 manicotti
3 1/2 cups Tomato Wine Sauce

Heat the olive oil in a large soup pot. Stir in the garlic, leeks, and water. Cover and gently saute, stirring occasionally until the leeks soften, about 10 minutes. Add the spinach and basil. Cook, covered, for about 5 minutes, until the spinach wilts, stirring once or twice. Uncover and cook a few minutes longer on medium-high heat to evaporate as much excess moisture as possible. Drain, if necessary. Combine mozzarella, parmesan, and ricotta with the vegetables. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Cook the pasta shells until al dente, 8 to 10 minutes. Drain well. Fill each manicotti and place in a lightly oiled 9x12 baking dish. Pour half the tomato sauce evenly over the manicotti and over tightly with foil. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Serve hot and pass the remaining sauce at the table.

Tomato Wine Sauce
2 tsp. olive oil
1 cup finely chopped onion
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 tsp. salt
2 tsp. ground fennel
1 tsp. oregano
1 tsp. dried basil
1/3 cup red wine
3 cups undrained canned tomatoes
salt and pepper to taste

In a saucepan, warm the olive oil. Add the onions and garlic, sprinkle with the salt, cover, and saute on very low heat for 5 to 7 minutes, or until the onions are beginning to soften. Add the fennel, oregano, and basil and cook for another minute. Pour in the wine and bring to a boil. Whirl the tomatoes in a blender until just pureed and add to the pan. Cover the sauce and simmer gently for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add salt and pepper to taste.

It's 9:30pm. The kitchen is finally clean. There are enough leftovers to last me the whole week. I'm too tired to type the recipes now, but I'll add them soon.

Dried Mushroom Soup with Barley

I'm in the process of kicking a cold, so I have really been in the mood for a warming, brothy soup. I've made this one before, and I love it. It's a little time consuming because of the dried mushrooms, but it is well worth the effort. Plus this soup is extremely healthy, and the boyfriend likes it! I've included the recipe below. It's in the Moosewood Low Fat Favorites cookbook. Enjoy!

Dried mushroom soup with barley
Serves 4 - 8

1/2 oz. dried mushrooms -- shiitake, porcini, chanterelle, etc.
6 cups boiling water
1 tsp veg oil
2 cups chopped onion
2 garlic cloves, pressed or minced
1 cup finely chopped celery
1 cup peeled and finely chopped carrots
3 cups sliced mushrooms
1/4 cup soy sauce
pinch dried thyme
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 cup raw pearl barley
1/4 cup dry sherry or 2 tsp honey (optional - I omitted it)
salt and pepper, to taste

In a saucepan, cover the dried mushrooms with 6 cups of boiling water. Simmer for 15 minutes. Remove from the heat and set aside for at least 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, warm the oil in a soup pot on low heat. Add the onions and garlic, cover, and cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the celery and carrots and cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add fresh mushrooms, increase the heat to medium, and cook, stirring continuously for about 3 minutes, until the mushrooms begin to release their juices. Remove from the heat and set aside.

Drain the dried mushrooms, reserving the mushroom stock. Cut off and discard any tough stems, then rinse and chop the mushrooms. Strain the stock through a sieve or a paper filter. Add enough water to the stock to make 7 cups of liquid. Add the chopped dried mushrooms, mushroom stock, soy sauce, thyme, pepper, barley, and optional sherry or honey to the pot sauteed vegetables. Bring to a boil and then cover, reduce the heat, and simmer for 45 minutes.

When ready to serve, add salt and pepper to taste. Add more water if it's reduced down and become too thick.