KrisNeely, Author at Ant & Anise • Page 2 of 15

White Bean Chili with Prawns

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a chili recipe that has prawns in it. Am I stretching the boundaries of chili a tad here? Maybe.

But you’ll forgive me once you find that this recipe takes less than 30 minutes, yet delivers a full-on, soul-warming, healthy dinner. Just what you need after spending a few brisk hours in the garden, raking and bagging leaves, only to come back inside and realize that it’s your turn to make dinner too. Sound familiar?

I really felt like making a big, full-on batch of hearty chili, but it was already 6 o’clock by the time I’d bagged all the leaves for the day. I was getting hungry, and didn’t want to slip into being decidedly hangry.

With no time to dash to the store to pick up ingredients, I turned to the pantry instead and sized up what I did have: A tin of white kidney beans, some frozen prawns, a bunch of gorgeous rainbow chard along with an onion and some garlic. Hmm….I bet I could do something with this.

So here’s what I was thinking: Use the white beans as a base, flavor them with cumin and chili powders, simmer briefly to blend the flavors and then toss in the chard and prawns to cook just before serving. That, plus a squeeze of fresh lime juice and sprinkle of cilantro, was my simple, lickety-split chili.

And wow, talk about flavorful. Punching about its weight I’d say, considering I only simmered it for just over 10 minutes.

This dish, with its elegant prawns and unassuming tinned beans, is kind of like tossing on a suit jacket to dress up your jeans; a study in contrasts. It might not impress your friends who are dazzled by the latest molecular gastronomy creations. But it’ll definitely impress your friends who know what good food is all about.

The leaves have almost all floated off from their branches for another season. A few more sessions of raking before fall firmly turns to winter. When I come in after clearing up the last leaves for the season, I’ll know just what to make.

White Bean Chili with Prawns

Serving Size: 2

If you're craving the flavors of chili but don't have much time, white bean chili with prawns is the answer. Prawns add an elegant touch to lowly tinned beans flavored with chili and cumin, making this a dish fit to share with friends on a fall evening. Or to keep all to yourself.

Ingredients

2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 medium sweet onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 teaspoon chill powder
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon dried oregano leaves
1 19-ounce tin white kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1-1/4 cup chicken stock
4 rainbow chard leaves, torn into 2-inch pieces
20-24 peeled prawns
juice of 1/2 lime
kosher salt & fresh cracked pepper
optional garnish: fresh cilantro leaves, chopped

Instructions

Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium-low heat. Add the onion, garlic, chili powder, ground cumin and dried oregano leaves and saute for 3-4 minutes, stirring frequently, until the onion has softened. (If the mixture gets too dry before it has softened, reduce the heat or a few tablespoons of the chicken stock to prevent it from burning.)
Add the drained kidney beans and chicken stock. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low and cover the pan. Let simmer for 10 minutes.
After 10 minutes, remove the cover and season to taste with salt and pepper.
Bring the heat up to medium-low, add the chard leaves and prawns, and cook for 3-4 minutes, or until the chard is wilted and the prawns are cooked through.
Ladle into two bowls, and squeeze the lime juice over each one. Sprinkle with a pinch of chopped cilantro (if using) and serve.

Spaghetti squash with spinach and feta

Confession time: Squash isn’t my favorite thing, no matter if it’s a summer or winter variety. (Have I said that already? Probably that last time I wrote a post about squash. Hmm…)

But you know, I’m warming up to it. Especially now that the cooler weather has come to stay for a few months. And especially when the winter squash is spaghetti squash.

I think my lukewarm feelings towards winter squash stem from the fact that they’re tough to cut. Intimidating, right? Even when I’ve spent a lot of years in kitchens, and even when I have a lovely, freshly sharpened chef knife, cutting through the skin of hard squash still freaks me out a bit.

But I found a simple trick which has, so far, saved me from needing any first aid: Cut a tiny bit off of each end before you slice the squash lengthwise. This way, you flatten out the end that’s going to sit on your cutting board and you don’t have to slice through a thick stem at the top. Whew!

I’ve used spaghetti squash before as a substitute for pasta — it does a great job as a grain-free stand in, especially with a chunky tomato sauce. But I was after a lighter dish, although something that would still qualify as comfort food. It is bucketing rain outside these days.

Spaghetti squash with spinach and feta hits the spot. There’s a very slight nod to Greek cuisine, kind of like a spanakopita without the phyllo. And with spaghetti squash added. (Okay, I suppose it’s only vaguely like spanakopita, but you see where I’m headed.)

The great thing is that you can make this dish in less than an hour, and almost all of it is roasting time. You could even roast the squash ahead: If you do that, it’s a dinner you can pull together in less than 20 minutes. Talk about speedy comfort food. And it’s good for you. Yes!

I like that this spaghetti squash-spinach-feta dish is easy, healthy and satisfying, and requires only a fairly minimal effort. Sure, the tang of feta cheese is always welcome to add some brightness, but the squash itself was really flavorful. I added a pinch of nutmeg, and found it added a lovely background note. Not strong enough to pick out a lot of spice, but enough of a hint to give your taste buds a little something extra to ponder.

And, who knows, with a bit more cutting practice I won’t be intimated by tough winter squash anymore. Now wouldn’t that be something?

Spaghetti squash with spinach and feta

Serving Size: 2

Roasted spaghetti squash combines with the Greek flavors of feta and spinach to make this a simple, healthy, flavorful dinner. It is very easy to put together, and if you roast the squash ahead of time, the rest of it takes only minutes to prepare.

Ingredients

1 2-pound spaghetti squash
1 teaspoon olive oil
salt and freshly cracked pepper
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 medium cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 green onion, thinly sliced
4 ounces spinach
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
2 tablespoons fresh oregano, chopped
3-1/2 ounces feta cheese, crumbled
freshly cracked pepper

optional garnish:

2 tablespoons Parmesan cheese
2 teaspoons fresh oregano, chopped

Instructions

First, roast the squash:

Preheat oven to 375F. Slice a small bit off of each end of the squash so that both ends are flat. Stand one of the flat end on a cutting board and slice lengthwise.
Scoop out the seeds with a large spoon, and place on a foil lined baking sheet. (You can put them skin side up or down; I tried both ways and found no difference in how they turned out.)
Drizzle with a teaspoon of olive oil and season with salt and pepper before placing in the oven.
Roast for 30-40 minutes, or until a knife easily pierces all the way through the skin. Set aside to cool slightly.
Using a kitchen fork, scrape the squash flesh into a small bowl and set aside.

For the spinach and feta:

Heat oil in a medium saucepan over low heat. Add garlic and green onion, and saute for a minute or until the garlic has softened slightly.
Add the spaghetti squash to the pan and mix it in. (I find tongs are a particularly good tool for this.)
Add spinach and saute for about 30 seconds, or until wilted. Remove from heat, add nutmeg and 2 tablespoons oregano and stir in.
Add the feta cheese and stir to melt. Season to taste with pepper.
For serving, cut a strip of spaghetti squash in half lengthwise and place on each serving plate. Spoon the spaghetti squash and spinach over the skin. As an optional garnish, sprinkle each plate with a tablespoon of Parmesan cheese and a teaspoon of fresh oregano.

Notes

If you roast the squash ahead of time, scrape the flesh out of its skin and keep refrigerated in a covered container.

Triple Chocolate Brownies

It might surprise you that I don’t like a lot of dessert.

Um, let me put that another way. I absolutely adore desserts and sweet treats, especially when chocolate is a main ingredient, but I’m satisfied with having only a bite or two. Ask me how big a slice of cake I’d like after dinner (chocolate or not) and I’ll always say a really, really small piece, or the smallest you can do. Always.

But there’s usually an exception to every rule, and these triple chocolate brownies are it. I can’t have just one, like Mark Messier’s ad for Lay’s potato chips. Why?

Because they are perfection. Rich, intensely chocolate from three sources — melted dark chocolate, cocoa powder and chocolate chunks. Chewy, with a toothsome crunch from large chunks of pecans. I’m swooning already.

My triple chocolate brownies are smack in the middle of cakey and fudgy, the two hotly contested camps of the brownie spectrum. If you’re a brownie lover, chances are you have strong opinions on which one reigns supreme: Cakey brownies are the lightweights, airy bites with (no surprise here) a cake-like texture. Fudgy brownies are devilishly dense, usually thinner than their cakey cousins but way more intense.

Unlike the two brownie extremes my triple chocolate brownies are, in my opinion, just right. The ones that Goldilocks would have settled on. They have the best of the cakey and fudgy worlds — crisp outside with a moist, chewy inside. Straight up chocolate, nuts, and chocolate chunks on top. While they are more rich and satisfying than a cakey brownie, they won’t leave you, after only a few bites, grasping for the sofa to have a lie down until the chocolate coma passes.

No, these are simply gorgeous — see for yourself:

Aside from looking and tasting great, these brownies are simple to make. Plus, by substituting a gluten-free flour mix for the all purpose flour they are easily made gluten free.

So, do you think you could eat just one?

Triple Chocolate Brownies

Yield: 16-24 pieces

The perfect brownie: Simple to put together, richly chocolate, and chewy. They're so addictive, I dare you to have just one.

Avoiding wheat? No problem -- these are easily made gluten free by substituting your favorite gluten-free flour mix for the all purpose flour. I've had particularly good results from Cup4Cup gluten-free flour mix.

Ingredients

4 ounces butter, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
4 ounces unsweetened chocolate, coarsely chopped
2 large eggs
1-1/4 cups white sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup all purpose flour (or substitute a gluten-free flour mix to make these gluten free)
2 tablespoons Dutch processed cocoa powder
4 ounces toasted pecans, coarsely chopped
4 ounces milk chocolate, cut into 1/2-inch chunks

Instructions

Place the butter and chocolate in a medium saucepan over low heat. Stir gently until the chocolate has melted. Watch it closely and take it slow -- chocolate scorches very easily. Once the chocolate has melted, remove from heat and let cool for at least 10 minutes.
Preheat oven to 350F and grease an 8x8-inch square pan (or line with a strip of parchment paper).
In a large mixing bowl with the paddle attachment, beat the eggs with the sugar and salt on medium speed until the mixture is smooth. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, then add the vanilla extract and mix in.
With the motor on low speed, add the cooled chocolate-butter mixture to the eggs and sugar a little at a time. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.
Sift the flour and cocoa powder into the bowl, and mix in. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, add the chopped pecans and mix in on low speed. Mix briefly, just until the all the pecans are evenly distributed in the batter.
The batter will be thick and look like molten chocolate goodness. It is. Spoon it into the prepared pan and top the brownie batter evenly with the chunks of milk chocolate.
Bake for 30-35 minutes (metal pan) or 35-40 minutes (glass pan), or until a cake tester inserted into the middle of the pan comes out with only a few crumbs attached. Remove from the oven and place on a cooling rack. Slice into squares when the brownies have cooled completely. And try to stop at just eating one.

Kombucha home brew

This could be the start of something very cool.

I’m talking kombucha. Brewed at home. Yep, I’ve jumped on the bandwagon. So what is kombucha and why am I so smitten?

Kombucha is a fermented drink made from tea, sugar, bacteria and yeast. (Those last two are known as the SCOBY, a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast.) Kombucha has been around for a very long time, as in 2,000 years long, but it’s only recently made its way out of home brew basements and onto grocery store shelves.

I think I first heard about kombucha when I tried a Paleo diet for a month. One of the sites I ran across was touting the benefits of eating fermented foods. And then I kept seeing more and more about kombucha, online and in grocery stores. Pretty soon I was gazing at various brands of kombucha in Whole Foods, mesmerized by their bright colors and both fascinated and mildly put off by the brownish sludge on the bottom of the bottles. Would these actually taste good?

I’m no stranger to fermented beverages, at least when grapes are involved but I’m no home brewer, at least not up until now.

At a recent dinner when Eve offered some around (brewed by one of her students) I worked up the courage for a tiny glass. It was, um, intriguing: slightly murky, a touch of effervescence with a definite sharp, sour note. Decidedly vinegary. It didn’t taste like tea at all.

I wasn’t convinced that it was for me but I was willing to try more. I bought two small bottles at the store. Yep, the ones with sludge on the bottom. The ginger-lemon kombucha was still tart, lighter and even more bubbly than the home brew. But it was the Synergy Triology kombucha that tipped me over the edge. It was delicious, an absolute flavor explosion.

And I could make it at home? That’s when I knew I had to learn more about this stuff. The good, bad and ugly. Speaking of ugly, here’s the SCOBY in my first batch:

Eve and I went to a kombucha making class at O5 Rare Tea Bar, led by Master Brewer Rosie Priest. Rosie was almost as bubbly as the kombucha we sampled, and her infectious enthusiasm took away what reservations I had about trying this at home. It’s easy, she said with a smile.

I had several panicky moments the first few days, fretting about the size and color of the SCOBY (There’s brown spots on it now! What does that mean?? Eve, does your SCOBY look like this?), I decided the best way to deal with it was to shut the kombucha in a cupboard and try to forget about it until it was ready to be bottled. Patience isn’t always my strong suit.

And 10 days later there I was, bottling my very first ever batch of kombucha. Eeeeek! I split off part of the main batch and flavored it with a few tablespoons of fresh raspberry puree. Then, remembering Rosie’s advice on how to make it more bubbly, I let the tightly-sealed kombucha sit for a few more days at room temperature to go through a secondary fermentation.

I could hardly wait to try it out. It was tangy, light, bubbly, with hints of apple cider. And the raspberry one was bursting with raspberry flavor, but not sweet at all. Super tasty, and made for a fraction of the price as the ones in Whole Foods. Yay!

There are a gazillion resources about how to make kombucha at home, including this one. I’ll be fine tuning my kombucha in the next few batches, but here are a few tips for what I’m doing with my own home brew:

Start with high quality tea that hasn’t been flavored with any oils
Cold brew the tea, leaving it to sit overnight before adding sugar and the SCOBY
Use pure cane sugar for the sweetener (I used a proportion of 1/2 cup of sugar to 1 litre of tea)
Cover with a paper towel secured with a rubber band, and let brew for at least 7 days
Remove the SCOBY, then strain kombucha into bottles with tight-fitting lids
If you’re flavoring your kombucha, add the flavoring to the bottle before filling with kombucha
Chill and enjoy!
If you want to do a secondary fermentation to make it bubblier, leave a small amount of room at the top of your bottle before you seal it up. Let it sit, tightly-sealed, for 2-3 days at room temperature. Then chill and enjoy!

Chickpea Flour Crepes {Gluten Free, Grain Free}

One of the best things about experimenting in the kitchen is that, just when you think you know all there is to know, a new ingredient makes itself known. And then *poof* you’re off on a brand new journey, making dishes that you never imagined.

It’s like the more I learn, the more I realize how much more there is to learn. Even after all these years in the kitchen. Such is my story with chickpea flour.

Chickpea flour, flour made from ground chickpeas (also known as garbanzo beans), came to my attention a couple of years ago, when I bought a gluten free flour mix for the first time. I had relatively good success with it in heavier baked goods, like brownies and cookies. Since then I’ve experimented with several gluten free substitutes: My own blend of flours, ground (gluten free) oats, coconut flour and, my favorite, blanched almond flour….

Portobello Mushroom Tacos

It’s no secret I’m having a love-in with tacos lately. If I’m not making them for dinner, I’m dreaming about making a bee line for the local taqueria a few blocks away. Dee-lish.

So when I saw Cinco de Mayo falls on a Monday this year, I thought hmmmm…. how about vegetarian tacos (portobello mushroom tacos, to be exact) that would also celebrate Meatless Monday?

I should clarify that I don’t follow organized food campaigns very closely. I’m more a devotee of the what’s-in-the-fridge-that-needs-to-be-eaten-before-it-spoils movement. But when I thought longer about Meatless Mondays and my repertoire of dinner entrées — ones where vegetables are the main event — it struck me that I don’t have very many of them. At all.

Gulp. I think it’s time to change that.

…