Chicken with pasta, inspired by Greece and Syria

On of the under-reported joys of parenthood is being able to eat your kids' leftovers.  It may be as simple as picking at the food that adheres to their clothing when they are done eating (only try this with very young children) or nabbing half a hot dog (if people still feed their children hot dogs) that is left on their plate.  My favorite juvenile leftover, however, is pasta.  When they were young, my kids were VERY picky eaters-- no longer, fortunately.  More than one friend has commented that this at least partially proved the existence of a just God with a sense of humor.  They ate a lot of pasta, seasoned at times with nothing more than air.  Salt and butter came later, and tomato sauce much later. Cheese is a relatively recent addition to the pasta plate, that Maya started eating in her teen years and Harry not at all with the occasional exception of mozzarella..  We call Maya the Cheeze Wizard and a substantial amount of our family's food budget when she is home goes to buying good cheese, especially parmesan.  We can go through two pounds of Parmiggiano-Reggiano a week.  We have tried to slip in some Grana Padano, but it apparently won't do.  But I digress.  To me, the best thing about my kids' pasta habit was that we would get to zap the leftover in the microwave for a few minutes, covered loosely with paper towel.  Throw in some Parmesan, mozzarella or other cheese if you kids' pasta was cheese-less. What comes out was a combination of somewhat overcooked pasta in the center, surrounded by amazing crusty pasta.  If you are the kind of person who likes picking the hard bits from the edges of a pasta casserole, and who doesn't, try this some day.  If you are this kind of person, this recipe is also for you.

Both Syrian Jews and Greeks make chicken with macaroni pasta.  I have been toying with this recipe for years, combining seasonings and methods.  There was a time when I would rub the chicken with spices, leave overnight, roast it, cook the tomato sauce in the pan juices, add the semi cooked pasta, and then toss it altogether and cook some more.  I decided that life is to short and have come up with a version that I like and that I find pretty easy to prepare.  It uses the Filipino method of stewing the chicken without browning and then broiling it after to crisp the skin.  This dish will be done minimal harm if is sits for a while in a warm oven before serving it, which makes it great for company or a Friday night dinner.

Chicken with pasta

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons olive oil, and a bit more for oiling the baking dish
• 2 cloves
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 stick cinnamon
• 1 medium-large onion, chopped
• salt and pepper
• 5 or more cloves garlic, sliced or chopped
• 28 ounce can diced tomatoes, with their juice (I like Muir Glen fire roasted)
• 1 teaspoons ground allspice
• 1-2 teaspoons Alleppo pepper
• 4 pounds chicken parts (I used a chicken  cut into eights plus a few thighs, a little more or less won't hurt)
• 1 pound tubular pasta

Method

• Bring several quarts of water to the boil in a large pot to cook the pasta.  Salt it well.  Meanwhile, do the rest of the recipe.
• Heat olive oil on medium in a large 5 -6 quart pot.
• Add cloves, bay leaves and cinnamon stick, Stir around for a few seconds and add the onion, a little salt, and cook until soft but not brown.
• Add the garlic and cook for a minute or two.
• Add the tomatoes and their juice, the allspice, and the Alleppo pepper.  Cook on high for about 5 minutes.
• Add the chicken, some salt and pepper, bring the boil, turn heat down to medium-low, cover and simmer for about 40 minutes until chicken is barely done, or slightly underdone.  Remove chicken to an oven dish.
• Meanwhile, cook the pasta in boiling water for no more than 2-3 minutes.  Drain, run under cold water to stop the cooking, and drain well.
• Broil the chicken, skin-side up, until the skin is crisp but not too brown, because it will cook more later. 
• Set oven temperature to 425.
• While the chicken is broiling, add pasta to the sauce in the pot, and cook on high heat for about 5 minutes.  The past should still be very al dente.  
• Spray or lightly oil a large, fairly shallow bake and serve dish. A shallower dish will give you crustier pasta.  Pour in the pasta and bake in the oven about 20 minutes.
• Put the chicken on top, skin side up, and bake another 10-20 minutes until cooked through.  If you want, brown the chicken a bit more at the end to crisp and get the pasta crusty.

Cooking the pasta:  If I really had the courage of my convictions, I would skip the preliminary boiling of the pasta and just cook it in the tomato sauce before baking it.  There should be enough liquid since the chicken, onions and tomatoes give off a lot of juice.  This would make it easier to keep the pasta al dente.  However, there is nothing wrong with a casserole where the pasta is slightly soft in the center and crusty around the edges.  If you do try this without pre-boiling the pasta before I do, post a comment to let everyone know how it turns out.

Leftovers:  One one level, this is what the dish is all about. To make it easier to reheat, remove the chicken meat from the skin and bones and shred coarsely, ideally with your hands.  Oil or spray a baking dish, and add half the remaining pasta.  What sauce there is will have mostly been absorbed and the rest will be solid from the amount of gelatin. Top with the chicken, and top with the remaining pasta and spray with some oil spray.  I find that I don't care for chicken reheated in the microwave, so I would bake it about 45 minutes in a 400 degree oven, until the top is crusty.  You could also zap it if you want, but be sure not to cover it with plastic wrap or a regular cover or the pasta will get soggy.  Use paper towel or wax paper. 

Boiling water:  This should probably be the first thing that you do when you start to prepare any meal whether or not you will actually need it later..  Boiling water takes time, and you don't want to have to wait for it.

Chicken cutlets with peppers and capers

I am not really a photo person, and frequent readers of this blog (there are at least three of you I think) will know this from the paucity of photos of food that I post, in contrast to most other food blogs. Trying to photograph food makes me realize why food photography is a profession unto itself, and often involves doing things to the food that make it inedible, but pretty under the camera. The photo at left of today's dish I think provides ample evidence as to why I do this so infrequently. Amy said "It looks like lobster," which may have its merits, but isn't what I cooked.

Basically, I am a textual rather than visual person. If a picture is worth a thousand words, I would rather read the words, and it doesn't take all that long. To say that there is little visual record of my second child is an understatement, but my understanding is that this is a fate common to many second children. More out of the ordinary is that we have relatively few pictures of our first child. (She will say we actually have more of her brother but she is wrong.) So, readers will have to be satisfied with recipes, like this one, a Spanish style chicken scallopine. I made it with ground almonds left over from Pesach (which did not yet have a freezer smell) to accommodate Amy's low carb diet (I complain about it, but she looks fabulous). Here it is:

Chicken cutlets with peppers and capers

Ingredients

• 1 pound thin sliced chicken cutlets
• 1/2 cup ground almonds
• salt
• 1 tablespoon smoked Spanish paprika
• oil spray
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1/4 cup finely chopped shallots
• 3 cloves garlic, smashed and chopped
• handful of finely chopped flat leaf parsley
• 1 tablespoon sherry vinegar
• 1/4 cup chicken broth, white wine, or dry sherry (I prefer the broth; I used boxed Tabatchnick's which is acceptable in small quantities especially since it is overwhelmed by the other flavors)
• 1/2 cup shredded or diced roasted peppers (I used jarred piquillo peppers from Spain, rinsed very well)
• 1 tablespoon capers, small or large, rinsed

Method

1. Mix ground almonds, 1 teaspoon of salt, and paprika and put on a plate. Dredge chicken cutlets in the mixture as if you were breading or flouring them. (You could also defy the low-carb rule and use flour, but the almonds really taste good in this dish.)
2. Spray a large nonstick skillet, heat on high, and add one tablespoon of olive oil.
3. Add chicken cutlets and cook on high until browned on both sides. If not quite done, cook a bit more. (This will take between 6 and as much as 15 minutes, depending on the actually thickness of the cutlets, how cold they are, your heat sources, the conductivity of your pan, and how crowded the pan is, etc., etc., etc.)
4. Remove chicken cutlets to a large serving platter when done.
5. Add remaining tablespoon of oil to the pan and heat on high.
6. Add shallots, sprinkle with a pinch of salt, and saute for 2 minutes.
7. Add garlic, stir a few times, and add half the chopped parsley. Deglaze pan with the sherry vinegar and the stock or wine. Cook down until reduced a bit.
8. Add peppers and capers and continue to reduce until there is relatively little liquid.
9. Return cutlets to pan to warm through, and transfer back to the serving platter and top with peppers, capers, sauce and remaining parsley.
10. Serves 4. We had it with pan roasted red kuri squash, but it would go better with a nice, crusty baguette.
    

Simply delicious turnips

I posted an Indian-style version of this recipe when we got salad turnips from our CSA last year. These are the small (no more than walnut-sized) tender turnips that you can either cook or eat raw. Even though I love Indian food as much as I do, there are some times when you just want a simpler flavor, so I just sauteed the turnips and their greens with butter:

Sauteed Turnips

Ingredients

• 1 bunch salad turnips (the size bunch we got serves two, and had 5 turnips)
• 1-2 teaspoons butter
• salt and pepper

Method

1. Separate the turnips from their greens and cut off the coarser stems. Trim each turnip and cut into 6-8 wedges, but there is no need to peel them. Wash the greens well, by swishing them in a large bowl of water. Change the water several times if necessary until all the sand is gone. Shred the greens into 1/2 inch ribbons.
2. Heat butter in a nonstick skillet with a cover.
3. Add turnips and saute on medium-high heat until light brown, tossing occasionally.
4. Season with salt and pepper, and put the greens on top of the turnips. Cover and steam on medium heat for 5 minutes.

That's it! Even Amy like them, and she is usually turnip averse.

Fakejitas #2

This is a slightly more conventional take on vegetarian fajitas, made with fake meat, than the one that I posted on Sept. 21 as Fakejitas #1. I can't necessarily decide which one I prefer. This version is made with sweet red and green peppers, with a little kick provided by ground chile chipotle. What may make it unauthentic (are any fajitas unauthentic, let alone those made with soy strips or seitan?) is the use of a tomato-ey sauce, but I find that this is necessary when you don't use real meat. Also, I always serve these with corn tortillas, rather than flour, which would be more authentic for a Northern Mexican or Tex-Mex dish, because they are healthier (lower in fat and higher in calcium) and taste better besides. Heat them up any way you want, but preferably directly over a flame as I direct in Fakejitas #1.

Fakejitas #2

Ingredients

• Oil spray
• 1-2 tablespoons vegetable oil (peanut, corn or canola work well)
• 2 medium or one large white or yellow onion, cut into wedges
• salt
• 1 large sweet green pepper, seeded and cut into strips
• 1 large sweet red pepper, seeded and cut into strips
• 6-8 cloves of garlic, slices
• 8 -12 ounces fake meat strips (chicken or beef flavored seitan, or fake steak soy strips like Morningstar farms meal starter or Lightlife steak strips)
• 1 teaspoon - 1 tablespoon Bragg's aminos
• 1 teaspoon to one tablespoon olive oil
• 28 ounce can diced tomatoes, or whole tomatoes diced, save juice (Muir Glen fire-roasted tomatoes will add a nice smokey flavor)
• 1 teaspoon ground chili chipotle

To serve

• Corn tortillas (about 3 or 4 per serving)
  
• Sour cream
• Salsa (see recipe below; don't even think of using jarred salsa)
• Sliced avocado

Method

1. Spray a large nonstick skillet with oil spray.
2. Heat 1 teaspoon to one tablespoon of the vegetable oil in the skillet on high, add onions, salt lighly, and stir fry until they begin to soften.
3. Add peppers and continue to stir fry until they are cooked but not too soft. The vegetables will take 10 minutes or less total.
4. Add 2 cloves of sliced garlic and stir fry some more. Add one teaspoon Bragg's if you are using.
5. Remove vegetables to a serving dish.
6. Add a bit more oil to the skillet, heat, and add the fake meat, shredding any large pieces if necessary and stir fry until seared, about 3-5 minutes.
7. Add 2 more cloves sliced garlic, stir a bit, and add another teaspoon or two of Bragg's. Stir until absorbed and remove to the dish with the vegetables.
8. Heat the olive oil in the skillet, add the remaining sliced garlic, saute until soft but not brown, about one minute, and add the diced tomatoes, their juice, and the chipotle. Cook on high until the sauce is thick, about 10 minutes.
9. Return veggies and fake meat to the skillet and stir fry until combined. Taste for salt and add more if needed. It should be dry rather than soupy.
10. Serves four with tortillas, sour cream, salsa and avocado.

An idea with leftovers: Beat about 4 eggs, mix with the leftovers, and cook in a nonstick skillet into a pancake-style omelet (actually a Spanish tortilla, but that is too confusing) with a little oil until done. Broil to cook the top.

Nut case: cashew butter and banana sandwich

Is he nuts? Why bother posting this as a "recipe?" Because it is good, not to mention easy.

One of the advantages of working at home is not having to go out to lunch. One of the disadvantages of working at home is there may be nothing to eat, even in our kitchen, so sometimes I find myself scraping the bottom of the barrel. This leads to eating things like the sardine and avocado sandwich that I posted about a few days ago, and to rigorous experimentation with banana and nut butter sandwiches.

I have never been a peanut butter and jelly fan. I hate the way the bread absorbs the jelly and turns squishy and purple-ish or red-ish. So decades went by between elementary school and fatherhood when I didn't eat peanut butter sandwiches at all. Then my kids would eat them, with jelly, honey or banana, and I found that I kind of liked nut butter and banana.

Over the past week or two I decided to try a variety of nut butters : peanut, almond and cashew. We usually don't stock cashew butter, but we had a jar hanging around from Pesach, and it won hands down. There is something about it that brings out the inherent sweetness of the banana. So here is the recipe (is this a bit excessive?):

Cashew butter and banana sandwich

Ingredients:

• 2 slices bread, preferably whole-grain
• 1 small, ripe banana (it should have at least a few brown spots)
• cashew butter

Method:

1. Toast the bread.
2. Smear one or both pieces of bread with the cashew butter.
3. Slice banana about 1/4 inch thick and put on the toast.
4. Put the two pieces of bread together, and cut sandwich in half.

Serves one.

Zuppa/Sop/Soup : Zuppa di cavolo/Cabbage soup

Etymologically, soup is less about broth than about bread. I got to thinking about this when I wondered what makes Zuppa Inglese, essentially an Italian trifle, a soup. The answer is that Zuppa Inglese is not a zuppa because it is a liquid soup, but because it is based on cake (a stand in for bread) soaked in rum syrup (a stand in for broth). Thus, Zuppa di Pesce is not just fish and seafood cooked in tomato sauce. It needs toasted bread, or those hard thick peppery crackers (frisselle?) in the bowl to become a zuppa. When we were in Southern Italy, zuppa di pesce was much drier than what we get here, a dish of fish cooked in tomato sauce, with some of the scant liquid spooned over toasted bread. Indeed, our word soup is etymologically related to the Late Latin suppa, which is bread soaked in liquid. Soup is a sop more that a broth. The bread turns it into more of a main dish than a first course and it is a great way of making sure that old or stale bread does not go to waste.

It is with this in mind that I approached the soggy defrosted head of cabbage leaking all over my fridge a few weeks ago. The story will be too familiar to readers of my facebook page. I was going to try to reconstruct my grandmother's recipe for stuffed cabbage for Rosh Hashana, so I had frozen a large cabbage the week before labor day. I really understood why the unit of measurement for cabbage is a head. It was like having a houseguest in our freezer, or at least the severed head of one. Then came the call from my brother that his family did not want stuffed cabbage for dinner, but rather the more traditional holiday dish of Semur Daging, an Indonesian beef stew with spices and sweet soy sauce. So, we made a special trip to Chinatown for Bango Kecap Manis, said to be a tastier sweet soy sauce than the more readily available brand, ABC. We found it after visiting five stores, on Mulberry street in a place stocking groceries from all over Southeast asia. I made a big pot (about 6 pounds of meat) of Semur Daging, and then got another call from my brother saying that his daughter was no longer eating read meat, could we have something else.

She had leftover salmon, but we were stuck with this head in our freezer, and given the scarcity of freezer space in most NYC apartments , this was not a sustainable situation. I transferred the head to the fridge, where it took about three days to defrost. Freezing and defrosting is the alternative to blanching to soften and separate cabbage leaves, and it worked beautifully. I made a Georgian (as in Tiblisi, not Atlanta) cabbage roll stuffed with walnut paste, and it was a big hit with our guests the first night of RH. This is shaped more like a Japanese nori roll than traditional stuffed cabbage, and the stuffing tastes a bit funky and consists of walnuts, garlic, basil, cilantro, vinegar, marigold and fenugreek leaves.

But I was now stuck with the inside of a defrosted cabbage in our fridge. It did not represent the kind of space crisis that a whole head in the freezer did, but was unwelcome none the less. So, what to do? Soup! Rather than going for a Jewish or Northern European Cabbage Soup, we had some nice bread getting stale on our counter, so we went with a zuppa. Here is a method, more than a recipe. You can make it with different vegetables, or a combination, and add beans if you want. You can even make it with rice or pasta rather than bread, but then it wouldn't be soup.

Zuppa di cavolo

Ingredients:

• 1 slice of bread per person (see below)
  
• a few cloves peeled fresh garlic
• butter and/or olive oil (see below on cooking fat)
• finely chopped onion, carrot and celery (about 1-2 cups total)
• canned or fresh tomato (here I used about 1/2 of a 16 ounce can, drained and chopped; you can use as little as one tomato, or as much as the entire can; blanch and skin fresh tomatoes if you use them)
• cabbage: about 2-4 cups, shredded (green or savoy, fresh or defrosted)
• liquid, about 4 cups (see below)
• 1 bay leaf (optional)
• salt and pepper
• 1 or 2 pieces of rind from chunks of Parmesan or Grana Padano cheese scraped to remove any unidentifiable growths (optional, but adds a lot of flavor -- see below)
• fresh grated Parmesan or Grana Padano cheese

Method:

1. If the bread slices are very large, cut them in half so that they will fit in your soup bowls. If it is already stale, toast it lightly to dry out more. Otherwise, toast lightly and then leave in a low oven to dry while you make the soup.
2. When the bread is done, rub it on both sides with a peeled clove of garlic, One clove is usually good for 2 slices of bread.
3. Heat the fat (between 1 teaspoon and 3 tablespoons, it is up to you) in a 4 quart soup pot.
4. Add the onions, carrots and celery, salt lightly to help them sweat, and saute until soft but not brown.
5. Add the cabbage and saute for a few minutes with the vegetable.
6. Add the diced tomato and saute.
7. Add liquid and the cheese rinds, and a few grinds of pepper, bring to a boil, and cook about 1/2 hour.
8. Taste for salt and pepper -- the amount will depend on the saltiness of the liquid that you used.
9. To serve, put a piece of bread in each soup bowl, top with the vegetables and broth, and serve with grated cheese.
10. This is a dinner for 4 with a salad.

Cook's perk: The cheese rinds add great flavor to the broth, and should stay in the pot and not go in the soup plate. Actually, they should go in the cooks mouth while they are hot and before the soup makes it to the table. The rinds become soft, gooey and edible. Depending on the cheese, and on how long the soup is cooked, they will either have a deep cheesy flavor, or just the ghost of a flavor that was once there. Either is profound. As you use Parmesan or grana, just save the rinds in a plastic bag in the freezer, and use when you make soup.

The bread: The bread can be white or whole grain, sourdough or regular as long as it is NOT SWEET. We like it with "peasant breads," ciabatta, or a sourdough whole wheat. This time we made it with something called "wine bread" which was like a light sourdough, which my parents picked up at a farmers' market on Long Island. If you know that you will be making this, cut the bread a day or so before, and leave it in a paper bag or wrapped in paper towels were it will get slightly stale. Florentine bread is ideal but rarely found in the US. It is made without salt, so it does not attract water and gets stale rather than moldy. I believe that Dante, who was a political exile, complained that "the bread of exile is bitter and salty." He should be taken literally on this.

The fat: Originally, this was almost certainly made with lard or for those who could afford it, guanciale (salted pork jowl) or pancetta (rolled salted but not smoked bacon). Having given up pork products, I find it is still wonderful with butter and/or olive oil. If you want to add a little funkiness, you might dissolve and anchovy fillet or two in the fat before adding the onions. I haven't tried this myself yet since my wife is anchovy averse and has limited cabbage tolerance, so I didn't want to press my luck.

The liquid: We generally use water with one Telma pareve beef bullion cube. We add a few rinds of cheese, which adds a remarkable, deep umami flavor to the broth. You can use homemade or boxed (not canned!!) broths, though Italian home cooks would probably use a cube. If you make this with beans and use home-cooked beans, the bean broth can be used and is rich and tasty. Salt towards the end to make sure that you don't oversalt.

Variations: You don't need a soggy defrosted cabbage to make this dish. A fresh green or savoy cabbage would also do nicely. It can also be made with zucchini, green beans, spinach (don't cook this so long -- 5 or 10 minutes will do), lancinato kale, or escarole. If using escarole or kale, go light on the tomato, and white beans are particularly good. The beans can be cannellini, navy, or great northern. If you use canned beans, discard the vile liquid, rinse very well, and add toward the end. If you cooked the beans yourself, use the broth in the cooking liquid.

Starch variations: You can leave out the bread and use short soup pasta like ditalini or orzo, or add a few spoons of arborio rice. Cook these for about 10 minutes after you add them. However, as said above, it will no longer be soup, rather some kind of minestra. However, it will still be good.

Avocado with fish

Avocado with fish, especially smoked fish or canned sardines, is a great food combo, and one which you don't encounter all that frequently. You may be served a ceviche with avocado, and Mary Feinberg often bring a wonderful sandwich of baguette with avocado and smoked salmon to shul potlucks. But there are a wide variety of easy dishes that you can make for yourself or company. You can cut avocado into wedges and wrap it in smoked salmon and fasten it with a toothpick. Try Mary's sandwich with or without butter. Or spread mashed avocado on whole grain toast and top with smoked trout and eat it as an open faced sandwich. Try avocado instead of cream cheese on your bagel and lox, or top pumpernickel with whitefish salad, avocado and tomato. Here are two easy recipes worth trying.

Smoked salmon with Scandinavian guacamole

I am sure they could do something with this on Prairie Home Companion along the lines of Ajua hot sauce. In any case, it is a very easy and delicious appetizer.

Ingredients

• 1 ripe avocado
• 3 finely chopped scallions
• small handful of finely chopped dill
• juice of 1/4 lemon
• Salt
• 4 ounces smoked salmon
• large whole grain crackers like Ryvita or Wasa, or sliced whole grain bread or toast, cut into smallish pieces

Method

1. Mash the avocado with the next four ingredients. Do this shortly before serving. Put in a bowl.
2. Arrange salmon on a plate. Top with a little more fresh dill if you would like.
3. Put the crackers or bread in a serving basket.
4. To serve, everyone spreads some guacamole on the crackers or bread, tops with salmon, and that's it.

Sardine and Avocado Sandwich

This is based on a recipe from Paula Wolfert's The Slow Mediterranean Kitchen. I am not sure what makes it slow or Mediterranean. It is based on a Canary Islands recipe, with sounds more African and Atlantic. It was adapted from a far more complicated recipe by Ferran Adria of El Bulli fame, so I guess that is the Mediterranean connection. It reminds me of a comment I heard once that most of her books, particularly the later ones, are a pastiche of recipes that Wolfert picked up doing research for travel articles. That having been said, most of her recipes are really good. I have simplified it still further so that it is a lunch sandwich rather than an appetizer. One of the joys of working at home is that you can have things like this for lunch. Just don't eat it before a business meeting, unless your meeting is with a cat food company.

Ingredients (for one largish slice of bread -- multiply as you will; I have 2 slices for lunch, some may only eat one)

• 1 slice whole grain bread
• 1 clove garlic (optional)
• butter (optional)
• 1/2 can sardines packed in olive oil (2 sardines)
• 1/8 - 1/4 ripe avocado
• a few shreds of red onion or scallion
• drizzle of sherry (preferred) or red wine vinegar

Method

1. Toast the bread. Rub it with the clove of garlic and spread lightly with butter if desired.
2. Spread with the sliced avocado.
3. Top with the sardines, filleted if you wish.
4. Top with onion or scallion and drizzle very lightly with vinegar.
5. Eat as an open faced sandwich.

Fakejitas #1

Please forgive the awful pun, but since I use fake meat strips I thought it was appropriate. Though Mexicans would probably refer to this as ropa vieja (old rags) and make it with boiled shredded beef, it is not far from what Americans call fajitas. I make it with fake meat, either Lightlife Smartstrips Steak-style strips, or Morningstar farms frozen steak strips. They are far lower in calories, and you can still have sour cream and do no damage in terms of either cholesterol or kashrut. God forgive me, I never thought I would say this, but I have become rather fond of fake meat.

This dish really requires poblano chilies. Their flavor is deep, rich and unique, it doesn't take long to roast and peel them, and the dish would not be the same without them. When I get around to it, I will post another version of fakejitas which is more generic and tomato-y and acceptable to use regular sweet peppers. If you must, you can use canned green chilies here, but the poblanos are worth the minimal extra effort.

Fakejitas (vegetarian Mexican ropa vieja)

Ingredients

• Oil spray
• 2 poblano peppers
• Peanut oil (between 1 and 2 tablespoons, depending on your preference)
• 6-10 ounces vegetarian steak strips
• 1 medium white onion, cut in half and sliced about 1/4 inch thick (the size of a peach; red or yellow is acceptable if you cant find white)
• salt and pepper
  
• 2 cloves garlic peeled and sliced
• 1 teaspoon Bragg's aminos (optional but adds a lot of umami flavor)
• 2 eggs, beaten lightly with a pinch of salt
  

To serve

• Corn tortillas (this amount makes 6-8 soft tacos and serves 2-3, see below on reheating)
• Sour cream
• Salsa (see recipe below; don't even think of using jarred salsa)
• Sliced avocado

Method

1. To prepare the poblanos, spray them with the oil spray or rub them lightly with oil. Stick them over a high gas flame on your stove (if you have an electric stove, get a gas one) and turn them around with tongs until they are blackened all over, for between 5 and 10 minutes. Watch carefully so that they don't burn. When well blackened, remove them and either wrap them in paper towel or put them in a paper bag and set them aside until they cool. They will steam a bit while they cool and the skin will loosen.
2. Remove the blackened skin with your fingers. (You may want to wear gloves or use paper towels if your skin is very sensitive or you are in the habit or rubbing sensitive body parts like your eyes. Poblanos are only mildly hot, but they can tingle.) Run under water if necessary and remove as much skin as you can. Cut open the pepper, remove the stem, ribs and seeds, and cut into 1/4 inch vertical strips. These are called rajas.
3. Spray a medium nonstick skillet with oil spray, heat on high, add a bit of oil and add the fake steak. Stir fry a few minutes until browned and remove to a serving bowl.
4. Add a bit more oil to the skillet and add the onions, salt lightly, and saute on high without browning until they being to soften.
5. Add rajas and cook about 3 minutes more.
6. Add the garlic and cook for another minute.
7. Add the fake steak, the Bragg's and heat through. Taste for salt -- it probably won't need any more.
   
8. If you are using the eggs, push the mixture over to one side of the skillet, add the beaten eggs, and cook until almost done. Break it up with a spatula and mix into the other stuff.
9. Put in a bowl and serve.
10. To eat, smear a little sour cream on a warm tortilla, add some of the fakejitas, a slice of avocado, salsa, and wrap it up and eat it.

Reheating corn tortillas: Turn on a gas burner and turn to medium low. Add a tortilla, heat for about 30 seconds, adjusting the heat so that it does not burn, and put another tortilla directly on top of it. Flip it over (using tongs, not your fingers!) so that the cold tortilla is over the flame, and heat for another 30 seconds. Add another cold tortilla on top, flip over, and repeat for up to a dozen tortillas. Wrap the tortillas in a clean dishtowel and serve as soon as possible. I have tried many methods and like this one the best. There is a satisfying, elemental quality to this technique, and the slight char on the tortillas adds much more flavor than a sojourn in the microwave.

Salsa: I never understood why people buy jarred salsa when all you need to make salsa mexicana is a few ingredients and a sharp knife. Mix about 1/4 of a medium white or red onion, finely chopped, with a smallish chopped tomato, a chopped serrano or jalapeno chili (remove the seeds if you want it less hot), and a handful of chopped fresh cilantro and some salt. Let it sit for a few minutes, and add a tablespoon of water if you want it more liquid. That's it.

Yellow tomato gazpacho

Our CSA (community supported agriculture coop) requires members to volunteer one shift each season, to either set up or clean up after everything is finished. The volunteers who work the clean up shift get to take what they want from the produce that is left. I try to time my shift to coincide with peak tomato season. The problem is that by the end of the evening, what is left can be more than a bit bruised. We had some great heirloom tomatoes, but all the red varieties were gone or in sad shape by the end of the night. However, I did get to take home a good quantity of slightly bruised yellow heirloom tomatoes. I think that the variety was "yellow queen" which is a light yellow, almost cream color and sometimes has a slight blush. They are low in acid but still had a rich tomato flavor. They were so delicate that they had practically turned to gazpacho by the time that I got them home, so here is what I did with them:

Yellow tomato gazpacho

Ingredients:

• 1 clove garlic, peeled (1 more if you want, but the croutons will add more garlic flavor)
• 1.5 to 2 pounds yellow tomatoes ( trim off the mushy bits if you want)
• 3-4 ounces day old bread, crusts removed
• 1/4 to 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1-2 tablespoons vinegar (I used sherry vinegar)
• Salt
• 1 cup chopped English or Persian cucumbers, peeled if desired
• 1 cup halved cherry tomatoes
• 1 recipe croutons (see the recipe for white almond gazpacho I posted last month)

Method:

1. With the motor running, drop the garlic through the opening of a blender (or feeder tube of a food processor) which will pulverize it. This is actually fun, and you may be tempted to use too much garlic. Don't.
2. Add the tomatoes and blend to a puree.
3. Run the bread briefly under water, squeeze dry, add the bread to the blender and puree some more.
4. With the motor running, drizzle in the olive oil, one tablespoon of the vinegar and about 1 teaspoon or regular or 2 teaspoons of coarse salt.
5. Shut the motor, taste for seasoning, and add more salt and vinegar if you want, and run the blender briefly to incorporate.
6. Push the soup through a sieve, pressing so that it all passes through. This will vastly improve the texture of the final soup.
   
7. Chill well, for a few hours or overnight.
8. Serve in small soup bowls and pass cherry tomatoes, cucumber, and croutons for garnish.

Additions: This soup has a wonderful, pure tomato flavor. You can add parsley, cilantro or some jalapeno pepper if you want, but why?

The bread: People think gazpacho is about the tomatoes, but it is really about the bread. I once read that it comes from the Arabic for "bread and vinegar" and the first syllable sounds like khubz, Arabic for bread. I haven't been able to verify this but it has the ring of truth. Spaniards still serve white gazpacho, often with almonds, where the bread is even more central. I find that bread mellows out the flavors, particularly of the garlic and vinegar and lets the tomato shine through. Without the bread, it is far to acid and the garlic rapidly takes on an off flavor. If you have never made gazpacho with bread before, try it. It will be a revelation. It is important to use a non-sweet loaf that is not sourdough. A peasant-style white loaf, french bread, or ciabatta works best.

The vinegar: The flavor and color will change subtly with the kind of vinegar you use. I love the flavor of sherry vinegar in this dish, but you could easily use white wine, champagne, or red wine vinegar. Rice vinegar is probably too mild for yellow tomatoes. Don't even think of using balsamic.

Grilled summer squash with mint and cheese

This dish is a cinch. It is also a bit of a misnomer, since we don't have a grill, even an indoor one, and we cooked the squash in a nonstick skillet, and it was still good. I made this with avocado squash, which looks sort of like a large, light green avocado, is firmer than zucchini, grills well, and has a nutty flavor. Three things to remember to make this dish a success: use young squash and not the overgrown baseball bats that you sometimes get late in the summer; don't sprinkle on the mint and cheese until the squash has cooled to room temperature (you don't want the cheese to melt or the mint to turn dark), and don't dress the dish until shortly before serving. It serves 6 as a one of a few antipasti or side dishes, but could also make a light lunch for 2:

Grilled summer squash with mint and cheese

Ingredients:

1. 2 avocado squash or 1 pound or more other summer squash
2. olive oil (and olive oil spray for cooking if you want)
3. salt and pepper
4. ricotta salata cheese (a pressed firm ricotta), about 2-3 ounces, coarsely grated
5. fresh mint, about a handful, washed, stemmed and shreeded
6. red wine vinegar

Method:

1. Wash the squash well: soak it in cold water for 10-15 minutes, and rinse to remove all grit. Scrape any gritty section that remain or peel lightly if necessary. Cut into 1/2 inch slices. (If using thin small zucchini, you could halve them or cut them on a diagonal.)
2. Brush the grill lightly with oil, or spray a nonstick skillet with olive oil spray, and heat on high. If using the spray, you should spray it on a cold grill or skillet and then heat it. For oil, you can just brush it on once the grill or skillet is hot.
   
3. Cook the squash for 5-7 minutes on each side, until browned and tender. (The time varies widely with the head of your skillet or grill. Don't overcook ,since it will continue to soften after you remove it.
4. Arrange the squash nicely on a serving plate and season with salt and pepper.
5. When it has cooled to room temperature, sprinkle with the cheese and then the mint. Set aside up to an hour or two until ready to serve, but ideally, don't refrigerate it.
6. Drizzle with olive oil and vinegar shortly before serving.

Variation: This could also be made with grilled eggplant, or eggplant cut into cubes, sprayed or tossed with oil, and roasted on 450 degrees for about 20 minutes and then broiled until tender. I find that eggplant does better than squash if cooked the day before, but don't garnish or dress until serving.