Spinach Salad Rice Paper Rolls

Awhile ago, I wrote one post about "Pantry Creativity," and then promptly stopped updating this blog, yet again. But I still have "more rice-paper wrappers than I believe are currently available in the entire country of Vietnam," and I'm still trying to find ways to use them.

I also had a whole container of baby spinach leaves, some peanut butter and raisins (no, I swear, it was really good!) and not a lot of energy for making full-on nime chow, so I improvised.

SPINACH SALAD RICE PAPER ROLLS

32 g natural peanut butter

2 Tbs rice vinegar

1 Tbs wheat-free tamari

40 g unsulphured raisins

85 g baby spinach leaves

about 8 quarter-round rice papers

Combine peanut butter, rice vinegar, and tamari, and stir vigorously until well-blended. Stir in raisins, then toss in spinach until thoroughly coated.

Have one dinner plate and two salad plates ready: the dinner plate is for soaking the rice papers in boiling water briefly; one salad plate is for rolling the wraps, and the other is for serving.

Boil water in a kettle. Place one rice paper sheet on the dinner plate and cover with boiling water. Let soak about 1 minute, until soft enough to roll but still reasonably sturdy. Remove sheet to the rolling plate and put another rice paper sheet into the water, poking it down until covered (add a little more boiling water as necessary). Meanwhile, put a small handful of spinach filling onto the softened wrapper and roll, compressing the spinach into as small a space as possible and gently tugging on the wrapper to make a tight roll. (It's ok if they still come out sort of loose.) Leave extra paper around the edge so that paper will contact paper in the outside layer; as they cool, they'll start to stick together and make a reasonably cohesive roll. Repeat until all filling is used.

How to make a cream sauce with no flour and lots of flavor

Yes, it's sometimes going to be a long time between posts. And I mean a loooong time. Sorry 'bout that. Also? This is totally not one of those healthy-eating posts, in the sense that even reading about this quantity of butterfat might just raise your cholesterol about 10 points. But there is some pretty good nutrition here, too, and it's not like I'm suggesting we eat this way every day.

When I was a graduate student in Chicago, I worked at a cafe in Rogers Park called Ennui Café. One of my coworkers was a culinary student who told me her approach to cream sauces: instead of starting with a roux, start with equal parts heavy cream and white wine, and reduce it down about 50%. Finding myself with some extra cream on-hand after making ice cream (more on that later), I decided to give it a try. Another person I met recently had a good rule of thumb for vegetarian meal-building: "a grain, a green and a protein," so I added canned navy beans and frozen, chopped spinach. Knowing that (a) vitamin C increases iron absorption from leafy greens and (b) tomatoes are yummy, I added some canned crushed tomatoes.

I'm still doing my best to use local ingredients, but since I spent most of last summer scuba diving instead of prowling farmers' markets and putting up veggies for the winter, there are a lot of supermarket goods in this one.

By the way, I've decided that there is no point in eating any brown rice pasta other than Tinkyada, ever again. Fin.

Brown Rice Fusilli and Navy Beans with Spinach-Tomato-"Atwell's Gold" Cream Sauce

makes 2-3 servings

2 c. light or heavy cream

2 c. white wine (I used Newport Vineyards Pinot Grigio)

Combine in a medium saucepan over medium heat and simmer to reduce. This will take bloody forever. Try being braver than I was, and turn up the heat a little more to speed up the process.

Meanwhile, put a pot of water on to boil for pasta, and ...

2 Tbs. extra-virgin olive oil

6 cloves garlic (or less, if you're not quite as insane for garlic as I am)

1 c. canned navy beans or cannelini, drained and rinsed

generous pinch of salt

1/2 c. canned crushed tomatoes, lifted out of the sauce with a fork to get as high a tomato:sauce ratio as possible

2 c. frozen spinach

Heat the oil in a sauté pan over medium heat, then crush and add the garlic. Stir for a few minutes until garlic is fragrant and a little bubbly. Stir in beans and salt and cook for about five minutes to allow the starchy beans to soak up the flavors. Mix in tomatoes to deglaze pan and stir until warm. Add spinach and sauté, stirring occasionally, until warm and well distributed, then set aside.

When the pasta water is boiling, check to see whether the cream mixture is at least down to 2 1/2 cups volume. If not, turn the water to low or off and wait. Once it is, ...

2 c. (dry) brown rice fusilli or other short pasta (penne, etc.)

Add to rapidly boiling water along with a generous amount of salt, at least a couple teaspoons. Stir for the first couple minutes, then occasionally until desired tenderness. Drain, rinse and return to pot and toss with spinach mixture, and set aside.

When sauce is reduced to 2 c., reduce heat to low and start adding cheese:

1/2 c. freshly grated Atwell's Gold, asiago or pecorino romano cheese, plus additional for serving

Over low heat, add cheese a small pinch at a time, stirring after each addition until completely incorporated. When all cheese has been added, pour cheese sauce over pasta and spinach and combine over low heat, stirring gently until warmed through.

Serve in a warmed pasta bowl, topped with additional cheese and freshly ground pepper. Mwah!

** If you're dining alone, you can eat possibly deliciously for two nights! The whole thing might reheat well, but I didn't try it. What I did do was the following: Boil only 1 c. pasta and shred only 1/4 c. cheese (+ a little). When the spinach is all thawed and distributed, put half the mixture in a lidded container and refrigerate. When the cream mixture is down to 2 c., put 1 c. in a separate lidded container and refrigerate that, then proceed as above.

When it's time for leftovers, start the pasta first and shred the cheese while waiting for the water to come to a boil. As soon as the pasta's in the water and boiling happily, start warming the cream concoction over low heat. It will look like it's separating and bad things are happening, but I promise it's fine; I just did it. The pasta should be done just before the sauce is warm enough to add the cheese; drain, rinse, and return the pasta to the pot along with the cold spinach mixture. Heat the two together over low heat. Next, start adding the cheese to the sauce, slowly as above. As soon as all the cheese is in, pour this over the pasta mixture and heat thoroughly.

And about dessert ...

I'm feeling downright smug, because I succeeded in making tartufi, or scoops of ice cream encased in a coating of chocolate so that they look like big truffles. I used David Lebovitz's recipe for Chocolate Ice Cream, Philadelphia Style, and his recipe/instructions for tartufi (except that I substituted brown rice syrup for corn syrup because corn syrup makes me cringe), and it was downright easy. Using my brief training as a helper at the now-defunct Ursula's, I drizzled them with white chocolate (which I thinned with whole milk, which I'm not sure was a good move but it made it drizzlable). And then served them over a small pool of raspberry sauce à la Rose Levy Beranbaum.

Plus, I made moose-munch-only-it's-not-moose-munch-because-that's-a-copyrighted-name from Patrick Evans-Hylton's Popcorn book, again substituting brown rice syrup for corn syrup and also mixing unsweetened chocolate about 50/50 with the milk chocolate for a richer flavor. I got a Whirley-Pop recently, and have been giving it a real workout because I loooooove popcorn. I was feeling very intimidated by toffee-involved recipes, and this was messy but overall pretty easy. And it made a lot.

To serve leftover pizza

Catching up on some meals I'd meant to post:

When my sister visiting a couple of weeks ago, we were both too tired to think about cooking at home, so we went to one of my favorite restaurants: Twist on Angell, in the Wayland Square area of Providence's East Side. I love Twist for its funky atmosphere, extremely friendly and helpful waitstaff, and most especially for its gluten-free menu that includes pizza and beer. Hooray!

A small pizza would be no challenge for my pre-possible-eating appetite, but as I'm trying to get by on less food, I forced myself to stop at half-done and take the rest home. (I did have the crème brulée. It was delicious, and I'm not sorry.)

With a salad for a centerpiece, the four remaining squares of pizza made lovely accompaniments for two further meals. For this one, I mixed some torn-up fresh spinach and romaine lettuce and topped them with a handful of blueberries (all of the above being from the local farmers' market), almonds and I think a drizzle of apple cider vinegar.



Now, place the reheated pizza (which had sundried tomatoes, a mixture of smoked and shredded mozzarella, slivers of fresh basil and a drizzle of balsamic reduction) alongside, and serve with a glass of red wine, because hey, yum.



Even Charcoal was looking for a taste!

Risotto con melanzane, spinaci e noci

One of my favorite things to make and eat is risotto. It's one of the few Italian dishes that can be both vegetarian and gluten-free in (a version of) its original form, and it's incredibly satisfying to eat. Plus, as I've discovered as I've gotten used to making it, it can be made with a wide variety of fresh vegetables, as long as the basis ingredients are on-hand.

What I know of making risotto, I owe to The Joy of Cooking and to Risotto, by Ursula Ferrigno. The proportions in the recipe below come mostly from the Joy of Cooking recipe.

To make this recipe, I started with about 1/4 to 1/2 cup steamed fresh spinach and about 3/4 to 1 cup cubed eggplant that had been sautéed in olive oil and garlic. I also toasted about 1/4 to 1/2 cup raw walnut pieces in a dry, cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat, until just fragrant, then set them aside on a saucer.

1. Bring 2 1/2 cups vegetable broth to a boil, then reduce to simmer and cover.
2. Finely chop 1/2 medium white onion. Heat about 1 Tbs olive oil in a deep skillet over medium heat and add the onion, sautéing until soft and translucent. Mince and add three cloves of garlic.
3. Stir in 1/2 cup arborio rice, until rice is coated and turning translucent. Add 1/8 cup white wine (I had some Pinot Grigio open in the fridge) and cook, stirring, until liquid is mostly absorbed.



4. Add a ladle-full of the broth to the rice, and cook, stirring, until mostly absorbed. Repeat this step until most of the broth has been used and the rice is creamy-looking and al dente. This will take about 1/2 hour. When risotto is getting close to the right consistency, add the broth in 1/2-ladle increments.



5. Add eggplant and spinach, stirring to combine thoroughly, along with another 1/2-ladle of broth.



6. If eating alone, remove all but one serving-worth (there are about three to four servings there) to a storage container. Then sprinkle walnuts over portion that remains in skillet, and grate in 2 Tbs pecorino cheese. Drizzle remaining broth (should be less than a ladle-worth) into skillet, then stir gently to combine.

As served, with a green salad and one of the spinach-pecorino Chebe twists:



Mangia!

Spinach-pecorino Chebe twists

This is more a method than a recipe; a lot of things didn't go exactly as planned, and I had to do a lot of fiddling. But the outcome was YUMMY.

Here's what I did:

Start with a package of Chebe focaccia mix. Preheat oven and mix as directed.

Divide the dough into two parts. Add an additional 1 Tbs milk and about 2 Tbs grated pecorino toscano cheese (or other pecorino or parmesan) to one part, and set aside. Add about 1/4 cup steamed, chopped fresh spinach to the other part.



Here's where it got dicey: the spinach wouldn't combine with the dough in my mixer, and when I went to knead it in by hand, I discovered that the dough was WAY too sticky. So, I pulled out my bag of tapioca flour and started adding, bit by bit. I added quite a few times, and quit while the dough was still pretty sticky, because I know Chebe isn't as good when it's too dry.

Next, I divided each dough ball into 12 smaller balls (see above). I then picked up a cheese-dough ball and rolled it into a thin 'worm' between my palms, then did the same with a spinach-dough ball and set it beside the first. I twisted them together, gently; they stuck easily, and were pretty delicate.



I repeated the process with six more pairs of balls, because that's as many as would fit on my pan.



I froze the rest of the dough for later.

As suggested on the package, I baked the twists at 375°F for 25 minutes.



And, I ate the first one with a little olive oil and some wine. Yum!

Spinach salad with balsamic strawberries

I haven't posted in a few days, as those of you who are following this will have noticed. The main reason is that I've been eating mostly the same thing: yogurt with (berries,) almonds and honey for breakfast, focaccia sandwich for lunch, stuffed tofu, roasted potatoes and a salad for supper.

Last night, my parents took me out to dinner at one of Providence's top restaurants (which is seriously saying something - yes, we're the smallest state, but we've got some of the best chefs, thanks to Johnson and Wales), Al Forno. I was worried: could I find something to eat? Could I find something healthy to eat? Could I avoid over-eating? The answers: Yes, yes and mostly. I probably would have been fine with the spectacular local zucchini and corn salad for my entrée, but the plate of roasted and grilled vegetables on the side really didn't hurt. There were no appealing desserts that were completely gluten-free (the flourless chocolate cake has its pan dusted with flour, and I wasn't in the mood for granita), so I was going to settle for a capuccino, but then my mom's special dessert came with its dulce de leche gelato piled into two little demitasse cups. I snagged one. It was very yummy, and really a nice size.

Tonight, I'm celebrating the spoils of my weekly farmers' market excursion, which was yesterday morning.



I managed to spend a great deal less this week, probably due to my skipping the nime chow. I couldn't skip the strawberries, though; they were far too pretty!

To make this salad, I sliced three strawberries into the bottom of a bowl and covered them with balsamic vinegar, about an hour before supper. Later, once the corn was in its boiling water, I spun the spinach dry, lifted the strawberries out of the vinegar with a fork, sprinkled on some almonds and used a vegetable peeler to make little shavings of that pecorino toscano I still had in the fridge. I drizzled on a little of the balsamic, but didn't add salt because I remembered how strong the cheese is.

I have always loved my corn on the cob bathed in butter. Tonight, I tried it unadorned, and it was delicious. Much less messy, too.

I think I'll try the other cob-worth off the cob. I have a 2-kg bag of masa harina in my fridge (where I keep all my flours, to protect them from bugs), a bit of quesadilla melting cheese, and a green bell pepper from the farmers' market. I think quesadillas con elote y pimiento verde might be in order, some night this week. But first, I need to make a risotto to use up that third portion of eggplant, the one I sautéed in cubes.

Wouldn't it be pretty to serve risotto in a steamed bell-pepper shell? I'll have to try that, in the future.

Spinach and basil egg-white scramble

I had a performance tonight, in a faculty recital for a summer camp where I'm teaching this week. It was the first time that I'd performed a solo (not as part of a chamber or larger ensemble) since ... maybe my master's recital in 2000? Wow. It went really well, fortunately, but I was very nervous all day and indeed all week.

When I know I'm going to need my strength, I tend to turn to eggs. Tonight, I decided to give egg whites a chance. I haven't really liked them scrambled, only hard-boiled, but I hoped that adding enough mix-ins would improve the situation. I washed and chopped the last of my farmers' market basil and not-at-all-the-last of my farmers' market spinach, and also mixed in a little garlic, salt and pepper, and some grated pecorino toscano from my Federal Hill foray yesterday.



Unfortunately, I'd forgotten how salty the cheese is when I added the salt, but fortunately, I had some GF rosemary beer bread from my friend N., which made a perfect accompaniment. (The sweetness of the berry punch I was drinking also provided a good balance.)

Conclusion? I'll definitely try this dish again later in the summer, but if I use a similar cheese, I probably won't add any additional salt. And I'll do a better job of separating the eggs: a little yolk ended up in there, after all.

How do you like your brown rice?

When my friends J&J and I all lived in Chicago, they had me over for dinner one night and introduced me to the wonder that is brown rice. Before that evening, I'd never really liked it before. But at their house, it was served family-style, where we could each help ourselves to a scoopful or two, and surrounding the bowl were plates of cheese cubes, chopped tomatoes, probably some salad greens, herbs, and other summertime delicacies.

Clearly, this was the way to enjoy brown rice. Not as an apologetic stand-in for white rice, under a stir-fry, but as a centerpiece all its own, paired with crisp, fresh flavors that complement it.



Dinner tonight is a plateful of color, with brown rice, fresh spinach topped with shaves of that 75%-reduced-fat cheddar I mentioned (Cabot), and a fresh farmstand tomato, all sprinkled with sea salt and drizzled with extra-virgin olive oil.

So pretty! And so yummy.