Braised Pinto Beans and Onions

I guess this was really my month to do all those foodie things I never do! I made pasta, two different tomato sauces and dried beans, all from scratch! For those of you thinking, dried beans? But I get really good canned ones; what's the big deal? Until I made a big batch of my own beans, I felt the same way you do. But, really, this was incredibly easy (not to mention cheap!) and these beans are far superior to even the best canned beans. Also, you can control how al dente they are (which is a big plus for me since the last time I used canned beans they were too soft), what seasonings you cook them with and what additives there are -- especially helpful for those of us with dietary restrictions.

And, because you have a "mess of beans" as I've been affectionately calling them, you can use them in anything! I'd recommend our Pinto Bean Picadillo -- they really elevate every dish we've put them in. I cooked these in the slow cooker, which means the hardest part was carrying the groceries home. If possible, soak the beans first (for anywhere from 1-8 hours) with a piece of kombu. This will make them easier to digest (and sneak some sea vegetables into your diet). And when we got in that night, the house smelled amazing (thanks to all those onions). So, really, make these. They freeze beautifully as well. You can use them in hundreds of ways but I must recommend having them over steamed potatoes, as we did the first night. Noodles would make a nice bed as well.

Braised Pinto Beans and Onions

• 2 pounds pinto beans, picked over
• 1 4-inch strip kombu
• 6-8 cups water (plus more if necessary)
• 2 teaspoons allspice, ground
• 7 yellow onions, thinly sliced lengthwise
• 8 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 2 tablespoons Italian parsley, finely chopped

Soak beans and kombu overnight (or as long as possible) with enough water to cover them by 2 inches.

Drain beans and kombu, discarding soaking water. Chop kombu finely. Create a bed in slow cooker with onions. Place beans and kombu on top, followed by garlic. Add water to cover beans by 1/2-inch. Cook on low for 6 hours. Sprinkle with parsley. Bon appetit!

Links:

• Braised Beef and Onions from Epicurious.com
• Bacon Braised Green Beans from Food Network
• Braised Green Beans & Summer Vegetables from Eating Well
• Turkish-Style Braised Green Beans from Epicurious.com
• Braised Pork with White Beans and Pickled Red Onion from Logan's Kitchen

Cranberry Bean Meatballs with Garlic and Allspice

When I was stuck at the airport in Burbank, trying to get home to the vegetarian after Hurricane Sandy,  I stopped into a 24-hour bar to get some dinner before my red-eye. It was the only place still open at the airport and I figured I could get a salad. But once I looked at the menu, the one thing that kept jumping out at me was spaghetti with meatballs. It wasn't gluten-free and it was overly rich and not very good but it was comforting, warming and perfect.

Since then, I've been thinking about how I can recreate spaghetti and meatballs for our gluten-free and vegetarian kitchen. The spaghetti part is the easiest -- we've become big fans of quinoa spaghetti and I'm (almost) starting to prefer it to some "regular" spaghetti. But meatballs? Neither of us likes using fake meat (although the idea of crumbled veggie burgers is one we still may try) and, anyway, I wanted these to be just as good (or better) than their meat counterparts -- not merely a substitute.


I made these with 2 cans of cranberry beans that I drained well and ground in the food processor. Unfortunately, they were softer than I had hoped and the food processor reduced them to more of a puree than a crumble. So next time I would use a harder bean (perhaps cannellini). So, even though these didn't stay together as well as we would have liked, the flavors were delicious. Serve over pasta with the Nero d'Avola you used in the sauce. Enjoy!

Cranberry Bean Meatballs with Garlic and Allspice
inspired by MyRecipes.com

"Meatballs"

• 4 carrots, shredded
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 cup cornflake crumbs
• 1 rice cake, crushed
• 1 tablespoon Italian parsley, finely chopped
• 1 tablespoon basil, finely chopped
• zest of 1 lemon, grated
• 1/2 teaspoon allspice, ground
• 1/2 teaspoon chili powder
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper, freshly ground
• 2 14-oz cans cranberry beans, drained and ground in a food processor
• 6 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 tablespoons olive oil

Sauce:

• 1 28-ounce can fire roasted whole tomatoes
• 3 yellow onions, chopped
• 6 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 carrot, chopped
• 2 ribs celery, chopped
• 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 1/2 cup Nero d'Avola
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper, freshly ground
• 1 tablespoon basil, chopped
• 1 tablespoon Italian parsley, finely chopped

In a large bowl, mix together carrots, salt, cornflake crumbs, crushed rice cake, parsley, basil, lemon zest, allspice, chili powder, black pepper, cranberry beans and garlic. Using your hands, mix until very well combined. Shape into ping-pong sized "meatballs", packing them tightly together.

Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add olive oil and heat until it moves like water in the pan. Add "meatballs" and cook 1-2 minutes each side, until browned.

Add tomatoes, onions and garlic and cook 2 minutes. Add carrot, celery, red pepper flakes, Nero d'Avola, kosher salt and black pepper. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer, covered, 6 minutes. Remove from heat and serve, garnished with basil and Italian parsley. Bon appetit!

Links:

• Pork Meatballs with Garlic and Allspice from MyRecipes.com
• Garlic Meatballs with Red Potatoes & Yellow Wax Beans from The Realistic Nutritionist
• Black Bean "Meatball" Hoagie from Beard and Bonnet
• Quick Italian Sausage for Soups, Meatballs, and Sauces from Netplaces
• Two Bean Veggie "Meatballs" from Jinxy Knows Best
• Slow-Cooker Spaghetti and Meatballs from CooksRecipes.com

Stir-Fried Brown Rice with Salad Greens

In my ongoing efforts to like salad, I started thinking about other ways I could use salad greens. Everyone always has them raw, but what if I tried cooking them? There are many salad greens that do double-duty as cooked greens and raw greens (spinach, arugula, escarole and radicchio all come to mind) so why stop there? I've heard of wilted lettuce before so I decided to turn my spring salad mix into a stir-fry.

This was honestly one of the easiest and most successful dishes I've ever made. A (mostly) vegetarian friend stopped by last night and, since I can't resist feeding people, he happily stayed for dinner. And he couldn't stop raving about the stir-fry! The vegetarian's only complaint? That I didn't make enough. So, if you're feeding more than two, make extra!

To preserve the "salad" feel of the greens, I stir-fried them in olive oil along with 4 cloves of garlic (to add some heat). Make sure you have everything prepped and your rice cooked and cooled (you can even be lazy and buy already-cooked brown rice) before you start. We enjoyed it with Mixed Green Salad with Pecans, Goat Cheese, and Honey Mustard Vinaigrette, as well as a bottle of Vinho Verde. Bon appetit!

Stir-Fried Brown Rice with Salad Greens
adapted from Food.com
Serves 2 as a main dish, 4 as a side

• 1 teaspoon olive oil
• 1 1/2 cups salad greens, packed
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/3 cup vinho verde
• 2 ribs celery, diagonally sliced
• 10 cremini mushrooms, sliced
• 3 cups brown rice, cooked and cooled
• 3 green onions, sliced
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce

Heat wok over high heat until smoking. Swirl in olive oil. Add greens and garlic and stir-fry for 2 minutes.

Remove greens and garlic to a bowl. Without cleaning out the wok (or removing it from the heat), add vinho verde, celery and mushrooms. Stir-fry 3 minutes.

Add rice, green onions and greens and garlic. Stir-fry until everything is heated through, breaking up the rice with your spatula if it's clumping together. Drizzle with soy sauce. Serve immediately.

Links to other salad green delicacies:

• Asian Greens Salad from From Scratch Club
• Orange, Walnut, Gorgonzola and Mixed Greens Salad with Grilled Chicken from Pasta Princess & More
• Grilled Bitter Greens Salad with Roasted Beets, Spiced Pecans and Roquefort from The Kitchn
• Roasted Greens Salad with Balsamic Drizzle from Eighty Twenty
• Warm Broccoli and Baby Greens Salad from the rebel grrl kitchen

Tuscan White Bean and Bread Soup

Do you have food crushes? I certainly do. They're usually seasonal; for instance, every August, when heirloom tomatoes are all over the Greenmarket, that's all I want -- morning, noon and night. These days, it's white beans. The vegetarian and I have monthly dinner parties (called our monthly cooking adventures) in which I try out exciting new recipes (i.e. recipes that require more work than what I'd make for an average meal) and keep them as seasonal as humanly possible.

While at the Greenmarket (my favorite source of edible inspiration) shopping for our adventure, I found the largest carrots I'd ever seen. I love cooking with carrots (especially in soups); they provide an unexpected level of sweetness without ever having to add sugar. And it's a lovely counterbalance to beans' earthiness. Carrots are also one of those wonderful vegetables that, to me, always seem to add a layer of freshness, no matter how long you cook them.

And, because I'd be hard-pressed to cook without it, I used 8 cloves of garlic. Again, it seems like a lot but this soup was really not spicy at all. And with three monstrous carrots, the garlic just kept the soup in a savory world.

This soup is my take on a ribollita, a Tuscan soup made out of, primarily, white beans and day-old bread. Since I try very hard to avoid waste in my kitchen, I buy only as much bread as I need so day-old bread is something I try to avoid. But the good people at Cook's Illustrated understood my dilemma and suggested baking the bread to dry it out so that is exactly what I did and it worked beautifully. I also arrived at the Greenmarket too late for kale (the traditional green for ribollita) but there was lovely, spicy arugula so that's what we went with and it came out delicious. Serve with a salad and some Beaujolais Nouveau. Bon appetit!

Tuscan White Bean and Bread Soup
adapted from The Best International Recipe

• 6 cups ciabatta (about 3/4 loaf), cut into 1-inch cubes
• 2 (15-ounce) cans cannellini beans (separated), drained and rinsed 
• 1/4 cup + 1 3/4 cups Pinot Grigio
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 3 carrots, peeled and finely chopped
• 2 yellow onions, minced
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt (plus additional if necessary)
• 8 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 (28-ounce) can diced tomatoes, drained
• 4 cups water
• 1 pound arugula
• 1 russet potato, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch chunks
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 sprig rosemary
• 2 teaspoons black pepper
• Drizzle lemon-garlic olive oil
• 8 ounces Parmesan cheese, grated

Preheat oven to 300F. Spread out ciabatta cubes on a rimmed baking sheet and bake 30 minutes, until they have the consistency of day-old bread. Remove and set aside.

In a food processor, combine 1 can cannellini beans and 1/4 Pinot Grigio until mostly smooth (it's fine if there are a few lumps so long as there are no more whole beans). It should take no more than 30 pulses. Set aside.

Heat olive oil in a stockpot over medium heat until it runs like water. Add carrots, onions and salt and cook, stirring occasionally, 8 minutes. Stir in garlic and cook an additional 1 minute. Stir in tomatoes and cook another 2 minutes. Add pureed beans, whole beans, remaining Pinot Grigio, water, arugula, potato and bay leaves. Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer 40 minutes. Turn off heat and stir in rosemary and 2 cups bread cubes. Cover and let stand 15 minutes. Discard rosemary sprig and bay leaves and give everything a good stir to combine. Taste and add black pepper and, if necessary, additional salt. 

Place a small handful of bread cubes at the bottom of each serving bowl. Ladle soup on top. Drizzle with lemon-garlic olive oil. Serve, passing Parmesan cheese around separately. Serves 8.

Links to other white beans, carrots and garlic delicacies:

• Rosemary White Bean Soup from The Healthy Beehive
• Sausage, Potato, Veggie, and White Bean Soup from For the Love of Cooking
• Smoky Baked Beans from Momma's Meals
• Gigantes Plaki from Chef Marcus Samuelsson
• John's Grandmother's White Bean Soup from Beverly's Back Porch