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Grilled Asparagus

It might seem weird to you that I am posting an asparagus recipe in the Fall… but I had these pictures taken for a few months now, but never got around to write a post about it. And given I have noticed how many readers we have from the Southern Hemisphere, then it should be just as appropriate to post something that goes with their Spring season starting just now.

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The asparagus I grew up with were canned and I usually ate them almost exclusively in a party sandwich like these…

But I have come to develop a great love for asparagus, especially when they’re abundant and fresh in season in every farmer’s market near you. This is an easy delicious recipe to snack on or as a side dish…

GRILLED ASPARAGUS

½ a bunch of asparagus

Salt and Pepper to taste

The juice of ½ lemon or lime

Olive oil

Parmesan cheese

I like to use a grill pan for this… and I like pencil-thin asparagus.

Clean the asparagus by trimming the end where the asparagus breaks on its own when you bend the stalk. That end will be stringy and not pleasant to eat anyway. You can keep it to flavor some vegetable stock if you want. Season with olive oil, salt and pepper and massage the asparagus to make sure they’re all coated and seasoned.
Heat grill pan over medium-high heat. Place your asparagus as flat as possible on top of grill pan. Allow them to cook for a few minutes. Turn them around by rolling them on their side so they get grill marks on various sides.
When they turn bright green, about 4-5 minutes, they’re most probably done. Turn off the stove and squirt some lemon juice on top. Take them off the grill pan and serve, sprinkling some grated parmesan cheese on top to season.

Tags: asparagus, food, lemon, parmesan cheese, vegetarian

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Categories side dishes

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Keep Good Food…

9 Oct

Tags: food, fridge, good food, thought, vegetarian, vegetarianism, wisdom

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Categories healthy thoughts

3 Herbs Roasted Potatoes

8 Oct

I am FaceBook friends with Top Chef Master Suvir Saran… I think I shared a little bit of how we became friends before.

I love he keeps sharing pictures in his profile of his farm in Vermont, his pets, his travels and the dishes he creates. Among one of those dishes are his Farmhouse Crispy-Creamy Potatoes. This was one of the first recipes he posted from his Masala Farm book when we first became “friends”. The pics he shared just looked utterly divine.

Photo Courtesy of Masala Farm Cookbook by Chef Suvir Saran

Suvir is a fan of people making his recipes and telling him all about our experience making them and eating them… So here’s my experience with his recipe.

I’ll start with the caveat that I try to follow recipes as much as I can but I then start changing things here and there to make it easier on me, trying to sacrifice the least possible in flavor or texture. Suvir’s original recipe calls for par-boiling the potatoes before roasting them. I am guessing this is what gives the potatoes the “creamy” part in the title. I debated… but I just could not spend almost 2 hours making this dish. I was getting hungry… and time was of the essence.

Another thing… The original recipe also calls for roasting these potatoes on a cast-iron skillet in the oven. The exact same cast-iron skillet I do not own. And even though I do have skillets with metal handles that can go into the oven, when making this for one, the skillet would not fit my toaster oven, so that part of the recipe had to also be modified.

I am sure by now Suvir is probably saying – “Madelyn dear… this is no longer my recipe!” But I can tell you, the mixture of herbs, spices and roasting time makes for a delectable and mind-blowing dish!!!!! And you’ll even have left-over oil and garlic to make other dishes. And I have Suvir to thank for showing me how to combine ingredients and technique. That’s what a true Top Chef Master is all about. Thanks Suvir!!!!

Follow me into my interpretation of Suvir Saran’s Farmhouse Crispy-Creamy Potatoes …

3 HERBS ROASTED POTATOES

3 medium red potatoes

½ tsp Herbes de Provence

2 tbs butter

2 tbs canola oil

1 tbs olive oil

10-12 sage leaves

1 ½ sprig of rosemary

1 ½ sprig of thyme

1 head of garlic, with the top cut-off so the cloves are exposed

Salt and Freshly Cracked Black Pepper

Pre-heat oven to 350F.
In a skillet over medium heat on the stove, melt the butter with the oils. Add 5-6 sage leaves and one sprig of rosemary and thyme, each. Reserve the rest of the herbs… they’ll come into play a little later. Allow the butter and oils to get infused with the flavors of the herbs.
Meanwhile, cut the potatoes into 1 – 1 ½ inch cubes and place in a roasting pan or pyrex dish. Season with salt, pepper and Herbes de Provence. Massage the potatoes to make sure they’re all covered with the seasoning.
Carefully, remove the larger sprigs of herbs from the skillet and place them snuggly amongst the potatoes. Transfer the infused oil/butter mixture with all the sage leaves to coat the potatoes in the roasting dish. If possible, turn the potatoes a few times to make sure they’re all coated with the butter/oil mixture.
Place roasting pan in oven for 30 minutes.
After 30 minutes have elapsed, remove roasting pan from oven and add the garlic head. I divided it in two so the garlic love could be spread more evenly thru the dish. Snuggle the garlic amongst the potatoes. Add also the remaining sage leaves, rosemary and thyme. I removed the rosemary and thyme from the stem and cut them a bit to help me spread the love as well.
Return the pan to the oven and continue to roast until the potatoes are golden brown and crisp and the garlic is tender, for another 30 minutes. The original recipe calls for 30-45 additional minutes in the oven but I found that 30 minutes in the oven and turning it off after those 30 minutes and leaving the potatoes there to rest was good enough for me.
What I did… I turned the oven off and went off to meditate for 30minutes and the potatoes were ready and not too hot and ready to eat. Remove from the oven and serve immediately. As per Suvir’s recommendation, make sure you serve a few roasted garlic cloves along with each serving of potatoes.

These potatoes are AMAZING!!!! They are real show-stoppers!!!!! I had them with a side salad and the potatoes were the star of my plate. I can also see making these with some sautéed mushrooms or warm succotash vegetable salad.

I know I cut some corners in the preparation by not pre-boiling the potatoes, but red potatoes are still creamy and tender on the inside when roasted. They crisped up… maybe not the same way as in a cast-iron skillet, but the look and texture were incredible. A true restaurant-quality dish.

And the left-over oil, herbs and roasted garlic are incredible to sauté mushrooms the next day… a recipe that keeps on giving!!!! What else could we ask for???

Tags: food, Masala Farm, Suvir Saran, Top Chef Master, vegetarian

Comments 14 Comments
Categories side dishes

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Veggie Bites of Wisdom #16

4 Oct

Tags: food, kd lang, quotes, vegetarian

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Categories Veggie Bites of Wisdom

October is National Vegetarian Awareness Month

1 Oct

October is National Vegetarian Awareness Month… YEAH!!!!! And as part of the celebration, I received an email listing 30 reasons to go vegetarian/vegan and I wanted to share with you the ones that resonated with me most… (I guess, one per day of the month… but they left Halloween out. Why???)

This list was compiled by The Huffington Post.

Because if you want to get healthy, you should start with food! Replace cancer-causing, fat, pesticide and hormone-laced meats with cancer-preventing, anti-inflammatory, cholesterol lowering foods like apples, broccoli, blueberries, carrots, flax, garlic, leafy greens, nuts and sweet potatoes.
Because vegetarians are about 40% less likely to develop cancer than meat eaters.
Because our meat-centric diet is woefully lacking in health-giving fiber, contained only in plant-based foods. A minimum of 35 grams per day is recommended; the typical American consumes only 12.
Because four out of five Americans with cardiovascular disease who switch to a healthy (low-fat, whole foods) vegetarian diet reverse their symptoms completely.
The news gets better. Heart and blood-vessel diseases, diabetes, and of course obesity are preventable for 95% of us if we follow a healthy vegan diet, exercise, and manage stress.
Because of pink slime. PERIOD.
Because we are going to run out of food if we keep growing most of it to feed animals, who in turn feed far fewer people than if we grew the food to feed directly to people. (One can feed 16 to 20 vegetarians with the same amount of natural resources as a single meat eater.)
Because along with hundreds of scientists and many major media, the head of the U.N.’s Nobel Prize-winning panel on climate change urged people to cut back on meat to combat climate change.
Because in ways that truly matter, we are all the same. Think about it. Whether human or non-human animal, we all seek happiness and pleasure, we all try to avoid pain and suffering. We all have rich and complex emotional lives.

Even if you’re not ready to take the plunge completely into a vegetarian lifestyle, I hope KarmaFree Cooking helps you see that a vegetarian lifestyle is something doable, delicious, and easy-to-follow. Cutting meat once a week, a few days a week, the whole work-week or everyday… whatever little change you make for the better will be an improvement to your health, your lifestyle and the whole world around us.

Help me spread the word…