Jalapeno Falafel and Chili Lime Babaghanoush – Mexican/Mediterranean Mash-Up

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baba ghanoush, chili, eggplant, falafel, jalapeno

To paraphrase the blog of one of my personal heroes, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, it’s a good idea to try to be nimble and light when the times are dicey.  And I happen to agree that high holiday season is the first world exemplification of ‘dicey.’  Being busy with work and trying to do the bare minimum of holiday festivities, my fridge is a strange place full of strange odds and ends.  The two things that needed to get used up were a bunch of guacamole and half a roasted eggplant, and so this strange dinner was brought into the world.

It’s a meta-mezze platter…

The more I thought of it, Mexican and Mediterranean cuisines aren’t so far apart.  Both use lots of happy chilis, cumin and citrus.  It all came together pretty well.

Chili Lime Babaghanoush – served with garlic toasts

Makes 1 – 2 cups – serves 4 as an appetizer, cost approx $.59 per serving

Ingredients

• 1/2 roasted eggplant, flesh scooped out of the skin ($1)
• 1/2 cup tahini ($.50)
• 2-4 tbs olive oil
• salt, to taste
• 1-2 Tbs chili powder, to taste
• 1 lime’s juice ($.25)

• toasts rubbed with garlic ($.25)
• sliced scallions, for garnish ($.12)

Give everything in the first list a whirl in a food processor or blender.  Taste and adjust for seasonings.  Garnish with a drizzle of olive oil and sliced scallions.

Jalapeno Falafel

Serves 4 – cost approx $.69 per serving

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup olive oil, divided use ($.50)
• 1/2 red onion, minced ($.25)
• 1 – 2 jalapenos, diced – use more or less, seeds or no seeds depending on the level of heat you want ($.50)
• 2 cups cooked chickpeas, from 1 cup dry beans – you can totally use canned beans here ($.60)
• 1 egg ($.15)
• 1/4 cup tanini ($.25)
• 1 lime’s juice ($.25)
• salt, to taste
• 1/2 bunch cilantro, divided use ($.25)
• 1/2 cup bread crumbs ($0 if home made!)

Start off by sauteeing the onion and jalapenos in a tablespoon or two of olive oil.  Blend up the chickpeas, egg, tahini, lime juice, salt and the cilantro stems (yes, they’re totally edible and just as tasty, just not as pretty.)  Stir in the sauteed onions and jalapenos and the bread crumbs.

Make patties and pan fry them in the remaining oil.  Serve with rice or flat bread to round out the meal and maybe some guacamole too. ($.50 for rice and $2 for guac) Garnish your plates with the reserved cilantro leaves.

All together, this meal cost me just $1.90 per serving!

Peanut Butter and Jelly Cookies – Jamarama!

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cookie cutters, cookies, cut out, jam, jelly, peanut butter, Peanut butter and jelly, Peanut Butter and Jelly Cookies, shortbread

Given my summertime obsession with canning, I have a lot of jam hanging around my kitchen. It all just seems like magic to me, as stupid as it is, I feel like a freakin’ wizard. “Behold, peasants! With the ancient magic of the Old Gods, I have turned these berries which are only perfect for a few days into something that will be delicious for years!” (On a related note, that’s exactly how I feel about knitting…) Anyway, my fireman loves sweets, I like to try to come up with ways to use jam in my baked goodies.

Peanut butter and jelly is such a classic combination. Those peanut butter cookies were just begging to get a little jam action, and I am just the girl give it to them. Here’s where you can imagine me, trying to make a sultry and alluring face, but actually looking like a class-A creeper.

Peanut Butter and Jelly Cookies

These cookies are delicious as cut out cookie, like the ones I made today, or a ‘jam thumbprint’ type of cookie.  I did a batch of those a few weeks ago and they turned out super tasty, but not nearly as photogenic as these guys.  And with Festivus fast approaching, the urge to bust out my cookie cutters was too strong to fight.

I actually don’t have a recipe for this one, just a method. Just replace half of the butter in whatever sugar cookie recipe you like best (the sort of recipe that makes a good cookie that holds it’s shape when baked) with peanut butter.  I used Williams and Sonoma’s ‘Chocolate Dipped Conversation Hearts’ recipe, it’s a good cookie that tastes a little like shortbread mixed with a sugar cookie.

Chill your dough and roll it out thin, 1/8″-1/4″ and cut out an even number of cookies.  Using a smaller cookie cutter, cut out a window in the center of half the cookies.  This would be a great place to use one of those cute sets of cookie cutters with various sizes of the same shapes.  If you don’t have those, you can cut out a window with a large pastry tip, that’s what I did!

Bake your cookies, but half way through put a spoonful of jam on your solid cookies and finish baking.  Let cool on a rack and gently press the window cookies on to the solid, jammy cookies to make a gooey, peanut butter and jelly sandwich  cookie.  I bet you feel a little bit like a wizard too…

Crespelle di Castagne – Chestnuts roasting on an open fire…

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castagne, chestnut flour, chestnuts, crepe, crepes, crespele, Italian, ricotta, roasted chestnuts, Stuffed, Tuscan, Tuscany, vegetarian

I want to wish everyone in the greater internet area happy holidays; no matter who, what or where you are there’s some sort of solstice-y reason to celebrate, right?

My awesome Mother-in-Law got me some Italian chestnuts at a specialty food shop in her neck of the woods because she figured (quite correctly) I didn’t have any real stores around here and would like them. So, I roasted them up, threw some of them into my coffee grinder to make a bit of chestnut flour and invited my in-laws over for a chestnut-y dinner. We had chestnut crepes, both savory and sweet. I’m so happy they’re both easy going and retired so they don’t mind too much driving to see us up in the mountains.  My in-laws have been so great about including me in their family traditions and celebrations, I really like sharing some of the odd traditions that I’ve collected over the years with them.

Chestnuts are roasted and sold as street food in the cities in Italy in the fall and winter. They also grow in the woods in the hillsides in Tuscany and everyone looks forward to eating chestnuts in the fall time. I learned this recipe for chestnut crepes at my internship in Guamo. The chef got some chestnut flour for his special, fall dishes and had a fun time having me guess what it was by just taste, I had no clue!  In Tuscany they also make a strange sweet and savory, fudge-like treat with chestnut flour, orange rind and rosemary. It’s an acquired taste, I assume. Let’s just say, I vastly prefer making these chestnut crepes instead.

Basic Chestnut Crepes 

If you have a crepe recipe that you love and works great for you, just substitute 1/4 of the flour for chestnut flour, which you may be able to find in Italian specialty stores or you could just grind up your own toasted chestnuts in a spice/coffee grinder.

Serves 4 – both dinner and dessert, cost approx $2.02 for batch or crepe batter

I served this meal with a loaf of bread and it was enough for 4 people, cost approx $1.92 per serving.

Ingredients

• 60 grams chestnut flour ($1? I have no clue what this costs, sorry)
• 150 grams all purpose flour ($.25)
• 2 eggs ($.30)
• 400 ml milk ($.22)
• pinch salt

Whisk everything together until there are very few lumps, strain through a fine mesh strainer and refrigerate for at least an hour and up to overnight.  It’s a very thin batter.  When you’re ready to make crepes, heat a small, non-stick pan over medium heat.  Grease it however you see fit and pour in a small portion of batter.  Quickly swirl the pan around to make a thin crepe.  If this is your maiden voyage on the S.S. crepe, I might suggest watching a video or two first.  It’s not hard to do but it helps to have a good idea before you set sail…

Like so: nice, thin crepes.

Cook your crepes on both sides just to that the batter is cooked, we’re not looking for a lot of browning here.  Let cool for a minute or two and move to a plate for storage.  Make about a million more crepes.

You can go right ahead and fill these little guys or they are happy to wait in the fridge, covered tightly in plastic wrap, for up to one or two days.

Savory Crepe Filling 

Makes enough for 4 servings

• 1 cup ricotta ($.50, I freeze ricotta when it goes on super sale)
• 1 egg ($.15)
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 cup sauteed veggies – I used mushrooms, onion and arugula ($2)

• 2 cups bechamel sauce ($.50)
• 1 cup marinara or ragu ($.50)

Preheat oven to 375 F. Mix up all the ingredients in the first set, and get a baking pan ready, put about half of your sauces on the bottom of the pan.  Put a scoop of filling on a crepe and roll it up gently, place in the prepared pan on top of the sauces.  Fill up all the crepes you want.  Anywhere from 12-20 crepes for 4 people, depending on how full you stuff them.  Top with remaining sauces

Bake at 375F for 20 minutes or so.

Sweet Crepe Filling

Makes 4 servings

• 1 cup ricotta cheese ($.50)
• 1 orange, segmented ($.50)
• 4 Tbs honey, divided use ($.50)
• powdered sugar – for garnish

Preheat oven to 375F.  Mix ricotta, orange slices and 3 Tbs honey.  Fill your crepes and bake 5-10 minutes.  Sprinkle over some powdered sugar and drizzle on the remaining honey.  Serve immediately, yum!

 

Turkey Chili Verde Taquitos – The Thanksgiving Hangover #3

Tags

appetizer, beans, cheese, chili verde, leftover, taquitos, turkey

Hey Y’all!  Here’s a way to gobble up (har har) all those turkey pickin’s you may have in your fridge or freezer.

With all the excitement that football season brings, these are a great appetizer or finger-food dinner for when the game’s on.  These little buggers freeze up great too.  With my recent taquito obsession, I’ve been thinking of these chili verde turkey taquitos since I bought my Thanksgiving birds.

Chili verde pairs really nicely with white meat.  These taquitos aren’t too spicy, the chili verde just plays a the role of great background music in movie, so that your tastebuds can focus of the wonderful shredded turkey, beans and cheese.  Can you tell that I’m quite enamored with taquitos?

See? Beans, cheese and turkey, all wrapped up in chili verde sauce! nom nom

Turkey Chili Verde Taquitos

Makes 50 – cost approx $.11 per taquito

Ingredients

• 2 cups red beans – from 8oz dry beans or maybe 2 cans of beans ($.54)
• 1 cup chili verde sauce – I make this and can it when tomatillos and chilis go on sale for $1 per lb in the summer, but there’s tons of good chili verde sauces and salsa at the store that would be great in these taquitos ($.50)
• 1/2 lb shredded cheese – cheddar or jack would be good options ($1.20)
• 3/4 lb shredded turkey – ($.75)

• 50 corn tortillas ($1.38)
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil or bacon grease – for assembly
• sour cream/salsa/guacamole for dipping ($1)

The first set of ingredients are for the filling, just mix it all together.  Assemble your taquitos and bake at 400F for about 20 minutes or until golden and wonderful.

If you need more detailed instructions on how to assemble the taquitos, check out my earlier post: https://fullbellyfullwallet.wordpress.com/2014/10/30/pulled-pork-taquitos-im-falling-fast/