This soup would have been extra fabulous with a bit of grated pecorino romano or parmegiano reggiano on top, but we didn't have any.

Since this was an improvised dish, measurements are highly approximate.

The Ingredients

• ~1 tbsp. olive oil


• 4-5 shallots, peeled and thinly sliced


• 3 stalks celery, sliced


• 5 medium carrots, peeled and sliced


• 1/3 cup dry white vermouth


• 2 bay leaves


• a generous palmful of dried sage


• a somewhat less generous palmful of herbes de Provence


• a sprinkling of fennel seed (optional - I love fennel, and tend to use it at the slightest excuse. Mr. Spaceling would be just as happy if I left it out next time.)


• 3 cups chicken broth


• 1 can chick peas, rinsed and drained


• 1 can butter beans, rinsed and drained


• a handful of chopped fresh dill leaves


• 2 large spoonfuls of bottled garlic pesto

The Ingredients

• 5 cups chicken broth
• 1 carrot, sliced
• 1 stick celery, thinly sliced
• 1/2 cup rice, orzo, or bulgur
• 6 chicken thighs, skin removed
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp. lemon zest
• 3 tbsp. lemon juice, plus more to taste (this was the juice from about 2 and a half small lemons)
• salt and pepper to taste
• a handful of chopped fresh dill for garnish

First, the granola: 18 Rabbits Veritas granola, containing hazelnuts, walnuts, and cacao nibs. The perfect way to realize that desire to eat chocolate for breakfast while still having something sort of healthy.

Second, the cheese: a Spanish blue cheese called Valdeon. It's very intensely "blue" flavored without being excessively stinky or sharp on the tongue. The woman at the cheese counter at Whole Foods described it as a blue cheese that you could just slice up and eat in chunks. I put it in a salad with spinach, black beans, tomatoes, red onion, avocado, lemon juice and olive oil, and it was good.

This recipe involves marinating the fish briefly, then broiling.

The Ingredients

• ~ 2 lb. black cod filets
• 2 tbsp. soy sauce
• 1 tbps. lime juice
• 1 tbsp. dry sherry
• 1 tsp. sesame oil
• 1 tsp. minced garlic
• salt and pepper to taste

So, I was intrigued to come across the claim by Jack Bishop, in his A Year in a Vegetarian Kitchen that you can cook polenta with little stirring if you cook it covered, over low heat. I tried it, and it works. And produces a noticeably nicer polenta than the instant or precooked stuff.

The Ingredients

• 1 quart water
• salt
• 1 cup cornmeal (I used Bob's RedMill medium ground. Needless to say, good cornmeal = better polenta)
• 2 tbsp. of butter

This recipe comes from Mark Bittman's The Best Recipes in the World. It comes fairly close to duplicating an eggplant dish that I used to get at a short-lived Afghan restaurant in Berkeley. Served with a cucumber salad and some pita bread, it makes a quite satisfying meal.

The Ingredients

• 2 lb. eggplant, peeled if desired, and cut into ~1 inch cubes
• 2 bell peppers, cored, seeded, and cut into thin strips (I used 1 red and 1 green pepper)
• 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil, plus an additional tablespoon of olive oil
• At least one tablespoon of minced garlic
• 1 cup plain yogurt (I used lowfat yogurt)
• salt and pepper to taste
• (Optional) fresh chopped parsley, for garnish

A really nice thing about this recipe is that if you have all your ingredients prepped, and start heating the skillet at about the same time you start preheating the broiler, it takes almost exactly the same amount of time as it takes to broil steaks to medium-rare and rest them. You can also throw together a very simple green salad at the same time, and you've got a complete dinner in under 30 minutes.

The use of sherry was inspired by my having bought a bottle to make Spanish Daube last weekend, and wondering how sherry would complement other foods. I might do an experiment with different kinds of booze (sherry, brandy, wine, vermouth, etc.) to see how each complements the mushrooms. Mr. Spaceling has valiantly volunteered to taste test.

The Ingredients

• olive oil
• butter
• about 1 tsp. fresh thyme
• 1 clove fresh garlic, minced (I might increase the garlic next time)
• 1 lb. mushrooms, washed, trimmed, and sliced into 1/4 inch thick slices
• a splash of Worcestershire sauce
• 1/4 cup dry (or at least dry-ish) sherry

The recipe calls for braising the meat for 2 hours. I found that the beef was not quite perfectly tender in the center, so I think I'd go for slightly longer braising, or cut the roast into smaller chunks to help it braise through more.

The Ingredients

• Cooking spray
• 3 lbs. bottom round roast, trimmed
• 2 cups thinly vertically sliced yellow onion (or about 1 medium onion)
• 3/4 cup thinly sliced bottled roasted red pepper
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 tsp. salt (I left this out)
• 1 tsp. dried thyme
• 1/2 tsp. Spanish smoked paprika
• 1/2 tsp. fennel seeds
• 1/2 tsp. black pepper (I also left this out, because my pepper mill has broken.)
• 1/4 tsp. saffron threads
• 1 cup dry sherry (I was a little dubious about the $5.99 bottle of California sherry that I bought at the supermarket, but then I reasoned that no one is going to dump an entire cup of good amontillado into their pot roast. It worked fine. Just don't buy "cooking" sherry.)
• 1/4 tsp. hot pepper sauce (I used Tabasco)
• 2 cups beef broth
• 1.5 cups frozen green peas, thawed
• a handful of chopped fresh parsley
• 1 tbsp. sherry vinegar
• 1 tbsp. cornstarch
• 1 tbsp. water

The Ingredients

• 3 slices bacon, cut into thin strips
• 1 large onion, diced
• 1 red pepper, diced
• 1 yellow pepper, diced
• 2 large carrots, peeled and cut into rounds
• 1 cup farro, semipearled (pearled or semipearled barley would probably be a good substitute. You could also probably use wheatberries, but you'd have to simmer the stew longer.)
• 1.5 cups lentils (I used 1/2 cup of French green lentils and 1 cup of brown lentils.)
• 1/2 cup dry white wine
• 1 tsp. celery seed (I used this because I bought some for an ill-fated recipe I tried last week, and now I'm not sure what to do with it. It seems to add a mild celery flavor, so throwing it into a broth made sense.)
• 1 tsp. thyme
• 1.5 tsp. oregano
• 1/2 tsp. Hungarian hot paprika (this is optional - I felt like the stew needed just a little kick. You could probably substitute red pepper flakes or a pinch of cayenne.)
• 1 15 oz. can diced tomatoes w/juice
• 6 cups of broth or water (I used 1 cup of beef broth, 2 cups of chicken broth, and 3 cups water, because I had opened tetrapaks of broth in the fridge to use up.)
• 1 bay leaf

Braising really ought to be done in a proper dutch oven. I only have a biggish soup pot, which is a bit too tall. I improvised by putting a layer of aluminum foil just over the surface of the stew, and then putting the lid on the top of the pot. It seemed to work fine. I certainly had no complaints about how the dish came out.

We folded the beef and peppers into warm tortillas, and then ate the broth with a spoon.

The Ingredients

• 2 1 lb. flank steaks, trimmed (I actually used one 1.75 lb. flank steak, cut into two pieces.)
• 3 cups thinly vertically sliced red onion (I used 1 red onion and 1 white onion. I have no idea why vertical slicing is supposed to be important.)
• 2 cups red bell pepper strips (about 2 peppers)
• 2 cups green bell pepper strips (about 2 peppers)(the green peppers at the market today looked a little iffy, so I used yellow peppers. This was pretty, but the green peppers would have added a little greenish bite.)
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 6 tablespoons thinly sliced pitted green olives
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. dried oregano
• 1 tsp. ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp. dried rosemary, crushed
• 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
• 6 tbsp. sherry vinegar
• 3 cups fat-free, less-sodium beef broth
• 1 tbsp. tomato paste
• 2 bay leaves
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro

Ingredients

• ~1 tbsp. peanut oil
• 1 medium onion, diced
• 1 thumb-sized piece of ginger, peeled and cut into thin slivers
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 small bunch carrots, chopped
• 4 stalks celery, chopped
• ~ 1 lb. turnips, peeled and cut into bite-sized pieces
• 1 bay leaf
• ~3/4 teaspoon Chinese five-spice powder
• 4 cups chicken broth
• 1 lb. boneless, skinless chicken thighs
• soy sauce and lime juice, to taste

Ingredients

• 1 lb. eggplant
• 3/4 lb. zucchini
• olive oil
• ground coriander, cumin, and smoked paprika
• juice of one lemon
• salt and pepper to taste

Steps

1. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.
2. Cut the zucchini into half-inch thick rounds. (I used small, relatively thin zucchini - if you're using big ones, you might want to cut the rounds into half moons.)
3. Cut the eggplant into pieces roughly the same size as the zucchini rounds.
4. Put the eggplant and zucchini pieces into a roasting pan or baking dish. Sprinkle fairly liberally with salt and drizzle with olive oil. Dust with coriander, cumin, and paprika, tossing to coat.
5. Roast in the oven for about 30 minutes, stirring a couple of times, until the vegetables are tender and just a little bit browned on the edges.
6. Put the vegetables into a bowl, toss with lemon juice and additional olive oil to taste, and season with salt and pepper.

Serves 2. (Next time I'm making a bigger batch.) I served with pita bread, tzatziki sauce, and a gigandes bean salad.

My cousin very sensibly suggested that I try roasting the stuff.

I decided to stack the deck even further by adding some Spanish smoked paprika. The result? Cauliflower cheerfully consumed by Mr. Spaceling. (I decided to try cauliflower first because it is not green and therefore is less scary.)

I didn't measure anything in this recipe, so take the quantities given as highly approximate.

Roden described one of her favorite recipes for kibbeh, in which ground lamb is mixed with grated onion and grilled. I thought the grated onion sounded like a great touch for adding flavor and moistness. I tried out the idea in some lamb burgers I made last night, and they were great. (I'm also going to try this the next time I make turkey burgers, which are very difficult to keep moist.)

Recipe for lamb burgers follows:

Since I started trying to eat a lower glycemic-index diet, enormous bowls of rice don't feature in my meals as much, and I haven't ventured into many Korean restaurants lately. Which is a shame, because I've been missing out on my new favorite Korean dish: sun du bu.

Sun du bu (which apparently means "soft tofu") is a hearty soup made with, well, soft tofu. I tried it this evening at the slightly oddly named Tofu & Box restaurant on N. First St. in San Jose. They have 4 kinds of sun du bu: seafood, mushroom, vegetable, and one other that I forget (probably some kind o meat?). I had the vegetable (carrots, zucchini, and onion), medium spicy.