Pasta with Shell Beans and Red Onion (FM)

• Salt
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 large red onions, halved and thinly sliced
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• Black pepper
• 3 cups fresh shell beans (about 3 pounds in their pods), or use frozen
• 1 cup white win, stock, or water
• 1 tablespoon fresh thyme, or 1 teaspoon dried [I used dried]
• 8 ounces any pasta, preferably whole wheat
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Mise en place.

Two notes:

1) Obviously I went with frozen baby lima beans.  How unfabulous...

2) My bota box started trickling when I was grabbing the white wine.  So my bright idea was to tilt it and then keep pouring, thinking I'll just drink the rest of this 3-month old box.  There was probably 3 cups of wine left in it total.

After glugging down 4 ounces, I thought WTF and tossed the rest.  Oh well, it's probably a good idea to start anew next time.

Add onions and garlic to oil that's been sitting over medium heat.  Sprinkle with salt and pepper and cook until everything begins to soften.

Add shell beans, wine, and thyme.  Partially cover and simmer until beans are tender and onions are starting to dissolve.

Toss pasta with beans and onions.  Sprinkle with Parmesan and toss again.

Another great dish, but seriously, I need to start cooking with meat again.  Including the dish I'll be cooking tonight, this will make five vegetarian dishes in a row.

Edamame and Aspragus Stir-Fry with Rice (FM)

• 1 pound asparagus, peeled if thick, cut into 2-inch lengths
• Salt
• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• 1 tablespoon minced ginger
• 1 small dried hot red chile (like Thai), or pinch of red chile flakes, or to taste
• 3 cups fresh or frozen edamame, thawed if you have time
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce, or to taste
• 2 cups cooked brown rice
• Chopped scallions, for garnish

Mise en place.

Heat skillet over high heat for 3 to 4 minutes.  Add oil, then the asparagus.  Cook, stirring, for about a minute.

Add aromatics and cook until asparagus is dry and beginning to brown.

Stir in edamame, soy sauce, and a small splash of water.  Cook until asparagus and edamame are tender.

Add rice and fish out chile (I used two since well....  I could've used more.).  Season and garnish with scallions.
A really nice dish as most of these Food Matters recipes seem to produce.  Bittman suggests that quinoa or steel-cut oats would work well in this as well.  The latter intrigues me more.

I was actually planning on cooking Teriyaki Noodles with Asparagus and Edamame, but the index led me astray.

Stir-Fried Bok Choy and Daikon with Crisp Tofu (FM)

• 1 head bok choy (about 1 1/2 pounds)
• 4 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 block firm tofu (about 1 pound), cut into 1/4 inch slices and patted dry
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• 1 tablespoon minced ginger
• 1 or 2 fresh hot chiles (like jalapeno or Thai), seeded and minced
• 8 ounces daikon radish, cut into 1/4 inch coins
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce, or to taste
• Black pepper

Mise en place.  Bok choy is separated with the stems cut into 1-inch pieces and the leaves cut into wide ribbons.

Pan-frying the tofu.

Cook the onion, garlic, ginger, and chile for about 1 minute over medium-high heat.

Add daikon and bok choy stems until they begin to lose their crunch.

Add leaves and about 1/2 cup water.  Cook until stems and radish are both fully tender.  Daikon will generally turn translucent at this point.

Return tofu to pan, stir in soy sauce, and sprinkle with black pepper.

Very straightforwardly Asian, one of those occasional dishes that remind me of the food I ate growing up.  Because I think soy sauce, garlic, and ginger was probably the main backbone of those stir-fries.  I really enjoy bok choy but don't cook it much.  I'm not sure I've ever dealt with it before.
The first head wilted dramatically after 48 hours in the fridge.  Even though the plastic-wrapped packages of baby bokchok I eventually used were labelled with a sell-by date of 12/21.

Anyway, I really enjoyed the dish.  I used a habanero chile even though it's a little out of place.

Super-Simple Mixed Rice, a Zillion Ways (FM)

• 1/4  cup dried porcini mushrooms
• Hot water as needed
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 3/4 cup short-grain brown rice
• 1 onion, chopped
• Salt and black pepper
• 1 1/2 cups chopped tomatoes (canned are fine; include their juice)
• 2 cup cooked or canned cannellini beans, drained
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh basil or parsley, plus more for garnish
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese, optional

Mise en place.  The mushrooms are soaking in hot water to soften.

Cook rice in hot oil until it is shiny and a little translucent.

Add onion, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and cook until onion is softened.

Add water to cover by 1/2 inch and simmer until rice starts to become tender, 10 minutes.

I think maybe I added too much water...

Since both the porcini soaking liquid and juice from the canned tomatoes both wind up in here.

Cook for another 10 minutes.

When the rice is tender but still retains some bite on the inside, add beans and cook until the mixture is no longer soupy.  Inevitably for me, the rice was a bit too blown-out by that point.  Stir in basil and cheese and adjust seasoning.
The dish itself has a pretty decent flavor profile.  Probably should've been more careful with the liquid.

Chicken with Nuts and Raisins (BRW)

• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1 chicken, 3 to 4 pounds, cut into serving pieces, or 2 1/2 to 3 pounds chicken parts, trimmed of excess fat [chicken thighs obvs]
• Salt and black pepper to taste
• 4 garlic cloves, peeled and lightly smashed
• 1 large onion, sliced
• 1 cup dry white wine
• 1 cup walnuts or hazelnuts, roughly chopped [walnuts pulsed in the food processor]
• 1 cup raisins or currants [currants are more interesting]
• Fresh lemon juice to taste [high-enough-quality bottled stuff is the way I usually go]

Brown chicken over medium high heat.  Halfway through this process, add the garlic.

Mise en place.

Cook onions until softened and they begin to color.  The garlic is really gone by this time, charred and black.

Add the wine and let it bubble away for a minute or so.

Add the nuts and currants.  Return the chicken, skin-side up, cover, and cook over low until chicken is done, 10-15 minutes.

Adjust seasoning with lemon juice, salt, and pepper as necessary.

Apparently this dish is made anywhere nuts and raisins are grown in this world.  And with good reason.
As with the last dish, this one is very straightforward in terms of ingredients.  Served over brown rice, it is quite satisfying.

Pasta with Carmelized Fennel and Onion with Sausage (FM)

• Salt
• 3 large or 4 medium fennel bulbs, cored and sliced
• 1 large onion, halved and thinly sliced
• Black pepper
• 4 tablespoons olive oil
• 8 ounces any pasta, preferably whole wheat
• 1/2 cup white wine, optional
• 8 ounces hot or sweet Italian sausage

Mise en place.

Cook sausage in 1 tablespoon of oil over medium-high heat until nicely browned.

Cook onion and fennel over medium-low heat, stirring every 5 minutes until the vegetables have given up their liquid and are almost sticking to the pan.  This should probably take you a good half hour.

Later you add two more tablespoons of olive oil, raise the heat to medium-high and try to brown this stuff.  Bittman suggests that you can do the last part in 5-10 minutes.  I'm sure I was at it for a bit longer but couldn't bring myself to try for "nicely browned."

Pretty satisfying dish with just a handful of ingredients.  Crazy how much the fennel reduced in volume after all that caramelizing makes sense.
The main recipe does not include sausage, but I don't think I would've had as positive an experience if I had left out the hot Italian sausage I used.  There's even a sidebar on the page about adding small amounts of meat to pasta sauces from the beginning.

Rendang (BRW)

• 2 hot dried red chiles [I got a big ass bag of chile de arbol. Plus I used 5 of them.  If Bittman says he's being conservative, I thought I might as well double that plus one.  I could've used more.]
• 3 garlic cloves, peeled
• 3 shallots, peeled
• One 1-inch piece fresh ginger or galangal, peeled and roughly chopped [I'm not fancy enough to have galangal lying around]
• 1 teaspoon ground turmeric [I did see fresh turmeric at Market Basket last weekend and I'm intrigued especially since Modernist Cuisine at Home give a good metric to sub for the powdered stuff.  Alas, not this time around.]
• 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
• 1 teaspoon coriander seeds
• 2 tablespoons tamarind paste, or the juice and zest of 2 limes [I'm also sadly not fancy enough for tamarind paste either]
• 2 tablespoons corn, grapeseed, or other neutral oil
• 1 pound boneless beef, preferably chuck, cut into 1-inch cubes
• 1 cup coconut milk, homemade [right...] or canned
• Salt to taste

Process the first 8 ingredients until everything is minced.  I guess if you were adding tamarind paste, you'd hold off until everything else was processed.

Mise en place.

Heat oil over medium-high heat.  Add spice paste and cook until fragrant.

Add beef and cook until browned and covered with the sauce.  However,  I'll own up to probably not getting much browning action going on.

Pour in coconut milk, cover, and simmer until the sauce dries out, about 1 hour.

The sauce really wasn't all the dry by the time I stopped.  I don't know if I stopped because I was hungry or merely because I was running out of time.
I've heard people rave about rendang on Top Chef, but I didn't find this dish to be all that distinctive from any old curry.  Obviously, I will have to find a way more complex, bitching recipe for this someday.

Stir-Fried Chicken with Creamed Corn (BRW)

• 1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts or thighs, cut into roughly 1-inch chunks [Given the option, I never go for white meat]
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon dark sesame oil
• 1 tablespoon Shaoxing wine, dry sherry, or white wine [Might as well use sherry.  I don't think I've gotten around to getting Shaoxing wine yet.  Odd that it suggests white wine as well.  I don't see that much.]
• 2 tablespoons peanut or neutral oil, like corn or grapeseed
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• 1 tablespoon peeled and minced fresh ginger
• 1 small fresh chile, stemmed, seeded, and mince or hot red pepper flakes to taste
• One 15-ounce can creamed corn
• 1 cup fresh, frozen, or canned corn kernels
• Chopped fresh cilantro leaves for garnish

Mise en place.  Yeah, that is literally a can of creamed corn.  Mark Bittman leads me to think that this is a fairly popular dish in Hong Kong.

Chicken marinates in the soy sauce, sesame oil, and wine while other ingredients are prepped.

Cook chicken undisturbed in oil over high heat undisturbed for about 2 minutes until the bottom browns (sort of).  Stir once or twice and cook for another couple of minutes.

Turn the heat down to medium low, add the aromatics, and stir.

Fifteen seconds later add the corn.  Cook until heated through.

Hey, I can't say that this dish isn't quite tasty, but cracking open a can of creamed corn and using that as the general basis of a "home-cooked" dish doesn't really suit my tastes anymore.  It all kind of feels a little gross, but I'm glad I gave this a shot.
Frozen dinners and those pot pies in those yellow boxes are still totally good, but I can only imagine the ingredient list for creamed corn.