Comfort (and Convenience) in a Can

Don't get me wrong, I know people are busy. Very busy. I'm pretty busy myself, which makes cooking something decent and nutritious something of a challenge. So I like things that help save me time. Having said that, there are a few convenience foods I don't really understand at all, mostly because it's incredibly simple (and pretty fast!) to make these things yourself. Take balsamic vinaigrette, for instance. It takes 30 seconds to whip up, and all it needs is balsamic, olive oil, salt, and pepper. Maybe some garlic and/or mustard if you feel like it, but that's it. Four ingredients, a few seconds. So why buy it off the shelf, where it's either full of preservatives and unpronounceable ingredients (someone please tell me what xanthum gum is and what it does!) or costs an arm and a leg, and still has shelf stabilizers in it?

The same holds true, for me at lest, of pasta sauce. Unless you get the expensive kinds, chances are you've just bought a jar full of sugar and tomatoes (why most commercial pasta sauces contain sugar, I'll never know. It adds nothing to the flavor, unless you want dessert-y pasta). Pasta sauce takes so little time to make, and it's pretty cheap. You probably have almost all the ingredients lying around your kitchen anyway, if you have a decently stocked pantry. Even if you don't, chances are you have some onion or garlic in your kitchen. So why not put them to good use and make a nice, hearty, old-fashioned bowl of pasta and red sauce tonight?

Basic Pasta Sauce
1 can plain tomato sauce (not a jar--a can of pureed tomatoes. I use Hunt's. Sometimes they contain a little salt and/or herb seasoning. That's fine, as long as there's no sugar.)
1/2 medium onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, diced
5-6 leaves fresh basil or 1T dried
1T fresh oregano or 1 1/2 tsp. dried
1 tsp red pepper flakes (optional)
salt and pepper to taste

In a saucepan, heat 2 T olive oil over medium heat. Add the onion and saute until it starts to get slightly translucent, about 2-3 minutes. Add the garlic and saute another 2 minutes, stirring occasionally to keep the onions and garlic from burning. Turn the heat down a little if necessary.

Add the tomato sauce and stir. Bring the sauce up to a simmer, simmer 3 minutes. Add the herbs, optional pepper flakes, salt, and pepper. Simmer another 2-3 minutes. Taste and adjust seasoning.

At this point, you can either toss this on your favorite pasta, or add cooked meat, sausage, meatballs, seitan--whatever you want. Cook through and serve.

The Question of Leftovers

I love leftovers. Especially the ones that can be easily adapted to completely different meals. Case in point: the leftover roasted chicken and sauteed broccoli rape from Sunday was tossed into our pasta last night, along with a couple of tablespoons of pecorino romano cheese. Dinner in 10 minutes!

But sometimes, leftovers leave me a little stumped. Second case in point: the butternut squash risotto I made last week. Risotto's wonderful stuff (and this was a particularly delicious recipe, you should check it out), but it's hard to know what to do with it if you don't have a microwave. Most of the time, I mix leftover risotto with an egg and form it into little pancakes that I then fry off. They make a delicious side dish. But this time, I thought I'd try something different. I think it was the Joy of Cooking that gave me the idea by providing a recipe for quinoa served in an acorn squash. If you can do it with quinoa, why not risotto that's already cooked? And it just so happened I  had an acorn squash from the farm. So, I tossed a little olive oil and seasoning on it, threw it in a 375 oven for a while, scooped the risotto on top, and warmed it through. The result was delicious--the risotto stayed creamy, and the flavors in it played nicely with the squash. The acorn squash not only made for a pretty presentation, it provided a little more food for both of us,  which we needed, just post-workout. So, here it is:

Squash Stuffed with Risotto
Serves 2

1 acorn squash (or other small, similar squash that can be hollowed out), split lengthwise, seeds removed
Olive oil
Salt and pepper
1-1 1/2 cups cooked risotto

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.

Drizzle olive oil over the cut squash, and season with salt and pepper. Place squash cut side up on a baking sheet and roast in the oven for 30-40 minutes, until a fork easily pierces the flesh.

Scoop risotto into the squash, return squash to oven and roast another 10 minutes, until risotto is warmed through.

Remove from the oven and serve--a nice salad or some green beans goes really well with this.

Shopping, European Style

First I discovered the Plainsboro Asian Market, with its amazing selection of highly affordable fish, produce, and specialty ingredients that were hard to find elsewhere. Then Trader Joe's opened, and there was much rejoicing. And now, I have completed my foodie trifecta with my exploration of the Amish Market in Kingston. I am now a very happy girl.

It used to be that I would haul myself off to the local Wegman's every week to do all the food shopping in one go, but recently, I've adopted a more old fashioned--perhaps you could say more European--method of shopping: going to a few different places to get the food where it's best and/or cheapest. I've never loved my local Wegman's. I've tried. I've tried really hard, but I don't love it. It's hideously crowded almost all the time, I've found rotting food in a couple of sections one too many times, and most of the workers don't seem all that happy to be there. Plus, they have major stocking problems, which makes it hard for me to plan any kind of menu or make a list I can rely on. I can count on one hand the number of times in the last 3 years I've gone there and haven't been frustrated in my quest for something relatively basic, like ground lamb or quinoa or cereal. Is Shredded Wheat 'n Bran that popular they can't keep it on their shelves? I don't buy it.

So why did I continue shopping there for so long? Well, unfortunately, the alternatives were...not great. Wegman's does do some things well, like offer loose teas (when the tins aren't empty, which happens more often than not) and their bakery section is quite good. Also good: their organic/natural section. And their prices were lower than a lot of other places. The only other grocery store in the immediate area had higher prices and an organics section that would have been laughable if it wasn't so sad. It was one shelf jammed, oddly, in between magazines and peanut butter. So, I resigned myself to the Wegman's experience.

But then something happened--I moved, and I discovered the Asian market not ten minutes from my doorstep. So, now I no longer had to go to Wegman's for fish and produce--yay! And right near the Asian market was a SuperFresh, which is smaller than Wegman's (read--less cavernous), and much less crowded. Not long after I started shopping there, Trader Joe's opened. I haven't been to Wegman's since.

The one problem is procuring good meat. Trader Joe's has it, but it's a bit pricy, and most of its preseasoned and marinated, which I don't care for. SuperFresh's meat selection--at least its chicken--was heavy on Perdue. But there was that Amish market up the road in Kingston... So, I hopped in the Mini and headed up there as soon as I had a free day, which happened to be this past Saturday. The freezer was starting to get a bit bare--time for a meat stockup.

About an hour later, I staggered out with enough meat to keep us (and probably some dinner guests) going for at least a month. For $50. $50! Not bad at all, really, considering I got a pork loin, ground lamb, a whole chicken, some Italian chicken sausage, spicy horseradish mustard, bacon, porkchops, pork cubes, and beef stewing meat. There's probably something I'm forgetting, but not a bad deal, overall, when you think about it. Especially since that chicken, which appeared on our dinner table Sunday and fed us and two friends, would also provide some chicken stock when boiled down. That market is great--there's a stall for everything, although I wouldn't go for the seafood. Deli meats; everything you could possibly imagine from a cow, lamb, or pig; poultry you wouldn't believe (including ducks and rabbits!); baked goods; dairy; eggs; preserves; fruits and vegetables--it's all there. Some prices are a bit steep, although you shouldn't be surprised at the ones that are (they're not growing oranges on the farms in Pennsylvania Dutch country, after all), but the meat prices are quite reasonable, and, if the chicken and the sausage are anything to go by, it's quite delicious as well.

This is what I do now--shop here and there, wherever I find what I want or need, and you know what? It's started saving me money. I'm not wandering the aisles of some giant supermarket, trying to find where they keep the hummus, being tempted by things as I pass. I have a targeted reason for going to each of the places where I now shop, which makes it faster and easier. Plus, as far as the Amish market goes, I actually feel like I'm supporting people, not a corporation, and I can get on board with that.

In Praise of Trader Joe's

Man, where has this place been all my life?

The much-anticipated Trader Joe's finally opened in Princeton, and I dragged A. there opening weekend to see what all the fuss was about. About an hour later, we staggered out, toting delicious sounding groceries we probably didn't need, grinning like idiots (me particularly), because it looks like I've finally found a way to move Wegman's out of my life completely (it's not that I hate Wegman's, really. Most of them are good, but not the one in Princeton. I've had too many frustrating experiences there.)

I think one of the best things about Trader Joe's is that it proves that healthy, organic food can actually be affordable. I know, I was shocked too. Organic whole wheat pasta for $1.29. Rolls of organic polenta for less than $3. Organic, fair trade coffee for $7.99 (about the same as the non-organic, non-fair-trade coffee elsewhere. And it's all good, too! So why is all this stuff so expensive everywhere else?

I try to eat healthy, like many people. I've been trying to work organic food into our diet as much as possible, but in a lot of cases, the price difference is just too high to justify the purchase. When you're looking at a $1 box of regular pasta and then a $4 box of organic, or whole wheat pasta (to get both in one is usually $5 a box, at least in the places I've checked out) well, it's hard to justify that week after week. It just adds up, and we're on a budget just like everyone else. So, we stick to the organic milk and free-range eggs and hope for the best. But now, hopefully, I can have my organic cake and eat it too. We now have some lovely organic wild blueberries in our freezer I'm hoping to work into some pancakes this morning, as well as the aforementioned pastas, a giant bag of large shrimp, and a package of highly addictive honey-coated plantain chips. Sooooo gooood! If I had to voice one complaint, it would be that the majority of their cereals (at least the ones with a decent amount of protein in them) are very high in sugar. At least it's not high-fructose corn syrup sugar (see, it doesn't have to be in everything!) but sugar nonetheless. I had to search high and low for one with more than 5 grams of protein and less than 12 grams of sugar. But the one I found was still cheaper than what I'd been buying elsewhere.

One more thing I like about this place: it's pleasant. It's not cavernous, the employees seem pretty chipper, and it plays homage to the area where it's located. The checkout aisles are all named after major roads in the Princeton area, and the mural on the walls depicts such Princetonite luminaries as Albert Einstein shopping there. Cutesy, yes, but I like to think that even Einstein would approve of Trader Joe's.

A (Culinary) Salute to Fall

Fall has officially arrived, and I'm doing a little dance of glee even as my coworkers bemoan the sudden downturn in temperature. I'm a fall baby, so maybe that's why I love it so much, or maybe it's the fact that I live in an area that wears fall so beautifully. Either way, the second that crisp edge enters the air, the leaves start changing, and the markets start showing mums, apples, and pumpkins, I get all warm and fuzzy.

The farm's gotten into the swing of things by putting out the first batch of pumpkins, and I gleefully picked one up, thinking: Pumpkin White Bean Stew!

This stew is one of my mother's specialties, and she used to make it for me on Halloween. Believe me, there's nothing quite like coming in from trick or treating, chilled and tired, and being served up a nice bowl of festively orange stew with a side of roasted pumpkin seeds. Bliss!

Pumpkin-White-Bean Stew
1 medium-size pumpkin (try to get one from a farm or farmers' market. They have more flavor than the ones at the grocery store)
5-6 sage leaves
5 stems of thyme
Olive oil
1/2 onion, diced
3/4 tsp cumin seeds
1 clove garlic, diced
1 cup white beans, soaked overnight, or two cans, rinsed
3 1/2 + 1 1/4 cup chicken or vegetable stock, separated 
2 tsp brown sugar
3/4-1 tsp chili powder

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees

Cut the pumpkin into fourths and scrape out all the seeds and guts. Rinse the seeds well and set them aside. Arrange the pumpkin on a baking sheet

Drizzle a tablespoon or two of olive oil over the pumpkin. Cut up the sage leaves and remove the thyme from the stems. Sprinkle both over the pumpkin quarters and season.

Roast the pumpkin 20-25 minutes, until the herbs become fragrant and the flesh just starts to roast. Let cool until you can handle it without burning yourself.

Separate the flesh from the skin of the pumpkin and cut into large dice. Put a quarter of the dice in a saucepan with the 1 1/4 cups of stock and boil until the pumpkin is tender. Puree in a blender and set aside.

Saute the onion, cumin seeds, and garlic in olive oil in a large pot for 3-5 minutes, until the onion starts to get translucent. Add the remaining pumpkin and stock, the brown sugar, and the chili powder. Bring to a boil, lower the heat, cover, and simmer about 15 minutes. Add the soaked beans, recover, and simmer another 10-15 minutes, until beans and pumpkin are tender.

Add in the pureed pumpkin. Taste and adjust seasonings. If you like it sweeter, add more brown sugar or a bit of honey. If you like heat, more chili powder. You get the idea.

**Cook's note: one of the nice things about this recipe is its adaptability. It's great with classic herbs, like sage and thyme, or curry spices, which is what my mother used a lot. Feel free to experiment--chances are, you'll be glad you did.