Indian Tofu with Spinach

Ok, it may not be the prettiest thing you'll ever eat, but in my eyes this dish is the holy trinity of recipes.
It's fast.
It's healthy.
It's phenomenally delicious.

Adapted from the latest New York Times' Recipes for Health column (the entire newspaper has gone spinach-mad in the last week or so), this recipe has immediately become my favorite lunch and/or dinner. It's a one-pot dish that makes a fairly good stab at imitating some high class curries.
And did I mention it's good for you? Sure, you can add the authentic Indian paneer if you choose, but extra firm tofu certainly does the trick for me. Stir-fried for about 3 minutes or so, it gives just enough of a protein base to the dish to make it a satisfying main. Although Martha Schulman insists you should have it on top of noodles or something.
Bah.
Eat it on its own. And think of how much glorious iron you're getting from all the spinach you've eaten (I may use a bag of spinach just for myself...). You'll feel like Popeye afterwards.
Also, Schulman insists on using "drained yogurt" for this. It's completely unnecessary. I used low fat Greek yogurt and was happy as a clam.

Serves 4 as a main dish

Ingredients

3/4 pound firm tofu, cut into 1-inch cubes (remember to drain and pat dry the tofu. The drier you make the tofu, the more it will hold its shape in the frying pan.)

2 tablespoons canola oil

1/2 cup finely chopped shallot or red onion (I recommend using a whole red onion)

4 lengthwise slices peeled fresh ginger (2 inches long, 1 inch wide, 1/8 inch thick), coarsely chopped

1 teaspoon cumin seeds

1/2 fresh red chile, chopped

2 whole dried red chilies, like Thai, cayenne or arbol

1 tablespoon coriander seeds, ground

Salt to taste

1/4 teaspoon cayenne

1/4 teaspoon ground turmeric

2-3 cardamom pods

1 1/2 pounds fresh spinach, stems trimmed at the end and washed in 2 changes of water, or 12 ounces baby spinach, rinsed

1/2 cup low-fat Greek yogurt

1/4 teaspoon cornstarch

Method

Drain the tofu on paper towels. Heat 1 tablespoon of the oil over medium-high heat in a wok or a large, heavy lidded skillet and add the tofu. Stir-fry until golden brown and remove from the heat.

Heat the remaining oil over medium-high heat in a wok or skillet and add the cumin seeds, and both the fresh and dried chilies. Cook, stirring, for about 15 seconds, or until the spices are fragrant and reddish-brown. Add the onion and ginger and stir-fry until it is lightly browned, about 3 minutes. Add the coriander, salt, cayenne, cardamom pods, and turmeric, stir for about 10 seconds and add the spinach in batches, adding the next batch after the first batch wilts and stirring and scraping the bottom of the pan to deglaze.

Stir in the tofu, cover, reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 2 to 3 minutes, until the spinach is uniformly wilted and the tofu is warmed through.

Whisk the cornstarch into the yogurt. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the yogurt.

African Sweet Potato and Peanut Soup

This recipe originally made its debut during the 2011 Turducken Extravaganza (about which, more later). We were in desperate need of a sweet potato recipe, but I was unwilling to do the same-old sweet potato casserole, complete with brown sugar or marshmallows. Now, don't get me wrong, I love sweet potato casserole, but with the thousands of courses and pot luck dishes we had that night, the casserole would have been lost in the shuffle. So we needed a new way to put the traditional ingredient in the Thanksgiving dinner.

And soup was the perfect answer. It started off the meal with a neo-traditional punch (there's a great smokiness to this recipe. Not hot, but a nice warmth) and it let everyone in the room know we meant business. And it was gobbled up. Literally. The soup went in about 5 minutes flat, an indication of a crowd pleaser if ever there was one.

Now, I prefer this soup with a nice hearty garnish of cilantro/coriander, but I know how some people feel about the stuff. Taking that into consideration, the soup does just fine with a garnish of peanuts, giving it a great texture.

Also, don't worry if you can't find unsalted dry roasted peanuts. The first time I made this recipe, I searched high and low for them in vain. I eventually relented and bought some salted peanuts, fearing that my soup would resemble a salt lick. But never fear! As long as you decrease the salt you add alongside the vegetables when cooking, your soup should remain thankfully un-salt licked.

Serves 6

Ingredients
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 large onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons minced fresh ginger root
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 1/2 teaspoons ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 pinch ground cloves
3 medium tomatoes, chopped
2 pounds sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped (feel free to add more if you want a more sweet potato taste to the soup)
1 carrot, peeled and chopped
4 1/2 cups water
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup chopped, unsalted dry-roasted peanuts (plus more for garnish)
1 pinch cayenne pepper
3 tablespoons creamy peanut butter
1 bunch chopped fresh cilantro

Method
Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Saute the onion 10 minutes, until lightly browned. Mix in the garlic, ginger, cumin, coriander, cinnamon, and cloves. Stir in the tomatoes, sweet potatoes, and carrot, and continue to cook and stir about 5 minutes.

Pour water into the saucepan, and season the mixture with salt. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer 30 minutes.

Remove the soup mixture from heat. In a food processor or blender, blend the soup and peanuts until almost smooth. Season with cayenne pepper. Return to the saucepan. Whisk in the peanut butter, and cook until heated through.

Serve warm topped with fresh cilantro and some chopped peanuts.

Beet, Orange, and Black Olive Salad

Yes, yes, I know. This is an unusual flavor combination. If I saw this item on a restaurant menu, I'd think "how bizarre" and order something far more prosaic, like a Caesar or Cobb, or some other salad named after someone.

But I found myself in an increasingly common situation. The need to use up the plethora of vegetables that arrive in the weekly box. My parents have jumped on the proverbial vegetable box band wagon and now, like my own house, they take each week's box as a challenge. A challenge to use up the sometimes bizarre varieties of fruits and vegetables that arrive on their doorstep every Friday morning, delivered by a veritable vegetable Santa.

And this week? It was beets. Beets and oranges. Now, oranges, sure. Everyone can use oranges one way or another. But beets present a different kind of challenge. And beets and oranges together? Madness. Surely.

But trust Yotam to not only face the beet and orange issue head-on, but also throw another unusual item into the mix: black olives. In his preface to this recipe, he makes some claim about the wonderful blend between the sweetness of the oranges and the spiciness of the olives. I thought this was all blather, until I made the salad. And bizarrely, he was right. Eating the olive right after the orange and beet highlighted the special spiciness of Kalamata olives, balancing it perfectly with the citrus. And, again, I had to bow to those more knowledgeable than myself.

Try it, I dare you. You might actually like it.

Serves 2 generously

Ingredients
5 small or 2 large beets
2 oranges
1 bunch chard (or 1 Treviso or red chicory)
1/2 small red onion, thinly sliced
3 tbsp chopped parsley
5 tbsp black olives, pitted and halved (try to find Greek black olives of the dry and wrinkled variety)
3 tbsp canola oil
1 tsp orange flavoring (optional or orange flower water)
1 1/2 tbsp red wine vinegar
salt and black pepper

Method
Preheat oven to 400 F. Place the beets in a roasting tin unpeeled and pop them into the oven for an hour to an hour and a half, until they are soft when prodded with a knife. Once tender, remove them from the oven and let them cool. Once cool, peel the beets and then cut each beet into wedges about 1 inch thick. Place the beets in a mixing bowl.

Take the oranges and use a small sharp knife to trim off their tops and bases. Now cut down the sides of the oranges, following their natural curves, to remove the skin and white pith. Over a small bowl, remove the segments from the oranges by slicing between the membranes. Transfer the segments and juice to the bowl with the beets; discard the membrane.

Cut the chard into bite-size pieces (or, if using the chicory, slice it vertically into 1 inch thick slices).

Finally, add the remaining ingredients and toss everything together gently. Taste and adjust seasonings and serve.

Roasted Butternut Squash with sweet spices, lime and green chile

All things considered, butternut squash is pretty forgiving. You can do almost anything to the humble gourd and it'll stand up and take the flavors without blinking an eye. Over the years I've found thousands of ways to prepare butternut squash (baked, roasted, broiled, grilled, raw, braised...), but props must go once again to Yotam Ottolenghi's Plenty for introducing me to yet another butternut squash flavor combination. Limes? Yogurt? Tahini? With squash? Lead on, Yotam.

The preparation of the butternut squash itself is pretty basic, thinly sliced and baked in the oven at high temperatures. What takes this dish into the realm of the unusual is the marinade of cardamom and allspice rubbed on the squash and then the interesting yogurt and tahini dressing the recipe calls for. Oh, and throw in some limes and chiles just for good measure.

But all dubious expectations aside, the dish not only looks pretty but eats pretty as well. Depending on your preferences for sauces, be cautious with the dressing. Although delicious, you don't want it to override the flavors of the lime and squash. That indeed would be a tragedy.

Serves 4-6

Ingredients
2 limes
Sea salt
4 tbsp olive oil
1 medium butternut squash (about 2 lbs)
2 tbsp cardamom pods (or ground cardamom)
1 tsp ground allspice
1/2 cup Greek yogurt
2 1/2 tbsp tahini
1 tbsp lime juice
1 green chile, thinly sliced
2/3 cup cilantro leaves

Method

Preheat oven to 400 F. Trim off the limes' tops and bases using a small sharp knife. Stand each lime on a chopping board and cut down the sides of the fruit, following its natural curves to remove the skin and white pith. Quarter the limes from top to bottom, and cut each quarter into thin slices, about 1/8 inch thick. Place them in a small bowl, sprinkle with a little salt, drizzle with 1 tbsp of the olive oil, stir and set aside. 

Next, cut the squash in half lengthways, scoop out the seeds and discard. Cut each half, top to bottom, into 1/4-inch thick slices and lay them out on a large baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

If using the cardamom pods, place them in a mortar and pestle and work to get the seeds out of the pods. Discard the pods and work the seeds to a rough powder. Transfer to a small bowl, add the allspice and the remaining 3 tbsp of oi, stir well and brush this mixture over the butternut slices. Sprinkle over a little salt and place in the over for 15 minutes, or until tender when tested with the point of a knife.

Remove from the oven and set aside to cool. Peel off the skin, or leave on if you prefer.

Meanwhile, whisk together the yogurt, tahini, lime juice, 2 tbsp of water, and a pinch of salt. The sauce should be thick but runny enough to pour, add more water if necessary.

To serve, arrange the cooled butternut slices on a serving platter and drizzle with yogurt sauce. Spoon over the lime slices and their juices and scatter the chile slices over the top. Garnish with the cilantro and serve.

Hot Yogurt and Bean Soup

Well, the holidays have come and gone and a new slew of recipe books has come traveling down the pipe line. This year's addition? Plenty by London's favorite vegetarian, Yotam Ottolenghi (try saying that five times fast). As my mother has embraced the joys of the vegetarian lifestyle, this was the perfect recipe book for our newly meat-free family meals. Besides being entirely vegetarian, the book also favors slightly Middle Eastern flavors, often including ingredients you wouldn't necessarily find at your local Safeway (kirmzi biber, anyone?). But if you take Ottolenghi's crazy ingredients with a pinch of salt (and, to his credit, he does often offer easier and more available solutions to the more obscure ingredients), his recipes are usually easy and absolutely always delicious. And more often than not you'll find yourself making dishes you never thought you would.
And loving them.

Enter a hot yogurt soup. Call me small-minded, but I'm not the sort of person who would order anything with this title if I found it on a restaurant menu. Yet the variety of vegetables convinced me that this couldn't be bad. After all, everything else from the book had been delicious. Why stop now?

And indeed, this soup was phenomenal. Thick without being rich and with such a wonderful combination of flavors. Although I'm not always a fan of blended soups, this one won me over completely. You would never know when it's served that it contains both beans and rice. It's wonderfully hearty without being cloying. Half of the taste comes from making your own vegetable broth, which gives the whole soup a wonderful freshness.
Yes, it does take a bit of time. But trust me, for wow factor both on appearance and taste, this one is worth it.

Ottolenghi used fava beans in his soup (although makes the concession that you can use fresh or frozen). But thanks to scarcity of resources, I was forced to work with butter beans (related to the lima bean). And hey, I never noticed the difference. So huzzah to you if you can find the favas, but don't despair if you end up using the humbler lima or butter variety. 

Serves 4

Ingredients
6 tbsp olive oil
1 medium onion, quartered
4 celery stalks, quartered
1 large carrot, peeled and cut into 1-inch chunks
5 thyme sprigs
2 bay leaves
1/2 cup flat-leaf parsley
1 1/2 quarts water
3 1/2 cups shelled fava beans (fresh or frozen, again, here I used butter beans and the soup was just as tasty, it also saves you the time-sapping feat of shelling the fava beans)
1/3 cup long grain rice
salt and white pepper
2 cups Greek yogurt
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 egg
3 tbsp roughly chopped dill
3 tbsp roughly chopped chervil
grated zest of 1 lemon

Method

Pour 2 tbsp of the olive oil in a large pot. Heat up the oil and add the onion, celery, and carrot. Saute on medium heat for about 5 minutes; you want to soften up the vegetables without browning them. Next, add the thyme, bay leaves, and parsley and cover with the water. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat, cover and simmer gently for 30 minutes.

While the stock is cooking, proceed to shell the fava beans (if using. If not, huzzah! you have more time on your hands). Bring a saucepan of water to the boil. Throw in the beans and simmer for just 1 minutes. Drain, then refresh the beans under running cold water to stop the cooking. Next, remove the skins by gently pressing with your fingers against the sides of each bean, causing the soft bean to pop out. Discard the skins.

When the stock is ready, pass it through a sieve into a medium saucepan; discard the vegetables and flavorings in the sieve. Add the rice to the stock. Bring to the boil, then simmer, covered for 20 minutes. Now add half the beans and some salt and pepper and use an immersion blender to blitz the soup until it's completely smooth.

Whisk together the yogurt, garlic and egg in a large heatproof bowl. Add a ladleful of hot soup and whisk together. Continue gradually adding the soup until you've mixed in at least half of it. It's important to do this slowly, otherwise the yogurt might split due to the difference in temperatures.

Pour the tempered yogurt into the pan containing the rest of the soup. Place it on medium heat and warm up the soup while stirring constantly. Make sure the soup doesn't boil! Taste and add more salt and pepper if you life.

Ladle the soup into 4 bowls and drop in the remaining beans. Garnish generously with the dill, chervil and lemon zest and drizzle the remaining 4 tbsp of olive oil (this is crucial!!).