Marisa McClellan's Blog, page 75

All-Clad NS1 Nonstick Induction Chef’s Pan + Kabocha Squash, Coconut, and Wild Rice Stew

About a month ago, I got an email asking if I might want to participate in a blogger promotion that All-Clad was running in order to spread the word about their new line of NS1 Nonstick Induction cookware. They would send me the NS1 Chef’s Pan so that I could play with it, develop a dish in it, and then share both my thoughts and the recipe with my readers. Of course I said yes. Who says no to All-Clad?

This line of All-Clad is made from anodized aluminum, has a sturdy three-layer PFOA-free nonstick interior, and is induction-compatible thanks to steel base that also helps prevent warping. The chef’s pan has high sides and broad cooking surface that makes it great for simmering, sautéing, and steaming. Currently, the NS1 Nonstick Induction line is available exclusively at Williams-Sonoma and the pan they sent me sells for $99.95.

In the month that I’ve had it, the NS1 chef’s pan has become my favorite for wilting and braising greens (something I do A LOT in the winter), because it has a bit more vertical real estate than a frying pan, and the tight-fitting lid keeps the moisture in the pan. I also like it for one of my favorite weird breakfasts – sauteed cabbage with a couple of eggs scrambled in once the cabbage wilts and browns (a simple version of the dish Joy explains here).

The nonstick surface has proved itself to be among the most sturdy and easy to clean that I’ve tried in my cooking career, It still looks pristine after a month of regular use. I haven’t taken particular care to baby it, either. I wash it and set it in my dish drainer, same as all my other cookware (this pan is dishwasher safe, but it just doesn’t seem necessary, given how easily it cleans up with a quick swipe of the sponge).

Now, let’s chat about the dish I created. It’s stew of kabocha squash (though any sweet, dense winter squash would do), braised greens (a combination of kale and baby spinach), wild rice, red lentils, and coconut milk. It’s loosely based on a recipe in Liana Krisoff’s brillian book Whole Grains for a New Generation, and is delicious, filling, and entirely vegan.

I love making easy stews like this one in this chef’s pan, because the flared shape helps the moisture evaporate out, concentrating the flavors in the pan. It also has plenty of room for the eight cups of chopped greens that finishes the dish.

Thanks to the kind folks at All-Clad, I have one of these All-Clad NS1 Nonstick Induction Chef’s Pan to give away. Here’s how to enter.

Leave a comment on this post and tell me what you’d cook in this pan.
Comments will close at 11:59 pm eastern time on Saturday, November 14, 2015. Winners will be chosen at random and will be posted to the blog on Sunday, November 15, 2015.
Giveaway open to United States residents only. Void where prohibited.
One comment per person, please. Entries must be left via the comment form on the blog at the bottom of this post.

Disclosure: All-Clad sent me the pan you see pictured above and they’re provided the giveaway unit, both at no cost to me. No additional compensation was provided.

For more about these fabulous pans, follow All-Clad and Williams-Sonoma on social media!

All-Clad: Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest | Instagram

Williams-Sonoma: Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest | Instagram

PrintKabocha Squash, Coconut, and Wild Rice Stew

Ingredients

1 tablespoon coconut oil
1/2 large onion, sliced into thin half moons
1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon coriander
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup wild rice
1/2 cup red lentils
4 cups water
1 can coconut milk
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar
2 pounds cubed kabocha squash, or any other winter squash (about 4 cups)
8 cups chopped mixed greens (a combination of kale, spinach, chard, mustard, or anything else you have that needs to be used)

Instructions

Heat the coconut oil in a chef's pan (or a similarly sized soup pot) over medium-high heat. Add the onion slivers and cook until they soften and brown, about ten minutes.
Add the ginger, cumin, coriander, and salt and stir them into the onions. Cook for less than a minute, just to toast the spices a bit.
Add the wild rice, red lentils, and water and stir. Bring to a simmer, reduce the heat to medium low, cover the pan and cook for 45 minutes.
Once the rice is tender and the lentils have mostly dissolved, add the coconut milk, honey, rice wine vinegar and cubed squash.
Cook for about ten minutes, until the squash is mostly tender.
Heap the greens into the pan and cover. Cook for 2 to 3 minutes, until the greens are wilted enough to tuck into the stew. Add a splash of water if it seems too thick.
Cook until the greens are tender. Once the greens are tender and the squash is soft, the stew is ready to eat!3.1http://foodinjars.com/2015/11/all-clad-ns1-squash-coconut-stew/

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Giveaway: Alana Chernila’s The Homemade Kitchen + Prize Pack

The Agricola Cookbook and a Kimchi Recipe

I am a relative newcomer to kimchi. It wasn’t part of my family’s pickle culture (we leaned Jewish and Japanese) when I was growing up and I don’t think I had even so much as a taste of it until college. After that first bite, spent about a decade feeling kimchi-neutral. I’d eat a bite or two at Korean restaurants, but it wasn’t something I sought out.

Then something shifted. I became someone who always had a jar of kimchi (whether homemade or store bought) in the fridge. These days, I eat it with eggs, layered into quesadillas, on top of avocado toast, or even just out of the jar when nothing else appeals. It is one of my favorite ways to add flavor and texture to just about everything.

Over the years, I’ve tried a number of different recipes for kimchi, and oddly, the proportions for my favorite version don’t come from a specialized fermentation book or one devoted to Korean cuisine. Instead, the foundational recipe comes from the Agricola Cookbook, a book born from a farm and restaurant in the Princeton, NJ area.

The essentials of basic kimchi are the same. They are napa cabbage, daikon, green onion, garlic, ginger, salt, and chile powder. Some recipes have you add rice flour (for thickening the spice paste), shrimp paste or fish sauce (to increase the funky umami), apple or asian pear (for sweetness), or carrot (for more crunch and color).

For my uses, I find that the simpler approach is best. The most exotic ingredient you’ll find in my batch is the Korean chili powder called gochugaru that gives kimchi its trademark color and spice. You can get it at most large Asian grocery stores, though I typically buy it a pound at a time from Amazon.

The process takes about a week. I start by salted the cabbage and letting it rest overnight. The next day, I rinse and drain it, add the julienned daikon (made using one of these peelers), and lengths of green onion. I make a spice paste with garlic, ginger, and sugar, add the gochugaru and then rub it into the vegetables. Then I pack it into a jar or crock where it can ferment for five or six days. When it’s done, I transfer it into a jar for the fridge and start eating down the batch. Easy and delicious.

I’ll be taking some of this kimchi with me to the next Philly Food Swap. It’s on Monday, November 9 and there are still spots available, if you want to join us!

PrintBasic Kimchi

Ingredients

1 large head of napa cabbage (3-4 pounds), cut into 2-inch chunks
1/3 cup kosher salt
1 pound daikon radish, julienned
1 bundle green onions, trimmed and cut into 2-inch lengths
8-9 cloves garlic, peeled
3 inches fresh ginger, peeled
1 tablespoon sugar
4-7 tablespoons gochugaru

Instructions

Place the chopped cabbage in a large bowl and add salt. Use your hands to rub the salt into the cabbage and let it sit overnight.
The next day, rinse the cabbage and let it drain. Return the cabbage to the bowl and add the prepared daikon and green onion.
In a small food chopper or processor, combine the garlic cloves, ginger, and sugar. Chop until a paste forms. Add it to the bowl with the vegetables.
Finally, add the gochugaru. For a batch this size, I like to use 5-6 tablespoons. That makes a mildly spice batch. If you're very sensitive to heat, use less. If you want something a little more zippy, add more.
Use your hands to work the spices into the vegetables. Pack it all into a half gallon jar or small crock. Weigh it down with a 4 ounce jar or pickling weights and cover the vessel with an airlock or kitchen cloth (the airlock helps keep the fragrance confined).
Let the kimchi ferment for five to six days, until you like how it tastes.
When the kimchi is done, portion it into jars and refrigerate. 3.1http://foodinjars.com/2015/11/the-agricola-cookbook-and-a-kimchi-recipe/

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Cookbooks: My Pantry, Brew Better Beer, Homemade Vegan Pantry

I have been gazing at this particular stack of three books for at least a month now. I set them on the edge of my desk sometime in early October, thinking that they made a nice little collection, and then got lost in a hurry and busy of life. Read nothing into my delay, all three of these books are worthy contenders for your eyeballs and wish lists.

Alice Waters is a woman who needs no introduction. As the founder of Chez Panisse and the author of many, many cookbooks, her influence on our culture’s understanding of food has been vast.

My Pantry is her newest volume and is relatively slim in comparison to some of her earlier works. However, as someone who takes great pleasure from making my own pantry staples, I am entirely charmed by this book. It is a trip through Alice’s favorite homemade condiments, simple soups, preserved meats, sweet preserves, and simple cheeses. It’s like a peek into her fridge and cupboards, and there’s much here that I’ve bookmarked for future days of making.

I’ve never brewed beer. There are a couple things that have stopped me from trying my hand at it. First is the issue of storage (I’m already at capacity with my preserving habit). Second is the fact that my body hates it when I drink more than a few sips and tortures me with headaches if I venture beyond my paltry tolerance.

And yet, despite all that, thanks to Emma Christensen’s Brew Better Beer, I still want to give it a shot someday (I’ll just have to give most of it away, which should make me very popular with my neighbors). Her instructions are clear, the flavor combinations are hugely appealing, and I so appreciate the fact that the recipes are scaled so that you can brew your batches in either 1 or 5 gallons. If you have a burgeoning home brew enthusiast on your list this holiday season, you should get them this book.

In a sea of books devoted to making pantry staples from scratch, Miyoko Schinner’s Homemade Vegan Pantry, is unique for its plant-based approach. I know several vegans who have already come to depend on this volume for the nut-based cheeses.

However, don’t think you should skip this book if you take a more omnivorous approach to your diet. There is still plenty here for you. The soup concentrates (tomato! mushroom! cream of broccoli!) alone earn this book a spot on my shelf. The crackers are pretty special as well. And I’m really curious about the flax seed meringues!

Are there any cookbooks that you guys have been enjoying lately?

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Four Cookbooks I’ve Been Enjoying This Summer
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Giveaway: Wüsthof Classic 7-Piece Traveler Set

The holidays are coming, and often during this season of celebration, I find myself cooking in unfamiliar kitchens. Over the years, I’ve strategically planted good knives in the kitchens of my sister and parents to make food prep easier when I visit. However, when life takes me to other kitchens (particularly if we’ve rented a vacation house for our gathering), I’ve been known to bring a sharp knife along with me to ease meal prep.

This holiday season, instead of employing my “chef knife in the luggage” trick, I’ll be tucking a Wüsthof Classic Traveler Set into my bag*. This seven piece kit includes a six inch Cook’s Knife, a five inch Serrated Utility Knife, a three and a half inch Paring Knife, a pair of Kitchen Shears, a Waiter’s Corkscrew, and a handy little sharpener.

It also comes with a handy little carrying case that I’m a little bit obsessed with (I’ve got it tucked into the crook of my arm as I write this post).

My friends at Wüsthof want to help more people discover their Traveler’s Set and so have offered one up for a giveaway. Here’s how to enter.

Leave a comment on this post and tell me about something that you’re making for Thanksgiving this year.
Comments will close at 11:59 pm eastern time on Saturday, November 7, 2015. Winners will be chosen at random and will be posted to the blog on Sunday, November 8, 2015.
Giveaway open to United States residents only. Void where prohibited.
One comment per person, please. Entries must be left via the comment form on the blog at the bottom of this post.

*If you’re flying, make sure that you keep all your sharp implements in your checked luggage. There’s no faster way to lose a good knife than to try to get it through security).

Disclosure: Wüsthof sent me one of their Traveler’s Sets for photography and review purposes and are providing the giveaway unit, both at no cost to me. No additional compensation was provided. All opinions remain my own. 

 

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Wüsthof Defining Edge and Chai Dao Knife Giveaway
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Links: Green Tomatoes, Chocolate, and Winners

My apologies for these very tardy links and winners. I felt a little off on Friday and woke up early Saturday morning with the stomach flu. I’m no longer feeling like death is mere moments away, but I’m not quite back to my chipper, food-focused self. Here are the few links I could gather up for you.

A reminder to make green tomato and apple chutney, should you have an abundance of such things (actual recipe here).
Whipped goat cheese with green chile and garlic.
Easy baked apples and miraculous chocolate pear jam.
Five ferments that just didn’t work.
Foraged fruit and transitions.
Cocoa puff bars.
Rye chocolate brownies.
Grain-free chocolate chip cookies.
Love the cover of Autumn’s upcoming book!

The winners of the $25 gift cards from Glass Dharma are #63/Carissa, #88/Nikki Howser, and #144/Madeleine. If you didn’t win, but liked the idea of the glass straws, make sure to follow Glass Dharma on Facebook. They sponsor a lot of giveaways and always share them on their page.

Related Posts:

Links: Green Tomato Jam, Fermented Pickles, and Winners
Links: Apple Butter, Vegetable Broth, and Winners
Links: Grape Jelly, Asian Pears, and a Winner

Honey Sweetened Plum Pear Jam

As the weather cools and each day comes bearing less light, I find that my almost-compulsive urge to make jam is starting to go quiet (I’m not worried. It will return with the strawberries in May). The kitchen still pulls me, but once standing at the stove, I make vast pots of soup, warm grain salads, long simmered beans, and oven-roasted compotes of apples and raisins.

I find this time of year to be the very most satiating, both when it comes to food and to general living. My body loves the cooler weather and the bounty of winter squash and cruciferous vegetables, and my mind so appreciates the earlier bedtimes and the reintroduction of pleasure reading that happens when I’m not trying to work through all the waking hours.

I plan on sharing more of these homey soups, salads, and roasted fruit compotes with you in the coming weeks. However, I do have a preserve that is itching to be written up before it is forgotten forever. It’s a honey sweetened jam made from plums and pears that bridges the season in a very appealing way. I realize that in most places, plums are but a distant memory. If that’s the case for you, bookmark or pin it for next year, as it is worth making.

This one started as so much of my preserving does, with an assessment of what produce was most urgently on the verge. On the particular afternoon I made this jam, the answer to that question was a quart of plums from my Philly Foodworks CSA share and the last two very ripe pears that remained from a six pound bag we’d bought at Costco ten days earlier.

I chopped the fruit, cutting away any unseemly bits (the pears teetering on their very last leg) and plunked it all into the pot. I added 2/3 a cup of honey (the ratio of fruit to sweetener was about four to one), the juice of half a lemon, and a heaping half teaspoon of ground cinnamon and cooked it for about 20 minutes, until it was thick.

The finished yield was just four half pints. There was a bit leftover in the pan that I swirled into yogurt while it was still warm (so good). I do so love the satisfaction of transforming things that would otherwise get tossed into good, usable food.

Disclosure: The Cox Honey that’s pictured above was part of the shipment of honey that I detailed in this post. The plums were part of my October share from Philly Foodworks.

PrintHoney Sweetened Plum Pear Jam

Yield: 4 half pints

Ingredients

1 quart plums (about 1 3/4 pounds)
2 large pears (about 1 pound)
2/3 cup/8 ounces honey
juice of 1/2 lemon
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Instructions

Prepare a boiling water bath canner and four half pint jars.
Pit and chop the plums. Core and chop the pears. Make sure to cut away any soft spots.
Place the chopped fruit into a low, wide pan and measure honey into the fruit. The easiest way to do that is to pop the pan onto a digital scale, press the zero/tare button, and then measure out 8 ounces of honey.
Give the fruit a good stir to help combine the honey and add the lemon juice and cinnamon.
Set the pot on the stove over high heat and bring the fruit to a boil.
Cook, stirring regularly, until the jam thickens. Reduce the heat a bit if it becomes splashy.
When you like the consistency of the jam, remove the pot from the heat.
Funnel the finished jam into the prepared jars. Wipe the rims, apply the lids and rings, and process in a boiling water bath canner for 10 minutes. 3.1http://foodinjars.com/2015/10/honey-sweetened-plum-pear-jam/

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CSA Cooking: Butternut Squash Croutons

Since a very young age, I’ve been a fiend for croutons. They weren’t something my mother kept in the house, but my maternal grandmother often had a box tucked into her kitchen cabinets. When we visited, my sister would head straight for the stash of chocolate mints in the bar, while I would quietly abscond with the croutons. I’d tuck myself into a corner with a book and my box of oily bread cubes and be perfectly content until discovered with the empty box.

In my early twenties, my favorite potluck trick was to bring a salad with homemade croutons. The salad could be entirely ordinary because no one was looking at the greens. They were focused on those craggy, garlicky cubes of deeply toasted bread.

My love for croutons remains, but in recent years I’ve found that I feel better when I don’t eat a lot of bready things. I know that there are many others of you who are in this same boat. Instead of giving up croutons entirely, I’ve taken to giving other food the crouton treatment.

A favorite for crouton transformation this time of year is the butternut squash. I peel, deseed, and chop the squash into cubes the size of regular six-sided dice. They are tossed with olive oil, minced garlic, salt, and pepper, laid out in a single layer and roasted until crisp on the outside and tender on the inside.

While they don’t have the shattering crunch of a bread-based crouton, they are quite delicious in a salad of baby arugula, slivered red onion, and feta cheese.

Do you give anything other than bread the crouton treatment?

Related Posts:

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Giveaway: Glass Dharma Gift Cards

For this week’s giveaway, let’s talk glass straws. They are useful, durable, and entirely non-toxic. I’ve got an assortment of Glass Dharma straws in my kitchen that are in regular rotation and I use them all the time (love the 12mm size for spinach and banana smoothies).

Thanks to the nice folks at Glass Dharma, I have three $25 gift cards to give away so that a few of you can try these handy glass straws for yourself.

Leave a comment on this post and share something you’ve been sipping lately.
Comments will close at 11:59 pm eastern time on Saturday, October 31, 2015. Winners will be chosen at random and will be posted to the blog on Sunday, November 1, 2015.
Giveaway open to United States residents only. Void where prohibited.
One comment per person, please. Entries must be left via the comment form on the blog at the bottom of this post.

Disclosure: Glass Dharma is providing the three gift codes at no cost to me. No additional compensation was provided. 

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Giveaway: Alana Chernila’s The Homemade Kitchen + Prize Pack

Links: Green Tomato Jam, Fermented Pickles, and Winners

A little over a week ago, my friend Amanda‘s new cookbook, Ferment Your Vegetables, came out. In celebration, she had a little lunchtime gathering for those of us local folks. She brought nearly two dozen samples of recipes from the book for us to try and we dug into those jars. Everything was amazing. I can’t wait to try out the book in my own kitchen. You guys are going to love it, too. Now, links!

Pickled jalapeno peppers.
Homemade harissa.
Ground cherry compote.
Green tomato jam.
Pear cider syrup.
Cranberry quince conserve.
Homemade ginger ale.
Brown sugar syrup-sweetened coconut granola.
Vanilla bean vinaigrette!
Applesauce waffles.
Pumpkin flatbread! Squash galette! !
The Gravy podcast turns its attention to the mason jar.
Such a great post on what to bring to new parents.
I desperately want to start a cookbook club now.

The winner of Morinaga Make-Your-Own Tofu Kit giveaway is #42/Patrick Schluth. Congratulations Patrick!

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How to Make Tofu Using Morinaga Make-Your-Own Kit

I’ve been a little under the weather this week, so it’s taken me longer than anticipated to share my experience using the Morinaga tofu kit that I posted about in the weekly giveaway on Tuesday. However, in the spirit of better late than never, here we go!

You start with a carton of soy milk and one small packet of nigari. The directions say that it’s best to chill these ingredients to ensure proper setting, so I left mine in the fridge overnight before starting my tofu making process.

When you’re ready to make your tofu, you pour the chilled soy milk into a saucepan and set it over medium heat so that it slowly comes up to a simmer (no need to stir). You don’t want the milk to boil, instead you want to heat it until it beings to form a skin.

Once you see that skin forming, pull the pot off the heat and stir the nigari in briskly and thoroughly (the instruction sheet specifies that you need to integrate it within three seconds).

While the soy milk sits and curdles for five minutes, set up your tofu mold. Set the bottom part of the mold in a baking dish or a shallow bowl. If it’s the first time you’re using the cheese cloth, rinse it in water and then line the mold with it.

Once the five minute rest period is up, pour the soy curds into the lined mold.

Fold the cheese cloth over the nascent tofu, position the top of the mold in place, and set something heavy on top of it. I happened to have a can of coconut milk on my counter, so it was called into action.

You can drain the tofu for as little as ten minutes, or up to two hours, if you prefer a firmer finished product. Whenever you decide that you’ve drained yours enough, fill a bowl with cold water, gather up the cheese cloth bundle, and submerge the tofu to unwrap it (this helps prevent the cloth from sticking to the tofu).

There you have it! Fresh tofu to use in soup, a stir fry, or however else you like it!

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