Easy Recipes

Preparing a vegan dish can feel like enough of a challenge for some cooks. But vegan and gluten-free? Oh, and also toddler-friendly? Facing these restrictions at a recent potluck dinner party, I contemplated some sort of plate full of tofu. It works, right? But instead, I decided upon this salad.

For the record, I happen to really like a plate full of tofu. But I also really, really like this salad. This is not a dish that screams out I meet a rigorous listing of dietary restrictions! Its a dish that says Hello! Would you like some tropical pineapple, broiled into caramelized sweetness? How about a buttery chunk of avocado? 

The inspiration for this salad comes from a Cuban recipe, all sweet pineapple, smooth avocado, and snappy greens. I kept the basic format, but also added some wedges of sweet potato and a handful of beans, to make it more of a meal. And its a good one. Topped with sweet-yet-healthy bites that toddlers will happily grab onto, sans animal products and gluten, and full of delicious.


Pineapple, Avocado and Sweet Potato Salad

adapted from Gran Cocina Latina: The Food of Latin America
serves ~4-6

3 small white or orange sweet potatoes, scrubbed & woody end bits trimmed off as needed
1 good-sized pineapple, peeled, cored, and cut into 1-inch thick slices
1 tablespoon sugar
1/4 cup olive oil, plus additional for sweet potatoes
1 clove garlic, pressed
2 tablespoons lime juice
hefty pinch salt
1 bunch arugula, washed and torn into bite-sized pieces
1 large buttery avocado, cut into cubes
1/2 red onion, thinly sliced
1/2 cup cooked black beans (optional)

Set the sweet potatoes in a large pot of water, and bring to a boil. Let simmer until just fork-tender, ~15 minutes, and remove from the pot and let cool slightly.

While the sweet potatoes are cooking, preheat your broiler. Place the pineapple slices on a baking pan, and sprinkle with the sugar. Broil until caramelized to a golden brown, ~5-10 minutes (broilers can incinerate things quite easily, so check often!). Remove from the oven and set aside to cool.

Turn your oven from broil to 450° Fahrenheit. Cut the par-baked sweet potatoes into wedges, and place them on a baking pan. Drizzle lightly with oil, and sprinkle with salt. Roast until they are butter soft and starting to become golden on the edges, ~20 minutes, turning once. Remove, and let cool.

To make the dressing, place the olive oil, garlic, lime juice, and salt in a covered jar, and shake to emulsify. Taste, and adjust as needed.

To assemble the salad, place the arugula in a large bowl, and top with the avocado, red onions, black beans, and reserved pineapple and sweet potato wedges. Top with the dressing, toss (if desired), and serve.

People often look back on the food of their youth with nostalgia, wondering why things just never taste as sweet in adulthood. While I have my fair share of misty culinary memories (many of them involving pressing cinnamon candies into sugar cookie dough to yield vampiric-eyed barn animals), I must say that many things taste better these days. Like corn.

When I was growing up, corn was prepared one way: boiled. For a long, long time. After this prolonged bath it was wrinkled, starchy, and didnt taste like much of anything (beyond the generous amount of butter and salt it was topped with, so naturally I still loved it). It wasnt until years later that I realized how good fresh corn could be. Or maybe corn just got better? I hear theyve made some progress with the whole keeping-sugars-from-converting-to-starch-within-seconds thing. Regardless: fresh corn, when cooked lightly (or not at all), is a thing of beauty. Its sunny, light, and fresh-smelling, and nearly pops in your mouth with milky sweetness.

These days I cant get enough of fresh corn. Ive baked it up into tomato pies, and shaved it into a raw salad with arugula, radishes, feta and mint (which I sadly forgot to photograph before inhaling). Both were lovely. But these popsicles might be my favorite. They were born somewhat by accident: I needed a cup of half-and-half for a recipe, and the quart was on sale for the same price as a half-pint, which meant that my thrifty self couldnt not buy it. The sweet corn at the farmers market was calling out, and the blackberries in front of our house had turned dark and sweet. And thus, creamy sweet corn and blackberry popsicles. And I daresay theyre perfect.

The corn, barely cooked and infused into half-and-half, is total summer sunshine. Its sugars, which are normally just a background note, come straight to the forefront, yielding a corny-sweet riff on a standard summer confection. The melty popsicles are thick and smooth, the blended milky corn lending a richness that you usually get from an eggy custard. And to keep the buttery sweetness of the corn from becoming overwhelming, its studded with a tart mash of barely-sweetened blackberries. While many people will be firing up the barbecue to enjoy their corn this Labor Day, I lobby for the popsicle instead.




Sweet Corn and Blackberry Popsicles

yields ~ 4-5 standard (3 ounce) popsicles

2 ears sweet corn
1 1/2 cups half-and-half
1/3 cup sugar, plus additional for the blackberries
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp vanilla
heaping 1/2 cup blackberries

Cut the kernals off of the cob, and place in a saucepan. Hack the cobs up in a few pieces, and add them as well, along with the half-and-half, 1/3 cup sugar, and salt. Bring the mixture to a simmer for a minute or so, until the corn softens and turns a darker yellow. Turn off the heat, add the vanilla, and let the mixture steep for an hour, transferring to the refrigerator as it cools (you want to wait a minimum of an hour to let the mixture infuse, but you can shelve it in the fridge for longer if needed).

While the corn mixture is steeping and cooling, rinse the blackberries and mash them with a fork or potato masher. Sweeten to taste with a spoonful or two of sugar -- the corn mixture will be sweet as well, so you want the blackberries to be a bit tart for contrast.

After the corn mixture has steeped, fish out the cobs and discard. Puree the remaining mixture in a blender, then strain through a fine sieve (you may have to clear the strainer a few times to get rid of the corn solids). Place the corn mixture in a container with a spout, and pour an inch of it in the bottom of your popsicle molds. Top with a spoonful of the sweetened blackberry puree, then repeat the process until the molds are filled (leaving enough headspace for them to expand). If you have the kind of molds with stick handles attached, simply freeze until solid. Otherwise let freeze half an hour, insert popsicle sticks into the semi-frozen mixture, and freeze completely.

Sometimes I give myself ideas by accident. A few weeks ago I was writing an ode/guideline to the classic potato latke for our local paper. I wanted to sing the praises of simplicity, contrasting its potato perfection against all the ridiculous, nouveau-what-have-you variations. So I wrote that my classic potato latke could hold its own against the frou-frou trimmings of a latke with...say... caramelized leeks, hashed parsnips, and... oh, feta and sweet potatoes. I smirked a little. And then I looked at what I wrote. And then I got hungry. Challenge accepted!

This is one of those kitchen experiments I entirely expected to fail. I was thinking about riffs on the delicious jam-filled hamantaschen, those three-cornered cookies baked up to celebrate Purim. Hamantaschen can be hard enough to get right on their own, especially if you want a rich, flaky, cream cheese-laden dough (and, trust me, you do). But, I decided, why not make things more difficult? So I gave my beloved rich dough a nutty edge with buckwheat flour, whose flavor I love, but with whom I am not acquainted in enough non-pancake contexts to really know how it would behave. And instead of jam, I made a soft sweet cheese filling. Flaky, nutty dough wrapped around a tender trembly filling? Sounds great, right? It also sounded like I could fully expect to open my oven and find a tray full of dough circles swimming in a gooey cheese bath.

But, lo, in a sort of of Ashkenazi Oven Miracle, this recipe worked out. And it worked out deliciously. Yes, it took a lot of fussing — sort of a Level II hamantaschen. The filling is too runny to just dollop on as you would jam — youve got to pinch a corner first to create some retaining walls, then spoon the filling in and fold in your remaining dough to keep it there. And then youve got to freeze them solid, so that they set in the oven before that filling comes cascading out. So yes, fuss. But worth it.

These hamantaschen mix old world grains and butterfat with new world sophistication. Grown-up little bites, they have an almost bitter-coffee edge and whole grain heft from the buckwheat, which pairs perfectly with a rich, sweet-yet-tangy filling. Of course it worked out — this combination seems meant to be.

And if youd like another taste of Eastern European goodness (this one of a more traditional bent), you can check out my recent story on Weekend Edition. What do the Middle East, a Lithuanian shtetl, and a 1950s kitchen appliance have in common? Find out over at NPR!
 

Buckwheat Hamantaschen with Sweet Cheese Filling

yields ~30 cookies

Dough:
1 stick butter (4 oz), softened to room temperature
4 oz cream cheese, softened to room temperature
zest of 1 orange, if desired (Im still not sure how I come down on that one — I may prefer it without)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup buckwheat flour
3/4 cup all-purpose flour

Filling:
1/2 cup cottage cheese
1/4 cup cream cheese
1/4 cup sugar
squeeze lemon
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg yolk

To Finish:
egg wash of 1 egg lightly beaten with a splash of water
a few spoonfuls of sugar

To make the dough: Cream together the butter and cream cheese until well-combined and fluffy. Add the vanilla, salt, and sugar, beating until combined. Add the flours, and mix gently until the dough just comes together (try not to over-mix — a few streaks are okay). Form the dough into a chubby disc, wrap in plastic or waxed paper, and refrigerate for at least an hour (preferably at least two) and up to two days. Mix all of the filling ingredients in a blender or food processor until combined, and refrigerate. 

When the dough has chilled and relaxed, lightly flour a countertop and a few plates or a cookie tray (one that fits in your freezer), and have your egg wash and filling handy.

Roll the dough out on a lightly-floured surface until it is fairly thin — about 1/8-inch or so. Cut out circles with a 3" cutter (mine was slightly smaller), and brush the edges with the egg wash. I tend to do about half a dozen at a time, covering the remaining dough with a clean tea towel so it doesnt dry out. Pinch shut one corner of the dough to make one point of your hamantaschen triangle, then fill with a teaspoon or so of the cheese filling (after doing a few cookies, youll get a sense of how much filling you can fit). Pinch shut the remaining edges, sort of pinwheeling them over each other in this fashion if you like, or just pinch them, leaving just a little dime-sized bit of filling peeping through in the center. Repeat with remaining dough and filling (any scraps can be mushed back together and re-rolled).

Place the shaped cookies on your prepared plate, and freeze until solid (at least a few hours, or overnight). Place the remaining egg wash back in the refrigerator.

When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 375° Fahrenheit. Line a few cookie sheets with parchment.

Remove the cookies from the freezer, and place on the lined cookie sheets. Brush the top sides of the dough with the egg wash, and sprinkle lightly with sugar. Bake until set, ~20-30 minutes (the buckwheat flour makes it difficult to see color changes, but they should be beginning to turn golden on the edges. Let cool on a rack, and enjoy. These are best served the day theyre made, but leftovers can be stored in the freezer to good effect.

Im often a creature of habit. To an embarrassing degree. In theory I am in favor of change -- but when it affects the constants of my own life, I tend to reconsider. I get huge comfort from the familiar, sometimes even clinging to it when its a bad idea (when I should, you know, select something more growth-inducing instead). But I try to shake out of my routine. And theres nothing like a good trip to do it.

At home, I often have trouble breaking out of my usual work-write-cook-sleep-insomnia regimen. But last weekend I traveled to the Bay Area to celebrate my birthday with dear friends, and remembered how much fun change can be (and how I can minimize my aaah-things-are-different anxiety with trusted companions and stiff cocktails). I traded in the wintery slog of Portland for breezy sunshine. I picked meyer lemons off the tree, lingered at a museum, hiked windy bluffs, had a frighteningly thorough scrub at a Korean spa, and ate out more in 5 days than I normally do in several months. It was great fun, all of it. And amidst the adventure, I did get in a bit of cooking. Including these quesadillas.

As befitting the new-experiences-of-vacation mindset, these are like nothing Ive ever had before. Theyre undeniably rich, thanks to the butter and sour cream, but are also light, with a moist, short texture. They take savory cheese (we used a dry old wedge of romano), and put it in a lightly sweet context. And they are, hands down, my favorite snack to enjoy with a cup of coffee. Change, you are delicious.


Quesadillas (Salvadoran Savory-Sweet Cakelets)

via The Food52 Cookbook
yields 18 muffins

Im normally a fan of hulkingly large muffin-topped muffins, but these are so rich that just a small one suffices (that said, I have eaten two in a sitting).

1 cup rice flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 pinch salt
1 cup butter, softened to room temperature
1 cup sugar
3 eggs
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup grated hard cheese, such as parmesan or romano
a few spoonfuls sesame seeds (these are optional, but add a nice nubbly counterpoint to the rich muffins)

Preheat the oven to 350, and grease 18 muffin cups.

Whisk together the rice flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

In a mixing bowl, cream together the flour and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one by one, mixing until incorporated and scraping down the sides as needed. Add the sour cream and cheese, mix, and then add the rice flour mixture (since this is gluten-free, you dont have to worry about making the muffins tough). Pour mixture evenly into muffin cups, then top with the sesame seeds.

Bake until set and just beginning to color, ~15-20 minutes. Let cool, and then enjoy with a cup of tea or coffee.