Soupe épicée à l'indienne

When I set out to make dinner last night, my intentions were to make a chinese style, clear-brothed vegetable soup, but when I discovered I still had a bit of fresh ginger left, it morphed mid-stream into this hot indian-style soup inspired by the spice concoction I picked up recently from a woman friend from India. The following recipe feeds two to four people, depending on if you serve it as the meal or an entree.

Mince one small onion and 3 large garlic cloves. Peel a small piece of ginger and mince. You should have at least a heaping tablespoon's worth. Sautee in olive oil until tender and translucent over low heat. While the onions, garlic and ginger are cooking, add a teaspoon of ground turmeric and about a half a teaspoon or more of coriander. Stir to coat and continue cooking.

Meanwhile, bring to a boil about 8 cups of water or vegetable broth or a combination of the two. Wash and cut up about 10 mushrooms and a good handful of green beans. Chop up 4 scallions.

When the water and/or broth is boiling, add the mushrooms and green beans. Drop to simmer and let cook for about 10 minutes or so. Add the scallions and continue to cook until the vegetables are just tender, about 10 more minutes.

In the meanwhile, put the onion, garlic and ginger mix into a blender with a little of the soup's broth and puree until smooth. Add this to the soup while the vegetables are still cooking.

Serve piping hot in deep bowls.

Curried onion pizza pie

To make this simple, filling dish, all you need is pizza dough (I followed Bittman's recipe, using whole wheat flour), one large onion, curry powder, ground coriander, frozen peas and a little creme fraiche.

Thinly slice the onion and sautee in olive oil over very low heat until translucent and very soft. While the onion is cooking, add salt to taste and a teaspoon or so of curry and a bit of coriander. Near the end of their cooking, add the frozen peas and a couple dollops of creme fraiche. Stir and allow to cook for a few more minutes.

Roll out a small ball of pizza dough to the desired thinness. Spoon a generous amount of the curried onion mix on the center of the dough. Pinch up the sides and bake in a 400 degree oven until the crust is golden brown. Time will vary depending on the thickness of the crust.

Serve hot with a green salad on the side. Enjoy!

Lentil and cilantro soup

It's winter, so soups are in order. This one was inspired by a simple lentil and cilantro soup that came with a meal Josh and I enjoyed last winter break in Montreal at an afghani restaurant called Kyber Pass. I've added carrots because their taste just marries well with lentils and I also added onion and garlic.

Pick over 1/2 cup of green lentils and add them to a pot with 5 cups of vegetable broth or cold water. Bring to a boil and reduce heat to simmer until the lentils are soft, about 4o minutes. Don't salt the broth or water; doing so will prevent the lentils from softening.

Meanwhile, peel 4 carrots and cut them into very small pieces. Mince half a medium onion and three cloves of garlic. Wash and mince about half a cup of fresh cilantro. Sautee the carrots, onions and garlic with in a generous amount of olive oil over low heat until the carrots are just soft, about 10 minutes. While this cooks, add about a teaspoon of cumin and salt and pepper to taste. At the very end of cooking, add the cilantro, stir and cook a few more minutes.

When the lentils are done, add the carrot, onion, garlic and cilantro mix. Add more water if you want a more liquidy soup, and adjust the salt if necessary.

Makes two generous portions or four first course servings.

Purity Soup

If you have vegetable stock already made, or if you choose to use store-bought stock, this soup is really easy and very quick to make (30 minutes max). There is no set recipe as far as the vegetables are concerned; pretty much whatever you have in your fridge works well. For onions, stick to small green onions or chives.

While the stock is heating over high heat, peel and cut a variety of vegetables, keeping the scraps to make more stock for later soups. When the stock is boiling, add the vegetables. Allow the water to come back to a boil, reduce to a good simmer and cook for five minutes. It is important not to overcook in order to keep the vegetables will be firm and flavorful.

Serve hot over cooked soba noodles or rice for a wonderfully light yet surprisingly filling winter evening meal.

KAPS (Kick-ass pasta sauce)

Since the eggplants and tomatoes were abundant at Paisley's Farm Stand this fall, and I was tired of making ratatouille, I experimented one night and came up with this delectable accompaniment for pasta. This sauce, when allowed to sit overnight, gathers in flavor and serves as a lovely side dish with rice and roasted vegetables, so make plenty!

1 large eggplant, peeled and cubed
1 large onion, chopped
About 5 cups fresh, chopped tomatoes
1 large summer squash, shredded
1 large garlic clove, minced
basil, rosemary, oregano, thyme (fresh is best, but dried is okay) and salt to taste

Sautee the onion over low heat in a generous amount of olive oil. After a few minutes, add the eggplant and stir to coat with oil. Cook for a few minutes, then add the summer squash and the tomatoes. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to simmer until everything is reduced to mush, at least 30 to 40 minutes.

Serve over hot pasta and top with grated parmesan cheese, or store over night and eat the next day as a rich side dish. It's excellent both ways.

Green Machine Soup

This is the easiest, no-nonsense soup you will ever make. What's more, it tastes good!

Roughly chop up the edible part of one large leek, and peel and crush a few cloves of garlic. Wash and trim the stems of a large bunch of swiss chard (about enough to overfill a large collander) and chop roughly.

In a large pot, melt two generous tablespoons of coconut oil (olive oil is fine). Sautee the onion over medium low heat until translucent. Add the garlic and the greens and stir to cover with the oil. Sautee for a few minutes, then add some water. Don't cover the greens with water, as they will wilt, so a few inches is fine. You can always add more if necessary later.

Bring the water to a boil and cook the greens until they are completely wilted and soggy.

Spoon some of the greens into the container of a food processor with some of the liquid. Process until completely smooth. Repeat until all the greens and liquid have been processed.

Serve hot with a sprig of parsley and some fresh bread.

French toast stuffed with cottage cheese

If you live near a farm where homemade cottage cheese is sold, I recommend it for this recipe. The commercial cottage cheeses tend to be watery (not to mention that they're packed with a few too many sketchy ingredients) so they wouldn't work well here. The cheese I used here, as well as the wheat bread, comes from Nezinscott Farm in Turner, Maine.

In a flat-bottomed bowl, mix three eggs with 1/4 to 1/2 cup of milk (rice or soy is fine) and salt to taste. Spread about 1/4 cup of cottage cheese on a slice of wheat bread, trying to stay away from the edges. Cover with another slice of bread and pat down. Place the cottage cheese sandwich in the egg-milk mixture, letting each side soak to the degree of sogginess you like. Be careful when turning the sandwich over, especially if it is soaked. Fry in butter on a heavy skillet until brown on both sides. Serve hot with more butter and applesauce and whatever fruit you like. Cinnamon is always good as well.

Curried tofu and mixed vegetable salad

This salad is both warm and cold, soft and crunchy, and bursting with flavor. It makes a great main dish when served with another salad and hearty wheat bread. Followed up with a nice cheese and then a couple squares of dark chocolate, the meal seen here is perfectly balanced and purely healthy and satisfying. All of the fresh ingredients seen in the picture come from either my mom's garden, Nezinscott farm in Turner, Maine, or Josh and my own's garden. Vive l'automne for healthy eating!

Cube half a block of firm tofu and half a large summer squash. Heat a generous amount of olive oil in a non-stick pan. Add the tofu and summer squash with about 1/2 teaspoon of turmeric, a teaspoon of curry and salt and pepper to taste. Sautee over medium-low heat until just browned and set aside.

In a large salad bowl, mix a large garlic clove, minced, with about a teaspoon of salt. Add a generous tablespoon of fresh squeezed lemon juice (or vinegar if you don't have a lemon). Mix well, and then add two generous tablespoons of olive oil.

Peel and chop two large carrots into thin rounds. Half peel, quarter and chop a cucumber. Thinly slice a very small onion (about 1/8 to 1/4 of a cup).

Strain and rinse half a can of red kidney beans.

Add all the ingredients to the salad bowl and stir to cover with the dressing. Add a generous handful each of fresh chopped parsley and basil and mix again.

Red lentil mush

This is a simple, warm side-dish to add protein to any vegetarian meal or color to a meat and potatoes dinner.
For two to three people, add about 3/4 red lentils and 1 1/2 cups cold water in a pan with a generous teaspoon of turmeric and salt to taste. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer, covered, until the lentils have turned to mush (about 30 minutes). Before serving, finely chop a good handful of fresh basil leaves and stir into the lentils and adjust salt if necessary. Sprinkle with chopped fresh chives and serve with a slice of lemon.

Mixed veggie and chick pea salad

Some of the recent litterature I have read has made me aware that eating a strictly raw vegetable and fruit diet works miracles, like bringing terminal cancer victims back from the brink and visibly shrinking the unsightly look of cellulite. Now that's food for thought, but I can't say that I would be willing to convert to this kind of diet as a lifestyle because I simply like cooked vegetables a bit too much. Nonetheless, I am experimenting lately with mixing cooked and raw vegetables in salads. This one, which includes vegetables and herbs from my garden and the local farm stand at Paisley's farm, was particularly yummy! The portions given here served two people.

Slice 3 small fairy eggplants and sautee them over low-medium heat in a generous amount of olive oil. Add a half a can of drained and rinsed chick peas. Cook until the eggplant and the chickpeas are browned. Remove from heat and set aside.

In a medium-sized salad bowl, mince a few cloves of garlic and mix with a generous amount of salt. Add 1 tablespoon white balsamic vinegar and stir. Add two tablespoons olive oil and stir again.

Thinly slice half a small red onion and cube a few red tomatoes. Half-peel a few cucumbers, cut in half and cut into half moons.

Add all the veggies, the eggplant and the chickpeas to the salad bow. Top with a generous handful each of fresh chopped mint and parsley. Stir until everything is covered with the dressing and serve.

Green Pie

Everything about this pie is heavenly, from the creamy chevre cheese to the silky combo of eggs and fresh cream to the buttery pie crust! This recipe makes one pie, enough for four hearty servings. Serve with roasted potatoes and a side of baby greens salad for a healthy brunch.

Preheat the oven to 375.

Crust: Make your own trusted recipe or try this: mix 1/2 cup white flour and 3/4 cup wheat flour with a tsp. of salt in a food processor with the steel blade. Add one stick of butter, cut into chunks. Pulse until all the butter is incorporated into the flour. Leave the machine running and feed about 1/4 cup cold water through the feed tube. Add some more flour if too sticky, which it most likely will be. Turn out onto a floured surface and roll flat. Place into a pie dish. Make a few holes in the bottom of the crust with a fork. Layer the dish with crumbled chevre. Be generous!

Filling: Fill a six quart pan with loosely packed baby greens (I used beet and mustard, but spinach would be great, I am sure) and a little water. Bring to a boil and let the greens just barely wilt. Remove from heat, strain fully and chop up the greens with a sharp knife. Layer over the cheese in the pie dish. In a small bowl, beat four eggs and then add 1 cup good heavy cream. Salt generously and pepper. Pour the egg/cream mixture over the greens. Sprinkle the top with nutmeg and bake for about an hour.

Garlicky creamed baby beet greens

The beet greens just keep a comin', which suits me just fine since I love them! This little side dish is so easy you could make it with your eyes closed, and so good that you'll be eating them with your eyes closed, too, as you savor the garlicky creaminess.

Melt a few tablespoons of good butter on very low heat in a stickproof pan. In the meantime, mince 3 large garlic cloves. When the butter is nice and hot, add the garlic. Toss the garlic around by lifting and shaking the pan and let it cook until just translucent. Add enough baby beet greens to the pan so that it almost overflows as you stir them. Stir to coat with the butter and the garlic, and salt generously. When barely wilted, add some good, fresh heavy cream to the pan and heat through. I use Smiling Hill Farms cream; the processed kinds don't have the same taste.

Serve in separate bowls as a side dish with a piece of toasted bread or baguette to sop up the cream. Believe me, you will want to sop up the cream!

Cheesy mustard greens salad

You could make this with any baby greens or lettuce; I used mustard greens because it's what growing like crazy in the garden for the moment. You may think you have never had mustard greens, but I would be willing to bet that you have since I see them often in fresh garden salads that I eat in restaurants. They're very mild, which makes this dressing a good combo since all the flavor is in the dressing.

In a bowl, mix 1 minced garlic clove with a generous amount of salt. Add a tablespoon of vinegar and stir again. Finally, add 2 to 3 tablespoons of olive oil and stir. Add 1/4 to 1/2 cup freshly grated parmesan and mix again. Toss in the greens (washed, snipped if necessary, cut in half if long) and stir to cover with the dressing. Top with pine nuts and black olives.

Three bean salad with mustard greens

The mustard greens are here in full force in the garden, so the race to eat them all is on. In this lovely and delicious side dish, the greens are sauteed with a bit of crême fraîche and topped with a three bean salad.

• One big bunch of mustard greens, stems clipped, washed & cut in half (long way)
• 2 heaping tbsp crême fraîche
• About 2 cups total of 3 different kinds of canned beans, drained and rinsed
• 2 tsp minced onion
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 1.5 tsp dijon mustard
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• Salt to taste

Mix the beans with the olive oil, onion, garlic, mustard and salt.

Heat some more olive oil in a non stick pan and sautee the greens with some salt for a few minutes, until just wilted. Add the crême fraîche and heat through.

Pile the bean salad on top of the greens, pouring the crême fraîche over all.

Serves two.

Blackberry vinagrette

Made with some of my sister Corrine's hand-picked wild blackberries from Weld, Maine, this was a lovely alternative to your standard vinagrette. A beautiful color, a great taste!

• 3 tbsp vinegar
• 8 tbsp olive oil
• Good pinch of salt
• 3 1/2 tbsp blackberry puree*
• 3 tsp maple syrup (or to taste)

This makes about 3/4 cup of dressing.

*To make the puree, process some frozen blackberries with a little water in a food processor until smooth. Strain, discarding the seeds.

Garlicky croutons

There's nothing more simple than making your own croutons, and they are a lot less expensive and healthier for your than anything you can buy at the store. All you need is a little bread (the older, the better), some garlic, salt and a little time. It's worth the little work it takes to make!

Slice up a thick slab of old bread and then cut the slice into cubes, and then finely mince a clove or two of garlic. In a non-stick pan, melt a few tablespoons of butter. Sautee the garlic over low to medium heat for a few minutes and then add the cubes of bread and salt generously. Shake the pan occasionally to turn the pieces until all (or almost all) of the sides are nicely browned. Serve on a salad or straight out of the pan as a poor man's appetizer. They are delicious!

Warm fiddlehead salad

Served with a generous portion of roasted potatoes and some thick slices of wheat bread, this salad makes a lovely centerpiece for a tasty vegetarian meal.

Wash, clean and snip the ends of about two cups of fiddleheads. In a non-stick pan, sautee a clove or two of minced garlic in a couple tablespoons of olive oil.

Meanwhile, make the dressing. First, grind 1 tsp dried rosemary, 1/2 tsp marjoram, 1 1/2 tsp sea salt, about ten pepper corns and 1 good pinch of red pepper flakes in a mortar. Add this dried mix of herbs to a mix of 1 tbsp vinegar and 3 tbsp olive oil.

When the fiddleheads are ready (about ten minutes; more if you prefer them softer), allow them to cool for about 5 minutes. Mix with the dressing and serve warm.

Mousse au chocolat

Because I had fresh, free range eggs from my sister Corrine this week, and since it was a dreary and rainy day yesterday, the time was right to whip up a chocolate mousse. My rendition of this lovely dessert is based on my friend Beatrice Luttman's recipe which I modified a bit by using crême fraîche instead of milk and by folding in the eggs whites in two stages, the way Bittman does with his mousse in How to Cook Everything and the way Patricia Wells' does with her chocolate cake recipes in Bistro Cooking. According to Beatrice, the mousse is to be made the night before you plan to eat it. However, following Bittman's advice, I put the mousse in small ramekins and they were set and ready to eat within three hours. If you are going to make this recipe, be sure to use the freshest of eggs from free-range chickens.

• 150 grams of bittersweet chocolate
• 1 tbsp crême fraîche (cream will work just fine)
• 3 fresh eggs, separated
• 4 tbsp sugar
• 1 1/2 tbsp butter

In a small saucepan, melt the chocolate with the crême fraîche over very low heat. When it is melted and smooth, add the butter and stir until it is completely melted. Remove from heat.

In a small bowl, blend the sugar with the egg yolks. Stir in the chocolate and blend well.

Beat the egg whites until they form firm peaks. Fold half of the whites into the chocolate mixture, slowly and patiently until all the white disappears. Repeat the action with the rest of the egg whites.

Pour into four ramekin molds and place in the refridgerator to set. Serve cold.

Trout spread

This simple spread, which was made with a little leftover trout from a previous meal (see "truite sautée à la poêle"), is based on a recipe called "Anchoiade chez Gilbert" from Patricia Wells' Bistro Cooking. On some fresh baguette from Anarosa's in Newburyport, it made a most delicious little appetizer.

• Leftover cooked trout, chopped up fairly small (about 1/4 cup)
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 tblsp olive oil
• 1 tsp red wine vinegar
• 1/2 tsp each kosher salt and dried rosemary, ground up with a mortar and pestle
• 8 thinnish slices of good baguette

The the broiler on and place the baguette slices on a tray. Toast the bread for about two minutes, turning over once. Reserve. Mix all the ingredients for the spread together in a small bowl. Spread evenly on the toasted baguette slices and return to the broiler for about one and a half minutes. Serve immediately.

Spinach and Cottage Cheese Omelette

When I went home to Maine this past week, my sister Corrine gave me a dozen fresh eggs from her free-ranging chickens (hence the bright yellow color of the omelette seen in the photo) and I picked up some homemade cottage cheese from my cousin Gloria's and her husband Greg's farm store at Nezinscot Farm on Route 117 in Turner. I also picked up a loaf each of anadama (seen in the photo), wheat and seven grain bread. If you are ever in the area, you must absolutely stop! The farm is excellent, Greg and Gloria are real and the food is fantastic. I highly recommend the cookies, especially the chocolate chip cookies!

You might think it weird to add cottage cheese to an omelette. Of course, you aren't wrong to think so if your notion of cottage cheese is that watery, chemically-tasting stuff you buy at the grocery store. My cousin Gloria's cottage cheese is drier and crumblier. It has the texture of feta, so if you can't get your hands on some homemade cottage cheese, use feta in this recipe instead. It will change the taste, however, as feta is much more salty than cottage cheese.

• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• Half a small onion, sliced thinly
• A few generous handfuls of fresh spinach
• 2 - 3 eggs per omelette, lightly beaten and generously salted and peppered
• Cottage cheese (or feta)
• Butter

In a non-stick pan, melt a few tablespoons of butter over medium-low heat. Sautee the garlic and onion until translucent. Add the spinach and cook until it wilts without losing it's dark green color. Remove the spinach, onion and garlic mix from the pan and reserve in a bowl. Melt a few more tablespoons of butter in the same pan and raise the heat. The butter should sizzle but not brown. Add the beaten eggs. Lift the pan a bit from the stove and shake it as though you were making popcorn. Place it back on the heat and cook, lifting it to shake every once in a while to keep the eggs from sticking to the pan. This will also help move the uncooked liquidy eggs to the edges of the pan to cook. Right before the eggs are set, remove from the heat and add some spinach and cottage cheese to one side of the circle. Using a plastic spatula, flip the other side of the circle over the part that has the spinach and cottage cheese. If you like your eggs runny, serve it up just like this. If you want them a little more cooked, place the pan back on the heat and cook until your desired consistency.

Enjoy with a light green salad and a thick slice of homemade bread. This is dinner in 5 minutes! This is heaven on your plate! Enjoy!

Truite sautée à la poêle

There is nothing more simple or more delicious than fresh trout fried in butter! I got this fish from a friend and colleague, Bill, who went fishing in Cape Cod last weekend and didn't hesitate to cook it up as soon as I had it in my hands. This was easy to do since Bill had already gutted the fish and removed the scales and the head!




For two medium-sized trout, mix about half a cup of corn meal with some fresh ground pepper, fresh ground sea salt and ground rosemary in a shallow bowl. Rinse and pat dry the fish, then roll it in the cornmeal mix. In a non-stick pan, melt a generous amount of butter (3 to 4 good tablespoons) over medium heat until melted but not browned. Place the fish in the butter and cook, turning only once, for about 4-5 minutes on each side. Sprinkle with more salt, pepper and rosemary if you wish.

Serve with sides of fresh veggies and quinoa, or other grain of your liking. Enjoy!

Tofu and Carrot Sautee

I have never been a huge fan of tofu. In fact, I have always thought it was quite disgusting. Josh likes it, and because it is a source of protein, I prep it sometimes to include in dishes simply for its protein content. The other day, however, I made a discovery: small pieces of tofu fried up in oil in a non-stick teflon pan is quite lovely. So lovely, in fact, that Josh and I ended up eating the first batch I made as a simple appetizer! The difference was the pan, which I just bought recently in my efforts to cook the perfect Julia Child's omelette. The non-stick pan allows for a more crispy, browned top, something I've never been able to achieve by frying the tofu in my cast iron pans, the only kinds of pans I owned until just recently. So, with salt and some cumin, the result of tofu cooked in the non-stick pan is a slightly crispy, lovely nugget of flavor. As an appetizer served with toothpicks or in this dish, it's great!

1. Half a block of firm tofu, cut into small cubes
2. 1 large clove of garlic, minced
3. About 2 tsp fresh minced ginger
4. Half an onion, cut into small pieces
5. 5 or 6 small carrots, peeled and cut into small pieces
6. Half a can of black beans, drained
7. Rice

Sautee the cubed tofu in a tablespoon or so of olive oil, sprinkling with salt and cumin to taste as you go. Use a wooden spoon to stir occassionally and shake the pan so that all sides of the tofu (or at least a few of them) turn a golden brown. Remove to a bowl, add a bit more oil to the pan and sautee the garlic and onion until translucent. Add the carrots and cook only until just tender. Add the black beans and cook until hot.

Serve over rice for a delicious, healthy meal!

Ginger broth

My stomach was feeling a little queazy the other day, and since I didn't have any gingerale in the house, I thought I'd try making a little ginger broth to calm the system a bit. There's nothing more simple or economical than this: all you need are a few scraps from an onion, some garlic and ginger that you might be using for something else that you are cooking up. In the pot, you see that it doesn't take much to start, but the yield is pretty high.

Place the scraps into a pot about this size and fill about 3/4 full with cold water and a generous amount of salt, about what you see in my hand below. Bring to a boil than reduce to simmer for at least an hour, if not more. Strain, cool and drink or spoon up like any other soup. Enjoy!

Mango Banana Batido

Drinking cold juices or water with heaps of ice cubes has never been my thing. And I've never been a big fan of smoothies either because, even though I like the idea of drinking fruit (uh... yum!), I just can't deal with the ice factor... it just plain old hurts my head! The batido, which Josh and I discovered in Costa Rica, is the answer I've been looking for all these years: healthy, refreshing, just slightly sweet and only as cold as the temperature of the rice milk used to make it. The best ones I tried came from the mom and pop type sodas (restaurant) simply because, unlike the american or european versions we tried, they weren't packed with crushed ice. The recipe I give below uses agave syrup instead of sugar, which is what the waitress at La Amistad Soda in Monteverde told us she uses, and rice milk instead of cow's milk. You can also use water instead of milk for a lighter drink, and you should feel free to expirament with different fruit and fruit combinations.

For two generous, pint-sized servings, place the following in a blender:

• 2 ripe mangos, peeled, pitted and cut
• 1 banana, peeled

Next, pour in just enough rice milk (or milk or water) to cover the fruit and add in a few squirts of agave syrup (or a teaspoon or so of sugar, or to taste). Blend on high until smooth. Adjust more liquid if necessary as well as sweetener if you prefer sweeter drinks.

Try a blackberry batido as well:

• About 3/4 cup frozen blackberries
• 1 banana, peeled

Place the berries in the blender with enough water and blend. Strain and return to blender. Add the banana and sweetener and serve cold.

Casado con vegetales (comida tipica)

Casado is a plate full of food guaranteed to satisfy all your tastebuds, salty and sugary alike. At the base of every casado is the salty black beans and rice as well as a small cold salad, and the sugary fried plantain. To this, you may add a variety of cooked vegetables or a choice of meat. The casado you see in the picture below is my rendition of the one Josh and I kept going back to in Santa Teresa, in Costa Rica, which replaced the plaintain with fried yucca plant (see the recipe I give for this as it needs to be prepped the night before). The 10 students who participate in Josh and my food club, three of whom you can see below serving themselves and getting ready to dive in, can attest to the fact that it's delicious, healthy and very simple to make!

Take any vegetable (We used cauliflour, broccoli and carrot here) and prep them for roasting with salt, pepper and olive oil (my favorite), sauteeing or boiling. While the vegetables are cooking, prep the rice and beans, and the salad.

For the rice, mince a clove of garlic, half a small hot pepper and 1 or 2 scallions. Sautee these things in olive oil, add the rice (basmati is best) and stir to cover with oil. Add salt and the required amount of water and bring to boil then simmer for 20 minutes.

For the beans, sautee some chopped onion in olive oil until translucent. Add canned beans with their liquid, salt, pepper and cumin (optional - the Ticos didn't use spices as far as I could tell, but I love cumin too much to pass it up), and simmer.

You can prep any simple salad you want as a side. In the casado seen above, the salad consists of shredded carrot and cabbage with a simple vinagrette (1 part vinegar, two parts olive oil, minced garlic, salt and pepper).

Near the end of everything being ready, heat a few inches of oil in a deep cast-iron pan or deep fryer for the yucca plant, and cook as instructed in the recipe I give in a previous blog.

Fried yucca plant

While in Costa Rica, Josh and I ate at a number of small mom-and-pop restaurants called sodas. The one in the photo below, called Layunta Soda, which was located directly across the street from Casa Zen where we stayed in Santa Theresa, was our favorite. (It didn't make the cut for the restaurant section in our guide book as "places to eat", but it really should have been!) Rather than serve fried plantain with the comida tipica (otherwise known as casado) as is the tradition, this one served fried yucca plant. After our second meal there, I walked to the grocery store, bought a yucca plant and brought it back to the restaurant. In my best spanish possible, I asked the woman to show me how to prep and cook this long, thick-skinned brown potato-like veggie. She very graciously showed me how, and here is what I learned.

Pick a yucca plant that it fairly fat. The skin is thick, so use a cleaver and a hammer to cut the plant into 3 or 4 inch sections.

Using a small, sharp knife, make a slit down the middle of the plant, the long way. Using the edge of the knife, edge the blade under the skin and start to move the knife along until the whole skin comes off. Once you get this going a bit, the skin very easily detaches itself, usually in one piece.

Cut the pieces into 4 sections, the long way. The pieces will look like triangles with one round edge. Use the knife to cut away the tough, stringy little root that is at the pointed edge of these pieces. You may have to cut it out of one of the pieces, or all four, depending on how big it was. There may also be little knots in the flesh which you should also cut out and throw into the compost bin. Put the pieces in a pot, cover with cold, salted water. Bring to a boil and cook until soft, about 15 minutes. Drain, cool, cover and store in the fridge over night.

When you are ready to eat the yucca plant, heat a generous amount of oil in a deep fryer or a deep pot with a cover. Submerge the pieces of cooked yucca in the hot oil and fry for a few minutes, turning over once in a while. Remove from the oil an place on a plate lined with paper towels to soak up some of the oil. The outside will be crispy and slightly yellowed, while the inside will be soft and white. Salt and pepper generously the tops of the cooked yucca.

Serve with casado con vegetales or as a side with black beans and rice.

Comida tipica

In our recent trip to Costa Rica, we stayed in a couple different hostels with common kitchens which gave us a chance to buy some local, in-season veggies and cook up our own "comida tipica". Nothing more simple than carrots and sweet potatoes and black beans, spiced up with some ginger (which I didn't know was so typical in Costa Rica) and cilantro. The only thing missing here to really make it complete as far as Ticos would be concerned is the rice.

• 1 big fat carrot, peeled and cut into rounds
• 1 big fat sweet potato (it's white here... not sure what kind it is), peeled and cut into rounds
• About 2 tbsp fresh minced ginger
• About 2 tbsp fresh minced garlic
• 1 small onion, thinly sliced
• 1 can of black beans
• A bunch of fresh cilantro, minced

In a cast-iron pan, sautee half the onion, half the garlic and all the ginger in a generous amount of olive oil until translucent. Add the carrots and potato and stir to cover with the oil. Salt and pepper and allow to cook until the carrot and potato are just soft. Add the cilantro at the end and stir to mix, cooking for a few more minutes.

While the veggies are cooking, sautee the rest of the onion and garlic in a small saucepan until translucent. Add the beans along with the liquid. Salt to taste and allow to simmer for 10 minutes or so.

Serve hot with rice for an excellent and inexpensive dinner!

Skinny carrot and bok choy soup

Sometimes I make something and I think: this isn't blog worthy, it's way too simple. But simple is often (very often) quite good, if not quite scrumptious. And thus I present this simple soup whose flavor has only improved since I cut the heat over two hours ago and which, by tomorrow at lunch time, will surely be all the more delicious.

• 1 small onion, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• About 2 tbsp minced fresh ginger
• 2 large carrots, peeled and cut into rounds
• 1 medium head of bok choy, washed and chopped (stalks and leaves)
• Lots of salt
• Soba noodles, cooked and drained

In a large pot, heat some oil. I used grapeseed oil because I was out of olive oil, and I found it to be better because it was lighter and didn't compete with the ginger and carrots for taste. Sautee the onions, garlic and carrots for about five minutes. Add the stalks of the bok choy and stir to cover with the oil. Cook for a few minutes, and then add about 10 cups or so of cold water. Salt generously and bring to a boil. Drop the heat and simmer until the carrots are just tender. Add the bok choy leaves and allow to simmer for five more minutes or so.

Spoon some soba noodles into a bowl, then ladle the soup over the top. This recipe will make many servings. Store the leftovers and cook more soba noodles for a second or third round as needed. Don't add cooked noodles to soup to sit overnight in the fridge, as they will get mooshy.

Enjoy hot on a cold winter's night, or reheated at noon in the office!