In this post, I’d like to share the recipe for the Bruschetta de Flageolets, a very simple and easy appetizer that really took less than 20 minutes to prepare. Flageolets are little greenish beans that are apparently quite tasty; since my market doesn’t carry them, I substituted cannellini beans, which were still delicious.

Ingredients:

• 1 oz butter
• 1 garlic clove, finely chopped
• 3½oz canned flageolet beans, rinsed and drained
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 2 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
• 3 slices crusty white bread, toasted
• dash olive oil, for drizzling
• fresh chervil, to garnish

Preparation method

Heat the butter in a frying pan, add the garlic and fry over a gentle heat for one minute.

Add the flageolet beans, season, to taste, with salt and freshly ground black pepper and warm through over a gentle heat.

Mash with a potato masher and stir in the parsley.

To serve, spread the flageolet bean paste onto the toasted bread and place onto a serving plate. Drizzle with olive oil and garnish with fresh chervil.

This recipe serves 2-4

The recipe for Suprêmes de Volaille À Blanc follows. I’m providing her instructions, but I did find that the chicken took longer to cook than the 6 minutes she suggests. This is so yummy!

Suprêmes de Volaille À Blanc
[Breast of Chicken with Cream]

4 suprêmes (boned breasts)
1/2 tsp lemon juice
1/4 tsp salt
Big pinch white pepper
A heavy, covered, fireproof casserole about 10 inches in diameter
A round of waxed paper 10 inches in diameter and buttered on one side
4 Tb butter

For the sauce:

1/4 cup white or brown stock
1/4 cup port, Madeira, or dry white vermouth
1 cup whipping cream
Salt and pepper
Lemon juice as needed
2 Tb fresh minced parsley

Rub the suprêmes with drops of lemon juice and sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper. heat the butter in the casserole until it is foaming. Quickly roll the  suprêmes in the butter, lay the buttered paper over them, cover casserole and place in hot oven. After 6 minutes, press top of suprêmes with your finger. If still soft, return to oven for a moment or two. When the meat is springy to the touch it is done. Remove the suprêmes to a warm platter and cover while making the sauce.

The sauce: Pour the stock or bouillon and wine into the casserole with the cooking butter and boil down quickly over high heat until liquid is syrupy. Stir in the cream and boil down again over high heat until cream has thickened slightly. Off heat, taste carefully for seasoning, and add drops of lemon juice to taste. Pour the sauce over the suprêmes, sprinkle with parsley, and serve at once.

Important: if your casserole dish isn’t stovetop safe, then use a separate pan to make the sauce.

There are lots of variations to this dish, but this is simple and amazing. We ate it with salad and asparagus. Yum!

Ingredients
Oil or ghee — 2 tablespoons
Onion, chopped — 1
Garlic, minced — 6 cloves
Gingerroot, minced — 1 tablespoon
Coriander, ground — 2 teaspoons
Turmeric — 1/2 teaspoon
Cayenne pepper (optional) — 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon
Spinach, chopped — 1 pound
Water — 1 cup
Salt — 2 teaspoons
Yogurt — 1 cup
Cream (optional) — 1/4 cup

Method
Heat the oil or ghee in a large pot or saucepan over medium flame. Add the onions and sauté until translucent. Add the garlic, ginger and spices and sauté for another 2-3 minutes.
Stir in the spinach, water and salt and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer for another 10-15 minutes.

Remove from heat, allow to cool a bit. Then use a blender or food processor to puree in batches.
Return the puree to the pot. Add a little water if necessary and simmer another 5-10 minutes.
Stir in yogurt and return to brief simmer and immediately remove from heat. Stir in the optional cream, adjust seasoning and serve.

4-6 servings

Variations
Saag, or Palak, Paneer (Spinach with fresh cheese): add 1/2 pound of paneer, cut into cubes, after pureeing the spinach. You may substitute tofu for the paneer if you can’t find paneer. Tofu is not an Indian ingredient, but it has a similar texture and flavor.

Jhinga Saag (Spinach with shrimp): add 1/2 pound peeled and deveined shrimp after pureeing the spinach. Simmer until the shrimp is just cooked through, 3-4 minutes.

Chana Saag (Spinach with chickpeas): add 1/2 pound cooked chickpeas after pureeing the spinach.

Saag Murgh (Spinach with chicken): add 1/2 pound boneless, skinless chicken breast, cut into cubes, after pureeing the spinach. Simmer just until the chicken is cooked through.

Saag Aloo (Spinach with potatoes): add 1/2 pound cooked, cubed potatoes after pureeing the spinach.

You may use frozen or fresh spinach. Try substituting mustard or other greens.
A squeeze of lemon added at the end will brighten the flavor of this dish.

Until now.

I’ve used this recipe twice and truly enjoy it. A few tips: Make sure the carrot slices are even, or you’ll get some carrots the perfect texture with others too crunchy.

INGREDIENTS
1 pound medium carrots (about 6), peeled and sliced 1/4-inch thick on the bias
1/2 teaspoon table salt
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/2 cup low-sodium veggie broth
1 tablespoon unsalted butter , cut into 4 pieces
2 teaspoons lemon juice
Ground black pepper

INSTRUCTIONS
Bring carrots, salt, 1 tablespoon sugar, and broth to boil, covered, in 12-inch nonstick skillet over medium-high heat; reduce heat to medium and simmer, stirring occasionally, until carrots are almost tender when poked with tip of paring knife, about 5 minutes. (actually, it takes more like 7-8 mins for this) Uncover, increase heat to high, and simmer rapidly, stirring occasionally, until liquid is reduced to about 2 tablespoons, 1 to 2 minutes. Add butter and remaining 2 tablespoons sugar to skillet; toss carrots to coat and cook, stirring frequently, until carrots are completely tender and glaze is light gold, about 3 minutes. Off heat, add lemon juice; toss to coat. Transfer carrots to serving dish, scraping glaze from pan. Season to taste with pepper and serve immediately.

YUM!

(Credit: this recipe is directly from Cooks Illustrated. I highly recommend a subscription to their site, and I’m interested in trying their variations on this recipe.)

While the plants are sleeping and snow covers much of the fields and pastures of our region; while we eat imported food and savor the remnants of last year’s harvest; while we wait in anticipation for that first leafy green…

Now is the time to support local food.

I know, it’s January! And that’s the point. Community Supported Agriculture (or CSA) programs are changing the way local farmers connect with people who eat. CSA’s (and their smaller-scale sister, NSA’s) allow us to pay our farmers directly for the delicious food they grow and raise.

But here’s the deal: for it to work, the farmer must pre-sell shares in the farm. This raises the capital needed to buy seeds, plant them in the spring and pay for the labor it requires to grow our awesome local food.

This puts the economic power into the hands of farmers and the people who love healthy food. Instead of a farmer taking out a bank loan to finance their farming, they raise the cash directly: costing them less and ensuring that more of our resources go into growing healthy food.

Breaking the debt cycle that currently burdens farmers is a vital step to building a resilient local food system. And all of us can participate.

Find a local CSA/NSA program near you at LocalHarvest.org. Here in Denver, I recommend Grant Family Farms and Urbiculture Farms…although there are dozens to choose from. Now’s the time to commit your food dollars to the farmers who grow your food. Don’t be intimidated by the up-front cost: do the math and see how much value you’re getting for your dollar.

Now’s the time to do our part. And here’s a fun little video that talks more about the important relationships between healthy food, the folks who grow it, and those of us who love to eat:

In answer to the question: describe your vision for an ideal global food system.

The optimal global food system would provide for the needs of people without sacrificing the long-term health of our plant, animal, soil and water systems. An ideal food system would acknowledge the inherent value of all of life, and be unwilling to destroy other species through environmental degradation, population loss, over-consumption or poison.

Our current food system has disconnected from its source and has caused us to ignore the consequences of how we grow, raise and eat our daily meals. Almost 75% of the US population is now overweight or obese, while malnutrition contributes to more than half of the world’s cases of child mortality.

In contrast, a better global food system would demonstrate three primary qualities: resilience, relationship and what I’ll call “healthfulness.”

Resilience is the capacity of a system (and its components) to adapt, repair, and build long-term system performance. A resilient food system would have distributed means of production, storage and distribution. Food security would not lie in the hands of a few small food companies or government agencies, but in many small producers. Other hallmarks of resilience include redundancy and diversity. The 2010 flood in Pakistan killed nearly 2,000 individuals, but the long-term impact of losing more than 200,000 head of livestock and 17 million acres of fertile land is yet to be seen. A resilient food system would fulfill the needs created by crop loss due to disease and disaster.

Relationship is about understanding the interdependent connections between all aspects of the system, including its impact on other systems. Mindful production decisions would be made considering the impact of and relationship between pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers, water and soil. The crops we select would account for nutrition as well as how their growth fits inside the ecosystem. Effort would be made to thoughtfully determine what, how and where we grow food. Healthy communication would exist between growers, ranchers, distributors and others involved in providing food. Decisions would be made for the greatest good for all involved.

Healthfulness is the inherent ability to contribute to the well-being and health of all participants in the system, including people, plants, animals and the soil, water and air that sustain them. Healthfulness is the expression of vitality, responsibility and contribution of all participants. An ideal global food system would measure the impact of each component, and incorporate healthy feedback loops to help participants at each system level understand what’s best, and modify behaviors that don’t support the healthfulness of the system as a whole. Here’s an example: in our current system, the value of a cow is extracted as the amount of money that can be made from her parts, in the form of milk, meat or hide. But this perspective fails to acknowledge the systems that the cow represents. The extraction of a cow into parts has led to unsafe, unhealthy, and inhumane systems of beef production. A healthy food system will acknowledge and include ALL of the parts of the system that is a cow. If any parts of that system are dysfunctional or unhealthy (such as the waste of the cow polluting the water supply, or the cow itself being unhealthy while alive, or the processing of the cow exposing the butchers to unsafe conditions), then actions would be quickly taken to repair the unhealthy parts and restore them to something more healthy.

A healthy, resilient and connected food system is possible. It will take changing the underlying systems of governance and wealth distribution, and the definitions of profit and ownership. It will mean restoring the ability of all people to participate in the growth, production and control of their food. It will require personal and community responsibility, and the creation, nurturing and sharing of better means of production and governance. We must provide better examples of how food can be provided, and share these means with all involved. Every seed planted and nurtured with long-term health in mind will make a difference, and move us closer to a more just and sustainable world.

2 cups of all-purpose or bread flour (I used bread flour; it is supposed to make the cookies thicker)
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter, melted (melt on lowest power setting in microwave or slowly on stove — do not burn!)
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon powder
1 tbsp. vanilla extract
1 egg
1 egg yolk
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 325°F (for pure convection, adjust accordingly; I used 310°F). Grease cookie sheets, or line them with parchment paper or use a Silpat.

Sift the flour, salt, baking soda and cinnamon powder and set aside.

Mix the sugars and butter just until thoroughly mixed. Add egg, yolk and vanilla and mix until creamy. Add sifted ingredients and mix until just blended.

Stir in the chocolate chips, then drop dough ¼ cup at a time on cookie sheet about 3 inches apart. Bake for 15-17 minutes. Leave them on the cookie sheet to cool a bit when removed from the oven (they will fall apart otherwise). Once they cool a few minutes, move cookies to a cooling rack to finish cooling. Or, eat them right away with cold milk!

Cream of Mushroom Soup

Ingredients:

* 4 Tablespoons butter, divided use
* 1 pound mushrooms
* 1 teaspoon salt
* 1 medium sweet onion, chopped
* 1/4 cup flour
* 1/4 teaspoon white pepper, or to taste
* 3 cups veggie broth
* 1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
* 1 cup heavy cream
* Chopped parsley for garnish

Preparation:
Clean mushrooms with a mushroom brush or damp paper towel. Cut half of the mushrooms into slices. Chop the remainder.

Melt half of the butter in a large saucepan and saute sliced mushrooms until golden. Remove and reserve sliced mushrooms. Add remaining butter to the same pan, along with the chopped mushrooms and sweet onions. Sprinkle with salt. Cook, stirring often, until onion is soft.

Return sliced mushrooms to the pan. Add flour and cook, stirring constantly about 2 minutes, until smooth. Slowly add broth while stirring. Simmer, stirring often, until thickened. Add nutmeg and pepper. Taste and adjust seasoning, if need be.

Add heavy cream and bring to a simmer. (Do not boil.) Ladle into soup bowls and garnish with chopped parsley.

Yield: 2 entree servings or 4 smaller appetizer servings

1 cup plus 3 tablespoons rice flour
1/2 cup sorghum flour
1/2 cup potato starch
3 teaspoons sugar (I use honey or maple syrup here)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon strong cinnamon
8 tablespooons (or, one stick) cold butter
1 large egg
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1/4 ice-cold water, or enough to make the dough stick together

Mix together all the dry ingredients, including the sugar and cinnamon. Cut the butter into little pieces, about 1/2-inch thick and drop the pieces into the dry ingredients. Using a pastry cutter or fork, meld the butter into the dry ingredients until the butter has crumbled into pea-sized pieces.

Make a well in the dry ingredients. Drop the egg and apple cider vinegar in, then stir them in, gently, with a fork, stirring from the center out. Once they are incorporated into the dry ingredients, slowly drizzle the ice-cold water into the mixture, a little at a time, then stirring to see if it has become dough yet. You do not want this dough to be too wet. Add water only it all coheres together.

At this point, drop the ball of dough onto a large piece of parchment paper. Place another piece of parchment paper, the same size, on top of the dough. Gently, smoosh the dough outward, equally in all directions, until it is a thick, round cake of dough, about the size of a pie plate. (despite using parchment paper, the dough still sticks *very* easily. Spray with cooking spray in advance or sprinkle with gluten-free flour)

Refrigerate the ball of dough, for as long as you can stand. Ideally, you would prepare the dough in the evening and refrigerate overnight. Take the dough out of the refrigerator at least twenty minutes before you want to work with it.

Leave the dough in the parchment-paper sandwich and roll it out. By rolling it, gently, between the pieces of parchment paper, you will not need to add more flour to the mix. Roll it out as thin as you can, then strip the top piece of parchment paper off the dough. Gently, lay your favorite pie plate on top of the dough, then flip the whole thing over. The dough should sag into the pie plate. You can crimp the edges at this point. If some of the dough falls off the sides, don’t worry. Simply re-attach the pieces to the crust-to-be by pressing in with your fingers.

This dough recipe makes enough for two single-crust pies or one double-crust pie.