Job application food

I am in my final year of my Ph.D. program, so I am applying for jobs right now. It is somehow difficult, tedious, and scary all at the same time. That, combined with the fact that Jon is not here most of the time, means that I haven't been cooking a lot of blog-worthy meals. I noticed that I've been going to the egg+grain+green formula quite a bit on busy days. I find it very comforting. Here are two incarnations, both of which I found very good. By the way, if you're thinking about hiring a mathematician, let me know!

Egg and kale sandwich

Butter for frying an egg

1 egg

2 slices of bread

A few shaves of parmesan cheese

Za'atar

2 leaves of kale, thick stems removed, leaves coarsely chopped

Heat butter in a small frying pan over medium heat. When it's hot, crack the egg into it and fry it. (I cook it for a while on one side and then flip it and cook for just a little bit on the other side.) While you're doing this, you can toast your bread. Place the egg on one slice of bread with some shaves of parmesan and a healthy helping of za'atar. In the remaining butter, saute the kale until it's wilted. Put it on the sandwich and close it up.

Bulgar and mustard greens with poached eggs

This will make extra bulgar. I got a total of three meals out of it.

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup bulgur

Vegetable oil for sauteeing

1/2 small onion, diced

1 bunch mustard greens, thick stems removed, leaves chopped

1 egg

1 lemon slice

Za'atar

Heat 1 1/2 cups water and salt to boiling. Stir in bulgur, turn off heat, cover, and let cook for about 30 minutes. It's no big deal if the bulgur is a little wet, as long as it's tender enough. In a saute pan, heat the oil over medium. Add the onions and cook until translucent. Add the mustard greens and cook just until wilted. It's OK if they're not all the way wilted because the bulgur will wilt them the rest of the way.

Combine bulgur and greens in a large bowl. Put a blob of it on a plate.

Poach egg. I'm not an expert egg-poacher, so you should probably just do it your own way, but here's how I poach an egg. Fill up a medium saucepan with water. Heat it until it's close to boiling but not quite there, and try to somehow keep the temperature there. There should be little bubbles coming up and the water should look active. (Good luck.) Crack the egg into a small bowl and dump into water. Don't touch it for a while. After about 3 minutes, loosen it from the bottom and see if the white seems to be all the way cooked. Once it is, remove it with a slotted spoon and put it on top of the bulgur.

Squeeze some lemon juice and sprinkle some za'atar over the bulgur and egg.

Corn chowder

I can't believe I've never posted our corn chowder recipe! This, spanakopita, and sweet potato gnocchi might be why Jon married me. We made this on Saturday as a pre-ballet dinner for us, his mom, and a friend. The recipe is from Vegetarian Classics by Jeanne Lemlin. While we're here, I must put in a good word for this book. When I became a vegetarian in 2002, my grandparents gave me this book for my birthday. Back then I didn't know how to make pretty much anything. The recipes in this book are always easy to follow, don't use obscure ingredients, and most importantly for a new cook, work! We still refer to it a lot, and it has ingredient combinations and techniques we wouldn't think about but end up being really good. I highly recommend this for anyone's vegetarian cookbook collection.

Corn chowder

2 tbsp butter

1 tbsp olive or vegetable oil

2 medium onions, diced

2 garlic cloves, minced

4 cups vegetable broth

2 large potatoes, diced (about 2 1/2 cups)

1 celery rib, sliced

2 red bell peppers, diced

1 bay leaf

1/2 tsp dried basil

1 tbsp sugar

3/4 tsp salt

pepper to taste

4 cups fresh or frozen corn kernels

1/2 cup heavy cream

1/2 cup milk

Fresh basil to garnish

Heat the butter and oil in a stockpot on medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and saute until onions are soft, about 10 minutes. Stir in the stock and bring to a boil. Add the potatoes, celery, red peppers, bay leaf, basil, sugar, salt, and pepper. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer and cook, partially covered, until potatoes are tender, about 15 minutes.

Add corn kernels and heat through. Remove the bay leaf. With an immersion blender or food processor, partially puree soup. It should still be basically a chunky vegetable soup, but pureeing a little bit gets some of the potato starch into the broth and makes it extra rich and creamy. Stir in cream and milk and serve. Garnish with fresh basil.

The simple things

This is what I had for dinner on Saturday night. Well, this times three. I had put some milk up for yogurt in the morning, and when dinner time came around, it was freshly fermented and still warm. With some chopped pistachios and a drizzle of honey, it was breathtaking.

Lentil soup

It's been a really cold winter here, at least by Houston standards, so we've been making a lot of soup. This is a simple but delicious soup I got out of the Zuni Cafe Cookbook by Judy Rogers. You want to use the small black or dark green lentils. They might be called French, dePuy, or Beluga lentils at the store. I don't think the texture of the regular brown ones would be ideal. I've changed it a little, but not much.

Lentil soup
The cumin seeds are key here, and I sometimes add some extra or 1/4 tsp ground cumin to boost the cuminy-ness.

3 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 cup diced red bell pepper
1/4 tsp whole cumin seeds
Black pepper
1/4 cup diced celery
1/4 cup sliced carrots
1/4 cup diced onion
1 garlic clove, minced
1 bay leaf
1 cup lentils
1 quart vegetable broth

Warm the olive oil over medium-low heat. Add the red peppers and cook, stirring occasionally, until they are getting brownish and smell great. Add the cumin seeds and a generous grinding of black pepper and stir to combine. Add the celery, carrots, onion, and garlic and cook until onion is translucent. Stir in the bay leaf, lentils, and vegetable broth. Bring to a boil and then lower heat to a simmer. Cover and cook until lentils are tender, 15-25 minutes depending on your preferences.

Moong dal

We visited Jon's family in Rhode Island and New York for Christmas, and we got back a couple days ago. I made this for lunch yesterday before we went grocery shopping. It's mostly pantry staples for us, and it came together very easily. The basic idea is from Indian Vegetarian Cooking by Sumana Ray, but I have modified the directions. She has you cook the lentils for over an hour, which I find unnecessary. It's a warming, beautifully spiced soup. I leave the whole spices in because as it sits they contribute more and more to the flavor. The cardamom pods can be eaten whole if they've been sitting in the soup for a while. They'll give you a nice burst of freshness.

Moong dal

1 cup split beans (I used a combination of urid dal and split mung beans, or moong dal)
5 cups water
2 chopped tomatoes or 2 tbsp tomato paste
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp turmeric
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tbsp ghee (clarified butter) or vegetable oil
1/4 cup diced onion
2 bay leaves
4 cardamom pods
1 inch stick cinnamon
3/4 tsp whole cumin seeds
2 dried chiles, cut in half if you want a hotter soup

Place beans and water in a saucepan. Bring to a boil. Skim off any foam that forms. Add the tomatoes, salt, turmeric, and ground cumin and lower heat to a simmer. Cook until beans are done, about 15 minutes. While you're waiting, you can prepare the rest of the ingredients. In a small saute pan, heat the ghee or oil over medium heat. Add the onion and cook for about 4 minutes or until soft and slightly translucent. Add the rest of the ingredients and let sizzle for about a minute. Remove from heat. When the beans are done, add the ghee and spices to the lentils and stir to combine.

Butternut-kale bread pudding

This was in Orangette's column in the November issue of Bon Appetit, and it will be on our Thanksgiving table. It is autumnal and indulgent and kaley. The first time we tried the recipe, we forgot the salt, and it wasn't very good. It's amazing what a difference a little salt makes. The second time we tried it, it was fabulous. I love the way the kale on the top dries out and gets a little chewy. This recipe has six eggs, a bunch of half and half, and a ton of cheese, so I wouldn't recommend it for everyday eating, but it's perfect for a food-centric holiday when you want to be a little naughty and undo the top button of your pants.
Butternut-kale bread pudding
I made a couple small changes to the original recipe. They are reflected below.

2 lbs butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and cut into 1-inch pieces
3 tbsp olive oil (not extra-virgin), divided
1 1/2 tsp kosher salt, plus extra for sprinkling
7 eggs
2 1/4 cups half and half
6 tbsp dry white wine
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
1 day-old baguette, crusts intact, torn or sliced into 1-inch pieces (get the grocery store to slice it for you to save some time and effort)
1 cup chopped onion
1 lb kale, stems removed and leaves coarsely chopped
5 oz extra-sharp cheddar, grated

Heat oven to 400 F. Place squash in a large baking pan, drizzle with 1 tbsp oil, and sprinkle with salt. Roast for about 20 minutes or until squash is soft, stirring occasionally.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together eggs, half and half, wine mustard, and salt. Gently stir bread into mixture and let it soak for about 30 minutes, turning once or twice.

Saute onion in 2 tbsp oil over medium heat until translucent. Add kale, cover, and cook just a couple minutes, until kale is bright green but slightly wilted. Set aside.

After the squash comes out of the oven, reduce temperature to 350 F. Butter or oil 9"x13" baking dish thoroughly. (I use the same dish for the squash as for the final product, and I oil it in between.) Place about half the bread mixture on the bottom. Spoon about half the kale over it, top that with half the squash, and then cover with half the cheese. Repeat with the remaining bread, kale, squash, and cheese, pouring any leftover egg mixture over the top. Cover the pan with foil and bake for 20 minutes. Remove the foil and bake for another 20 minutes or until custard is set and feels a little springy. If exploding Pyrex hasn't scarred you for life, turn on the broiler and broil it for 2 minutes to get the cheese nice and brown. Let cool for five minutes before serving.

Mung beans and greens in coconut milk

This is a picture from several months ago. That time, we made it with beet greens and served it with beet salad.

This is a great recipe I got out of Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant. I find the Moosewood cookbooks very accessible, and in addition to a lot of tasty, healthy, easy recipes, they have a lot of basic information about beans, grains, and vegetables that is really helpful. Sundays at Moosewood is a collection of various ethnic dishes from several different regions of the world. This recipe is from the Southeast Asian section of the cookbook. They claim it is from the Philippines, but I've never been there, so I don't know how authentic it is. But it's very tasty and filling. I would describe it as comfort food.

I went to the farmers' market on Saturday and splurged on a big bag of sweet potato leaves. I had never tried them before, and the lady said it was the last of the season, so I decided to get them. Any time I get to try a new green, I am happy. Sweet potato leaves are about the size of spinach, although they hold up to heat a little better. I used about half of them in this dish and saved the rest so I could eat them in a more pure form and get to know their flavor better. (In case you're curious, they taste pretty much like any other green, but when you cook them, there is a distinct sweet potato aroma.) The sweet potato greens worked well in this dish, but so do any other greens.

This dish is an example of luxurious, indulgent vegan cooking. Coconut milk is incredibly rich, so you will not feel like you're depriving yourself of anything. In fact, you'll probably want to round out your meal with something light and fresh to balance the richness of this dish. We made more plumcot spring rolls, which fit the bill perfectly. A green salad with a nice acidic dressing would be good too. This is good served over either jasmine or brown rice, but it's good on its own too.

Mung beans and greens in coconut milk
It's almost impossible to have too many greens in this dish, so if you've got a giant bunch of something and no other plans for it, just throw the whole thing in.

1 1/2 cups whole or split mung beans (I prefer whole)
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1-1 1/2 cups chopped onion
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 tbsp minced fresh ginger, optional
1/2 tsp salt
1 can coconut milk
2 tbsp soy sauce
Dash Sriracha or cayenne or some other spicy-maker
3-4 cups greens, chopped (I've used beet greens, chard, red Russian kale, and now sweet potato leaves, all to great effect)

Cover mung beans in plenty of water and bring to a boil. Simmer until the texture is to your liking. 35 minutes is good for me. Drain beans and set aside.
Saute the onion in the oil over medium heat until the onion is translucent, about 4 minutes. Lower the heat, add the garlic, ginger, and salt, and cook for another 4 minutes or so. Add the beans, coconut milk, soy sauce, and Sriracha and simmer for about 5 minutes. Throw in the greens and cook them, stirring occasionally, until they wilt. Taste and add a little more soy sauce or Hoisin sauce if you want.

Sweet potato gnocchi

I was out of town for the weekend at a Sacred Harp singing. I stayed with a friend's parents, and we made this for dinner on Friday night. I didn't take any pictures this weekend, so I'm including a couple that I took a few months ago. Just in case you aren't Italian, gnocchi are little Italian potato or flour dumplings.

This is good company food. It's pretty impressive (homemade gnocchi!) but doesn't take that long to make if you start with cooked sweet potatoes or cook them in the microwave. I usually pop the sweet potatoes in the oven a couple days before I'm planning on making this so they'll be ready when I want to use them. I got the recipe from allrecipes.com, but I don't use their weird sweet potato cooking technique. I just bake the things like I would if I were eating them plain. The spice combination of garlic and nutmeg is really nice. I'd like to try this with butternut squash sometime, too. I think that would be good. I like to dress these with just a little olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and parmesan cheese, but butter is good too. You can use a standard tomato sauce, but it will overpower the delicate sweet potato flavor.

Rolling a snake of gnocchi dough

Sweet potato gnocchi

2 8-oz sweet potatoes
1 clove garlic, minced or pressed
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 large egg
2 cups all-purpose flour

Bake the sweet potatoes until they're soft, either in the oven at 425 F for 40-60 minutes or in the microwave for 6-9 minutes. Scoop the flesh into a medium mixing bowl and mash. It's OK if it's a little lumpy, but you will be able to feel the lumps in the finished product. Add the garlic, salt, nutmeg, and egg and mix thoroughly. Add the flour, about 1/2 cup at a time, mixing after each addition. You might not use all the flour. You want to use just enough to make a soft dough. After adding about 1 cup, you'll probably have to start kneading it instead of mixing it with a spoon. When you have a soft dough, roll it between your hands into snakes about 1 inch in diameter and cut the snakes into small pieces (see above pictures for rolling and cutting). You might need to incorporate a little more flour during this process if the dough is still sticky.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Drop the gnocchi into the water several at a time. (They don't all have to be cooked before you add more, so you can stagger the additions.) When a gnocco (yep, that's the singular) rises to the top, scoop it out with a slotted spoon and transfer to a bowl or colander. When all the gnocchi are cooked, eat them quickly. They are best fresh out of the pot.

Frozen peas

Sometimes I get hungry but nothing sounds good. Or I have an upset stomach that needs some food to settle it. Or I'm not hungry but really feel like eating. When I get like that, I reach for frozen peas. When my siblings and I were little, my mom would give us frozen veggies as a snack at night because she didn't want us to have junk or eat just for fun, but she wanted us to have some food if we were hungry. Now I find them comforting. Frozen corn is good, and frozen mixed vegetables are decent, but frozen peas are the really good stuff.

Inspiration soup

It's August in Houston, a.k.a. NOT SOUP WEATHER. But I have a small freezer, and I had four quarts of chickpea cooking water in it, which meant that at least one quart would fall out every time I opened the freezer. So on Sunday, I pretended it was cold outside and made a nice hearty soup. I call this inspiration soup because I didn't have much of a plan when I started. I knew I was using a chickpea broth base. The rest of it just happened to be in the fridge. The tofu skins were really nice in this. I used the ones labeled fu bao. I don't know if this is the "official" name. I cut them into thin strips, and they kind of reminded me of the egg in egg drop soup. They were savory and protein-full and slightly chewy. Here is the recipe, but if you make inspiration soup, you should just let your fridge be your guide.

Close-up of some tofu skins in my soup

Inspiration soup
2 tsp olive oil
1/2 large yellow onion, diced
1 rib celery, diced
1 carrot, diced
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
2 tsp curry powder (I used Penzey's Balti seasoning)
3 leaves kale, washed, thick center rib removed, and cut into thin strips
4 oz tofu skins, cut into thin strips
1/2 cup cooked chickpeas
1 1/2 qts chickpea cooking water
1 3/4 tsp salt

Heat the olive oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion, celery, and carrot and saute until onion is translucent. Add the paprika, cumin seeds, curry powder, and kale. Cover and saute/steam until kale is wilted. Add the tofu skins, chickpeas, broth, and salt. Heat through. Add salt and pepper to taste as deemed appropriate at the table.

Evelyn's famous lentil salad.

We're back! We had a great time in Germany and France. We ate some amazing cheese and pastries and visited La Zucca Magica, a great vegetarian restaurant in Nice. Food-wise, I missed beans. I didn't have them very much while I was away, so when I got home, I knew I wanted to make this lentil salad for dinner. This is my favorite way to use the cheap brown lentils. It's hearty, easy to make, and tasty. The crunch of the celery provides a good textural contrast to the soft lentils, and the feta brings some salty tanginess to the dish. I based it on the Mediterranean lentil salad recipe in Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home, but I changed it enough that now I call it Evelyn's famous lentil salad. (I have delusions of grandeur.) This is my default dish to bring to potlucks, and it's a good way to get some protein if you're a vegetarian at a barbecue. Jon loves it, too. I had to double the amounts from the original recipe because he would eat almost all of it before I got any. I would say that for us, this is pretty great comfort food. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture, but it's not a very photogenic food anyway.

Evelyn's famous lentil salad
The dressing is just a simple mustard vinaigrette, and I don't even measure the amounts any more. The proportions below are just a suggestion. Do what feels right to you. The lentils are kind of bland, so the dressing should taste pretty vinegary before you put it on.

1 lb green or brown lentils (a little over 2 cups)
1 tsp thyme
4 bay leaves
4 cloves of garlic, peeled but whole

5-6 ribs celery, chopped
3-4 roasted red peppers, diced
6 sun-dried tomatoes, diced (if packed in oil, just dice them; if packed dry, soak in boiling water for a while first to reconstitute)
about 6 oz feta cheese (I prefer feta with cracked pepper, but you can get plain or herbed or whatever)

2/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 cup red wine vinegar
2 tbsp dijon or honey mustard
black pepper

Cook lentils with thyme, bay leaves, and garlic in about 8 cups water for 20 minutes or until you like the consistency. Drain. Remove garlic, mash with fork, and stir back into lentils. Remove bay leaves and discard. Add celery, red peppers, tomatoes, and feta. Mix oil, vinegar, mustard, and pepper with a fork for dressing. Pour over the lentils and mix.

Puff pastry spanakopita

The first time I had spanakopita was at a Greek restaurant outside of Waco, where I went to undergrad. It was love at first bite. Traditionally, it is a phyllo dough pie filled with spinach and feta. One of these days I will overcome my fear of phyllo dough enough to get some and make some real spanakopita. It won't actually be that difficult to work with, and I will feel very silly for my years of not using it. But until then, I feel like puff pastry dough is a good substitute. This is one of Jon's very favorite foods that I make, so I made it for his birthday feast. I actually prefer to make it with red Russian kale instead of spinach, but Jon prefers the spinach. Since it was his birthday, that's what I went with this time. Of course, the time I choose to take a picture of it is the time the kitchen is too hot so the puff pastry starts sticking to itself and doesn't look very attractive. Rest assured that usually this is gorgeous.

Puff pastry spanakopita:
2 tsp olive oil (not extra virgin)
1/2 large yellow onion, chopped
1 or 2 garlic cloves, minced
Dash of nutmeg
Dash of smoked paprika
1 bunch of spinach or red Russian kale, about 1 lb, washed and roughly chopped (for kale, remove the hard part of the ribs)
2 eggs
6 oz feta cheese, crumbled (I prefer the kind with black pepper)
1 box (2 sheets) frozen puff pastry, thawed

Heat the oil in a saute pan over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and cook, stirring occasionally, for about five minutes. Add the nutmeg and paprika. Smell it. It's good. Throw in the spinach or kale and cover to let it steam/wilt. When it has wilted, add the eggs, one at a time, and scramble into the spinach mixture. Add the cheese, stir to combine, and remove from heat.
Lightly oil a large baking dish (mine is 9x13, but it doesn't have to be that large). Unfold one sheet of puff pastry and place it at the bottom of the dish. Spread the spinach mixture evenly on top. Unfold the other sheet and place on top. If you want to, you can crimp the sides. It's never worked out for me, and I don't care that sometimes the filling leaks out a bit. Bake in a 350 F oven until it's golden brown on top and doesn't have any underdone spots. Start checking around 20 minutes. It varies a lot based on how thawed the puff pastry was and how thick the filling is. I must confess that we often get impatient and eat it before it's all the way done. It's still good that way.