From Flop to Fantastic: Veggie Paella

The first attempt at this dish was an absolute flop. It was not the kind of flop that we could still enjoy, even if it wasn’t worthy of a blog post. The majority of this first round—a skillet full of burnt onions and bell pepper; an undercooked mess of rice that was supposed to simmer in broth and tomatoes but never transformed into something edible—filled the compost pail, not our stomachs.

Full disclosure: I was trying to do laundry and other chores while I made this dinner, which led to neglect of the vegetables.  I can’t blame the recipe for that part. I was frustrated, but as with most things in life, it’s better to learn from rather than dwell too long in the past. I made a few changes to the recipe to streamline and simplify. I made sure to get shelled edamame to avoid an extra prep step. I committed to the cooking without trying to get too many other things done at the same time. I was ready to try again, armed with a revised recipe and refreshed optimism.

Everything was going along fine at first (the onions and bell peppers lightly browned, not burned to a crisp) until an almost-disaster struck. The rice once again would not cook. It simmered in a skillet with hot vegetable broth, and even as the broth evaporated, the rice hardly softened. I kept adding more broth and when I ran out of broth, I switched to water. Only when the rice was cooking in a bath of mostly water did it actually start to transform into tender grains. A quick Google search doesn’t indicate that this is a known issue. I’ve certainly never heard of it, but I changed the liquid from broth to water in the recipe to avoid this strange phenomenon next time.

After that hurdle, the recipe went along beautifully. Something I love about this dish—about all stir-fry-like rice dishes, really—is that it contains such a variety of spices and ingredients, and every bite is savored because of it. The turmeric gives the paella a curry vibe, but there’s paprika too, with its subtle smokiness. The artichoke hearts liven this dish up with their upfront flavor, and the edamame makes a nice stand-in for peas, for those of us (ahem, me) who don’t want peas in their rice but happily welcome other green things.

I still remember the frustration of having to toss out a meal that didn’t work, but somewhere in that frustration was a spark of resolve: this will work, I just have to figure out how. Sure, from an efficiency perspective it would be great if everything worked out the first time. But we all know that’s not going to happen. A recipe flop is a reminder that there’s more to try and learn. Cooking has no shortage of that.

Vegetarian Paella
Adapted from Plenty

3 cups water
1 cup uncooked brown rice
2 tablespoons olive oil
½ onion, diced
1 bell pepper, diced
2 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped
¼ teaspoon paprika
½ teaspoon turmeric
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
¾ cup shelled edamame
1 14.5 ounce can diced tomatoes, drained
1 13.75 ounce can artichoke hearts, halved

1. In a medium saucepan, bring the water to a boil. Add the rice, reduce heat to medium, and simmer until all of the liquid is absorbed. While the rice cooks, prep the rest of the ingredients.
2. Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and sauté for 5 minutes, stirring every minute or so. Add the bell pepper and cook for an additional 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
3. Add the garlic and cook for another minute. Stir in the paprika, turmeric, and cayenne. Add the edamame and tomatoes, allowing them to warm up.
4. Stir the cooked rice and artichoke hearts into the skillet mixture.

Antidote to a Cold Day: Winter Potato Salad

Like much of the country, the Seattle area is experiencing a cold snap (although our 30-degree lows probably seem balmy to people in the Midwest right now). A good antidote for chilly commutes home from work is potatoes, preferably mixed with a lot of other interesting ingredients to make a salad that’s comforting on a frosty evening.

This potato salad, however, is a little different. To begin, it’s nothing like the potato salads of summer barbecues, which I’ve always thought overdid it on the mayonnaise. The traditional hard-boiled eggs are still there, but I cooked them just enough so the insides are a little runny. This winter potato salad, from the cookbook Plenty, replaces mayonnaise with pesto, and I replaced the peas with edamame. And, because I’ve relatively recently discovered the joys of prosciutto, I took the last two slices we had out of the fridge, chopped them up into small pieces, and mixed them in the salad.

Out of necessity rather than fear of trying new things, I used chicken eggs instead of the recipe’s suggested quail eggs. I’ve heard that a poultry store in the University District sells quail eggs, but lacking the time t0 investigate if the rumors were true, I settled for the chicken eggs already in our fridge. Quail eggs are one of those signs that, if I see them on a menu or in a cookbook, we’re dealing with something (or someone) a little more sophisticated about food than the average person. So, this potato salad can be seen as the everyperson’s version. That being said, if you have quail eggs, duck eggs, whatever, use them!

Unless you don’t eat prosciutto, I highly encourage you to include it; it makes this recipe go above and beyond simple potatoes. Prosciutto is often delivered from plate to mouth on a little cracker, or maybe with a slice of cheese, but it goes so well with potatoes—its sharply satisfying saltiness plays off the accommodating starch. It also takes well to the pesto, another unexpected but welcome perfect fit with the potatoes, too.

Like many others, I deal with the cold because I have to. But I complain too, at least until I’m wearing thick socks and eating a hot dinner. So if you come across anyone particularly grumpy about the weather, make them some winter potato salad, and let the dish work its magic.

Winter Potato Salad
Adapted from Plenty

2 Yukon gold potatoes, cut into quarters
2 eggs
4 ounces prepared pesto
½ cup shelled edamame
2 slices prosciutto, chopped into small pieces

1. Bring a large pot of water to boil. Add potatoes. Let potatoes boil for 20 minutes or until they are easily pierced by a fork. Drain the water and transfer the potatoes to a cutting board. Coarsely slice the potato quarters into smaller, bite-size pieces. Transfer potatoes to a large bowl.
2. While the potatoes are boiling, boil the eggs. Bring a small pot of water to boil, add the eggs, and reduce the heat to medium. Let the eggs simmer for 8 minutes. Drain the water, then run the eggs under cold water. Peel and coarsely chop the eggs into bite-size pieces.
3. Pour the pesto on top of the potatoes and stir gently until well coated with pesto. Add the eggs, edamame, and prosciutto to the potatoes. Stir gently until well combined.

Improvising dinner: Leek and edamame salad

Leeks, like eggplant and kale, didn’t show up in my meals until college, and since then I’ve never looked back. During my sophomore year, I made a leek, eggplant, and mozzarella dish (by piling leeks and cheese atop eggplant slices), and that was it. Those sautéed leeks won me over, and it was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Now you’re probably thinking, wow, this girl really likes her leeks. Well, I am the least surprised person that, while flipping through the cookbook Tender, I landed upon a recipe for a leek salad and immediately added it to my grocery list. I changed almost everything else in the recipe—using edamame in place of fava beans, omitting bacon and adding chicken, even using olive oil instead of butter—but the leeks remained. The recipe called for spring leeks, but for me leeks have always been a winter vegetable, with years of association with thick coats and snow predictions.

Some of this recipe relied on of-the-minute improvisation. After we’d made the salad, I transferred it to low heat so I could keep it warm while I attended to some popovers. Then I decided, wouldn’t this be great with a few hard-boiled eggs? So I boiled three eggs, peeled and chopped them, and tossed them into the salad. Then I thought, won’t this be a little bland without a dressing? So I whipped up a balsamic, olive oil, and Dijon mustard dressing, which we drizzled over our bowls of salad.

Despite some of my decisions being made on the fly, this is a simple recipe; a few things are cooked and combined separately, and then everything goes in a big bowl together. There’s the rice and edamame in one pot, the chicken and leeks in a large skillet, and all the little additions, like the eggs and dressing, that make the salad complete. This might be fall’s answer to the summer corn and tomato salad, or just something delicious to savor on a cold night.

Or maybe it’s just an expression of how much I love leeks, an ode to those winter standbys. As you pile all those leeks into the skillet with the chicken, you might be tempted to set some aside. Don’t. They’ll cook down, and when you eat the salad, you’ll understand why I didn’t skimp on one of my favorite vegetables. Yes, this girl really likes her leeks.

Edamame and Leek Salad

1 cup brown rice
2 pounds shelled edamame (defrosted if previously frozen)
1 tablespoon plus ½ cup olive oil
1 pound chicken breasts, diced
2 large leeks or 4 small leeks
1 clove garlic, minced
3 eggs
¼ cup balsamic vinegar
½ teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 heaping tablespoon dried tarragon

1. Bring 3 cups of water to a boil in a saucepan. Reduce heat to medium and add rice. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the rice is cooked and all the water is absorbed. Stir in edamame. Keep rice and edamame mixture warm on low heat.
2. Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add chicken, stirring occasionally, until chicken is just cooked. Stir in leeks and garlic; cover skillet and let cook, stirring occasionally, until the leeks are slightly softened.
3. Fill a small saucepan with water and bring to a boil. Place eggs in water, and reduce heat to medium. Let simmer for 10 minutes, then rinse the eggs under cold water. Peel and chop eggs; set aside.
4. In a small bowl, combine ½ cup olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and Dijon mustard. Whisk vigorously until fully combined. Set aside.
5. In a large bowl, combine rice/edamame mixture with the leek/chicken mixture. Stir in tarragon and chopped eggs. Serve the salad with the dressing drizzled on top.

A case for convenience: Pesto pasta with zucchini and edamame

With cheesemaking classes aplenty, online tutorials on making your own tomato sauce, and formerly pre-packaged foods (like granola) getting the homemade treatment, cooks have plenty of support for making ingredients from scratch. But there’s a flip side (there always is, isn’t there?), and it’s Packaged Guilt—the feeling you get when, for example, you make a pesto pasta using packaged pesto when you know it’s so, so easy to make pesto at home.

A little recap, first. I’ve been trying out a bunch of recipes from Yotam Ottolenghi’s Plenty, and this pesto pasta with zucchini has been on my to-make list for quite some time. The dish features the undeniably good combination of pesto and mozzarella, adds some variety with zucchini and edamame, and incorporates vibrant lemon zest. Simplicity reigns here: if you can cook pasta, grate cheese, zest a lemon, slice some zucchini, and shell some edamame, you’ve got this. So (in my defense), why not make it even easier? Ottolenghi has you grinding basil leaves, parsley, and olive oil, but come with me to the dark side.

I used to have a somewhat decent excuse for not making my own pesto. I only recently acquired a food processer, and before that I had a blender that, well, didn’t blend so great. But now, my only excuse is that it was a weeknight, I was tired, and who wants to go to the store when you have a container of pesto in the fridge already? I made a couple of other small modifications to this recipe, as always, including halving the amount of oil you cook the zucchini in—I prefer my zucchini lightly browned, not fried—and using olive oil instead of sunflower oil. I skipped blanching the edamame (I think it’s fine and dandy without it, especially if your edamame is already thawed), and used balsamic vinegar in place of red wine vinegar (swapping the two doesn’t always work, but it did this time).

So I went into making this pasta feeling some of the Packaged Guilt I mentioned above. But you know the best way to feel better about that? Making an awesome meal, even if every last thing wasn’t made from scratch. I love how this dish pushes your expectations with unconventional pasta ingredients, like edamame and lemon zest, but doesn’t leave behind the expected—and comforting—mainstays, like mozzarella and pesto. The pesto ties it all together, and whether you made it from scratch or not, I don’t doubt this will be the best pasta dish you’ve had in a while.

One day, hopefully soon, I’ll make my own pesto (I recently learned you can freeze the pesto in ice cube trays and thaw individual servings. Is that not genius?). In the meantime, I’ll keep my Packaged Guilt in check: there’s something to be said for ultra-convenience from time to time, not every dinner has to be a project, and if you are making even a few of your own meals at home, you are a superstar in my book.

Pesto Pasta with Zucchini and Edamame
Adapted from Plenty

9 ounces penne pasta
1/3 cup olive oil
3 medium zucchini, sliced into thin circles
1 ½ tablespoons balsamic vinegar
¾ cup shelled edamame (if using frozen edamame, thaw it prior to shelling)
7 ounces pesto (packaged or homemade)
1 heaping tablespoon lemon zest (from 1 large lemon)
7 ounces mozzarella, torn or cut into cubes

1. Bring a large pot of water to boil. Add pasta, and cook until al dente. Drain and transfer to a large bowl.
2. In a large, deep skillet, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat. Fit as many zucchini circles in the skillet as you can without the circles overlapping. Cook for 3 minutes without turning; the zucchini should be lightly browned. Transfer to a bowl. Repeat with remaining zucchini (I had to cook them in three batches). When all of the zucchini are done, pour the balsamic vinegar over them, stirring to coat. Set aside until pasta is done.
3. Add the zucchini to the cooked pasta. Add the edamame, pesto, lemon zest, and mozzarella. Stir to combine. Season with salt and pepper, if desired.

It starts with a craving: Squash and edamame with rice noodles

I wonder if anyone “craves” edamame the way I do. Unlike other foods, like sharp cheddar cheese and home fries, which I am pretty excited about all the time, edamame and I have a more nuanced relationship. Sometimes I see it on my plate and calmly think, “Edamame. Yum.”  And then there are other times in which I want to put edamame in almost every meal, and I go a little crazy at the salad bar at the market on Bainbridge (by the way, a salad of edamame, chickpeas, and goat cheese crumbles? Perfect). Go ahead and label me a crazy vegetable-craver. You’d be right.

I feel the same way about squash, especially butternut. When it starts showing up in stores and at farmer’s markets, I’m instantly deciding on recipes, both tried and new. Considering my weird and obsessive cravings for both these foods, it made sense to combine them in a rice noodle sauté, inspired by a recipe for warm glass noodles and edamame, from Yotam Ottolenghi’s Plenty.

This version adds just a few more steps to this simple dish, like cubing and baking the squash and adding a bell pepper to the mix, but we also cut out Ottolenghi’s recommended sauce, deciding that soy sauce would be just as tasty and much easier. Also, make sure you put those rice noodles in boiling, not warm or even hot water. In merely warm water, they won’t cook as well and will likely be a little chewier than you prefer.

One of the best things about this dish, besides its taste and variety of textures, is the array of colors. The bright green, orange, and red, on a background of white noodles, reflects the changing colors outside. The squash cubes are tender, with a few browned bits on the edges, while the edamame are chewy and smooth. The bell pepper, sautéed just enough, adds crisp. There are a couple of ways to serve this dish, with more noodles so it’s an entrée, or less, so it’s more like a light lunch or pre-dinner salad.

The soy sauce also worked out well as a dressing, as it always does with rice noodles. Incidentally, rice noodles are also something I obsess over, an ingredient that seizes me rather than just being a routine. Rather than being a summary of a season or cuisine, this dish reflects a mood.  It’s a conglomeration of seasonal food, a good noodle dish, and tasty vegetables that are welcome in most any meal. As with most things, the individual pieces are that much better in the mix.

Squash and Edamame with Rice Noodles
Adapted from Plenty

1 1-pound squash, peeled, de-seeded, and cubed
8 ounces rice noodles
2 tablespoons peanut oil, plus more for squash
3 garlic cloves, pressed
½ red bell pepper, diced
1 red chili, diced
¾ cup shelled edamame (about 10 ounces)
3 green onions, diced
A small handful of chopped cilantro
Soy sauce, to taste

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Place squash cubes in a bowl and toss with a bit of peanut oil. Scatter cubes on a baking sheet. Bake for 20 minutes, or until soft.
2. Bring a large pot of water to boil. Remove from heat and add rice noodles. Let stand for 5 to 10 minutes (the thicker the noodles, the longer the time) or until softened. Drain and place in a large bowl; set aside.
3. Heat peanut oil in a large pan over medium heat. Add the garlic, chili, and bell pepper; sauté until bell pepper just starts to soften. Add to noodles. Stir in squash, edamame, green onions, and cilantro. Stir to combine ingredients.  If you would rather have the dish piping hot, return it to the (now empty) pot you cooked the noodles in, and bring to desired heat on the stove.  Serve with soy sauce.