Recipes

Escarole is a rare and exotic vegetable for me. I'd been scared off with stories about its bitterness and frankly, there were plenty of other things to eat that struck me as more appealing. My greengrocer had it, I bought and now I had to use it. It looks like a head of butter lettuce and it is, as promised, somewhat bitter. On its own, it's unappealing but wilted by tossing in warm pasta, it's just great. You can go heavier on the beans if you like. For me, this is a pasta dish with beans and escarole. Ingredients 2...

This is one of those recipes where the title is basically the recipe. Wonderful big, fat white beans topped with an intense green sauce. I would recommend Royal Coronas but Alubia Blanca or Cassoulet beans would serve you just as well. Ta da. To make Italian salsa verde: Pound a clove of garlic with some salt and make a paste. Add chopped fresh sage and flat-leaf parsley (about 3 parts sage to one part parsley) and continue pounding as you add really good olive oil. I use a mortar and pestle but you could also use a mini food processor. I...

As the best tomatoes of summer are winding down, I've been continuing my obsession with macerated heirloom tomatoes. I've been tossing them with fresh mozzarella over pasta and last night I made this very simple composed salad. Use leftovers or make the components especially for this dish: wild rice, macerated tomatoes, and creamy white beans such as Cassoulet or Alubia Blanca. This recipe is for one serving, but you can easily scale up the recipe if you are serving more people. Ingredients: 1 large heirloom tomato, cubed 2 tablespoons fruity extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling Salt and freshly ground pepper to...

I saw this recipe in the old Dried Beans and Grain book from the the seminal Good Cook series by Richard Olney with Jeremiah Towers, among others. It seemed a little strange and forgotten and that’s very appealing to me. And it used two cups of cooked garbanzos. I love garbanzos but when I cook a pot, sometimes it seems like too much of a good thing. I love hummus. I love Caldo Tlapeño. But what do you do with that last bit? The recipe has you process the beans in a food mill or food processor. I love my...

One of my favorite books from the last years has been The Blue Zones (National Geographic, 2008) by Dan Buettner. Statistics for longevity are examined and there are some not so surprising conclusions reached, my favorite being that those of us lucky enough to make it to the old folks stage tend to eat beans. The Greek Island of Ikaria is mentioned a lot and it’s referred to as the place where people forget to die. Citizens work, garden, eat whole foods, little meat and of course eat beans (and drink wine.) Works for me. Diane Kochilas’ book on the...

Like almost everyone else, I have been enamored with Joshua McFadden's cookbook, Six Seasons. At first I resisted. Seasonal market cooking. Really? Again? Yes, really. The story is the seasons but in the end, it's simply a great book for people who find the produce section the most interesting part of food shopping. The recipes are simple and straightforward without a lot of chef-y pretense and my copy, less than a year old, is filthy from use. Splattered with some really good memories. One of my favorite recipes has been this raw asparagus salad, tarted up by me with some...

There are many versions of pozole but one of my favorites is Pozole Blanco. Unlike other pozoles where chiles are a part of the broth, Blanco is broth, meat and hominy and the heat comes from salsa on the table, to be added by the diner. This means you need a really great broth, the kind you can only get by making it yourself. Traditionally, you’d have red chile powder, Mexican oregano and limes for serving but I love the purity and freshness of the Chile Manzano Salsa and there’s plenty of oregano in both the broth and the salsa....