Tag Archives: beans

A Cauldron of Southwestern Black Bean & Mustard Squash Soup

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I’ve been into beans this winter.  I like pouring something that could substitute for buckshot into a cauldron of water and ending up with soft, succulent morsels of food.  And I cannot overemphasize the appeal of the cauldron component; to make yummy beans from scratch, I have to take the biggest pot we have, a cast-iron thing of uncertain origin in the home, and fill it with all sorts of whatever’s-on-hand to make delicious what would otherwise be bland bean flesh.  I mean, eye of newt is surely not tasty to most palettes and Macbeth’s witches weren’t making dinner, so this is perhaps not the best comparison, but I like pouring and scraping and shaking whatever cool things I can find into a simmering pot and getting a little magic out of it when all is said and done.

Looking at this picture, I remember that we sprinkled some cheese on top, too.

Looking at this picture, I remember that we sprinkled some cheese on top, too.

So the other day I decided to riff on the rough idea of a Southwestern-themed bean soup I had burbling around in my brain.  We had a butternut squash on hand, not Shannon’s favorite vegetable, and I’m always trying to come up with ways to make yummy things folks don’t typically like.  Note that you don’t have to include all of these ingredients in your version.  You shouldn’t make a special trip to the store just for a lime or whatever, and the soup will be tasty even if you don’t get the mustard going.

Southwestern Black Bean & Mustard Squash Soup Continue reading →

Venerating the Bean: Winter Minestrone

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minestroneAnd now allow me to praise a cookbook that I haven’t actually read. When An Everlasting Meal by Tamar Adler came out a couple years ago with its tagline of cooking “with economy and grace,” I thought it sounded kiiiiind of boring, despite the good reviews it was getting, and chose to ignore it. And then this weekend I was flipping through a food writing anthology and happened upon a chapter from the book called, “How to Live Well,” which, in my opinion, is such an eye-roll-worthy title that I almost flipped right past it. And then I realized what the entire chapter was about: beans.

It turns out that there’s a lot to be said about the humble bean, that darling of the Tuscans. Adler outlines how to cook ‘em, how to dress ‘em up, how to enjoy them, all in a tone that is straightforward but definitely not humorless. I was charmed. Knowing that Adler was an avid bean eater put me solidly in her court.

Another thing I liked about the chapter was that the recipe she gave for minestrone was incredibly elastic, because it’s supposed to reflect the season (and possibly your mental state, like a mood ring). Got some spring peas? Awesome. Winter root vegetables? Also cool. I tried my hand at the recipe this weekend, and the result was a thick, hearty vegetarian minestrone, perfect for winter. (And holy moly! That “whistling the skin off a bean” method she mentions actually works!) I’ll share the recipe I used below, but really, I suggest checking out the book and making that minestrone your own. And if you don’t have time for the whole book, don’t worry; I’ve already dropped enough Christmas hints that it will probably show up here again soon.

Vegetarian Winter Minestrone Continue reading →

Hurricane Food: Chili Tips from the Midst of Sandy’s Formidable Clutches

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chili!Believe me when I say that I am not trying to make light of anyone’s storm hardships, but let’s face facts: there’s a lot of boredom that goes hand-in-hand with weather catastrophes. Ever since the subways shut down last night, there has been a good deal of thumb-twiddling here in Brooklyn while we count our canned goods, watch storm porn on weather.com (NEW! IMAGES OF SANDY’S WRATH) and wait for the damn thing to finally hit land. An unexpected side effect of that boredom is that Jason and I, unhampered by the burdens of actually earning money this Monday morning, have been eating unusually well.

Jason rescued bags full of basil from the possibly-doomed hoop house yesterday, and then set about producing vast amounts of pesto that we have been gulping down with the last gasp of the year’s tomato crop and anything from the refrigerator that would pain us too much to see spoil. Today I whipped up a big batch of chili. Chili might just be the perfect hurricane food: should the power go, we can warm it up on the stove, and should the gas go, it is not too disgusting eaten cold. Besides, that article in this weekend’s NYT magazine about those crazy-old Greek people indicated that we should all eat more beans. So take that, Sandy!

Here are some chili tips for you, whether you’re in the middle of a hurricane or not: Continue reading →

The Stillness before Second Crack: Adventures in Coffee Roasting

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coffee plant

Coffee is actually the seed of this fruit, not a bean at all...

I read recently that Honoré de Balzac took his coffee very seriously. He made his own special blend from three specific beans that could only be found in separate neighborhoods of Paris, necessitating a journey that took no less than half a day every time he needed to concoct a new batch. He eschewed common preparation methods in favor of the complex Chaptal-style coffeemaker, and during periods when he was actively writing, he lived on little more than fruit and coffee. Balzac said, of coffee’s influence, “Ideas swing into action like battalions in the Great Army on a battlefield…Memories enlist at the double…and flashes of inspiration join the skirmish; faces take form; the paper is soon covered in ink.”*

You might think that the attention Balzac paid to coffee sounds so extreme that it has the ring of fiction, that it can be easily dismissed as no more real than the obsessive attributes of his characters. At some point, I probably would have agreed with you. And then I started working at Solid State.

Ask anyone at the small IT firm and they will stridently claim that they are not coffee experts, merely hobbyists, but they will say it in the same breath as they deride the tobacco undertones to the most recent inferior cup they happened upon. Continue reading →