Recipes

How to Process Carob

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Food, Foraging, Recipes
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Before. Photo by Bill Wheelock.

Our neighborhood has an abundance of carob (Ceratonia siliqua) trees that, around this time of year, drop thousands of pounds of pods. Now many of us may have unpleasant associations with carob as a 1970s era chocolate substitute, but the tree has a long history in the Middle East, where it’s used to make a tea, as a source of molasses, as a vegetable and as animal feed. The “locusts” that John the Baptist dined on were not insects but, instead, the pods of the carob tree.

After. Photo by Bill Wheelock.

In the Middle East carob has a reputation as a famine food. According to the carob article in Wikipedia the people of Malta ate carob pods and prickly pear fruit during WWII. How appropriate then that my neighbor Bill Wheelock, who just dehydrated a huge batch of my prickly pear fruit (and faced the thorny consequences), took on the onerous task of figuring out how to dry carob pods and process then into a powder using common kitchen appliances. He has authored a handy step by step guide on Instructables on how to process carob.

As a drought tolerant tree that produces hundreds of pounds of pods each year, Ceratonia siliqua definitely should be included in any food forestry plant list for of our Mediterranean climate. So if that quantitative easing thing doesn’t work out, at lease we’ll have the carob and prickly pear.

Return of Bean Friday: Bean Broth or “Tuscan Crazy Water”

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Bean Fest, Food, Recipes, Reviews
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Yep, Bean Friday rears its head again–or is it Frugal Friday?

Whatever it is, I’ve got this thrifty idea for you. I read about in The Italian Country Table, by Lynn Rossetto Casper. We’ve had this book for years and years, and it has some really good recipes in it that have become standards in our house, along just with a couple of duds. I’d not paid attention to her entry on “Crazy Water” before, but by her introduction, I realized it was just the sort of thrifty cooking we’ve been focusing on here during Bean Fest. The only question for me was whether this recipe was a keeper or a dud, because it sounded pretty strange. The truth is it’s sort of in between.

According to Caspar, Tuscans like to cook beans with plenty of aromatics in lots of water, and then reserve that water as a broth. The bean broth is called Acqua Pazza, crazy water.

“This soup is a revelation” is how she opens the recipe. And later she claims it could be mistaken for chicken broth. That might be the problem–I was expecting twinkling lights and perhaps a chorus from a boys’ choir when I tasted it. What I got was a swallow of thin broth which tastes mostly like warm water when it first hits the tongue, but really does have a very nice, savory aftertaste. It’s delicate.

Caspar suggests serving it in bowls with croutons. I don’t have that much faith in it. But it is a decent vegetarian stock. It goes very well over rice, and I suspect it would be an excellent broth for cooking rice and other grains. I am fond of the waste-not, want-not philosophy behind it, and also the time saving angle. You can make a pot of beans for dinner, and end up with a supply of broth as a side benefit.

So now that all of those qualifications are done, this is how you make the broth:

First, you can’t use just any dried bean. Use light beans, like cannellini, pinto or borlotti. She particularly recommends chickpeas. I used pintos. Don’t use any dark or earthy bean, like black beans or black eyed peas. For fresh beans, she recommends cranberry beans or scarlet runners.

Basically you’re making a pot of beans with extra water. Simple stuff. I doubled her recipe, which only called for 1 cup of dried beans. I soaked 2 cups of dried pintos overnight. The next day I drained them and put them in a heavy pot and poured 2 inches of fresh water over them. To that water I added:

  • 8 fresh sage leaves
  • 6 good sized cloves of crushed garlic
  • 1 medium onion sliced in half and studded with 4 whole cloves

(Just fyi, her recipe calls for 8 sage leaves per 1 cup of dried beans. I chose not to double the sage.)

Throw these seasonings in with the beans. Bring the pot to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and cover. Don’t stir. This is supposed to make the broth clear. (It didn’t really help in my case). Foam might appear on top of the water–it did for me, but it vanished by the end of the cooking time.

Simmer the beans on low, covered, until tender but not falling apart. My pintos cooked in only 30 minutes. A speed record! The plenitude of water means you don’t have to worry about sticking or burning.

At the very end, add salt and pepper.

Strain the broth from the beans. She notes that the Tuscans dress these beans at the table using salt, pepper, olive oil and maybe vinegar.  I tried it, and it’s fine. Solid. Not super exciting, but healthy and hearty. I served the beans over rice with some of the broth. Another possibility, maybe a better possibility, would be to reserve the beans for a higher purpose, like frijoles refritos, or hummus-like applications.

The broth doesn’t keep. You know how stinky beans can get when forgotten in the fridge. I don’t even want to know what might happen to this broth. So use it the next day, or freeze it for the next time you need stock.

I got about 6 cups of bean broth from this recipe.

Anyone done anything similar? Any advice?

Roasted Corn on the Cob – Indoors!

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Food, Recipes
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This is the actual corn, looking somewhat wan under the kitchen lights. It was actually very pretty. And tasty.

Mrs. Homegrown here:

Oh. Em. Gee.

Why have I never done this before? I suspect everyone else has, but if there are a few ignorant souls like myself out there, let me tell you a secret: cook your corn on the cob in the oven.

I knew about corn on the grill, of course. But when it came to indoor corn cooking, I only knew to boil or steam, like my mama and her mama before her.  But roasting is so much easier. There’s no prep, and after it’s cooked, the silk just slides right off. This is a blessed miracle, because picking bits of silk off of boiled corn was never my idea of fun. And the corn comes out sweet and moist, perfectly cooked in its own wrappings, with no effort at all.

Too bad corn season is almost over here, and probably completely over most everywhere else. Next summer is going to be the summer of roasted corn.

Roasted Corn on the Cob:

  1. Preheat your oven to 350ºF
  2. Chuck your un-shucked cobs in the oven, just as nature gives ’em to you
  3. Roast 30 minutes

(30 minutes worked perfectly for me. You could peel back the husk and take a nibble taste test. I suspect there’s a wide latitude of done-ness, ranging from lightly steamed in the husk to heavily roasted/slightly caramelized, and all of it is good.)

    Bean Fest, Episode 8: Really Good Lentil and Whole Grain Soup

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    Bean Fest, Food, Recipes
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    photo by wollongonger

    Welcome to Bean Fridays, our ongoing series highlighting the beautiful bean.

    We had a brief hint of winter here this week, three days of chilly grey skies and lingering drizzle. I was in heaven–but it didn’t last, and we’re heading into another heat wave. But anyway, that taste of winter put me in the mood for soup.

    So today I’m going to share my favorite soup recipe. I’m stretching the rules a bit to put it here, because it’s not a bean dish, but it does involve lentils. One of its great merits is that its what I call a pantry soup. If your pantry is well stocked, you’ll have what it takes to make it or improvise something similar and equally good. And needless to say, it’s easy to make, or I wouldn’t make it.

    This recipe comes from The Paris Cookbook by Patricia Wells, where it’s called Oliviers & Co’s Provencal Three-Grain Soup. With a provenance like that you know that even if it is packed with wholesome ingredients, this isn’t going to be one of those bland “healthy” soups.

    You’ll need:

    1/3 cup spelt
    1/3 cup pearl barley
    1/3 dark green lentils
    3 leeks, white portion only — or an onion or two–finely chopped or sliced into thin rounds.
    2 carrots, chopped
    2 bay leaves
    1/2 t. of fresh or dry thyme
    1 head of garlic, all the cloves peeled
    1 28 oz. can of tomatoes/or your own canned tomatoes
    Sea salt
    Olive oil

    • Notes on the grains: Use whatever whole grains you have on hand, from wheat berries to quinoa, one type or a blend, as long as it measures 2/3 cup. I’ve used all spelt, all barley, even rice, I think– it all tastes the same once it’s in the soup. The variable is texture and eye appeal. The little dark (greenish black brown) lentils called lentilles de Puy are really the best for this, because they hold shape so well. You may find other small lentils, like those little black lentils, work too. But whatever you have will be fine–it’s just that some other types of lentils, like the pink ones, tend to dissolve in soup rather than staying firm. If you don’t have lentils, the soup could be all grain, or you could substitute with pre-cooked beans, adding them in toward the end.

    Rinse your grains and lentils off in a fine colander, set aside.

    Put about a tablespoon of olive oil, about 1 teaspoon of sea salt, the herbs, leeks or onions, and carrots in a heavy bottomed soup pot. Turn the heat on fairly low and cook them covered for about five minutes, so they soften but don’t brown. This is called sweating.

    Add the whole can of tomatoes, juice and all, then add about 5 cups of water.  Bring this to a simmer.

    Add the grains, lentils and all those garlic cloves (The garlic cloves are the secret weapon! If you or your family is garlic shy, don’t worry, the soup doesn’t taste very garlicky when it’s done.)

    Simmer covered until the grains are tender, about 45 minutes, depending on the grains.  Add more water if necessary, to keep it at the thickness you prefer.

    Test for seasoning. Add some fresh ground pepper, and serve in bowls drizzled with extra virgin olive oil. Don’t skip the olive oil swirl. It really makes it, somehow.

    It’s that easy, and that good. I usually double this recipe for leftovers.

    Note re: leftovers: The grains soak up all the liquid when the soup is sitting in the fridge, leaving the soup a semi-solid mass–so you’ll have to add a good deal of water when you go to reheat. This doesn’t effect flavor at all. It’s an excellent leftover type soup.

    Bean Fest, Episode 6: Walton’s Serbian Lima Beans

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    Bean Fest, Food, Recipes
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    Mrs. Homegrown here:

    Welcome back to Bean Fest, our Friday focus on the wonderful world of beans.

    Our friend, Walton, sent in this recipe, which he got from friends. I don’t know anything about its Serbian-ness–whether this is a traditional dish there, or what. Maybe some of you can enlighten us. (I forgot to ask Walton.)

    [ETA: Walton wrote in. It is a genuine Serbian dish. The recipe was given to Walton by his friend’s mom, Mrs. Milosavljevic. Thank you, Mrs. Milosavljevic!]

    What I can tell you is that it is amazing: full of flavor and almost dangerously rich. If you know anyone who thinks eating beans for dinner is akin to wearing a hair shirt, make these for them. Dried Lima beans have a buttery taste on their own. Add to that a huge quantity of olive oil, and the scrumptious umami-savoriness of long-cooked onions, and you’ve got a palette paradise.

    I’d classify these as a special occasion food, because they are so rich. One modest serving will fill you up. We ate them as a main dish with a basic green salad, which works nicely to counterbalance their oiliness, and had hunks of bread to sop up the juice. This recipe would work well as a side dish, of course. They’d also do well on a holiday table.

    And best of all, they’re easy to make. They don’t have many ingredients, and there’s nothing complex about their cooking. They just take a little longer than most beans because of the time in the oven.

    This is the recipe as he sent it:

    Serbian Lima Beans

        * 1 lb small lima beans
        * 1 1/4 cups oil
        * 1 1/4 lbs sliced or chopped onions
        * 1 tspn pepper
        * 2 tspn salt
        * 2 tspn paprika
        * crushed red pepper / chili powder to taste
        * couple bay leaves
    recipe
        * cook lima beans according to package (do not over cook; will cook a bit more in the baking process later)
        * fry onions in oil stirring frequently til very limp/well cooked (think near mush)
        * add spices to onions, mix thoroughly. Taste and adjust according to taste.
        * add well drained lima beans to onion mix (reserve some lima bean water)
        * pour into 9 x 13 baking dish; you want there to be some fluid (to bake in); if dry add some reserved lima bean water
        * insert bay leaves into beans in dish
        * bake, covered, at 375 for 30 minutes
        * bake uncovered, at 350 for 15-20 minutes til golden brown (take care not to burn)
    Walton’s Notes:
    • I would suggest putting the bay leaves in the water with the beans when you first start cooking them.
    • Also, this seems like a lot of olive oil, but it really makes the flavor, so I’d suggest you use some kind of tasty extra-virgin with a strong character. 
    • The onions should be caramelized slowly, barely making any noise while they cook down. This is the other strong flavor of the dish. Start the onions during the last hour of the beans boiling.

    Buon appetito!

    This is what they look like fresh out of the oven

    Mrs. Homegrown’s notes:

    Not much to add here.  FYI 3 not-too-large yellow onions = 1 1/4 lbs.

    I goofed by not reading the recipe correctly, so I caramelized the onions solo, instead of in the 1 1/4 cups of oil. (For some cracky reason I thought the oil was added later.) I had to back paddle and simmered the finished onions in the oil for about 10 minutes, hoping the flavor would infuse into the oil in that time. I think it worked. The mind boggles to think it might have been even better if I’d cooked it correctly.

    Do be sure to cook the onions a nice long time, as Walton noted. That is the key to the recipe, and a point I don’t want anyone to miss.

    The only thing I was unclear on was how much bean water to add back into the baking dish before cooking. Figuring wet beans are always much better than dry, burnt beans, I poured the reserved water into the dish until it just barely covered the top layer of beans. Then sealed the baking dish with foil. That seemed to work just perfectly.