Fall Grain Bowl with Butternut Squash

With the summer bounty of fresh produce quickly diminishing and available crops turning to things like squash and apples, dishes with lots of butter, cream and cheese suddenly start to appear in cooking magazines. Fall dishes thus seem "heavier" than the summer ones that came before. While delicious, if you eat like that too much you'll gain your winter weight before Thanksgiving.

But fall produce doesn't have to be drowned in dairy fat. Squash, for example, is wonderful on its own as well as a versatile partner for many types of dishes. Here, I've given it a leading role in a grain bowl made with bulgur, a dish I like because it's: 1) easy, 2) loaded with fall flavor, and 3) not "heavy" like a lot of fall dishes.

In selecting ingredients for this dish, I thought about making a Tabbouleh with fall flavors, first incorporating elements of the Zuni Cafe bread salad that I so love, then adding the unmistakable fall flavors of butternut squash and sage.

Fall Grain Bowl with Butternut Squash

1 tbsp. dried currants
1 tbsp. red wine vinegar
1 tbsp. water
1 lb. butternut squash, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch cubes
6 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil, divided
Kosher salt, to taste
2 1/2 cups chicken stock
1 cup bulgur wheat
3/4 lb. chicken breast cutlets
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
2 tbsp. pine nuts
3 garlic cloves, sliced very thin
4 scallions, white end chopped with a little bit of the green part
2 tbsp. chopped fresh sage
1 oz. (about 2 cups) baby arugula leaves
2 tbsp. white wine vinegar

1. In a small bowl, combine dried currants with red wine vinegar and 1 tbsp. of water. Set aside to plump as you prepare the other ingredients.

2. Preheat oven to 400 F. In a bowl, toss squash with 1 tbsp. olive oil and kosher salt (to taste), then spread in an even layer on a baking sheet that is nonstick or lined with foil or parchment. Bake until the squash is soft, about 30 to 40 minutes. Set aside to cool a bit then add to a large bowl.

3. Bring chicken stock to boil in a 2-quart saucepan with a lid. Remove from heat, add bulgur wheat, cover and let sit for 20 minutes. Drain any excess liquid and add the cooked bulgur to the large bowl with the squash.

4. Heat 2 tbsp. olive oil in a medium frying pan. Season chicken with salt and pepper to taste and add to the pan. Cook chicken about 10 minutes until no longer pink inside, turning over about halfway through. Remove from pan, allow to cool a bit, then chop and add to the large bowl with the squash and bulgur.

5. Heat a small (8-inch) frying pan over medium-low heat. Toast pine nuts in pan until fragrant and lightly browned (doesn't take long, watch carefully and keep nuts moving to avoid burning). Remove from pan and add to large bowl. Add 1 tbsp. olive oil to pan. Add sliced garlic and chopped scallions and sauté until softened, about 2 minutes. Add to large bowl. Drain currants and add to the large bowl, along with the chopped sage and arugula.

6. Whisk together the remaining 2 tbsp. of olive oil and the white wine vinegar, season with salt and pepper, pour over ingredients in the large bowl and toss to combine. Serve in bowls.

Chili Week Roundup

Whether your like your spicy bowl authentically Texan, Asian-influenced, Cincinnati-style or loaded with beans and vegetables there is a chili style for you. Here's a round up of the chili recipes I featured on the site last week.

Chili Con Carne. This is the smoky Texas original, a meat-forward recipe with fresh and ground chiles and no beans.

BBQ Turkey Chili-Stew. Loaded with vegetables, beans and lean ground turkey, this is a healthy version of a hearty chili with a good dose of smoky flavor.

Cincinnati Chili. Drawing on Tex-Mex, Italian and Middle Eastern influences, this is the midwestern classic.

Thai-Style Chili. Inspired by Tom Kha Gai, my favorite Thai soup, this chili is a fusion of Eastern and Western flavors.

Cincinnati Chili

Cincinnati chili has to be one of the oddest dishes I've ever had. Geographically, it's all over the map. At its base is chili, the Tex-Mex staple, but spiced with a blend that's vaguely Middle Eastern and then served over noodles like a kind of spicy spaghetti with meat sauce. And it's from the Midwest.

I wouldn't dismiss this though just because it's weird. It's quite good, especially leftover the next day when all the flavors have had time to blend together well.

Cincinnati has an unusual but wonderfully fragrant combination of spices.

Since it has cayenne pepper in it, this chili is pretty spicy. In a way, it's spicier than the Chili Con Carne, which had more of a background heat to it.

When ordering Cincinnati chili, there's a code for how you want it that refers to the extras, which Wikipedia describes well. My chili sort of messes up the code system, since I added the beans to the pot instead of serving them as an extra, and I didn't include any additional raw onion. I guess that makes this a "four-way bean" sort of.

Cincinnati Chili
Adapted from multiple recipe sources

1 lb. lean ground beef
2 yellow onions, diced
Salt or seasoned salt, to taste
4 garlic cloves, minced
2 tbsp. chili powder
1 tbsp. sweet paprika
1 tsp. dried oregano
1 tbsp. unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp. ground allspice
1 tsp. ground cumin
1/4 tsp. ground clove
2 cups low-sodium chicken broth
1 tbsp. apple cider vinegar
1 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
2 cups tomato sauce or crushed tomatoes (I used the latter, since I had it on hand to use up)
28 oz. can of red kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 bay leaf
1 lb. cooked spaghetti (cooked al dente, according to package directions)
Generous amount of shredded cheddar cheese

1. Heat a large sauté pan over medium-high heat. Add beef and cook until browned, breaking up with a wooden spoon. Remove beef from pan (or if using an oval sauté pan, push to one end).

2. Add onion to pan, season to taste with salt (or seasoned salt), and sauté until softened, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and sauté until fragrant, about 1-2 minutes. Add chili powder, paprika, oregano, cocoa powder, cayenne pepper, allspice, cumin and clove and continue cooking, stirring frequently, until fragrant, about a minute.

3. Add the chicken broth, cider vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, tomato sauce, kidney beans and bay leaf to the pot. Increase heat and bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low and simmer uncovered for about 20 to 30 minutes until the mixture has thickened. Serve in a large bowl over spaghetti topped with a generous heap of shredded cheddar cheese.

Shutdown Survival Cooking

Most of the recipes I write about on Cook In / Dine Out can be made in less than an hour. While I'm not aiming to write a convenience cooking site, it's just a practical matter: I work full-time and I don't have time to make elaborate meals during the week. When you do see longer recipes on my site, they're probably ones I made on a weekend.

With the federal government having shut down, many home cooks may find themselves with extra time to explore midweek cooking that's more involved than usual. Seize the opportunity to make something special for your family, your sweetie or just yourself. Besides filling time, a tasty cooking project can nourish your body and your soul. Plus, it provides the satisfaction of accomplishing something.

Below are some of the more time-intensive recipes I've featured, sorted by category. I've also discussed ways to cut costs on some of the recipes, since, non-pay status makes splurging on luxury food items feel like, well, a luxury. By their nature though, a lot of recipes that take a long time to cook don't use expensive ingredients. It's the time and care that bring out their good flavors.

Bolognese lasagna, from Marcella Hazan's recipe, is a great afternoon cooking project with common ingredients.

Meats

The complex flavor of bolognese sauce comes from slowly cooking it over the course of the afternoon. This Bolognese-Style Lasagna takes the better part of the day to make, given the time for the sauce, assembling the dish and baking it. The recipe is from Italian-food cook Marcella Hazan, who died this week. Cost savings: nothing in this recipe is particularly expensive except possibly the tomatoes if you buy an imported brand.

Spice-Brined Roast Chicken will easily fill up several days, since it requires an overnight brine, drying time and the actual roasting. Cost savings: there's no getting around the cost of the chicken, although if you substitute whatever spices you have on hand for the brine, that's really the only cost in this dish.

Slow-cooking meats is the sort of day-long process I usually only have time for on the weekend. Slow cooking is a great way to treat pork shoulder which, in the Carnitas Tacos, gets an additional broil in the oven to crisp it up a bit. Although the pork has many hours of inactive cooking, this recipe will fill that time as you prepare the homemade corn tortillas and corn salsa, refried black beans and guacamole garnishes. Cost savings: the pork shoulder is the only major cost of this dish; the masa harina, while seemingly exotic to some, is less expensive (and way tastier) than store-bought corn tortillas. If you don't have a tortillas press, roll the balls of dough out between two sheets of plastic wrap or parchment to about 1/8-inch thickness.

Jacques Pepin's Beef Stew in Red Wine Sauce gets a good long roast in the oven.

Stews

The very word "stew" implies something that is cooked slowly over a period of many hours. I've made two really incredible stews this year that are well worth their time. Jacques Pepin's Beef Stew in Red Wine Sauce is about the best Beef Bourguignon I've ever had. The meat is first browned on the stove and then roasted in the oven with the wine for a long time. The vegetables are cooked separately and then combined in the end. Cost savings: use less-expensive beef chuck in place of flatiron steak; any red wine will work, although make sure it's one you would also drink (don't substitute a so-called "cooking wine"). 

Smoky Red Wine, Pinto Bean and Bacon Soup, an absolutely wonderful recipe by New York Times writer Melissa Clark, still takes hours to prepare, despite the time I shaved off by cooking the beans with a faster method. If you love beans and bacon, this is the best way I've ever had them together. Cost savings: using dried beans is more economical than canned; use any red wine you have on hand, but don't substitute a bad wine or that will be reflected in your dish.

Sweet Corn Agnolotti, from a recipe by Mike Isabella, takes time to prepare the filling, sauce and assembly.

Homemade Pasta

It's so easy to open a box of dried pasta and boil it. It's another thing to make your own. Fresh pasta has a flavor and texture that dried pasta just cannot beat. For something simple, try Fresh Pasta with Homemade Ricotta and Roasted Tomato Sauce (homemade ricotta is another good cooking project). For something more involved, try Toasted Fazzoletti with Mushrooms and Hazelnuts or, if you're really up to a challenge, Sweet Corn Agnolotti with Mushrooms, from a recipe by Mike Isabella of Graffiato and Top Chef. Cost savings: Although pasta (semolina) flour is often recommended, you can make pasta with standard all-purpose flour. Substitute sauce ingredients as needed. 

Homemade gnocchi is worth the effort as it's much better than store-bought.

Gnocchi

Gnocchi dishes come together in a snap if you use store-bought gnocchi. Making your own takes time, but I think you'll find it's worth it. You can get much lighter, tastier dumplings if you make them yourself. Although potato is traditional, such as in Gnocchi with Sausage-Mushroom Ragu, using other root vegetables like sweet potatoes (Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Sage) or beets (Beet Gnocchi with Walnut-Sage Butter) are more flavorful. Cost savings: at their most basic, gnocchi are just potato, flour, egg, salt and water, so they're pretty inexpensive; it's the sauces that may set you back more, so feel free to experiment and substitute with what you have on hand.

At the tail end of tomato season, it's the perfect time to roast tomatoes and use them in something like this panzanella.

Roasted Tomatoes

It takes a good 2 1/2 to 3 hours to roast tomatoes, so any of the dishes I've made with them will take at least the afternoon to prepare. Homemade roasted tomatoes are amazing--such a depth of flavor. Recipes include Creamy Roasted Tomato Gazpacho, Roasted Tomato Risotto, Tomatoes Two-Ways Pasta, Pizza, Roasted Tomato Panzanella and even Roasted Tomato Cocktails. Cost savings: although I strongly recommend using fresh, seasonal tomatoes, even grocery-store tomatoes will improve with roasting.

Making your own broth, such as roasted tomato broth, greatly enhances the flavor of this risotto over a store-bought substitute.

Stock

For lots of recipes, I turn to the 2- or 4-cup boxes of premade stocks and broths, which is an enormous time-saver for midweek cooking. But if you have the time, homemade stock is worth it. I've made two vegetable stocks that I really like: one for Navy Bean Soup with Kielbasa and another with Roasted Tomatoes that I used for making risotto. Cost savings: As money-saving dishes go, stocks are one of the best, since you can use whatever vegetables (including scraps) and seasonings you have on hand.

Blackberry-Vanilla Ice Cream Pie with Corn Cookie Crust requires first making two separate recipes and putting them together into a delicious final product.

Desserts

The fastest way to slow down a dessert is to add multiple stages. Ice cream pies, for example, require first making cookies and pulverizing them to form the crust ingredients, plus making the ice cream, before forming the crust, spooning in the ice cream and freezing it. It's a great way to showcase unique flavor combinations. Check out Cereal Milk Ice Cream Pie with Compost Cookie Crust or Blackberry-Vanilla Ice Cream Pie with Corn Cookie Crust. Cost savings: for the corn cookies, substitute either corn flour or a mix of fine corn meal and flour for the ground freeze-dried corn. Ingredients in the compost cookies can be substituted for whatever snacky things you have on hand--various chips, nuts, etc. 

In addition to being a multi-stage dessert, Cereal Milk Baked Alaska with Brown Butter Cake requires extra time in the freezer between steps (very important time, by the way; the first time I made Baked Alaska I skipped some freezer time and really regretted it). Caramelized Parsnip Layer Cake requires extra time to first prepare, roast and mash the parsnips. Cost savings: for the cereal milk ice cream, substitute any flavorful sugary cereal for the Cinnamon Toast Crunch if you don't have that (Honey-Nut Cheerios would be good, I bet); carrots could be used instead of parsnips in the cake.

Thai-Style Chili

This Asian-influenced chili is a mashup of a bean-based chili con carne married with the flavors of Thai-style Tom Kha Gai, the popular coconut and lime flavored soup (for another riff on Tom Kha Gai, see Tom Khaliflower Soup).

There are no tomatoes in this dish, but there's still plenty of flavor from the garlic, ginger, lime and fish sauce (an ingredient which should not be omitted and that does not result in giving the soup a fishy taste). A little peanut butter adds some nice depth in place of the smoky ingredients I'd normally put in chili.

Thai-Style Chili

1 lb. ground pork
1 sweet onion, diced
3-4 carrots, diced
4 garlic cloves, minced
2 tbsp. minced fresh ginger (about 1 to 1 1/2 inches of ginger root peeled and minced)
1 jalapeño pepper, seeded and minced
Salt and fresh-ground black pepper, to taste
2 15 oz. cans of cannellini beans
1 15 oz. can coconut milk
1/3 cup creamy natural peanut butter
2 cups low-sodium chicken broth
2 tbsp. fish sauce
Juice from 2 limes
Fresh cilantro, coarsely chopped, about 1/2 cup

1. Heat a large Dutch oven or deep-sided sauté pan over medium heat. Add pork and cook until browned. Remove from pan and drain off fat, leaving about a tablespoon. Add onion and carrots and sauté until softened, about 5-7 minutes. Add garlic, ginger and jalapeño, season with salt and pepper, and sauté until fragrant, about 3 more minutes.

2. Add beans, coconut milk, peanut butter, chicken broth and fish sauce to pot. Increase heat to medium-high and bring mixture to a gentle boil, reduce heat to low and simmer, covered, for about 15-20 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in the lime juice. Service in bowls topped with chopped cilantro.

The Feed: October 2, 2013

The Feed is my weekly round up of interesting food-related stories from newspapers, magazines, blogs and websites.

Pasta e Fagioli Soup, from a recipe by Marcella Hazan, who died Sunday at age 89.

New York Times: “Marcella Hazan, 1924-2013: Changed the Way Americans Cook Italian Food,” by Kim Severson.
I cannot recall when I first became aware of Marcella Hazan, but I’ve since learned how pervasive her influence is on Americans’ cooking of Italian dishes. In the last year, having familiarized myself with her Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking cookbook, from which I made Bolognese Lasagna and Pasta e Fagioli soup, I’ve grown to appreciate her techniques and bold flavors. So I was sad to learn the esteemed cookbook author died in her home on Sunday. Severson deftly summarizes Hazan’s life story, from her Italian origins through her early days in New York when she started cooking, onto her later years as a successful cookbook writer (with much assistance from her husband, as she never learned to write in English).

I also recommend checking out the Washington Post’s article by Tim Carman about Hazan’s influence on D.C. chefs, who are adding dishes to their menus this week in tribute to her.

Forbes: “Barilla Earns Gay Boycott, Learns Taking Sides Is Bad For Business,” by Laura Heller.
Italian pasta-maker Barilla pulled a “spaghetti-uh-oh” last week when its chairman, Guido Barilla, made anti-gay remarks during an Italian radio broadcast, claiming Barilla would never make an advertising spot depicting a family headed by a same-sex couple. The story has been widely reported. I liked Heller’s in particular because she explores the potential business implications of the misstep, citing statistics about the buying power of LGBT Americans. Also worth reading is Slate’s story by Lorenza Antonucci, which explores how the story impacts LGBT Italians. In the past, I’ve championed Barilla pasta on my site, but Mr. Barilla suggested that gays that don’t like what he’s said can eat another pasta. Done. No More Barilla on Cook In / Dine Out.

Washington Post: “D.C. chefs making cauliflower a star,” by David Hagedorn.
For whatever reason, I’ve had a hankering to try some new cauliflower dishes lately. Perhaps subconsciously I was picking up on the trend that David Hagedorn also observed: cauliflower is the new Brussels sprouts. He writes about how D.C. chefs like Victor Albisu (Del Campo), Mike Isabella (Graffiato/Kapnos) and Nick Stefanelli (Bibiana) are embracing the vegetable and using it in new and interesting ways. I’m particularly intrigued by the idea of using grated cauliflower in place of rice in risotto, a technique employed by Aaron McCloud (Cedar) and Bart Vandaele (B Too). Cauliflower risotto is among the several delicious recipes Hagedorn included with the article.

New York Times – The Taco Issue
Like tacos? I certainly do, and I was impressed by the Times' haul of Taco-themed stories in this week's Dining section, including:

• “Critic's Notebook: Making a Stand-Up Meal of the Sit-Down Taco,” by Pete Wells. New York is awash in restaurant tacos, but unfortunately few that are really great. 
• “Masa Offers the Kernels of a Culture,” by Julia Moskin gives a nice overview of the corn flour that forms the basis of corn tortillas and many other Mexican foods.
• “City Kitchen: The Unstuffy Taco,” by David Tanis offers several taco recipes. 
• “The Softness, the Crunch, the Nostalgia of the Fish Taco,” by Jeff Gordinier. 
• “Go Deeper into Mexico with Mezcal,” by Florence Fabricant explores tequila’s smoky cousin and offers several cocktail recipes. 
• “What's in It: That Nacho Dorito Taste,” by Michael Moss chronicles the allure of the best-selling snack chip. From the accompanying interactive graphic I learned that Nacho Cheese Doritos really do contain real cheese (romano). 

NPR: “Birch For Breakfast? Meet Maple Syrup's Long-Lost Cousins,” by Nevin Martell. 
When it comes to tree syrups, maple is really the only game in town. Ever wonder why? Martell explores the potential market for other syrups, including those made from birch and black walnut trees. Cost is an obvious reason: a gallon of maple syrup is produced from 34 gallons of maple sap, but it takes over 100 gallons of birch syrup to produce the same quantity of syrup. But these alternative tree syrups sound interesting, especially smoky-woodsy hickory syrup.

Chili Con Carne

The chili I wrote about yesterday contained no beef (it had turkey instead), was chock full of vegetables and had (gasp) beans. It's enough to send chili purists running for the hills. Or perhaps a hot cattle brand. I'd better watch myself.

To satisfy the meat lovers, today I offer a traditional Chili Con Carne. No beans here and just a little onion and tomato puree for flavor and thickening. This dish puts the focus on traditional chili's two main ingredients: beef and chiles.

A mix of ancho and standard chili powders (above) are used to make the chili paste (below)

 America's Test Kitchen, always a good resource for basic dishes done very well, developed this recipe to be the "ultimate" version of traditional Texan chili: good chili flavor without overpowering heat, a rich sauce and chunks of meat. I say they scored big time. This chili was really delicious. Yes it's spicy, but not overwhelmingly so.

Browning the beef in batches (see browned beef in upper left)

The recipe calls for chunks of beef rather than the more common ground beef, specifically beef chuck roast. Helpfully, Whole Foods sells beef chuck cubes for stew already trimmed of fat, which when cut down to 1-inch cubes worked beautifully in the chili.

Chili paste mixed with onion, garlic and jalapeño

ATK recommends toasting whole dried ancho and New Mexico chiles for the best flavor. However, I was at a loss for finding the right ones, which was kind of surprising. I didn't see any dried chiles at Giant and Whole Foods only had the Asian variety. And I couldn't find "New Mexico" chili pepper. In fact, It was a bit irritated by the prevalence of chili powders labelled only as "chili powder" without more descriptive information about the type of chilis used. Even in the Latin food aisle at Giant it was just "chili powder." So I ended up with ancho chili powder and "regular" chili powder from Whole Foods. This may be why the dish wasn't overpoweringly spicy, but it was still quite good. If you can find the whole dried chiles, the recipe calls for toasting and grinding 3 medium pods of each variety (ancho and New Mexico).

Chili after simmering for 2 hours.

Chili Con Carne
Adapted from Chili Con Carne by America's Test Kitchen

Serves 6

2 tbsp. cumin seeds
3 tbsp. ancho chili powder
3 tbsp. standard chili powder
2 tsp. dried oregano
8 oz. thick-sliced bacon, cut into 1/4-inch pieces
4 lb. beef chuck roast, such as chuck stew meat, trimmed of fat and cut into 1-inch cubes
1 medium yellow onion, minced
Salt, to taste
5 garlic cloves, minced
3 jalapeño chiles, cored, seeded and minced
1 cup of canned crushed tomatoes (reserve the rest for another use, like pasta sauce)
Juice from 1 lime
5 tbsp. masa harina
Shredded cheddar cheese

1. Heat a small frying pan over medium heat. Add cumin seeds and toast until fragrant, about 4-5 minutes. Allow to cool slightly and then grind the seeds into powder (I use a coffee grinder dedicated to grinding spices). Combine the ground cumin in a small bowl with the chili powders, dried cumin and 1/2 cup water, stirring to form a thick paste (it will thicken as it sits on the counter and you continue with the recipe).

2. Heat a large Dutch oven or steep-sided sauté pan over medium-low heat. Add the bacon and cook until the fat renders and the bacon is brown and crisp, about 10 minutes. Remove bacon with a slotted spoon and transfer to a paper-towel-lined plate. Remove all but about 2 teaspoons of bacon fat from the pot and set aside to use in the pot (I used a large spoon to scoop it out and transfer the hot fat to a glass ramekin--be careful, it's hot). Increase heat to medium-high. Brown the beef cubes in batches (four batches of 1 lb. each), adding 2 tsp. of bacon fat between each batch, about 5 minutes per batch. Set browned beef cubes aside in a large bowl.

3. Reduce heat to medium and add 3 tbsp. of reserved bacon fat. Add onion, season with salt to taste and sauté until softened, about 5-7 minutes. Add garlic and jalapeño and sauté about a minute. Add chili paste and sauté, stirring frequently, until fragrant, about 2-3 minutes. Add cooked bacon and beef, crushed tomatoes, lime juice and 7 cups of water. Increase heat to bring to a simmer then reduce heat to medium-low and simmer until the meat is tender and the sauce is dark and starting to thicken, about 2 hours.

4. Stir the masa harina with 2/3 cup water in a small bowl to form a paste. Stir paste into chili and increase heat to medium. Simmer until thickened, about 10 minutes. Adjust seasoning and serve chili in bowls topped with shredded cheese.