Cookbook review: Get Cooking

Get Cooking is a great book for beginner cooks. Mind you, it's pretty solidly just for beginners. I personally recommend getting an all-purpose cookbook (like The Joy of Cooking) because it's great for all levels of cooks--you can continue using it for years, even after you know what you're doing. A book strictly for beginners, like this one, won't be as useful after the fact.

But everyone has to start somewhere, right? All the recipes in this book are easy and quick--no bizarre ingredients, no three-page-long list of instructions, and everything looks pretty delicious. If you are a beginner, check out a copy from your local library and see what you think.

Mushroom ragout with barley

Remember my shittake mushroom patch? So far I've gleaned nearly a full pound of shittakes from it. Last night I sliced those, added a few button mushrooms to round it out, and made this. Mushroom ragout with barley sounds fancy, but essentially it's just cooked mushrooms on top of cooked barley. Decadent, but easy.

1 pound mushrooms, sliced (I used shittakes and button 'shrooms, but any kind will do)
1 cup pearled barley
1/2 onion, chopped
1 stalk celery, chopped
3 cups broth
a little sour cream or creme fraiche
chopped fresh parsley

Saute the onion and celery in olive oil until soft. Add the barley and broth, cover and reduce to low, and let cook until the barley is done and the liquid is mostly gone, about 30 minutes.

In a separate pan, saute the mushrooms in a little butter until browned.

Serve by heaping the mushrooms on top of the cooked barley, drizzling the sour cream/creme fraiche on top, and garnish with the parsley. Salt and pepper to taste.

Lentil salad with feta, mint and oranges

This started as a way to use up the last of the feta and turned into a new lentil standard. I was surprised by how much the orange and mint brightened the whole thing--those two things took an ordinary lentil salad to the next level. I don't usually spring for fresh mint this time of year ($2 a bunch!) but I was glad I did.

1 cup lentils, cooked in 2 1/2 cups of water until tender (about 25 minutes)
1/4 cup diced red onion or green onion (I left the onion out, so this part is optional)
1/2 cup chopped fresh mint
1 orange, peeled and chopped, with as much of the white part removed as possible
2 big handfuls of crumbled feta

Vinaigrette:
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon brown or dijon mustard
salt and pepper
1/3 cup olive oil

Combine the first three of the viniagrette, then add the oil in a slow stream while whisking vigorously. Combine the lentils and other things, add the vinaigrette, mix. Serve at room temperature.

This makes a great dish to take to work for lunch, too--because it's best at room temperature, you don't even have to worry about putting it in the work refrigerator.

Jalapeno pesto

Oh my goodness, this is good. Fantastic with just about everything.

4 big or 6 regular seeded jalapenos
2 peeled garlic cloves
2 tablespoons toasted pecans
1/4 cup parmesan
salt to taste
1/2 cup or so olive oil

Puree everything except the oil in your food processor, then add the oil in a steady steam while it's pureeing. Adjust salt to taste.

Homemade sour cream

Yesterday I said you could make homemade sour cream from homemade (or plain, or Greek) yogurt.

But you can make it another way, without yogurt!

1 cup cream
1/4 cup buttermilk

Mix, let sit overnight at room temperature. Then move to the refrigerator.

That's it!

Of course, if you have yogurt, you can make it this way, by draining off the liquid in the yogurt overnight and adding a bit of lemon.

You should know that plain yogurt can usually be used as a stand-in for sour cream in dips and recipes; so unless you want actual sour cream to put on a taco or baked potato or something, you can get away with just having yogurt in the fridge.

Homemade yogurt

I love the Salvation Army near me.

I find all kinds of great stuff there--including brand-new board games, several brand-new pieces of Pampered Chef stoneware, and a yogurt maker. I gave the yogurt maker a trial run, and I'm pleased to say it passed with flying colors.

It's the Waring Pro Professional Yogurt Maker, which I believe has been discontinued, so don't take this post as an endorsement of that particular yogurt maker--merely as an endorsement for home yogurt making in general. You don't even need a yogurt maker; the internet abounds with recipes for homemade yogurt using only things you already have, and if you like, I can try one of those methods as well and report back.

But since I picked up this yogurt maker for $5, I'm going to use it, dammit.

According to the instructions, there are two ways you can make yogurt: by heating the milk (which gives you firmer yogurt), or by not heating the milk (softer yogurt; or you can add powdered milk to the room temperature pasteurized milk, which makes firmer yogurt without heating).

Since my particular yogurt maker is obsolete, I won't bore you with its specific recipe or details. But I did go through the trouble of heating the milk, and the yogurt turned out beautifully. Next time I'll try the powdered milk/room temperature variation.

I love yogurt, but I hate a) the cost and b) the fact that I have to pay more to get either plain or Greek yogurt, without artificial fruit flavoring and whatever. This way I can keep myself in good, fresh, no-added-crap yogurt.

BONUS: You can make your own sour cream from your own homemade yogurt, thereby negating ever having to buy yogurt or sour cream ever again.

I'll cover that tomorrow.

Swiss chard lasagna

One of the easiest and quickest lasagnas I've ever thrown together, but sadly, not the tastiest. I mean, it was fine--but not, you know, really good like lasagna should be.

I used this recipe from the New York Times, which is very simple and very quick. But what you really want here is to integrate the chard into all the other lasagna flavors, and not just have chard, noodles, and tomatoes floating around in your mouth. And that's what this recipe turned out tasting like--all the separate ingredients of lasagna, without being tied together into one uber-lasagna taste.

So I therefore say: Use my lasagna recipe instead, and simply add the chard between layers. Don't worry about cooking or de-stemming the chard beforehand, the tomato sauce in the lasagna will cook it and the stems are just extra fiber. Plus, since it has chard in it, it's healthy.