Bummer. This one called to me, as well.
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You should maybe try it, and slightly up the sauce. For me, the sauce basically disappeared between making it in the bowl, then putting on the sheet pan, roasting, then getting off the sheet pan. But the sauce was delicious, and the roasted shrimp were tasty. There’s a good recipe here somewhere.
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It seems the author has a light hand with spicy ingredients. I know with the two recipes I made with harissa, I felt the need to use a lot more than what she called for (triple the amount or more). And I’ve found myself upping certain spices in other recipes as well. Not all the spices - she doesn’t skimp on the cumin, say - but the chile-based ones.
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This is a good point Mel. I also upped the harissa in that dish, and added cayenne. I’ll try to remember this when/if I make another spicy one.
MERGUEZ WITH SWEET POTATOES AND DATES (312)
I hope someone will make this as written–I still think it has potential even though mine did not turn out great. It could not be easier, but I multi-tasked and bombed it. You roast sweet potatoes with sausage, sliced lemons, and dates. As that cooks, you prepare an herb-garlic condiment. I did not consider that vital and just added chopped parsley at the end. Cilantro would have been good, too.
I don’t have a good vegetarian merguez sub (on my wish list), but I noticed Hodo makes “Moroccan Chermoula tofu cubes” so I decided to try that, adding a bit of the Spice House’s merguez seasoning. If I had fried it (like the tofu & broccoli recipe), it would have been better, but I just tossed it on the hot sheet pan.
The second issue was my sweet potato was subpar. It came from the farmers’ market, but it had sprouted and was just lackluster.
The good parts: the combo of spice and dates was nice, as were the thinly sliced lemons. Unfortunately I overcooked the whole thing–it is very easy to char the lemon and dates. Probably best to not clean out a closet while trying to cook dinner, but guests are coming!
I ate it on couscous and added some yogurt with preserved lemon. It has a dry tagine vibe–great flavors, just poorly executed (it happens).
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PAN CON TOMATE PLUS WHITE BEANS - p. 68
I made a half recipe of this, sort of. It just seemed like more beans than I wanted, so I used one can, and I used two very large tomatoes. So my tomato:bean ratio was a little higher than what the recipe specifies. You just grate the tomatoes and stir in some olive oil, salt, pepper, and optionally some sherry vinegar or lemon juice (I used sherry vinegar). You drain and rinse the white beans (cannellini for me) and stir those in. Now, the thought of cold canned beans was not appealing to me at all. So I took this mixture and put it in a low oven for a while, so that it got warm, but not hot enough that the tomatoes were cooking. You rub toasted slices of ciabatta with garlic, and spoon the beans and tomatoes on top.
This is the simplest meal possible (except for me, as I had to make the bread from scratch). I liked it well enough. Mr. MM was not a big fan - he wanted the beans to be more stewed, and ended up putting his plate in the microwave to heat it up. The beans were lukewarm when I served them, which wasn’t warm enough for him.
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OVEN QUESADILLAS P.72
I made these with refried beans and cheddar cheese, then topped with salsa. I liked that baking them crisped up the tortillas but then wished they were corn. Has anyone tried baking corn tortillas? I love fried corn tortillas but don’t make them anymore because I am lazy and they make a mess. I too could’ve used more flavor.
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I’ve done corn (unrelated to this book) - works best if you lightly brush the bottom and and top faces with a bit of oil.
They get puffy and crisp, so if you don’t want them hard keep an eye on it (one of my nephews found them “too crunchy”, which makes sense, even though I didn’t know that could be a thing before that haha)
For flour (my own preference) I like them better folded over, not one tortilla over another.
(You can prevent puff / even out or speed up the top crisping by placing another pan over the quesadilla.)
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SMOKY WHITE BEANS & CAULIFLOWER (BROCCOLI)
When I made this, cauliflower hadn’t started coming in my CSA box yet, but I was getting broccoli, so I figured if it works with one it will work with the other and made the substitution. You rinse and drain some white beans (I used cannellini), and let get very dry. I spread them out on a dish towel. You combine olive oil, tomato paste, smoked paprika, red pepper flakes, salt and pepper in a large bowl. You add the cauliflower florets and white beans to that mixture and toss to coat. Spread across two sheet pans and roast. Seasoning is adjusted with more salt and pepper at the end. These are dressed with a mayo/garlic/sherry vinegar concoction, and also served with “soft herbs” (I used cilantro) dressed with sherry vinegar and olive oil (the amount of this dressing called for is too much, imho - who wants soggy, overdressed herbs?).
I wasn’t a big fan of this. The flavors were fine, but the beans and broccoli were dry. They really needed the garlic dressing just for the moisture. The herbs, on the other hand, were overdressed. I am a fan of roasting beans until crisp. It is a great way to do chickpeas, but it doesn’t work with every kind of bean, and it didn’t work with the cannellini. They burst open, dried out, but didn’t get crisp.
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ALL-CORNER-PIECES BAKED PASTA - p 143
I made a half recipe of this. You are supposed to dump two cans of crushed tomatoes onto a sheet pan to start. I was making a half recipe, so got out a quarter sheet pan (assuming by “sheet pan” the author really means a half sheet pan). I was concerned that the dish wasn’t going to fit though. It just seemed like a lot of food to go in such a low-sided pan. So I pulled out a Pyrex baking dish with the same dimensions as the quarter sheet pan. It turns out that maybe that wasn’t a good idea. I don’t know. You combine the tomatoes, sliced onion, olive oil, salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes and roast until the sauce is thickened. You boil your pasta (I used a lentil/chickpea/rice spiral from The Modern Kitchen). In the cooking pot, you combine the cooked, drained pasta with the sauce and a bit of reserved pasta water, then spread it back out on the sheet pan. Top with cubes of mozzarella, dabs of ricotta, and a sprinkling of parm. This then goes under the broiler until the cheeses are starting to brown.
This was fine. Mr. MM liked it better than I did. It was just a little on the plain side for me. I did use more red pepper flakes than called for to give it a kick. I was just wanting more stuff in it. Also from the description I was expecting really crunch edges on this, but that didn’t happen. That may be a factor of my deeper-than-called-for pan, so YMMV.
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MUSHROOM ORZOTTO - p. 150
I went kind of fancy on the mushrooms here, and I was also generous with them. For the dried mushrooms, I used the full amount of porcini called for, plus some morels. For the fresh mushrooms, I used chanterelles from the freezer. You start by rehydrating the dried mushrooms in simmering water. Those later get strained out of the water (which you save as your stock for the orzotto) and chopped. Then in your cooking pot, you sauté your fresh mushrooms in olive oil with some salt and pepper. When they are browned, deglaze with a bit of sherry vinegar. Add some butter, followed by the orzo, garlic, and the rehydrated mushrooms (I used Banza chickpea “rice” for the orzo - it is shaped like orzo and cooks like orzo, so I really have no idea why they call it rice). Season with more salt and pepper and cook until the garlic is fragrant. Start ladling in the mushroom stock bit by bit, stirring and scraping the pot, until the orzo is cooked. Finish with more butter and some grated parm. I added some spinach to my orzotto near the end of cooking, just to make it a more complete meal and use up some CSA greens, and garnished with some tomatoes from my garden and CSA box.
We are both mushroom lovers here, and we liked this very much. Going high end with the mushrooms certainly didn’t hurt, but I imagine it would be pretty good with any mix of mushrooms. I would happily repeat this.
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HARISSA-CREAMED CAULIFLOWER - p. 225
By the time I got around to this one, cauliflower had arrived in the CSA box. For the heavy cream, I used a truffled cashew cream sauce from Charity Morgan (Unbelievably Vegan is her book), thinned out with water to the right consistency. To make this, you combine in a Dutch oven the cream, harissa, salt, pepper, and cauliflower, along with some canned tomatoes (tomatoes only, no liquid). You bring this to a simmer and cook until the cauliflower is tender, mashing everything together along the way. You finish with more salt and pepper and more harissa if needed. I used extra harissa from the get-go, because the recipe has you starting off with just 3/4 tsp. The cauliflower is served over slices of bread.
I can’t really put my finger on what it was about this recipe, but I just didn’t like it. As in stopped eating after a few bites. Mr. MM ate his and liked it just fine, so I guess it’s me. I like harissa, I just didn’t like this combo.
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Glad to hear you liked this one as it is on my short-list to try.
I didn’t look at this recipe too close because I like a little pasta with my sauce, not possibly dry corner pieces. This seems kind of a strange way to make this to me. Baking crushed tomatoes? No garlic or herbs. NO GARLIC! I agree with you about the sheet pan sizes, I would’ve done the same. I love baked pasta but this seems a bit of a nuisance.
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It’s time to vote for our December book! New participants are always welcome.
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ONE-POT PUTTANESCA - p. 140
I made a half recipe of this to serve one. There are anchovies called for both in the pasta dish itself and for the bread crumb topping. I used the vegan anchovy paste that I invented for that Nigella Lawson recipe in Cook, Eat, Repeat. You start by cooking the anchovy in olive oil with some sliced garlic. Then you add kalamata olives, a lot of tomato paste, capers, red pepper flakes, and salt. That gets cooked until the tomato paste darkens, then you whisk in some water and bring to a boil. Small pasta goes in (I used ditalini) along with some spinach. This cooks until the pasta is tender, which for my pasta, did not take anywhere near the 10-12 minutes suggested. Meanwhile, you heat up some more anchovy in olive oil, then add some panko and season with salt and red pepper flakes. This is used to top the pasta.
I didn’t subject Mr. MM to this dish because I knew it wouldn’t be to his liking, so he ate leftovers while I had this. I did expect that I would like it, since I like all the ingredients. And it was alright, but it isn’t calling me to have it again. I mean, there isn’t much advantage here over a regular pasta puttanesca, which I would like better. This comes out more sauce than pasta, and to be honest, it didn’t sit that well in my stomach. I felt the need for a Tum later. So I’ll be sticking to more traditional versions.
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COTM community, we need your help breaking a tie for the December book. Which one would you like to cook from or at least read about as others cook and report?
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Actually I think COTM voting has always been for folks who plan to cook along — it would be pretty unfair to have folks who don’t plan to cook decide what those who do should be cooking!
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@maestra, as coordinator for the month, when there is a tie, you get to vote to break the tie. And as Saregama says, people should vote with the intention of cooking along. It isn’t really fair to those of us to invest in the book and ingredients to have non-participants deciding what we’ll be cooking!
I may vote later on this evening, if the tie’s not been broken. I haven’t nominated/voted recently due to life situations, but I should be able to participate a bit in December (I hope).
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