The Wednesday Chef

  • Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid’s Two Lentil Stew

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    I have three minutes to write this post before I fall asleep on the couch and I don't want to break NaBloPoMo right in the very first week, for Pete's sake. Give me seven days at least. The emotion and the nerves from the past few weeks, wait, months, wait, oh hell, years seem to have finally caught up with me and I am staggeringly tired. Plus, do you know what I discovered today? My Very First Gray Hair, growing impudently out of my right temple. Didn't it know I had an agenda of reaching my 31st birthday proudly sporting the same hair color I had on my 30th birthday?

    It's all a little much.

    So before I nod off with my laptop humming away on the tops of my thighs, let me tell you quickly about the first thing I cooked with the sack of chana dal that my dad brought when he came to visit a few weeks ago. I found a recipe in this brilliant cookbook that has you combine a whole rainbow of Indian dals into a spicy stew.

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    I didn't have all those dals in my pantry, so I made do with some red lentils and the aforementioned chana dal (the recipe is originally called five-lentil stew) and it was simply lovely. I simmered the lentils until tender in spiced water, dyed yellow from turmeric, then cooked tomatoes and onions with garam masala and cumin until thick and sticky.

    The tender legumes are folded into the spiced tomatoes and what results is comforting and homey and spicy without being painful and nutritious and wonderful. The kind of thing that becomes a meal staple also because the sum total of all the ingredients in this stew probably equaled $0.78. We ate the stew in wide bowls for lunch along with – wait for it – homemade chapatti. Homemade by me! A high point of the weekend, for sure, because I am a dork and the dough arts fascinate me.

    Oh, you want to see one of those chapattis? But then I'm going to have to tell you all about how to make them and how cool they are and how easy, too, and like I said, I'm falling asleep, but okay, here you go:

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    Two Lentil Stew
    Serves 4

    Dal:
    3/4 cup chana dal
    1/2 cup red lentils
    5 cups of water
    1/2 teaspoon turmeric
    1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

    Spice blend:
    1 tablespoon vegetable oil
    1 large onion, finely chopped
    1 tablespoon garlic, finely chopped (about 2 large cloves)
    1 teaspoon cumin seed
    1 teaspoon garam masala
    2 large tomatoes, chopped, or 3/4 can diced tomatoes
    3/4 teaspoon salt, or more to taste

    1. Rinse the dal.

    2. In a large pot, bring the water to a boil. Add the dal and lentils, stir, and bring back to a boil. Then remove from the heat, cover, and let sit for 2 hours.

    3. Add the turmeric and cayenne to the legumes and bring the water to a boil. Reduce the heat slightly and simmer until tender, approximately 35 minutes.

    4. 15 minutes before the dal is ready, begin cooking the spice mixture: heat the oil in a heavy skillet or saucepan over medium-high heat. When hot, add onion and garlic and fry for 2 to 3 minutes, stirring frequently. Add cumin and garam masala and cook another minute. Add the tomatoes and salt, and cook until the tomatoes have been reduced, approximately 10 minutes.

    5. Add the tomato mixture to the dal, stir well and cook for 2 to 3 minutes more to blend the flavors. Taste for salt and adjust seasoning, if necessary. Serve hot in one large bowl or in individual-sized bowls with chapatti.

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  • Yes We Did!

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    The dream is no dream, it’s real. It’s here.

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  • Chez Panisse’s Winter Squash, Onion and Red Wine Panade

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    Oh, dear. This is rather awkward. I know it was only just two days ago that I told you about Paula Wolfert's squash gratin and how much I loved it and how delicious it was. But I've actually got something better now, and you've sort of got to drop everything you're doing and go make it straight away. (Well, you might have something better to be doing right now, like voting, but after that, definitely.)

    Go on! Who cares about butternut squash and sheep's milk cheese and potatoes anymore? Now it's butternut squash and long-cooked onions and stale bread and Gruyere. Seriously. Cancel your dinner plans.

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    I'm sorry to be a boss, but you know how it is sometimes, when you make something so wonderful that you find yourself somewhat speechless as you chew? Yes, that's what happened to us the other night. We sat there, in somewhat shocked silence as we ate. (Oh, we live a thrilling life, we do.) Look at it this way: you've got to do something tonight while you wait for the results of our election to come in, no matter who you voted for. You can't just sit in front of your computer, refreshing pages obsessively, or lounge on your couch, flicking from channel to channel in the hopes that one talking head will know something before another one does. So why not kill time making a long, slow dinner that takes close to three hours from start to finish?

    Staying up late on a night like this is worth it. If not for the sheer pleasure of eating, then at least for your nerves.

    The recipe comes from Chez Panisse Vegetables and is a study in the art of flavor-building. Onions are stewed with bay leaves and thyme and garlic. Wine is added and reduced, then in goes chicken stock, which simmers for a while. Good, stale-ish bread is briefly fried until golden in olive oil (or, if you happen to have duck fat lying around, you can use that, too) and two pounds of butternut squash are peeled and sliced.

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    Then the fun stuff begins: the layering. In goes a layer of fried bread slices, several ladlefuls of herb-scented broth and a purpureal tangle of onions. Then you arrange the mass of butternut squash slices on top of the bread and ladle in more broth and onions. The rest of the fried bread makes the top layer, along with, yes, more broth and onions and finally, you grate over it all a flurry of grated cheese.

    What happens in the oven is very neat: the bread swells with the liquid and rises, so that the panade goes from being a rather dense, heavy thing to a light and puffy wonder. The flavors, already complex, concentrate and the cheese melts and bubbles into a wondrously tasty cap. It's hard to figure out whether you should eat panade with a fork or a spoon – or how to decide what you like more, the broth or the silky bread or the sweet squash or the cheesy top. Oh, who am I kidding, all of it.

    So, um, yes, I'd say that today, for sure, this is the only way you should be eating butternut squash.

    Winter Squash, Onion and Red Wine Panade
    Serves 8 to 10

    5 onions
    2 pounds acorn or butternut squash
    6 cloves garlic
    ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
    2 bay leaves
    12 sprigs thyme
    1 cup red wine
    2-3 quarts chicken stock
    Kosher salt and pepper, to taste
    10 slices stale country-style bread
    1 ounce Parmigiano
    2 ounces Gruyere

    1. Begin by stewing the onions, peeled and sliced thin, over medium heat, in about 1/4 cup of olive oil. When they have begun to soften, add the garlic cloves, also peeled and sliced thin; the bay leaves; and the thyme. Continue to cook the onions until they just begin to brown, 20 to 30 minutes. Add the red wine and reduce by half. Add the stock and simmer for 30 minutes.

    2. Meanwhile, peel and seed the squash and cut it into 1/8-inch-thick slices. In a sauté pan over medium heat, lightly brown the slices of bread in more olive oil.

    3. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit and assemble the panade: Cover the bottom of a large casserole with half the bread slices and gently ladle in enough broth (including the onions) to cover. Make a single layer of the sliced squash on top and ladle in more of the broth and onions, to cover. Make a layer with the rest of the bread, add more broth and onions so that the top layer of bread is well soaked through, and finish by grating the cheeses over the top to cover lightly.

    4. Bake, covered, for 45 minutes; then uncover and bake for about 45 minutes more, until well browned. To serve, scoop the panade into bowls and ladle more of the hot broth around it.

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  • Lora Zarubin’s Warm Gruyere Sandwich with Mustard and Thyme

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    It's been interesting to find out some things over the past few weeks. Despite what my passport tells me and the fact that I dutifully pay taxes every single year, cry every time I see an ad for the USO, and think American literature is a. not dead and b. pretty damn good, some people don't consider me a "real" American.

    After all, I vote Democrat. I live in a big, coastal city full of foreigners, celebrities, men who love men and women who love women, journalists, bankers, opinion makers, and the unemployed, working class, middle class, upper class, high class, rich, poor, black and white. I give money to charity, not just in the form of checks, but also in the form of dollar bills on the subway. I think health care should be a human right, not a privilege. I believe that abortion must be safe and legal and available and rare. And I don't care if you're Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Buddhist or if you don't believe in God at all. (And I mean that literally. I don't care. Stop talking about it on television, stop using it as a badge of honor, stop using it as a way of persecuting people who are good and moral no matter what they believe.)

    BUT!

    The thing that truly sets me apart from "real" Americans is that I don't get grilled cheese.

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    Maybe it's because of my father (pretty suspect, too – with his liberal ways and Massachusetts address). He never made grilled cheese for me as a child, and it wasn't served at the school cafeteria (though I can distinctly remember a tuna fish sandwich so soupy with mayonnaise that it's the single reason I can't abide the stuff, crammed into a hot dog bun, for crying out loud), so by the time I got around to tasting it in college, I didn't quite get what the fuss was all about. (I think you kind of need to eat Velveeta as a kid to be inured to it as an adult, right?)

    But I've always wanted to love grilled cheese. It seems like such a perfect little meal. Two pieces of nice bread, some good cheese, maybe a bowl of soup, and hey presto! You've got yourself a rocking Friday night dinner.

    Well. Let's just say that after this weekend, I might be able to muscle my way, at least partly, into the real American crowd. I have found the grilled cheese of my dreams.

    I suppose it's a little misleading to call it grilled cheese. Toasted might be more accurate, or broiled, or simply Warm Gruyere Sandwich with Mustard and Thyme. Mmmm, yes. Call it what you want, it's delicious.

    It comes from this underrated cookbook and is barely any more work than making a traditional grilled cheese. You broil several bread slices just on one side, and then brush the unbroiled sides with a little bit of melted butter. On top of that, you spread some nice French mustard (what I'm using right now is Fallot). Then you drop a few thyme leaves on top of the mustard, grate a nice, thick flurry of Gruyere over the thyme and put the slices back under the broiler for a few moments longer. The edges of the bread will be browned and crunchy, the cheese will be molten and bubbly and chewy in spots, and you will not be able to keep yourself from eating just two pieces. I dare you.

    I left the quantities up in the air, because bread sizes differ and you might love a big carpet of cheese while someone else might want something daintier. In any case, the combination of mustard, thyme, and Gruyere is simply wonderful, especially on sour-ish bread.

    Warm Gruyere Sandwich with Mustard and Thyme
    Makes 6

    6 1/2-inch thick slices of levain or sourdough bread
    Unsalted butter, melted
    Good-quality French mustard
    Fresh thyme leaves
    Grated Gruyere cheese
    Sea salt (optional)

    1. Preheat the broiler. Place the bread slices on a baking sheet and toast one side under the broiler until golden brown. Remove from the oven and turn the slices over. Brush the melted butter on each untoasted side. Then spread with mustard and sprinkle with the thyme leaves. Sprinkle the cheese evenly over the bread. Sprinkle with salt, if desired.

    2. Broil until the edges of the bread are golden brown and the cheese is melted, about 1 minute. Remove the bread slices from the oven and serve them immediately.

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  • Paula Wolfert’s Butternut Squash and Potato Pie with Tomato, Mint and Sheep’s Milk Cheese

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    I am drowning in butternut squash. Well, not drowning precisely, because that sounds like it could hurt. I am inundated with butternut squash. No, that's not quite right either. Up to my eyeballs, then! Yes, I am up to my eyeballs in butternut squash. It's coming fast and furious in the final weeks of our CSA, and there's only so many times that I can roast it and turn it into soup. I mean, I adore butternut squash soup along with everyone else, but I bore easily, I suppose.

    You'd be surprised at just how many clipped newspaper recipes I've got for some variation on butternut squash soup. Curried, creamed, with apples, without – they're all lovely, it's true, and the soups freeze well and yes, there's really nothing wrong with them. Except for the fact that I think it's a shame that butternut squash always gets blitzed into smooth oblivion. In some of my favorite butternut recipes, like this risotto, or this curry (oooh, yes), you actually get to experience what butternut squash flesh is like – a little creamy, a little stringy, but agreeably so. Toothsome, I'd say.

    After the latest delivery of yet more butternut squash this week, I plunked myself down on the carpet and surrounded myself with my cookbooks. There was a pizza from Chez Panisse, but it sounded too rich. There was a soup from Sophie Grigson, but, well, it was a soup. And then there was this "pie" from Paula Wolfert's Slow Mediterranean Kitchen which sucked me in the instant I read it and held me close close close.

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    Okay, I'll be honest right up front: the prep work on this thing is a pain in the neck. Slow is absolutely right. Enlist someone whose knife skills you trust to help you with this, or calculate that you'll need about a half hour on your own. Not kidding at all. Second of all, the salt is an issue. Paula doesn't specify how much, which could lead you, quite easily, to insipid disaster. Potatoes need salt. And frankly, so does squash. I used 1/2 teaspoon in total, because the hard cheese adds a bit, too. But checking for seasoning is probably good advice. Third of all, this is no pie. Oh, no. This is a gratin, of the best kind, far superior to any mere pie. It's Greek, Cretan, actually, and is absolutely, positively delicious. (Something tells me the Greeks probably use a different kind of squash.)

    Minced parsley, sliced mint, minced garlic and salt is where you start – tossing half of this mixture with sliced potatoes and the other half with sliced squash, a few spoonfuls of tomatoes for brightness and sheep's-milk cheese mixed with ricotta for spunk and flavor. The two mixtures are layered in a dish and then milk is poured all around it. Paula has you sprinkle a little too much flour on top, and it never quite gets absorbed, so in the version below, I cut the flour down by two thirds. In the heat of the oven, the butternut squash doesn't just soften, its flavor is concentrated and its sweetness is amplified. Your house fills with a fantastic aroma. It will be quite difficult, you'll see, to stay patient throughout the baking process. (I told you slow was absolutely right.)

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    But just wait. You'll be rewarded with a browned and bubbling gratin that smells like ourania. The potatoes on top are ever so slightly crisped, the ones below are soft and yielding. The butternut squash is almost fudgy in texture. The herbs and the cheese infuse each bite: it's a little peppery, sweet and savory at once, juicy, almost, and tasty as all get out.

    Paula says you should serve this as a side dish, but along with a plain green salad or a tangle of boiled green beans, this makes the star of a fabulous lunch.

    Butternut Squash and Potato Pie with Tomato, Mint and Sheep's Milk Cheese
    Serves 6 as a side dish or 3 to 4 as a main course

    6 sprigs fresh mint leaves, shredded
    5 sprigs flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped
    1 clove garlic, chopped
    1/2 to 3/4 teaspoon salt
    1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
    1 1/4 pounds butternut squash, quartered, peeled, seeded and thinly sliced crosswise
    1 large ripe tomato, halved, seeded and grated, or a few spoonfuls of drained, diced tomatoes from a can
    2/3 cup grated hard sheep's milk cheese, like Greek mizithra or Spanish manchego
    1/4 cup fresh ricotta
    1 1/2 pounds red or Yukon Gold potatoes, thinly sliced
    1 cup milk
    1 tablespoon flour
    1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

    1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, combine the mint, parsley, garlic, 1/4 teaspoon salt, or a little bit more to taste, and the pepper. Remove and reserve half the mixture. Add the squash to the bowl and mix well. Add the tomato, and the hard and fresh cheeses and toss to combine.

    2. Toss the potatoes with the reserved garlic-herb mixture and add another 1/4 teaspoon salt. Place half the sliced potatoes on the bottom of a generously oiled 2 1/2-quart baking dish. Taste a small bit of the squash-tomato mixture for seasoning, adjust if needed, and spread on top, covering with the remaining potatoes. Pour the milk over all, dust with the flour (preferably through a sieve) and drizzle the oil on top.

    3. Bake for 40 minutes. Raise the oven temperature to 400 degrees and continue to bake for 30 minutes, or until the gratin is brown and the liquid is nearly absorbed. Allow to rest for 15 minutes before serving.

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  • Chocolate for Everyone!

    Sometime yesterday evening, I might have already been asleep, I decided with a start to take the plunge. Post every day? I’ve done it before, kids, I can do it again. Sure, I almost lost my mind at the end of that month, but so what?  Everyone could use a little kick in the pants now and then, or at least this person could. (Besides, it will take my mind off the looming tower of planning a wedding – I could use the distraction.) So! Brace yourselves for 30 days of frantic posting. Let’s hope it’s not entirely torturous for you or for me.

    To ease our way into it, don’t you think some chocolate might help?

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    To be more specific, dried mangoes covered in dark chocolate and dusted with sweet curry powder? Oh, you have no idea. It sounds odd, right? One of those ideas that might have sounded neat in a lab, but in real life ends up tasting mostly like old socks and stale cocoa from a tin? Well, let me tell you right now that I may have just single-handedly solved the age-old Christmas dilemma: buy a box of these treats for every single person on your gift list and you can rest easy until next year. That’s how good these are.

    The mangoes are tart and chewy, the chocolate is deep and dark and melts unctuously in your mouth, and the curry – the curry! – well, it elevates the pedestrian concept of covering something, anything, in dark chocolate to an addictive, exotic, must-have snack. I don’t know who thinks of flavor pairings like this, but that person deserves every penny of her salary (or his!), even in an economic implosion. It sounds weird, but trust me, it’s delicious. I’d even venture that it’s better than salted caramel. What?! I know. Crazy.

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    Vosges sent over a lovely collection of chocolates the other day, including smoked almonds covered in milk chocolate and gray salt, a bar of dark chocolate with Reishi mushrooms and walnuts (not at all as weird as it sounds, though the texture wasn’t entirely to my liking), and a milk chocolate bar that has complexity and character and is deeply delicious. And even still, the chocolate-and-curry mangoes are the only thing I’m hoarding. Well, maybe I’ll let Ben have a piece. But that’s it! The rest is all mine.

    If you want to try these Mango Naga Bombalina (errr, yes) yourselves, or any of Vosges’ other chocolates, the kind people at Vosges have told me that if you make a purchase on their website between November 1 and November 30 using the code 2810WB1, 10% will be taken off your purchase. Mango Naga for everyone!

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  • Where I’ve Been

    Lest you think I have been sitting around on my hands all week or have simply evaporated off this earth, I wanted to let you know that I am, in fact, still alive, and quite well, even. However, what concerns my blog cooking (and yes, I do call it that sometimes), it has been an abysmal week. I made no less than three (3!) recipes only to have them all be rather middling to faintly offensive and I simply haven’t had the stomach to tell you about them.

    My mother was in town and when I wasn’t trying on wedding dresses and attempting not to dissolve in a fit of giggles at seeing myself in some floor-length (with train!) gown, I was spending an alarming amount of time here and here and oh, what the hell, here. I can’t seem to think about anything – anything – else and no amount of Concord grape flat bread, parsnip soup with mustard or curried fish will change that until after next Tuesday.

    On the plus side, my father brought a bag of basmati rice, chana dal and tamarind paste when he came to visit us this weekend and I’m anticipating lots of good things to come out of those three new additions to our kitchen cabinets. Particularly with regards to the last two, do you have any recipes you’d like to tell me about?

    So that’s the state of things right now: my cuticles, not to mention my nerves, are in shambles thanks to the election, I’m trying to distract myself with Indian lentils to no great success, I am definitely not wearing a floor-length gown to my wedding, I’m toying with the madness that is committing to posting every day in November (yay or nay, readers?) and I have no recipe to give you tonight. Forgive me! I’m agitating for a new world next week.

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  • Auguste Escoffier’s Peppers for Cold Meats

     

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    Cranberry sauce is all well and good. Chutney serves a purpose or two. But peppers for cold meats? Well, welcome to your new obsession. You can thank me later. But wait, can I tell you how good this stuff is? So good that I went out and bought a two-pound pork loin, just so that I could use it as a vehicle for more peppers for cold meats. It's true.

    I suppose it should come as no surprise – the recipe is none other than Auguste Escoffier's, published in a Thanksgiving leftover story by the L.A. Times a few years ago. Though I dare say that this will become a staple in your home, not only for Thanksgiving, but every time you roast a piece of meat, period. I admit leeriness when it comes to historical recipes, but this recipe has passed the test of time with flying colors.

    What you do is cook together an onion and some red peppers, along with a few warm spices and some salt. In go a handful of raisins, some tomatoes for juice and body, and a goodly amount of sugar and vinegar. After a period of slow-cooking on the stove, what comes together is a thick, sweetly spicy, appealingly vinegary sauce. Leave it to cool overnight and the flavors develop, the raisins plump up, and you find yourself dreaming up ways to consume it.

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    We're all about leftovers these days; it's my attempt to save money and waste less food. It makes me feel virtuous and housewifely to scrounge up things for our lunches or make dinner from the bits and pieces lurking in the kitchen. (Like this, for example, if only I were organized enough.) Having this savory compote in the fridge as a secret weapon made life a little easier last week, as I served it willy-nilly with a number of different things and it just got better each day.

    We ate it one night, dolloped alongside crispy-skinned roast chicken, and the next day, mixed with the leftover shredded chicken over rice. We ate it another night, served with juicy roast pork hot from the oven, and made sandwiches the next day, layering appealingly pink slices of leftover pork with the cold, sludgy peppers. Next up, I'm dreaming of some sharp cheddar on good country bread, with the last spoonful of piments on top.

    Turkey, look out.

    Peppers for Cold Meats (Piments pour viandes froides)
    Makes 4 cups

    4 tablespoons olive oil
    1 medium onion
    1 pound red sweet peppers, washed, cored, seeds removed, chopped
    1/2 teaspoon salt
    1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
    1/2 teaspoon mixed spices (allspice, nutmeg)
    1 lb ripe tomatoes, peeled and chopped (I drained a 28-ounce can of diced tomatoes and used 3/4 of them)
    1 clove garlic, minced
    1/2 cup raisins
    1/4 cup sugar
    2/3 cup red wine vinegar

    1. Put the oil in a saucepan. Chop the onion very fine, add to the pan and fry over low heat until softened. Add the peppers, salt, ginger and mixed spices, and cook for 10 minutes.

    2. Stir in the tomatoes, garlic, raisins and sugar. Add the vinegar; cook over very lot heat, covered, for 1 hour and 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Uncover the pot and cook with the lid off for 5 to 10 more minutes.

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  • Cafe Lago’s Roasted Tomato Pasta

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    I told you all I was holding on to my last tomatoes from the farmer's market with white knuckled panic. Well, I wasn't kidding. Every morning, I'd wake up and pad into the kitchen, caress their soft little skins, cradle them in my cupped palm and sniff their herbal, earthy selves. It pained me to use them up, so I did so sparingly – one tomato here, another one there. But I'd bought six pounds and after two weeks I realized that I was headed towards a mound of ruined rot if I didn't accept the fact that cooking and eating my little friends was their God-given fate.

    But what to make? Canned tomatoes, tomato jam, conserva, roasted tomatoes – I needed 30 pounds, not six! In the end, Molly won out – I saw a little corner of an empty plate with seasoned oil in one of her photos and when she told me that tomatoes had once swum in that oil, I was sorta, kinda hooked. I'm easy that way, you know.

    So last week I set about sacrificing those last tomatoes of 2008, cutting them in half, ridding them carefully of their seeds, nestling them in a pan of olive oil and seasoning them with my Sicilian oregano, salt and a bit of sugar. Into a slow oven they went, and what torture that was. I'm not ashamed to admit that clock watching ensued. I've got a one-track mind when it comes to tomatoes.

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    Instead of serving the tomatoes with toasted baguette and Bucheron, I boiled a box of pasta and tossed half the tomatoes, gently chopped, with the hot pasta – the warmth opening up the flavor of the raw garlic and parsley. I normally am not a fan of raw garlic, but here it sharpened and brightened the softer, rounded flavors of the tomatoes that concentrated in the slow heat of the oven, gave a little edge to the sweetness. It was delicious.

    The benefit of this preparation was that I had half the tomatoes left over, to be plopped on bread with some cheese for lunch, or served with fried eggs for dinner. Or, and this was really the best, to be popped in my mouth while I stood at the counter, thinking about the seasons changing and the things I have to look forward to as fall comes in. Letting go can be pretty simple when you've got roasted tomatoes to ease the way.

    And, bless her heart, Molly says this works pretty well with canned tomatoes, too. What a relief!

    Roasted Tomato Pasta
    Serves     4 to 6

    1 cups (or more) olive oil, divided
    2     pounds plum tomatoes, halved lengthwise, seeded
    1 1/2     teaspoons dried oregano
    3/4     teaspoon sugar (I used less sugar, a little less than 1/2 teaspoon)
    1/2     teaspoon salt
    1 t    o 2 garlic cloves, minced
    2     teaspoons minced fresh Italian parsley
    1 pound penne
    Parmigiano, for serving

    1. Preheat oven to 250°F. Pour 1/2 cup oil into 13x9x2-inch glass or ceramic baking dish. Arrange tomatoes in dish, cut side up. Drizzle with remaining 1/2 cup oil. Sprinkle with oregano, sugar, and salt. Bake 1 hour. Using tongs, turn tomatoes over. Bake 1 hour longer. Turn tomatoes over again. Bake until deep red and very tender, transferring tomatoes to plate when soft (time will vary, depending on ripeness of tomatoes), about 15 to 45 minutes longer.

    2. When the tomatoes have cooled somewhat, gently pull off their peels. Transfer half of the tomatoes and some of the oil to a serving bowl and gently chop with a dull knife in the bowl. Add the garlic and parsley to the tomatoes and mix. Bring a pot of salted water to a boil and cook the penne until al dente. Drain, reserving some of the starchy, salted pasta water. Add the pasta to the tomatoes in the serving dish and add pasta water, as needed, to loosen the sauce. Grate some Parmigiano on top and serve immediately. Refrigerate the rest of the tomatoes in the oil for up to 5 days.

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  • Russ Parsons’s Soup with Winter Greens and Chickpeas

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    Well! It's been quite a few weeks, hasn't it? Markets are crashing, our people in Washington and on Wall Street have crazed looks in their eyes, political campaigns are turning unbelievably ugly, and it's all I can do from crawling under the covers and screaming "time out!" It's the crazy season alright, suffused with fear and desperation and anger and shock. Couldn't we all use a bowl of hot soup?

    After all, one bright spot in these days is that we are finally, thrillingly, in soup territory. Yes, I'm still nursing a tiny grudge towards the final days of warm weather that seem to have skipped out so eagerly, and I'm hanging on with white knuckles to the last of the blood-red tomatoes I bought at the farmer's market two weeks ago. But mostly I just want to cut coupons, turn the stove down low, and eat soup.

    Who better to inaugurate the autumn soup season than Russ Parsons? After all, no one keeps us better fed. And it has been, if my research is correct, a whopping eleven months since I made one of his recipes. (Eleven months. How is that possible? It simply can't be. Russ! Forgive me!) High time, then, to get cracking again. This time with a homey, homely, Italianate minestra that draws its flavor from a few aromatic vegetables, some pungent greens, and a bit of rosemary.

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    This soup is simple and soothing, and best of all, cheap. It keeps well in the freezer and stretches well, too. It's not very fancy, there's not even chicken broth. But the toasted bread that softens and swells in the soup and the richness of the Parmigiano give it a little luster, dressing up the plain Jane vegetables that gave up their essence to the flavor of the soup.

    I twisted in a few grinds of hot red pepper flakes for some added warmth, and next time I might rub the toasts gently with raw garlic before dousing them with soup. And instead of grating the cheese into the soup, I'll definitely plop one of my reserved Parmigiano rinds in at the beginning of the simmer and let it ooze out all its flavor.

    Make yourself a bowl of this, turn off the television and the internet, throw away the newspaper with its jarring graphs and large headlines, and try to think about other things: the promise of apple-picking in a few weeks, the giggle of the baby living next door, the color of the leaves on the tree across the street. We'll get through this, too. We will. We will.

    Soup with Winter Greens and Chickpeas        
    Serves 4 to 6

    1/4 cup olive oil
    2 carrots, diced
    1 stalk celery, diced
    1 onion, diced
    1 turnip, diced
    4 cloves garlic, minced
    1 pound chopped mixed greens (mustard, kale, turnip, etc.)
    Salt
    1/2 teaspoon minced rosemary
    1 (16-ounce) can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
    1/3 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano, or more, to taste plus additional to pass at the table
    16 slices baguette, toasted
    Freshly ground pepper (I used red pepper flakes)

    1. In a heavy soup pot, warm the olive oil over medium-low heat. Add the carrots, celery, onion and turnip, cover and cook until they have softened and become aromatic, about 20 minutes. Stir in the garlic and cook until fragrant, 2 or 3 minutes.

    2. Add the mixed greens, a big handful at a time, stirring and giving them time to soften and shrink before adding the next handful.

    3. When all of the greens have cooked, add 8 cups of water, one-half teaspoon salt, the rosemary and chickpeas. If you have a rind of Parmesan cheese lurking in your freezer, add it now. Bring to a simmer over medium-high heat; cover and lower the flame to maintain a simmer. Cook until the broth is deeply flavored, 45 minutes to 1 hour.

    4. When ready to serve, stir in one-third cup Parmigiano-Reggiano (taste and see if the rind did its job – you can eschew the grated cheese here, if you like) and season to taste with salt and pepper. Arrange two toast slices (rubbed with garlic) in the bottom of each warm soup bowl and ladle the soup over the top. Sprinkle with more cheese to taste. Serve immediately, passing a bowl of cheese to be added at the table.

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