Orzo With Arugula and Shiitaki Mushrooms

Greens--you've got to love them if you live in the Northwest.  Most every farmer grows some.  This is Willie Green's in Monroe.

With our cool, rainy climate, greens thrive here.  You could plant some seeds or go pick up some plant starts at a nursery or even a grocery store and start your garden with those.

Or you could get some fabulous tasting greens from the farmers market.

If you get turnip greens, these must be used within a day.  Arugula is one of my favorites and even though we have some growing in my garden, I like to try the different varieties at the farmers market. I never get tired of the peppery flavor.

And if you're using olive oil, always use good quality.  I'm a big fan of these Spanish varieties. 

What was I going to make?  I flipped through a few cookbooks and then I remembered this recipe from The Northwest Vegetarian Cookbook.  The recipe is easy.  Orzo pasta takes about 15 minutes.  I changed it to add the shiitakis.

Orzo with Arugula and Shiitaki Mushrooms

(Serves 4)

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

1 spring onion, diced

1 /2 to 2 cups baby shiitakis or chopped larger shiitakis with the stems removed

Pinch of Cayenne (or chopped Mama Lil's Peppers to taste)

1/2 cup dry Riesling wine

2 cups water

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

1 1/2 cups orzo pasta

2 cups chopped arugula

1/2 cup toasted chopped pecans

Lemon wedges

1. Heat a heavy skillet over medium heat

2. Add oil, onions, cayenne and shiitakis.  Stir and cook until onions and mushrooms are soft.  Add Riesling and stir.  Add water and salt and bring to a boil.  Add orzo pasta. 

3. Reduce heat, stir and cook for 13 minutes or until liquid is absorbed by pasta.  

4. Blend in arugula and cook until wilted (2 or 3 minutes).

5. Garnish with pecans.  Serve with a lemon wedge.

Sometimes the Cooking Assistant feels entitled.

The Soup Project: Minestrone

I've been thinking about Minestrone soup for a long time. For me, the best thing about Minestrone is the pasta. But I have to say, the worst thing about Minestrone is soggy pasta the next day. Waterlogged pasta isn't anything I look forward to.

I stumbled over a secret for the pasta in Minestrone in one of my favorite cookbooks.

I'll share the secret, but first I must share a few photos and tidbits about Nash's new farm store in Sequim Washington.

Last Friday I went to Nash's Farm store grand opening and ribbon cutting ceremony.

Nash's Farm Store

I took the Kingston Ferry and from Kingston, it's about an hour drive, north towards Port Angeles.

I look forward to the reader boards at Nash's farm that change depending on the season. Saturday was kid's day at the farm store with a bunch of cool planned kids activities. Makes me wish I'd grown up near a farm like Nash's.

Nash's new store is just down the road from the old store. The building was once an old Tavern. It took a lot of work to get the smoke out of the walls and to turn the old building into a bright cheery store.

They hit a few snags along the way. Permits were higher than anticipated and the work cost more than they'd planned. So the farm crew solicited the community for donations to help make this store happen.

And the community came through.

The result is amazingly cool--just check out all the produce. Much of it comes from Nash's farm. Some produce, that Nash doesn't grow, comes some of the farms I profiled in my book, like Dennison Farms near Corvallis. Sometimes I see things from Oregon here and wonder if it came from Tom Dennison's farm. The Organically Grown Company delivers it. All the produce is organic.

I got to the farm store early, but it wasn't long before people began arriving. Must have been everybody in the community that came to see the ribbon cutting ceremony.

Music was provided by Kia's husband, Cort Armstrong.

This beautiful carrot cake was cut after the ribbon cutting, and tasted was good as it looks--sweet cream cheese frosting, and cake made with Nash's flour and carrots. It was the kind of cake I dream about. My Cooking Assistant would have been impressed.

Nash said a few words, thanked his farm crew and everybody who helped make the store possible.

This is Patty McManus, Nash's wife. She does the bookkeeping and marketing for the farm. The carrot ribbon--a priceless idea.

The picture behind Patty and Nash is a "mock up" of a mural that's going to be painted, I think on this wall. Everyone who donated for the store will get their name painted into this painting. You could buy your level--starting with helpful ant at $10, then butterfly, honey bee or lady bug. I wanted to be a butterfly. Kind of like the tiles at Pike Place Market.

Now the butterflies mean something.

Every wall inside the store is a different bright color. They have coolers for meat, dairy, eggs and nuts, and nice displays for the produce.

I love that they offer these overripe and damaged fruits and vegetables for less money. There was a basket filled with leeks that said "free," and everyone who came to the store opening got to take home a free leek. That's how leeks became the first ingredient for my Minestrone soup.

Five Cool Things About Nash's Farm Store

1.Offers great selection of farm grown organic fruits and vegetables.

2. Supports local crafts people and neighboring farms by selling their products.

3. Shows food movies like Food Inc. on a regular basis. (All I want to know is: is popcorn included?)

4. Has a great childrens' play area and tiny shopping carts for kids.

5. Offers bargain priced produce, marked down from regular prices. I love this as a way to save on my $100 a week food budget.

Creating Soup

When I got home from the event, I perused a few cookbooks to get some ideas for Minestrone soup. I checked out Barbara Kafka's Soup, A Way of Life from the library last week, so I scanned the index for Minestrone. Under the title Kafka wrote, "There are as many Minestrones, all somewhat different, as there are regions of Italy."

Just the kind of soup, I like. I had celery, carrots, onion as the main ingredients. Kafka's ingredients were vegetarian. I saw a few changes I wanted to make--dried tomatoes for canned and bread crumbs in place of Parmesan cheese.

I checked Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone and she listed parsley and thyme. Seemed like the linking ingredients for Minestrone are tomatoes, pasta and vegetables. I took out a note card and made a list of all the ingredients I wanted to include in the Minestrone soup.

The next day I went to the market.

This is Nash's produce from the market. After paying $25 for round trip ferry rides, I wondered how much the farm pays to bring their produce to the markets here. We don't usually think of those kinds of farm expenses when we purchase foods, even at the market. It may be within 100 miles but that ferry ride is expensive.

Carrots are essential in a soup where you plan to use water not stock. One of the basic building blocks of stock, I always include them along with celery and onions when I don't to use a stock. Since I'm looking for ways to add flavor without a stock, I soaked dried porcini mushrooms. Soak these mushrooms and you end up with a deep rich flavored water, without going to the trouble of making stock. To bring the soup flavor even deeper I added dried tomatoes. I used to think organic sundried tomatoes preserved in oil were the best, but at $9, I'm looking for other options to boost the stock's flavor. I'm not out to impress royalty, I just want to eat well on a budget.

This was a perfect opportunity to try out my dried tomatoes.

The big secret is to cook the pasta ahead of time. Maybe you already knew that, but I like the idea of adding the amount of pasta you want after the soup is cooked. The hot soup heats the cold pasta.

Here's my recipe:

Minestrone

(Serves 4 to 6)

1 cup small shell, alphabet or orzo pasta

Handful of dried porcini mushrooms

6 to 10 dried tomatoes, chopped (or cut with kitchen scissors)

1 bay leaf

4 cups boiling water

1 very large leek or two medium leeks, sliced (about 2 cups of sliced leeks)

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

4 cloves garlic, minced or pressed

1 jalapeno or habanero pepper, seeds removed, minced

1 to 2 tablespoons tomato paste

2 stalks celery, sliced

1 to 2 carrots, sliced

1 potato or 1/2 sweet potato, diced

1 to 1 1/2 cups cooked red beans

2 sprigs of thyme

Apple cider

Water

2 cups chopped arugula or spinach, chopped (optional)

Handful chopped parsley

Parmeasan cheese (optional)

1. Cook pasta, according to directions, until al dente. Remove from heat, cool with cold water. Drain and set aside.

2. Pour boiling water over mushrooms, tomatoes and bay leaf. Allow mushrooms and tomatoes to soften. Drain, reserve liquid, chop vegetables.

3. Heat a heavy soup pot over medium heat. Add leeks and olive oil. Reduce heat, stir and cook until leeks begin to get tender. Add garlic, jalapeno and tomato paste. Stir and cook for a few minutes.

4. Add liquid and bay leaf from porcini and tomatoes and celery, carrots, potato, beans, and thyme. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and add mushrooms and tomatoes. Simmer until potatoes are and carrots are tender--about 20 minutes.

5. Remove bay leaf and thyme. Adjust seasonings by adding salt, pepper, and apple cider. Add water to thin. Stir in chopped arugula or spinach. Add the amount of pasta you want to each serving and stir it in before serving. Garnish with Parmeasan cheese (if desired) and chopped parsley.

Learning to read with alphabet soup.

Smoky Baked Beans

I create a weekly menu to help save money on food.  I check my pantry first and this week it was a toss up between white beans and French lentils.  I had lots of millet and quinoa, too. Since our meals are vegetarian, main dishes include grains, pasta, tofu and tempeh dishes. I choose vegetables in in season, and I always have a few selections from the farmers' market.

Though beans are a weekly staple in our house, they have a bad rap.  Beans can cause digestive disturbances and they're often referred to as "the poor man's meat."  They aren't paleo, but neither am I and if you want to be economical, maybe you should reconsider beans. They are filled with nutrition so for just pennies, you can be totally satisfied.  I once did a demo at a food bank because the manager said, people will take peanut butter over beans,  most people just don't know how to cook them.  If you aren't used to beans, add them slowly.  Add a few to salads or soups and gradually increase your intake.  

Here are some tips on digesting beans. 

Let me add one additional tip: if you get this year's bean harvest (at the farmers market), they are much more digestible.  Cooking old beans is like trying to soften gravel from the driveway.  Those beans that have been in the back of your cupboard for years--get rid of them, pronto.  

Farmers' markets may be more expensive but you know when the crop was harvested and often the flavors are amazing.

But if you're on a budget this year like me, I get that too.

A friend asked what I was having for dinner yesterday and when I said Baked Beans, Corn Muffins and Coleslaw, she said,  "Are you kidding me, that sounds like prison food."  I don't take myself very seriously so I thought it was funny.  Maybe people think of canned beans when you mention baked beans, but I started wondering if my whole weekly menu was similar to prison fare.

Here is my weekly dinner menu for this week:

Smoky Baked Beans, coleslaw with carrots, corn muffins

Tortilla Soup, tempeh taco sliders, green salad

Quinoa Fritters with salsa, vegetable stir fry, corn tortillas

Tofu-Shiitake Mushroom Scramble, tempeh bacon, whole grain toast

Cuban Red Beans and Rice, sauteed garlic and kale, carrot salad

Orzo Pasta with Spinach and Pine Nuts, marinated beets, green salad

I only write enough for six days because one day is bound to be leftovers, sandwiches or veggie burgers.  Or we may go out to eat, but this is my year of living frugally.   I'm not sure it's prison fare--I think they must get cheap subsidy stuff from the government.  You wouldn't find pine nuts or quinoa fritters and you might not even find vegetarian options there.

It's probably more expensive to use canned sweet potato puree.  I actually saved this can and used a real sweet potato that I found for 79 cents a pound.

Smoky Baked Beans

(Serves 4)

1 large onion, diced

2 tablespoons canola oil, divided 

1/4 cup molasses

2 tablespoons prepared mustard

1 teaspoon brown sugar

2 cloves garlic, pressed

1 or 2 dried chipotle chiles

1 cup white beans, soaked overnight and drained

2 cups water

4 or 5 strips tempeh bacon, cut into 1-inch strips

1 can sweet potato puree

Sea salt to taste (optional)

Saute onions in half of canola oil until browned.  Remove from heat.  Stir in molasses, prepared mustard, brown sugar and garlic. 

Place in a pot with drained white beans and water.   Bring to a boil.  Reduce heat and simmer for one hour or until beans are tender.  Saute the tempeh bacon in remaining canola oil until browned.   Stir sweet potato puree and tempeh bacon into the white beans.  Continue to simmer until you want to serve the beans.   Season with sea salt, if desired.  Remove the chipotle chiles before serving. 

Excuse me, but we'd like a second helping.