Farro and winter squash salad with pepitas

This morning, for the first time in forever, I cooked something for myself for lunch--something healthy. I figured it'll magically offset all the candy I ate last night, feeling an obligation to make a dent in the overstock we were left with. It's our first year in a house (no one ever went trick-or-treating in the apartments), I was excited, and I didn't know how much to buy. On top of that, apparently ours is the kind of neighborhood where everyone has kids, puts up adorable Halloween decorations, and then takes the kids to another neighborhood to trick-or-treat. Cute. Thankfully we had a few small groups, including one with a boy who was actually excited to see "Stawbuhst!"  Knock yourself out, kid, there's a reason I put that one out for the first round...

Some time ago I had to swear off subscribing to food blogs as prolific and consistently tantalizing as Smitten Kitchen, finding myself even less capable than usual of making semi-frugal meal plans and then not changing my mind a thousand times... It was an unhealthy and inefficient pattern. So I wouldn't even call myself a regular reader of Smitten Kitchen, though I love her writing and her food and the cookbook is most definitely on my wishlist. Something about that blog transforms me from all-out recipe slave (thanks, Cook's Illustrated) to semi-imaginative, measurement-despising pseudo-chef. Probably it's a mix of the encouraging, amicable tone and the artsy small print (not to mention the photos!), but whatever it is, something akin to creativity is its invariable effect on me. So in that spirit I altered this recipe to use the delicata squash I picked up on a whim last week. I had never tried it but I've never met a winter squash I didn't love roasted, and this one proved no different. It's like candy, people. Healthy candy. What more can you ask for from a vegetable? The pairing with farro and pumpkin seeds is nothing short of inspired, so I didn't feel the need to mess with success. I did try adding rinsed canned black beans to mine for some protein and it worked quite well.

And as for the cheese---I might as well throw a real quick pity party and say that I've been reluctantly dairy-free for about two weeks, trying to solve some reflux issues with la bebita, and I think it's definitely helping her (mixed feelings---just kidding! Totally kidding.). I say this as a strong believer in the placebo effect, so I went into it quite suspiciously. I haven't been doing a total elimination diet; I just cut my inordinate dairy consumption by about 98%, I would say. So I guess the way to test this scientifically is to go another week as I have been, and then reintroduce one food at a time to look for a reaction... Seems kind of cruel when your test subject is a baby, but we're not suspecting a serious allergy here, just sensitivity. All that to say, I vacillated on whether to put a teeny tiny bit of feta in this salad (one of several opened cheeses languishing in my fridge...tragic). But guess what? It didn't need the cheese. I know, such a hypocrite---I just swore I would never trust a person who called the presence of any cheese in any dish "unnecessary." But all the other components of the salad are just that good--- and perhaps I am starting to reconcile myself to this dairy-free thing. Pity party over, though. Make this salad. With all the modifications your heart desires, because you were born to cook and know exactly what you're doing, you brilliant chef you. /unsuccessfully channeling Deb

(Oh hey, I remembered to take a photo. Bet you wish I hadn't. I should learn how to use a camera someday. Here it is sans the last-minute addition of black beans.) 

Farro and winter squash salad with pepitas
adapted from Smitten Kitchen
Serves 2-3 as a main dish
Keeps a week

2 medium delicata squash, peeled (optional), halved lengthwise, seeded, and sliced into 1/2" half-moon pieces
4 Tbsp olive oil, divided
3/4 cup farro
1/2 red onion, minced
1 Tbsp. sherry vinegar
1 Tbsp. water
1/2 tsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1/3 c. toasted pepitas, preferably salted
Feta cheese to taste (optional)
1 (15 oz) can black beans, rinsed and drained (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Roast the squash pieces in a single layer on a baking sheet with 2 Tbsp of the oil and salt to taste until tender, 20-25 mins, turning pieces over halfway through. Set aside.

2. Meanwhile, cook the farro according to package directions or, if you bought it in bulk like me and have no idea if it's pearled, semi-pearled, or what, try just dumping it in lots of boiling salted water for 25-30 minutes or so. You want it to be soft but still a bit chewy. Once done, drain and let cool slightly.

3. Also meanwhile, combine the onion, vinegar, water, sugar, and salt in a small bowl. Let marinate about 30 minutes while the other stuff cooks.

4. Combine all ingredients in a medium bowl and toss with the remaining 2-3 Tbsp. of olive oil. Add more salt and pepper if desired, then serve at room temperature or chilled.

Orzo salad with serrano ham and roasted peppers

We tried serrano ham for the first time in this dish a couple nights ago, which I made based on an intriguing Epicurious recipe. Apart from M's reasonable point that it seemed like more of a side salad than a main dish, we both enjoyed it a lot, and I found it plenty for a light supper. I didn't take a picture because the end result looked kind of like a mess after I mixed it all up; it would be much prettier as a layered salad perhaps. I was surprised at how creamy and flavorful the dressing was: I've never made one that started out with equal parts almonds and water, but it definitely works.

Spanish orzo salad
Yield: 2 main-dish or about 4 side servings
(You will have a fair amount of leftover dressing; you may have to puree it again with a little water to return it to the proper consistency after a couple days in the fridge, as I've just discovered.)

1 small, or 1/2 a large, shallot, chopped fine
1/2 tsp. sea salt
1/2 c. plus 2 Tbsp. blanched slivered almonds, toasted and cooled
1/2 c. water
1 Tbsp. sherry vinegar
3 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
1 generous pinch piment d'espelette, or 1/4 tsp. hot sauce (like Tabasco)
1/8 tsp. fresh ground black pepper
4 oz. dry orzo, cooked al dente, then drained and tossed with a tsp. olive oil and spread out over a baking sheet to cool to room temp.
about half a 12 oz jar of piquillo, or regular red/yellow roasted peppers, rinsed and patted dry, then sliced thin
1 large slice serrano ham, sliced into ribbons
2 hard-boiled eggs, sliced into eighths

To make the dressing, combine the shallot, salt, 1/2 c. almonds, water, vinegar, oil, hot sauce or piment, and pepper in a blender; puree til completely smooth. Taste and season if necessary.

Scrape the cooled orzo into a bowl and combine with a couple spoonfuls of dressing. At this point you could assemble the salad in layers, or just mix the orzo with the ham, peppers, and reserved 2 Tbsp. almonds, then arrange the sliced eggs on top of each serving with another sprinkle of the piment d'espelette and/or drizzle of dressing.

Monday

Tonight we had a quick and easy Chinese-ish dinner: spicy Szechuan noodles (dan dan mian) from CI's international cookbook and a small salad. The salad dressing was an easy five-ingredient Epicurious find: a couple teaspoons minced shallots, 2 Tbsp rice vinegar, 1 Tbsp vegetable oil, 2 tsp. minced ginger, and 1/4 tsp. toasted sesame oil. It was delicious even on very American green leaf lettuce, with orange sections, sliced almonds, and black sesame seeds. I'll definitely make this again with spinach, as the original recipe suggested.

The noodles I had made before at least once. You can use either fresh Chinese noodles or just dried pasta (linguine), which any couponer always has on hand. A little briefly marinated ground pork is browned over high heat in a skillet, then a fair amount of ginger and garlic are briefly sauteed with it. You then add a sauce made of several ingredients, mainly peanut butter and chicken broth along with soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, red pepper flakes, and oyster sauce, and let it thicken for about 3 minutes. Off heat you drizzle a little sesame oil into the mix, and that's it. To break up the beige motif, and also for their nice flavor, you garnish with scallions. I crumbled part of a small Chinese dried pepper on top, because this dish really isn't very spicy at all. But it has a nice complex flavor and is about as easy as a stir-fry can get.

week in review

Monday I made spiced carrot soup with shrimp from CI's Restaurant Favorites, a first course I typically make into a main with a salad and bread; some of the shrimp I cleaned were mushy and kind of ruined the meal for me, because I was worried about their overall freshness (they were from Publix, which at least hasn't utterly scared me off from the seafood dept like Kroger has). Tuesday I made a rather nice salad, the highlight of which was a roasted garlic dressing that I wasn't anticipating would be so good. It's from CI's Best Slow & Easy cookbook, I think, and I had saved it on my computer back when I had it checked out from the library. So I poached some chicken for that and threw in carrots, pepitas, diced (roughly) hard-boiled egg, and bacon, the great salad enhancer. It was good and M approved it even as a main. For Wednesday I fell back on breakfast, as it was M's first day of evening classes: waffles, sausage and eggs. Not the healthiest but we don't eat like that extremely often. A guy who writes at Front Porch Republic has argued against breakfast because sleeping should not count as fasting. :D I agree, it's rather stupid that our bodies demand food as soon as we rouse ourselves from doing absolutely nothing. But makinig up for skipping breakfast by having it for dinner---I'm on board with that.