Category Archives: Beans and Other Legumes

Caramelized Onion Hummus

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I see, scrolling down the page here, that I haven’t been feeding you anything too substantial lately.  A little of this, a little of that.  A few different kinds of bites cobbled together can make a meal, though.  Especially when of the little bowls on the table is a bowl of hummus.This caramelized onion hummus is light and a little sweet.  It’s addictive by itself but it also keeps nice company with a spread of tzatziki, tomato jam, and a pile of pita bread.  A salad on the side–hopefully a Greek salad, in these last days of good tomatoes and peppers–and dinner is served.  If you want to get fancy, serve a few stuffed grape leaves as well.

Now is a time that you’ll be happy to have cooked chickpeas on hand.  If you don’t, start a pot now or open and drain a can.  If you have caramelized onions defrosted from the freezer, you can have this dip on the table in five minutes.  Otherwise give yourself an hour and five minutes to allow time to cook those onions nice and slow before you make this otherwise-quick dish. Continue reading →

15-Minute Pasta e Fagioli

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I want you to know something.  Just now, at 11 pm, I got up off the couch, poured leftover soup into a bowl, and garnished it with parsley to take the photo below.  Because the photo I had planned to use was admittedly drab, and because I want you to want to make this soup.  I’ve never done that before; I usually just snap a photo as I go.  Is that too ridiculous?  Is it better or worse if I tell you?

But here’s the thing: I want to you to put this recipe in your mental recipe file.  It’s an easy fix when dinner needs to be on the table in 15 minutes, and it’s a bowlful of soup when you need it most.  (I, for one, always need soup most when I’m in such a rush that I only have 15 minutes to make dinner.)

This is peasant food, which means it’s all the best things: thrifty, filling, comforting.   The name translates to “Pasta and Beans,” and those are the only essential ingredients.  I never like to pass up the chance to add vegetables to things, though, so I included my beet greens and a couple of tomatoes.  You can certainly select your own vegetables, or skip them all together.  If you’ve already got cooked chickpeas or white beans handy, you’ll be glad; otherwise just open a can and you’re ready to go.

Continue reading →

Roasted Cauliflower and Chickpea Salad

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Although our Dinner in White has come and gone, this salad endures.  And no, by that I don’t mean that I have week-old leftovers in my fridge.  (I mean, I might, but let’s not speak of that.)  I mean that I already had to make this salad again, and I am looking forward to having it on our table often throughout the winter.  Along with that smoky cauliflower frittata, of course, and the cheddar and dijon cauliflower soup and that whole roasted cauliflower and…I might almost be looking forward to fall.

Unlike most of the recipes I post here, let me warn you, this one takes an hour.  An hour!  But it’s mostly hands-off time in the oven, and it’s worth it.  The cauliflower emerges limp and tender, the chickpeas crisp-edged and meaty.  The pine nuts add crunch and the raisins sweetness and the whole thing will leave you actually happy that it’s cool enough to turn your oven on for an hour.  We most recently ate this dish with a grated carrot salad, baked orzo with tomatoes, and a piece of grilled fish.  It was certainly a feast befitting the harvest season. Continue reading →

How to Cook Chickpeas

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Last night it rained, an honest, garden-soaking, puddle-making rain.  It hadn’t rained in 48 days.  (Seattle’s record dry spell, set in 1951, was 51 days.)  On the way out the door this morning, wrapped in coats against the newly-brisk air, my four-year-old cheerfully sang out our family’s frequent admonishment to her toddling little sister: “No boots, no puddles!”  It suddenly felt like fall.

It’s as good a day as any to put on a pot of beans. Continue reading →

Red Lentil Corn Chowder

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Recently I find myself enchanted by an unusual number of the recipes I see in my blog reader.  This salad.  This pasta.  This pizza.  I want to make half the recipes I see every day.  At first I wondered if I was just feeling hungry, but then I realized: corn is in season.As you know, summer and soup are not confined to separate seasons here in Seattle.  Continue reading →

Christmas in July Lima Bean Salad

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It’s a good friend who knows what kind of gift you will appreciate.  It was a good friend who recently gave me a bag of dried Rancho Gordo Christmas Lima beans.I had heard of Rancho Gordo before, and I seem to remember that around the holidays they sold a year-long bean subscription that I considered buying myself for my birthday.  My friend’s gift inspired me to check their website for cooking tips,  which, of course, led me to the online store.  And they sell so many kinds of “glorious, old-fashioned heirloom beans” that I imagine I will be spending much more time there in the future.  And ordering glorious beans galore.  It’s a small indulgence, really.

The recipe suggestions for this chestnut-flavored bean ranged from curry to sauteed mushrooms to gorgonzola sauce.  I liked the idea of the curry flavors and I planned to serve the curried beans with this jeweled rice–but once the beans were cooked they were so good that I couldn’t bear to adulterate the flavor.  Instead I tossed a few cups of the beans with fresh herbs and a splash each of olive oil and good sherry vinegar.  I cooked a pound of dried beans and used about half for this dish. Maybe I’ll feel ready to curry the other half later this week. Continue reading Christmas Lima Bean Salad (click for recipe)

Fava Bean and Arugula Crostini

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I love many vegetables.  Most vegetables, even.  But I do not love fava beans.

Sure, they’re the color of springtime.  And at their best, they do taste like something that color green should taste.  But they are so much work.  (Every year around this time, someone acts like it’s a new idea to grill whole fava beans, but that can’t really work.  Does that really work?)

So I only cook fava beans when they appear in my CSA box.  One or two pounds can be manageable if you have half an hour to kill: string the pods and pull them open, push out the beans with your thumb, simmer them for a few minutes, drain and run them under cold water, then peel the bean-skin from each and every individual bean.

Then see if you find yourself admiring the fava’s color and flavor, or if you find yourself vowing to just steam some broccoli next time.  If you forget your vow and find yourself with another pound of favas, though, this recipe is one of my favorites.

Continue reading Fava Bean and Arugula Crostini (click for recipe)

Vegan Chopped Salad Bar

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When I visit California, I sometimes wonder if people are really meant to live anywhere else.  We left Seattle in the driving rain and arrived in California’s summertime.  My mom’s tomato plants are taller than me, and I picked a ripe tomato.  The girls gorged themselves in the raspberry and blackberry patches.  We spent all day in in the back yard.

When it was time for lunch, it seemed only sensible to chop up a small mountain of garden and farmers market produce to make a DIY chopped salad bar.  My parents (who eat very healthfully) always have a fridge full of the best fruits and vegetables of the season.  My uncle recently started eating an exclusively plant-based diet, so we made our salad bar vegan. Today’s offerings included shredded lettuce and diced cabbage, zucchini, cucumber, carrots, and broccoli.  You could vary these in infinite combinations, of course.  We put out drained kidney beans, ground flaxseeds, nutritional yeast and walnuts for protein, and raisins for a bit of chew and sweetness.

I love this approach because it lets everyone customize a salad to their own taste.  I bet my mom took all the veggies plus flax and nutritional yeast (and maybe a splash of vinegar); I left off the carrots, went heavy on the broccoli, and topped my bowl with walnuts, raisins, and balsamic vinaigrette.

My uncle took this photo of his salad to share with you all in exchange for some tips about embarking on a vegan lifestyle.  What’s your best advice for him? Vegan Chopped Salad Bar (click for recipe)

Lentil and Yogurt Salad

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It’s no secret that parents find themselves doing things that they wouldn’t have expected of themselves before having kids.  Today alone, I patiently explained to my kids over and over why they couldn’t play with a ball that they’d thrown into the chicken yard (it was covered in chicken poop), calmly told my one-year old to take a huge rock out of her mouth (we were inside; where did that come from?), and rejoiced along with my three year old when we found a small stuffed toy that she was desperately looking for (it was stuffed down into her pants leg, of course–yes, that’s right, the leg of the pants that she was wearing).

Today our entire family also attended a preschool “graduation” ceremony celebrating the fact that our three-year-old had finished this year of preschool…and will be starting another year of preschool in the fall.  Is that crazy?  I definitely would have thought so before becoming a parent.  And I guess I still think it’s a little bit silly now.  But you know what?  It was just darling to see her pride and excitement as her class filed in, to hear her voice ring out above the others as she belted out the word “chrysalis” in a song about a butterfly, and to see the smile on her face as she accepted her “diploma,” posed for a photograph, and then sprinted to us, beaming.  And even if it’s making too much of a not-much milestone, I love to see my girls learning to love school, which I know will serve them well in life.

Afterwards, we stayed for the school picnic.  I brought this salad, but don’t be fooled into thinking that the kids even tried it–they had sandwiches instead. Continue reading Lentil and Yogurt Salad (click for recipe)

Beans and Greens

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I was trying to decide whether to make you black sticky rice pudding with coconut milk or chocolate cookies tonight.  But J, scrolling back through my recent posts, said that I haven’t been feeding you enough protein.  (That’s a dad talking, there.  Fair enough, though, since yesterday’s “recipe” was for ice cubes.)

Thank J, then, for this heartier fare.  We’ve been making this dish for more than a decade and it is always satisfying.  It’s a quick dinner and our regular answer to the question “how am I going to cook down of some of these greens to make more room in the fridge?”

The core ingredients are, as you may have cleverly deduced, beans (white ones) and greens.  The spare supporting cast includes a small onion, garlic, chile flakes, white wine and rosemary.  These bit players can be swapped or omitted depending on availability.  I most recently made this dish with lacinato kale, but any kind of hearty green will work.  I have been known to combine kale, chard, beet greens and radish tops when the fridge is full to bursting.

I like to serve a big bowl of these greens alongside a grainy slice of grilled or toasted bread, preferably spread with a Cypress Grove goat cheese. Now that’s a proper meal. Continue reading Beans and Greens (click for recipe)