Moroccan Shakshouka

Hey there, y'all! I hope you enjoyed a fabulous and sunny St. Patrick's Day (I know I did, not least of all because I am now DONE with the MPRE aka future-lawyer-mandatory-ethics-exam).

I have some (slightly) exciting news: Torts & Tarts has now passed the 1000-views mark! So thanks to all of you for checking it out, and pinning to it on pinterest, and "liking" it on facebook, and all that good stuff.

When I looked at the "stats" tab just now, in addition to the number of pageviews I was able to see some basic data re: who has been checking out the blog. I learned:

• some not-surprising things (the Bailey's Cupcakes got more hits than the Healthy Egg Salad)
• some slightly surprising things (Torts & Tarts is huge in Ukraine. Like, it is BLOWING UP. It looks like the blog was linked to on a dating site. So uhm, привіт.)
• some VERY surprising things (some people found the site by Googling "torts and tarts porn movie"- whattt?)

Isn't the internet a wonderful place?

Moving on. I hope all of you (friends, family, single Ukranians and porn aficionados alike) enjoy today's recipe: Moroccan Pepper, Tomato, and Egg Stew aka Shakshouka.


I'm no arbiter of Moroccan authenticity, but I spent a chunk of time in Morocco before law school and the flavors of this stew took me right back to the Maghreb. I ate something very similar a couple of times in the South, where it is prepared in a tagine and called a "Berber omelette." Variations of the dish are served all over North Africa and the Middle East. The recipe calls for harissa, which I don't have, so I used a combination of hot sauce and sweet paprika along with ground cumin and turmeric to give the stew its color and flavor.

Moroccan Shakshouka
adapted from Olive Trees & Honey

The major ingedients in this simple stew are peppers, tomatoes, and eggs. You'll need 4 green bell peppers, as well as 1 1/4 lbs. (3 cups) of peeled, seeded, and chopped plum tomatoes. I absolutely massacred my tomatoes and ended up well short of 3 cups- next time I'll buy a few extra tomatoes as insurance.

You know what one of my favorite foods in the world is? Bell peppers. You know what one of my least favorite kitchen tasks is? Deseeding and deribbing bell peppers. C'est la vie.

Heat 3 tbs of olive oil in a large saucepan and add 1 large onion (chopped) and 1 or 2 cloves of garlic (minced).


Cook for approximately 5 minutes, until slightly translucent.


Add the peppers and cook for another 5 minutes or so, until the peppers are "crisp-tender"- until they have started to soften but just barely.


There are no pics with the tomatoes because seriously, I butchered them. It was a fight to the death, and despite having several large, sharp knives in my arsenal I lost. Badly. But take my word for it that after the peppers are crisp-tender you should add the tomatoes, 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp ground cumin, 1/4 tsp turmeric, a dash of sweet paprika and a healthy pour of hot sauce (or harissa if you have it). Bring it all to a boil and then reduce heat to medium-low and cook for about 15 minutes, until the tomatoes are soft.

Using a spoon, create 4 indentations in the stew. One at a time, crack 4 eggs into a small bowl and then pour into the indentations. Cover the saucepan and cook until the egg whites have set but the yolks are still runny (the recipe says 5 minutes, but for me it took about 10-15).


I don't like runny yolks so I cooked the eggs almost all of the way through- you can shorten the cooking time if you are more of a sunny-side-up type

Serve immediately. To add some extra color and flavor put a drop of hot sauce on each egg and sprinkle each plate with some extra paprika.

The recipe serves 4-6 people as a side dish, and 2-3 people as a main course (although there might be some fighting over the last egg).

One or two eggs with a heap of veggies is the perfect serving size for a hungry guest!

I have to say, I absolutely loved this dish. Not only did it give my tastebuds a strong dose of nostalgia, it was delicious. The eggs were perfectly cooked- soft and tender as only poached eggs can be, but kicked up a notch with all the spices. The stew is low-carb and low-calorie and yet very hearty and filling. The amount of harissa/paprika/hot sauce can be adjusted to taste.

And its always nice to have yummy leftovers.

Crispy Parmesan Veggie Sticks

Sometimes planning what to cook feels like a futile exercise in free association. Making one thing leaves you with a lot of leftover ingredient A, so you buy ingredients B and C to make another dish, but then you're left with too much B, so you run out and get D, E, and F, but E is only sold in bulk so you hunt desperately for other things to do with it before it goes bad, and so on and so forth.

Its difficult to buy ingredients in the proper quantities when cooking just for yourself or for a few people- hence the plethora of random ingredients cluttering my cabinets and my refrigerator (flaxseed, anyone?). But lately I've been trying to use up the food I already have before running off to the store. Sometimes this is successful (like when I used the parsley and lentils left over from this meal to make this salad), and sometimes it's not (like when I was left with a boatload of dill after making this casserole and for the life of me couldn't think of anything to do with it. I think its still in the back of the fridge somewhere).

I'm doing well this week though, and to make this snack I scheduled another date with Panko breadcrumbs (evidently pronounced pahn-ko, not pain-ko, an embarrassing revelation I had when I asked for it at the grocery store last weekend) to create a healthy treat that has all the satisfying crunch of french fries but with a whole lot more vitamins and a whole lot less fat. These veggie sticks are great served with tomato sauce, aioli, or honey mustard. If you make them with seasoned breadcrumbs they might even be good all by their lonesome. I used asparagus and zucchini but I bet other vegetables would be good as well.

Crispy Parmesan Veggie Sticks
adapted from How Sweet Eats

Ingredients:

• Asparagus spears (the thinner the better)
• Zucchini, sliced into wedges
• 2 egg whites
• 1 cup panko breadcrumbs (seasoned or plain)
• 1/4 cup flour
• 1/4 cup ground or finely grated parmesan cheese
• Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Place a wire rack on top of a baking sheet and spray with cooking spray (if you don't have a wire rack, just the baking sheet is fine, but you will need to turn the sticks over halfway through the cooking time).

With the egg whites in one shallow bowl and the breadcrumbs, flour, parmesan, salt and pepper in another, dip the veggies first in the egg whites and then the breadcrumb mixture.

Unfortunately I could only find this thick asparagus, but thinner spears will be a whole lot crispier!

Arrange veggie sticks on top of the wire rack/baking sheet.

like modern art, no?

Place in the oven and cook for about 20 minutes, until the breadcrumbs turn golden brown. Remember to turn the sticks over once midway through cooking if you are not using a wire rack.


Yum scrum!

Sephardic Lentil Salad

Well, here I am. Back in NYC and back in the land of Olive Trees & Honey, a mysterious land where seemingly any dish can be deemed Jewish as long as any Jew ate it anywhere at any point in time. This "Sephardic" lentil salad is no exception- while many a Sephardi may have enjoyed it, something tells me the salad's appeal (and history) is a bit broader. This simple salad can be served warm or at room temperature and would be a great side dish for any entree with Mediterranean or North African flavors. Try serving it over rice or with some fresh hummus and warm pita.

Sephardic Lentil Salad (adapted from Olive Trees & Honey)

Ingredients:

• 1lb (about 2 1/4 cups) brown or green lentils
• 8 cups water
• 1 bay leaf

For dressing:

• 1/3 cup fresh lemon juice or red or white wine vinegar (or even a combination: I used half lemon juice, half red wine vinegar and it turned out well)
• 1/3 cup chopped fresh parsley or cilantro
• 2 tsp kosher salt
• 1/2 tsp ground black pepper
• 1 or 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 tsp ground cumin
• 2/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 red onion, chopped

In a large saucepan, bring the lentils, bay leaf, and water to a boil.


Cover, reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer until tender but not mushy (about 25 minutes). Drain and remove bay leaf.



Put the warm lentils in a large bowl. In a small bowl, combine the lemon juice/vinegar, parsley, salt, pepper, garlic, and cumin.

the usual suspects: a lineup of the dressing ingredients

Slowly whisk in the olive oil.


Drizzle over the lentils and stir gently to coat. Just before serving stir in the onion.



You can serve this salad plain, sprinkle it with feta cheese, or even make it into a dip by blending it in a food processor with 1 cup tahini and and an extra 2/3 cup of lemon juice and 1 1/2 cups of parsley.

You can also serve it in a bowl you made at a paint-your-own-pottery studio in college.

Tahini Dip

Well, this is embarrassing.

I feel like that awkward kid in middle school who forgot about the science fair and shows up with a crap paper mache volcano while the girl next to him demonstrates the aerodynamics of her homemade hovercraft.


The source of my shame? I'm not sure if what I have to share with you today is a "recipe" per se. Calling this a recipe would be like calling the directions on a bag of microwave popcorn a recipe. It's THAT simple. But I am still posting in the hope that one day, someone just like me (aka someone craving hummus who is too lazy to go to the grocery store to get chickpeas because it is FINALLY SPRING BREAK goddamnit and I just want to sit on my fire escape in the sun and read the latest issue of World Soccer magazine).... ahem, yes, JUST LIKE ME will see this and think "oh good! Here's what I can do with my lifetime supply of tahini paste."

So here is a non-recipe recipe for Tahini Dip, a rich and creamy creation perfect for those times when you want something a little zestier and thicker than hummus and/or are too lazy to get off your ass and get some chickpeas.

Tahini Dip

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup tahini paste
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup cold water

Mix the first 4 ingredients together. Add the cold water, little by little, until the dip reaches the consistency you want. Garnish with a sprig of cilantro/parsley.

Looking at the ingredients you may wonder how this doesn't end up a soupy mess because tahini is pretty runny to begin with. But a weird thing happens when you add the lemon juice- the tahini seizes up and thickens, until it is almost like a coarse dough.


The cold water then counteracts this and brings the tahini back to its creamy consistency.


This dip is pretty good with almost any vegetable. Serve it with pita wedges, bell pepper or cucumber slices, or make a meal out of it by sprinkling with some feta and serving with panfried zucchini. Yum scrum.

Healthy egg salad

Sadly enough, I got the idea for this from a premade egg salad at Westside Market. But anything they can do you and I can do better, so give it a try:

Ingredients:

• Hardboiled egg whites, roughly chopped
• Baby spinach
• Cherry tomatoes, quartered
• Red onion, roughly chopped
• Feta cheese, crumbled
• Olive Oil
• Salt & Pepper

Mix the first 5 ingredients together (proportion to taste). Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Can be eaten alone, or on a salad, sandwich, or bagel.

Easy. Healthy. Make it. Enjoy it.

Leek, Zucchini and Cheese Casserole

This lovely recipe is introduced in Olive Trees and Honey as follows:

A classic example of the Sephardim's love of vegetables mixed with cheese and eggs, this comforting casserole goes by many names: quajado/cuajada ("coagulated"), sfongato de puerro ("leek sponge"), and almodrote de prassa ("hodgepodge of leeks")...

First of all, since when is the "Sephardim's love of vegetables mixed with cheese and eggs" a cultural characteristic of note? And secondly, what a hilariously unappetizing collection of names. Although "hodgepodge of leeks" is kind of great, if only because it gives me an excuse to use the word hodgepodge. Repeatedly. Hodgepodegehodgepodgehodgepodge.

Err, anyways... the original recipe was a straight up leek and cheese casserole but I thought that would be a tad bit too one-dimensional. I love me some veggies, so I made a modified version by replacing half of the leeks with grated zucchini. I used feta and Gouda as my cheeses but you can also use kefalotyri or parmesan instead of the feta and Muenster or cheddar instead of the Gouda.

This dish represents a lot of firsts for me:

• My first time cooking with leeks
• My first time making anything with Gouda.
• My first time using fresh dill since a scarring incident that started with me making greek zucchini fritters for my family and ended with my mother discovering that she has a violent allergy to dill

So needless to say I was a little nervous about this one. How did things go? Let's take a look!

Remember when using leeks...

...to only use the white and light green parts. Wash them carefully; leeks can hold a lot of dirt. The fresh leeks smelled delicious.

The grated zucchini adds some extra flavor and texture, and helped me tone my right bicep

Sautee the leeks and onions in a saucepan with vegetable oil until slightly softened and then simmer with water, zucchini, and kosher salt until tender
Strain the leeks and then add them to a mix of feta and Gouda cheeses, eggs, salt and pepper, olive oil, and fresh dill

Spoon the mixture into a 9x9 casserole pan and bake in the oven for 55 min until firm and golden brown on top

The verdict? Delicious! The heaviness of the cheese and eggs was nicely countered by the light vegetables. The dill added some complexity to the briny feta. Since I used the feta I probably could have cut down on the salt. Otherwise, the dish was perfect- like a greek frittata. Love. The casserole can be served warm or at room temperature with some rice or a side salad.

Annnd we're BACK!

So, it's been awhile...
I didn't write. I didn't call. I'm sorry.
I promise I still care.

It's just, this blog started as a method of final-exam-studying procrastination. And then finals were over. And then I started work. And then work was over. And then I spent a semester in Barcelona. And now THAT'S over, and I'm back in NYC, yet again in the mood to procrastinate, and hoping to cook as much as possible during the next couple of months before I become a corporate law drone with no free time who comes home to a fridge stocked solely with beer, water, and a lifetime supply of condiment packets hoarded from seamless web deliveries.

BUT things are going to be a bit different this time around. Because.... brace yourself.... I won't be making that many desserts.

I know, I know, its madness. What's Torts & Tarts without the Tarts? It's just torts... and that's no fun. But never fear, when JSus closes one kitchen cabinet she opens another one, and the one I just opened is full of yummy ingredients I can use to make recipes from this book:

And this book:

And this book:

And all the other underutilized cookbooks I've accumulated over the years.

Why? I don't know, I guess I've been belatedly inspired by the Julie & Julia craze of cooking your way through a cookbook. While I'm no longer strictly vegetarian, most of the meals I make are, and there's only so many stir-fries and salads a girl can eat before she goes crazy. Plus this will provide some structure and hopefully keep me cooking and keep me posting! So here goes.

Recipe: Vegetable Chili

In dietary penance for the past couple of posts, today's recipe is totally healthy, fresh, and sugar-free. I call it chili, mainly because I dump tons of chili powder into it, but its relatively low on beans and completely lacking in meat so perhaps that's not the best name. At any rate, its simple, delicious, low-fat/calorie/carb/etc., and for the vegetarians out there it packs a good amount of protein (you can also add vegetarian ground beef if you wish). I often double the recipe and then freeze some of it so I have it around for awhile. The mechanics of the recipe are simple so feel free to experiment with different beans and vegetables.

Vegetable Chili

Ingredients:

• 2 onions, chopped
  
• 1 garlic clove, crushed
• 3 celery ribs, chopped
• 2 green bell peppers, seeded and diced
• 2 zucchini, sliced
• 14-oz can red kidney beans, rinsed and drained
• 14-oz can chopped tomatoes
• 2/3 cup passata or tomato sauce
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 1 tablespoon ketchup
• 1 teaspoon each hot chili powder, ground cumin, and ground coriander (I usually double this... sometimes triple...)
• salt and freshly ground black pepper

1. Put the first 5 ingredients (the green stuff) in a large saucepan and mix together

2. Add the next 5 ingredients (the red stuff)

Add the spices, season with salt and pepper and mix well

Cover, bring to a boil, then simmer for 20-30 minutes (this may vary depending on how finely you chopped the vegetables)


Serve with a sprinkling of cheese or a spoonful of plain yogurt sprinkled with cayenne pepper
It's not very photogenic, but I promise its delicious.