UnRecipe: Meatless in Seattle

I often wax poetic over the versatility of pork, The Magical Animal, or marvel at The Power of Beef, usually with the haunting voiceover of Matthew McConaughey in my head. But I have several vegetarian friends, and I always feel bad that when "vegetarian options" are made available at gatherings or restaurants, it's often some limp pasta salad or an expressionless pile of steamed vegetables. It's like when Francis "Baby" Houseman gets put in a corner, and while I would never compare myself to the almighty power of The Swazye (peace-out, Patrick!), I felt the need to take those lackluster dishes from the corner and at least attempt a triumphant movie-finale lift. My attempt at an UnRecipe/MacGyver-style cooking vegetarian meal worthy of a Swazye roundhouse kick, consisted of a Roasted Corn Soup, Stuffed Table Squash, and a Caprese-inspired Pesto Portobello Mushroom Cap, with a Mango Sorbet topped with Spiced Pecans and Toasted Coconut.

Nobody puts vegetarians in a corner - Photo by Wasbi Prime

Squash is a nice, no-fuss ingredient to use since it's quite hearty and its structure remains relatively sound for most cooking methods. The little yellow table squash were looking colorful and cute at the market, so I picked up a few of those. They were easily hollowed-out using a mellon baller. Hit with a drizzle of olive oil and some salt/pepper, and away they went into the oven to get a head start on roasting. For the stuffing, I pulled some small carrots and green onions from the garden (so freakin' cool to be able to do that!), chopped up a few cremini mushrooms, a small yellow onion, and sauteed this mix down to reduce the liquid. I mixed a bit of Parmesan cheese into the cooked filling and stuffed the partially roasted squash halves, letting the oven do the rest of the work. The result was a simple, mild-flavored side dish that could be paired with anything or just eaten on its own, and the filling materials could be adjusted in any way, since the squash flavor is so light and ingredient-friendly. It's the perfect neutral party for a MacGyver meal that requires minimal preparation.

The roasted corn soup was more of a rolling experiment. This was how the Swiss-precision, steel trap mostly likely run with rubber bands, known as The Wasabi Brain, went through the food thought process: 1) Flip through the September Martha Stewart Living magazine. 2) Ooh! John Derian's having a dinner party, and he's serving beautiful corn soup! 3) I need to make corn soup. 4) Ignore all recipes and directions, purchasing random ingredients from grocery store. 5) Throw random ingredients together, in a Voltron-like manner, to form-of a pot of corn soup. Ta-daaaah.

In between all that quality thinking, I roasted several cups of corn until they got slightly browned and super-sweet, and added it to a pot that already had some onions, garlic, and a little bit of carrots, sweatin' to the oldies. I added probably a quart's worth of vegetable broth and used the fabulous hand blender to combine everything from rustic chunk to rustic charm. A cup of cream made the whole thing creamy-dreamy and that's what the end-result of the corn soup experiment was. I added the fresh tomato flourish that John Derian had, and that made for an easier photo, since soups always look boring as hell in pictures.

Tomato, tomahto, let's just call it dinner - Photos by Wasabi Prime

Portabello mushrooms are another versatile ingredient to work with. I know it's touted as a meat substitute, and while it's got the moxy to stand up to being grilled, if I get a portabello burger, I'm not having it because I want faux beef, I'm eating it because I dig fungus and I appreciate its own nuanced flavor.

Pesto from Jardin de Wasabi - Photos by Wasabi Prime

Jardin de Wasabi was thankfully able to yield a good amount of basil this season, so with a few snips, the plants were shorn of their precious leaves and a batch of pesto was made, using almonds instead of pine nuts because we're crazy like that. This was the genesis of the Caprese-inspired mushroom caps. I love tomatoes and cheese, but what makes them even more wonderful is when the mozzarella gets gooey and toasted from the oven. The fresh basil wouldn't have stood up to the scorch of the broiler and I really wanted the herb flavor baked into the ingredients, so I put a healthy smear of pesto over each mushroom before they got pre-roasted in the oven. Once cooked down, each cap was piled with thinly sliced tomatoes and a wedge of fresh mozzarella, and under the hot coil they went on the road to Melty Delicious-ville, final destination: My Belly. It was a good trip.

I don't always include desserts in meals, but I had been inspired by blogger Carli, of Velveeta Ain't Food fame, who had a great avocado ice cream recipe. I loved the idea of a creamy recipe that used a unique ingredient combined with savory elements like spiced nuts and sweet roasted coconut as toppers. However, our ice cream machine has a broken paddle, causing a serious harshing of my ice cream mellow, so I couldn't make avocado dessert magic. I still wanted to combine the spiced, savory nuts and sweet coconut with some kind of dessert, so I opted for a store-bought mango sorbet.

Sweet, spicy, salty -- keep dessert interesting! - Photo by Wasabi Prime

The dessert result was still delicious. I think even a vanilla ice cream would have worked fine with the spiced pecans and coconut. While I was roasting the corn for the soup, I double-booked the oven, using a second rack for the cookie sheet with the seasoned pecans and some shredded coconut. I still have a fair bit of leftover coco-pecan-nut sprinklage, so I may get a little pint of creamy vanilla and make my Friday just that much more enjoyable.

On/Off Recipe: Gabba-Gabba-Donna Hay!

I have a love for magazines that the digital world will never quite take the place of. There's something really satisfying about curling up with a furl of printed pages that a laptop cannot capture, and to be truthful, I hope books and magazines never go the way of 8-tracks and sock garters. That being said, one of my favorite food magazines is Donna Hay, its namesake being the Austrailian equivalent of Ruth Reichl or Martha Stewart, in terms of her ability to present food and lifestyle in a visually appealing, don't-you-just-envy-my-life kind of way. The food is simple and familiar, the production quality of the photos are divine, and it's just a really solid magazine full of foundation cooking recipes that's worth a free flip-thru when you're browsing (aka, loitering) in the Borders magazine aisle. It was a great inspiration piece, whose breakfast dishes and a roasted tarragon chicken recipe pushed me into the kitchen, so with the fury and fire of the Ramones, I said, hey-ho... let's go!

Be honest, it's way better than Wheaties - photo by Wasabi Prime

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Especially when it's covered in hollandaise sauce. I was egged-on (har har) by Donna's Eggs Florentine photo and recipe. I liked the idea of combining the poached eggs with spinach, as runny eggs and wilted greens are an edible experiment gone horribly right. Confession time: I didn't follow St. Donna's recipe to the letter. I skipped the toast and added some bits of pan-crisped proscuitto to the wilted spinach. And even more of a serious foodie trespass, I cheated on the hollandaise, going with a shortcut from Bon Appétit magazine, for a "mock hollandaise" sauce. Don't chase me out of food blogdom with pitchforks, people -- it was still a savory rich sauce, the eggs were poached to lovely gooey-ness, and it was served within the walls of our humble household, where Brock won't look down upon me if I take a shortcut now and then, God bless him!

Donna Hay magazine - totally worth the import price - photos (of magazine) by Wasabi Prime

I attempted to make up for my shortcut sins and made her Chicken with Mushrooms and Tarragon recipe for dinner. For something that looks like it would take several hours, it's relatively fast. It uses skin-on, bone-in chicken thighs, which makes the finished chickadee quite moist and tender. I know it's tempting to substitute this recipe with breast meat since it's low-fat, but it's also low-flavor, and can get dry as all get-out, so don't skimp on this one, as a lot of the richness and flavor will come from the chicken.

Winner winner, tarragon chicken dinner - photo by Wasabi Prime

The final cooked dish would have been enough on its own, but I was leering at the kale chips on Lorna Yee's Cookbook Chronicles , featuring a recipe by way of chef Dan Barbar. I made a last minute decision, confirmed by the two-for-one special on kale at the store. Once separating the dry, papery leaves from the tough center rib, the leaves were tossed with a barely-there drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkle of salt/pepper before baking. It took a couple of batches per head of kale, as the leaves got all crispety-crunchety when they had ample space around them for the heat to scorch the bejeebus out of them.

Hot chicks and crispy veggie chips - Photos by Wasabi Prime

The final result produced a satisfying meal for a home cook like myself who inevitably colors outside the recipe lines, sometimes to much FoodFail. To entice others to stay on-recipe, I included the Donna Hay recipes below. I think you'll be as pleased as I was with the results, as it made for a great Oh Donna weekend!

Eggs Florentine
4 free-range eggs
20g butter
120g baby spinach leaves
Toasted sourdough or rye bread and cracked black pepper, to serve

Lemon Hollandaise
150g butter, chopped
1 tablespoon lemon juice
3 free-range egg yolks
Sea salt flakes

To make the lemon hollandaise, place the butter and lemon juice in a saucepan over medium heat and cook for 2-3 minutes or until melted and bubbling. Place the egg yolks and salt in the bowl of a small food processor. With the motor running, slowly add the hot butter mixture and process until thick. Set aside and keep warm.

Bring a large saucepan of water to the boil. Add the eggs and cook for 6 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon and run under cold water. Carefully peel and set aside. Melt the butter in a large frying pan over high heat. Add the spinach and cook for 2-3 minutes or until just wilted. Top the toast with the spinach and eggs. Spoon over hollandaise and sprinkle with pepper to serve. Serves 4.

Chicken with mushroom and tarragon
2 tablespoons olive oil
8 X 150g chicken thighs, skin on and bone in
Sea salt and cracked black pepper
300g speck* or flat pancetta, chopped
8 sprigs tarragon
3 cloves garlic, chopped
½ teaspoon chili flakes
200g Swiss brown or Portobello mushrooms, halved (4 large portobellos, sliced into bite-sized pieces)
1/3 cup (80ml) dry sherry
1 ¼ cups (310 ml) single (pouring) cream

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C (355 degrees F). Heat oil in a heatproof heavy-based baking dish over high heat. Sprinkle chicken with salt and pepper and cook, skin-side down, for 3 minutes or until browned. Remove from dish and keep warm. Add the speck and tarragon and cook for 3-5 minutes or until golden. Add the garlic, chilli, mushroom and pepper and cook for 5-8 minutes or until golden. Add sherry and cream, return chicken to the dish, cover with aluminium foil and roast for 15 minutes. Remove foil and roast for a further 10 minutes or until chicken is cooked through. Serves 6-8. *Speck is smoked pork, usually sold in a slab from delicatessens.

* Post Script: Thanks to Foodie View for posting both breakfast and lunch, as inspired by Donna Hay! Additional delicious thanks to Tastespotting for putting the seared chicken thigh pic on their site! Additional thanks still to Serious Eats' Photograzing, for doing a quadruple whammy post of pics on their om-nommy site.