gruel patties

I was going to call this next recipe Herbed Chickpea Patties With Baby Lettuces, or perhaps Italian Garbanzo Burgers With Arugula Salad. But let's be honest: This blog is called Gruel for Dinner, and this dish is called Gruel Patties.


I like to make a batch of Gruel Patties on Sunday night before a busy week, and then eat them for lunch and dinner over the coming days. I would never, ever serve them to guests. The yachtsman won't touch them. But to me they're an old standby, a weeknight classic, a spring comfort food (I like to serve them over the tender arugula or baby lettuces or clovery mesclun that's in season now). They're easy, they reheat quite well, and I'm not exaggerating when I say I think they're quite good.

What they are not is glamorous. But according to the recipe I worked from, they're Italian, and nothing Italian is entirely unglamorous, is it?

Let's put it this way; they're about as glamorous as a can of chickpeas.


(I know there is a case to be made for cooking your own chickpeas, but Goya chickpeas are nearly as good as the ones you'll spend hours soaking and boiling and blah blah blahing, and they take about twelve hours less time to prepare.)

So, you start with a couple cans of chickpeas; you add some of that most versatile of herbs, (Italian!) parsley (if you have other fresh herbs around, feel free to add some of those, too); there's garlic, naturally; a little cumin; some hot red pepper flakes. Give it all a whirl in the food processor, and then turn it out into a bowl. Add a little Parm, an egg and some flour for binding, form the patties, and sauté them in a film of olive oil. Nod when your husband asks, "Is that really what you're eating for dinner?" And then eat them for dinner all week.

A few notes:

* Like I said, I serve them warm over greens dressed with something acidic, usually either lemon and olive oil and salt, or that red wine vinaigrette I told you about a while ago. I eat them two at a time, and when I reheat them, I do so in a toaster oven. I’m sure they’d be fine reheated in a microwave, too, though perhaps not as crispy. They’re not that great cold; plus, I love the way the warm patty softens the greens.

* The original version of this recipe was vegan—no egg, no cheese. The cheese is not essential, but I found that the patties crumbled when I tried cooking them without the egg.

Gruel Patties
Adapted from A Year in a Vegetarian Kitchen by Jack Bishop

2 15-ounce cans of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
½ cup packed fresh parsley leaves
2 medium garlic cloves
½ teaspoon ground cumin
½ teaspoon hot red pepper flakes
1 egg
¼ cup flour
¼ cup Parmesan cheese
Salt
3 tablespoons evoo
A cup or two of greens (per serving)
Dressing

1. Place the chickpeas, parsely, garlic, cumin, and pepper flakes in the bowl of the food processor. Process, stopping to scrape down the sides, until relatively uniform and smooth.


Move the mixture to a bowl and stir in the egg, then the flour, and finally the Parmesan and salt to taste. Shape the mixture into patties (I usually get eight or nine).


2. Heat 1½ tablespoons of oil in a large, nonstick skillet over medium heat until shimmering. Add the patties and cook until golden brown. Carefully turn the patties and drizzle the remaining oil around the edges of the pan. Continue cooking until the patties are golden brown on the second side.

3. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, place some greens in a bowl and toss with either dressing or equal parts lemon and olive oil and a sprinkling of salt.

4. Once the patties are cooked, let them sit briefly on paper towels to absorb some of the cooking oil,


then serve immediately on a bed of dressed greens.

Bon appétit, bitches! Or, as they say in Italian, bueno appetito, biatchos!

over and outage

It's been in the 90s the past few days. That is NOT a complaint.


Nor does it explain the fact that I've eaten the same exact thing for dinner every single night this week. Very gruelalicious. Both the food itself (let's just say it involves a legume and the word "patties") and the fact that I've been subsisting on it for days. More on that later. Because right now I'm typing to you in the dark, using the last of my computer’s battery as a thunder and lightning storm crashes and crackles outside our building. The power has gone out, which means the A/C is off, which means soon the yachtsman will go crazy from the heat, strip off his clothes, and walk naked around the house begging the gods to save us from this hell. So, like I said, more later.

trust-your-instincts gruel

I realized the other day that most of my food-related posts lately have been about cake, cupcakes, cookies, or doughnuts. I blame this on February, or as we call it around these parts, Hang-Yourself-in-the Barn Month. February lasted for ninety-two days this year, and during that time I relied on recipes I'd already shared with you, gruel I know I love and know I can count on. Because winter in Vermont is not a time to try new things, unless they involve dough or batter and are baked by someone who does not suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder. No, winter in Vermont is a time for stiff upper lips and sweet tooths and old standbys and seeking succor wherever it can be found. For example, in a cake.

But it's been springlike here lately: warmer, sunnier days; that extra hour of daylight; crocuses. Foolish crocuses that will surely die when spring rips off its mask and reveals that it's really still winter. There will be more snow, of this I'm sure. But the worst is behind us, I think. Oh, who knows. Anything could happen: A blizzard. Locusts. Crocuses.

One of the few new dishes I did make this past interminable February (for myself and, unfortunately, six people we had over for dinner) was very...blah. The recipe was from a cookbook I love and trust, but while I was making it I had a bad feeling: It wasn't well seasoned, the proportions seemed off, certain ingredients didn't make sense. But I trudged through the recipe as it was written (welcome to winter in Vermont) and ended up with a bland soup that I was a little embarrassed to serve. Lucky for my guests, there were warm chocolate chip cookies for dessert.

But instead of writing the soup off as a bust, I've been thinking about it every since, cursing myself, in between bites of cake, for not trusting my instincts. Because the dish had potential, and included some of my favorite gruelish ingredients: creamy beans, chewy bites of farro, kale... So when false spring arrived a couple weeks ago, I gave it another try. The recipe below is less a recipe than a set of guidelines. It reflects what I did the second time I cooked the soup, but next time through I'm sure I'll tweak it some more. For example, depending on what the weather brings I may add sauteed locusts.

A few notes:
* As I mentioned above, the first time I tried this soup it was quite bland, so my goal this time was to build flavor. There are numerous ways to do this with a soup, and I used several of them here: I added a bay leaf, garlic cloves, and salt to the water in which I cooked my beans; I cooked the soup in a combination of both water and stock; I sauteed the onions, garlic, carrots, and celery for longer than originally called for; I added some sage, a bay leaf, and a Parmesan rind. Not all of these steps are necessary, though my soup didn't suffer from their aggregate use.
* For beans I used some beauties I bought at the farmers market. They looked like this,

but any white-ish bean (e.g., cannellini) would do. I used 400 grams (~2 cups), but next time I'll probably use less beans and more farro. Canned beans would also work just fine.
* I cooked the onions with a sprinkling of dried chili flakes, but next time I might try that pimentón I told you about awhile ago.
* I cut the carrots and celery into smallish bite-sized pieces. The original recipe also called for potatoes, which I have no use for in vegetable soups, but if you'd like some, add them when you add the carrots and celery.
*I used a combination of store-bought veggie stock and water as a base (probably about half and half); next time I might try some of my favorite bouillon instead of the stock. I also added some chopped fresh sage because I had had it and a Parmesan rind, but a second bay leaf could replace the sage and the Parmesan isn't essential, just nice. The amount of liquid you're going to need will depend on how much beans/farro you use, and whether or not you want a more soup-like or stew-like dish. I went for more of a stew this time, as I'm no crocus.
* There are no rules here. It may or may not be spring. Trust your instincts.

Trust-Your-Instincts Gruel (d/b/a White Bean and Farro Soup)
~2 cups dried beans, soaked in water overnight
4–8+ cups of stock and/or water
5 garlic cloves: 2 peeled and smashed; 3 peeled and finely chopped
2 bay leaves
olive oil
2 onions, peeled and chopped
red chili flakes
2 celery sticks, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
a few sage leaves, chopped
1 Parmesan rind
¾ cup farro

My new 5-pound bag of farro; jealous, bitches?

1 28-oz. can of tomatoes and their juice [I buy whole, canned San Marzanos and chop them, but there's probably no real reason not to buy any old can of diced tomatoes.]
1 bunch of lacinato kale, roughly chopped
a few drops of balsamic vinegar, a splash of good olive oil, a dollop of pesto, or a sprinkle of Parmesan to finish

1. Drain the beans and place them in a heavy-bottomed saucepan. Add enough water to cover the beans by a couple inches, throw in the 2 cloves of smashed garlic and the bay leaf. Cook the beans over medium-low heat, adding some salt after the beans have started to soften a little bit. Cook until the beans are soft but stop before they fall apart (is there such a thing as al dente beans?); they're going to get some more cooking time in the soup. Drain and set aside.

2. Over medium-low heat warm a few glugs of olive oil in a Dutch over or other pot that is large enough to comfortably hold all the ingredients. Add the onions, a sprinkling of dried chili flakes, and a pinch of salt. Seat gently until the onions are soft and translucent, then add the carrots, celery, and garlic. Saute three or four minutes and then add the farro; saute for another couple minutes. Add the tomatoes and their juice and a couple pinches of salt. Cover and simmer over a low heat for awhile; 20 minutes, maybe.

3. Add the cooked beans and enough broth/water to at least cover everything in the pot. For a soup, add more liquid. For a more stew-like pot of gruel, don't. Add a bay leaf, the chopped sage, and the Parmesan rind to the pot.

4. Cover and cook on low heat until the farro is done to your liking and the vegetables are all soft. The amount of time it takes to cook the farro in the soup will depend on whether it's semipearled; for me and my unpearled farro this took about an hour.

5. Add the kale and cook for a few minutes until it is soft but still toothsome.

6. Eat as is or garnish with a splash of balsamic vinegar or good olive oil; a spoonful of pesto; or a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese.

the mark bittman minimalist club: fire burn and cauldron bubble

It's the dead of winter. D-E-A-D dead. Put a fork in it, dead. Dead as a doornail. And while I'm tossing around old adages: It's colder than a witch's tit, and I'm moving slower than molasses in January. I am molasses in January, basically.

It's not pretty. I'm not pretty. Frumpy, yes; pretty, no. And have I mentioned that I've been subsisting mainly on a diet of toast? Peanut butter toast, salty buttered toast for variety, toast spread with avocado when I can drag myself to the store. Which is rare.

So it was the yachtsman who ventured out into the frigid darkness and bought the ingredients for Spiced Red Lentil Dal (one of five dal recipes featured in Mark Bittman's Minimalist column last week) while I sat on the couch, the heat set at 72, wondering what the point is. The point of, you know, life.

But when the yachtsman returned with the red lentils and mustard seeds,


the sweet-smelling cloves and arthritic finger of ginger, I mustered. And mustarded. I got off the couch and measured and chopped and minced and sautéed and stirred. For the first time since before the holidays, a pot of gruel bubbled on the stove.

My comments on the results appear after the recipe.

Spiced Red Lentil Dal
from the New York Times

2 tablespoons peanut oil [I used olive oil.]
1 large onion, chopped
1 cup dried red lentils, washed and picked over [I've never washed or picked over red lentils in my life, and I didn't start here.]
2 tablespoons minced fresh ginger
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 tablespoon mustard seeds
2 cloves
1 teaspoon cracked black pepper
Salt
2 tablespoons cold butter (optional) [Not optional.]
Chopped fresh cilantro leaves for garnish

1. Put oil in a skillet over medium high heat; when it is hot, add onion and cook until soft [In the Minimalist video of Mark Bittman cooking this recipe, he browns the onions, so I did, too; soon we will be wed.], about 10 minutes; set aside.

2. Meanwhile, combine all remaining ingredients except the salt, butter and cilantro in a saucepan.


Add water to cover by about 1 inch, and bring to a boil. Adjust heat so mixture bubbles gently, and cook, stirring occasionally and adding water if necessary, until lentils are tender, 15 to 20 minutes. Sprinkle with salt and more pepper and keep cooking to desired tenderness. Lentils should be saucy but not soupy.

3. Remove cloves from pan and add reserved sautéed onion. Stir in butter if you are using it. Taste and adjust seasoning, then garnish with cilantro and serve.


I'm hoping Mark Bittman won't break up with me when I say this, but honesty is the foundation of all relationships, even one-sided cyber relationships. And maybe it's just the witch's tit talking, but I didn't love this dal. Oh, I've eaten it four times in the past two days, but this recipe needs a little help.

When I tasted the dal as it cooked, the mustard was overpowering, though this was mitigated somewhat when I added salt at the end and stirred in the butter (the butter also added a much needed richness). Next time I'll start with 2 teaspoons of mustard seed instead of a full tablespoon, and I might add less pepper, too. The cilantro garnish added a fresh note, and next time (meaning tomorrow when I eat this for the fifth time) I'll squeeze a bit of lemon juice in just before I serve it (to myself). But I still think something's missing. A little turmeric and cumin? Some tomato paste? Chopped canned tomatoes? Or better yet, fire-roasted tomatoes?

There is something about this recipe that feels fundamentally gruel-ish (I think dal must be the Hindi word for gruel), and if spiced correctly it would be the perfect dead-of-winter dish.

Pretty, no; frumpy, yes.

So when I can convince the yachtsman to return to the grocery store and buy me some more supplies, I'll try making this again; when I do, and if I can improve it, I'll post my modifications here. If you get to it before I do, post your thoughts in the comments. Bitches.

lake, kale

Awhile ago I was eating dinner out when a beautiful woman walked into the restaurant. Everything about this woman was eye catching: Not only was she beautiful, she was tall and statuesque, elegantly dressed, perfectly coiffed. Throughout the evening I found my eyes wandering to where the woman sat, first at the bar, then at a nearby table. And I wasn't the only one: Everyone in the restaurant watched her, some people staring outright, others glancing over every few seconds, like swimmers coming up for air.

I've had a similar feeling lately about our lake. There's just about no place I'd rather be than Vermont in the summer, but our lake is at its most beautiful during the darkest days of winter, and I've found myself wanting to look at it as much as possible. I take long walks back and forth along the bike path that runs next to it, I explore the streets that border it hoping for a glimpse, I loiter in the park on the hill that overlooks it, I bring my poor dog down to the pier and we shiver and watch the waves crash against the breakwater. Basically, I'm stalking the lake.

Stalking the lake has taken me down several streets I rarely walk, and while I was out one day recently, I noticed that there is lacinato kale growing outside the Burlington Police Station.

Lacinato kale is the opposite of a drop-dead gorgeous woman in a restaurant, or a violently beautiful lake in winter. Kale is not pretty to look at and something most people don't want to have think about, let alone see on their plate.

But here in our utopian little city, people feel differently about kale. It's grown outside municipal buildings, apparently, and a local restaurant has a neon sign advertising when kale is being served inside.


In spite of its popularity in my little hometown, though, I was slow to convert. My few experiences being served kale (steamed, usually) epitomized everything that can be wrong with gruel when cooked by the wrong hands: It tasted like health food, and not in a good way. So when I first tried the dish below, I used a mix of greens, as the original recipe suggested, usually one bunch of kale and one of chard. And it was good, but I noticed that my favorite bites were the ones that contained kale, and I found my fork seeking it out in the bowl.

Braising brings out the best in this hearty green—when cooked properly it is tender but toothsome and slightly sweet. The chick peas are a nice addition both for flavor and a bit of protein, though the dish would be good without them if you're not a fan, and the lemon juice adds a splash of sass.

What I'm trying to say is that while kale may not catch your attention, this dish is worth taking a look at.


Braised Kale With Chick Peas
adapted from Orangette

2 bunches of lacinato kale, ~1½ pounds total
3 tablespoons evoo
2 large cloves garlic, minced
½ medium yellow onion, minced
1 can (15½ ounces) chickpeas, drained and rinsed
Salt
Freshly squeezed lemon juice

1. Trim the central ribs from the kale and discard them. Wash the leaves and drain well in a colander. Don't bother to pat them dry; they should be slightly damp when they go into the pan. Stack the leaves a few at a time, and slice them crosswise into ¼-inch-wide ribbons.

2. In a large skillet that has a lid that fits, warm the oil over medium heat. Add the garlic and onion, and sauté until the onion is soft and just translucent, about 5–10 minutes (stop before they brown). Add the chickpeas, and stir to mix. Add the kale to the pan, season well with salt, and stir to blend. You will most likely have to add the kale in batches, letting it cook down slightly to make room. Cook, stirring occasionally, until you've added all the kale and can cover the skillet.

3. Once the pan is covered, lower the heat so that the kale is braising gently, and cook until it is tender, 10–15 minutes. You'll want to taste as you go to ensure you don't overcook the greens, removing them from the heat when they are tender but before they are mushy.

4. Remove the kale from the pan and drizzle with fresh lemon juice to taste (I usually use the juice of half of one lemon), add more salt if necessary.


This dish can be served warm or at room temperature, as a side dish or the main course (as long as you're not feeding the yachtsman). It makes great leftovers, which I keep in the fridge and often eat cold for lunch, or, if I'm patient enough, I let them come up to room temperature. Since the yachtsman is not around to make gagging noises, I think that tomorrow I might try them warm with a soft-boiled egg on top, after which I'll head out for my morning gawk at the lake.

the mark bittman minimalist club: do you like pina coladas?

I made this citrus rice salad because I'm leaving tomorrow to spend a couple of weeks at my mom's house in Florida. Why not wait to make it until I'm at my mom's, where I can pluck fresh citrus fruit from the trees in her backyard? Because I'm counting on the fact that once I arrive in Florida my mom will do all the cooking. Naw, I'm just kidding: My sister will probably help her out.


And maybe they will make this dish, which is from a column on rice salads Mark Bittman did last year (the piece also featured Indian, Japanese, and pad-thai-style rice salads). It's one of the recipes I was referring to earlier this week that could easily be either gruel de la semaine or a component of a meal that you might actually serve to other people. I think we all know which option I chose; see my serving suggestions after the recipe.

Citrus Rice Salad
from the New York Times

1½ to 2 cups any rice [I used 1 cup of uncooked long-grain, brown rice, which made ~2 cups of cooked rice.]
s&p
½ cup extra virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons freshly squeezed citrus juice, or more to taste (lemon, lime, orange, tangerine, grapefruit, or a combination [I acutally used all five])
2 tablespoons grated citrus zest
1 tablespoon sugar or honey [honey]
1 cup chopped citrus flesh (or whole segments, if small)
½ large red or mild white onion, minced [I minced half of a smallish red onion and didn't even use all of it; the raw onion could easily overpower the other flavors.]
½ cup chopped fresh mint
½ cup or more grated Parmesan [or not; see notes below]
chopped almonds or pecans, optional [pecans, definitely]


1. Cook rice in abundant salted water, as you would pasta, until it's just done; white rice will take 10 to 15 minutes, brown 30 or a little longer. Drain, rinse in cold water, drain again, then put in a large bowl. [I cooked the rice according to the directions on the package and didn't do all of the draining and rising at the end.]

2. Combine olive oil, citrus juice, zest, sugar or honey, salt and pepper in a blender and turn the machine on; a creamy emulsion will form within 30 seconds. Taste and add more citrus juice a teaspoon or two at a time until the balance tastes right to you.

3. Drizzle vinaigrette over rice [do this to taste; I didn't use it all]. Use 2 big forks to combine, fluffing rice and tossing gently to separate grains. Stir in citrus flesh, onion, and mint; taste, and adjust the seasoning or moisten with a little more dressing.

4. Serve, sprinkled with Parmesan and chopped nuts, at room temperature, or refrigerate for up to a day, bringing salad back to room temperature before serving. [See my serving suggestions, below.]


I, of course, made a batch of this on Sunday and ate it for lunch all week. But because variety is the spice of life, I tried it two ways. Sometimes I ate it as directed, with grated Parmesan. But on a couple of days I went rogue/tropical, skipped the Parmesan, and added avocado instead, which is about as exotic as things get around my house. Either way, this makes for a nice gruel de la semaine; the bright citrus flavors are perfect on a gray fall day, and both the Parmesan and avocado give the salad a richness that balances the tang.

As a component of a fancier meal this would serve quite nicely as a bed on which you could lay a piece of fish, which you could then top with an avocado salsa. This kind of bold nüfüsion cüisine will surely impress your friends. It would impress me, anyway, and we're friends. Right?

Citrus rice would also go well with the yachtsman's famoüs French Chicken in a Pot, if you eat those nasty birds (I'll try to get him to whip one up while we're in Florida so my mom can take the night off and I'll have something to bl*g about). And there's something a little risotto-ish about this dish (could be the rice, I guess)—it might be nice topped with shrimp, if you like pieces of fishy rubber for dinner.

Actually, the risotto idea is a good one; perhaps I'll ask my mom to make a citrus risotto with chunks of fresh fruit added at the end, plenty of Parm, possibly some asparagus, served sprinkled with pecans. And then I will hope that I'm not sent to my room without dinner.

how i roll

This is how I roll: In general, three deep. Culinarily, I like to make myself a big batch of something on Sunday and eat it all week. You, however, do not need to do the same. If you're the kind of go-getter who regularly changes out of pajamas, the type of high achiever who takes hours or days, not weeks or months, to reply to e-mails, then you just may be up for taking a recipe for gruel and transforming it into a course or side dish for your next dinner party. The one you will invite me to via smoke signal, the dress code for which will be black fleece.

This week I will be featuring a couple of recipes that can be either eaten as gruel de la semaine or served as a component of a fancier meal, depending on how you roll.


Let's start with beets, which may be ugly (frightening, in fact) on the outside, but when roasted and peeled are not only pretty but delicious, perfect for a dinner party. They also have a long shelf life, perfect for a week in my fridge. This roasted beet salad has a secret ingredient: almond butter, a smear of which on the bottom of the plate transforms a somewhat common salad into something quite special, a salty, sweet, savory, addictive first course suitable for guests, or for lunch alone in pajamas. Because even slothful people deserve something special for lunch, don't we?

No, seriously. Don't we?

Roasted Beet Salad With Almond Butter and Gorgonzola
adapted from this recipe, which appeared in Gourmet

½ cup toasted, slivered almonds
½ garlic clove, chopped
pinch of cayenne
¼ cup + 2–3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
5 or 6 medium-to-large beets

2 tablespoons Sherry vinegar
3 tablespoons finely chopped shallot
3 tablespoons finely chopped chives
baby arugula
Gorgonzola or blue cheese

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cut off all but ~½ inch of beet tops and carefully scrub beets. Wrap each beet in tin foil and place on a baking sheet. Bake for 45 minutes to 1½ hours, or until you can slice through the beets easily with a sharp knife. If the size is not uniform, beets may not all be done at the same time, so pull them out as they're ready. When they're cooked, peel off the foil, let them cool, then peel and cut them into ½-inch wedges.


2. While beets are roasting, grind almonds to a paste with garlic, ¼ teaspoon salt, and cayenne in a food processor. With motor running, add just enough oil to make a silky paste.

3. Whisk together vinegar and ½ teaspoon salt in a bowl, then whisk in oil. Add shallot and chives and toss some of the dressing with the beets (I used about half with my six medium beets—plenty to coat the beets and then some. Lightly dress arugula with remaining dressing.

4. Smear a spoonful of almond butter on the bottom of your (or your guests') plate(s), top with beets, arrange a dainty little circle of arugula around the edge, and sprinkle with blue cheese.

ah, the mysteries of fall

It's a lot easier to like fall when fall behaves like spring. It's been sunny and warm here the past few days, and as I walked through the park this afternoon with my little baguette of a dog, I decided I needed to savor and enjoy what's left of the season. I needed to stop and smell the roses, so to speak, or in this case, stop and appreciate the golden and russet leaves covering the ground. So I swished through the dried leaves, the baguette hopping along at my side, and admired the thick carpet of color camouflaging, but not protecting my shoes from, the dog poop below. So pretty, though, those leaves.

And as I walked, now avoiding the leaves and the piles of poop that lay beneath them, I came upon a tiny crabapple, eaten down to its core and discarded under the tree from which it fell, by a bird, perhaps, or a squirrel. I chuckled to myself, imagining the little squirrel up on its hind legs as it ate, the diminutive apple clutched firmly in its tiny paws. Or, I thought, the apple might have been eaten by one of the human denizens of the park, a crazy person feeling a little peckish, perhaps, or just drunk. And then I stopped chuckling, because mental illness and alcoholism are nothing to joke about, and also, people were looking at me funny.

To further celebrate the season, I came home and ate the perfect fall meal. What, you ask, is the perfect fall meal? Why, a cup of my very own vegetable soup, of course, followed by one (or five) of Elisa's C3OW cookies. That's right, I invented this vegetable soup, as much as someone can invent a dish that was probably eaten by the Druids while they assembled Stonehenge.

Here's what I like about my very own vegetable soup that I invented: Because I invented it, I get to decide what to put in it. There are no mushrooms, of course, nor are there potatoes or pasta, which are ubquitious in vegetable soups, but, in my opinion, unecessary (and overcooked, if you reheat the soup for leftovers). And it's quite flavorful, my soup is. Hearty and autumnal, warm and filling. So full of vegetables it can be a meal in and of itself, but it's also good with a side of walnut toasts. Or a crabapple, perhaps.

The Best Vegetable Soup Since Stonehenge

evoo
1 small to medium onion, diced [or chopped or whatever; I'm looking for small pieces here]
2 carrots, diced [see above]
1 celery stalk, diced [ditto]

The French call it mirepoix, and it's one of the reasons this soup is so flavorful. Another is the Parmesan rinds.

4 garlic cloves, minced [or finely chopped] and separated
28 oz. can diced tomatoes [or whole, peeled tomatoes, chopped into bite-sized chunks]
salt
15 oz. can chick peas
6 cups liquid [I usually use 4 cups of stock, 2 cups of water]
1 cup frozen corn
1 zuke, diced or whatevs
2 bay leaves
Parmesan rinds [remember when I told you to save these? Now's the time to put them to use. If you don't have any saved rinds in your freezer, cut the rind off the cheese in your fridge, or just skip the rind and garnish the finished dish with a grate of fresh parm]
spinach
pesto

1. Heat a glug of oil in a Dutch oven over medium heat until shimmering. Add the onions, carrots, celery, and three cloves of minced garlic, and cook, stirring occasionally, until they're lightly browned, about 15 minutes.

2. Add the tomatoes, picking out any gross ones, add a pinch or two of salt, and bring to a simmer, add the chick peas, and simmer for 5 minutes.

3. Add the liquid [I like to use four cups of stock and two of water, but I've used more water with good results, and of course, the better the stock, the better the soup, not that I can be bothered to make my own], cheese rinds, bay leaves, bring to a boil, and simmer for 25 minutes.

4. While that's simmering, heat another bit of oil in a small pan, add a clove of minced garlic, then the zucchini, a sprinkle of salt, and saute until the zuke is just cooked.

5. Back to the Dutch oven: After 25 minutes of simmering, add the corn and taste. Depending on how much stock you used, and how salty that stock is, you'll need to add more salt here, and some freshly ground pepper. Simmer for five more minutes to cook the corn, then add the cooked zucchini, and remove the bay leaves and parm rinds.

6. Put a handful of spinach in each bowl and ladle soup over it, then top with pesto [I just buy some premade stuff, but if I were a little more Martha Stewart and a little less crazy-chuckling-person-in-the-park, I'd have homemade pesto frozen in ice cube trays for just these sorts of occasions] and perhaps some grated Parmesan.


7. Eat soup, followed by numerous cookies, and thank the lord for the bounty of autumn.

betty draper does not wear sock-monkey slippers

I was home sick today, which on the surface looked like any other weekday: I was unwashed and unkempt, clad in fleece and wool and slippers made to resemble sock monkeys. But instead of working, today I spent the day doing nothing.


Literally nothing. I got up at 8:00 a.m. and will be going to bed sometime soon, but I cannot tell you what I've been doing in between, because I don't know. I didn't nap, I don't have a fever, but the entire day seems to have passed without my noticing.


Although I can tell you what I ate: Peanut butter toast. Lots and lots of cookies. Homemade vegetable soup. And a nice little bowl of Gruel for the Sickly: beans and rice with a soft-boiled egg.


It's not pretty, I know. But it's blandly flavorful, if that makes any sense. Nothing spicy to irritate a sore throat, nothing rich to upset a stomach, but hearty and comforting, nonetheless, salty and yolky and delicious.


The yachtsman doesn't like the adjective "yolky." And he doesn't like Gruel for the Sickly, either. "If it were 1955," he said as he laid on the couch while I prepared my food, his feet up, hands clasped beneath his head, "you'd be making me dinner." Methinks the lad doth watch Mad Men too much.

perhaps there will be gingerbread men, but they will wear fleece pants, not bow ties

Do you know what time the sun set in Burlington, Vermont, today? 4:42 p.m.

Things here are still bearable: The few hours of daylight we had today were sunny, the temperature mild, there's no snow on the ground. But although December 21 may be the official first day of winter, the end of Daylight Saving Time is the beginning of the end.

From here on in, it's nothing but gruel (and potato chips and mashed potatoes and cake) until spring, by which I mean mid-May. We here at Gruel for Dinner are in survival mode, which means waking up in the dark and plopping down in front of a light box for half an hour, eating slice after slice of peanut butter toast until it's time for lunch (leftover gruel), gorging on a variety of potato products as the sun sets earlier and earlier each day, eating more gruel for dinner, and watching TV until bed.

What about vegetables, you ask? Vegetables do not grow in the barren, frozen Vermont earth. By February I will most likely have scurvy.

And do not come to this bl*g seeking fanciful winter souffles or holiday cookie recipes. There will be no gingerbread men with bow ties made of icing, no fluffy French cuisine. I will be cooking one pot of gruel per week and eating from it for the following seven days.

But fear not. Gruel is not only nourishing and sustaining, easy to reheat and nutritious, it can—nay, must!—be delicious. And so I present to you my new favorite gruel, featuring a wonderful little grain called farro.


What is farro, you ask? I have no idea, actually, and it's pretty difficult to find here in the godforsaken tundra. I bought mine in San Francisco and brought it home, but have since found it at Healthy Living in Burlington. It's also for sale online.

Farro looks a little like wheat berries, however, according to this New York Times article, "some American cookbooks calling for farro recommend ... wheat berries as an alternative, a misguided suggestion that can create chaos for the cook." Well, this American cook tried making gruel with wheat berries, and chaos did not ensue. The farro is better, but the key to this recipe is the slow-cooked onions.

Gruel of Farro and (nonfluffy) French Lentils
Adapted from Orangette

3 medium-to-large yellow onions
olive oil
salt
¾ cup farro
½ cup French lentils


1 bunch Swiss chard
feta cheese
lemon

1. Thinly slice the onions, ~¼-inch thick. Pour a few glugs of olive oil into a large (12-inch) skillet, enough oil to coat the bottom of the pan. Warm the oil over medium-high heat until it is hot, then add the onions. Stir them to coat and add a couple of pinches of salt. Reduce the heat to medium-low and continue to cook slowly, stirring occasionally. Cooking the onions is a long, slow process (at least an hour, usually more), but it's winter and what have you got to do? Shovel snow off the roof? Apply lotion to your cracked skin? When the onions are done they will be a deep amber color and almost translucent.

2. Once you have the onions started, cook the farro according to package instructions. Here are the instructions that came with the farro I bought, which is NOT semipearled; semipearled farro will not take as long: combine farro, 4 cups of water, and a pinch of salt in a pot, bring to a boil, boil for 5 minutes, then cover and simmer for 50–60 minutes more (the farro should be tender but still chewy). Drain and toss into a big bowl. A cauldron, perhaps.

3. While the farro is cooking and the onions are caramelizing, place the lentils, 3 cups of cold water, and ¼ teaspoon salt in another medium saucepan. Bring to a boil then reduce heat and simmer until tender but not falling apart, about 20 to 25 minutes. Drain, rinse briefly under cool water, and add to the farro in the bowl/cauldron.

4. While the lentils and farro are cooking and the onions are carmelizing (it's called multitasking, people), strip the leaves of chard from the ribs and blanch for a minute or two in salted, boiling water, draining when the greens are tender but still bright green. Squeeze the water from the greens (literally just take bunches of chard in your hands and squeeze) and chop coarsely. Add to the cauldron.


5. When the onions have finished carmelizing, chop them coarsely and add them to the rest of the shizz.

6. Squeeze lemon juice to taste over it all and toss. Serve with crumbled feta cheese on top.

this isn't a recipe, it's a product placement

Seriously, this is not a recipe. Calling this a recipe would be like me posting directions for opening and heating a can of soup and calling that a recipe. Which I'm not above and reserve the right to do in the future.

But this little bowl of gruel is what I'll be eating for lunch every day this week (in France that's called the gruel de la semaine), so I thought I'd share it with you.


TexMex Gruel

brown rice
black beans
fresh avocado
salsa
lime
hot sauce

Mix it all up in a bowl and eat.

A few notes:

1. Other bl*gs would give you a recipe for fresh, homemade salsa. At Gruel for Dinner, we (that would be the royal we) are telling you what to buy (this is the gruel de la semaine, people, not dinner for the queen): Herdez salsa. It's the best jarred salsa out there. This is not an opinion, it's a fact. If you disagree, off with your head.


2. When you're making that brown rice, toss in a cube of Rapunzel bouillon, and your rice will be tastier, if not necessarily TexMexier.


Olé!

greetings from the skids [now with photo!]

Someone recently told me that this bl*g is "on the skids." This person pointed out that awhile back I promised a post about Montréal and said I'd share a new, favorite gruel recipe, but there has been no post about Montréal, that gruel recipe remains unrevealed. I'd like to tell you that I've been busy naming my dog or wearing pants not made out of fleece, but I've been whiling away my days here on the skids, where the couch is comfortable, the wine plentiful, and the expectations low.

And frankly, y'all are kind of deadbeats, as well. Remember last April when I asked (the then seven of) you for help with a gruel recipe? I was staying at a mouse-infested nunnery in the sex-change capital of the world and looking for something to cook. Well, six months later someone finally answered my call. I made Melissa's pasta on Sunday and then ate leftovers for lunch the past two days: it's not only delicious but also very easy, the perfect kind of recipe for a bl*g on the skids and the deadbeats who read it.

Melissa's Fancy Gruel
Melissa did not post specific measurements for the ingredients, and since we don't like to be bossed around here on the skids, I didn't add them. But when I made this, I used lots of everything: lots of pine nuts, lots and lots of sundried tomatoes, a big clove of garlic, plenty of parm, and I was liberal with the lemon juice (though I tasted as I added it). You could also try black olives, capers, fresh tomatoes if you have them, chicken if you eat chicken, etc.

bowtie pasta [I used whole wheat penne, which I thought was good; the yachtsman did not approve. If you're making this for him, try bowties, or at least use some kind of white pasta, though technically it will no longer be gruel. And you should always add lots of salt to your pasta-cooking water, but this is especially true if you're using whole wheat pasta. I mean lots of salt.]
pine nuts [I toasted mine.]
sundried tomatoes (rehydrated in warm water for a few minutes) [I'd never bought dehydrated sundried tomatoes before, but I tried them here—they're so much better than the ones packaged in oil, and cheaper, too; I chopped up the rehydrated tomatoes before tossing them with the pasta.]
spinach (I like a lot) [I do, too.]
garlic
parmesan
lemon juice
salt/pepper
olive oil
crushed red pepper (if you like it hot) [I do.]

Boil your pasta [I set aside some of the pasta-cooking water before I drained the pasta]. You can saute the garlic, to mellow it out, if you please [I did]. When the pasta is done, just toss in spinach (the hot pasta will wilt it [if your spinach does not in fact wilt when you add the pasta, or doesn't wilt to your liking, toss the pasta and spinach back in the warm pasta-cooking pot, add a little of the hot pasta-cooking water, put the cover back on the pot, and let it sit for a minute or two) and everything else, with lemon juice to taste [in addition to adding olive oil here, you can add a little more of the reserved pasta-cooking water, which will not only make the pasta a little more wet, but also adds flavor]. Great warm, cold, or luke.

I was going to say that I'll take and post photos of Melissa's Fancy Gruel the next time I make it (which will be soon), but there have been enough broken promises around here lately, so maybe you can take photos of Melissa's Fancy Gruel the next time you make it (which should be soon) and I'll post them here.

Photo courtesty of nondeadbeat William, who made Melissa's Fancy Gruel at his brand new house.

the heat is on

I'm not singing a Glenn Frye song or trying to tell you that I'm wanted by the five-oh: The heat is literally on. For the first time this year. Woe (and cold) is me.

Also in the Woe Is Me category is the soup I made Sunday night.

The yachtsman just walked by, saw this photo, and asked, in a French accent, "Is that vomit?"

This photo really doesn't do it justice: What's in that bowl looks like it was dredged from the bottom of a swamp. Which is too bad, because it's quite tasty. So I'm going to fool around with the recipe and see if I can make the soup a little more aesthetically pleasing, and if I succeed I will post it here. In the meantime, I'm eating pond scum every day for lunch this week.

In the Puppies! category, I present to you Mr. President Peanut Jimmy Carter Poodle Chester Arthur POTUS Leo Rabbit Eugene Manny Luke Skywalker Manwhore Miller O'Neill.

The yachtsman just walked by, saw this photo, and asked, "Are you doing another post about the puppy? Maybe you should do a post about me."

gruel on toast

The terrorists did not, in fact, win: It's late September and we're still eating tomatoes. Later this week I'll be frying up some of the green ones,


and this weekend the yachtsman and I made one of our favorite summer dinners, probably for the last time this year: a fat, juicy heirloom tomato, sliced and drizzled with olive oil and balsamic, then sprinkled with a little feta or goat cheese; and fresh corn, boiled and rolled in salty butter. Saying we "made" that dinner is an overstatement: we sliced and shucked it. The most effort of the evening went into a little shizzle I call walnut toasts, and really these are very little effort at all. So little effort, what I'm about to share with you should not qualify as a recipe.

Walnut Toasts
Adapted from A Year in a Vegetarian Kitchen, my favorite cookbook for simple, delicious, vegetarian food, though I think a little part of the yachtsman dies every time he sees me pull it off the shelf because he knows he will be eating gruel for dinner.

1/3 cup walnuts, chopped
a little less than 2 tablespoons olive oil, separated
1 clove garlic, minced or pressed
bread, sliced (2-4 pieces, depending on how big your bread is)
parmesan cheese, grated
s&p, to taste

See the rind on that cheese? Don't throw it away. When you've grated down to the end, wrap up the rind and throw it in the freezer; we'll be using it later on to make soup. Soup that goes quite nicely with walnut toasts, in fact.

1. Chop your nuts and place in a small bowl.

2. Heat 1 of your 2 tablespoons olive oil in a little pan over medium heat. Add garlic and saute until translucent, taking the garlic off the heat before it browns. Pour over nuts.

3. Add (less than) the other tablespoon of oil to nuts (you want the nut mixture to be wet with oil but not swimming in it) and add salt & pepper to taste.

4. Lightly toast the bread. For myself and the yachtsman I use whatever I have on hand, usually the same bread I make toast with for breakfast. But for special occasions on which I am serving gruel for dinner to unwitting guests, I use a fancy country bread.

5. Top the toasted bread with the nut mixture and sprinkle with grated parmesan. Pop in the toaster oven (or the regular oven if you don't have the toaster variety) to slightly melt the cheese.

This bread is presliced; when I buy nicer bread to serve to nicer people, I slice it a little thicker.

Walnut toasts are health food: Studies have shown that a diet rich in walnuts cancels out a diet rich in cupcakes. But walnut toasts are not hippie food; even the yachtsman likes walnut toasts, and he bought veal at the farmers market on Saturday. I'm pretty sure that walnut toasts are a super food, and they're definitely a super-easy-but-delicious food. If you have leftover chopped walnuts because your husband has decided to grill a sausage to go with his soup instead of eating nuts on toast, pop the nuts in the fridge and eat them the next day for lunch -- on toast sprinkled with cheese or with a spoon out of the bowl. To balance out all this nutrition, have a cupcake for dessert.