eat, drink and just be!

stuffed vegetables part I

pumpkin stuffed with apricot pilaff

i love stuffed vegetables and there's such a huge variety of them that i'm going to explore in the next couple of weeks. i have made some persian style stuffed vegetables before and i tried to get inspired by a recipe in the new cookbook i received from my nephew. then i improvised mixing and mingling these couple of recipes and made my own filling. ingredients:

- one pumpkin

- one cup basmati rice

- one teaspoon saffron

- enough olive oil and butter

- stripes of orange peel finely sliced

- one teaspoon shelled pistachio and almonds

- half a cup dried cranberries and apricots

- one bunch of fresh parsley

- one onion

- one cup lean ground beef

- four fresh tomatoes

- turmeric

- ground sea salt and black pepper

 

first preheat the oven to 400F. cut the pumpkin into two halves and scoop out the seeds. bake the pumpkin for twenty minutes in a baking tray. in the meanwhile chop the onion and cook the ground beef with the onion, turmeric, salt, and pepper in a pan. add chopped tomatoes and chopped parsley after twenty minutes. let them cook together another ten minutes.

in the meanwhile cook the rice with two cups of water, salt, and butter till the water boils. then let it cook for a while on low until the water has been absorbed and the rice is cooked but still has a bite. heat the oil and butter in a dutch oven. stir saffron in a cup of hot water and add to the mix. add coriander seeds, orange peels, pistachios, almonds, cranberries and apricots, then stir in the cooked rice. season with salt and pepper. add the meat to the mix or fill some of the pumpkins only vegetarian to have both varieties.

 

spoon the pilaff into the pumpkins. make the baking tray or a dutch oven with olive oil and mint. bake the filled pumpkins for another twenty minutes in the oven with a lid or aluminum foil too keep them moist. nousheh jahn!

 

kürbiscremesuppe: pumpkin soup

finally there's a rainy day in the bay area. it's nice to always have the sun shine but it never feels like winter and i never feel like eating wintery food here. so now that's it's rainy i took advantage of it and made a pumpkin soup. i mixed two different recipes. one is the austrian pumpkin soup that i was used to eat while living in vienna and i added some persianness into it with saffron and added some caribbean touch with coconut milk. ingredients:

- one pumpkin or one swash or both

- 4 carrots

- one big piece of fresh ginger

- a can of coconut milk

- a little bit saffron

- 4 limes

- salt, pepper and butter (as much as you like)

- pumpkin seeds (you can either buy them or use the ones from inside the pumpkin, i explain how)

- pumpkin seed oil

 

 

 

 

i don't know where to find pumpkin seed oil in the united states but it was very common in austria and you could even find it in supermarkets. that's why i still ask friends and family to bring me a bottle every time they visit. it is great for soups and salads and has a very unique taste. it's also delicious with fresh bread just like any good olive oil.

the soup is very easy and straight forward to make. i took the seeds out of the pumpkin and the squash. you can make use of the seeds by marinating them with lime juice and roasting them in the oven for ten minutes.  

then cut them into smaller chunks and let them cook on medium heat with 6 cups of water for twenty minutes. then added the carrots, ginger, salt, pepper,saffron, and coconut milk, and butter and let them cook for ten minutes all together. use a blender to puree the soup. pour in the soup bowl and garnish with pumpkin seeds and pumpkin seed oil. guten appetit!

 

pomegranate endive salad

a friend brought a great salad for thanksgiving dinner and i tried to imitate it. i would rather use a sweet pomegranate for this salad and garnish it with some fresh lime.

ingredients:

- one red belgian endive

- one green belgian endive

- one avocado

- one sweet pomegranate

- one tea spoon garden angelica (gol par)

slice avocado in small pieces and garnish it with lime and olive oil. assemble the red endive leaves in the green ones, fill them with avocado pieces and pomegranate seeds. garnish the salad with garden angelica. garden angelica is the spice persians use on pomegranate. it adds a bitter touch to the sweet or sour pomegranate seeds. nousheh jahn!

turkey free friday

we are very excited about all left overs from yesterday and i'm going to make different dishes with them, but since we already had turkey several times in the last two days, we took a break tonight and made a meat free dinner and i finally used that beautiful romaneso. since all these ingredients cook very fast, this dish only took fifteen minutes to prepare.

ingredients:

- romanesco head

- chard

- fennel

- mango

- chili pepper

- garlic

- lime

- olive oil

- salt and pepper

- saffron

cut and saute all the vegetable in some olive oil.  cover the dutch oven and let every thing cook for ten minutes. resolve the saffron in some hot water and add to the vegetables. garnish the dish with some lime juice and fresh mango pieces.  enjoy it with some rice.

romanesco

another addition to our thanksgiving is a gorgeous green vegetable: romanesco. since we received a head of romanesco in this week's farmfreshes box, i'm going to make use of this beautiful vegetable. as much as i read about it, romanesco is a relative of both califlower and broccoli, so i can use it in recipes containing either one of them.

another interesting inspiration about romanesco is it's fractal geometric shape. if you don't know what fractal geometry is and you are curious to know, check out my computer music blog. i made some fractal music recently. when you look in any fractal book or article you'll see a couple of pictures of romanesco because of it's gorgeous shape.

more thanksgiving side dishes

two more side dishes i made for pre-thanksgiving are brussel sprouts and green beans. both very simple and delicious dishes. i steamed them in separate pots. then added salt, pepper, butter and olive oil in both dishes. 

also i sauted some garlic and added to the beans. i added a couple of more ingredients to brussel sprouts to cancel their smell: fresh fennel, fresh thyme and oregano. also i added some almonds and parmesan cheese on top and let the dutch oven on the stove on low heat for another ten minutes. finally i added some lime juice and saffron to give some color to the dish. enjoy!

orange mashed potatoes

happy thanksgiving week!:-) we started it with a pre-thanksgiving party. i write the recipes of each side dish on each post this week. i start with my favorite orange mashed potatoes. 

ingredients:

-  3 pounds potatoes

- 6 oranges

- 1 cup butter

- 1 cup milk

- salt and pepper

- parsley

boil the potatoes in water until tender. drain and peel the potatoes. add salt, pepper, butter and milk and mash the mix. press oranges, add them to the mix, and save the skins for decoration. garnish with orange zest and parsley. fill the orange skins with the mashed potatoes. enjoy!

fennel salad

fennel seeds make a great tea and are essential for digestion. they are also one of the main ingredients of absinth. but I'm not going to use the seeds today. florence fennel leaves are great in salad or risotto. fennel salad is full of nutrition values such as potassium and phosphorus and is ready within ten minutes.

ingredients:

-  fennel

-  grapefruit

- heirloom tomato

- garlic

- feta cheese

- dried cramberries

- olive oil

- salt and pepper

i sautéed fennels in olive oil and garlic for five minutes. then chopped and added all the rest of the ingredients. you can pour some lime juice and olive oil for garnish.

 

 

 

quince stew: khoresh-e-beh

quince is a delicious fruit from apples and pears family. wild quince trees were first found in the caspian region of iran. these days the best ones that are big and juicy come from isfahan. i like to make jam and desserts with them. they are also very tasty in stew.

ingredients:

- one large onion

- two medium quinces

- one pound stew meat

-  enough oil, butter, salt, and pepper

-  1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

-  1/4 cup fresh lime juice

- 1 teaspoon saffron dissolved in 2 spoons rose water

in a dutch oven, saute the onions and meat. add salt, pepper and oil and let in cook for ten minutes. then add 3 cups of water and let it cook on low heat for half hour.

wash and cut the quinces in small slices. saute them in a pan with some butter until it gets a gold color. then add them to the meat stew. add lime juice, saffron, and cinnamon. let every thing cook together for ten minutes. serve it with rice or polenta. nousheh jan!

 

beggar's soup: ash-e sholeh qalamkar

long ago, people used to leave a kettle by the side of the road to make a wish come true. passerby would throw in a few coins to be used to buy the ingredients for the soup. the more people pitched in, the better the chances of the wish coming true. thus was born beggar's soup. today, although kettles are no longer left at the roadside (perhaps for fear they would disappear!), the custom lives on in a new form. friends are told in advance on what day a wish is going to be made. that morning, each one arrives bringing a few ingredients for the soup. they prepare it together and sit down to share it at the midday meal. this way everyone can join in making a loved one's wish come true.

in persian we cook more often ash which is a flavorful thick soup. ash is a substantial word in persian cuisine, the cook is called ash-paz, or the soup maker, and the kitchen is called ash-paz-khaneh, which means the place where ash is cooked. the main rule to make this ash delicious is to pay attention how long each type of ingredient needs to cook. for example beans need much longer than vegetables and herbs.

ingredients:

- onions and garlic

- butter

- stewing beef or lamb

- tumeric

- salt and pepper

- dried red kidney beans

- dried mung beans

- dried chick-peas

- dried lentils

- wild rice

- fresh celery 

- fresh carrots

- potatoes

- fresh swiss chard

- fresh parsley

- fresh cilantro

- fresh spinach

- fresh and dried mint

- kashk (liquid whey) or sour cream

- saffron

saute meat and half of the onions in a dutch oven with some butter about ten minutes then add five cups of water and all beans and let them cook on medium heat. add a cup of water every twenty minutes and stir in the next hour. then add the vegetable and wild rice and let them cook with beans and meat for about twenty minutes. then add the greens and herbs five minutes before you serve the dish.

in a pan heat the butter. saute garlic and the other half of the onions till they get gold. then saute the dried mint for a couple of minutes. melt very little saffron in a small cup of hot water and mix it with five spoons of sour cream or kashk. pour the ash in a bowl and decorate it with sauteed onions, garlic,mint, and kashk. nousheh jan!