Middle Eastern Greens Soup

As part of the ongoing greens craze, we made this soup a couple of times in the last week - it was *so* good the first time around, it totally warranted an immediate repeat :)


The recipe that we adapted from is Mollie Katzen's Middle Eastern Spinach Soup from the kick-ass Still Life With Menu cookbook.

I loved Mollie's recipe, but sometimes spinach seems a little wimpy. It seemed like this recipe warranted stronger greens - chard, collard, the works :) So, we added a variety of greens and let them work their mojo.

The original recipe also asked for rice or potatoes, but in an ongoing effort to skip carbs where possible and focus on fibre instead, I went with garbanzo beans instead - think I'll stick with that as a permanent alternative.

The net result was quite fabulous, especially the way the yogurt accentuated the flavors of the greens. We ended up with this really thick soup that could be slurped up or dipped into or even eaten with rotis like daal!

Middle Eastern Greens Soup
Thank you, Mollie Katzen

Servings: 4

1 small bunch of spinach
4 leaves of collard greens
4 leaves of rainbow chard
4-5 cloves of crushed garlic
1 cup of chopped shallots
2-4 cups of water
1 T olive oil
1 t ground cumin
1 t freshly ground cinnamon
1/2 t turmeric
1 t cayenne
1.5 cups of cooked garbanzo beans
1 cup firm yogurt - room temperature
salt to taste

Garnish:
1/2 cup of shredded mango

Heat the oil in a saucepan and saute the garlic and shallots along with the salt and spices until tender - about 10 minutes.
Add the greens and saute for 2-3 minutes.
Toss in the garbanzo beans along with the water and cook for 12-14 minutes.

At this point, the soup can be left as is or pureed. We ended up running a hand blender and making a coarse puree.

Stir in the yogurt along with the cayenne and maybe even a dash of black pepper.

Serve topped with the shredded mango - the mango was semi-ripe, so it added a sweet-tart flavour to the soup - turned out to be the perfect garnish.


This soup was divine (think I said that already!) - the funny thing was how cinnamon totally defined the flavor of the soup, even more than the cumin. I'm not usually a big cinnamon person, but this was really flavourful - a definite win.

In honor of the positive cinnamon effect, this has to go to Sunita for her fabulous Think Spice event - the theme for the month is cinnamon. Sorry this is late, Sunita, but I think you'll like it anyway :)

Enchiladas, por favor?

When the yen for mexican flavors descends upon me, there is little I can do to resist it :) Besides, why even try? Especially when I have all the makings for something as awesome as enchiladas!

I still remember my first enchilada experience - Azteca - not exactly top of the line mexican food! And I still remember being shocked at the sizes of the platters of food they bring out - not plates, but platters, giant platters of seemingly never-ending mounds of cheese and tortillas and lettuce and beans and cheese and ... Oyy! But I'm super glad that didn't swear me off real mexican chow - it would've been quite tragic if that had happened!

In case you didn't get it already, I'm not a fan of big wonks of cheesy overbaked tortillas :) But I do love the ones that have fun stuffings and spicy sauces drizzled all over. Mmm ... that's what I wanted to make - flavorful, spicy, nutritious enchiladas. Didi Emmons' Vegetarian Planet had this really interesting recipe for veggie enchiladas with a spicy nutty red sauce - it sounded almost perfect, but not quite - the recipe called for a carrot+onion+tofu+beans stuffing - that sounded a little on the heavy side, so I chose to skip the tofu (I didn't have any anyway! :)) and add a bunch of baby spinach instead. And use a mix of black and pinto beans instead of just the black beans. The only variation I made in the sauce was to use a mixture of nuts instead of just almonds - I have to say that turned out to be a killer idea :)

Spicy Nutty Enchiladas

(This makes for many many servings)

Stuffing
-----------
12 Red chile tortillas (from Whole Foods - they come in bags of 6)
5 carrots - grated
1 medium red onion
1/2 shallot
3-4 handfuls of baby spinach leaves
1 can black beans
1/2 can pinto beans
1 t allspice powder
1 T olive oil
salt
a few dashes of habanero sauce

Mince the onion and shallot to a coarse paste.
Heat the oil in a work and saute the onion mixture till it starts to brown.
Add the carrots and cook for about 5 minutes.
Toss in the spinach and cook uncovered till the spinach starts to wilt - takes about 2 minutes.
Add the spices and salt along with the black and pinto beans and stir for about 2-3 minutes.
Finally season with as much habanero sauce as your palate can handle :)
Take this stuffing off the stove and let it cool while the sauce gets made.

Oh, turn on the oven - we need it at 350 F for our enchiladas.

Sauce
--------
4 medium roma tomatoes
1/2 vidalia onion
4 cloves garlic
1 T freshly ground spices (mix of coriander, cumin, cinnamon, dried arbol chile)
1/4 cup almonds
1/4 cup cashews
1/4 cup sherry
3 T red wine vinegar
salt

Grind the tomatoes, onions and garlic into a fine paste.
Cook this tomato paste in a saucepan along with the spices and salt for about 10-12 minutes - the tomatoes should taste totally cooked and the flavors should start blending in.
Roast the almonds and cashews for 1-2 minutes in a pan over medium heat and grind them into a fine paste.
Sitr in the nuts paste into the tomato sauce - this can be a bit tedious since the nuts tend to clump and we really want it to blend smoothly into the tomato sauce. Often, it helps to turn the heat down to simmer and keep stirring with a wooden spoon till the sauce gets smooth again.
Now toss in the vinegar and sherry and stir for 2-3 minutes.


Assembling those yummy enchiladas
------------------------------------------
This is the really fun part. I *love* rolling those enchiladas :)

Garnish:
a handful of chopped parsley
1/3 cup grated mahon cheese

Take a scoop of the stuffing and place it in a tortilla along the center.
Roll the tortilla tightly and place it in a baking dish - I'll remember to take a series of pictures of the rolling process the next time I make enchiladas. The rolled tortilla reminds me a lot of veggie frankies that we used to get in des - especially at Hot Breads in Chennai :)
Repeat this fun rolling action with the rest of the tortillas.
Now drizzle the nutty red sauce over the tortillas and bake in the oven for about 20 minutes.
Sprinkle the cheese all over the sauce and let it sit in the oven for 1-2 minutes till the cheese is melted all over.
Garnish with some chopped parsley.

Eat! :)

What was our verdict?
Drool-worthy! Seriously! Flavorful, spicy, nutritious enchiladas! :)


Wine
====
This was another meal with a successful wine pairing. We opened a bottle of Waterbrook Melange from 2002 - not a super big wine, but ripe and fruity and tasted great with the mexican spices. It had just the right amount of tannins and a decent finish. The best part is that it is inexpensive - $16 a bottle, me thinks!

Saag on my mind

It doesn't take much for me to crave for greens - quite surprising given I used to run away every time my mum made spinach when I was a kid. All that changed once I came to the States and started my trysts with cooking! I totally fell in love with all greens - spinach, mustard, collard, bok choy, methi. Not to mention the new favorites - beet, broccoli rabe, nettle, the list goes on!

Since S&S are swamped with the doggies and Stephanie is still recovering from her flu, figured some saag would work wonders for her :) After getting through my crazy car misadventures last night, I needed to make something that wasn't time intensive. Lentils & greens, can't go wrong with those!

Daal Saag

Servings: 4 generous portions

1 cup tuar daal

1 cup masoor daal

1 bunch baby spinach - chopped
1/2 bunch collard greens - chopped
1 onion - minced
1 T grated ginger
1 t turmeric

1.5 t black mustard seeds

1 t jeera (cumin seeds)

2 red chillies

1 t sesame oil

salt

1/4 cup buttermilk

1 t saffron

Cook the daals in 4.5 cups of water till soft (in a pressure cooker or covered on the stove).

Heat the oil in a pan, throw in the mustard, red chillies and jeera.

Once the mustard sputters, add the onions and ginger and cook till the onions turn translucent.

Throw in the greens and turmeric with about 1/4 cup of water and simmer covered till the greens are cooked.

Add the daals and salt, maybe a pinch of cayenne too!

Garnish with a swirl of buttermilk and some saffron. I used the middle-eastern saffron here (not Indian) - it seemed a lot thicker and less intense - definitely has the hay-like smell, but doesn't impart much of a flavor.

Crazy sidenote: I've had the bowl shown in this picture since I was 4 years old! :)

Rice Mixup, mon?!

Indian rice dishes are among the best out there, what with pulao and biriyani and bisibela and vangi bath, the list just goes on! But then there are the fiery latin and caribbean flavors that arouse all the senses - the paellas and beans'n'rice and arroz con something or the other!

Last night was definitely a rice night, after poking around Didi Emmons' book, we stumbled upon this yummy looking Jamaican rice mixup recipe that we morphed to work with what we had. Instead of using regular long-grain rice, we use this nutty rice and lentils mix that I found at PCC a few weeks ago. With 3 kinds of wild and brown rice as well as red lentils, it ends up bursting with flavor and blends really well with strong spices like cumin and coriander. All the stores seem to be teeming with squashes right now, so we settled for this Delicata squash - even as I cut it, it seemed to be redolent of sweet potato rather than squash. Well, wikipedia seems to think the same! :) We went with onions and spinach, but skipped the usual black beans since our rice mix already had lentils.

Jamaican Rice Mixup

1/2 large red onion - minced
5 cloves garlic
1" ginger
1 jalapeno
1 delicata squash - peeled and diced
20-25 leaves of baby spinach - cut into long shreds
1.5 cups of wild/brown rice + red lentils
chives for seasoning
salt'n'pepper

Spices:
1 t coriander powder
1 t allspice powder
1 t saffron

Cook the rice in 2.5 cups of water. In the meantime, saute the onions in 1 T of olive oil. Grind up the ginger, garlic and green chillies and throw them in. Once the onions are translucent, add the squash along with 1/2 cup of water. Add the spices and simmer covered till the squash is cooked. Add the cooked rice along with the spinach. Stir in the salt and pepper and cook for 1-2 minutes longer.

Garnish? Chives fresh from the veggie patch :)


I was hankering for a side for this and wasn't quite sure what would go with it. We finally settled on a raita. Since this rice had strong flavors like indian food, the raita ended up being the perfect complement. And it took all of 5 minutes! One grated carrot and a spoon of mango pickle stirred into 2 cups of buttermilk. Done! :)