Extra Schmaltz!

These turned out so well (and was so easy), I thought I'd just put it on here for reference: Ingredients 1 pound green beans, gross ends removed 4 cloves garlic, cut into slices 1 Tbsp ginger, skinned and cut into slices 2 Tbsp high temperature oil 1-2 Tbsp soy sauce 1/2-1 tsp sesame oil Tabasco to taste(optional) 1 Tbsp roasted sesame seeds (optional) Preparation Blanch green beans until still crispy. Heat oil in a wok until shimmering. Add garlic and ginger, and fry for about a minute, stirring constantly and not allowing them to burn. Add green beans and cook until the edges start to change color. Add soy sauce, sesame oil and tabasco, cook until the green beans have absorbed the flavor. Garnish with sesame seeds.

I've had asparagus cut this way, but it's not as fun to eat when you don't get to bite into the shoot. I think that green beans are a better application for this technique. They're a bit of a pain to cut like this, but boy they're yummy. 8-16 oz. green beans 1 red bell pepper 3 shallots olive oil dash of red pepper flakes splash of white wine ground black pepper salt Boil some well salted water for blanching the green beans. Cut the green beans on a fine, thin bias. Blanch for 3 minutes or until they are just tender. Shock in cold water and drain. Cut the red pepper into a very fine dice, and slice the shallots thinly. Heat the olive oil in a saute pan and add the shallots and red pepper flakes. Saute for 2 minutes and then add the diced red pepper and saute until they start to brown on the edges. Add the green beans and black pepper and stir for 2 minutes. Add the wine and salt and simmer until the liquid evaporates.

I made three Ethiopian dishes to use with the injeera I brought back from Minneapolis. I'll post each one separately so they're easier to search and index. As for the weirder ingredients, I actually have this jar of berbere from ages ago, but time has actually taken the edge off of it and made it less spicy and more flavorful. The recipe for berbere from the Sundays at the Moosewood cookbook (upon which this recipe is based as well) can be found here. As for the Niter Kebbeh, you can get the recipe here but I was too lazy to actually clarify the butter, and so I just smooshed the spices into the butter, and everything turned out delicious. The recipe is based primarily on the recipe in the Sundays at the Moosewood for "Yetakelt W'et", but with the important modification of a big ol' chunk of beef with a bit of bone (I used a bone in shank steak with a lot of meat on it) and a longer cooking time. The meat adds a lot of flavor, and makes it better in my opini...

If you're anything like me, you have more green beans than you can deal with right now. Even if you don't, this is an easy and versatile dish that can either be a vegetarian side-dish or a meaty main entree. You can even use frozen green beans, so this would be a welcome taste of summer when you're raiding the freezer for vegetables in the middle of winter. I first had this dish in Jordan, and was pleased to find the recipe at Summer Bahrain's wonderful Mimi Cooks Middle Eastern food blog. I followed her instructions pretty closely, so you can view the recipe there, but I will re-post it here for convenience. If you want to make this a heartier meaty main-dish, add some ground beef, lamb or beef cubes, or kufta meat balls. It's delicious with rice or as a side-dish. Many of the ingredients are optional, so just make it how you like. ~1 lb. green beans, trimmed and cut into 1.5" pieces 2 Tbsp. cooking oil 1 large onion, chopped 1 chili pepper, chopped (optiona...

Made a tasty green bean dish based on the harissa (tunisian chile sauce) I found in the supermarket. I'll try those ingredient lists Lillian seems so insistent upon. Some garlic Some sausage Green beans Onions Harissa Couscous In this particular case I would estimate I used 400 g of green beans, 2 smallish merguez sausages (sorta a maghrebin chorizo; in fact I bet chorizo would be great for this dish) amounting to about 100 g, 4-5 cloves of lightly crushed garlic, 1 small onion, and a good spoonful of harissa. So I sweated/lightly fried the sausage garlic, and onions (julienned) until the sausage was cooked, the onions becoming clear, and the garlic soft. The green beans, halved and with the stringy bit at the end cut off followed. I gave the whole a dash of red wine and balsamic vinegar (add those to ingredient list), set phasers to 3 (out of 10, so medium lowish?), and let it all cook with periodic tossing. Green beans are done when you bite them and they don't taste like gra...

Oh shit, pictures!? En garde, vagabondress! For my inaugural visit to Costco, I decided to avail myself of their farcical pricing in the form of that most irresistible of commodities, flesh. Porcine, in this case, and plenty of it. A ~7 pound raw loin, to be exact, for just under $15! (forgot to take a picture of this part; imagine your arm, but made of pig meat) So, I hacked off about 1/3rd of it to serve 2 with 1-2 servings worth of leftovers. I blended up a dry rub of fresh black pepper, brown mustard seeds, rosemary, oregano, and a pinch of salt, and coated the piggy nice and good like: This goes in the fridge to set up the crust. Meanwhile, contemplate sides. I happened to have a big bag of fresh-from-Mom's-garden green beans (and some red ones?). Into a heavy pot (this one has a nice thick SS-clad aluminum bottom and cost around $10 at Saver's) with loads of butter, a couple halved cloves of garlic, a diced slice of extra thick, extra yummy, uncured bacon, (from Kramarczu...