Older Bolder Life

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Recipe: Vegetables

the Older Bolder Life Vegetable Wednesday 1 August: Quick Pickled Beets (and Onions)

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Growing up in a fairly austere food-household in my younger years, I’m not sure at what point I developed a taste for pickled beets. One of my grandmothers was an avid gardner and she loved to “put up” all sorts of pickled goods; her cucumber pickles (fermented dills, sweets, as well as bread and butters) were great, as were her pickled okra and “dilly beans”.

She made her pickled beets in small, crinkle-cut cubes; they were over-sweetened by primal / paleo standards but fit the cuisine of the day in South Texas, but man, oh man, they were astoundingly good.

She liked to add a bit of red or sweet onion to her pickled beets, and we do too.

We like to mix it up a bit when making quick pickles out of various root vegetables (try radishes sometime) by varying the spices we add, hence the list of consider adding spices below. Try various combinations and find your (or your family’s) favorite(s), and by all means vary the vinegars as well. The recipe below is scaled for a single quart jar by the way.

With beets coming into the farmer’s markets now, it’s time to “put some up” as my grandmother used to say…

3-4 medium size beets, trimmed
1 small red onion, trimmed, peeled, thinly sliced
1 cup apple cider vinegar
or
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar + 1/2 cup unseasoned rice wine vinegar
1 bay leaf
1/4 tsp pickling salt

Water as needed

Consider adding
1 tbsp pickling spice mix
Cloves (1 or 2)
Allspice berries (2-4)
Peppercorns (3-6)
A cinnamon stick
Honey (1-2 tbsp)

Trim the beets, wash (scrub) them thoroughly, throw in a pot and cover with water; bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer for 30-40 minutes until they can be easily pierced with a fork or knife.

Remove the beets from the heat, drain and rinse with cold water; when cool enough to handle, slip off the skins, and slice into approximately 1/4-inch thick slices.

Start a pot over medium heat with the vinegar(s), bay leaf, salt, and whatever spices from the “consider adding” list you want to try. Stir the honey in if using. When boiling, turn off the heat and set aside.

While the vinegar mixture is heating up, take a sterilized one-quart canning jar and layer the sliced beets and onions in artfully, taking care to pack fairly tightly. When full, pour the just-boiled liquids over the beets, leaving about 1/2-inch headspace.

Leave on the counter to cool, then screw on the lid and into the fridge they go. The beets will be better a day or two down the road, but will be tasty within a few hours of setting them up. With appropriate cautions, they’re probably good for up to two weeks, but ours never last that long.

Enjoy.

the Older Bolder Life Vegetable Wednesday 25 July: Versatile Vegetable Kimchi

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Recognizing that it’s supposed to be hot during the dog days of high summer, the past few weeks here (just north of the DFW metroplex) have been scorching – 112 on the hottest day in our little neighborhood.

We find ourselves reach more and more for something crisp and cool to accompany proteins for dinner, and while slaws and salads are on the menu often, we sometimes get a hankering for something with a bit more flavor and acidity.

We’d played with making traditional kimchi in years past, though had our eyes opened to pushing the kimchi boundaries a bit after fighting over the last bit of collard green kimchi on a butter bean hummus plate at Ida Claire in Dallas a couple of years ago (served with a great array of vegetables by the way).

At one point I reached out to chef friend Libby in Austin to pick her brain about kimchi, and she suggested we try her quick Versatile Vegetable Kimchi recipe below. She noted that she makes it with what ever vegetables look good and are handy, including cucumbers, carrots, radishes, beets, and even turnips.

She offered up a few key pieces of additional advice as well, including a reminder that the recipe is best considered to be a framework to start from– e.g. if you like more ginger, put it in, and that if you’re going to age it longer than a few days, it’s probably best not to use the darkest green parts of your scallions as they tend to get a bit slimy the longer they sit in the pot or jar. She serves it within a few days of stirring a batch together at catering events, as the taste is milder; the longer you let it sit in the fridge, the taste gets a bit more “funky” as fermentation works its magic.

2 lb cucumbers, ends trimmed, cut into 3/4 inch pieces
3 tablespoons kosher salt
1 tablespoon sugar

10 scallions, cut on diagonal into 1 inch pieces, use the white and pale green sections
1/3 cup (or more) gochugaru (Korean red chile flakes, coarse) OR
1.5 tablespoons crushed red pepper flakes, ground
2 tablespoons minced garlic
2 tablespoons fresh ginger, minced
1 tablespoons fish sauce

Veg options: radishes, carrots, beets, turnips, string beans, asparagus

Toss your prepped vegetable of choice, the salt, and sugar in a large bowl; now let it sit (covered with a clean towel) at room temperature for 2-3 hours to begin to pull some water out of the vegetables.

Add the remainder of the ingredients, stirring to mix well and make sure everything is coated.

Spoon into clean quart jars, making sure to divide the liquid equally among the jars, leaving about an inch of headspace. Cover loosely and leave on the counter (out of direct sunlight) for up to two days to begin the magic of fermentation. YOU CAN of course start eating on a jar right away, seems like we always do…

Once you’re happy with evidence of fermentation, throw in the fridge, where the flavors will deepen and mature over the next week as fermentation slowly moves onward. Supposedly this will keep for up to two months in the fridge; we can’t ever make it that long (they only last about a week or so in our kitchen).

Enjoy.

the Older Bolder Life Salad Wednesday 18 July: Quick Chinese Cucumber Salad

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Here’s another quick and easy salad featuring one of the stars of summer – fresh cucumbers – and some of our clan’s favorite flavors from the orient.

The black rice vinegar provides a great counterpoint to the spice of the chili oil and the earthy nuttiness of the toasted sesame oil, and the bundle of flavors play incredibly well with the cucumbers (and the herbal cilantro).

We enjoy it more with a bit more spice, hence the recommendation for the pinch of red pepper flakes or a seeded and chopped serrano (or your favorite pepper), try it with and without to see which suits you better.

6 kirby or Persian cucumbers, or 2 big English cucumbers
2 tbsp Chinkiang (Chinese black rice) vinegar
2-3 tsp good, spicy chili oil
2 tsp toasted sesame oil
1/2 tsp good salt, more to taste
2 tsp toasted sesame seeds
4 tbsp cilantro leaves
4 tbsp roasted unsalted peanuts, chopped

Optional: 1 tsp turbinado sugar, pinch of red pepper flakes or a fresh pepper, chopped

In a small bowl, whisk together the vinegar, chili oil, sesame oil, salt, and red pepper flakes/sugar if using, set aside once the salt and sugar have dissolved.

Cut the cucumbers in half lengthwise, seed if desired (certainly the English cucs if using), the lay flat on a your cutting board and either whack with a rolling pin or press down on them with the blade of a large chef’s knife to crack the cucumbers in several places. Now cut the cucs (crosswise) into approximately 1/2-inch slices (like a little half-moon).

Add the cucumbers (and fresh peppers if using) to the dressing mix, toss gently, and serve, topping each serving with a bit of the toasted sesame seeds, cilantro, and peanuts.

Cheers.

the Older Bolder Life Vegetable Wednesday 11 July: Grilled Leeks

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We’re huge fans of the lovely leek around our camp, and love it when big bundles show up stacked in ice at our favorite Central Market here in the metro.

Leeks play well in so many different recipes, but one of our absolute favorite preps is to grill them, though given their size they can be a challenge to cook through on the grill without burning the outer leaves (pending your fire and degree of attention nursing them along, some might take as long as 30 minutes to cook through).

Our friend Chef Libby in Austin showed us this trick a few years back of starting the cook with a quick (no more than 5 minutes!) par-boil, followed by a shock in cold water, then followed by a much more reasonable, olive-oil-basted, 6-10 minutes on the grill.

Don’t forget to prep your leeks carefully, the coarse greens must be trimmed, the body of the leek split and the layers washed thoroughly to remove all the sand they grow in. It’s worth the extra couple of  minutes to do this right.

And a sprinkling of good salt really makes these sing hot off the grill…

4-6 large leeks, trimmed and prepped (see above)
Kosher salt
2 tbsp good EVOO or avocado oil
Freshly ground black pepper

Prep your leeks are detailed above; while you’re doing so bring a large pot or skillet of salted water to a boil. Now gently boil the leeks for just three to five minutes; you’re looking for them to soften a bit but you don’t want their bright green color to fade.

Immediately plunge into an ice water bath; keep the leeks in the cool water until they’re cool, then remove and pat dry.

Fire the grill, brush the leeks with your oil of choice, and grill over direct heat for 3-5 minutes per side. We like ours to crisp up and brown a bit with nice grill marks.

Pull the leeks, and season to taste with good salt, fresh ground pepper, and perhaps even another drizzle of good oil.

Enjoy.

the Older Bolder Life Vegetable Wednesday 4 July: Grill-Charred Green Beans with Homemade Harissa

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We have a friend down in Austin, an uber-talented chef by the name of Libby (she runs a very popular catering business down there); we actually met Libby one summer given the confluence of a couple of passions we share: cooking great food and fly fishing.

Libby bestows on we mere mortals great recipes now and again – like this Grill Charred Green Beans with Homemade Harissa she sent us a few years back.

We happen to share another passion with Libby, that being a love of interesting and spicy foods from other cultures; this quick and easy riff on harissa paste that you can whip up at home quite easily is a great example.

Green beans are a great side year round and this has become one of our favorite preps; seemingly everybody we’ve ever served it to has pestered us for the recipe.

And if you don’t have a grill basket yet, this recipe may be the very excuse you need to pick one up…

1 medium red bell pepper
3 medium Fresno chiles
1 medium jalapeno chile
3-4 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp kosher salt
1 + 2 tbsp good olive or avocado oil
2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1/2 tsp ground cumin (or more)
1/2 tsp ground coriander (or more)
Good salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

2 lb fresh green beans, tipped and trimmed

Start by roasting/charring the peppers on the grill, under the broiler, or over a gas flame until soft and charred. Throw the peppers in a bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and let them steam for 12-15 minutes.

When they’ve steamed, peel off the charred skins, stem and seed, then chop coarsely and drop into your trusty food processor along with the minced garlic, and 1 tsp salt. Pulse into a coarse paste and scrape down the bowl.

Now add the the oil, lemon juice, coriander, and cumin until smooth; season to taste with salt and fresh ground pepper.

Toss the trimmed beans into a bowl, drizzle with the remaining 2 tbsp of oil and stir to coat all the beans. We like to now grill (in a grill basket) over fire on the grill, though you can also char in a cast-iron skillet (or other heavy skillet) on the stove top. The objective is to grill the beans, picking up some char and blistering, until they’re perfectly crisp-tender.

When the beans are done, toss them back in the bowl you drizzled them with oil in, drizzle the harissa over and mix well. These are great warm or at room temperature too.

Enjoy.

the Older Bolder Life Vegetable Wednesday 27 June: Tasty Quick Dills

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With farmers market season now in full swing, if they’re not in already, it won’t be long before you’ll be seeing stunningly fresh pickling cucumbers showing up. Great in salads, cucumbers star in quick pickles too.

We’ve been putting up various fermented dills as part of our fall pickling routine for years now, and diehard pickle aficionados will argue that there’s nothing quite like an old-school, pucker-your-lips, sour dill pickle painstakingly fermented and processed. I even posted about these on our fly fishing blog last fall –

…While I wouldn’t argue that fact, after an early August conversation with our friend Chef Libby in Austin, during which (among other things) she extolled the virtues of quick pickles, we’ve been quick pickling all sorts of stuff of late.

These quick dills have surprised everybody we’ve shared them with, in that they’re packed with great dill flavor (get really fresh dill frond and seeds), perfectly acidic (the sour that makes you pucker) without being too much so, and crunchier than fermented dills (without using alum as a cheat too).

Personally I think they’re far better with a bit of heat from the addition of several good peppers (long and skinny chile de arbol peppers work particularly well), though they’re good without the extra punch…

A child’s-play-easy ten minutes of effort here will make you look like a genius this next week.

1 lb pickling not-too-fat pickling cucumbers, trimmed, sliced lengthwise into quarters
2 large garlic cloves, peeled
1/2 C fresh dill fronds and stems, washed (or a bit more)
1 C filtered water
1/2 C white vinegar
2 T pickling or kosher salt
1 tsp (generous) fresh dill seeds
1 tsp (generous) coriander seeds
Optional: Hot peppers of your choice, try Thai, serrano, a split jalapeno…

Gently heat the water, vinegar, and salt, stirring until the salt dissolves. Remove from the heat to cool.

Scrub, trim, and slice the cucumbers; then prep the garlic and peppers if using.

Assembly is a piece of cake – pack a quart jar with the dill fronds and stems, garlic, then the cucumbers and peppers.

Sprinkle the dill and coriander seeds into the jar, then pour the cooled liquid over to within 1/4 of the top. Cover, leave out at room temperature for 3-4 hours, then throw in the fridge.

They’re not quite ready by the next day, but try one anyway; they’re good by the second day, getting better for the next 7-10 days.

Enjoy.