Twenty-Dollar, Twenty-Minute Meals

It's very easy to make cooking whole, healthful ingredients seem hard, time consuming or expensive. What's hard though, is making it look easy—easy, affordable, absolutely doable every night of the week. Few people do that better than Caroline Wright, author of the new book Twenty-Dollar, Twenty-Minute Meals. 

Caroline is the kind of thoughtful friend who just sends things in the mail—surprises—like a hand-knit baby blanket (when you're expecting your first babe), or a hand-written note on a notecard with a pair of Wellies on the front (because she pays attention to what moves you). So I wasn't entirely surprised when I got a slim, black and white bound book in the mail called Twenty-Dollar, Twenty Minute-Meals that she had written, photographed and published herself as a gift to her friends. Amazing. Who does that? 

While that savvy, slim book sat on my nightstand as a reminder of all the things I believe in (creating, giving, chasing dreams), Caroline turned around and got that very book published by Workman Publishing and it's hitting the book stores this week. So now this very thoughtful collection of recipes is available to you, too. 

When I saw the finished book, this time remade with a bright red cover and the same kind of creative recipes inside, my first thought was, yes! Omelets with Asparagus and Goat Cheese, Roasted Haloumi with Scallions, Cherry Tomatoes and Couscous, and Polenta with Mushrooms and Tellegio? Yes, please. This is the kind of simple, satisfying food cooks, like she and I, make at home at night, make for our friends, and want to get the next generation cooking, too. Because this is food to build a life on. 

This food has gumption. Kind of like Caroline. (that's what it takes to write and publish your own cookbook in your spare time, and get it noticed by a serious publisher).

And this food is thoughtful. Kind of like Caroline. It minds your time and your dishes (one step, one-dirty-dish-only kind of meals), and rewards your effort with bright, surprising, delightful meals.

Take this dish, for example, that I cooked in honor of her Twenty-Dollar, Twenty-Minute Meal book launch party: Zuchini Ribbon Salad with Potatoes, Ricotta Salata, Dill, Peas + Radishes (recipe below). It has almost every one of my favorite foods in it, and puts them together in their easiest form. The potatoes are steamed, the radishes sliced, the zucchini shaved on a simple vegetable peeler. And the peas? No shelling required. Just pert, frozen peas brought to room temperature and tossed in raw. Easy. Peasy. And so, so good.

This is the kind of dish you'd happily make for one (and hoard the leftovers for your weekday work lunch), create to feed a young family (my toddler loved this!), or turn into an easy, spring-inspired dinner party fare. That's kind of the feel of all her food—it fits our modern lives, no matter who we are.

As for me, it's time to pack up that snap ware with the leftovers and head to work. I'll be looking forward to lunch even more than usual today. 

Zucchini Ribbon Salad
 with Potatoes, Ricotta Salata, Dill, Peas + Radishes

Excerpted from Twenty-Dollar, Twenty-Minute Meals

Fill a large saucepan with water to a depth of 2 inches, add salt, and bring it to a simmer over low heat.

Arrange 8 small new potatoes (about 12 ounces total), halved, in a steamer basket and set the basket
in the pan. Cover and steam the potatoes until tender, 10 to 12 minutes. Transfer the potatoes and 1 cup frozen peas to a colander and run under cold water until the potatoes are cool and the peas hae thawed.

While the potatoes cook, use a vegetable peeler to shave 4 zucchini and/or yellow summer squash into a medium bowl in long, thin strips.

Add the potatoes and peas; 4 ounces ricotta salata, sliced; 1 cup sliced radishes; 3 tablespoons chopped fresh dill; 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil; and 
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice. Season with salt and pepper, toss, and serve.

 Copyright 2013 by Caroline Wright

Used by permission of Workman Publishing Co., Inc. New York

All Rights Reserved    

            

For more easy, delicious recipes like this one, check out these bloggers today as they celebrate Caroline's book! 

• Food 52
• Weelicious
• Sassy Radish
• Matt Bites
• Seven Spoons
• Devour Blog (CookingChannel.com)
• Gastronomer's Guide
• The Wright Recipes

Barley Risotto with Swiss Chard, Radishes, and Preserved Lemon

It doesn't matter where you go or get to in life, in my world getting published in Martha Stewart Living is always a thrill. She's an icon, and her pages has inspired so much beautiful living. In this month's April issue (with the gorgeous red + white painted eggs on the cover), is my first ever Living piece, one I developed last spring out of the inspiring greens (Tuscan kale, purslane, sorrel, mustard greens, mache and arugula) I plant in our garden each year. 

The leading recipe, pictured here, Barley Risotto with Swiss Chard, Radishes and Preserved Lemon, is beloved in two senses. First, it stars my very favorite spring ingredient: tiny pert radishes, and Swiss chard, the two things I pick first from my garden each year. Second, it is one of the first recipes I developed for my new book, Feast: Generous Vegetarian Meals for Any Eater and Every Appetite. 

And then there is the dreamy combination of photos by Con Poulos and styling by Susie Theodorou, two uber talents who make me want to run every meal I create through their creative lens and put it to print. They make this, and the other six images on these pages sing. 

Thank you Lady Martha, for sharing a few of your pages with my recipes this month. 

BARLEY RISOTTO WITH RADISHES, SWISS CHARD + PRESERVED LEMON || SERVES 4

From Feast: Generous Vegetarian Meals for Any Eater and Every Appetite

This modern, vegetable-lover’s risotto is made with barley, a homey whole grain that is easy to love, and one that will love you back with extra iron and minerals. Bright radishes and tart preserved lemon, both bold in texture and flavor, soften into the creamy texture of barley that’s been cooked like risotto. When the season changes from spring to late summer, make this again with multicolored young carrots instead of radishes.

4½ cups/1 L vegetable stock (see recipe below) or water

2 tbsp unsalted butter or extra-virgin olive oil

1 cup/200 g pearl barley, rinsed

8 to 10 small radishes

1 bunch Swiss chard, stemmed and torn into large pieces

1 preserved lemon, seeded and thinly sliced

Sea salt

Small handful fresh dill, coarsely chopped

8 large fresh mint leaves, coarsely chopped or torn

Bring the stock to a simmer in a small saucepan over medium heat. Reduce the heat to medium-low to keep warm. Heat the butter in another medium saucepan over low heat. Add the barley and stir to coat, toasting it lightly in the butter. Add 2 cups/480 ml of the stock and bring to a boil over medium heat. Reduce the heat to medium-low, and simmer until the stock is mostly absorbed, stirring frequently, about 5 minutes.

Add the radishes and remaining stock, ½ cup/120 ml at a time, stirring frequently, until the barley is tender, about 45 minutes. Add the chard and stir until wilted, about 5 minutes. Stir in the preserved lemon and add up to ¾ tsp salt, depending on how salty your broth or lemons are.

Remove from the heat. Stir in the dill and mint. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Roasted Beets with Ricotta + Pistachios: Sunday Suppers, part ii

Good morning! Isn't this a beautiful site to wake up to? These are more of the lovely photos by Karen Mordechai from our valentine's sunday supper dinner. This is the first course of our feast ~ Roasted Beets with Ricotta and Pistachios ~ one of my favorite recipes from my book, The Newlywed Cookbook. She caught me as I was plating 24 of these jeweled beauties for our valentine's guests. Swing over to her site {sunday-suppers.com} for the recipe, along with more photos and the recipe for my Braised Short Ribs with Gremolata and Melted Polenta. I'm still dreaming about how good that was....

food styling :: Sarah Copeland
photography :: Karen Mordechai for Sunday Suppers

Carrot Soup with Hazelnuts + Blood Orange Oil: Sunday Suppers, part i

I tend to be a fan of the understated. When Karen from Sunday Suppers called with the idea of hosting a valentine's supper together, promising our approach would be anything but obvious, I knew she'd come up with something novel and chic. She always does. But I didn't count on this earthy brilliance--twigs, spelling out L-O-V-E, taped to the white washed walls behind the table which she dressed with tiny blooms. It was just right. 

And, it was the perfect setting for teaching exactly the kind of cooking I believe love thrives on -- simple, beautiful food with flavors that shine. Carrot soup, with a little care, is the king of earthy brilliance. Start with fresh carrots, as close to home-grown as possible {we have the farmer's market to thank for ours}, and simmer them into a silky soup with onions, ginger and water. Then, once pureed, finish them with fresh pressed carrot juice for pure, vibrant flavor. With a garnish of yogurt, roasted hazelnuts and a simple homemade blood-orange oil, this soup is art for the eyes and the mouth. 

P.S. This soup is an early preview of my new cookbook, Feast, which I just saw the cover of today! 

Carrot Soup with Hazelnuts and Blood Orange Oil

Serves 4 to 6

4 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil, plus 2 tbsp for blood-orange oil

1 yellow onion, thinly sliced

1 garlic clove, smashed

1 in/2.5 cm peeled fresh ginger, chopped

2 lbs/910 g organic carrots, peeled and chopped

4 to 5 cups/960 ml to 1.2 L water

1 sprig fresh thyme

Sea salt and freshly cracked pepper

2 cups/480 ml fresh carrot juice

1/2 cup/120 ml full-fat plain yogurt

½ bunch of chives, snipped or chervil

1/3 cup roasted hazelnuts, roughly chopped

1 blood orange, juiced

Heat 2 tbsp of the olive oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion and cook until tender, 6 to 8 minutes. Add the garlic and ginger, and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add the carrots, thyme and enough water to cover (4 cups if you like a thicker soup, 5 cups if you like yours thinner) and bring to a boil. Cover loosely and reduce to a simmer. Season with salt and pepper.

Cook until vegetables are completely tender, 20 to 30 minutes. Remove the thyme, remove from the heat and purée until smooth, about 3 minutes. Stir in fresh carrot juice, reheating over a low flame as needed to warm through. Season and keep warm over a low flame until you are ready to serve.

Stir together the blood orange juice with in an additional 2 tbsp of finishing oil. Ladle the soup into four or six shallow bowls, and garnish with a dollop of yogurt in each bowl. Finish with a drizzle of blood-orange oil, hazelnuts and a sprinkle of chopped chives. Serve warm.

recipes + food styling :: Sarah Copeland
styling + photography :: Karen Mordechai for Sunday Suppers

Magic Winter Squash and Bean Soup

When I first started making vegetarian soups, I worried that they would be watery or bland without the round, soothing backdrop of good chicken stock. In its stead, some folks take the time to make a rich roasted vegetable stock, but the point of soup, to me, is a meal that’s warm and satisfying on the fly—something simple but downright good.  

My winter soup fits the bill. It’s as nimble and changing as my mood. The only constant is the butternut squash (which breaks down and both colors and flavors the broth to a richer state, like magic) and aged Parmesan (rind simmered in the soup for depth, and shavings over the top for a salty satisfaction). I usually add potatoes (which thicken the broth) and something green (for good health). The rest, my friends, is utterly subject to your whim. 

Besides chopping vegetables, there’s not much to this. You’ll find your way. Promise.

This is the kind of soup you’ll want to eat for days on end when the temperature drops and the ground is suddenly covered in white. And if you make it in your biggest pot, you can. Served with thick slices of whole grain bread and butter, it will leave you so contented you'll need little more than a juicy Clementine for dessert.

So what’s the real magic of this soup? It’s almost guaranteed to serve as many as can fit around your table (or will double or triple till it does). Keep a pot of this going once a week in the winter and you might find your table full of friends and neighbors, waiting with their hands wrapped on eager bowls.

Ladle it forth. The sun is setting later now but there's much to winter yet ahead. 

~

Magic Winter Squash and Bean Soup

Serves 6 to 8

4 large carrots, scrubbed

4 stalks celery, plus leaves

2 handfuls fingerling potatoes, scrubbed

1 large squash, peeled and cleaned (or 20 ounces cubed butternut squash)

4 small campari or 3 plum tomatoes (optional)

1 large bunch kale 

1 small wedge aged Parmigiano Reggiano

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

Several sprigs of fresh thyme

6 to 8 cups water, plus as needed

Pinch red pepper flakes

Sea salt and freshly ground pepper

1 15-oz can of your favorite beans, rinsed and drained

 1. Slice the carrots and celery plus the celery leaves. Quarter the potatoes and cut the squash into chunks. Quarter the tomatoes. Remove the ribs from the kale and chop into bite-sized pieces. Set all the vegetables aside. Trim the parmesan away from the rind (or use a rind saved from a previous wedge) and set the rest aside. 

2.Heat the olive oil in a large soup pot over medium high heat. Add the carrots, celery and celery leaves and stir to coat. Cook until lightly browned, 3 to 5 minutes. Add the potatoes, squash, tomatoes, water, thyme and parmesan rind and bring to a simmer. Add a generous pinch of red pepper flakes and season with salt and pepper. Cook until the vegetables are tender, the squash is beginning to break down, and the soup is full of flavor, about 45 minutes to 1 hour.

3. Stir in the beans and cook to warm through, 2 minutes. Remove the lid and add the kale. Stir to cook (uncovered) until bright green and tender, 3 minutes more. Ladle into bowls and grate parmesan cheese generously over the top. Serve warm with buttered bread.

of chestnuts and plenty

Happy New Year! The first day of the year is a good day for talking about a healthy start and new beginnings. It’s a day for fruit salads and resolutions. But we lived so much in every inch and corner of last year that it’s spilled over into this one. Resolutions will have to wait. Today, I’m still reflecting.

Last year was full—full of blessings. Of celebrations and new things. It was a year of grabbing each moment and living in it a little more richly—allowing space and time for doing or cooking or eating or learning something that grabbed my attention at a given time, a freer form of living I learned from my sweet husband. I spent more time luxuriating over details on the garden. I splurged a little on that fine stinky cheese or handmade chestnut raviolis at Eataly, despite the knowledge that I could make (the later) at home for half the cost.  I enjoyed the craft of crackly crust breads I dream of making myself, and not for a minute regretted that I haven’t gotten to that yet.

Last year, I read books, books like The Invisible Bridge and The Shoemaker's Wife, which let me travel far beyond our four walls, let my mind and soul soar to new places and times, like a tiny village of the Bergamo Alta in the Italian Alps at the turn of the last century.  It is there that I imagined this meal, and how it came to be in our table—a meal from the time of artisans, when handcrafted foods unassumingly filled our kitchens—a time of hand cut ravioli and Robiola that aged in the cellar of every family home. It left such an impression on my soul that when Gourmet asked me what my best meal of the year was, this one came immediately to mind. It’s now a part of their collection of the Best Things We Ate in 2012 on Gourmet Live, and one of dozens of memorable meals, moments, and riches I count among my own year's bests.

~

I always thought it odd that in our culture on New Years Eve, we party until the ball drops, and start the New Year pulling our pillows over our eyes. I’m much more inclined to want to sit around a table with good friends and a generous spread of food, as we did last night, giving thanks for the plenty in our lives—the friendships, our dear families, good health—and then, at home quietly in our beds, think about what we want to carry forward into 2013: meals like this one, the love of color and texture and intoxicating photography, the instinct to stop long enough and often enough to write down the amazing things our tiny girl is saying and learning, to savor the pink of her cheeks and lips when she first wakes up, to keep dreaming about making my own crackly crust breads, and when I can not, keep treating myself to those made by others.

More than anything else, I want to carry forward gratitude—gratitude to God for all the tremendous opportunities we’ve been given; Gratitude to our friends, our family, our communities for making life rich, and for believing in our little family; Gratitude to all of you who come here to read and be fed. I hope you’ll keep coming, and most importantly, I hope your new year is full of plenty. 

Photos and Recipes © Sarah Copeland 2013

Please credit source when using on Pinterest. All other uses require permission via email.

one splendid squash + a prayer for peace

I've always said, never underestimate the ability of a humble squash to feed a family. Growing up, one of my favorite meals was mom's baked squash, stuffed with sweet and spicy sausage and a sprinkling of brown sugar. We'd each get an oozing warm half, or a quarter (for the littler ones) drizzled with the buttery brown-sugar goodness that had collected in the bottom of the roasting pan. It was steady and sure, both the meal and the feeling I had after eating it, surrounded by my siblings and parents at the family table.

I intended to write you about this habit I have of buying a pretty squash on every trip to the market, particularly when I know we'll be going away. It keeps well on the counter, and waits for our return, a promised sure-thing dinner when we return from a weekend or even a week away. I planned to write to you about the style of simple sure-thing cooking I've come to rely on the last two weeks, working outside the house again as Food Director at Real Simple magazine. I thought I might convince you of the splendor such simple foods can translate into when you give them a little love and care. But right now, squash doesn't seem to be quite enough of a steady and sure thing for the times we're living in.

Tonight, far, far too many families are sitting around a table with an enormous part of their world and their hearts missing. I can't express enough sorrow or sadness, can't begin to comprehend the future for these families. All I can offer is prayer, and a wish that each of us take every opportunity to continue to love, cherish and nurture the beloved ones we have the great privilege of sitting among tonight.

God bless and keep us, every one.

the sweet smell of Saigon + an apple-pear sauce

Do you know what's really wonderful eaten along side a generous hunk of fresh Carrot Banana Hazelnut Bread? A bowl of warm Apple-Pear Sauce. The apples break down into a tender mush, leaving elegant slivers of pear in tact, every bite swimming in the heady satisfaction of Saigon cinnamon. I make mine in small batches because we all love it warm, straight from the stove, but it keeps like a dream in glass jars in the fridge for the week. There's really little more to say....

~

Apple Pear Sauce

Serves 4

4 pounds sweet-tart apples such as Macintosh, Jonagold, empire, or Macoun

1 pound firm, ripe pears such as Bartlett

1 stick cinnamon, or ground cinnamon to taste

about 1 cup apple cider, or as needed

Wash, quarter and cut out the core of your favorite apples (I like a variety, just like in my pie). Repeat with the pears. Cut the apples into chunks and the pears into chunks or slivers. Layer them in a large saucepan with 1 stick of cinnamon, or a generous pinch of Saigon cinnamon. Add just enough apple cider to reach about 1 inch up the pot and cover and simmer over medium heat until the apples are soft and start to break down, and the pears are soft throughout, about 25 minutes.

Spoon the sauce into four bowls and eat warm, or remove from the heat and puree with an immersion blender until smooth. Serve warm, or spoon it into sterile jars and cool on the counter before sealing. Store in the fridge up to one week.