Snowcap Beans with Stewed Tomatoes and Oregano Pesto

Sometimes it’s fun to start with an ingredient and then figure out what to do with it (rather than starting with a recipe and gathering the ingredients). Last week I was looking through the dried bean and rice options at the grocery store to see what was available. I found some pretty, two-toned snowcap beans and was compelled to bring them home. I had no particular plan for their use and set about choosing a way to serve them. A little searching brought me to the Rancho Gordo article in the November issue of Food and Wine which included a recipe for giant lima beans with stewed tomatoes and oregano pesto. I hoped that it would work well enough with snowcaps instead of giant limas and gave it a whirl.

I must have been caught up in the actual preparation of this dish because I completely forgot to grab the camera and get a shot of the beans in dried form or after the initial cooking. Good job. You can see what they look like here. They’re nice looking, light brown beans with a snowy white side. They retained their colors after the initial cooking, but once they baked in the stewed tomatoes, the colors were muddied. I wasn’t able to find any other information about them like where they originated, so they’re a slightly mysterious type of bean. They’re bigger than pintos but not as big as giant limas. Their taste is mild like cannellinis, but they seemed firmer in texture. They were delicious in this dish, but next time I’ll use them in a way that preserves their colors.

So, how was this made? Well, there’s a good amount of cooking time required, and splitting the tasks between two days is a good idea. On day one, I cooked the soaked beans and simmered the stewed tomatoes. Onion and garlic were cooked in a saucepan until softened, and then canned whole tomatoes and chopped, fresh oregano were added. This was left to simmer for an hour. Also on day one, I made the pesto which included olive oil, oregano, parsley, and garlic. On day two, the beans and stewed tomatoes were combined and baked for 45 minutes. This is the point at which I strayed from the instructions. Feta cheese was supposed to have been added on top of the beans while they baked. I was feeling like I wanted little, cold cheese sprinkles rather than warm, melty blobs, so I waited until the beans were plated to add cheese. Course breadcrumbs were toasted in olive oil and used as a topping with the pesto.

I enjoyed this as a vegetarian main course with grilled bread with sauteed shitakes on the side. Kurt chose to make it a side dish with a steak. The breadcrumbs added nice crunch, the pesto brightened it all up with its herby, garliciness, the feta sprinkles were creamy and rich, and the long-cooked beans were tender and full-flavored. It takes some planning and patience, but once all the components come together, you’ll have a delicious dish that can be a main course or a side that is definitely worth it.

Carrot Cake Cookies

I should never have made these cookies. It was a very bad idea, and now I’m stuck with having eaten them. Ordinarily, I bake cookies and happily share them because they’re just cookies. Not so with these babies. Carrot cake cookies sandwiched together with cream cheese frosting do not get shared so much as they get devoured very, very quickly. These are from Martha Stewart's Cookies, and as I’ve said before, every cookie in that book looks similarly devourable.

These have all the things a carrot cake might have like grated fresh carrots, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and raisins. For no particular reason, I reduced the amount of raisins and added some chopped pecans. I guess if there were a reason, it would be that my favorite carrot cake recipe has nuts in it so I wanted some in these cookies too. Since they get sandwiched, it’s convenient if they’re all the same size. I used a small ice cream scoop to place the dough on the baking sheets in even-sized mounds. The recipe suggests chilling the dough before scooping, but chilled dough is more difficult to spoon out of the bowl. So, I placed the dough mounds on sheets, and then chilled the baking sheets before putting them in the oven.

The cream cheese frosting is basic, straightforward, and as delicious as it always is. Once these were filled with frosting and finished, I realized this would be the first cookie I would prefer to eat from the refrigerator. This is interesting because Kurt is a cold cookie kind of guy. Even chocolate chip. He prefers them straight from the refrigerator, and I don’t understand it. For me, chocolate chip cookies are only worth eating directly from the oven. The refrigerator doesn’t even enter the picture. But here, cream cheese frosting necessitates refrigeration. I can tell you that these are by far my favorite cold cookie, and I have many, many extra calories to burn this week.

Goat Cheese-Edamame Dip with Spiced Pepitas

This soy bean and cheese dip came from the November issue of Food and Wine and was part of an article about starters for Thanksgiving dinner. It’s actually a great recipe to have on file for year-round use because the ingredients are always easy to locate. I used frozen, shelled edamame which were briefly cooked in boiling water. The cooked, drained edamame were pureed in a food processor with sour cream, goat cheese, lemon juice, garlic, and canned chipotles and adobo sauce. Chopped oregano, which luckily enough grows in my herb garden all year but is skippable if you don't have it, was stirred in once the mixture was smooth.

A crunchy topping was made with pepitas which were roasted with salt, ground coriander, crushed red pepper, and olive oil. When the pepitas came out of the oven, they were tossed with lemon zest and oregano. The lemon zest added a burst of flavor, and I have to remember to try that with roasted nuts in the future. While the pepitas roasted, I baked some pita chips which I cut to size, brushed with olive oil, and sprinkled with a mix of cayenne, ground coriander, ground cumin, salt, and pepper.

It makes a thick dip, but sturdy vegetables would have been great for dipping too. The combination of flavors is interesting with the smooth, mild bean puree and creamy, tangy goat cheese and sour cream and the hit of heat and smokiness from the chipotles. And, the pepita topping adds another layer of flavor and texture. The recipe results in a generous amount of dip, so we still have some leftover. I’m thinking of using it for a sandwich for lunch tomorrow by spreading it in a pita and adding arugula, and now, I’m already looking forward to lunch.