My friend Yvette works with The Hubs and lives on the west side of San Antonio. She keeps a garden filled with gorgeous produce—over the summer she shared all manner of tomatoes, plus some peppers and herbs—which makes me envious of her ability to get this heavy Texas soil to produce anything edible. I’ve had no luck with that at all, and I consider myself to have something of a green thumb. But what I’m really jealous of, in a most unattractive way, are Yvette’s chickens and the cute little eggs they produce. I have serious, serious chicken envy. I’m so covetous of them that, as my mother would say, I could just spit.

Yesterday Yvette sent my husband home with a sweet little basket full of Thai eggplant and adorable eggs. After I recovered from a fit of jealous rage (mostly directed at my neighbors, who have been known to complain about noise from the elementary school down the street and would, I’m sure, have something to say about a yard full of chickens), I remembered a recipe I’d tried last summer. At that point, I didn’t know much about eggplant. I didn’t know, for example, that it comes in different shapes and colors. The eggplant I was familiar were large, dark purple and funny shaped. I’d always found them kind of intimidating. But eggplant comes in all shapes and colors: green, white, light purple, round, oblong, tear-shaped. Yvette sent me eggplant that were small, round, and mostly white with just a hint of lavender shading. They reminded me of the little Thai eggplant I’d received in a Greenling box last summer.

So I decided to make the stir fry recipe that had come in my Greenling box last year—with a few modifications, of course. But what to serve with it? At the grocery store today, I walked past the seafood counter and suddenly had a craving for salmon. Poached salmon may be the easiest thing in the world to make, and it’s full of omega-3 fatty acids (good for the heart, and for cancer protection.) And thus, a dinner menu was born.   Along with a plan to let the kids have pizza for dinner, since they are not fish people.

Thai eggplant doesn’t have to be peeled before cooking—just cut off the tops and bottoms, slice them into thick rounds, and slice the rounds into quarters. Last time I made this stir fry, I used a serrano pepper that had come in my Greenling box; the heat of the pepper was a nice balance to the mild flavor of the eggplant, but I didn’t have a hot pepper on hand and didn’t think to buy one at the grocery store. Leaving it out this time really let the taste of the garlic and basil shine through. If you like spicy food, though, go ahead and add a diced serrano or jalapeno when you’re sautéing the garlic. The fish sauce called for in this recipe is available in the Asian foods section of larger grocery stores, and it’s a must. That flavor really can’t be replicated.

As far as the salmon is concerned, remember that fish cooks very quickly; 5 minutes of poaching time will do the job.  Just mix together a cup of orange juice and half a cup of soy suace; let the salmon marinate in this mixture for half an hour.  When you’re ready to poach the fish,  slice up a lemon and place the slices in the bottom of a shallow pan that has a tight-fitting lid.  Add a cup of water, half a cup of wine (or lemon juice, if you prefer), and place the salmon on the lemons skin-side down.  Give it a good sprinkle of garlic power, put on the lid, and and allow the salmon to poach for 5 minutes.  When it’s done, the salmon fill flake easily with a fork and be light pink all the way through.

Thai Eggplant Stir-Fry

Ingredients:

1 T. olive oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
4 small Thai eggplant, cut into chunks
1 cup water
2 tsp. fish sauce
½ tsp. granulated sugar
10 large basil leaves

Directions:

Heat the canola oil over high heat. Add the garlic and sauté until just lightly browned. Add the eggplant and saute for a few minutes, then add the water to the pan. Cover and allow everything to simmer for about 5 minutes, until the water has evaporated and the eggplant is cooked through.

Stir in the fish sauce and sugar. Place the basil leaves on top of the eggplant, allowing them to steam and wilt into the pan. (You can chop up the basil if you like, but I left it whole.) Toss everything together one last time and serve immediately.

I spent most of my Saturday afternoon making Butternut Squash Cassoulet, but because it’s fall I was also in the mood for something sweet and appley.  And, because I’d spent my afternoon peeling squash and chopping onions and roasting garlic, I was not in the mood for anything terribly complicated.  Sweet + simple = gallette.  Add fall to that equation and you get Apple Galette.

Normally, I’m not a big fan of the refrigerated pie crusts you can buy at the grocery store.  It’s not that hard to make pie crust from scratch, and the home-made version tastes infinitely superior to what you can buy pre-made.  My one exception is for making quiche, when a pre-made crust does a perfectly adequate job of containing the savory ingredients.  It’s okay if the pie crust tastes like a cracker when you’re eating quiche. This time around, though, I just wasn’t in the mood for making pie crust.  And I really wanted dessert anyway.

A galette is rustic in appearance, not fancy, so it’s best saved for after a homey dinner like beef stew (or the aforementioned cassoulet.)  But the best thing about a galette is that it requires only one pie crust, which means you’re eating half the calories you’d normally ingest with a piece of pie.  Of course, you can make up for this by adding ice cream or whipped cream as a topping, if you like.

Super Simple Apple Galette

Ingredients:

1 refrigerated pie crust, brought to room temperature
1 T. flour
1 egg white
4 cups apple slices
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 T. corn starch
2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. sugar

Directions:

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Sprinkle the flour on a cutting board and roll the pie crust into a 12-inch circle. Be sure the bottom of the crust is lightly coated with the flour. Brush the top of the crust with half of the egg white. Transfer the dough circle to a foil-lined baking sheet or pizza pan. Don't worry if the dough overlaps the edges of your pan for now.

Toss the apple slices with the sugar, corn starch and cinnamon. When the apple slices are coated and all the dry ingredients are syrupy with apple juice, pile the apple slices into the center of your pie crust circle, leaving a border about 2 inches wide on all sides. Fold the crust border up and over the apple slices, pleating it as you work your way around the pile of filling and leaving an opening in the center (about 6 to 8 inches wide.) Brust the pleated edges with the rest of the egg white and sprinkle with the remaining teaspoon of sugar.

Bake the gallette for 25 minutes, until the apples are tender and the crust is golden brown. Cool for about 15 minutes before slicing and serving.

Last week while I was in Boise, I felt pretty out of sorts because I didn’t have access to a kitchen and couldn’t do any cooking. I did make a small batch of marinara sauce for my mom, using tomatoes from her garden—the overnight temperatures are just now leaning toward the freezing point, so her tomato harvest is seeing its final days—but other than that, I left her alone in the kitchen. It’s small, completely overcrowded with years’ worth of cookware, and clearly a one-woman operation.

So on the way home, I bought a copy of Cooking Light at the Denver airport. I visit the website pretty often to get recipe ideas, and I really couldn’t think of a better way to spend two hours of flying time than in my fantasy world of food. I marked about ten recipes for future reference. And then, feeling inspired, I went to the website when I got home and looked for more ideas for fall food. That’s where I discovered a recipe for Roasted Garlic and Butternut Squash Cassoulet.

I love butternut squash—it might just be my favorite fall vegetable—and this recipe takes a traditionally fatty meal and turns it into something lighter and healthier. (One of the cassoulet recipes I looked at, while I was comparing versions of the dish, indicated that “about a gallon of fat” rendered from the various types of meat cooked before the cassoulet went into the oven. Personally, I’m not interested in eating anything that involves a gallon of fat.) Cassoulet often involves several types of pork, lamb, and/or duck; this version involves only pancetta, which is a very spicy type of Italian bacon. The strong taste flavors the dish without adding too much fat.

The version I found at Cooking Light called for only 4 ounces of pancetta. I found pancetta at the deli counter of my local grocery store, but if you can’t find it, I imagine regular bacon would work just as well. Next time I make this recipe, I’ll try adding a little more; we loved the flavor of pancetta and would have liked it to be even stronger. I increased the amount of vegetable broth, in the interest of keeping things soupy, and the amount of thyme, because it’s a flavor we really love. I also used panko bread crumbs instead of making my own from white bread. I love panko—it’s crunchy and adds a great contrast to any dish with a soft base (like mac and cheese.) Finally, I used butter beans in place of cannellini beans, since they have a meaty texture. Which makes this version a Southern riff on cassoulet rather than anything like an authentic version.

To bake your cassoulet, you’ll need a large Dutch oven or something like an Everyday Pan with a tight-fitting lid. (The thing is aptly named—honestly, I use my Everyday Pan pretty much every single day.) And this recipe takes some time, so it’s not a quick solution for a weekday dinner; it’s more of a Saturday afternoon project. Roasting the garlic takes about an hour. Cutting up the butternut squash takes time as well. (Here’s my method: peel the squash using a serrated vegetable peeler. Cut off the neck where it meets the base, then cut the neck into slices and cut the slices into chunks. Scoop the seeds and strings from the center of the base; cut the hollowed-out base in half, then in slices, then in chunks. The squash I purchased weighed just over 1.25 pounds and gave me 8 cups of squash chunks, so I have plenty left over for a soup later this week.) Cutting and caramelizing the onion: you guessed it. More time.

It’s totally worth the investment, though. After eating, you’ll feel satisfied and—best of all—healthy.

Butternut Squash Cassoulet

Ingredients:

1 whole head of garlic
4 ounces pancetta, chopped into small pieces
2 cups onions, sliced vertically into thing strips
1 T. olive oil
1 cup vegetable broth
1 tsp. dried thyme
¼ tsp. salt
½ tsp. black pepper
4 cups butternut squash, peeled and cubed
2 16-oz. cans butter beans (or cannellini beans, if you prefer)
1 cup panko bread crumbs
2 T. grated parmesan cheese

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Remove the papery white skin from the head of garlic, but don't peel or separate the cloves. Wrap the head of garlic in aluminum foil and bake for 1 hour. Allow the garlic to cool for 20 minutes. Separate the cloves and squeeze the roasted garlic pulp from each clove into a small dish. Use half of the garlic pulp for this recipe and save the rest for another use. (I plan to use mine in a soup I'll make later this week, but roasted garlic is also perfect in tomato sauce or mixed with butter and spread on toasted bread.)

Turn up the oven temperate to 375 degrees.

Heat your Dutch oven or other large pan over medium heat. Add the pancetta and cook five minutes, until crispy. Transfer the pancetta to a small plate, leaving the drippings in the pan. Add the onion and olive oil; cook for 20 to 25 minutes, until the onions are very soft and brown. Return the pancetta to the pan and add the roasted garlic pulp, the broth, thyme, salt and pepper. Stir to combine, then add the squash and beans. Stir again to distribute the ingredients throughout the pan.

Combine the panko and parmesan is a small bowl, stirring with a fork (or your fingers) to distribute the cheese throughout. Sprinkle the bread crumb mixture over the squash mixture. Cover and bake for 50 minutes. Uncover and bake an additional 15 minutes to brown the topping.

How could I have missed the fact that October is National Cookie Month?  In honor of this occasion, I’m planning to bake a batch of cookies this weekend.  Suggestions, my friends?  What’s your favorite cookie?

I recently saw a recipe for pumpkin cream cheese sandwich cookies that sounded just divine.  It’s tough to surpass old favorites, though–a basic chocolate chip cookie is hard to beat.   Except, perhaps with a molasses cookie.  Or a frosted sugar cookie.  Or . . .

Whatever your passion, get thee to a bakery (or a kitchen)!  National Cookie Month comes but once a year.

One of the handful of cookbooks I’ve kept on hand over the years is 12 Best Foods Cookbook. The concept is pretty simple: identify 12 really healthy foods and compile a bunch of recipes that use them, alone or in combination with each other. It’s helpful that many of these foods are family favorites. (Who doesn’t like dark chocolate?) True, the kids aren’t terribly enthusiastic about salmon or soy beans, but The Boy loves broccoli; we’re 3 for 4 on blueberries; and we all love tomatoes, black beans, sweet potatoes, and onions.

And spinach. Believe it or not, spinach is one of the vegetables I don’t have to convince my children to eat. It’s full of iron, of course, but it’s also a good source of beta-carotene and lutein. (Your eyes will love you for it.) Some research suggests that spinach reduces the risk of heart disease, which runs in my family, protects against certain cancers, and may help prevent memory loss. Basically, it’s the superhero of vegetables.

This Spinach Pesto recipe is based on one that appears in 12 Best Foods, but this version omits the tofu—while I understand the benefits of soy protein, the fact is that we’re not tofu people. It’s a texture thing. (The Hubs actually loves Pad Thai made with tofu at our favorite Thai restaurant, but that’s the only way he’s interested in eating it.) I’ve also added a little lemon juice, just to brighten the flavor.

I like to toss this Spinach Pesto with pasta—use about ¼ cup of pesto to 2 ounces of pasta, or a whole recipe of pesto to a pound of pasta. It’s also excellent as a dip for raw carrots and cauliflower, or spread thin on toasted bread.

Healthy Spinach Pesto

Ingredients:

½ cup walnuts (another one of the 12 best foods!)
4 cups spinach, coarsely chopped
8 whole basil leaves
2 cloves of garlic, minced
¼ cup grated Parmesan
1 T. plain yogurt
1 tsp. lemon juice
2 T. olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

In the bowl of a food processor or blender, chop the walnuts for about 30 seconds. Add the spinach, basil, and garlic; pulse until these ingredients are chopped fine and combined. Add the Parmesan cheese, yogurt and lemon juice; pulse again until combined. With the motor running, drizzle in the olive oil. Add salt and pepper to taste.