Baked figs stuffed with walnuts!
This is a very nice and easy way to create a sort of fancy looking fig dessert. The recipe makes a lot of walnut paste too, so you can use it for other purposes. I made some muffins and mixed the paste in, and it was also delightful. This recipe comes from Mark Bittman’s Best Recipes in the World cookbook. Enjoy!
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup walnuts
- 2 tablespoons butter: 1 chilled, 1 softened
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 12 fresh figs
- 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
- plain yogurt or sour cream, for serving
Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Combine 1/4 cup of the sugar with 1/4 cup water in a small pan and bring to a boil. Stir until the sugar is dissolved and set aside.
Combine the remaining 1/4 cup sugar with the nuts in a small food processor and process to a powder. Add the chilled butter and process to a paste, then blend in the cinnamon. (Note: so good! Feel free to eat straight from the bowl.) Slit open each piece of fruit and stuff with a bit of the walnut mixture and press to reseal.
Grease the bottom of a baking dish with the rest of the butter, arrange the fruit without crowding. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes. Stir the lemon juice in to the sugar-water-syrup mixture and drizzle over the fruit. Serve with yogurt or sour cream if you’ve got it.
Collards & Bacon call it what you want!
The inspiration for this recipe comes from an article in Sunset magazine a while back on Tim Luym, former chef at Poleng (aka my backyard). He called it bacon and kale adobo; I say, call it what you want. Either way, it’s delicious. My version is made with collard greens and adds a few additional ingredients to make it into a main dish. I usually serve it with brown rice, but this could easily be a very yummy side dish. Also very easily veganized: just replace the bacon with some tempeh or smoked tofu and you’re done. It would require some additional fat though, and I would recommend using something with a smokey flavor.
Heat a large pot over medium heat. When hot, add 6 oz diced bacon. Cook until done and almost crispy, about 6-8 minutes. When done remove to a dish and set aside. Keep about 5 tbsp of the bacon fat in the pan and discard the rest. Keep the heat at medium and add 1 small diced onion, 2 crushed garlic cloves, and 2 bay leaves. Saute for about 5 minutes, or until the onion is golden. Add 2 bunches of washed and chopped collards, or one bag of pre-torn collard greens. Saute for a couple minutes, until all the leaves are covered in oil and slightly wilted. Then add the rest of the ingredients: 2-3 tbsp soy sauce, 2-3 tbsp apple cider vinegar, 2 diced bird’s eye chiles (these are the small Thai red chiles that come frozen in a bag; they are my first choice, but if you don’t have them, a diced serrano or jalapeno would work too or even a few shakes of some crushed red pepper flakes), 1/4 tsp ground black pepper, 1 cup water, 1 can of drained and rinsed black beans, and half of the bacon that’s been waiting for you. Turn the heat down, cover the pot and simmer for one hour. Keep an eye on it occasionally and make sure it’s not drying out. If the pan looks dry, add some more water, more soy sauce, or more vinegar to your liking.
After about an hour, the collards are soft and awesome and your meal awaits!
Enchilada Casserole!
This dish sure does look a mess, but it really doesn’t matter. This magical deliciousness covered in melted cheese will be your new favorite dish, and it can feed a crowd! (Or you and one other person.) This can easily be made into more proper enchiladas, but this is the lazy version. Everything falls apart on your plate anyways, so why not have it start that way? This version is made with chicken, refried beans, and green enchilada sauce, but feel free to take this in any direction.
Put one 14.5 ounce can of your favorite refried beans into a small saucepan. Add some water (about half a can), some garlic salt, cumin, oregano, and a few shakes of crushed red pepper flakes. Stir all together and simmer over med-low heat. They should be slightly soupy.
While the beans are cooking, dice one chicken breast (or whatever meat/non-meat you want to use) and heat some olive oil in a skillet. Saute the chicken until it is browned and cooked through. Remove to a plate.
In the same skillet, heat some more olive oil. When hot, add some sliced onion, red or green peppers, and a couple cloves of minced garlic. Saute over medium heat until done to your liking. You could easily just make more veggies and skip the meat. I have also made this with fresh spinach and zucchini and it was very delicious.
Assembly: Heat the oven to 350 degrees; lightly grease a 9x13 glass dish with some vegetable oil. Now you can get creative. I usually layer some corn tortillas so that they cover the bottom, then a start with a layer of beans, then some of my grilled veggies, then some diced green chiles from a can, then some chicken, then some cheese. I use Trader Joe’s jalapeno yogurt cheese, but use whatever you like/have around the house. Be generous with the cheese; I usually use at least one pack (which I think is 12 or 16 ounces). Top this off with another layer of tortillas. Open up a can of green enchilada sauce and pour enough on top of everything you’ve assembled until it’s all quite saucy. Repeat this process until you’ve got a couple layers and you’ve used up all the ingredients lying around or you run out of space in the pan, whichever comes first. Be sure to finish it off with cheese on top, and then pour as much of the remaining enchilada sauce on top as well.
Bake for about 45 minutes or until the top looks kind of crispy and everything is bubbly. Eat as much as you can and then slowly descend into a food coma of bliss.
