stacey . smoore . the staceyfish . 
Life in a Northern Town: the exploits of an ecstatic Alaskan
Lens: the adventures of a girl and her camera
Let's be real for a minute. We all know that beefy burgers are bad for us, right? Even if you're like me and you don't particularly like 98% of the burgers out there (the rosemary burger at the Bear Tooth Grill in Anchorage is the lone exception, in case you were wondering. And while we're on the topic of the Bear Tooth, that burger is served with scrumptious garlic-cilantro fries - utterly unfair. Again, I don't particularly like the fries at 98% of restaurants, but the Bear Tooth is the one place I will get them. Holy digression, Batman!) it doesn't change the fact that sometimes you just want to eat something that you can hold like a burger, like a sandwich piled so high you have to unhinge your jaw just to shove it in. Ahi burgers are a great way to fill this niche, but what if you live in, ahem, a desert and have spotty access to good seafood?
A lot of people turn to gardenburgers, and they are... oh, how do I put this delicately?... absolute rubbish. I once heard a Brit say that the idea repulsed him, since they call their lawns gardens over there, and he imagined it being full of yard clippings. Really, I don't think he was far off the mark.
So, because of those disgusting facsimiles of real food, vegetarian burgers get a bad rap that they truly don't deserve. Done right, they're substantial and full of flavor. No, they don't taste like beef, but they're not supposed to, and in my opinion, they're much more delicious than all but 2% of the cow burgers out there. They're far more healthy and honestly I think they're even heartier and more filling.
You may be thinking "Sure, Stacey, it's obvious that a tree-hugger like yourself would love these, but what about people who really enjoy meat?" I'll bring in Exhibit A, The Hubs, one who is much happier than me to eat beef. He actually requests these on a regular basis, so, to borrow an awesome phrase from Heather, they get the stamp of Manproval!
Of course, in a recipe like this ingredients matter. I can't stress enough how much better these are when used with heirloom beans that I know to be less than a year old, as opposed to the five-to-ten years-old beans that you'll find in on supermarket shelves. As usual, I have been gaga over the results I've gotten with Rancho Gordo midnight black beans, but you will still get good results with supermarket beans - you will just need to cook them longer and use more aromatics and spices to flavor them. Canned beans will work just fine too if you want to make these on short notice.
I think that the only thing that could really make these black bean burgers even better is a good homemade whole-wheat burger bun. I have yet to branch out into those but I shall soon! These were photographed on bagels that had been baked that day. Unconventional, yes, but who am I to say no to using whatever fresh homemade bread I have on hand as an alternative to store-bought buns?
So pull out your stores of black beans and get a-soakin'. Treat yourself to a real black bean burger and revel in the fact that you can finally have a burger that tastes great and is actually good for you!
Click here for the recipe for "Black bean burgers with chipotle ketchup" »
By now, you've probably been able to tell that I'm having a love affair with Rancho Gordo beans. They're just so damn good (and good for you) - I can't help trying to put them into every food imaginable. I love them so much that someone who possibly lives in my house may have possibly placed an order for 45 pounds of beans from them a couple of weeks ago. My thinking was that I was buying a year's worth of beans, but at the rate I'm finding fantastic recipes, the ten pounds of garbanzos may only last a couple of months. We're not even going to mention the fifteen pounds of black beans and fifteen pounds of borlottis that arrived in the same shipment. But I digress.
I've recently started reading the Rancho Gordo blog and was ecstatic to find this particular recipe on there last week. It sounded so delicious, so healthy, and so satisfying, that I had to hurry up and make some chicken stock post-haste (as we had just run out two days before - like I've said before, the stuff burns a hole in my freezer) so that I could put this soup on the table.
Clearly, I hadn't really been paying attention when I read up on the ingredients - I must have just been skimming for the produce I would need to add to the grocery list. So I didn't really notice that it called for cinnamon until I was mise en place-ing everything. It was such a pleasant surprise though - we Americans are really missing out by regarding cinnamon as a wholly sweet spice rather than something that can be used to great effect in savory dishes. It brought a whole new dimension to the soup: adding a fullness not otherwise present and bringing to mind the most comforting of comfort foods. Try this on a cold, dreary winter night with a glass of lush cabernet and discover it for yourself!
Click here for the recipe for "Chickpea soup with Swiss chard and barley" »
One of my favorite things search for in the land of food is delicious ways to get lots of protein from non-meat sources. I'm not a vegetarian by any means, but I'm a big fan of the motto "Eat a variety of foods - mostly plants." So when I was in my early twenties and learning about the power of legumes, I was so excited the day the "hummus is chickpeas!" lightbulb came on over my head. It quickly supplanted the nasty deli meat sandwiches that had been my lunch between classes up to that point.
Cory loves hummus too, so when we finally got to live together I started stocking it in the refrigerator as a staple. But, predictably, it wasn't too long before I started looking for recipes to make my own, because even though there are brands of ready-made hummus that have a minimum of ingredients - and all of them are even pronouncable - I could still taste chemicals. Why put up with uninspired hummus when there is a vast variety of this classic dish at my fingertips?
Being both a Moore and a Cilia, I've got a serious garlic addiction. There's something about these two families: we just can't get enough. So long as it ends up cooked, just about all of us routinely triple or quadruple the amount of garlic that's called for in a recipe. There have been times I have bought seven head of garlic from the grocery store and it's all been gone less than 48 hours later.
This just goes to show that it's no surprise whatsoever that my favorite hummus recipe is one of the roasted garlic variety. We're not talking about a paltry four or five cloves worth, we're talking about a triple-garlic punch. This recipe uses two heads of garlic, garnishes with fried garlic chips, and incorporates garlic-infused olive oil. I hope you're not going to be in non-garlic-loving company for a while after sampling some of this stuff!
But, really, that's the beauty of garlic: it packs so much flavor, and it's so good for you, which yet another reason that I love this stuff so much. You pair this stuff with some amazingly fun-to-make whole grain pitas and you have a fantastic, filling source of lean protein.
Nom!
Everyone needs a recipe that can answer a host of dietary and culinary questions single-handedly. These questions might be along the lines of "How am I going to use this vat of spinach before it goes bad?" or "How can I make canned beans interesting?" or "What can I make that is attractive, delicious, very nutritious, and quick?"
For me, this recipe answers all those questions, plus a few more nagging ones about lean proteins and just how, exactly, one can get all the benefits of spinach without smothering it in salad dressing. It also answers the call when it hears the stomach thinking "Oh my god I am so hungry but I don't wanna cook anything involved and I don't want any meat today" but the tastebuds are all like "Dude, don't forget about us!"
This recipe seriously comes together in a matter of minutes, tastes and feels like genuine comfort food, but packs in a lot of nutrition when you're looking the other way. Serve it alongside some whole-grain pasta tossed with a fruity olive oil and couple of tomatoes you didn't use in this dish, some brown rice, or a whole-grain bread, and you've got a complete lean protein and a satisfying well-balanced meal.
Click here for the recipe for "Cannellini beans with wilted spinach" »
I have been meaning to post this for a loooooonnnggg time. In fact, if the word "long" was as long as the length of time I've waited to post this recipe, it would be approximately sixty-three syllables long. But I digress.
I've long had a soft spot for minestrone. It's such great comfort food, and super-healthy to boot. I suppose that soup is normally a fall or winter endeavor, but here I'm going to give a Tucson summer (the fact that it's late September is irrelevant - it's in the upper nineties today) the finger and make this soup anyway. That'll show the bloody weather!
There I go with my digressions again.
I've been through a lot of phases with this soup. I first got hooked on it at an Italian restaurant when I was a teenager, so when I started cooking a lot of vegetable soups after I moved to Alaska I decided to try this one out. To be honest, I hated my first attempt. I hadn't yet started making my own chicken stock, and this was when I learned the hard way that using commercial chicken broth as the base for a soup is Officially a Bad Idea because it is Utterly Repugnant. However, at the time, I didn't know that was the cause, so I just thought the recipe was a dud.
Many months later, something strange came over me and I decided to try it again - on unsuspecting dinner guests, no less. This time I was using homemade stock, and when I put the stuff in my mouth I had a foodgasm. It was that good. But because I am crazy, I am hardly ever 100 percent satisfied with a recipe, no matter how good it is. I decided that what this soup needed was an improvement in the bean department. Since then, I've tried all manner of beans: pinto, cannellini, kidney, great Northern whites, and heavenly borlottis. But all of these were canned and none of them were quite right.
Enter Rancho Gordo beans! These heavenly heirloom beans are as fresh as dried beans can get, especially when compared with lowly supermarket beans that are more than likely about five years old, which explains why those inferior beans cook slowly, unevenly, and blandly. This company carries many little-known and rare varieties of beans, including - look out for the squeeing - borlottis! I tried them for the first time when I was throwing together this soup, and finally, I have found my 100 percent satisfaction. These creamy, velvety, supremely flavorful beans add an entirely new level of flavor that ties minestrone together perfectly. It is definitely worth the time to find and cook the beans. And considering that I only just discovered the key to bean bliss, it was also worth the wait in posting this recipe!
