First Cookbook Lovers Unite: Open-Face Veggie Sandwiches

I recently started a new blogging group for people who love their printed cookbooks as much as I do. Cookbook Lovers Unite will have a theme every other week to make a recipe from a cookbook and then blog about and share. The first theme is "Your First Love." I wanted to hear what books started the obsession for other cookbook addicts.

My first cookbook love wasn't the first cookbook I ever owned. It wasn't even the second or third. Just as your first love isn't necessarily your first date, it took a few books before I found the one that started it all.

The Horn of the Moon Cookbook started it all for me. I'm not sure why. It's such an unassuming book. The cover is a drawing. There are no pictures in the book at all--just some line drawings and text. The author is not a celebrity. No one was promoting the book in a magazine, on a display in front of the store, or with a show on The Food Network. Nope, it was just a regular old book on a used bookstore shelf, and somehow it caught my attention.

It was the weekend of October 18-20, 2002 when I found the book. I know the date because it was my one-year anniversary with my boyfriend (now my husband). We had gone up to Vermont to see a concert, and stayed with friends who lived in Burlington. While we were wandering in downtown Burlington, in the bitter, biting wind, we ducked into a used bookstore. While browsing, I spied The Horn of the Moon, and something drew me to it. I bought it, after consulting with my boyfriend, not knowing that it would change me.

I read the cookbook cover to cover in the following months, marking recipes I wanted to try to make. This was no small step for me. I come from a family that doesn't like to cook. That's putting it nicely. My mother CAN cook--and what she makes she makes quite well--but she hates the process. My grandmothers? Don't make me laugh. At my wedding shower, everyone gave me a recipe card with a special dish from her kitchen. I don't have one from my Grandma because she couldn't think of a single thing that she cooks--she just orders take out or (more likely) goes to a restaurant. So, I wasn't from the cooks. But, I was determined to try, and this book was going to be my gateway.

These open-face sandwiches were my first foray into the cooking world. Kurt and I made them over and over and over again. We were so proud of our accomplishment. (Looking back, of course, this is an incredibly simple recipe, but we were just beginners.) To this day, the smell of broccoli and thyme sauteing reminds me of our tiny, crammed apartment in Somerville, MA. It reminds me of cozy meals around our tiny table, of cooking in a galley kitchen so cramped that we could barely work back-to-back. It reminds me of brisk November days, walking the half mile to the grocery store, and then walking back carrying the bags, and how warm my cheeks would feel when I got back into the apartment and turned on the stove. This recipe reminds me of the early days of living together, and learning to cook together.

It's amazing to me that this one innocent-looking book sparked the cookbook collection that I have now--that the 200-plus cookbooks in my house all sprang from that one impulse buy in Vermont.

Here's to beginnings--of a lifelong love of cookbooks, of a relationship that is now nine years old, and of a new blogging group where we can share the joy of the printed cookbook.

Broccoli Mushroom Sandwich with Three Cheeses

adapted from Horn of the Moon Cookbook by Ginny Callan

1 Tbs olive oil

2 cups chopped broccoli

1/2 tsp dried thyme

2 cups sliced mushrooms

1/4 tsp salt

4 slices rye bread

1 1/2 cups crumbled blue cheese (I use much less)

8 small slices mozzarella cheese

8 small slices cheddar cheese

Preheat oven to 375.

Heat a skillet over medium heat. Add oil, then broccoli and thyme. Cook 2 to 3 minutes. Add mushrooms and salt and cook until just barely tender. Remove from heat and drain any excess juices.

Place bread on a cookie sheet. Top each piece of bread with the broccoli-mushroom mixture. Spread the blue cheese over, followed by slices of mozzarella, and then cheddar. Bake for 10 minutes. Serve open-face.

Makes 4 servings.

Cost: $2.61 per sandwich

Homemade Lo Mein

Lo mein is one of my favorite foods. Kind of strange, I know. It's among the lowliest of Americanized Chinese food dishes. It's generally an afterthought on the Chinese buffet tables, or one of those slightly-cold, very greasy dishes that you get at the mall food court. But, I love good lo mein.

I suppose one of the reasons I like the noodle dish so much is that it is connected, over and over again, to fond memories for me. When I think of lo mein, I think of Mother's Day at my Aunt Fran's house. We would all sit around and take an hour to decide what we were ordering from the Chinese take out place. My grandfather would hold court, tallying up what everything would cost, so that we could get the most expensive item possible (boneless spare ribs) for free. Back then--or maybe it's more of a Long Island thing--if you ordered "x" amount, you would get an egg roll free, this amount, and you would get wonton soup, etc, all the way up to the coveted boneless spare ribs. We ordered more food than we ever needed, and probably spent a good deal more than the boneless spare ribs would have cost, but getting it for free made Grandpa happy.

Lo mein also brings me back to my first apartment off campus, and the year I met my husband. There was a decent Chinese restaurant around the corner called Chef Chang's. My husband (well, boyfriend at the time) and I would often drop into Chang's for lunches--you couldn't beat the $5.95 luncheon specials. The one I ordered was always the chicken lo mein, an egg roll, and a cup of hot and sour soup. To this day, picturing that dining room in my head brings me back to the feeling of lazy Saturday afternoons with no responsibilities except to maybe get home early enough on Sunday night to write a quick paper or two.

When I found the recipe that forms the base for my homemade lo mein, I knew I had to try it. After all, I'm kind of a lo mein addict. It turned out perfectly--exactly what I had been searching for. As a bonus, this recipe costs less than a dollar per serving--though it could be more, depending on what you add to it. This recipe is so fast and so easy that we made it almost every week during the first few months after my son was born. And, so, this lo mein joins the memory pantheon. I'm sure, when I taste this dish years from now, that it will bring me back to Jasper's newborn days. It will remind me of the sleepless weeks when we were struggling to get Jasper to gain weight. It will remind me of my seemingly permanent station in the rocking chair, nursing, then sitting together while Jasper slept and I watched the Food Network (or read, if I could get an arm free to hold the book). Jasper will most likely come to remember this meal as "when Mommy was in a big rush." Let the lo mein memories continue.

Homemade Lo Mein

Serves about 4, depending on additions

Base:

3 Tbs. olive oil

2 Tbs sesame oil

2 cups shredded cabbage from a bag

1/2 cup chopped green onion

8 oz. angel hair pasta

4 Tbs. soy sauce

Optional additions:

handfuls of bean sprouts (in my house, this one isn't an option--it's a staple)

any and all veggies you want to use (I've found that 1/2 a bag of the frozen stir-fry veggies works very well.)

cooked chicken, shredded (I only do this when I have some that I have to use up)

1. Cook pasta according to package directions. Drain.

2. Heat oil and sesame oil in skillet. Add any "heartier" veggies that you plan to use--broccoli, carrots, etc. If you are using frozen veggies, throw them in now. Sautee until just slightly cooked.

3. Add cabbage and green onion and saute for about 5 minutes more.

4. Add pasta, and soy sauce, and, if you are using them, the bean sprouts and chicken. Toss so that the pasta gets completely coated in the oil and soy sauce, and so that veggies are distributed evenly.

Enjoy.

Summer in a Bowl

There are some things that can only be enjoyed during the summer. Corn on the cob. Fresh, sweet, juicy peaches that have been picked from the tree that day. Heirloom watermelons with sherbet orange flesh. And tomatoes. Real, vine-ripened tomatoes, still sun-warm when you bite into them. In my case, a rainbow of heirlooms, ranging from the tart and tangy green zebra to the mellow and sweet yellow "peach."

This dish is about summer. It's about the freshest ingredients, used at the height of ripeness--and almost no embellishment. And yet, somehow, with so little cooking and so few ingredients, it will be the best meal you eat all season. This is the dish you dream about in the darkest days of January, when the snow is falling, and summer seems like it will never come.

I came across this recipe in Moosewood Cooks at Home, one of my go-to cookbooks. It's so simple that you really don't need a recipe at all. Boil some pasta. Throw chopped super-fresh super-ripe tomatoes into a food processor. Add garlic, olive oil, salt, pepper, and a few fresh basil leaves into a food processor. Whirl it up until it's smooth. Chop up some extra tomatoes for garnish. Cube some fresh mozzarella cheese. Drain the pasta. Put it in a bowl. Toss it with the mozzarella while the pasta is still piping hot. This creates gooey strands of cheese throughout the dish. Toss with the pureed sauce and chopped tomatoes. Serve, preferably with some nice crusty bread, and maybe a light green salad. That's it. But, it's perfect. The season, captured in a bowl.

You can find the recipe here, or feel free to improvise. I have submitted this entry to Grow Your Own #45. Be sure to check out the round-up there, to see what other bloggers have made using produce from their own gardens and farms.

Green Green Noodle Soup

When you have literally hundreds of cookbooks, choosing a recipe can be difficult. Your first task is to choose which book to look through for ideas. That, in itself, is daunting. Then, choosing the recipe itself, from what is likely hundreds in any given book. It is no wonder that I have set a goal of making two new recipes every week. Even at that rate, I do not think I could ever make every recipe in my house.

With so many recipes to choose from, and all the new ones I make per month, it's no surprise that, every now and then, I stumble upon one that is less than stellar. Green Green Noodle Soup, from The Enchanted Broccoli Forest, falls into that category. It wasn't terrible--we ate it and did not order a pizza. But, it wasn't great. Unfortunately for the recipes that reside in my home, it is truly a case of survival of the fittest. A mediocre dish that might have been made again in another home gets scrapped in mine, with the epitaph of "with so many recipes to choose from, why make anything that is less than incredible?"

It wasn't that the soup was bad. I think it was all about personal preference. The soup consisted of onions and garlic sauteed in olive oil and butter with some herbs, zucchini and spinach added to that, then vegetable broth added so that the whole thing can simmer. The soup was ladled over spinach linguine that had been tossed with pesto. We grated some Parmesan cheese over the whole thing. Everything here sounds great to me. It's the one step that I skipped over when reading, and skipped over just now in typing it that, in my opinion, ruined the soup. Half of the soup, pre-ladling over the noodles, gets pureed. And that, to me, made all the difference. I think the problem was more one of texture than flavor for me. Unfortunately, a problem with texture is near impossible for me to overcome.

And so Green Green Noodle Soup had met the fate of many recipes before it. It got eaten, and then got a "do not make again" stamp. Better luck next time.

Cauliflower Rye Casserole

Spring in New England doesn't always feel like spring. Every now and then, you'll get a glorious, 70-degree day. But, in New England, spring is more about waiting for those days than actually experiencing them. Today was one of the waiting days. It was barely 60 degrees when I got home from work, and it had just started to rain...hard.

The smell of rye bread toasting when I walked through the door was welcome. I knew right away that Kurt had started our dinner, a recipe from Sundays at Moosewood, Cauliflower Rye Casserole.

This recipe is comfort food at its best. The smell of the rye and caraway fill the whole house. The oven stays on throughout the entire preparation, sending gentle heat throughout the kitchen. The dish itself is cheesy and gooey and warms right to the soul.

With the number of new recipes that I try every month, it is rare for one to stand out so much that it becomes an instant classic in the house. The Cauliflower Rye Casserole did just that. Since making it for the first time in February, we've made it at least another three times. The ingredients sound strange, but, put together, they are the perfect blend. If this recipe hadn't come from the Moosewood Collective, I probably wouldn't have trusted it. However, my experience with Moosewood has been to just go with it, because they know what they are doing.

Cauliflower Rye Casserole

adapted from Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant

1 cup beer

3 cups rye bread cubes

1 head cauliflower

2 tablespoons butter

1 teaspoon caraway seeds

1 1/2 cups grated extra sharp cheddar cheese

4 eggs

1 teaspoon dry mustard

1/2 teaspoon ground coriander seeds

freshly ground black pepper to taste

Pour the beer and stir and let sit until it becomes flat.

Put bread cubes on baking sheet, and toast in a 300-degree oven until they are crisp, but not browned, about 15 to 20 minutes. When cubes come out of oven, turn oven up to 350 degrees.

Saute the cauliflower in the butter with the caraway seeds until just barely tender. Combine the bread cubes and cauliflower with the grated cheese. Spread the mixture into a greased 3-quart casserole dish.

Mix the eggs, mustard, coriander, and black pepper with the beer, and pour the mixture into the casserole dish.

Bake at 350 for 45 minutes, until puffed and golden.