Gypsy Den Cafe's Adobe Stew

Every once in a while, my man and I crave hippie food. I have days where I wonder how I'm gonna get by without a good hummus and pita snack. Maybe with some cucumber slices and a bit of lemon juice squeezed on? Mmm! When we were living in California, we'd often indulge our hippie cravings at a little place called the Gypsy Den Cafe. They had a great vegetarian soup there called Adobe Stew, and I'd get a cup of that with a half turkey sandwich (on some sort of nutty bread with cucumber and alfalfa sprouts, natch) and be set.

Now that we're in a place that's a little bit more scarce on hippie food (unless you want to drive downtown every time you want some sprouts), we've taken to having a home-cooked vegetarian night every Wednesday to stave off the hippie food desire. While I often go for a stir-fry or a tofu dish, I decided this week that I wanted to try my hand at that delicious stew the Gypsy Den Cafe served me. Thanks to them for the inspiration - I'd still be going to your restaurant if it wasn't however many hundreds of miles away from me now.

Adobe Stew

Serves: A whole mess of people - 8-10 servings, probably.
Active Cook time: ~30 minutes*
Inactive Cook time: ~1 hour +
Difficulty: Super Easy
*This can vary - your active cook time can be as little as 10-15 minutes if you prepare some of the vegetables in advance.

Hardware
-Large Stock Pot (or similarly big pot. Basically the biggest one you have.)
-Large Stirring Spoon
-Chef's Knife and Cutting Board

Foodstuffs
-1 large onion
-4 stalks celery
-4 carrots
-4 oz sliced mushrooms (1/2 of a package of sliced mushrooms)
-1/2 to 3/4lb red potatoes, diced into 1/2 inch cubes
-1 yellow zucchini squash
-1 green zucchini squash
-1/4 lb green beans
-2 (15 oz) cans diced tomatoes
-1 (15 oz) can garbanzo beans (aka chick peas)
-1 (15 oz) can kidney beans
-1 (15 oz) can black beans
-1 (15 oz) can yellow corn
-2 quarts vegetable stock
-1 mini bottle red wine -or- 3/4 cup red wine. (I use a mini bottle of Merlot)
-1 tablespoon minced garlic
-1 tablespoon Italian seasoning
-1/2 teaspoon dried basil
-2 bay leaves
-2 tablespoons olive oil
-1/2 teaspoon salt
-1 teaspoon pepper
-additional salt/pepper to taste

Ack, I know that's an intimidating list of ingredients. Don't worry, it's really very easy to throw together.

All of the following steps can be done ahead of time: Chop your onion into small pieces. Chop up the celery stalk as well. Slice the carrot into small rounds - if your carrots get wide enough at the top that you think one piece is too big for your mouth, cut the pieces there in half. If your mushrooms are too large, cut those into smaller pieces as well. Dice the potatoes into 1/2 inch cubes. With the zucchinis, slice them into 1/4 inch slices, then quarter each slice. This ensures no piece is too big for your mouth. Cut off the ends of the green beans and cut into pieces no bigger than 1 inch.

If you decide to chop up your vegetables ahead of time, you can package the onions, celery and carrots together. Make sure to leave the mushrooms by themselves. You can also package the potatoes, zucchinis and green beans together. Refrigerate them in tightly sealed containers until ready to cook. I do not recommend cutting up your vegetables any longer than 24 hours before you're going to make the stew in order to keep your veggies fresh.

Heat up the olive oil in your pot over medium heat. Add onions, celery, carrots and garlic along with 1/2 teaspoon salt. Stir occasionally to sweat out the delicious juices stored within these veggies. After about 3 minutes, add the mushrooms. Allow to cook 2-3 minutes, then add the wine. Let the alcohol cook out of the wine, approximately 5 minutes.

Open, drain and rinse the corn and the garbanzo, kidney and black beans. Add the vegetable stock and diced tomatoes (with tomato juice in the can) along with the Italian seasoning, basil, bay leaves and pepper to the pot. Stir. Add the beans, corn, potatoes, zucchinis, and green beans. Stir to combine.

Bring to a low boil, then cover and let simmer, reducing heat to low. Let stew for at least 30 minutes. I recommend at that point that you turn the heat off or super low but leave the pot on the burner in order to keep the stew warm but prevent overcooked icky veggies. You can leave it on the stew for a few hours, allowing the flavors to commingle and become super delicious. The Gypsy Den Cafe served the stew with a healthy helping of cheddar cheese grated into it, but I prefer it without. This stew is great as a meal on its own, or can be a side dish for another meal.
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Sandwich Risk/Reward Analysis: Part One of a Many-Part Series?

Sandwiches are the perfect lunch food. Quick, simple, and easy to eat when busy, there's really no matching the convenience and tastiness of a sandwich. However, not all is well in the land of bread and honey. While you can often be sure of the quality of ingredients you put into your own sandwich, it's a little harder to predict what sort of quality you'll run into when ordering from a restaurant, or when having a sandwich provided by a friend.

The discussion arose when my man and I were talking about vegetables we did and did not like in certain circumstances. I brought up the tomato, which I like in most dishes but will pass on in salads and sandwiches; the reason being that when you get a good tomato in one of those situations, there's not much it adds to the flavor picture. A good tomato can't save a bad sandwich. However, a bad tomato can ruin a sandwich that's excellent in all other aspects, bringing a soggy and unpleasant texture to the mouth and a tart, acidic flavor to the tongue. And so the idea for a risk/reward analysis for sandwich innards was born, from this talk of vegetables. We would determine the "risk" factor of each potential sandwich ingredient and build the perfect sandwich from the results of the data gathered.

Totally nerdy, I know, but I figured if anyone's going to appreciate it, it'd be this crowd. We'll start with veggies, since that's where the conversation started.

We'll only discuss commonly used veggies here, since more exotic ingredients are a little harder to get a consensus agreement on. Risk and Reward are judged on a 0 to 5 scale, 0 meaning no risk/reward and 5 being the most risk/reward possible. An explanation of how we achieved these numbers will follow each rating. As the analysis project is a work-in-progress, these numbers are open to debate in the comments section, and results may be edited upon the revelation of further data. Your input is welcomed and encouraged.

Risk is defined here as how probable it is that the ingredient may be bad. For instance, a preserved food such as pickles has a lower risk value of a fresh food like a tomato. While a pickle will almost always have the same sort of flavor, there is a wide range of quality in tomatoes.

When we talk about Reward below, we are referring to how much benefit an ingredient can really bring a sandwich when said ingredient is at its best. How much better is the sandwich for the inclusion of the ingredient? The higher the number, the more significant the contribution to the flavor and texture of the sandwich.

Please also keep in mind that the risk/reward is analyzed from a perspective of actually enjoying the ingredient - if you don't like something, it's always going to have 0 reward for you and is therefore not going to be included on your ideal sandwich.

Alfalfa Sprouts
Risk: 1
Reward: 2
They're probably the least common item on this list, but they occur often enough to gain a spot among the others. Generally, if a place has Alfalfa Sprouts available, they're going to be pretty good. It's hard to find bad Alfalfa Sprouts in a restaurant environ. However, with that in mind, there's not much they bring to the flavor of a sandwich. Texture wise they add a small crunch and an interesting texture. So while the risk is low, so's the reward.

Avocado
Risk: 5
Reward: 4
Avocado's a very fragile fruit, and often once it's shipped to wherever it's going it's bruised and not very tasty. Even in California, poor preparation of avocado can lead to it getting mushy and disgusting. It's hard to find good avocado, but when it's at its best, it bring a lot of flavor and a smooth texture to your sandwich. Is it worth the risk? Only if you really trust the provider of the sandwich to not give you some mushy Avo.

Bell Pepper
Risk: 0
Reward: 3
I asked around, and of the people that like bell peppers, not a one of them can ever remember having a bad bell pepper in their sandwich. Bell pepper is a sturdy vegetable that holds up pretty well to shipment and storage. It's nice and crisp and adds a mild flavor to the sandwich that can act as a good counter to your meat choice.

Cucumber
Risk: 2
Reward: 2
Cucumber is another strong vegetable, though it sometimes runs the risk of having a mushy core. It has a mild, cool flavor and while its crunch is texturally pleasing in a sandwich, it doesn't bring too much to a sandwich aside from that.

Eggplant
Risk: 3
Reward: 4
Eggplant can suffer pretty badly in preparation, and often serves as a meat replacement in vegetarian sandwiches. That being said, when it's properly prepared, it can be a mighty tasty addition to your sandwich.

Lettuce
Risk: 3
Reward: 2
At its worst, lettuce can be a soggy, limp venture. Sadly, there's a moderate possibility of this occurring. The rewards you get for lettuce aren't much, just a bit of crunch to your sandwich if it's not bad lettuce. That being said, it is your most common source of said vegetable crunch and is probably the most widely available vegetable for sandwiches, so it is likely you will have no other options if seeking that texture in your sandwich at many restaurants.

Mushroom
Risk: 3
Reward: 4
Mushrooms suffer from the same problems as eggplants in sandwiches. Problems in storage and transport play a greater part than preparation with mushrooms, but you can get some mighty fine mushrooms one they're in your sandwich. As with eggplants, the larger varieties of mushroom make a good meat substitute in vegetarian sandwiches.

Onions (cooked)
Risk: 1
Reward: 5
It's hard to go wrong with cooked onions. They bring a strong, delicious flavor to any sandwich they play a part of, and are a real shining star. Caramelized onions are to veggies what bacon is to meat.

Onions (raw)
Risk: 0
Reward: 2
The good news about raw onions is that it's nearly impossible to get bad raw onions. The bad news is that for all their crunch and strong flavor, they just don't shine as much as the cooked version. They can add a good flavor to a sandwich, but they can't help a bad sandwich the way cooked onions can.

Pickles
Risk: 1
Reward: 3
They're pickles - you pretty much always know what a pickle is going to taste like. Like uncooked onions, though, they can't quite salvage a bad sandwich. A truly superior pickle can add a pretty good taste and crunch, though, and so they rate higher on rewards.

Tomato
Risk: 4
Reward: 2
Tomatoes are very fragile, and are often damaged in transport and storage. In addition, they don't hold up very well once sliced. Because of this, there is a very high likelihood that the tomato you get in your sandwich is not going to be very good. In addition, a good tomato brings very little to a sandwich on its own. Not recommended in most sandwiches.
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Hobo Potatoes

I'm super sorry for not updating for a while. I've been working on going back to school, so I've sort of neglected some of my other hobbies. However, I'll make it up to you with a very tasty, versatile recipe!

Just before we moved out of California, my man took me to a little restaurant called the Harbor House Cafe. It's a little 24-hour diner type establishment serving up all kinds of delicious foods. It's one of those places where the menu is intimidatingly huge. One thing, however, caught my eye. "Hobo Potatoes," I read aloud, "What in the hell are Hobo Potatoes?"

Hobo Potatoes are a sort of home fries, but instead of just potatoes they include onions, mushrooms and bell peppers. Along with a side of sausage, they were perfect. I cut up the sausages and mixed it in with the potatoes. The awesome thing about Hobo Potatoes is that they can be a breakfast by themselves, or make a tasty side dish to another dish. They're super simple to make, and damned tasty to boot. You can also eat them for dinner, if you're the sort who loves breakfasty foods for dinner. Follow the jump for the recipe...

Hobo Potatoes
Serves: 2 people if served as a main dish, 4-6 if used as a side.
Cook time: ~20-30 minutes
Difficulty: Easy

Hardware
-Large Frying Pan
-Knife/Cutting Board
-Tinfoil
-Turner/Spatula
-Fork
-Peeler (maybe)

Foodstuffs
-1 to 1 1/2 pounds potatoes. Any type'll do, but red potatoes are my favorite for this.
-1/2 pound breakfast sausage
-1 medium onion
-1 bell pepper, any color. I think red looks nice in this dish.
-1/4 pound small mushrooms
-Olive oil (about 1-2 tablespoons)
-salt/pepper
-1/4 tsp paprika
-optional: Cheese, eggs, bacon. See variations section after recipe.

Wash and dice your potatoes into no bigger that 1/2 inch cubes. If you don't think your potatoes have tasty skins, peel them before dicing. Meanwhile, it's time to cook up your sausage. Breakfast sausage can either be purchased as links or in a tube as just the breakfast meat, I believe the idea there is to cook them up as sausage patties. If your sausage is the link variety, you must liberate it from its casing before proceeding - you just want the meat here. Crumble up the meat into little chunks, and cook it up in the pan. Brown the outside of the pieces, then remove from the pan, leaving the fat in the pan.

As you're cooking up the sausage, wash and cut up your other veggies. Remove the outer layers of onion and dice that up roughly. To cut up the bell pepper, remove the top and pull out the center. Split it in half, and remove the seeds. Then split each half into quarters down the width. Cut each quarter into little strips or dice, whichever you prefer. Wash and slice up your mushrooms, quartering the larger pieces.

After you take out the sausage, you may not have that much fat left in your pan - this is OK. Add olive oil until you've got a thin coating of fat/oil on the bottom of your pan. Add the potatoes, onions and bell peppers, sprinkle with the paprika and salt/pepper to taste then cover with tinfoil. Allow to cook for 10 minutes or so, checking their done-ness with a fork. Once the fork is able to spear the potatoes easily, remove the foil and add the sausage back to the pan. Allow to fry up and let the potatoes get a bit of a crispy outside, about 5 minutes or so. Serve and consume!

Variations:
-To make this dish vegetarian/vegan friendly, forgo the sausage and just fry up the veggies in olive oil.
-To make this dish extra tasty, cook up some bacon in the pan before you start making this dish, then evacuate the bacon to a plate with some paper towels. You will not need to add olive oil after removing the sausage from the pan if you do this.
-You can also add cheese or scrambled eggs into the mix, as I've known some people to do, but I like to keep the dish a little simpler.

Continued...

Easy Side Dishes: The Joy of Veggies

Vegetables get a bad rap, and really, that's not fair. Vegetables can be absolutely delicious and a lovely compliment to any meal. Sadly, they can also be some of the most foul, poorly-cooked monstrosities ever served. The number one reason why people don't like a vegetable is that every time they've had it before, it was cooked poorly. Today, I want to enlighten you on the joys of cooking with vegetables in two very easy side dishes. Bring an open mind and an empty stomach.

Let's start off with one of my favorite vegetables of all time: Broccoli. Now, broccoli's got a bad rap - why? Well, a lot of people have only ever eaten it after it's been steamed or boiled to a disgusting, gray-green, stringy mess and that's just no good. A well-cooked broccoli should appear to be a slightly brighter green than it was uncooked, and it should still have a little bit of a crunch to it when you bite into it.

As with many other pieces of produce, the key to a good broccoli dish is in proper selection at the grocery store. When selecting broccoli to take home, make sure it has a nice, firm stalk. You also want to look at the little "buds" on the top of the broccoli - they should all be about the same size. If you notice a large cluster of buds that are larger and darker than the rest, you have in your hands an older bunch of broccoli with more matured buds that won't be as tasty as the rest of the plant.

While steaming is often the cooking method of choice for broccoli - and I certainly suggest it for anyone who has one of those tin satellite dishes with holes in them - most newbie cooks have very few tools at there disposal. This means for a lot of folks out there, blanching - my favorite method of cooking broccoli - will be the best method of cooking veggies available to them. To blanch a food means to plunge it in boiling water for a short period of time, then to evacuate your veggies to a bath or rinse of cold water to halt the cooking process.

The danger in cooking broccoli is certainly overcooking it. Many people don't know that just because a dish has been removed from the oven, microwave or heating element doesn't mean it's stopped cooking. The heat stored within the food will continue the cooking process unless stopped - hence the wisdom of blanching. Well, now that I've bored you with the details, let's get down to the actual recipes.

Blanched Broccoli

Serves: 2-3
Cook Time: ~15 minutes, including prep
Difficulty: Easy

Hardware
-Pot with lid
-Colander (strainer)
-Fork
-Stovetop
-Sink
-Large bowl or other container filled with ice water (optional)

Foodstuffs
-2 to 3 good sized stalks of broccoli
-Butter (optional)
-Salt and pepper (optional)
-Lemon wedge (optional)
-Mayonnaise (optional)
-Ranch Dressing (optional)

Fill your pot about 2/3rds full of water, put on high heat with lid to boil. While your water is heating up, rinse your broccoli and chop it down into bite-sized pieces. If you are not a big fan of broccoli stalk, trim it off - the stem is not necessary and can be discarded, though I think it's tasty. When your water is boiling, add the broccoli pieces. Do not put the lid back on the pot. Stir the broccoli constantly, allow to cook for 2-3 minutes, or until the broccoli becomes a brighter shade of green and can be pierced by a fork with some ease. Drain in colander in your sink and rinse or dunk in a bath of ice water.

Broccoli can be served with any number of tasty condiments, some popular favorites I listed in the ingredients above. Personally, I like mine with just a touch of salt and pepper, and maybe a small amount of butter.

Another controversial vegetable is the green bean. It shares many of its troubles with broccoli, but thankfully those troubles can be resolved much like broccoli. When shopping for green beans, make sure the beans are still fresh. They should be somewhat stiff, and not at all droopy or soft. Haricots verts, or French green beans, can sometimes be found in your local grocery store or farmer's market. They're a slightly thinner version of the American green bean and are very tasty. For the most part, you can reliably find green beans or "string beans" in any American grocery store.

While you could just blanch the green beans and be done with them, I like to make mine a little fancier.

Green Beans with Olive Oil and Lemon

Serves: 2-3
Cook Time: ~15 minutes
Difficulty: Easy

Hardware
-Pot with lid
-Colander (strainer)
-Frying pan
-Fork
-Stovetop
-Sink
-Large bowl or other container filled with ice water (optional)

Foodstuffs
-2 to 3 cups worth of fresh green beans
-Juice from 1 lemon
-1/4 cup olive oil

Fill your pot about 2/3rds full of water, put on high heat with lid to boil. While your water is heating up, rinse your beans and cut off the ends of each bean. When your water is boiling, add the beans. Do not put the lid back on the pot. Stir the beans constantly, allow to cook for 2-3 minutes, or until the beans become a brighter shade of green and can be pierced by a fork with some ease. Drain in colander in your sink and rinse or dunk in a bath of ice water.

Remove beans from water, and let drain. Heat up olive oil and juice from lemon in pan. Add beans to pan, cook together for a minute or two, then serve.

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Easy Side Dish: Mashed Potatoes

One of the best ways to make any meal feel more special is to add a side dish, and what side dish conjures up more happy memories than Mashed Potatoes? Even if you're just having a plain baked chicken breast for dinner, a side of nice, fluffy potatoes makes it feel like a real meal. I think it's a shame we don't see them made more often - these delicious spuds are often left for holiday occasions only. They're so simple, quick, and delicious that there's no reason we shouldn't see more of them. Besides, they play a key factor in the recipe I'm posting next Monday, so I figured I'd post the recipe today. If you don't have the time to make them before your raid, mashed potatoes can be made ahead of time and eaten whenever you feel like it, and the recipe can easily be doubled or tripled for special occasions.


Now, before we get to the recipe itself, let's talk variables. Some people like some skin in their mashed potatoes, others find that gross. Some like their potatoes to had a uniform texture, while others like a lumpier potato. A lot of this variation comes from mashing technique. Let's do a quick review of available methods so that you know what hardware you'll need for your potatoes.

Hand Masher
Using a hand held mashing device like the one pictured here allows you direct control over the texture of your potatoes. You can make your potatoes as lumpy or smooth as you like, but it won't get your potatoes as perfectly smooth as some other methods. It takes a little bit more work and time than the other methods, but if you like your potatoes with more "lumps" in them like I do, then this is the way to do it. Hand Mashers are a common kitchen utensil - you may already have one but even if you don't, they can easily be found at your local grocery store on the aisle with "Kitchen Gadgets".


Potato Ricer
This medieval-looking device is called a potato ricer, and I had no clue what they were until I dated a guy who liked his potatoes really, really smooth. What you do is place a peeled, cooked potato in the basket and then use the press on it to force the potato through the tiny holes in the basket. This ensures a uniformly smooth texture to the potato. On the downside, ricing is not very skin-friendly, so if you like skin in your mashed potatoes, this is not the route for you. Ricers are a bit less common, but can be found in any kitchen supply store.

Electric Mixers
Using either a hand held or a stand mixer is the way to go if you like your potatoes whipped, fluffy and airy. They're an easy way to mash your potatoes and are probably the easiest and lest time consuming method of the three. Somehow, my mom can use a hand mixer and not get little bits of potato skin all caught in the little mixing things, but I have no idea how she does it, nor has she been able to tell me her secret voodoo regarding skin. So, if you like skin, you might want to be careful when using a mixer. Mixers are a common kitchen appliance, but if you don't already have one they can be found in most department stores such as Target, Wal*Mart or K-Mart.

But what about Potatoes?
When it comes down to it, there are really only two common choices for mashing potatoes - Yukon Gold and Russet. Both are high in starch to ensure a nice smooth mash. Some people swear by low starch, waxy potatoes like red potatoes because they hold up better when boiled, but they just don't mash up as well. Proper preparation of your spuds will ensure they come out just fine and not too watery.

Yukon Gold potatoes are yellow-skinned, very buttery in flavor, and mash up very smoothly. They have a very tasty skin, and so are the common choice for anyone who keeps skin in their mashed potatoes (like me). They tend to be a wee bit more expensive than Russets, but they're very worth it. Russet potatoes are cheap and tasty, but their skin is not good eats, and should be peeled before mashing. I also find their flavor to be a little more bland, but this is fine if you like to add a lot of extras to your potatoes. By the way, there's nothing wrong with combining types of potatoes when you're mashing them, so if you have some of one and some of the other - or even if you throw in waxy potatoes, that's just fine. By the time you're done mashing them, the different flavor and texture properties of the potatoes will combine very nicely.

Hey, enough of this kitchen talk, I thought you said this was an easy recipe!
Oh, it totally is. Let's get right down to the basic recipe itself!

Serves: 4-6 people
Prep Time: 45 minutes tops, for about 15-20 minutes of that you don't even really need to be in the kitchen.
Difficulty: Easy

Hardware
-Large Pot with Lid
-Fork
-Colander (strainer)
-Mashing device of your choice (see above)
-Peeler (optional)

Foodstuffs
-2 pounds potatoes of your choice
-1 stick softened butter
-1 cup half&half
-Salt and Pepper

Wash and, if you'd like, peel your potatoes. Cut your potatoes into cubes no more than 2-3 inches large, and try to make them all about the same size. Place potatoes in pot, then add water until it's about an inch over the potatoes. Put pot on stove on high heat, add lid. Let potatoes boil until they can easily be pierced by a fork, which takes about 15-20 minutes. Drain your potatoes in a colander in the sink. Run cold water down the sink so that you don't damage your pipes, but DO NOT rinse the potatoes! Evacuate your spuds to a bowl. If ricing, rice your potatoes as you add them to the bowl. Once potatoes are safely in the bowl, riced or otherwise, add the butter. Mash using masher or electric mixer, or if you riced the potatoes, use a fork or hand masher to combine the dairy with your potatoes. Gradually add the half& half while mixing/mashing until you achieve the consistency you like - you may not end up using the whole cup of half&half. Add salt & pepper to taste.

Ta-da! Potatoes! Wasn't that easy?

A word on Extras

Butter, salt and pepper isn't enough for some people. Hell, it isn't enough for me! So what more do you add to your potatoes to give them a kick? My mom likes to use heavy cream instead of half&half, but that's a little too heavy for my tastes. I like to add a little bit of sour cream and a clove or two of minced garlic - not enough to really qualify as garlic mashed potatoes, but garlicky enough that they have that garlic flavor. Some people swear by adding a few teaspoons of Black Olive Paste to their potatoes. I didn't even know they made Olive Paste. Others use olive oil or duck fat instead of butter, but I find that to be sacrilegious - Mashed Potatoes and Butter are inseparable! A common addition is to cook up some onions or shallots with a little bit of butter until they're nice and soft, then add those to your potatoes. A little unorthodox, but very tasty.

If you have any other suggestions for additions to potatoes, feel free to comment below!

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