The hurdle was how to cook the eggplant.  Eggplant goes from hard to creamy fairly quickly.  I decided to roast it and this turned out to be perfect.  Slice in to 1/2″ thick pieces (keep the skin on, it adds flavor and color) and put on low baking pans or cookie sheets with a bit of olive oil.  Do not overlap.  Turn the pieces once so there is some oil on both sides.  Don’t use much, just enough to give it a little browning and so it won’t stick.

Roasted eggplant slices

When the eggplant is fork tender but not falling apart, take it out of the oven.  When cool enough to handle, slice and dice into small bite-sized pieces.

Diced eggplant

Dice and add the rest of your vegetable ingredients.  I use cucumber and tomato.

Cutting cucumbers

Now make the sauce.  I couldn’t hope to duplicate the Turkish version so I made a simple chimichurri-style sauce.  Cilantro, fresh lemon or lime juice, extra virgin olive oil, sea salt, a bit of hot pepper, and cumin seeds (plus fresh garlic if you wish).  You can substitute cumin powder but the seeds give it a nicer flavor.  Use powder if the salad will be eaten within an hour of making, because the seeds won’t have time to soften.

Mix the sauce in the blender, pour over the vegetables, and mix.  That’s it, you’re done.  Serve chilled, at room temperature, or slightly warm from the eggplant.  It’s good all ways.

Eggplant Salad

©2012 Norwitz Notions. All Rights Reserved.

I got my chance May 8, 2009.  I announced the meal as vegan and gluten-free (the other meals there are vegetarian or vegetarian plus some fish), planned a menu, and set to work.  I quickly realized that, while my cooking skills are pretty good, my catering skills are quite lacking.  It didn’t help that we were never sure exactly how many people would show up (RSVPs are due two days before, but they’re flexible).

I planned for 20, got 18 (equivalent of 15 since several were small children), and cooked enough for 30.  Whoops.

A few folks lingering over dinner

After many years of cooking Passover Seders for upwards of 20 people, I have learned the trick of saving complex or new recipes for smaller venues.  Everything I made was simple to moderate and something I’d cooked many times before.

The Menu:

Chili-Cornbread Casserole
Roasted vegetables (red beets, golden beets, rutabaga, & leek with rosemary)
Green salad (romaine, cherry tomato, daikon radish, carrot, orange cauliflower, & mustard balsamic dressing)
Fresh strawberries with cashew cream
Challah (from masa) with sesame seed & oatmeal

Chili Cornbread Casserole

The good news is the food all came out fabulous.  No mishaps at all.  I can’t tell you how relieved I was about that.  The bad news is we had some disasters with the timing.  One of the disadvantages to cooking a large meal outside of your home is that you tend to forget things.  Well, Michael and I left a box of miscellaneous items behind.  Unfortunately, they were essential items for both of the dishes I had to finish up and bake in the synagogue kitchen.

Michael running home to get it set us back about 45 minutes, and we were already running 15 minutes late.  So everything was pushed back an hour (which means at least my time estimates were dead on).  The challah also took longer than expected, even though I had deliberately made them thinner than usual so they’d cook faster.

Salad and strawberries

All in all, I’d call it a success.  The next time I get the chance to cook for a crowd, I’ll have a clearer idea of amounts.  And hopefully the timing will work out better.

Roasted root vegetables

For anyone interested in the amounts of ingredients I used and what it all cost, check out my blog entry Catering Lessons: The Cost of Cooking for 30.

©2012 Norwitz Notions. All Rights Reserved.

Another little known fact is that criminis are nothing more than portabellas picked early.  They don’t have the same rich flavor a portabella has but they still taste like something (unlike the bland white ones).  Portabellas run about $2 more per pound than criminis.  Except the other day when they were on sale for the same price.  So I snagged a bagful.

I often use criminis to make pesto stuffed mushrooms but I wanted to use these portabellas for a main dish.

So, I washed them, carefully pulled off the stems (rock them back and forth), cut the ends off the stems (only necessary if they aren’t trimmed before arriving at the store…the difference is easy to tell: untrimmed ones have dirt on them) and threw the stems into the food processor.

I put the mushrooms cap down on a dry baking tray and popped them in the oven at a medium temperature (300*F or so).  Then I turned back to the food processor.  I put in some leftover pan-fried tofu (I would have used fresh tofu but we had a big container of the cooked), a couple stalks of celery, and a large portion of sun-dried tomatoes in oil.  I had to add a fair bit of water to get the consistency right.  Then I salted to taste (do this after adding water).

At this point, 10-15 minutes had gone by so I took the mushrooms out of the oven and picked them up one at a time to fill (this is why I said a dry tray).  After you fill them, put some oil on the tray and place them back, cap up, for baking.

Stuffed portabella mushrooms ready for baking

Pop them in the oven (about 300*F) and cook until the top is slightly brown and the mushrooms are soft.  The time will vary by the size of the mushrooms and the filling but these took around half an hour.

Now, if you’re thinking…but I don’t like sun-dried tomatoes, but I’m allergic to soy.  Don’t worry.  This is a very flexible recipe.  If you can call it a recipe.  Use whatever you like.  Meat, cheese, nuts/seeds, or something that doesn’t have protein if it’s a side dish.  Olives would be nice, or fresh herbs, or vegetables. The filling should have good strong flavor to complement the mellowness of the mushrooms.

Just make sure it’s thick enough to hold its shape with baking and serving but thin enough to spread.  And the filling should be fully cooked.  It only goes in the oven long enough to heat through and to set (or for cheese to melt).

While these were in the oven, I made a quick salad with chopped romaine lettuce, cucumber, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, salt, and pepper.

They were delicious.  Great cold the next day too.

Portabellas with salad

©2012 Norwitz Notions. All Rights Reserved.

This recipe disappears fast and gets raves (even from the meat-eaters).

I originally made it with red bell pepper and I love it that way, but I can’t justify buying bell peppers when they’re not in season. They’re very expensive, imported from far away, usually not organic, and rarely any good. So I use red cabbage as a substitute. It works well and provides a nice color contrast.

Recipe:

2 bags frozen shelled edamame (32 oz)
3 red bell peppers or 1/2 large red cabbage
2 Tablespoons balsamic vinegar (estimate)
3 Tablespoons very good extra virgin olive oil (estimate)
Handful of fresh herbs, minced
Salt and pepper

To spread out the workload, you can make the vegetables the day before and leave them in a cold oven until you’re ready for them.

Peppers: Roast washed peppers whole in a 350*F oven for about an hour, turning several times. When peppers are cool enough to handle, remove seeds and stem and cut into strips, about 1″ long.

Cabbage: Cut cabbage in half, remove core, and slice in to long thin strips, then cut the strips in half so they are 1-3″ long. Roast dry (or with a touch of olive oil) in a 350*F oven until very dehydrated but not brown.  Stir often.

Slicing raw cabbage

Boil the edamame according to directions, drain.

While still hot, toss the soybeans in a bowl with olive oil, then vinegar, salt and pepper.  Add the vegetables at any point.

Cool edamame on counter then add finely chopped herbs, I used parsley, sage, lemon thyme, and oregano.

Put in fridge, serve chilled.

Nutritional Information:

The edamame alone is:
120 grams protein
96 grams total carbs
60 grams fiber
36 grams usable carbs

The rest of the ingredients will add basically no protein and a small number of carbs (maybe 10g at most). This recipe makes enough to serve a dozen people at a potluck. If we take that to mean there are 12 servings total, each serving has 10 grams of protein and 3-4 grams of usable carbs.

Edamame salad with roasted cabbage

An earlier version of this recipe with red peppers was posted to my lowcarb website December 1, 2003. A version of the recipe with red cabbage was posted January 24, 2004.

Note: Recipe rewritten with new pictures 12/08.

©2012 Norwitz Notions. All Rights Reserved.

Start with the right pumpkins.  Your fabulous jack-o-lantern is not a good candidate, not even a fresh, uncarved one.  Jack-o-lantern pumpkins are bred for looks.  The inside is watery and does not taste very good, though it’s technically edible.  Your compost pile or worm bin will love it though.

Our pumpkins came from the pumpkin farm across the street from us, the Peterson Farm.  They grow several varieties, including the jack-o-lantern type.  We got my favorite, the Cinderella Pumpkin (which Michael is cutting up below).  It gets its name from the deep color and carriage shape.  Plus a couple others, including the pumpkin pie pumpkin, which looks like a smaller version of a jack-o-lantern.

Instead of carving, we displayed them outside in our Sukkah and for Halloween.  They lasted just fine for a few weeks outside in the cold (not freezing) and rain.

Michael cuts a cinderella pumpkin in half

Wash the pumpkin and cut it into manageable chunks, then remove the seeds with a fork.  Roast the seeds later.  You can leave the gooey insides part (remove for jack-o-lanterns but don’t bother with other pumpkins). Cut the pumpkin sections further to good baking chunks (not too small or they’ll be a pain to peel).

Cutting the pumpkin into pieces (picture by Miriam Norwitz)

We had three pumpkins and made three big trays of pumpkin chunks.

Chunks of pumpkin ready for baking

Roast them until they are soft all the way through, but not burnt.  Pretty much any temperature will do.  Go ahead and put them in while cooking something else.  At 350*F, expect it to take about an hour.  But don’t go by timing: poke your pumpkin with a fork often.

Pumpkin fresh from the oven

The only hard parts are cutting up the really big pumpkins and taking the skin off (okay, removing the skin isn’t hard, but it’s tedious).  Do this after the pumpkins are cooked and when they are cool enough to handle (I left these out overnight).  Pull off any burnt parts and peel or slice away the skin.  Don’t worry about bits of skin that are left with the flesh.  A small amount is fine.

Important note: The juicier pumpkins will have liquid in the tray and drip more as you peel them.  Lightly wring out the flesh before using.  But don’t toss that liquid.  I save it (in the fridge or freezer) and use it as an easy soup stock.

Peeling cooked pumpkins

Take the pumpkin flesh and put it in the food processor.  In batches if you need to.  Process until smooth.  I put the various batches into one big bowl since there were different pumpkin varieties and I wanted to mix them.  This is the result.

Pumpkin Puree

Anything you don’t use right away, freeze.  It freezes very well with little to no loss in taste or texture.  I like to measure it into 2 cup containers (zipper bags work but I prefer Pyrex storage containers (that’s glass with a tight plastic lid) if I have enough of them).  That way I only have to defrost exactly what I need for a recipe.

Now what do you do with it?  Pumpkin pie is the obvious first choice.  I’ve also used it to thicken vegetable stews. When I could eat dairy and eggs, the puree was fabulous in pumpkin cheesecake.  Although most of us think dessert when we think pumpkin, the truth is its a wonderful savory food too, and it’s lowcarb, the lowest of all the winter squashes.

As for more things to do with pumpkin puree, I’m stuck.  If you have a good recipe, please link to it in the comments.  I still have 10 cups worth to use up.

©2012 Norwitz Notions. All Rights Reserved.

My friend used slicing cucs (the kind you put in salad), cut into chunks.  They were delicious but a bit mushy with a thick skin.  I knew I’d want to use pickling cucs, which are thin-skinned, solid, and just the right size for pickles.  I found some at an organic farm stand I passed on my way to an appointment in Santa Rosa.  The farmer insisted I take some heads of dill as well.

I used the making sour pickles recipe from fellow tribe member Sandor Katz, author of Wild Fermentation.  With other veggie ferments, you add salt, massage it in, and let the vegetable juices come out and cover the veggies (adding some salt water if necessary).  But, with whole pickles, you need to make a brine.  With cucumber pickles especially, the salt to water ratio matters.  I used 3 tablespoons salt in 2 quarts/liters of water.

I also added a large head of dill flower, a small handful of peppercorns, and some grape leaves.  Katz (and other sources) say the grape leaves help make the pickles crunchier.  I figured it couldn’t hurt, and I do have a nice grape vine in the back of my property.  Next time though I’ll make extra grape leaves and then use them for stuffed grape leaves since all the commercial ones have preservatives.  If you want garlic, toss in a few peeled cloves.

Seasoning for pickles

Put your dry seasonings in the bottom of the container (use glass or ceramic; plastic works but I can’t recommend it).  You don’t have to sterilize it first but do make sure it’s clean.  Wash the cucumbers, cut out any bad spots, and remove any remaining blossom ends with your fingernail or a knife.  You can keep the stems.  Pack tightly into the container.

Packing pickles

Now, pour in the salt solution, making sure all the cucumbers are covered.  Put a plate or jar or other weight into the container to keep the pickles submerged.  I used a plate with a water-filled jar on top.  Cover the container with a loose fitting lid or towel to keep it clean.

Put the container on your kitchen counter or some other place that’s not too hot or too cold.  Don’t put into your fridge; it won’t ferment.

A plate as a jar weight

Check the pickles every day.  There will be a lot more mold growth than with sauerkraut and other vegetables.  Carefully wipe it away, cleaning the plate/weight as well.  You can dip a cup or ladle into the brine to pull off mold from the top.  The mold is white and isn’t overtly harmful but it will make your pickles mushy and bad tasting.  Don’t worry about traces but try to get most of it.

After 5 days, my pickles were crunchy with a slight tang but were more cucumber than pickle.  At two weeks they were just right.  You should taste now and then to see how you like them.  Some people go a month or more.  It’s not only a matter of taste (do you want sour, half sour, dill, etc?) but the salt concentration and temperature will make a big difference in the fermentation rate.  When they’re done, clean things up one last time and stick the container in the fridge.

Pickles ready for eating

This batch came out pickle perfect.  But my second batch, not so much.  That time I bought organic pickling cucs from the farmer’s market and they had air spaces in the middle.  You just can’t predict this.  The pickles took less time to cure and still tasted fine (though not as flavorful since I didn’t have any dill) and the texture wasn’t bad, but I didn’t get that solid pickle crunch when I bit into them.  I also had a lot more trouble with mold the second time, even after refrigerating.  They’re still edible but I’m not sure what went wrong.  Guess I’ll have to practice some more…next cucumber season.

©2012 Norwitz Notions. All Rights Reserved.

Yes, you do want paste tomatoes for this.  Roma is the most available variety but there are others, including many heirlooms.  Paste tomatoes are drier than slicing or cherry tomatoes so there is less liquid to cook down.  They also stand up better to long cooking times.  If you eat a paste tomato raw, it won’t have much flavor.  But trust me, once you’ve simmered or roasted it will be intense.

The bottom of a big box of roma tomatoes

I washed the tomatoes by immersing in a bowl of water and lifting them out, minus their stems.  Then I cut out any bad parts and then sliced into quarters (or so).  I think I am not going to bother to cut them up next time.  They really fall apart easily in the pot and you puree them later anyway.  But I will inspect each and every one for scars or bad spots (cut out the stem ends if they are large or woody).  And of course to make sure no stems or leaves are there.

Quartering tomatoes

Simmer on low heat in big pot for several hours, let it sit overnight with the heat off, then cook some more.  Note how the picture shows some bubbles on the edges but no bubbles from boiling.  That’s what you want.  Boiling is much too hot.  Check and stir often.

When a few hours from the end, add a bit of salt and 2 bay leaves.

Simmering tomatoes

If you’re not careful about the heat or stirring frequently, you will end up with some burnt parts on the bottom.  In fact, a lot of sauce recipes just assume you will have some “crust” at the bottom and tell you not to stir too deep.  But you can prevent all or most of it if you’re watchful.  Don’t worry about some browned stuff at the bottom though.

And, by all means, do not–I repeat, do not–let your spouse put a lid on the simmering pot in order to do something else on the stove and accidentally knock the dial of the electric stove from “single burner low” to “double burner high” and then ignore it because it’s not his sauce.  When I went to check on it 20 minutes later, it was bad.  Smokey smell and a burnt taste in the sauce.  I was not a happy chef.

Burnt sauce on the bottom of the pot

Here’s how I fixed it:

1. Carefully move the sauce to another pot (do not pour; scoop and avoid touching the bottom).
2. Put in some sugar to counter the burnt flavor (I used 2 tablespoons).
3. Add a raw peeled potato to the sauce and simmer it in there for a while.  It soaks up the bad flavor.

It did work.  The sauce has a definite smokey undertone but it’s still very good and usable.

When the sauce is done, it will be much reduced from where it started and the tomatoes will have completely fallen apart.  It should look like this.

Tomato sauce ready for pureeing

I then sauteed 2 medium onions, diced, in olive oil.  For some (okay, most) applications I brown the onions but you don’t want to do that here.  The flavors will be off.  Make them translucent but stop before you get more than a hint of browning.

Sauteed onions

You can add most anything you like to your sauce.  If you like garlic, put it in with the onions.  If you want vegetables, dice them and either saute with the onions or add to the simmering sauce a couple hours before it is done (since it’s at low heat, it cooks things very slowly).

I decided I wanted a plainer sauce, so I could change it up as I liked later.  So I only added the onions (with olive oil), salt, and some fresh rosemary, oregano, and basil (very near the end).

Now it’s time to puree the sauce.  You can do this before or after you add the onions or anything else, depending on what you want.  I pureed after adding everything.  Be absolutely sure you remove all the bay leaves first though (and the potato if you burned your sauce).

I used my trusty Braun stick blender, which is perfect for this application.  I wanted the sauce to have texture but be reasonably smooth.

Pureed sauce ready to eat

This batch gave me 22 cups for freezing and 25 oz for the fridge.  Pyrex makes some 2 cup round glass storage containers with tight fitting plastic lids which are great in the freezer.  You can defrost the sauce the day before in the fridge or just slide it out of the Pyrex into your pot or nuke the glass (remove the lid first).

This sauce is of course great on pasta.  We also like it on sauteed tofu.

©2012 Norwitz Notions. All Rights Reserved.

Challenge #1: Prepare a 30 second promo for what could be their new show. Unlike in previous versions of this, each promo was carefully scripted (including wardrobe) by the Food Network and the contestant had a fair amount of time to do it, with multiple takes, a director, and rehearsals. Each promo was broken up into 2 or more mini-scenes.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t done completely fairly. Aaron just had to walk down a hallway then he had to say something before throwing dice down a craps table. Adam had to stroll along a stage with a showgirl on each arm, with some closeups. But Lisa was harnessed to a rig where she went up a couple of stories, grabbed a bottle of wine from a shelf, and had to say her lines in multiple locations along the way. Needless to say, the quality of the promos was inverse to the difficulty.

Challenge #2: Prepare a buffet for 50 guests (the selection committee, hotel chefs, and Vegas performers). They had a reasonable 6 hours to cook and a $1000 budget. The buffet was supposed to be “over the top, Vegas style” and they had to do an “entertaining” intro before the service. Although they didn’t state any rules for the foods, each contestant appeared to have 3 main courses, one vegetable side dish, and a dessert.

How did things go? My favorite, Aaron, did the best with his promo but totally bombed at the buffet. His intro was embarrassingly bad and all three of his main courses were pasta (the reviews of the food were that it was okay but not great). Lisa did so-so with the promo (hard to do when dangling 15 feet in the air), fabulous with the buffet intro, and well with the food. Adam did decently with the promo, well with the buffet intro, and was the runaway favorite with the food.

It’s been obvious that the selection committee loves Aaron, likes Lisa but has reservations, and isn’t too fond of Adam. But because they traditionally gave immunity to the person who won a particular challenge, they couldn’t get rid of Adam. And they didn’t want to dump Aaron for having one bad week. So they wimped out and are bringing all 3 contestants to the final episode this Sunday. At least it’s in New York.

So, enough of that, what the heck would I make if I were feeding 50 people? The budget isn’t an issue, even with expensive items, because everyone ate all 3 buffets, so portions were small. $1000 is $20/person and you can do a lot with that (catering budgets include labor, not just ingredients, and they weren’t serving alcohol). I’d want to be true to my personal food restrictions, at least the basic ones.

Main Courses:

Sweet peppers stuffed with shrimp paste with a hoisin sauce (hot)
Grape leaves stuffed with fish (cold)
Vegan soup, maybe chickpea with Georgian Walnut paste (hot)

Vegetable/Side:

A beautiful raw salad (cold)

Dessert:

Mango sorbet topped with pine nut cream and toasted almonds (cold, but with hot almonds if possible)

The shrimp I envision is the kind you get in dim sum restaurants stuffed into tofu. You take raw shrimp and process it with some other ingredients. I’ve made it before but it was years ago. I’d add spice and something to bind it, egg or flax goo. Maybe peas or something like that for texture and a fresh flavor. Stuff into those gorgeous colored sweet peppers that are 1-2 bites each. Roast. Serve with a salty intense dipping sauce based on hoisin.

The grape leaves came to me as a great choice but, if I were really in a competition, I might swap them out since I don’t have much experience with grape leaves. I’d cook a mild white fish like halibut and mince (not process) it well with a lot of fresh flavors like parsley then either add chutney or use similar flavors.

I’ve made the soup before from one of my favorite cookbooks, Olive Trees & Honey: A Treasury of Vegetarian Recipes from Jewish Communities Around the World, and it’s simple but really good. The walnut paste has a unique flavor and is used regularly within the country of Georgia.

The raw salad would have no lettuce but lots of carefully cut items to make it special. Lots of long thin strips like noodles. Avocado, some more of the sweet peppers, pea pods, bean sprouts, specialty mushrooms. I’d have to see what looked good in the store and went together. A variety of colors. Served either with a chimichurri sauce (lime juice, parsley, mint, cilantro, very good olive oil, and garlic) or something else with an intense flavor that would pull all the other ingredients together.

Mango sorbet is very simple, which is the best way to do it. Take very ripe mangoes, remove the skin and pits, and puree them. A touch of salt, a squeeze of lime, some vanilla is all you need. It’s plenty sweet enough. Most people would add simple syrup but mango doesn’t need more sugar and all that water will just dilute the flavor.

I’d serve it with some vanilla bean pine nut cream (because you don’t have to soak pine nuts) and some toasted almond slices on top. If the kitchen didn’t have an ice cream maker, I could freeze half the puree in ice cube trays and then blend it up and then freeze again (watching it carefully so it doesn’t get too hard).

My meal could be done by 2 people (each contestant got a former contestant as a sous chef) in 6 hours with no problems. Granted, it did take me a few days to come up with the dishes, instead of near instanteneously like the contestants are forced to do. And I might not be able to get every ingredient I needed (in January, in the middle of the desert…oh, they’d all be in the store, just not at their peak). But hey, I’m a blogger in front of a computer, not a trained cook trying to smile for the camera. I get to imagine success.

©2012 Norwitz Notions. All Rights Reserved.

Wash the mushrooms and gently remove the stems and the fleshy part over the gills (chop the stems etc and put aside for a stir-fry another day).  Lightly oil a baking pan, place the mushrooms gill down on the pan to get some oil then flip to roast on their backs.  To make this a raw dish, fill the mushrooms as is (when dry) or perhaps dehydrate them until soft (I haven’t tried this).

Bake until soft but still strong enough to pick up with your fingers.  About 15 minutes at 350*F, but go by doneness, not time.

Turn them over to dump the accumulated liquid (I poured it into some root vegetables I was also roasting) and leave them upside down on the dry pan to cool.

Then put a heaping spoonful of pesto in each mushroom.  I used my basic vegan pesto recipe made with extra pine nuts and nice and thick.

Serve warm, room temperature, or cold.  I chilled mine then brought them on a picnic at the Marin County Fair.

©2012 Norwitz Notions. All Rights Reserved.

Challenge #1: Feature one special ingredient (the potato) in a single dish (45 minutes to make it…if I remember correctly).  Full use of the pantry for other ingredients.  Then hold the dish, face the camera, and speak about it for exactly one minute, telling a personal story about yourself in relationship to the dish.  The selection committee then tasted the dish in private.

Potatoes…oy.  They don’t make it easy to be a lowcarber on this show.  But at least it wasn’t wheat, dairy, or pig.  Although I haven’t cooked them in ages, I have several potato dishes I used to make.  Here are two that would have worked well.

Curry Mashed Potatoes

Dice potatoes small so they will cook quickly (unnecessary if not facing a deadline)
When done, drain and mash
Add raw egg, mix well to cook
Add curry powder and any other desired seasoning

The story would be how I lived in Nicaragua for 6 months 20 years ago and learned how to cook with very limited ingredients.  This recipe came from a Dutch woman volunteering at the same school where I volunteered.  (I’m trying to remember if this recipe has yoghurt or milk in it…I don’t think so, because those were hard to come by there.)

Potato and Egg Fry

Slice potatoes and onions, saute in oil until starting to brown
Add cubes of apple, stir
Turn off heat, add beaten egg, stir until done (I like undercooked eggs so perhaps I would have left the heat on longer to bring the eggs up to a more medium state of being cooked)
Add salt and pepper as desired

No specific story here, it’s just comfort food.  Maybe say something about how I made this dish a lot when I was in college and away from home cooking all my own meals.

If I wanted to do a vegan one I’d probably try to roast the potatoes (if I had time) with good olive oil, sea salt, and fresh rosemary.  Perhaps with some parsnips and carrots.

Challenge #2: Create a packaged food product that represents you.  Plan and shop for it quickly (half an hour to shop, not sure how much planning time but it was brief), cook/create the product and put into a couple dozen containers with printed labels (not much cooking time, an hour or two), and put aside overnight.  The next day, get 30 minutes to set up your table, including cooking all your demo items, and present your product to 50 food buyers (real people from places like Harry’s & David’s and William Sonoma) and one special guest, Martha Stewart.

I just don’t get these people.  Are they looking for great ideas or are they looking for grace under pressure?  I understand that they didn’t want people to take a week to source ingredients and do test runs, but do everything in a couple of hours?  One contestant, for example, needed cayenne pepper for his dish, but another contestant had taken it all.  It’s a common ingredient and he could have gotten it quickly from another store, but wasn’t allowed.

This is my dream challenge though.   I have all sorts of ideas for food products and I already have experience with organic certification, sourcing ingredients, knowing a lot about what is and isn’t available, pricing, and so forth.

If I had the money or the backing, I’d create a line of salad dressings, sauces, oils, and similar products that were all affordable and healthy based on my idea of healthy.  That means organic of course but mostly it means no junk food oils.  Have you ever tried to find a salad dressing with unrefined oil?  Even the organic ones at Whole Foods (including their brand) are based on refined soybean, canola, or safflower oils.  Yeck.  I get sick when I eat them.

If I were in this challenge, I’d make this dressing:

Olive tomato mustard dressing

Extra virgin olive oil
Raw apple cider vinegar
Sun-dried tomatoes
Olives (green and black)
Mustard
Hemp seed or sesame seed
Herbs, salt, etc

Blend together well in to a thick but pourable sauce.  It could even be made 100% raw if it were packaged for the refrigerated shelf.  Would still be healthy and good if steamed into a glass container.

I doubt I’d sell my concept well though.  Even for most people who are health conscious, unrefined oils aren’t on their radar.  They think of extra virgin olive oil as the expensive stuff you save for special occasions.  Rachael Ray has changed that to some degree, since she cooks with the stuff, but you still hear people like Alton Brown telling viewers not to waste the extra virgin on things like pesto (which is one food that really needs good oil).  When it comes to other oils, forget it.  Who cares about unrefined sunflower oil or untoasted sesame?  This is the era where refined, genetically engineered, pesticided canola oil is considered healthy.

Food buyers would take one look at my products and say, but there already are organic salad dressings (etc) out there, what makes yours different?  And I’d have a hard time answering without using the words “poison” “plastic” or “evil.”  That’s why I would make a complex one like the recipe above.  It tastes really good and it’s different.

©2012 Norwitz Notions. All Rights Reserved.

I’ve seen a couple seasons of this series before and it’s different each time. Sometimes the camera skills challenges (pacing a cooking segment, facing the audience (camera) as you do it, explaining things just so) start immediately (which means they expect some bumpiness because everyone’s new) and sometimes they come later (when they expect contestants to be more polished).

For one season, they kept emphasizing choosing recipes for the home cook, yet most of the challenges involved cooking for dozens or hundreds of people. Very odd. And pretty much always, they focus on fast fast fast. You’re lucky if you have a few hours to prep and cook (vs a few minutes) and the longest period I’ve ever seen for cooking is overnight (with no tending allowed). This rules out a huge percentage of dishes: bread, pickles, roasts, marinades, slow cookers, even beans. It’s an odd, but consistent, restriction.

Thanks to my trusty DVR, I’m a bit behind with the shows. I just watched the first one which aired June 1, 2008. Ten finalists were put through two challenges.

Challenge #1: Face the camera, with or without a prop, and state your culinary point of view in one sentence (or very quickly).

I know exactly what mine would be–I thought about it in past seasons too–though I’m still not sure how to articulate it succinctly. No props for me.

Vegetarian? food allergy? special diet? I’m Cyndi Norwitz and I’m going to show you how to turn a dietary restriction into an opportunity.

Challenge #2: The 10 contestants were randomly paired into 5 groups of 2. They had to present a 3 dish meal to 9 Food Network stars and producers (plus make a “beauty plate”). Each person in the pair had to make one dish that represented their culinary point of view, then collaborate on the third. The hard part was they had 10 minutes to plan their menu, a few minutes to shop, then only 30 minutes in the kitchen to prep, cook, and plate everything (with no help).

The time element made this one really hard. Just having a few more minutes to plan and another half hour to cook would have made all the difference. But I think I would have done this dish:

Chopped salad–lettuce, shredded root vegetables, avocado, and tomato–with an olive, sun-dried tomato vinaigrette (blended mostly smooth) and topped with seared salmon and mushrooms.

I would wash and slice mushrooms, sear the fish with mushrooms, then pop it in the oven (7-10 mins total, could save 3 minutes if I had pre-sliced mushrooms). Then wash and prep the salad veggies and blend the dressing (7-10 mins, assuming I had an electric shredder and a salad spinner, or I could save time with prepacked salad greens). The fish would be done in 10-15 mins, leaving a couple minutes to plate it all up. And with time to work on whatever dish I was sharing (as the fish cooked).

What would go with that dish? Let’s see…

Pine nut cream over fresh fruit (pine nuts can be creamed without any soaking, or they could soak for 10 mins if timed right)

Baked mushroom caps topped with vegan pesto and some toasted pine nuts (at last minute to warm them but keep from over cooking the pesto or making the seeds soggy)

Soup made with finely chopped butternut squash or carrot and ginger, cooked for as long as possible then blended smooth with plenty of spice and a boxed pre-made broth.

©2012 Norwitz Notions. All Rights Reserved.

Recipe:

4 stuffing peppers (any kind you like, even bells), core
15 oz very firm tofu
A couple leaves of something firm and green (I used bok choy)
1 bunch fresh basil (leaves)
1/4 cup pine nuts
Salt & pepper to taste

Food process the tofu, greens, basil, and seasoning until fairly smooth. Add the pine nuts and process until chunky.

Stuff the peppers well with a spoon until full. I like to put a toothpick across the top to help keep them closed, though I’m not sure how much good it does. The middle pepper with the extra toothpicks had a bad bottom I had to slice off.

Tip: when you cut off the tops to prep the peppers, save the ring of flesh around the stem. Chop finely and save in fridge or freezer for future stir-fries.

I had leftover filling, so I grabbed a couple of mushrooms, removed the stems, and stuffed them too. Those are large criminis by the way, not small portabellas. What’s the difference? about $3/lb.

It was the tail end of our recent heat wave, and I didn’t want to waste energy either, so I baked these in the toaster oven (larger style convection oven). 350*F for 30 minutes (turning peppers over every 10 minutes) then 10 minutes at 300*F. The details aren’t important…just make sure the peppers are soft but not falling apart and don’t let them brown too much.

I served it with a quickie salad. Sliced romaine lettuce (fine to cut with a knife if you eat it right away…it makes for a different mouth feel), hemp seeds, and a simple vinaigrette.

Aside from the over-abundance of green, it was a fast and lovely meal.

©2012 Norwitz Notions. All Rights Reserved.

How you cut the cabbage makes an enormous difference.  I have in the past used the shredder attachment of my food processer, but that makes a dense slaw without the right texture.  It was much better sliced on a box grater.  I used the slicing side for as much as I could and the coarse grating side for the end pieces and the carrot.  You can also slice by hand, which I did for leaves that fell off, but it’s hard to get them thin enough.

The superior tool though is a mandoline.  You get ultra-thin but long pieces.  The shreds in this picture are wider than usual, but this was a different kind of cabbage and the ones on top were mostly handsliced.

Recipe:

1. Grate cabbage very finely, but in long strands, not a fine dice.  You can use shredded cabbage from bags if you prefer.  I usually shred 1 green cabbage, 1 red cabbage, and 2 large carrots.  This makes a lot of coleslaw.  You can make a very nice amount with 1/4 each red and green cabbage and 1/2 carrot.
2. Add good quality extra virgin olive oil to the cabbage, enough to coat all pieces lightly.  Around 1/2 cup.
3. Add not quite as much apple cider vinegar as you did olive oil.  1/4 cup or more.
4. Add several big squirts (3-4 tablespoons) of good brown mustard.  Don’t use yellow stuff!  I like Annie’s Horseradish Mustard, Whole Food’s German Mustard, and others like that.
5. Add salt and pepper to taste.
6. Mix well then taste and adjust!  My amounts are just guesses.  The amount you will use will depend on the ingredients (they’re different each time) and your personal taste.
7. Add mayonnaise (I use Vegenaise, but any good quality mayo is fine).  Anywhere from 3 tablespoons to 1/2 cup, depending on how creamy you want it.
8. Put in fridge.  It is best the next day but you can eat it anytime, cold or room temperature.

Stephanie & Miriam mix the coleslaw

When I made cole slaw for these pictures, I used just green cabbage, an unusual variety from a local farm.  I also decided to try a method from Good Eats (on the Food Network) where you salt the cabbage after shredding and let it sit for an hour or so, then squeeze out and discard the excess liquid.

It was different from my usual slaw but still good.

©2012 Norwitz Notions. All Rights Reserved.

Use quality ingredients and watch the cooking methods and this dish will be perfect. Otherwise, it can be bland or just really off. Start the dish the day before, or at least early in the morning.

You can make this with white mushrooms, but I don’t recommend it. They have a lot of water and it takes forever to simmer it off (losing flavor as you do so). But be careful with the brown mushrooms too…I didn’t realize this but the Costco ones are almost as watery as white button mushrooms (this is what you see in the pictures). My preference is to get them organic from the United Foods buyer’s club but, when they aren’t available, I just get them (non-organic) from the bulk mushroom bin at Whole Foods.

The sage must be fresh, not dried.

The olives need to have flavor, so no canned “Mission” olives (they are green olives that are over processed and turned black chemically). I use Kalamata usually but have also made it with other black olives. Pitted saves you a ton of time, but you can use whole in a pinch.

Recipe:

5-6 lbs crimimi mushrooms
2 pints black olives (use more if your olives have pits or a lot of brine)
1/2 cup sherry or white wine (the latter if you need it to be kosher for Passover)
Olive oil as needed
Salt (not a lot)
2 small bunches fresh sage (1/2 cup of chopped)

Makes enough for a side dish for 15-20 people (or 8-10 if there aren’t other side dishes).

Note: This recipe is for watery mushrooms. If you are lucky enough to get nice dry ones, you can cut the amount of mushrooms you use by a third or more. Or increase the other ingredients.

Wash the mushrooms then slice. You don’t want to cut corners and chop them in a food processor. Add to a pot with enough olive oil to coat and keep them from sticking. Add more oil as needed. The dish takes a fair amount.

When the mushrooms have started to become glossy and lose that raw look (5-10 minutes or so), add some salt. This will draw out the water. White mushrooms (and cheap brown) will bring out a lot of water.

Now comes the tedious part. Keep the mushrooms at medium heat (simmer but don’t boil) and stir often. Don’t cook for longer at lower heat; you will lose a ton of flavor. It will take a couple of hours to get the water off so they look like this.

At this point, you are probably tired, so turn off the heat, cover, and leave until the next day. They’ll be fine. Note: if you start with quality crimimi mushrooms, you will only have to cook them for about an hour, you’ll end up with a much larger amount, and they’ll have more flavor.

With the pan hot, add the sherry or wine (sherry has a nicer flavor, but is hard to find kosher). Stir and let that burn off.

Drain the olives and pour one pint at a time on to a cutting board. Rough chop the olives (each one should be cut into at least 3 pieces–much easier with a large chef’s knife) and add them to the pot. Then cut and add the sage leaves.

Cook on low heat until everything is warm and the flavors meld. Adjust for salt. You can turn off the heat at any point and let the pot sit there. Just before serving, reheat.

This dish keeps well in the fridge and can be reheated several times.

©2012 Norwitz Notions. All Rights Reserved.

Normally I like to make beans from scratch, but it’s hard with a bunch of different kinds (because they require different cooking times). So canned is loads easier.

Recipe:

4 cans of plain whole beans. Any combo you wish; use 3-4 different kinds. I like kidney, Garbanzo, pinto, black, and white.
Good quality extra virgin olive oil (about 1/2 cup).
Apple cider vinegar (about 1/3 cup).
Several big squirts (a couple of tablespoons) of good brown mustard. Don’t use yellow stuff! I like Annie’s Horseradish Mustard, Whole Food’s German Mustard, and others like that.
Salt and pepper to taste.
Several tablespoons of freshly chopped oregano. Or another fresh herb. If you use dried, put in about 1 tablespoon of oregano, thyme, or whatever you like.

Open the cans and pour into a colander so the liquid drains away.

Put the drained beans into a large bowl.

Add the oil and vinegar, adjust acidity as needed.

Add mustard, salt, and pepper. Taste. It’s easy to under-salt this dish because the beans are very bland.

When everything is right, add the herbs.

Mix well (without crushing beans) then taste and adjust! My amounts are just guesses. The amount you will use will depend on the ingredients (they’re different each time) and your personal taste.

Put in fridge. It is best the next day but you can eat it after it chills. Or right away, if you prefer.

©2012 Norwitz Notions. All Rights Reserved.