My family’s vegetarian, so our meals never fall into the classic “meat and two veg” pattern many of us grew up with, but most of our suppers still do offer something recognizable as a main dish and some other things that are clearly the sides. But not always.
I’ve written in the past about a dinner the boys and I make together sometimes when Tony is out, a sort of vegetable buffet, and recently we did a springtime version: pickled carrots, beets, and cauliflower, roasted new potatoes, snap peas, steamed broccoli with lemon, spinach with pine nuts and raisins, fava bean puree, and hummus. A little bread and cheese might have rounded it out nicely, but we happened not to have any, and the kids were happy to dip vegetables into the purees (or even, in Eli’s case, just eat hummus by the spoonful). It felt like a picnic, and on a foggy night in San Francisco, the bright colors and distinct flavors brought a little splash of sunshine into the room.
by Caroline
We joke around here sometimes about how I don’t cook dinner, that I only cook the accessory foods (ie, granola, desserts), and thanks to my dinner-cooking husband there’s more than a kernel of truth in that. I like baking, and also it appeals to my sense of economy (there may be a greater discrepancy between cost of ingredients and cost of final product in baked goods than any other food you can buy at a market).
But this spring, there hasn’t been time for much baking because I’ve been going a little crazy with the vegetables. I signed up for a CSA to pick up at my son’s school (because, vegetables + kid in one stop? I couldn’t resist!), without dropping either our other weekly produce pick-up (which tends to supply more fruit), the bi-weekly mystery box, or even my farmer’s market habit. It’s just hard to resist all this great spring produce, and we’re going to be out of town most of June, so I’m stocking up while I can. And then, trying to find new ways to use all the bounty.
Inspiration came, as it often does, from the farmer’s market, but from a different source than usual: not a produce vendor, but the pickle people! The Pick-a-Peck stand is a regular fixture at our farmer’s market, and the pickles are great: spicy, crispy, delicious. One night before dinner, a friend and I ate an entire jar of the pickled green beans. But I started (sorry, pickle people) to think about how much I was spending on vegetables, vinegar, and spices and decided to cook up some of my own. So far, the pickled cauliflower is my new favorite — it’s fabulously crunchy with great flavor — but the pickled carrots are delicious, too, and the beets are a mainstay for me, summer and winter. I don’t recall any longer where I found the beet recipe, which exists on a scribbled piece of steno paper in my recipe binder; if you recognize it, please let me know so I can give credit:
2 lbs beets
2 c white vinegar
1 c granulated sugar
2 T kosher salt
1 t allspice berries
1/4 t whole cloves
1/2 cinnamon stick
Simmer the beets in boiling water until tender, 30-60 minutes, depending on their size. Let cool and then peel and slice.
Bring remaining ingredients to a boil, add the sliced beets and cook for one minute. Cool and refrigerate.
These all keep for about two weeks in the fridge, though they never last that long in my house.
You know the moment: dinner is not quite ready but the kids are starving. You don’t want to give them a snack because that would ruin everything. What do you do?
First, I enlist them. Even Finn, at 5, is old enough to set the table. And if they know that I’ll get dinner on the table more quickly, they’re glad to help out. And I, of course, am glad for the help.
Then, I find something fast and healthy and good-looking to give them that won’t ruin dinner. I make them sit down at the place they just set and enjoy it, their precursor to dinner. In other words, they get a kid’s appetizer. These days, it’s often a tomato surprise, but what I serve depends on the season (what’s fresh and ready-to-go?) and the dinner plan. Pulling a side dish from your menu and serving it first can sate your kids’ hunger and also create that sense of ceremony and specialness that comes with eating in courses. They have to slow down to eat, they eat one thing at a time, they feel like they’re getting a treat, or something special, and most important your meal isn’t hijacked by little ravenous appetites, (and theirs) isn’t ruined.
I think it’s important that it look good, so it feels like the beginning of dinner, not something you threw to the zoo animals. Also, it should be very, very simple. For instance, last week, they got a cute dish of sugar snaps, and a small slice of bread with fresh mozzarella drizzled with olive oil and a little salt.
For an added treat, I put a splash of homemade (by Ella) lemonade in their bubbly water and added a garnish of lime. They have a thing about limes.
Basically, I find snacks overrated. When Ella, especially, was really young, I rarely gave her those mid-morning and mid-afternoon snacks, mostly because then she wouldn’t eat her meals. Over the years, I’ve found that the best way to ensure my kids eat a healthy lunch (or dinner) is to minimize what I feed them in between meals. Of course, since I rarely say “never”, they have certainly eaten snacks at playgroup, and on those few mornings they attended preschool, and I did bring fruit and small things like rice crackers to parks, etc., but “snack time” was not a regular part of our routine. Now, they rarely snack on a regular basis, although we did have the cake + milk routine for a while, Sometimes, when Ella has a early soccer or softball practice, we make a small, quick smoothie before she heads out the door. But just as often, we don’t snack after school.
This, of course, doesn’t keep Finn from asking for food when he’s home with me, and I still don’t want to feed him things that will kill his appetite for lunch. Nor does it keep him from foraging for whatever he can find to satisfy his sweet tooth. But I want to teach him to eat in moderation, and to eat (mostly) healthy things. So I keep some crackers in the house, but on shelf that the kids can’t reach without climbing, and most of the time, our cookie selection is embarrassingly poor. I often hide the my chocolate bar, so the husband doesn’t eat it all at once–and for the most part, we eat everything, slowly, in small amounts. For instance, the kids’ chocolate Easter Bunnies? Still sitting in a bowl on our hutch. The Halloween candy rarely gets eaten in total, & the same goes for the Valentine’s day candy. Certainly, I have found both of them, high on the shelves in our pantry, pulling down the peanut butter crackers. And I have found a mysterious hole in the marshmallow bag and 1/2 the contents missing. (For which they also must scale the pantry shelves, which was entirely Finn’s doing.) And I did discover both of them, huddled behind the pantry door a year ago, eating raw oats. (Really, I do feed them. ) But mostly, they’re good about asking. I think.
All of this is to say that my philosophy is to keep a good range of mostly healthy stuff within reach of the kids, so when Finn (or Ella) goes foraging, they have a range of things to choose from, but none of them are really going to ruin the next meal. We always have: cheeses, nuts, dried & frozen fruit, lots and lots of fresh fruit and vegetables (carrots and ranch or thousand island dressing is really popular when we have it). Whatever’s in season stays out on the table. (I am waiting impatiently for those cherries….) They take oranges off our tree in the winter, and tomatoes off the plants in the summer. Sometimes we have yogurt. The upshot is that they get the power to make decisions, & I can give them some freedom. So, yesterday, when Finn came out of the pantry with a bag of peanuts and another of almonds, I was happy to supply the remainder of the bag of raisins and dried cranberries and the rest of the pistachios:
These beans take some time, but they are surprisingly easy to make and they are completely, fantastically delicious. Delicious as in you could eat them for your last meal delicious and never regret a thing. They’re great with rice, or a little picadillo, or fresh tortillas and a side of your favorite slaw. In the spontaneous spirit of Wells’ piece, I’ve found they’re still terrific if you leave out the ham hock (but better with it in), and certainly you can adjust the heat of the jalapeno for your family. Certainly, vegetarians can find a work-around for the meat. They’re great for a family dinner, they’re great leftover, and they’re really great for company. However you subtly adapt these for your kitchen, just try these. I promise you: The husband loves them. The kids adore them. They’re a revelation all around.
We ate them first on a warm spring night, for a really casual al fresco dinner on the lovely bench the husband built. Finn set the bench.
Ella personalized the place cards.
Here’s the recipe as it originally appeared in the New York Times:
Cuban Black Beans
11/2 green peppers, stemmed and seeded
10 garlic cloves
1 pound dried black beans, rinsed and picked over to remove any stones
1 smoked ham hock
2 bay leaves
5 teaspoons salt, or to taste
1/4 cup olive oil
4 slices thick bacon, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1 Spanish onion, diced
1 jalapeño, stemmed and finely chopped
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground
black pepper
3 tablespoons distilled white vinegar
1 tablespoon turbinado or other brown sugar.
1. Cut 1 green pepper into 1-inch squares. Smash and peel 4 of the garlic cloves. Put the green pepper and garlic into a large pot with the beans, ham hock, bay leaves and 1 tablespoon salt. Add 2 quarts water and bring to a boil. Cover the pot and simmer until the beans are tender, an hour or more.
2. Meanwhile, make a sofrito. Cut the remaining ½ green pepper into ¼-inch dice. Peel and finely chop the remaining garlic. Heat the olive oil in a very large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the bacon and cook, stirring occasionally, until it starts to brown, about 5 minutes. Add the green pepper and onion and cook, stirring, until slightly softened, about 3 minutes. Add the garlic, jalapeño (leave out the seeds if you don’t want it too spicy), oregano, cumin, black pepper and 2 teaspoons salt and stir for another minute. Pour in the vinegar and scrape any browned bits from bottom of pan with a wooden spoon. This is your sofrito.
3. When the beans are cooked, discard the bay leaf. Remove and set aside the ham hock and let it cool. Transfer 1 cup of beans to small bowl, mash them into a paste with the back of a fork and return to the pot. Add the sofrito, then the sugar. Pull the meat from the ham hock, leaving behind any white sinew or gristle. Chop the ham into ½-inch pieces and return it to the bean pot.
4. Stir the beans well and bring to a boil over medium heat, then lower to a simmer and cook, uncovered, for 20 minutes or so, skimming any foam from the top. Taste for salt and serve with white rice. Serves 8 to 10. Adapted from “Tastes Like Cuba,” by Eduardo Machado and Michael Domitrovich.
