bostonzest

Tag: Patricia Wells

  • Enjoying String Beans: Where to Find Great Recipes

    Yesterday, we told you a bit about string beans. Today, we'll give you some ways to enjoy them once you've brought them home from the market.

    IMG_6665 - Version 22013-07-24-stillman's-city Hall-© 2011 Penny Cherubino copy

    Bean Recipes

    It may also be that French onion soup mix green bean casseroles linger in the minds of some non-bean eaters. But with our exposure to more ethnic food these days, you can discover what other cultures do with beans and then create your own versions. 

    IMG_3708 - Version 22015-09-11vegetable-string-beans-cookbooks-© 2014 Penny Cherubino

    Three cookbooks were by my side as I researched this topic: The New James Beard, Vegetable Love by Barbara Kafka, and Salad as a Meal by Patricia Wells.

    James Beard expressed my feelings that beans should be cooked, "… until the raw taste disappears but they still retain a fresh taste and a crispness to the bite."

    Barbara Kafka has a great recipe for long-cooked Romano beans and Patricia Wells took string beans to Salade Nicoise perfection and beyond.

    Romano bean

    The Romano bean is a favorite with Italian cooks and it is one bean that needs a long, slow cooking method to tenderize its tough shell. Yesterday, Russ Parsons explained why you no longer have to sting beans. When it comes to this flat wide bean, Parsons suggests that you, “Simmer freshly chopped tomatoes, onions, garlic and pancetta; add Romano beans and stew until they’re tender, which could take 45 minutes or even longer. The texture is silky and the depth of flavor is amazing.” For a summer cookout, this could be a great slow cooker recipe.

    Spicy Green Beans

    Asian cooks like to add spice to beans. In a traditional Sichuan spicy green bean recipe, the beans are stir-fried in a very hot wok until they are tender, wrinkled, and slightly charred in a few spots. They are sauced with a mixture of rice wine, chili bean sauce, sesame oil, sugar, and salt. Finally, the beans are removed from the pan and chilies. Sichuan pepper, garlic, ginger, and scallions are stir-fried for about 30 seconds and then the beans are returned and mixed.  

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    IMG_3715 - Version 22015-09-11vegetable-string-beans-cookbooks-© 2014 Penny Cherubino

    Bean Salad

    In summer, you can add as many types of cooked beans as you like to your favorite vinaigrette and make a 3, 5, or 7 bean salad. This is a healthy side dish that you can bring to a potluck or keep in the refrigerator to make meal planning simpler during a busy week.

    Last year, I reviewed the delightful cookbook, Morning Glory's Farm Food. One of the recipes I loved was for the Green Bean and Pasta Salad shown in the photo above in the book. 

    Now that you are no longer someone who “doesn’t know beans” about beans, I hope you’ll celebrate when you see a bin of beans at the market. I recommend buying a bunch and doing something different with them that will make you “full of beans.”

    What's on your Food Lover's shopping list?

    Details:

    Words: Penny Cherubino  (Adapted for the web from one of her Fresh & Local Newspaper columns.)
    Photos: ©2015 Penny & Ed Cherubino 

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  • Salad Before, After, or With Your Entree?

    DSC_8633 - Version 22012-09-26-green-salad-© 2011 Penny Cherubino

    Do you serve salad before, after, or with your entree? In France and Italy, salads are often served at the end of meals. For many years, American restaurants and especially catered events have placed salads at the start of the menu.

    This was a recent topic of conversation at our house. We were mainly interested in the reasons why salads should be served at the beginning or end of the meal.

    Ed thought it might have to do with the interaction of wine and vinegar. His theory was that you wait until the end of the meal so you can enjoy your wine without the vinegar. 

    Penny has been reading about vinegar as an aid to digestion and use as a sort of antacid and added the possibility of salad with a vinaigrette dressing being used as a digestive aid.

    A tour of the topic around the cyber world found it an often asked question with a wide variety of answers – some that agreed with ours and plenty of additional thought.

    We have three guesses as to why restaurants and caterers opt for salad as a starter, because it:

    • Gets the meal underway fast
    • Turns the tables quicker
    • Gives diners something to eat while waiters circulate with the next course

    Around here, a salad is often the meal. We add this-and-that and turn a plate of greens into lunch or supper. The photo above is from a salad we made to clean out the kitchen before we left Provincetown last September. 

    Food writer Patricia Wells has often inspired salad meals around here. In addition to the offerings in her Bistro Cooking
    and The Provence Cookbook, she also wrote the wonderful, Salad as a Meal. 



      

    What's on your Food Lover's Shopping List? Shop Amazon for all your kitchen & dining needs and support this site!

    Details:

    Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
    Photos: ©2012 Penny Cherubino 

    Note on Comments: We monitor comments constantly and anything that is pure spam, inappropriate, or nasty is swept away. In addition to readers' comments, we welcome hearing from the people, places, and services we cover. Often, those add great insights for our readers. As long as it doesn’t become a pure ad, we’d love to hear from you. We do reserve the right to edit ads and links out of comments.

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  • Salad Before, After, or With Your Entree?

    DSC_8633 - Version 22012-09-26-green-salad-© 2011 Penny Cherubino

    Do you serve salad before, after, or with your entree? In France and Italy, salads are often served at the end of meals. For many years, American restaurants and especially catered events have placed salads at the start of the menu.

    This was a recent topic of conversation at our house. We were mainly interested in the reasons why salads should be served at the beginning or end of the meal.

    Ed thought it might have to do with the interaction of wine and vinegar. His theory was that you wait until the end of the meal so you can enjoy your wine without the vinegar. 

    Penny has been reading about vinegar as an aid to digestion and use as a sort of antacid and added the possibility of salad with a vinaigrette dressing being used as a digestive aid.

    A tour of the topic around the cyber world found it an often asked question with a wide variety of answers – some that agreed with ours and plenty of additional thought.

    We have three guesses as to why restaurants and caterers opt for salad as a starter, because it:

    • Gets the meal underway fast
    • Turns the tables quicker
    • Gives diners something to eat while waiters circulate with the next course

    Around here, a salad is often the meal. We add this-and-that and turn a plate of greens into lunch or supper. The photo above is from a salad we made to clean out the kitchen before we left Provincetown last September. 

    Food writer Patricia Wells has often inspired salad meals around here. In addition to the offerings in her Bistro Cooking
    and The Provence Cookbook, she also wrote the wonderful, Salad as a Meal. 



      

    What's on your Food Lover's Shopping List? Shop Amazon for all your kitchen & dining needs and support this site!

    Details:

    Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
    Photos: ©2012 Penny Cherubino 

    Note on Comments: We monitor comments constantly and anything that is pure spam, inappropriate, or nasty is swept away. In addition to readers' comments, we welcome hearing from the people, places, and services we cover. Often, those add great insights for our readers. As long as it doesn’t become a pure ad, we’d love to hear from you. We do reserve the right to edit ads and links out of comments.

    Related articles
    How to eat more salad
    Yes, Salads Really Do Help With Weight Loss
    10 Tips for Shepherd's Pie
    Are You Drinking Wine Too Cold and Coffee Too Hot?
    10 Decluttering Tips from "The Clutter Queen," Rhea Becker
    Enhanced by Zemanta

  • Salad Before, After, or With Your Entree?

    DSC_8633 - Version 22012-09-26-green-salad-© 2011 Penny Cherubino

    Do you serve salad before, after, or with your entree? In France and Italy, salads are often served at the end of meals. For many years, American restaurants and especially catered events have placed salads at the start of the menu.

    This was a recent topic of conversation at our house. We were mainly interested in the reasons why salads should be served at the beginning or end of the meal.

    Ed thought it might have to do with the interaction of wine and vinegar. His theory was that you wait until the end of the meal so you can enjoy your wine without the vinegar. 

    Penny has been reading about vinegar as an aid to digestion and use as a sort of antacid and added the possibility of salad with a vinaigrette dressing being used as a digestive aid.

    A tour of the topic around the cyber world found it an often asked question with a wide variety of answers – some that agreed with ours and plenty of additional thought.

    We have three guesses as to why restaurants and caterers opt for salad as a starter, because it:

    • Gets the meal underway fast
    • Turns the tables quicker
    • Gives diners something to eat while waiters circulate with the next course

    Around here, a salad is often the meal. We add this-and-that and turn a plate of greens into lunch or supper. The photo above is from a salad we made to clean out the kitchen before we left Provincetown last September. 

    Food writer Patricia Wells has often inspired salad meals around here. In addition to the offerings in her Bistro Cooking
    and The Provence Cookbook, she also wrote the wonderful, Salad as a Meal. 



      

    What's on your Food Lover's Shopping List? Shop Amazon for all your kitchen & dining needs and support this site!

    Details:

    Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
    Photos: ©2012 Penny Cherubino 

    Note on Comments: We monitor comments constantly and anything that is pure spam, inappropriate, or nasty is swept away. In addition to readers' comments, we welcome hearing from the people, places, and services we cover. Often, those add great insights for our readers. As long as it doesn’t become a pure ad, we’d love to hear from you. We do reserve the right to edit ads and links out of comments.

    Related articles
    How to eat more salad
    Yes, Salads Really Do Help With Weight Loss
    10 Tips for Shepherd's Pie
    Are You Drinking Wine Too Cold and Coffee Too Hot?
    10 Decluttering Tips from "The Clutter Queen," Rhea Becker
    Enhanced by Zemanta

  • Out and About from Paris to Boston

    Last week, Mary Kay from Out and About in Paris was in Boston for a few days and we met for lunch. She had been following our food truck coverage, so my friend Laurie and I met her at The Dining Car in front of the library.

    IMG_4729 - Version 22012-03-08-mary-kay-out-and-about-in-paris-boston-public-library-© 2011 Penny Cherubino

    After a lingering lunch and some good conversation in the courtyard, we took Mary Kay on a brief tour of a couple of our favorite spots in the McKim building: the main staircase, the Puvis de Chavannes Gallery, the Abbey Room, and Bates Hall.  

    With a spectacular day outside, this appetizer was enough to tempt Mary Kay to explore more of one of my favorite buildings on her own. The three of us took to the outside world. We made a quick stop at the Society of Arts and Crafts and then strolled down Commonwealth Avenue Mall.

    It is such fun to meet the people behind blogs. Mary Kay is as warm, friendly, and interesting as her persona on the web.

    What's on your "dreaming of a trip to Paris" shopping list? Remember to click over to Amazon from here to support this site! Here are some ideas!

    From another great blogger Clotilde's Edible Adventures in Paris

    From the wonderful Patricia Wells, The Paris Cookbook

    Learn to Speak French

    Details:

    Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
    Photography: © 2012 Penny & Ed Cherubino  

    Note on Comments: We monitor comments constantly and anything that is pure spam, inappropriate, or nasty is swept away. In addition to readers comments, we welcome hearing from the people, places, and services we cover. Often those add a great insights for our readers. As long as it doesn’t become a pure ad, we’d love to hear from you.

  • Hearty, Herby Split Pea Soup

    IMG_4424 - Version 22011-12-30-patricia-wells-split-pea-soup-herbs-ham-© 2011 Penny Cherubino

    My favorite split pea soup recipe started out as the one in Bistro Cooking by Patricia Wells. She takes a simple pea soup with ham recipe and adds lots of garlic herbs and spices– thyme, marjoram, parsley, and cloves. I took her recipe and added big pieces of carrot and a dose of cumin seed toasted and then ground. 

    I love Patrica Wells' cookbooks because the recipes always seem to work, and she has a very relaxed style that invites you, as a cook, to make changes and finish the dish in differnet ways. With this I took her up on not puréeing the soup but serving it in a rustic, chunky style.

    Bisto cover.jpg

    If you would like to learn from a real pro and love little tips tucked into the pages of a cookbook, I highly recommend this one, Bistro Cooking by Patricia Wells. I've learned a lot from this outstanding food writer.

    Details:
    Words: Penny Cherubino
    Photos: © 2012 Penny Cherubino

    Note on Comments: We monitor comments constantly and anything that is pure spam, inappropriate, or nasty is swept away. In addition to readers' comments, we welcome hearing from the people, places, and services we cover. Often those comments add great insights for our readers. As long as it doesn’t become a pure ad, we’d love to hear from you.