Tag: Capers

roasted vegetables

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This is a recipe based on one from an Eating Well magazine, and it’s got great lemony-briny flavors to go with the rich, roasted broccoli. I didn’t have as many cherry tomatoes as the recipe called for, but it was fine even with just a few… Those Alaskan cherry tomatoes are so sweet and good, I tend to eat them up raw before I ever get a chance to use in them in a recipe. It’s a great accompaniment to any kind of pizza.

1 pound broccoli
1 cup cherry tomatoes (OK to omit if you don’t have any hanging around)
1 to 2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
½ teaspoon sea salt or kosher salt
½ teaspoon freshly grated lemon zest (I love my Microplane zester for this task)
1 tablespoon lemon juice
10 kalamata olives, pitted and sliced
1 teaspoon dried oregano
2 teaspoons capers, rinsed and drained

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
2. Peel the broccoli stalks if the skin is tough, starting from the bottom of the stem, using a paring knife—the thick skin will peel away from the stalk. Then slice the stalks into coins less than ¼” thick. Cut the florets into bite-sized pieces.
3. Coat 1 or 2 large baking sheets with non-stick spray or oil. (This makes clean-up a lot easier.)
4. Toss broccoli, tomatoes, oil, garlic and salt in a large bowl until evenly coated with oil. Roast until the broccoli is tender and is beginning to brown, about 10-15 minutes.
5. Meanwhile, combine lemon zest, juice, olives, oregano, and capers in a large bowl. Add the roasted vegetables and stir to combine. Serve warm or at room temperature.

broccoli salad with roasted peppers, capers, and olives

broccoli

red peppers

roasted vegetables

roasted red peppers

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This salad is a variation on one in Deborah Madison’s The Greens Cook Book. I make this salad so often, all year long, since it’s usually pretty easy to find decent broccoli. But using fresh, local broccoli (even out of the freezer in the winter) makes this salad just amazing! Make a double batch of this salad if you want, for great leftovers, but don’t add the vinegar to the portion of the salad you’ll be saving for the following day—it fades the green of the broccoli.

I often make this salad when I don’t have all the ingredients. Just so you know, it’s great without the red peppers, parsley, and scallions (just mince up some red or yellow onion), so just leap in and make it. Serve this salad with baked sweet potatoes for a colorful and nutritious dinner, or the warm red cabbage salad for a fall taste sensation (this is especially easy if you have leftover cabbage salad from the day before), or as a great side dish with the very simple hidden treasures pasta.

2 pounds broccoli
2 roasted red peppers (see the “red peppers” section)
1 clove garlic, finely chopped or pressed
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil (or less, if you like)
1 tablespoon capers, rinsed and drained
12 kalamata olives, pitted and sliced
3 scallions, finely sliced (including the greens)
2 tablespoons parsley, chopped
¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes
2 tablespoons or more balsamic vinegar, to taste
sea salt or kosher salt and freshly-ground pepper

1. Peel the bottom part of the stems of broccoli if the skins are tough, and slice the stems into 1/4-inch pieces. Cut the top of the broccoli into bite-sized florets. Keep them separate. Put about an inch of water in the bottom of a pot that you can put a steamer basket in. Cover the pot and bring the water to a boil. When the water boils, put the broccoli stems in the steamer basket and steam for 4-6 minutes until barely tender. Check them every minute after 4 minutes, poking with a sharp paring knife.
2. Remove the stems, shake excess water off, and immediately spread them out in a single layer on a baking sheet spread with a dishtowel. (This cools the broccoli quickly and allows it to dry out.)
3. Put the florets in the steamer, and steam for 3-5 minutes until barely tender, keeping a close eye on them. Remove the florets and spread them out on a dishtowel as with the stems.
4. Slice the roasted peppers into strips ½-inch wide and mix them in a large bowl with the garlic, olive oil, juice from the peppers, capers, olives, scallions, parsley, and red pepper flakes, and, if you’ll serve the entire salad right away, the balsamic vinegar. Only add the vinegar to the portion of salad you’ll be serving immediately, since it fades the color of the broccoli. Season the mixture with salt.
5. Combine the broccoli and stems with the rest of the ingredients and toss them together. If you’re making enough for leftovers, take tomorrow’s portion out now and put it in the ‘fridge. Then, with your remaining salad, taste for salt, and add the balsamic vinegar and more oil and more vinegar as needed. Add a grinding of pepper, to taste.

zucchini skillet cakes with capers and pine nuts

capers

zucchini

eggs

bread crumbs

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Usually we grill our zucchini (see the previous recipe), but when I want to do something different and special, I make this recipe, modified from a recipe in Vegetarian Suppers from Deborah Madison’s Kitchen. These skillet cakes have great flavor from the lemon zest, capers, pine nuts and thyme. I like to serve them with the beet pilaf with dill and a little pile of fresh peas with scallions.

If you have a food processor, this recipe is very fast—if you don’t, just grate and chop everything by hand.

2 garlic cloves
½ bunch parsley
3 teaspoons chopped thyme
3-4 slices of stale bread (whole-grain, if possible), or 1 cup of fresh bread crumbs
4 medium zucchinis (about 2 pounds)
sea salt and freshly ground pepper
3 tablespoons snipped chives or scallion greens
grated zest of one lemon
¼ cup pine nuts, lightly toasted in a dry skillet
¼ cup capers, rinsed and drained
2 eggs, beaten
olive oil for frying

1. Toss the garlic into the bowl of a food processor and chop it up.
2. Add the parsley and thyme into the food processor and chop finely. Scrape the garlic-herb mixture into a bowl.
3. Tear the bread slices into pieces, put them into the bowl of the food processor and grind into fine bread crumbs. Transfer 1 cup of crumbs to the bowl with the garlic and herbs.
4. Switch to the grating attachment and grate the zucchini. Put the zucchini in a separate medium bowl and toss it with a teaspoon of salt. Set it aside for 30 minutes to an hour while you prepare the rest of the ingredients and other parts of your meal. Then rinse the zucchini in a colander and squeeze out as much moisture as you can.
5. Toss the zucchini with the bread crumb mixture, chives, lemon zest, pine nuts and capers. Taste for salt and pepper and season accordingly. Then add the eggs and mix thoroughly.
6. Film a large griddle or 2 large skillets with olive oil. When hot, add the batter in ½-cup mounds. Squish the batter down flat with the back of a spatula and cook over medium heat until golden-brown. Flip and cook the other side. Serve right away, or keep warm in the oven until all are done.
7. You can reheat these the next day by putting them back in a hot skillet and flipping a few times until they are hot.

brussels sprouts with mustard & caper sauce

capers

mustard

garlic oil

brussels sprouts

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This is my favorite recipe for brussels sprouts, and I love it so much that I make it all winter with sprouts from the grocery store after our Alaskan season is over. This sauce is great on vegetables other than Brussels sprouts, too! I’ve used it with great success on broccoli and cauliflower. It’s based on a recipe from Deborah Madison’s Local Flavors.

I love to use a micro-plane zester for the lemons—it’s very easy, and the pieces of zest are thin and fine and perfect to eat, even in a raw dressing like this.

I invented this recipe as a way to use some of the garlic oil left over when poaching the garlic for our Alaskan cheese and garlic bread. If you don’t want to make garlic oil, you can use plain extra-virgin olive oil or butter.
This is a great dish with brown rice (you can use the lots-of-water method to cook plain basmati rice—see the beet pilaf recipe) and baked hubbard squash (just mash the baked squash up with a little maple syrup and salt if needed, and omit the chipotle chile).

2 garlic cloves
sea salt and fresh-ground pepper
2 tablespoons garlic oil (see following recipe), extra-virgin olive oil, or softened butter
1-2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
¼ cup rinsed and drained capers
grated zest of a lemon
¼ cup chopped parsley
2 pounds brussels sprouts

1. To make the sauce, press the garlic (or mince very fine) into a large bowl and, using a fork, mash it with ½ teaspoon salt. Then stir in the oil or butter and add the mustard, capers, lemon zest, and parsley.
2. Bring a large pot of water to a boil and add salt. While the water is heating, trim the bases of the sprouts and slice them in half, or, if large, into quarters.
3. Add the brussels sprouts to the water and cook for 5-8 minutes, testing every minute after 5 minutes, until the cores of the largest sprouts are tender but not mushy. Pour the sprouts into a colander, shake off excess water, and immediately spread them out on a baking sheet spread with a dishtowel. (This allows the extra water to evaporate, so the sauce doesn’t get watery, and the sprouts stop cooking almost immediately, ensuring a perfectly-cooked sprout.)
4. When cooled a bit, toss the sprouts with the mustard-caper sauce. Taste for salt, season with pepper, and toss again.

garlic oil
Mash or mince 3 or 4 garlic cloves and cover with ½ cup extra-virgin olive oil. Let steep for 30 minutes if you have time. Strain out the garlic and store the oil in the refrigerator.

spaghetti with grape tomatoes, olives, capers, & pine nuts

tomatoes

spaghetti

pasta

oregano

cherry tomatoes

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When the kalamata olive bread is on our baking schedule for the week, we like to make this pasta dish. The olives in the bread are great with the olives and capers in the pasta! If you want to heat a whole loaf of bread to eat with dinner, you can heat it, unwrapped, for 15 minutes in a 350 degree oven just before serving dinner.

Dan likes to call this recipe his signature dish, because he’s the only one who has the patience to cut all the grape tomatoes in half before roasting them. I think if you just left them whole (and let them burst in the oven) they’d be just fine—maybe the dish wouldn’t be as pretty, but it would still taste great!!

In the summer, we love to make this recipe with local cherry tomatoes, but we make this recipe all year ‘round with big boxes of grape tomatoes from Costco. The original recipe (from Cooks Illustrated) called for this amount of sauce for a whole pound of pasta, but we like twice as many tomatoes for our pasta—so please note that the recipe below only calls for a half-pound of pasta. We always make a double batch to have plenty of leftovers, so we buy two of those giant boxes of grape tomatoes at a time. While you’re at Costco, you can pick up a giant jar of capers, a bag of pine nuts, a mesh bag of garlic, a huge jug of olive oil, a big wedge of Parmesan cheese, and a jar of kalamata olives… Then you’re set up to make this dish whenever you get a hankering!

2 pounds grape tomatoes, halved pole to pole
2 tablespoons olive oil
sea salt or kosher salt
½ teaspoon red pepper flakes
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
6 large cloves garlic, sliced thin
¼ cup rinsed and drained capers
½ pound spaghetti (I like whole-wheat, especially DeCecco or Ronzoni)
½ cup pitted and sliced kalamata olives
¼ cup chopped flat-leaved parsley
¼ cup pine nuts, toasted (optional)
2 ounces grated Parmesan cheese (optional)

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. In a medium bowl, gently toss tomatoes with oil, ½ teaspoon salt, pepper flakes, pepper, garlic, and capers. Coat a rimmed baking sheet with non-stick spray or oil. Spread tomatoes in an even layer on baking sheet and roast until tomato skins are slightly shriveled (tomatoes should retain their shape), 35 to 40 minutes. Do not stir tomatoes during roasting. Remove from the oven and cool 5 to 10 minutes.
2. While tomatoes cook, bring a large pot of water to boil. Just before removing tomatoes from the oven, stir 1 tablespoon salt and pasta into boiling water and cook until al dente. Drain pasta and return to pot. Scrape tomatoes into pot on top of pasta, add olives and parsley; toss to combine. Serve immediately, sprinkling pine nuts and optional cheese over individual bowls.

cauliflower romanesco with mustard & caper sauce

cauliflower

broccoli

mustard

broccoli romanesco

olive oil

garlic oil

roasted garlic

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This is my favorite recipe for brussels sprouts, and I love it so much that I make it with broccoli, and cauliflower, too—but I’ve just been to the Wednesday Dimond Center market, and Mary Jane had fabulously beautiful bright lime-green whorled cauliflower Romanesco! Oh my goodness, I’d seen photos of this gorgeous vegetable, but hadn’t ever seen it at our farmers’ market! It is so stunning—but it’s also DELICIOUS! Like a flavorful cauliflower, with a fantastic texture to it—you’re going to love it, especially with this sauce! The sauce is based on a recipe from Deborah Madison’s Local Flavors.

I love to use a micro-plane zester for the lemons—it’s very easy, and the pieces of zest are thin and fine and perfect to eat, even in a raw dressing like this. I invented this recipe as a way to use some of the garlic oil left over when poaching the garlic for our Alaskan cheese and garlic bread. If you don’t want to make the garlic oil (recipes below), you can use plain extra-virgin olive oil or butter.

2 garlic cloves
sea salt and fresh-ground pepper
2 tablespoons garlic oil (pick one of the following recipes), extra-virgin olive oil, or softened butter
1-2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
¼ cup rinsed and drained capers
grated zest of a lemon
¼ cup chopped parsley
2 heads cauliflower Romanesco

1. To make the sauce, press the garlic (or mince very fine) into a large bowl and, using a fork, mash it with ½ teaspoon salt. Then stir in the oil or butter and add the mustard, capers, lemon zest, and parsley.
2. With a sharp paring knife, cut through the cauliflower Romanesco stems and pull the florets apart. Cut the larger floret stems in half. Steam the florets in a steamer basket over boiling water until the florets are tender but still a little firm when pierced with a knife, 4 minutes or so.
3. Toss the florets into the mustard-caper sauce. Taste for salt, season with pepper, and toss again.

olive oil infused with roasted garlic

several heads of garlic, cloves peeled
olive oil (you don’t need extra-virgin olive oil for this—the garlic imparts so much flavor that you can use regular olive oil)

1. Put the whole peeled garlic cloves in a heavy pot. Cover the garlic cloves completely with olive oil.
2. Bring to a simmer over medium heat. Give the garlic a stir, and then turn the heat down to the absolute lowest possible heat, cover the pot, and simmer just at a bare bubble. Stir the garlic occasionally and continue to cook until the garlic cloves are completely soft and tender, and you can easily squish them against the side of the pot with a wooden spoon. This will probably take an hour or more, but check after 45 minutes.
3. Uncover the pot and let cool. Strain the garlic from the oil. This garlic can be used in any recipe that calls for roasted garlic (for example, in the Southwest Caesar Salad, or in the Hummus--both recipes are in the cookbook and on the website). If you make a soup or a stew that needs a little extra pizzaz, just scoop out a few cloves, mash them with a fork, and add them to your dish to really pump up the flavor. You can freeze the garlic indefinitely (I keep it in pint-sized canning jars in the freezer), and just take it out when you need it.

garlic oil

3-4 cloves of garlic, peeled
½ cup extra-virgin olive oil

1. Mash or mince the garlic cloves and cover with the olive oil. Let steep for 30 minutes if you have time.
2. Strain out the garlic and store the oil in the refrigerator.

roasted eggplant salad with pine nuts & capers

salad

garlic

eggplant

roasted vegetables

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This is my answer to caponata—the Italian eggplant relish/salad with capers, raisins, and vinegar… I like to taste the eggplant more than you tend to when it’s mixed with all those really strong flavors. So this has less vinegar, no raisins, but still has great flavor!!

It’s a variation on a salad in Annie Somerville’s Everyday Greens. The nice thing about it is that you roast the eggplant slices, so you’re not frying it in quarts of oil (which the eggplant soaks up like mad). It’s quick and easy and healthy. You can even roast the eggplant slices the day before, and make the salad later. Serve this with another salad, like a bean salad or a green salad—or how about a pile of fresh snap peas--for a complete meal!

2 pounds fresh eggplant, sliced ½-inch thick
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil (or olive oil infused with roasted garlic)
½ tablespoon minced garlic (if not using garlic oil, above)
¼ teaspoon sea salt or kosher salt
-------------
1 medium or large red onion, finely diced (1-2 cups; to your taste)
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons capers, drained and rinsed
½ bunch Italian (flat-leaved) parsley, or ¼ cup basil leaves, chopped finely
½ teaspoon salt or kosher salt
2 tablespoons pine nuts, toasted until golden in a dry skillet

1. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Toss the eggplant in a large bowl with the oil, garlic, and ¼ teaspoon salt. The slices won’t really be evenly coated with oil—there will be splotches of oil here and there on some slices—but that’s OK. Just mix them around the best you can.
2. Line rimmed baking sheets with parchment, or spray them with cooking spray. Lay the eggplant slices in a single layer on the baking sheets and roast for 10 minutes. Rotate the pans and roast for 10 more minutes. Check for tenderness at this point—if you’re using Japanese eggplants, they may be done, but the bigger globe eggplants will take longer. Keep roasting them until they are soft and tender, rotating every 10 minutes or so. It took my eggplants a little more than 30 minutes, but just see what yours taste like. You can do this step ahead of time and mix the salad up the following day.
3. When the eggplant is cool enough to handle, slice it into ¼-inch strips.
4. Put the diced onion into a small heatproof bowl, and pour boiling water over the top, to cover. Let them sit for 30 seconds, then drain the onions. Toss them with 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar.
5. Combine the eggplant, capers, parsley or basil, and onions in a large bowl. Toss gently, and let marinate for 30 minutes or so. Season to taste with salt—start with ½ teaspoon and add more if necessary. You may want to add a little more red wine vinegar, too. If the salad is too tart, you can add a pinch of sugar.
6. Garnish with toasted pine nuts and serve!

lemony sautéed zucchini with capers

capers

zucchini

lemon

bread crumbs

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This recipe is a really quick way to use up a lot of zucchini! It’s a combination of 1) the flavors from the zucchini skillet cakes in my 2008 Farmers’ Market Cookbook, and 2) a method of quick-cooking zucchini that I found in a long-ago issue of Cooks’ Illustrated. Zucchini is so full of water that it’s hard to deal with all the liquid that comes out of it—the zucchini usually gets soggy and it’s hard to make sure all the pieces are cooked evenly. So using this method, you grate the zucchini and then roll it in a dishtowel and wring out the extra water! It’s a fast and easy recipe--easier than the skillet cakes.

You can choose your topping on this recipe—use either the toasted pine nuts, or the slightly more involved garlicky bread crumbs. Whatever suits your time frame and fancy!

4 medium-large zucchinis (about 3 pounds), grated
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 garlic cloves, sliced thin
½ bunch parsley, finely chopped
3 teaspoons chopped thyme (or 1 teaspoon dried)
3 tablespoons scallion greens
grated zest of a lemon
sea salt and freshly ground pepper
¼ cup capers, rinsed and drained

choice of toppings

¼ cup pine nuts
OR
bread crumbs:
2 slices whole wheat bread (you can use stale bread, but not dried hard)
3 tablespoons olive oil
1-2 cloves garlic, minced (optional)

1. Placing a quarter or a third of the grated zucchini in a dish towel, roll the towel up around the zucchini, and, using two hands, twist the towel as tightly as you can (over the sink) and watch the water pour out! Shake the zucchini out into a large bowl, and repeat with the rest of the zucchini.
2. If you’ve chosen bread crumbs for the topping, tear the bread slices into smallish pieces and put them in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse and grind them until they are finely ground into bread crumbs. Use 1 cup of them or more for this recipe. Brown the bread crumbs in olive oil (with optional garlic) in a small skillet over medium heat. Remove from the heat when browned, toss in a little salt to taste, and set aside.
3. If you’ve chosen pine nuts for the topping, toast them gently in a dry skillet until golden.
4. Heat the olive oil over high heat in a large skillet and sauté the garlic slices until fragrant—a minute or so. Add the grated, dried zucchini and sauté until tender, about 8 or 10 minutes. You can cover the pan in between stirring to hurry this process.
5. Add the parsley, thyme, chives or scallions, lemon zest, ½ teaspoon salt, and capers. Cook for a minute or so longer until the flavors are melded and the parsley is slightly wilted. Taste for salt and pepper and season accordingly.
6. Serve in a large dish or on individual plates, adding the topping of your choice. Serve immediately.

Sicilian cauliflower salad

cauliflower

garlic

parsley

lemon