Green Bean Casserole

Did you think I was done blogging?

Ingredients

• 1 generous lb of green beans, cut to 1" sticks (ends trimmed off)
• 1 onion, sliced
• 8oz cremini mushrooms, sliced
• garlic
• 1 tsp thyme
• splash of wine (vermouth in our case) for deglazing
• 2tbsp butter
• 2tbsp flour
• 1c milk
• somewhere between 1/2c and 1c blue cheese, crumbled
• panko bread crumbs

Preheat oven to 400. In a big (preferably oven safe) saute pan, cook the onion until it's beginning to caramelize - 10 minutes or so - with some olive oil. Then add the mushrooms and cook a couple more minutes until those begin to soften. Then add garlic and thyme and deglaze with the wine. Then add the green beans and simmer until they're still crisp but JUST starting to get tender - about 5 minutes. This is called "tender-crisp" I think so as to be as pretentious and confusing as possible. I hate that phrase.

In a separate pan, melt the butter, add the flour and cook. Add the milk and bring to a simmer, at which time it will thicken. Then add the blue cheese and stir until melted. Pour this over the green beans you just cooked in the other pan and stir to coat. Top the whole thing with panko bread crumbs. Now pop the whole thing in the oven for 10 minutes. The top is supposed to brown in this time, but ours didn't for whatever reason so I turned on the broiler and let it go another minute(ish). Done!

Thoughts: We were looking for a good alternative to green bean casserole that didn't include french's onions or campbell's cream of mushroom soup, and I think this was a good one! I would definitely do this again. On the other hand, I think just about anything will taste good if you pour blue cheese mornay sauce on it.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Wine-braised Red Cabbage

Ingredients

• 2 tbsp butter
• 2.5 cups thinly-sliced red cabbage
• 1/2 cup chopped and peeled Granny Smith apple
• 1/4 cup chopped red onion
• 2 bacon slices (uncooked), chopped
• 1/4 cup dry red wine (we used a Cabernet Sauvignon)
  
• 2 tbsp red wine vinegar
• 1/2 cup diced yukon gold potato
  
• 1 tbsp honey
• gorgonzola, to your liking.
  
• salt, pepper
  

Melt the butter in a pan over medium heat. Add cabbage, apple, onion, and bacon. Saute until cabbage is sort of tender (around 6 minutes?). Add wine and vinegar. Cover and cook until liquid evaporates and cabbage is completely tender (around 10 minutes?). Add the potato and the honey. Cover and cook until potato is tender, about 3 minutes.
Season with salt and pepper and garnish with blue cheese, if desired.

Thoughts: Pretty delicious. In the future, I would crisp the bacon, crumble it, and then add it to the cabbage at the very end. There's no point in using bacon unless it's crispy. It's also more flavorful this way. The original recipe did not call for blue cheese, but after I tried the cabbage, I thought something should be added to cut the acidity a little bit, and the only thing we had was gorgonzola. But it's delicious. And highly recommended.

Disaster Index: 2/10

Cream of Asparagus Soup

Spargel Saison!

Ingredients

• 1 medium onion OR 3 medium shallots OR 1 medium leek (washed well, white and light green parts only, chopped finely)
• 1 tsp vegetable oil
• salt
• 3 garlic cloves
• 1 tbsp all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup dry white wine (we used Vermouth)
• 1 bay leaf
• 3 cups chicken broth (or vegetable, if you must)
  
• 2 bunches asparagus, tough ends removed, and cut into 1/2 inch lengths
• 1/2 cup half-and-half
• ground black pepper
• VARIATION: 3 SLICES COOKED BACON
• VARIATION: CRUMBLED GORGONZOLA
  

Combine the onion, oil, and 1/2 tsp salt in a large saucepan. Cover and cook over medium-low heat, stirring often, until softened, about 8-10 minutes.
Stir in the garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds.
Stir in the flour and cook for 1 minute.
Whisk in the wine and bay leaf. Cook until wine is absorbed, about 1 minute.
Whisking constantly, add the broth.
Bring to a oil over medium-high heat. Cover, reduce the heat to medium-low, and simmer until the broth is slightly thickened and no longer tastes like flour (5 minutes).
Add the asparagus and continue to simmer, uncovered, until tender, 7-10 minutes.
Remove the bay leaf.
Puree the mixture in batches in a blender until smooth.
Return to saucepan. Stir in the half-and-half and cook over low heat until just hot (don't boil).
Season with salt and pepper to taste.
If using variations, add the chop the cooked bacon slices and stir in. Top with Gorgonzola cheese.
Eat.

Thoughts: Fantastic soup. And easy to make. And if you don't like your soups too healthy, go ahead and add the bacon and Gorgonzola. Let me tell you, it makes it so much better. There should not be any dish without bacon. Let me say that. Dan says that he's not sure that the bacon did much for him. So APPARENTLY bacon isn't for everyone. But without those two variations, the soup is ridiculously healthy. The only questionable thing in there is the half-and-half, and there's only 1/2 cup for the entire recipe. Not too shabby. I would definitely make this again.

Disaster Index: 1/10. Full marks!

Update: We made this recently, but instead of 2 bunches of asparagus we did 1 bunch asparagus and an equal proportion of kale, washed and chopped. It went well - the soup was quite good. If you don't have enough asparagus, kale works very well. Then I decided that I wanted to stir the blue cheese into the soup directly rather than in individual servings, and this was... less successful. Lesson learned. You can season the soup with some dill. See what you think.

Twice-baked potatoes with blue cheese

Ingredients

• 2 sweet potatoes, scrubbed, and pierced several times with a fork
  
• 2 tbsp butter
• 2 tbsp chopped chives
• 2 tsp dried parsley
• 3 tbsp plain yoghurt (just play it by ear)
  
• salt and pepper
• blue cheese
  

Preheat oven to 400.
In the meantime, put the potatoes on a plate and put them in the microwave (MAKE SURE YOU'VE PIERCED THEM SEVERAL TIMES WITH A FORK). Microwave them on high for 10 minutes, or until they're cooked (sometimes it takes longer).
Meanwhile, in a medium-sized bowl, mix chives, butter, and parsley.
When potatoes are done, let them cool a little (not TOO much), then cut them open and scoop the potato out of the skins. Add the hot potato to the bowl and begin mixing. The potato should melt the butter during this process.
When you have a pretty good mash going on, start adding yogurt. Add until it attains the texture that you desire. I think we used about 3 tbsp. We didn't measure it.
Add salt and pepper, to taste.
Fill 2 ramekins with the potato mixture. Fill pretty close to the top. Then take your blue cheese and crumble it over the top of the potatoes. Again, however much you want to use. We actually mixed more in once we took them out of the oven.
Anyway, bake them in the oven for 20-30 minutes, until the blue cheese on top is bubbling.

Thoughts: This was super easy to make and super filling. The only bad part for you is the butter and the blue cheese. Sweet potatoes are pretty much the healthiest thing you can eat. So yeah, we were pretty pleased with this.

Disaster Index: 1/10