pressure-cooker hoppin' john

For New Year's, I fried up a quarter pound of chopped bacon, one chopped carrot, one chopped onion, and some chopped celery in the pressure cooker and then added 1.5 cups of rice and 1.5 cups of black-eyed peas, 3 cups of leftover turkey broth, 4 cups of water, less than a tsp of harissa, lots of pepper, and 1 tbsp of salt. I cooked it at pressure for 24 min and then let it come down in pressure naturally. We ate it with spinach sautéed with onions, garlic, vinegar, and olive oil, and some bacon bits.

We ate it with hot sauce and celebratory champagne. The crowd of four was very happy; it would have served at least six lumberjacks. Next time I would switch to 2:1 ratio of beans to rice, drop the liquid by at least one cup, and reduce cooking time by a couple minutes.

lasagne

I have repeatedly found, checked (by experiment), stopped believing, and then re-checked (by more experiments) the obvious and yet completely unknown fact that you don't have to pre-boil lasagne noodles before making a lasagne in the oven! Here's my dumb recipe, which sure ain't rocket science:

Fill an oven-proof pan with various layers. For this one, I did a bottom layer of chopped onions and carrots, olive oil and a tiny bit of crushed tomatoes, then a layer of raw, rigid noodles, then a layer of crushed tomato with some cheese, then noodles, then an enormous layer of raw baby spinach with some hard cheese, then noodles, then a layer of tomato and cheese, then a layer of noodles, and then a top layer of tomato, mozzarella, and hard cheese. It was mounded up in the pan like this:

After one hour in a 400 F (200 C) oven, it looked like this:

All noodles cooked. Adjustments for next time: Put more cheese in the layers; add garlic to the bottom layer; salt and pepper each layer. Remember: Pre-boiling is for suckers. And no, I didn't use the "pre-boiled" or "oven-ready" noodles either (those are fine though, I hate to admit).

lentils and spinach

There are about five dishes in my "repertoire" that date from the two years I spent as a vegetarian, a period which sadly coincided with my first trip to France (and ML's only one to date). When I think that I went out of my way to eat...Tibetan veggie! in Paris and that ML not only joined me but agreed to marry me a year later despite my obvious perversion, I see that the gods have truly smiled upon me. I've since rejoined the ranks of the omnivorous and made up for lost time in the Paris bistros, n'est-ce pas? When we tire of the blood pudding and great joints of mutton, like last Thursday night, I still like to make up a batch of L'n'S.

Slice a large cooking onion and fry in olive oil in a pot over medium-high heat until edges start to brown. Add a heaping cup of dry lentils (I like the small DuPuy kind), washed and picked over for stones. Add 2–3 cups of water, bring to a boil and simmer covered for 20–30 minutes until lentils are quite tender. Check once in a while and add water if needed. You want about 1/2 cup of "pot liquor" to remain when the lentils are fully cooked. Add about 10 oz. of chopped fresh spinach (not baby spinach), 1 tsp. ground cumin and 1/2 to 1 tsp of salt. Stir, cover and rest off heat for about 10 minutes. Taste and add more salt (1/4 tsp. at a time) until you think, "Damn! Lentils and spinach, where have you been all my life?" Eat with rice.

By the way, the kids love this. Did I mention this was lentils and spinach?