Crows in the Kitchen » feta

Black Bean Burgers

Holly — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 16:38:41 +0000

I was feeling adventurous last week and decided to take another stab at making black bean burgers. The first attempt wasn’t a major fail, the flavor was good but the consistency didn’t stand up to cooking so there was definitely room for improvement. To deal with the burger’s crumbly nature i decided to employ the technique of refrigerating the patties for an hour prior to grill time. The result was a sure win, the burgers held up to the grill heat and I was able to get those pretty grill marks without having them crumble.

Black Bean Burgers
2 16oz cans of black beans drained and rinsed
3 garlic cloves, chopped
1 bunch scallions, chopped
1 bunch cilantro or parsley, chopped
1 poblano pepper, finely diced
1 egg
1 C bread crumbs
cumin, cayenne, salt, and pepper

Toppings: Feta, hot sauce & tomato slice

Puree the black beans (reserving 1/4 of them whole) in a food processor with seasoning, and garlic. Drizzle in some olive oil and a dash of hot water if the mixture is too dry to blend. Spoon purred bean mixture into a large bowl and add remaining beans, scallions, pepper, and cilantro. Stir to combine and then add the egg and enough breadcrumbs to give you the right consistency to form patties out of the mixture. I was able to make 6 medium sized patties but since these are quite filling, in the future I may make the patties into appetizer size which would yield around 8-10. Refrigerate patties for at least an hour prior to cooking on the grill or stove top. Add desired toppings and mow away.

With the black bean burgers under my belt I am anxious to try making some veggie burgers since the ones you buy in the store can be up to $6 for a box of four! I imagine that the same refrigerator technique would apply with these patties but am not sure what to use as the main filler- any suggestions? I was thinking a combination of purred veggies and grains but any advice would be useful…

Adventurous Dinner Menu

Holly — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 18:07:43 +0000

Last week the JP Crows gathered to spend some much needed time in the kitchen and to celebrate our friend Robin’s Birthday. Robin brought forth an interesting ingredient to the dinner planning discussion: Black Beluga Lentils. None of us had cooked with them before so we scoured the internet and decided on this recipe:

Black Beluga Lentil Salad

By reading the ingredients and quantities you can tell that this salad is PACKED full of flavor. Start with a smaller portion of feta and herbs and keep adding until you have reached your desired taste. Also keep in mind the longer it sits the more the flavors meld! The black lentils were fun to experiment with, they definitely hold their texture in cooking.

The next star in our Adventurous Dinner Menu was a soup that I have been wanting to make for some time, and now that i’m equipped with an immersion blender, the timing seemed perfect.

Sweet Potato, Chipotle and Apple Soup

Unfortunately I was missing one of the main ingredients (chipotle) but made up for it with some red pepper flakes and cayenne. To take the savory route I passed on the cinnamon-sugar tortilla chips and went for sliced baguette and shredded gruyere (apples and gruyere yum!)

We ended the evening with some Birthday cupcakes compliments of VBar, hot whiskey drinks and some games (crow favorites are rummy, rummikub and our newest addition- phase 10).

Birthdays, and post-guilt

emily — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 00:40:24 +0000

Hello all! Coming to you from recently employed land! I’ve been so stressed lately that rather than take advantage of my free time, I became even less productive than usual- as a result posting has taken the back burner. Below is a stock pile of awesome photos and tales of the last 2 weeks in my kitchen in Oakland.

Billy and I both celebrated our birthdays this month (1st and 9th, respectively) and so much delicious food came out of the two weeks of birthday celebration. For his b-day I made the standard Beer Fondue! On my birthday I was supposed to be cooked a delectable eggplant parm, but silly billy didn’t realise that eggplants are hard to come by this time of year. 3 grocery stores later, he admitted defeat and had to re-think his plans. Below is the delicious result!

Spinach, Feta and Pine Nut Sausage with Smoked Oyster Potato Cakes & Beans

Check out this little friend we found living in one of our greenbeans!

and the happy kitty who ate him

The part the was truely amazing about this years birthday festivities was that I got 3 nights of man-cooking. 1 night of delicious salad, 1 night of bangers & mash billy style, and 1 night of eggplant parm, which came about thanks to Trader Joes ability to have out-of-season produce when even Safeway does not.

Here is proof of the rare sighting of man-in-kitchen-and not getting beer- or orange juice….

A special thanks goes to my sister for getting me some much needed new pans for my birthday!

Mediterranean Quinoa Salad

Vbar — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 15:12:04 +0000

Necessity, and a stocked pantry is indeed the mother of invention.

Last weekend my Man Crow and I decided to leave the confines(and comforts) of urban life and strike out into the vast wilderness of Vermont to camp for a couple of days. We had a truly excellent time, hiking, sitting in front of the fire drinking box wine (for another post) and of course, mowing.

Unfortunately, my life has been a little hectic recently and I simply haven’t had the time I would have like to devote to preparing camp-friendly noshes. However, the night before with little time and an empty fridge wanted to make sure to bring one cooler-friendly, super healthy, energy-giving dish to munch on the whole trip and supplement meals. So I came up with this recipe, and I must say, it was a winner.

1 Cup Quinoa

2 cups vegetable stock

1 Red pepper

1 Red Onion

1 Large Zucchini

1 Large tomato

1 Tablespoon capers

1/4 cup almonds

1/2 cup crumbled feta (or more to taste)

2 big handfuls fresh basil

olive oil, balsamic vinegar, red pepper flakes, salt, pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 350. Cook the quinoa in the vegetable stock, according to the directions on the package. Set aside and let cool completely.

2. Roughly chop the vegetables (pepper, zucchini, onion, tomato, other veggies of choice) into bite sized chunks and toss in olive oil, s&p and a dash of red pepper flakes. Put into a casserole dish and roast in the oven for about 20 minutes- until the veggies are tender but not too soft. Take out of the oven and allow to cool completely.

3. Lightly roast the almonds either in a pan, stove top, or in the oven alongside the veggies. Allow to cool, and then chop roughly.

4. Toss together the quinoa, veggies (making sure to include the oil and juices at the bottom of the pan) and the almonds. Add the capers, feta and roughly chopped bail. Dress with balsamic vinegar to taste.

Enjoy!

Barley Monster

Holly — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 12:25:00 +0000

Everyone has their favorite grain and mine just happens to be Barley- I like its texture and ability to absorb delicious flavors without getting mushy. Barley Salads are great as leftovers and that’s why I make them so often; it’s perfect to bring to work for lunch because it allows me to avoid the dreaded microwave.

I found this fabulous recipe: Quinoa with Roasted Zucchini, Feta & Oregano in a Healthy Eats email and decided to give it a whirl, but of course I needed to make some adaptations to the OG Recipe.

I substituted the quinoa for barley- I had it in the pantry and like I stated before I’m a Barley Monster. My Quiona Cousin Mo would have done differently but I’m sure it’s just as tasty with either grain. Second I added tons of fresh oregano and thyme rather than the dried- It’s summer and time to take advantage of fresh herbs growing in yards or on porches! Lastly, I added some sliced grape tomatoes to the salad to get some more summer flavors in there. This salad tastes even better when consumed at the beach.

Salad on a Budget

Holly — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 16:12:00 +0000

“Salad on a Budget”- I’m not implying that salads are particularly expensive to throw together, I just wanted to share with you a few little tips that helped keep some extra cash in my wallet for weekend spending! Here are two ingredients I tweaked to save some cash money:

Feta & Focaccia

My cheap meal plan was pizza and salad, one of my go-to classics. The pizza was spoken for: fire roasted tomatoes, mushrooms, artichokes and mozzarella. For the Salad I had a hankering for a Greek style, but my remaining feta cheese was reserved for a dish that I plan to make tonight. Looking back on previous crow posts I decided to borrow a technique that Emily used back in June to make her Orange Basil Dressing. She added avocado to her dressing to make it more rich and creamy. I figured that I could cut back on feta by crumbling a small amount in the dressing in hopes of it flavoring the whole salad. I must say it turned out quite well.

Now for the Focaccia, this technique isn’t nearly as exciting but still a bit clever. I am a huge fan of croutons in my salad, i like the crunch and the heartiness they add. Lately I’ve been chopping up the heels of bread, tossing it with olive oil, salt, pepper and oregano and popping them in the toaster.

This past shopping trip I poked around the “old bread” section and found a reduced-price chunk of Focaccia and thought wow, this would be great for croutons. Since the Focaccia already has a lot of seasoning and olive oil, all I had to do was chop and toast it and voila- delicious croutons.

Greek Salad Dressing

Whisk together honey, lemon juice, dijon, freshly chopped oregano and crumbled feta

Stream in extra virgin olive oil

Taste before seasoning with salt and pepper (the feta packs a lot of salty goodness).