Sassy Radish

I get all confused when winter rolls around. Do I get excited over wearing sweaters, or do I sit around all mopey that we get three hours of daylight? Do I start making a list of all the stews and soups I can make or start a countdown to the springtime equinox? Being a creature of all things comfort-related, sweaters and food finally win out. Sure, I mope a little about how it’s cold and dark outside, but I mope while shoving a forkful of food into my mouth.

Last Friday, I invited a friend for dinner, but given my current job-seeking status, I spent the day running about without so much as having given a fleeting thought as to what I was going to feed my hungry, weekend-ready guest. I got home with only an hour to spare and had to think on my feet – fast. I had very little in my cupboards, and even less in the fridge. A can of cannelloni beans caught my eye. And thus a simple dish was born.

Whenever I am at an Italian restaurant, I always look for warmed cannelloni beans in the appetizer section. I find it filling, comforting and delicious. So I wanted to make warm cannelloni beans, but spruced up a bit. You know, for the holidays. I added tomatoes, basil, onion, and some other ingredients and it turned out incredibly well!

I am telling you, people, this recipe is so simple and so good that you will make it over and over again. Unless you hate beans. In which case, you’d probably never even try to make it in the first place. My guest had seconds. And thirds. And then complained that I didn’t make enough. Which was true, I was craving more of it myself.

If you plan ahead, unlike me, you can soak the beans and cook them, instead of resorting to canned ones. If, however, you’re like most people, you can hardly plan your next few hours, never mind dinner.

Continue reading warm canneloni beans with olive oil.

With Thanksgiving less than a month away, I though of pulling a few of the last year’s recipes to set the mood. This time is my favorite time of year, filled with great comfort foods: warm, full of spices, filling.

When the temperatures begin to drop, my craving for root vegetables grow. Roasted beets or turnips find their way into my meals. Having grown up in Russia, where plenty of root vegetables are consumed year-round, I never had to develop a taste for them. In fact, I never had to hear my mother say “Eat your vegetables!” to me – it was more like “Eat your meat!” In America, I learned, in school, that liking beets was a very uncool thing. It painted me as a borscht-belt immigrant with her weird foods. Chicken nuggets were in, root veggies were out!

Surprisingly, carrots were not as uncool as their other earthly cousins. Carrots, smothered with dip, were acceptable. My first encounter with a crudite left a sad impression as carrots sticks lay side by side with celery and tomatoes, all dried up and bent out of shape. The irony was that I hated cooked carrots.

As a little girl, I had to eat a lot of tzimmes, a traditional Jewish dish with cooked carrots, honey, raisins and cinnamon. It sounds good to me now, but back when I was a tiny, wee thing, I dreaded the dish like the plague. As I got older, I grew to love cooked carrots and even crave tzimmes now. But that recipe will be saved for another day. Perhaps when Passover hits and I need to contribute to the Jewish cooking ideas. The spiced, glazed carrots I made for Thanksgiving last year, my favorite holiday, were a hit with everyone at the table. Even the self-proclaimed vegetable haters.

Not only did they taste good, but they looked quite pretty with their green tops decorating the platter!

Continue reading spiced glazed carrots.