The OTHER course.

If you know anything about Starving Medical Student A, you know she values desserts more than real food. While she made her highlighted dessert, I, Starving Medical Student B, slaved away on 2 dishes....yes 2 DISHES. First I started making Thai Basil Chicken. At this point the taskmaster cracked the whip and had me make babaghanoush.

This recipe is basically a hodge podge of a bunch of recipes I found on the internet. It consists of roasted/grilled eggplant, tahini, cumin, turmeric, lemon juice, cayenne pepper, salt, raw garlic, olive oil, and parsley. 

This is my basic recipe for Baba Ghanoush:

• 3 small japanese eggplants
• 1 pinch of salt (a real pinch, not a sad pathetic one)
• 1/4 cup of tahini (maybe slightly less)
• 3-4 tbsp of lemon juice
• 1 large clove of garlic
• 3 tbsp of olive oil
• 1/8 cup of finely parsley (no stems!)
• 1 tbsp of cayenne pepper
• 1 tbsp of cumin (this is just a starting point. Season to taste)
• 1 tbsp of turmeric (this is just a starting point. Season to taste)

Turn on your grill. Don't have one? Turn on your convection oven to BROIL. Very lightly coat your eggplant with olive oil and broil it for 20 minutes (rotate it every 10 minutes). Once you can stick a fork into the eggplant without any resistance...They're done! Let them cool. Meaning, they should be room temperature by the next step.

Once they are cool, peel the skin off and throw the meat (insides) of the eggplant into a food processor or blender. Note: blenders don't work as well as food processors. I learned this tonight when I had to retire my blender after it fell apart from the gears spinning too much. RIP Black and Decker Blender.

Now add everything else. Remember no stems in the parsley unless you really want an earthy flavor. When I say earthy I mean, a fresh mowed lawn flavor. 

Turn on your food processor and you're done! If the babaganoosh turns yellow, do not freak out. That's probably the turmeric turning it that color.

Final step: Enjoy with your favorite trademark sea salt pita chips from Trader Joes in the aisle in front of the free sample bar. 

Now here's the picture:

Sweet n' Spicy

We have getting mass amounts of green chiles from the CSA. I thought I had made just about everything possible: green chile cheeseburgers, green chile mac n' cheese, green chile corn chowder, green chile tomatillo salsa, green chile sandwiches, green chile beef stew... I have avoided tamales because I don't think I'm talented enough and I don't know how I feel about green chile corn bread. Then a fellow med student (forked) posted a great link on my wall--Green Chile and Apple Hand Pies. This sounded just up my alley. Combine the green chiles with something sweet and throw it all into a crusty puff pastry, amazing. 


These were actually incredibly easy to make. You basically mix all the ingredients together and throw it into a pastry and bake. I used a frozen puff pastry from Trader Joe's and it came out great. This is also wonderful with a scoop of vanilla ice, but really, what isn't great with ice cream?

Green Chile and Apple Hand Pies
from Bless her heart

• 4 sheets of puff pastry (two frozen packages from Trader Joe's), thawed according to manufacturers instructions
• 3 cups of peeled gala apples (about 6 small apples), cored and diced into 1/2" pieces
• 1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
• 1 cup roasted and peeled green chiles (6 chiles), diced.  
• 1/4 cup of sugar
• 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp cornstarch
• 1/4 tsp salt
• flour for dusting the workspace
• 1 egg for egg wash

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Mix the lemon juice with the apples to keep them from browning.  Stir in the diced green chiles.  In a small bowl, mix the sugar, cinnamon, cornstarch and salt. Thoroughly mix these dry ingredients into the apple mixture.   Set aside.  In a small bowl beat the egg for the eggwash.  Lightly flour a work surface for cutting out the puff pastry circles. Cut each sheet into 4 equal squares and brush with the egg wash. Fill in half of the square with the apple filling.  Each pie will need 2 tablespoons of filling. Fold in half, tucking the filling inside as you go along and pinch closed, or seal with the tines of a fork. Cut a 1" slit in the top for a vent.  Brush the top with the egg wash.  Place on a parchment or silicone baking mat on a baking sheet.  Repeat with remaining hand pies. Bake for 25 minutes or until golden brown.

Spicy Soup and Pepper Pasta

We had lots of great goodies in our CSA share this week. A great way to use up veggies is a nice chowder. You can throw virtually anything in this soup and it will be delicious. I made a corn chowder with potatoes, onions, green chiles, zucchini, and summer squash. It was delicious, a little spicy, but still great. The sweet corn and the creamy soup was just perfect with the spicy roasted chiles. The potatoes and squash make the soup really hearty and filling. Just perfect.

I also decided to make one of my absolute favorite pastas. I first had this when I went to Mario Batali's restaurant in Las Vegas called Enoceta San Marco. It's in the Venetian Hotel right on the side of the canal in the courtyard. This dish is so simple yet so delicious. Creamy pecorino romano and the bite of fresh ground pepper mix so well together. Paired with fresh peppery arugula, it cuts the creamy and adds a nice crunch. This is a great pasta dish. The key to this dish is the finely grate the cheese and add it very very slowly. If you add it too fast, it will melt and clump into balls rather than slowly melt and create a creamy sauce. This is best if you have a buddy in the kitchen who can constantly stir the pasta while you slowly sprinkle in the cheese. JC is great at doing this!

These dishes paired surprisingly well together. The pasta was rich and creamy and the soup was nice and hearty with a little bite. You could easily serve either solo as an entree. These are great and took almost no time to prepare.

Green Chile Corn Chowder
adapted from Corn Chowder by Tyler Florence

• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 onion, diced
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 tablespoon Herbs de Provence (or any other herb mix)
• 6 cups canned chicken stock
• 2 cups heavy cream
• 2 cups red la soda potatoes, peeled and diced
• 1 bag frozen sweet corn
• 6 roasted green chiles, seeded and chopped
• 3 squash (zucchini or summer squash), halved and sliced
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Heat the butter and 1 tablespoon olive oil in a soup pot over medium heat. Add the onion, garlic, and herbs and cook until the vegetables are good and soft, 8 to 10 minutes. Pour in the chicken stock and bring to a boil. Add the cream and the potatoes, bring to a boil and boil hard for about 7 minutes, until the potatoes break down (this will help to thicken the soup and give it a good texture). Add the corn kernels, chiles, and squash to the soup. Season with salt and pepper and simmer until the corn is soft. Ladle the soup into bowls and serve.

Pecorino and Pepper Pasta
from Linguine with Butter, Pecorino, Arugula, and Black Pepper by Giada De Laurentiis

• Salt
• 1 pound linguine
• 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter, room temperature
• 1 1/4 cups very finely grated Pecorino Romano
• 1 1/2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
• 1 1/2 cups coarsely chopped arugula

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil over high heat. Add the linguine and cook until it is al dente, stirring frequently, about 8 minutes. Drain, reserving 1 cup of the cooking liquid.

Immediately toss the hot pasta in a large bowl with the butter to coat. While tossing the linguine, gradually sprinkle the cheese, pepper, and enough of the reserved cooking liquid evenly over the linguine to moisten. Add the arugula and toss to combine. Season the pasta, to taste, with salt. Serve with extra fresh arugula tossed on top of the pasta.