Potatoes with Rosemary and Sage

Eggs and potatoes are a Sunday staple around here. The eggs from the happy hens at Ha's Apple Farm are so delicious that even simply poached they taste better than any eggs we've eaten in restaurants.

Yesterday I served them with these Mediterranean-inspired herb-roasted potatoes. Whenever I eat these I remember that their pungent herbal flavor would be great for dinner too - with a crisp salad and an omelet, or a bean burger. Or even with a lentil stew.

The potatoes are flavored with rosemary, sage and bay - which, if you live in Southern California and have even a small patch of sun, you can grow. They are drought tolerant and can be snipped year-round for an extra pop of flavor in whatever you're cooking. Rosemary and sage can be overpowering, so a little goes a long way. (The plants grow in winter-y climates too - the sage will go dormant outside, but the rosemary and bay will need to be taken in as house plants before the first frost.)

Fresh eggs, freshly-squeezed orange juice, and potatoes aromatic with herbs from the garden: there is nothing like good simple food to start the day off right.

Potatoes with Rosemary and Sage
3/4 lb potatoes (2 medium)
1 heaping tbsp olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 tbsp chopped fresh rosemary
1/2 tbsp chopped fresh sage
1 bay leaf

Peel the potatoes and place in cold salted water for 15-20 minutes. This reduces the amount they will stick to the pan when you roast them.

Preheat toaster oven to 500°F.

Drain the potatoes and cut them in 3/4 inch cubes. Place on a baking dish and toss with the oil, garlic, rosemary, sage and bay leaf. Spread the potatoes in a single layer and bake 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Lower the heat to 375°F and cook until tender, about 10 minutes longer. Turn them occasionally while they cook.

Serve hot.

Serves 2

Bean Stew with Rosemary and Sage

This is the bean stew I served in a winter squash last week. I made enough that we ate it later in the week as well, spooned over rice.

I used a round yellowish bean the farmer I buy from calls barbecue beans. Navy beans or any other similar bean would do if you can't find barbecue beans. Adding lentils to a bean stew gives a good consistency, similar to the role ground meat or soy crumbles would play, but much healthier.

Yes, I put a whole head of garlic in the stew. But because it's roasted, you really can't tell. It adds a mellow richness to the dish. In flu season, it's good to eat lots of garlic. The rosemary and sage are also good anti-microbial herbs. I roasted the garlic in the toaster oven while the beans cooked. This is a dish which requires you to be home for a couple of hours, but that needs very little tending. The ingredients just roast and simmer away.

If you don't have fresh herbs, leave them out or use dried - about 1/4 of the amount.

Bean Stew with Rosemary and Sage
3/4 cup barbecue beans
3/4 cup brown lentils
1 head garlic
1 1/2 tsp minced fresh rosemary
3/4 tsp minced fresh sage
1/4 cup olive oil
1 large onion, diced
3/4 cups diced carrots
1/2 tsp sage
1/4 tsp rosemary
14 oz can diced tomatoes
1 1/2 tsp salt

Soak the beans overnight or for a few hours in plenty of cold water to cover. Drain, add to a pot of boiling water, and simmer gently until tender but not mushy. Check after an hour, and thereafter every 20 minutes or so. When they are cooked through, drain and set aside.

Separately, simmer the lentils in plenty of water until tender, about 30 minutes. Drain and set aside.

At the same time, roast the garlic. Cut the top 1/3 off the head so the tops of the cloves are exposed. Put in a small casserole and sprinkle with the rosemary and sage, and pour the oil over top. Cover the casserole and bake in a 400°F oven for 30 minutes. Uncover and cook another 5-10 minutes. Remove from oven, lift the garlic out of the oil and set it aside to cool a little.

Warm the herbal garlicky oil in a large sauté pan. Add the onion and sauté gently 5 minutes until tender. Add the carrots and smaller amounts of sage and rosemary. Stir to coat with the flavored oil, then add the tomatoes with their liquid. Stir to combine.

Squeeze the flesh of the garlic cloves out from the skin. Add the flesh to the pot along with the cooked beans, cooked lentils, and the salt and pepper to taste.

Cook, covered, about 10 minutes, until all the flavors are melded and the stew is hot, adding water as necessary to keep it a good consistency.

Serve with brown rice, or in a bowl with crackers, or in a baked squash as in the picture here.

Serves 6

Roast Salted Sweet Potatoes with Sage

I'm always looking for new ways to cook sweet potatoes. Larry would be happy if I just cooked regular potatoes, but sweet potatoes are so much healthier - not to mention more colorful on the plate.

Sweet potatoes are high in antioxidants, and contain compounds that help our digestive systems be less sensitive to heavy metals and other toxins. We've done so well at polluting our soil and groundwater that our bodies need all the help they can get.

One of the challenges with sweet potatoes can be their texture. I buy from a farmer who has three or four varieties of sweet potato, some the soft juicy orange kind, others are dryer and more chestnut-y, and yet others are purple-ish. I tend to buy the orange ones because I like the color. And then I have to find a way to dry them out a little.

Slicing thin, sprinkling with salt, and roasting made the sweet potatoes delicious. I added garlic and sage, and a drizzle of lemon at the end, and Larry said these were the best sweet potatoes ever. (He thinks it was because of the salt.) If you don't like sage, leave it out. Or use thyme or rosemary instead.

The oil is essential, because we need to eat sweet potatoes with a little fat in order to get the health benefits. (That's true of so many vegetables, isn't it?)

In the picture on the right, the sweet potatoes are below, and a casserole of roasted shallots is on top. I keep experimenting with baking members of the onion family because I feel I should like them, but I don't. They get slimy and are hard to cut. We ate a couple of the shallots as a side dish, but I chopped the rest and added them to Green Rice the next day.

Roast Salted Sweet Potatoes with Sage
1 lb sweet potatoes
2 tsp olive oil
coarse salt
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tbsp chopped fresh sage
juice of 1/2 lemon (or so)

Preheat oven to 375°F. (400°F works fine too if you're cooking something else at the same time, just keep an eye on the sweet potatoes so they don't burn.)

Peel sweet potatoes and cut into 1/4 inch slices across. Place on an oiled cookie sheet and lightly brush with more oil. Sprinkle with coarse salt and garlic.

Bake until the potatoes are tender when you poke them with a fork. Sprinkle with sage and lemon juice and serve.

Serves 2-3

Walnut and Sage Tapenade

On these warm summer evenings, salads make a great dinner. But sometimes the plate of raw vegetables needs a little something extra.

This non-traditional tapenade is a yummy way to boost the protein content of a meal. I especially like it spread on slices of baguette. It's also good on raw vegetables - try it on cauliflower. And if you feel like cooking, toss it with pasta. It lasts in the fridge for days, and can be frozen.

I first created this recipe when our niece Tracie brought a vegan friend to lunch. I wanted a simple make-ahead appetizer. It needed to be without dairy products, and hummus was not an option because I was serving beans for the main course.

Then I remembered a walnut-sage pesto I had served on spaghetti. I adapted it into this spread and it was the hit of the party.

The tapenade is oily, which is why it's good smeared on bread. But don't feel guilty about the fat content because walnuts are a heart-friendly food. They actually reduce cholesterol, and are a good source of tocotrienols - antioxidants in the Vitamin E family. Walnuts have been found to improve blood flow after a high-fat meal.

I buy walnuts from Rancho La Vina in the Santa Rita Hills. They have been farming walnuts organically since the 1800s, and they have a stand at the Hollywood Farmers Market.

The fresh sage adds a nice undertone, but leave it out if you can't find it. I use Baleine coarse sea salt which has a clean flavor but is not overly expensive.

Walnut and Sage Tapenade
1 cup walnuts
1 large clove garlic
1 tbsp chopped fresh sage (3-4 leaves)
1 tsp coarse salt
1/3 cup olive oil

Toast the walnuts in a dry skillet 5 minutes until they are fragrant.

In a food processor, combine the garlic, sage and coarse salt. Pulse a few times. Add the walnuts and process until chopped fine.

While the processor is running, add the olive oil in a slow stream until the tapenade reaches a spreading consistency. You might not need all the oil.

(If you're using it as a pasta sauce, add extra oil so it is more of a sauce.)

Spoon the tapenade into a bowl and add extra salt, pepper and sage to taste.

Makes about 3/4 cup.

Roasted Parsnips

Roasting brings out the sweetness of root vegetables, and parsnips are no exception. The sweet earthiness of this dish is enhanced with a sprinkling of fresh sage.

You could cut carrots the same way and roast them with the parsnips for a more colorful side dish if you like. And if you don't have any fresh sage, leave it out. The roasted vegetables will still be full of flavor.

Finley Farms at the Hollywood Farmers Market has had wonderful tender parsnips this year. Most recipes tell you to remove the parsnip's tough core, but up to 1 1/4 inches in diameter they don't have one.

Traditionally parsnips are served with roast meats, but I served them the other day with sautéed mustard greens and a hearty dish of wheat berries.

The parsnips roasted in the toaster oven while I made the greens and grains on the stove. It was a simple meal for a cool winter night.

Roasted Parsnips
1/2 lb parsnips, about 7-8 small ones
6 fresh sage leaves, chopped (optional)
3/4 tbsp olive oil
sprinkling of salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 450°F. Peel parsnips and cut in half crosswise. Cut the skinny end in half and the wider end in quarters. If you have parsnips over 1 1/4 inch in diameter, cut out the tough core and discard. Then cut the parsnips crosswise into 1/2 inch pieces.

Toss parsnips with sage, oil, salt and pepper. Transfer to a shallow baking pan, spreading in one layer. Roast until the parsnips are tender and lightly browned, turning occasionally, 15-20 minutes.

Serves 2-3

Love them Rutabagas!

Finley Farms has had excellent rutabagas this year - starting with small tender ones in the fall, and progressing to the large ones I remember from Canadian winters.

I was raving about their rutabagas last Sunday at the Hollywood Farmers Market, when they asked me what I did with them. Well, I said, last week I roasted them, over the holidays I mashed them, and this week I will cook them in soup.

If I sound like a rutabaga addict, it's because I am. There's nothing like these yellow turnip-like roots (called swedes by the Brits and neeps by the Scots).

I adapted this soup from Anne Bianchi's book Zuppa! Soups from the Italian Countryside. This is a lovely book on the traditional cooking of the impoverished landscape of northern Tuscany. It's a land where you eat whatever is available. I'm looking forward to trying the rice and dandelion soup next week. (Both McGrath and Finley farms have had great dandelion greens recently.)

Autumn Vegetable Soup
3/4 cup dried beans (I used pinquitos, you could use any smallish bean)
6 leaves fresh sage, chopped
1 red onion, minced
3 cloves garlic, sliced in half
1 bunch (7 oz) dinosaur kale
1 (12 oz) rutabaga
1 tsp salt
12 oz butternut squash
1 fennel bulb
pepper to taste

Soak the beans overnight (or all day) in water to cover by 2 inches. Drain. Place in a soup pot with the sage, onion and garlic. Add fresh water to cover by 2 inches, and bring to a boil over medium heat. Cook, covered, 1 hour, adding more water if necessary.

Wash and chop the kale, stems included. Peel the rutabaga and chop in 1/2 inch pieces. Add to the beans along with the salt and cook, uncovered, for 20 minutes, stirring often.

Peel the squash and cut in 1/2 inch chunks. Remove the stalks and fronds from the fennel. Halve the bulb lengthwise and cut out the tough core and base. Slice the remaining sections in half lengthwise and then slice across. Add squash and fennel to pot and cook, covered, another 15 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Serves 6

Beans with Fresh Sage

When we moved into our house a few years ago, I planted a small English sage plant next to the orange tree. It has thrived, turning into a thicket that is covered in purple flower spikes every spring. The hummingbirds love it, as do the honeybees. It cascades out over our steps, creating a mass of buzzing purple for a couple of months each year.

Sage has a wonderful warm smell, and is a good base note in cooking.

Medicinally, it is antiseptic and boosts the immune system. So if you have a sore throat, pick a few leaves (or use some dried ones), pour boiling water over them, and let steep 10-15 minutes. Strain and then gargle with the warm liquid. Or drink it as a tea during cold season to boost your immune system. It's a natural estrogen promoter, so it is useful during and after menopause. And it's traditionally used by nursing mothers who want to stop their milk production after their baby is weaned.

This is an example of the many health-promoting properties that can exist in one plant -- yet another reason to eat lots of plants.

My favorite recipe using sage is this Italian one for beans. If you've been waiting for an opportunity to try cooking dried beans, this is the recipe to make the leap with. Because the beans are cooked in the sauce, they absorb the flavors and become delicious. They don't taste of sage, but it adds a depth to the flavor. If your family likes baked beans, they'll like these tomato-y ones.

This is a great Sunday-night bean dish. I cook it in the morning, and then reheat it in the evening. It's also good at room temperature on these warm summer evenings. Serve it with bread to soak up the sauce, and some wilted greens to add color and nutrients.

I use large white lima beans in this recipe, but you can use cannellini or whatever white bean you can find. Soaking the beans eliminates the need to cook them in a large pot of boiling water. Instead, the beans are cooked in a small amount of water, and you get all the nutrients as well as the flavor.

I adapted the recipe from Contorni by Susan Simon, a lovely book of Italian side dishes.

Beans with Fresh Sage
1/2 lb dried white beans
2 tbsp olive oil
2 cloves garlic, smashed then peeled
6 fresh sage leaves
2 cups water
14-oz can diced tomatoes, drained
1/2 teaspoon salt

Put the beans in a large bowl with 4 inches of water to cover. Let soak 8 hours or overnight. Drain and rinse the beans.

Warm the olive oil over medium heat. Add the smashed garlic and whole sage leaves and cook, stirring occasionally, 2-3 minutes to flavor the oil. Add the drained beans and stir to coat them with the oil. Add the water, lower the heat, and simmer partially-covered for 45 minutes. Add the drained tomatoes and simmer until the beans are cooked but still hold their shape, about 45 minutes more. They will be tender and slightly saucy. Stir in the salt and serve hot, or let cool and serve at room temperature.

The finished dish can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 4 days and reheated as needed.