Who says a gratin needs to have cheese?  This dish, from the Liguria region of Italy, is delicious in its purity: basically just potatoes, mushrooms, garlic and herbs.  Be sure to use a very high quality extra virgin olive oil here, because it really makes a difference.  I used a dark green unfiltered oil from Spain and the flavor was phenomenal. It was by far the biggest hit of last weekend’s Sunday Night Supper Club.

Ligurian Potato and Mushroom Gratin

4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, divided
1 ¼  pounds Portobello mushrooms, gills scraped off, halved and thinly sliced
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 pounds Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and very thinly sliced (a mandolin is kind of essential)
¼ cup chopped flat leaf parsley
1 teaspoon fresh thyme
½ teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Heat 2 T. oil in a large skillet.  Add the mushrooms and cook for 5 minutes. Add garlic and cook 2 minutes more, until mushrooms are tender.

Mix the potatoes with the remaining oil and the herbs, and season with salt and pepper. Place a third of the potatoes in an oiled gratin dish or 8×8” square ceramic baking dish. Top with half of the mushrooms, removing them from the skillet with a slotted spoon. Repeat layers, ending in potatoes.  Pour any liquid from the skillet on top.

Cover tightly with foil and bake for 45 minutes. Uncover and bake an additional 20 minutes.

Serves 6

When cannellini beans are cooked in the oven instead of on the stove, they acquire a much more pleasing consistency – I don’t know why it isn’t a more common method for this type of bean. In this recipe, the cannellini are cooked until they begin to break down, and are then enhanced by just a  touch of tomato, creating a lucsious, stew-like dish. After cooling for a few hours, the beans become thick and downright creamy.

These are perfect with vegetarian or chicken sausages, or as part of a meal composed completely of “contorni” – Italian vegetable side dishes. This weekend I served them with a spring vegetable tart and Ligurian potatoes and mushrooms. Of course, those recipes will magically appear on your screen in the coming days, so stay tuned.

Tuscan Baked Beans with Sage and Tomato

4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
5 cloves garlic, smashed with the side of a knife, roughly chopped
14 fresh sage leaves
1 pound cannellini beans, soaked overnight, drained
3 cups water
1 14-ounce can plum tomatoes, drained and well chopped
1 teaspoon salt

Heat the oven to 350 degrees.

Heat the oil in a heavy pot or dutch oven. Add the garlic and sage and cook for 3 minutes. Add the beans, stir to coat, and cover with 3 c. cold water. Heat to boiling.

Cover and bake in the oven until the beans are tender. This could take anywhere from 45 minutes to 1½ hours, depending on the age of your beans, so test them for doneness after 45 minutes and cook longer as needed. You can add a little more water along the way if the beans get very dry.  Add tomatoes and salt, return beans to the oven and bake another 20 minutes.

Serves 6-8

Every Sicilian grandmother has a recipe for caponata – some calling for as much as a cup of olive oil.  No offense to those nonnas, but that’s overkill in my book.  While this recipe certainly doesn’t skimp on the oil, I rely more on spicy red pepper, fresh herbs and raw garlic to provide bold flavor. Rather than a traditional chunky, relish-y caponata, this one is more like a spread, due to the roasted eggplant. It’s delicious on crusty bread. I tried it out on the Italian nun who lives next door to me (seriously!)  Of course, she’s not a nonna, but her approval was good enough for me.

Spicy Eggplant Caponata

1 1/2 pounds eggplant (1 large)
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
2 ribs celery, inner stalks, diced
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1½ cups Pomi chopped tomatoes
¼ cup red wine vinegar (make sure your vinegar is gluten-free if you are gluten-sensitive)
1 tablespoon sugar
Pinch cinnamon
½ teaspoon fresh thyme (optional but good)
2 tablespoons capers, rinsed and drained
8 chopped pitted kalamata olives
¼ cup minced roasted red peppers (optional)
3 tablespoons pine nuts, lightly toasted
3 tablespoons golden raisins, roughly chopped
2 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley
1 teaspoon finely minced garlic
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Cut the eggplant in half lengthwise and score once or twice with a knife (not hitting the skin.) Roast face down on a baking sheet, covered in foil and sprayed with oil, until tender – about 20 minutes. Let drain in a colander for 10 minutes, cut side down. Scoop the eggplant out of the skin and chop coarsely.

Heat 2 tablespoons oil over medium heat in a large, heavy skillet. Add the onion, celery and red pepper flakes and cook for 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes, vinegar, cinnamon and sugar and cook for 5 minutes more. Add the remaining oil, eggplant, capers, red peppers, olives, pine nuts, raisins and parsley and cook for 5 minutes more. Add garlic. Season to taste. Cool to room temperature.

Serves 6 as an appetizer

Hey, don’t ignore this book because it’s vegan or because of the hippie-ish cover art. Myra Kornfeld’s The Voluptuous Vegan: More Than 200 Sinfully Delicious Recipes for Meatless, Eggless, and Dairy-Free Meals is a kickass cookbook. The best thing I tried was the pumpkin, sage and pecan ravioli with a white bean sauce (although I used a regular homemade pasta recipe instead of her eggless version with dried red chiles – but that could be interesting, too.) I love her lush, hearty dishes, like Seitan Pot Pie, Chili Corn Biscuit Casserole African Groundnut Stew and Tempeh Shepherd’s Pie. Next I’m going to tackle her Moussaka and the Tamales filled with Seitan Picadillo. Some people might be turned off by the long list of ingredients for some dishes – this is not “Real Simple” style food. But in most cases, the extra effort is well worth it.

Dessert-wise, I have eaten (way) more than my share of the Date Pecan Coffee Cake and Apple Walnut Crisp. The Peanut Butter Mousse Cake keeps calling out to me, too. The only thing in the entire book that my cardiologist might not approve of is the pie crust made with coconut oil. It’s probably delicious, but with my stupid cholesterol problems, I can’t risk buying into the coconut oil hype. The stuff is crazy high in saturated fat, but some claim it’s a good fat. Care to weigh in, Dr. Steinbaum?

Confession: I ate three of these muffins in a day.  My friend Francine ate three, too, but she was breaking her back raking leaves all day, while I just cooked.I kept justifying it by telling myself they were full of healthy stuff: whole grains, raspberries, even some flax.  But I know it’s not good to eat three muffins, no matter how virtuous they are.  So I will run an extra couple miles this week to atone for my sins.  End of confession.

These muffins are slightly crunchy because of the cornmeal, fresh tasting from the raspberries and just a bit sweet thanks to maple syrup. Around midnight, you’ll find yourself wanting another one. Make them for yourself, and please let me know if you are a better person than I am.

I used a recipe from the surprisingly good Mayo Clinic Cookbook as a departure point, giving it my own twist by using whole wheat pastry flour, maple syrup and flax meal.

Fresh Raspberry Muffins

1/2 c. rolled oats
1 c. soy milk
1 c. whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 c. stone-ground cornmeal
1 T. ground flax seed (flax meal)
1 T. baking powder
1/4 t. salt
1/2 c. maple syrup
4 T. canola oil
1 t. lemon zest
1 egg
1 c. fresh raspberries

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Spray a metal muffin tin with cooking oil spray.

Combine the oats and soy milk in a small bowl, microwave for 3 minutes, and set aside. Mix the dry ingredients in one bowl, and whisk the maple syrup, oil, lemon zest and egg in another. Combine the wet and dry ingredients, along with the cooked oats, and stir just until mixed. Fold in the raspberries.

Spoon the batter into the muffin tin, filling each 2/3 full (you will have about 9 or 10 muffins.) Bake for 16-17 minutes, until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean.

I’ve been craving sesame noodles but most versions are very gloppy, overly sweet and often made with large amounts of peanut butter. Don’t get me wrong, I love peanut butter, but I wanted a pure sesame taste without the heaviness. So today I opted for two different types of sesame oil and a bit of tahini. The addition of lots of green stuff – cucumber, scallions asparagus and cilantro – made me feel like I was eating something “light”, even if it wasn’t quite true.

You can make this with Chinese egg noodles or spaghetti, but soba noodles contain whole grains in the form of buckwheat, so they’re a better choice all around.

Sauce:
4 T. rice vinegar
3 T. low sodium tamari or soy sauce
2 T. mirin (sweet japanese cooking wine – available in most supermarkets)
1 T. sugar
1/4 t. cayenne pepper, or more to taste
4 t. minced fresh ginger
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 T. sesame oil
2 T. toasted sesame oil
2 T. tahini

10 oz. soba noodles

1/2 lb. thin asparagus, cut into 1/2″ pieces (snap off and discard tough ends)
1 cucumber, seeded and sliced into thin 1″ strips
4 scallions, sliced
1/3 c. chopped cilantro

Blanch the asparagus pieces in boiling water for 1 1/2 minutes. Drain, rinse in cold water and set aside.

In a large bowl, thoroughly mix the sauce ingredients. Cook the noodles according to package directions, rinsing with cold water several times after draining. Combine with the sauce, then mix in the asparagus, cucumber, scallions and cilantro. Serve at room temperature.

Serves 6 as a side dish.