Butter Beans, Tangy Mushrooms, Baked Pasta with Artichokes and Cheese, and Margaret

This is a Margaret Winchell Appreciation Post. 

Margaret is one of the dearest friends I have ever known. She’s one of the few people I can talk on the phone with for hours and forget how long it’s been. Her phone calls are like menthol when you have a bad cold. They clear your head, open up your chest, and lead you to hope that you’ll feel better very soon. 

Margaret is brilliant. Not in a tongue and cheek way. She’s actually brilliant, especially when it comes to music, teaching, cooking, baking, musical theater, leadership, and multi-tasking. Her brilliance can sometimes intimidate others when they first meet her. But after spending time with Margaret, you realize she uses her brilliance to draw others in. 

Margaret, as I just mentioned, is a phenomenal, intuition-driven cook, with instincts so sharp, they could pierce a stale loaf of bread like a tip of a Global knife. It’s her passion for food and hospitality that turned me on to cooking as well. We became real friends after college, right at the time that I was learning to cook myself. She showed me the way. She took me under her wing and had me cook alongside her in preparation for our weekly dinners with Amy, and then usually at some point over the weekends, too. We did a lot of cooking together those days. Margaret also introduced me to New York Times Cooking, which revolutionized what I cook. 

Margaret visited me last weekend, along with her grad school pal, Evan. A most delightful duo. I went into my suburban office on Friday for work, and took the 4:57pm train home. I walked through the door to find my dearest friend Margaret already through two of Alison’s recipes, and half way through a third. This spoke volumes to me. I could almost cry. When this project felt close to impossible, far out of reach from my energy coffers, Margaret stood in the gap, and darn well filled it. 

I can claim essentially no credit for cooking these three recipes, and that’s okay. I’ll let my friend serve me in this way. I did, however, eat all three dishes, and talked to Margaret at length about their preparation. So in lieu of describing a cooking process, I’ll offer here just a few thoughts and takeaways about each one: 

Vinegar-Marinated Butter Beans: 

• Something was UP with these beans. I had on hand a can of Eden Organic Butter Beans that had not expired, and were, you know, supposedly organic. But the best word to describe the final dish is “bitter.” We mused over this conundrum. Vinegar is acidic, but it shouldn’t taste bitter. Garlic can be bitter if you leave the green tips that sometimes sprout out the tops, but Margaret didn’t do this. What we’re left with are the beans. Something must be wrong with the beans. This dish has potential if you don’t have weird beans. It even keeps leftovers for up to two weeks, which I would normally do. But alas, we tossed our bitter beans. 

Tangy-Roasted Mushrooms: 

• Mushrooms, a good variety of them, are expensive, but worth it, IMO. 

• Mushrooms don’t shrink much when you roast them. They just get silkier in texture. 

• Thinly sliced onions add some fun bits of crunch here. 

• I would serve this at many a gathering. 

Baked Pasta with Artichokes and Too Much Cheese:

• Alison absolutely nails the flavor here. Perfect balance of salty, sour (from the artichokes) and creamy (from all that cheese). Pro tip: the flavor gets a glow-up when you add a few tangy-roasted mushrooms on the side. 

• We are floored that Alison doesn’t mention any options for ready-to-bake noodles. This feels like an obvious miss for the many people who don’t want to deal with the labor of parboiling noodles before assembling the dish. We simply refused to parboil, and so put our ready-to-bake noodles straight into the casserole. The top layer of noodles sure stayed tough and became like noodle chips. Not the worst outcome, but certainly not the most optimal. 

• In our humble, yet knowledgeable opinions, we don’t love the lasagna noodle choice. We believe in using a penne or rigatoni. We want to avoid the noodle chip effect.

171, 172, 173 recipes cooked, 52 to go.

The Greatest Creamed Greens by Alison Roman

What can I say about creamed greens? Alison speaks of them like they’re classic American food. Like anyone who’s had a steak and a baked potato has also had creamed greens. Apparently every good steakhouse serves them? Either I’ve never been to a proper steakhouse, or my mother’s aversion to cooking anything with excess fat or olive oil has kept me from experiencing the richness of some creamed greens. 

But for a first eating of creamed greens, I’ll say Alisons’ were pretty great. 

The recipe begins with breadcrumbs, as all good recipes tend to do. Crisp up fresh crumbs in oil, salt and pepper to a golden perfection. I might go wild next time and add some Aleppo pepper to the crumbs for a bit more heat. 

Next, bring heavy cream to a simmer and drop in several smashed garlic cloves and a dash of nutmeg (yes, nutmeg). Alison calls for freshly grated nutmeg, but I want to know who, if anyone ever, has made this recipe with fresh nutmeg. Where would one find such a thing? And who has the time? I don’t think she’d mind using ground nutmeg… the title of her other cookbook is “nothing fancy” after all. This creamy deliciousness cooks down to a thicker sauce that truly tastes like Alfredo (even though no cheese is involved!). The whole process took about 20 minutes. 

In the meantime, cook down two bunches of Dino kale. At first, I thought, this is too much kale! But no. It’s perfect. It cooks down so much that you’re left with a medium sized bowl that’s halfway full of them by the end. The key here is to cook them in batches at a medium temp, so they don’t overcrowd or get browned. Once wilted, stir in the cream sauce and creme fraiche. 

Ah, creme fraiche. The golden ingredient of every recipe it’s in. If Alison can claim these are the “greatest” creamed greens, it’s because of this ingredient, which adds a tangy depth without making it all taste even heavier. Creme fraiche is unskippable, so don’t even think about jettison-ing it. A mandatory fancieness. 

164 recipes cooked, 61 to go.

Harissa-Braised Green Beans with Herbs by Alison Roman

Harissa? I hardly know her! 

But really, this was our first time meeting. For all the praise I’d heard about this tomato-chile paste over the years, it took me until now to summon the courage to look her in the eye. To be honest, I was afraid of her being too spicy. Packing heat is harissa’s reputation after all. But when I saw this recipe, I thought that maybe using harissa to add the heat to an otherwise middle-of-the-road vegetable seemed like the right kind of first date. 

(I realize that I frequently talk about food/ingredients as if they’re people. Should I be concerned? Is this a normal progression?)  

To begin, harissa paste and several garlic cloves are sauteed at the bottom of a large pot, until the harissa begins to caramelize. Then a large tomato, quartered, is added and cooked until it begins to break down. I found that this step took longer than outlined in the instructions, which I’m guessing is due to the size of the tomato chunks. Next time I’ll cut the tomato into eighths to speed up this process. 

A bit of white wine comes in next to deglaze the bottom of the pot. I chose a cheap Sauvignon Blanc (Trader Joe’s Coastal brand), and served it with dinner as well. As far as cheap whites go, this one is quite nice! Finally, the green beans are tossed and coated with the spicy tomato mixture and cooked over medium-low with the lid on to steam them. The goal here is to cook the beans until they are “delightfully softened but not yet mushy.” 

In true Alison fashion, the beans are tossed with a cup of fresh herbs, a half cup of chopped chives, and lemon zest. 

After cooking it down, the harissa paste added a nice amount of heat without overpowering the dish. It made me wish that we’d met sooner. I think this dish is a really nice way to eat green beans. I’m used to roasting them with olive oil and lemon juice, so this was a welcomed change. 

32 recipes cooked, 193 to go.

These green beans go really well with Alison’s Slow Roasted Oregano Chicken with Buttered Tomatoes. In fact, almost anything goes well with that chicken.

Soy-Brined Halibut with Mustard Greens, Sesame, and Lime by Alison Roman

I like seafood. I never crave it. Some seafood is more appealing to me: salmon, calamari, mahi mahi. Other seafood makes me squirmy: clams, mussels, sardines. I’ve made salmon and shrimp before, but nothing else. 

Of course, there are a total of 30 seafood recipes between Alison’s two cookbooks, and this project will force me to cook all the seafood out there (including a whole branzino)! I had to start somewhere, right? Why not make it halibut. 

In the Midwest, halibut is not readily available in a regular grocery store, but I was able to track some down at Whole Foods. Halibut is also a bit pricey here, so I chose to cut this recipe in half and just make two filets (not four). 

Halibut is a thicker, mild white fish. Its meaty flesh is very impressionable. It easily absorbs the flavors it’s next to. In this recipe, soy sauce is the leader of the flavor pack. The fish is brined in it, along with a bit of rice vinegar and water, for 1-2 hours before showtime. This brine is primarily motivated by flavor, not so much for maintaining moisture like a turkey brine. 

If cooking fish were always this fast and easy, then I would have no reason to be so intimidated. Cooking this halibut was as simple as placing the fish in a saute pan in a pool of soy sauce, sesame oil and water over a light simmer. Cover the pan and let it cook through for 7 minutes. The steam cooks the fish through without drying it out, and creates a nice steaming liquid to braise the mustard greens. Mustard greens were a fun, tangy pairing for this somewhat bland fish. And a good amount of fresh lime juice and toasted sesame seeds brought it all together. 

I followed Alison’s suggestion and served this with Crispy Potatoes with Onions and Parsley. But I think this could just as easily go over a bowl of coconut rice.  

I didn’t expect to like this dish as much as I did. I’m looking forward to trying it in the summer, eating it on our deck with a glass of chilled white wine in hand. 

21 recipes cooked, 204 to go.

Crispy Chickpeas and Lamb with Greens and Garlicky Yogurt by Alison Roman

Yes, this was my first time EVER cooking lamb. Yes, I’m now shocked that I waited so long. I’ll break this mouth-watering dish down by the five unique and totally necessary elements that make it up: ground lamb, crispy chickpeas, sauteed greens, fresh tomatoes, and garlicky yogurt. 

Ground lamb. It took a little time, but I eventually found some at Holy Land. The meat is cooked in a skillet with spices, just how I’d cook any other ground meat. So simple, yet I felt some exhilaration while pushing the meat around in the pan. Already this project has forced me to cook with so many new (to me) ingredients. Every time I use one, I feel a spark of inner joy, knowing that I’m choosing to risk a small failure and courageously choosing to do the thing anyway. For someone who is as afraid of failure as I am, (hello, Enneagram 3), this kind of daily exercise has been good for me. 

Crispy chickpeas. I’ve tried making crispy chickpeas in the past by way of oven-roasting. They can take a while and it’s hard to strike the right balance between too soft and too hard. Alison’s method took less time and less work. She has you crisp up the chickpeas in the same pan used to cook the lamb with a good bit of vegetable oil. You know they’re done when they appear golden on all sides. The chickpeas gave a great salty crunch to the dish, counterbalanced by the briefly warmed greens. 

I chose a fresh bunch of swiss chard for my greens. There’s something so appealing about their bright pink stems! I loved the way she has you cook them: stems and leaves separated, stems thinly sliced and sauteed until just tender but still crisp on the inside, and leaves until just wilting but not totally limp. After eating a ton of soggy swiss chard in my college cafeteria, this cooking method gave me hope for more chard in my future. 

Fresh tomatoes are not something I would have thought to include, and I almost didn’t. I’m so glad I kept them in. They brought a brightness and element of refreshment that counterbalanced the rather oily nature of the lamb, chickpeas and greens. 

At the base of the plate is a simple garlicky yogurt with lemon juice. This creamy, slightly acidic spread brought everything together really nicely. 

J asked that I add this recipe to “our rotation.” I told him yes, but first, I need to make 212 other Alison Roman recipes ;). 

14 recipes cooked, 211 recipes to go.