Blue Cayenne

I grew up thinking beans belonged in a bowl. (The cuisine in my childhood home was pretty devoid of spice and imagination. Mine was a meat and potatoes kind of family.)

Then I grew up and went to India. 

There, in the Taj Mahal Hotel breakfast room in Mumbai, on the first leg of our first trip to India, they served baked beans on toast, poha, idli and a lot of other wonderful breakfast items. What? 

The baked beans on toast, I later learned, was a nod to the food of the British Raj. Baked beans on toast is a familiar breakfast offering in Britain. The baked beans on toast at the Taj, however, added green peppers and an interesting mix of spices to the British import. (Incidentally, I just checked the breakfast menu at the Shamiana Coffee Shop in the Taj, and, alas, baked beans on toast are no longer on the menu. The menu, however, looks pretty wonderful–particularly that Aloo Paratha Chonka Mutter. Panchranga pickle!? What in the heck is that? )

When I came home from India, I tossed out the cornflakes and felt freed to serve all kinds of foods for breakfast– beans and soups and even idli. I’ve never looked back.

Recently, I saw a recipe in Yotam Ottolenghi’s test kitchen cookbook Extra Good Things that reminded me of that baked beans on toast breakfast long ago. (Ottolenghi’s recipe is called Cheesy Curried Butter Beans on Toast With Pickled Onions. The cookbook is available from your local bookstore or on Amazon here.) 

Here is the recipe as I adapted it and cooked it in my kitchen. Feel free to make additions or deletions and make it your own. Seems to me that you could easily take this creamy bean topping in any number of directions by changing the spicing.

“Then just when I thought I was going to really break down for a good cry, I remembered a large bag of pistachio nuts in the back of the pantry.”   –Jeanne Ray

Is there a connection between cold weather, being stranded indoors and craving desserts?

I think so. 

Here is a stunning little Pistachio Cake garnished with bright red strawberries and topped off with whipped cream. It’s guaranteed to brighten your day or, at least, take the edge off the gloomy rain days we’re having.

The strawberries, by the way, are sauced in a lavender and vanilla sugar syrup. That takes things up a notch, for sure.

Here is the recipe as I prepared it in my kitchen. The original recipe appears in Yossy Arefi’s cookbook Sweeter Off the Vine. The cookbook is available at your local bookstore or on Amazon here

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I’m sitting here waiting for the big storm that is headed for Southern California. Right now it is sunny and the billowy white clouds drifting over my home are beautiful…the calm before the storm. 

Two nights ago, during the pre-storm wind storm, a couple of tiles on my roof were dislodged, the sweet dove that has been diligently sitting on her two eggs struggled to hold on, and the neighbor’s car cover blew onto my roof. Meanwhile, Juliet and I cuddled in bed and listened to the fierce winds howl. (We’re pretty worried about that dove, by the way. She’s small–probably a first-time bird mom–and she’s fiercely protecting two perfect white eggs. Sometimes nature can break your heart. )

So…I need comfort food to calm my nerves as we await what is being described as the “epic” storm headed our way. 

Pasta. I needed pasta. Of course.

This recipe is adapted from Diana Henry’s cookbook Simple. Her cookbook is available on Amazon here or at your local bookstore.