Lentils with cracked wheat and wilted kale salad

Well, today was the last of several days off from work before before I go back and - yuck - work straight through the Christmas weekend.  Oh, well.  At least I got over my cold in time to do all the fun stuff planned for this past weekend.

So, being home, I decided to cook for the fun of having a lunch not of leftovers and also so that I'd have ample leftovers for the next few days of lunch breaks at work.  I'm actually at a point now where I have too much in my cupboards, so I'm looking more for excuses to use up pantry items than the relatively scant produce in the fridge.  I asked Steve to pick up some more kale a few days ago because I was starting to want some again, and today I finally cooked it.  Nothing fancy about the kale itself, but the lemon-tahini dressing really makes this wilted salad.  It's also good atop a simple spinach salad.  Try it sometime!

Wilted kale salad:
2 tbsp Earth Balance
1 tbsp olive oil
1 bunch kale, washed and roughly chopped, stems removed
sea salt to taste (regular is okay too)

Heat Earth Balance and olive oil in a four-quart pot over medium heat.  Add kale and stir every 2-3 minutes until wilted.  Season to taste with salt.

Lemon-tahini dressing:
2 tbsp tahini
1 tbsp water
1.5 tbsp lemon juice
salt and crushed red pepper to taste

Combine the first three ingredients in a mixing bowl until smooth.  Stir in salt and crushed red pepper.
***
To pair with the kale, I wanted something at least vaguely North African or Middle Eastern so that no other flavors would clash with the dressing.  I looked up some bulgur wheat recipes (I was actually using cracked wheat from the Indian grocery store; technically not the same, but close enough for my purposes) and decided to go with this one, since it also gave me a reason to cook up the last of my brown lentils.  For Emeril, it's surprisingly simple.

The flavors all came together very well, but if I ever make this again, I'm going to ignore the bit about adding the uncooked bulgur wheat to the cooked lentils and then leaving it to absorb the liquid.  I found it hard to tell if the wheat had enough water or not (since the cooked lentils got pushed to the bottom of the pot and trapped some of the liquid) and kept adding water until it became apparent that there was too much.  The result was a little on the mushy side.  I was able to fix it (kinda) by turning the heat back on for a few minutes once everything had been stirred together, but still.  Bulgur wheat's just as easy to make as couscous and, if you do it right, turns out about the same as whole wheat couscous.  Live and learn.  Nevertheless, nothing was lacking in the flavor department (in part because I added a little more of the dry spices to the final mixture), and I've got leftovers for the next couple of days and a teeny bit more space in my cupboard than I had this morning.

Hopefully I'll find time to cook and blog about it once more before the holiday.  If not, I wish you all a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, etc. and a prosperous 2012!

Zucchini and yellow squash moussaka

Steve took care of my vegetable garden while I worked 12-hour shifts all weekend, so when I got home Sunday night, I saw two cucumbers, three crookneck squash and a zucchini that he had seen fit to pick when he went out to water the garden that morning.  A week earlier, he had bought four zucchini that were still in the fridge this morning, so I decided to take all the zucchini and yellow squash on hand and make a bigger-than-usual batch of moussaka.  Here's one of the slices we had for dinner:

I make it with zucchini more often than I blog about it, but the last time or two it came out a big, mushy disappointment.  The problem with using zucchini instead of eggplant is that it contains more water, so even if you salt the slices and then pat them dry before baking them, more liquid comes out of them in the oven and there's nothing else to absorb them.  Until now: I decided to give it another try after stumbling upon this blogger's tip about putting down a layer of breadcrumbs before each layer of zucchini.  I skipped his suggestion about grilling the zucchini slices because it's summer and I just don't wanna.  My placement of the yellow squash and zucchini was pretty haphazard-looking in terms of the colors, but I did manage to layer complimentary shapes together so that they covered the layer beneath.


For the red sauce (the base of which was a 28-ounce can of crushed tomatoes), I used lentils instead of meat, as per usual, then peeled, shredded and sauteed three carrots that I had no other use for.  Since I also have a bunch of fresh herbs growing in the backyard, I also picked, chopped and threw in about 15 fresh basil leaves, 20-25 fresh oregano leaves, 5 sprigs of thyme and one sprig of rosemary.  I also had a random jalapeno that was looking a little long in the tooth, so after donning a pair of disposable gloves, I chopped that finely and added it to the sauce as well.  Salt and nutmeg to taste.  This made for a more complicated sauce than usual, but I really wanted to use up all the ingredients I could, just like when I make lasagna.


Into a 375 degree oven for 45 minutes, uncovered.  Let it rest for an hour before cutting into it, and at the risk of copyright infringement...bam!

Steve and I each had a helping like the one above and four remain, so we'll be enjoying leftovers for the next couple of days.  I'm glad I had today off, since it took about two hours for the whole thing to come together (not counting the time in the oven and cooling afterward).  Whatever I make next will probably be simpler.  Until then...

Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme

All of the above ingredients went into the dinner I made last night after a very rough day at work.  Cooking was the furthest thing from my mind when I got home; all I could think about was propping up the achy foot I walked around on all day (boo, plantar fasciitis).  I'm glad I did because I was getting sick of settling for a frozen Amy's Kitchen entree (even though they're good), chips and salsa, chips and hummus or a salad consisting of the salad greens and dressing (nothing to chop). 

Until yesterday, I also had a ridiculously overgrown parsley plant in the backyard with stalks - actual stalks, like five or six of them - that were making it hard for the newer leaves to grow in.  So, inspired by necessity, I chopped off all the stalks, snipped all the parsley with normal-looking stems off them and then used all four cups worth to make a parsley and walnut pesto, about half of which went into the risotto (same recipe as here but with ground sage sauteed in Earth Balance with the rice; the pesto instead of spinach; and no nutmeg).  The lentils were cooked in salt, rosemary and a few sprigs of fresh thyme.  Steve found the lentils a nice complement to the brightness of the pesto risotto, and the leftovers hit the spot after my 10-mile run this morning!  I also look forward to using the leftover pesto in a quick and easy pasta dish in the next day or two.

Tonight I made a recipe from this month's Food and Wine magazine that came together really fast by substituting canned chickpeas for dried.  I also left out the caraway and cilantro because I didn't have any and because the recipe seemed to have enough flavor without them. 

I was right!  I also substituted about six big, finely chopped spearmint leaves (one tablespoon?) for the teaspoon of dried mint because I have tons of mint in the veggie/herb garden right now and because the dried mint that I have on hand right now is the cheap stuff from the Mexican aisle that's chock full of stems.  (Double boo.  I should collect some from the backyard and start preserving it myself.)  With canned chickpeas, it only took a little over a half-hour to make, and the combination of wilted Swiss chard and a cool yogurt topping was a lot like something by a Turkish chef they profiled several years back.  Try it out sometime when you don't have a lot of time or energy to cook!  The recipe doesn't mention a starch, but a bed of couscous seemed like the obvious choice.

Hope everyone's enjoying this nice weather - I know I've been enjoying the rain in intervals that keep me from having to water the veggies I'll be cooking with this summer!

Soup and Salad Sunday

Another recipe I've been thinking about and just now getting around to making.  I've been wanting to make something akin to minestrone, but since I didn't have any cannellini beans in the house (they often get used the day I buy them), I made do with a cup or so of dry lentils and some other things on hand.  This was a handy way to get rid of some carrots that have been hanging out in the fridge for over a week as well as one large onion from a bag purchased more recently.   The rest could have been used whenever, and today was as good a day as any.

Lentil soup:
2 tbsp Smart Balance
1 large onion, chopped
2 small carrots, peeled and sliced
3 cloves garlic, chopped
2 tsp dried Italian herb mix
1 cup frozen green beans, thawed
4 cups vegetable broth
1 cup green lentils, rinsed and sorted
1 15-ounce can of diced tomatoes

Heat the Smart Balance over medium heat in a 2-3 quart saucepan.  Add carrots and onions and cook until softened, about 3-5 minutes.  Add garlic and herb mix and cook for another 2 minutes.  Add green beans and cook until warmed, another 2-3 minutes.  Add vegetable broth, lentils and tomatoes.  Stir, cover and simmer until lentils have cooked through, about 25-30 minutes.

And today's salad involved an ingredient I'd never used before: radish sprouts purchased at the All-Local Farmer's Market at the end of my 11-mile run yesterday morning! 

I've been meaning to check out City Roots as well, and, having seen their selection on Saturday, I can't wait to stop by their location this week for some more new veggies!

Spinach salad with black olives and radish sprouts:
2-3 handfuls fresh spinach, washed and torn
1 small bag (1 cup?) radish sprouts
1/2 cup sliced black olives, drained
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp lemon juice
salt and pepper to taste

Assemble the first three ingredients, in order, on two salad plates.  In a small bowl, combine the next three ingredients and pour over the salad.

Good good stuff!  And I'm happy to actually have time to cook when I'm not too tired, like I was all day yesterday.  "Dinner" was me stuffing my face with hummus and spicy blue corn tortilla chips in front of the TV, catching up on 30 Rock and Outsourced.  Yay, Saturday night.

But I've got plenty of leftover soup to enjoy over the next couple of days, and tomorrow Steve and I will be celebrating Valentine's Day at Al's Upstairs!

Enjoy this lovely weather while it lasts!

Mulligatawny

...inspired by the "Soup Nazi "episode of Seinfeld.

I've come across a couple of recipes recently that only vaguely resemble the one I make - with chicken, tomatoes and yogurt instead of coconut milk (their version, not mine).  This recipe here is the first one I ever found, years ago, when I went looking for a recipe on foodnetwork.com.  To date, it's the only one I've ever worked from, and it never occurred to me that anyone else made it differently.  So imagine my surprise when I went hunting for recipes and found that nearly all contain chicken, celery, carrots and apples!

Well, the chicken's out because I think I'm done with it (and seafood and red meat) for the duration.  And I don't have any apples, carrots or celery on hand right now - not that I'd want the apples in a soup if I had them.  Really, the reason I decided to make this is to use up the leftover coconut milk from Friday's praram, a jalapeno (with the seeds) and the remaining cilantro.  I might try it one day with carrots and celery if I ever have everything I need to make it that way, but for now I think this version is just as good as any.  It all gets pureed, the coconut milk is stirred in at the very last, and voila - a lovely, silky-smooth lentil-coconut-curry bisque.  Served over rice.

To keep it totally vegetarian, I used Smart Balance instead of the butter and Better than Bouillon vegetable base instead of the chicken broth.  And Steve's been such a good sport about the vegetarian thing.  He bought himself a rotisserie chicken from the Pig the other day, and I told him he could add some to his bowl of soup if he wanted, but he didn't.  He even went back for seconds!

Worst case scenario, he'll have a bigger appetite for snacks by the time 30 Rock comes on.

Veggie Blue Plate Special 2: Lentils, Polenta and Green Beans

Well, it's January 8 and I still haven't broken my New Year's resolution to go vegetarian this month (and at least 5 other months this year).  It seems like forever since I last cooked anything more than rice and some frozen stir-fry veggies - hence my neglect of this blog - but today we had no leftovers and, after a blustery 10-mile run, I knew that none of the 300-calorie Healthy Choice meals in the freezer would come close to hitting the spot.  So, I finally cooked again.  I thought about using some of the produce (which we've also been low on) that Steve picked up yesterday before deciding that just using what we had in the cupboard and freezer would be quicker and easier. 

The "veggie blue plate" that I whipped up for Steve and myself consisted of the following:

Lentils with Italian herbs:
3 cups water
1 cup lentils, rinsed and sorted
salt and Italian herbs to taste

Bring the water to a boil.  Add remaining ingredients, cover and simmer until the lentils are tender (no need to stir), about 25-30 minutes.

Cheesy Polenta:
2 cups water
1/2 tsp salt
2/3 cup plain yellow corn meal
1/3 cup grated Parmesan
pepper to taste

Bring the water to a boil.  Lower to medium and whisk in the corn meal a little at a time, getting rid of any lumps that may appear.  (If it starts bubbling before you're done, turn off the heat.)  Once all the corn meal has been stirred in, the mixture should have a texture similar to mashed potatoes.  Stir in Parmesan and pepper.

Green Beans in Tomato Sauce:
2 tbsp olive oil
1 1/2 cups frozen green beans, thawed
salt and crushed red pepper to taste
1 cup tomato sauce

Heat the olive oil in a shallow pan over medium heat.  Add the green beans, salt and crushed red pepper and stir well.  Lower heat to medium-low, stir in the tomato sauce and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the tomato sauce has thickened, about 10 minutes.

The nice thing about this combo was that I didn't have to rinse and chop any fresh produce, because I was already too hungry by the time I started to make time for prep work.  Also, because I was so hungry, I went back for seconds on the polenta.  I'm just glad that Steve was hungry enough to enjoy it as much as I did. 

If you llive in the Southeast and haven't done so already, get to the store today and stock up on whatever you may happen to need for the next few days.  Not because the wintry mix that they're predicting will keep you inside or without power, but just so everyone else who's in a panic about the impending bad weather doesn't beat you to the store and clear whatever it is you need off the shelves.  That can be annoying.

Enjoy your weekend and stay warm!

Lentil soup

Can't believe it's been almost two weeks since my last blog post.  Not because I haven't been cooking, but because most of it has been replays of old standbys like Zucchini moussaka and fried rice made with frozen stir-fry veggies.  Life's getting hectic again, but I finally made time to restore health and sanity with a simple homemade vegetable soup.  (As for the continuation of the exotic veggies...the Chinese okra sat in the fridge too long and I couldn't use it, and I made the bitter melon with about the same spice mix as the bottlegourd.  Whoa, dude - bitter melon's bitter.  Wish I'd done a Chinese stir-fry instead; soy sauce probably would have taken the edge off better than the Indian spices did.)

So, after stopping into Publix on Monday and picking up a few things, I decided to dispense with some of the lentils that have sat in the cupboard unopened for months.  This lentil soup is one of the first things I learned to make during my junior year in Geneva, when I lived in the university apartments and had a monthly allowance for groceries.  It's also the first thing I ever made using broth, and one of my vegetarian classmates declared on a trip to the store that if you need broth, THIS (holding a box of Knorr vegetable bouillon cubes) is what you buy.  Eventually I found chicken, fish and ham broth, but I still like the veggie broth from time to time. 

2 tbsp olive oil

3 carrots, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced

1 large yellow onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic

8 oz. mushrooms, sliced

6 cups vegetable broth

1 cup dry white wine

10 oz. dry green lentils

3 sprigs fresh rosemary

2 tsp Cavender's Greek seasoning

1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley

Heat the olive oil over medium heat in an 8-quart pot.  Add the carrots and saute covered until softened, about 5 minutes.  Add the chopped onion and garlic and saute covered until softened, another 3 minutes.  Add the mushrooms, stir and saute covered until softened, another 3 to 5 minutes.  Add the broth and wine and bring to a boil.  Add lentils and rosemary and reduce heat to one notch below medium.  Cook until lentils are tender, about 30 minutes.  During the last few minutes of cooking, add the Greek seasoning and parsley. 

I'll go ahead and admit that I had been going more for a rustic French result, but now I'm thinking that would have worked out better just with chicken broth, rosemary, salt and pepper.  The Greek seasoning was basically a "save" because the soup seemed to be missing something before I added it.  At least now I understand why this recipe has been hit-or-miss in the past.  Plus I've got leftovers for the next two days' lunch and a bunch more carrots left to use in some of the many fall recipes I've been bookmarking!  Check back soon to see what's next...

Whiting au poivre with herbed lentils

So, last week I saw where some website had posted French recipes in celebration of Bastille Day.  One of them was "Tuna au poivre with lemon-caper lentils," with tuna being chosen as a healthy substitute for pepper steak.  Well, I almost never have either in the house, but we did have whiting in the freezer.  Also, Steve doesn't like capers because of their unsavory provenance ("they're a garbage vegetable"?), which was just as well because I had carrots and some zucchini from the backyard that needed to be used up.  The link to the recipe this is based on is here, and here's what I actually made (Tuesday night):

2 6-oz. whiting filets and one flounder filet, thawed
salt and fresh-ground pepper
1 cup lentils, rinsed and sorted
1 sprig fresh rosemary, chopped
2 medium carrots, peeled and sliced
2 medium zucchini, quartered lengthwise and sliced about 1/3 inch thick
1 tbsp lemon juice

Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees.  Salt and pepper both sides of each fish filet, pressing in the pepper.  Place the fish filets in a greased shallow baking pan and bake until fish flakes with a fork, about 15-20 minutes.  Halfway through the cooking, sprinkle lemon juice on the fish filets and put them back in the oven.

Meanwhile, bring 2 1/2 cups of water to boil.  Add lentils, carrots, rosemary and salt.  Cover and simmer for 10 minutes.  After 10 minutes, add zucchini, put the lid back on and simmer until lentils are done, another 15-20 minutes.

Easy, huh?  Steve and I both had the whiting on Tuesday night, and I had the flounder for lunch at work the next day.  The flavors of whiting and flounder are different, but I thought it worked either way.

As hungry as I am, I can't believe I'm still typing.  Thank God Steve brought home another rotisserie chicken; now all I have to do is cook up some of the broccoli he brought home a few days ago and we'll be set!

Lentil and zucchini moussaka

I made this one on Sunday because, once again, I got a ton of yellow squash and zucchini in my Pinckney's stash. Hopefully I won't run out of ideas for them before my summer subscription ends.

As it happened, I also had a couple of mild banana peppers (also from Pinckney's) and a bag of lentils and a 28 oz can of whole peeled tomatoes that weren't earmarked for anything. Since I had all this squash, the pantry items and no ground meat on hand with which to make a normal moussaka, I figured I could just cook a cup of lentils and add them to the tomato sauce as a meat substitute that would keep all the layers thick enough to remain distinct in the oven. So, here's the recipe:

4 yellow squash, halved lengthwise
2 zucchini, halved lengthwise
3 cups salted water
1 cup lentils, rinsed and sorted
2 tbsp olive oil
2 mild banana peppers, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
2 tsp dried Italian herbs
fresh ground pepper
28 oz can of whole peeled tomatoes
3 tbsp Smart Balance
2 tbsp flour
1 cup milk
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
salt and pepper to taste (white pepper's good if you have it)

Place the halved zucchini and yellow squash on a plate, skin-side down. Make cuts in each piece in a crosshatch pattern, salt generously and store in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.

Bring 3 cups of salted water to a boil. Add lentils, stir and simmer, covered, until lentils are very tender, about 30 minutes.

In a separate saucepan, heat olive oil over medium heat. Add banana peppers, garlic, pepper and Italian herbs and saute until peppers have softened, about 5 minutes. Chop the canned tomatoes by running a long, sharp knife through them, then add (with juices) to the peppers, stir well and simmer uncovered (a splatter guard's a good idea) until sauce is very thick, about 30-45 minutes. Check seasoning and add salt if needed (mine didn't need any). Add the cooked lentils to the tomato sauce and stir until blended.

While the tomato sauce is cooking, heat Smart Balance in another saucepan until melted. Add flour and stir well; do not allow to brown. Stir in the milk slowly, taking care to prevent lumps from forming. Add pepper and simmer, stirring often, until sauce has thickened. Stir in Parmesan cheese, check seasoning and add salt if needed.

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Remove zucchini and squash from refrigerator, rinse and pat dry with paper towels. In the bottom of a bread loaf pan (mine are non-stick; if yours isn't, grease it first), arrange half of the zucchini and squash, skin-side down, so that as much of the base is covered as possible. Layer half of the lentils and tomato sauce mixture over the zucchini and squash. Repeat with the remaining zucchini/squash and lentil-tomato mixture. Add the cream sauce by pouring evenly over the top layer of lentils and tomatoes and smooth out carefully with a spoon so that this forms the top layer.

Bake in 350 degree oven for one hour, let cool and serve.

I made this three hours ahead of time, covered it in foil when it came out of the oven, and when we sat down to eat it was still warm and the (delicious!) sauce had permeated the zucchini and squash and also mingled somewhat with the cream sauce on top, which had still formed a crust as I'd hoped. The key, which I learned after several botched attempts at moussaka, is to make each of the sauces very thick so that it will hold its own as a layer after it goes in the oven.

This recipe is pretty much based on the one I've always used, which is in the "Grece" chapter of La cuisine autour de la mediterranee.* Vilma Liacouras Chantiles notes in The Food of Greece that, although we normally associate eggplant with moussaka, traditional Greek/Turkish moussaka can be made with whatever layered vegetables you want; the red and white sauces are the common denominator. I've also gotten excellent results using potatoes sliced about 1/4 inch thick, and I usually use ground turkey in the red sauce with a little salt, pepper and nutmeg. If you're planning ahead to make it this way, it pays to spice the ground meat beforehand. A 28-oz can of crushed tomatoes works just as well as the canned whole tomatoes, as would 5 or 6 very ripe tomatoes, peeled and diced. Also, when using meat, raise the temperature to at least 375 degrees, and the eggplant also might come out more tender after another 15 minutes or so at this temperature, or after 1 hour at 400 degrees.