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!

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...

Vegetable soup

OK, I'm gonna say it - this was nothing special; just a use-stuff-up recipe.  I still had most of the potatoes, corn, pink-eyed peas, tomatoes and banana peppers that I received in my most recent Pinckney's stash before Thursday rolled around - and I wanted to ensure that I had something vegetarian for myself on the days when I didn't want any meat or dairy.

2 tbsp canola oil
3 mild banana peppers, gutted and diced
4 cloves garlic, chopped
6 cups vegetable broth
1 lb fresh pink-eyed peas, rinsed
4 new potatoes, peeled and diced
1 ear of corn, cooked
2 large tomatoes, peeled and diced
1 branch fresh rosemary
1 branch fresh thyme
6 basil leaves, torn
pepper to taste

In an 8 qt pot, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the banana peppers and saute until softened, about 3-5 minutes.

Meanwhile, bring broth to a boil in a separate pot. Once it has boiled, add to the pot with the peppers along with the peas and diced potatoes. Cover and simmer 15 minutes.

Remove the husk from the corn and cut the corn off the cob with a serrated knife. Add corn, tomatoes and herbs to the pot, cover and simmer another 30 minutes. Check seasoning and add pepper to taste.

If I make this again, I might make it heartier by using less broth.  (Chris Rock: 'cuz I sho' is hungry!)  Since the potatoes were diced, less liquid was needed to soften them up.  One pleasant surprise, was that most of the thyme fell off the branches while the soup cooked, so when I finally had some on Tuesday, I just had to fish the thyme and rosemary out of the pot and toss them in the compost bin, and the rest I packed up as leftovers.

Calderade

Another Mediterranean recipe from the Portugal chapter of La cuisine autour de la méditerranée.  It would have been nice to include the onions that are mentioned in the book version, but I had no onions and an oversupply of potatoes, plus some nice, ripe tomatoes (thanks Joyce!) and pretty much everything else this recipe called for:


1/2 cup olive oil
6-7 medium new potatoes, peeled and cut into rounds about 1/3 inch thick
1 cup dry white wine
salt and cayenne pepper
2 large, ripe tomatoes, peeled and chopped
5-6 small tilapia filets
1 branch worth of chopped fresh rosemary
1 branch of fresh thyme

Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees.
In a 10 X 14 inch baking pan, add the olive oil and place in oven for 10 minutes. Remove and add layers of potatoes, seasoning each layer with salt and cayenne pepper. (Should end up with 3 layers.) Bake layers of potatoes for about 45 minutes or until fork-tender. Remove, add tilapia in one layer and cover with tomatoes, thyme and rosemary. Bake another 15 minutes or until tilapia flakes with a fork. Serve with white wine.

This made a great dinner last night, and I really enjoyed the leftovers for lunch today! To my surprise, we barely registered the cayenne; maybe it joined with the olive oil and wine in the bottom of the casserole? Also, the original recipe called for cod or another type of fish that is normally sliced thicker than tilapia and said to bake the whole thing for an hour. I went with the tilapia just because we already had it, adding it later so that it would not have time to dry out in the oven.

Completely unrelated, but in case anyone out there is wondering why the emphasis on healthy food, and why I haven't yet fried a single potato (or any other food items in my house) despite the steady supply...well, I haven't been able to run lately because I came away from a half-marathon in April with an IT band injury that's been slow to heal - in part because I put off going to see Dr. Renick. In the meantime, I've been very careful of what I eat so as not to puff up while waiting to start running again. But on Sunday morning, I managed to run for ten whole minutes after walking 20, cleaned house afterward and the IT band still feels OK!

Ratatouille

So, I caught some sort of bug over the weekend and didn’t realize it until Monday morning at work, by which time I'd already made this and the Frogmore Stew. (Steve's still not sick - knock on wood.) Luckily, I had made this in the meantime, which has been just as good to eat while sick as anything else. To my great surprise, there were no squash or zucchini in this week’s Pinckney’s stash, but there was an eggplant and a green pepper in the swap box at my pickup location and a largish zucchini growing in the backyard, so I decided to make the ratatouille. This is great by itself or as a type of primavera sauce over pasta and topped with shredded parmesan.

3 tbsp olive oil
1 eggplant, diced into 1-inch cubes
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1 large zucchini, diced into 1-inch cubes
1 green bell pepper, cut into 1-inch pieces
4 medium-large tomatoes, peeled and diced
1 branch fresh oregano
1 branch fresh rosemary
salt and pepper to taste

In a pot at least 4 inches deep, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the eggplant and garlic, stir and saute until eggplant is slightly softened, about 5 minutes. (Note: to hold as much steam as possible, keep the lid on between veggie additions.) Add the zucchini, stir and saute for another 5 minutes. Add the bell pepper, stir and saute for another 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes and fresh herbs, pressing down the herbs so they are fully submerged. Cover and simmer for another 20-30 minutes or until all veggies are tender. Add salt and pepper to taste and serve.

I usually make a batch at least twice this size when I plan ahead, but with what I had on hand, I figured that a smaller batch would do as well and would cut down on the amount of leftovers that would have to go in the freezer.

It's Thursday once again, I have more produce to pick up from Pinckney's and I'm fairly certain I still won't be up for cooking or eating much of anything tonight, but I can at least be glad that I'm making good use of what I have as I get it.