Cooking Revival

I’m shocked that it’s been well over a year since I’ve posted anything here.  Then again, I haven’t created many spectacular, or even interesting meals during this long stretch of deprivation.  I suppose I should start featuring meals you can create from food bank gleanings, because that’s basically where I’m at:  trying to find ways of turning frozen chicken leg quarters and canned green beans into something appealing.  How to survive on what’s left after leaving the gluten- and chemical-laden giveaways at the distribution point . . .  ?

The truth is, I have been experimenting, and when I give it enough thought, there is hope. I’m currently devising a dish of pre-baked chicken legs and spices with the ubiquitous canned green beans that I hope will resemble Szechuan beans with spicy garlic chicken.  If I succeed, I shall definitely reveal how I did it in my next post.

I mean, anything is possible, right?

 

Tick-Tock, Dinner’s in the Crock

Here it is, the final rush before Christmas. I have more than enough to do without having to mess up my tiny kitchen and clean it three times a day. So out come my crock pots, cutting the labor to a minimum. I’m doing this by the seat of my pants with whatever’s in the cupboard, fridge and freezer.

Yesterday, I pulled three chicken leg quarters from the freezer, put them in the pot and let them cook, unseasoned, on high setting until they started smelling good. At that point, I cut up what vegetables I had on hand, plus 1 Granny Smith apple. I transferred the chicken to a bowl to cool while I added the vegetables to the juices, plus the apple and a handful of organic raisins. Next in were the spices: garam masala, curry powder, onion and garlic powders, white pepper, spicy smoked paprika, and a couple grinds of lemon pepper. Then a hefty tablespoon each of hot curry paste and tandoori paste.

After a stir, I measured out and added 1.5 cups of organic chicken broth, stirred again, and then measured in 1 cup of quinoa. I used this in place of the brown rice I gave up for my venture into Paleo eating. Another quick stir, and the lid goes back on the pot while I pull the chicken meat from the bones (and skin, which the 4-legged family got for a special treat). After returning the meat to the pot, it took about an hour to finish the casserole to a fluffy, savory meal with just the right moisture and balance of spicy and sweet.

I tasted it after the pot had cooled, and was just as good cold, so I finished it off today.

Sorry I didn’t think to take pictures, but it wasn’t as pretty as it was flavorful and nutritious.

Getting closer to kitchen creativity

I’m settling in gradually to my new digs. I’m trying to make my tiny kitchen functional despite the lack of space for all my necessary kitchen equipment. Well, what I considered necessary when I packed up for this move. I hope to acquire a versatile kitchen cart to house a few items and extend my counter space. Truth be told, I will likely have to let go of some of my hoard of kitchenware after spending some time to determine what I actually find essential to my new life.

It’s getting closer to time for making goodies intended for Christmas gifts, so I’ll be looking at some new alternatives to the old traditions. I’ve come to consider that a good food gift is not only beautiful and delicious, but also contributes to the giftee’s health. One idea that just occurred to me while writing this post is a kit for making Mideastern lentil soup, something the intended recipients would never try on their own but would find delicious.

If any of my readers have ideas to share, please leave me a comment. I appreciate your thoughts, especially on making the most of a small living space, cooking for one, and healthy food gifts. As autumn progresses, I wish you all full and happy hearts as you enjoy the changing seasons.

Eggplant Parm the Healthy Way

As they say, better late than never.  I think that will be my story this summer.  I did cook the Mellanzane Parmigiana (p. 92) and made the Tomato Sauce (p. 62) from Delicious Dishes last week, but then life kind of took over for a few days and so it’s taken me this long to write about it.  We savored the last of it at lunch today, and as is typical of such dishes, it was even better after a few days’ rest.

So here’s the down & dirty details of nearly from scratch tomato sauce.  I followed the recipe to a T because it was my first time.  I bought some genuine San Marzano tomatoes for the purpose.  It’s the first time I’ve used them, expensive as they are compared to regular old store-brand canned tomatoes.  My impression is that the pricey Italian pomodoros taste a little sweeter and mellower than my everyday tomatoes.  I don’t know, but I’ve been told, that the San Marzanos are simply IT for making homemade tomato soup.  Of course the holy grail of tomato cookery would be to pick warm tomatoes off one’s own vines, but I am also advised that the San Marzano tomato is like the true Vidalia onion — has to be grown in that specific place in the world to be the genuine article.

Still, I am out watering my lovely Roma bushes each day to encourage them to give me bushels of fruit destined for the sauce pot and a few other uses.

I did use a stick blender rather than pressing the hot sauce through a sieve.  A sieve — seriously??  I hate losing any tomato-y goodness, even the seeds, in the strainer, and worse than that, I hate washing the stuff out of the nasty little wire baskets.  I use my wire strainers to sift flour or strain liquids or juices and that’s about it.

Enough about equipment — the sauce is incredible in its purity and simplicity!  I did have fresh basil to throw into it.  A little heavy on the olive oil, I thought, but what do I know?  From-scratch sauce I’ve made before can’t touch this.  I’m planning to make batches of this put up in Mason jars as the tomatoes come in.

On to the eggplant.  Robin’s recipe says to put the salted and sweated slices on the grill to cook, which is what I did and it’s the first time I’ve grilled eggplant.  Maybe that’s what gave it the incredible flavor that made me forget about the breadcrumbs and mozzarella I always used in my conventional recipe.

Eggplant slices on the grill

 

Mellanzane Parmigiana (p.92) with Tomato Sauce (p. 62)

 

The eggplant layered with sauce and parmesan nicely filled my casserole dish and the aroma had me ready to eat before it was even halfway done.

 

 

 

 

I cooked some brown rice rotini, tossed with olive oil, garlic and a little butter to serve alongside.

It’s not your mama’s eggplant parm, it’s better!

I thought I’d have to give up my favorite vegetarian main dish, between gluten intolerance and weight loss, but now I can indulge and know it’s healthy as well as delicious.  All the flavors are there, but with much less fat.  I’m hoping I can grow some eggplant in this year’s garden.  I have attempted it many times but the flea beetles get to the plants before they can produce.  I will have to be on the lookout and see if I can prevent the bugs from getting the best of me this year.

The next meal I made was T-bone steaks, grilled to perfection with sauteed mushrooms and sweet potatoes cooked in foil on the grill.  Instead of using a whole stick of butter on the vegetables, I used mostly olive oil with a tablespoon or so of butter for cooking the mushrooms, and dressed the sweet potatoes with EVOO and rosemary and a little sprinkle of sea salt.  I had enough of my steak left over to make a nice lunch of it the next day.  So you see, as much as I love my vegetable dishes, I am still a meat-eater at heart.  I just don’t depend on the meat to star in every meal any more.  It’s more a special treat than the basis of my diet, as I go further down the path of this new way of feeding myself.

 

Frittata — It’s What’s for Supper

I used the frittata recipe Robin blogged today, but since I had no zucchini, but did have a yellow summer squash, I used that, and added a little red bell pepper for color.  I’m not a big fan of eggs, except maybe deviled eggs, other than at breakfast or brunch, but this dish has changed my thinking.  I needed something light yet with a good amount of protein, and wanted veggies but not salad tonight.  Voila!  Squash and onion frittata to the rescue.

A few days ago, I got around to making quinoa tabouli.  I should have taken a picture, but I was so hungry I scarfed it down without a thought about the blog.  No problem — it was so good and so nutritious I will be making it on a regular basis.  I liked it better than traditional bulghur wheat tabouli.  It’s another meatless but protein-packed meal.  I could live on this stuff alone for days if need be.  Next time (which will be soon) I make it I will take pictures and give the recipe here.

I have been busy planting my vegetable garden and trying to do some delayed spring cleaning, which left little time for blogging.  But I can’t stay away for long, so here’s to getting it all in.  I’m planning to do the version of eggplant parmigiana on page 92 of Delicious Dishes tomorrow if possible.  I love the traditional way but it’s too heavy for summer eating, and Robin’s version has nary a breadcrumb in sight, and no mounds of gooey mozzarella.  I will be recording this adventure here, so stay tuned.

A Wing Thing

Chicken Wings Roasted with Lemon and Black Pepper (p. 124); Cauliflower with Mustard Seeds (p. 72)

Here are two recipes I had not tried from Delicious Dishes until now.  The cauliflower dish is one I’ve wanted to use since Robin put it up on his blog a few weeks back.  To my delight, mine turned out looking like his photos illustrated.

The chicken wings I had to test-drive, mainly to see if I might try to adapt them to my occasional craving for Buffalo wings.  I followed the recipe exactly and they are wonderful as is, but these are mild although flavorful.  Putting the two dishes together does work, but the spice and heat is in the vegetable, not the meat.

I had to use brown mustard seeds that I had because I haven’t found any black mustard seed locally, although I’m sure I can get some by mail or even perhaps in a town nearby.  To my dismay, I opened my spice drawer only to find that the fennel seed I thought I had was not there, so I substituted caraway, which I have used before with cauliflower.  It turned out fine, but I will do this recipe with the exact ingredients as soon as I can find them.

The wings I will set about to adapt to satisfy when I’m jonesin’ for the hot wings.  It shouldn’t be hard to do, especially since I usually keep some kind of hot wing sauce in the pantry which should cover up any blunders.

Right now, the House finale is about to start, so I’m outta here.  You already know I’m hooked on hot Englishmen . . .

Mind-blowing and Meatless

Clockwise from left: Rice and Spinach Torte (p. 34); Cucumber and tomato salad; Sauteed Mushrooms with Parsley and Garlic (p.78).

I did it!  I pulled the trigger and prepared a full vegetarian meal!  And it was GREAT!!

The main course was Robin’s Rice and Spinach Torte, on page 34 of the cookbook.  I have to admit I was skeptical about how this would be.  I was afraid it would come out bland and unappealing.  I’ve eaten a lot of spinach and a lot of brown rice in my life, and I like each as a separate thing, but never thought combining them would be very interesting.  All I can say is that I lacked imagination — it’s the seasoning and the method in the recipe that makes this a satisfying, stand-out vegetarian entree.  My crumbs were gluten free and corn-based, which is why they are so yellow, but they worked wonderfully with the rice and spinach.   The textures of this dish surprised me — an almost meaty center with the wonderfully crunchy “crusts” gave it substantial mouth feel.  The husband is as much a carnivore as I, and he really enjoyed the torte.

The mushrooms seemed a natural accompaniment to the spinachy main dish.  Although the recipe calls for “field mushrooms,” I am not a mushroomer and would certainly end up with terminal liver failure if I tried to be.  Thus, using the old standbys, white and brown mushrooms,  I prepared the recipe as written, but at the last minute threw in a dash of sherry to deglaze the pan, which is a trick I learned long ago and do automatically.  The savory mushrooms complement the torte just as well as they always have done with steak.

Fresh cucumber and tomato salad, dressed simply with olive oil, lemon juice and ground black pepper, provided a cool, snappy counterpoint to the rich, umami flavors of the other two courses.  Dessert was a simple frozen strawberry fruit pop, since I didn’t have any fresh berries.

There was plenty left over of the torte, also some of the mushrooms and a little snack of salad.  This will make a nice packed lunch for my commuting day on Friday.

My Perfectly Vegetarian Plate

I can already feel the difference on my insides of dispensing with meat for the evening meal.  I am fully satisfied, yet my digestive system seems — what should I say — “calmer” might be the word.  And I have noticed that my blood sugar did not spike afterward and then crash.  I sort of expected that to happen, because it seems to, no matter what the meal consists of.  Not this time.  It’s about time for me to turn in, but I don’t feel like I have to crash out, if that makes sense.

So, now that I’ve made the torte, I see what a surprising and impressive dish this would be to serve guests.  I can imagine how good it might be with a bowl of freshly cooked tomato-basil soup and maybe some fennel salad on the side.

And I always thought I had to roast a bird, or throw a steak on the grill for company . . .  Well, the times, they are a-changin’!

Get Me to the Greek

Greek Chicken with Rosemary-Olive Oil Sweet Potatoes

Here’s one of my favorite chicken recipes:  Greek Chicken, done on the grill.  It shares the same flavors as several of the Delicious Dishes recipes:  Olive oil, lemon, garlic and pepper.  I have oregano growing wild in my yard, so I often go out and pick a handful or two and crush the leaves a bit to release the aroma and flavor.

For four chicken breast halves, I zested and juiced 2 lemons, finely sliced 2 garlic cloves, coarsely ground black peppercorns (probably a couple teaspoons’ worth), and threw in my couple tablespoons of bruised oregano leaves.  Into a one-gallon size zip bag it sat, marinating the poultry for an hour or so.

I heated my grill to high and put the breast pieces bone side down, making sure each had a fair amount of marinade atop it.  After a couple minutes, I turned the heat down to medium-low and let them go until I judged them ready to be turned, maybe 20 minutes.  A word of caution:  I am cooking on a gas grill — charcoal is a whole other trip and bears much closer attention.  A second caveat is that every grill is different, so you really have to use your own judgment and know your grill if you plan to walk away from it during the cooking.

If you can’t grill, the traditional way is to bake a split whole chicken in the oven.  The upside of this is it makes the house smell fantastic!

When I turned the chicken to skin side down, I moved it to the upper rack and turned the heat to low.  Before flipping it, I graced each piece with a few drops of EVOO so the skin wouldn’t permanently bond to the grid.

Another 20 minutes or so and I took them off the grill, fairly confident they were cooked through.  As it turned out, they needed another 10 minutes at least.  But hey, that’s why God made microwaves.

Speaking of the microwave, I had some frozen cooked sweet potato chunks, so I plopped them into a bowl, dressed them with EVOO, fresh rosemary, and freshly ground pepper, and ten minutes later I was enjoying the best sweet potatoes I’ve had in a long time.  And that includes the addictive sweet potato smash fries at Smashburger.  I actually like my un-fried version far more.  One less reason to go off the reservation next time I get that craving.

I also served fresh asparagus with the chicken and sweet potatoes, but inadvertently steamed the spears past pretty so they are not in the photo.  They sure tasted fine anyway.

We had a couple of other family members at dinner, and they all declared the meal a success.  The cats are enjoying the scraps as I type.  The dog is jealous but at least he’s not choking on chicken bones.

I truly am going to do a vegetarian dinner using Robin’s recipes, hopefully to be cooked and blogged on tomorrow.  If you haven’t checked out Robin’s blog lately, click the link now.  He’s posted some exciting news in the last day or so.

Roasted Red Peppers on the Grill

It was a lovely evening to grill out.  I’ve been waiting for a break in the spring rains to try my favorite recipe from Delicious Dishes, page 95, cooked on the gas grill with a new variation,  This time around, I used queso del caribe and a bit of smoked salmon and fresh rosemary on the luscious tomato-stuffed red bell peppers.

Roasted red peppers stuffed with tomato and cheese, from p. 95 of Delicious Dishes for Diabetics, cooking on the grill.

Lentils, prepared as on p. 164

Dinner is Served! Red Peppers Stuffed with Tomatoes, Queso and Smoked Salmon, Comfort Lentils, and Mediterranean Vegetables

It’s been a while since I cooked lentils, so I used the recipe on page164 to make a spicy side dish.  I just had regular green lentils, but they are very good this way.  As with several other dishes in the book, the main flavorings are onion, coriander and cumin seeds, crushed in a mortar, and chili pepper,  I also used a small clove of garlic, chopped fine.  I confess to cooking them a little too soft, so that they tended to mush up like refried beans when I spooned them out of the pot.  Mashed or not, they tasted great with the peppers and the Mediterranean vegetable mix I used to round out the meal.

The husband says he can’t decide between this evening’s version or the original with chevre as his preference so far.  He really liked the smoked salmon, as did I.  It just added to that grilled-outdoors flavor that’s really the point of using the barbeque.  I used a foil-lined pan this time, but I may get more adventurous and use one of those grill-top baskets or perforated pans next try.  I have a lot to learn about grilling vegetables, so it’s all going to be experimental cooking for a while to come.

I bought a bunch of fresh veggies on the weekend, and some Beano 😉 so coming up, we will be trying recipes for cauliflower, broccoli, eggplant (aubergine) and the spinach and rice torte.  I’m trying to take the focus off meat as the main dish of the meal and use it more as an occasional luxury food.  Food prices have gone up so much in the last few months, I’m looking forward to a good garden to feed us toward the end of summer.  Until then, I am practicing on store-bought produce and soon, the farmer’s markets as I find more Delicious Dishes to explore.

Super-spicy Soup

Black Bean Soup with Cilantro-Lime Yogurt — mui picante!

My lunch today was this beautiful Black Bean Soup.  I actually made it the other night as a quick supper.  It consists of onion and garlic sweated for a few minutes in olive oil, then 2 cans of black beans, undrained, about a cup of vegetable broth, one 12-oz. can of beer, and 1 can of Rotel tomatoes with peppers.  I used the “hot” variety, which, had I known it contained habanero peppers, I might not have put in the whole can.  Ay chihuahua! Was that hot!  A generous dollop of  nonfat Greek yogurt mixed with lime juice and fresh cilantro balanced the flavors nicely, but it was still pretty spicy.  But I love nothing better than well-flavored spicy food.

Nevertheless, for the husband’s sake, the next time I make this, I will check to see which can of tomatoes I have grabbed from the shelf BEFORE dumping it in the pot! After the whole thing was bubbling nicely, but not to a full boil, I hit it with the stick blender so the consistency was about like gravy with some whole beans and bean pieces  remaining for texture.  Add the yogurt just before serving and enjoy — perhaps with a cold beer or glass of milk for those without cast-iron stomachs.