Snack - Septpember 27, 2009

I have been trying to post my meals in order no matter how far behind I am. Today I am scrapping that procedure to bring you the pawpaw. I have been waiting to try one for years and just had to post now.


As I understand it the pawpaw does not have any shelf life. I bought 6 today thinking that half were ready to eat today and the other half will be ready tomorrow.


I had read that the simpliest way to enjoy them is cut them in half and eat the fruit like a custard. I would say that is a great way to eat them and it is custard like. The flavor was something like a tropical jellybean mixed with butterscotch or vanilla pudding. I enjoyed.

Dinner - August 29, 2009

Some summer classics again.
Gazpacho. My previous post with the basil croutons can be found here. The recipe can be found at http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Shrimp-Gazpacho-with-Basil-Croutons-12647. This one lacks the croutons and the shrimp. I have been out of red wine vinegar all summer so I have been using sherry vinegar.

"Green Beans and Potatoes with Pesto". The recipe is from Jack Bishop's The Complete Italian Vegetarian Cookbook. I used half yellow wax beans. You can find a previous post here.

The tomatoes and green beans are from my dad's garden. The rest of the ingredients (except for the olive oil and vinegar) are from the Hyde Park Farmers' Market.

Dinner - August 26, 2009

When the camera battery is low the auto-focus does not appear to work.

The first picture is a Tomato Curry. The recipe is from a cookbook that I already returned to the library. It was tasty but not what I expected. I had cooked up some yellow split peas over which I was going to serve the curry. I ended up just mixing them into the curry and calling it soup. It was a nice taste with the fresh heirloom cherry tomatoes of strange colors but anything is good with that much coconut milk.


The second recipe was the topping from Jack Bishop's recipe "Crisp Tortillas with Pattypan Squash, Eggplant, and Tomato." The recipe can be found in A year in the Vegetarian Kitchen. I did not use the tortillas or the queso fresco. I believe I doubled the rest of the recipe. This was again not what I was expecting but pretty good. The lime and chipotle chile gave the dish some variety from a regular ratatouille.

I enjoyed both dishes but I would say they have a little work to become regulars. I am giving these a taste rating of "have potential" and I really mean they have a lot of potential. Cooking up lentils, soup, and veggies separately was a lot of work so as a whole I would say this was a weekend meal but the individual dishes all have weeknight potential.

Dinner - August 13, 2009

Lazy and rather lame dinner of whole wheat pasta in fresh tomato sauce with some strange and all together too firm mushrooms. This dish can also be called "Nothing Left in the Kitchen to Eat."

Dinner - August 12, 2009

We had a first course of fresh tomatoes and basil with chickpeas in a room temperature salad. After enjoying the salad I started cooking dinner.

Later for the second course we had a version of Eating Well's Five-Vegetable Curry. You can find my original post here. This time I had no sweet potato so I used carrots as a substitute. Still a great dish and a good way to eat eggplant.

I am still giving this a taste rating of a 4 but it is good enough to serve to meat eaters. The dish is just more of an everyday dish. Maybe next time I will think of a way to fancy it up a bit.

Dinner - August 5, 2009

Here is one of my favorites again. This is from Berley's The Flexitarian Table. The recipe is called "Quinoa Salad with Green Beans, Corn, and Tomatoes." You can see it with a post of the full meal here.

I finally spotted some red quinoa at Bigg's this week. I will have to try this again.

I am giving it a week night rating for preparation but please see the caveats in previous post noted above.

Dinner - August 4, 2009

This is gazpacho with basil croutons. This was made from a recipe you can find on epicurious.com called Shrimp Gazpacho with Basil Croutons. I left out the shrimp and I used an excellent mild sour dough bread for the croutons.

You do not need to chop all the veggies up like the recipe says. The half that go in the food processor can just be chunked. This saves a lot of time but if you are going to make the croutons this might be hard to pull off after work and get everything to cool. I make it for weeknights but I have my system down.

Matt first made this gazpacho over 10 years ago and it is the standard for us.

Dinner - August 2, 2009

This is a tomato soup with mushrooms from a mushroom cookbook I got from the library. The soup calls for a little bit of beet in the soup. I am going to guess this is for color. The soup was fine.
The salad was simply dressed greens with new potatoes and sauteed oyster mushrooms. The salad was fine.

I will say that these dishes have potential. I am imagining that a french bistro that is just around the corner from here could do some very nice versions of these dishes. It think this combination could also make for a nice meal.

Dinner - August 1, 2009

This does not look good. The squash on the left is a yellow zucchini. While the flavor was good it was too large and seedy for this preparation.

The dish on the right was a sad version of olives, walnuts, and arugula on spaghetti squash. I really need to give up on the spaghetti squash as pasta substitute.

We both ate this meal because it was healthy. It did taste better than it looked but I would avoid making both dishes in this way in the future.

Dinner - July 31, 2009

Again, I have no idea what this is. It looks to have broccoli, tofu, and mushrooms. Was there a peanut sauce?

UPDATE: I found an entry in my calorie tracker for that day. I called the recipe "Broccoli, Mushrooms, and Tofu in Peanut Sauce" but I credited no source so maybe I did make it up.

This makes 4 servings. One serving had 377 calories.

Here is a general list of ingredients:
4 tsp peanut oil
4 cups broccoli
1 cup cooked shiitakes
1 block tofu
2 tbsp peanut butter
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp honey
1 tbsp mirin
2 garlic cloves
3 tsp grated ginger
serve over 3 cups of cooked brown rice

Dinner - July 27, 2009

I can't remember this meal. It appears to be zucchini, yellow squash, tomatoes, and kidney beans tossed with some pasta. I am guessing that I just improvised.

Matt does not recall it either. I am hungry right now so I think it sounds pretty good. I guess this is why I have to keep track at the time.

UPDATE: I found an entry in my calorie tracker for that day. I called the recipe "Zucchini and Pasta with Tomato and Pinto Beans" but I credited no source so maybe I did make it up.

This makes 4 servings. One serving had 408 calories.

Here is a general list of ingredients:
2 tbsp olive oil
7 cups zucchini
8 oz of pasta
2 cups chopped tomatoes
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 can pinto beans

Lunch - July 21, 2009

A potluck of leftovers for lunch also known as sauteed zucchini tossed in a tomato sauce served with quinoa-grits polenta cakes. It was more than healthy and since it was leftovers it was easy. You can check out the original polenta cake post here.

Dinner - July 20, 2009

I had some lion's mane mushrooms to try. The grower said to use any recipe that you make with crab and substitute the mushrooms. I didn't have one but I found an old Eating Well recipe that we used to make with canned clams. I figured they are both seafood and both start with "c."

The base recipe was "Linguine with Clam Sauce" from The Eating Well Rush Hour Cookbook. I upped to 2 tbsp the olive oil, used 4 oz of mushroom in place of the clams, left out the clam juice, and used about 5 oz of thin whole wheat spaghetti. This modified version served 2 at 570 calories each.


The base recipe was "Sicilian-Style Broccoli" from The Eating Well Rush Hour Cookbook. I upped to 1 tbsp the olive oil, used 10 oz of green beans cut into 2 inch pieces, and tossed in a tbsp of the herbs from the clam sauce. I boiled the green beans for 5 minutes in the pasta water and then cooled on a dish towel. When time to eat I sauteed the capers and garlic and then through the beans in for about 3 minutes. This made 2 servings at 110 calories each.

The mushroom had a great texture and the dish was a reasonable success but the mushrooms did not quite work out like seafood. I can't remember what we thought of the green beans.

Lunch - July 20, 2009

An easy lunch of a formerly frozen Amy's Roasted Vegetable Pizza from some Kroger store combined with a nice salad.

Add a fresh salad to any frozen entree and you have a relatively healthy meal that may keep you from ordering pizza. I try not to feel guilty about these meals.

Dinner - July 19, 2009

Mushrooms have been one of my favorite things this summer. There is a grower from Kentucky that sells some very interesting mushrooms at the Hyde Park Farmers' Market. (Not on September 6th however). Starting on the top left and going clockwise we have: Lions' Mane, Chicken of the Woods, Chanterelles, and Cauliflower Fungus.

I cooked the Chicken of the Woods mushrooms up and tossed with some green beans following my previously noted standard recipe from Eating Well.

I sauteed the Cauliflower Fungus and Chantrelles and served over quinoa polenta cakes. The Cauliflower Fungus was great this way but the chantrelles were not shown off well.

The polenta cakes are a keeper and are from a recipe called "Quinoa-Grits Polenta" from Myra Kornfeld's The Healthy Hedonist.

I spent a great deal of time looking through mushroom cookbooks from the library but since my mushrooms were not over sized and I didn't want to serve them with a side of meat I didn't find much useful information.

I saved the Lion's Mane for another day.

While I completely enjoyed eating this meal I am going to still have to rate it as "this has potential." Quinoa and grits cook much faster than regular polenta so this is still an easy weeknight production.

Lunch - July 18, 2009

This was a lunch of leftovers. The recipe information can be found at earlier posts.

Quinoa Salad wtih Green Beans, Corn, and Tomatoes
Sugar Snap Peas with Bacon
Asian Slaw with Tofu and Shiitake Mushrooms
Green & Yellow Beans with Wild Mushrooms

I think we ate everything cold. It all made for a pretty nice lunch.

Dinner - July 17, 2009

Looks like we have a dish of zucchini and chickpeas cooked up with some leftover rice from Indian carryout. This dish is paired with a dish of green beans, yellow wax beans, and mushrooms.

I believe we found this quite satisfying. I don't have a recipe for the squash. The beans and mushrooms are based on the recipe "Green & Yellow Beans with Wild Mushrooms" from the Eating Well website. I use a much higher mushroom to bean ratio. I often do a pound of mushrooms, pre-trimmed weight, for a pound of beans.

This is Matt's favorite green bean dish. When the mushrooms and beans are really good, you can't beat it.

Dinner - July 16, 2009

In the background we have "Asian Slaw with Tofu & Shiitake Mushrooms" form the Eating Well website. You can find the recipe and a pretty picture here.

In the foreground we have Sugar Snap Peas with Bacon from Bishop's Vegetables Every Day. We had some leftover bacon from our yearly BLT festival.

The slaw was hearty and satisfying. The sugar snap peas were fine but not anything I would ever bother to make again. The slaw could be a meal on its own.

I am going from memory here but I think the slaw was pretty easy. I also think that I used locally grown bok choy that was baby size. I did not use silken tofu but used regular firm tofu. I also used regular soy sauce.

Lunch - July 16, 2009

This lunch was left over from the meal I made the night before. It really holds up well as leftovers.

This is a favorite recipe of mine form Immer's Everyday Dining with Wine. The recipe is called "Linguine with Walnuts, Olives, and Arugula." You can find a variation I posted about previously here.

I gave this a preparation rating of 3 before but I think it is getting close to a 4 or 5 for me with some practice and triple washed baby arugula. I am leaving it at 3 since it does take two pans.

I leave out the cheese and use whole wheat pasta.

Dinner - September 3, 2009

I found my high rating of this recipe from two years ago and thought I had better try it again. You can find the old post here.

I believe the recipe still deserves high praise. This time I had the okra. My only substitution was 2 tbsp of olive oil for the butter. I guess we also left off the sour cream garnish.

This turned out quite spicy. The jalapeno I had was quite large.

This recipe is called "Three Sisters Stew with Okra and Leeks" and can be found in Berley's Fresh Food Fast. Berley pairs it with a corn cake that had too much butter and cheese for me to try.

With the beans this stew can be the whole meal but the spice and volume one needs to eat make it a bit challenging. Next time I may try a little bread or cornbread with this to make it an easier meal to eat.

Matt said we should eat this every week. It is the season for this recipe so I may try.

This was quick to make. There is chopping but not very fine and it can all be done as the recipe progresses.

Dinner - July 14, 2009

Made a version of Berley's "Spicy Summer Bean and Chickpea Salad with Harissa Vinaigrette" from Fresh Food Fast. I had lots of squash and no green or wax beans so I substituted some sauteed zucchini and yellow squash.

I did a lower fat version of doubling the recipe. I doubled the chickpeas, garlic, cumin, and caraway. I did not double the oil or the cayenne pepper. I increased the lemon juice by about 50%.

We enjoyed this dish. If you are trying to use up some squash, give it a try. If you want a really good dish make the original recipe with the beans. You can find a previous post for the real recipe here.

I served this salad along side a simply dressed leafy green salad and some crusty bread. This felt like a light meal but was quite filling.

Dinner - July 13, 2009

This posting is just a reminder to myself not to try this again. What we have here is spaghetti squash with a tomato sauce and a packaged fake chicken breast. The fake chicken breast smelled and tasted like a mixture of packaging and airline entree. The squash was not very spaghetti like.

We contemplated carryout but stuck with it by repeatedly saying it was somewhat healthy.

Dinner - July 7, 2009

This was a meal we shared with my sister and our friend Chuck. It is from Peter Berley's The Flexitarian Table. It is Summer Menu 5: Tofu with Lemon, Soy, White Wine, and Butter Sauce; Striped Bass with Lemon, White Wine, and Butter Sauce; Quinoa Salad with Green Beans, Corn, and Tomatoes.

The tofu and quinoa were excellent. The fish was limited by the quality of the fish. We have made this fish with good fish in the past and it was excellent too.

We don't make this tofu a regular dish because of the butter but pull it out for company. The quinoa is a summer regular here. The quinoa is also a good dish for sharing at picnics.

The pumpkin seeds are listed as optional on the quinoa but I think they should not be skipped. I have never found red quinoa and have always used regular. I used half yellow wax beans. I also used to two 12 oz blocks of tofu instead of the pound that is called for and was glad to have the extra tofu. I believe I slightly upped the sauce.

The meal as a whole needs to be saved for weekends. The quinoa can be a meal or lunch itself and I would say you could pull that off for a weeknight. The thing that makes it hard for a weeknight meal is the cooling time on the quinoa and the coordination of the separate cooking for the ingredients. I have a bit of practice now and would not hesitate to make it for a weeknight.

For taste I will give it a 5 as we have gone back to this one for guests and even had our caterer for our wedding do a version of the tofu.

Lunch - July 7, 2009

Tiny zucchini sauteed without oil in a non-stick pan. Simple and delicious. I am posting this because so many cookbooks have complicated recipes to get rid of the moisture in the zucchini. I say pick them small and cook them simply.

How to rate this is hard since it is a simple side dish best made in season. I think I am going to need a category for meals versus accompaniments. For now I will use the half unit.

Dinner - July 6, 2009

Sometimes even in the summer you need an easy meal from the pantry. This may be familiar and is from the recipe "Smokin' Drunken Chili" in Myra Kornfeld's The Healthy Hedonist. I posted about this back in June. You can find the previous post here.

I again made this without the beer and with the avocado chopped and stirred into the pot. I also make this in the dutch oven as a one pot meal. This time I served it with corn chips from the store.

I have in my notes that I can make a double recipe in just under an hour so I am going to give this a 3 for a preparation rating as a good week night meal. I feel kind of funny giving something as humble as chili a 5 rating on taste but I would serve this to any meat eaters so I guess it earned it.

Back on Track - Again

I recently used my own blog to find some recipes to make. This is why I started it.

Two years ago I made a soup that we liked but I forgot about. It is a cold tomato soup and you can find the post at cold-soup-for-hot-weather. I actually made it twice back then and made notes about how many it fed and how to make it work with my kitchen equipment.

I am now trying to get up to date with my blog and to add the ratings and tags so I can find things easily. My challenge is to make a post every time I make a move in my online Scrabble game with my sister.

Dinner - July 5, 2009

These ingredients became "Green Beans and Potatoes with Pesto". The recipe is from Jack Bishop's The Complete Italian Vegetarian Cookbook. I used half yellow wax beans.

The recipe is a standard for me. I take this dish often when I have to take a dish to share. It is vegan and vegetable based and good for making ahead while still with in the comfort zone of many. It is a relatively healthy potato salad if they can just get past the green.

For taste I would give this a 4.5. While I think it is good enough to serve to meat eaters it is just a side dish in the end. For prep I will give it a 3 since you do have to boil some water and dirty a blender or food processor.