Dinner - March 22, 2010

Sort of a traditional midwestern meal made with odds and ends from the refrigerator. Starch: Quinoa pilaf with spinach. Protein: A "hamburger helper" like flavored tempeh sauteed with some mushrooms. Vegetable: Simple side of asparagus. Tasted about as unispired as it sounds.

This looks like a clean out the refrigerator meal.
Sauteed greens with mushrooms. Mashed sweet potatoes. A sautee of snow pea and onions. Glazed tofu.
I would guess Immer's recipes were the base for the greens and potatoes. Kornfeld's recipe would be the base for the tofu.

Dinner - March 1, 2010

I believe this is my own creation. It is Mushrooms, Seitan, and Brussels Sprouts with Pumpkin Seed Oil over brown rice. It was satisfying but nothing special. This is why I still cook from recipes.

Dinner - February 25, 2010

Balsamic Roasted Seitan with Cipolloni Onions and Crunchy Cabbage Salad and Mashed Potatoes with Parsnips
from Berley's Fresh Food Fast.

We had this before and thought it was great. This time I wondered what I had thought was so great.

The onions were very large and ended up a bit strong. The last time they were the size of pearl onions. The cabbage was still good but I was out of walnuts so it wasn't great. The parsnips were particularly strong and I didn't use the full amount noted in the recipe.

I am wondering if I used to like the "meat substitute" way of cooking better.

Lunch - February 21, 2010

Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Garlic and Sage from Immer's Everyday Dining with Wine. I didn't have any sage. Still an excellent dish. I serve these to everyone.

Fusilli with Green Lentils, Root Vegetables, and Parsley Caper Puree from Bishop's Year in a Vegetarian Kitchen. I used 12 oz of pasta instead of the pound and still think this was too pasta heavy.
The lemon and parsley give a nice brightness in the winter. I used multi colored carrots for this dish. I probably wouldn't bother with the pasta again except that it looks like it is one of those handy recipes where the ingredients are always on hand.

We started this meal with Yukon Gold Potato & Cauliflower Soup with Truffle Oil from Immer's Everyday Dining with Wine. I forgot to snap a picture. I reserved and used a cup of the cooking water to thin the soup and it was still a too thick. I used the food processor instead of a blender which may have effected the outcome. It was good even if it resembled mashed potatoes. I will make it again. Thanks to Betty and Mark for the truffle oil.

We were going to go to lunch with my parents but as I was behind on my cooking due to illness earlier in the week I wanted to use up some vegetables and so subjected my parents to trying new recipes.

Dinner - February 9, 2010

This was a try at Israeli Couscous & Mushroom Pilaf with Spiced Tofu from Bishop's A Year in a Vegetarian Kitchen served over a mixture of romaine and green leaf lettuce dressed in lemon juice and olive oil. I didn't realize that Israeli couscous was a different size and I just had the little regular stuff. I cut the amount down to 1.5 cups and used 2.25 cups of water. The cherries and crimini mushrooms made for a nice earthy flavor but we were looking for a little tang. Some bites with just the right amount of dressed greens were excellent. I am going to give this a rating of has potential but I may still make it a regular meal here. I hope I am giving the impression that this was a great little meal.

Lunch - January 30, 2010

I created a make do lunch. I am going to call it Quick Tomato Pantry Soup.

1 large shallot finely chopped
2 tbsp olive oil
1 28oz can chopped tomatoes
1/2 cup chickpeas, rinsed
1/2 cup frozen corn
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
salt
pepper
2 tbsp basil chopped

Saute the shallots in the olive oil in a chef's pot. Add the tomatoes and bring to a low boil. Mash tomatoes with a tomato masher. Add the chick peas and corn and heat through. Add the balsamic and salt and pepper. Stir in the basil and serve.

I am going to say this was 3 servings and tasted pretty good.

Dinner - January 18, 2010

We have two dishes here based on the memory of some recipes. The roasted vegetables are based on Immer's Spicy Roasted Cauliflower and Okra. The beans are based on the white beans from the Pork Tenerloin with Pistachio-Gremolata Crust recipe from Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy.

For the vegetables I substituted bell peppers and zucchini for the okra. I varied the spices and used whole mustard seeds.

For the beans I used lime in place of the lemon, cilantro in place of the parsley, and avocado in place of the nuts and breadcrumbs.

I found the meal satisfying. We were looking for a meal with no pasta or rice and this fit the bill. For a refrigerator clean-out meal I will call it a success.

Dinner - January 4, 2010

My purple cauliflower turned blue and helped me create this red, white, and blue meal. I say it is pretty damn American for not containing any beef.

This is Braised Tempeh with Curried Coconut Sauce from the Healthy Hedonist. I used hard cider for the apple juice and some of the water. I had to fake the spices and skip the dried coconut garnish. I also substituted half the amount of full fat coconut milk for the light type. I guess this is really not all that close to the recipe.

I enjoyed it but was not that impressed. I did keep going back for more so it worked well in a comfort food kind of way. I do think the tempeh ended up a little too salty.

I will not be making this for anyone else but when the ingredients end up in my refrigerator, I would try it again.

Lunch - September 11, 2009

I was home alone and whipped this up for myself for lunch. I will call it Not Really Re-fried Beans and Fresh Salsa. I don't remember exactly what I did but my current guess follows.

For the beans I sauteed an onion in some olive oil. I then added a drained can of pinto beans while reserving the liquid. I added some cumin and mashed the beans with a potato masher while they cooked. I then worked in the reserved liquid until it was the consistency I wanted.

For the salsa I mashed a clove of garlic and mixed it with some salt. I chopped up some cherry tomatoes, a very small red onion, and a dark red bell pepper and tossed them with the garlic. I believe I added a dash of Adobo sauce from some chipotle peppers I had in the fridge.

Very satisfying and easy.

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 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.

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.

Dinner - June 29, 2009

This meal could be called leftovers. We had a warm dish of red beans and rice along with a cold dish of cabbage salad.
This totally faked version of red beans and rice is not worth reporting. The beans were really not up to par.

The cabbage salad was quite edible if not stellar. It was also totally made up of what was left on hand. I think the nice touch on the cabbage salad was the addition of a granny smith apple. I put everything except the cabbage through the food processor. Below is the list of ingredients provided as a stepping off place for building a better salad next time.

Cabbage Salad
1 napa cabbage
1 bunch carrots
1 cuke
1 granny smith apple
1 bell pepper
1 jalapeño
1/2 cup red onion
2 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp rice vinegar
4 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp honey
Salt

The veggies were all local.

Another Ugly Dinner

This looked a bit like worms and chewed food on the plate but tasted pretty good. The picture is from my messy kitchen just before serving.

The green beans are from my parents garden but were getting a bit older so I picked a recipe with a longer cooking time. I used Bishop's Braised Green Beans with Tomatoes, Olives, Capers, and Basil from Vegetables Every Day (page 174).

For the green beans I followed the recipe except for I cooked the garlic in two tablespoons of red wine instead of the oil. When the liquid in the pan looked a little low I added a tablespoon of the brine from the olives.

The green beans were tasty but we knew they would be. This is a standard recipe for us. Sometimes I will double the sauce part of it and serve it with pasta with the beans on the side.

The warm broccoli salad was a creation based on what we had around.
In a large bowl I mixed:
1 clove garlic minced
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
6 green olives chopped
1 tablespoon of black olive brine
I boiled for about 5 minutes:
1 head of broccoli chopped in bite size pieces
In a colander I placed:
6 baby bok choy stems sliced
I poured the broccoli and water over the bok choy and let cool for a few minutes.
I mixed the vegetables into the dressing.
I then mixed in:
2 Tbsp of basil chopped
2 Tbsp of flat leaf parsley chopped

I liked this odd salad with the bitter and crunchy bok choy set against the soft broccoli. The mild tang of the vinegar went well with the Sauvignon Blanc we had with dinner. I think Matt just found it weird but I would say it has potential.

All of the herbs were from my parents garden - THANKS

What does a Herbivore take to a Pig Roast?

I decided on a Black Bean and Rice Salad. I don't now if there is a right answer to this question but I did learn a few things.



When cooking for a pig roast, here is what not to do:
1. Spend time going to farmers market for fresh vegetables
2. Make your own fresh vegetable broth
3. Make a double recipe (about 2 gallons)

Of course that is what I did. While the few who tried it said they liked it, I am still trying to get rid of it.

I used a recipe that I used to make 10 years ago as the base. It can be found at http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/recipe_views/views/2369. I suggest checking out all the resources available at http://www.epicurious.com/ if you haven't been there.

I used brown basmati rice instead of white. I used home made vegetable broth instead of chicken broth. I used lime juice instead of orange juice. I also added a little adobe sauce to kick up the spice. I only added a about a 1/4 cup total of olive oil for the whole recipe and a little bit of pumpkin seed oil.

Before I added all the rice and oil, Matt had some for lunch. I then took it to the pig roast. I then brought most of it home from the pig roast. I had some for a midnight snack. The next day I cooked up some spinach with garlic and mixed it in to a couple of servings and we had that for a late lunch. The next day I cooked up some frozen corn with garlic and mixed that into a couple of servings which we took for lunch (Matt ate his on top of a spinach salad). I took the big tub back to work to have with a lunch grill out. I looks like a little more is missing.

Double the C in Broccoli and Zucchini

We have been enjoying some vegetables from my parents' garden. Tonight we had zucchini and tomatoes from the garden augmented by broccoli and tofu from the local IGA.


For the zucchini I followed a recipe from Jack Bishop's Vegetables Every Day called Shredded Zucchini with Garlic and Herbs (page 370). I left out the olive oil completely and cooked it a little bit slower in a good non stick fry pan. Very successful.

For the broccoli I followed a recipe called Broccoli with Lime-Cumin Dressing from the same book (page 44). Again I left out the oil. I also reduced the shallot to about half since I wouldn't have the oil to mellow it. This was a good call. I also upped the lime juice to add some liquid and this was a bit to much. This one has potential.

For the tofu I followed the general directions I learned from Jack Bishop's A Year in a Vegetarian Kitchen. I used 12 oz of extra firm tofu cut into 8 slices. I cooked these in a dry non-stick fry pan until brown on each side. Then I added a mixture of 2 T soy sauce, 2 T mirin, 2 T lime juice, 3 T water, 1 clove garlic, and a good shot of hot sauce. Tossed the tofu and cooked down to a glaze. Probably worth going back to the source for a sauce but not bad.

Tomtoes were just sliced with a little salt ground on top.

Overall a very satisfying and quick meal. (I made it quicker by grating the zucchini and chopping the broccoli earlier in the evening). Couldn't really serve this to others and won't put this exact menu on heavy rotation. Glad to have the mellow dishes to sooth the tongue after eating the broccoli salad. These might be some good side dishes to know.

Made full recipes and had half each. With out the oil this is about 310 calories.