Dinner - February 27, 2010

This is Elise's Sesame Noodles from the Eating Well Ipod Touch Application. You can find the recipe here. This is a keeper. Very easy since the vegetables and sauce are not cooked. Cook the pasta, toast the sesame seeds, toss it all together.

Most cold sesame noodle recipes I make are based on using peanut butter and garlic. This has neither so it is a little more refreshing.
I used half regular sesame seeds and half black sesame seeds due to availability in my pantry.

Lunch - February 4, 2010

This morning I made chili and cornbread for our lunches. The night before we had some prepared soup and bread along side a big green salad for dinner. All of those ingredients were delivered by our new grocery service, Farm Fresh Delivery. It was great to have an easy, healthy, and tasty meal. Next time I will have to order enough for leftovers.

I am working on developing my own chili recipe. Below is a quick rundown on the ingredients.

Kristen's Chili - Try 1
1 onion chopped
2 shallots chopped
1 tbsp olive oil
1 jalapeño chopped
3 mini peppers chopped
1/4 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp oregano
1 tbsp cumin
8 oz seitan ground in food processor
2 tbsp tomato paste
12 oz chopped fire roasted tomatoes
1 14 oz can black beans rinsed
1 14 oz can chickpeas rinsed
1 cup vegetable broth
1/2 cup frozen corn
1 tbsp lime juice
1/3 cup cilantro
Salt

Vegetable broth
Onion trimmings
Shallot trimmings
Carrot tops
Celery
Olive oil
Water

I made the broth as I was making the chili.

We both thought the chili was quite good. I had planned on developing a chili with pinto beans but I was pretty happy with the texture of the chickpeas today. I am not sure which way to go next.

Dinner - January 31. 2010

This was Berley's Quinoa with Brussels Sprouts, Tempeh, and Toasted Almonds from Fresh Food Fast. I made a single recipe which was much easier as it fit nicely in the pan.

I used 1/4 cup of oil instead of the 1/3 of cup called for. With that modification I got 684 calories per servings for four servings.

I think this is a simple tasting dish that is very satisfying. I could serve it to vegetarians but I probably would pick something a little more fancy if I were going to being serving guests. This will remain a standard for me for week nights. The left overs make a nice lunch too.

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.

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.

Lunch - Septpember 4, 2009

This is Gazpacho Salad from The Vegetarian Epicure by Anna Thomas. This is the vegetarian cookbook that my mom had when I was growing up. I guess I nabbed her copy when I was in college. I recently purged my cookbooks but I held on to this one from 1972.

I added chickpeas to the salad to make it a meal. The recipe says to use firm tomatoes which would help limit all the extra liquid I had, but when you have ripe tomatoes you just can't pass them up. It is the nice dressing that makes this more than just chopped vegetables

I like chopping and I don't like turning on the stove so this is a good recipe for me. I have made a less soupy version of this for sharing at picnics.

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 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 - 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.

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.

Lunch - June 18, 2009

I rarely have lunch posts because we just eat dinner leftovers for lunch. I was not going to have any lunch to send with Matt the next day so I decided to make up this extra meal a day ahead. It ended up that Matt came home from work early and we both had this for lunch on the day that I made it. I later took the left overs up to my parents and the three of us had it for lunch.

This is from the Healthy Hedonist and is served over 50% whole wheat pasta. This is the Tofu and Vegetable Stir-Fry with Glazed Tofu. The recipe says you can make this in half an hour but I found that is just the cooking time. It took me an hour to get this together. The tofu recipe is separate and is located just one page ahead in the cookbook.

Matt and I liked this and my dad really liked it to. It is probably a little bit sweeter than I am used to making things but it made it taste like it came from a restaurant. I will definitely make this again. It could become a weeknight regular that would work for unexpected company.

I have the Glazed Tofu at 184 calories per serving for 4 servings. I have the Tofu and Vegetable Stir-Fry (including the Glazed Tofu) at 364 calories per serving for 4 servings plus the pasta. I said the pasta was about 200 calories per serving.

I made a note to try cutting the sesame oil back in the Glazed Tofu next time but I doubt it would be as good.

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.