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 - September 7, 2009

This would not be a typical summer meal but I had some older green beans to use up. I stated with Bishop's Braised Green Beans with Tomatoes, Olives, Capers and Basil recipe from Vegetables Every Day. From there I used a 28 oz can of Muir Glen Fire Roasted Diced Tomatoes, 20 olives, 1 tbsp capers, 6 cloves garlic, added 1 lb of eggplant, and added 1 can of white navy beans. I also had to substitute parsley for the basil.

For the 1 lb of green beans I used 12 oz of green beans and 4 oz of yellow wax beans. The eggplant were 4 small white globes with a purple blush. I only peeled the eggplant where there were blemishes and chopped into 1/2 inch pieces.

I cooked this up in my dutch oven.

Yum. I really liked this and plan to make it a regular for us. Matt said it is comfort food. Prep is easy.

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.

The First Supper

The first day out was made much easier by the bounty of my parents' garden. We enjoyed some fresh green beans and zucchini. This one we cooked together.

For the zucchini I cut the squash in half length wise and then cut them into 1/4" slabs. I browned these in a single layer in a non-stick fry pan. This took three rounds and I just stacked them up on a plate until the end when I tossed them all back in the pan to bring them to temperature.

For the green beans we used Jack Bishop's recipe for Braised Green Beans with Soy and Sesame from Vegetables Every Day (page 173). I didn't have any stock so I just used water and added a stalk of celery while it cooked which I discarded when we served it. Instead of the sesame oil I used tahini. I left out the peanut oil and instead sauted with 2 T of water in a non-stick fry pan. At the end we removed the green beans and added a drained and rinsed can of white beans to the pan sauce as we cooked it down.

The zucchini was sweet and delicious. The green beans were great. The white beans were a bit mushy but made the meal more of a meal. The green beans were a new try and I think will become part of the repertoire. Matt did the prep on the beans and somehow this still took us an hour to make.