Green beans

I often over order with groceries (because with one person, ordering 3 vegetables for a week can be too much to cook), so I'm often scrambling to cook them before they're bad. I think it is really good and important to remember that a lot of food tastes really good done simply. The other night, I cooked flounder in coconut oil, lemon juice, salt, and pepper, and it was great. I followed it with chips and guac and felt pretty thrilled about the whole thing. So while I completely endorse getting together a bunch of new and specific ingredients to try out a new recipe, I think we shouldn't feel so concerned about what to do if we don't have it all. Odds are in your favor that if you throw something in a pan with a fat (butter, olive oil, coconut oil depending on the flavor profile you're into) and sprinkle with salt and pepper, you'll end up with something edible and reasonably tasty. The corollary to that is to buy simple, fresh veggies and meat and fish so that they can stand alone well.

Tonight I heated up some fresh direct soup (meh, things like that remind me how much better homemade is) and then cooked some green beans to prevent them from spoiling over the weekend. I cooked them in the pan with butter and salt until they looked browned and a couple tasted still crisp but cooked (I'm fine with a range of textures usually). Then I served them with some goat cheese. It was great! And I mean that it met my standards for tasting good, being a positive contribution to my nutrition for the day, and helped reduce my produce drawer population boon. 

purple potatoes three ways

Well, to be totally frank, I made the potatoes sort of three ways and then turned one into one that I already had, so I really mostly ate them two ways: roasted and mashed. And they are so good that way. The third way, that semi-involved a recipe that I mostly didn't follow, was fork-mashed and with a zesty flavor profile as per this SK recipe. I didn't quite have everything on-hand to make it, so when it didn't seem stunning, I just made them creamy and mashed and delicious. While they look like a weird purple yogurt when mashed, they taste pretty yummy, so I don't mind. They were also delicious roasted. What vegetable isn't delicious roasted? I have yet to meet it. It's such a simple and elegant solution to any veggie "problem," and I never have any problem cleaning a plate full of roasted vegetables. They just hit some flavor spot that my mouth is a big fan of and my conscience feels great about.

So... so much for a recipe. Here's some pics of roasted purple potatoes and squash (some with olive oil and spices, some with olive oil and cinnamon sugar). And some other veggies that got roasted and eaten straight off the foil in a dignified manner.

iphone hipstamatic or nice olympus picture?

I honestly can't decide which is better, which is frustrating...

Spicy Roasted Pepper Sauce

I saw this recent post on Smitten Kitchen about a roasted pepper sauce, and because I still had a plethora of veggies laying around (down to potatoes, a squash, and maybe a couple peppers or something), I thought I'd wing this recipe with what I had to use up all my peppers. I appreciate peppers, but I'm not a huge fan, so I wasn't really eager to just eat them raw or in anything else because that's just not what my taste buds liked. I haven't, in the course of the week, really found a use for it yet - but I think that is more because smoky, spicy, pepper flavor isn't my bag and not because this isn't totally delicious and worth having on your food.

 how cute beyond cute are those little guys?

also, I think they are the spiciest ones, so big things in small packages, etc.

Yield: 1 2/3 to 2 cups steak sauce.

1 red bell pepper, small was suggested [I had 3 tiny peppers, 2 small green bells, and 1 larger yellow bell pepper]
2/3 cup canned or fresh tomato purée
1/4 cup orange juice [I used lemonade because that's what I had]
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon molasses [I didn't have any so I used syrup]
3/4 teaspoon table salt or more to taste
1 teaspoon ground mustard [I just used some dijon]
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger [didn't have]
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon onion powder [didn't have]
1/8 teaspoon ground allspice [didn't have]

Preheat your broiler. Place your pepper on a baking sheet and cook it under the broiler until all sides are charred, turning with with tongs as needed. Don’t skimp on the charring as this skin will add a fantastic flavor dimension. Mine took about 15 minutes, but I have a terrible broiler [I think mine were in there for like 45 minutes, but I just had them in the oven at 400 with other veggies to roast]. Yours might only take 5 to 8 minutes. Transfer pepper to somewhere to cool until you’re able to handle it, about 15 minutes.

Tear open the pepper and remove the seeds and membranes with your fingers or a paring knife [mine were so soft this was crazy easy]. Add the pepper (with its skin) to the blender along with the remaining ingredients. Puree mixture until as smooth as possible. Transfer mixture to a small saucepan. Simmer it gently over low heat for 15 minutes, stirring from time to time. It will yield a fairly smooth that can be used as is, but if you’d like a smoother consistency, you have two options: running it back through the blender or food processor again (I got a smoother blender after the fibers had cooked down more on the stove)[this is what I did] or pressing it through that fine-mesh sieve (I started doing this, then decided it wasn’t worth the trouble).

Store in an airtight jar in the fridge for one week, though I suspect it will keep for two.

fried okra

From my big veggie jackpot from volunteering, I still have a lot to get through before they go bad. Actually, I'm sad because I had to throw out the mysterious greens (no one, not even my mom, could identify them!) and a couple peppers. But I hope I'll get my eggplants before they go bad and I think the squash and potatoes won't go bad before I get to them. Anyway! I had a bag of okra that I didn't know how to handle, so I consulted Irma in the Joy of Cooking. There weren't too many options, and I wasn't really in the mood for stewing (or have any proteins to make anything more exciting), so I went fried. Not healthy, I know. I don't know if I didn't do something exactly right because they were still sort of crunchy and not as coated as the couple times I've eaten them in restaurants, but they can't have been too bad because I ate them all. With ranch. (Now I feel a little nauseous and guilty.)

I don't know how much okra I had, but it used most of the coating.

1/2 cup cornmeal
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp garlic or onion powder
1/4 tsp cayenne
1/8 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 lb whole okra
1/4 cup flour
1 egg beaten with 1 tsp water
vegetable oil

Mix cornmeal, salt, powder, cayenne, and pepper.

I cut the okra into little slices, but Joy of Cooking says whole. Do as you please.

Dredge okra in flour. Dip that into the egg water mixture. Dip into cornmeal. Heat oil to 365 degrees F in a large skillet (I don't have a thermometer). Add okra to oil in batches, frying until golden, about 2 minutes. Remove okra with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towels. 

squash, zucchini, and eggplant rice gratin

As you can see in the last entry, I have quite a few veggies on my hand. In an effort to cook with them and waste as little as possible (advice, please!), I wanted to make something that would use quite a few tonight for dinner. This recipe took me about 2 hours and involved me being pretty darn hot in my kitchen for a lot of it (when I'm cooking, I just keep my a/c off and the windows open and fan on; save the electricity costs and I'll be hot regardless). The biggest "failure" of the recipe was the rice - but that is because, try as I might (and I do, oh I do), I am so bad at cooking rice. Every time I read someone's foolproof recipe and try my darndest to follow it exactly, but it still burns. At best, it's a bit soggy and I'm just thrilled it doesn't taste like burned popcorn. Tonight was more of a burned night. So that brought the dish down a bit to have slightly crispy, burnt popcorn flavored rice. One day I will prevail!

I love love love roasted veggies, though, and I could probably have eaten them all right off the sheet after the oven (so good), so that part of the recipe went well. I didn't have enough cheese for it to be really cheesy, so I added in a bit of my whole organic yogurt instead of cheese to the egg mixture and then just grated some cheese on top. I also didn't have tomatoes (I sure as heck wasn't going to buy more veggies), and so while that certainly changed the recipe, I don't think it was really a negative effect. I wouldn't recommend using the cast iron skillet to cook it in, but I just was overrun with dirty dishes and didn't care. I am sure the recipe as she has it is delicious and one day I hope to make it. But this was good and different, and I enjoyed giving it a try in between crying over the Olympics (I'm just such a sucker for sports).

1/3 cup white rice, long-grain is suggested but use whatever you prefer
5 tablespoons olive oil
1 1/2 pounds zucchini (about 3 medium), sliced 1/4-inch thick
1/2 pound plum tomatoes, sliced 1/4-inch thick
Table salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 medium onion, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme leaves
1/2 cup grated Parmesan, divided

Preheat oven to 450°F. Cook the rice according to your favorite method. The package directions work in some cases, but check my notes above about adjustments I find I have to make. If you cook the rice in a large, wide-ish covered skillet, it might cook even faster but you’ll have the chance to use it again (and save on dirty dishes) when you need to cook the onions in a bit.

While rice cooks, coat two large (or, if you have the same pitifully small oven as I do, three smaller) baking sheets each with a tablespoon of a of olive oil (a bit less for smaller pans). Spread zucchini and tomato slices on the baking sheets in as close to a single layer as you can. Sprinkle with 1/2 teaspoon salt and a few grinds of black pepper. Roast tomatoes for 10 minutes and zucchini for 20. Flip zucchini halfway through; it’s not worth the messy effort for the tomatoes. Leave oven on.

Heat large, heavy skillet (such as the one you used to cook your rice) over medium heat. Once hot, add 2 tablespoons olive oil, heat oil, then add onions, garlic and 1/4 teaspoon salt to pan. Cover and reduce heat to low, cooking onion until limp and tender, about 15 to 20 minutes. Stir occasionally.

Combine onion mixture, rice, eggs, thyme, half of your grated cheese and a half-tablespoon of olive oil in a bowl. Add a good amount of freshly ground black pepper. Use the remaining half-tablespoon of olive oil to coat a shallow 2-quart baking dish. Spread half of rice mixture in bottom of dish. Arrange half of roasted zucchini on top. Spread remaining rice mixture over it and please don’t worry about being neat about this; dinner will be “rustic” tonight! Arrange remaining zucchini on top, then tomato slices. Sprinkle with remaining grated cheese and bake until set and golden brown, about 20 minutes. Each oven varies, but I find mine does the very best browning when the dish is on a rack near the top of the oven.

pasta, broccoli, and garlic-red pepper sauce

Yes, I have been horribly MIA, but enough with the excuses. As of this past week, I have a 2 month paid internship doing market research, which I am very excited about. As a result of that and working my other part time jobs and have more friends and therefore fun, I am really busy but also increasingly happier here. Thus I signed my lease to stay in ATX another year! Eep!

Today I got up to go take a stand up paddle board yoga class (mouthful), but it was already full when I got to the gym. So I did a spinning class, rented a stand up paddle board and paddled around the quarry for a while, swam a bit, went grocery shopping for some snacks, made a quick lunch (and by lunch I mean my favorite uncooked meal, pictured below - at least I'm getting my 5 daily colors in!), and then took off to Zilker to play sand volleyball for a few hours. It was a great day, but by 6 pm when I got home, I was pooped and thrilled to shower and relax.

I was going back through all the SK recipes I've missed over the past few months, and decided to give this one a try for dinner. I only had frozen broccoli on hand, but I figured I could make it work enough for my standards. It ended up being good - I'm not huge on spicy, but I think my estimations were perfect for my heat level and still being flavorful - and filling, so I was happy. Then I got all sorts of ambitious and dedicated the next four hours to making tartlets, but more on that separately.

1 pound pasta [I used a single person serving of what looked good to my hungry eyes of penne]
1 pound broccoli rabe, heavy stems removed, remaining stems and leaves cut into 1- to 2-inch sections [I used handfuls of frozen broccoli - and put them in still frozen at the same time as she calls for the rabe]
1/2 cup olive oil [I used about 1/4 cup for one serving]
5 garlic cloves, peeled and minced or pressed [I used 2 cloves]
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes, or more or less to taste [I used about that much of a mix of red pepper flakes, chimichurri mix, and bruschetta mix]
About 1 heaping teaspoon Kosher salt (or more to taste)

To serve: Grated Parmesan or Romano cheese [I used white cheddar because that's all I have!]

Bring a huge pot of salted water to a boil. Add pasta and five minutes before its cooking time is up, add the broccoli rabe. It will seem like too much for the water, but with a stir or two, the rabe should wilt and cook alongside the pasta. Drain rabe and pasta together and pour into serving bowl.

In the same pot or a tiny one, heat the olive oil with the garlic, pepper flakes and Kosher salt over moderate heat, stirring frequently for 3 to 4 minutes, or until the garlic becomes lightly golden. Pour mixture over pasta and toss to evenly coat. Shower with freshly grated cheese and eat at once.

roasted beets and carrots

Well, I really haven't been cooking much, as evidenced by the dearth of pictures on my camera and phone. But a couple weeks ago, my boyfriend and I went to the farmer's market that is in the Triangle on Wednesday afternoons. We got some carrots and beets, and I roasted them with some olive oil, garlic, salt, pepper, and herbes de provence. Because I chopped them so small, it really only took about 25 minutes to roast them at about 400 degrees, turning them once. I made a simple risotto to eat with it, which is always delicious and filling.

I haven't eaten beets much and wouldn't say I'm crazy about them, but my boyfriend is a pretty big fan, so he gets them fairly often. I really liked the colors of the roasted beets and carrots, and they were nice and tender and flavorful after roasting. If beets are at least this good every time I have them, I'll be a fan soon enough.

ginger carrot soup

I had found a recipe on SK for a carrot soup, but I couldn't find white miso paste at HEB, so I had to find another recipe. I used this one from food network. Well the ginger isn't the strongest flavor here, and the soup definitely tastes like carrots. I liked it though. I added some extra spices - paprika and cumin. I didn't add much, so there's definitely room for more flavor if you want to experiment. It wasn't something I fell in love with right away, but I ended up having it a few times and liking it. It tastes like carrots, but it works.

*this was the adjusted recipe that I used

1 tablespoons sweet cream butter
1 onions, peeled and chopped
3 cups chicken broth
1 pounds carrots, peeled and sliced
1 tablespoons grated fresh ginger
.5 cup yogurt
Salt and white pepper

In a 6-quart pan, over medium high heat, add butter and onions and cook, stirring often, until onions are limp. Add broth, carrots, and ginger. Cover and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until carrots are tender when pierced.

Remove from heat and transfer to a blender. Don't fill the blender more than half way, do it in batches if you have to. Cover the blender and then hold a kitchen towel over the top of the blender*. [I used my immersion blender in the pot.] Be careful when blending hot liquids as the mixture can spurt out of the blender. Pulse the blender to start it and then puree until smooth. Return to the pan and add yogurt, stir over high heat until hot. For a smoother flavor bring soup to a boil, add salt and pepper, to taste.

Ladle into bowls and garnish with dollop sour cream and parsley sprigs.

*When blending hot liquids: Remove liquid from the heat and allow to cool for at least 5 minutes. Transfer liquid to a blender or food processor and fill it no more than halfway. If using a blender, release one corner of the lid. This prevents the vacuum effect that creates heat explosions. Place a towel over the top of the machine, pulse a few times then process on high speed until smooth.

spinach pesto pasta

I'm due to go to the grocery store (and will tomorrow as I have big plans to make dinner for the boyfriend, my first solo attempt to impress him with my culinary, non-baking skills), so my dinner plans tonight were vague. I have some random leftover items from the juicing and a couple staples in the pantry, but nothing obvious. Thinking about the amount of spinach I had made me think about making a pesto. I've made a tomato-almond pesto before and read about pea pesto, so I knew there were variations to be made on it. I looked up a basic pesto recipe in Joy of Cooking, and this was my substitution thought process:

• basil - spinach (fresh for both)
• pine nuts - pistachios
• garlic
• olive oil
• parmesan

I closed the cookbook (gasp!) and just sort of winged it. It was really good. The garlic gave it a bit of a bite, but I like that. If I had been thinking right, I would have started the pasta first, and it would have been a really quick dish to make.

*I think I only used 1/2 to 1/3 of the full yield for my 1 serving of pasta, the rest is in the fridge for tomorrow.

2 cloves garlic

8-10 shelled pistachios

1 cup fresh spinach

1/2 tbsp olive oil

1 cup grated parmesan

salt to taste

I used my cuisinart speed stick food processor attachment to blend up 2 cloves of garlic, about 8-10 pistachios (shelled, of course), and about a cup of fresh spinach. 

I blended and stirred it until it was all the texture I wanted. I added a bit of olive oil (all told, maybe half a tablespoon), grated in some parmesan cheese (probably a half to three quarters of a cup), seasoned it with a bit of salt, and blended it a bit more. 

Then I cooked the pasta, spoon drained it into a bowl, mixed it with about half of the pesto, and then served it with a bit more parmesan on top.

margarita pizza, with stone

I gave my boyfriend a pizza making kit for Christmas, and we finally got around to using it (finally only because we cook so often). I wanted to make homemade dough for it (memories of making pizza weekly with Eryn in Morocco and the giggles that accompanied all of our kitchen time), so I've included the basic recipe from SK, though I tweaked it a bit. I think using the whole wheat flour instead of some of the regular flour contributed to the thickness of the dough, as did some perhaps imperfect measurements on my part. When it was hot, it was good, but the crust part was a bit more chewy than normal. I haven't had this problem using the same recipe but all white flour, so if you follow it exactly, you shouldn't have a problem.

We first baked the dough on the stone with a bit of olive oil, garlic, herbes de Provence, fresh thyme, and black pepper. Once it was about halfway done, we brought it out and put on the tomato sauce (from a jar), mozzarella and parmesan cheeses, and tomatoes, and put it back in the oven. When it was finished, we sprinkled fresh basil on the top, and voila. It was very yummy. We even enjoyed it cold the next day (sometimes reheating in an oven [no microwave], though worth it when I do, is more than I'm bothered to try).

*I doubled this recipe for our pizza, but I have used this for two and its been good (and thinner)


6 tablespoons warm water (may need up to 1 or 2 tablespoons more water)
2 tablespoons white wine
3/4 teaspoon active dry yeast
1/2 teaspoon honey
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 1/2 cups flour [I used 1/2 cup whole wheat flour with 1 cup regular flour]


Whisk wine, water and yeast in a medium bowl until yeast has dissolved. Add honey, salt and olive oil and stir. Add flour and no matter how dry it looks, work it with a spoon and your fingers until it comes together as a dough. Add more water one tablespoon at a time if you need, but in my experience, this is almost never necessary.

Sprinkle some flour on the counter and knead the dough for a minute or two.

If you’re like me and always trying to reduce the number of dirty dishes left at the end of the night, wash the bowl you made the dough in, dry it and coat the inside with olive oil. Put the dough in, cover it with plastic wrap, and let it rise for an hour or up to two, until it is doubled.

[Easiest way to tell if a dough has risen enough? Dip two fingers in flour, press them into the dough, and if the impression stays, it's good to go. If it pops back, let it go until it doesn't.]

juicing

After a few conversations about it with my boyfriend and a viewing of Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead (on Netflix instant watch, check it out), we decided to try out a juice diet/fast. Our original plan was 3 days, but we went 46 hours before deciding we wanted dinner. On the one hand, it was challenging, but on the other hand, I felt pretty good and most of my hunger wasn't real hunger. More on that later. I'd definitely do it again.

In the documentary, he goes on a 60 day juice diet and encourages several people to try it out with a 10 day juice cleanse. We decided on 3 days because we weren't as unhealthy as most of the people in the film who were trying it out, and I wanted to make sure that I picked a really feasible amount of time so that my willpower would last. Not to throw him under the bus, but while I was definitely hungry and ready for food, my boyfriend was the one who was really ready to eat. I felt hunger, but once I had a glass of juice, I was pretty full and could last a few hours before the next dose. I think some of the impact on our slightly different responses can be a result of

• gender (he needs more calories and we were drinking about the same amount)
• activity level (we both workout, but since I don't have a job, I'm not as out and about as much)
• muscle mass (going back to calorie needs)
• mental need for food

Don't get me wrong, I love food. I think about it, I almost exclusively watch the Food Network, the highlight of my day is usually cooking or going out to eat for dinner, and I spend a good amount of time with recipes thinking about what to make next. Like many people, a lot of my best moments have involved food and friends together. That said, it wasn't so hard for me not to eat it because I knew that 3 days would end relatively quickly and then it would be back in my life. It wasn't a radical lifestyle change, just an experiment. I would like to stress that I am a pretty healthy person in general, so it could inspire a significant life change and shift in eating habits for a lot of people who really need it. 

3 days of fruit and vegetable leftovers from my juicer

In the movie, everyone who tried it talked about how much better they felt, they quickly lost some junk pounds, their skin really improved (part of what inspired me to try it), and their systems got nicely cleaned out within a couple days (yes, I'm talking about poop - and not just any poop, but getting rid of things that have been clinging to your insides for a while). They say that the first few days are pretty brutal physically and emotionally. I can't really speak to that because I mostly felt fine, and other than obviously being aware that I was only ingesting juice and water, nothing really felt or seemed or behaved differently in my body. 

Was it worth it? Definitely. I liked getting to try something new and challenge myself a bit. I definitely felt healthy knowing that I was only putting good things in my body. I did feel awake and energized throughout the day, and I think hoping that it would make me and my skin better had a good positive thinking impact on how it went. 

Some important things to remember if you try it out:

• This isn't fasting - you can drink as much water as you want, and, as far as I understood it, as much juice as you want
• Store bought juice is NOT equal to the juice you should make for this. We bought a gallon of juice from a local juice bar (sort of a brutal flavor) that was made fresh for me and then used a juicer to make the rest of it. If you do this, drinking glass after glass of OJ and apple juice is not the correct thing.
• When we think of juice, we think fruits. This should be heavily vegetable based. Fruits are important for balancing the flavors and masking some of the vegetable taste (apples, citrus, and ginger are great for this), but they aren't the bulk of it. 
• Read up on it. We based ours mostly off the movie, some recipes for the Mean Green juice used in the film, and some basic internet searches. 

My fridge with our first batch of groceries for the juice fast:

oranges, green apples, lemons, strawberries, cucumber,

blueberries, blackberries, carrots, spinach, kale, ginger

 the juice we bought: the love cleanse

cucumber, celery, parsley, coconut water, spinach, kale

*it tasted very intensely like these veggies; we always mixed it with 

apple, citrus, and other items to help with the flavor so we could drink it

An example of one of our homemade juice meals (for two):

• 1/2 bunch kale
• 1/2 bunch spinach
• 2 oranges
• 2 green apples
• 1 lemon
• 1 banana
• 1-2 carrots
• handful blueberries/other berries