Lentils and Potatoes with Curry

 

This is a quick and easy one adapted from Mark Bittman. I had a bag of carrots strips that I  was using for salad, but I got bored with that and decided to throw them in this curry. 

• 1 cup dried brown lentils, washed, drained, and picked over
• 1 can of coconut milk (I use “light”)
• 1 tablespoon curry powder
• 2 medium russet potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
• 1 bag of carrot strips (or what remains after using for salad)
• salt and pepper

Put the lentils, coconut milk, and curry powder in a stockpot. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, then turn the heat down so the lentils simmer. Cover partially and cook about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the lentils have absorbed some of the milk.

Add the potatoes and cover the pot completely. Cook for 10 minutes, then stir gently and check to make sure the lentils are not getting too dry. Add some water if they do. Add the carrot strips and season with salt.

Cover and continue cooking until the lentils are soft and starting to get mushy, and the potatoes are tender in the center – about another 5 to 10 minutes. Add water if necessary. The mixture should be more like a stew and not a soup. Add black pepper to taste.

Tortilla Soup from 101 Cookbooks

I found this at one of my favorite sites. I haven’t tried any of her recipes yet, but they always look so good. Here’s the link for this.

Chickpea Minestrone

I got this recipe from the book “The Food Lover’s Guide To The Gourmet Secrets of Rome”. We are going to Rome next year, so we bought this for inspiration. This is a really hearty soup that is great with some fresh bread. It’s the kind of really simple peasant food that is so great in Italy.

• 1 1/4 cups chickpeas, soaked in water overnight or 12 hours
• 1 teaspoon fresh rosemary needles
• 4 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 dried chile pepper
• 1/2 cup boiling water
• 1 tablespoon tomato puree
• salt and freshly ground pepper
• 10 ounces of fettucine, broken into short lengths

Drain the chickpeas and place in a large pot. Add 6 1/2 cups of cold water and the rosemary. Bring to a boil, cover, then lower heat to simmer. Cook for about 1 hour or until beans are tender.

Heat the oil in a pan and lightly fry the garlic and chile pepper, until the garlic starts to change color. Add the boiling water and tomato puree and stir to combine.

Puree half of the beans, then stir back into the remaining beans. Add the garlic mixture and season with salt and pepper to taste. Bring back to a boil and add the pasta. Note – I had to add some additional water because there didn’t seem enough to boil the pasta at this point.

Cook the pasta, stirring occasionally so it doesn’t stick, until al dente and serve.

 

Blueberry Granola Whole Wheat Muffins

This is another great recipe from Small Batch Baking. This is a super healthy  treat when you want to make something special for breakfast, especially when you have fresh blueberries on hand in summer.

• 1/3 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• pinch of salt
• pinch of ground nutmeg
• 1/2 cup granola
• 1/4 cup nonfat buttermilk
• 1/4 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
• 1 medium egg
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1/3 cup fresh or thawed blueberries

Place an oven rack in the center of the oven and then preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease 4 muffin cups.

Place a flour sifter over a medium bowl. Put the flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt and nutmeg in the sifter and sift the ingredients into the bowl. Mix in one half of the granola.

Place the buttermilk, brown sugar, egg, oil, and vanilla in another medium size bowl. Whisk to blend, making sure that any brown sugar lumps are dissolved. Add this mixture to to the flour mixture and stir just until the dry ingredients are moistened. Gently stir in the blueberries. Spoon the batter into the muffin cups, they should be about 3/4 full (use another one or two muffin cups instead of filling the original four too full). Sprinkle the remaining granola over the muffins and gently press pat the topping down so it won’t fall off. Fill the remaining muffin cups with some water to avoid scorching.

Bake the muffins about 15-18 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Place the muffin pan on a wire rack to cool for 5 minutes. Then carefully pour out the water in the empty cups. Take the muffins out of the cups and let them cool for 5 minutes. Serve warm or room-temperature. The muffins will keep for one day in a sealed plastic bag.

Rustic loaf for two

I love bread but I’ve never been much of a baker. Bread is a really complex thing, although it seems so simple (yeast,flour, water) that we often take it for granted. I won’t bore you with the complexities, but there are whole books written about the science of baking bread. This recipe comes from the book Small Batch Baking, which I’m really loving right now. I bought it for the desserts, but was excited to find bread recipes in it, too. This is easy to make when you want some fresh bread for dinner, but not a huge loaf which will go stale in a day. I’ve made this a couple of times and it’s very easy, you just have to plan ahead a little because making bread is not something you can do on the spur of the moment – this bread needs 3 hours of rising time.

The are 3 things that are a must for baking this bread – 1. bread flour, not all-purpose flour, 2. parchment paper, & 3. a spritzer bottle. The spritzer bottle is used to create humidity in the oven, which I think helps to develop a nice crust on the bread. The parchment paper will keep the bread from sticking to the baking sheet – I learned that the hard way. I don’t know the difference between A-P flour and bread flour, but they must be different for a reason.

• 1 1/4 teaspoons of active dry yeast (not a whole package; store the remainder in the freezer for future use)
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons bread flour, plus more for dusting the work surface

Pour 1/2 cup warm water into a medium-sized bowl. Sprinkle the yeast over the water and stir to blend. Let the mixture stand 5 minutes, until it gets a little bubbly. Then mix in the salt and 3/4 cup of flour. Using a rubber spatula, knead the sticky mass by lifting up one side of the dough and folding it over the other, pressing the dough down to the bottom of the bowl with the spatula. Work in the remaining 2 tablespoons of flour with the spatula. Continue kneading the dough about 5 minutes, until the dough feels spongy.

Scrape the dough into a ball shape and cover the bowl with a towel. Let the dough rise for 1 hour in a warm, draft-free area.

Stir down the dough using the spatula and cover and let rise for 1 hour. The dough should double in bulk.

Sprinkle some flour onto a cutting board or work surface. Place the dough on the flour and turn it over and over in the flour while forming it into a round loaf. Sprinkle some additional flour onto the dough if it is too sticky.

Put a piece of parchment paper on a baking sheet. Sprinkle some flour on the paper and place the dough on the paper. Cover the dough with some plastic wrap, loosely, so the dough will not stick to the plastic. Let the dough rise again, for about 1 hour. The dough will expand horizontally and almost double in bulk.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Gently pull the plastic wrap off the dough. Using a spray bottle, spritz the inside of the oven with water just before you put the bread in the oven. Bake for 5 minutes. Spray the oven (but not the bread) again. Then bake for about 25 minutes, spraying the oven with water again, halfway through the baking time. The bread will be golden and crusty when it’s done.

Take the baking sheet out of the oven and transfer the bread to a wire rack to cool. Serve warm or at room temperature, the day it is baked.

 

NYT article about eating less meat

Mark Bittman had an article in today’s paper about eating less meat, and how to do it if you don’t want to go straight to vegetarianism. It basically describes how I eat now in restaurants – I look at the vegetarian options first and if nothing grabs me I go to the meat options. So I only eat meat a couple of times a week now, and really I haven’t missed it. The one thing I really enjoy is bacon, but maybe that’s because I share it with El Jefe. Here’s the link to the article and here is the link for the grilled kebabs. I never tried grilling cauliflower, but I’ll definitely have to do it soon.

 

Black Bean Salad

This one goes great with the Mexican Rice Salad. It can be served hot or room temperature. Get outdoors and grill some quesadillas and you have an easy summer supper! This is called Black Beans with Orange Juice in the Mark Bittman cookbook. I didn’t find it quite as citrus-y as Bittman describes, but I still liked it.

• 3 cups cooked black beans with 1 cup cooking liquid (or water if using canned beans)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
• salt and pepper
• 1 orange, washed
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 red or yellow bell pepper
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• 1/2 cup dry red wine

Put the beans in a pot over medium heat, add the cumin and some salt and pepper. Cut the orange in half. Peel one half and add the skins to the beans, you can divide the sections and put aside to use as a garnish. Squeeze the juice from the other half and put aside. 

Put the olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and bell pepper and cook, stirring occasionally, until the pepper softens, about 8-10 minutes. Add the garlic and cook, stirring, for another minute. Then add this mixture to the beans.

Turn the heat on the skillet to high and add the red wine. Cook until wine reduces to about half – approximately 5 minutes. Add to the beans, then add the reserved orange juice. Taste and adjust seasonings, and add the orange slices, if desired.

Mexican Rice Salad

I’m usually not fan of rice or pasta salads because they can be too dry. This one, however, is moist, easy, and delicious. From Mark Bittman.

• 3 – 4 cups of cooked rice (white or brown), cooled
• 1/4 cup chopped scallion
• 1/2 a large red or yellow bell pepper, cored, seeded and chopped
• 1 cup of chopped fresh tomato

      Vinaigrette Dressing

• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 3 tablespoons wine vinegar, white or red
• 1 tablespoon chili powder
• 2 tablespoons mayonnaise

Put the rice and vegetables in a large bowl. Combine the vinaigrette ingredients in a small bowl and whisk to blend. Drizzle the dressing onto the rice salad and use 2 large forks to combine the dressing with the salad. Toss gently to separate the rice grains. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve at room temperature.

Chocolate Muffins

We are chocaholics, but isn’t everyone? I found this great new cookbook that I’ve been trying out – Small-Batch Baking by Debby Maugans Nakos. Now baking may not be a central part of vegetarian cooking, but everyone needs dessert now and then, right? And these recipes are for everybody except vegans, who won’t like all the eggs and butter. This book is great because it gives recipes for small batches. This recipe makes 4 muffins, which is usually just enough for most people. I mean, you could make a dozen muffins and freeze 8, but I don’t have much room in my freezer for 8 muffins. This recipe makes just enough for the weekend, then you can try something else the next weekend – like the blueberry granola muffins that I also made from this book (recipe to come later). This book is so much fun that I may have to do a “dessert of the month” from it, for the sake of the blog, of course;)

• 4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) of unsalted butter, melted and cooled
• 2 tablespoons of nonfat buttermilk
• 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 medium egg
• 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons of all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons unsweetened cocoa powder
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, with a rack placed in the center of the oven. Using non-stick spray, spray the bottoms of 4 muffin cups. If you’re not using paper or foil cups, rub a little butter around the rims of the muffin cups. Set aside.

In a small bowl, combine the melted butter, buttermilk, vanilla, and egg. Whisk to blend then set aside.

Place a fine-mesh sifter over a medium bowl. Place the flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking powder, and salt in the sifter and sift all the ingredients in to the bowl. Add the chocolate chips. Pour in  the buttermilk mixture and stir just until the dry ingredients are moistened. Spoon the mixture into the muffin cups. Fill the empty muffin cups with some water to keep them from scorching.

Bake the muffins 15 – 18 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted in the center of one muffin. When done, place muffin pan on a wire rack and cool for 5 minutes. Pour out the water from the empty cups and turn the muffins out onto the wire rack for 10 minutes before serving. Keep leftover muffins in a plastic bag, at room temperature, to enjoy the next day, or freeze them.