For a few weeks, all I've been doing is eating various squashes and kale, potatoes and kale, whatever and kale. The CSA is done and I guess I haven't quite gotten back in the hang of buying vegetables, especially green ones. My backyard kale is still going strong, so my tendency has been to chop it fine and throw it into everything, in the manner of stealth vegetables. It's hard to be stealthy with kale, though. Fortunately no one around here really minds.
Anyway, grocery shopping. I'm just not on top of it yet and it seems like there aren't a lot of ingredients in the house, at first glance. But I had a batch of roasted and pureed green tomatoes in the freezer, and I started thinking they'd make an interesting base for chili, or stew, or something.
What's that you say? You've never roasted green tomatoes? Well, I hadn't either, until a month ago or so. We had loads of tomatoes in the garden, but many, many of them never ripened. I window-ripened some.
In fact, I still have a few in the window right now, and they have actually turned red. But overall, I was pretty disappointed with our tomatoes; they were Jet Stars, and I just didn't like the variety for eating raw. So I roasted and/or froze LOTS of them.
To roast green tomatoes, cut them into wedges, drizzle with olive oil, season with salt and pepper, and put them in the oven for 20-25 minutes at 350 or 375. When they come out, you can eat them straight up--they are delicious, melty, caramelized little things--or puree them. I did a bit of both. The puree is super-tangy, without the sweetness of ripe tomatoes. And it's great in a simple curry, like this one I'm about to drop on you.
Roasted Green Tomato Curry with Chickpeas and Brown Rice
Oil for the pan
1 onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 pinches red pepper flakes
2 tablespoons of your favorite curry powder or sambar (I used both)
2 cups roasted green tomato puree
4 cups water
3/4 cup brown rice
4 carrots, diced
1 large can of chickpeas
A dash of agave or other sweetener
Salt to taste
In a medium soup pot, saute the onion in oil until translucent, then add the garlic. Let that cook for a minute or two, then add the red pepper flakes and spices and cook a minute or two longer. Dump in the puree, water, rice, and carrots, and bring the whole mixture to a low boil. Turn the heat back to a simmer and do something else for awhile, while the rice cooks--say 25 minutes or so. Add chickpeas and simmer awhile longer. Taste for salt and sweetness and add agave and salt accordingly. Serve with a dollop of yogurt and some cilantro, if you have them on hand. If not, eat it straight up.
Fresh green tomatoes would probably work just fine in this. I'd just chop them and let them cook down with the onions, garlic, and spices for awhile before adding water and rice. This would also be great with some fresh spinach tossed in at the end, but then I'll put spinach in anything.
Picture to follow, when it's not pitch black outside. Siiiiigh--that's the bad thing about Falling Back.
ETA: here it is, in lunch form:
and with the rest of Mr. Bento:
When I cook at home, I usually make a whole wack of food so that my manfriend and I have leftovers to take to work for lunch the next few days. But now that I'm working with a dorm-sized fridge and just one eater, I've cut things back a bit. This recipe uses the stuff that's in my pantry and cooks up a bit smaller than my usual soup stylings. It also looks quite unappetizing when photographed unless you happen to love poopy green colors the way I do, so please use your imagination for illustration.
Split pea soup
Olive oil
1 small onion, diced
1 large carrot, diced
2 big cloves of garlic, minced
1 t basil
1/2 t oregano
1/4 t cayenne pepper
3/4 cup split peas, picked over and rinsed
1/4 cup brown rice
5 cups veggie broth (I used Imagine's No-Chicken broth plus an extra cup of water)
1/2 a package of frozen spinach
1/2 t liquid smoke
salt and pepper to taste
sambal olek or sri racha for extra spice
Saute the onions and carrot in olive oil over medium high heat until the onions are wilted. Add garlic and spices and cook a few minutes more, then add peas, rice, and broth. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat, and simmer for about a half hour, or until rice is cooked and peas are soft.
In the meantime, prepare your spinach according instructions and stir into the soup when done. (The soup could easily accommodate a whole package of spinach if you like; I just wanted to save some for a pasta sauce.)
Finish the soup with liquid smoke and remaining seasonings (if you so desire). This would also be great with a potato or two, with thyme and/or smoked paprika if you have it on hand, or with curry spices instead of basil and oregano.
This makes more than enough for two people and could probably feed 4 moderate eaters if you serve a salad and bread.
Since I last blogged at you, I've temporarily relocated for a 10-week job away from home. My new employer provides housing in the form of a cute little studio apartment a stone's throw from my office, which is excellent. Less excellent are the wee little fridge, wee little stove, and wee little countertop. But this wee setup is going to force me to get creative with my cooking while also simplifying things a bit. I couldn't bring every single staple with me and I haven't bought very much since I got here on Saturday. Here's what I'm working with:
Olive and canola oils
Garlic and onions
Ginger and scallions
Cumin, cayenne pepper, and curry powder
Liquid smoke!
Apple cider vinegar
Bragg's Liquid Aminos
Canned beans and tomatoes
Quinoa and rice
Miso and tofu
Bogus sausage
Broccoli and carrots
Red cabbage
Frozen corn and fresh grape tomatoes
Avocado
Bananas and apples
Steel cut oats
Currants
Honey
On my first night here I was fed tasty Indian food. But the next night I made a spicy miso soup with some baby bok choy I'd brought with me from home, carrots, and sauteed tofu. I ate the leftovers the next day.
For last night's dinner and today's lunch, I sauteed onions, garlic, and a little red cabbage, and cooked quinoa with the vegetable mixture. When it was nearly done, I stirred in canned garbanzo beans and added broccoli florets on top to steam in the pot. I finished it up with crumbled fake sausage and the last of the Christmas pesto (yes there is such a thing). Pesto was my solution to not having any herbs yet. Fortunately, I discovered tonight that a colleague has four basil plants in his office! They kind of make his studio smell like cats, but at least now I can harvest fresh basil on the job.
Tonight's dinner/tomorrow's lunch followed a similar formula to last night's meal: some sort of bean + some sort of rice or grain + veg + seasonings. It wasn't, strictly speaking, a one-pot meal, since I had to cook the brown rice in a separate pot. But I sauteed onions and garlic with cumin and cayenne pepper, added canned black beans, tomatoes, and frozen corn, simmered it all with the cooked rice, and finished with scallions, liquid smoke, and a dash of cider vinegar.
I suspect I'll be doing a lot of this type of cooking while I'm here, especially since I am so enamored of the vintage Copco cast iron lidded casserole I brought with me as a (heavy) afterthought. I found it at a thrift store a few months ago and had never used it. But it's sure to be the most frequent One Pot for my one-pot meals. If I ever cook in broad daylight (hard when it's dark at 5), I'll take a picture for you.
I'm missing cinnamon, red pepper flakes, basil, and chili powder. Along with cumin and ginger, those are the key herbs and spices for me. I'm also missing greens, and I'm hoping I can find a good source around here for bulk spices and organic veg.
What are your staples in the kitchen?
If your rice is already flavored with lime juice and cilantro, there's no point in trying to make rice pudding out of it. Instead, grate a carrot, chop some cabbage, add more cilantro and lime juice, a few chopped scallions, a splash of orange juice, a little salt, a little olive oil, and some diced avocado. Mix it up and eat it up.
I made this bomb-ass salad for Mother's Day potluck and it disappeared before I could photograph it, as did my Veganomicon Curried Carrot Dip.
Sesame Ginger Rice Salad
Pop 1.5 cups of brown rice into your rice cooker.
Meanwhile, start pressing the water out of a brick of tofu (wrap in a clean, lint-free towel or paper towels, set on a plate, and put another plate and a can of beans on top of it).
Meanwhile, clean a small head of broccoli and steam the florets until just tender, about 5 minutes. Peel all the fibrous stuff off the stalk of the brocc and slice thin. I left these raw for extra crunch.
Meanwhile, whisk together:
1 tbsp dark sesame oil
1 tbsp soy sauce
2 tsp grated ginger
1 minced clove of garlic
1/3 cup seasoned rice vinegar
A few shakes of red pepper flakes
Meanwhile, you can chuck your chopped brocc stalks in there. Also grate a carrot while you're at it, and throw it into the dressing.
Meanwhile, your tofu is pressed (but your rice is still cooking). Heat a little veg oil and soy sauce in a non-stick pan, cube your tofu, and fry the cubes until golden and delicious.
Meanwhile, chiffonade some spinach--a few handfuls, including the stems which you will chop into little pieces. Chop a few scallions while you're at it.
Combine everything when the rice is cooked and serve room temperature, if you can wait that long.
Local co-op Mississippi Market has a few housemade treats that I get on a pretty regular basis: the vegan muffaletta, which is fresh and delicious, and the curried lentil-rice salad, which is full of curry goodness. I've been meaning to try my hand at replicating this recipe for ages, and I finally got around to it recently, with reasonable success. The main difference between mine and the co-op's is that mine was drier, even though I kept whipping up extra dressing and adding it in. I guess I'm condemned to buying and eating more of their salad in the service of stealing their recipe.
Curried Lentil-Rice Salad
1 cup rice
1 cup french green lentils
Half a head of cauliflower
1 red, orange, or yellow bell pepper, diced
3/4 cup currants
1/2 an onion, minced
3/4 cup cashews
Get the rice cooking and cook the lentils in a few cups of water until they are tender but not mushy. Break the cauliflower into little florets and lightly steam them--again, mush is not welcome here.
Then attack the dressing. Whisk together:
1/4 cup olive oil (the market's ingredient listing also uses peanut oil, but I didn't have any)
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar (or rice vinegar--again, didn't have any on hand)
1 tsp of good quality curry powder
1/2 tsp garlic powder
A healthy plop or two of apricot fruit spread. In fact, eyeball all of these measurements, because I was completely playing it by ear. The dressing looked like this when I made it:
Dump the currants into the dressing to rehydrate a bit. Get to chopping your veg, if you haven't already. I also whisked the onion into the dressing, to mellow it out a little bit. When the rice and lentils are cooked and cooled slightly, mix them together with the cauliflower and bell peppers. Pour on your delicious dressing, add chopped cashews, and salt to taste.
It was imperfect, but I ate this every day for a week. Serve room temperature or cold.
Oh my my, oh hell yes.
In my continuing mission to use up pantry items, I decided to introduce some arborio rice to some feta cheese. I remembered an Onion Feta Risotto I made years ago, from a recipe from a Moosewood Restaurant cookbook, did a little internet scouting, and tweaked based on what I had. I am eating it right now and I have to tell you, people, it is delicious.
If you've never made risotto before, fear not! It doesn't require any special know-how--you just have to have about 20 minutes to stand in front of the stove and attend to your tender bits of rice.
Onion Feta Risotto with Spinach and Lemon
2 T olive oil + 2 T butter, or all olive oil, or all butter, if you like.
2 generous cups diced onion--Vidalia is great if you have it, but any onion will do because they are all sweet.
2-3 minced cloves garlic
1 t basil
1 t oregano
2 cups arborio rice
6-8 cups simmering vegetable broth (low or no salt). You can sub in plain water for some of this liquid, or some white wine.
1/2 to 1 cup crumbled feta cheese
A few handfuls of fresh spinach
Juice and zest of half a lemon
Black pepper
Heat the olive oil/butter in a soup pot over medium-low heat. Add garlic and herbs and saute for a few minutes. Add onions and saute over medium heat for 5-7 minutes, until wilty and translucent. Add rice and stir gently to coat the grains of rice. This is best done with a wooden spoon, so your grains don't break.
Add about a cup of your simmering liquid to the rice and stir gently and occasionally until it's absorbed--this will only take a few minutes. Repeat every few minutes until your rice is firm, tender, and delicious--about 20 minutes. The rice will look very creamy.
Remove from heat and add feta, lemon juice and zest, and spinach, stirring to melt and wilt. Top with black pepper and serve. This would be delicious with lots of green vegetables. Or chicken on the side, if you swing that way (I don't, but I always refer to chicken as "chaka khan." Just FYI.).
