Wednesday, December 24, 2014

Christmas Eve Dinner

Shrimp Cocktail
purchased vegetarian egg rolls
Salmon topped with onion and lemon zest
herb-garlic roasted cutup potatoes
pesto green vegetables.

Wednesday, December 17, 2014

December, first half.



German noodles with vegetarian gravy.  I don't remember what we served with it, but Kale would be good.

Thai vegetable and tofu coconut curry over quinoa

Tomato-Herb soup with oven grilled cheese

 Ribolitto Soup, 2 nights.  Served with rolls one of them.

Vegetable Soup au Pistou via Slow cooker.  Put vegetable soup ingredients in crock pot in afternoon.  Leek, Zucchini, onions, celery, bell pepper, canned diced tomato, vegetable stock.  Made spaghetti, tossed in olive oil, stuck it in fridge.  When it was time to eat, I microwaved the pasta, which we ladled into bowls, we poured the vegetable soup over it, and topped it with pesto and grated parmesan.  A hit, and worked on a tight evening schedule.

Leftovers night supplemented with more tuna melts.

December 16: before middle school concert.  Gopher Stew (at horn player's request); alt entree is Potato-Cheese Kofti with Makhani sauce.   Pomegranate as side.
Potato Kofti which I added fresh mozzerella.  2lb potato to 1/2 lb cheese.
Makhani I made up.  Tomato curry spices, and fenugreek and fennel, canned tomato sauce, paste, and diced.  Yogurt, cream, and butter.

Friday, November 28, 2014

Ideas for Turkey Leftovers

The obvious: turkey sandwiches on leftover rolls with cranberry sauce.

Add turkey to cheese enchiladas with green sauce.

Lettuce wraps

Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Thanksgiving Notes

Menu

Turkey
Ahi Steaks

Yams with marshmallow
Cornbread Stuffing with vegetarian sausage
Mashed Potatoes
Green beans and sliced mushroom saute
Raspberry Jello with sour cream
wheat rolls

Crescent Dragonwagon gravy
Turkey gravy
Cranberry sauce
cranberry salsa

Night before we:
baked cornbread for stuffing and made the jello salad.
Next year perhaps start Septienne rolls the night before.


Cornbread Stuffing
For Cornbread, I doubled the Fanny Farmer recipe.
The 9x13 green glass casserole dish is too small for a double recipe--next time look for 128 sq inches of surface area.

Wheat Rolls
http://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/whole-wheat-dinner-rolls
I picked this recipe this morning.  The white/wheat mix, eggs and butter, without potato flakes or weirdness, looks like what I remember of my mother's recipe.

Cranberry Sauce
http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/cranberry_sauce/
Should have heeded warning about cutting sugar.  I made our sauce as stated--4 cups cranberries, 1 cup sugar--and it's too sweet.

Sunday, November 23, 2014

Third Week of November

Sunday
Bean, kale, and cheese enchilada with easy green sauce. -green-enchilada-sauce recipe uses canned jalapeño peppers

Vanilla pudding pie for dessert

Monday
Leftover cheesy kale spaghetti with added sausage

Tuesday--no family dinner
One had a meetup.
One got hungry and ate Costco chicken bake before dinner.
One had a work thing and ate dinner out.
Who was left made herself a mushroom olive artichoke pizza on purchased crust with a side of pomegranate seeds.


Wednesday
Black Bean & Vegetable Soup with Grilled Cheese. Sliced oranges as fruit side
Cleaned out many waiting vegetables in fridge. The leftover yams from last week. More of the purple kale. The leek that I didn't use two weeks ago. Celery. Red pepper pesto from Costco. A couple fresh tomatoes. It was about half vegetables in broth, half black beans.

Used canola oil spray on grilled cheese instead of butter. Much less greasy.

Thursday
Homemade Mac and Cheese, mixing in crushed croutons
http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/quick_macaroni_and_cheese/
Green bean and mushroom saute.  Topped with Durkee onions, we all wish the onions were omitted.


Sunday, November 16, 2014

Second Week of November

Sunday--family dinner at Japanese restaurant

Monday--Frozen Costco Chicken Bakes

Tuesday--Yams with seasoned black beans

Wednesday--broccoli soup garnished with shredded cheddar, with chik'n nuggets and wheat rolls
Simply Recipes Broccoli Apple Soup Recipe
I had no apples, so I put in a spoonful of apple butter

Thursday

Friday

Saturday--instead of lasagna, I made cheesy spaghetti with kale and marinara sauce. It was boring. Too much pasta, too little fixings.

Saturday, November 8, 2014

First Week of November

Monday--Chicken Pot Pie from Costco.  Turns out, that's not really our thing.

Tuesday--Burritos: Cattlebeans, Ground Turkey, Cheddar, Spinach, Butternut Squash

Wednesday--Leftovers: Salmon with Quinoa, Turkey from Burritos, Chicken Pot Pie

Thursday--Lentil Sloppy Joes


Chili-Lime Pistachios

The Curry Guy's recipe for chili-lime pistachios

I didn't have garlic powder in the house and made them without.
The chili powder I bought at grocery store not tasty on its own like the chili powder I buy in bulk from fancy store.

Probably since I didn't really follow they recipe, they were very good but not fantastic.
My husband loved them.  I'll probably try again.

And, I'm comparing them to Pom Wonderful "sweet chili pistachios" which my grocery store stopped carrying.  Maybe I'm missing some sugar?

Tuesday, November 4, 2014

Savory Cheese Puffed Apple Pancake with side of Kale

Simplified and altered from
 Savory or Sweet German Pancake in 30 minutes at the Los Angeles Times.

2 large apples
1/2 stick of butter
1 cup flour
1/8 teaspoon salt
4 eggs beaten
3/4 cup milk
handful of shredded cheese (I used mozzarella, but I'd use cheddar next time)

Oven 425 degrees F
Melt butter in glass dish in oven (I used 12x8 IKEA oval)
Whisk salt into flour in mixing bowl.  Add cheese
Mix eggs and milk together in 2-cup glass pitcher
Put sliced apples in oven.  Bake them 10-20 minutes until cooked.
Pour liquid into dry, mix together.
Pour batter over buttered apples and pop back into oven.
Bake 25 minutes.

While baking, sautee sliced kale with 1/2 cup vegetable broth.
Serve with kale over your portion of savory apple cheese pancake.

Pudding of Cooked Rice

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/creamy-rice-pudding/

I've been increasing it to 2 cups rice, 2 2/3 cup milk, and did three egg yolks.
I used 2/3 cup sugar, need to reduce that.  Too sweet for breakfast.

Saturday, November 1, 2014

Apple Breakfast Cake

Apple Breakfast Cake from The Fresh Loaf

Oh my gosh, best ever.  Worth weighing the ingredients for.  Go there for very accurate recipe, more specificity on ingredients, ready to scale for family reunion.

Doubled the basic recipe, left apples unpeeled, cooked in a 9" springform pan.
I left out the walnuts (3 oz) and raisins (5 oz), since someone had just got braces.

My Doubled recipe amounts:
Eggs 6 oz
Sugar 5 oz, or generous 1/2 cup
Butter, melted 5 oz
Apples cored, sliced, unpeeled 2 lbs
Vanilla 1 tsp
Flour 8.7 oz, or about 1 3/4 cup
Baking Powder 2 tsp
Salt 1/2 tsp

335F for one hour.

Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Ribollito, Stale Bread Soup

Rachel Ray Ribollito

Fantastic for having food on hand that reheats quickly and is tasty as leftovers.  Very hearty.

My version:

Cook beans as I usually do.
In soup pot cook mirepoix as usual.
Add other vegetables and herb bundle
Add broth, tomato paste, and beans.  4 cups broth?

Do the cool Rachel Ray thing,  The soup is like a soup concentrate.  To serve, add 2 parts soup, 1 part more broth, and the bread.

1 pound of Maine Cattle Beans.  Soaked overnight and cooked.
broth--vegetarian Better The Boullion
3-4 garlic cloves crushed
1 onion
8 inches leftover french bread
Olive Oil
5 carrots
4 ribs celery
2 teaspoons CRP
Herb bundle of Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme
1 bunch Tuscan Kale
2 zucchini, or was it one?
2 cans tomato paste

At the table: parmesan cheese, diced raw onion, olive oil

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Fish Tacos

Fish Tacos
this time: tilapia, slaw, wheat tortillas, salsa, sriacha-mayo or yogurt.
slaw: red cabbage, red onion, cilantro, lime juice, olive oil, salt and pepper

Monday, October 20, 2014

White bean Kielbasa soup

Where other people have meatless Mondays, I'm most likely to serve a meat dish on Mondays when the committed vegetarians are out at activities.

I sautéed onion, carrot, and celery, then added the leftover flageolet white beans, kielbasa, tomato, and kale, and a cup of broth to thin it, for a simple rainy day skillet stew.   We added Tabasco at the table.

Saturday, October 18, 2014

Cheesy broccoli potato soup

I made a double batch of Cheesy Broccoli Potato Soup, which seemed just right on a rainy night after a heavy diner cheeseburger lunch.  In the interest of my own nutritional goals, I put in less than half the cheese called for, and served lots of shredded cheese for individuals to add.

I offered hot wheat rolls and corn chips as sides.  They went untouched, so perhaps everyone really was still full from lunch.  But I must do something in order to send them off to bed--dinner was already held off until 7pm.

The littlest one said she wasn't hungry and only ate one bite.
The middle one still has a sore mouth from new braces, bravely ate one bowl and then his leftover cheeseburger chopped to tiny bits in the food processor.
I liked it.  Other adults liked it.

Nevertheless, nine cups of leftover soup is kind of discouraging.  They all are going to have to find the love for this stuff over the next couple days.  Perhaps parmesan croutons on the leftovers when they're presented.

Friday, October 17, 2014

Food pairing software

Harvest is but a memory in the slough of winter, but what goes with zucchini? I would have said tomatoes, mushrooms, bell peppers and/or cheese. Also soy sauce--I had a friend who used to marinade long slices of zucchini in soy sauce, but frankly I would say the marinade never penetrated; she was kidding herself.

Now an outfit called "Sense for Taste" out of Belgium has an online food pairing calculator. Just the thing when I'm looking at the end-of-the-week ingredients that somehow didn't make it into any dinners. I'm intrigued but sometimes skeptical of the food pairing suggestions for zucchini, a food which can be a bountiful summer challenge.

http://www.foodpairing.be/FoodPairable.aspx?f=Zucchini

We'll be skipping the tea and Chardonnay, I add, wiping my hands on my apron.

Whether or not this internet toy leads you to your next culinary invention, or causes your frozen food conglomerate to hire them, Food Pairing is fun to play with. There is a long list of set foods, by category, on the right-hand column (you may have to click an arrow triangle to see them). The search box doesn't work for me and my machine--I don't know if that's because their coding is broken or because an ASPX database only interacts with Microsoft products.

Zucchini with ginger? maybe. Zucchini with apricot? Two ingredients I'd never have thought to combine.

Make Naan

Nothing sells dinner like a bread baked that day: whether we're talking actual loaves, or rolls, tortillas, biscuits, or naan.  All over the world, or among our ancestors, bread baked that day was UNUSUAL.  That's why being a bakers is the third oldest profession, and that's why so often a village has only one oven, and it's shared.

 That said, if today's a day you want to bake a bread, here's this great recipe for naan I've been using.  Note well: plan on three+ hours for the rise.

http://www.manjulaskitchen.com/2007/05/22/naan-bread/

Onigiri

Cute like sugar cookies, without actually being a dessert.  
We like it as an afternoon snack or in a packed lunch.

Leftover rice, about 2 cups
2 tablespoons of rice vinegar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon sugar

I spread the rice out on a plate.
I mix the vinegar, salt, and sugar to make a dressing.
I sprinkle the dressing on the rice.

I pack the rice into molds to make shapes, using my rice paddle to push the rice into the mold and level it.  I've got a little onigiri mold with three little shapes, which I bought in a japanese market a few years back.  Before that I used to just mold with a 1/4 cup measure.

Real onigiri would have something hidden in the middle, like pickled plum.  I've never met a pickled plum.  We usually just make them plain--haven't come up with a filling that interests any of us.

Do you make onigiri?  Is your vinegar-salt-sugar dressing different?  Do you put a little filling in the middle?

South of France Beans

Flageolet beans seasoned with garlic, crushed red pepper, and herbes de provence.
mix in sauteed kale and tomato.


Pulao Rice

This is a rice cooker recipe. My rice cooker knows when to stop cooking, and then just keeps the rice hot until I'm ready for it. My friend taught me I could leave it in finished-cooking-keeping-warm mode 24 hours, as long as the bottom of the bowl has a good untouched layer of rice in it. Sometimes that comes in handy.

Yes, I use real saffron. No turmeric in this recipe. I got a big ole 1-ounce jar at Costco, so now I might as well use it as hoard it. 

Into the rice cooker put:
1.5 cups basmati rice
3 cups water
2 Tablespoons of butter
3 green cardamons
2 cloves
3 peppercorns
and a pinch of SAFFRON



Turn the rice cooker on. Assuming it has keep-warm-after-cooking mode, come back to eat whenever you like, sometime in the next 1-25 hours. But pick out the cloves and peppercorns and cardamons when you open the pot--you don't want your kid biting into that.

Thursday, October 16, 2014

Accidently Overly Rich Mac N Cheese

Okay, it's not my first homemade mac 'n cheese.  Usually I make it with melted sliced american cheese.  This is my first attempt at this recipe: Classic Mac and Cheese from Homeroom in Oakland, CA.

It calls for four cups of whole milk, a stick of butter, 1/2 cup flour, 3 cups shred sharp cheddar, and 3 oz of shredded parmesan.

I don't have whole milk in the house, so I had about 1/2 cup cream and 3/4 cup half and half, and the rest skim milk.

Later I looked it up and 4 cups of whole milk would have been 32 grams of milkfat.
A tablespoon of heavy cream has 50 grams of milkfat.  So, a mere tablespoon would have MORE than enough to turn my skim milk into whole milk.

I had no idea heavy cream is that much richer than whole milk.  Whoops.

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

BLTs or Tuna Melts

BLTs, I love having them once a year.  And we have a bumper crop of tomatoes here at the end of season.  What's left on the vines may be hit by frost before it ripens.

We all love tuna melts.  So that was an also an option at the meal.  Some people had one of each, BLT and tuna melt.

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Spaghetti with Alfredo Sauce, Fresh Tomato, and Kale.

Why not Linguini?  Because I don't have any in the cupboard.

I went with Ree Drummond's Alfredo Sauce recipe from her t.v. show.  The Alfredo from her blog adds the shredded cheese with the pasta, instead.  We joked that we were having ice cream for dinner; it's pretty rare for me to serve something so rich.

My daughter was worried that tomatoes were going to ruin the Pasta Alfredo.  Because the juices might dilute it.  So for her, I got the juice and squishy parts out of the tomato and chopped them.

The kale I cooked separately in an iron skillet, with some store-bought pesto to season it.

The adults mixed the pasta, tomato, and vegetables in together on their plates.   Some children ate their vegetables as solo side dishes instead.  The surprise was the kale went first.

I think it's funny that the pesce-vegetarian in the house loves Pioneer Woman Cooks recipes.  Ree Drummond lives on a ranch and does a lot of meat dishes, but the vegetarian dishes are often hearty.

Monday, October 13, 2014

Vegan cooking: Naturally Ella

Today I discovered Naturally Ella, a vegan cooking site with beautifully photographed dishes, indexed by season and featured vegetable ingredient.

The computer I keep in the kitchen is an older Mac, and my significant other keeps shaking his head at the flour and cooking oils that are depositing themselves on it.  The interface for choosing the vegetable in the seasonal recipes doesn't work for me here.  Perhaps it's a javascript issue.

I'll probably try to work my way around that, because Erin Alderson, aka Naturally Ella, has gathered the kinds of recipes I want to make.  We may not be a vegan family, but we love good vegan cooking.

Tonight I tried the Spicy Lentil Vegan Sloppy Joe and I'll be making it again, though next time I think I"ll cook the lentils and sauce separately and combine them at the end.  I did add a tablespoon of brown sugar to a doubled recipe, (don't shudder) but that was because the old balsamic vinegar from the back of the cupboard is intensely strong, and needed more than the called-for molasses to balance it.

It's an amazing and delicious sloppy joe sauce, which is what I need to overcome my teenagers' love of ConAgra Manwich.  Not being vegan, we eat it with good sliced Vermont sliced cheese.

Simply Recipes Elise Bauer

I love, love, love the Simply Recipes site.

I was at BlogHer in San Francisco, and I had no idea who she was when I attended her session, which was not about food but about her (actually extremely useful and spot-on) advice for doing a blog well and getting what you intended from it.

Elise Bauer is generous and charming.

Then I went home and started cooking her family recipes.  And they are delicious and dependable.  And presented in a time-saving order of instructions.

Among her recipes that are in our regular rotation:

Salade Nicoise
Zucchini Bread and Muffins
Tuna Croquette
Dal
Mango Lassi

Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Spaghetti Squash Fritters

Cooking Light's spaghetti squash fritters.   I used kale instead of spinach.  I wondered about throwing in chopped onion. I had baked the spaghetti squash earlier to serve with marinara, but when it came time to put together dinner I.just.couldn't.do.it. These are more like squash latkes than fritters, but the joy of baked spaghetti squash is that it is effectively already shredded.

Thursday, September 4, 2014

Quick Catfish in Cornmeal

Quick Catfish in Cornmeal

Once again, picking fish at Hannaford's and looking up a recipe on my phone while the fish is wrapped.  This was good and not too involved.


Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Tom Yum Soup

I find the about.thaifood.com site fairly dependable.  Though I'm happy to make Thai food with what's on hand, these are solid recipes that are a good framework.  

Vermont, having fewer people, has fewer thai restaurants than the San Francisco Bay area. So when I'm not in the mood to drive to or pay for amazing thai food, I make good thai food at home.

Tom Yum recipe at about.thaifood.com
My notes:
  • 6 cups water
  • 2 tablespoons Better than Bouillion Vegetarian or Chicken
  • 1/2 tsp. lime zest
  • 2 stalks minced lemongrass,
  • 3-4 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 tsp. minced ginger
  • 1 fresh red chili, minced, OR 1-2 tsp. Thai chili sauce, OR 1/2 to 3/4 tsp. dried crushed chili OR cayenne pepper
  • generous handful of fresh shiitake mushrooms, sliced
  • juice of 1 lime
  • 2 Tbsp. fish sauce 
  • 1 Tbsp. soy sauce
  • optional: handful of fresh basil
  • optional: other vegetables of your choice: baby bok choy, bell pepper, green beans, etc.

Sunday, January 5, 2014

Tuna with Tomato and Olive over Polenta

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Farfalle-with-Tuna-Tomatoes-and-Olives-102987
I skipped the pasta and served it over baked sliced polenta.

[edited to add: nine months later, and I still haven't made this again.  There was something too fussy about it, I think I'm in the only one in the family who really enjoyed the strong flavors of the sauce.]