Roasted Red Pepper Hummus Pasta

Roasted peppers are one of the most versatile ingredients to have on hand and also one of the easiest to make yourself. (You can buy jarred roasted peppers, but it’s much more cost- effective to pop some raw peppers into the oven.) And since most bell peppers are pretty big, one roasted pepper can go a long way: in this case, I had enough to make a batch of roasted red pepper hummus and also enough to chop and toss with tuna fish and extra-virgin olive oil to make a quick meal.

You can roast whatever kind of pepper you like. My favorite peppers are mild, sweet bell peppers — being a contact-wearer makes me leery of handling hot peppers — but if you like hotter peppers, look for poblanos. They tend to be on the spicy side and are especially nice to roast. (Poblanos look like pointy dark-green bell peppers.) The key is to roast until your pepper of choice is quite charred on the outside; this will make it easy to peel once it’s cooled enough to touch. If you have a gas stove and a penchant for playing with fire, you can poke a long metal fork through your pepper and hold it just above the flame to roast it, turning until all sides are blackened. I am a wimp when it comes to fire and prefer to use a closed oven for my pepper roasting.

Roasted Red Pepper Hummus

1 red bell pepper
4 cloves garlic, chopped
15 oz. can of chickpeas, preferably Eden (they use BPA-free cans)
1 T. tahini
Sea salt
2 servings whole-grain pasta of your choice (I used Tinkyada’s brown rice linguini)
Sweet paprika for garnishing

Make the oven ready for roasting by placing a sheet of aluminum foil on the bottom-most rack. This will catch any potential drips coming from the pepper and will potentially save you tons of clean-up time. Preheat oven to 425F. Place pepper on the middle rack, being sure to center it over the foil. Roast for 10-15 minutes or until all sides are blackened and blistering. (The larger the pepper, the longer the roasting will take.) Remove and slip into a plastic bag. Seal bag and let sit until cool enough to handle. When it is, the skin should easily peel away. Do so over a cutting board, because water will leak out of the pepper as you handle it. Cut away the seeds and stem. At this point, if you’d like to save half of the pepper to use later, just put it in an airtight container and refrigerate for up to 4 days. Or use all of the pepper in the hummus.

While the pepper is roasting, sautée the garlic in a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil over medium-low heat for 3 minutes or until garlic is soft and fragrant. Slip into a food processor. Drain chickpeas, reserving the juice, and add chickpeas to the garlic. Scoop in tahini and sprinkle in some salt. Add the peeled roasted pepper and process until smooth. If the mixture seems too dry, add some of the reserved canning liquid OR a dash of water. (If you use the whole pepper, you probably won’t need to add any liquid; if you only use half the pepper, the hummus might be a little dry.)

Let the hummus sit and the flavors marry while you prepare the pasta according to package directions. Toss cooked and drained pasta with as much of the hummus as you’d like (leftover hummus makes a great dip!) and garnish with a dash or two of paprika. Serve immediately.

Enjoy!

Lentil & Mushroom Soup with Roasted Potatoes

What do Brussels sprouts, potatoes, carrots, and mushrooms have in common? They were all in my pantry begging to be made into soup. The lentils looked lonely, too, so I threw them into the mix. Hearty soups are best made in the winter, after all, even if the term “winter” doesn’t seem to currently imply snow. (Glad I’m no longer a little kid in snow pants raring to go with my toboggan!)

It’s worth keeping a few soup essentials on hand in the chilly months: good-quality broth (my favorite is Pacific’s organic free-range chicken), onions, garlic, dried spices, maybe a few root vegetables like carrots and turnips. All of those make great backdrops for heartier elements like beans, lentils, whole grains, and meats. Stirring in some cream and cheese at the last minute is another simple way to transform a thin broth into a thick, rich soup.

For this batch, I opted to roast a few of the veggies and sautée the rest to create a variety of textures in the finished soup. You can go the roasting route, too, or you can stir in the potatoes and Brussels sprouts with the lentils and let them simmer to tenderness.

Lentil & Mushroom Soup with Roasted Potatoes
Makes 6 ample servings.

1 baking potato (Idaho), cut into 1″ cubes
About 10 Brussels sprouts, halved
2 small onions OR 1 medium yellow onion, chopped
8 oz. mushrooms, sliced
3 cloves garlic, chopped or slivered
4 cups/32 oz. chicken OR vegetable broth (if you go with chicken, opt for free-range)
1 T. dried Italian seasoning OR a total of 1 T. of rosemary, thyme, oregano, basil, and sage
1/2 cup brown lentils
1 carrot, diced

Preheat oven to 350F and line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. Put the cubed potato in a large bowl, drizzle in a little extra-virgin olive oil, shake on a little salt and pepper, and toss well with your hands. Spread out onto one of the baking sheets. Put the Brussels sprouts in the bowl and repeat the same process (oil, salt, pepper, toss). Place cut side down on the other sheet.*

Roast for 20 minutes, then pull out the sprouts. Let the potatoes bake for another 15 minutes or until they’re golden brown and very dry to the touch. (That crispy dryness means they won’t get soggy in the soup!)*

While your veggies are roasting, make the soup. Begin by sautéeing onions in a dab of ghee/butter or a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil over medium heat for 5 minutes or until soft and translucent. Add mushrooms, reduce heat to medium-low, and continue to sautée for another 5 minutes or until mushrooms are shrunken and soft. Stir in garlic and continue to cook for another 3 minutes.

Pour in broth. Stir in spices, lentils, and carrot. Simmer over medium-low heat (reduce to low if the soup is bubble-boiling rather than ripple-simmering) for 20 minutes or until lentils have reached desired tenderness. By now, the potatoes should be done, so go ahead and stir in the roasted Brussels sprouts and potatoes. Season with a pinch or two of salt — taste as you go! — and serve. Leftover soup can be refrigerated for up to a week.

Note that soup will thicken upon standing. I like not-so-brothy soup, but if you’d rather have more broth, pour a little fresh broth into your next-day soup and mix well before reheating. Serve with grated or shaved Parmesan if you like.

Enjoy!

* If you’d rather skip the roasting, proceed directly to making the soup. When you add the lentils, set your timer for 10 minutes. Add the halved sprouts and the cubed potatoes at that point and simmer everything for a final 10 minutes.

Mexican Pozole

Who says you can’t have a fiesta in the wintertime? (Especially when it’s 48F outside. It’s like spring in the winter!) Unlike mexicanized restaurant food in the U.S., actual food in Mexico is fresh, vibrant, and light in a satisfying and hearty kind of way. Case in point: a crisp, refreshing version of pozole, served with Applegate pastured bacon and Greek yogurt as toppings. I added chayote squash and navy beans, too — I like having something to chew on in my soups — but as long as you include hominy and chili powder in your batch, you’ll capture the essence of pozole.

Pozole
Makes enough for 4 hearty servings, especially if you include all of the toppings.

1 small onion, chopped
5 cloves garlic, chopped
2 cups chicken broth
28 oz. can of tomatoes
15 oz. can of navy beans (my favorite brand of beans is Eden)
1 T. chili powder (I adore chili powder from Spice Hunter)
1 chayote squash, peeled, spongy core removed, flesh cut into 1″ cubes (optional, but adds to the Latin flair of the dish); if you can’t find chayote, opt for sweet potato
15 oz. can of hominy (I prefer yellow, but white works, too)

Optional toppings:
Cooked bacon from pastured hogs (see the Baked Bacon post for tips on finding and preparing top-quality bacon)
Whole-milk Greek yogurt
Chopped cilantro
Lime wedges
Thinly sliced cabbage
Chopped avocado

Drizzle a splash of extra-virgin olive oil into a large soup pot. Add onions and sautée over medium heat for 5 minutes or until the onions are soft but not yet brown. Add garlic, reduce heat to medium-low, and cook for another 2 minutes or until garlic is fragrant and soft. Pour in chicken broth, 1 cup of water, the tomatoes, and the beans. (Seeing as Eden beans are canned in BPA-free cans with sea salt and a pinch of seaweed, I add the contents of the entire can.) Stir in the chili powder and bring to a boil.

Add the chayote/sweet potato, reduce heat to a gentle simmer, and let the squash cook for 10 minutes. Poke a piece to see if it has reached its desired tenderness. (I like mine a bit chewy.) If you’d like to add more chili powder or a dash of sea salt, now’s a good time to do that, too.

Stir in hominy, simmer for another minute to heat everything through, and serve. Garnish with any or all of the optional toppings. Leftover pozole can be refrigerated for up to 5 days — like all tomato-based soups and sauces, the flavor deepens upon standing. You may like it even better the next day.

Enjoy!

DIY Tapas Plate

It’s Monday, it’s lunchtime, and you’re lunch-less and hungry. Odds are, you’re stuck going to the nearest faux-healthy restaurant. (Ever looked at the ingredients in a Panera sandwich? If you print out what’s in the Turkey Artichoke Panini, it’ll take up almost a full 8 1/2″ x 11″ page. But hey, I guess that’s better than Jimmy John’s — they refuse to disclose what’s in their sandwiches. If anyone ever does succeed in breaching their corporate “we won’t tell you what you’re eating” wall, I’d love to hear about it.)

While you might be up the prandial creek without a fork on Monday, take heart! The rest of the week can be much tastier and healthier. All you’ll need to do clean out your fridge, pantry, and fruit bowl by enjoying a midday assortment of odds and ends. If you were in Spain, you’d be calling the idea tapas; if you were in Greece, you’d be lunching on mezze. And your truly tasty and healthy meal will cost you under $10 (mine was $5).  So don’t be afraid to explore the corners of your fridge!

Suggestions for your Tapas Plate

Fruit
Cheese, preferably made from grass-fed milk
Nuts
Olives
Deli meats from pastured animals (such as Applegate Farms and Niman Ranch products)
Hard-boiled eggs
Pickles
Whole-grain bread
Any leftovers that need to be eaten

Remember, simplicity is your most delicious ingredient! Not throwing away money is probably the second most delicious one…which is what you’ll achieve by tossing some tasty leftovers into a bag and taking them to work with you rather than throwing them away and going out to eat.

For this plate, I went with what I had on hand:

Wedge of Prairie Fruits Moonglo raw goat cheese $2.10
Wedge of ricotta salata cheese made of sheep’s milk (I love cheeses made with sheep and goat milk) $1.00, garnished with sweet paprika
Satsuma mandarin orange $0.58
Half an organic Gala apple $0.30
Olives $1.36
For the heck of it, I threw in an anchovy-wrapped caper $0.20

Total: a very delicious $5.54 (Prairie Fruits cheeses are amazing!)

In other words, an adult version of Lunchables…except much more health- and cost-effective.

Enjoy exploring your fridge and cupboards!

Baked Pasta (with Homemade Marinara)

This is a tale of two culinary possibilities: turning a classic pasta dish into a pizza of sorts and how to save your summer tomato surplus without having to resort to canning. I’m all for canning, mind you, but it’s a lot easier to throw something into a bag than can it. The fact that you can combine these two possibilities is the…um…cheese on the pasta. (The savory version of “icing on the cake.”)

Freezing tomatoes and then making sauce with them months later — or, as in my case, 18 months later because I’d forgotten that I’d stuck my 2010 batch in my mom’s cavernous downstairs freezer — is ridiculously easy. First, wash and thoroughly dry the tomatoes, then trim off the stems and plop them into a gallon freezer bag. Freeze them.

When you want to use them,  put the frozen tomatoes in a large stockpot, fill the pot with enough water to cover the tomatoes, and bring to a boil. Let the tomatoes boil for about 3 minutes or until the skins start to look wrinkly. Poke one of them with a knife tip to see if the skin will easily jostle away. (This might take up to 5 minutes of boiling.) Use a slotted spoon to carefully lift the tomatoes one by one into a large bowl. Give them a few minutes to cool, then grab each one with your fingertips and let the inner flesh slip out, leaving the skin behind. Spill the peeled tomatoes — and any juice/water that dripped out of them — back into the stockpot. Mash the tomatoes with a potato masher. Bring to a simmer over medium heat and let them gently simmer on medium-low heat for at least 20 minutes to concentrate their flavor and get rid of some of the water that will inevitably be in them as a result of the freezing process.

Voila! You have a lush, garden-fresh tomato sauce that you can use however you’d like. Note: if you want a chunky sauce, wield your masher with discretion. If you want a velvet-smooth sauce, run the sauce through a food processor to get all the lumps out. You’ll never have to curse a summertime tomato excess again! (I realize this is a tad out of season, but I thought I’d mention it now so that it sticks in the back of your mind for the next six months and prompts you to look forward to an overabundant garden. Now that I know how easy it is to transform frozen tomatoes into a rich sauce, I’ll get a few extra plants this summer!)

Baked Pasta (with Homemade Marinara)

If you’re making homemade marinara:
1 large onion, chopped
5 cloves garlic, chopped
1 T. balsamic vinegar
Several pounds of fresh or frozen tomatoes OR at least 1 lb. of canned tomato sauce; if you use fresh or frozen tomatoes, follow the steps above to remove the skins and make your own sauce
At least 1 T. dried Italian seasoning OR 1 T. total of any/all of the following: thyme, oregano, rosemary, basil, parsley, marjoram, sage
Sea salt

With the marinara (homemade or store-bought), include:
Whole-grain pasta of your choice (I used corn spaghetti in mine)
Hard Italian cheese such as Parmesan or Asiago, grated

Preheat oven to 350F. If you’re making your own marinara, heat a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat for 1 minute, then add onion. Cook for 5 minutes or until onion is soft and starting to turn golden brown. Stir in garlic and balsamic vinegar and continue to cook for another 2 minutes or until garlic is fragrant. Add tomatoes, spices, and a pinch of salt. (If you’ve made your own tomato sauce, you’ll need to use more salt; store-bought sauce has a fair amount already.) Gently simmer sauce over medium-low for at least 20 minutes to let the flavors marry. This is one you can walk away from: assuming you have a nice low simmer and not a furious boil, the sauce can chug merrily along without your supervision.

Cook pasta according to package directions. Toss pasta with sauce and place on an oven-safe plate. Top with grated cheese. Bake for 15 minutes or until cheese is melting and turning golden brown.

Leftover marinara can be refrigerated (in glass containers, please — plastic ones can leach when subjected to acidic tomatoes) for a week, or freeze in a suitable container for a year. I like to use my leftover marinara as a dip for everything from crackers to shrimp. Or put it on scrambled eggs. Or serve with chicken, or even stir into chili. Homemade marinara has endless uses…including as pizza sauce, which was also put to good use in the previous post about Tuna Fish & Spinach Pizza.

Enjoy!

Tuna & Spinach Pizza

Happy New Year, everybody! I thought I’d start off 2012 by breaking an established culinary tradition: pizza toppings. Don’t get me wrong — I love mushroom and (pastured) pepperoni as much as the next guy — but I also enjoy venturing into off-the-spun-dough territory. I first had Thunfisch (tuna fish) pizza in Germany and have been making in my own kitchen ever since.

Before you start thinking that’s just too weird (“Tuna fish on pizza?”), let me remind you about the hallowed American lunch known as the tuna fish melt. This is essentially the same thing, except you’re adding a zesty tomato sauce and are eating the tuna on triangular wedges of crust rather than squared-off toast. And you’re including spinach. All in all, putting tuna fish on pizza makes for a heartier, more satisfying meal. For pizza lovers, it’s a chance to try something new; for folks wanting to upgrade the health quotient of their meals, this is a great way to add natural omega-3s to your dinner in the form of tuna + spinach. (On a whole-grain crust, of course.) I’m a member of both camps — upgraded meals always involve better flavor, too.

Tuna & Spinach Pizza
Makes one 12″ round pizza; feel free to double the recipe to make two pizzas if you have two pans.

For the crust:
1 heaping teaspoon yeast
1/2 cup + 1 T. fairly warm water (not scorching hot, but pretty hot from the tap)
1 1/2 tsp. sea salt
1/2 cup corn flour* (not starch!)
1/2 cup brown rice flour*
1/2 cup chickpea flour*
1/2 cup potato flour* (not starch!)
Up to 1/2 cup whole milk, preferably from grass-fed cows

For the toppings:
Pizza or spaghetti sauce, homemade or store-bought (if using store-bought, try to find one that contains extra-virgin olive oil rather than soybean or canola or any other type of oil; the latter will almost certainly be highly refined and probably also GMO)
Canned tuna fish
Baby spinach leaves
Onion, sliced thin
Shredded cheese of your choice (think of what you like with a tuna melt; I prefer Gruyere, Parmesan, or any other hard, aged cheeses)

Preheat oven to 425F. Combine yeast and water in a large mixing bowl and let sit for 5 minutes. The yeast should bubble and create a light foam on top of the water as it comes to life. In another bowl, whisk together the salt and the flours. Use extra-virgin olive oil to thoroughly grease a 12″ round pizza pan. I like to use the type that’s aerated — i.e., has little holes in the bottom. That seems to create a thin, crisp crust. (European pizzas have very thin, crisp crusts, especially compared to doughy American crusts.)

Stir the flours into the yeast. Add the milk, starting with 1/4 cup and adding a bit more if the dough is too dry and crumbly. I find that 1/2 cup works out perfectly if I use the four specific flours I listed. You’ll probably need to mix the dough with your hands towards the end to wind up with a not-too-dry, not-too-wet ball. No need to let your dough rise since you’re going for a thin crust; you’ll still get a pleasantly yeasty taste without the rising time.

Press the dough evenly into the greased pan and bake for 15 minutes or until the edges are golden brown. Pull out of the oven, let cool for 5 minutes, and top with your toppings. Begin with the sauce, add everything except the cheese, and end by covering everything in a good layer of cheese. Reduce heat to 375F and bake for 10 minutes or until the cheese is melting and turning golden brown.

Enjoy!

* These are gluten-free flours. If you don’t have all four of them, just be sure to use a total of 2 cups of flour. The potato flour is highly absorbent, so if you don’t use any potato flour, only use 1/2 cup of water (omit the tablespoon). If you would prefer to make a wheat-based version, use a total of 2 cups of spelt, kamut, or whole-wheat flour.

Quick Creamed Spinach Pasta

Seeing as the Big Day is nearly here and everyone is rushing around like mad to get their holiday errands done, I thought I’d post a get-done-quick recipe that you can whip up to impress your guests (or yourself). The ingredients range from non-perishable to not-too-perishable and are simple enough to keep on hand. After all, who doesn’t like cheesy pasta and creamy spinach?

Quick Creamed Spinach Pasta
Figure on using about 2 ounces of pasta, 4 to 8 ounces of spinach (I like a lot of spinach), and about 2 ounces of cheese per person.

Whole-grain spaghetti of your choice
Frozen spinach, thawed and squeezed dry (I run hot water over mine, squeeze the heck out of it, and let it sit in a colander for a few minutes)
Creamy, spreadable, herbed/garlicky cheese such as Boursin
Dash of ground nutmeg
Dash of sea salt

Cook pasta according to package directions and drain well. Toss pasta with remaining ingredients and place over medium-low heat for a minute or two to heat everything through. Told you it was easy! (Not to mention creamy and lush thanks to the Boursin.) If you’d like to make your pasta look extra-Christmasy, top with halved and bright-red cherry tomatoes.

Enjoy!

Moroccan Lamb Skewers

I’ve never been much of a beef fan — I’ll take the surf over the turf any day — but ever since I first went to Olga’s as a kid and had the Original Olga, I’ve been crazy about lamb. (I’d love to try mutton, but I guess I’ll have to wait until I’m in the U.K. again to find mutton on the menu.) I like lamb even better now that I can get pastured lamb directly from my farmer. Its flavor is smoother, it’s much less greasy/fatty and is therefore much nicer to press onto skewers or roll into meatballs with my hands, and it’s much more economical (and environmentally friendly) than buying grass-fed lamb shipped in from New Zealand.

These skewers are Moroccan-inspired and feature a few key spices found in North African cuisine: mint, cinnamon, cumin, and coriander. The fenugreek is a welcome addition if you have it, but don’t worry if you don’t. It is a wonderful spice, however, and complements many dishes — reminds me a little of celery salt — and you can find it at any well-stocked spice shop. Look for sumac, too! Likewise, if you’re interested in purchasing grass-fed animal products directly from farmers, you can visit your local farmer’s markets or check out sites like www.eatwild.com to find local farmers in your area. (If you live in Metro Detroit, take a gander at my “Farms & Markets” page to sample some local offerings.)

Moroccan Lamb Skewers

4 wooden skewers (NOTE: pre-soaking required, so plan accordingly!)
1 small onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1 lb. ground lamb, preferably pastured
1 egg, preferably from pastured hens
1 tsp. coriander
1 tsp. cumin
1/2 tsp. dried mint (or more, if you really like mint; I use 1 full tsp.)
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. fenugreek (optional, but nice)
Sumac for garnish (optional, but has a wonderful lemony tang)

Place the skewers in a rimmed baking tray and fill the tray with enough water to cover the skewers. Soak them for a good 4 hours or even overnight to prevent them from burning when you bake them later on.

Preheat oven to 350F. Line a rimmed baking tray with aluminum foil and place an oven-safe baking rack on top of the foil. I use the same tray I soaked the skewers in — just take them out and dry off the tray.

Sautée the onions in a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil over medium heat for 3 minutes. Stir in garlic, reduce heat to medium-low, and cook for another 2 minutes or until garlic is fragrant and soft.

Slide the sautéed onion and garlic into a large mixing bowl. Add the remaining ingredients and squish everything together with your bare hands until well-blended. (This is the fun part!) Pull the meat apart into 4 equal balls. To shape them onto the skewers, fold/wrap one of the balls onto one of the skewers and massage the meat into an oblong shape, keeping the skewer in the center of the meat. The first one might be a bit tricky, but you’ll quickly get the hang of it…and if you get the meat too off-center, you can always pull it off the skewer and start over.

As you complete shaping the meat onto each skewer, place them on the rack. Be sure to space them equally apart. Bake for 20 minutes or until the tops are turning golden brown. Remove and serve immediately, garnishing with a sprinkling of sumac if you like. (There are two kinds of sumac, one poisonous and one edible. This is the edible kind.)

I chose to serve my skewer over a bed of thinly sliced cucumber that I’d tossed with sour cream. You could just as easily serve the skewer on a bed of brown rice or even chopped Romaine. Feta cheese makes a lovely accompaniment as well, particularly if you choose a sheep’s-milk feta still in the brine: just lop off an end and crumble it onto your lamb. Talk about lush Mediterranean cuisine! Leftover skewers can be refrigerated for 4 days.

Enjoy!

Seafood Soup with Spinach, Spaghetti Squash & Sweet Potatoes

Cold weather = a great time for hot soup. (And hot chocolate!) Hot soup with a Caribbean flair is an even better way to ignore the outdoor chill. I was lucky to have tinned conch on hand when I decided to warm up my evening with hot Caribbean soup, but you could just as easily opt for minced clams, shrimp, or even cooked fish — no matter which variety of seafood you favor, all you have to do is stir it in at the very end of cooking. Unless they’re jumbo-sized, raw shrimp only takes about 3 minutes to cook; clams and conch are usually sold pre-cooked.

You can mix and match your veggies, too, although greens and sweet potatoes are common ingredients in Caribbean cookery and are also easy to find Stateside. Granted, you probably wouldn’t find spaghetti squash in your bowl in the Caribbean, but I went with that since it’s a whole lot more seasonal and local in Metro Detroit in December than the more Caribbean-esque chayote squash would be. Besides, spaghetti squash has an interesting way of breaking apart into noodle-like strands when you cook it, which lends a pleasing texture to the soup. If you’d like your hot soup to be as spicy as it is warm, go ahead and add a hot chile or two.

Seafood Soup with Spinach, Spaghetti Squash & Sweet Potatoes
Serves 4.

1 large Spanish onion (or two small standard onions), chopped
2 carrots, chopped
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1 tsp. turmeric
2 tsp. sweet paprika
1 tsp. dried thyme
1/2 tsp. sea salt
1 sweet potato, peeled and cut into 1″ cubes
1 small spaghetti squash, peeled and cut into 1″ cubes
About 1 lb. fresh or frozen spinach, coarsely chopped
1/4 to 1/2 lb. conch, clams, shrimp, or cooked fish
Whole coconut milk (optional)

Drizzle some extra-virgin olive oil OR coconut oil into a large soup pot. (If you’re using coconut oil at this time of year, you’ll probably be scooping and not drizzling.) Cook the onions and carrot for about 5 minutes over medium heat, stirring often, and then add the garlic. Keep on cooking for another 2 minutes or until the garlic is soft and fragrant. If you’re into hot, spicy chiles, mince your chile(s) and cook it/them along with the garlic. I myself am not that brave.

Add the spices and salt and pour in about 4 cups of water. Bring to a boil. Slip in the cubed potatoes and squash, reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer for 10 minutes uncovered. Stir in the spinach and cook for another 2 minutes or until the spinach has shrunk significantly, stirring almost constantly to submerge all of the spinach. (Fresh spinach seems huge and fluffy when you add it to dishes, but heat will shrink it very quickly.) If the water level gets too low, add another 1/2 cup or 1 cup of water. I like my soup rather thick and not so watery — more like a stew, really.

If you’re using raw shrimp, stir in the shrimp and cook another 3 minutes or until shrimp have curled and turned pink. Cut one in half to make sure it’s opaque all the way through. If you’re using conch, clams, pre-cooked shrimp, or pre-cooked fish, turn off the heat and then stir in your seafood. Taste and add more salt if needed.

If you’d like to make this a cream soup, stir in about 1/2 cup of coconut milk along with the seafood.

Serve immediately. Leftover soup can be refrigerated for 4 days.

Enjoy!

Wild Rice Harvest Pilaf

It’s funny how tastes change — when I was a kid, I used to hate wild rice (I thought of it as “funny rice,” and I don’t mean funny in a good way), but now it’s one of my favorites. Granted, what we see called “wild” rice is actually a cultivated variety grown in California; in contrast, the real “wild” stuff actually grows wild along the shoreline of the Great Lakes, most notably in Minnesota. Still, though, cultivated wild rice has a grassy, nutty flavor that makes it stand out. If you’re dining with folks who may be newcomers to the wild rice scene, you might want to blend wild and brown rice half-and-half as I’ve done here. That’ll tame the flavor a bit as well as create a visually appealing speckled look.

Since wild rice has a slightly longer cooking time and absorption rate than standard rice varieties (black, purple, brown, red), it’s best to cook each in its own pot. That way you can be 100% sure that you’ll wind up with the ideal texture for each. One nice quirk about wild rice is that it’s considerably less sticky than other rices, making it the perfect candidate for pilafs and other rice dishes that you want to be fluffy and light-textured. (Long-grained rice varieties are naturally less sticky; short-grained are so much stickier in comparison that they’re often called “sticky” rice.) Mixing wild rice with any other variety will amp up the fluffy-and-light factor.

Wild Rice Harvest Pilaf
Serves 4 for a main course or up to 8 as a side.

1 cup raw wild rice
1/2 cup raw brown rice
4 cups chicken or vegetable broth, divided
3 green onions, minced
2 carrots, chopped or sliced into thin rounds
1/4 cup dried cranberries
2 tsp. dried sage (or 1 T. if you’re a huge sage fan)
1 tsp. sea salt
1/2 cup sliced almonds

Place the wild rice in one medium pot and add 3 cups of broth. Bring to a boil uncovered, stir well, and then reduce heat to lowest setting and cover. Simmer for 40-45 minutes or until grains are starting to pop — they’ll split and reveal their white innards — and have reached a texture you like. I tend to like my rice a little on the chewy side.

While the wild rice is cooking, place the brown rice and 1 cup broth in another medium pot. Bring to a boil uncovered, stir well, and then reduce heat to lowest setting. Stir in green onions, carrots, cranberries, sage, and salt and cover. Simmer for 30-35 minutes or until the grains have reached a texture you like. Ditto for me on the chewiness.

While the rices are simmering, toast the almonds: spread them out in a large dry skillet over medium heat. Dry-toast the nuts, shaking the pan occasionally to prevent any scorched spots, for 4-5 minutes or until almonds are fragrant and have turned golden-brown. Slide them onto a cool plate and let sit until the rices are done.

When the rices have reached their desired tenderness — the wild rice will need to be drained, but the brown will be perfect as is — scoop both rices into a large bowl. Add toasted almonds and toss gently. Season with freshly cracked pepper and additional salt if desired.

This makes a nice winter side dish to take along to holiday parties. It holds well at room temp for several hours and can be kept for up to a week in the fridge.

Enjoy!

Tortilla Pizzas

Here’s a truth that’s inconvenient for the dinner-in-a-sack industry but is great for the rest of us: fast food doesn’t have to be junk food. You’ve probably already got a lot of tasty quick meals loitering about in your kitchen, from canned beans that can be made into hearty salads to canned squash or pumpkin that can be fried into patties to an assortment of cheese, nuts, and fruits that can easily comprise a meal.

Or if you have some corn tortillas and some salsa and cheese, you can pop it all into the toaster oven to make savory Mexican-style pizzas. After I took this picture, I decided to make the pizzas into calzones by carefully turning one of the pizzas over and pressing it onto the other one. Crusty outsides, gooey insides…so much tastier than a $5 pizza that’s more like cardboard than food. And you’ll be enjoying your mini pizzas in a lot less time than it takes to drive up to the nearest dinner-in-a-sack outlet, too.

Tortilla Pizzas

Corn tortillas
Fresh salsa, either homemade or store-bought (I adore Garden Fresh salsas, although I added extra chopped cilantro to the one I used since I think you can pretty much never have too much cilantro)
Cheddar, Monterey Jack, or Colby cheese, preferably made with grass-fed milk (I opted for Farm Country White Cheddar), grated

If you’re using crisp tortillas, there’s no need to heat them first, but if you’re using frozen or not-so-crisp tortillas, you’ll need to dry-toast them in skillets over medium heat for 4 minutes — flipping halfway through — or until they start to turn golden-brown around the edges. I stash my Whole Life whole-grain corn tortillas in the freezer and heat them individually as needed.

Place the crisp tortillas on a foil- or parchment-lined baking sheet or toaster oven tray. Spoon some salsa onto each tortilla and sprinkle on some grated cheese. If you’re using a toaster oven, bake for about 10 minutes at 300F or until the cheese bubbles; if you’re using a conventional oven, go with 10 minutes at 350F. (The smaller interior of the toaster oven means it’ll heat much more quickly.)

Enjoy!

Pasta with Brussels Sprouts, Pecans & Cheddar

If you grow or make a miniature version of something, people invariably call it cute. Just think of fingernail-sized champagne grapes, baby cherry tomatoes, and the Mini-Cooper. (I’d say the cutest car in the world is the VW Bug, but since it only comes in one size, it doesn’t make the list.) The one jarring exception to this smaller-is-cuter rule seems to be the chronically underappreciated Brussels sprout. It’s gotten a boost lately because nowadays the individual sprouts are being sold on the stalk as a culinary novelty item — it looks a bit like a knobbly wizard’s staff — but the incredibly cute little balls of cabbage still aren’t getting the culinary credit they deserve.

The easiest way to prepare Brussels sprouts is to simmer them for 8 minutes or sautée them for 10, but you can also halve and roast the sprouts for an even more delectable effect. Or you can grate/finely chop them and include them in anything from slaws to stir-frys. To create this recipe, I opted to simmer them into a pasta dish. Their pleasant earthy-buttery nature makes them a natural match with other rich ingredients like nuts and cheese.

Pasta with Brussels Sprouts, Pecans & Cheddar

2 servings whole-grain pasta of your choice (use gluten-free pasta for a gluten-free dish)
About 1/4 cup chopped pecans
8 Brussels sprouts, grated on a cheese grater or finely chopped (grating is much quicker)
Pat of butter, preferably from grass-fed cows
Sprinkling of grated Cheddar cheese, preferably from grass-fed cows
Dash of nutmeg

Get water boiling for the pasta and prepare pasta according to package directions. While the pasta simmers, toast the pecans: place them in a dry nonstick pan and let them sit on medium heat for 5 minutes, occasionally shaking the pan and/or stirring them to make sure they’re toasting evenly. When they suddenly become very fragrant and turn a darker shade of brown, pull them off the heat and slide them onto a cool plate. Do not let them get blackened and burnt!

Add the Brussels sprouts to the pasta during the final 2 minutes of the pasta’s cooking time. Drain both when the pasta is tender-firm to the tooth. Slip the hot drained pasta into a large bowl and toss with a pat of butter. Add nuts and Cheddar, reserving some of the latter to use as a garnish if you like. Be sure to sprinkle a bit of nutmeg onto each portion before serving. Add freshly cracked pepper, too, if you like.

Enjoy!

Squash, Buckwheat & Green Onion Patties

We cut them up and then toss them to the curb uneaten, we use them as home decor, we even make containers and musical instruments out of them…but we don’t eat very many of them. I’m talking about squash. Poor, overlooked squash. It’s relatively easy to prepare — assuming that you have a sharp and heavy knife — and is inexpensive and tastes buttery-sweet. It pairs well with nearly any dish. Squashes come in all shapes and sizes, too, which makes buying them even more fun. And you can eat the seeds! Not many veggies offer that kind of two-for-one deal.

I used buttercup squash for this dish, but you can use whatever winter squash you like: pumpkin, butternut, acorn, etc. I prefer buttercup because it’s easier to cut up. Specifically, its squarish shape gives you nice flat surfaces (pumpkins and butternuts are more rounded), and since it has relatively smooth sides (unlike the fluted edges on an acorn squash), it’s easy to trim away the skin with a sharp knife. The grain is up to you, too — you don’t have to stick with the buckwheat I used. Quinoa, brown rice, millet, or any other medium-sized grain would work. (Amaranth and teff are a bit too diminutive for this recipe.)

Squash, Buckwheat & Green Onion Patties

1 buttercup squash
3/4 cup raw buckwheat (despite the name, this has nothing to do with wheat and is gluten-free)
3 stalks celery, choppped
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
4 green onions, minced
Zest AND juice of 1 orange
2-3 tsp. dried sage (I like a lot of sage, but you might not)
Pinch sea salt
1 egg, preferably from pastured hens

Preheat oven to 375F. Cut the buttercup squash in half and scoop out the seeds, either discarding them or reserving them if you’d like to roast them later on. (Rinse well, drain, toss with unrefined peanut oil and sea salt, and spread them out on a parchment-covered baking sheet. Bake at 325F for about 7 minutes or until golden brown.) Place the squashes on a baking sheet with the cut side facing up. Bake for 30 to 45 minutes or until the flesh is soft enough to be easily pierced with a knife. Remove and let cool enough to handle.

While the squash is baking, prepare the buckwheat: simmer in 1 1/2 cups water for 10 to 12 minutes or until the grains are tender to the tooth. Set aside.

Heat a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil over medium heat and sautée the celery and yellow onion for 5 minutes or until onion is turning translucent. Add remaining ingredients except for the egg and reduce heat to medium-low. Simmer for another 5 minutes, then stir in the cooked buckwheat. Remove from heat.

By now, your squash is probably cool to the touch. Scoop out the flesh with a large spoon, leaving the skin behind, and add to the buckwheat mixture. Add the egg at this point, too. Mix well and form into patties, each one about 4″ across.

Using the same skillet you used to cook the celery and onions, sautée the patties in batches, drizzling in a bit of extra-virgin olive oil and cooking over medium heat for about 3 minutes on each side. The goal is to have the patties turn golden-brown; you may have to cook them for more or less time depending on how hot your stove gets. I always find that the second batch cooks more quickly than the first.

Serve immediately. Leftover patties can be refrigerated for up to a week and eaten either chilled or re-sautéed. If you don’t want to go to the trouble of making patties, you can simply stop one step before the patty-making and serve this as Mashed Buttercup & Buckwheat. See how easy it is to tweak a recipe?

Enjoy!

Chickpea Avocado Soup

I think creamy veggie soups are the perfect fall dish — they’re thickly hearty and warming, but all the vegetables remind me of summertime. (Ah, my poor garden! But hopefully the winter months will give the freshly laid compost some time to sink in…) And the fact that there are lots of ways to make soup creamy adds to the fun.

Aside from the obvious option of adding cream or coconut milk to your soups, you can purée potatoes, beets, turnips, and other root vegetables; you can purée cooked grains like brown rice, quinoa, or millet; or you can purée cooked/canned beans, lentils, or peas. If you want a cross between a creamy and a chunky soup, mash any of those ingredients instead of puréeing them. Or purée the soup but hold back some of the intact elements and then re-add them after you’ve finished making your soup velvety.

This creamy soup features an additional creamy ingredient, one that’s so well-suited for the job that I overlooked its potential for a long time: an avocado. (Wasn’t it Sherlock Holmes who said that if you want to hide something, put it right out in front of everyone’s noses?) A ripe avocado is the ultimate in creamy richness. Normally, the avocado’s major drawback is that it browns when cut and left in contact with air. Since you’re completely submerging the avocado in the soup, though, you won’t have to worry about any browning going on — the other ingredients will protect the delicate green flesh even after it’s been puréed.

Chickpea Avocado Soup
Makes enough to serve 2 for a hearty meal or 4 as a side dish.

1 sweet onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, chopped
3 cups chicken broth, preferably made from pastured chicken
15 oz. canned chickpeas (I use Eden brand since their canned legumes are BPA-free and they’re canned with sea salt and a pinch of seaweed)
1/2 tsp. sea salt
1 T. dried basil
1 avocado, flesh only
Juice of 1/4 to 1/2 lemon (if you have a super-juicy lemon, you might only need 1/4 of it)

Sautée the onion in a stockpot over medium heat with a splash of extra-virgin olive oil for 4 minutes or until onion is turning translucent. Add garlic and continue to cook, stirring often, for another 2 minutes or until garlic is softened and fragrant. Pour in broth and chickpeas and simmer for 5 minutes, reducing heat to medium-low if the soup is furiously boiling rather than gently simmering. Note that if you use Eden beans, you might as well use the entire undrained can. Why waste any of that extra (non-BPA-tinged) flavor? Stir in salt and basil and remove from heat.

Purée soup with a hand-blender/immersion blender. If you don’t have one of those nifty kitchen gadgets, pour the soup into a blender and purée. Add the avocado and the lemon juice and purée for a few more seconds. Taste to see if you’d like to add any more lemon juice, basil, or salt.

Serve immediately, garnishing with sweet paprika if you like. Note that leftover soup will keep for 4 days in the refrigerator.

Enjoy!

Baked Veggie Pie with Millet & Amaranth Crust

Although sweet pies typically feature fruit enclosed by crust on both the top and bottom, savory pies are made with veggies and/or meat and often sport only a top deck. Shepherd’s Pie, for example, is made with beef and veggies on the bottom and a “crust” of mashed potato on top. An English version of the Irish classic is made with fish on the bottom and potatoes on top. Caribbean and Latin American cooks like to layer their meat, veggies, and potatoes to create multi-tiered pies. Either way you top  it/layer it, savory pies are as delicious as they are visually appealing.

For this savory pie, I’ve opted to use grains instead of potatoes, giving the dish a thinner, crispier crust that will take a little less prep work on your part. (No mashing of anything required!) If you don’t have millet and/or amaranth on hand, brown rice would be another great choice. Or quinoa — red quinoa would make an especially beautiful presentation.

Baked Veggie Pie with Millet & Amaranth Crust

Total of 3/4 cup amaranth and millet (OR brown rice OR quinoa)
2 cups free-range chicken broth
1/2 cup lentils (brown or green work best; red cooks too quickly)
5 collard leaves, rinsed and chopped
3 carrots, chopped
1 yellow onion, chopped
2 cups frozen corn (sweet or roasted)
1 T. rice wine vinegar
1 T. tamari (make sure it’s wheat-free if you’re making a gluten-free dish)

Preheat oven to 475F.

Place amaranth/millet and the broth on the stove over high heat. As soon as it comes to a boil, stir well and reduce heat to the lowest setting. Cover and simmer for 15 minutes or until grains have absorbed the broth and are soft. If you use brown rice, this will take more like 35 minutes.

While the grains are cooking, simmer the lentils in a pot half-filled with water for 20 minutes or until you like the lentils’ level of softness. Drain.

While both the grains and lentils are simmering away, you can do the hands-on part: sautée the collard leaves, carrots, and onion in a large skillet over medium heat with a pat of ghee or butter for 8 minutes or until all are soft and the onions are turning translucent. Reduce heat to medium-low and stir in the corn, vinegar, and tamari and continue to cook for another 5 minutes. I used frozen roasted corn and really enjoyed the smoky taste it lent the dish, but you could just as easily use frozen non-roasted corn.

By now your grains will be ready and the oven will be preheated. Mix the drained lentils into the collards and spoon the veggies into a glass 11″x7″ pan. Top with the cooked grains and spread out with the back of a spoon to form a smooth crust. Bake for 10 minutes or until crust is golden brown.

This dish is delightful served hot out of the oven, plus it also makes great leftovers — it’ll keep in the refrigerator for up to a week. Talk about the ultimate easy pack-and-go lunch!

Enjoy!