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!

Curried Corn & Chickpeas

I used to think the term “curry” meant a specific blend of spices used in a particular way. That turned out to be semi-true. “Curry,” an Indian chef told me a few years back, “simply means ‘sauce.’ A curry can be what you make it.”

The way we think of “curry,” then, is kind of like the way we think of “salsa.” To us, salsas are chopped tomatoes, onions, garlic, cilantro, and peppers mixed with lime or lemon juice; to someone from Mexico or elsewhere in Latin America, a salsa is a sauce. It might be red (the one we think of), green (salsa verde), even brown (mole). So while your family might have a specific way they make their favorite curried dish — which is what your aunt might mean when she says “curry” — everyone has their own version and vision of curry. You can blend your own curry powder, or you can opt for a pre-blended mix.

* A note for the culinarily curious: while curry powder is a blend of dried spices, there is also an herb called a curry leaf. Indian chefs often include curry leaves in simmered curried dishes the way American chefs use bay leaves in our traditional favorites: place one or two dried leaves in the dish while it’s cooking to impart flavor, then pull out the leaves before serving the dish. I’ve never been fortunate enough to find curry leaves Stateside, but perhaps I haven’t looked hard enough. If you do come across curry leaves, feel free to simmer one into this recipe to add extra flavor.

Curried Corn & Chickpeas
Serves two very hearty portions or four medium ones. If you add chicken and rice, this easily makes dinner for four.

4 carrots, peeled and cut into thin rounds
1 medium onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, chopped
15 oz. canned diced tomatoes
15 oz. canned chickpeas (I prefer Eden since they’re in BPA-free cans and are seasoned with sea salt and a bit of seaweed)
1 T. curry powder
2 cups frozen corn OR 2 ears corn simmered for 3 minutes

Melt a pat of ghee or butter in a large skillet over medium heat and add the carrots and onions. Sautée for 5 minutes or until the onions are starting to turn translucent. Add garlic and continue to cook, stirring often, for another 3 minutes. Stir in tomatoes, chickpeas, (I include the water from the chickpeas, too, since I like the way Eden flavors their chickpeas and other canned beans), and curry powder.

Reduce heat to medium-low and let the curry simmer gently for 20 minutes, reducing heat to low if the curry boils. If you’re using fresh corn rather than frozen, now’s the time to simmer those ears for 3 minutes, then let cool enough to handle before slicing off the kernels and discarding the cobs.

Stir in the corn. If you’re using frozen corn, keep simmering for another 5 minutes; if you’re using freshly cooked corn or completely thawed corn, just simmer for another minute or two. (By not overcooking your corn, you’ll wind up with refreshingly crunchy kernels rather than mushy ones.)

Serve immediately. If you’d like, serve over a bed of brown rice and/or with sliced chicken sautéed in butter and curry powder.

Enjoy!

Garden Corn & Tomatoes with Curried Sunflower Seeds

You know what’s great about all the specialty cuisines nowadays? By “specialty,” I mean those that cater to niche — but growing! — interests like vegan, raw, gluten-free, etc. Everyone can sample these cuisines and ideas and benefit from them no matter what our personal food philosophies are. Take raw food, for example. Raw food chefs are incredibly inventive and tasty (if you don’t believe me, try a raw cake made of macadamia nuts and spices and raw cocoa some time) and I’m seeing more markets and restaurants offering raw dishes and desserts.

One of my recent favorite specialty-cuisine finds is Kaia Foods. They make fabulous raw kale chips by dehydrating the kale (or you can make your own by baking the kale with this recipe), and they also make darned delicious spiced sprouted seed mixes and granolas. All of their products are raw and fantastically crunchy to boot. Their foods are typically sold as snacks, but I’ve found that they make great additions and garnishes to main dishes. The sprouted seeds I used in this recipe are so delightfully spicy that they flavor the entire dish. Or if you don’t have any Kaia seeds on hand, you could accomplish a similar effect with curry powder and sunflower seeds.

Garden Corn & Tomatoes with Curried Sunflower Seeds

Fresh market corn (figure on one ear per person)
Garden tomatoes (figure on one or two large tomatoes per person), chopped
Thinly sliced red onion
Kaia Sweet Curry sunflower seeds OR roasted sunflower seeds + a sprinkling of curry powder to taste + a dash of tamari*/soy sauce + a drizzle of honey

Get a very large pot of water boiling while you shuck the corn. (The ears need to fit into the pot, so you might want to eyeball the proportions before filling the pot halfway with water and bringing it to a boil.) When the water is boiling, place the ears in the pot and boil them for 3 minutes. Promptly pull them out with tongs and allow them to cool enough to handle.

Hold the ears above a large bowl at an obtuse angle (more than 90 degrees) and use a sharp knife to free the kernels from the cob, gripping the ear at one end and starting to cut the kernels halfway down the ear. Flip over and repeat with the remaining kernels.

Add the tomatoes and sunflower seeds to the cut-off kernels and toss well to make sure that a good amount of the spices come off the seeds and go onto the other ingredients. (The tomato juice will speed that process along.) If you’re not using the Kaia seeds, you might want to whisk together the tamari, honey, and curry powder before tossing them in with the veggies. You could add more veggies if you want — great candidates would be cooked potatoes or green beans or cauliflower. Or you could add whole-grain pasta or whole grains themselves. (Corn kernels are whole grains, by the way.) Sautéed chicken or shrimp would be another welcome addition. Garnish with parsley if you like.

Enjoy!

* Make sure to use wheat-free tamari if you want to make a gluten-free dish.

Corn & Herb Salad

Sweet corn, savory herbs, juicy tomatoes — what more could you want? Summer brings out the best on our plates. (Summer also means that my refrigerator tends to be a bit bare since a lot of my future meals are anchored to my garden dirt.) And now that we’re — sniff! — at the tail end of summer, we’re smack in the middle of corn’s peak season. Your best bet is to buy some freshly harvested corn from a roadside stand, a farmer’s market, or a produce market. Once you have your just-picked fresh corn, cook it ASAP, because the natural sugars in corn morph into starch as the corn ages. Translation: fresh kernels are much sweeter and more crisp than mature kernels are.

The real secret when it comes to corn, though, is not to overcook it. Even the freshest and sweetest of kernels will become mushy and less flavorful if you boil them into oblivion. Short is truly sweet!

Corn & Herb Salad
Serves 2 for a hearty meal, but recipe can easily be doubled or tripled

2 ears corn, husked
Double handful cherry tomatoes, halved
1/4 of a Vidalia or other sweet onion, minced
2 banana peppers or 1 bell pepper, minced
15 oz. black beans, drained (use Eden beans if you’d prefer a BPA-free can)
Assorted baby lettuce leaves
Chives, snipped with kitchen shears or minced
Basil, chopped
Fresh orange or lime juice (depending on whether you’re in a sweet or tangy mood)
Extra-virgin olive oil
Sea salt & freshly cracked pepper

Get a large pot of water boiling. The pot will have to be big enough to accommodate the ears of corn, so you might want to see if they fit in there before you actually fill the pot with water. Add corn and boil for 3 minutes, reducing heat if the bubbles start to erupt from the pot. Lift out ears with tongs and set in a dish drain to cool.

When the ears are cool enough to touch, hold them above a large bowl at an obtuse angle (more than 90 degrees) and use a sharp knife to free the kernels from the cob, gripping the ear at one end and starting to cut the kernels halfway down the ear. Flip over and repeat with the remaining kernels.

Toss with remaining ingredients, using equal portions of citrus juice and oil. (Figure on about 1 T. of juice + 1 T. of oil for 2 people.) If you’d like, serve with leftover cooked chicken or fish.

Enjoy!

Corn, Mushroom & Spinach Soup

Winter days seem a lot warmer and cozier with a bowl of hot soup.  (Especially a bowl of hot soup that can go from recipe to reality in 15 minutes.)  Luckily for those of us snuggled in for the season, some of the most satisfying ingredients are easy to come by in the winter: earthy greens, sweet root vegetables, deeply flavored mushrooms.  And many summery ingredients are easy enough to harvest and freeze in September so that you can throw them into the pot in January.  Nothing like frozen sweet corn to add a little summer to your soup!

This recipe makes a light-but-wintery soup that you can serve as a main course or a side.  Feel free to add cooked grains like brown rice or millet to the broth, or you toss some pasta into the soup as it simmers.  (Remember, though, that pasta tends to shed starch into its cooking medium, so if you cook the pasta with the soup, you’ll have a thicker soup.  Which isn’t a bad thing…)  Stir in canned or stove-cooked white beans if you like, or cooked  shrimp.  One of the best things about soup is that you can make them out of whatever you have on hand!

Corn, Mushroom & Spinach Soup
Makes enough for a light dinner for 2. Recipe can be easily doubled or tripled, or you can add grains/pasta or beans to the soup to make it heartier.

Drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil
1 large yellow onion, chopped
8 to 12 ounces crimini or button mushrooms, sliced (I like lots of mushrooms!)
3 cloves garlic, chopped
2 cups vegetable broth*
1 tsp. dried rosemary
1 cup frozen corn
Several handfuls of curly spinach

In a large soup pot, heat oil over medium-low heat for 1 minute. Add onion and mushrooms and cook, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes or until onions have softened and mushrooms have shrunk. Stir in garlic and cook for another 2 minutes. Your goal is to end up with nearly translucent onions and mushrooms that are starting to turn golden brown.

Pour in broth and crumble in rosemary, rubbing the herb between your fingers to help release its flavor. Stir in corn and let soup come to a light boil. Simmer for 5 minutes before you stir in the spinach, gently folding in the leaves as they wilt.

Simmer for 2 minutes to completely soften the leaves, then remove pot from heat. Serve immediately. A hard and flavorful cheese like Parmesan or Feta would make a nice garnish.

Enjoy!

* If you’re adding raw pasta or grains to the soup, use at least 1 more cup of broth. Keep an eye on the soup as it cooks, and if it looks like it’s getting too thick, add another cup of broth. Various grains/pastas will absorb varying amounts of liquid — oats absorb astounding amounts, but millet hardly absorbs any.  For pasta/grain that cooks in less than 10 minutes, simply add it when you add the rosemary, then let soup simmer for a few extra minutes before adding the spinach.  Grains that take longer than 10 minutes to cook should be precooked and then stirred in with the spinach to warm them through.

Watermelon & Tomato Salad

What the heck — tomatoes and watermelons are both pink and round summer fruits, so why not put them together?  I admit, I had to be prodded into the idea by a tomato-watermelon gazpacho recipe I spotted in this month’s edition of Food & Wine, but once I started thinking about pairing the two, I agreed that it seemed like a good idea.  Tomatoes certainly straddle the fruit-vegetable worlds, after all; it seemed like watermelons might be able to do the same thing.  A few ears of freshly cooked sweet corn and some snippets of aromatic chives in this dish tie it all together.

Watermelon & Tomato Salad
Serves 2 for lunch.

2 ears fresh corn, husked
About 20 cherry tomatoes, cut in half
2 cloves of garlic, sliced thin
About 2 cups chopped watermelon (about half of a small, thin-skinned watermelon)
Fresh chives, snipped

Using a sharp chef’s knife, cut the corn kernels off of each ear and into a large bowl. This works best if you point the ear point side down into the bowl, then hold the knife at a 45 degree angle to the corn so that you’re cutting into the ear halfway between parallel and right down onto it. Slice off the kernels in one direction (starting about 1/3 of the way down the ear), then flip the ends and cut off the remaining kernels. If you get your knife too deep into the kernels and the blade get stuck, just pull out your knife, readjust your angle, and try again. After a few slices, you’ll have mastered the exact angle you need.

Drizzle some extra-virgin olive oil into a large skillet and heat over medium heat for 1 minute. Add corn and cook, stirring often, for about 10 minutes or until the corn is just beginning to shade from golden to light brown. Add garlic and cook for 2 minutes. Reduce heat to low, add tomatoes, and cook for another 2 minutes.

Remove from the corn mixture from the heat and spoon it all into a large glass mixing bowl. Toss with fresh watermelon cubes and snipped chives and serve immediately, garnishing with an additional long blade or two of chives if you wish. (Crossing them to form a decorative “X” over the plate is always a classy touch.)

Enjoy!

Caribbean Corn-Coconut Chowder

Chowder is one of America’s great culinary contributions: a hearty one-pot meal that you can customize to your stomach’s delight.  While many chowders sprang out of a seafood tradition (think Manhattan and Boston clam chowders), there are also vegetable-based versions.  I created this one to make use of plentiful summer crops like corn and tomatoes and plentiful summer herbs like cilantro.

Since I also had leftover brown rice in the fridge, I threw that in to give the chowder some extra body and flavor.  You could just as easily use a quicker-cooking grain/pasta like quinoa or a whole-wheat orzo if you don’t have cooked brown rice on hand.  Likewise, if you have frozen corn rather than fresh corn, you can substitute that, too. (Although it’d be a shame not to partake of fresh summer corn, especially for 20 cents an ear!)

Caribbean Corn-Coconut Chowder
Serves 4 people.

2 ears husked fresh corn OR 2 cups frozen corn
1 15-oz. can diced tomatoes
1 medium onion, chopped
1 cup canned black beans (you can also add the bean juice if you’d like; I use Eden canned beans, which are canned in BPA-free cans with water, sea salt, and a bit of kombu seaweed — all great additions to soup!)
2 medium tomatoes, chopped
1/4 cup whole coconut milk
1 cup water
1 cup cooked brown rice OR 1/2 cup raw quinoa or 1/2 cup raw whole-grain pasta*
Fresh cilantro, chopped (use a few sprigs if you’re cilanto-timid or a whole handful if you’re a fan)
1 tsp. dried pineapple sage OR 1 tsp. dried oregano OR 2 tsp. fresh oregano
1 tsp. dried fenugreek (optional)
Sea salt to taste

To prepare the fresh corn, bring a large soup pot halfway full of water to a boil. Ease ears into it and simmer for 3 minutes. Promptly pull out ears with tongs, rinse out pot, and refill with cold water. Place ears in cold water and let cool while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.  (If you don’t promptly chill the ears, they’ll continue to cook and will be too mushy.)  Remove ears and pat them dry. Use a sharp knife to cut kernels into a large bowl.

Combine all ingredients except corn in the rinsed-out soup pot and simmer for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Add the corn during the last minute or two.  (By adding it at the end, you’ll preserve its wonderful sweet crispness.)

This soup can be served warm or cold. Like all tomato-and-spice-containing dishes, it’s even better the next day! Avocado wedges and corn chips make nice garnishes.

Enjoy!

* If you use raw quinoa or pasta, add another cup of water to the chowder to account for the liquid the grains/pasta will absorb.

Soft Taco Crepes

Sometimes you might be in the mood for a crunchy taco, sometimes you might want a soft taco.  The only problem with the latter is that it’s hard to find Qualitarian soft taco shells — the majority of the store-bought ones have all kinds of chemicals in them to keep them soft and supple.  And even though I love making my own tortillas, they fall more into the “crispy”  category than into the ” soft”  one.

Enter an elegant and practical solution: French crepes.  Because these thin, easily-rolled pancakes are not dependent upon gluten to make them work, you can use whatever flour you’d like when making them…such as corn.  Or rice, or potato, or chickpea, or whatever flavor you’d like to use to accent the filling.  (Corn = Mexican, rice = Asian, chickpea = Indian, etc.  Buckwheat flour is traditionally used to make Russian blinis.  You get the idea.)  Leftover crepes can be used to make a round PB&J, or you could fill them with hummus and slivered raw veggies for a quick lunch.  Or fill the crepes with fruit and drizzle them with maple syrup for breakfast.  Once you’ve made them once or twice, you’ll love the versatility and flexibility of one of the world’s most delicious flatbreads.

Soft Taco Crepes

The crepe recipe makes about a dozen crepes; top them with as much filling as you’d like.  Just remember that if you add too much filling, you won’t be able to roll up the crepe!

Canned black beans, drained, or freshly-made dried beans (Eden beans are canned in BPA-free cans)
Corn kernels, fresh and simmered for 3 minutes or frozen and thawed
Freshly-chopped cilantro
Crepes (see “Mastering Crepes the Easy Way” for recipe)
Fresh-style salsa (Garden Fresh is my favorite)
A sharp dry-ish cheese, such as sheep’s-milk Feta, crumbled or grated
Chopped avocado

Mix equal proportions of beans and corn in a bowl. Add as much cilantro as you like (or leave it out if you’re not a cilantro fan). Lay out crepes and top them with the corn and beans. Spoon salsa over that, then sprinkle on cheese. Finish by topping with chopped avocado.

Roll up your taco (if you haven’t overstuffed it the way I always do) and enjoy!

Note: to make these into fish tacos, just include some cooked mild-tasting fish in the filling.  You could even use canned albacore.

Corn Pudding Dusted with Paprika

Pie pans are great for making pies.  (They also make beautiful tortilla presses — the bottoms are nice and wide and the curved sides become handy handles.)  But you can make more than pies in pie pans:  the roundness of them makes them ideal for laying out scalloped potatoes, for example, or making quiches or custards or anything else you’d like to bake in rounds and serve in wedges.

This time, though, I decided to use my pie pan to make pudding — corn pudding.  The resulting pebbly roundness and creamy, rich flavor made me realize that savory vegetable puddings are sadly underrated.  The good news is, though, that this basic pudding recipe would work for any veggie that’s small enough to cook in the allotted time, whether that vegetable is naturally small or is cut down to be small enough:  peas, diced carrots, diced red peppers, diced zucchini, etc.  All you have to do is toss the veggies with milk, an egg, a bit of cheese, and some salt and herbs.  Pop your loaded pie pan in the oven, and 45 minutes later, you’ll be rewarded with the best savory “pie” pudding you’ve ever tasted!

Vegetable “Pie” Pudding

About 2 cups vegetable(s): just about anything works, but if the veggie in question isn’t already small and uniformly-shaped (like peas or corn), dice whatever it is into pea-sized bits; for this recipe, I cut corn kernels directly off the cob and into a bowl

1 small onion, minced

1 egg

1/2 cup whole milk (preferably from grass-fed cows)

1/4 to 1/2 cup diced/crumbled cheese (if you use a particularly strong cheese like sheep-milk Feta, you may want to stick with 1/4 cup; if you’re using a milder, creamier cheese, go with 1/2 cup); for this recipe, I used raclette

1-2 tsp. of dried herbs (Italian ones work best: rosemary, thyme, sage, oregano, basil); for this recipe, I used 1 tsp. of thyme and 1 tsp. of sage

A dash of sea salt & a grind or two of fresh pepper

Paprika (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease pie pan with butter and set aside.

Prepare veggies and place in medium-sized bowl. Mince onion and then sautée briefly in butter or coconut oil for about 3 minutes or until onion is translucent. Remove from heat and add to vegetables. Stir in egg, milk, cheese, herbs, salt, and pepper. Pour into greased pan and bake for 45 minutes. Pudding will be bubbly and golden brown when ready; the edges will be dark brown but not burnt.

If you’d like to add a splash of color, shake on some paprika immediately after removing from oven. (You could add it before baking, but paprika scorches easily and loses flavor with heat — I think it tastes much better when added right before serving.)

Enjoy your “pie”!

Vegetable Coconut Curry with Chickpea Cakes

Creamy or spicy, simple or complex, powerful or understated … a meal’s sauce sets its tone.  Sauces also provide a sense of place and heritage:  take the same basic ingredients, for example, slap a different sauce on them, and all of a sudden you’ve gone from Mexican to Japanese.  (Steak + peppers + onions + cumin + oregano + lime = a basic fajita; steak + peppers + onions + soy sauce + ginger + rice vinegar = a basic teriyaki.)

One of my all-time favorite sauce bases is an Indian coconut curry — it works equally well for veggies, fish, beef, and chicken.  (I say Indian because of the Madras curry powder I use, but there are also plenty of delicious southeastern Asian curries.)  There’s just something  enchanting about the layering of warm spices — ginger, turmeric, cayenne, cumin, etc. — over the backdrop of creamy, rich whole coconut milk.  And nothing could be easier than adding a teaspoonful of curry powder and splash of coconut milk to whatever you’re sautéeing at the moment.

In this case, I happened to have a rainbow of peppers, corn, spinach, and tomatoes in my fridge, so the dish nearly made itself!

Vegetable Coconut Curry

1 T. coconut oil
1 bell pepper, chopped
1 small onion, chopped
The kernels of 1 ear of fresh corn OR 1 cup of frozen kernels
1 medium tomato, chopped
Handful of baby spinach
1/3 cup whole coconut milk
1 tsp. curry powder
1/2 tsp. sea salt

Sautée coconut oil, pepper, onion and corn over medium heat for about 10 minutes or until onion is translucent and you can poke through a kernel of corn with the tip of a sharp knife. Add remaining ingredients and carefully stir, then turn heat down to low and let simmer for another 2-3 minutes.

If you like, serve with a bread or grain on the side. A few chunks of pineapple would also be a nice compliment to the meal.

Enjoy!

Roasted Vegetable Salad with Corn, Snap Peas, Red Pepper & Sweet Potatoes

As much as I adore fresh, raw ingredients in my salads, sometimes I think roasting veggies makes them taste even better.  There’s something about that slow-cooked, vaguely-carmelized flavor that makes a roasted salad explode on my tongue in an ever-so-smooth kind of way.  And such salads are ridiculously easy to make — the veggies themselves are so pronounced and satisfying that you don’t even need to add dressing.  Just remove them from the oven, let cool slightly, and toss together.  The only thing you might want to add is a sharp, piquant cheese like sheep’s-milk Feta or a soft goat cheese.  Trust me, your dinner guests will think this is the best salad they’ve ever had!

Roasted Vegetable Salad

You can use any kind of vegetable you’d like — with the glaring exception of delicate greens, vegetables roast well.  Just be sure to put them in separate pans so that you can remove them as they’re done (different vegetables and different shapes have different cooking times).  I often use several pie pans since I can fit five or six 9″ ones into the oven at once.  Something long and slender, for example (green beans, green onions, or asparagus) is going to cook more quickly than something more dense and starchy (potatoes, turnips, or parsnips).  Separating veggies individually or by type will make it much easier for you to cook them to the doneness that you like best.

Get the oven heating to about 350 degrees F, then clean and slice veggies in whatever way you’d like.  Some — like cherry tomatoes or small- to medium-sized Brussels sprouts — you may wish to leave whole.  Kernels of corn roast beautifully (fresh or frozen); so do peas and carrots and onions and almost anything else you can think of.

Place your veggies into their separate pans or trays.  Toss with  melted butter (or coconut oil), sea salt, and freshly-cracked pepper.  Turn each piece to make sure it’s coated in oil and spices.

Bake for about 30 minutes before checking in on your veggies.  At this point, very slender cuts may be done; starchier or thicker-cut veggies may only be halfway there (or less).  It’s best to open the oven, pull out a rack, and stir the veggies with a wooden spoon so that you can get a really good look at them and determine how done they are.  In my experience, corn, snap peas, peppers, and onions take about the same amount of time, but again, that depends on how you cut the latter two.  After that 30-minute mark, keep checking your veggies every 15 minutes to gauge their progress.  Note that after you’ve done this once or twice, you’ll have a much better idea of how long things will take.

When veggies are done to your satisfaction, simply remove from oven, toss together, and serve.  You may want to add some Feta or goat cheese directly to the mix or let each diner add her own.

Enjoy!

Mexican Pasta with Turkey

I love corn.  Real corn, that is, not high-fructose corn syrup, caramel color, dextrose, maltodextrin, and all the other hundreds of processed corn products in our food today.  Real corn is corn on the cob and corn chips and cornmeal…and things made with those, like roasted corn and chips and salsa and Indian pudding.  And, in this case, corn pasta tossed with fresh salsa, leftover turkey, and a bit of Parmesan cheese (queso fresco would have been better, but I didn’t have any on hand).  Why not apply an Italian idea — pasta and sauce — to Mexican ingredients?  Not only does fusion cuisine make for innovative and tasty dishes, it’s also often a convenient way to re-purpose leftovers.

Mexican Pasta with Turkey

Prepare corn pasta according to package directions.  (You’ll probably find corn pasta — and other pastas made from non-wheat sources such as rice, quinoa, buckwheat, and amaranth — in your local health-food store or in the gluten-free section of a standard grocery store.  Some ethnic stores will also stock non-wheat noodles — Japanese soba is made entirely from buckwheat, for example.  Using these un-typical pastas is a great way to make more authentic ethnic meals and it’s a fun way to experiment with bringing new flavors to an old dish.)

Toss cooked pasta with salsa (either homemade or a store-bought “fresh” style), chopped cooked turkey, and a sprinkling of cheese.  You may want to base your cheese choice on how spicy your salsa is.  (Monterey Jack with jalapeños might be a bit much if your salsa is fire-hot.)  Or you might want to punch up the overall flavor by using a pungent, creamy goat cheese.  Diced green onions and/or cilantro would make a nice garnish.

!Buen provecho!

A Tomato Lover's Stew

This African-influenced stew hovers somewhere between being a thick, Italian pomodoro sauce and American chili. You can spoon it over rice or couscous, serve it with crispy flatbread (in this case, a toasted pita with Parmesan cheese), or eat it all on its own. Be sure, though, to buy good-quality tomato sauce–it will be the foundation flavor for the entire dish. And although the lentils make it hearty enough not to need meat, you could also add leftover cooked chicken pieces to the stew if you’d like.

For the stew:

2 medium onions or 1 large onion, chopped
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 c. (8 oz.) mushrooms, sliced
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 tsp. ginger
1 T. paprika
dash of crushed red pepper
15-oz. can of tomato sauce
4 cups chicken stock
1/2 cup corn kernels (fresh or frozen)
1 cup dried lentils (the red variety makes for a nice change of pace if you can find it)

Sauteé onions and pepper with 1 T. olive oil in a large soup pot over medium-high heat for 2-3 minutes. Add garlic and mushrooms and continue to cook, stirring, for another 4-5 minutes or until mushrooms have cooked through. Stir in spices. Sauteé for another minute or two, then add tomato sauce and corn. Carefully pour in stock and stir in the lentils. Reduce heat to low, then cover and simmer for about 20 minutes or until lentils are soft. (Check package for exact cooking time.)

Serving option: place a handful of baby spinach leaves into each soupbowl and ladle the steaming-hot soup over them just before serving. Top with freshly-chopped Feta. (The kind in the brine is far, far more flavorful than the pre-dried, pre-crumbled variety.)

Enjoy!

Despite its Middle-Eastern origins, I found freekah to be an excellent addition to an Asian stir-fry. Here, I sauteéd onion and garlic with a frozen corn and peas to make a base, then added several handfuls of frozen Swiss chard and about 3/4 of a cup of pre-cooked freekah. The Asian flair came in when I de-glazed the pan with about a tablespoon of rice wine vinegar and a sprinkling of soy sauce. A post-sauteéing drizzle of dark sesame oil finished off the dish.

I think I’m officially a freekah fan!

Freekah Stir-Fry with Corn, Peas & Chard

1 tablespoon olive oil

1/2 cup quick-cooking barley (you can also use quinoa or couscous)

3 cloves of garlic, minced

1 1/2 cups chicken broth

1/2 teaspoon salt (or less, depending on the saltiness of the broth)

1/2 teaspoon pepper

1 can (16 oz) chickpeas, drained

1 1/2 cups corn kernels (can use frozen or fresh)

1 red bell pepper, diced

1/2 cup (4 oz) Feta cheese, crumbled (or more to taste)

Heat the oil and add barley and garlic.  Sauteé for 5 minutes.   Add broth, salt, and pepper.  Cover and simmer for 10 minutes or until the barley is chewy and tender.  Drain and place in a large serving bowl.

Add the chickpeas, corn, red pepper, and Feta.  Toss to combine.

Toss the barley mixture in the dressing.  (Recipe follows.)

Citrus Dressing

1/2 cup olive oil

juice of 2 limes

1 tablespoon minced red onion

1 tablespoon ground coriander

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

Combine all ingredients in a screw-top jar and shake vigorously to blend.

Dressing yield:  3/4 cup

Salad makes 8 side-dish servings.

Enjoy!