Lentil "Stew", Chickpea Tagine, and Roasted Potatoes tossed with Chermoula...

....i.e. things I don't have a proper recipe for. This lentil "stew" was really more like potatoes, lentils, and noodles with a little bit of broth. It was really tasty no matter what you call it. I cooked one diced onion with three red potatoes, some salt, a bay leaf, a few cloves of chopped garlic, and a generous amount of red pepper flakes. It smelled fantastic, and I could have eaten it as was....but it wouldn't have been a very complete meal....not that that always stops me.

Yummy right? Next I added some rinsed lentils and stock and boiled it for about ten minutes before adding the macaroni noodles. I cooked it for about 9 minutes more and served it with whole wheat rosemary garlic bread. If I had some baby spinach I would have tossed it in at the end. I added extra red pepper flakes to mine and my husbands bowl. Everyone really liked it.

This lovely meal is a chickpea and carrot tagine that I made to suit what I had on hand. I added some frozen spinach to the mix for an extra veg, and I doubled the chickpeas and spices.

The potatoes were simply roasted and then tossed with chermoula. I liked both dishes, but felt they didn't go super well together. The next day I tossed the chermoula with rice and it was a much happier pairing. Don't get me wrong, the potatoes were fantastic, I just think they would have been better paired with something else. I am thinking it would make for a lovely lunch if I added some chickpeas and turned it into sort of a potato salad and stuffed the whole mess into a pita.

Creamy Cabbage and Mixed Veg Curry

This was very tasty (note the spoon, poised and ready to attack). I wish I had a better picture for you, but I was hungry, we all were. I served this over rice and everyone gobbled it up.* The hubster and I love cabbage, I realize that there are a great many people with the opposite opinion. As always though, I urge you..if you don't like a vegetable....make it into curry. :) I haven't found a vegetable yet that I didn't like in curry. This dish is also creamy due to the coconut milk in it, and for me that makes it a comfort food. I've made it in the crock pot before and the smell of it cooking on a cold night drives me nuts.

What you need
1 TBS oil

1/2 tsp turmric

2 tsp garam masala

1 tsp cumin

1/2 tsp paprika

1 tsp salt

1/4 tsp cayenne

3 potatoes scrubbed and diced

1 tsp minced ginger

3 cloves chopped garlic

1 bag shredded cabbage (coleslaw mix)

1 cup mixed peas (or mixed frozen veggies, I prefer all peas)

1 cup chickpeas

1/4 cup of water

1 can of coconut milk

dash....or two of nutmeg

Heat the oil in a large pan. Add the next six ingredients and cook for one or two minutes until fragrant, stirring to avoid burning.

Add the potatoes and cook for five minutes. Stir in garlic and ginger and cook another five minutes.

Add the cabbage, veggies, chickpeas, and 1/4 cup water. Lower heat to medium low and cook covered for 15 minutes. Stir and cook another 15 minutes.

Add the coconut milk and nutmeg and cook uncovered for about 5 minutes or until heated through. Taste and add more salt and cayenne as desired. Serve over rice.

*To be fair, my daughter only gobbled up her portion after throwing herself on the ground, covering her eyes and exclaiming that (horror of all horrors) there were cooked carrots in her dish........she doesn't like cooked carrots (obviously). We discussed the proper and improper (ehem...tantrum) way of dealing with foods we don't like. After picking out all of the carrots and trying a bite she declared the curried cabbage very tasty.

Why even mention it? Because, while my kids do eat a variety of foods, there are also foods they don't like, and I respect that. Can my daughter still get a very balanced diet without cooked carrots? Certainly! Now if she starts avoiding an entire food group I'll reevaluate our tactics. For now, the try a bite rule works very well. Also, I've heard it said before, "but your kids eat everything"....oh so far from the truth! My kids try everything, when it is healthy and they like it, I encourage them to eat more of it. It also encourages me to keep putting the healthy foods on the table that they actually like.

"Cream" of Broccoli Soup

This soup was plain but tasty, and very similar to a lot of other green soups I make for the kiddos. they gobbled it up and asked for more. It makes a very nice compliment to a sandwich on a cold day. It's souper simple (hehe sorry), and requires few ingredients. It gets most of it's creamy texture from potatoes. You can use 1/2 cup of any sort of milk I suppose, whatever tickles your fancy or doesn't happen to turn members of your family into an anaphylaxis mess. :)

4 cups cooked broccoli florets

4 baked potatoes with skins removed.

1/2 cup milk (I used rice)

Veggie stock to desired consistency

Salt, pepper, seasoning salt to taste

Put the broccoli, potatoes and milk into your food processor and blend, add stock and blend until desired consistency. Pour the whole mess into a pot and heat through on the stove, adding salt, pepper, and seasoning salt to taste. I added a good bit of salt to ours. I added cheese and sour cream to the tops of the kiddos bowls, and I think they also had toast with theirs. This was even better the next day as leftovers.

Corn Chowder Topped with Biscuits

Corn chowder makes the rotation quite often in our house. It's creamy rich flavor is perfect for a rainy evening, and topped with a biscuit it makes for excellent comfort food in my humble opinion. On top of that the majority of the ingredients are pantry staples so it's a great go to meal when there is "nothing to eat".

What you need

1 tbs oil

2 potatoes scrubbed and diced

1 bag of frozen corn (10 oz)

1/4 tsp salt

4 cups stock (such as corn)

2 tbs cornstarch

2 tbs water

1 cup of milk

1 tsp creole seasoning

1/4 tsp pepper

1 cup of milk

salt and pepper to taste

your favorite biscuits, I used half whole wheat, half white wheat drop biscuits that I made with the kids. You will note that while they are not very pretty, they were made with little hands, lots of love, and lots of pride. My daughter loves to be a part of the dinner process.

What to do

Heat the oil in a large pot over medium heat.

Add the potatoes and 1/4 tsp salt, cook for five minutes. Stir and cook five more minutes.

The potatoes should be tender and almost cooked through. Test one.

Add the bag of corn, and the stock.

Mix together the cornstarch and the water in a bowl and add. Stir well.

Bring chowder to a boil. Boil for about 8 minutes. The potatoes should be done, and the soup should have thickened.

Remove from heat and add the milk, creole seasoning, salt, and pepper to taste.

Serve topped with biscuits.

You can find my recipe for smokey corn chowder with sweet potatoes and baby spinach here.

Thai Inspired Soup

I am working once again on very little sleep. I called in this morning to see if I could take a personal day and the girl who answered the phone clearly didn't know what she was talking about.

"Hello"

"Hi, Mommy"

"Hi, I was just calling in because my kids kept me up all night, and seeing as I've worked nonstop for the past four years I was wondering if it was ok if I took the day off to get some rest"

"Mommy do you know what sound a bagpipe makes? It goes...beeeeeeeeeeaaawwaaaarrrrraaaaaaaaaaaahhh. It's pretty much my favorite sound"

this is where I started suspecting that she may have no authority to give me the day off

"Do you have a manager I could speak too"

"Bagpipe starts with B...buh buh Beee"

*crickets*
At this point I noticed the girl in question was talking into a plastic banana instead of a phone, clearly this conversation was going nowhere.

We reached a compromise though. I get to wear my pj's all day, and we are going to have canned soup and sandwiches for dinner because they require minimal effort. Also there will be much time cuddling on the couch with a story book. This job has it's perks.

What does that have to do with this soup....nothing. Thanks for putting up with it. I guess what I'm saying is if you notice extra typos, grammatical errors and confusing steps, it's only because my editor** has taken a leave of absence due to lack of sleep. :)

Here's that recipe you have all been waiting for.....right? It's a mild flavored soup that is full of summery ingredients like corn, yellow pepper, lemon and cilantro. It has almost no heat, you can surely up the amount of curry paste if you want a spicy soup. This recipe makes a lot, but I think it tastes even better the next day. It's excellent over cilantro rice. There are a lot of ingredients in here, don't be alarmed, you may be surprised just how many you have on hand.

served over cilantro rice. Yum!

1tbs oil
6 cloves of pressed garlic
2 tsp minced ginger
2 tbs vegetarian oyster sauce*
1 1/2 tbs brown sugar
3 tsp soy sauce
1 tbs Thai green curry paste
1 yellow bell pepper sliced into strips
1 potato scrubbed and diced
8oz extra firm organic pre-diced tofu...It will be packed in water, drain it thoroughly
1 cup frozen corn
4 cups of veggie stock
1 can of coconut milk
1 handful of baby spinach
1 handful of cilantro chopped
2 Meyer lemons
salt to taste

Heat the oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add the next six ingredients (from garlic to curry paste) and stir.

Add the pepper, tofu, and potato. Cook for five minutes. Then flip and cook for five more minutes. The potatoes should be tender.

Add the corn and veggie stock. Bring it to a boil.

Boil until the potatoes are done.

Lower the heat and add the coconut milk, spinach, cilantro and the juice of the two lemons. Heat through and add salt to taste.

Serve over cilantro rice if desired. I made this recipe and switched the white rice for brown, so the cooking times and proportions were different, but the flavors were still the same. It was fantastic, use whatever type of stock you desire. I think I may have also doubled the garlic....I do that.

*This is vegetarian oyster sauce, I believe I have also seen it called mushroom stirfry sauce. I'm not thrilled with all of the ingredients. Definitely a sometimes food. It adds a depth of flavor to Thai dishes that I have not been able to duplicate without using it. Find it Asian grocery stores.



** Editor, being my brain....she isn't really that great of an editor to begin with, but she's better than nothing.

Sorry about the funky font sizes, I was having trouble editing this. All the computer's fault I'm sure. In no way has to do with my lack of sleep. :)

Indian Spiced Potatoes and Peas

This is a lovely side dish, not really spicy hot, but very tasty. You may add cayenne or hot pepper if you desire a spicy dish. And yes I totally pan fried these potatoes....in oil...then I wrapped the whole lovely mess in rice paper...and I fried it some more. So clearly this is not an every day food. Really tasty, and full of healthy veg, but I am willing to wager it's not low calorie. I am ok with that. I would have loved to add some more protein to this and have made it into a full meal. Chickpeas would be nice, or perhaps some diced firm tofu? Let me know if you try it out.

What you need

2 tbs oil
2 sweet potatoes (washed, peeled, diced)
1 regular potato (washed, peeled, diced)
1/4 tsp of salt

1/4 tsp turmeric
1 tsp garam masala
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp salt

4 cloves of pressed garlic
1 tsp minced ginger
1 cup frozen peas

Heat the oil over medium heat and add the diced potatoes and 1/4 tsp of salt. Cook for five minutes on medium.

Add the rest of the spices and salt (from turmeric to salt) stir them in, and cook for another five minutes. At this point my potatoes were fully cooked, if yours are not then cook them a bit longer.

Add the garlic, ginger, and frozen peas. Cook for five minutes more, stirring and lowering heat if necessary to avoid burning the garlic.



I've divided the ingredients up into groups by when you add them. Let me know if this makes it easier or more confusing. I love the feedback, and I am also in total shock that people are actually following my recipes. :) It makes me super happy, but also makes me want to make it a little easier on you, the reader.....because I love you the reader. :)

Here are the potatoes and peas being used as an appetizer of sorts, rolled in rice paper, fried, and served with a dipping sauce. The sauce is a mixture of yogurt, vinegar, sugar, salt, and cilantro leaves. Not very pretty, but very tasty.

Recipe Remix and Giveaway WINNER!!!

Using a random number generator Krissie was picked as winner for my CSN giveaway! Congrats Krissie! I know you are going to have fun spending your gift card! A big thank you to everyone who entered, and thank you to CSN Stores!

I thought I might share this recipe for vegetable pancakes again as I've modified it to be egg free. I used 1/2 cup pumpkin puree to replace the eggs. It adds a bonus veggie, and still holds it's shape beautifully. With Fall nearing I thought it might be important to post as replacing egg with pumpkin would work for any latke recipes as well. Also worthy of note, you can use any sort of veggies you have lying around. For this batch I used a sweet potato, and also some spinach (love my leafy greens). Another modification that I made was to use Greek yogurt for the dipping sauce, as it it is much thicker. Hope you enjoy revisiting this recipe, we sure did!

Smokey Corn Chowder with Sweet Potatoes and Baby Spinach

This was good....really good. I started this blog not only to share, but to learn. And what have I learned? That corn stock ah-maize-ing...heehee, see how I did that? Seriously now, it is a tragedy to throw away your corn cobs before you have used them for stock. I didn't follow an exact recipe, I just threw what veggies I had (4 corn cobs, and 4 carrots) into a pot, covered them with water, added 2 bay leaves, salt, and crushed garlic, and I boiled it....forever...voila...rich flavorful broth. Feel free to use an exact recipe, if that kind of thing floats your boat.
I am certain this recipe is still good without the corn stock, but I hope you do take the time to try and make some if you get the chance. The sweetness from the fresh corn and the sweet potatoes combined with the creamy Gouda, hint of spice, and the smoke flavoring created a winning dish that everyone enjoyed. It was nice to see my kids chow down on so many different veggies without any complaints.

What you need...
oil to coat pot
1 onion peeled, washed, and diced
2 carrots, scrubbed and sliced
1 sweet potato peeled, washed, and diced
1 potato peeled, washed....and you guessed it...diced.
2 dashes red pepper
1/4 tsp Creole seasoning
1/4 tsp black pepper
5 ears worth of corn kernels
6 cups of corn (or other veggie stock)
4 tbs cornstarch
4 tbs water
1/2 cup milk
1/2 lb shredded cheese (I used Gouda, but I think smoked cheddar would be equally nice)
2 handfuls of washed baby spinach (optional)
1 tsp smoke flavoring
salt to taste

Pour enough oil to coat the bottom of a large stockpot and heat it over medium heat.

Add the onion, potatoes, carrots and Creole seasoning and red pepper flakes. Cook until the onions are translucent and the potatoes and carrots are tender.

Mix together the cornstarch and water in a separate bowl

Add the corn, pepper, stock, and bring to a boil. Cook for ten minutes.

Add the cornstarch and water and cook until potatoes are done and soup is thickened.

Lower the heat, and stir in the baby spinach, cheese, and milk. Heat through.

Stir in the liquid smoke, and add salt to taste.

Enjoy!

This is my submission for September 2010 "No Croutons Required". The theme is corn. Wish me luck!

Chickpea Pot Pie

Sorry about the lack of pictures, I promise to get in a whole slew of them once I can figure out how to get them from my phone to my computer....Now you have to ask yourself, which is better, no pictures, or a slew of cell phone pictures. I will leave you to decide weather or not you want to check back and see about those.
This was yummy! The sauce was a little thick/non existent. Mostly because I second guessed myself and added two extra tablespoons of flour. It's pretty much just chicken pot pie, but with chickpeas, and instead of a crust I used drop biscuits. It's a pantry meal so adjust it to whatever you have on hand. Since it has vegetables, protein, and grains, there was no need to make any side dishes to go with it. And we had leftovers for lunch the next day. /happy dance

For the biscuits
1 1/2 cup unbleached flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
3 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 tbs sugar
2/3 cup milk
1/3 cup olive oil

Mix together the dry ingredients, and pour in the wet ingredients all at once. Stir to combine. Set aside.


For the filling
2 cups of chickpeas
2 cups of frozen veg (I used a mixture of peas and spinach)
2 potatoes diced
olive oil
2 tbs butter
4 tbs flour
1 1/2 cup milk
1/2 tsp seasoning salt divided
1/4 tsp pepper

Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium low heat. Once melted, whisk in the flour 1/4 tsp seasoning salt and pepper. Cook for a minute or two or until the floury taste is gone. Pour in the milk all at once, whisking as you go. Heat through. Add more salt and pepper to taste.

Meanwhile pan fry the potatoes in olive oil until golden brown and add salt to taste.

Pour frozen veggies, potatoes, and chickpeas into a greased casserole dish. Pour sauce over the top, and drop biscuit dough in rows over the top of the veg mixture.

Bake at 350 for 30-50 minutes or until biscuits are done, and the filling is bubbly.

Addendum
Here is the aforementioned slew....
Note the negative space, the contrasting colors....


The shadow of my elbow...
oooooh aaaaahhh

Pizza with White Sauce and Roasted Veggies

This was not bad for a pantry meal, quite tasty if I do say so myself....although I don't know if it is really a pantry meal since I keep the yeast and flour in my fridge.....the veggies were in the freezer...and the cream cheese was obviously in the dairy drawer. But "pantry meal" has a much nicer ring to it than "what you make for dinner when you are trying to save money for a big trip to California and all you have left are staples meal"....point proven I think. If you really want to get picky the veggies weren't roasted at all, they were sauteed. The bag said roasted though, and who am I to argue with a bag....there is no reasoning at all with bags you know, they are highly illogical.
The crust was a recipe from King Arthur Flour. I replaced one cup of unbleached flour with 1 cup of whole wheat flour, and I sprinkled the pan with cornmeal because I love the texture of it. Other than that I think I stuck to the recipe pretty well. It came out great.





The veggies came in a bag....from my freezer....I'm not ashamed. I think they paired very nicely with the garlicky white "sauce", really it was more like a spread.

White "sauce"

1 package cream cheese softened
2 onions caramelized with one tsp salt
2 cloves pressed garlic
salt and pepper to taste
2tbs (or more) milk
Stir together the cream cheese caramelized onions, garlic, and salt and pepper. Add in milk one tbs at a time until desired consistency. For me it was really more of a spread. It covered half of the pizza this way, leaving the other half free to be cheese pizza in case the kiddos found anything objectionable about a pizza without orange cheese.

I baked the crust until done spread on the white sauce, added the cooked veggies, and served it. The sauce was strong, I really like caramelized onions though so that's OK. The hubster gave it a big two thumbs up as well.

Happy (late) St. Patrick's Day!!!

We have been experiencing difficulty with our interweb service lately, sorry for the delay. We had a wonderful St. Patricks day, I helped the kiddos make three leaf clover wands and we rocked out to some Celtic tunes. We also feasted on some creamy spinach soup, colcannon, and pound cake with lemon curd for dessert. Everyone agreed that there was no need to wait a year to make this again. The Kids favored the green soup, and both had seconds.

Creamy Spinach and Mashed Potato Soup

A lot of the texture and flavor of this soup comes from the mashed potatoes. I used garlic parmesean mashed potatoes that I had left over from Making the colcannon. Use your favorite recipe.

1 package neufchatel cheese softened
1 1/2 cups mashed potatoes
1 cup steamed broccoli
10 oz baby spinach
4 cups veggie broth


Put the first four ingredients into your food processor and slowly add the broth until heated thoroughly. If you like your soup on the thin side heat this mixture up and call it good. For a thicker soup you can always add cornstarch, or more mashed potatoes! Add salt and pepper to taste.





Colcannon is a traditional Irish dish of mashed potatoes, and either cabbage or kale. Here I used a layer of garlic mashed potatoes, a layer of cabbage sauteed with butter and Creole seasoning, broccoli, and topped the whole thing with a layer of good Irish cheese.



And here is the pound cake......not really Irish, but neither am I. :)

A Very Vegan Pizza

This was so good...so very very good. The cooking time, and temp will vary depending on the crust you use, so I have only included the instructions for the topping. This could easily be made whole wheat, or with a cornmeal type crust. If you are going for GF, I suggest Pamela's baking mix, as it is fantastic.

ooh...
One more thing before we get into the recipe.....You know that song "Ladies Night", or whatever it's called? Sure you do, that one dude sings it in "Wedding Singer"....Oh this is Ladies night, oh what a night. Now sing it but replace "Ladies" with "Pizza"...are you doing it??...

Good, now that's stuck in both of our heads.

You will need
One pizza crust
3 potatoes sliced thinly
One onion sliced thinly
1/4 cup, plus two tbs olive oil divided (I said vegan, not low cal)
3 cloves of garlic put through a press
Salt and pepper

Pour two tbs olive oil into a pan and place over medium heat. Fry up them there potatoes until they are golden brown, and adding salt to taste. Once the are golden brown and cooked through place on your (pre-baked??) crust in a single layer. In the same pan add the rest of the oil, the onions, and salt. Now caramelize those babies, and when they are done take them off the heat. Stir in the garlic and let that mixture set for a minute before spooning it over the potatoes. I meant to sprinkle this with rosemary...but I forgot...and I would have loved to drizzle this with truffle oil before serving...but I didn't have any. If you try out the rosemary and you like it, let me know. If you have truffle oil and try it, invite me over. Bake this according to your crust instructions...oh and if your crust recipe isn't vegan, then your pizza won't be either...but I hope you already knew that.

.
about to go in the oven!!

Cheesy Potato and Broccoli Soup

This was kind of....meh, but DS loved it! And I made it for the kids anyway. Every once and a while you'll see a super high in calorie recipe from me, this is because my children are stubborn and making them gain weight is a lot harder than one could imagine. More on that later I'm sure. This is another one pot dish....kind of...I also had to use a colander, and I used the pot twice. Once for steaming the veggies, and once for cooking the soup...
oh...
I also used a food processor...
So really probably not a one pot dish, but if I had an immersion blender it totally would have been...
I've always kind of sucked at math anyway, what do you expect this is a food blog, not a "let's make fun of the girl who doesn't know how to count to one"blog...
ON TO THE RECIPE....

1 head of broccoli steamed
3 potatoes peeled and boiled to mashed potato consistency
4 cans of evaporated milk
2 tbs butter
1 pkg cream cheese
1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
salt, pepper, garlic salt....you know the drill

Melt the butter on low heat with the cream cheese, meanwhile run the broccoli and potatoes through the food processor. Pour the vegetable mush (I know you're salivating already, right?) into the pot with the butter and cream cheese and mix thoroughly. Slowly pour in the evaporated milk mixing well. Cook on medium low until warm throughout, add cheddar cheese, add salt pepper and garlic salt to taste. You may notice there is no broth or stock in this recipe, I was trying to amp up the calories and protein of this dish, for the kiddos. For the average adult not looking to gain twenty pounds you could probably replace about half of the milk with broth.