This recipe is from All-Recipes.com. I like it because it doesn’t require many fresh vegetables (which are hard to keep around in my kitchen). Just onion and garlic. Everything else is non-perishable.
Spiced quinoa
Ingredients:
1 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, chopped
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 tsp curry powder (can be omitted, but i like the smell)
1 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp cinnamon
3/4 cup quinoa
1 1/2 cup vegetable stock
1/2 cup raisins soaked in hot water for 5-10 min before using in dish
1/2 cup pinenuts, toasted before using in dish (see photo)–beware pinenuts cost $8 for a handful. must have been a very bad harvest this year. I omitted this ingredient the first time I made this dish and it tasted just fine.
1 can garbanzo beans (my favorite!!!), rinsed and drained
1. Saute onions and garlic in olive oil in a saucepan. Add quinoa, salt, pepper, curry powder, cumin and cinnamon. Then add vegetable stock.
2. Bring to a boil, then simmer for 20 min.
3. Mix raisins, garbanzo beans and pinenuts into the quinoa. Enjoy!
How can a dish that contains no butter taste so buttery and delicious?
I cooked braised lentils tonight, adapted from a “Braised French Lentils” recipe found in Annie Sommerville’s cookbook Everyday Greens. Somehow, through this French-inspired cooking process, my lentils began to taste like smooth butter! How is that possible?
Here’s the recipe for you to try and discover the secret to its buttery richness:
Ingredients
2 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 yellow onion, diced
1 tsp minced garlic, minced
1 medium carrot, diced
1 celery stalk, diced
1/2 cup red wine (very important!)
1 cup lentils (plain old cheap green lentils from Eddie’s supermarket)
4 cups cold water
1 bay leaf
2 sprigs fresh thyme
3 fresh sage leaves (maybe this is the source of my buttery flavor?)
salt and pepper
Instructions:
1. Heat oil in a large pot. Add onions, 1/4 tsp salt, pinch of pepper and cook over medium heat until onions soften (3-4 min). Add garlic, vegetables, 1/4 tsp salt and pinch of pepper and cook until tender (5 min).
2. Pour in the wine and cook until the pan is nearly dry (4 min)–this step is critical!
3. Add lentils, water, bay leaf and herbs and simmer until beans are completely tender, but still hold their shape (45 minutes). Taste and add more salt and pepper if desired. Remove bay leaf and bare thyme sprigs and serve.
Don’t try to bake a whole wheat yeast bread without a breadmaker. Make Bittman bread instead.
I learned this lesson last weekend as I tried to knead my very hard dough. It was painful and I sweated a lot (and had to wear high-heeled clogs so I would be tall enough to knead my bread at my kitchen counter). Today, I made a bread from a recipe published in the New York Times by Mark Bittman. It was much easier and tastier. I made a slight alteration to the recipe by not using corn meal and increasing the wheat flour content. The quickbread is delicious!
Bittman Bread
Ingredients:
PAM for greasing breadpan
2 cups buttermilk ($0.99 at Giant supermarket)
3 cups of whole wheat flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup molasses
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 325 deg F. Grease loaf pan with PAM.
2. Mix together dry ingredients (flour, salt, soda). Stir molasses into buttermilk. Add liquid ingredients into dry ingredients and stir to combine (just until flour is not powdery on bottom of bowl–has a very dry consistency). Pour into baking pan.
3. Bake for 45 minutes (until toothpick comes out clean). Cool on rack for 15 minutes. Then enjoy (I had raspberry jam with mine!)
I tried a new recipe today. It was nice to cook again. I haven’t cooked much since before Christmas. I ate lots of delicious midwestern cuisine (turkey, ham, sweet potato pie, rice pudding, green bean casserole) in La Crosse. When Ben and I were in Chicago, we tried banh mi (Vietnamese sandwiches) at the new French market in Ogilvie and we ate amazing tacos at Paul Kahan’s new joint Big Star, followed by a nice dessert of wines/champagne/cheese/cake at Volo. Anyways, onto my new recipe. It was an adaptation of a meat-containing recipe in allrecipes.com but I eliminated the meat and substituted brown rice for white rice (which prolonged the cooking time, but tastes amazing!).
Middle Eastern Rice with Black Beans and Chickpeas
Ingredients:
1 tbsp olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced
1 cup uncooked brown rice
2 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground tumeric
1/4 tsp ground cayenne pepper
2 cups veggie stock (I made from scratch)
3 cups garbanzo beans (equal to about 2 cans), drained and rinsed
1 cup black beans (I made from scratch)
1 bunch chopped fresh cilantro
1 bunch chopped fresh parsley
salt and pepper to taste
Directions:
1. Heat olive oil in saucepan over medium heat. Stir in garlic and cook for 1 minute. Stir in rice, cumin, coriander, tumeric and cayenne pepper. Cook and stir for 2 minutes, then pour in veggie stock. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer for 1 hour.
2. Gently mix garbanzo beans, black beans, cilantro and parsley into the cooked rice. Season with salt and pepper.
fabulous recipe! This is the best quinoa recipe I’ve made thus far. Thanks to allrecipes. I know Ben doesn’t like corn (for philosophical reasons), but I think this recipe will taste fine without it.
Quinoa and Black Beans
Ingredients:
1 tsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
3/4 cup uncooked quinoa
2 cups vegetable broth (I used one can of Swanson’s)
1 tsp ground cumin
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
salt and pepper to taste (don’t oversalt, the veggie broth has lots of sodium/flavor)
1 cup frozen corn kernels
2 (15 oz) cans black beans, rinsed and drained
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro
Directions:
1. Heat oil in saucepan over medium heat. Stir in onion and garlic. Saute until lightly browned.
2. Mix quinoa into saucepan. Add veggie broth. Season with cumin, cayenne pepper, salt and pepper. Bring mixture to a boil. Cover, reduce heat and simmer for 20 min.
3. Add frozen corn and simmer for 5 min more until heated through. Mix in black beans and cilantro. I didn’t use canned black beans, but I had cooked dried black beans (following Joy of Cooking) before Christmas and frozen it. After defrosting, I added about 3 cups of my black beans and it was very tasty.
This post was supposed to be a comparison of two recipes for black beans and brown rice. One I found on the internet (I don’t remember what website), but it was very simple and basic and therefore, I suspected it might not be too tasty. The second is from Joy of Cooking, which is usually my trustworthy encyclopedia of all things related to food, ingredients and cooking. However, the Joy of Cooking recipe really failed me today. It was probably my own fault for not doing some research on the internet before following the recipe exactly as written. On page 276 of the cookbook (1997 ed.), there is a recipe entitled “Black bean and rice.” It calls for “1 habanero or other fresh chili pepper, seeded and chopped, or 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes, or more to taste.” I don’t know much about my peppers although recently, I made a disgusting lentil salad where I used jalapeno pepper (and probably should have used something else because the dish tasted like salsa). Anyways, I didn’t realize how crazy spicy a single habanero pepper is (or didn’t remember? my husband says we once bought a salsa which contained some) until after the dish was completely done and I tasted it. WOW! My mouth is still tingling 14 hours later. Four hours after I cut the peppers, I wiped my eyes with my hands (which I had thoroughly washed 3 times) and my eyes stung for 10 minutes. I was unable to open or blink them. Anyways, so the winning recipe is obviously the black beans and rice recipe I found on the internet. Click on the photo below for more details. In case you care, a photo of my inedible (fiery hot spicy) Joy of Cooking black beans and rice can found at the bottom of the page.
Mexican brown rice and black beans
Ingredients:
1 tbsp veg oil
1 onion chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp cumin
3 c cooked brown rice
1 15 oz can black beans
salt and pepper to taste
Directions:
heat oil in skillet, add garlic, chili powder and cumin
saute 3-5 min until onion is tender
add rice, beans
cook, stirring 2-3 min until mixture is thoroughly heat
serve with cheese, green onion, yogurt, salsa
Don’t make this at home:
I have been purchasing and cooking mass quantities (4 x 1 pound bags) of dried chickpeas in the last few weeks because 1) they are tasty and filling, 2) they are inexpensive, and 3) dried chickpeas have a long shelf life. Chickpeas are great for me (temporary vegetarian) because they have a nice meaty flavor and texture. However, I’ve gotten a little sick of hummus and don’t want a dish that requires 50 ingredients (like some of the tasty, but complex curries I’ve made in the past). Ben alerted me to a series of recipes in the NY Times last month that centered around chickpeas. I tried this chickpea salad recipe and it was amazing! I will certainly make it again (and perhaps share it at potlucks in the future).
Green Bean Salad with Chickpeas and Mushrooms
Ingredients:
Dry components:
1/2 lb green beans
3 oz. mushrooms, cleaned, trimmed and sliced thin (about 1.25 cup)
2 cup cooked chickpeas
1 oz. shaved Parmasean (1/4 cup)
3 tbsp chopped fresh herbs (I used parsley), but you can also use chives, marjoram or tarragon
Wet components (dressing ingredients):
1 tbsp freshly squeeze lemon juice (ie. juice from 1/2 lemon)
1 tbsp vinegar (they recommend sherry vinegar, but I used rice vinegar. I think white or red wine vinegar would also work)
1 tsp dijon mustard
1 small garlic clove finely minced
salt, pepper to taste
6 tbsp extra virgin olive oil (I used Columela brand–found at Giant supermarket)
Instructions:
1. Blanch the green beans for 4 min. Then cool in a bowl of ice water (I didn’t have ice, so I just cool with some water, then ran cold water over beans in a collander). I usually trim the stems beforehand, but the recipe says to do it after they’ve been blanched. I broke my beans in half for ease of eating.
2. Combine dry salad ingredients together in a large bowl.
3. In a smaller bowl, whisk lemon juice, vinegar, mustard, garlic, salt and pepper together. Whisk in the olive oil.
4. Wait until just before eating/serving to toss the dressing with the dry ingredients–because the dressing will turn your green beans an ugly grey color if you put them in the fridge for a while. It’s ok to make them both separately several hours before serving and combine at the end. Just make sure you cover the dry ingredients with plastic wrap or else mushrooms will dry out (get an ugly brown crust).
I got this recipe from allrecipes.com
They were more like a candy than a cookie. I usually like macaroons but I probably won’t ever make these again. They were too sweet and took too long to bake. However, they make for a pretty picture.
Here is a recipe I took from “Everyday Greens” by Annie Somerville. I noticed that I used a lot of vegetable stock recently that was purchased from the store. I decided to make my own and freeze it for the next time a recipe calls for veggie stock. See also my slide show.
Ingredients:
1 onion sliced
2 leek tops, chopped and washed
3 celery ribs, sliced
3 carrots, sliced (no need to peel)
1 large potato, sliced (I peeled this)
6 garlic cloves, smashed with flat side of knife, skins left on
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp peppercorns
6 parsley sprigs
4 thyme sprigs
1 bay leaf
10 cups cold water
Directions:
Combine all ingredients in stockpot and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer, uncovered for 45 min, stirring as needed. Pour stock through strainer (I used a colander as I didn’t have a strainer), pressing as much liquid from the veggies as possible. Then discard the veggies (I tried to reuse them for a second batch of stock. I’ll let you know if this works).
I made hummus from chickpeas for the first time tonight. It tasted SOOOO good and it was very very easy. I don’t know why I never attempted this dish before. It’s very healthy and full of protein and fiber. Here is the original recipe but I am listing it again below.
3.5 cups of cooked chickpeas (I boiled 1.5 cups of dried chickpeas for 2 hours in enough water to cover the peas + 1 inch)
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup tahini (sesame seed paste–cost $8 for a bottle (5 servings?) at Eddie’s, tastes like peanut butter, but sesame butter)
juice from 1 lemon
2 tablespoons of olive oil
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
3/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
In the food processor, I put my cooked chickpeas and pulsed about 5 times until they were coarsely chopped. Then I added all the other ingredient and blended until smooth. I had to use a rubber spatula to scrape down the sides a few times and ended up licked a lot off my finger and the spatula. YUM!!! The Cooking Light recipe recommends putting the hummus in the fridge overnight and then bringing it to room temperature for 30 min before eating the next day. It sure tasted good straight out of the food processor so I’m excited to find out what it tastes like after marinating overnight.
