Even though the promise of spring is only a few weeks away, my vegetable garden is still a threadbare blanket of winter’s despair.
OK – that’s a little dramatic, but month after month of cold, dark days can really bring on a case of Spring Fever in a person. The remedy? Planting a pot of pea shoots or micro salad greens indoors, to savor spring a little earlier than Mother Nature intended.
Everyone in our house grooves on crispy roasted broccoli, so it’s in heavy rotation on the dinner menu playlist.
However, no one but me will eat the stems or stalks. I’m not really sure why this is, but I’d guess it’s because the florets get so much crispier than the stalks. Whatever the reason, I end up with pounds and pounds of broccoli stalks that I can’t bring myself to throw out. (We had to stop putting food in our backyard compost pile because the rats and raccoons thought they’d stumbled upon a 24/7 gastropub.)
So now, whenever I make roasted broccoli, I chop up the underappreciated stems and store them in a gallon-size ziplock bag in the fridge. (They’ll keep for weeks.) When the bag’s full, it’s time to make Cream of Broccoli soup.
Wait – keep reading! If the idea of a kale and quinoa salad sounds less than appealing, I should also mention the crunchy toasted almonds and tangy-sweet balsamic dressing. And, that this delicious fiber-fest is also vegan, gluten-free, low-calorie, nutrient-rich, and filling. FILLING! Now do I have your attention?
This New Year’s Eve, I intend to make a few toasts. As in, toasted baguette slices, slathered in creamy Wild Mushroom Fondue and drizzled with a little black truffle oil. One last holiday hoorah before the austerity of the New Year begins. Then it’s back to carrot sticks and kale salad for a while. Continue reading
OK – technically speaking, this soup has 96.5 calories per serving (still a bargain), but since you can burn 100 calories by cooking for 34 minutes, this soup nets you zero calories. That’s my kind of math! (Similar to “subscribe and save 80% off the newsstand price” or “buy 2 pairs of shoes, get the 3rd pair free”; how can you go wrong?)
(Calorie information is from sparkpeople.com. I was excited to learn that you can also burn 100 calories by rearranging furniture for 14 minutes – finally justification for one of my favorite pastimes!)
Besides having “zero” calories, this soup 1) tastes rich and complex, 2) is gluten and dairy-free, and 3) contains four types of vegetables but no one will ever know. (We have some vegetable-phobes in our house.) And – like any pureed soup, it can also be dressed up for Halloween with a sour cream spider web. This will up the calorie count a little, but will keep the attention away from the exact contents of the soup. (I called it Mystery Soup.)
I promised my husband I wouldn’t get carried away with the Halloween blog posting, but the kids still need a healthy after-school snack, don’t they?
Orange bell peppers make festive (and edible) dip vessels, and are a lot easier to carve than pumpkins.
Cut off the tops like you would for a jack-o-lantern, then use a grapefruit knife (what do you mean you don’t have one?) or your hands to remove the inner membranes. Rinse out any seeds.
Carve a simple jack-o-lantern face. My nose and mouth were a little too low; try to keep the “face” on the flat part of the pepper, before it curves under. This will keep the filling from oozing out too much.
Fill with a dark-colored dip, such as black bean or a 50/50 mixture of hummus and olive tapenade. (The stuff Peyton Manning keeps talking about in his DirectTV commercials.) I used about 1/2 cup of store-bought hummus and 1/2 cup of store-bought kalamata tapenade.
For a better presentation (since I messed up the face), I elevated the pepper jack-o-lantern with an upside-down custard cup.
Serve after school (or at a Halloween party) with carrots and breadsticks. And don’t forget to eat the pepper afterwards, unless you’re wary of double-dippers. . .
Did September swoosh past anyone else? It seems like just yesterday we were chasing the ice cream truck and agonizing over First Day of School outfits, and now we’re cracking open the candy corn and planning Halloween costumes.
Well – the month is almost over, and with it comes the end of one of the best tomato seasons in recent years here in the Garden State. (Or at least in our garden, and this is a nice consolation since I’m sorry to report that the zucchini plants never fully recovered from their vine borer surgery.) Needless to say, we’ve been eating a lot of tomatoes lately, and some of us are happier about this than others. . .
With locally sourced food all the rage these days, I thought I’d keep on trend and share some highlights from my backyard vegetable garden. Forty feet from “farm” to table is about as local as it gets. I will warn you, however, that my gardening methods are far from orthodox, and that true gardeners might find some of my admissions scandalous.
For example, I often forego a fall cleanup and leave dead plants in the ground all winter. This is not good garden hygiene! I also let cilantro and dill go to seed every summer, thereby delegating the sowing of next year’s crop to the wind. Rather than double-digging the beds, I let the worms do most of the soil preparation. I don’t even pinch the extra growth off my tomato plants, even though doing so would theoretically improve the fruit quality. The encouraging news is that despite my laissez-faire approach, things still grow! Mother Nature is one of those control-freak moms who gets her way no matter what.
Setting: Our kitchen, this morning
Sophie: I do not like Green Eggs and Ham.
Mom: Try them, try them – I’ve got the cam.
Sophie: Say – I do like these Green Eggs and Ham! (especially the ham)
Dr. Seuss’s birthday is getting a lot of play this year (thanks to “The Lorax” release today), so I expect there will be quite a few green eggs and ham on breakfast menus this weekend. Food coloring’s one way to go, but this morning I thought I’d capitalize on all the marketing to help sneak some spinach into my kids’ diet. Auntie Jo’s famous spinach frittata was the perfect, all-natural Green Eggs vehicle. It also happens to be a great lunch, brunch or open house dish, because it can be served hot, cold or at room temperature. This recipe is sort of a hybrid between a frittata (open-faced omelette) and a strata (casserole made with bread & eggs); I think it’s easier to make than both. Auntie Jo’s frittatas always seem to taste a little better than mine – most likely because recipes that are passed along from person to person sometimes suffer from the “telephone game” fate. (That, or she has accidentally omitted a secret ingredient . . . ) Nonetheless, this is an easy and tasty recipe worth trying.
Auntie Jo’s Spinach Frittata
[For a spanakopita-flavored variant, sauté 1/2 cup chopped onion in a little olive oil; add spinach and 1 Tablespoon chopped fresh dill. Substitute feta for the cottage cheese.]
Heat oven to 350ºF. Squeeze most of the water out of the thawed spinach. Pulse bread slices in a food processor, or tear into small pieces.
In a mixing bowl, beat 3 eggs.
Stir in breadcrumbs, cheeses, salt and pepper.
Then stir in spinach.
Pour mixture into a 9”x9” baking dish or small casserole. (Auntie Jo says to heat casserole with oil first; I don’t do this and don’t have any problems getting the fritatta out of my Pyrex baking dish.)
Sprinkle a small amount (less than ¼ cup) of grated cheese on top; this gives the frittata a nice golden brown color. (I used the cheddar/jack mix with a little bit of additional romano.)
Bake for 40-45 minutes. Let cool a few minutes before cutting into squares or shapes.
This morning I used a biscuit cutter to cut a few pieces into circles; you could also get crazy and scoop some into cleaned out egg shells. [The ham is Canadian bacon, quickly warmed/browned in a nonstick skillet.]
Serves 4 for a main course or 8-10 as an appetizer or side dish. Can be refrigerated for several days.
While my 9-year-old has always had a taste for adventure, she’s not been known for her adventurous tastes. 
No sauces, limited vegetables, no comingled ingredients – you get the idea. Then one day she blew me away by asking if she could please have a salad. A few days later when I was sautéing mushrooms for this recipe, she asked if she could try one of those things in the pan that smelled so good. What?! Aliens have abducted my firstborn and replaced her with a vegetable-craving clone! Fortunately, my 7-year-old is still subsisting on bread, butter and milk products so all’s right with the world.
Back to the mushroom pasta. The inspiration for this dish was all the stuff in the fridge that needed to get used up before a President’s Week ski trip: a box of crimini (baby portabella) mushrooms, half a block of cream cheese, a little cream, and half a box of chicken stock. If I had had some rotisserie chicken, I would’ve added it for a complete meal-in-one. (Meal-in-one = fewer dishes to wash!) For those of us happy with vegetarian meals, this dish is already a meal-in-one. With or without the chicken, I’d serve it with a simple green salad (and perhaps a glass of pinot noir). It reheats well for leftovers and probably would freeze well also.
Every time pasta goes on sale, I stock up in all shapes and sizes. One of my favorite shapes is campanelle, aka bells or lilies. I’m a sucker for the little ruffles, which get nice and crunchy on the top layer of a baked dish. I also love how the bell shape traps the sauce or filling. Feel free to use any shape pasta – even spaghetti would work.
Baked Campanelle with Mushrooms (and Chicken)
Serves 6-8
Cook the pasta according to package directions (using 1-2 teaspoons kosher salt in the pasta water). Drain and set aside. (Reserve some plain pasta for picky eaters.)
Preheat oven to 375ºF. In large nonstick skillet or Dutch oven over medium-high heat, sauté shallots in butter until softened. (2-3 minutes)
Add sliced mushrooms; stir to coat and then let sit in the pan for a few minutes to develop some color. (This really does make them taste better!)
Stir in thyme and garlic and cook 1-2 minutes more. Add sherry or wine and stir to deglaze the pan. Stir in cream cheese (if using), chicken broth, bouillon cube or salt and cream.
Bring to a boil, then remove from heat and stir in chicken, if using, and 1 cup parmigiano cheese. Taste and season with salt and pepper if necessary.
Combine sauce with cooked pasta and pour into an ungreased casserole dish or lasagna pan. Sprinkle remaining parmigiano cheese over top. Bake 20-30 minutes, or until top is lightly browned and sauce is bubbling.
Can be made up to a day ahead (though add about ½ cup more chicken stock if you do). Reheats well for leftovers.
As a side dish side note, the sautéed mushroom mixture would be delicious on its own – even without the pasta and cheese. Omit the chicken stock and reduce the cream to 1/4 cup or omit altogether. Serve as a vegetable side dish, or as a topping for steak, burgers or chicken.
Subee's Kitchen 