Spinach Moong Masoor Dal

Here's a nice vegetarian dish enjoyed by omnivores as well:

SPINACH MOONG MASOOR DAL
Serves 2 as a meal, 4 as a side
Adapted from a recipe from Spice of India in Kitchener, Ontario

Ingredients:
· 1/2 cup red lentils (masoor dal)
· 2 Tablespoons split hulled green mung lentils (moong dal)
· 1 3/4 cups water
· 2 Tablespoons ghee or oil ( I used regular butter - use oil for vegan version)
· 1 medium onion, thinly sliced
· 1 medium tomato, diced (I used a 14 ounce can rather than fresh as it is winter)
· 1/4 teaspoon whole cumin seed
· 3/4 teaspoon salt
· 1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
· 1/2 teaspoon garam masala
· 1/2 teaspoon teaspoon ground chili pepper or to taste
· 1/2 teaspoon amchur (dried green mango) or 1 teaspoon lemon juice (I used lemon juice as I lacked the mango powder, but next time will use the mango powder b/c Nirupma is bringing me some)
· 6 ounces baby spinach (more or less is fine) (I used a 12 ounce package of frozen spinach)

1) Pick over the lentils and remove shriveled bits and pebbles. Rinse thoroughly until the water runs clear. Drain.

2) Place lentils in a medium pot with the water. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and keep lentils at a gentle simmer, uncovered, stirring occasionally. Add some hot water if the mixture seems too thick. Keep in mind that lentils thicken a bit after cooling, so keeping the pot just a bit on the watery side is best.

3) While the lentils cook, place a medium pan on medium heat. Heat the ghee until it shimmers, then add the cumin seeds. They should sizzle immediately. After about 15 seconds, add the onion slices and fry, stirring frequently, until they turn sticky and brown.

4) Add the diced tomato to the onions and cook until the tomato disintegrates. Add the remaining spices and cook until the mixture becomes pasty and thick, several more minutes. (with the canned tomatoes, they didn't really ever disintegrate, or I am not patient enough)

5) When the lentils are tender (this takes 20-30 minutes), add the spinach to the lentils and stir, working in batches if necessary so that the spinach wilts and makes room for additional spinach.  (Frozen spinach is already wilted, of course) Pour the onion/tomato mixture into the lentils and spinach, stir well, then cover and let sit for a few minutes to cook the spinach and develop flavors. Taste and adjust for salt before serving.

-----

We thought that this dish was pretty mild and benefited a lot from some added spice at the table in the form of pickled jalapenos, hot sauce, or jalapeno-cilantro chutney.  Also, it was even better with the addition of some feta in place of paneer.

For the rice - cook it in the rice cooker, and when the rice is done dump in some frozen mixed peas and carrots or just peas and let the heat of the rice heat up the veg.  Simple.

We also had pita to stand in for chapati or naan which I didn't have time to make.

recipe adapted from: http://www.bonappegeek.com/2007/01/16/one-percent-of-india-dal/

Pleasant Dinner

Got home last night and didn't know what to make for dinner. Z had been sick and only wanted brown beans (her word for baked beans). Q was sleeping. I had no energy but was pretty hungry, and the fridge was uninspiring but did include a carton of eggs.

Fortunately I turned to the freezer in which I discovered a bag of frozen mixed vegetables and a bag of sweet potato fries.

Into the oven went the fries while I cooked the veg in the microwave and sauteed some onion. Then veggies into the pan with the onions and a few dashes of "Italian seasoning". Beaten eggs atop the mess of vegetables cooked first on the stovetop and then finished in the oven and topped with a leftover bit of smoked blue cheese and some crumbled goat cheese.

Fries drizzled with honey and sprinkled with snipped rosemary and salt.

I can't get away with fritatta every day, but a couple of times a month, it's going into the rotation.

30 minutes. No leftovers, except for Z's brown beans.

Asian Slaw (by Alton Brown and modified by me)

This is a great side dish or base for grilled meat or veggies to toss with noodles. You can adjust the heat level to your liking!

As listed, this is vegan, but not allergy-free thanks to the peanut butter!

Ingredients

• 1 (3-inch) piece ginger, grated fine ** I use chopped gari (pickled ginger like you get with sushi) which is available at Asian markets in the refrigerated section. Read the ingredients, some have NutraSweet!**
  
• 1/2 cup rice wine vinegar **Rice wine vinegar has a more delicate taste than regular or cider vinegar. If you substitute, be careful, this might be too much and you might need to add some water**
  
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• 1 lime, juiced
• 2 tablespoons sesame oil
• 1/2 cup peanut butter
• 1 head Napa cabbage, sliced thin
• 1 red bell pepper, julienne fine
• 1 yellow bell pepper, julienne fine
• 2 serrano chiles, minced fine ** I generally use a generous squirt of sriracha, available at Asian markets and also at my local grocery **
  
• 1 large carrot, grated fine with a peeler ** or just matchsticked**
  
• 3 green onions, cut on the bias, all of white part and half of the green
• 2 tablespoons chiffonade cilantro
• 2 tablespoons chiffonade mint ** I leave this out entirely - not a fan of mint in food**
  
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

Directions

In a small bowl, or food processor combine ginger, vinegar, soy sauce, lime juice, oil, and peanut butter. In a large bowl, combine all other ingredients and then toss with dressing. You can save some of the dressing to dress noodles that can be added to this dish along with stir fried pork to make an entire meal.

I learned this watching an episode of Good Eats. Here's a link to the Food Network recipe.

Fresh/Dried Pesto

I still have a lot of dried until crispy grape tomatoes from last year's garden. Juicy new ones will appear soon.

In an effort to use what I preserved last year, I created a pesto to spread on bread. It included a couple of handfuls of fresh basil, about a cup of dried tomatoes, some olive oil, generous amounts of garlic, a little salt, and red pepper flakes all whirred up in the food processor.

Much to my surprise the kids ate it too.

Dips! Part 3 - Creamy Spinach Dip

Previous entries in this series include Tomato Pesto; Roasted Garlic and Olive; and Creamy Smoked Salmon

I have mentioned before how we like dips, especially for dinner with fresh bread.

On New Year's Eve we had an appetizer dinner, and it included Creamy Spinach Dip.

Here's how to do it:

Fresh spinach method:
Clean and rough chop about 1 pound of fresh spinach
In a largeish (needs to be big enough for cooking the spinach) pan, heat up about 1-2T of olive oil. When it is hot, add about 2-3 cloves minced garlic and 1t-1T red pepper flakes depending on how hot you like it. At this point you can also cook up some minced onion in the oil, but that is not required. Turn the heat down a bit so that the garlic doesn't burn. Cook the spinach until wilted and most of the water has boiled off. Add a good pinch of salt when you add the spinach to counter the bitterness of the greens and help get out the water. When the spinach is cooked, turn off the heat. Now proceed to *

Frozen spinach method:
Defrost and dewater a package of frozen chopped spinach. In a skillet or saucepan, cook the garlic, optional onion, and red pepper flakes in olive oil.

* Next step for either method: In a microwave safe bowl, unwrap two 8 ounce bricks of cream cheese (1/3 less fat=ok, but fat free freaks me out). Microwave gently to soften. Add the spinach and garlic oil mixtures. Microwave to heat and stir to combine.

Serve warm. Leftovers are GREAT on bagels or toast for breakfast, too.

What to do with zucchini - part 5

What to do with zucchini parts 1-4 were in 2008!
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

Basic Pizza Dough - from My Bread by Jim Lahey, p. 117

enough for 2 13x18 inch pies

500 g bread flour (3.75 c)
10 g instant or other active dry yeast (2.5 t)
5 g table salt (0.75t)
~3g sugar (0.75t + a pinch)
300 g room temperature water (1 1/3 c)

Stir together dry ingredients in a medium bowl
Add water and mix until blended, at least 30 seconds
Cover the bowl and let sit at room temperature until more than doubled, about 2 hours

Oil 2 13 by 18 inch rimmed baking sheets with olive oil
Use a scraper to remove the dough from the bowl in a single chunk for each pan
Gently pull and stretch the dough across the pan all the way to the edges

Zucchini Pizza
makes 1 13 x 18 inch pie, 8 slices

1.2 kg trimmed zucchini (2.5 pounds, about 3 large)
10 g table salt (1.5 t)
150 g grated Gruyere or high quality swiss cheese (2 c) ** I used a mix of 2/3 swiss and 1/3 a hard, parmesan-type cheese - it could have handled a 1:1 mix for a bit more saltiness **
1/2 recipe basic pizza dough
20-25 g bread crumbs

1. Preheat oven to 500F with a rack in the center
2. Grate the zucchini. Toss zucchini and salt together in a medium bowl. Let stand for 15-20 minutes until zucchini is wilted and has released its water.
3. Drain zucchini in a colander and squeeze out as much water as you can. The pat dry. In a medium bowl, mix together zucchini and grated cheese. Break up any clumps.
4. Spread zucchini-cheese mixture all over the dough, all the way to the edges. Put a bit extra on the edges as the outside tends to cook and brown more quickly. Sprinkle evenly with bread crumbs. ** it may not be so authentic, but we thought that this needed a bit more kick -- added sprinkling of red pepper flakes or generous grinds of black pepper for example. **
5. Bake for 25-30 minutes until the topping is starting to turn golden brown and the crust is pulling away from the sides of the pan. Serve hot or at room temperature.

Tomatoes!

Three varieties!

Biggest one is a Tigerella. Yes, it has a bite mark in it. Q got to the bowl. According to the Interweb, Tigerella= Mister Stripey. But my other Mister Stripey plants are not ripe, and they are usually larger fruit than this, so I am not sure about the equivalence.

Small round ones are Sun Gold. Yes, one of these has a bite mark in it, too.
Yellow pear shaped ones are Yellow Pear. Really. ;-)

Pizza!

Yes, it is a zillion degrees outside and I am crazy to be putting my oven to 500 degrees for an hour or more (pre-heat + bake) at the end of the day, but we like pizza. It is a great way to use a variety of veggies in a family-friendly way.

Top pic is last night - in sections - basic tomato, mozzarella, and fresh basil; another plain cheese; another is cheese and pepperoni; another includes the pepperoni and red pepper flakes. Yum. There was some left, but not much.

Bottom pic is my first effort at a Sullivan Street Bakery style pizza. It is the zucchini pizza and will enter my zucchini consumption rotation. It uses 2 big zukes! Will blog the recipe when I am home and have the book available.

Bearing, this is for you

Or, google helps me make dinner (searched 'frozen green beans recipe")

Indian Style Green Beans

TIME/SERVINGS

Total: 30-40 minutes

Active: 10 minutes

Makes: 4 servings

By fallingup

"This is my family’s traditional preparation of french cut green beans. You can apply this recipe to other vegetables, too. We use the same method for frozen cut okra, corn, and diced potatoes. It’s by far my favorite way to prepare vegetables, especially ones that I buy frozen as opposed to fresh.

You need to cook these green beans for as long as directed in the recipe, or else they won’t taste right. The beans will look and taste different than if they had been quickly sauteed, steamed, or stir-fried. With this method it’ll seem like you’re overcooking the vegetables, but this is the authentic Indian way, and it tastes amazing despite the minimal ingredients involved."

INGREDIENTS

1 16-ounce package french cut green beans (frozen, not canned)
1 teaspoon turmeric powder
1/2 teaspoon red chili powder
1 1/2 teaspoons salt * I cut this back a bit
2-3 tablespoons olive oil
1/3 large white onion, diced (optional)
1/4 cup finely shredded unsweetened coconut (optional)

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Place a large, wide non-stick pan on medium to high heat. Add olive oil.
2. When hot, add onions (if using) and cook until golden. Add green beans. Cover and cook for 10-15 minutes.
3. Uncover and season with turmeric powder, salt, red chili powder, and shredded coconut (if using).
4. Continue to cook uncovered for 10-15 minutes, stirring frequently so that the beans don’t burn. When done, the beans will be dark green and will have reduced considerably.
5. Remove from heat and serve over rice.

http://www.chow.com/recipes/12249-addictive-indian-style-green-beans

* I served with additional coconut sprinkled on top and a curry (lentils, tomatoes, carrots, onions, and broccoli stems - madras curry powder + cilantro at the table)

I would take this to a potluck.

Minimalist to the Rescue

I was supposed to mix up some Pizza Bianca dough yesterday morning before leaving for work, but I forgot. By the time I could call home there wasn't enough time for it to rise before manipulation and baking needed to occur.

The plan was to have salads with smoked salmon for dinner, and a bread would have rounded out the meal nicely.

I opened my browser (home page New York Times) and discovered that Mark Bittman had posted Olive Oil Matzo just a couple of days ago.

When I got home, I discovered that we had no water (routine maintenance had left the hot water heater leaking, hence all water off) and was even more glad for a fast dinner.

Once the water was back on, I had dinner on the table in less than 40 minutes even including baking the flatbread with Z's help rolling out the dough. They were good and nicely complemented the salads.

The salad dressing was: 4 T olive oil, 2 T lemon juice, 1 T red wine vinegar, 1/2 t italian seasoning dry spices (mix of basil, oregano, thyme, and marjoram), a few healthy grinds of black pepper, 1 pressed clove of garlic. I didn't add salt because smoked salmon tends to be salty enough on its own.

If smoked salmon is not your thing, you could also use tuna, tinned smoked fish, or even cooked chicken. My 3.75 year old reliably eats smoked salmon so we have it pretty regularly. The hot smoked kind at Costco is a good value, and we discovered last night that the 0.75 year old likes it too.

Eating the sub-continent: part 2

Raita, Rice, and Curry

With the goal of cooling the potentially warm curry, I made simple raita - inspired by this recipe from the recent issue of bon appetit magazine.

It started with about 3/4 of a 1qt container of plain yogurt. I drained it in a towel lined strainer for a couple of hours and then mixed in a peeled, chopped cucumber, 1t or so of salt, and a handful of chopped cilantro. That's it.

I cooked 2 cups of basmati rice in the rice cooker and then dumped in about a cup of frozen peas at the end of the cooking time and let the heat from the rice defrost and heat the peas.

The curry began with leftover cooked veggies - carrots, celery, onion, and broccoli stems (we ate the florets the other day and I saved the stems for this). I put about 2 cups of cooked vegetables in a saucier with a couple of tablespoons of oil and 1 T of madras curry powder and stirred in about 2 peeled, chopped potatoes over medium heat until everything was nicely coated with spices. Then I added about a cup of red lentils and 3 cups of chicken broth and let everything simmer for a while until the lentils and potatoes were cooked. That was the curry. I used the stick blender to smooth it out a bit. I followed the instructions about how much curry powder to use, but we could have had it hotter.

BTW - I made another small pot of soup without the spices but with everything else for Q. He is now 9 months old, has one partial tooth and loves soup. I blended his with the stick blender before blending the one with spice.

Pasta Diavola Inadvertenta

In an effort to clean the fridge of edible veggies, I decided to make pasta and red sauce. Zucchini, onions, roasted eggplant, and roasted red peppers into the pot. Sauce deposited onto cooked noodles. At this point, I discovered that they weren't red bell peppers, but in fact red super hot peppers. It was edible once I picked out the peppers and seeds. Note - eggplant seeds look a lot like pepper seeds.

File this under 'more evidence that you should taste your food before seasoning it at the table'. Usually I would have added red pepper flakes and parmesan cheese at the table. Fortunately I tasted before adding red pepper flakes!

Using tomatoes

We tend to eat Elizabeth Street bruschetta a lot this time of year. Tomatoes chopped with raw garlic and basil on rustic bread with mozzarella and toasted. Sometimes I mix varieties, other times we segregate.

Here are 2 examples. The red is a mix of Amish Paste and Camp Joy Cherry, and the yellow one is Mr. Stripey. Yum.

And so it begins, canning season 2009

Today I am canning beets using the pressure canner which always makes me nervous. Quinn helped by staying calm. Zoey helped by sleeping. I made a brine and pickled 3 different kinds: white, yellow, and stripey, in segregated jars. Only the yellow were from our garden. The rest were from Borski Organic Farm - the credit for our missed CSA last week.

Despite my trepidation, the canner did not explode. Behold the jewel-like bounty!

The sadly neglected blog

We've been busy growing and nurturing the garden and kiddos. It's really great to have so much maternity leave.

In the garden we are harvesting basil, cucumbers, snap beans, and zucchini about every other day. We still can find a few raspberries, and we really enjoyed it when they were coming in by the mixing bowl. We have had a few tomatoes, mostly the cherry size. Golden Nugget was our earliest harvest. It was a couple of days before the first zucchini! What's up with that?!

We have been making refrigerator pickles with the pickling cucumbers. It's so easy, and really yummy. Here's the recipe [my comments in brackets]:

GARLIC DILL PICKLES (REFRIGERATOR) (originally found on Cooks.com)
----------------------------------

Make brine: (do not cook)

2 qts. water [I use it out of the Brita pitcher b/c it cuts the hardness down]
3/4 c. salt (kosher) [key is non-iodized, so sea salt or cheapie non-iodized=ok]
2 c. cider vinegar [white distilled vinegar works just fine, too]

Rinse pickles [I rub them to get off the spines. For pickling cukes, you want them to be warty still, and not so big that they have turned yellowish or white. Those big guys will have too many seeds and may be kind of hollow inside. Just compost those or eat them yourself in salad.], slice [I only slice if they are big, otherwise I leave them whole] and put in jars with garlic [I put 2 smashed cloves per quart] and dill [I put a couple of good pinches of dill weed per quart] to
taste. Mix salt, water and vinegar and pour over pickles filling jars. (Any large jars will do.) Leave pickles at room temperature for 3 days [write yourself a note to remember when to put in the fridge]. Refrigerate after that.

Obviously, you can use your math skills to cut it down. An online converter could help with the cups, tablespoons, and teaspoons of the reduction. I posted the recipe in several versions (full, half, 1/4 and 1/8) on the side of the fridge so that just about anyone can make these.

But I didn't want to neglect mentioning The Breastfeeding Cafe which opens TOMORROW, August 1, at the Downtown City Library. Here's a related news story. The Cafe is a wonderful outreach activity put on annually by the Utah Breastfeeding Coalition and La Leche League. Stop on by to learn more about breastfeeding, share your experiences, and support our smallest citizens.

Eating well in the hospital

Click here to view these pictures larger

I need to boost up my iron levels, and my family happily helped by bringing this gorgeous picnic to the hospital. It's grilled steak served over spinach (from the garden) salad with carrots. We had peas with teriyaki dipping sauce on the side.

Green Harvest Part 1

We harvested the first spinach from our garden this weekend. This is especially exciting because it is the first year that our spinach has actually grown into anything worth harvesting. Last night Steve came over, and I made a nice version of the $11 salad. I grilled about 1.6 pounds of NY Steak from our partial cow from Lau Family Farms and served it over raw spinach with the following dressing:

Spicy Miso Dressing for Spinach Salad (Ming Tsai, Food Network 1998)

1/4 c rice wine vinegar
1 T thin soy sauce
2 T light miso paste
1 T sambal olek [that hot chili sauce with the rooster on the jar]
1/2 T sugar
2 T gari (pickled ginger) [check the label for interesting preservatives...]
1 t sesame oil
1/2 c canola oil
1/2 c chopped scallion greens [I just use a bunch, unmeasured, and chop both the whites and greens]
3 c spinach

* suggestions: sliced or shaved carrots add nice color, as do sliced red peppers.
* I use the scallion whites, too.

1. Combine everything from the vinegar to the oil in a jar or bowl and blend or whisk to emulsify. [I used a wide mouth pint canning jar -- everything fit, and I could use my stick blender. It can be done with a fork, but the miso is kind of thick and a blender works much better.]
2. Thoroughly wash, dry, and chop the spinach into salad-sized pieces.
3. Arrange the spinach on a plate, topping with scallion greens and whites, carrot and pepper if you are using it, and grilled meat as you like it. Drizzle with dressing.

Simple and perfect for keeping the heat out of the kitchen.

The leftover dressing is also god as a dipping sauce for other grilled food or as a strong salad dressing. It overwhelms regular lettuce, but darker greens can stand up to it.

Sharing meal prep among friends

A couple of days ago a friend emailed me to ask if we wanted some extra felafel. They had purchased a pack at Costco and feared spoilage before they ate it all. I happily accepted and planned a meal.

This morning I made tatziki sauce (so many possible spellings!) - from 1 c plain yogurt, 1 peeled seeded and chopped cucumber, 1 t red wine vinegar, 1 T olive oil, and about 2 cloves of chopped garlic. It got to rest in the fridge all day. When I got home I put the pre-made felafel into a 350F oven for about 25 minutes to crisp and washed some romaine lettuce. I then assembled entree salads with the romaine, kalamata olives, pepperoncini, felafel, and some roasted beets (discovered in our garden on Saturday - they had grown late in the season and overwintered!) that I tossed into a 1:1 mixture of vinegar and water last night in an effort to recreate the yummy Armenian pickles that they serve at Mazza. We used the tatziki as dressing. I had mixed up a loaf of bread yesterday that J baked, and we rounded out the meal with fresh bread spread with the leftover baba ghanouj that I made on Sunday.

Nice!

Almost Spring Salad

In honor of the fact that it is almost spring I made a yummy entree salad for our dinner party last Saturday (forgot to take photos). I ate the leftover bits for lunch yesterday, and they were great.

The entree salad included the following: roasted asparagus (in season somewhere b/c it was $1.49 a pound at the grocery), pickled beets (home-canned last summer!), crumbled goat cheese, sliced raw red pepper, sliced raw carrot, grilled sirloin (1.75 pounds distributed between 6 adult servings), atop a bed of greens. The dressing was an adaptation of my favorite Macedonian Salad Dressing (it is in Moosewood or referenced elsewhere on this blog): 2 cloves garlic, juice of a lemon, red wine vinegar, a bit of salt, pinch or two of dry thyme, and then olive oil in an approximately 3:1 ratio with the acid ingredients.

My lunch leftovers were the rest of the asparagus, pickled beets, and some goat cheese with the remaining dressing.

We don't tend to use a lot of salt in my house, but during this pregnancy I have really been craving it and adding salt to my plate a lot of the time. Tip for house with toddlers who want their meal just like mommy's - add the salt to your plate in the kitchen rather than at the table where the 2 and 3/4 year old can see you do it. She will want to do it herself and is probably not that adept yet at sprinkling...

Dips! Part 2 - Formerly Dried Tomato Pesto

We had some friends over for dinner last night, and I made some nice appetizers.

You may recall last summer when our dehydrator was going non-stop for weeks, primarily drying our huge crop of small tomatoes. We dried some plain and others with a spice mixture. These tomatoes became our 2nd dip last night.

Formerly Dried Tomato Pesto

Rehydrate 2:1 mixture of spiced and plain tomatoes in as little boiling water as possible for about 30 min. Strain out the water using a fine mesh and put the now softened tomatoes into the work bowl of a food processor. Add some olive oil for lubrication and pulse away. Thanks to the spices added last August, nothing else is needed.

We ate this on bread and crackers, but it could also be used for pasta. Pesto just means 'paste'. It doesn't have to mean basil. Tonight we plan to put some of this on fries.