Cherry Tomatoes with Asian Greens and Garlic

I was having the kind of work day which I wished would end. I love my job is so many ways--I'm a teacher and I love my students and my subject. But I really don't like marking student notebooks. It's an essential part of my job and so I do it a lot. But I was having the kind of day in which success at marking had to be be achieved by comfort eating chocolate at the same time. Ugh.

By the time a class set of books were marked, I think I had eaten four mini bars of mint chocolate and three mini packs of M&Ms. My stomach felt awful but I was so relieved to be finished. I packed up and left from a twelve hour day. Dinner could be simple, since my husband was not going to be present. In the end, all I wanted to eat was a bowl of vegetables. Do you have days like this?

"Green Things" Pesto

While I am cooking, I set aside all the little green scraps. I keep them in the fridge until I have collected a large handful or two. Then I make "green things" pesto to use up the delicious green leftovers.

Seven Foods for Healthy Hair

I don't know how to have a good hair day. I recently got a new hair cut and colour; sophisticated is going to be my style henceforth. However, "natural" (also known as "frizzy mess") has been my default hair style for many years. I had to go out and buy a hair dryer yesterday. And I am determined to have more good hair days.


I bought two "hair styling for dummies" books. Both contain a section about food for healthy hair. Of course, I gravitate to the food section in any book! (Plus, reading about food meant I could put off the nervous moment when I had to pick up my new hair dryer.)

Thanksgiving Ideas

All the Americans around me are getting excited for Thanksgiving this week! Here are a few ideas for Thanksgiving dinner.

• Winter squash bread pudding (pictured above)

The Daring Cooks - Recipes with Tea

I have been a proud Daring Cook for several years and it is my absolute pleasure to host the group this month! This month I challenged the Daring Cooks to make a savoury recipe with tea.

I have always enjoyed learning new skills and trying new recipes with the Daring Cooks. They are always so inventive, so I gave them free rein to make one of my three recipes (below) or cook any other recipe with tea. They were able to choose to use black, green, or herbal tea. And there were so many great ideas! I am very grateful for the chance to host the Cooks and thrilled to enjoy what they came up with.

bacon-fried greens

I have two main dinner strategies when time is tight and inspiration is waning:

1. The "all in one" strategy: Make a hearty salad-ish dish, warm or cold, with lots of veggies and maybe a bit of meat (for example, the peach and pumpkin salad or aubergine with black eyed beans).

2. The "side as main" strategy: Make a big amount of my current favourite side dish and make it into a meal by adding a piece of meat or fish on the side (for example, veggie pancakes or a warm black cabbage salad).

eggs with potatoes and greens (oeufs vert-pre)

I like to learn new things--hence this blog, and also copious link lists of things to read, printouts of journal articles in my work bag, CDs with new languages on it, and stacks of books next to the couch. I guess it's good practice to learn something new each week. What will it be this week? Poaching eggs. The proper way.

weekend links #7

food links:
--A look into the military rations of the soldiers serving in Afghanistan (from The New York Times). It's fascinating to see what each country provides. For example, one country gives each soldier three mini toothbrushes with each day's ration package.
--WWOOF, an organisation that connects organic farms with people who want to visit them and work there.

recipe links:
--Kale chips (from Sugarlaws). I guess I am part of the "bulgur and quinoa set" that Katy describes.
--A lovely looking Indial lentil recipe: dal nirvana (from Steamy Kitchen).
--Two beautiful salads: succotash (from Kitchenist) and quail egg and gorgonzola salad (from Lucullian Delights).
--Pickled, spiced grapes (from The Kitchn). What a clever idea that sounds delicious. Make it before a party.

off-topic links:
--A really neat plate arrangement on the kitchen wall (from The Kitchn). I wish I wasn't renting at the moment because then I would be able to do this.
--A graph to use in teaching (from Indexed).
--A genius idea for organising kids' clothes so they can dress themselves in the morning (from I'm an Organizing Junkie). This also would make packing for trips dead easy.

pumpkin and peach salad with lemon grass dressing

This is salad that definitely got me out of a rut! The Paperchef challenge this month made me put together ingredients I would not have thought of combining before. But the results were brilliant. The challenge required that I use pumpkin, peach, capers, and lemon grass. Capers, mostly from France or Italy, and lemon grass, from Asia, do not seem like obvious friends. But they taste great together, and made a delicious main dish salad.

curried aubergine and black-eyed beans

After a long day, I think, Oh, no! I forgot to plan my meals this week and I have no idea what to eat for dinner. With a nervously sad face, I look at which veggies are in my fridge. One evening I was faced with aubergine (eggplant) and an onion.

amaranth, chive, and goat's cheese frittata

This beautiful vegetable is amaranth, also called Chinese spinach. It's common and widely used in Africa and Asia; also, it's super healthy, like regular spinach. (Note: all veggies are super healthy!) I buy it in these massive bunches from my local "wet market" and use it any time spinach would be used, for example, in this colourful and tasty frittata.

One-Pot Cooking: Greens with a Poached Egg

We have been moving this past week, hence the dearth of updates. Everything in the kitchen was getting slowly put in boxes, making cooking meals increasingly difficult. When I only had one pot left, I cooked myself this poached egg at the same time as boiling a few greens. Thankfully the toaster was also still out of its box, so a meal was made.

fragrant spinach and turkey

Nigel Slater's distinctive handwriting adorns the top of my new cookbook: The 30-Minute Cook: The Best of the World's Quick Cooking. I was so happy to receive it as a gift from Sonya for my birthday: Nigel is my new favourite, friendly writer. I was watching him on TV recently. "I'm a cook, not a chef," he says. This cookbook is full of practical ideas for the home cook. I can't wait to try out loads of them, like Turkish Carrots (with mint and yoghurt).

The first small green sticky note landed on a recipe for fragrant spinach. I adapted the side dish recipe by adding onions and turkey pieces and served it as a main with bulgur wheat. As always, the current contents of the fridge meant that a few substitutions had to be made. And a hungry husband with a love of non-vegetarian food is my other eater, so he had to be satisfied.

The recipe includes a technique which is new for me. At the very end of the recipe, Nigel directed me to melt some butter in a pan and add garam masala for a short time, until it foamed (as pictured below). Then I poured this onto the main part of the dish. This adds a deep, nutty spice to the earthy spinach.

Fragrant Spinach with Turkey
adapted from The 30-Minute Cook
serves 2

1 onion, thinly sliced
1 T olive oil
1 turkey or chicken breast, diced
4 large double handfuls of spinach (about 400 g), washed, and sliced if large
1/2 t harissa paste
1/2 t cumin
1/2 t mustard powder
1/2 t fennel seeds
2 T butter
1/2 t garam masala
juice of 1 lemon

Heat the olive oil in a large pan and gently sautee the onions.
Add the diced turkey or chicken and cook until it is no loner pink.
Meanwhile, boil a pan of water and plunge the spinach into the pan for 30 seconds. Drain.
Add the harissa paste, cumin, mustard, and fennel to the onions and turkey. Cook until their fragrance rises and then add the spinach. Cook for a minute.
In another pan, melt the butter over low heat and add the garam masala. Let it foam. Pour the foaming butter over the spinach mixture. Top with a squeeze of lemon juice to serve.

house dressing

As part of my degree, I spent a semester in Budapest, in Hungary. I lived on my own and was away from my family for the first extended period in my life. I made a great group of friends on the course, and learned to cook for myself for the first time (there were a few hilarious disasters along the way!). I went armed with The Joy of Cooking and a pink notebook with a few favourite family recipes copied in.

I was somewhat in awe of my friend Kate. She had a more well-defined notion of herself as an individual than I at that time. She was a vegetarian who loved to cook and regularly had our little circle around to eat. I still have a few of her recipes, copied into my pink notebook from her well thumbed cookbooks.


Over the years I have kept in closer touch with Sarah, one of my friends from Budapest, than with Kate. But when Sarah came to visit me recently she brought with her two cookbooks as a gift for me, one of which is the Moosewood Restaurant Daily Special. Sarah chose it for me because she also owns the Moosewood book, and got as a present from Kate. When I reconnected with Kate last year I told her about the cookbook. Every time I use it I think of how influenced I was by Kate's delicious cooking.


The house dressing recipe from the Moosewood book is an easy, tasty, and versatile mix. Simply combine all the bits and blend it up.

Moosewood House Dressing
makes 2 1/4 c
adapted from Moosewood Restaurant Daily Special

1 c canola or other vegetable oil
3 T cider vinegar or fresh lemon juice
2 t mild honey
1/4 c rinsed spinach leaves, packed
1/4 c fresh basil leaves, loosely packed
2 t Dijon mustard
1/4 t salt, or to taste
pinch pepper
1 c milk or buttermilk

Combine all the ingredients except the milk or buttermilk. Puree until smooth.
With the blender running, add the milk or buttermilk in a thin stream. The dressing will become thick and creamy. As soon as the dressing thickens, stop the blender or the oil may separate.
The dressing will keep for about a week in the refrigerator. Shake before using.

superfood salad

Here's a recipe from the Leon cookbook, which I love. Ant and Kirbie and I enjoyed this salad a few weeks ago when we were eating leftover roast chicken one day. I just happened to have the key items on hand: broccoli, cucumber, seeds (to be toasted) and peas. It was super tasty. I made some aioli to use in the dressing, but messed it up a bit by not reading the instructions through--we were in a hurry!

Below is the original Leon recipe, complete with instructions for marinading the chicken overnight. But I think it's a perfect salad for using up leftover chicken (or any protein item) you have on hand. Also, the recipe calls for very little quinoa. Since you're boiling the water anyway, cook a larger amount and use it to make your lunch salad.

Chicken Superfood Salad
serves 2
from Leon: Ingredients and Recipes

2 T quinoa
1/2 a head of broccoli
300 g chicken thighs, marinated overnight (see below)
2 handfuls of rocket
2 handfuls of baby spinach
2 tomatoes, chopped
120 g frozen peas
1 lemon
2 T extra virgin olive oil
alfalfa sprouts
3 T aioli
2 T toasted seeds (pumpkin, sesame, and pine nuts, for example)
chopped mint and parsley

Cook quinoa according to package directions.
Heat a griddle pan and grill the chicken.
Steam or boil the broccoli.
Pour boiling water over the peas to thaw them, then drain.
Build the salad on two plates: layer leaves, tomatoes, broccoli, peas, the juice of half the lemon, olive oil.
Put the chicken on top, and sprinkle with quinoa, sprouts, aioli, seeds, and herbs. Serve with the other half of the lemon cut as wedges.

Chicken Marinade

Cut each thigh into four portions and marinade overnight with 2 T olive oil, 3 T lemon juice, and 1 or 2 garlic cloves.

bacon and spinach pancakes

I have been working my way through vast quantities of chard recently, which arrives semi-regularly in our veg box. This recipe called for spinach, but it was easy to substitute chard by very quickly boiling it before adding it to the recipe. This recipe is another "Two for One", where half the food is frozen for another day. I made a half recipe so that we had four pancakes to eat and four to freeze, rather than double this. (The original, larger, recipe is below.)

The filling is a mixture of cooked greens, bacon, cream cheese and cottage cheese, seasoned well.


Making the pancakes was quite fun. I added some whole wheat flour to them. The first one was rubbish, but the cookbook had this reassuring statement: "The first one is always the most tricky and you may find you have to give that one up to trial and error." That was certainly the case, but then I was short on batter. The last two pancakes were a lot smaller.

Bacon and Spinach Pancakes
two meals for four people

Pancakes:
2 c flour
3 large eggss
1 2/3 c milk
3/4 c water

Filling:
mild oil
400 g bacon, about 12 rashers, snipped into small pieces
2 bunches of spring onions
500 g spinach (or greens)
40 g Parmesan
300 g garlic and her cream cheese
300 g cottage cheese
4 t butter

Make the pancake batter by mixing the flour and some salt, then add the eggs, milk, and water. Stir well to make a smooth batter.
Heat a little oil in a large pan with a lid. Add the bacon, cook for a few minutes, then add the spring onions. Cover and leave for a couple of minutes.
Add the spinach, and when it starts to wilt, raise the heat to reduce the liquid in the pan and remove from heat.

Meanwhile, mix all but 1 T Parmesan with the cream cheese and cottage cheese. Season with salt and pepper.

Preheat the oven to 200 C/400 F.
Make the pancakes by heating a heavy pan with some oil. Pour in just enough batter to cover the base. when the pancake can be lifted, loosen it around the edges and flip it over. Cook both sides to that the pancake is golden. Make eight pancakes, using half the batter.

Once the spinach mixture has cooled slightly, mix with the cheeses. Use half the spinach mixture, divided between the eight pancakes, to make filled pancakes, rolled up.
Put the pancakes into the oven in a buttered pan, with the remaining Parmesan scattered on top, for 15-20 minutes.
While these are baking, make the other eight pancakes and fill them using the remaining filling. Wrap these in foil and freeze for another day.

On the day of reheating, defrost the pancakes thoroughly and bake as above.

quiche

When I got engaged my family church hosted a bridal shower for me. But since I was moving straight to the UK after our wedding, I asked all the ladies in the church to give me their favourite recipes instead of gifts. One of these was for spinach quiche. I made it recently and realised why it was a much used recipe in the home of the lady who gave it to me: it relies mostly on pantry staples, is filling, and easy. Two amazingly easy features: the crust does not require rolling out, nor does the crust need to be baked before adding the filling.

Spinach Quiche

Crust:
1 c flour
1/2 t salt
1/4 c oil
2 T milk

Filling:
2 kg frozen or fresh spinach, greens, or chard
1 c yogurt
1 small onion, chopped
2 T oil
2 eggs
1/2 c dried milk powder
1/2 t salt
1/3 c grated fresh Parmesan cheese

Combine the flour and salt. Add oil and milk and mix with a fork. Spread in nine inch pie plate with your fingers.
Wash and cook the spinach lightly in only a little water, until just limp. Drain and chop well.
Heat oil in frying pan, add onion and spinach and cook for a few minutes, until onion is tender soft.
In a bowl, beat eggs and stir in yogurt, milk powder, and salt. Add spinach and onions. Stir together and pour into unbaked crust.
Sprinkle with cheese and bake at 375 F/190 C for 25 minutes, until firm and starting to brown.

The dried milk powder adds protein and calcium, but can be omitted.

weeknight eating

When I am not feeling up to a big production, I make a hearty salad for dinner. This involves getting together all the veg in the fridge, adding grains or beans, perhaps, and a protein item to balance on top. Recently my protein item of choice has been eggs, either hard boiled or poached. The salad above was the most recent, and Ant accepted this as his one vegetarian meal this fortnight. (Have I told you this? He has stated that he will accept one veggie meal per fortnight, with no rollover of unused meals into the next fortnight!) In the salad at the top of this post I used salad leaves; broccoli, carrots, and onions that I lightly fried together; red quinoa; and two eggs.


Sarah and I made this salad (above) while I was visiting her in Bath. It has quinoa; chard, courgette, and onions that we fried together; some sprouts; and a poached egg on top.

And finally, below is a larger shot of a salad that used to be in the header bar on this blog. There's no grain this time, so I served it with pumpernickel bread.


Most of these salads are very simply dressed with a vinaigrette: a bit more olive oil than vinegar, whisked together with pepper and herbs or spices. Warm salad feels like a good meal: I tend to cook some of the heavier vegetables (in the photo below it was chard, mushrooms, and garlic that were cooked) Quite often the grains or beans are warm and the eggs or chicken or ham on top are usually freshly cooked, or warmed up.


Making a salad like this is healthy, fresh, and easy. Sometimes I do it just to use up all the random things from the veg box that are cluttering up the fridge. There's no set plan to these meals, just toss together everything we have and enjoy!

chard utopia

Mum and Dad gave me a new cookbook while we were visiting with them in August: Simply in Season. It's a companion cookbook to the Mennonite classic More with Less, which I have loved and used for years. Today I used it to make a variation of spanikopita called Chard Utopia (!) for our church harvest lunch tomorrow. It was my first time working with filo (or phyllo) pastry and very exciting it was too. First I chopped up mounds of greens, including chard, rocket, and the one that Sainsbury's simply labels "greens".


I added feta cheese, and garlic.


Then I layered the greens mixture with the pastry sheets, each one brushed with olive oil. It came out a lovely golden brown colour, but we will have to wait until tomorrow to see if it tastes good.

soup

I pulled up all the rocket left in my growing tub yesterday. It was getting a bit woody and too peppery to eat raw. So I was excited to use it all up in a soup recipe from my new favourite cookbook, GI Meals Made Easy.


The soup also uses finely chopped onion, courgette, new potatoes, and garlic, shown here from right to left. After some sauteing and sweating, and stock added, the soup is blended with the wonderful invention of the handheld immersion blender. Ant did this part because I am notoriously messy with the blender.


The addition of some goat's cheese topped off the lovely light green soup.

Rocket and Goat's Cheese Soup
adapted from GI Meals Made Easy: 150 Quick and Delicious Meals for All the Family

1 T olive oil
10 g butter
1 leek, sliced
1 medium or large courgette, sliced
2 cloves garlic, crushed
3 new potatoes, diced
600 ml vegetable stock
100 g rocket
75g firm goat's cheese

Heat the oil and butter and saute the leek, courgette, garlic, and potato over high heat for 1-2 minutes. Then reduce heat, cover, and allow to sweat for 8-10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Pour in the stock and bring to the boil. Simmer for 10 minutes. Add rocket and simmer for 5 minutes. Blend the soup.
Crumble in goat's cheese when serving.