Winter Panzanella

It has been a terribly long time since the last post, but I'm back on the horse again! 

Paul and I were looking for some winter dinner inspiration, and I found a recipe for a delicious sounding winter panzanella. Paul loves Brussels sprouts, I love butternut squash -- seemed like a good choice. 

We didn't have sherry vinegar, so we made a concoction of sherry and white wine vinegar to soak the red onions, which I'm not sure came out the way it should have. I also totally spaced on using the gray salt, and instead used regular salt with the onions. Oops. I thought there were too many raw onions (and raw onion taste) -- maybe flavor was dulled by using the wrong salt and the lack of sherry vinegar? 

Enjoying the winter colors (and our new camera which captures them quite well)!

Overall, I think it turned out pretty good. As the author of the post (and others) commented, you certainly use a lot of dishes! I would definitely roast both the squash and the croutons together in the future. I'd also do less red onion -- while pretty, I don't need much raw onion to give me that onion-ey taste. Paul and I also thought the addition of chick peas or cannellini beans would be good in the future. Lastly, I'd actually use sherry vinegar instead of whatever crazy mixture we made in hopes of getting the correct flavor next time!

Mushroom Risotto

It's an oldie, but a goodie in our household. Now that I'm back "on" with mushrooms, Paul gets really excited about making this mushroom risotto.

We usually use a bag of mixed dried mushrooms or dried porcinis. For the fresh mushrooms, we used shiitakes, which were looking lovely.  I also had absolutely no idea that Mario suggests using red onion instead of a white or yellow onion. We have never used a red -- I guess my brain just glossed over the part while we read the ingredients. We also use sherry instead of vin santo, but I think that works just as well.

Paul is perfecting (he's pretty close) his risotto-making, and has it down from start (oil in the pan, cooking the mushrooms) to finish (mixing in the butter and cheese) in about 30 minutes. Top with a little freshly grated Parmesan cheese, alongside a leafy green salad and you're good to go!


*Also makes for good lunchtime leftovers.

Shiitakes!

Serving 1 (there may have been a second helping).

Chickpea and Spinach Curry

I found this super easy recipe in Real Simple magazine -- and have made it a couple times since. It's fast and simple to make, with many of the needed ingredients typically available in your kitchen (chickpeas, onion, frozen spinach, etc). I really appreciate go-to meals that you can make fresh, but that don't need a ton of work or prep ahead of time during the week.

Cooking the onion, garlic and ginger before adding the curry powder.

This is easily ready in 30 minutes, if the spinach is thawed. To defrost it quickly, I usually pop it in the microwave, and nuke it for 1 minute to 30 second increments to get it to soften without cooking it completely.

Mixing in the chickpeas, spinach and water before simmering.

Yogurt, cilantro and cucumber mixture.

They had me at "Greek yogurt." This topping mixture came out similar to tzatziki or raita.

Tossed a little warm pita in there, and we're good to go!

I agree with the commentator on the recipe -- it wasn't particularly spicy, so you can add more curry powder or top with Sriracha sauce (which is what we usually do when it comes to adding spice at the end). You can do this to taste at the very end, especially if you have people with different tolerance for spice levels.

Winter Vegetables and Bulgur

I love roasted vegetables. They are probably one of my favorite (and easiest) things to cook, especially during the cold winter months. I found this recipe, and was immediately excited about making it for two reasons: A) I had never used bulgur before and B) this would use up many of the tasty vegetables in my produce basket. 

We used a turnip, a squash, carrots and parsnips. I chose to roast the vegetables (in the oven), instead of sautéing them -- so our cook time was a little longer than the recipe suggests.

My angle was a little off on this one. Sorry for the peek of Valentine's Day towel.

I sautéd the onion and added some minced garlic, before combining the roasted vegetables. I also used 1/2 cup of white wine and 3 cups of vegetable stock (instead of 4 cups of stock). 

With the spinach leaves mixed in at the end.

Apparently, I am showcasing all my seasonal towels today.

It was quite tasty! I would definitely recommend making this, especially if you have vegetables to saute or roast that would work well together. It made a big amount as well, so we had leftovers for lunches later that week.

Enjoy!

June 14: Ratatouille Salad with Quinoa

We had gotten some yummy looking zucchini in the produce basket, and thought we'd make a delicious vegetable ratatouille salad for dinner. We decided to add some chickpeas to liven it up, and made some quinoa to go underneath the salad. 

I got started trimming and cubing the eggplant.
 

See the bright green book in the background? It's become my go-to. You could play, "Find Mark Bittman's book in Christine's blog photos!" if you're really bored.

Add two tablespoons of oil, warmed to medium heat. Once the pan is hot, toss the eggplant into the pan, add salt, pepper and cook for about 10 minutes, until the eggplant is soft. 

I got to work getting the other ingredients prepped while the eggplant was cooking, and tossed some quick cooking quinoa on the stove (no exciting photos of that move).

Medium zucchini, small onion and medium tomato: CHOPPED.

Take out the eggplant and let it dry on some paper towels. 

Softened and seasoned.

Add the remaining 2 tablespoons of olive oil, and then add in the zucchini. Cook for about 2 minutes, then add in the onion and garlic. Cook this for another minute or two, then add in the chopped tomatoes and thyme (I also added a can of drained, rinsed chickpeas here). Cook everything down for just another minute, then pull off the heat.  Mix in lemon juice, salt and pepper.

Before mixing in the eggplant. So colorful!

Add the cubed eggplant, the vegetable mixture and the pan juices/dressing into one big bowl and mix thoroughly.

Warm, vegetable-y goodness.

The recipe says to let it cool to room temperature. I don't think we let it get that cold. Paul was busy working on taking the broken tv off the tv mount while this was going on (I was supervising, obviously), so we probably let it sit for about 10 minutes. Here is the salad on top of a bed of quinoa.

I'll need to have some ice cream to balance all these vegetables out.

This recipe was really easy to make, and very tasty. I'm sure you can make it with lots of different sides -- rice, pasta, a bed of spinach, etc. You could also top it with some feta or Parmesan. I imagine it's really good alongside some fish or meat as well, especially one that incorporates Mediterranean flavors. I liked that the vegetables still had some bite to them -- that they didn't fall apart or get too mushy while you were cooking them. 

I may have to make this one more time before all the summer vegetables are gone! Who can resist summer tomatoes and squash? Happy eating!

June 8: Carrot Soup with Cilantro alongside Brie and Spinach Grilled Cheese

As part of our 5 nights of blog posts resurgence, we chose one of the hottest days of the year to make soup. (Oh well.) We saw a recipe in our weekly produce newsletter for Carrot Soup with Cilantro, and decided it would be delicious with sourdough grilled cheese sandwiches.

I almost ran out of room on this cutting board. Holy carrots.

Chop up a ton of carrots (1 1/2 pounds), then add 1/2 pound of cubed sweet potatoes and one diced apple. We used a Gala apple we had in the house.

Woohoo, beta carotene.

This recipe was our first time using fennel seeds! Toast the fennel seeds in the pan with the heated vegetable oil for about 3 minutes before adding in the other ingredients.

Whatever, people. We were excited.

Then add the carrots, apple and sweet potatoes into the pot and cook for 5 minutes.

Someone (okay, me) was getting a little frantic trying to get the last ingredients (rice, turmeric, vegetable stock and bay leaf) in the pot, and may have caused a bit of a turmeric explosion. You know what stains? Turmeric. Paul had an interesting clean up idea.

I have to admit, it worked. Paper towels made it smeary.

Okay, back to the task at hand. Everything was finally in the pot. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer for about 30 minutes to get all the vegetables to soften.

While the soup cooked, Paul started making the spinach and brie sandwiches. We had gotten some great savoy spinach in the produce box, so we washed and chopped up the leaves.

We lightly buttered slices of sourdough bread, filled with spinach leaves and slices of brie cheese. We toasted these on the stove much like regular grilled cheese sandwiches.

Once the soup was finished cooking, I strained out the vegetables (and the bay leaf, which you throw away) and pureed them in batches in the food processor with a little bit of the broth. The directions said to just use a little bit of broth to puree the vegetables, but I still had quite a bit of broth left over once I finished pureeing everything. I decided to stir in the thickened puree with the remaining broth in the pot, while on a low heat. This helped incorporate the two together. I figured this would make it more soup-like vs. a plain vegetable puree.

Soup!

We topped the soup with a little chopped cilantro.

Do not adjust your television sets. It was really this bright orange.

The small grilled cheese sandwiches also came out nicely.

Crunchy toasted bread with cheese AND a vegetable? Yes, please.

While the soup wasn't the quickest to make, it was pretty easy. Even without cream, it was not too thin. I wasn't a fun of the light brie, and would go for regular brie next time. I did think the spinach leaves gave it a nice touch. I think the soup/sandwich combo will be a part of our easy dinner rotation.