Lentils with kale and butternut squash

This can either be a hot dish or a cold dish/salad.

1 butternut squash, peeled, roasted and cubed
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 cup lentils
1 1/2 teaspoons red wine vinegar, plus more to taste
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 carrot, diced small
1 rib celery, diced small
1/2 onion, diced small
1/4 teaspoon dried red pepper flakes
1/2 pound chopped kale, about 6 cups
1 clove garlic, minced

Place the lentils in a medium saucepan and cover with water by 2 inches. Season generously with salt and bring just to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and cook until the lentils are tender but firm, about 20 minutes. Drain, rinse well, stir in the vinegar and salt and pepper to taste. While the lentils are cooking, heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the carrot, celery, onion and dried red pepper flakes, and cook until the onions and celery are translucent, about 5 minutes. Rinse the kale under water and add it, still dripping, to the skillet in heaping handfuls. Add the minced garlic and salt to taste, and stir to mix well. Cover the pan, leaving the lid ajar, reduce the heat to low, and cook, stirring occasionally, until the kale is very soft, dark and frazzled looking, about 30 minutes. It should be very sweet. Stir the lentils into the cooked kale, taste and adjust seasoning for salt, pepper and vinegar. Gently stir in about 2 cups of the roasted squash before serving, snd sprinkle with cumin

Roasted cauliflower with paprika

I got a head of cauliflower on sale the other day, and this is a very quick and delicious thing to do with it.

Cut it into large florets. Put a little olive oil in a roasting dish, and toss the cauliflower to coat. Salt and pepper to taste. Roast at 400 degrees until cooked through. Remove, and toss with paprika (I used pimenton, a smoky Spanish paprika).

That's it!

Crockpot sun-dried tomato spaghetti sauce

Oh crockpot, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

This is a really deep, velvety sauce. The sun-dried tomatoes give it an extra dimension of flavor, and if your kids balk at the mushrooms and carrots, you can puree the whole thing when it's done.

2 large cans of whole tomatoes, with juice (or 4 14.5 oz cans)
1 cup sliced mushrooms
1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes, the kind packed in oil, chopped
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/2 chopped green pepper
1/4 cup chopped carrots
2 bay leaves
3 minced garlic cloves
2 teaspoons Italian seasoning
1/2 teaspoon salt
sprinkle of crushed red pepper flakes
1 1/2 cups broth or water

Combine all, cook on low for 9 - 10 hours or high for 5 hours. Serve over pasta.

Crockpot red bean and sweet potato chili

I've been on a crockpot kick lately. (Can you tell?) I also paid off one of my student loans the other day. Which is awesome, but it means I have no cash to go grocery shopping with. That isn't really a problem--I have a fully stocked pantry, as you know--but I am completely out of green things, even frozen spinach, and I'm starting to run low on other basics.

In the meantime, I'm trying to get nutrients without greenery. This combination of red beans, sweet potatoes and tomatoes has lots of vitamins and such, and best of all, requires a bare minimum of effort to throw together. That's why I've been using my crockpot so much lately--been eating a lot of beans and lentils, because it's the end of the month, and because I'm lazy.

1 onion, chopped
1 garlic clove, chopped
1 bell pepper, chopped (I used 1 1/4 jarred roasted red peppers)
6 small sweet potatoes, peeled and diced
4 cups pre-cooked red beans
1 14.5 oz can tomatoes, with juice
Chili powder, cumin and cayenne to taste (I used 2 tablespoons, 1 tablespoon and a healthy sprinkle, respectively)
Broth

Saute the onion, pepper and garlic in olive oil in a skillet (on the stove) until soft. Add the seasonings and the sweet potatoes, and cook for another minute. Dump all this into the crockpot and add the beans, tomatoes, and enough broth to cover. Cook on Low for 6 hours. Salt and pepper to taste.

Butternut squash curry

This is a great four-ingredient curry; five if you count the olive oil.

1 big butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and diced into a small dice
1 can coconut milk
1 tablespoon minced garlic
2 tablespoons curry powder

Heat a couple tablespoons of a neutral oil, like grapeseed or corn (instead of olive oil) in a big pan with a tight-fitting lid over medium heat, and add the garlic and curry. When the garlic starts to color, add the squash and coconut milk. Bring to a boil, cover, and simmer over low until the squash is tender, about 15 minutes. Uncover, raise the heat to medium-high, and let the liquid reduce down, stirring occasionally, 5 to 10 minutes. When it's thick and saucy, salt and pepper to taste, and serve with cilantro and rice.

Shaved winter salad

About this time of year, my body starts craving greenery. Too much starch, too much bean soup, not enough salad. That said, I don't want to buy lettuce that's been hosed down with chemicals and flown in from who-knows-where.

Enter this, the shaved winter salad. Lots of seasonal veggies (and fruit!), lots of fiber, and easy to throw together. It also won't get soggy, like a lot of salads.

1 cup cooked pearl barley or farro
1/2 cup shaved raw butternut or acorn squash (just peel it and take a vegetable peeler to it)
1 pear, shaved (ditto with vegetable peeler)
1/2 bunch carrot greens, chopped (or you could pick apart a few brussels sprouts into individual leaves)
Salt and pepper
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
2-3 tablespoons olive oil

Just mix together and enjoy. Adjust the oil/vinegar/salt and pepper as you see fit.

Warm blue potato salad

I got the most beautiful blue potatoes at the farmer's market a couple of weeks ago, and I finally got around to using them. (Of course you could use regular potatoes, too; waxy ones work best for this.)

2 lbs potatoes, in chunks
salt and pepper
Juice and zest of 1 lemon
2 shallots, finely diced
1 teaspoon Dijon
6 tablespoons olive oil
2 teaspoons capers
Parsley, chopped

Cook the potatoes in boiling salted water until cooked through, and drain. Whisk the lemon juice and zest with the shallots, mustard and olive oil until it becomes an emulsion. Mix that with the potatoes, capers, and parsley. Salt and pepper to taste, and serve warm.

Winter panzanella

Panzanella, in the summer, is a lovely tomato-bread salad, made with capers and olive oil and lemon and is a great way to use up both tomatoes and stale bread.

Obviously there are no good tomatoes this time of year.

So this is a winter panzanella, with roasted butternut squash, stale bread, red onion, olive oil, and red wine vinegar. That's basically the recipe, too: combine roasted diced squash, any kind (or pumpkin) with stale bread cubes and some sliced red onion. Combine the olive oil and red wine vinegar (you don't need a lot, maybe 1 tablespoon oil and 2 tablespoons vinegar for a big bowl) and pour over. Mix well and let sit for a bit.  Serve at room temperature.

White beet salad

While at the winter farmer's market, I found these awesome white beets. All the beet flavor, none of the beet staining!

3 beets, roasted, peeled and sliced
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
Pinch of paprika
Pinch of cumin
salt

Combine the olive oil, lemon juice, and spices in a bowl. Pour over the beets and toss well. Serve chilled or at room temperature.

Acorn squash stuffed with quinoa and chunky pesto

I call it "chunky pesto" because I tried to make a small batch of it in my large food processor--it didn't quite incorporate all the way. So I mixed a little of it in with the quinoa. Regular pesto would work just fine.

1 acorn squash, roasted
1 cup cooked quinoa, mixed with 1/4 cup pesto
1/2 red pepper, diced
Salt and pepper to taste

That's it! Mix the quinoa with the pesto and red pepper, and mound on top of the roasted squash. There. Done.

Kale chips with lime zest and chili powder

I've written about kale chips before, I know, but this version is really superior. Regular kale chips, but with the zest of one lime and a tablespoon or so of chili powder sprinkled on after they come out of the oven. (Plus salt to taste.)

I hate to say it, but they taste like those tortilla chips with lime added. Only, you know, healthy.

Spaghetti with spaghetti squash, dandelion greens, and fresh tomato sauce

Yesterday after work, instead of unpacking, I decided to christen my kitchen.

I also had a bunch of food that needed to be turned into something, pronto, before it went bad--about two weeks' worth of CSA vegetables, nine metric tons of tomatoes (both red and green), and a few gallons of vegetable scrap that needed to become vegetable broth.

To use up the ripe tomatoes, I made a huge batch of salsa, another of tabbouleh, and some sauce that I froze. To use up the green tomatoes, I made fried green tomatoes and a batch of green tomato jam (look for that recipe soon!). Of course, the veg scrap became broth (frozen for later use in soups).

CSA veggies used: cilantro, onion, peppers, and other assorted herbs. Plus dandelion greens and spaghetti squash.

Spaghetti squash, if you're not familiar with it, can be a great substitute for regular spaghetti. When roasted, you can take a fork to the inside of the squash and pull--the resulting squash strings look just like spaghetti (hence the name). I wanted to use up both this squash and the dandelion greens, so I cooked a small amount of regular spaghetti, to beef up the dish a little, and mixed it all with some homemade tomato sauce.

A great quick, filling, vegetarian dish that had the added bonus of using up three things in my fridge. Win!

Of course, you can leave the regular pasta out for a vegan/gluten-free option.

I still have a bunch of green tomatoes left, though. I'm thinking green tomato pie soon.

Ratatouille salad

More things you can make in advance of a hurricane, that can be eaten at room temperature.

Recipe adapted from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian:

1 eggplant, diced
1 large squash or zucchini, diced
1-2 large tomatoes, diced
1 shallot, diced
1-2 garlic cloves, diced
olive oil
fresh thyme
fresh lemon juice

Saute the eggplant in the olive oil for 10 minutes or so, until soft. Remove from the pan and set aside. In the same pan, add a little more oil and saute the squash for about 2 minutes. Add the onion and garlic, cook for 1 minute. Add the tomato and thyme, cook for 1 minute. Empty the pan into the bowl with the eggplant, sprinkle with salt and pepper and lemon juice, and mix together. Can be served cold or at room temperature.

No-mayo coleslaw

As Hurricane Irene lumbered up the East Coast yesterday, I spent the day in hurricane preparation.

Step 1: the usual. Make sure we have plenty of water, candles, batteries, and cash. Bring in everything from outside. Pick everything in the garden. Wash all the dishes and laundry in case we lose power. Charge all the phones.

Step 2: Turn all the perishable food into non-perishable versions.

I had a refrigerator full of vegetables. Normally this is a good thing, but if we lost power, I'd be SOL when it came to transforming those veggies into dinner. (Since I don't have a grill or a propane camp stove or anything.) So I spent yesterday cooking, turning all those veggies into things that could be eaten at room temperature. (I also made bread.)

Tabbouleh. Kale salad. And today's no-mayo slaw, recipe courtesy of Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian.
1 small head red cabbage, shredded
4 medium carrots, shredded
1 bell pepper and 1 jalapeno, shredded
cilantro to taste

Mix those things together. If you're making this in advance of a hurricane, like me, keep the dressing separate until you want to eat the slaw, to keep it from sitting in the fridge for a few days in its own juices and getting soggy.

For the dressing:

2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
juice of 1 1/2 limes
1 small minced garlic clove
1/4 cup peanut or olive oil

Mix together the first three, and add the oil in a steady stream while whisking constantly.

Now, if the power goes out, I have a bare minimum of things that might go bad (mostly the meat in the freezer, and the eggs). All the food I prepared can survive for, and be eaten at, room temperature for several days, saving the space in the cooler for the meat and eggs and whatnot.

Best of all, it's all healthy fresh food, which means we won't have to subsist on granola bars and cold canned soup.

Spaghetti with fennel pollen, orange, garlic and mint

OMG, this is the greatest pasta recipe I've come across in some time.

Only six ingredients, although admittedly one of them--fennel pollen--is a little rare. But I had some! And I had everything else, including homegrown fresh mint! So I made it. Imagine spaghetti, only fruity and light and summery. That's what this tastes like.

Read about fennel pollen, and get the recipe, here.

Reprinted below:

1 pound spaghetti

2 tablespoons unsalted butter
6 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Zest of one large orange
20 to 30 mint leaves, thinly sliced
1 teaspoon fennel pollen
salt to taste
1 to 2 teaspoons lemon juice, if desired (I left this part out)

Bring 3 quarts of water to boil in a large pot with 1/4 cup kosher salt and cook spaghetti until tender but still firm. Stir occasionally, especially when first adding spaghetti.

While spaghetti boils, melt butter over medium-low heat in a wide skillet. When butter is melted, add garlic and cook for one minute.

When spaghetti is done, strain from pot and add to skillet along with olive oil, orange zest, mint, and fennel pollen. Stir until pasta is thoroughly coated with oil and is highly fragrant. Add salt to taste and lemon juice, if desired. Serve immediately.

Fennel, grapefruit and shallot salad

1 fennel bulb, sliced/shaved very thinly (that's the part at the bottom, not the stalks or fronds)
1 large grapefruit (or orange), segmented, with white pith removed
1/2 to 1 shallot, peeled and sliced very thinly
salt and pepper
Good olive oil

That's it. Combine, and use the best olive oil you can.

Because I'm not a huge fan of fennel, I let the fennel and grapefruit hang out together for a couple of days, with a little of the grapefruit juice, to help meld the flavors. I then added the shallot and let that sit together for another day.

Verdict: the grapefruit helped cut the fennel-ness of the fennel; I imagine using an orange (which is sweeter) would help even more. A nice, crisp, light summer salad.

Carrot and cilantro salad

4-5 carrots, grated (a food processor grating blade works great for this)
1/2 bunch cilantro, chopped

For dressing:

2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon honey
1/4 cup cider vinegar
1/2 cup grapeseed or canola oil
salt and pepper

Mix the carrots and cilantro together. If you grated your carrots in the food processor, use that to make the dressing. Combine all but the oil, whir, and add the oil in a slow stream until emulsified. (Or whisk together in a small bowl.) Add dressing to carrots just before serving.

Cool, quick, cheap, tasty. The perfect summer salad. (And in my opinion, a more flavorful and less mayonnaise-y alternative to slaw.)

Bok choy with fried shallots

Part of my CSA box this week was two heads of bok choy. In winter, I would have thrown them into a soup. But in summer, I try to avoid soup when possible.

Bonus: this recipe allowed me to use both the bok choy and the last of the shallots. The fried shallots were great--sort of like milder, mini-onion rings. Without the breading.

From epicurious:

1 cup vegetable oil
1/2 pound shallots (about 6), thinly sliced crosswise and separated into rings
1 1/4 teaspoons kosher salt
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 3/4 pounds baby bok choy, halved lengthwise if large (2 to 2 1/2 inches long), bottoms trimmed but left intact

Heat a wok or 12-inch heavy skillet over moderate heat until a drop of water vaporizes instantly. Pour oil around side of wok, then tilt wok to swirl oil, coating side. When oil just begins to smoke, fry shallots in 3 batches, stirring, until golden brown, 3 to 5 minutes per batch. Transfer with a slotted spoon to paper towels to drain. Toss fried shallots with 1/4 teaspoon salt (shallots will crisp as they cool).

Pour off all but 3 tablespoons oil from wok, then add garlic, bok choy, and remaining teaspoon salt to wok and cook over moderate heat, covered, stirring occasionally, until crisp-tender, about 5 minutes. Serve topped with fried shallots.

Potato curry

Potatoes, potatoes, potatoes everywhere. Somehow, through the last weeks of the CSA and the backlog I already had, I have accumulated roughly 15 pounds--EACH--of potatoes and sweet potatoes. I got a lot of potatoes I need to get through.

So I made a potato curry. Not the most starch-free dish, by any stretch of the imagination, but I put some frozen peas in it. That makes it healthy and full of vegetables, right?

7-8 peeled, chopped potatoes
1 chopped onion
1 tablespoon butter
1 chopped jalapeno
1 inch or so of peeled, chopped fresh ginger
1 tablespoon mustard seeds
3-4 tablespoons curry powder
3 cups water
1 package frozen peas
Basmati rice, cooked (I used brown basmati)

Heat the butter, and add the onion, jalapeno, ginger, mustard seeds, and salt and pepper. Let cook for 5 minutes or until soft. Add the curry powder and cook an additional 2 minutes or os. Add the potatoes, stir well to coat, and add the water. Bring that to a boil, then cover, lower heat, and let simmer 15 minutes. When the potatoes are soft, remove the lid, turn the heat back up, and let boil for a few minutes to reduce the water. Add the peas, cook maybe 1 minute longer, and serve hot over rice.

Apple-cabbage slaw

A great slaw, with no mayo required.

From Food52:

1 cup apple, thinly sliced

2 cups green cabbage, thinly sliced
1 tablespoon fresh ginger, grated on a microplane
1 small red onion, finely diced
3 tablespoons fresh cilantro, finely chopped
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar, (organic if possible)
2 tablespoons olive oil
salt and pepper, to taste

Mix together. Enjoy.