New, yummy food from the weekend

Last Thursday I had the pleasure of receiving a wonderful new cookbook in the mail!  I rarely buy cookbooks anymore - I find I don't really use them too much!  But I have been a follower of the wonderful Smitten Kitchen blog for a couple years now, and she put out this lovely thing just recently.  I love her style of cooking and writing and will save an email about her newest post from her blog for last in the morning.  So I can savor it and enjoy it!

I made two different things from it on Sunday, after a whole bunch of cooking on Saturday.  Saturday I made the red lentil sauce and greens and beans that I previously gave the recipes for, and also cooked some dried chickpeas- in anticipation of making of Crispy Cumin Chickpeas.  I also was totally intrigued by the idea of using spaghetti squash in a taco.  Weird sounding, I know, but it was divine!!  

Fantastic book- many vegetarian options in here, plus wonderful baking recipes.

Spaghetti squash and Black Bean tacos

Start off by cooking a spaghetti squash, either in the oven or like I did for 10 minutes in the micro.  Make sure you pierce the squash with a knife in several places.

After it is soft, let it cool for a little while- 15 minutes or so, cut in half and scoop out the seeds.  Then shred the squash into strands.

Mix together the juice of one lime, and chili powder, cumin, coriander, and salt.  Add to the squash.

Rinse and drain a can of black beans

Assemble the taco- a spoon or two of squash, 2 tablespoons of beans, a sprinkle of feta and chopped onion.  I sprinkled mine with cayenne pepper, you could also use taco sauce.

The lime and spice infused spaghetti squash is so good!! It is a real surprise. Next time, I would add the cayenne to the squash, I wanted a little more spice.

Spaghetti Squash and Black Bean Tacos

3 lbs. Spaghetti squash

2 Tablespoons lime juice (juice of one lime)

1 tsp chili powder

1/2 tsp cumin

1/2 tsp coriander

1/2 tsp coarse ground salt

pepper to taste

Cayenne pepper

Corn tortillas or wraps

1 can of black beans, rinsed and drained

feta cheese or queso fresco

diced onion

Cook the Spaghetti squash in the oven or in the microwave.

Let cool briefly, split, seed and remove flesh from skin.  Discard skin

Mix lime juice with spices, mix into spaghetti squash, set aside

Heat the tortillas or wraps.  Add 2 Tablespoons of squash to wrap, 2 Tablespoons of black beans, sprinkle with cheese and onion.

Of course add other stuff as you want- tomato, lettuce, taco sauce, etc.  SO GOOD!

SO

As I was reading through the cookbook and came across a recipe that had these crispy chickpeas as a garnish and knew I wanted to try them out.  It was included in an eggplant recipe, and I'm sorry, but our grocery store has nasty huge eggplants.  I just can't.  I will look for good little ones when i get out of town.  In the mean while, I will snack on these little gems.  Next time I will add chili powder.

Calorie count- LESS THAN 100 calories for one taco, if you use a low carb wrap!!  WINNER!!!  DINGDINGDINGDING!!!!

CRISPY CHICKPEAS

I prepared dried chickpeas previous to this.

2 cups of chickpeas
2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp salt
ground pepper

Preheat oven to 450
Combine chickpeas that have been patted dry with the oil and spices.  Pour onto a baking sheet, and bake for 30 - 40 min. Roll them around occasionally and check for crispiness.

These are really good too, and I will probably put them on top of something, if they last through my snacking!  HA!

I haven't figured out the calories for this yet- I'd guess about 1/4 cup is around 100 calories

Until next time- be a joy giver!

tomatoes, zucchini and cucumbers, oh my! Fresh tomato soup with a jar of pickles

I spent a lot of the past couple days doing some cooking, because I have enough produce sitting around to feed a small army!  It seems like just a tiny bit of excess veggies makes an enormous amount of food, too!  I made a batch of fresh tomato soup and it makes about 6 - 8 cups of soup, but only uses up like 5 tomatoes!  Not helpful if you have a benchful of them!!

So I got out my Mad-Cooking apron (not really, but is sounds like a super hero cape, so I'm going with that visual) and began a cooking spree that has been 3 days in the making.

I will reshare my fresh tomato soup recipe here, along with some in process pix, and also the steps to making Bread and Butter pickles.  I LOVE both of these recipes so much!  In my next installment I will give the rough directions to 2 new salads that I made this weekend....  They are pretty darn great as well, but no step by step!

Alright- to start with, if you don't have a compost pile, you will certainly be able to start one if you make this soup and the pickles, not to mention the Bean salad and zucchini salad that will follow shortly.  My goodness, I can't tell you the number of times my icecream pail filled up over the course of the last few days- wait that is a lie.  I CAN tell you that it is 5 times in the past 3 days.  Not that I am counting.  But I was, which I hate, because I really don't care to count things, until someone points something countable out, and then I am off.......   Oy.  Never mind.

Fresh tomato soup is a wonderful base recipe that can be altered and adjusted and added to as you like. It started off as a simple, summer, supper soup (love that alliteration, don't you??) but has taken on a life of its own as I share it with others. It is so interesting to hear what people do to this recipe.  Variations and alterations are a natural here, and I'd LOVE to hear what your idea is!  My friend Laurie, the Mad-Science teacher, has added barley to her version and my friend Luann, was the one who introduced me to the idea of using whatever veggie you have hanging out in the frig.  This particular version has sweet corn in it, but the original recipe is my favorite- carrots, onions, red peppers and celery.  OF course with tomatoes.

The tomatoes were really nice this year AND it managed not to frost in August!!!  YAY

 Dice up your nice fresh tomatoes to equal 4 cups - this recipe EASILY doubles.... or more if you have a big enough pan!

I don't peel the skin, but you may if it bothers you!

 I bought organic celery and peppers since they are part of the "dirty dozen" veggies when it comes to pesticide residue. Carrots and onions are from the garden and ARE organic!

Of course I washed the carrots better!!!

Dice the veggies

 Saute and then simmer the veggies in a big pan for about 15 min.

 I added some corn to this batch since there was some left over from a meal.

 Add the broth, tomatoes, curry, sugar and salt/pepper.  Cook about 10 more minutes.

 Add flour and water mixture and cook until thickened.

Fresh Tomato Soup

Saute:
2 cups sliced carrots
1 cup chopped celery
1 small chopped onion
1/2 c. green (or red sweet) pepper
1/4 cup butter (I use 2 - 3 Tablespoons olive oil)
Stir frequently, until veggies are soft- about 15 minutes.

Add:
4 cups chicken broth** I use vegetable broth
4 cups diced tomatoes
2 tsp. sugar (add more or less depending on your taste and the flavor of the tomatoes)
1/2 tsp. curry powder
salt and pepper to taste

Heat for 10 minutes, on medium low.

Mix 1/2 cup water and 1/4 cup of flour.  Add to soup, heat until thickened.  Freezes well.

*** Additions- you can add almost any kind of grain, veggie, pasta or probably even meat if you want, but why would you spoil it with that!  

Barley is fantastic in this, as is any veggie such as corn, green beans, peas and I probably would add beans as well. 

Bread and Butter Pickles

My mom made pickles that took 2 weeks to make!  I do not have that kind of ambition!!  One of my aunties made bread and butter pickles and they were so darn good, and way faster.  My mom's 2 week long sweet pickles are fantastic, don't get me wrong, but I had to help make them and it is a lot of work. We just don't eat that many pickles, this works great.  So I consulted several recipes including the one in the Freezing and Canning book that my mom used for her creations.  But I found a streamlined recipe on The Smitten Kitchen website.  Deb has really great food there, and this pickle recipe was nice and small and quick.  And I knew how to do it already, so it was a snap.

Slice the cucumbers very thinly

Same thing with the onion!!  Try to avoid the fumes!

Bowl of cukes!  My mom's big Corningware bowl

I love this bowl, reminds me of mom every time I see it in my cupboard

Mix salt with cukes and onions

Mix sugar, vinegar, spices together 

Coriander seed, Turmeric, Mustard seed and celery seed

Boil together until it is really a beautiful gold!

Adapted from the Smittenkitchen.com 

Makes 4 cups of pickles, filling a 1-quart jar

1 pound cucumbers, sliced 1/4-inch thick
1 large sweet onion, thinly sliced
1/4 cup pickling salt
3/4 cups sugar
1/2 cup distilled white vinegar
1/2 teaspoons ground turmeric
1 tablespoon mustard seeds
1 tablespoon coriander seeds (if ground, use 1 teaspoon)
1/4 teaspoon celery seed

In a medium bowl, combine the cucumbers, onion and salt. Mix well. Cover the mixture with ice. Let stand at room temperature for two hours. In a pot, bring sugar, vinegar and spices to a boil. Drain cucumbers and onions. Add to vinegar mixture and bring almost back to a boil. Remove from heat and cool. You can store the pickles in an airtight container for up to three weeks in the frig. 

This post took me all day to do!!!  CRAZINESS

Until next time, be a joy giver!

Peach blueberry galette and Sangria!

My dear friend Mark and I made plans waaaaay back in, say January, that on the first day it hits 80 degrees here, we were going to make and drink some Sangria!! There is some sort of story behind this that I don't really remember, but it seemed like a great excuse..... er, um, REASON at  the time.  So of course the first 80 degree day was at some inconvenient time when we were- God forbid- WORKING!!  And so it was the first 80 degree weekend, and then I was off on an adventure of my own..... so dog gone it, we made a date!

So good old Marksie had the wine, the fruit, the brandy, and the yummy homemade salsa and so I needed to provide something besides the glasses and the deck to sit on. Mark suggested/challenged me to dessert.  Maybe a Spanish dessert to go with the salsa and sangria. SPANISH???  Are you MAD????  Oh wait, that's me...  um, so we had a conversation of what that could possibly entail, and a fruit and cinnamon tart was decided upon, so the rest was up to me.

I consulted first of all my favorite cooking blog- The Smitten Kitchen- as Deb bakes some really wonderful things.  I have made a number of dishes/desserts from this website and I highly recommend checking it out.  She has many tarts, fruit desserts and the like on there, but none were exactly what I wanted.  I had blueberries in the refrigerator and I had made a scrumptious peach/blueberry cobbler last summer from Cooking Light Magazine.  I knew I wanted to use those flavors in a pie crusty sort of application.

So I made up my own!

I began by using this recipe for the tart crust- a very buttery, simple crust that would merely enhance the flavors of the fruit.  I used a combination of very ripe and slightly under-ripe peaches, some for flavor and some for texture, plus the blueberries.  I added a minimal amount of sugar and a nice healthy dose of cinnamon.  Wrapped it all up in the rolled dough and sprinkled it with Turbinado sugar. (You should hear how the MA mangles THAT word!)

After reading several of Deb's fruit tart recipes, I decided to use the technique of heating up my pizza stone in the oven for an hour to get it nice and hot.  That added a really great crispness to the crust that did not get soggy, even during yesterday's humidity.

It was REALLY a good recipe in the end, and can be used with any sort of fruit filling.  Actually, you could make something savory with it also, as there is very little sweetness in the crust....  hmmmmm....

Mix dry ingredients, cut up butter

Cut in butter until size of peas

Add ice water and stir until dough just holds together

Slip skins from peaches 

Roll out dough thinly

Peaches, all cut up

Blueberries with peaches 

Roll and pinch dough to make rustic bowl

YAY!

Peach Blueberry Galette

Tart crust:

This is the ingredient list for one galette- I doubled the recipe to make two.  Obviously.

1 cup of flour
1/2 tsp sugar
1/8 tsp salt
6 tablespoon cold butter
icewater

Combine flour, sugar, salt in a bowl.  Cut in butter with a pastry cutter, until butter is in pea sized pieces.  Add small amounts of ice water at a time into the flour mixture until it just rolls up into a ball.  Handle the dough as little as possible to keep it from getting tough.  Cover and place in the refrigerator at LEAST an hour before rolling.

Filling:

per galette-

3 - 4 peaches
1/2 pint blueberries
1/4 - 1/3 cup sugar
1/2 - 1 tsp cinnamon

Slip skins from peaches after plunging into boiling water.  Slice peaches into a bowl, and add blueberries.  Add sugar and cinnamon to taste.

Procedure:

About 1/2 hour to 45 minutes before rolling dough, put pizza stone in  425 oven, if you plan to use it.  Other wise heat oven to 425.  Roll out ball of dough very thinly. Spoon fruit into the center of the dough.  Pull and pinch the dough up and around the fruit-  Making a bowl from the dough to keep the juices from running out.  It will be very rustic and informal looking.  Moisten dough with a tiny bit of water and sprinkle with turbinado or white sugar if desired.  Work quickly so the dough can be transferred to the pizza stone without collapse. (yes, I had that problem!  with one of them)  I rolled my dough on the counter, assembled it on a cookie sheet and then slid it onto the pizza stone.  You can figure your own way, too!  Bake about 20 minutes, check for browning, and continue baking until the crust is light brown and the filling bubbling.  Transfer galette from the stone or pan to a cooling rack so the crust stays crisp and doesn't get soggy.

Now try NOT to eat it until your guest arrives with his Sangria!  THAT was hard!

In case you are interested.........

SANGRIA

Fill a beautiful glass pitcher with fresh, frozen fruit- orange and lemon slices, fresh pineapple, strawberries, nectarines.....

Add a yummy, fruity Cabernet Sauv, VERY COLD - we used Columbia-Crest Two Vines!  Add a 1/2 cup of brandy and a can of white soda......  It is infinitely more fun to do this in layers- fruit, wine, brandy, soda, repeat!  Then try to take pictures until you are silly with laughter and you haven't EVEN had more than a sip!!

Sangria pitcher and salsa

Did you know that pineapple soaked in wine is tingly??

There is NOTHING like a little Sangria joy! And it goes well with fruit tart!