Dinner – Red Lentil Dahl

We spent today doing typical Sunday things. We slept in. We wondered around the Syracuse Antiques Exchange. We went grocery shopping. And while grocery shopping, we visited all the lovely ladies who stand around Wegmans on Sunday afternoons handing out samples. One of those ladies had samples of Orgain, an organic meal replacement shake. (The Creamy Chocolate Fudge is smooth and pleasantly bittersweet like a nice dark chocolate. I immediately carted a few home.) While chatting with her, she gave us a copy of the Nature’s Marketplace flyer from Wegman’s organic section, which is filled with coupons and healthy living tips. Inside was a recipe for red lentil dahl, a recipe taken from The Modern Vegetarian by Maria Elia.

I rounded up the ingredients and put this on the menu for tonight’s dinner. It is rich and layered in flavor and boasts seven grams of fiber per serving. It is warm and spicy and the perfect one-pot dinner for wannabe vegetarians such as myself on a cold winter’s night. At the last minute I actually added about a cup of frozen green peas and let them cook in the dahl just long enough to be warmed through. I loved the extra addition of something bright and fresh along with the lemon juice amidst all the spices.

Red Lentil Dahl

1-3/4 c red lentils
2 Tbsp oil
3 tsp cumin seeds
2 tsp black or yellow mustard seeds
1 white onion, finely chopped
1-1/2 inches fresh ginger, peeled and finely chopped or grated
2 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped or grated
1 red chili, seeded, finely chopped
3 tsp curry powder
4 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp tumeric
Pinch of chili powder
1 Tbsp tomato puree
2 cinnamon sticks
2 c low-sodium vegetable stock or water
Sea salt
Juice of 1 lemon
Bunch of mint, chopped
Bunch of cilantro, chopped

1. Rinse lentils. Place in a pan and cover with cold water. Bring to a boil and then drain in a fine sieve, rinse with cold water and drain again.

2. Heat oil in a large pan. Add cumin and mustard seeds. (Stand back – as they hit the hot oil they will sputter and spit.) Cook for 30 seconds. Add onion. (This will reduce the temperature in the pan immediately; be careful not to burn the seeds or the dahl will be bitter.) Cook over medium heat until softened. Add ginger, garlic, chili, curry powder, cumin, tumeric, and chili powder and fry for 3 minutes. Add tomato puree and fry for 1 minute.

3. Add lentils, cinnamon sticks, and stock and bring to a boil. Reduce to simmer and cook for 15 minutes, or until lentils are tender and dahl has thickened. (Add a little water if too thick.) Remove from heat, season with salt and add lemon juice to taste.

4. Let cool a little bit before adding mint and cilantro (otherwise they will discolor). Serve warm.

{Photo from Edible Aria.}

Beet Soup in Roasted Acorn Squash Bowls

It felt like fall this weekend. Completely and thoroughly like fall. The air was crisp, the sky was bright, and the rustle of leaves that accompanied the wind was unmistakable. Yes, yes, fall has found us in Upstate NY. So while I was digging through the fridge and taking inventory of what our CSA share had brought us last week, I decided that a soup of some sort was in order. After taking stock of the available ingredients, I did a wee bit of consulting with my BFF (aka Google) and stumbled upon a recipe for beet soup in roasted acorn squash. What? I get to use up a whole bunch of yummy veggies and put little acorn squashes to work as adorable little bowls? Sign me up!

The recipe is pretty simple. You dice up a large red onion and get it to work in your pot. Once it’s soft, toss in an apple that has been peeled and cut into approximately 1″ chunks and a couple pound of beets that have been cut to roughly the same size. Dice up or grate in 2 – 3 cloves of garlic, let it all soften up some more, then add 4 cups of veggie stock, a few cups of water and let simmer for 40 minutes or until the beets are nice and soft. In the meantime, you’ll have cut the tops off your squash, hollowed them out, took a thin slice off the bottom so they sit stable, and lightly brushed them with olive oil. I made sure to sprinkle mine with fresh cracked black pepper and some sea salt for good measure. Roast the squash while you’re putting together the soup. Once the beats are soft, you’ll need to puree the entire beet mixture. I’m thinking you’d be best with a food processor or an immersion blender, but a standard blender will do the trick, too. Then the soup goes back in the pot to reheat and season to taste with a pinch of salt, a couple of tablespoons of apple cider vinegar and I opted to omit the brown sugar the recipe called for and add in a nice sized dash of cinnamon and a little sprinkle of ginger.

Once the soup was done, I served it up in the acorn squash bowls and put a little dollup of sour cream on top. It’s really hearty, yummy and the prettiest bright red violet color. I decided to let the soup be the star of the show and served it was a simple salad of fresh mozzarella, heirloom tomato from the local farmer’s market, fresh basil and a tiny drizzle of olive oil and balsamic vinegar over mizuna. Delicious! Mike and I ate dinner at the coffee table, sitting cross-legged on the floor and it was the perfect first official foray into fall cooking. Better yet, the acorn squash, beets, garlic and mizuna were all from our CSA share this past week. Nothing says “yum” like organic veggies!

Grilled Patty Pan Squash with Parsley

Ok, after all the amazing ideas I got for how to cook patty pan squash both here and via twitter, I decided to take the easy route. Keeping in mind that any “recipe” I share is really never going to be a real recipe (unless we’re baking, folks, then I’ll indulge you with measurements), consider this a guideline for one super easy way to cook yourself up some patty pan squash. It does not take a rocket scientist to do this and it tastes delicious. Perfect, right?

So, chop up your patty pan squash and dump it in a bowl. I went with slightly larger than bite-sized chunks so they would cook down into nice little bite-sized pieces. Load up the bowl with lots of fresh minced garlic, a ton of chopped fresh parsley, a couple of chopped basil leaves, a good 3 – 4 tablespoons of olive oil, freshly cracked black pepper, a good dash of coarse sea salt and toss. Make yourself a little pocket out of aluminum foil, toss the contents of the bowl inside, seal up your pocket and place it right on the grill. It’ll take about 20 minutes or so to cook through, depending on what else you’ve got cooking on your grill and the heat of the flame. When it’s done, it’s a really mild and tasty squash loaded with fresh herb flavor. Using fresh organic squash and fresh herbs is key here. Don’t mess up a simple dish by using dried herbs – you’ll regret it, trust me. It’ll come out of the little aluminum foil pocket all steamy and delicious and perfect. And you won’t have to reinvent the wheel to get there. Even better.

Grilled Sun-dried Tomato and Basil Chicken

While home last weekend for the long Labor Day weekend, my mom and I did little more than cook all weekend. Which, to be honest, is typically how it rolls when Mike and I spend the weekend with my mother and stepfather. It always ends up involving some lazy and relaxing combination of cooking, sipping on wine, sitting by the fire, floating around on the lake, just being together and, well, just being. So, it’s no real surprise that we did a whole lot of cooking while home for a few days. And, without a doubt, the grilled sun-dried tomato and basil chicken we made for dinner one night was the star of the weekend so I thought I’d share it…although I have to be honest and let you know upfront that my mother and I originate from a real Italian way of cooking. Rarely do we measure anything, the recipe changes every time and everything is tasted and re-tasted until the seasoning is just perfect. So I apologize in advance that there is no exact science to the “recipe” I’m about to share. Isn’t that the fun of it anyway?

First up, the filling. We rough chopped about a cup of sun-dried tomatoes (I think we used two 3oz. packages) and combined it with a can of tomato paste, four fresh garlic cloves finely minced, a big pinch of coarse sea salt, and I’d guess about 3 tablespoons of a good quality olive oil. Mix it together until it’s combined well and it’s as easy as that.

From there, pound out chicken breasts so they’re about a 1/4″ thick. I think we ended up with 7 or 8 breasts in all. Spread the paste on one side, then layer with shredded parmesan followed by a layer of fresh basil leaves. For about half of the breasts we also added one thin slice of prosciutto on top of the paste before adding the cheese and basil, but I omitted that for mine as I don’t eat red meat. (Ever.) Roll up the breasts, tie with twine, and then slap them on the grill. Use the rest of the paste filling and thin it out with either pre-made Italian dressing or whatever combination of oil and vinegar floats your boat. Baste while grilling until it’s cooked through and enjoy! (Just remember to remove the string before eating…it’s not very tasty!)

It’s so simple to make, but really yummy. With fresh ingredients, even simple things taste heavenly…and I pretty much believe that anything cooked on the grill tastes amazing anyhow. Don’t worry, the infamous patty pan squash is up next!

CSA Ingredient of the Week – Patty Pan Squash

In the last couple of weeks we’d been getting a lot of lumpy white patty pan squash in our CSA share. Patty pan squash is one of those veggies that I just haven’t been exposed to that much before and I certainly had never cooked with it until recently. Isn’t that true of so many fun CSA-inspired ingredients? So far I’ve dabbled with this funny looking squash a little bit, but we have a big stockpile of it waiting to be cooked up. In all honesty, our CSA share is a bit much for just two people – I mean, really, how much kale, lettuce, collards, and cabbage can one couple eat? So I’m hoping to cook up some good things over the long holiday weekend to share with family to help lighten the load a little bit and to prevent anything from going to waste. One of the big things I need to devise is a fabulous recipe or two to help use up all this patty pan squash I have piled up in my house. Any suggestions? I’d love to know your favorite recipe or your favorite way to eat patty pan squash!

{Laughing Stock Farm}

Mostly Steel Chardonnay

The week before our own wedding, we traveled to the Northfork of Long Island for a wedding. This bottle of chardonnay came home with us from The Old Field in Southold. Tonight it was the perfect end to the first week back to work after a honeymoon I already miss.