Three Weeks until Amsterdam

I came back from a great holiday in San Francisco and Portland – full of dear family, wonderful friends and fantastic food – on Tuesday morning. I learned that Portland and Oregon is a healthy breadbasket for the PNW, which is why it's such a foodie town. My friend, Gerald, drove me around the farms of the Oregon High Desert and we drove past lavender farms and saw hazelnut trees is the distance. For tokens of the trip, I brought back chocolate-covered hazelnuts for my co-workers and LaDiDa Lavender Cheddar for me.

I red-eyed into JFK and, while en route, I picked up two sausage, egg and cheese English muffins from Tom Horton’s in New York’s Penn Station since they were two for four dollars; had one on the train and saved the next one for breakfast the following day. It's all about taking advantage of my behavior but being better.

I had cleared out the refrigerator of all the perishable items before I set off on my eleven-day trek, so I came home to limited items of food in my freezer.

Yet I had some leftover Lentil Chickpea Curry, a vegan recipe that Leigh Ann introduced me to, and some leftover baby new Yukon gold potatoes that I had made for a Salade niçoise I had brought to Bookclub. I had put them together in the same container for moments like this, when I was too tired to shop and cook.

In being forward thinking, I found a stash of my chili and another stash of my butter chicken. I put them in the fridge to thaw. On Wednesday night, I boiled up some lentils in broth and split the chili between two meals – dinner on Wednesday and lunch on Thursday. I’ll repeat for Thursday night and Friday day with the butter chicken and more lentils.

Now my freezer is getting bare, but I noticed a stash of kale and collard green stems that I was saving. I read up on how to utilize these veggies and the idea of pesto came up.

The ideas are endless for me: pasta and pesto, pesto in a frittata, pesto as a meat marinade, a compound butter with pesto for beef, chicken salad with pesto, pesto as a sandwich condiment and so on.

So, now is the time to critically and strategically plan healthy meals. I will be heading up to Newark in three-week times for my trip to Amsterdam (and London, Berlin and Paris). I need to buy groceries but I don’t want to over-purchase, especially since I want to visit the Thursday-night farmers market that’s been open since March (but haven’t visited except the second Thursday it was open.) I’m looking at the 21 cycles of meals until I leave and I’m planning ahead to spend money wisely and to stop food waste.

Also, I want to make an asparagus and grilled cheese sandwich with the lovely LaDiDa Lavender Cheddar – of course I sampled a slice on Tuesday when I got home. It was good and I thought it would be excellent melted on top of some grilled asparagus on a crusty bread.

Now I have two ideas for meals – pesto and its permutations as well as vegetables + Lavender Cheddar grilled cheese.

While I’ll have butter chicken and lentils for dinner, I’m going to make the Winter Greens Pesto from the kitchn with my embellishments tonight.


Kale and Collards Pesto

Ingredients:

• ½ cp chopped almonds
• Around 4 cps kale and collards greens stems, trimmed, rinsed and chopped
• 1 cp shredded Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese or any other similar hard, granular cheese
• ½ cp extra-virgin olive oil
• 4 cloves garlic, chopped
• 2 t lemon juice
• 1 t salt
• 1/2 t pepper

Directions:

1. If the almonds are not already roasted, preheat the oven to 350°F. Spread the nuts in a single layer on a baking sheet and roast them in the oven until they are brown and fragrant, check after 5 minutes.
2. Blanche the greens: Bring a large pot of salted water to boil. Prepare a large bowl of cold water ready. When boiling, drop the greens into the water. Allow the water to return to a boil, and after 90 seconds, check every 30 seconds until the greens are just starting to go limp. Drain the greens and plunge them into the cold water. Drain again and then dry the greens to remove as much moisture as possible.
3. Place the almonds, greens, Parmigiano, olive oil, garlic, lemon juice, salt and pepper in a blender and puree until uniformly smooth, adding more olive oil to reach desired consistency.

I can't wait to see what the Farmer's Market has today!

Easy Kale Salad

A vegan meal: kale salad and rice
cooked in jalapeño and cilantro broth

One of my favorite way to use up green vegetables is to add them to this great kale salad that I found on the LIVESTRONG site many years ago. This particular batch, in the photo below, was made with kale and celery I saved from the crudité platter that gave me the mirepoix for my ragù yesterday. I made it earlier in the week for my Lenten vegan challenge (see the note about brown sugar and water in the ingredients list) and knew that I should finish it up before it started to turn. Not only is this a great vegan dish, it is also a great base for a substantive meal salad, add a protein and another vegetable and it’s a filling lunch or dinner.

The original recipe is far more Asian in influence, while mine is strictly based on what I usually have in my pantry. Plus, the original site says that the salad serves 6; it could, especially if the diners are not former ruggers. But for the real world, I think that more satisfyingly serves 2.


Easy Kale Salad, adapted from LIVESTRONG’s Nutty Kale Salad, serves 2

Ingredients: 

I added 3 oz. of leftover turkey & a roasted beet cubed
to make the base salad into something more filling.

• 4 ½ cps. kale, about 2 bunches, and add or use other greens to make 4 ½ cps., if you desire, like chard, collards, bok choy, mustard, spinach, arugula, endive, radicchio, beet greens, turnip greens, carrots greens and radish greens, as well as celery 
• ¼ cp. peanut butter, (I suggest chunky!) 
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 Tbsp. maple syrup or honey, (in a pinch to keep it vegan, use 1 Tbsp. each of water and brown sugar) 
• 2 Tbsp. low sodium soy sauce 
• ¼ cp. apple cider vinegar 
• 1 tsp ground cumin 
• 1 tsp ground chili powder or pepper (optional)

Directions:

1. De-vein kale and other hearty greens, like collards, first, and stack the greens on top of each other and roll into a tube; make 1/8-inch cuts along the length of the tube, creating thin ribbons. (If using celery, slice into small bite size pieces) 
2. Reserve the greens in a large bowl. 
3. Combine remaining ingredients, whisking until smooth. (This makes a great salad dressing separate from this salad.) 
4. Pour dressing over kale and toss thoroughly to coat all leaves. Allow to sit 2 hours, or overnight in the refrigerator, before serving to soften the kale and any other hardy greens.

Ragù alla Bolognese

What we call Bolognese sauce is a meat-based sauce originating from Bologna. Per Wikipedia, the sauce is “customarily used to dress ‘tagliatelle al ragù’ and to prepare ‘lasagne alla bolognese’. In the absence of tagliatelle, it can also be used with other broad, flat pasta shapes, such as pappardelle or fettuccine.” The traditional version of this sauce is slow cooked, requiring to “simmer slowly for about two hours,” from Accademia Italiana della Cucina (in Italian and authentication required), not including prep time. Many recipes start with an Italian soffritto - a base of finely chopped parsley and onion sauteed in lard - but I went with a mirepoix and added bell peppers instead. Of course, there is beef and usually some fatty pork (which I didn’t include this time.) White wine, milk and a small amount of tomato paste or tomatoes are added to incorporate everything together before the long simmer to produce a thick sauce.

I made this as part of my #stopfoodwaste New Year’s resolution. The sauce was actually in itself a by-product of another dish, Stir-Fried Celery with Meat Sauce, which only required a quarter pound of beef.

While the meat was defrosted for the celery dish and the remaining beef was used in this dish, the carrots, celery and tomatoes were saved from a crudité platter.

Ragù alla Bolognese, adapted from Blue Apron, serves 4.

Ingredients:

I couldn't resist and added capers. Also, I only
had whole wheat fettuccine in the house.

• 1 Tbps olive oil 
• ¾ lbs ground beef 
• 2-4 cloves garlic, minced, to taste 
• ½ cp carrot, diced 
• ½ cp celery, diced 
• ½ cp onion, diced 
• ½ cp bell pepper, diced 
• 4 cps grape or cherry tomatoes 
• Tagliatelle, or other broad, flat pasta shapes, such as pappardelle or fettuccine 
• 2 tsp dried basil 
• ¼ cp white wine 
• 1 Tbsp tomato paste 
• 2 Tbsps milk 
• 1 tsp lemon juice 
• Salt and pepper, to taste 
• ¼ cp grated parmigiano cheese 

Directions:

1. In a large pan, heat the olive oil on medium-high until hot. Add the ground beef; cook, frequently breaking the meat apart with a spoon, 3 to 5 minutes, or until browned and cooked through. 
2. Add the garlic, carrot, celery, onion and pepper; cook, stirring occasionally, 3 to 4 minutes, or until softened and fragrant. 
3. Add the tomatoes; cover with a lid to steam, 5 minutes or so, or until the tomatoes are easily smashed with a spoon. Cook, stirring occasionally, 5 to 6 minutes, or incorporate thoroughly. 
4. Cook the pasta according to directions, until al dente, about 10 minutes or so. Turn off the heat. Reserving ¾ cup of the pasta cooking water, drain thoroughly and return to the pot. While waiting on the pasta, add half of the basil to the sauce and stir to incorporate. 
5. After the pasta is cooked and set aside; deglaze the pan with white wine and stir to incorporate into the sauce. 
6. Add the tomato paste, sauce and half the reserved pasta cooking water to the pot of cooked pasta. Cook on medium-high, stirring vigorously, 1 to 2 minutes, or until well combined. (If the sauce seems dry, gradually add the remaining pasta cooking water to achieve your desired consistency.)
7. Turn off the heat. Stir in the milk, lemon juice and remaining basil; season with salt and pepper to taste. 
8. Divide between 4 dishes and garnish with cheese.