Bacon, Avocado, and Corn Salad

Tomorrow is the last day of school, temperatures are pushing 100, and it's time to sit by the pool for hours a day!  It's also time for me to make every single side salad recipe I can find.  I began tonight with this gem.

Ingredients:
5 strips of thick cut bacon
4 ears of corn, husked
1/2 c. feta or cotija cheese (I didn't measure)
2 T. cilantro, chopped (again, didn't measure)
juice of 1 lime
1 large avocado
salt and pepper


Directions:

1. Cook the bacon in a skillet until crisp.  Drain the grease, leaving about a tablespoon or so in your skillet.
2. Slice the kernels off the husks of the corn and throw them into the skillet.  Cook for a few minutes until golden brown, bacony, and delicious.
3. Turn off the heat and throw the cheese, bacon, cilantro, and lime juice in with the corn.  Mix.
4. At this point the recipe said to let it cool to room temperature, but I didn't have time for that.  Do what you want.
5. Pit and chop the avocado into small-ish chunks.  Throw them in the mixture and stir.
6. Salt and pepper to taste.
7. Enjoy!

This was pretty darned good, I must admit.  It's obviously not the most healthy of side dishes, but man, those flavor combinations were great.  It was all my favorite things in a bowl.

We had this with tequila lime chicken.  I made a marinade of tequila, lime juice, shallot, garlic, jalapeno, olive oil, and cilantro.  Let the chickens get to know each other in the marinade while we went to happy hour.  Then when they were almost all the way cooked, I threw some homemade pico de gallo on top of the chickens.  Threw some shredded colby jack on top of the pico and cooked until the cheese was melted.  Also delicious.

Ahhhhhh summer vacation!!!

Molly

Sprouts

Let's get back to the subject of sprouts:

If you've tried them, you know they are a great addition to the fresh vegetable arsenal.  They are tasty and nutritious and easy to grow on the kitchen counter year round.  The finer ones, like alfalfa or radish make a great garnish.  The larger, like lentils or mung beans, can be a significant part of a salad or stir fry.  Mom likes any kind of sprouts to top any kind of sandwich.

I started out using a special made sprout grower from The Sprout People but soon found that a one quart canning jar turned on its side worked just as well, accommodating 1/4 cup of lentils or mung beans to make a jar full of sprouts in 3-4 days.  The only complaint was that our bean sprouts were short and stubby, never getting very long before they started to try to grow leaves.

Then I read that mung beans need to be sprouted under light pressure to grow long sprouts.  So, I converted my sauerkraut press (round of hickory log in a plastic bucket) to a sprout press (slightly smaller diameter round of hickory log so it would reach to bottom of the tapered bucket in a plastic bucket).  A half cup of mung beans did not quite cover the bottom of the bucket.  I soaked them for ~6 hours, drained them, and left them under the hickory round.  Rinsed twice a day.  I used a colander to drain the water. In 4 days, I had a 1 gal plastic bag about 3/4 full of long, full sprouts.  I made a really nice breakfast salad of ~half-and-half bean sprouts and baby spinach leaves from the garden with tarragon vinaigrette dressing, and last night we had a big stir fry with a double hand full of bean sprouts.  This is really the ticket for growing mung bean sprouts.

Yesterday, I tried starting a batch of red lentil sprouts in the press.  I don't know if using the press will make any difference with the lentils as it did for the mung beans but I'll keep you posted.

In the mean time, we are eating spinach, lettuce, asparagus, and sprouts, watching the strawberries fill out, and planting garden like mad.

Caramelized onions

Have I posted this before?  If so, I apologize for the repeat.  But, we just had friends over for dinner and enjoyed one of my current favorite flavor combinations, and I felt inspired to post.

Aleks grilled beef steaks, I caramelized onions, and then we pulled some gorgonzola cheese out of the cheese drawer to add to the mix.  Amazing!  4 of us adults ate 6 onions worth of caramelized onions!  Slathering onions and bleu cheese or gorgonzola on top of burgers is another favorite of mine.

The trick is to get well-cooked onions, without adding too much oil and without over-browning them.  I've found that the secret is salt. The salt pulls the liquid out of the onions as they cook, and the liquid keep the onions from burning, without the need for oil.

Thinly slice more onions than you think you could possibly need.  1) These are so good that even people who don't like onions heap them on their plate, so you always eat more than you think you will, and 2) The volume will decrease substantially as you cook them.  Put a bit of olive oil or butter, just enough to tide you over until the salt does it's trick, in the bottom of your pan, add the onions, and turn on the heat to medium/medium-high.  Sprinkle in some salt, not enough to make it taste salty, but enough to act on the onions, maybe 1/2 t. per 3 onions, but I really just sort of sprinkle it on, so that's just a guess.  Turn the onions as they heat to mix in the salt and keep everything from browning.  When the onions start to cook and release their liquid, turn the heat down to medium-low/low. Cover with a lid.  Turn the onions every once in a while, and continue cooking until they are translucent and soft, and a big delicious mess, about 15-30 min.  If the onions are too soupy and not brown enough, remove the lid and turn up the heat a bit.  As the liquid evaporates off, scrape the bottom of the pan and turn the onions every few minutes so that they brown without burning for another 5 min or so.  Enjoy at will!

I think onions cooked this way count as one of those dishes that is cheap, oh so good, and good for you, if you keep the oil to a minimum and take advantage of the salt.

-Maggie

Spinach & Artichoke Stuffed Shells

Hey blog world!

The musical is over and I'm back to being a human again.  I got to try a new recipe tonight and made my own pizza dough last night instead of buying the pre-made stuff from Sprouts.  Yay!

Tonight's recipe was somewhat labor intensive and probably not something you want to consider for a normal weeknight meal, but it was pretty good and seemingly healthy.


Ingredients:

1 cup shelled edamame (I bought pre-shelled frozen stuff to save time and recommend this)

1 tablespoon Extra Virgin Olive Oil

1 small onion, minced

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 10 ounce package thawed frozen chopped spinach, squeezed dry

9 (or so) oz artichoke hearts.  (I used a 14 oz can of artichoke hearts which I then chopped.)

1 1/4 cups plain nonfat Greek yogurt

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1/2 cup shredded parmesan

Salt and pepper

Your favorite homemade (or store bought) tomato sauce

Directions:

1. Set the oven to 350 degrees. In a food processor or blender, puree the edamame. Transfer to a large bowl and set aside.

2. In a large nonstick skillet set at medium heat, pour the extra virgin olive oil and add onion & garlic. Cook for 3 minutes. Add the spinach and artichoke hearts; cook & stir for 5 minutes. Remove from the heat - add in the yogurt and lemon juice.

3. Add half of the spinach mixture to a blender or food processor and puree until smooth. Fold into the remaining spinach along with the edamame, cheese, salt and pepper in a large bowl. Set aside.

4. Cook pasta shells according to package directions. Drain and spread jumbo shells on 2 baking sheets. Let them cool before stuffing.

5.  Make or open your favorite tomato sauce (heat it up if not already).

6. Spray a large baking dish with cooking spray. Cover the bottom of the dish with tomato sauce. Start to stuff the shells with the dip and line them up in the baking dish. When the dish is full, drizzle pasta sauce over the shells. Cover with foil and bake for 35 minutes.

Again, this was a bit labor intensive for a Tuesday, but the end result was good.  I also have leftovers for a good long time.  Try this some weekend if you're looking to "indulge" in something creamy.  Truthfully, this is pretty darned good for you even though it tastes creamy.

Enjoy!

Molly

Soft-boiled Eggs and Salad Breakfast!

The soft-boiled egg is an art form rarely practiced today.

Thank you for inviting me into this blog!

Some amazingness happened today, with a couple of farm fresh eggs, smoked steal head and baby asparagus.

On soft-boiled eggs:

What amazing delights these are! It's like cracking open a dressing.

-I try to steam the eggs for 6 1/2 minutes, not letting them sit too long on the heat side of the stove.

-Put them under cold water after.

I love the role of chicken eggs in cooking. Better than butter in sauces, they make soups,  and they leven.

I like soft boiling / or soft poaching a bit more than poaching, frying, braising, pickling,  omeleting, or hard-boiling.

For the breakfast:

-Spinach (or spring greens)
-Browned butter
-Soft boiled egg
-Bacon or smoked fish
-Asparagus  or another spring veggie.

For the steps:

(while having eggs in 2" of simmering water for 6 1/2 minutes.)

-brown butter in a cast iron skillet.
-toss with spinach.
-add salt and pepper.
-roast asparagus on same pan.

Serve:

-Leafy greens with a bit of fat, tossed.
-A bit of something else spring, like asparagus.
- A soft-boiled egg, and a little piece of whole wheat toast.

pasta with garbonzo beans

Thinking about all the things we've been eating with dried beans lately reminded me of a recipe I've been meaning to post for a while.

This is a nice alternative to your regular pasta dishes - quick, more protein than a normal pasta dish, and indulgently satisfying.

Cook up some bacon (now you know it's going to be good!) - 1/2 lb is probably plenty
Reserve the bacon, and fry a bunch of chopped garlic in the oil (umm, 5-6 cloves, but who's counting)
Add cooked chickpeas (1-2 cans worth, maybe 2-3 cups)
You may want to add a little water - maybe the water from cooking the pasta, if your chickpeas are dry.
Stir in ~1/2-3/4 c chopped toasted almonds.

When everything is hot, spoon it on top of some pasta, and grate some parmesan on top.  Delish!

Dried beans

We're officially moving to Madison, WI next year (!!!) and I'm going to try my hand at being mostly a stay-at-home mom.  So, with the idea that I'll have a bit more time at home and a lot less money, I decided to try my hand cooking dried beans to replace a few meals of meat a week and instead of canned beans.  I know it's pretty silly to get excited about cooking something that has been a staple of diets around the world for millenia, but, well, here I am, getting excited about cooking dried beans.

I've never been a dried bean convert before because 1) I've never been able to get the right mix of water, heat,  attention, and time to end up with beans that are uniformly cooked through without half falling apart from being over-done while the other half still has hard kernels at the center.  2) I've always tried to make beans in big pots that yield a lot more beans than I can eat before they go bad in the refrigerator.  And 3) the amount of forethought necessary to have dried beans cooked when I want them eludes me.

Enter the slow cooker and the freezer:  It turns out that if you put dried beans in a slow cooker, you can get delicious beans cooked very nicely without a lot of effort or attention.  And if you then put your cooked beans in the freezer you can keep them for months without them going bad, and have them ready to use, just like canned beans, at a moment's notice. I haven't figured in the energy price, but bean for bean, I estimate that dried beans are about 1/4 the price of canned beans.

The first thing to consider is: to soak or not to soak? And if you soak, do you then cook in the soaking water or use fresh water.  Honestly, I can't figure out what the benefit of soaking the beans would be if you're just going to turn around and cook them in the soaking liquid, but maybe I'm missing something.   As far as I can tell, it boils down to how much farting bothers you.  If you do a traditional soak overnight, apparently you can remove up to 20% of the gas-causing elements of the bean.  Unfortunately, apparently this same chemical is one of the things about beans that is good for your colon health (likely, not unrelated to it's tendency to make you fart).  Also, apparently if you eat more beans, your body will adjust to them and they'll disturb your gastrointestinal system less and less.  So, take your pick.  You can find purists of all colors on the internet, so I tend to go with convenience.  One middle of the road option is do what's called a fast soak, where you heat water to boiling, then pour it over your beans and soak for 1 hour.  I just tend to go with convenience - whatever works for that day.  Like, tonight I was going to cook some beans, and I thought I had time for a fast soak.  Then I ran out of time, so now they're doing an overnight soak.

I've so far followed a pretty basic recipe, but it's turned out to be delicious every time.  I'm looking forward to trying new flavors as I do this more and more.  Here's my basic recipe:

1-2 pounds dried black or pinto or red beans, soaked if desired1 medium-large onion/pound of beans, cut into large wedges
4-6 cloves of garlic/pound of beans, crushed
1-3 bay leaves (my bay leaves are old and cracked into smaller pieces, so if you've got fresher or large bay leaves, you may only need 1)
1 T. salt/pound of beans.

Put the beans, onion, garlic, and bay leaf in a slow cooker.  Cover with water to 1 - 1 1/2 inches above the beans.  Turn on your slow cooker.  I've been cooking mine on high, which takes about 3 hours for black beans that have been fast-soaked.  Cooking on slow is supposed to take about 6 hours.  About 1/2 hour before the beans are done, stir in the salt, then finish cooking.  This weekend I over cooked some pinto beans and some red beans - I think they don't take as long as black beans, and I lost track of time, as always.  I think in the future I'm going to turn the heat down to low or just turn it off after I add the salt, to try to prevent over cooking.

After the beans are cooked, I fish out the onion and bay leaf pieces, then drain the beans.

I also made some amazing garbonzo beans.  For those, I just put them in the slow cooker with about
4 c of beans.
1/2 t salt
water to cover.

 To freeze: spread the beans on a sheet pan in as close to a single layer as you can get.  Put the pan in the freezer.  When the beans are frozen, store them in a ziploc bag, and use however you would use canned beans.

My kiddos have been going nutzo for the beans I've been making.  Suzie has been tooting up a storm as a result, but she seems to think that's pretty funny, so it's all good by me.

Happy rootin'-tootin'-tootalootin'!