Week 14: Lentils & Macaroni

Vegetable ingredients: Lentils, tomatoe

This week, I was a bit under the weather. I needed a homey, simple dish. Mark Bittman had the answer: Lentils and macaroni! I used Trader Joe's ready-to-eat steamed lentils, which made the process very easy.

Ingredients
1/2 packet Trader Joe's ready-to-eat steamed lentils
2 carrots
1 medium onion, minced
1 cup cored and chopped tomato (canned is fine)
salt and pepper
1 TS minced fresh oregano
1 pound elbow macaroni or something similar
1 ts minced garlic

Preparation
Combine lentils, carrots, onion in large pot, simmer for 15 mins
add tomatoe, sald, pepper, half of th eoregano, stir, keep warm
bring water to boil for pasta
reserve a cup of water
stir cooked pasta into lentils, add oregano, perhaps water
cook for 2-3 minutes

It doesn't look very fancy, but it tasted really good. We helped ourselves to seconds. Even the little person tried one of the shells (after carefully peeling off a lentil).

Verdict: 7/10 for taste and ease of preparation. 2/10 for looks.

Week 13: Oven Roasted Red Potatoes and Asparagus

Vegetable(s): Potatoes, Asparagus


 


Potatoes! I haven't done potatoes yet! Here's the recipe I picked:

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 pounds red potatoes, cut into chunks

• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

• 8 cloves garlic, thinly sliced (I completely forgot about the garlic and didn't miss it at all)

• 4 teaspoons dried rosemary

• 4 teaspoons dried thyme

• 2 teaspoons kosher salt

• 1 bunch fresh asparagus, trimmed and cut into 1 inch pieces

• ground black pepper to taste

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C).
2. In a large baking dish, toss the red potatoes with 1/2 the olive oil, garlic, rosemary, thyme, and 1/2 the kosher salt. Cover with aluminum foil.
3. Bake 20 minutes in the preheated oven. Mix in the asparagus, remaining olive oil, and remaining salt. Cover, and continue cooking 15 minutes, or until the potatoes are tender. Increase oven temperature to 450 degrees F (230 degrees C). Remove foil, and continue cooking 5 to 10 minutes, until potatoes are lightly browned. Season with pepper to serve.

Prepping

My favorite knife (Carnado from Hugo Pott)

Almost done!

Apart from leaving out the garlic, I followed the recipe to a letter. It turned out quite wonderful, the potatoes were brown and crisp (our daughter ate a slice that looked like a potato chip and about 1/4 inch of asparagus), the asparagus was not mushy, the spices came together very well. My original plan had been to serve the potatoes with a fried egg, but in the end, I thought just the potatoes were enough. The recipe was supposed to serve 4-6, but we polished it off a deux. (We were hungry.)


Verdict: 9/10 (for me), 8/10 (for the family) -- I rate it very high because it's inexpensive, very easy to make, there aren't too many ingredients, and it tasted quite wonderful, crunchy and soft, and the kitchen smelled of rosemary. I can see that others might consider this a side dish, but for me, it was a meal.

Week 12: Spanakopita

Vegetable(s): Spinach, lots of it

 


Spinach again. (Since last week I didn't really use any vegetables at all, this week I wanted to pick a dish whose main ingredient was a vegetable.) There are many recipes for Spinakopita. I picked this one.

Ingredients

• 3 tablespoons olive oil

• 1 large onion, chopped (I used about 1/3)

• 1 bunch green onions, chopped

• 2 cloves garlic, minced (I used 1 Dorot cube)

• 2 pounds spinach, rinsed and chopped (I used frozen spinach)

• 1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley

• 2 eggs, lightly beaten

• 1/2 cup ricotta cheese

• 1 cup crumbled feta cheese

• 8 sheets phyllo dough (I should have taken the dough out of the freezer earlier, as it was, I had to put it in the microwave to defrost it -- not ideal)

• 1/4 cup olive oil

 

 

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly oil a 9x9 inch square baking pan.
2. Heat 3 tablespoons olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Saute onion, green onions and garlic, until soft and lightly browned. Stir in spinach and parsley, and continue to saute until spinach is limp, about 2 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside to cool.
3. In a medium bowl, mix together eggs, ricotta, and feta. Stir in spinach mixture. Lay 1 sheet of phyllo dough in prepared baking pan, and brush lightly with olive oil. Lay another sheet of phyllo dough on top, brush with olive oil, and repeat process with two more sheets of phyllo. The sheets will overlap the pan. Spread spinach and cheese mixture into pan and fold overhanging dough over filling. Brush with oil, then layer remaining 4 sheets of phyllo dough, brushing each with oil. Tuck overhanging dough into pan to seal filling.
4. Bake in preheated oven for 30 to 40 minutes, until golden brown. Cut into squares and serve while hot.

 

Verdict: 8/10


Very satisfying dish. Could easily be prepared for when one has over dinner guests (enough for 4). We ate the leftovers the next day.

Week 11: Shrimp Scampi Pasta

Vegetable ingredient: Does parsley count?





It occurred to me that I hadn't made pasta yet. Plus, it was Good Friday. So I settled on a pasta dish with fish or shrimp. I knew I didn't want a dairy-based sauce, but most of the oil-based sauces asked for lemons (not a hit in our family). In the end, I picked this recipe: 


Ingredients: 

• 1/4 cup olive oil

• 1 lb peeled and deveined large shrimp (raw; 20 to 25 per lb) (I used frozen shrimp. They were supposed to be deveined, but they needed ... touch-ups)

• 4 large garlic cloves, left unpeeled and forced through a garlic press (I used 1 Dorot frozen crushed garlic cube, it seemed plenty)

• 1/2 teaspoon dried hot red-pepper flakes

• 1/2 cup dry white wine

• 1 teaspoon salt

• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper

• 5 tablespoons unsalted butter

• 3/4 lb capellini (angel-hair pasta) I used linguine (the thing with angel-hair pasta is that it's so easy to overcook)

• 1/2 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley (I tossed in some arugula as well.)

Preparation: 

Bring a 6- to 8-quart pot of salted water to a boil.Meanwhile, heat oil in a 12-inch heavy skillet over moderately high heat until hot but not smoking, then sauté shrimp, turning over once, until just cooked through, about 2 minutes, and transfer with a slotted spoon to a large bowl. Add garlic to oil remaining in skillet along with red pepper flakes, wine, salt, and pepper and cook over high heat, stirring occasionally, 1 minute. Add butter to skillet, stirring until melted, and stir in shrimp. Remove skillet from heat.

 

Cook pasta in boiling water until just tender, about 3 minutes. Reserve 1 cup pasta-cooking water, then drain pasta in a colander. Toss pasta well with shrimp mixture and parsley in large bowl, adding some of reserved cooking water if necessary to keep moist.

Verdict: 8.5/10

The dish turned out very nice, much better than anything "Alfredo" would have been. The shrimp were a tad rubbery, perhaps I shouldn't have put them into the oil (since they were pre-cooked). I am glad, though, that I didn't use as much garlic as the recipe called for. Leftovers were gladly eaten the next day (not by my 4-year old, of course. She ate the linguine with pesto.)