A Little Green Inspiration

We have a couple of discount vegetable markets in Edmonton that offer a wide array of good produce. When I make a trip, I buy a lot of veg and only after I've brought a box home do I think about what I'm going to do with these damn vegetables. I think I just channeled my uncle. Let's get back on track. Anyways, I'm convinced this is not the way one's supposed to shop, but I like the challenge of using what I have to make a meal.

Dish number one is Aubergine Al Forno. The Canadian translation has got to be 'torched eggplant', which is why we're going to stick to its original title. Oven roasted vegetables with a little garlic, cinnamon and olive oil form the base of this dish. Toss in some breadcrumbs, pine nuts (sunflower seeds for those with nuts allergies), some raisins and dig in. It's great as a side dish, but I paired it with a little pasta to make it a meal and got a kick out of it.

The second  option is a garlicky kale salad. I consider this the hipster's answer to a caesar salad. This salad made me lose my mind with excitement. It was delicious and I was tickled that it offered more food value than a traditional caesar salad.

Finally I made a simple spinach salad with roasted beets and parsnips and added some goat cheese and walnuts to give it a little protein. None of these recipes are difficult. They are an offering of inspiration for those wanting to incorporate veggies into their hibernation diet. While I'm not ready for spring salads, these recipes provide me light winter options for the cold months ahead.

Aubergine Al Forno

From: http://www.jamieoliver.com/

Serves 4

Ingredients

• 3 Japanese eggplants, sliced in 1/2" pieces
• olive oil
• 1/2 t cinnamon
• salt and pepper 
• 5 green onions, sliced in one inch pieces
• 2 garlic cloves, finally chopped
• 10-12 cherry tomatoes
• red wine vinegar
• 1/3 cup breadcrumbs
• 1/3 pine nuts
• 2 T raisins

Method

Preheat the oven to 425F. Place place the eggplant slices in a baking dish and brush the slices with olive oil to coat. Sprinkle the cinnamon and a little salt and pepper to season. Bake for 15-20 minutes, adding the onions, garlic and tomatoes halfway through. Once all the vegetables are softened and a little charred, remove from the oven and pour a little red wine vinegar over the vegetables.

In a bowl, combine the breadcrumbs, pine nuts, raisins, a drizzle of olive oil and a pinch each of cinnamon, salt and pepper. Pour the ingredients over the vegetables and toss well. Cook for another 5-10 minutes until crispy and golden.

Garlicky Kale Salad

From: http://minimalistbaker.com

Serves 4 as a meal

Ingredients

• 1 head of garlic
• 570 ml can of chickpeas
• olive oil
• 1 T garam masala, paprika and/or garlic salt
• 1 bunch of kale finely chopped
• 1/4 cup tahini
• 1/3 cup lemon juice
• 1 T maple syrup
• salt and pepper to taste
• hot water to thin if required

Method

Preheat oven to 375F. Drain and rinse your chick peas well and pour them into a bowl.  Add a drizzle of olive oil and whatever combination of seasoning you want or have on hand. I used a tablespoon of garam masala and some salt and pepper. Toss the chick peas well to season them. Separate the garlic cloves, leaving the skin on and place them on the edge of a baking sheet. Place the chick peas on the same sheet and bake both for about 20 minutes. Remove when the chick peas are golden brown and the garlic is soft.

For the dressing, combine the tahini, lemon juice, syrup, salt and pepper in a bowl. Remove the skin from the garlic cloves and add the cloves to the bowl. Using a stick blender, blend the ingredients. Thin the dressing with water if desired.

Place the kale in a large bowl. Pour in the salad dressing and toss so that all the leaves are well coated. Pour the chick peas into the centre of the bowl and serve.

Roasted Vegetable Spinach Salad

Serves 6 as a meal

Ingredients

• bunch of spinach, washed with stems removed
• two medium beets
• 3 parsnips
• 130g goat cheese 
• walnuts
• olive oil
• salt and pepper
• balsamic vinegar

Method

Preheat oven to 400F. Wrap the beets as is in foil. Wash and cut the parsnips in 1-2 inch pieces and place in a bowl. Drizzle a little olive oil and toss well. Add a few pinches of salt and pepper and toss again. Pour the parsnips on a baking sheet and place the beets adjacent to them in the oven. The parsnips should take about 20 minutes and can be removed from the oven to cook. The beets will take closer to 40 depending on their size. When the beets are done, remove them from the foil and set them aside. Once cooled, peel both beets and slice in wedges.

To prepare the salad, place the spinach in a large bowl. Add the parsnips and beets over the spinach. Crumble the goat cheese over the salad and add walnuts liberally. When serving, drizzle each portion with a little olive oil and balsamic vinegar and enjoy.

Winter Panzanella & Roasted Red Pepper & Lentil Soup

A belated happy new year to you! May your pots not stick and your belly be full. That is as wise a saying as I could come up with.

I am, like everybody else, back on the good-for-you-food bandwagon. I have traded my party shoes for runners and swapped trips to the wine bar with trips to the yoga studio. Actually I still hit the bar, but after yoga.

This year however, my partner in crime, Ruedi has gone walkabout for six months and while I'm excited for him,  I am missing my food Hoover. Nobody can suck back leftovers like Ruedi. In my haste to get groceries this week, I neglected to downsize these first recipes of the year in consideration of his absence. I should have known when the original recipe for the salad below called for six, count 'em, six freaking beets that I would wind up with way too much food!

So...while I was able to freeze the soup, I will never make the panzanella again. I ate this dish a total of eight times this week. It was great the first time, lovely the second time and doable the third time. After that, I felt like I was just choking it down to rid myself of the leftovers. I know Ruedi will be surprised that I ate all of the leftovers, because I rarely eat an item more than three times after I've made it. Well Ruedi, I did it. 

So, enjoy these lovely dishes, because despite the fact that I'm over them, they are great recipes and healthy ones at that. The panzanella has so many options for variation. If I was to make it again, I'd play around with different kind of vegetables, throw in some roasted cashews or seeds and cheese would of course make a good addition too. When doesn't it?

As for the soup, the tanginess of the peppers combined with pesto gives it a zing I really enjoyed. The original recipe calls for basil, but I couldn't find any nearby. I had loads of pesto on hand, so I opted to throw that into the soup instead.

Winter Panzanella

From: http://blog.kj.com


Ingredients

• 6 medium carrots, peeled and chopped
• 6 medium beets. peeled and cubed
• 2 fennel bulbs, chopped
• 2 cups butternut squash chopped
• 1 shallot minced
• 4 cups bread, cubed
• 2 cups kale, finely chopped
• 1 cup flat leaf parsley, chopped
• 1 apple, thinly sliced
• balsamic vinegar
• olive oil
• salt and pepper

Method

Preheat oven to 350F. Toss the bread cubes with a generous amount of olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Place them on a cookie sheet and bake them for about 10 minutes or until golden brown. Combine the carrots, fennel, beets and squash in a bowl and toss with more olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Place the vegetables on another baking sheet and roast them for about 30 minutes or until the edges are browned.

In a large bowl, combine the bread and roasted vegetables with the kale, shallots, parsley and apple and pour a generous amount of balsamic vinegar and olive oil over the mix. Add some coarse salt and fresh ground pepper and toss the salad well. Serve immediately.





Roasted Red Pepper & Lentil Soup

Note that you'll need to prepare the roasted red pepper sauce as part of this soup recipe. It can be made a day in advance if needed.

Adapted From: http://cali-zona.com


Roasted Red Pepper Sauce

• 4 large bell peppers
• 2 large tomatoes
• 1/2 white onion, diced
• 1 small shallot, diced
• 1/4 cup red wine
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 3 T pesto
• 2 T lemon juice
• 1/4 t cayenne pepper
• 1/2 t paprika

Method

Preheat oven to 400F. Cut the peppers in half and remove their seeds. Place them face down on a baking sheet and roast in the oven for about 25 minutes or until the skin begins to blacken and bubble. When cooled, peel the skin off of the peppers.

Blanch the tomatoes by dropping them in a pot of boiling water for about a minute. Once removed and cooled, peel the skins from the flesh.

Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a saucepan on medium heat. Add the garlic and let it flavour the oil for a few seconds. Follow with the onion and shallots, sautéing until translucent. Add the wine and simmer until reduced and syrupy in texture.

In a food processor or blender, combine the peppers, tomatoes, onion mixture and pesto and puree the ingredients. Pour the mixture back into the pan and add the lemon juice, pepper and paprika. Allow the sauce to simmer for about ten minutes and season to taste with coarse salt.

The Soup

Ingredients

• 1 3/4 cups red lentils
• 1 batch roasted pepper sauce (recipe above) 
• 8 cups water
• 2 large tomatoes, diced
• 1 T balsamic vinegar
• 1 T Worcestershire sauce
• 1 t hot paprika
• salt and pepper to taste

Method

In a strainer, rinse the lentils well. Add them to a large pot with the eight cups of water and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium to allow the lentils to cook for 25 minutes. Once the lentils are soft add the remaining ingredients and allow to cook on medium heat for another 5-10 minutes.

Beet & Potato Latkes

If you are one of the many who have become carb-conscious in recent years, you have reason to be. Studies comparing low fat, high carb, low calorie diets to low carb, high protein, high fat diets have shown that the low carb diet weight loss results were better, as were improvements in certain risk factors for coronary heart disease and diabetes.

Further detail can be provided here:  www.nejm.org

And here: www.nejm.org

Also here:  press.endocrine.org

Starchy vegetables are often targeted by the carb police as their glycemic index (GI), the rate at which carbs are absorbed into the blood stream, ranks high compared to other vegetables. A low GI ranges between 0-50, a medium GI ranges between 51-69 and a high GI from 70-100. Beets have a medium GI at 64, while potatoes rank higher, but the numbers provided via several studies vary considerably. I've found GI's ranging from between 58 to 111 just for russet potatoes as an example. For a sample GI index, check out this link: http://www.health.harvard.edu

Worth noting is that fiber is a form of carbohydrate which, in soluble form helps block the absorption of cholesterol. As fiber is indigestable, it can be deducted from the carb calculation of the food in question. 

Here's something else to consider: you need carbs. Carbohydrates are the body's way of providing fuel to its' cells and tissue.  About 130 grams per day is a good target to work towards.

With this in mind, I made myself a batch of beet and potato latkes yesterday. In addition to carbohydrates, potatoes cover a lot of other territory. A russet potato contains more potassium at 620 mg each than a banana, a serving of broccoli or spinach. It also provides a healthy dose of vitamins C and B6. Beets on the other hand are a good source of manganese and folate and help balance out the GI index of these latkes.

Now that we've overanalyzed these latkes, let's make and eat them.

Beet and Potato Latkes

Adapted from: http://www.ourfreshkitchen.com

Serves 4

Ingredients

• 2 large russet potatoes
• 2 large beets
• 2 green onions
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup quinoa flour
• coarse salt & pepper to taste
• 1 T coconut oil
• chopped dill to serve
• sour cream to serve

Method

Prepare the vegetables by peeling and grating the potatoes and beets and finely chopping the green onions. In a large bowl, toss the potatoes, beets and onions with the flour, salt and pepper. Add the eggs, mixing well until the egg covers all the ingredients. Heat a tablespoon of coconut oil in a pan on medium heat. Add a scoop of the mixture about a 1/4 - 1/3 cup in size to the pan and flatten it to form a patty. Cook the patty for approximately 6 minutes on each side. I opted to cook my latkes for longer than the original recipe specified, because I was experimenting with using less heat on my cast iron pan. The result was less smoke and spitting while the latkes were on the stovetop. Add a handful of chopped dill and dollops of sour cream to the latkes when serving.

References:

http://lpi.oregonstate.edu

http://www.livestrong.com

http://www.health.harvard.edu

http://healthyeating.sfgate.com

Meat-Free Middle Eastern Feast

I am officially meated out. Over the last two weeks, we've indulged in too many meat-laden meals. I need a break from steak.

On occasion I crave meatless dishes, especially after the holidays when meat appears only to be served with heavy sauces and sides. After a spring cleaning session, I pulled out a March issue of Canadian House & Home and found the solution to my cravings: North African and Israeli-inspired salads and entrees. The kinds of dishes we prepared tonight call for quality produce. I had farm carrots, beets and onions, so our salads felt clean and tasted crisp and new. 

The Shakshuka, a simple egg dish on a layer of cooked tomatoes was lovely, but lacked the punch that great tomatoes can contribute. All I could find at the grocer today were stacks of tired-looking romas, which I reluctantly used. In a case such as mine, you may want to wait for better quality tomatoes or experiment with canned as the recipe suggests.  You'll notice in the photo above, the large plate with the carrot salad and Shakshuka also has a slice of grilled eggplant with a chunk of Appenzeller cheese on top. The eggplant is simply sliced in 1/2 inch sections, brushed with olive oil and baked at 375F for 15 mins or so. I typically add whatever leftover cheese I have to each slice's surface once grilled and throw it back in the oven for 10 minutes tops. Tonight I just threw a piece on the hot eggplant and let it melt on its own. 

From: Canadian House & Home March 2011. pp. 116 & 118.

Shakshuka
Serves 8

Ingredients

• 10 large ripe tomatoes
• 1T flour
• 2 t sugar
• 3 T olive oil
• Salt & Pepper to taste
• 8 eggs
• 1/2 cup of flat-leaf parsley

Method

Slice off the very top of each tomato then, using the largest holes on a box grater, grate tomatoes until only the peel is left (I lost bits of my hand doing this so be careful). Discard peels. If you cannot find serviceable fresh tomatoes, use canned whole ones in a pinch; just use a few more and squeeze out a bit of the excess juice. In a deep cast-iron skillet or pan, stir together tomatoes, flour, sugar and olive oil and cook uncovered over medium-high heat for 30-40 minutes, or until sauce is a rich, deep red and has cooked own significantly. Season with salt and pepper.

A few minutes before serving, reduce temperature to low, make 8 wells and crack an egg into each. Cover pan with a lid or tinfoil for 5 to 7 minutes, or until eggs are cooked to your liking. Top with a little more salt and chopped parsley. Serve hot with warm pita or lavash bread.

Orange & Carrot Salad
Serves 8

Ingredients

• 4 large carrots
• 4 large seedless navel oranges
• Juice of 1 lemon
• 1 T honey
• 1/4 cup red onion, thinly sliced
• 1/2 cup fresh mint leaves
• 1/4 cup of pine nuts, lightly toasted in a fry pan (I used pumpkin seeds)
• Sea salt to taste
• Pinch of chili flakes

Method

Peel carrots and discard peel. Using the same carrot peeler, make "ribbons" out of each carrot, peeling away until you get down to the woody core. Discard the cores. Cut tops and bottoms from oranges, slice off peel, then cut sections of oranges out from between the membranes. In a serving bowl, mix lemon juice with honey. Add carrot ribbons, orange sections and red onion. Gently toss with lemon-honey dressing. Tear up mint leaves and toss into salad. Scatter toasted pine nuts over top and sprinkle with salt and chili flakes, then toss once more before serving.

Beet & Pomegranate Salad
Serves 8

Ingredients

• 4 whole medium beets, washed
• 2 t Dijon mustard
• Juice of 1/2 a lemon
• Pinch of sugar
• 1/4 cup good-quality olive oil
• Salt & pepper to taste
• 1 cup pomegranate seeds
• 1 bunch watercress ( I used two cups of baby spinach)

Method

Preheat oven to 400F. Trim the rough root and green leafy tops from the beets (save the greens...if you've learned anything from this blog you will SAVE THE GREENS!!!). Wrap beets tightly in foil-like swan and roast 1-1.5 hours, depending on size. When done, let cool until you are able to handle them, then pop off skins over the sink. Cut beets into 1" cubes and set aside.

To make vinaigrette, in a small bowl whisk together mustard, lemon juice, sugar, olive oil, salt and pepper. Set aside.

In a salad bowl, toss prepared beets with pomegranate seeds and vinaigrette and let sit at room temperature for 1 hour. Just before guests arrive, toss with watercress (aka spinach). Taste for seasoning and adjust if need be. 

Creamy Beet Salad

When I was growing up, I usually ate vegetables because I had to and beets offered no exception. Even their sweetness or delectable shade of purple couldn't tempt me. Thankfully, time and my evolving taste buds have made me a fan, although I prefer them paired with other interesting ingredients such as nuts and cheese. This unconventional salad was yummy with a little bbq'd chicken (thanks Ruedi). No surprises here: the cheese and nut combo sold me on the recipe.

From: Bravo! Best of Bridge Cookbook. p 71

Serves 6

• 5 medium-sized beets, trimmed
• 1 small red onion, thinly sliced
• 4 T red wine vinegar
• 2 T olive oil
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans
• chunk of blue cheese (ie. Roquefort, Stilton, etc.)

Preheat oven to 450F. Wrap beets individually in tin foil, place them on a cookie sheet and bake them in the oven for approximately one hour.  Remove beets from the oven and their foil and let cool. Chop them into matchstick pieces. In a large bowl, combine beets and onion, add vinegar and oil; toss to coat. Gently stir in sour cream. Sprinkle with pecans and crumble cheese over top. Season to taste with pepper.