The Red Lentil

Curried Chickpeas for Jeremy

2011-03-31T18:14:00.000-07:00

The fact that I have prepared warm, spicy, velvety, curried chickpeas twice this week says something about the spring season so far. But enough about the weather. . .

Last weekend, a very old and dear friend was in town and, after succumbing to the prospect of an oncoming cold, I decided last minute we'd stay in and I would cook. After making an out of town guest shlep across the beltway to my house during rush hour traffic on a Friday, dinner had better be GOOD, I thought.

But as I've tinkered with odds and ends ingredients over the years, a cooking mantra has stuck to me like fat drippings to an all clad pan: good doesn't have to mean complicated.

Since fate was left to the Friday night traffic, and the estimated time of arrival ranged between 25 to 60 minutes, ingredients came out of the pantry quickly. What took the longest to cook went on the stove first. Brown rice in one pot and onions in another.

(A note: when my students in cooking class openly resist those untimely ingredients like rice or dried black beans, I gently offer a new perspective in defense of these foods and the "cooking ahead" strategy: it's not YOUR time, it's the beans' time.")

By the time my friend came to the door, all ingredients were in the pot cooking and dinner was on its way.

The meal fed three and a half of us. Luckily the dish satisfied my two dinner mates with one helping. As for myself and my other pregnant half, we went back for a second bowl.

Curried Chickpeas
Serves 2-3

2 Tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon oil
1 onion chopped
2 teaspoons salt, or to taste
1 Tablespoon black mustard seeds
2 Tablespoons tomato paste
3 cups cooked chickpeas (if using canned, drain and rinse first)
2 cups canned diced tomatoes, plus 1 cup juice drained and reserved
1 1/4 cups light coconut milk
2 1/2 Tablespoons curry powder
1 Tablespoon ground coriander
pinch red pepper flakes
cilantro garnish (optional)

Heat 2 Tablespoons oil over medium heat. Add onions and salt, cook until tender. Move onions to one side of pan, add remaining 1 teaspoon oil and black mustard seeds. Cook until mustard seeds make a popping sound and mix in with onions. Mix in tomato paste and cook 3 minutes. Add chickpeas, diced tomatoes, tomato juice, coconut milk, and remaining spices. Heat until mixture bubbles and cook 10 minutes or until sauce thickens.

Serve over rice.

Getting Fresh with your Food

2011-03-14T17:42:00.000-07:00

This is the season of anticipation.

The smell of mulch wafts down the street, birds deliberate atop treetops and bushes, sending down encouraging chirps to baby buds, and seed packets get pulled out of the freezer to be tested for viability.

The mouth anticipates as well. As the palette turns its nose from hearty soups, root vegetables, and velvety flavors that sustained it through the winter months, it turns to lighter fare and the fresh flavors that compliment spring lettuce, spinach, and sugar snap peas.

But, as we say at work when plugging in plans to the calendar year. . . we're just not there yet.

So last week, I decided that if my food couldn't be fresh, then I would have to bring fresh to my food. The theme was faux fresh Mex.

To bring on the fresh, I started with a favorite cooking strategy, "component cooking." Make a mixture of xyz, and throw it into several dishes throughout the week.

Frozen peppers and corn were roasted, mixed with black beans, freshened up with a cilantro lime vinaigrette and chopped avocado (throw in an avocado to anything, and i'm somehow transported to a beach in san diego), and the cooking began.

This Faux Fresh Mex filling created a delicious dinner salad (with tofu added for more protein) and fish tacos that were superb.

While my fresh flavor additions were quite unlocal, walking to the market to greet Virginia farmers is a mere month away. So at least as my pregnant feet swell up in size this summer and bulge out of my flip flops, my carbon footprint will be under control.

Here's the fish tacos:

1. Roast veggies

1 bag frozen corn (16 oz)
1 bag frozen peppers (16 oz)
Roast corn and peppers in 400 degree oven for 30 minutes.

2. Make veggie and black bean mixture

2 cups of roast veggie mix (above)
1 15 ounce can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 avocado diced

3. Make Cilantro Vinaigrette

1/2 cup cilantro
3 TBS olive oil
4 limes, juiced
4 TBS apple cider vinegar
salt and pepper to taste

Combine in a blender or food processor. Stir into veggie and black bean mixture.

4. Cook Fish

2 Tablespoons olive oil
12 ounces tilapia
salt and pepper
garlic powder
1 can chipotle chilis packed in adobe sauce
1 Tablespoon tomato paste
1 Tablespoon water

Heat an electric skillet with olive oil over medium high heat

Sprinkle salt, pepper, and garlic powder on both sides of fish.

Combine 3 Tablespoons adobe sauce, 1 Tablespoon tomato paste, and 2 Tablespoons of water.

Add fish to skillet and cook 4 minutes each side. Add tomato paste mixture and cook 3 more minutes.

5. Assemble Tacos

6 soft corn tortilla shells
1 romaine heart

Heat 6 corn tortillas on a skillet or in microwave for 15 seconds.

Fill corn tortillas shell with fish, romaine lettuce, and black bean veggie mixture.

Sunday Supper

2011-03-06T19:12:00.001-08:00

A grilled cheese fixation hit hard last week.

While innocently conversing with colleagues about the wonders of good melted cheese sandwiched in between toasty buttery bread, I found myself, like a deer caught in the headlights, face to face with a craving.

When a craving arrives, it doesn't knock softly, rather, it seems to transfix and woo me into submission. But like Harry Potter's Patronus is to a dementor, my deep breathing and mindful food/memory associations turn a craving into what it really is: something else. On that grilled cheese day, it worked.

But then Sunday came, and with it, rain, and more grilled cheese cravings. So I interpreted the steady stream of precipitation and gray coldness as a sign from a higher power that grilled cheese was destined to be made for Sunday supper. And tomato soup too.

The soup is made with straightforward tomato flavor. While more finessing is in store for this dish, I found it to be a very tasty sidekick to my sammy.

As for the grilled cheese, the best guidance I can offer is just get some good cheese, bread, butter, and a frying pan, and you're on your way to grilled cheese heaven.

What I enjoy about eating this dish is that the tomato soup is light and zingy, while the grilled cheese is buttery and satisfying. This combination of light and substantial pairs well with March weather, when Spring is quite indecisive.

Tomato Soup
Makes 4 cups

1 Tablespoon olive oil
1 Tablespoon butter
1 1/2 large onions sliced
1 tsp salt
1 28 ounce can whole peeled tomatoes with juice
1 cup low sodium chicken broth
3 large cloves garlic, diced
1/8 teaspoon red pepper flakes

Directions
In a medium sized soup pot, heat oil and butter over medium heat. When butter melts and is frothy, add onions and salt. Cook 30 minutes on low heat or until onions are golden, stirring every 10 minutes. Careful not to burn onions. Add tomatoes, chicken broth, garlic, and pepper flakes, bring to a fast simmer, and cook 15 minutes. Blend together (immersion blender is great here) until soup is smooth.

Grilled Cheese
(Makes 4; one sammy for dinner, one for lunch)

Ingredients
3 Tablespoons Butter, softened
6 slices Good bread, sliced evenly
12 ounces of your favorite cheese, sliced evenly

Directions
Heat a large non-stick frying pan (preferably one that has a lid) over medium heat. Butter one side of each bread. On unbuttered side of one piece of bread, lay cheese slices evenly. Close sandwich with second piece of bread, buttered side on the outside. Assemble remaining sandwiches. Cook one side until golden and flip. A few times during cooking, cover with a lid to encourage steam and get the cheese melting.

Pregnant Lentil

2011-03-01T02:18:00.000-08:00

Some time has gone by since the last Red Lentil blog post. But offline, there has been plenty of cooking and experimenting over the past year. I've tinkered with gluten free, vegan, holiday recipes, and the like. But now, I'm really hungry.

With pregnancy, eating and cooking have taken some interesting twists and turns. My poor kitchen has been insulted by looks of repulsion and acts of neglect, while innocent foods (in my case mushrooms and waffles) have been blindsided by my sudden hatred of them. But having since moved on from the initial gagging stage, a new found passion for cooking has descended upon my kitchen. Now, when something gets cooked on the stove, I delight in being ravenous, feel eating satisfaction deep inside my bones, and find revelation in recipes as I never have before. For me, this is pregnant cooking.

While stories over the next six months will be about pregnant cooking, it will still very much be about just plain ole cooking. We're all hungry, we all need protein, and we're all too tired to cook. So now that I am more tired, more hungry, and need protein and iron like a fish needs water, let's see what comes out of the kitchen this time.

This morning its was a protein smoothie.

The day I went to the store in search of protein powders, I was shaking inside. As the body seems to be speaking in code when pregnant, it took about a week to decipher what the "shakies" meant. Was it low blood sugar? Nah. Withdrawal from caffeine? Nah, I keep green tea to a minimum. Protein. It had to be protein. So off I went to the store. I searched the shelves of Whole Foods like I was trying to find a missing shoe from the closet. Finally, one appeared with ample protein and no added sugar or flavoring.

(Eating chicken for 3 days straight also did help the "shakies," which was the body's way of saying, "Get some vitamin B12 stupid!" But that's for another blog entry).

With this smoothie, I've gone with simple, fast, and tasty. There are plenty of enhancements and explorations to be made, but that's what weekends are for. As I drink this before heading off to work, I not only indulge in the protein, I indulge in a flavor that, to me, is reminiscent of vanilla ice cream.

Protein Smoothie
Serves 1

1 frozen banana
1 Tablespoon creamy natural peanut butter
2 TBS protein powder (I use natural brown rice protein powder)
1 cup soy milk
**2 tea iced cubes (can use green tea, twig tea, or an herbal fave)
agave to taste (optional)

**Steep your favorite tea, freeze in ice cube trays, enjoy in your smoothie!
Combine in a blender until smooth and enjoy! If needed, add more liquid for desired thickness.

A note about the blender. I keep it close by so it seems less of a chore to remove it from the cupboard. And a quick rinse immediately afterwards (dried crusty smoothie is not fun to clean) means a smoothie the next day is more likely in the cards.

Roughly 22 grams of protein to start the day isn't bad.

Now what's for morning snack. . .

Dessert in the Baking

2010-01-16T11:02:00.000-08:00

Recently, the "Banana Bake" has made a kitchen comeback.

I first encountered the Banana Bake one year ago via work. The Banana Bake, a combo of healthy fruits and desserty flavors, consistently achieved high marks and accolades from students in cooking class. Students also expressed their awe at how simple it was to transform this starchy fruit into a warm delicious dessert.

When the Banana Bake moved out of the classroom and into my kitchen one year ago, the recipe morphed and changed by the dictates of available pantry ingredients, and emerged as Banana Bake II. This time bananas joined preserved blueberries (canned the previous summer), canned crushed pineapple (fruit staple in the winter), and frozen mangos (the remaining slices that overstayed their welcome in the freezer). The Banana Bake kept finding new ways to be delicious.

Then, last spring, the elusive Banana Bake disappeared. As fresh strawberries began to grow on vines, there was no need for it. . . until now.

The Banana Bake re-emerged a few weeks ago. While planning a simple yet genuinely homemade lunch for colleagues. The meal, lentil chili and homemade bread, desperately needed a sweet ending. "What to dessert on?", I asked myself merely hours before the arrival of my guests. A quick stop at the store, 12 minutes of assembly, a small shove into the oven, and there it was: Banana Bake III. Eaten warm and topped with a plain yogurt agave mixture, all agreed BB III was delish.

And finally, we have arrived to yesterday, when I put the fate of Banana Bake III into the hands of my husband. Following instructions over the phone, my husband did a splendid job of replicating the recipe. It was different than my own recent bake, and may in fact be the inspiration for Banana Bake IV.

Hoping the Banana Bake finds its way into your kitchen this winter.
Be Well.

Cooking up a Storm

2009-12-21T12:29:00.000-08:00

While shopping at Whole Foods last Friday in search of ingredients for food gifts, I had dismissed the long lines and hoards of customers as part of the holiday season's hustle and bustle.

Later than night, when the first flakes of snow began to fall, which we soon learned would be a 26 hour snow fall-athon, I realized what I had witnessed earlier was snow panic.

Since my own snow panic never struck, when the storm did, we were left with dwindling remains from food purchases the week prior, frozen produce from summer, and staple dry goods.

So in between hunkering down and digging ourselves out, creative cooking also filled time in the days that followed.

Snow Shovel Breakfasts:
Oatmeal, stretched with couscous, combined with dried milk, (to spare our soy milk from taking a hit) dried fruits, nuts, and spices that were on hand. Day 2 breakfast was "eggy mash", a concoction I created for Umami mornings. This mixture of shredded egg, mayo, soy sauce, Sriracha, and sesame oil, is rich, creamy, salty, and protein packed.

Snow Shovel Snacks:
Pretzels w/homemade hummus. Dates and walnuts.

Snow Shovel Dinners:
Tortilla pizza topped with odds and ends. It's an amazing thing how, shmearing tomato paste on a tortilla, and topping it with with canned toms, various veggies, garlic and spices, parm, and Monterey Jack cheese, makes a great thin crust pizza. Our second dinner, multi grain waffles, tapped into quinoa, oat, and buckwheat flour reserves. Topped with agave syrup these were hearty and filling, and enough leftovers remained for 3 more breakfasts.

Tonight it will be wontons with fillings TBD, and a batch of creative granola bars, sans oats.

Tomorrow, off to the grocery I'll go.

May your staples always see you through the storm.

Be Well.

Raising the Bar

2009-12-05T19:02:00.000-08:00

Yesterday it was time to make muffins. The snow outside was a calling to my oven to become steamy, and to emanate smells of warm cinnamon and banana.

My no-recipe muffin formula came together quickly- mashed bananas, oil, sugar, vanilla, milk, egg, and cinnamon, combined together with flours, oats, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

Time to jazz up the bowl a bit.

Shelves were scoured and 2 of my finds were dried cranberries and a half bar of dark chocolate.

This particular bar, a hostess gift from way back in October, had oddly survived late night grazing over the past two months. Even intentional household chocolate purchases don't last this long, and therefore never become the baked good it was intended to be. This bar was a survivor.

Partly because, when nibbling through it over the past 2 months, I noticed that while the bar did offer deep dark flavors, an accompanying fatty smooth backdrop was missing, and no satisfaction ever came.

So choppity chopped it was and tossed together with dried cran. The cran-choc combo is kind of odd, kind of dynamic, and much more rich than either ingredient is on its own.

Time for the final mix and the oven was ready to radiate the smells of Cranana Chocolate Muffins.

As for the taste. . . well, when the warm melty dark chocolate met the muffin, let's just say, this time, I was satisfied.

May chocolate cravings be satisfied in many ways this winter season.

Be Well.

lemons

2009-11-21T07:45:00.000-08:00

What happened last night when I opened the fridge and came face to face with empty shelves and bits of this and that. . . I made dinner.

First I reached for the sweet potato, onion, garlic, and frozen corn. Once that was cooked up nicely on the stove top, the question remained. . . what next?

I weighed my options: One tortilla, a pantry full of grains, and 1 batch of leftover pizza dough in the fridge. A peek into the freezer revealed frozen pesto discs from the summer, and the decision was made. . . it would be pizza.

One pesto round coated the veggies nicely, while another round mixed into ricotta. With no mozzarella to be found in my fridge, a half container of leftover ricotta (past its date but not funky yet) would suffice as the cheesy element.

Dough was patted and massaged with oil and garlic, pesto veggies and pesto cheese poured on top, and the oven beeped with anticipation.

425 degrees and 20 minutes later, dinner was ready.

That night, making something out of nothing was quite delicious.

Be Well.

5 days, 2 breakfasts

2009-11-04T17:01:00.000-08:00

Last week was spent out of town, conferencing and businessing in the Midwest. So naturally cooking and eating rhythms were just a tad out of wack.

Case in point, on day 1 of the conference, I walked into a lunch buffet of deep dish Chicago style pizza, chafing dishes with even more food, some of which were also starchy, and cheesecake. Quite a spread for 12pm on a Wednesday, where the only plan afterward is to sit more, listen a lot, and eat again later!

Having suffered from conference eating syndrome three weeks prior, this time I came prepared to dodge overindulgence by starting the day off on the right foot.

This time, I brought oatmeal.

It was an afterthought really. Minutes before embarking for the airport, quick oats, craisins, raisins, cinnamon, and walnuts were hastily double bagged into a Ziplock and stowed in my tote.

Little did I know what that Ziplock bag would really provide in the days to come.

For four consecutive mornings, the sustenance that came with my hearty, warm, and creamy oatmeal mix, became a stabilizing force for my blood sugars and for my ever changing morning routine. It stuck to my ribs, remedied lingering food hangovers, and harnessed my AWOL prone appetite.

A breakfast thrill seeker I have always been, but on that particular week, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, were all about the familiar.

Then came Sunday. An appreciation brunch for friends who hosted me for the weekend was in order. And so came the crepes.

Crepe making doubt is something many may face. Partly because the crepe has been glorified as gourmet or exotic. But really, the challenge is in its delicacy not in its complexity.

In fact, once I started mixing together the very basic ingredients (milk, water, eggs, melted butter, and flour), muscle memory kicked in and a delicate crepe maker I became once again.

The spinach Havarti mushroom filling satisfied the need for savory, and banana peanut butter chocolate nailed the sweet. The ricotta cinnamon strawberry filling didn't really deliver, but experimentation with fillings are what makes crepes so fun.

May your first meal of the day always be a good one.
Be Well.

Squash in My Cereal

2009-10-18T11:10:00.000-07:00

This is the time of year when I have cravings for a taste called WARM.

The tastes, textures, and temperatures of cinnamon oatmeal, ginger pancakes, pumpkin muffins, creamy squash soup, and curried chick peas, all point to WARM.

It's hard to say exactly what warm IS, you just know it when you taste it. So this week, I searched for WARM.

I first found WARM on Wednesday at Whole Foods Market. I opened up my winter squash cooking class with a sample of cinnamon squash oatmeal. When tasting this basic combo of cinnamon, butternut squash, oatmeal, soymilk, and agave syrup, participants lit up as the addition of butternut squash turned up the WARM factor on a basic breakfast staple.

The next day, I found WARM at work. As my colleague and I tinkered with a savory spiced bulgur dish, it was with a quick lift of the lid and a small blast of spicy steam that our verdict became clear: more cinnamon. Combining bulgur with tomatoes and onion made this dish a hearty basic. But with the addition of cinnamon and raisins (raisins were an improvised addition) we had found WARM.

On Friday, along came my head cold. It was WARM I reached for rather than the medicine cabinet.

Into a pot, my husband threw basic staples we had on hand: carrots, onion, chicken stock, corn, potatoes, salt, and pepper. It was clear something was missing, so we added winter squash and toasted baguette slices (staled 7 weeks ago!). With these simple additions, my cold remedy deepened in flavor, thickened in texture, and found its way into WARM. A soothing pot that saw us through the weekend.

May you find WARM and KEEP warm.

Be Well.

Dough Whisperer

2009-09-30T03:29:00.000-07:00

When the time came this week to prepare the second batch of Russian tea biscuits, my confidence was up as I basked in the glow of batch #1 success.

So I doled out a little of this, measured out a little of that, and sifted my way into a dough ball.

But something was amiss. My hands told me the dough offered way too much give and my head told me not to reach for the flour.

If this was a batch of chili, spice it up and we'll call it a day. But when a Crisco and oil pastry dough is deviating from your hopes and expectations, finding a solution can get quite sticky.

With batch #2, it would be with strategy and moderate manual finessing that would turn this ball into a baked good.

Avoiding a full fledged flour intervention, I nudged the tender dough into a rectangle. While holding my breath, fillings were spread and sprinkled, and all was gently rolled up into a log. Amazed at the tenacity of this tender log, I knew it would cave in if taken to the knife.

In this desperate time where no more measuring was to be done, I opted to give the log a little talking to.

"Firm up," I urged the dough.

10 freezing minutes later, the dough emerged from its frosty time out. Having gained some resilience, slices were carefully made and into the oven it went.

Batch #2 was not as attractive and consistent as batch #1, but the Russian tea biscuits tasted great nonetheless.

And by batch #3, I was fluent in dough speak.

Be Well.

At the Improv

2009-09-21T19:42:00.000-07:00

The normal shopping and cooking routines of the weekend were thrown a tad off course with the arrival of the holidays.

Saturday and Sunday were spent eating good food prepared by others, visiting with family and friends, and dipping apples in honey to usher in a new year.

So when the beginning of the week quickly arrived, I had no homemade bread to creatively incorporate into Wednesday night's dinner, no banana muffins to grab for a quick breakfast, and no Sunday black beans to smash for a Thursday burrito.

Improv cooking would definitely be on the menu this week.

Breakfast at the improv: yogurt, French couscous, walnuts, and agave syrup. Reminiscent of a rice pudding, this dish is where the creamy meets the crunchy and chewy. An improvised breakfast of champions.

Lunch at the improv: a bread salad with chickpeas and grated carrots was tossed in an apple cider yogurt dressing. That foccacia from one week ago was still going strong in fridge storage and made scrumptious croutons. . . TGFF! The one thing I did prep on Sunday, homemade hummus (chickpeas in disguise), was dolloped on top.

Dinner at the improv began at 7:17pm. First I scoured the fridge and pantry, lining up proteins, grains, basic veggies, and savory spices on the counter. The onion, garlic scape pesto, corn, Israeli couscous, eggs, and Monterey Jack cheese made the team on Monday night. For this hodge podge Israeli couscous and egg dish, it would be up to the food, and not myself, to be scrambling to make us dinner.

Kudos to Israeli couscous for providing good starchy satisfaction and structure to an egg based dish. If you are craving an essence of pasta, but don't want the whole bowl of linguine, Israeli couscous is a good way to go.

Using what's on hand, combining ingredients for savory satisfaction, enticing the sense of umami, and including ingredients across the nutrition spectrum, are what my improv act has been about this week.

With time, the tasting of different ingredients over and over again fosters imagination and cultivates the curiosity of "what could be" when ingredients are combined in creative ways.

Sometimes ingredient combos work and sometimes they don't. That's what being at the improv is all about.

Be Well.

Day Old Bread

2009-09-14T13:33:00.000-07:00

Friday afternoon began with 2 loaves of homemade bread.

After assembling a batch of challah dough and leaving it for an hour in an oiled bowl, I peeked under the moist towel and had one of those "mmmmmm. . . is that going to rise?" moments. Another 30 minutes went by and no sign of puff.

So, as my bread neuroses continued to rise and the dough did not (be advised, watching a bowl of dough does not make it rise), I decided to turn to my old faithful: foccacia. Mix the yeast in water and sugar, wait, add the rest of the liquids, and add in the flour and salt.

After the foccacia backup bread was left in the bowl to rise, things quickly changed course. Maybe the challah was jealous, maybe it was the competition, but whatever the reason, that challah dough began to rise. And rise. And rise. Then the foccacia joined in. This was a dough drag race if I'd ever seen one.

It wasn't too long that I realized 2 large loaves of bread would decorate our table that night.

And decorate they did. The regal, glossy, deep brown, 16-inch braided challah sat side by side with the rounded, golden, salt topped, steamy foccacia. A Jewish Italian bread feast.

And then came the leftovers.

Since family was visiting for the weekend and many more meals were to be made, this was my chance to turn my bread into something else over the course of the weekend (and possibly to save time cooking). Time to make lemonade.

Nothing too creative came of the challah actually. While I could have created stuffed french toast with sweet ricotta or a savory bread pudding. the challah toasted with butter was our simple and heavenly morning mainstay.

Sunday afternoon lunch with the leftover foccacia was a different story. Cut into cubes, toasted with olive oil on the stove top, and tossed with chopped fresh tomatoes, fresh basil, garlic, olive oil, rice vinegar, salt, and pepper, this lunch for 4 was prepped in 20 minutes flat. We were salivating before, during, and after our meal. Had my dry white beans been cooked, they would have been tossed in for the protein.

And Sunday night was the pizza feast. The dough, prepped Saturday evening, in between family conversations and playing Boggle, was formed into 8 discs and par baked for Sunday night pizza with the fam. The pizza was so good, no leftovers remained.

A wonderful weekend and the bread saw us through.

Know Preservations

2009-09-07T19:49:00.001-07:00

The long holiday weekend brought an end to my summer of preservation procrastination.

Early Saturday morning, while standing in a Warrier I Yoga pose, I swear I heard a voice tell me "preserve something already, it's September for goodness sakes!"

Needless to say, the weekend is over, and corn, tomatoes, and basil are all hibernating in their own little places in my kitchen.

At the market, tomato seconds were $1.50 a pound! My husband sliced up those puppies and we stuck them in the dehydrator. Dehydrating was pretty hands off. Except for rotating the dehydrating trays, it was a low maintenance food project.

(I encourage everyone take a BIG bite of a dehydrated tomato and have a camera close by when you do. You'll want to capture the look on your face)

While my hubs was tending to the toms, I was busy at the food processor batching up pesto. Basil, parm, garlic, olive oil, salt, and toasted sunflower seeds. 2 cookie scoops of pesto went into muffin tins for freezing. A nice substantial pesto clump, and enough for 3 months worth if we used one per week! Perfect for pizza, soups, sauces, smashed potatoes, risotto, the list goes on.

And then there was the corn. Blanched, cooled, cut off the cob, and frozen. 3 bags. The naked cobs went back into the liquid from which they were cooked, destined to become the flavor infuser of corn stock. Into the pot they went, and away boiled the water. Boiled down to half it's volume. That's the kind of kitchen work I like. . . walk away and let it do it's thing. The stock is in the fridge right now, gearing up for hibernation tomorrow.

All of these preservation projects in one weekend. It was productive, it was work, and in January, it will be delicious.

Be Well.

A Fruitful Day

2009-09-05T17:43:00.000-07:00

Welcome to The Red Lentil blogpost and into my kitchen and garden! It is my hope that the food stories I will share from my daily life will bring learning, laughing, and salivating to yours.

Today was the clean out the fridge day- blech. Not the most enjoyable thing to do but by Wednesday I'll be glad it was done. In retrospect, I am convinced the act of cleaning the fridge created good fruit karma for the day. Because right at 2pm the doorbell rang and it was my neighbor with a bag full of yellow tomatoes! I scored some of them and they are now happily sitting, perched in the window sill next two two red ones we'd just plucked from our tomato plant.

Since my fruit karma seemed to be faring well, I pulled out a MAMMOTH zucchini from the fridge, also a gift provided to us. Shred, shred, shred went the food processor.

And last but not least, the third and final fruit gift, a bag of cute green apples from the tree of my brother-in-law and sister-in-law, were cooked down in a pot into a sweet mesh of mush. One tupperware container frozen and one standing by in the CLEAN fridge.

All of these fruit gifts and so many recipe ideas. Apple zucchini muffins, zucchini potato patties, and tomato corn salad, to name a few.

And tomorrow, it's off to the farmer's market. . . in search of more fruit.

Be Well.