Kale Soup

Apply heat to appropriate amounts of the below-listed ingredients for appropriate amounts of time, in the following order:

1. Olive oil
2. Chopped onion
3. Minced garlic
4. Chopped kale
5. Chicken broth
6. Bay leaf
7. Chopped sausage
8. Chopped turnip greens
9. Kidney beans
10. Paprika
11. Marjoram
12. Cayenne pepper
13. Basil
14. Sage
15. Salt and pepper
16. Chopped cilantro and parsley
17. Cider vinegar
18. Shredded parmesan cheese

Pumpkin Cake Bars

I used this recipe because it called for two whole cups of pumpkin puree, but it turned out way too sweet and a bit too moist. I left out about 1/4 cup of sugar and threw in some molasses to deepen the flavor, but I think I could have cut the sugar in half and it would have been fine. I also baked it in a 9x13 pan instead of a 10x15 pan, which may have something to do with the moistness, although I baked it for about 40 minutes instead of 20-25. Using olive oil instead of corn oil didn't hurt the flavor at all. Whole wheat flour could have been used without adverse effects, I think.

Barley and Wild Rice Pilaf

This turned out just fine, though I deviated a bit from the recipe. Because I was using the non-pearled Ethiopian barley that never softened up the last time I cooked it, I soaked it for a couple of hours and boiled it for about an hour this time. That seemed to work. I used a cup of barley and a cup of wild rice for this dish. I sauteed the onion and the wild rice together and then added the precooked barley, the broth, a handful of dried cranberries, and a few crumbled shiitakes. I didn't get the timing right on the wild rice and it took a lot longer to cook than I expected, but it was all right in the end.

Winter Squash Stuffed Peppers

This recipe was great. I roasted the peppers for about fifteen minutes in the toaster oven and stuck them in a paper bag to cool and peel. My peppers may have been on the delicate side, since they didn't hold up well when it was time to be stuffed, but filling wrapped in pepper shreds tastes just as good. I had no carrots in the house, but the stuffing was fine without them: just garlic, onions and a couple slices of bacon chopped up and sauteed, then thyme, wine, beans and a chunk of pumpkin puree. Next time I'd ease back a little on the bacon and a little on the beans, which made the stuffing seem a tiny bit dry. Really delicious otherwise. The Chief Taster seemed very fond of them.

Roast Chicken

Whole chickens take up too much space in the freezer, so this one had to go. I used a combination of this recipe and this recipe to figure out what to do with it. To keep the breast moist I chopped up rosemary, lemon zest and garlic and mixed it with olive oil, then spread the mixture over the breast meat under the skin. For the rest of it I mixed mustard, rosemary and olive oil and spread it over the skin on the rest of the bird. I chopped up three turnips and cut the tops off two heads of garlic and tossed them into the roasting pan with a little oil, salt and pepper, and roasted the whole mess at 350-375 for an hour and a half or so.

After dinner the remaining carcass gets processed; extra meat goes in the fridge and everything else, skin, bones, innards, goes in a covered pot of water on the stove to simmer until bedtime. This gave me about three quarts of nice rich dark brown chicken broth. I should freeze it this time so it doesn't go to waste when I fail to make soup in the next couple of weeks.

I didn't decide to cook this 5-6 pound chicken for dinner until about 2 PM, so I thawed it in a tub of hot water in the sink. I changed the water two or three times and checked the inside cavity to make sure it wasn't icy and it seemed to be thoroughly unfrozen by 5:30.

The turnips were great roasted this way. I still don't understand why the garlic heads need to be cut open before roasting; the cloves that the knife missed always turn out fine. Next time I won't bother. The mustard sauce seemed a bit wasted since my household isn't big on chicken skin, but all that skin went into the broth and, I hope, added lots of flavor. It did make the skin a nice roasty brown. But next time everything goes under the skin and not on it.

Recipes using Squashes

PUNKIN
How to prepare fresh pumpkin
Pumpkin Pie
More Pumpkin Pie
‘Nother Pumpkin Pie
Drunk Pumpkin Pie

NASTY SQUISHY SQUASHES
Winter Squash Rolls
Winter Squash Galette
Acorn Squash With Wild Mushroom Cranberry Stuffing
Moroccan-Style Stuffed Acorn Squash
Spiced Winter Squash Stuffed Peppers

Bok Choy Miso Soup

Thinly slice one medium-sized head of bok choy and two cloves of garlic. Bring 4-5 cups water or broth to a fast simmer. Crumble 4 dried shiitake mushrooms into the broth and add bok choy stalks and sliced garlic. Simmer bok choy stalks for 2-5 minutes or until they begin to grow tender. Add a large pinch or small handful dried arame, a splash of soy sauce, and the sliced bok choy leaves. When leaves wilt, turn off heat and stir in a heaping tablespoon of miso. Yum! Quicker and easier than the previous noodle dish with bok choy. Quicker than making macaroni and cheese, even.

Recipes using Greens

Can't have greens without bacon. It's the law.

TURNIP GREENS
Fried Pork Chops with Mashed Sweet Potatoes, Caramelized Apples, and Southern Greens
Gumbo Z’Herbes
Cuban Green Soup
Chile-Vinegar Turnip Greens
Turnip Greens With Cornmeal Dumplings
Southern Braised Greens with Bacon

KALE
Caldo Verde! (needs potatoes)
Boerenkool Stamppot (needs potatoes)
White Bean, Butternut Squash, Kale, and Olive Stew
Spanish-Style White Bean, Kale, and Chorizo Soup
Hearty Portuguese Kale Soup

GOES WELL WITH GREENS
Pan-Fried Chicken with Bacon-Thyme Gravy

Recipes using Dates

For some reason we bought the gigantoriffic economy-sized hogshead of dates at Costco, so I should make a few of the following.

Date-Walnut Rugelach (needs cream cheese)
Almond-stuffed dates (stupidly simple)
Maamoul (needs crystallized ginger, orange zest)
Chicken with Dates and Wine (needs sweet red wine)
Date Bar Cake
Indonesian Rice Salad with Fresh Dates
Canadian Date Squares
Fig and Date Bread
Date Squares

My pantry

contains the following things, among others, that I'd like to use up in meal planning:

FRUIT
persimmons
pomegranate
apples
lemons
dates
figs

CARBS
pasta
rice noodles
bean threads
buckwheat
lentils
corn tortillas

GREENS
kale
spinach
lettuce
turnip greens

VEGGIES
tomatoes
pumpkin
acorn squash
butternut squash
bell peppers
peas
corn

MEATS
chicken
bacon
sausage
buffalo burger
pork
salmon

ROOTS
sweet potatoes
onions
turnips
leeks

ETCETERA
tapioca pearls
almonds
walnuts
peanuts
pine nuts
mozzarella

FLAVORS
sage
rosemary
thyme
cilantro
garlic
lemon juice

Pomegranate & Apple Crisp

Needs more pomegranate, but this turned out well. The crisp part was crispy enough, the apples were soft and sweet enough, etc. I added a good dose of lemon zest and cut the sugar just about in half.

Almond-Crusted Salmon with Leek and Lemon Cream

Yum. I didn't bother with pureeing the sauce because then I would have had to wash the Cuisinart. I didn't chop up almonds but just used almond meal instead, which is probably even better. It turned out tasting extremely lemony, which was good. It doesn't go well with vinegared roasted turnips, of course, because everything on the plate was sour.

Penne with Slow-Roasted Cherry Tomatoes and Goat Cheese

Recipe here. Always a good recipe. I didn't have any fresh basil but I had a good-sized lump of arugula-garlic-parmesan-pinenut pesto in the freezer, which I thawed and threw in. Although I forgot to do it this time, next time I mean to throw a head or two of garlic in the oven with the tomatoes. This recipe is a great vehicle for Eatwell's delicious rosemary salt.

Pan-Roasted Turnips with Poppy Seeds and Paprika

Recipe here. This is not the best way to make turnips. The poppy seeds are pointless, add hardly any flavor, and make the whole dish seem annoyingly gritty. The paprika makes them a lovely color, but that's all.

Menu planning

I would probably cook more if I planned at least a week of meals in advance. This would save money in at least four ways: less would go to waste, because I'd have a plan for dealing with those veggies-on-the-verge in the fridge; less unnecessary crap would be purchased at the store, since I'd have a better idea of what I'll actually need; less eating of prepackaged, processed, expensive convenience foods from the freezer would take place on nights when neither of us feels like coming up with a creative recipe or meal plan; and less eating-out at convenient restaurants would take place when neither of us feels like cooking at all. Eating out isn't a terrible thing in itself, but I've had the experience several times now of going to some local creperie or sandwich place and paying more than I wanted to for an arrangement of ingredients that I already had at home (in organic versions, no less). I'd rather save my eating-out money for special occasions and special places that do really cool things with teff or pomegranate juice or tandoori ovens.

The structured-ness of planning meals in advance has always been appealing, but pressure in the opposite direction comes from the desire to share cooking responsibilities with the man of the house, an eminently capable chef with lots of potential. Until just now I had been thinking that publishing a pre-planned recipe list would be tantamount to accepting responsibility for preparing all of those meals, which seemed a bit silly since we both have full-time jobs. But it occurs to me that this pre-planning could facilitate the sharing of responsibility instead; it would make it possible to say, for instance, "I'll be home late, so will you check my blog and make whatever I posted for Wednesday's dinner?" And if whatever I posted seems un-tasty or uninspiring, the man-chef can make whatever he likes instead (though preferably involving the same main ingredient, which might need to be used up).

Since the man-chef plans to have a very busy December and I expect to have a relatively quiet one, the new system might be a one-cook operation for a while -- and that's not a bad thing, as long as no unreasonable expectations for the future take root. It might be easier to work out the early kinks on my own. Especially if I can often come home at night to a kitchen full of clean dishes and utensils to cook with . . . :-)

There are plenty of email services that put out weekly meal-planning helpers, and it would be nice to find one that I like, but they appear to come in two flavors: standard basic American (Monday: Tuna Casserole! Tuesday: Beef Tacos! Repeat ad nauseum) or gourmet (e.g., Epicurious' Recipes of the Week: Spiced Pumpkin Cheesecake with Caramel Walnut Sauce! Fresh Wild Mushroom Soup! Repeat until broke and exhausted). Fortunately Eatwell, which supplies me with most of my perishables anyway, does two nice things: on Fridays they send an email with next week's likely veggie list, and in Wednesday's newsletter they include recipes that use some of those veggies. I can make much better use of both those things than I do now.
Anyway, point is, I'll be trying to use this blog as a workbench for creating meal plans and shopping lists as well as posting and reviewing recipes, so don't be alarmed or whatever.

Japanese Noodles with Bok Choy

Had bok choy lying around and Matt hates Chinese, so I made this. Had no tofu, didn't feel like chopping onion, so I just stir-fried garlic, then bok stems, then bok leaves. I didn't bother to measure the sauce ingredients, though I did at least stir them together before pouring them on with the noodles. As a result I threw in too much corn starch and the result is a teensy bit gummy, but otherwise hits the spot.

Recipes to keep track of

I've had a request for mincemeat-with-meat, so here are some recipes I've glanced at:
Mincemeat Pie Filling
Mincemeat II
Traditional Mincemeat
I guess the idea is to take the cheapest cut of meat around, chop it up into unrecognizable oblivion, and mix it with fruit, putting it squarely in the eccentric "pemmican" family of foodstuffs. Mom made a good vegetarian version and should send me the recipe (hint, hint).

Spaghetti Squash with Arugula Pesto

Nope, this treatment still does not make spaghetti squash an edible food. The pesto's good, though.

For pesto:
1 bunch arugula
1 good-sized handful walnut pieces
4 cloves garlic, peeled
2 cubic inches parmesan cheese
1/2 cup olive oil
about 1/3 cup sundried tomatoes
salt & pepper

Throw everything in the cuisinart and process until pesto-ified.

For squash:
1 spaghetti squash

Throw in the microwave and nuke for 15-20 minutes. If you're like me, you will stick the whole squash in the microwave and nuke it for 4 minutes and 24 seconds before thinking to yourself, "Hmmm... what if the seed cavity fills with steam and the squash explodes inside the microwave?" The first recipe I looked at didn't say anything about cutting it in half before microwaving, but others did, and there must be a reason, so I ran to the microwave, turned it off, took out the squash, laboriously cut it in half, and stuck it back in for another 15 minutes.

Once the innards are softened, scrape them out into a bowl with a fork and separate into nasty, disgusting orange strands. Toss with olive oil and pepper if you want to, but it won't do any good. Throw the squash away and eat the pesto with a spoon. I made the mistake of combining the two on the first test run, but I've since concluded that the recipe I based this dish on must have been a misprint. In fact, all recipes involving spaghetti squash are probably misprints, or possibly cruel pranks.

I still have half a spaghetti squash reposing in the fridge, so I'll look for recipes that involve breaking most of its molecular bonds and mixing the remnants with sugar and chocolate.

Bacon Soup and Variations

1 strip bacon
2 leeks, white and green parts, chopped
1 bunch turnip greens
1 bunch radish greens
3/4 quart chicken broth
1 can black beans, rinsed
2 precooked apple-chicken-gouda sausages
1/4 cup cream
salt, pepper, paprika, sage, marjoram to taste

Fry the bacon until most of the fat has rendered. Remove, chop, and return to pan. Add leeks and cook until soft and translucent. Add greens, chicken broth, and black beans. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 15-20 minutes or until greens have almost softened. Chop sausages and add them to soup. Continue simmering until greens are softened. Add cream and seasonings to taste. Serve with a delicious side salad.

This soup likes a strip of bacon to start, but if unavailable, a tablespoon of butter will do. Leeks can be replaced with anything in the allium family (if garlic, do not brown). Greens can be replaced with any leaves: kale, beet greens, collards, spinach, cabbage. The broth can be any variety including plain water. Beans can be anything -- garbanzos, navy, kidney, white. The sausages can be replaced with any kind of flavorful precooked meat, or omitted entirely. The cream is optional. The spices can be switched around, within reason.

Thai Steamed Salmon

This was pretty quick to make. It's not the best way to cook bok choy, but I haven't found any good ways to make bok choy so maybe this will have to do.

I seem to be lacking a steamer or a rack or one of those bamboo things, and I should probably just pick one up in chinatown, but for the time being I used the bok choy as a steamer rack over a tiny bit of water and rested the salmon on top. Instead of dividing the sauce and pouring some over the finished salmon, I dumped all of it (there wasn't much) over the salmon in the pot, because anything with raw fish sauce in it is yuck -- it always needs to be cooked. The fish turned out great, though I used two chunks of very different thicknesses. The small one got a tiny bit dry but it was still very good.

To go with this I made brown rice and tortured some green beans. I threw a pound or so of green beans into a very hot pan along with four or five cloves of garlic and let them pan-roast, covered, for a few minutes until they started getting brown spots. Then I threw in four or five sliced shiitakes, too much soy sauce, and a splash of rice wine and slammed the lid back on to steam the mess. Next time I'll be stingy with the shiitakes and soy sauce and generous with the rice wine... the shiitakes turned into little salt sponges, and the rice wine added some nice sweetness.

Spicy Crunchy Chickpeas

To use up an extra half-can of chickpeas languishing in the fridge: Rinse and drain chickpeas and dry well. Toss with olive oil, curry powder, and salt, and roast in a 425-degree oven for half an hour or so.

These turned out edible, but not something I'd look forward to coming home from work and snacking on. After a day or so the crunch vanished and they reverted to dry mealiness. Next time I might try roasting the chickpeas for longer, until I start really being afraid I'll burn them. The most-roasted ones seemed to be better.

Roasted Sweet Potatoes

Preheat to 425. Peel yams, slice in half and cut into 1-inch chunks; toss with generous dried marjoram and basil and especially olive oil; salt and pepper. Roast for 45 minutes or so, until they get a bit dry and crusty looking on the outside, with brown spots. Very delicious, melt in your mouth, sweet and buttery.

Sauteed Portobellos and Spinach

This recipe is very easy. Portobellos are the only necessarily fresh ingredient. I would use a lot more red wine and a lot more Parmesan if making it again; both of those flavors got lost, or else the Costco portobellos are just extra-strong.

Speaking of Costco, the produce there isn't so great. We picked up four big portobello caps ($4.49), 12 great big Gala apples ($4.99), five lovely avocados ($4.99), a big double hand of bananas ($1.29), ten pounds of large yellow onions ($3.29), and an awful lot of garlic ($3.29). So far the avocados are quite tasty, but the apples were disappointing and the portobellos had kind of a fishy smell. The first bag of onions I picked up had suffered a serious mold attack; I hope the one I bought doesn't also succumb. Garlic's tough to wreck. We'll see. The bananas aren't ripe yet (but struggling along in a paper bag with an apple). In the future I think I'll stick to Trader Joe's (which has a lot of cheap decent organic produce), and of course our trusty box.

I must say,

this is a pretty awesome Fark thread.