Black Bean Couscous

This is SO easy and so delicious. Plus I made it up myself. I like to eat this cold, but it would be good warm too -- especially with some cilantro-lime fish or shrimp.

Black Bean Couscous
2/3 cup whole wheat instant couscous
1 cup veggie stock
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tsp. olive oil
1/4 cup chopped onion
3/4 cup canned black beans, drained and rinsed
1 cup frozen corn
1/4 tsp. cumin
1 tbsp. red wine vinegar

Bring the veggie stock to a boil. Add couscous and garlic, remove from heat, cover and set aside for 5 minutes. Meanwhile, chop onion. Then whisk together oil, cumin, and vinegar. Toss onion, black beans, and corn in oil mixture.

When couscous is cooked, stir in veggies. Add salt to taste! If you add the corn while frozen, it cools the whole thing off very quickly.

Simple Salsa

The Gourmet Cookbook has a recipe for fresh salsa using Serrano peppers. I bought some cilantro last week to make this salsa, but I couldn't find the peppers in the store. I found them this week, so I just got finished making the salsa. It is delicious - aromatic, fresh, crisp. Quite spicy. Like hit-you-in-the-back-of-the-throat spicy. So if you're sensitive to heat cut it back to one pepper instead of the two I used. I'm letting the flavors come together in the fridge, and then I'm going to have a mushroom omelette topped with fresh salsa for breakfast. Yum!

Fresh Salsa
1/2 pound plum tomatoes
1/2 cup chopped white onion
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
2 minced serrano peppers with seeds
1/2 clove minced garlic (optional)
Kosher salt to taste
3 tbsp. water

Finely chop the tomatoes, and stir in the other ingredients. Enjoy!

Sunday Double Feature

This Sunday was a busy cooking day for me -- I made a lentil stew and stuffed manicotti.

This morning I made lentil and brown rice stew - a recipe from The Gourmet Cookbook. It was kind of an afterthought -- I planned it at the last minute before making my grocery store trip. I had extra celery in my fridge and some lentils and brown rice lying around, so I thought the stew would be a good clean-out-the-fridge dish. It was very easy to make. At the same time, you throw in celery, brown rice, lentils, carrot, onion, some spices, and a can of whole tomatoes into a pot. You simmer it for 45 minutes, finish it with some cider vinegar and chopped cilantro, and you're good to go. The stew is a little bland, but it's very hearty and warming. All of my soup seems to look the same on camera. :-)

Lentil and Brown Rice Stew
1 can whole tomatoes in juice
5 cups veggie stock
3 cups water
1 1/2 cups lentils, picked over and rinsed
1 cup brown rice
3 carrots, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1 celery rib, chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme
1 Bay leaf
1/3 - 1/2 cup minced fresh parsley or cilantro
2 tablespoons cider vinegar, or to taste
salt and pepper to taste

Combine tomatoes, with their juice, stock, water, lentils, rice, carrots, onion, celery, garlic, thyme, and bay leaf in a 6-quart pot and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer, stirring occasionally, until lentils and rice are tender, 45 to 55 minutes. Stir in cilantro (or parsley), vinegar, salt, and pepper and discard bay leaf.

The big endeavor of the day was Manicotti Verde with a Tomato Wine Sauce from Moosewood Low-Fat Favorites. I made the sauce this morning. It was easy -- onion, red wine, fennel, oregano, basil, tomato puree. The manicotti was quite labor intensive -- mostly because I don't have enough counter space or large pots to make several big things at once. The filling consists of leeks, spinach, garlic, and a blend of cheeses. It was my first experience cooking with leeks, so I was a little slow chopping them. The most annoying part by far was the spinach. The recipe called for 20 ounces of spinach. This is A LOT of spinach. Rinsing and coarsely chopping this much spinach was interesting. The end product was quite good, though. I think when I make this recipe again, I will use more cheese and perhaps a saltier, more flavorful cheese. The dish needed salt, but just adding lots of salt results in a fairly flat flavor.

Stuffed Manicotti Verde
1 tbsp. olive oil
2 garlic cloves, minced
5 1/2 cups chopped leeks
3 tbsp. water
20 oz. fresh spinach, rinsed and coarsely chopped
1 tsp. dried basil
1/2 cup grated reduced-fat mozzarella
1/3 cup grated Parmesan
1 1/2 cups nonfat ricotta
salt and black pepper to taste
14 manicotti
3 1/2 cups Tomato Wine Sauce

Heat the olive oil in a large soup pot. Stir in the garlic, leeks, and water. Cover and gently saute, stirring occasionally until the leeks soften, about 10 minutes. Add the spinach and basil. Cook, covered, for about 5 minutes, until the spinach wilts, stirring once or twice. Uncover and cook a few minutes longer on medium-high heat to evaporate as much excess moisture as possible. Drain, if necessary. Combine mozzarella, parmesan, and ricotta with the vegetables. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Cook the pasta shells until al dente, 8 to 10 minutes. Drain well. Fill each manicotti and place in a lightly oiled 9x12 baking dish. Pour half the tomato sauce evenly over the manicotti and over tightly with foil. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Serve hot and pass the remaining sauce at the table.

Tomato Wine Sauce
2 tsp. olive oil
1 cup finely chopped onion
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 tsp. salt
2 tsp. ground fennel
1 tsp. oregano
1 tsp. dried basil
1/3 cup red wine
3 cups undrained canned tomatoes
salt and pepper to taste

In a saucepan, warm the olive oil. Add the onions and garlic, sprinkle with the salt, cover, and saute on very low heat for 5 to 7 minutes, or until the onions are beginning to soften. Add the fennel, oregano, and basil and cook for another minute. Pour in the wine and bring to a boil. Whirl the tomatoes in a blender until just pureed and add to the pan. Cover the sauce and simmer gently for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add salt and pepper to taste.

It's 9:30pm. The kitchen is finally clean. There are enough leftovers to last me the whole week. I'm too tired to type the recipes now, but I'll add them soon.

Dried Mushroom Soup with Barley

I'm in the process of kicking a cold, so I have really been in the mood for a warming, brothy soup. I've made this one before, and I love it. It's a little time consuming because of the dried mushrooms, but it is well worth the effort. Plus this soup is extremely healthy, and the boyfriend likes it! I've included the recipe below. It's in the Moosewood Low Fat Favorites cookbook. Enjoy!

Dried mushroom soup with barley
Serves 4 - 8

1/2 oz. dried mushrooms -- shiitake, porcini, chanterelle, etc.
6 cups boiling water
1 tsp veg oil
2 cups chopped onion
2 garlic cloves, pressed or minced
1 cup finely chopped celery
1 cup peeled and finely chopped carrots
3 cups sliced mushrooms
1/4 cup soy sauce
pinch dried thyme
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 cup raw pearl barley
1/4 cup dry sherry or 2 tsp honey (optional - I omitted it)
salt and pepper, to taste

In a saucepan, cover the dried mushrooms with 6 cups of boiling water. Simmer for 15 minutes. Remove from the heat and set aside for at least 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, warm the oil in a soup pot on low heat. Add the onions and garlic, cover, and cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the celery and carrots and cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add fresh mushrooms, increase the heat to medium, and cook, stirring continuously for about 3 minutes, until the mushrooms begin to release their juices. Remove from the heat and set aside.

Drain the dried mushrooms, reserving the mushroom stock. Cut off and discard any tough stems, then rinse and chop the mushrooms. Strain the stock through a sieve or a paper filter. Add enough water to the stock to make 7 cups of liquid. Add the chopped dried mushrooms, mushroom stock, soy sauce, thyme, pepper, barley, and optional sherry or honey to the pot sauteed vegetables. Bring to a boil and then cover, reduce the heat, and simmer for 45 minutes.

When ready to serve, add salt and pepper to taste. Add more water if it's reduced down and become too thick.

Heavenly Halibut

Lucky me. I got to go to the gym, come home, take a nice hot shower, and emerge clean and relaxed just in time to be served a beautiful dinner. The boyfriend made baked halibut.

On his walk home from school, he bought a 22 ounce Alaskan halibut steak with bone in at our local co-op. He prepared an Asian style sauce for the fish consisting of about a cup of soy sauce, 1/2 cup of brown sugar, 1.5 teaspoons of garlic powder, and some fresh ground black pepper. He whisked it all together, marinated the fish in the refrigerator for about 20 minutes, and baked it for 15 minutes at 400 degrees. (The rule is 10 minutes per inch of thickness according to the website we referenced.)

It was delicious! The meat was flaky and well flavored. Add some green beans and a baked sweet potato, and I was in heaven. It was healthy too! Bravo boyfriend.

Lemony Lentil Soup

Tonight after work I made an easy lemony lentil soup from a recipe I found on vegWeb. It was just lentils and brown rice, a bunch of herbs and spices (including curry powder), and some sauteed onions. Then you finish it with a squeeze of lemon juice just before eating.

It was okay. I would eat it again. It's nice because you can get the lentils and rice going while you're chopping the onion, and you're completely done making a soup that will last 4 days in less than an hour.

I think next time I would add some carrots and celery to the sauteed onions. Or maybe some chopped tomatoes...

The boyfriend, not surprisingly, was underwhelmed. You win some; you lose some. Like I said before, it's a lot harder to please a carnivore with low-fat vegetarian fare than a rich, buttery mushroom lasagna.

Sweet Potatoes

I have rediscovered my love of sweet potatoes. They are packed with vitamins, and they have so much flavor you don't need to put anything on them. I will admit, though, that some maple syrup, butter, and brown sugar makes a sweet potato sinfully good.

Today for lunch, I had a plain microwaved sweet potato. I pricked the surface a bunch of times with a fork, put a paper towel down in the microwave, cooked it on high for 3 minutes, flipped it over and cooked it for another three minutes, let it sit for a couple more minutes, and ate it. Delicious!

Lesson of the day: good food does not have to be complicated.