Being a cooking blog, I bet you expected something edible here. Sorry! I made a simple pumpkin custard and letting everyone else do the serious cooking.
Have a good holiday!
Curried Goodness
This is a recipe that I made during my long hiatus–it’s a curried couscous with veggies, beans, and chicken. It’s a modification of one that Joe posted on Culinary in the Desert some time ago. It’s really, really delicious and as we learned last night, something that you can prepare parts of ahead of time to ease dinner prep on a busy night. On Mondays, you see, I have my bellydancing class. It runs from 7-8 and I’d rather not eat beforehand, so I like something we can quickly assemble for afterward. In this case, the chicken and broccoli were cooked ahead of time, and most of the chopping was done.
You’ll need:
10-12 oz of boneless skinless chicken
1/2 T or so of olive oil to cook chicken in
1 c chicken broth
3/4 c water
1 c whole wheat couscous
1 1/2 c broccoli florets
1/2 c of red onion, or 1/4 c of yellow, diced
1/4 c currants, allowed to sit in warm water a bit to plump, then drained
1/4 c pine nuts, toasted if you’ve got the time/energy
1 tsp minced fresh ginger
1 1/2 T olive oil
1 T white wine vinegar
1 T sugar
1 1/2 t curry powder
3/4 t salt
15 oz can of low-sodium chickpeas, drained
4 oz crumbled feta cheese
Start by cooking your chicken in the oil in a skillet over med-high heat. Sprinkle the chicken with s & p. Depending on your chicken configuration (2 smaller pieces as opposed to one enormous one), this process, flipping once or twice, will take around 10 minutes. Keep an eye on it. The one I used last night was massive, so I eventually had to cover it and let it finish cooking or else my exteriors would have been blackened.
Set chicken aside. Steam broccoli florets for 3-4 minutes, until crisp-tender. Set aside. Go to bellydancing class.
Come back from class. Bring water and broth to a boil; add couscous, stir, cover, and remove from heat. Allow to stand at least five minutes to cook.
In a huge bowl, add other ingredients and mix up. Dice chicken and add. Add broccoli. Add couscous and mix up thoroughly. Tasty! Serves 5-6 people; if you’re eating 1/6 of the dish, it’s about 350 calories. And full of fiber and protein and all that stuff.
A little early holiday cheer
In the last two days I made a bunch of soft trees, with a pattern on the now-ceased Little Birds blog. Then I assembled this little scene. It has a few tiny mid-century deer that I ordered last year on ebay and somehow managed not to lose in the 12 months hence. So what if it’s before Thanksgiving, it makes me happy 
Quick and Easy Lunch
On Fridays I work from home with various degrees of productivity. Regardless of how the day is going, I do eventually need to stop working or loafing and have some lunch. This was a recipe initially made by my grandmother once when she came over, and it’s faster and practically easier than calling in for pizza or sandwiches.
Chop up a whole bunch of veggies of your choice. In this version, I have:
1/2 an orange pepper
1/2 a medium zucchini
1/2 a portabella mushroom cap
1/4 of an onion, sliced
and about a quarter of a can of low-sodium goya chickpeas.
Typically I also add garlic, but forgot today.
Pour a half-tablespoon of olive oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Add everything but mushrooms and chickpeas; the heat should be high enough that they stick just a smidge and start to brown. Add mushrooms and let cook a few minutes. Add chickpeas. Cook until veggies are soft and brown. Put into a bowl. Toss a tortilla into the skillet, turning once, to warm up and soften. Place 1 T or so of cheese on the tortilla, and fill with some of the veggies. After I eat my wrap I then eat all the veg in the bowl.
I use fresh Mission tortillas out of the refrigerator case–they aren’t made with shortening, and therefore are trans-fat free.
Serve with some chips. My little lunch here, chips included (they’re baked) was about 370 calories, and much cheaper than going around the corner to the pizza joint.
Eggplant Gratin
The other night we had this delicious eggplant gratin. It was lovely when placed on a blue plate with a side of sauteed shrimp and some mixed greens. Here, it’s less pretty. But whatchagonnado.
The recipe comes from Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything Vegetarian cookbook. Bittman is a food writer for the New York Times; he has a hilarious show on PBS called The Best Recipes in the World. We watch it most Saturdays. I got this puppy from Amazon a couple of weeks ago. It’s a tome–a solid 10″ square with about 4″ of pages. Indeed, it seems everything is in there.
You start the gratin by making a Greek-style fast tomato sauce. You chop an onion, toss it in some olive oil over medium-high heat, and add one smashed garlic clove. When they’ve softened a few minutes later, you add a drained can of whole tomatoes (28 oz), chopped, 1/2 c of red wine, a tsp of fresh oregano and a tsp of fresh parsley (neither of which I had), a cinnamon stick and a pinch of allspice. Let simmer 15 or so minutes, and voila. The spices add a nice subtle flavor to the sauce.
Then you slice an eggplant into 1/2″ rounds. Layer in a casserole of some kind, with a sprinkle of s&p on each layer. Sprinkle 1/3 c of feta over it, shaking a bit to distribute, and pour sauce over. Top with bread crumbs (1/4 c, maybe?) and pop into a 375 degree oven for 35-40 minutes. Yum. Bittman says you get two servings, but he must be insane. With five or six shrimp sauteed in a little olive oil, garlic and red pepper flakes and a heaping pile o’ salad greens, we easily got four out of this. Or would have, if there were leftover shrimp for the next day’s lunches. By virtue of having to leave the house first, all that eggplant was mine before Mr. Pea even woke up. (Insert sinister cackle here). He was stuck with still more of the Shepherd’s Pie, which we have finally run out of.
Anyway, the whole thing, including shrimp and salad, came in at about 400 calories. Healthy and tasty. Who knew?
I know what you’re thinking.
“That does not look appetizing,” I bet you’re muttering to yourself. Though that in large part has to do with my photography skills, you’re just going to have to trust me on this one. This dish–Sweet Potato Shepherd’s Pie–is deeeeelicious.
Someone posted it on the calorie counting site I use, and while I was a little skeptical about the flavor combination, I was duly impressed with the results. It’s initially from _Every Day with Rachael Ray_, a magazine I’ve never picked up, but I’ve tweaked it a bit to make it mine.
You’ll need:
One package lean ground turkey (recipe calls for a pound, I can’t read directions, threw in the whole 20 ounce pkg. Whoops. It was fine, anyway, just a little more turkified).
1 1/4 lb sweet potato (I had one enormous tuber)
1 T olive oil
1/2 large onion, chopped
1 carrot, grated
2 stalks of celery, chopped
1/2 t poultry seasoning (I had some ancient Bell’s seasoning I found somewhere in the pantry)
2 T butter
1 T flour
1 c chicken or turkey broth (I like the low sodium varieties, preferably Pacific)
bit of worcestershire
10 oz box frozen peas, thawed
3.5 oz reduced-fat cheddar, shredded
First chop up your sweet potato and boil in a pot of lightly salted water until soft, about 15 m. Drain, set aside, and set pan aside.
In meantime, preheat oven to 425. In a large pot or dutch oven, add oil. Add turkey, brown a minute or two, and then add veg, poultry seasoning, and salt and pepper. Cook until turkey is done and veg starting to soften, five or so minutes.
In a small pan, melt 1 T of butter and add the flour to it, whisking to cook without burning it, about a minute. We’re making a roux here. It’s a pretty traditional method of starting sauces. You make a more or less even butter-to-flour ratio, cook to get the raw flour taste out, and add liquid. In this case, add the broth and a dash or two of worcestershire. Whisk, whisk, blending the flour in. Allow to simmer until thickened, another five or so minutes. Toss into turkey mixture (now cooked) and stir. Add peas, stir. I left the heat on low to warm everything through, since my peas weren’t so much thawed as frozen.
In your sweet potato pot, now empty, add last T of butter over medium-low heat. When melted, add your potato and mash wiht a little salt and pepper. Lay this stuff over the turkey mixture (turn that burner off), top with cheese, and pop into the oven for five minutes to melt it.
Serve with a salad. I planned six reasonable size portions out of this recipe (Rachael gets two–I think that woman must feed a very hungry person if that’s her idea of a portion size!), but when all was said it done, it was more like five. I served with some salad. For 1/6 of the dish, it’s just under 300 calories, lots of protein, fiber, and vitamins. Next time I might leave off the cheese–not something I am typically prone to do, but I didn’t think it added that much to it. We shall see.
Ahoyhoy!
My goodness, it has been a long hiatus. A month, maybe? I’ve missed writing the blog but things have been just madness on this end.
As you might recall, when I left I was trying to get rid of the monster spam that had attacked this poor blog. It’s finally under control. As such, I can finally come back.
I was also in the first week or so of my decision to drop some weight. Since then, I’ve actually cooked a lot from Joe’s Culinary in the Desert/Country blog, and photographing and posting all of that seemed a little silly. Let’s see, we made Baked Acorn Squash stuffed with Sausage and Rice, this tomato and meatball soup, and a whole bunch of others. Yum. Anyway, in the past 7 weeks that I’ve abandoned you, I’ve been counting calories and exercising most days, and I’ve dropped some serious weight, so it all seems to be working.
In light of that, here comes the holiday season, and I decided to try and lighten up one of my favorite seasonal breads so that I can have some without blowing the whole day. My mom’s pumpkin bread is practically famous; my college friends used to gather around my door every fall when a package would come from home, knowing it probably contained some pumpkin mini muffins. My former neighbor, who has since moved back to Ireland, was so impressed that she began baking it at a local coffee shop where she worked and sold out of it on a regular basis. People love it. I grew up eating it, but it’s not exactly figure-friendly with a cup and a half of sugar and a half cup of oil in every loaf. So yesterday I experimented.
Our recipe makes two loaves, and let’s just say I’m not the best with fractions. I halved most of the ingredients, but oddly did not halve the liquids. So my little loaf took a loooong time to bake, and it’s very dense (though quite moist, as you might imagine). In place of all the oil, I added (way too much) applesauce and a little oil. In my next round, I’m just doing a straightforward applesauce-for-oil swap, and I think it’ll be fine. The recipe that I’m giving you below, however, matches yesterday’s dish. The single loaf, from which I cut 1/3 of the sugar and switched half the all-purpose white flour for wheat, clocked in, when baked, at an astonishing 2 pounds. As such, you can get 16 2-oz slices out of it, and each has just over 140 calories, 4 grams of fat, and a couple grams of fiber. The best part is that it tastes just as it always had! Hooray!
You’ll need (for one dense loaf):
3/4 c whole-wheat flour
3/4 c plus 2.5 T white flour
1 t baking soda
1/2 t cinnamon
1/2 t nutmeg
1 c sugar
3/4 t salt
half a can of pumpkin (about 3/4 c + 2 T)
2 eggs, beaten
3/4 c applesauce
1/4 c oil
1/3 c water
In a large bowl, mix dry ingredients. Add wet ingredients and mix until smooth. Grease and flour one loaf pan. Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 80 minutes (check in after an hour).
Well, there you go. Hope it works for you–I’ll definitely be cutting out the oil next time to see what happens, but this surely hits the spot!
