1. Spaghetti with homemade meatballs (Jan 24): Lately, I have felt an inexplicable yen for meatballs. I can't understand why, exactly, because I didn't enjoy them much in my pre-vegetarian days, and with a few exceptions, I am typically not interested in meaty dishes like this. But the most important food rule I follow is "If you want it, you should eat it," and while I'm not always good at following it, in the case of the meatballs I did just that. I followed Mark Bittman's recipe in How to Cook Everything and used equal parts (1/4 lbs.) beef, veal and pork. Very simple and requiring no fancy kitchen skills. What blew me away was how profoundly filling they were; halfway through a small portion of pasta and a single, medium-sized meatball, I questioned whether I'd even be able to finish. It wasn't an unpleasant feeling, but one which I'm not used to feeling--probably because of my usual preference for leaner meats and, more often, meatless meals.
2. Tilapia with capers and tomatoes (Jan 25): The judge gave me the assignment of finding a preparation of tilapia with capers and tomatoes, and the recipe we chose together was this one from Cooking Light. I hate that a magazine by this name exists, and I have many times sworn to myself that I'd never cook anything from it. But this looked too delicious, and it didn't contain any weird/fake/chemical-y "lite" sort of ingredients, so I though it was worth breaking the rule. Because I couldn't find anchovy paste in the supermarket that met my food-purity standards (the one kind I found contained, among other things, sugar, butter and added salt--who needs it, when you're dealing with anchovies?!), we bought a tin of flat anchovies and mashed a couple with a fork, using a little of the oil they came in to achieve a paste-like consistency. It was exceptionally delicious, very fresh tasting, but also filling and satisfying.
3. Pumpkin oatmeal (several times in Jan): After a little trial and error, I've arrived at what I consider the ideal way to make pumpkin oatmeal. So I guess I do have a recipe here, although the procedure is based mostly on the instructions on the canister of oats.
In a small saucepan, bring 1 c. water and 1/8 tsp. (or less) salt to a rolling boil. Add 1/2 c. rolled oats, lower heat to medium, and simmer 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.* Cover saucepan, remove from heat, and let stand 2-3 minutes. Meanwhile, place 1/4 c. pumpkin puree in the bowl you're going to eat from. When oats are ready, pour over pumpkin, add 1-2 tsp. maple syrup and a few shakes cinnamon (optional), and stir to combine. I like to drizzle an additional teaspoon maple syrup on top at the end.
*Optional: When I have some in the house, I like to add 1/4 c. of this crazy sprouted whole grain cereal (crazy, because it's named for a Bible verse...) when there are 1-2 minutes left in the cooking time. This adds texture variety to the final product, as the sprouted cereal is crunchier to start and cooks for less time. Mmm!
4. Finally, I discovered a veggie burger that meets my current criteria: does not contain funny ingredients; does not contain an excessive number of ingredients; is delicious. I like to top it with 1/4 of an avocado that I've smashed with a fork and mixed with a sprinkling of salt and a few drops of lemon juice. This doesn't count as a recipe, but maybe a little bit of pleasing kitchen ingenuity.
For the sake of making this blog less ugly and stupid, here's a photo.
It doesn't count as cooking, but I was proud of how I gussied up my Indian leftovers from Monsoon. By adding frozen corn to the saag paneer and fresh string beans to the dal makhani, I got more mileage out of small portions and also amped up the nutritional content of my meal. For my grain, I made my own brown rice. Booyah!
No comments:
Post a Comment