carrots – Page 2 – The Kitchen Illiterate

Pasta with Sausage and Lentils

Today it is rainy and grey and cold in Walla Walla, and I think I have to accept that it is well and truly fall. That’s not so bad, though, because I still have a huge bowl of tomatoes on my kitchen counter, and also, I really love fall. It is my favorite season. The air is crisp, and usually smells a little like wood smoke. The clothes are fantastic, all sweaters and wool and light scarves. And the food, well. I love summer produce, but I really love fall food. Bring on the slow cooked meats and roasted squash and hearty, warm comfort food.
Continue reading Pasta with Sausage and Lentils

Wine and Dine: Bolognese

I’ve always loved the idea of spending a Sunday afternoon with a bubbling pot of tomatoey ragu sitting on the stove, and last weekend, I finally did it. You can read about my Sunday Supper Bolognese at the Union Bulletin’s Wine and Dine Blog, where I’m now writing a weekly (roughly) column about my cooking adventures.
Continue reading Wine and Dine: Bolognese

Quick Pickled Cabbage Salad

It took me a long time to become a fan of cabbage. In fact, most cruciferous vegetables were anathema to me as a young child, for their somewhat, um, gassy odor. Cabbage was nothing to me but the bitter, slightly wilted filler in salad bars, and the stinky, mayonnaise-clogged pile of coleslaw I avoided at picnics. I never realized you could cook cabbage, but my first taste of the vegetable braised, until it became silky smooth and almost sweet, was an eye-opener. These days, I’m starting to enjoy raw cabbage, but I still usually prefer it cooked until some of the harsh, raw flavor dissipates. However, summer is not the time for long, slow cooking, so yesterday, I decided to try something new. I decided to pickle.

There are a lot of recipes for pickled cabbage, and many of them looked very involved. Some involved long periods of salting and fermentation, but I wanted more fast and easy. This preparation isn’t fancy, and certainly some additional spices and complicated steps might result in something more complex and mind-blowing, but I am quite pleased with how it came out. And as part of a simple composed salad, it’s pretty spectacular.
Continue reading Quick Pickled Cabbage Salad

Pasta Salad with Salmon, Cabbage, and Carrots

Last week, I broke out the grill for the first time in a year and cooked up some lovely salmon fillets. Being as I was only making dinner for one, I ended up with more grilled salmon than I could eat in one night, and the next day I used the rest to put together a huge bowl of this lovely pasta salad. Well, it ended up being more pasta salad than I could eat in one night, and I had pasta salad to last me many days. And I got a little sick of it after it became my fourth lunch in a row, so I might recommend that if you make this pasta salad, you have more than one person around to eat it. Because I do think you should make this pasta salad. It’s pasta salad season, after all, and this one is unique.
Continue reading Pasta Salad with Salmon, Cabbage, and Carrots

Grilled Salmon and Potato Salad

Last summer, when I packed up my stuff in Boston and moved it all out to Walla Walla, I brought along the mystery grill. The grill showed up a few years back, on a rainy Fourth of July, but for whatever reason was never even unpacked from the box. It first saw the light of day in Walla Walla, when I used it to cook the first meal I made in my new house. I intended to use it often last summer, but instead, I found myself intimidated by it, and uninterested in spending the time and energy required to start a fire when I was cooking for myself alone.

The grill is a tiny thing, a little Smokey Joe. And last week I decided to get over my fear of fire-starting, pull it out of the shed, and give it back its rightful place on my porch. And despite the freezer full of beef waiting to be eaten, I once again decided to cook some salmon on my little grill.
Continue reading Grilled Salmon and Potato Salad

Wild Rice Salad with Peppers and Carrots

I spent the first 10 days of July back in Boston, the land of steamy air, unexpected thunderstorms, sticky skin, and at least for me on this vacation, no cooking. We ate nearly all of our meals in restaurants or at friends’ houses, and while it was certainly a treat (Indian food! My favorite pasta at Delfino! Pizza!) it was awfully nice to get back into my kitchen last night. It’s been pretty hot here in Walla Walla, although the lack of humidity is a vast improvement on the Northeast right now. Still, I wasn’t feeling a strong inclination to stand over a stove for too long, or eat anything too hot. And I felt a pretty desperate need for vegetables after all that pizza and pasta and grilled meat in Boston.

This Wild Rice salad is perfect for that kind of evening, and is even better the next day, straight out of the fridge cold, when all the flavors have had a chance to get better acquainted. It does involve a fair amount of vegetable chopping, and unless you think to cook the rice ahead of time, there is some stove time required, too, but it’s nice, hands-off stove time, for the most part. And the mix of cooked and uncooked ingredients is surprising and lends some good variety to this salad.
Continue reading Wild Rice Salad with Peppers and Carrots

Mushroom and Broccoli Lentils

This might not look all that exciting, but assure you, it was. It was very exciting. And do you know what makes a big bowl of lentils exciting? Well, I’ll tell you: It’s Worcestershire sauce and aged farmhouse cheddar. These two simple ingredients make a big bowl of lentils positively mind-blowing. When I cooked up this little dinner I didn’t think much of it. I certainly didn’t think it would be worth sharing here. This was a simple weeknight dinner, to be consumed while catching up with my DVR or reading some dorky librarian’s magazine. But then I tasted it and knew it deserved so much better than that.
Continue reading Mushroom and Broccoli Lentils

Bulgur with Roasted Turnips, Carrots, and Kale

In my quest to discover new and interesting grains, I decided to give bulgur a try, and it is a new favorite. It is what I wanted quinoa to be like (so far, I just haven’t been able to get into the quinoa). Bulgur is parboiled wheat berries, ground to various consistencies. It’s similar to couscous, in that you cook it by soaking, rather than simmering, but it’s a whole grain. And it has a lovely subtle, nutty flavor and good chewy texture. And like many grains, it’s a great blank canvas for all kinds of flavors. In what I’m hoping is one of the last of the root vegetable-based dishes of the winter, this bulgur dish is made with roasted turnips and carrots, and some sauteed kale. Delicious and filling and warming and good. I love the bulgur.
Continue reading Bulgur with Roasted Turnips, Carrots, and Kale

Barley, Pumpkin, and Swiss Chard Salad

I’m not quite sure that it’s right to call this a salad. Maybe it’s a pilaf? It’s warm, and full of vegetables and nuts and grains. It’s a hodgepodge of flavors and textures. It’s finished off with a quick drizzle of olive oil and red wine vinegar. And it’s really good. I love it when something so full of healthiness is also full of yum.
Continue reading Barley, Pumpkin, and Swiss Chard Salad

Black-Eyed Pea and Peanut Soup

It’s true, I really do cook and eat a lot of soup. And unfortunately, all soups tend to look the same, which doesn’t make for fun food photography. Fortunately, they don’t all taste the same, and this one in particular is a pretty keen flavor sensation. What started out as a basic greens and beans soup was transformed at the last minute into something much richer and more interesting by the addition of a little spice and a little peanut butter. It almost reminds me a Thai curry flavor, but is much more basic and simple than that. And no less delicious for it. And to think, I probably would never have thought of it if I hadn’t had so many leftover black-eyed peas in the refrigerator.
Continue reading Black-Eyed Pea and Peanut Soup