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Creamy Vegetarian Minestrone

Creamy Minestrone

I’m not sure if it’s entirely fair to call this a soup. It turned out much thicker than I intended, but in this case that only made it better. This is a very hearty, warming, comforting winter meal, and its creaminess totally belies the fact that it’s pretty darned healthy. In my quest to eat more like a vegetarian or a vegan, this soup is a winner.

I’ve made minestrone many times, so I’m surprised I’ve never written about it. Minestrone is the simplest soup, made up of whatever bits and odds and ends are leftover in the pantry or refrigerator. It usually includes beans, pasta, and tomatoes as a base, but there is no set recipe, and the word minestrone has become a synonym for “hodgepodge” in Italy. It’s a great soup to make on Saturday night, before you go to the grocery store, when your refrigerator is mostly bare, and you need to use up the last of whatever is on hand, and it’s an especially excellent winter soup, because it takes well to all those winter vegetables. Yes, I love minestrone and turn to it often, and yet I’ve never seen the results I saw from this most recent minestrone making.
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Peanut Butter Bread, new favorite breakfast

Peanut Butter Bread

My housemate, Christa (of the Turkey Chili Rice fame) gave me a wonderful old cookbook for Christmas: Good Housekeeping’s Book of Menus, Recipes, and Household Discoveries, from 1922. The binding is delicate, the pages yellowed, and it has the great musty old book smell that I would wear as perfume if I could (um, maybe). It offers recipes for every day of the year (as long as you don’t mind eating cold boiled tongue and buttered asparagus every Sunday in May), and I can waste hours perusing the pages, awed by the odd ingredients and the minimal instructions. It’s clear reading this that back in 1922 it was unnecessary to explain every step of a recipe because the woman reading it (and yeah, it was almost always a woman) already knew more cooking basics than most people do today. I’m totally fascinated by this cookbook.
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Homemade Cheese Crackers

Homemade Cheez-its!

I have a serious weakness for Cheez-its. Even if I managed to cut all other processed foods out of my diet, I could never give up Cheez-its. I once ate an entire box by myself in one sitting. I probably shouldn’t admit that, huh? Anyway, when I saw a recipe for homemade cheese crackers on the King Arthur Flour Baker’s Banter blog I knew I had to make them. I immediately went online and bought their Vermont Cheese Powder and when I finally had some free time I headed straight to the kitchen to bake up some (perhaps a little bit healthier) cheese crackers.
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Barley, Lentil, and Swiss Chard Soup

Barley, Lentil, and Swiss Chard Soup

Here it is, week two of the new year and soup two in my impromptu series of healthy, vegetarian soups. When I told Mr. X I was making barley, lentil, and swiss chard soup he made a face that clearly indicated it sounded in no way appealing, which made me a little worried. And I will admit that the soup is more interesting the day after, when the flavors have had a chance to meld a little more. Which makes it an excellent choice for a week of lunches. And I believe that barley and lentils combine to make a complete protein.
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Spaghetti with Kale and Sun-Dried Tomatoes

Spaghetti with Sauteed Kale

This is the dinner that almost wasn’t. I started out with an entirely different meal in mind, one that involved mushrooms and squash and greens. But I baked the squash too long and it became dried out and tasteless, and when I sauteed the mushrooms with the garlic and sun-dried tomatoes the whole mixture very quickly became burnt, bitter, and inedible. Exasperating! I almost resigned myself to eating plain spaghetti with butter when I realize I could probably still salvage the kale and at least get some vegetable matter into my dinner.

And you know what? This turned out surprisingly awesome. The sun-dried tomatoes added a sharp sweetness to the slightly bitter kale, and I finished the whole thing off with a small amount of white balsamic vinegar, which added just the right edge. I love it when a salvaged dinner becomes something delicious in its own right.
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Miso-glazed Tuna Kebabs

Grilled Miso Glazed Tuna

I think my grill pan and I have finally come to an amicable agreement. I keep it clean and dry and rust-free, and oil it liberally before I use it, and it doesn’t send clouds of stinky smoke billowing through my apartment. I am so happy that we’re finally getting along, because I don’t think these tuna kebabs would have been nearly as flavorful if I had had to roast them or sear them or pan fry them. Grilling is definitely the way to go, so if you don’t live in a climate where late-December grilling is an option, I suggest you get yourself a grill pan tout de suite. You won’t regret it.

I used the same marinade here, from epicurious.com, with tofu a few weeks ago. And while it wasn’t bad, it just worked better with tuna. However, with a few tweaks I think it would have been just as good, so I’ll do my best to make some suggestions for those who don’t want to eat tuna.
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Warming Winter Vegetable Soup

Warming Winter Vegetable Soup

I know I’m not the only person who starts thinking about vegetables this time of year. Preferably NOT cooked in heavy cream. With salads. Yes, the after-holiday desire to diet is almost a Pavlovian instinct in us crazy humans. And I have to admit, for me, the butter-cream-cheese-heavy meals have not just been a holiday indulgence. Alas for my waistline.

But I don’t believe in diets. Drastically cutting calories in an attempt to lose 10 pounds in a month is just plain unhealthy, and everyone knows that deprivation only increases cravings and decreases willpower. So what’s a girl with a heavy cream addiction to do?
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Turkey White Bean Chili

Turkey White Bean Chili

One of the first recipes I shared on this blog was for Chicken Chili with White Beans and Chipotles, something that had been hiding in my recipe folder since 2004. And it was delicious. I believe I mentioned that I would be making this many more times in the future. And of course, because I rarely make the same things twice, I never did. And that is just a shame, which I had to rectify when I found myself, after Thanksgiving, with a LOT of leftover turkey.

This chili was just as tasty with turkey instead of chicken; in fact, maybe even more so. So if you’re finding yourself with leftover turkey after Christmas, I’d highly recommend experimenting with this recipe. If you don’t have leftover turkey (or leftover chicken) you can still cook up this tasty and very easy chili: My original post details what do when you’re starting with uncooked poultry.
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I promise dinner will be ready shortly

Oh lord, where has the time gone? Thanksgiving now seems like some kind of faraway, hazy dream of an actual event, and I’m frankly embarrassed that it has taken me so darned long to write anything, even this sad excuse of a blog post. I do have pictures and recipes to share from Thanksgiving, and I’m consoling myself that most foods cooked on Thanksgiving are awfully similar to those cooked for Christmas, so they might still prove useful to someone. I’m also consoling myself with the fact that I’m almost, almost, almost on break, and then I only have one more semester until I’m DONE and GRADUATED and no longer have to do the dreaded homework. And then I might actually have time to do things like update my blog. And cook.

While I am officially done with fall semester, I can’t quite relax yet because of a very important job interview next week, for which I am flying across the country, wearing a suit, and giving a presentation. Most of my time right now is taken up in preparations for completely wow-ing the search committee and getting myself hired.

You might notice, however, that I found time to update the color scheme and do a little custom CSS designing here. This was actually part of an assignment and therefore it can’t be considered wasting time and messing around and procrastinating. I hope you find it visually appealing. I suspect you would probably find pictures of food MORE visually appealing, so I do promise that they will appear soon.

In the meantime, I thought I would take a trip through the archives to share with you some of my favorite cookie recipes, what with it being cookie baking season and all. Enjoy!

Dorie Greenspan’s Midnight Crackles—Chocolately, slightly spicy, decadent.
Russian Teacakes—my all time favorite holiday cookie. I’m trying them this year with dried cherries mixed in. I’m wild like that.
Gingersnaps—for those who like that kind of thing.
Cranberry, Orange, and Chocolate Chip Cookies—These are quickly making their way onto my favored cookies list. I made them this week for my class and they were a hit.
Chocolate Peppermint Cookies—I’ll definitely have to make these again this year.