Speedy, no-cook dinner

Did you guys ever make "no cook" recipes with your ma when you were kids? Well, since it's been so hot out, we have been making more no cook dinners. It's too hot to even bother with take out.

We had a bunch of left over brown basmati rice sitting in the fridge from when Blokey's parents were in town, so I used it to make fake tabbouleh. If you leave out the feta, it's vegan.

No cook Middle Eastern style rice
Probably serves four as a side dish. We pigged it down just the two us together.

Ingredients:
About 3 c of cooked, cold rice
Juice of 3 lemons
Handful of parsley, chopped
2 tomatoes, diced
1 cucumber, diced
4 green onions, sliced
2 Tbs of olive oil
1 can of no added salt chickpeas
3 oz. of feta cheese, crumbled
1/3 c. of sliced black olives (or nice kalamata ones, if you've got them)
Salt and pepper to taste

Mix everything together with the rice in a large bowl. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve with yogurt-tahini sauce

Yogurt Tahini sauce
3/4 c. of plain yogurt
2 Tbs of tahini
juice of 1/2 a lemon
salt to taste

Mix everything together. If you want more tahini, add it until you reach desired nuttiness. Serve over the rice.

Quick meals for hot days

It's been warm and muggy in Brooklyn again. And Blokey and I have been working on projects, which means sometimes we snack all day and never eat a proper meal together. (Finn Crisp Rye crackers, what would my life be without you?) But over the weekend, I did get my act together to make a couple meals (Blokey's big mess o' rice and beans from Friday was also very popular).

Everything in the fridge Asian Noodles
We had some disparate ingredients, some udon noodles, and I was starving after a short jog, but we had to go grocery shopping for eggs and apples and stuff. So I threw together lots of stuff and it made me less likely to buy the whole store.

Ingredients:
6 oz of Udon noodles, dry
leftover bagged spinach, chopped
1 carrot, peeled and chopped
3 green onions, cleaned and thinly sliced
1 Tbs of butter
salad leftovers
1 Tbs soy sauce (more to taste)
1 Tbs of sesame oil
2 Tbs of tahini
2 teaspoons of apple cider vinegar
2 Tbs of water
2 teaspoons of honey
3 small radishes, peeled and thinly sliced
2 eggs, beaten
sesame seeds for garnish (optional)
Sriracha sauce (optional)


This was the stuff I took out to make into a meal.
Cook the noodles according to the directions.
Make a thin omlette with the two eggs in a wide frying pan (with butter, of course). Slice into quarters, and then thinly slice into matchstick sized pieces (maybe a bit wider than a matchstick).
In the same frying panm or medium sauce pan, saute green onions in butter over medium heat, under softened. Adjust to low heat. Add the tahini, water, soy sauce, honey, vinegar, and sesame oil. Stir until it becomes a sauce like consistency (you may have to add some more water).
Toss in cooked noodles and vegetables. Serve.


Big Salad
Remember how on Seinfeld, Elaine would get the big salad? I love a big entree salad. We got tree kinds of lettuce from our CSA, so I did something like a modified Salad Nicoise.
For 2

Ingredients:
A blend of lettuce (we used romane, boston, and green leaf). about 6 cups worth
Cooked or canned chickpeas: 1 1/2 c.
2 tomatoes, cut into quarters and sliced in 1/2
1/3 c. of thinly sliced black olives
2 hard boiled eggs, halved
1/2 avocado, chopped
Optional: 1/2 can of tuna (canned in olive oil) or 3 anchovy filets, finely chopped
2 carrots, peeled and thinly sliced
dressing

Directions: Either toss all the ingredients together with dressing and serve (uglier, but well incorporated) or arrange all pretty like (aesthetically pleasing, but more of a challenge to distribute the dressing). I went with plan B. (Mine is the one on the right, with the wee bit of anchovy on top).


We don't buy bottled salad dressing, because they are usually full of sugar and corn syrup and taste funky. This is our standard salad dressing recipe

2 Tbs of olive oil
1 1/2 Tbs of sour (this usually lemon juice, apple cider vinegar, red wine vinegar, or balsamic. I did a combination of both)
1 garlic clove, chopped (did not use, because Blokey calls me Garlic Monkey. He has no idea how garlicky I am)
1 Tbs of fancy dijon, whole grain mustard (even better if there is some kind of German last name on the bottle)
salt, pepper, and oregano/Italian seasoning mix to taste

Mix all the ingredients in a used jam jar and shake (with the lid on). Pour immediately over salad.*

*I have tried 3 times to make mayonnaise. Oil and egg yolk emulsions are not my friend, as they require patience).

Cooking again

I am a bad food blogger. Mostly because I have been cooking the same meals over and over again, and thus nothing new to post. But now with school almost over, I plan to have more adventures. The Crown Heights CSA starts again in a few weeks, and I am super excited.
Before I left on a nice trip to Delaware this weekend, I did make bread for Blokey, and then a quick dinner. This dinner was inspired by Smitten Kitchen's smashed chickpea salad, but I didn't read the recipe, just went off the mental image. I actually think of this as a vegan egg salad more than anything else.
I served this on homemade bread, which I haven't had luck with recently. This loaf turned out pretty frickin' yummy though (I added a little extra yeast). Whole thing (not including the bread) took about 8 minutes.

Mostly whole grain and flax meal minimal kneading bread recipe

Vegan "egg" salad sandwiches
Ingredients:
Good bread (not the pre sliced kind) or crackers
1 tomato, thinly sliced
some kind of green (we used about a handful of argula)
1 green onion, chopped finely
2 1/2 cups of well cooked chickpeas, or 2 14 oz. cans of chickpeas, drained
Kosher deli style mustard (anything that's not French's)
salt, pepper
lemon juice or apple cider vinegar
various dried spices (we used oregano and basil)
Anything else on hand (shredded carrots, peanut butter or tahini, etc.)

Method:
1. Mash up the beans with a potato masher. Don't worry about making it too fine.

2. Mix it all up in medium sized bowl (except the tomatoes) to taste. I liked a lot of mustard but you can go for less. Yo could also forgo mustard and use mayo or just olive oil. We are fans of whole grain mustard (I bought 3 different kinds of mustard today from Fairway. It's like caviar for flexitarians like me).

3. Spread on pieces of bread. Top with tomatoes, thin slices of cheese (if you're not vegan), more greens, paprika, etc.. Eat. Still hungry? Spend 6 minutes make a few more

Last day of Spring Break

Not really. I have Monday off too but it's still back to work this week. In honor of Blokey and my 3 week anniversary, but mostly because Anne just made these beauties yesterday morning, I was inspired by the corn cake appetizers from our wedding reception (which did rock). Not much to report here, as Anne has already done an awesome job documenting the process.
Just a few of my thoughts.

• Corn cakes are really a southern corn bread recipe made on the stove, rather than baked. The light cooking in butter or oil makes them crisp and delicious. It can really be any Southern corn bread recipe.
  
• I accidently left out the wheat flour the first batch I made. I also put in slightly less sugar. The second batch, I added the flour and omitted the sugar (again, by accident). These were what the Germans might call "eine Katastrophe." OK, they weren't so terrible but I didn't let the fella eat any.
• We received many many wonderful wedding presents, one which included a yogurt maker. We haven't mastered that yet but we do have about a 1/2 gallon of kind of curdy yogurt in our fridge, so I used that as a faux buttermilk, and also adjusted the chemical leavening agents.
• It was good to make a quick bread, because my recent attempts at making yeast breads, a la Peter Reinhart, have also be ein Massaker.

Offensively uninteresting, like Jimmy John's bread. From Wednesday, I think.

Since we are practically vegetarian in this household, we served yummy corn cakes with a Cuban black bean stew (which I accidently boiled down to more like a side dish), avocado, and a homemade sweet pepper and cheddar sauce. There are few of these on the internet. I wanted something more smooth, but I made all this all in about 30 minutes, so I didn't have the time to make a a proper melted over the oven type cheese sauce. Into the food processor (thanks, baby Cousin and your hubs!) it went. It was pretty awesome anyway.

My "riff" on Anne's version of Wishbone corn cakes:

1 c. of fine corn meal
2 teas. baking powder
1/2 teas of baking soda
3/4 t. salt
2 Tbs. sugar
1 egg, beaten
3/4 cup of buttermilk
2 Tbs of melted butter (and more for the pan)
1/2 C. frozen corn kernels, thawed
3 green onions, chopped

Mix the wet ingredients first, and then add the dry ingredients. Since I didn't use any flour, there is no gluten, so you don't have to worry about overmixing like with non-corn products (crazy, huh?). Warm up a trusty cast iron skillet with a bit of butter rubbed on top over low-medium heat and cook cakes, until lightly browned and flip. I somewhat burnt the first few but they were so tasty that no one minded.

Cuban black bean stew
1/2 package of dried black beans (or 2 canned)
1/2 thing of tomatoes (or 2 fresh ones, chopped)
1 teas of oregano
1/4 teas of cayenne or chili powder
1 teas or more of cumin
juice of one lime
salt to taste
onion, diced
3 cloves of garlic, chopped
olive oil
ripe avocado

Cook the beans according to the directions (for us, it was toss them in the pressure cooker for 15 minutes) or drained and rinse canned beans. Saute over medium heat the onions and garlic in oil until soft. Add the spices (except the chili, unless you like pepper sneezing). Add tomatoes and cook for 2 minutes. Add the black beans, and enough water to cover about 2 inches, and let simmer until it reaches desired consistency. Add lime juice, salt to taste, and chili/cayenne. Orange juice would be awesome too. Garnish with some avocado slices.

Rad's rad sweet pepper cheddar sauce (quick)
3/4 c. of grated medium cheddar
1/2 of plain yogurt
1/2 of roasted red peppers
1/4 c. of mayo (or in my case, 1/4 of my attempt to make mayo. Damn you, effusive egg yolk and oil infusion!)
salt and pepper to taste
2 green onions, chopped

Blend everything in a food processor until it reaches the desired thickness. I read somewhere that some bacon would taste good in here. Add that if you're so inclined.

mental break

Ah, the agony of the manuscript process. I know that I am a lucky girl to even be at this stage, but it's still a slog of a process.
I have been cooking a bit (and plan to make a huge mess of rice and mung beans tonight to get me through a long weekend of compulsive writing, only to be broken up with an acupuncture visit- yeah, I'm one of those Brooklynites, it seems). Here is my impromptu Monday dinner, Mondays being one of those evenings when my commute brings me to my grimy door at 9PM, starving with a voice cracking from 4 hours of shouting about political science to very bored NYC kids (bless them).


"Quick and Cheap" Untenured Professor's Green Fettuccine Faux-Carbonara
(30 minutes prep?)
would serve 2, but I ate it all, again

1/2 pack of Rice noodles (I used fettuccine, you can use whole wheat too)
2 cloves of garlic, minced
2 zucchinis, slices and cut in half (thin half moons)
5 baby bella mushrooms, chopped
2 handfuls of roughly chopped arugula
2 Tbs of chopped fresh parlsey
1 egg
2 anchovy fillets, chopped into little bits (will make the cat sniff you afterwards)
salt, pepper to taste
juice of one lemon
Hungarian Paprika (optional)
2 Tbs of pesto sauce (I made some with my farmer's market bounty weeks ago, but I guess the store bought kind is OK, no soybean oil)
Olive oil (1 1/2 Tbs?)

Directions
1. Boil the pasta according to directions
2. In a bigger pan, over medium heat, cook the garlic, about 2 minutes. Add the zuccini and cook (this will take about 10 minutes- you can chop other things during this time). Add the mushrooms after 5 minutes (they take less time).
3. Beat the egg in a small bowl. Add the pesto and parsley. Maybe add some water. Beat together.
4. Drain the done pasta. Add the anchovy bits to the finished zucchini, then add the pasta and arugula. Mix with one of those pasta sporks (if this is hard, add a little olive oil). Be sure that it's not on the heat anymore, but everything should still be hot.
5. The fun part- quickly add the egg/pesto sauce in the hot mixed up pasta/zucchini mixture. It should pretty quickly "cook" and make everything kinda sticky.
6. Add salt, pepper and lemon juice to taste. You could garnish with cheese but I didn't have any. I threw on some Hungarian Paprika at the end, to give it more color.

The cat, my legs, and very full belly

Late night, early semester comfort foods

Augh, I got sick the first week of the semester! But never fear, Professah of Love will be bounding back in no time. Even though I've been teaching for a while and I know that the first week is not challenging in terms of preparation (once the syllabus is off to the presses), I still feel a pit of nervous, excited anxiety that knots me up inside the week prior to the beginning. Now its over (I only teach 2 days a week) and I have some time off because of Labor Day (thank you, early American trade unionists) to recover.
After returning home from midtown, I slept from 6 until late, and woke up around 9, heavy headed and weak. I finally pulled myself together around 2, rooted around our CSA offerings and pantry, and whipped up the following: (sorry no pics)

"Sickey from the beginning of a New Semester" Faux-Italian Quinoa Salad
(feeds 2 people for dinner, and maybe some left overs for lunch)
Ingredients:

• 1 c. of quinoa (rinsed)
• 2 summer squashes/zuccinis, finely sliced
• 1 c. baby bella mushrooms
  
• fresh greens (parlsey, spinach, or arugula)
• 1 c of cherry tomatoes (or 1 tomato, diced); alternatively- one chopped and seeded red bell pepper
• olive oil/butter
• 2 Tbs pesto (or 1 Tbs of tomato paste)
  
• salt to taste
  
• juice of one lemon (optional)
  
• 1/2 c. mozzerella or pecorino cheese (optional)

Directions:
Prepare quinoa according to directions (usually, boil in double the volume of water, turn to simmer until the water is absorbed). In the meantime, sautee the squash (in a large-ish frying pan) in olive oil over medium heat. Salt to taste. Set aside and sautee mushrooms in butter until soft and brown. Salt to taste. Chop up greens and tomatoes. When the quinoa is done cooking, add it to the frying pan with the cooked mushrooms and squash. Add the 2 of pesto, and mix it all up. Finally, add the tomatos and arugula. Salt and add cheese to taste.

quick dinner

Sometimes (aka most nights) i get home late after a 50 minute stinky (in a delightful way) subway ride and I need a super fast dinner, that's not cereal. 20 minutes cooking, max. This is where leftover rice works well. I made this last Wednesday after a long long day of teaching to disgruntled students. But they'll be all right.
I recognize that most of my meals seem like my other meals. This is supposed to have a "middle eastern" flavor because of the chickpeas and parsley, but it could be "Indian" style as well.

Lemony Parsley chickpeas with rice
prep/cook time: 20 minutes
Ingredients
1 tomato, chopped
1 can of chickpeas
1/2 onion
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 1/2 tsp of cumin
juice of one lemon
salt/pepper to taste
1/2 cup chopped parsley
pre cooked rice (day old)
pita bread
plain yogurt (optional garnish)
butter/oil for cooking

1) saute onions in oil over medium heat for 2-3 minutes until softer, add garlic.
2) add cumin, rice, and if necessary, a bit of water
3) add chick peas
4) add tomato, lemon juice. Continue to cook over lower-medium heat until the peas are slightly softened
5) remove from heat. Add chopped parsley, salt and pepper to taste. Eat with pita and yogurt

Monday, 4 August: clean out the pantry curry and rice

Today was one of those evenings when there wasn't much to cook with in the fridge. Usually, I take whatever I can find and throw it into some kind of omlette (I always keep eggs, some kind of cheese, and something that can be used as a sauce for this) but I had already done that for late breakfast (last night's leftovers, squeezed between tortillas). I found a number of things in the fridge and pantry. We live in a mixed neighborhood, so I have access to alot of Latin American and Mexican ingredients that aren't so cheap and available in the more frou frou groceries in town. After scratching my head over the fact there wasn't a single green vegetable in the house, I present to you Muttar Panir, Mexican-Caribbean style

Monday night Mexi-Caribbean Muttar Panir with simple rice pilaf
(Serves 2)
approx prepation/cooking time= 35 minutes
Ingredients:
1/2 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 inch of ginger, grated
1 jalepeno or other small hot pepper, chopped (can substitute with cayenne powder, approx 1/4 tsp.)
~1/2 tsp. turmeric
~1 1/2 tsp. cumin
1-2 plum tomatoes, diced
2 Tbs. of tomato paste (these prior two ingredients can be replaced with low sodium canned diced tomatoes)
1 15oz. can of pigeon peas, drained (Goya brand, can be found at local Latin American market, feel free to replace with 1 1/2 cups of frozen peas or canned lentils)
1/2 of queso fresco/blanco, cut into 1/4" cubes (this can be eliminated/substitute with fried tofu for vegans, or increased depending on your tastes, also if you like it crispy, feel free to quick fry them in some oil)
1/2 veggie bullion cube
1 1/2 c. boiling water
1 c. white basmati rice
garam masala to taste
salt to taste
1/2 lemon or a lime (or vinegar- or skip it entirely, this just adds more acidic tastes)
plain yogurt
cooking oil (i use olive b/c that's all i have but die hard Indian cooks recommend ghee which is just clarified butter, or safflower oil. avoid the cheapy huge bottle of corn oil sold in gallon sized plastic containers)
possible garnishes: cilantro, chopped cashews, thinly sliced cucumber

Method:
First, saute over medium heat the about 1/3 of the chopped onion in a small pan (for the rice), about 2-3 minutes in the oil until translucent. When they start to yellow a bit, add about 1/4 teaspoon of the cumin. Saute an addition 1-2 minutes
Add the rice to the onion mixture. You want to coat each rice kernel. Mix the boiling water with the half buillion cube. After the rice is coated enough (about 2 minutes of gentle stirring), increase the heat, add the broth, wait till it boils, lower the heat, add the lid. This should cook about 20-25 mintues. In the mean time you move on the curry.
Start again with sauteeing the rest of the onions over medium heat in the oil (i never measure this, but be conservative- about 1 Tbs and you can always add more if it looks dry). After 2-3 minutes, add the garlic and the jalepeno. Stir occasionally for about 2-3 minutes and then add the cumin (start around 1 teaspoon and add more if you think you need it later) and all of the turmeric (a wonderful, if staining spice).
After adding the spices, add the tomatoes. Let it boil then simmer until it starts to look watery, then add a little water (maybe 1/4 cup). When this boils, add the paste and mix it up, let simmer 1-2 minutes
Next, add the drained pigeon peas, and let simmer for 5 minutes. Squeeze the juice of the lemon and stir. Follow this up with the Garam Masala and Queso Fresco
The final steps are to add the yogurt (it makes a creamy texture) and any garnishes you may have standing on hand.

My roommate and cat were very pleased with the dinner (even if the kitty only devored the aromas). If I had a camera, i'd post a picture... Next time, perhaps?