Salad
Baby greens
3 green apples
a handful of dried cranberries
a handful of toasted chopped walnuts
vinaigrette with white wine vinegar, olive oil, honey, mustard, salt, and pepper.
Lentil and Tomato Chili
adapted from Vegetarian Planet by Didi Emmons (p. 464). We made 1.5x the 8-serving recipe so that we would be certain to have enough. We ended up with probably twice as much as we needed.
1/2 cup butter + 1/4 cup olive oil
6 cups chopped onions
^ saute these in a stock pot over medium heat; I started it early enough that the onions had a chance to cook for about 20 minutes and get golden in spots.
9 garlic cloves, minced
~2 tbsp ground cumin
~1/4 cup + 3tbsp chili powder
3/4 tsp red pepper flakes
3/4 tsp cinnamon
^ add these, stir well, let cook for a few more minutes
3/4 cup white flour
^ add this, try to cook it roux-style for ~5 min. I cooked it less because it was so sticky and looked like it would burn.
2 tiny cans of tomato paste
7+ cups water
^ It should've been ~44oz canned tomatoes instead of paste, but I didn't realize we had canned tomatoes until after the cooking was done. This probably also explains why I ended up adding ~4 cups more water than the recipe called for. Anyway, I wanted to add acid earlier than the recipe called for, so I added tomato paste and water to thin it at this point. Add liquid slowly, stirring plenty, to keep the onion-roux-base from clumping up.
3 carrots, in 1/2-inch cubes
2 red + 1 green bell pepper, in 1/2-inch cubes
1 veggie bouillon cube, crushed
1/2 square unsweetened bakers' chocolate, crushed
^ add these, stir well. Chocolate was my addition, and I have no idea if it was detectable in the finished dish. Whole square would probably be better, as this was a lot of stew.
1 cup medium salsa
^ Further compensation for lack of canned tomatoes. Recipe as written doesn't need this.
1 can Fat Tire beer.
^ Recipe called for "light-colored beer" and this was the closest we had on hand.
4.5 cups French lentils
1.5 - 2 tsp salt
3/4 tsp black pepper
^ Add all these, bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce heat to low/medium and simmer for a long time. Recipe says 40 minutes, this probably got closer to 80 minutes.
fresh parsley and sour cream to garnish
Cheddar Cheese Cornbread
adapted from The Bread Baker's Apprentice (Reinhart, p. 151) and the Arrowhead corn meal packaging. Filled 2 8x8 pans.
2 cups yellow cornmeal
2 cups buttermilk
^ Stir together, cover, and leave to sit while you make stuff. Reinhart wanted overnight, mine got ~2 hours.
2 small-medium onions, diced
^ Wilt in a frying pan with butter or oil.
2 cups all-purpose flour
2.5 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp salt
^ Sift together in a big mixing bowl.
scant 1/4 cup sugar
scant 1/4 cup brown sugar
^ Scant means ~80% here. I just didn't want too much sugar in there. Stir this into the other dry ingredients
4 beaten eggs
4 tbsp melted butter
3 tbsp honey
~1.5 cups whole milk (maybe just 1?)
^ Stir these together. Add it to the cornmeal/milk mixture. Then add the master wet mix to the dry mix, stirring as you go. Reinhart said batter "should be the consistency of thick pancake batter", and I thought it took ~1.5 cups of milk to get there, but then it took a really long time to bake. Maybe 1 cup would work?
5 cups thawed frozen corn kernels
3 cups grated sharpish cheddar
^ Stir the corn and 2/3 of the cheese in to the batter, along with the wilted onions. Pour into greased 8x8 pans, and top with remaining cheese. Bake at 375 (I probably did 360, in light of later lessons about the left oven) for about 50 minutes until toothpick comes out clean. (Recipes said 30 minutes max! Dinner was 15 minutes late as a result.) Let rest ~15 minutes, then run a knife around the edges and dump out and cut.
Lemon Tart with Pecan Crust
from Diana's Desserts, without much modification at all. We were a little short on cream cheese and substituted a couple spoonfuls of yogurt. The crust was a little uneven, with the corner between the bottom and the sides being quite thick, and the top of the sides quite thin; would try to avoid that next time. We topped it with leftover whipped cream.
7+ cups water
^ It should've been ~44oz canned tomatoes instead of paste, but I didn't realize we had canned tomatoes until after the cooking was done. This probably also explains why I ended up adding ~4 cups more water than the recipe called for. Anyway, I wanted to add acid earlier than the recipe called for, so I added tomato paste and water to thin it at this point. Add liquid slowly, stirring plenty, to keep the onion-roux-base from clumping up.
3 carrots, in 1/2-inch cubes
2 red + 1 green bell pepper, in 1/2-inch cubes
1 veggie bouillon cube, crushed
1/2 square unsweetened bakers' chocolate, crushed
^ add these, stir well. Chocolate was my addition, and I have no idea if it was detectable in the finished dish. Whole square would probably be better, as this was a lot of stew.
1 cup medium salsa
^ Further compensation for lack of canned tomatoes. Recipe as written doesn't need this.
1 can Fat Tire beer.
^ Recipe called for "light-colored beer" and this was the closest we had on hand.
4.5 cups French lentils
1.5 - 2 tsp salt
3/4 tsp black pepper
^ Add all these, bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce heat to low/medium and simmer for a long time. Recipe says 40 minutes, this probably got closer to 80 minutes.
fresh parsley and sour cream to garnish
Cheddar Cheese Cornbread
adapted from The Bread Baker's Apprentice (Reinhart, p. 151) and the Arrowhead corn meal packaging. Filled 2 8x8 pans.
2 cups yellow cornmeal
2 cups buttermilk
^ Stir together, cover, and leave to sit while you make stuff. Reinhart wanted overnight, mine got ~2 hours.
2 small-medium onions, diced
^ Wilt in a frying pan with butter or oil.
2 cups all-purpose flour
2.5 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp salt
^ Sift together in a big mixing bowl.
scant 1/4 cup sugar
scant 1/4 cup brown sugar
^ Scant means ~80% here. I just didn't want too much sugar in there. Stir this into the other dry ingredients
4 beaten eggs
4 tbsp melted butter
3 tbsp honey
~1.5 cups whole milk (maybe just 1?)
^ Stir these together. Add it to the cornmeal/milk mixture. Then add the master wet mix to the dry mix, stirring as you go. Reinhart said batter "should be the consistency of thick pancake batter", and I thought it took ~1.5 cups of milk to get there, but then it took a really long time to bake. Maybe 1 cup would work?
5 cups thawed frozen corn kernels
3 cups grated sharpish cheddar
^ Stir the corn and 2/3 of the cheese in to the batter, along with the wilted onions. Pour into greased 8x8 pans, and top with remaining cheese. Bake at 375 (I probably did 360, in light of later lessons about the left oven) for about 50 minutes until toothpick comes out clean. (Recipes said 30 minutes max! Dinner was 15 minutes late as a result.) Let rest ~15 minutes, then run a knife around the edges and dump out and cut.
Lemon Tart with Pecan Crust
from Diana's Desserts, without much modification at all. We were a little short on cream cheese and substituted a couple spoonfuls of yogurt. The crust was a little uneven, with the corner between the bottom and the sides being quite thick, and the top of the sides quite thin; would try to avoid that next time. We topped it with leftover whipped cream.
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