Shifting Gears

Just wanted to drop a note that I'm sorry I haven't been posting here much. Over the last year or so, my cooking and my diet have taken on some changes. I stopped eating meat except for fish. Then I had some relapses. Then I got completely sick of cooking and really didn't have much to post. I think I was just disgruntled with food and was having a hard time figuring out what I really wanted out of my diet. I was trying to figure out ways to please my palate, my schedule, my health, and my life.

I became injured and have been battling that for a lot of this time. Surgery was two Fridays ago and now, having been unable to walk, I'm raring to get in that kitchen again!

Now, I've gone vegan. So, some of the recipes that you have enjoyed here in the past are just not relevant to my life any longer. Or maybe they are. Maybe I will revisit those recipes in the future and adapt them to life as I know it these days.

Come visit me over there: Newly Vegan. I'm going to make an effort to start posting over here again, too, though, so if that's not your thing, that's all right. I think I can still come up with a recipe every day that we can all enjoy.

Open Faced Burrito

I made these the other night (modeled after the Mondo Burrito from The Grit Cookbook) and it's quickly become my kid's favorite meal.

• giant whole wheat tortilla
• rice
• vegetarian chili
• cabbage, chopped
• carrots, shredded
• red onions
• cheese
• sour cream
• salsa

1. Toast the tortilla and place the tortilla on an oven-safe plate.
2. Then start with a generous bed of rice and top with chili. We've used a vegetarian recipe from The Grit Cookbook for this as well as Tasty Bite Madras Lentils or Dal Makhani for this.
3. Then layer on the cabbage, carrots, red onions and cheese in amounts to your liking.
4. Place the plate in the oven and broil just until the cheese melts. I like to use the toaster oven for this.
5. When it comes out, garnish with salsa and sour cream if desired.

Mujadara - Lentils with Onions and Rice

• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 3 large sliced onions
• 1 1/2 cups stock
• 2 cups water
• 1 cup brown lentils
• 1 cup uncooked rice
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3-4 teaspoons cumin

Heat olive oil in a skillet and saute onions with half the cumin you plan to use. Keep stirring until lightly browned around the edges.

Meanwhile, get the lentils going in a stock pot or dutch oven. You'll want to bring the stock and water to a boil, then add the lentils, cover and simmer for about 15 minutes.

Remove half of the onions and add these along with the rice, remaining cumin and salt to the lentils. Give it a good stir and then cover, simmering for another 20 minutes or until the rice is tender and most of the liquid is absorbed.

While the rice is cooking, continue cooking the other half of the onions in the skillet until they are very well-browned.

Remove the lentils from heat, serve topped with the well-browned onions and sour cream or yogurt if desired.

French Chicken in a Pot, Rice-Stuffed Tomatoes and Creamed Spinach

I haven't been writing here for a while. I guess I've been a little bit disgruntled with food. I just got back from Central America, though, and things seemed a bit different. Not as factory. Not as feed lot. I'm back on the meat again and in full force.

Last night, I was lazy, however, and just made a tuna casserole. Although, I wasn't completely lazy, since I made the mushroom soup myself instead of using a can of cream of celery and cut some of the fat out by using milk instead of cream or half and half in the soup or evaporated milk in the casserole. Every time I use cream in that recipe it separates and gets all gross the next day. When I use milk it's nice and saucy.

Tonight, I'm making French Chicken in a Pot (also seen here on Recipezaar), which is a recipe I didn't see made last season on America's Test Kitchen, even though that seems to be where this recipe came from. I haven't made a whole chicken in a long time, but it is my favorite way to make chicken. I'm kind of bored with my usual recipe -- one I've been using for almost 20 years now -- even though I know I should use it because there's going to be a hard freeze this week and after that the tarragon will be toast.

Have I ever even posted that recipe? NO?! Mental note to self...

So, I found this recipe because I have this great cast iron dutch oven and I just don't use it as much as I should. And I have never, ever made a chicken in it. Being the dumbass that I am, I questioned whether or not you even could do such a thing, and alas, the Google tells me that I can.

In this pan, I've browned many a roast on the stove before moving it into the oven. I've never done this with a chicken before, however, but that's exactly what this recipe calls for. I was a little afraid, but the skin turned out pretty crispy and good looking where it made contact with the pan. I was also skeptical about the 250 degree F cooking temperature (for just an hour??) but it came out perfect and was, quite literally, the moistest chicken I've ever made.

From Food Pictures

The tomato recipe I found in a book called The Roasted Vegetable by Andrea Chesman. It's cold. It's getting colder and colder. I have a lot of Pyrex. I went to the library and saw this book and thought, "Wow, this book was meant for me. I can use my oven and all my glassware and I'll be warm and well-fed."

Someone else cooked them, too, and posted the recipe here... Mine didn't get quite as roasted, though.

From Food Pictures

The creamed spinach recipe is from a book by Alice Waters -- love her cooking as well as her philosophy on food -- that's called The Art of Simple Food: Notes, Lessons, and Recipes from a Delicious Revolution. I can't get enough of reading it. It feels like all the things my wonderful mother would share with me about basic cooking and not getting too fancy and letting the food speak for itself... I mean, you know, if I had a wonderful mother, that is. Which I don't, but hey, Ms. Waters will do. I want to do a cook-through on this thing, it's full of such greatness. But for now, since I have 3 pounds of spinach hanging out in my fridge...

And like the title says, it was simple. I've never put onions in my creamed spinach and after tasting this, it's apparent what I've been missing all these years. Basically, you take a whole onion and sautee it in some butter about 5 minutes, add a pound of spinach and some salt and wilt it down, add 1/3 to 1/2 cup of cream and reduce. Squeeze a bit of lemon over it, add more salt and a little pepper and voila. Perfection. Boyfriend loved it and even the kid chowed down on it (although he liked the tomatoes even more.)

From Food Pictures