Smoothies are an easy way to cram more veggies into your day. A little fruit covers . . . → Read More: How to Make a Winter Smoothie with Local Ingredients]]> In the winter, I usually crave hot breakfasts. Oatmeal with applesauce and peanut butter, eggs of all sorts, or pancakes. Recently, I haven’t been eating particularly well, so I’ve been trying to get a little “insurance” at breakfast to make up for the Pad Thai at lunch and burger, fries, and a shake at dinner. Yep. That was yesterday.

Smoothies are an easy way to cram more veggies into your day. A little fruit covers up the healthy taste and if the green color bothers you, just avert your eyes. This has become my go-to recipe, but you can make some tweaks if it’s not sweet enough for you. Add a tablespoon of maple syrup or use a whole peach/banana instead of half.

We don’t have a fancy blender…although I really really really want one, I can’t justify the crazy price. There’s an easy technique for making a good smoothie with a normal blender. Check out this video from Good Eats – the technique info starts at about 4:22.

My blender has four speeds. I run it on the first until the vortex starts, then each higher speed for one minute. If a bubble forms, I turn off the blender, give it a little shake to encourage the “burp”, then turn the speed back up. It takes about 4 minutes of blending, but that’s enough time to put away the ingredients and make a cup of tea.

If you want to get crazy, add half an avocado to the mix. We ordered a box of them from California Avocados Direct, a responsible family farm, and were blown away.

Local Winter Smoothie

Makes 1 large smoothie

Directions

1. If you are organized and want to be like Alton Brown, prep your smoothie the night before. Put everything except the ice cubes into the blender (in order) and stash it in the fridge. In the morning, add the ice and blend, following the directions above. Make sure all the spinach/kale blends in. Sometimes a leaf or two will stick to the side. This is a great way to have a nice smoothie even on a busy morning.
2. If you, like me, are usually not that with it at bedtime, make your smoothie when you’re ready to eat it. Add all the ingredients to the blender (in order) and blend, following the directions above. It might take a little longer for the vortex to form, because the fruit is still frozen, but you can get it going by stopping the blender and smushing the spinach/kale down toward the blades. When you start up the blender again, the smoothie should start moving. It might take a couple of tries. If it’s really giving you trouble, add a little more water/juice/milk. It’ll thin out your smoothie, but usually does the trick.

Many of our friends have had babies in the last couple of years. We’re really lucky to have this amazing group of kids to play with and moms and dads to admire. They’ve given me quite a bit of food-related knowledge. For example, if it falls on the floor, it is either totally contaminated (first kid) or fine after you shake off the dog hair (second kid).

I’ve also learned that one of . . . → Read More: Why Buy? DIY! How to Make “Hot Pockets”]]>

Many of our friends have had babies in the last couple of years. We’re really lucky to have this amazing group of kids to play with and moms and dads to admire. They’ve given me quite a bit of food-related knowledge. For example, if it falls on the floor, it is either totally contaminated (first kid) or fine after you shake off the dog hair (second kid).

I’ve also learned that one of the best things you can give parents of a newborn is food that can be eaten with one hand. Since we really like these “haute” pockets (shmancy, huh?), we figured they’d be an awesome food gift for our friends who just had their second daughter…especially since their first child is only a year old. Heroes!!

This recipe does take a little bit of time, but it makes six good-sized pockets, enough for almost a week of lunches. They’re sturdy enough to toss in your purse (maybe wrapped in one of these cute food cozies) and taste just as good at room temperature as they do warm. I haven’t tried it, but I’m sure you could freeze and reheat them like the real thing (2 minutes in the microwave or 25 minutes in a 350 degree oven).

In my quest to convert you to the DIY version, I tried to look up comparable nutrition information. I gave up. They’re all so meaty and cheesy that it’s not a fair contest. You could fill this dough with whatever you want, though, so if you have a favorite flavor, give it a try!

Greens-Stuffed Haute Pockets

Serves 6

Directions

1. To make the dough, add the yeast to 1/2 cup of room temperature water. This will dissolve the yeast so that it’s ready to work.
2. Whisk together the flour, 1/2 teaspoon of kosher salt, and sugar. This is sort of a lazy girl’s version of sifting.
3. Whisk together one egg and the olive oil. Add this and the dissolved yeast to the dry ingredients and stir with a wooden spoon until it forms a shaggy (i.e. dry) dough.
4. Dust a clean counter with flour and dump out the dough. Knead the dough for a couple of minutes until becomes nice and smooth. It shouldn’t be sticky, so knead in a little more flour if it is.
5. Pour a drop of olive oil into a clean bowl. Form the dough into a ball, put it in the bowl, and roll it around in the oil. Cover the bowl with a towel and let the dough rise for an hour or until it has approximately doubled.
6. While the dough is rising, get a big pot of water boiling. While it’s heating up, prepare your greens by removing the stems/ribs.
7. Once the water is boiling, blanch the greens. To do this, add a couple of big handfuls of greens to the water and cook for 3 minutes (only 1 minute for spinach). Don’t crowd the pot too much. While the greens are cooking, fill a big bowl with ice water. Once the time is up, shock the greens (stop them from cooking) by transferring them from the pot to the ice water. Use tongs or a spider to let most of the hot water drain off first. Once the greens are cool, drain them well.
8. Once all the greens are blanched, shocked, and drained, squeeze the pile with your hands to remove most of the water. Then, roll up the greens to a dishtowel that you don’t really care about and wring out some more water. Avoid white towels, because they’ll turn green. The idea is to get rid of as much water as you can so that the pockets aren’t soggy.
9. After you’ve squeezed and squeezed, you’ll have a loaf of compacted greens. Chop this up into about 1/2 to 1 inch pieces. Set aside until the dough has risen.
10. Once the dough has risen, put the ball on a lightly floured counter and cut it into six equal pieces. Form each piece into a ball and let them rest on the counter for 15 minutes. This will relax the dough so that it doesn’t spring back when you roll it out.
11. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
12. While the dough is resting, beat the second egg and add almost all of it to the greens. Save about 2 tablespoons. Add the garlic, cumin, coriander, salt, and pepper to the greens and mix well. I like to use a fork, because it helps to break up the clumpy greens. Plus, I just used it to beat the egg, so it’s already dirty.



13. After 15 minutes, roll one of the dough balls into a circle approximately 7 inches across (that’s about the size of my hand). If you keep your counter floured and rotate the dough after each roll, you’ll keep it from sticking and get a better circle.
14. Lightly pack the greens mixture into a 1/2-cup measuring cup and turn them out onto the bottom half of your dough circle. You might need to use a slightly larger or smaller cup, depending on the volume of your greens. Using the reserved egg mixture, brush a little onto the bottom edge of the circle. You could use your finger if you don’t have a brush. Stretch the top of the circle over the greens to meet the bottom edge. Fold and crimp the edges together. The egg will help glue the pocket shut.
15. Transfer the pocket to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or lightly dusted with cornmeal and repeat with the other five dough balls. Three pockets will fit on each sheet pan. Brush the pockets with the remaining egg for a nice, shiny finish.
16. Bake for 25 minutes, rotating the pans halfway through for even browning.

Guideline 1: Commit. Get a . . . → Read More: Cooking for One: Inappropriately Large Salad]]> Here’s another attempt at avoiding delivery while Erik is out of town – a salad that is nearly the same size as my laptop. I’m a hungry girl, so normal salads don’t really do it for me. I need a thoughtfully composed bowl of tasty things or I don’t feel satisfied. Instead of giving a recipe, I’ll give you my little guiding principles for making a GIGANTIC, super-filling salad.

Guideline 1: Commit. Get a big bowl. Much bigger than you think you’ll need. Better to look silly and keep your salad together, than use a small bowl piled precariously high. The second part of committing is to use your hands to toss everything together. Maybe I’m not very coordinated, but I’ve never had good luck with salad tossing utensils. I either toss more on the floor than in the bowl or don’t adequately mix everything. My (clean) hands work great though!

Guideline 2: Only use things you like. I don’t like celery, so you won’t see it in any of my salads. I prefer dark leafy greens (kale, spinach, etc.) to lighter ones (romaine or iceberg). I also like some sweetness from fruit and a mixture of crisp and soft things. I don’t like a huge bowl of crunchy veggies, because I get bored of chewing them. You get the picture. It also helps to have some prepped stuff in the refrigerator. If you like beets on your salad, as I do, roast a few right away, so that they’re ready for a quick salad later in the week.

Guideline 3: Know a few good dressing recipes. I love the standard oil and vinegar, but it doesn’t always make the cut. We have found that raw food cookbooks and websites (like Choosing Raw) have great recipes for interesting dressings that can turn a pile of produce into a meal.

Guideline 4: Mega salads aren’t diet food! It’s a meal, so treat it like one and pay attention to what you’re putting in it. Like any meal, it should be substantial enough to keep you full, but not overloaded with calorie-rich ingredients. The salad I made today had a riff on this avocado-mustard dressing with a small avocado (about 200 calories) and a tablespoon of olive oil (120 calories). I also added about a tablespoon of toasted pine nuts (50 calories or so). As a meal, this is fine for me. It’s filling and delicious, but not a reason to reward myself with ice cream this afternoon. Even though it’s definitely ice cream weather…

Check out our salad posts for some ideas. As the weather warms up, it’s nice to have an arsenal of dinner ideas that don’t require the oven or stove.

This recipe is actually from a few weeks ago, just as spinach was coming back into season full-swing. It fell through the cracks, but it’s still worth posting because everything is still available. It’s a salad, but since it requires sautéing some items, it’s a bit more involved than most salads.

Spinach Salad with Mushrooms, Pine Nuts, and Balsamic Vinegar

Makes 2-4 servings

Greens, I have missed you! After a winter of cabbage and root vegetables, I was DYING for a big green salad. Armenia has great tomatoes and cucumbers already, but they don’t really have a green salad tradition. I knew the first thing I would make once home would be a ridiculously huge salad.

We weren’t able to go to the market on Saturday because of a wedding (congratulations!!), so we went to the much . . . → Read More: Greens are back! Mixed Green Salad with Sunflower Thyme Pesto]]>

Greens, I have missed you! After a winter of cabbage and root vegetables, I was DYING for a big green salad. Armenia has great tomatoes and cucumbers already, but they don’t really have a green salad tradition. I knew the first thing I would make once home would be a ridiculously huge salad.

We weren’t able to go to the market on Saturday because of a wedding (congratulations!!), so we went to the much smaller Monday market yesterday. Luckily, there was still a great selection of beautiful dark leafy greens and herbs and we bought a lot – two bunches of Swiss chard, one of red Russian kale, one of collard greens, one of komatsuna, and a bag each of spinach and arugula. This is pretty typical of us in the summer, but does take a little advanced planning. To minimize waste, we try to stick to the following rules:

1. When we get home, we wash and dry the greens before we put them away. We wrap them in big tea towels and then pack them in special reusable plastic bags, but you could use paper towels and regular plastic bags as long as they’re clean and dry. We also prep them by picking out any less than perfect leaves and removing stems and chopping, if necessary. This does take some time on Saturday morning, but it saves a lot of time during the week and makes it more likely that we’ll cook at home instead of ordering take out.
2. If we’re planning to eat any of the greens raw, e.g. in a salad, we do it early in the week. As greens age, they get more bitter and less tender.
3. If we’re planning any recipes where cooked greens are the star of the show, we make those by mid-week. The greens can wait a little longer, since they’re cooked.
4. Finally, if we have any greens left at the end of the week, we cook them and use them as an accent, e.g. pizza topping or frittata.

As an example, here’s our meal plan for the week:

• Mixed green salad with sunflower thyme pesto (Monday)
• Swiss chard with pinenuts and grain (Tuesday)
• Herb salad with curry dressing (Wednesday)
• Asparagus with “cheezy” sauce (Thursday)
• Mashed sweet potatoes with ribbons of collard greens (Friday)

This salad is based on a recipe from Ani’s Raw Food Kitchen and definitely hit the spot last night. It’s hearty enough for dinner and a great introduction to raw dark leafy greens, if you’re a little hesitant. We used olive oil in the dressing, but realized right after we poured it in that we should have used our local sunflower oil. Next time! The recipe makes 4 large servings, but only dress what you plan to eat right away to avoid soggy greens. Don’t be too worried about the exact proportion of the greens. We used about the same amount of each type, but it’s not an exact science. It’s okay if a bunch of kale is smaller than a box/bag of arugula or whatever.

Mixed Green Salad with Sunflower Thyme Pesto
Makes 4 large servings

Directions:

1. Remove the stems and ribs from the mustard greens and chop both the mustard greens and kale into 1/2-inch ribbons (see directions here).
2. Tear the spinach and arugula into bite-sized pieces and remove the stems, if they’re thick or annoy you (as they do Erik).

   

3. Put the greens into a big mixing bowl and toss to distribute everything evenly. If you don’t plan to eat the whole salad, put the amount you want to save back in the refrigerator.

   

4. Add all the dressing ingredients to a blender or food processor and process until it is as smooth as you’d like. I like it a little chunky. It will be thick like pesto.

   
   

5. Pour the dressing over the greens, remembering to save some of the dressing if you’ve saved some of the greens, and toss thoroughly. You might need to spread it around a little bit, because the dressing with want to clump in the middle of the salad. Refrigerate any extra dressing for up to four days.

   

6. Let the salad sit for about 10 minutes to allow the greens to soften a bit. Then chow down!

   

After eating this, I felt like my body was reset after all the travel and restaurant food of my business trip. Bring on summer!!

Because of work, Lindsay has been out of the country for four weeks. I haven’t mentioned it because I was afraid that once we posted about it, it would give me an easy excuse to let things go in the kitchen (and on the blog). In the end, I kept cooking. Very few of my meals were eaten out or ordered in. I’m confident that I can keep it up for one last week, . . . → Read More: How to Make Pasta and Spinach with Onion and Goat Cheese “Sauce”]]>

Because of work, Lindsay has been out of the country for four weeks. I haven’t mentioned it because I was afraid that once we posted about it, it would give me an easy excuse to let things go in the kitchen (and on the blog). In the end, I kept cooking. Very few of my meals were eaten out or ordered in. I’m confident that I can keep it up for one last week, so now the cat’s out of the bag.

As for the blog, I did have the dual problems of needing to cook half as often (leftovers!), and the fact that, when left to my own devices, I tend to cook recipes that I have made before (and that we have posted already). We also changed seasons. While I got good at making dark days dishes, we’ve already posted our best and easiest dark days recipes. Then, after about two weeks, leafy greens came back into season. It’s taken some time for me to remember what to do with them. I’ve eaten a lot of boring salads and straight up sautes, but nothing that I even thought to take pictures of. We were so good with greens last summer, so stay tuned!

Lindsay is the menu planner. I don’t flip through cookbooks and dog-ear them. I pick recipes that I know work and where I already have an expectation of the results. When I wing it, it tends not to be anything worth writing about. Part of the reason I enjoy writing this blog is because it pushes my comfort zone. That’s what we hope to do for others. If we can help you pick your menu, and visual the results AND then we’ve done a service.

This recipe is an example of my improved on-the-fly cooking. I pieced it together from what was in the cupboard. It was fast, easy, and delicious. Give it a try, or make up a version for yourself. Sorry for the vagueness in the measurement amounts. Like I said, I pieced it together from what was on hand and used things up rather than measuring all of them. And I didn’t have the extra hands to take as many pictures as I normally do, which means fewer, and blurrier pictures.


Whole Wheat Pasta and Spinach with Onion and Goat Cheese “Sauce”

Makes 2-3 servings

Ingredients:

Directions:

The key to this recipe is the “sauce.” I put that in quotation marks because it isn’t really a sauce, it just a mix of heavily caramelized aromatics (the onions and stuff) with melted goat cheese and a dash of pasta water and oil. The “sauce” lightly coats the pasta and makes it tasty without being too heavy or unhealthy. It helps to use whole wheat pasta, because it gives the dish more flavor.

1. The one ingredient that I had to buy when I thought of this recipe was the cheese. You want to use very soft, spreadable cheese that will have a liquid texture when melted that will blend into the sauce. A lot of other cheeses would glob up. I went with plain goat’s milk Chevre.

   Start by soaking the mushrooms (if using dried). If you put them in water when you start, that should be enough time. The mushrooms are optional, and you could use fresh mushrooms, but in the recipe I think dried porcinis work best, plus we always have some in the fridge because they store so well.

   

2. Chop the aromatics. I used a leftover bulb of garlic that had a lot of tiny cloves, and I used the only two onions I had. I added the shallots to make up for the tiny onion. You can’t have too many aromatics in this recipe; they are what make it work.

   For the onions, cut them into shards. The best way to visualize this is to picture cutting a globe in half from the North to South pole. Then turn the globe a few degrees and do it again. Repeat until you’ve done it all the way around. Don’t actually cut it this way because it would be unsafe. Cut it in half first at the equator and work flat on the cutting board. You’ll get shorter shards, but you’ll still have all your fingers. When you’re done, all the internal layers of the onion should fall apart, leaving you with many shards. If not, give it a little muscle.

   Mince the garlic. If you use shallots, put a few slices through them to cut them into rings.

   

3. Once the onions are prepped, start the pasta. I used 2 cups of dry whole whole wheat penne, but in retrospect, given the amount of spinach I had on hand, I would only use 1 cup. Or, use more spinach than I did.

   Bring a small pot of water to a boil. Then add the pasta and let it boil fiercely for about 8 minutes. You want to take it off the heat when it’s still a little firm (al dente) because it’s going to continue to cook more later. Drain the pasta but bet sure to save at least 0.5 cup of the water.

   

4. Add 1 – 2 TBsp of olive oil to a cast iron skillet and add the aromatics. Cook them while the pasta cooks and the mushrooms soak, until they are nicely browned and caramelized.

   

5. Once both the pasta and the aromatics are done, keep the heat on and add the spinach to the skillet, plus a dash of salt and pepper. Cook the spinach only just until wilted, as in the picture below. Like I said, I added too much pasta for this amount of spinach. Stir everything together to spread the oil and the aromatics.

   

6. Add about 0.25 cups of the reserved pasta water. Give it all a good stir. Add 1 – 2 TBsp of the goat cheese and stir everything around. The cheese will start to melt and incorporate. Add some more pasta water, a little at a time, until there is just enough “sauce” to coat the pasta with a light film. You don’t want it watery, so be sparing with the water.

   

Enjoy!

The point of our Market Day! posts is to catalog what’s available at our local market from week to week throughout the year. We also just like posting nice photos.

The Union Square greenmarket is extensive, including farms from New York, New Jersey, Eastern Pennsylvania, and Western New England (Vermont, Connecticut, and Western Massachusetts). It’s also indicative of similar climates at similar latitudes.

We haven’t done a Market Day post in a while because . . . → Read More: Market Day: First Signs of (Greenhouse) Spring]]>

The point of our Market Day! posts is to catalog what’s available at our local market from week to week throughout the year. We also just like posting nice photos.

The Union Square greenmarket is extensive, including farms from New York, New Jersey, Eastern Pennsylvania, and Western New England (Vermont, Connecticut, and Western Massachusetts). It’s also indicative of similar climates at similar latitudes.

We haven’t done a Market Day post in a while because nothing much has changed at the market in months. And that will continue to be the case for another 4-6 weeks. However, yesterday we saw the very first signs of spring (albeit most likely helped along by a few greenhouses).

Norwich Meadows Farm has been back at the market for a few weeks. Recently they started selling baby spinach and two forms of kale. It’s nice to see greens at the market again, but we suspect that these were at least helped along by a portable greenhouse (which can be placed directly over the soil bed), if not an actual greenhouse or hothouse.

Given their location in far Western New York State, maybe they were spared some of our worst snow. These greens are hearty and will grow as soon as they are given then chance by nature, but we’re still skeptical. As the first out of the gate with the greens, their prices are steep. We’ll stop by and ask them next week about how these were grown, if we have time:

Fiori di Fenice sells flowers, which are definitely greenhouse flowers, but they were such a nice change from winter that we had to buy some of those orange tulips:

The tulips at home:

For another one of our quick meals this past week we were fortunate to a have an unintended convergence of three ingredients: