Category Archives: Dinner

Dairy-Free / Dinner / Gluten-Free / Savory / Soup / Stay Healthy / Vegan / Vegetarian

Lentil Soup for the New Year

December 31, 2013

There are a lot of New Year’s traditions out there — eating black eyed peas, wearing red underwear, nursing a hangover…  But here’s mine!

My sister and I started the tradition of having lentil soup around New Year’s during our first year of law school when we lived together in San Francisco.  It wasn’t really a conscious choice, but we found out that eating lentils around the new year is supposed to bring money and good fortune in the coming year, according to Italian lore, and so the tradition stuck.

I mean, because who doesn’t want money and good fortune?  I sure do.

Here’s a delicious way to get your lentils (not to mention a crapload of veggies!)  And it’s gluten free.  And vegan.  So, y’know, make a big ol’ pot and invite the pickiest of eaters over.*

*Although, I find it’s especially delicious with a giant hunk of sourdough slathered in butter, so…

Lentil Soup

Lentil Soup
serves 6

based on Ina Garten’s Lentil Vegetable Soup

  • 1 pound green lentils
  • 3 medium to large yellow onions, diced
  • 2-3 leeks, white part trimmed, washed, and sliced thin
  • 3 large cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 bunch celery, trimmed and chopped
  • 1 large bunch carrots, chopped (I just do the amount that comes in the Trader Joe’s bag)
  • 1 tsp dried thyme
  • 1 tsp dried cumin
  • 3 quarts vegetable or chicken stock
  • 1/4 cup tomato paste, or 1 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes
  • 2 tbsp red wine vinegar
  • salt and pepper
  • olive oil
  • Optional for serving: freshly grated parmesan cheese
  1. In a large bowl, cover lentils with boiling water and let sit for 15 minutes.  Drain.  If the water is murky, rinse lentils in warm water.
  2. To a large stockpot over medium heat, add a few tablespoons of olive oil.  Add onions, leeks, garlic, celery, carrots, thyme, cumin, salt (start with 1 tsp) and pepper.  Saute until softened and fragrant (10-15 minutes).
  3. Add stock, tomato paste (or tomatoes), and lentils.  Cover and let come to a boil.  Lower heat to a simmer, then simmer uncovered for 1 hour (until lentils are cooked through).
  4. Add red wine vinegar, then salt and pepper to taste.  Top bowls with freshly grated parmesan, if desired.

Devour and then reap your wealth in the new year!

Dinner / Gluten-Free / Savory / Soup / Vegetarian

Potato Leek Soup

December 30, 2013

This soup is so easy, it should be illegal.  Although, then you’d have to make it all on the DL (Mom: that means “down-low”), and hope that the police wouldn’t show up and arrest your scofflaw, soup-making, law-breaking a**.

You rebel.

Lucky for you, there’s nothing illegal about this soup — EXCEPT FOR HOW DELICIOUS IT IS.

Are you hoping that I get less weird in the new year?  I think KC is too.  Joke’s on you guys though, cuz it’s not happening!

IMG_1879

Potato Leek Soup

  • 2 tbsp butter
  • 3 leeks, white part trimmed and sliced
  • 1 large yellow onion, diced
  • 6 medium to large russet potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
  • 6 cups vegetable or chicken stock
  • 1 1/4 cups half and half
  • Salt and pepper

Optional toppings:

  • Fresh minced chives
  • Fresh minced parsley
  • Crispy bacon or prosciutto
  • Sharp cheddar cheese
  • Scallions
  • Like, all of the above (omg, yum)
  1. Place a large stockpot over medium heat and melt the butter.  Add leeks and onions, some salt and pepper, and saute until just soft and very fragrant.  Add potatoes and stock, then cover and cook for 35-40 minutes, until potatoes are tender.  Remove from heat and let sit for 10 minutes.
  2. Using a hand blender (or using a regular blender — in batches), puree mixture until desired consistency is reached.  (You can have this be totally smooth, or a little chunky — up to you!)  Add in half and half, season with salt and pepper to taste.  (If the soup has lost some of it’s heat at this point, just return it to the stove and heat through, stirring occasionally.)
  3. Serve plain, or with any or all of the above toppings.

I mean, did I say easy or did I say easy.

Dinner / Gluten-Free / Savory / Vegan / Vegetarian

Whole Wheat Pasta with Kale and Goat Cheese

December 15, 2013

Whole Wheat Pasta with Kale and Goat Cheese

First of all, let me just say that this pasta doesn’t photograph particularly well.  I’m not a great photographer to begin with, but pasta in particular (along with dressed salads) seem to always end up looking SHINY.  Ugh.  Oh well, just know that this pasta is really easy to throw together in a pinch, and it’s pretty dang delicious.

I used dino kale in this recipe, because it’s what I had sitting in my fridge, courtesy of our CSA box, but you can really use whatever kinds of greens here.  Other types of kale or spinach would be good, as would arugula (although I would eliminate the sauteing and just toss it in at the end).  Collards would be fine, but tend to take a long time to cook to get the bitterness out, so be prepared if you’re going to go that route.  I like the dino kale in this because it’s a heartier variety of kale, so it maintains a bit of texture and chew even when sauteed; but if you’re not someone who likes kale on the semi-raw side, I would choose a softer variety of greens.

kale yeah

Whole Wheat Pasta with Kale and Goat Cheese

  • 1/2 – 3/4 lbs pasta (I used whole wheat fusilli, and would recommend using a spiral-shaped pasta for this)
  • olive oil
  • 2-3 tbsp butter
  • 2 shallots, sliced
  • 2 large cloves garlic, minced
  • 1/4 – 1/2 cup chicken or vegetable stock
  • 1 bunch dino kale, stems removed, leaves torn (or greens of choice)
  • 2-3 oz goat cheese, crumbled
  • parmesan cheese
  • red pepper flakes
  • salt and pepper
  1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil, add a generous handful of salt, add pasta and cook according to package directions, until al dente.
  2. Heat a large skillet over medium heat, add 2 tbsp olive oil and butter, stir until melted.  Add in shallots, salt and pepper, and saute until softened and fragrant.  Add garlic and saute another minute or two, until garlic is very fragrant.  Add in kale, salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes, to taste.  Add stock to pan (just enough to cover the bottom of the pan).  Saute greens until desired done-ness is reached (I did mine for 4-5 minutes).
  3. When pasta is finished cooking, transfer it into the skillet and toss to coat.  Add parmesan and goat cheese (to taste), tossing until goat cheese is melted and coats the pasta.

*Vegetarian: use veggie stock in place of the chicken stock.

*Vegan: use veggie stock and a butter substitute

*Gluten-free: use a gluten-free pasta (brown rice pasta would probably work well here)

 

12 Dates of Christmas / Dinner / Favorite Things / Relationships

The 12 Dates of Christmas — #6

December 11, 2013

ringsFor our sixth date of Christmas, we went to a late dinner Monday night at our local hole-in-the-wall Indian restaurant.  We were out kind of late, and by the time we got home (close to 8pm), neither of us had any desire to figure out what we had food-wise in the fridge and then assemble it into some type of meal.  KC said, “How about Indian?” and my heart skipped a beat — this, my friends, is called romance.  You know, when you’re dog-tired from running around Christmas shopping and working and balancing everything else in your life and all of a sudden your husband just takes the reigns and is like, “Hey, don’t worry about this — I’ll take care of it.”  And so, he may as well have said, “Hey, how about I take you to Gary Danko and we can feast on foie gras and gaze at each other over the white tablecloth and polished silver?” because that’s really how it sounded to me.

And so we had a no-frills meal of spicy chicken, lentils and rice, eaten off of old, scratched plates and rounded out with beers served in the strangest glassware.  We sat on chairs on the concrete floor, in front of the space heater they had rigged up in an attempt to keep the place above freezing temperatures, all while listening to the blasting music from the belly-dancing studio next door that seeps through the walls (a muffled Beyonce yelling about a “beautiful nightmare” isn’t typically “mood music”).  I spilled about half our rice on the floor throughout the course of the evening (I’m just not very coordinated sometimes); but it was a perfect night.  We ate slowly, and talked about everything from work to Christmas to what we think next year will be like.

Our lives (and everybody’s lives, I think) are so full and busy that sometimes it’s easy to just whoosh right by each other and resort to calling our hour on the couch watching the news “quality time;” so it’s nice to take a time-out once in a while for just the two of us and let all that busyness fall away.  And it doesn’t matter so much where we are — whether it’s sharing the 2003 Cabernet over steaks or drinking cheap beers while eating way-too-spicy samosas — in the moment, it’s perfect.  It’s nice just to take a breath, and know that the gifts will get wrapped, grocery shopping will get done, and trash will get taken out eventually, but right now it’s just about us.

Six dates left, and enjoying every minute.

Dinner / Fall / Holidays

Our First Thanksgiving — The Verdict

December 4, 2013

table 1

Despite my nervousness of hosting 11 people for dinner, and possibly poisoning them due to having never cooked a turkey before (a 20+ lb one, at that), our first Thanksgiving was a smashing success (if I do say so myself). Of course, the turkey, which was supposed to take 5-6 hours to cook, was done in a mere 3 1/2 hours — at 2:30 in the afternoon, no less. But, my mom assured me that I hadn’t ruined Thanksgiving, and we let the bird sit, wrapped in foil, until we were ready to eat. I completely spaced and forgot to put out the cranberry sauce my mom had made — and, of course, I didn’t realize it was absent until dinner was already over. Ah, holidays.

We ate, we drank, and we ended the night by sending everyone home with some leftovers (not nearly as many as I feared we might have). My sister, her husband, and her husband’s brother stayed late, and we all sat by the fire and listened to Christmas songs (much to the boys dismay), as we attempted to finish the huge bottle of prosecco that was opened earlier in the evening. (We didn’t even come close.) On a whim, we decided to go to a (late!) 10pm showing of Catching Fire. It’s been ages since KC and I have seen a movie that late, and it felt like our college days. (Although the 1am hangover that followed, quickly assured us that we were no longer 22.)

place setting

Even though it was a bit of work to cook and host, and maybe just the tiniest bit stressful, I think our first Thanksgiving was quite a success. My family has a lot of traditions, and so does KC’s, but it’s nice to start some of our own, since KC and I are our own family now. I’m sure that there will be a lot of traditions that we’ll keep from both sides of our families, but I think this new Thanksgiving setup might just turn into a tradition of our own. And hey, cooking a giant turkey the second time around can’t be nearly as hard as the first, right?* Well, that’s what I’m telling myself for next year, anyway.

*And really, the hardest part was just lifting the dang thing, and that was all KC’s job. 😉