Avocado & Kale Smoothie

What to do with a ripe avocado on short notice? Avocados are yummy, versatile and satiating but I find they have a very small window of ripeness in my kitchen.  I took an unexpected day off of work, so I was able to haul out my juicer. I juiced a pink grapefruit and a tangerine then added the avocado and kale to blend it all up in my knockoff magic bullet (which works just great, by the way). It was a little tart, so maybe next time I would only use half a grapefruit and two tangerines.

Avocado & Kale Smoothie

-juice of 1 pink grapefruit
-juice of 1 tangerine
-1 Tablespoon lemon juice
-half an avocado, roughly cubed
-approx 1/2 cup packed kale leaves

Blend and enjoy! Add 1/4 cup of water if too thick.

Roasted Squash Soup

Last night I made the Gold Rush Soup with Chickpea Croutons from www.mynewroots.org, and of course it came out fabulous! It's a soup made by roasting butternut squash, garlic cloves and onions in the oven and blending them with hot broth. A little time-consuming to prepare with all of the peeling and chopping--and lucky me--Johnny helped out and peeled all the garlic! I have no patience for that type of itty-bitty peeling work, but he did an awesome job. The vegetables roast quickly at 400F, just be super super careful with the blending part, because I almost burned myself with hot soup exploding through the lid of my blender.

My personal alterations: I tossed in dried Herbs de Provence and Thyme before roasting the vegetables, due to lack of fresh. I used the Better Than Bouillon (the No-Chicken variety) for my broth, which I brought to a simmer with water, turned off the heat and stirred in the dried turmeric. Personally I found the turmeric make the soup a little bitter upon the first spoonful, but after that all I could taste was yummy. Guess I'm still a turmeric newbie. I also recommend making the Chickpea Croutons the day before to cut down on after-work prep time.

Tonight's dinner, and our single meat dish for the week, will be my Grandma Sophie's favorite: Sausage Corn Chowder. I have already defrosted my sausage in the fridge, and my goal tonight will be to make this chowder without the use of creamed corn! For a long-term goal I'm trying to get away from using canned products. Hard to do in the winter.

Pumpkin Lentil Soup

I'm having a productive evening: I served Pumpkin Lentil Soup from the freezer for dinner, made more Ham & Veggie "Pot Pie" from my previous post, chocolate chip cookies from scratch, and put rice and beans in to soak overnight. Oh yes, and an absolute mountain of dishes! Technically I still haven't finished those.

I'm going to go back in time to November when I was obsessed with this recipe from Better Homes & Gardens for Pumpkin Lentil Soup. Recipe can be found here: http://www.bhg.com/recipe/pumpkin-soup-with-lentils/

This soup is very easy to make and quick-cooking (because the red lentils cook quicker than other varieties!). But I do recommend finely chopping the onions! Enjoy

Mid-East Lentils & Rice

Thought for sure I was coming down with a cold this weekend--but thanks to Dr Schultz Superfoods I was able to fight it off! This morning I have unfortunately been awake since 4:00AM, why, oh why? I if we don't turn the heat down by 5 degrees before we go to bed, it turns on through the night and makes a continuous loud banging noise in our bedroom and I assume this is what woke me up so early. Using this opportunity to be productive this morning, I have planned my dinner menu and for once I am able to properly pre-soak my rice. This past weekend we participated in the Hartford Area Roller Derby's Roller Polar Run, see picture above! I already spent all my "fun" money for the week on the post-run pub crawl, a trip to Trader Joe's and two lovely orchids from the Flower & Garden show.

I found green lentils and brown Basmati rice at Trader Joe's, as well as an organic superfruit jam. I even discovered Australian-grown chia seeds! We don't live near a Trader Joe's, so I try to stop by whenever I am in the area. They have some great things, but I often find they are out of stock on the things I like every other trip, so I try to stock up on my favorites when I find them.

I have one onion left, so tonight's dinner will be Mid-East Lentils & Rice from the Bloodroot cookbook. This dish has a really wonderful olive oil flavor--even my dad enjoys it! I will be cutting this recipe in half and subbing green lentils and forbidden black rice. I'm also pre-soaking the rice, as I have been reading about the benefits of doing so. We'll see how it turns out! Below is the original recipe without pre-soaked rice or substitutions.

Mid East Lentils & Rice a la Bloodroot

Ingredients:
2 Cups French lentils
1 Cup long grain white rice
2 large Spanish onion, thinly sliced
1 Cup olive oil
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon cayenne

Rinse and pick through lentils; bring to boil with 3 1/2 cups of water. Reduce heat and simmer about 15 min. Add rice and 1 cup of water*, simmer 15 minutes more. In a separate frying pan, saute the onions in the olive oil until golden brown; add to lentils and rice. Add salt and spices, and cook until lentils are tender!

*use less water with pre-soaked rice!

Walnut & Date Breakfast Oatmeal

Nostalgia & Dry Nose:

Reading back through some of my posts from 2010 this morning, and what a trip it was. Not sure if I feel better or worse. But I really regret my greediness in not posting the recipe for scented salt beads that I had found in the vintage Workbasket magazines from the 1950's, because I can't find where I put them at my parents house. My goal is to post as many recipes as possible because it's easier for me to sign on here and search my blog than it is to go through my pile of printed recipes and scraps of paper that are stuffed on top of my cookbook collection. So right now I am sniffing a cup of hot water because the room I am in is very dry. I feel rather blah this morning; I stayed up way too late last night, and went to bed with wet hair in February. Not that I wanted to, but I did it to be a good friend! I carpooled with my buddy Mark to derby practice, but practice ran super-late AND then he wanted to go for a drink with the former president of the league who was visiting from California. So I really didn't want to go out afterwards, but I knew how much it would mean to Mark, so I sucked it up and went along with it. I still had to go home and shower, then read for 20 minutes to put my brain to sleep, so I am fairly confident that I fell asleep before 3:00AM. Need to take my vitamins today! I took 3/4 of a serving of my Dr Schultz Superfoods with my Oatmeal this morning, and drank black tea instead of coffee. The only sweeteners I used were a bit of local honey in my tea and I chopped 2 Medjool Dates for my oatmeal. A nice variation, but I miss the tartness of cherries.

Walnut & Date Breakfast Oatmeal

-1 C water
-dash of sea salt
-1/2 C Rolled Oats
-2 Medjool Dates, pitted and chopped
-1 heaping T finely chopped walnuts
-Milk for topping, optional

Put the dates and walnuts into the water & salt, bring to a boil and cook your oatmeal as usual! As far as oatmeal goes I personally like my dried fruits to plump and my walnuts to soften a bit. The sweetness from the dates was distributed throughout the oatmeal and eliminated the need for anything else sweet to top it! I usually use little drizzle of maple syrup, but with the dates there was no need. Good for winter breakfasts!

Ham & Veggie "Pot Pie"

This is a recipe that I was not very confident about during assembly! I thought that sweet potatoes would clash with ham, and that it would just be one of those inevitable "blah" thrown together dishes. But at first bite, oh it was heaven. A comforting pot pie flavor, minus the high-calorie pie! The ham and Mexican-style cheese give the dish it's flavor--all it needs is fresh ground pepper. You can more or less use any vegetables on hand in the fridge--I used leftover asparagus from our Valentine's Day dinner, but since it's a quick cooking vegetable there's no need to boil it with the others. Using dehydrated onion eliminates the need to saute it first.

Ham & Veggie "Pot Pie"

Ingredients:
2 C cubed sweet potatoes (peeled)
2-3 celery stalks, sliced
2-3 carrots, peeled & sliced
2 C fully cooked ham, cut into bite sized cubes
5 stalks asparagus, sliced
1/2 T dehydrated onion flakes
1/4 C unsalted butter
3 T flour
1 C milk (2% worked well for me)
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 C shredded Mexican style cheese blend
1/2 sleeve of smashed Saltine crackers

Directions:
Place sweet potatoes, celery, carrots & dehydrated onion into large cooking pot and cover with cold water. Bring to boil, reduce heat and simmer 20 minutes or so until tender. Meanwhile cube the ham, slice the asparagus, prepare your baking dish, then start the sauce. Drain the cooked vegetables, but reserve 2/3 Cup of the broth. Whisk the flour, pepper and milk in a medium sauce pan, add the butter and heat over medium, stirring often. When it just about begins to boil stir in the shredded cheese and reserved vegetable broth. Whisk until smooth and remove from heat. Preheat oven to 350F. Combine the vegetables, ham, asparagus and sauce in the large pot or a large mixing bowl, and toss gently until everything is well coated. Spread mixture into a 13x9" glass baking pan and top with Saltine crumbs. Bake until the center is bubbly, about 45 minutes.

Enjoy!

Snow!

Large snowstorm here in CT. Has delayed my trip to Cali by a day and a half, which I am not happy about! I am so looking forward to blood oranges and other Californian delights. The weather looks like it will not be nearly as warm as it was last year when we were there. :( I actually love the snow, not driving in it, but I still get excited when I wake up to see everything coated in white. The whole rescheduled flight/airport-trip debacle has left me snowed in at my parents house.

If you look closely you can see one of my ceramic wind-bells hanging from a Shepard's hook on the deck railing. One of my most successful projects! One of these days I will have to churn out some more.