Lentils and Rice with Caramelized Onions

A very simple, quick and easy one-pot meal. A little on the plain side but tasty and unbelievably filling, in addition to being low-calorie and nutritious!

Hardware:
4-quart or larger saucepan/stock pot with lid
large skillet

Software:
2 cups lentils, rinsed and picked over for rocks
1 cup rice (long or short grain is fine, I used Texmati)
6 cups (i.e. 1.5 quarts) chicken, beef, or vegetable stock
1 medium onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, crushed or finely minced
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon cumin
salt and pepper to taste
2 Large onions, sliced
2 tablespoons olive oil

Directions:
Sweat the diced medium onion in the tablespoon of oil in your stock pot over medium-high heat. Once the onion is translucent (~5 minutes) add the garlic, cook another 3 minutes. Add the lentils, cumin, and broth (as well as a hefty pinch of salt) bring to a boil, cover, and reduce heat. Simmer for 20 minutes or until the lentils begin to soften, then stir in the rice and cover again. Cook 15-20 minutes or until the rice is done. If the consistency is too thin once the rice and lentils are at the correct texture, simply uncover and keep at a simmer to evaporate the extra liquid. Season to taste with salt and pepper and serve hot.
For the caramelized onions, simply cook the sliced onions in the skillet with the remaining oil over medium heat for 20 minutes or so, stirring occasionally. You want them to be darkening but not burned. Serve garnishing the lentils and rice.

Ratatouille

This was a fun experiment for me given that I've never actually had ratatouille, despite the fact that the Pixar film of the same name is one of my favorite movies.

I wasn't awestruck by it (in part because of the inclusion of eggplant, which I hate, and keep trying because so many people whose taste I respect claim it is good) but it was very tasty, and remarkably healthy (basically all of the calories in the entire dish are from the olive oil.)

Rebecca found the herbed oil in the bottom of the dish to be a great dipping sauce for fresh bread, and Sydney enjoyed a record amount of participation in the making of it - she chopped zucchini and peppers, helped peel garlic cloves, and then pitched in on the final assembly.

Hardware:
Massive casserole dish (a normal 9x13 pyrex will not be big enough)
Massive mixing bowl
Good sharp chef's knife (you will be doing a LOT of chopping)

Software:
4-6 medium zucchini squash, salted and rinsed, cut into bite sized pieces
1 medium eggplant, salted and rinsed, cut into bite sized pieces
4 red bell peppers, seeded and cored, cut into bite sized pieces
4 plum tomatoes, diced (canned is fine)
2 medium onions, sliced
10 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 cup good extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 teaspoon each dried thyme, rosemary, and basil
salt and pepper to taste

Assembly:
Prep all the vegetables and toss into your giant mixing bowl. Add the herbs, a good dose of salt and pepper, the oil and vinegar, and toss to combine. Move to your giant casserole dish and bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour and 30 minutes (approximately) stirring occasionally. Let rest ten minutes and serve with additional salt, pepper, and vinegar to taste.

Goes great with a hot loaf of homemade bread to sop up the herby oil.

Pro Tips:
Next time i will probably omit the eggplant entirely and add extra zucchini, or maybe some thinly sliced carrots.

If you do use eggplant, make sure to liberally dose with kosher salt and let sit in a colander for 45 minutes to an hour, then rinse and pat dry. You can do something similar to the zucchini although it's not as necessary (and doesn't take as long.)

Update 3/15/2012:  I made this recipe again with the following changes:  omitted the eggplant, added yellow squash, crushed half the garlic, and used fresh thyme and basil.  It was both MUCH tastier and much 'drier' which added to the roasty flavor, I'm sure.  My campaign against the enemy of good eats, Eggplant, continues!

Homemade Bread...

...using a bread machine. I actually want to try making the 'no-work' artisan bread that I recently read about in How to Cook Everything (my father's day gift from my mother) but I haven't gotten around to it yet.

Incidentally, the Bread Machine (a very nice stainless Cuisinart model) was ALSO a gift from my mother. It has seen a LOT of use in the last couple of years between making bread and making pizza dough and is still going strong.

Bread!

Hardware:
1 Bread Machine or a Stand Mixer

Software:
1.5 cups water, 90 degrees (filtered if your municipal water is high chlorine)
3 tablespoons butter, cut into pieces
1 tablespoon honey or sugar
1.5 teaspoons salt
4 cups bread flour
1 packet active dry yeast
(Optional) 1/4 cup dry nonfat milk

Put the ingredients into your machine (don't forget the mixing paddle!) or your mixer's workbowl (use the bread hook attachment) in the order listed above.

If using a bread machine, simply choose 'regular white bread' or whatever the equivalent setting is and '2 lbs' loaf size, and walk away!

If using a mixer, knead the dough for 10-15 minutes, then cover and leave in a warm place to rise for 1 hour. Punch down, let rise again for 1 hour. Turn out, shape into a round loaf, and place onto a pizza stone in an oven preheated to 400 degrees. Bake for 45 minutes or until the bread reaches an internal temp of 205 degrees.

Either way, let the bread rest for at least 30 minutes before devouring.

So what's up with the dry nonfat milk, you ask? Basically, adding the milk proteins helps the bread to have a very consistent internal structure without a lot of giant steam bubble tunneling. In other words, it will make your bread look more like 'store bought' and be easier to slice for sandwiches and the like. It is completely unnecessary in terms of baking a good loaf of bread.

As for the flour, you can replace up to 50% of the bread flour with whole-wheat flour (although I don't really see the point myself)

40 Cloves and a Chicken

Hope you like garlic! Preparing this will protect your home from vampires for at least a week, and it is delicious to boot. The crazy thing about it is that it really isn't 'garlicky' at all - the long, slow cooking turns the garlic into this smooth, creamy, sweet spreadable stuff that is like mild garlic butter. Obviously it is best if you have some delicious homemade bread to spread it on!

Hardware:
Large oven-safe skillet or saute pan with tight-fitting lid

Software:
2-3 lbs chicken pieces
40 cloves of garlic, peeled (about 3 bulbs worth)
1/4 cup olive oil (NOT virgin)
bundle of fresh thyme sprigs
salt and pepper

Start by peeling lots of cloves of garlic. Supposedly some megamarts will sell pre-peeled cloves but I haven't seen them in my neighborhood H.E.B.

Once you have your 40 cloves, take your chicken pieces and toss them in a splash of olive oil and salt & pepper.

A side note about the chicken - you can do this a LOT of different ways. The cheapest is to buy a whole chicken in the 3lb range and butcher it yourself; I tend to go the route of buying de-boned chicken thigh 'fillets.' You can also use the standard boneless skinless breasts for this dish but they won't taste as good as the darker, fattier cuts :)

Regardless, preheat your oven to 350 and heat your skillet over medium-high heat. Brown the chicken on each side (will take 5-10 minutes if using thighs.) Add the garlic, the oil, and the thyme sprigs, cover, and move to the oven. Bake at 350 for 1.5-to-2 hours (depends on what cuts of chicken you are using.) The chicken at the end will be nicely browned with a crusty roasted exterior and falling-apart tender.

I recommend serving the oil and garlic on the side as a dip/spread for the fresh homemade bread you should have made to go with this :)

How healthy is it? I guess that depends on your definition of healthy - this is fairly high in fat, but it's 'good' fat from the olive oil, and garlic is really good for you. A couple of deboned thighs with a hearty slab of homemade bread is probably 600-700 calories, so it's definitely not 'light.'

Vichyssoise (a.k.a. Potato-Leek Soup)

Ah, vichyssoise. Not actually French, interestingly enough - it was invented by the (French) head chef at the Ritz-Carlton in NYC around the turn of the 20th century. He named it after his hometown of Vichy, and until the 30's the Ritz's menus were published in French - hence, vichyssoise!

Despite the hard-to-pronounce name and somewhat pretentious history, it is very easy to make provided you have an immersion blender (sometimes called a stick blender.) You can technically puree the soup in an upright blender but pouring a gallon of hot soup is not my idea of fun (or safe.)

Hardware:
large stock pot with lid
good potato peeler (I actually recommend the Titan peeler of infomercial fame)
immersion blender

Software:
Approximately 1.5 cups of diced leeks (the yield from 2 large or 3 medium leeks, white and light-green parts only)
Approximately 4 cups cubed russet potatoes, peeled (the yield of 5-6 medium potatoes)
1 quart good quality chicken broth or stock
6 tablespoons butter, divided
1 cup whole milk (or half & half, or cream)
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon ground white pepper
salt to taste
dash ground cayenne (optional)

Remove the leafy green heads and root ends of the leeks. Starting where the stalk turns light green, split and chop the leeks into half-rings. Peel the potatoes and cube, set aside.

Melt 2 tablespoons of the butter in the stock pot over medium-high heat. Add the diced leeks and a pinch of salt; cook over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, until translucent and softened. Add the potatoes and chicken broth, bring to a boil, cover and reduce heat. Simmer for 25-30 minutes or until the potatoes are fork-tender.

Turn off the heat and stir in the butter, milk, parmesan, vinegar and spices. Once the butter is melted, use your immersion blender to puree the potatoes and leeks until smooth and creamy. Season to taste and serve immediately, or chill and serve with a splash of milk to loosen the soup (it will be slightly thin when hot, but will thicken considerably as it cools to room temperature.)

The 'traditional' preparation adds a splash of brandy or cognac at the end but I find it to overpower the subtle flavors of the soup.

If you are using good quality chicken broth (which is lower in sodium, generally) you will find that this dish takes a LOT of salt to taste right. If it tastes bland after adding the spices try adding more salt before adding more spice.

Asparagus with Garlic-Lemon Vinagrette

I picked up this recipe from Alton Brown's fascinating travelogue, Feasting on Asphalt: the River Run. Somewhere in the Midwest he and his troupe came across a 'pick and pay' field of asparagus and that night his French cameraman prepared it this way. I concur with Mr. Brown that this is the best asparagus I've ever tasted.

Hardware:
Large saucepan or small stock pot, with lid
Steamer basket
small mixing bowl
balloon whisk
(optional) garlic press

Software:
1lb fresh asparagus, woody ends removed
2-3 cloves garlic
1 teaspoon kosher salt
2 tablespoons prepared mustard
juice of one lemon
1/4 cup good quality olive oil

Preparation:
Place your steamer basket in a pot with 3/4 inch of water and set to boil.

In a mixing bowl, crush the garlic and salt together until they form a paste. Add the lemon juice and mustard, whisk until combined. Slowly drizzle the olive oil into the mixture, whisking vigorously, until they form an emulsion.

Steam the asparagus for 3-5 minutes (depends on how thick the stalks are.)

Remove cooked asparagus to a serving bowl. Toss with vinagrette. Serve immediately!

Goes really well with steak (and if you're like me, you will find yourself using the remaining vinagrette in the bottom of the serving bowl as a steak sauce - yum!)

I was really impressed with Sydney's ability to help make this. She snapped off the ends of the asparagus stalks, mixed together ingredients, and insisted she could be careful enough to pour the oil into the vinagrette. I was skeptical but i shouldn't have been - she did perfect. Too bad she wouldn't try the final product :)