Simplicity Deconstructed

Okay, Erika, here they are! ;-) Finally......

This recipe is actually from the Spring part of A Year in a Vegetarian Kitchen, but what the heck - why not bring a little spring in? This recipe consists of 3 parts, the croquettes, the raita and the salad. As a whole, the recipe looks a little complicated, but each part is actually very simple and comes together quite quickly. It just takes a little planning since the lentil-rice mixture needs to be chill for 2 hours before hitting the pan.

The lentil-rice croquettes are seasoned with ginger and curry, but any combination of Indian-inspired spices would work well here. The croquettes were very good, but I thought they could use just a little more flavor and a little bit of heat (especially as a contrast to the cool raita). The raita is a simple combination of cucumber, garlic and yogurt.

Red Lentil and Basmati Rice Croquettes with Romaine-Mango Salad and Cucumber Raita

What really surprised me though, was the romaine-mango salad. It's simple combination of lettuce, mango, lime juice, EVOO and salt. I could have eaten an entire bowl of this salad alone - there was just something about the fresh, simple flavors that really won me over and reminded me that sometimes less is more.

The only thing that I did not like about this dish is how it's constructed. You pile the salad, croquettes and raita on a pita - it looks pretty, but then what? It's difficult to eat - trying to cut through the toasted pita with a fork and knife while also trying not to turn everything into a big pile of mush. I would serve the toasted pita on the side next time - brush it with a little olive oil and season it a bit - it just didn't work as a base for me. Or - stuff it all inside the pita as one would do with falafel - that might work as well.

I feel indebted to this recipe for showing me you don't have to be afraid to simply let the flavor of fresh ingredients stand on their own and hopefully I will be able to incorporate this principle into my cooking more and more.

Good old Meat and Potatoes!

Since my family has been so tolerant of my recent run on vegetarian recipes, I decided to "reward" them with a good old comfort food meal of meat and potatoes.

I read good reviews of a pot roast recipe on the CLBB, so I gave it a try. I used my Le Creuset Dutch oven - it's not oval, but the chuck roast (2.5-3 pounds) fit in it just fine. I followed the recipe pretty much exactly, but I used little white creamer potatoes instead of Yukon gold.

Classic Beef Pot Roast

Once everything was finished cooking I had DH shred the meat while I dealt with the potatoes. Instead of eating the potatoes as is, I decided to mash them - along with a bit of light sour cream, a bit of cream cheese and a bit of butter. This was a great way to make mashed potatoes - cooking the potatoes right along with the roast allowed them to soak up a little more flavor and saved an extra cooking pot to wash later. They were delicious.

Overall, the recipe was very good, but I think we might prefer the Merlot Pot Roast. However, I'm glad we tried this recipe - I definitely will cook the potatoes like this again.

A few good recipes that got lost along the way....

There were a few recipes we tried and really liked that I never got around to getting a photo of, but I want to share them just the same. All of these recipes made our top 20 favorite new recipes of 2007.

The first recipe, Smokey Mushroom Ragout from Cooking Light, is a vegetarian dish with a layer of polenta that is topped with a tomato, mushroom and chipotle mixture and finished with a sprinkling of queso fresco. The polenta is baked in a 9x13-inch dish in the oven which takes more time than the more traditional stovetop method, but it does free you up to tackle the mushroom layer. I really enjoyed the flavor combinations in this dish. I used a combination of cremini and shiitake mushrooms which worked just fine in place of the harder-to-find oyster mushrooms. If at all possible, do not skip the queso fresco on top; this cheese was the perfect flavor complement to the spicy mushroom mixture - not too strong, not too salty, not too mild - just right.

A while back, I tried a stuffed chicken breast recipe from Cooking Light and was very pleased to discover just how easy they are to prepare - they always look and sound fancy or complicated. Encouraged, I have been meaning to try more recipes and finally tried Chicken Breasts Stuffed with Garlic and Goat Cheese. We had plain goat cheese on hand (I buy large logs and vacuum pack them), so instead of spending money on herbed goat cheese, I simply mashed our plain goat cheese with some dried Italian Herb seasoning. The only hard part about this recipe is remembering to start far enough in advance since the garlic needs to roast for an hour. I also love the flexibility of stuffed chicken breasts - it's very easy to accommodate my son who dislikes goat cheese - he can have provolone or mozzarella instead.

Over the holidays, we tried two new salads. For Thanksgiving, I was in charge of bringing the salad. I wanted to try something new and stumbled on one over at Epicurious - Mixed Green Salad with Oranges, Dried Cranberries and Pecans - that sounded perfect for a Thanksgiving meal. Not only did oranges, cranberries and pecans pair well with the rest of the meal, it was a nice, light complement to all of the other carb-heavy foods. The salad really couldn't be simpler - just a few ingredients and very little prep work, but lots of fresh flavors. This one will definitely stay on our repeater list. Note: I did not boil the dried cranberries - I agreed with the other reviewers who said they thought the dried cranberries would add more texture as is, rather than softened.

Right after Thanksgiving, we prepared dinner for family visiting from out of town and tried another Epicurious salad - Almond-Crusted Goat Cheese Salad with Raspberry Dressing. Another Epicurious salad, another winner. The goat cheese was luscious - warm and creamy with a pleasing crunch from the almonds. The raspberry dressing was a huge hit, especially with my youngest - he was dragging out the bag of mixed greens for several days afterward, just so he could have more dressing. The goat cheese rounds are a bit time-consuming and messy to assemble, but they can be done ahead of time and kept in the fridge until you are ready to bake them. Note: I added much less olive oil then the recipe indicates - I just added oil until I thought the dressing was thin enough.

I hate posts with no pictures, but these recipes were just too good not to share.

2 More Vegetarian Recipes....

Here are two more from A Year in a Vegetarian Kitchen.....

My DH and kids have been liking these new recipes pretty well, but as they finish, they often say, "This would be really good with sausage." Ah well, at least they are adventurous and pretty willing to try it all. And they do like it, they just like a nice meat and potato dish better - but then again, sometimes, so do I!

Seared Tempeh Wraps with Thai-Style Peanut Sauce

These two dishes revolve around tempeh. The first is a wrap - the tempeh is marinated in a peanut sauce and then seared (though I cook it longer to get the bitter taste out) and is then paired with a simple salad tossed in the leftover peanut sauce. We liked it, but the peanut sauce is a bit gummy - I think it could use a tablespoon or two of oil to help make it more fluid. Jack Bishop doesn't tend to shy away from using oil in this cookbook, so I'm not sure why he didn't put a little in this sauce, I really think it would help. Of course I could always just use Cooking Light's Finger Lickin' Peanut Sauce instead - it's delicious. These wraps also made nice leftovers for bringing to work.

Curried Tempeh with Brown Rice and Peas

Next, it was a tempeh curry dish. I really liked the method of cooking the tempeh in this recipe. You boil the tempeh in a mixture of water, tamari and Indian spices. You could use any spices you like best here - again, a very adaptable recipe. The tempeh is then fried in a little canola oil for added flavor and even better texture. The tempeh is added to a mixture of rice, onions and peas. Nothing earth-shattering as far as flavors go in this recipe, just a nice mix of Indian spices and a method of cooking tempeh that really appeals to me - boiling it in the flavorful mixture really imparted great taste to the tempeh with little effort. And you could easily skip the frying and just add the tempeh as is if you are looking to reduce our fat intake - it would still be plenty flavorful enough.

Later this week, I will share a recipe we tried last night from this cookbook that was out of this world - Red Lentil and Basmati Rice Croquettes with Romaine-Mango Salad and Cucumber Raita........yum!

Vegetarian Recipes to Share....

DH decided that it was high time that our local library got their copy of A Year in a Vegetarian Kitchen back, so he bought me my very own copy. As we joked, this purchase is something that he'll enjoy as much as I do because he gets to eat the results.

The biggest wow to come out of this cookbook so far for me, was the Creamy Tomato Soup (which really has no cream at all). All of the other recipes have been very good, but that one was truly stellar. Although I will say that the photography will not reflect the yummy tastes in some of these photos. I miss the summer when there is plenty of natural light - that and some foods, like tempeh, just don't tend to photograph all that well. But anyway......

It's been fun having lots of time to blog - even if I didn't get much of anything else done - but tomorrow it's back to work, so I'm going to knock off a couple recipes at a time here. The first two I'll share are Mexican-flavor inspired dishes.

The first recipe - Black Bean Chilaquiles - is one of those dishes where the photo doesn't translate so well. Chilaquiles are a Mexican dish where corn tortilla chips are simmered in a spicy sauce (chile, bean, etc.) and then topped with cheese. The resulting dish is flavorful and yummy, but it's sort of a mish-mosh and therefore not very easy to photograph.

Black Bean Chilaquiles
(It's hard to see through all of the cheese, sour cream and avocado,
but the black beans and tortillas are under there somewhere!)

In this version, you make your own corn tortilla chips by cutting corn tortillas into triangles, coating them with oil and baking them in the oven. As the tortillas bake, you start on the black bean sauce, adding the crisp tortillas in at the end to form a thick mixture. The black bean and tortilla mixure is topped with queso fresco, a sour cream-lime sauce and diced avocado.

We liked this dish quite well and it certainly has a lot of room for tinkering - you could use different sauces, veggies or meats and have a slightly different version every time. I kept everything in the skillet instead of transferring it to a platter (no need to dirty another dish when it's just us) and one other thing I'd do differently is to stick the skillet under the broiler briefly to melt the cheese before adding the sour cream and avocados.

Garlicky Mushroom Quesadillas with Tomatillo-Chile Salsa

Continuing on the Mexican theme, we also tried a recipe for mushroom quesadillas. These quesadillas pair garlicky cremini mushrooms with Monterey Jack cheese inside flour tortillas that are topped off with a tomatillo-chile salsa. A very simple dish that goes together quite quickly and reminds you that you don't need to get very fussy to produce yummy food.

Tune in tomorrow for tempeh...........