Beef Stew, Plain and Simple

Sometimes you want to eat a nice dinner at your desk before heading to a yoga double.  AKA 3 hours of zen.

Last night I made this delicious stew with the CSA bounty.  I essentially emptied the veggie drawer... And it is delish, I just didn't know it last night.  I had to wait until just now, eating it at my desk, to realize that its simplicity is indeed blog-worthy.

Ingredients:
Splash canola oil
Package stew beef
2 small onions
1 leek
4 small-ish potatoes
3 turnips
3 carrots
Half a huge head of cabbage
2 bay leaves
3 beef bouillon cubes
salt and pepper to taste
water
1 can tomato sauce

Directions: 
Brown beef in canola oil.  Set aside.  Toss in chopped leek, and onion.  Saute until soft.  Add a few cups of water.  And chopped carrots, chopped potatoes (I left the peels on), chopped turnips (I peeled them), and cabbage cut into chunks.

Add beef bouillon cubes, dissolve and add bay leaves.  Add beef back.

Simmer for 90 minutes or so.  Maybe monitor and add water, as needed. Add tomato sauce.  Simmer another 20 minutes.     Salt and pepper to taste.  Refrigerate / freeze in portions...

Sauteed Cabbage

Sorry, friends.  I've been MIA.  But really, I just haven't done new blogworthy toiling in my kitchen.  And arguably this isn't too blogworthy.  But sometimes you just have a head of cabbage you need to figure out what to do with that isn't the same ol' same ol'.  (Which for me is an asian stirfry or slaw.)

Inspired by Ina, this recipe couldn't be simpler.

Ingredients:
large head of cabbage - cut and sliced
2 T butter
salt and pepper

The results were a simple, slightly sweet cooked bowl of sauteed cabbage.  

My First, But Not Last Ratatouille

Ingredient Pile

Oh, hey blog.  Sorry you've been neglected.  But 1.  I've been busy - travelling like a crazy woman and also 2. I haven't done much new blogworthy kitchen-ing.  -- Basically meaning my blog is working for my selfish purpose of saying, 'oh, self what was it you did with that random ingredient?'  Look it up on your blog, and recreate it.  

So tonight.  Tonight there is tunes and chopping and prepping and solitude and rain and thunder.
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Immediately following the CSA email with the contents this afternoon, came the brilliant suggestion from the sister-in-law, 'sounds like ratatouille!'  (We share the CSA...)

Indeed.  Leaving out the corn on the cob and cauliflower, all other veggies married well together.  I read up on Mark Bittman's Oven-Baked Recipe and a few others, and the rumor is that pretty much anything goes with ratatouille... But here is what I did, for what it's worth... 

Oven Ready

Ingredients:
1 large eggplant - sliced and salted and let sit for a bit and wrung out
3 bell peppers coarsely chopped  
4 beautifully ripened heirloom tomatoes coarsely chopped (minus the two chunks I had to try because they were beautiful and purple and red and tempting)
4 tomatillos coarsely chopped
a dozen or so bright sweet small peppers
a large handful of yellow grape tomatoes
Seasoned with healthy pour of olive oil - Maybe 2T; salt; pepper; marjoram; oregano; garlic powder; and onion powder.

Directions: Layer in a large casserole dish.  Bake 350 for 1 hour periodically opening the oven to smash.

Taste test... Amazing...  Lunch all week..  

Impulsive Pulse and Quinoa Salad

The scene.  Carpooling to a winery potluck with friends at 10:45 am on a gorgeous Saturday for a afternoon jazz festival.  Woke up the same day with no idea what to make.  (I'll blame it on the nutty week I'd had.)  Open the fridge/pantry.  This is what came about.

Ingredients:
1 cup dry quinoa - cook it according to directions.
1 cup dry lentils - cook according to directions.  (But first spill about a half of a cup on the floor and trash them because you hadn't had coffee yet.)
3 green onions sliced thin
1 bunch asparagus
Awesome garlic scape pesto made earlier in the week (you could get the same flavor profile with garlic powder, salt, lemon, oil, and  parm, probably.)
More lemon juice (~1 T)
More olive oil (~2 T)
A smidge more parm (~2 T)
Salt to taste

Directions:
Cook lentils and throw in a bowl and put in the fridge to cool.  Cook quinoa.  The last few minutes of the quinoa throw in chopped asparagus to blanch.  (I didn't feel like getting another pot dirty.  You could steam the asparagus.  I wanted some crunch still left.)  Add into the lentils.  Mix in remaining ingredients.

This makes a lot.  I saved 2 servings for later and the rest went to the potluck with 10 people and a bit was leftover.  It had good reviews for something so impulsive!

Fun hayride with the owners schooling us on vineyard vs. wineries

Kitchen Sink Crustless Quiche

That sigh when you've cleaned the kitchen after playing in it and you sit on the couch with your feet-up.  I love that feeling. It's like winning.  A combination of being well-nourished and de-stressed.  That just happened and I just heard myself sigh.

Tonight, I fetched veggies, rushed to Pilate's, came home and cranked up a sappy Joni Mitchell Pandora station and got into veggie prep mode.  

Inspired by being overrun with CSA eggs and veggies, a veggie quiche came to mind... I was mildly following this recipe... for time, temp, and a rough idea of ingredients.

After some stressful days at work, it was a nice mind and body reset to exercise and cook with tunes cranked.  My therapy.

Ingredients:
6 farm fresh eggs.  One of them had 2 yolks.  Because, you know, that's how the CSA do.  So not sure if that's 7 eggs?  But, I cracked 6 shells, so...
A 2 cup package mexican cheese, 2% that has been in the freezer for awhile.
1 zucchini leftover from beach weekend.

2 bunches of CSA spinach.
2 green/purpley scallions from the CSA.
Healthy drizzle of canola oil.
2 tsp garlic diced.

Directions:
Saute chopped zucchini, onion, and garlic in canola oil until cooked with salt and pepper.

Beat eggs in a bowl.  Add 2 C package of 2% Mexican cheese. Add cooked veggies and dump in casserole pan.  (I couldn't find my pie pans.  Probably in my trunk, knowing me.)

Cook at 350 for half hour.  Let rest for 10 minutes.

Portion out. Freeze half a dozen portions, so you don't feel overwhelmed by a quiche.  (Food shouldn't overwhelm.)  Save 3 portions for now, or meals later in the week.

Spinach - Microwaved

In the vein of, Sarah, what are you eating today?

Effort to clean out the fridge before vacay has commenced.  And the bagged spinach I brought to work looked wilty and unappetizing.  So I decided to microwave it to wilt it some more.

Pick out the culprits, add a spash of water and microwave for 40 seconds.  Add ham deli meat, avocado, hot sauce, olive oil, salt and pepper.

Serve with a side of yogurt, cherries, a lingering headache, and listening to a senate approps markup.
 

Strawberry Rhubarb Oatmeal

So rhubarb was in the inaugural CSA box of the season.  Something I'm not all too familiar with using.  But I knew I wanted to make something that wasn't dessert.  Using inspiration from the Oatmeal Artist's recipe,  I went to town.

I decided to pre-prep the rhubarb in one big batch and will use it throughout the week in hot oats and probably my cold soaked oats as well - I have a hunch all of the ingredients below will make for some delish soaked oats.  But holy smokes, my hot strawberry rhubarb oatmeal was a lil bowl of heaven this grey morning.

The CSA rhubarb yielded 3 cups chopped rhubarb.

For rhubarb sauce/liquid stuff - 
Ingredients:
3 cups chopped rhubarb
2 1/4 cups water
3 T maple syrup

Directions: 
Bring to a simmer and cook down for about 10 minutes.  I did this the night before and put in mason jars to use in oats later.

So for the oatmeal in the morning... Ingredients:
1/2 C oats
1/2 C rhubarb liquid/sauce
1/2 C milk
1 C sliced strawberries
splash vanilla extract
1 t sugar in the raw

Directions:
In saucepan simmer oats, rhubarb, and milk.  Add in half of strawberries to cook with oats.  When consistency is right for you, put in bowl and add vanilla, rest of strawberries, and sugar.  Enjoy!