Lentils with linguine

I had a friend who could only make one vegan dish. Whenever we went to his house for dinner or he came to ours for a potluck, he prepared that recipe. It was a lentil and elbow macaroni casserole and it was delicious, so I truly looked forward to our dining together. We didn't get together that much, and I decided I wanted to have the casserole more often, so I asked for the recipe. Imagine my shock when I saw that the casserole contained a half cup of olive oil. No wonder it tasted so good! I felt like I'd been stuffed and marinated. I tried to make a slimmer version but it just wasn't the same, and eventually the recipe disappeared from my collection.

Recently my husband found a recipe for lentils and pasta in the New York Times, and he's made it a couple of times. It's easy to make, has lots of flavor and reminds me of that yummy but rather high-fat version we enjoyed years ago. We like to make it with Whole Foods whole wheat linguine, our favorite whole wheat pasta of the moment. It would also be especially great with some nice thick udon or with rice pasta.



Lentils with linguine (adapted from a recipe in the NY Times)

• 1 cup brown or green lentils, washed and picked over
• water (or half water and half low-sodium vegetable broth)
  
• 2 onions, one cut in half, the other finely chopped
• 1 red bell pepper, cut in small dice
• 1 zucchini, in small dice
  
• 4 large garlic cloves, 2 cut in half, 2 minced
• 1 bay leaf
• Salt to taste
• 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
• 1 teaspoon ground coriander
• 1 teaspoons ground cumin
• Pinch of cayenne (or more to taste)
  
• Freshly ground pepper
• 12 ounces whole wheat pasta (especially linguine or udon)
  
• 1/4 cup chopped cilantro or parsley

1. In a heavy saucepan, place the lentils, halved onion, halved garlic cloves and the bay leaf, and add enough water (or water and vegetable broth) to come 1 1/2 inches above the lentils. Bring to a boil. Reduce the heat, cover and simmer 30 to 45 minutes, until the lentils are tender but still whole. Place a strainer over a bowl and drain the lentils, reserving the broth.
2. Begin heating a large pot of water for the pasta.
3. Heat the olive oil in a large, heavy skillet over medium heat and add the chopped onion. Cook, stirring, until it begins to soften, about 3 minutes, and add the red pepper. Cook, stirring, until the vegetables are tender and the onion is beginning to color, another 5 minutes. Add the zucchini and cook a few minutes more. Add 1/2 teaspoon salt, the garlic, coriander, cumin, and cayenne. Continue to cook, stirring, for a minute, until the garlic is fragrant. Stir in the broth left over from cooking the lentils. Bring to a boil and reduce the liquid slightly, then stir in the lentils. Add pepper, taste and adjust salt, if needed. Keep warm while you cook the pasta.
4. Cook the pasta according to package directions to al dente. Check a few minutes before the end of the suggested cooking time. Drain and toss with the lentils. Add the cilantro, and serve.

Buffy, the reluctant model

Granola

I love a good breakfast, but I always seem to get stuck in a breakfast rut of repetition. There's never enough time during the week to to do much besides slurp a bowl of dry cereal, and none of my imagined breakfasts for the weekend ever seem to happen. The most I ever manage is a bowl of oatmeal.
After basically eating the same cereal for about the last five years, a couple of weeks ago I finally burned out on dry cereal and couldn't seem to find one that tasted good. My husband brought home a box of super healthy (according to the box) granola but it tasted like it was made from the box with the addition of rock bits.
I decided it was time to make granola. That sounds so 70s, doesn't it? I miss those 70s granola days. As my husband went off to do food shopping at the coop, I asked him to get stuff that could go into granola. I didn't specify anything, so I ended up with some pretty basic ingredients, but granola is a very open-ended performance art, so it's hard to go wrong.

About to go into the oven

Ken brought home organic quick oats. Though I've only used regular rolled oats in the past, these worked just fine. He also brought dates, sunflower seeds, apple juice and wheat germ. Everything else was stuff I had in the pantry. You could use rolled barley, spelt or wheat instead of some of the oats. You could use walnuts, peanuts, etc., instead of all or some of the cashews. You could use sesame seeds for half of the sunflower seeds. You could use all dried apples,pears or other dried fruit instead of dates. (Use a clean kitchen scissors to cut the dried dates or other fruit into small pieces.) You could use peanut butter or cashew butter instead of almond butter. You can add chocolate chips. I added some Ghirardelli 72% cacao extra bittersweet chocolate chips for baking. Yikes. Anyway, this is the granola as I made it. (Just want to mention that the granola is mildly sweet — not sweet sweet like most commercial granolas. I don't like food to be extra sweet, so if you do, you may want to up the sweetener.)

Crunchy granola

• 6-7 cups quick oats or regular rolled oats, GF if needed
• 1 cup raw wheat germ, or GF hemp seeds
• 1 cup raw cashews
• 1 cup raw sunflower seeds
• 1 cup raw walnuts, in halves or pieces
• 1 cup shredded, unsweetened coconut
• 3/4 cup apple juice
• 1/4 cup agave syrup (or maple syrup, or sorghum, or 1/2 cup rice syrup)
• 1/3 cup almond butter
• 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 cup chopped dates
• 1 cup raisins
• 1 cup non-dairy dark chocolate chips (optional)

1. Mix together the oats, wheat germ or hemp seeds, cashews, sunflower seeds and coconut in a large bowl.
2. Mix the apple juice, sweetener and almond butter in a small pot and warm over low heat, mixing to dissolve the almond butter. Remove from the heat and add the vanilla.
3. Add the liquid to the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly. I used my hands for this because the spoon was too slow.
4. Divide between two large baking pans and bake in a 325˚F oven for ABOUT 45 minutes. While it's baking, stir about every 10 minutes to toast evenly and to prevent burning.
5. When it turns golden brown, turn off the heat and allow to sit in the oven about 20–30 minutes to continue drying.
6. Remove from the oven and stir in the fruit. Let cool and stir in the chocolate chips if you dare. (It's breakfast, after all. Be sensible!) If you do add chocolate chips, really let the granola cool well before stirring in any chocolate or the chocolate will melt. Yes, it will.
7. When completely cool, store in an airtight container. 

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Dog pretending to be asleep

This is a dog with attitude. She knows perfectly well I'm there but she's refusing to look at me because somehow she knows I'm trying to practice using my new camera. And no, I'm not using a flash. She hates to have her picture taken, always has, and never smiles for the camera. But I love her anyway.

Seattle diary: delicious home cooked Indian dinner, Carmelita and contra dancing

After college our middle son spent a year doing internships in D.C. At the end of the year he decided to come home for a few months, save some money and figure out what to do next. Since he wasn't paying rent, he decided his contribution to the household would be to cook dinner. This was fantastic. Every night we'd come home to a delectable meal. Aaron is an exceptional cook — the kind who grinds his own spices in a mortar and pestle so they'll be fresh and exactly as he wants them to be. The day he announced he was leaving town, my husband and I looked at each other in panic and whimpered, "but what will we eat?" It wasn't that we didn't want him to move on with his life, or that we weren't capable of cooking, but we'd become accustomed to really good food magically appearing every night, and were panicked at the thought of this luxury coming to an end.

Recently, on our visit to Seattle, we had the pleasure of dining on Aaron's elegant cooking again, as he whipped up a simple but wonderful Indian-inspired meal of cauliflower-rice pilaf and kidney bean stew. These dishes were served with tamarind chutney and coriander chutney, both made by Aaron. Aaron found the pilaf recipe in the Seattle Times and it's a great recipe, easily veganized by using Earth Balance instead of butter. It's from "Vij's: Elegant and Inspired Indian Cuisine" by Vikram Vij and Meeru Dhalwala. Vij's is a restaurant in Vancouver. It's not a vegetarian restaurant, nor is the book vegetarian. Aaron says the kidney bean stew is very similar to Madhur Jaffrey's Punjabi kidney bean stew in "World Vegetarian."


Cauliflower pilaf


Tamarind chutney and cilantro chutney


Kidney bean stew



The Seattle trip was winding down. Our oldest son left after our dinner on Thursday evening for a teacher conference in Vancouver, and the rest of his family plus our middle son and his gf, Erica, were heading to Vancouver after work on Friday. So, after a Friday morning of childcare for Miss 1-year old, we were left behind in Seattle. We decided to splurge on a special vegan dinner at Carmelita, a charming and well-regarded upscale but light-hearted vegetarian restaurant with vegan options. Our waitress was just about the most cheerful person I've encountered in a long time.

We started with an antipasti plate containing muhumara (roasted red pepper dip), marinated olives, roasted garlic, chickpea salad, grilled flatbread, rosemary-white bean spread and spiced marcona almonds. It was huge, and we ate about half, leaving the rest for the airplane trip home the next day. The dips and spreads were so great — and the roasted garlic was an entire enormous head.

For our entrées I chose the artisanal polenta cake, apple/sweet potato hash, foraged mushroom sauce, fried parsnip, and my husband selected the farro tagine, spicy walnut pesto, braised squash and Swiss chard, pomegranate molasses. We were both more than pleased with our choices, though I thought the fried parsnip threads were a bit too fried.

I wish I could have taken photos of the gorgeous food but it was so dark in the room, I knew they wouldn't turn out with my little point and shoot. Just go there and see for yourself!

After dinner we went contra dancing at the Phinney Ridge Community Center where we had a chance to work off some of the calories we'd just consumed. Or, I should say, I worked off some of the calories. My husband botched his knee a few days before on a steepish walk at Carkeek Park, and he sat out most of the dances.

note: I learned something about carrying food in a cardboard container. Call me naive, but I popped the cardboard container from the restaurant into a plastic bag and took it to the airport. By the time I took it out for lunch, it had become a soggy, weeping mess. It was only quick action that prevented me from also becoming a soggy, weeping mess in the confines of my airplane seat! The food was still fantastic, but next time I'll repack it into something a bit more rigid, like plastic.