Clam chowder on toast. 6/20/19

Posted on June 21, 2019 by Beebamom

John and I tried this new recipe for clam chowder on toast by chef Gabrielle Hamilton and, boy, was it good! The recipe was sort of long and complicated so we used some convenience products and also lightened it up by using less cream. The recipe is from the NYTimes Cooking site which is behind a paywall 😩 .

It is a light cream broth with clams, leeks, celery, onions, and potatoes. She used actual clams and their liquid. We used canned clams, the liquid they were packed in and a bottle of clam juice. The recipe calls for three cups of cream. We cut it to two and some water. It could probably be cut down a little more and some low fat milk added. The recipe calls for guanciale but we had pancetta on hand. Do not add salt until all the ingredients are cooked together or it may end up over-salted.

While John manned the stove, I did the mise en place. Good thing I love to chop things up! Cheat confession, I used a mandoline to slice the leeks.

Mise en place for clam chowder

When the soup is finished you serve it over a piece of hearty toast. This is so not like the gloppy, thick New England clam chowder you are probably familiar with. It is light but creamy with the flavor of the vegetables and clams coming through.

Clam chowder on toast (the veg that looks like sauerkraut are leeks)

We started cooking around 6 PM and had dinner shortly after 7 PM. Around 7:30 our daughter started in on her dinner preparations. Our kitchen is a busy place! She made her own dreamt up recipe of elbow macaroni with ground pork, gorgonzola, berbere, and fava beans. John did not finish cleaning up the kitchen until 10:30PM! New plan as of tomorrow – Start dinner prep earlier!

Daughter’s mac ‘n cheese – macaroni, ground pork, Gorgonzola, berbere, and home-grown fava beans

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Chicken enchiladas with spicy black beans. 6/19/19

Posted on June 20, 2019 by Beebamom

I am really enjoying making and eating the meals we selected for this week. Each day is so different from the other and the dishes have been easy to prepare and delicious!

On Wednesday we went to Costco and in addition to refurbishing ourselves with paper towels and garbanzo beans, we bought one of their large, inexpensive rotisserie chickens. Upon getting it home I disassembled half the chicken and shredded the meat. This is always more easily done when the chicken is still warm.

Later when John and I were assembling the enchiladas, all I had to do was mix my shredded chicken with some some Herdez salsa verde, cilantro, and a bit of cheese and roll them up in the tortillas that John had given a quick bath in hot vegetable oil to make them pliable. I spread some more sauce and feta cheese over the top and baked them for 15-20 minutes at 375F.

Chicken enchiladas with spicy black beans

The spicy black beans are just a can of black beans mixed with half a can of Rotele, some cilantro, cumin, and hot sauce. I served them on a Romaine leaf to make it look extra fancy.

We made ten. I had two, John ate a bunch of them and our daughter stopped by the kitchen later and had two so there are only two left which I imagine will be John’s lunch today!

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Vegan Tuesday: Gazpacho and avocado toast. 6/18/19

Posted on June 19, 2019 by Beebamom

Weather forecast on Tuesday was for warm-ish weather so I thought, cool-ish dinner. This no-cooking dinner with a spicy gazpacho and a creamy avocado toast hit the spot.

My gazpacho contains a 14 oz. can of tomatoes and a little over a pound of fresh, cored tomatoes (I leave the seeds and skin on), 6 inches of seeded cucumber, a whole seeded poblano pepper, 2 cloves of garlic, half an onion, 1 1/2 T sherry vinegar, and 1/3 cup olive oil. Season with a teaspoon of kosher salt. Whiz it up in the blender. Taste. Adjust salt and add part of a jalapeño for back of the throat spiciness and several shakes of hot sauce for front of the mouth spiciness. Blend and taste again. Adjust again if needed. Refrigerate until dinner. You might want to spin it once more before serving.

Gazpacho chilling in the refrigerator

This was my first go at avocado toast which has been trendy for a while. It is so simple. Here is what I did. Toast “good” bread. Scrape toast with garlic clove. Put mashed up avocado on top. The garnish is up to you. I added some scallion, fava beans, and basil. A drizzle of olive oil might be good although the avocado is full of good oils itself.

Gazpacho and avocado toast with fava beans

Wow, talk about easy, colorful, super healthy, and delicious! I think I will plan at least one meal a week based on a cold soup and a bruschetta of some sort during the summer!

Posted in Easy, Kitchen tips, Legumes, Mediterranean, Recipes, Vegan, Vegetables, Vegetarian | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Meatless Monday chickpea stew. 6/17/19

Posted on June 18, 2019 by Beebamom

When was the last time I made this? Exactly this? Never! I did make something similar in May except that I used white beans instead of chickpeas and different dark leafy greens. The great thing about this legume and vegetable stew is that it is endlessly adaptable and every rendition is delicious! Here it is bubbling on the stove.

Vegetable stew cooking

Today I put in some of our daughter’s fava beans plus zucchini and cabbage and then finished it with some kale salad mix. As it gets hotter I will jettison the pasta and turn it into a raw salad. I am sure we eat some version of this every month! When I ask John to tell me a meatless dish he would like to have he invariably wants “that chickpea stew thing you make.”

And, we have leftovers for lunch!

Chickpea stew with ditalini

Posted in Easy, Kitchen tips, Legumes, Mediterranean, Pasta, Vegan, Vegetables, Vegetarian | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Weekly menu. June 16-21, 2019

Posted on June 17, 2019 by Beebamom

So glad to get back to cooking and eating in a more orderly fashion. This week features a couple of vegan meals, a seafood meal, a chicken meal, and John’s choice for the end of the week, lamb chops. It’s what I eat!

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Father’s Day dinner. 6/16/19

Posted on June 17, 2019 by Beebamom

When I was growing up the thing that my father liked to do on Father’s Day was play golf all day and then come home and watch the U.S. Open on TV. I think for him, not being with the family, was the epitome of a good day. Not so here! John was with us the whole day and even though he did watch some of the U.S. Open, we felt that he wanted to be with us.

Our daughter and I made him a dinner we knew he would love – brats in rolls with sauerkraut, German potato salad, and his favorite beer.  She picked up some sausages from Trader Joe’s and they were delicious! She also got Schneider’s Aventinus beer which he loves. The three of us had almost this exact meal in Munich at Schneider’s several years ago and it is a fine memory to recreate.

  Bratwurst, sauerkraut, and German potato salad

I listened to a clip from America’s Test Kitchen about sauerkraut and which brand is best to buy.  Amazingly they said the tasters liked the canned or jarred sauerkraut that is on the grocery shelf, not the stuff in the refrigerator case. The refrigerator stuff has preservatives in it to keep it from turning dark. Libby’s brand was the favorite. Always look for sauerkraut whose ingredients are cabbage, water, and salt. That’s it. We added about 1/2 teaspoon of sugar and some caraway seeds in ours.

John loved his Father’s Day meal!

Posted in Easy, German, Holidays, Kitchen tips, Pork, Vegetables | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Happy Father’s Day!

Posted on June 16, 2019 by Beebamom

Happy Father’s Day, John!

We are back from our little vacation with our son and his kids. We ate a lot of marginal food – burgers, pizza, tacos, etc., anything that the kids wanted. There really was not much to blog about. I brought along some banana cake that I actually made and a bunch of snickerdoodles that our dear daughter made. She is the cookie queen. I ate no cake and no cookies, I had a slice of watermelon or two and a bite of John’s ice cream. That’s pretty good I think.

These are roses from our rose bush that I don’t mind cutting since we cannot see the rose bush from any window in our house or from sitting in the backyard. I figure to enjoy the roses I might as well cut them.

I also harvested my first tomato today that did not have blossom-end rot. I imagine we will be having the ceremonial cutting of the tomato later today.

First tomato from my patio plant, Early Girl

Tonight we will start cooking again, planning menus, and eating at home. Yay!

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Dining at kid-friendly places

Posted on June 12, 2019 by Beebamom

Yay! We have started our trip! One of the challenges for me is to find dining selections that now are supposed to be 1) things I like. 2) lower in carbs. 3) lower in calories. This is not an easy task especially since I think eating a salad for a meal is like eating air.

Our lunch stop is at the Habit where I know I can eat a char-burger for under 500 calories especially if I do not have cheese and do not eat all the roll.

For dinner we go to the Lost Coast brewpub in Eureka. Almost everything is breaded or battered and fried! I order chicken wings and a small salad. There are too many wings and they are overcooked and dry, and way too spicy. I eat 4, give 4 away, and leave 2 on the plate. The salad is fine but hard to manipulate in its tiny bowl.

A flatter plate would have helped in the eating of this salad

This is a smaller (?) portion of chicken wings. They are too spicy!

We also stopped for ice cream. I had one bite of John’s. Sometimes my eating life seems so sad.

 

 

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Salad, collard greens, and steak. 6/10/19

Posted on June 12, 2019 by Beebamom

My doctor has told me I need to eat differently. Cut down on the carbs because of rising blood sugar. I am really at a quandary with this because I eat quite a lot of carbs – pasta, beans, polenta, rice,  bread etc. I have switched to brown rice and whole grain pasta mostly. I eat almost no simple carbs such as desserts or candy and no fruit. I am going to have to do some serious research on this!

Tonight instead of the chickpea and ditalini stew with collard greens that I had planned, I sent John out to the grocery store for a steak. We had a tasty salad and then a hunk of meat on a plate with a pile of collard greens. So boring and how is eating a hunk of meat better than chickpeas and various veg?

Salad

Collard greens with shallots and garlic with steak

We are taking our son and grandkids on a road trip for the next five days so my posting will be scanty. I imagine a lot of kid-centric food in the near future!

 

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Fried rice. 6/9/19

Posted on June 9, 2019 by Beebamom

On Tuesday John and I along with our son and grandkids are taking an intergenerational roadtrip! We are heading up the North Coast to commune with redwoods, Paul Bunyan, small Victorian towns, and the spectacular coastline. So we are in eat-down mode to try to finish off our perishable vegetables before we leave.

Our fried rice consists of brown rice and a piece of jalapeño from our Chana dal meal, leftover broccoli from steak night, mushrooms from who-knows-what, and usual staples like carrots, celery, onions, ginger, and garlic. There is also a scrambled egg and some leftover Chinese take-out. This dinner can be vegan, vegetarian, or omnivore depending on what you have at hand.

Fried rice

 

 

Posted in Eggs, leftovers, rice, take-out, Vegetables, Vegetarian | Tagged | Leave a comment