In my continuing efforts to rid myself of this cold, today I continue my bombardment of vegetables. This soup is 2 ounces of fettuccine plus carrots, celery, green onions, and cabbage cut in the shape of fettuccine. It’s all swimming in a homemade vegetable stock and finished with some parsley and a drizzle of olive oil. I served this to myself with a glass of V8. This cold doesn’t stand a chance!
Faux-ttuccine
I saw this recipe in my Facebook feed so John thought he would give it a try to improve my cold.
NY Times Cold Cure Soup
It turned out tasty and fragrant. He added green onions, chicken pieces, and orzo. Here’s a link to the Recipe.
A day later I still have my cold but at least it hasn’t gotten worse.
For Christmas I bought John an Anova sous vide machine, the portable kind. Our first attempt was pretty much a success.
Salmon in its sous vide jacuzzi
In the picture above the salmon with some olive oil and seasonings is sealed in a heavy duty ziplock bag, the air has been pressed out, and the bag is clipped to the side away from the circulator to make sure it does not float. We set the temperature for 122F. The machine brought the temperature of the water up quickly. It reached 122F faster than I expected. From articles I have read, I think we should have left the fish in the water a little longer. It won’t cook more but I feel the fish would have retained its heat a little better. However it was uniformly cooked and very tasty.
I served the salmon with a dill yogurt sauce, steamed new potatoes and spinach.
Sous vide salmon with dill-yogurt sauce, steamed potatoes, and spinach.
Ribolitta (vegetarian Tuscan vegetable soup)
Some old friends came over to lunch. Their daughter who is a vegetarian was attrnding as well. Hmmm, what to make? I settled on ribolitta, a hearty Tuscan vegetable soup, which I normally would have made with pancetta and chicken broth. Instead I made a vegetable stock and gave the soup base a more umami taste and feel by adding a Parmesan rind while it was simmering. The result? A delicious, healthy vegetable soup with real depth of flavor.
I served the soup with garlic toast and a Caesar salad (no anchovies or Worcestershire) garnished with homemade croutons. We finished off the luncheon with rum cake.
It was all very tasty and a huge success even with the meat eaters.
Note: For a vegan rendition omit the Parmesan rind
Lamb chops with new potatoes and brussels sprouts
Tonight we have a homey kind of dinner and, since Sarah loves lamb, we all eat together! John marinates the lamb and cooks it on the grill. I steam the new potatoes and make the sprouts. I add some of the leftover parsley sauce from the cod a few nights ago. The dinner is pretty straightforward and tasty.
Spaghetti with ground turkey and mushroom sauce
Tonight’s challenge is to change ground turkey into something that tastes like a meaty sauce. The answer is mushrooms. After browning the ground turkey (and by browning I mean making the turkey white instead of pink), I saute mushrooms which I have chopped in the food processor until they are about the same size as the meat pieces. It’s important to get the mushrooms dry during this step. Add onions, garlic, tomato paste, chile flakes, and spices and deglaze the pan with some white wine. Then put in the tomatoes and spaghetti sauce (mea culpa I didn’t totally make the sauce) and simmer for a while. Along the way season each step with salt and pepper. At the end adjust the seasoning with soy sauce for a boost in umami flavor .
I make a big pot of this and refrigerator/freeze half for another dinner. No, it doesn’t taste like a ground beef sauce but it’s pretty good and gets high marks from the tasters.
Salmon with new potatoes and snow peas
We buy some frozen sockeye salmon and sort through the uneven portions in the bag. We decide that John will have the larger ones and I will have the smaller ones. I make the tartar sauce that the Fish Market has. (I have gotten this recipe from one of the cooks at the restaurant.) Next I steam some new potatoes, and string and quickly saute the snow peas. In the meantime John cooks the salmon mostly on the skin side with a quick flip on the other side at the end. The whole dinner takes less than a half an hour to make.
As a person who loves vegetables the most, I have to say that I really, really enjoy the snow peas and the potatoes. This is probably because I put the tartar sauce on them as well. John is not totally pleased with the quality of the salmon. But I think the most important thing is that we are eating almost all of our meals at home which gives a chance to control what goes in them. Plus, it’s fun and we enjoy the cooking and being with each other.
Oh, we also have a fancy wine for our dinner night. It is a Chateau St. Jean 2012 Russian River Valley Pinot Noir. It goes really well with our salmon dinner.
Chateau St. Jean 2012 Russian River Valley Pinot Noir
Chicken tagine
Ho-hum, what to do with chicken? Seriously I think I’ve eaten chicken in every way possible. We tend to always have chicken on Monday and even though it is Friday, we haven’t had chicken all week what with traveling back from St. George on Monday that we decide to break with tradition. I am usually not a fan of chicken thighs. This is mostly because the ones that you buy at the store are giant. They must come from some Godzilla chicken. And due to their mature-ness, I perceive a gaminess about them which I don’t like. But cover them up with enough spices and I can’t tell the difference.
This is Daniel Boulud recipe so I figure it should be good. It is good but my only complaint is there is a LOT of coriander in it. I am taken aback by the floral taste. John, however, is going yum, yum with every bite so I am probably wrong. We add some chickpeas and carrots to bulk the recipe up and serve it with couscous. Apparently this is our couscous week. It’s pretty good. (We ate it again on Saturday and it was much better!)
Couscous with vegetables in chicken stock
Because we hate to throw things out, on Friday we make leftover couscous soup from the leftover couscous on Tuesday, better known as sludge soup. The couscous tends to puff up quite a bit and ends up in the bottom of the pot creating “sludge.” Our tired salad of “Zen” greens goes into the pot. I add some extra carrots, onions, and celery and, voila, our Wednesday dinner becomes our Friday lunch.
Note: For vegetarian or vegan versions use vegetable stock
Pacific cod with parsley sauce plus collard greens and corn
My trainer has suggested that I try to shift my larger meal more towards the center of the day. Although I don’t think this will work, given our lifestyle, today I try to eat a bigger lunch and a smaller dinner. We have leftover stuffed peppers from last night so we each eat a stuffed pepper half for lunch plus additional filling. Originally we were going to make this cod dish with polenta as we usually do but decided to just serve it with the collard greens and corn instead. It’s a baby step towards eating more reasonably.
John marinates the fish in olive oil, thyme, bay leaves, paprika, garlic powder, lemon zest, and a dash of cayenne. Before putting it in the oven he seasons the cod with salt and pepper. Since this particular cod is on the thin side, he cooks it for 8 minutes at 400F. In the meantime I chiffonade the collard greens after removing the central rib. Next I saute a little garlic cut in slices and some chili flakes in a little oil. I remove it from the pan to be added back in at the end so it won’t get burnt. In goes the rinsed chiffonade of collard greens. Just the water clinging to the pieces is enough to steam them. I add salt, a little sugar, and some lemon juice. They cook in about three minutes. Then I add the frozen corn and finally the garlic. The vegetable is done just before the fish.
The dish is served with the collards on the bottom, then the fish, and finally a parsley sauce. The parsley sauce is made in the blender and is a bunch of parsley, some water, some lemon, olive oil and salt.
A really successful and tasty dish.
Omnivore 