Cheesy Amaranth

I usually eat from the fridge and countertop: meat, fish, eggs, tofu, fresh fruit and vegetables. One of my food-related goals in the new year is to cook more from the pantry, both to save money and to use up the bags of random grains that have followed me home from the local hippie grocer in idealistic moments ("oooh, spelt flour, I'm sure I can do something interesting with that!")

To that end, I decided to cook up some amaranth today. I started with no particular recipe in mind; I didn't add additional ingredients as the seeds cooked, because I wanted to get a sense of the taste and texture of the unadorned cooked grain first. I kind of expected it to be similar in texture to quinoa or cous cous, but instead ended up with a chewy, gooey mass of grain more like polenta or grits. A perfect medium for cheese!

So the upshot of the very simple recipe below is: cook a load of amaranth (might as well; you can store the rest for later use), and mix some of it with melted cheese. Result: a dense tasty bowl of concentrated protein and fiber and fat, mmmm.

Ingredients
1 cup amaranth seeds
cheese with personality (I used a garlic, onion, and chive cheddar)

To Make
1. Put amaranth seeds and 3 cups of water in a pot. Bring to a simmer and cook for about 20 minutes, until the amaranth reaches a chewy consistency. Note: The amaranth package told me to cook it for 35 minutes, but mine seemed to be done in just over 15. Maybe I just ate undercooked amaranth, but it seemed fine to me.

2. Crumble a 2 inch cube of your cheese in a microwave-safe bowl. Microwave on medium for a minute or two to melt the cheese.

3. Stir about 3/4 cup of the cooked amaranth into the cheese, mixing well. Use more or less amaranth depending on how cheesy you want it to be. Put the rest of the cooked amaranth in an air-tight container and store in the fridge for later use.

Oatmeal w/celery & MARMITE!

I like to have a bowl of oatmeal before going to sleep. By bedtime, it's been long enough since dinner that I'm usually hungry again; if I'm not hungry and don't eat something before I retire, it's pretty likely that I'll wake around 3am in hypoglycemic starvation mode and hoover up a box of cereal or a kilogram of cheese or something (the metabolism, it is a blessing and a curse). Oatmeal is a nice option because it's a low glycemic index food and not too heavy. Unfortunately, most of the stuff you flavor oatmeal with is sweet, which defeats the purpose of eating something that's low GI, and in any case I prefer savory foods when peckish.

So of course I was intrigued by Mark Bittman's Serious Savory Breakfast post on the NYT Diner's Journal blog, and immediately tried it out. Very satisfying. In later trials I upped the savory ante by adding a dollop of Marmite. Umamilicious!

Ingredients

1/2 cup quick oats

3 stalks celery, chopped

soy sauce

sesame oil

marmite

To make

1. Put oats, celery, and 1 cup of water in a small pot. Cook on high heat, stirring occasionally, until oatmeal thickens to desired consistency.

2. Add a few splashes of soy sauce, a teaspoonful of sesame oil, and a teaspoon of marmite. Stir until blended.

Nice with a glass of tomato juice on the side.

Stewed Lentils & Tomatoes

I made this virtuous-seeming vegetarian dish for dinner to atone for a day spent gorging on cake. It tasted anything but penance-y, though: this is really yummy, with a nice stick-to-your-ribs quality which often seems to be lacking in vegetarian dishes.

The recipe below is slightly adapted from the one I found at smittenkitchen.com, which adapted it from Barefoot Contessa at Home.

Ingredients

~2 tablespoons good olive oil


2 cups large-diced onions (~2 onions)


2 cups large-diced carrots (3 to 4 carrots)


4 cloves-worth minced garlic


1 (28-ounce) can whole plum tomatoes


1 cup French green lentils

2 cups water

1 vegetable boullion cube


2 teaspoons mild curry powder


2/3 teaspoon dried thyme


1.5 teaspoons salt


1/4 teaspoon pepper


1 tablespoon red wine vinegar

To make

Heat the oil in a large saucepan or medium stockpot. Add the onions and the carrots and cook over medium-low heat for 8 to 10 minutes, until the onions start to brown. Stir occasionally with a wooden spoon. Add the garlic and cook for one minute more.

Add the tomatoes, lentils, water, boullion cube, curry powder, thyme, salt and pepper to the pot. Break up the tomatoes as much as possible using the wooden spoon.

Raise the heat to bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer covered for about 40 minutes, until the lentils are tender. Check occasionally to be sure the liquid is still simmering. Remove from the heat and allow the lentils to sit covered for another 10 minutes. Add the vinegar, season to taste and serve hot.

Potato, Leek, & Bacon soup

Another easy soup. Pretty tasty.

Ingredients

~6 streaky bacon rashers

~2 leeks, dark green parts removed

~3 potatoes

3 cups chicken broth

1 cup milk

pepper

To Make

1. Cut the bacon rashers into 2 inch pieces using kitchen shears.

2. In a medium-sized stock pot, fry the bacon pieces to somewhat under desired doneness.

3. While bacon is cooking, prepare the vegetables:

Peel the potatoes and cut them up into 1 inch cubes.

Thinly slice the white parts of the leeks.

4. Add the leeks and potatoes to the pot. Cook for a few minutes until they have softened a bit, stirring occasionally.

5. Add the broth, stir, cover. Simmer for about 20 minutes.

6. Use a potato masher to mush up the potatoes, if they haven't mostly disintegrated on their own.

7. Stir in the milk.

8. Ladle into bowl, add pepper to taste. Enjoy with crusty bread.

Easy Hearty Chicken & Leek Soup

Born from the need to consume some chicken that was about to meet its use-by date. Chunky 'n' hearty but also light 'n' brothy.

Ingredients
~ 2 tablespoons olive oil
2 chicken cutlets, cut into small (~1 inch) bits
2 leeks
2 or 3 carrots
6 cups water
1 cup brown rice
1 chicken bouillon cube
1 bay leaf

To make
1. Heat olive oil in a medium stock pot over medium heat. Add chicken bits, spread evenly over bottom of pot. Cook for ~5 minutes, stirring/turning every so often.
2. While the chicken cooks, prepare veggies:
Slice the leeks lengthwise, then chop the halves. Rinse chopped bits to get rid of grit. Dice the carrots. Add the veggies to the chicken in the pot, stir and then let cook for another few minutes.
3. When the veggies have begun to soften, add the 6 cups water, 1 cup brown rice, bouillon cube and bay leaf. Stir. Cover and simmer for about ~20 minutes.
4. Add salt and pepper to taste (I didn't add any) and enjoy!

Vegetable & Chickpea Ragout

This recipe is adapted from one at Self.com (the original is embedded in this story which involves prepping parts of 5 meals all at once, so the version below makes it stand-alone). This is a tasty dinner that will leave you feeling both satiated and healthy, because it's meat-free! (for an extra kick of self-satisfaction, toss the ragout with whole-wheat pasta, as I did)

Ingredients
olive oil
1 med onion, chopped
1 red pepper, chopped
1/2 head broccoli, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced

1 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes
1 cup chickpeas
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp dried oregano

~ 1/2 cup marinated artichoke hearts, drained & rinsed
1/2 cup frozen peas
1/4 cup sliced black olives

penne, cooked (whole-wheat for added smugness)
1/4 cup fresh basil, chopped

To make
1. Heat a pan over medium heat, add about a tablespoon of olive oil. Add onion, red pepper, broccoli, and garlic. Cook until veggies soften a bit.
2. Simmer tomatoes, chickpeas, cooked vegetables, salt, pepper, oregano, and 1/2 cup water in a medium pot until liquid is reduced by half, ~20 minutes.
3. Add artichokes, peas, and olives to pot. Cook 10 minutes more.
4. Toss ragout with cooked penne and chopped basil.

grilled red onions

a summer favorite of mine that goes well with burgers, etc. (or anything else you care to grill, i think).

1. slice red onions into flat slices with concentric circles

2. mix equal parts of
- worcestershire sauce
-olive oil
-soy sauce
-balsamic vinegar

3. marinate onions in this mixture at least 1/2 hour (you can go much longer if you can/would like) and grill to desired level of charredness.