This is what summer is all about on a Meatless Monday!
Leek Pasta (from Smitten Kitchen)
3 lg leeks (use sliced white and lite green parts)
1 T lemon zest
1 T fresh basil or parsley or tarragon (I used tarragon) minced
2-3 T olive oil
1/2 tsp fennel crushed
1-2 tsp fresh squeezed lemon juice to taste at the end
8 oz penne pasta cooked seperately
4 oz grated parmesan cheese
Cook leeks in 6-8 cups water about 8 minutes. Remove leeks and reserve. Boil water again and add pasta. Cook until 3/4ths done and drain, reserving 2 cups of the leek/pasta water.
In pot, gently brown the fennel seeds until fragrant, add everything else but lemon juice, pasta and parmesan, stir and cook gently for about 5 minutes. Add pasta and cook adding 1/4 C of the leek/pasta water at a time until absorbed and add another 1/4 C until pasta is “al dente” and coated in sauce. Toss in lemon juice and cheese. Makes 4-6 servings depending on what you are serving with it.
Watermelon Salad (from Epicurious)
1 small watermelon
2-4 oz dry feta cheese (your preference)
freshly ground black pepper to taste
fresh mint
Cut the watermelon in half and scoop out pieces with a fruit baller or just cut into 2″ x 2″ pieces. Drain and sprinkle with crumbled dry feta, freshly cracked black pepper and chiffoniered mint, toss and serve immediately.
Tags: cooking wisdom, Food, Frugality, Recipe, Teaching
I don’t know what to say but that this is really good! Sweetie and I had a great meat moussaka at a lovely restaurant in Seattle, The Golden Olive. It was a really great meal with a good wine, Avgolemono soup and a great Greek salad! Yum! It started me thinking that this would be a great dish for Meatless Mondays. I just needed to think about how I could “make it so”. Well, it came together so well. I think it would freeze very well wrapped in saran in individual portions and popped in a big freezer bag. Then you could just microwave the portions at will. I really like this dish! Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: cooking, cooking wisdom, Food, Meatless Mondays, Recipe, Teaching
This is a very nice salad to take for lunches, a side salad for a picnic, Meatless Mondays with a green salad and some delicious homemade bread, or with a steak or chicken. It is one that you can make easily over a couple of days. Plan it and it will come! It doesn’t have to have dairy until you mix some feta into it….so, you control when, or not. I really like the blending of flavors: savory/sweet/salty, etc…really good! The recipe started out at Kitchen Parade. Well, you know, I did something to it!
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Tags: cooking wisdom, Food, Frugality, Learning, Recipe, Teaching
I made a big Southern picnic dinner the other day for a party and had some of the fried chicken left over. I wanted something that would do for lunches as Sweetie was working all week at the school. I have never really liked most chicken salads I have come across-too sweet and too sloppy. I like the balance of sweet/tart/savory, AND I wanted to use up what was in the crisper. This salad fits the bill. Good and unusual. Don’t make too much at once as you want that fried skin to not get mushy. Three days max. But, man is this really good! Especially on a sandwich of really good multigrain bread with some mayo and leaf lettuce. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: cooking wisdom, Food, Frugality, Learning, Recipe, Teaching
I had some veggies left over from making stuffed peppers the other day and some egg roll wrappers that needed using, so, what’s the logical conclusion? That’s right! Indian samosas and fruited rice! Since I had all the veggies already prepared and rice and dried fruit at hand, this was a really easy dinner. With a little Apple Mango Chutney and some yogurt and fresh cilantro, it was delicious!
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Tags: cooking wisdom, Food, Frugality, Recipe, Teaching
I love stuffed peppers! My Mother made green bell peppers stuffed with ground beef and other goodies in the pressure cooker with a little meatloaf left over. I did that, too. I wanted something more this time, not the typical “meatloaf”. I had a bag of bell peppers from Costco that I needed to use, red, orange and yellow. I was in a “make it lite” mood and here’s what came out. The yellow and orange peppers seem to be sweeter than the red or green. I like the contrast of the sweet bell pepper, the savory meat and rice and the garlic/ginger/szechuan pepper flavors. Umami! This only takes 1 LB of meat, but will stuff 4 peppers. I stuffed two and froze the rest of the stuffing for another time. I halved the peppers and had four servings for reasonable adults and children. (Teenagers are another matter!) Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: cooking wisdom, Food, Frugality, Recipe, Teaching
I have a 50 LB bag of jasmine rice currently sitting in my kitchen. We are only two, but we are splitting this bag with another couple, and that should last us for most of the year. Yes, we use alot of rice….”we’re rice men”* after all!
I absolutely love all kinds of rice like jasmine, basmati, brown, black, glutenous, sticky, wild, any other mixture you can think of. I have learned in my years the best ways to cook and keep rice. My Thai rice cooker is the best for a lot of cooking besides rice. I can do rice and veggies double decker style or rice and chicken or fish, too! I keep it on my stove all the time. It is an absolutely wonderful piece of cookware. Keep your uncooked rice in an enclosed container in a cool place. It should last for at least a year. To cook the rice….well, follow me over the fold….. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: cooking wisdom, Food, Frugality, Recipe, Teaching
I have a becoming-ancient lab who enjoyed stunningly good health for the first of his 13 or so years.
Then, beginning about a year ago, catastrophe hit: he developed hot spots so severe that he was gnawing himself into a bloody state. Needless to say, I was horrified. My beautiful boy’s gorgeous reddish-golden coat was being torn out in clumps by his incessant gnawing. Even worse, my gentle giant was so stressed and unhappy.
I tried everything. Nothing worked, and I was feeling so, so sad and so, so bad for him. Here I’d been hoping for an old age befitting him, one in which he claimed his rightful place on the porch stoop communing with the chickadees, buffing ominously (his form of warning) at the squirrels, cuddling with his beloved, the red houndie girl.
But it appeared it wasn’t to be, that my lovely boy was doomed to an old age plagued by a mysterious ailment causing him endless anguish.
And then, a miracle substance was recommended to me by an old hand with the critters: Nu-Stock, a strange brew of sulfur and pine oil.
Yes, it’s true, the first time I used it, he was profoundly distressed. By the next day, however, his symptoms were almost gone, for the first time in months. And by Day 3, my happy, beautiful gentle giant was back, chasing down whatever leaf was foolish enough to fall in the yard, investigating odd tunnels (inhabited by frogs, I’ve come to find out), carefully making his twice-daily patrol of the premises to ensure our safety from the throngs of squirrels trying to break in.
It’s a messy, stinky stuff, but I’m now on my third time using it and enjoying the same success. It’s brilliant stuff, a bit pricey at $17+ a tube, but worth it. And I’ve met other people who’ve had even more striking success with it, including a burly old farmer who adopted an abandoned peekapoo who’d completely lost her fur. That little peekapoo is now the apple of his eye with lovely locks and a shine in her eye.
Worth every cent and highly recommended. And, no, I’m not getting paid for this endorsement. 
Sweetie and I started eating vegetarian on Mondays a few months ago and it is really amazing all the recipes we already had and all the new recipes we have come up with. Now it seems that we are eating less and less meat during the rest of the week too! Fish on Fridays, Bean or Soup Day, Stir-Fry and Rice Day, Left-Over Day, it all adds up to less carbon and a smaller footprint. Oh, the picture is of a “fire chimney”. This one is about 50 years old. You just put some charcoal or charcoal briquettes in the top and stuff some paper in the bottom and light the paper without lighter fluid. The briquettes will light and burn down, and then you can pour them into the grill and cook your stuff! No smell, no icky toxins! Read the rest of this entry »
This was an interesting experiment. AND MY VERSION! Naan and Pita are so close in the making and there are hundreds of ways and recipes for each! Naan (flatter) seems to be just thicker than pita (puffier). Naan may have some yoghurt or milk in it, pita will usually not. I use King Arthur Bread Flour which I really, really like. You can experiment with any flour you like, the thickness of the breads, spices and condiments, etc., etc. The directions for this recipe may sound complicated, but they are not. Just be sure to brush the bread with olive oil. It helps the softness and the toppings to stick. Once you make this a few times…it’s a snap! Read the rest of this entry »