Simple is Good

If you live in my neck of the woods you’ve probably been spending a lot of time with your air conditioning - the temps have been brutal but hey there is no such thing as climate change right? 😀

One of my goals in retirement is to do one “useful” thing every day. Today I did many; I took our used and abused electronics to be recycled, got groceries, cleaned the upstairs, watered and weeded the garden, and turned the last of the shredded zucchini into bread -I’d say it was a productive day. I also went for a walk and did 30 minutes of yoga. 

After all that work, I decided that dinner needed to be simple. I had a head of cauliflower, mushrooms, and tomatoes in the fridge and combined it with some leftover rice. I toasted a small baguette of whole wheat bread and added some Muhhamara (roasted red peppers and walnuts) from Costco to round out the meal. It was a warm-weather delight. 

Ingredients:

2/3 head of cauliflower -broken into florets

1 package of baby portobello mushrooms - cleaned and quartered

1 container of grape tomatoes

2 - 3 cloves garlic - minced

olive oil

Italian seasoning

salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Chop all vegetables as indicated above and place them in a large bowl. Add olive oil, and spices; stir to combine. Put all vegetables on a sheet pan and roast for 25 - 30 minutes or until cauliflower is crisp-tender. 

Serve with rice, and bread, and enjoy!

Retirement is the Life

Wow - it’s been way too long since I last blogged. When I retired I thought one of the things I would have more time for is cooking and blogging - that is definitely not the case; at least in the warmer weather months. 

I’ve been volunteering at a community garden, participating in a garden research project, I am on the education committee, doing an occasional stint at the Arboretum, and tending my own yard/gardens. Before I retired my father-in-law told me I would be busier in retirement than I was when working - he was spot on.

We have also been getting out and seeing friends again. There is nothing like Minnesota patio dining be it on your own deck or at a restaurant, they are both fun. Last weekend we had the fab 6 over for a Mediterranean-themed dinner; salmon with pesto, sun-dried tomatoes (from my garden last year), artichokes, and olives. Accompanied by Briam (zucchini/potato/onion/tomato) dish and a chickpea salad. Ellen brought a lovely fruit plate and Ann a to-die-for rhubarb tart.

Briam takes roasted vegetables to a whole new level of deliciousness. You need a few simple pantry ingredients: potatoes, zucchini, red onions, and tomatoes. The key is the spices; fresh garlic, parsley, and a generous drizzle of EVOO. On the bright side this dish is vegan, low carb, and gluten-free.

Ingredients:

1 ¼ lb gold potatoes (about 3 medium-size potatoes), thinly sliced into rounds (about ⅛-inch thick)

1 ¼ lb (2 to 3 zucchini), thinly sliced into rounds (about

¼-inch thick)

Salt and pepper

2 tsp dried oregano

scant 1 tsp fresh rosemary 

½ cup chopped fresh parsley

4 garlic cloves, minced

Extra virgin olive oil

1 28-oz canned diced tomatoes with juice 

1 large red onion or 2 smaller red onions, thinly sliced into rounds (if large, you'll want to cut the onion in half first, and then slice).

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees

Place sliced potatoes and zucchini in a large mixing bowl. Season with kosher salt, pepper, oregano, and rosemary. Add fresh parsley, garlic, and a generous drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. Toss to make sure the vegetables are well coated.

Grab a large round pan or skillet (I used the Pampered Chef Roc Crok everyday pan) pan. Pour ½ of the canned diced tomatoes in and spread to cover the bottom of the pan.

Arrange the seasoned potatoes, zucchini, and sliced onions in the pan in rows (simply going around the shape of the pan and alternating.) If you have any of the extra virgin olive oil and garlic mixture left in the mixing bowl, pour that all over the veggies, then top with the remaining diced tomatoes from your can.

Cover the pan with foil (tent foil a bit so it is not touching the veggies). Bake in 400 degrees F heated oven for 45 minutes. Take the pan out briefly to carefully remove the foil, then place it back in the oven,  uncovered, and roast for another 30-40 minutes or until the veggies are soft and charred and most of the liquid has evaporated.

Remove from oven. Serve warm or at room temperature with an added generous drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.

A Delicious Cabbage Soup

Hello hello - it’s been a while since I’ve posted - life has been full and busy. I’ve been spending time teaching herb classes, doing some organizing, spending time with good friends, and thinking about this year's garden.

Spring is definitely taking its time getting here and I’ve been restless. I was looking at photos from last year at this time and we were wearing lighter clothes, the sun was shining and our early bulbs were blooming. Our crocus have finally come up and the tulips and allium are starting to peek their heads out - so there is hope. 

For those of you who are anxious to clean up your yard - please wait until the temps are a consistent 50 degrees for a week or so. Our bees and pollinators are still sleeping - we need them in our gardens. 

If you’ve been following my blog, you know that we have new neighbors and last fall they built a 6-foot fence so we’re in the process of revamping our gardens. As luck would have it our 2 beds closest to the fence were rotting, which means we were planning to replace them anyway and now we can move them to the north side of the far beds - basically full sun - so a bonus!

Tonight we’re sitting in the living room with a roaring fire enjoying a hearty cabbage soup and cornbread - it’s delicious!

Ingredients:

2 T olive oil

1 onion

3 cloves of garlic - minced

6 cups veggie broth

2 carrots - diced 

2 stalks of celery - diced

1/2 head cabbage - chopped 

2 cans diced tomatoes 14 oz each 

2 cans of white beans 

1/2 tsp oregano

1/2 tsp basil

salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

In a large stockpot add the olive oil, onions, carrot, and celery saute for 5 minutes. Add the garlic and spices - saute for 1 minute. Add the cabbage and sweat for 5 minutes, stirring frequently. 

Add the broth, tomatoes, and beans, bring to a boil, and then simmer until the cabbage is tender. 

We served with cornbread - it was delicious!

Lentil Stuffed Peppers

Can you believe it’s almost April? I was checking the weather yesterday and noticed that last year on March 28th the temperature was 74 degrees - no wonder the crocus were blooming. We haven’t seen any sign of them this year but they will be here soon. 

The 2022 gardening season is not far away and now that I am retired I have all day to work outside (as opposed to half days like last year). Our new neighbors put up a 6-foot plastic white fence which will most definitely block the sun on 2 of our beds. I could be mad (and initially I was) but it is their yard and in the end, it gives me an opportunity to do something new. So we’ll move the two beds and the fence over and carry on. 

I’ll be working in the Hopkins Community garden this summer as part of my Master Gardener volunteer hours and I’m looking forward to it. I’m also teaching a class on growing and harvesting herbs and I’ll be hanging out at the Golden Valley Farmers Market on some Sunday mornings. 

We're still working through last year's harvest - tho we can start to see the bottom of the freezer. We still have some zucchini and summer squash, tomato sauce, pesto (lots of pesto), and hot peppers to use up. I have one last head of garlic before I need to head to the store. 

When I was a kid my mom often made stuffed green peppers - usually with ground turkey and they were a favorite. While turkey is not on the menu these days lentils definitely are. 

Ingredients:

3 peppers - any color 

1 onion - diced

1 clove garlic

1/2 tsp cumin

1/2 tsp paprika

1/8 tsp cayenne

1 1/2 tsp lemon juice

1 T tomato paste

1 cup chopped tomato

1.5 cup vegetable broth 

1 cup uncooked red lentils

salt to taste 

pepper to taste

feta cheese 

Instructions:

Cut peppers in half length-wise and remove the stem, seeds, and core. Place on a microwaveable dish and cook at full power for 4 minutes. Remove from microwave and set aside. 

In a medium pan saute onions in 1T of olive oil until translucent. Add garlic and cumin and cook for one minute. Add veggie broth, lentils, tomato paste, salt, cayenne pepper, and paprika. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover and cook until the lentils are done (red lentils will turn yellow and get mushy when done). 

Preheat the oven to 350. Place pepper halves in a baking dish and fill with lentil mixture. Sprinkle with feta and bake for approximately 15 minutes until the mixture is heated through and the feta is starting to brown. 

Serve with a salad and enjoy!

A Wellington by any Other Name

We’ve been back for almost a month and Mother Nature has been less than kind. Weather aside we’ve gotten back into the swing of being home. I’ve lunched with friends, we’ve connected with Dan’s dad, and on Friday night we had our movie night friends over for an experimental dinner.

I’ve often heard that you shouldn’t try a new recipe when you are having guests, which I think is crazy cuz I do it all the time, as a matter of fact, our friends kind of expect it - well at least these friends do, probably because I do it so often. 

When we were in Arizona my friend Ann made a fabulous Mushroom Wellington, filled with onions, nuts, and of course lots of mushrooms. I’ve been hungry for beets lately and I decided to make a Beet Wellington - a rift on her recipe if you will. 

Unless you are retired and love to spend a good portion of your day cooking, this is not a recipe for a weeknight nor for the faint of heart. You can minimize mushroom chopping by using a food processor but be careful not to over-process, you want mushroom texture. One ingredient I would add going forward would be toasted walnuts, but since my friend has a horrible reaction to them I left them out. 

We served the welling with steamed broccoli and wild rice - it was delicious. 

Ingredients:

Filling

4 medium to large beetroots - approximately the same size

olive oil

10 shallots

8 cloves of garlic - minced

2 lb mushrooms - I used a mixture of chestnut and cremini

1 lb of spinach

salt and pepper

2 tsp rosemary - dried 

1/4 cup white wine

1/4 cup nutritional yeast

1/2 cup breadcrumbs

1 sheet frozen puff pastry

1 egg beaten with a splash of water

Everything bagel seasoning for top 

Balsamic Reduction

1 cup balsamic vinegar

1/2 cup sugar 

Instructions:

Heat up the oven to 200° C / 390° F and line a baking tray with a piece of baking paper.

Peel the beetroots. Pound 3 tsp of dry rosemary with 1½ tsp of coarse sea salt in a pestle and mortar until you get fine rosemary salt. Brush the beetroots with olive oil and sprinkle with some (not all) of the rosemary salt. Place on a baking tray and put into the hot oven for about 1 hour (until the beetroots can be easily pierced with a knife).

Place balsamic vinegar and sugar in a small pot. Bring it to the boil gently and allow it to simmer for 20 minutes or so until the liquid reduces by about ½ and becomes thick. Beware that it will become even thicker once it cools so don’t let it reduce too much. If you do, add a splash of water to bring it back.

Heat 3 tbsp of olive oil in a heavy-based pan. Add finely chopped shallots to hot oil (you want them to sizzle once added to the pan). Fry on a low heat stirring from time to time, until lightly browned. Add garlic and fry for a few minutes until soft and fragrant. 

Chop your mushrooms into fine dice (you can also use a food processor) while you’re frying the shallots and garlic. Remove one-third of the shallot and garlic mixture and set aside. Add chopped-up mushrooms into the pan and coat in the shallot and garlic mixture. Cook mushrooms on a medium heat until all the water evaporates. Add wine to the pan and allow it to cookout. Season the mushroom mixture with some of the rosemary salt and black pepper. Let it cool. Once cool, add chia egg and mix well. The mixture should be sticky but not watery.

Wilt spinach in a warmed-up pan with a lid. Once wilted, allow it to cool completely. Once cool, squeeze all the water out of the spinach using your hands or a muslin cloth. Go over the spinach twice or even three times to ensure that it is as dry as possible. Place spinach in a large bowl, season with rosemary salt, pepper, and nutritional yeast. Add shallot and garlic mixture you’ve set aside in step 6 and ¼ cup of breadcrumbs.

Assemble:

Line a baking tray with parchment paper and heat the oven to 390. 

Lightly flour the baking paper and put a defrosted sheet of puff pastry on it so that the shorter edge is facing you. 

Designate a long, narrow area (about 4 inches by 10 inches) where the filling will be stacked. The area should be about 2 inches from the edge of the pastry so that the pastry on the other side of the filling can be wrapped over the filling. Leave a 2-inch margin on each end so that you can fold the ends nicely.

Scatter bread crumbs on the puff pastry to provide a barrier between the filling to prevent a soggy bottom. 

Start by placing the spinach mixture in the long rectangle. Press it down with your hands so that it is packed tightly. Place the roasted beetroots in a long row over the spinach. 

Mold the mushroom mixture over the beetroots making sure it fills all the nooks and crannies tightly. 

Fold the pastry over the filling as tightly as you can - a second pair of hands can be helpful here. Seal the pastry together with the 2-inch margin you left on the other side. Wrap the pastry on both ends like you would wrap a present. 

Make shallow cuts on the top of the wellington with a sharp knife. Brush the top and sides with egg/water mixture and sprinkle with the bagel seasoning. 

Bake for 60 minutes until golden brown. 

Roasted Vegetable Miso Soup with Soba Noodles

Have you been bitten by the Wordle bug? I’m a word person, I love to read, when I got the newspaper (you know the old fashioned kind that you could touch and feel) I did the cryptocryptoquip and crossword puzzle so you could definitely assume it’s one of the first things I do when I log on in the morning. 

There was an article in the New York Times last week that talked about why Wordle was so popular and one of the things was scarcity - because there is only one posted every day. So for those of you who want to do more than one Wordle I give you Hello Wordl. And you can make it more challenging by expanding the number of letters (instead of the original 5). So, for those of you who want more than 1 puzzle a day - Wordle on my friends. 

We’ve been back from AZ for almost 2 weeks now and we’re getting back into the swing of MN winter - not loving it just accepting that it’s here for the duration and at some point it will end - maybe not until May but it will end. If you are a gardener, it’s a great time to peruse the online seed catalogs and plan your summer garden. Each year I try to do a couple experiments - this year will be Minnesota Midget Melons and black turtle beans. There might be other surprises but so far those are my choices. 

Minnesota Midgets are great for our short growing season. They are about the size of a softball and super sweet. I’d not heard of them until last year when I was talking with a neighbor who was growing them and they basically let you know when it’s time to harvest; they basically fall off the vine when you touch them. 

I’ve had a container of miso broth that I purchased before we went to AZ and was hungry for soup. I found a couple recipes online but none of them had what I was looking for so I took a little of this and a little of that and make a roasted veggie soup with a delicious broth - there were no leftovers. 

Ingredients:

2 carrots, sliced diagonally

8 - 10 brussels sprouts, quartered

1 broccoli crown, cut into florets

1/2 honeynut butternut squash

1 package soba noodles 

1 container of miso broth (or you can make your own using 5 - 6 T miso and 4 cups of water). 

Garnish:

sesame seeds 

chopped green onions

red pepper flakes

cilantro

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Place chopped veggies on a large rimmed baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Add a drizzle of olive oil and toss. Sprinkle veggies with salt and pepper. Roast for approximately 25 minutes or until veggies are fork-tender, turning halfway through. 

While veggies are roasting, cook soba noodles according to package directions. Rinse under cool water when done to halt cooking. 

If you have purchased miso broth, simply warm it up in a pan. If you are making your own, add water to a pan and heat, remove from heat and add the miso paste, stir until combined. 

Assemble soup: Add noodles and vegetables to soup bowls and top with miso broth. Add garnishes and enjoy!

Burrito Stuffed Spaghetti Squash

Well, it had to happen sometime - we are back from Arizona, and whose idea was it to return in February - obviously mine. 

Arizona boasts 330 days of sunshine and it did not disappoint. Temperatures were in the high 60’s to 70’s which was perfect for happy hours on the patio, hiking the local trails, a little sipping and beer tasting at the San Tan Brewery, and general all-around enjoying. We got together with family and friends, had outdoor dinners at a few nice places, and saw the Chihuly exhibit at the Desert Botanical Garden with friends Ann & Warren.

We are back in the frozen tundra. The laundry is done and put away, I’ve started to connect with friends and I’m regulars working out and doing the normal everyday stuff that we do in Minnesota in the middle of winter. I am also starting to think about my garden and checking out seed websites - so many things to plan. 

Before we left for AZ we still had a few butternut and spaghetti squash that had not been cooked or eaten. Three of them traveled with us, we gave one spaghetti squash to friends and we cooked the other one but one - a very large spaghetti came home with us; we never got around to eating it. 

It was definitely time to use it so I roasted it (and because it was so big it took an hour and 45 minutes to cook. I stuffed it with some peppers, onions, black beans, and veggie crumbles and topped it with a little cheese - it was delicious. 

Ingredients:

1 large spaghetti squash

2 T olive oil

Filling

1 (16oz) can black beans, drained and rinsed

1 bag Gardein veggie crumbles 

1/2 cup corn - I had corn, bean, and carrot mixture so I tossed that in

2 garlic cloves - minced

1 onion, diced

1/2 red pepper

1/2 cup chopped cilantro

1 cup salsa

1 tablespoon chili powder

1 teaspoon cumin

1/2 teaspoon paprika

dash of salt and pepper

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 F. 

2. Cut the squash open lengthwise and scoop out the seeds. Coat open side of squash with olive oil and place open side down on the baking sheet,

3. Bake until done - this will depend on the size of the squash, check it after 50 minutes. While squash is cooking make the filling. You can add whatever you want or have in the fridge or freezer. 

4. In a large pan add 1 T olive oil and saute onion and garlic until translucent. Add spices and pepper, corn mixture, black beans and veggie crumbles cook until crumbles are heated through. 

5. When squash is fully cooked, removed it from the oven and fork out squash flesh but leave in the bowls and add black bean mixture. Option to top with cheese or nutritional yeast. 

6. Bake for another 10-15 minutes until heated through and cheese is melted. 

Enjoy!