Soups!

Last night I made two soups from the South Beach Quick & Easy Cookbook. As promised, both were easy and pretty quick to make.

Here's my lunchtime bowl of Asparagus Soup with Parmesan Sprinkle:

I ate it with a trifle more than a sprinkle. It's been a light caloric day, though! And please, whatever you do, don't ask me to give up cheese.

The second soup is the Vegetable and Bean soup, which I haven't tasted yet. Zach took some to work, so maybe he'll be generous enough to update us with how he liked it.

Mmmm, chard!

God bless you, Jessica Seinfeld

Oh, Jessica. Your cookbook is relentlessly cheesy. You seem a trifle smug with how well your children eat. You rely too heavily on mixes, cooking spray, and the like. And yet, Jessica, my son, who eats nothing but variations on bread and cheese if he can help it, has supped on vegetables since you entered our lives. Yes, vegetables.

Right now his bowl is empty. Empty because he gobbled up his macaroni and cheese to which, at your suggestion, I added pureed cauliflower. (By the way, Jessica, I also add some nutritional yeast. Try it!) And HOLY MOSES, he just asked for seconds.

Consider this my endorsement of your work, Ms. Seinfeld. I will be trying many more recipes from it, averting my eyes from the creepy cartoon drawings of your family offering cooking tips and comments, and really, truly enjoying the peace of mind that Graham is getting some nutritional diversity in his diet.



So far we have successfully fed Graham sweet potatoes (pancakes), carrots and spinach (brownies, which Dean actually like more than he did, probably since I messed up the mixing process), chickpeas (chocolate chip cookies), and the aforementioned cauliflower.

I also picked up this little number today, which looks extremely promising:


Expect an update soon!

Bittman’s Basic Meatloaf

Last night was basic meat loaf with Panorama grass-fed beef, and some organic green beans from the freezer aisle.

The meat loaf was plenty good (bacon on top!) but this old-fashioned recipe from Gourmet is better.

Also, not even Central Market can make frozen green beans that aren’t sad and floppy. Looking forward to Spring’s bounty so we can have the real thing!

Chicken and Shiitake Mushroom Stir-fry

Yummy! Wholesome! With Brown Rice!
http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=recipe&dbid=120

P.S. World’s Healthiest Foods is a really great website about food.

Walnut-crusted tilapia, rice, and brussel sprouts

Last night we had jambalaya from a box. I'll spare you the details.

Tonight I made the yummiest brussel sprouts I've ever eaten. This being, perhaps, the second time I've eaten them, that may not impress you. Anyway, they were good, even though I left them in the oven a wee bit too long.

The rice was leftover from a stir fry a few nights ago. The fish was easy, too. Drench in flour, then egg, then ground walnuts mixed with a bit of sucanat. Bake at 400 next to your awesome brussel sprouts about 15 minutes.

Yes, we have been eating. No, we haven't been blogging.

But here are a selection of dinners and food-related fun from the past 30-odd days...

Fish with veggies and saffron rice:


The 2nd best wine we've had this year:


We had it with roast chicken and vegetables:


Graham enjoys juicing:



Dean has 7 teeth and is working on number 8:


Thai curry:

Rosemary Roast Chicken and Vegetables

Another recipe from Emiril Lagasse. I bought this book at Half Price Books a few years ago. I thought, hey, it’s cheap! And it has turned out to be our only can’t-fail cookbook. This is my go-to when I’m not trying to be a vegetarian.

Anyway, tonight I made rosemary roast chicken and vegetables. This is a very basic recipe. In other words, you don’t need a celebrity chef to tell you how to do this.

Get a chicken, put some garlic cloves and rosemary under the skin above the breast, put a quarter cup each of chopped onion, celery, and carrots inside the cavity along with a couple of bay leaves, rub a tablespoon of olive oil on the bird, lay on some salt and pepper, put it in a roasting pan on a bed of carrots, celery, potatoes, quartered onions, and maybe other stuff, with a cup of water and another dose of salt and pepper. Roast at 400 degrees for 45 minutes, and 350 for another hour.

We had gotten some root vegetables in our Local Box that we didn’t recognize. They’re the size and shape of radishes, but they’re white. I figured we should throw them in with the veggies and see what they’re like. They were awesome, like a cross between carrots and potatoes. My Google search suggests that these may be turnips! Anyway, a perfect wintery vegetable for a chicken roast.