Inside My Lunchbox Part 2

Or how I finally learned to banish Hungor from my work day and just pack a million snacks.

As anyone who has spent much time with me will tell you I have a tiny stomach that pretty much needs to be constantly refilled. Much like a rabbit, I spend my day grazing and nibbling, having 8-10 small snacks. As such I like to pack a few snacks I can nibble after my ride to work and before my ride home. The sweet potato kugel was the main attraction in this lunch. I warmed it up in the microwave and ate it on a bed of kale. The granola bar (homemade!) I had as a quick snack after I got off my bike. The persimmon I ate out of hand before I headed home.

Speaking of the kugel, it was a very fall appropriate recipe and a great meal to make ahead and portion out for the week. I made this recipe, only I omitted the cheese and doubled the amount of sweet potatoes instead of using squash. I made it in an 8 x 8 square pan and have been chipping away at it all week. Bonus: your house will smell great when you cook the onions and garlic.

I'm so happy I live someplace I can bike to work on November 7th in shorts and a tank top.

"I literally made the most pesto ever," said in my best Chris Traeger voice

Last weekend my mission was to use up all my basil before the fall frost ruined it.

For me fresh basil=pesto. I love pesto...and by love I mean looooovveeee. One of the reasons

that I married my husband is because he had the secret pesto recipe from an unnamed pasta restaurant that he worked at in E'burg (I kid, I kid, but I do have the recipe now).

Things I learned during the pesto process:

Pesto stains everything it touches.

Basil reacts with oxygen somehow(O-chemers any comments?) and turns your skin black.

The old trick about rubbing your hands with a stainless steel spoon to get rid of garlic smell actually works.

Meat tenderizers make for excellent garlic smashers.

The first step to making a giant bowl of pesto is to gather all your ingredients. Aside from basil, I ran out of pretty much everything and had to start making substitutions.

You will need:

lots of basil

lots of garlic cloves

lots of olive oil (ran out of regular EVOO so I used a garlic infus

ed olive oil to make up the difference)

lots of Parmesan cheese

a cup or so of walnuts

2 1/2 cups of sunflower seeds (roasted but unsalted) (the recipe called for pine nuts...which are delish but too rich for my blood)

First, peel the basil leaves from the stems. I totally underestimated how long this would take, so I enlisted my sous chef. I had to promise him a batch of whatever kids of cookies he wanted, but it was worth it.

I put all the leaves into the sink filled with water in order to wash them and pick out the less desirable leaves. Then I drained the water out and patted dry the leaves. At that moment I

realized that a salad spinner may have been a good kitchen tool to have.

Then I just started mixing everything together. The restaurant recipe called for a "bag" of nuts and a "container" of cheese, etc. Since I didn't know what the quantity of said "bag" was, I just started tasting and guessing.

First I tried using the blender. Alas, a magic bullet my blender is not and nothing mixed together except for the EVOO and basil. So into my mini chopper everything went and although it worked, the chopper is so small that it took many batches to finish. After each batch I poured the mixture into a large bowl and then mixed everything together with a spoon again at the end to make sure that the inconsistencies in my proportions were minimized.

Lastly, I put a "dinner party" amount in a plastic bag and then portioned individual pesto disks and froze everything. Now I can just pull out a disk and have pesto all through the winter (30 portions total). WIN! Even though it made the a giant mess, the most dishes ever and my breath smelled like garlic for a week (I was eating spoonfuls of the leftovers) I had tons of fun making this.

Lord of the Chard - Now in Color

The gloomy blanket of rain and cool temperatures still envelopes New England, but here at the Boston LotC headquarters we have decided to press on with spring - whether or not the elements are with us. This means injecting a little color into our lives.

New season = new running shoes. I won't get hit by a car in these!

Laura and I were talking last week about the fruit/veggie composition in our diets. We both felt as though we had no problem getting the recommended fruit servings each day, but vegetables were more hit or miss. I will mindlessly snack on apples and plums all day long, but I seldom reach for a green pepper when I want to munch.

For me the key dominating the vegetable category is working in two categories. First, green smoothies. Are you making these yet? Good. You just got a few servings of vegetables just by sipping a delicious treat. Zam! Secondly, I've got to remember to load up the extra vegetables in my actual meals. It is far to easy for me to whip up an egg quesadilla and walk away from dinner with a goose egg for a veggie score. I actually do really love most vegetables, so I just need to make sure I get them stuffed in all of the little crannies of my meals. I think a good way to check myself on this is to make sure my meals all have lots of bright colors - no all beige plates!

Sweet Potato and Greens: The Enchilada Edition
2 Large sweet potatoes
Large bunch of greens (I used kale and collards)
1 medium onion
1 clove garlic
1 bell pepper
1 cup cooked black beans
1.5 cups enchilada sauce (I have used this recipe before, this time I went for the can)
1 T butter
1 t vegetable bouillon + 1 cup water (or veggie broth)
1 cup grated cheese
1 can Black olives
6-8 whole wheat tortillas

First you want to take care of your greens and onions. Cut up your onion into half moons and separate them. Cook them in a large saucepan with the butter until they are soft and turning translucent. This will take about 5-10 minutes. Meanwhile cut up your greens. I have demonstrated my method for collard cutting below.

Cut the collard leaf in half, removing the tough inner stem in the process.

Stack the Leaves and roll them up so they look like cigars.

Cut the collard cigar horizontally but continue to hold the halves together.

Slice vertically down the collard cigar.

You will find yourself with perfectly chopped collard pieces!

Ok, now your onions are ready and your collards are chopped. Throw them all in the pan along with the broth. This will seem like a lot of greens, but they will cook down significantly.

Place a top over the pan and let the greens simmer away for about 15 minutes, stirring them regularly so they don't stick to the bottom of the pan. If you need more liquid - well add some.

Do you have a mandolin? Good, because it would be a pain to slice all of these sweet potatoes by hand.

Watch your finers, there were several slices of ellen in those piles.

This would also be a good time to slice up your black olives, peppers and grate your cheese. You guys don't need me to show you how to do that. You are all stars. This is also a good time to preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

When the greens are done and you have finished your prep work start your assembly line. I like to make enchilada pie rather than individual enchiladas since it makes it easier to have the portion size you want, but this is personal preference. Pour a little sauce into a baking dish so that the bottom is covered. Add a tortilla and then layer a all the filling components. Add more sauce. Add another tortilla. Ad infinitum.

Bake for 60 minutes. If the top starts to get too brown cover it with foil for the remainder of the time. After baking let it sit for a bit. Otherwise you will burn your tongue and that will be sad.

Look at those layers...

I think this is a fantastic dish for leftovers throughout the week, and it even tastes better on day two.

Anyone have any other good make ahead meal ideas? How about tips to load up on the veggies?

A Mediterranean Feast

On Friday I had some friends over for a very merry Passover Seder. I decided to put a little skew on the traditional feast of matzo ball soup, roasted eggs, and roast beast by looking to our friends in the Mediterranean. Amanda worked as my loyal sous chef and here is what we whipped up:

Watermelon Feta kebabs with mint
Baked chickpea fritters served with sliced pickles, cucumbers, carrots, and greek yogurt
Collard green dolmas stuffed with a quinoa salad
Roasted eggplant dip
Israeli pickles
Lebanese carrot salad (which I completely forgot to serve...)
Honey cake

Alex and Sarah were all star guests and provided charoset (I finished the leftovers today for breakfast), and some of the best homemade macaroons I have ever had.

Sadly when I remembered to take some pictures my camera only took one photo before informing me that the battery was dead!

Alex does not look impressed here

Saturday night I had some leftovers and was able to take a shot of the dolmas I so painstakingly rolled. Dolma just means "stuffed" or "filled" in its original Turkish, which inspired me to roll these up in collard greens instead of the usual grape leaves. Also I did not have grape leaves... They took forever and were really fussy, but a fun food for a dinner party.

Collard dolmas, steamed collards, and quinoa salad with feta

I also wanted to use up my leftover collards so I steamed them according to this method from Healthy Tipping Point. I had never made collards before and honestly they were sort of "eh." A little too slimy for me. Maybe I cooked them too long? I'm really hoping to learn to enjoy them since they are basically nutrition bombs and wildly inexpensive.

Collards steaming - you can see how little they cooked down to in the photo above

After noshing on all of those healthy greens I finished off the meal with the remainder of the honey cake. My grandmother sent me the special passover mix specifically for our seder. I was a little nervous it was going to taste super dry (it uses potato starch instead of the forbidden flour), but it was actually very moist and everyone seemed to enjoy it. It tasted just like a spicy pumpkin cake.

It was the last piece - I ate it straight from the pan

Today the sun is actually out in Boston and it is a beautiful day. I am going to go stroll around the harborwalk and get some vitamin D on my fur!

Still Not Spring

Friends, this is what I saw when I pulled up the weather today:

Yuck. It feels like spring is never going to come. There is nothing to do but to make bread from scratch, look longingly at your flip flops, and make tons of soup. Tonight after I got home from class I made a recipe that I bookmarked last week - Swiss Chard and Chickpea Minestrone. I mostly followed the recipe but left out some ingredients I didn't have. Instead of making a bouquet garni (seriously?) with a parmesan rind and bay leaf I added a bunch of penzey's spices and used vegetable stock. I also substituted the tomato paste for a can of diced tomatoes. The soup was warming and the flavors all worked well together. Adding chard or kale to soups like this is one of my favorite texture tricks. Also since they get wilted it is a great way to add dark leafy greens to your diet.