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Showing posts with label meatless monday. Show all posts
Showing posts with label meatless monday. Show all posts

Monday, February 22, 2010

Week of Eating In - Day One



This week we are participating in Huffington Post's "Week of Eating In" challenge, which I have outlined in my Monday post at the Green Phone Booth. The rules are simple, basically stay home and cook all your own food for a week. HuffPost encourages using basic, whole ingredients to prepare food, avoiding pre-packaged, pre-made food, like frozen dinners and ready-to-eat canned goods, but there are no strict rules.

For day one of our "Week of Eating In" and Meatless Monday we dined on leftovers. Nothing fancy nor exciting, but within the rules of the challenge. To sweeten the notion of eating leftovers I whipped up a batch of brownies for dessert. Keeping in line with the challenge, homemade brownies. I have always been a cake, brownie, basically-any-kind-of-dessert-from-a-box girl. Except cookies, they have always been homemade. Homemade brownies are awesome and super-easy to make! The day I thought those words would pass my lips, is the day I would eat my words. Now, this is our go to dessert when we want something satisfying, quick, easy, and with minimal mess.

(Reason #39 to stay home and cook your own food: The hair you find is your own!)


Aunt Rose's Brownies

Melt together (microwave) in a large bowl:
1/2 cup canola oil
1 stick butter
10 tablespoons cocoa

Add:
4 eggs
2 cups sugar
Beat well.

Add:
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 1/2 cup flour
Beat well.

At this point you can make any other additions you see fit. We are partial to chocolate chips and nuts, but to each his own. I suggest leaving out the hair. In regards to beat well, we just use a wooden spoon. Everything goes into one bowl and gets mixed with one spoon. Less dishes!

Pour into a 9x13 pan (we use glass), greased or not. (I always forget which it is and have done both.) Bake at 350 about 30 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Don't over-bake! (Aunt Rose's words)

Now eat! (My words)

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at 7:14 AM 3 comments
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Monday, December 28, 2009

Meatless Monday - Pasta with broccoli, edamame & walnuts



Inspiration for this Meatless Monday meal came from Moosewood Restaurant's Farm Fresh Meals Deck. It is this great little deck of cards that was sent to me for review. The deck consists of 50 recipes broken down by season. Each season gives you a variety of side dishes, main dishes, and desserts - my favorite! What I like about it - besides that it encourages you to eat seasonally using local ingredients - is that each recipe is contained within one card, including the ingredient list. All I have to do is take the card to the store with me and I already have a pre-printed grocery list. Very convenient!


Some of the recipes include:
  • Black Bean & Citrus Salad
  • Barbecued Tofu & Vegetables
  • Navajo Peach Crumble
  • Cranberry Bulgar Pilaf
  • Pumpkin & Mushroom Lasagna
  • Chocolate Cranberry Crunch
  • Sweet Potato-Stuffed Eggplant
  • Green & White Bean Gratin
  • Lime Pecan Bars
  • Potato-Leek Soup
  • Spinach Artichoke Risotto
  • Strawberry Chocolate Quesadillas
The recipe we used for Meatless Monday was pasta with broccoli, edamame and walnuts.

Ingredients:
3/4 pound chunky pasta
1/4 cup olive oil
4 garlic cloves, minced or pressed
3 cups bite-sized pieces of broccoli
1 cup frozen shelled edamame
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil, oregano, thyme, or marjoram*
1 cup chopped toasted walnuts
Salt and ground black pepper to taste
Grated parmesan or pecorino romano cheese (optional)

*In place of fresh herbs, you can add about 2 teaspoons of dried herbs to the skillet with the broccoli.

Directions:
Bring a large covered pot of salted water to a boil. Add the pasta and cook until al dente.

Meanwhile, warm 2 tablespoons of the olive oil in a large skillet on low heat. Add the garlic and cook for a few seconds. Add the broccoli with about 1/2 cup of the hot pasta-cooking water, turn the heat to high, and cook for about 2 minutes. Add the edamame, salt, and herbs. Continue to cook until the water evaporates and the broccoli is crisp-tender and bright green, about 5 minutes. Remove from the heat.

When the pasta is done, drain it. In a serving bowl, toss the pasta with the vegetable mixture, the remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil, and the walnuts. Season with salt and pepper. Serve topped with grated cheese if you wish.


I did not have any chunky pasta, so I used spaghetti instead. It was a nice light meal. My family is used to pasta smothered in sauce. It was good, but I could not help thinking this would be really good with some Alfredo mixed in. If your family are not slaves to the sauce then you would probably rate it higher. My family gave it lukewarm reviews.

Despite the lackluster results of the dish, the deck itself is great. Each recipe offers something different. When I feel like switching up our mundane weeknight meals this will be the recipe "book" that I reach for. The fact that it takes up very little space in my already overflowing collection is an added bonus. Heck, the whole deck can slip easily into my purse for a little farmers' market adventure. It retails for $14.99 and is available for purchase from these online bookstores: Moosewood Restaurant Farm Fresh Meals Deck.


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at 9:38 AM 3 comments
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Monday, November 30, 2009

Meatless Monday


This week's Meatless Monday recipe comes from the one thing I cannot resist at the supermarket checkout. Candy bars and soda... no problem. Cooking magazines... kryptonite. Some time not that long ago, I picked up a copy of Fine Cooking's fresh: 350 recipes that Celebrate the Seasons. It was within these delicious glossy pages that I found inspiration for today's Meatless Monday.

Luxurious Four-Cheese Macaroni & Cheese


This is not your neon-orange-nutritionally-defunct-out-of-a-box-kid-crack macaroni & cheese, but a much more sophisticated-yet-down-home-comforting version that is sure to please adult and child palate alike. It uses Gruyere, Blue, Monterey Jack, and Parmesan cheeses. Now let me just say up front that I am not a fan of blue cheese and was extremely hesitant to try this recipe. However, since embarking on the Meatless Monday journey I have been forced to become more adventurous with our absence of meat, so I held my nose and reserved judgement for the final outcome. It was good! The blue cheese was detectable and I would probably decrease the amount used next time, but it was quite tasty nonetheless.

This recipe filled a 13x9 pan. Even small portions were deceivingly fulfilling. We were able to get several meals out of this one recipe. Any time I can cook once and eat a lot is a bonus in my book. Yep, this one is a keeper.


Luxurious Four-Cheese Macaroni & Cheese

Ingredients:

Kosher salt
3 cups whole milk (I used 2%)
4 Tbs. unsalted butter
1 medium onion, finely diced (about 1 cup)
1 bay leaf
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
Pinch freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 tsp. Tabasco sauce; more to taste
Freshly ground black pepper
5 oz. Gruyere, coarsely grated (about 1 3/4 cups lightly packed)
1/2 lb. blue cheese, crumbled (about 2 cups; use less if not crazy about blue cheese)
1 lb. dried penne rigate pasta
1 Tbs. finely grated lemon zest
11 oz. Monterey Jack, cut into 1/2-inch dice (2 cups - I used a vegetable medley Monterey Jack)
1/2 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
2 Tbs. fresh thyme leaves
2 1/2 oz. Parmigiano-Reggiano, freshly grated (scant 1 cup)
3/4 cup fresh breadcrumbs


Instructions:
  • Heat the oven to 350 degrees F. Put a large pot of well-salted water on to boil.
  • Heat the milk in a small saucepan over medium-low heat to just below a simmer. Remove from heat and cover to keep hot. Melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium-low heat. Add the onion and bay leaf. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the onion starts to soften, about 5 minutes. Add the flour and cook, stirring, for 2 minutes. Gradually whisk in the hot milk, bring to a simmer, and cook for 10 minutes, whisking frequently, until thickened and smooth. Season with 1 tsp. salt, the nutmeg, the Tabasco, and pepper to taste. Remove and discard the bay leaf. Stir in the Gruyere and blue cheese.
  • Cook the pasta in the boiling water to al dente, following the package directions. Drain well and return to the pot. Toss the lemon zest and half of the Monterey Jack into the pasta while it is still hot; add the cheese sauce and quickly toss to combine. Stir in the parsley and thyme and transfer half of the pasta to a large (3-qt.) shallow casserole or lasagna pan (I used a 13x9 baking dish). Sprinkle with the remaining Monterey Jack and half of the Parmigiano; top with the remaining pasta. Sprinkle with the remaining Parmigiano and the breadcrumbs. Bake until bubbling and golden, 50 to 60 minutes. Let rest for 5 to 10 minutes before serving.


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at 1:02 PM 3 comments
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Monday, November 16, 2009

Meatless Monday



Lately my husband has been toying with becoming vegetarian. While I am not sure my bacon-loving beau is ready to take that step, I am all for reducing our meat consumption. Americans consist of 5 percent of the world's population and process more than 15 percent of the world's total meat, at a rate of 10 billion animals annually! All that meat consumption comes at great environmental costs. Producing meat is very energy intensive. One-third of all fossil fuels produced in the United States are used to raise animals for food. Much of that going towards producing food to feed the animals that we eat. It takes up to 16 pounds of grain to produce just one pound of meat. 1.4 billion people - 20 percent of the world's population - could be fed with the grain and soybeans fed to U.S. cattle alone. Then there is the water needed to irrigate the crops to feed to the animals and water the animals to feed to us. It takes 5,000 gallons of water to produce one pound of meat, while growing one pound of wheat only takes 25 gallons. Seems like we could skip a step in there and just feed the crops to us. A totally vegetarian diet only requires 300 gallons of water per day, while a meat-eating diet requires more than 4,000 gallons of water per day! You save more water by not eating a pound of beef than you do by not showering for an entire year. I will skip the steak and take the shower, thank you very much.

Aside from the environmental aspect of meat consumption, there is the impact on your wallet to consider. I started lowering our meat consumption a few years ago by reducing our portion sizes. Meat is no longer the star of our meals, but acts more as a filler to round out the meal. One pound (16 oz.) of meat can make a meal for my family of four, compared to the 8.4 ounces that the average American consumes daily - each! Given that meat is the most expensive item in the grocery store, how much money could you save by consuming less of it? We already consume half as much as the average American, but I still think we could go lower. Enter Meatless Monday.


Meatless Monday is a non-profit website dedicated to reducing meat consumption 15 percent in order to improve personal health and the health of our planet. I pledged to make my family's Monday meals meatless. Unsure of where to start, I searched the website's recipe section (conveniently sorted by the meal you are looking for) and decided to give Great Northern White Chili a try.
  • 1 medium onion, chopped
  • 1 teaspoon minced garlic
  • 2 (15-ounce) cans Great Northern beans, rinsed and drained
  • 1 (15-ounce)can garbanzo beans, rinsed and drained
  • 4 cups vegetable broth
  • 1 teaspoon chili powder
  • 1 teaspoon ground cumin
  • 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
  • 1 (4-ounce) can diced green chiles, drained
  • 1 (14-ounce) can white sweet corn, drained

Coat a large pot with nonstick cooking spray, then sauté the onion and garlic over medium heat for 3-5 minutes, until tender. Stir frequently so vegetables don’t stick. Empty one can of the Great Northern beans into a food processoror blender and process with one cup of the vegetable broth until smooth. Add everything to the pot: the pureed bean mixture, the second can of Great Northern beans,the garbanzo beans, the remaining 3 cups of vegetable broth, chili powder, cumin, oregano, green chiles, and corn. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and cook for 20 minutes. Garnish with a dollop of tomato salsa.



YUM!

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