Roasted Root Vegetables with Cilantro Pesto

Quite possibly my greatest invention ever. Based (loosely) on this recipe on Epicurious.

Ingredients

Vegetables
1 medium butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and chopped
3 small red potatoes, washed and chopped
2 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped
4 parsnips, peeled and chopped, with the woody core cut out
a handful or two of baby carrots
about 2 T. oil (olive or garlic or what have you), salt and pepper

Pesto

fresh basil (about 4-5 large leaves)
1/2 bunch cilantro
1/2 c. olive oil (actually a little less, more like 1/4 + 1/8)
1/4 c. grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 c. pine nuts, toasted
Cayenne pepper, salt, and black pepper

Methodology

1. Toss vegetables with about 2 T. of oil, salt, and pepper. Arrange on a cookie sheet in a single layer and put in a 500* oven. Stir occasionally.

2. Put pine nuts, herbs, Parmesan, olive oil, and spices in a blender and blend them into a thick green paste. Add more salt and pepper as needed.

3. When cooked, toss vegetables with about 1/2 the pesto (you can freeze the rest). Serve with more Parmesan by the side.

Notes

*This was awesome.

*Don't use a pan with high sides, it insulates too well and the veg will not cook fast enough.

*If you had kosher salt, that would be nice to toss the veg with to roast.

*Don't put potato peelings or paper towels down the garbage disposal.

*Disaster index: 2/7

Cinnamon Cake with Grand Marnier Whipped Cream and Raspberry Compote

Made up by me, based on this recipe at Epicurious. Very loosely based.
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
2 teaspoons cinnamon
4 eggs, separated
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 T. molasses
1/2 cup milk
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 tsp. Grand Marnier
cream of tarter

Whipped cream

1 pint whipping cream
3 T. confectioners' sugar
1 T. brown sugar
1/2 T. Grand Marnier
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Compote

about 1/2 bag frozen raspberries (it is January in Wisconsin, what do you want?)
1.5 T. brown sugar
~1 T. lemon juice

Methodology

1. Preheat oven to 350*, grease cake pan. Sift flour, baking powder, and cinnamon together. Whip egg whites with cream of tarter until foamy, then add sugar slowly. Try to make peaks. Fail miserably.

2. Add egg yolks. Mix (by hand). Fold in flour mixture. Add vanilla. Put cake in oven. Bake for ~30 minutes.

3. Drizzle 1 tsp of Grand Marnier on the bottom of the cake; turn cake out of pan and drizzle another tsp of GM on the top. Let it cool.

4. Make the compote. Put fruit, sugar, and lemon juice in a small sauce pan over low heat, stir until it turns into sauce, about 5 or 6 minutes. Taste and add more sugar if you want.

5. Make the whipped cream. Put cream, sugar, vanilla, and GM in container and whip until stiff.
6. Serve a slice of cake with whipped cream and sauce. Since it's a sponge cake, it's especially effective if you put some sauce on the plate, then plate the cake, then whipped cream and more sauce. Eat.

Notes

*This was well-received. Part birthday present, part "thanks for playing Queer Eye with my apartment".

*The cake is about 150 calories/slice for 12 slices. I didn't work out the whipped cream and raspberries, but I'd put the finished product at about 250, which isn't bad.

*Would have been better had I gotten the egg whites to whip. Also next time I will put in a little pumpkin pie spice I think. But in terms of stuff I was really worried about all afternoon that came out well? This cake. Yes.

*Disaster index: 3/7.

Em oi! #115: Pick-up Artist

In case you cannot see it at the site today. I am getting errors for some reason, although it is uploaded.

This actually sort of happened.

Moroccan Chickpea Soup (Harira)

Based on this recipe from Epicurious.

Ingredients

2 15 oz tins chickpeas, drained
1 (28 oz) tin diced tomatoes
1 large onion, chopped
3 T. garlic oil
2 cloves garlic, minced or crushed or what have you
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon cumin, plus a bit
2/3 cup chopped fresh cilantro
4 cups vegetable broth or bouillon and water
1 cup lentils
1/2 c. orzo
1 lemon

Methodology

1. Chop onion and garlic and put in a pot with the oil. You can use butter or olive oil if you want, I've just been using garlic oil because it has fewer calories. Also it's delicious.

2. Add spices and stir, wait for a couple of minutes. Add tomatoes, cilantro, chickpeas, lentils, broth or bouillon/water. Cover and bring to a boil, then simmer until lentils are cooked (about 30 minutes).

3. When lentils are (almost) tender, add orzo and cook for another 10 minutes or so until everything is done. Serve with lemon and bread (we had rye/pumpernickel swirl, which was good).

Notes

*Wow, what awesome soup. Seriously. Daniel suggests adding raisins, which I could get behind. Alternatively, dates. Also, spinach is a possibility.

*Makes 6 (large) servings, about 270 calories a piece. Plus loads of protein, which is good for you.

Squash and Black Bean Chili

Based on a recipe from Epicurious. Dan has also blogged about this here, making this our first joint cooking project to also be a joint blogging project.

Ingredients

2.5 c. white onion, chopped
3-4 cloves garlic, minced
2 T olive oil
4 c. butternut squash, peeled and chopped
3 15 oz. tins black beans, drained and washed
1 14.5 oz tin diced tomatoes
spices: cumin, turmeric, Cayenne pepper, paprika, oregano
3 c. bai cai (Napa cabbage), chopped
approx. 2.5 c. water and vegetable bullion

Methodology


1. Heat the oil in a large pot and add the garlic and onion. Cook until the onion is golden. Add the squash and stir.

2. After about 2 minutes, season it with the spices (you can use chili powder if you have any; we didn't). Add the beans, the tomatoes, the bullion and the water. Cover and bring to a boil, then take the lid off and simmer until the squash is cooked, about 20 minutes.

3. Add the cabbage and cook a few more minutes until it is done. Season with salt and pepper to taste; also Sri Racha Sauce, plain yoghurt, cheddar cheese, etc.

Notes

*This made a ton. The original recipe said "serves 4", but I think it could easily have been dinner for 6.

*I haven't worked out the calories yet, but it's pretty good for you. I'll get on that soon though. Right. Okay, if you assume 10 servings, it's about 220 calories per serving (before the addition of yoghurt/sour cream/cheese/what have you). I'm going with about 1 cup = 1 serving. But that's a rough estimate.

*I would add a tin of Great Northern beans and maybe a tin of kidney beans instead of all black beans, just to make it more interesting. I'm not sure I would keep the cabbage in; unlike Daniel, I'm not convinced it added anything. Also I was really hungry when I was cooking this and didn't spice it enough, so we had to do that after. Oops. This would be really good with a piece of rye bread or maybe fresh Irish soda bread.

*Hey Dan, we should bake some Irish soda bread.

*2/7 on the disaster index.

Spinach and Chickpea Rice Pilaf

This is sort of a deconstructed spanakopita-type thing; Daniel and I tried hard to make it taste kind of Greek-by-way-of-the-Middle-East, and I think it worked. Anyway, it was delicious, and since I made up the recipe I get to blog it. (Dan can blog it too if he wants, I don't care. I'm making things up. Okay.)

ingredients

2 tin chickpeas (approx 32 oz)

1 onion

garlic

1.5 c. brown rice and 3 c. water or so

some veg bullion (we used one packet, really not worthwhile)

feta

2 boxes frozen spinach (20 oz or possibly grams, I forget)

1.5 T olive oil

lemon juice, cumin, fennel, dill, coriander, nutmeg, pepper, salt, thyme, basil, etc.

methodology

1. chop onion and saute in pan with garlic and olive oil plus cumin, fennel, dill, coriander, thyme, nutmeg, salt, pepper [&c...]. Put rice, bullion, and water in another pan and cook until it is done.

2. Melt spinach in microwave, squeeze out, and add to onion mixture (be careful, it will be quite hot; do not burn yourself). Add in chickpeas. When rice is done, mix it in and adjust the seasoning to taste. Squeeze half a lemon over it, sprinkle with feta, serve.

notes

*If you had dry (soaked) chickpeas you could stick them in the pan with the rice and cook it all together, but since ours were pre-cooked and we had limited pot space, we figured why bother.

*This was super awesome and approximately 250 calories per serving. Actually that's a very generous estimate.

*This makes a lot. Easily enough for five people. We were two people. I cannot scale recipes for love or money. Apparently.

*Scores a perfect 0/7 on the disaster scale.

*No more notes; I'm going to bed. Make sure you read the comic.

2007: in case you were wondering

Year-end total: 224,200 words, including two complete drafts of an 80,000 (ish) word novel and almost 40,000 words of another novel, plus various sundries (a couple of short stories, part of a play, some blog entries, some freelance writing, at least one poem, and some travel essays). Not included in the count are the 25 or so recipes I posted here.

I also drew 107 comics (with 105 of those seeing publication on the online).

In case you're having trouble reading it, the black bars are words per day (counted in the blue numbers on the right), the yellow counts the total words to date (counted in the black numbers on the left), and the blue line is a moving average (I think 15 days, but maybe 30, I'm not sure, and Quattro just froze again, so I can't tell you).

I'm not really an optimist, and the best I can say is probably things won't get much worse this coming year. But Happy New Year anyway.