In which there is GARLIC

You know when you leave something for a while and intend to come back really soon and then it's Reading Week and you go out of town and then it's finals time and you're busy with marking and exams and then when you finally get back to it it's been four months and it's May already? Yeah. That happened to me one time, too.

ANYWAYS enough about me. Let's have some food.

I swear one time I had this recipe for some kind of Italian bread stew but I looked for it tonight, because that's what I felt like eating, and all I could find were recipes for Italian bread SALAD or Italian bread SOUP and I didn't want either of those. So I just wung it. (Wung is the past tense of wing, in case you didn't know.) Actually, I'm kind of in the process of winging it right now, so if you ever see this, it means I was successful. If not, then I guess you're not reading this right now. Who knows, maybe after four months no one is reading it anyways!

If you feel like eating my made-up recipe for Italian bread STEW, then you need the following:

3 cups of cubed stale bread
1 large tin of diced tomatoes
1.5 c cooked white beans
1 diced onion
1-5 cloves of garlic, minced (I used 5 because I'm on Team Buffy)
[Optional: some diced prosciutto, which I used because it was in my freezer and I felt like it]
1 diced carrot
two bay leaves
fresh or dried basil to taste. I added about 3 TBS fresh chopped that I had frozen from the summer!
a sprig of fresh rosemary or a bit of dried rosemary
olive oil
garlic salt (if you are so inclined)
salt and pepper
some lovely minced parsley

1. Start by heating a glug of olive oil in a deep-ish pan. Sautee your onions and your prosciutto, if you're using it. Then add the garlic and cook until it's fragrant.

2. Add the rest of the ingredients (down to where it says olive oil) and cover and cook for 10 more minutes on medium and then on low for another 30 minutes.

3. In the last 10 minutes, heat some more olive oil in another pan. Toast the breadcrumbs in the olive oil, tossing with garlic salt to taste. GARLIC! I would recommend watching the breadcrumbs closely as some of mine got a bit overly toasted and had to be eaten before their time.

4. Taste the stew for seasonings and adjust if you need to. When your breadcrumbs are all toasty and garlicky,  serve the stew in bowls and top with a heap of breadcrumbs! And parsley! You could even sprinkle some parmesan cheese on there if you were really feeling decadent!



VERDICT: DELICIOUS. Hence my posting of it here.

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Cheat-Loaf

This loaf, despite being completely vegetarian, has all the familiar comforting taste of a genuine meatloaf, especially when you add the slightly sweet, rich, ketchupy glaze part way through the cooking. And, unlike a regular meatloaf, this one has NINE GRAMS of fiber per slice. NINE. So if your New Year's Resolutions involve eating healthier, this recipe is for you. (Even if you don't have New Year's Resolutions that involve food, sometimes it's a good idea to take a break from meat once in a while. It's cheaper, for one thing, and it's better for you and the environment.)

Part of the secret to how good, and how like a traditional meatloaf this one tastes is because of two secret ingredients. That's right, not one, but two secret ingredients. The first is steak sauce. The original recipe called for A-1 sauce, but we prefer HP so that's what I used, and lots of it. The second, very surprising, secret ingredient is finely chopped dates. I know. But they add a sweet, sticky texture that actually mimics meat surprisingly well. I wouldn't leave them out if I were you.

I'll warn you, though, that it's not as quick a meal to throw together as an actual meat-meat-loaf. If you add up the times on the page of the original recipe, even they have underestimated by at least 20 minutes by their own count. I would say allow 30 minutes for prep, but using the food-processor for everything will speed stuff up. I had to cook my rice as well as my lentils, so that also added time to the recipe, despite my renowned talent for multi-tasking.

I don't want to scare you off, though, because the results are amazing.

So! Now that I've rambled sufficiently, here is the recipe, which I've altered slightly from the original. It makes one large loaf, which we managed to cut into 9 slices. We ate the leftovers the next night and they were equally tasty.

You need:

A food processor (you will save yourself a lot of headache, trust me.)
1 cup dry brown lentils
2 medium carrots, grated or shredded
1 cup finely diced dates (I did mine in the food processor)
1 medium onion, diced
1 stalk celery, diced
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon cumin
2 tablespoons soy sauce
3 tablespoons HP sauce
1/2 cup ground or very finely minced pecans (did 'em in the good ole food processor)
1 1/2 cups cooked brown rice
1/2 cup dry bread crumbs
3 large eggs

Sauce for Topping Loaf:
1/2 cup ketchup
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

First, note that you can do all your chopping in the food processor. You might as well, because you need it anyway to get the lentils the right texture, so if it's already got to be out, you may as well take advantage of it. Do the pecans first, then do the onion, celery, and carrot, and lastly the dates, because they are sticky and you  want to minimize the cleaning effort.

1. Cook your lentils in plenty of boiling water for about 20 minutes, or until they're very soft but not yet mush. Drain them really well and set aside to drain more.

2. Meanwhile, sautee the onion, carrot, celery, and dates in the butter over medium high heat for 6-8 minutes, until things are getting soft (like the onions) and there isn't a lot of liquid. You should stir a lot to make sure all the liquid gets a chance to evaporate. Add the garlic, cumin, soy sauce, and HP sauce and cook for another minute.

3. Pulse the lentils in the food processor until they're smooth. Put them in a big bowl. Pulse the cooked vegetables in the food processor until they're smooth. Add them to the lentils in the big bowl. Mix all this well and make sure it's cool enough to not cook eggs.

4. Add the rest of the ingredients for the loaf to the bowl and mix well. Make a sling with tin foil and put it in the bottom of a loaf pan. Grease the bottom and sides of the pan for easy removal. Spoon in your loaf mixture and cook for 20 minutes at 375ºF.

5. While it's cooking, add the sauce ingredients to a small saucepan and cook on low for 5 minutes, until thickened. After your loaf has cooked for its 20 minutes, take it out and slather it with the sauce. Then put the loaf back in the oven for another 20 minutes.

6. Let it cool for about 10 minutes, then slice and serve as you would normally serve meatloaf! In our house, that means with lots of ketchup.

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Savoury French Lentil Stew

I admit that this is not the prettiest dish. It wasn't a joy to photograph, let me tell you. But what it lacked in aesthetics it more than made up for in flavour!

It's also so seriously easy to make, largely because of my little friend, the slow cooker. You could also do this in a pot and it would still be really easy and probably just as tasty, too! But these days I just have so much going on that by the time I get home around 6 the thought of *starting* dinner makes me want to eat cookies. So my slow cooker is my friend right now. What strategies do you all use to cope with busy days and hot dinners?

This dish could be vegetarian really easily; I used beef stock because it added a depth of flavour and a richness, but vegetable stock would make this a perfect, hearty vegetarian meal.


You need (Serves 4):

3 quart slow cooker
1 tbs olive oil
1 cup French/Puy lentils, rinsed and picked over*
2 large carrots, cut in coins
3 medium potatoes, in large dice
1 medium onion, diced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 sprig of rosemary
1 bay leaf
4 cups beef stock or veggie stock
salt and pepper to taste


To make this in the slow cooker, put all the ingredients in the slow cooker and turn to low. Cook 8-10 hours. Done!

To make this on the stove, heat the oil in a large pot and saute the onions and the garlic until translucent. Add the rest of the ingredients and simmer until the lentils are cooked and the potatoes are soft. Done!


*Because of the long cooking time, Puy or French lentils are important because they hold their shape better than regular brown lentils, but if you don't mind mush then sub other lentils if you like.

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Chili Hand Pies

Or, what to do with leftover chili!

Hand pies are great because they are tiny pies. Everything is better if it is in miniature and/or in pie-form. The hand pie is superior to the regular pie in that the pie crust-to-filling ratio is greater than the traditional pot-pie, for example. This is also a great way to take chili on a picnic or to work/school for lunch, if your life is dull like mine and you don't go on picnics. It is a no mess, no cutlery way to both transport and eat delicious chili, or for that matter, any other stew-like filling.

The pastry, the recipe for which is from here, was delicious. It held together great even with the sloppy filling and was flaky as well as flavourful.

You need:


2 1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 cup cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1 egg, slightly beaten
1/3 cup ice cold water
1.5 cups leftover chili


These instructions are from the above link; She said it so well and I followed them exactly, so here we are:

1. In a food processor fitted with the blade attachment, pulse together the flour, salt, and sugar. Add in the butter, and pulse a few times until the mixture is crumbly and resembles coarse meal. Combine the egg and water in a container (remove all ice pieces). While the processor is running, pour the water/egg mixture in and pulse until mixture just comes together.

2. Pour mixture out onto a floured board and knead a few times to bring all the ingredients together. Dough can be rolled out immediately, or it can be wrapped in plastic and refrigerated for up to 2 days.

OK now back to me.

3. Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface until it is about 18" by 22" and 1/8" thick.

4. Use a knife to cut the dough in half, then each half into thirds so you have six pieces of dough. If they aren't all perfectly square it is fine. Mine weren't all perfectly square and they baked up nicely!

5. Spoon 1/4 cup of chili or filling of your own imagination into one side of the dough, then wet the edges with dampened fingertips and fold over the empty half to cover the filled half. Using a fork, crimp the edges to seal the dough pocket. Poke holes in the top and repeat with the other five pies.

6. Place the pies on a baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes at 425ºF. If you like, brush the tops with a beaten egg prior to baking -- that is how I made mine all shiny like that.

To reheat, ideally a toaster oven would be used, but I didn't have one this afternoon at school and used a microwave; it was still delicious.

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