Rabbit Rabbit!

Happy June, again! Keeping with the tradition of saying "rabbit rabbit" to start each month with good luck, I made "White Rabbit" salad. Which is really just cottage cheese and apples. I also stirred in some honey. You're supposed to add some other stuff like nuts (I added sunflower seeds), raisins (nope), and poppy seeds (also nope). But this simple dish is actually pretty good, if a little plain! It's a really good light lunch that's filling and tastes really good. Can you believe that I'm willingly eating cottage cheese?? It might actually even be a new favorite of mine!

I'm ready for these summer classes to be over and to be poolside, reading or kitchen-side, cooking!

Cottage Cheese, Round 4

Today was the biggest step forward in my fight against cottage cheese: actually eating cottage cheese. As in, eating it essentially plain, not cooked in anything. And it honestly wasn't that bad.

Today's lunch was Moosewood's March Hare salad, which is comprised of cottage cheese and chopped vegetables. I think this salad could be replicated with really any ingredients you prefer, but I followed the recipe pretty closely. It calls for: tomato, bell pepper, celery, carrot, scallion, sprouts (I didn't use these because I couldn't find them), and cucumber. Additionally, you can add sunflower seeds, lemon juice, and salt/pepper. Moosewood also recommends optional hard boiled egg, which I did not include, but I think it would be really good!

I ate this on top of some slices of whole wheat bread, to give it a little more substance. It was a surprisingly good lunch! I think I will definitely be eating this in the future, with a few alterations. I want to add the hard boiled egg, to up the protein content. Also, I think I would eliminate the celery because I am really not a fan. I didn't use a LOT of vegetables because I was trying to balance the content; but I think more carrot would be good too.

Overall, though I'm surprised to be on board the cottage cheese train, I'm really happy about it. It's a good vegetarian food to have in my corner!

Happy Easter!

I decided to celebrate today with a holiday meal of frozen pizza. I haven't decided if making a DiGiorno's "Self-Rising Crust" joke is too religiously insensitive or not. But either way, it was delicious.

In addition to my lovely pizza, I thought I should at least attempt to eat like a real grown-up (especially because I also ate a LOT of Reese's peanut butter eggs), so I made Moosewood's Raw Vegetable Salad and Green Dressing. The essential element of this salad is that everything is chopped or grated into bite size pieces so that you don't really even have to chew. This also gave me an opportunity to use a new toy that my Grandma got me, the Salad Shooter! She knew how much I hated cutting things by hand, so she gave me this and I finally got to test it out. It came with a grating and slicing attachment, so I used the grating for the salad tonight. It actually worked really well! For the recipe, you can really use whatever vegetables you want so I had carrot, zucchini, cucumber, and bell pepper. I decided just to grate them all with the salad shooter, so I ended up with a kind of stringy, coleslaw-like blob. But it took about 5 minutes total. I would definitely recommend only using the Salad Shooter with very crispy vegetables. Otherwise things are going to get a little soggy and gross. I mean, it'll still taste fine, but look like mush. Moosewood emphasizes that this salad is supposed to look beautiful and you should serve it in glass bowls. I would not serve mine in a glass bowl.

The green dressing was similarly easy to whip up with my food processor. It basically consists of buttermilk, spinach, a little garlic, zucchini, and herbs. Also a little lemon juice and salt, for flavor. I accidentally forgot about the zucchini and had already used it all in the salad. But I had the rest of the ingredients so I just blended them together. Then, I poured it into the salad bowl and shook everything up! Very yummy! I think this dish is a good side salad for pretty much any dish. It definitely goes great with frozen pizza!

Tabouli--Redux

For dinner tonight (and lunches for the upcoming week) I made Lentil-Bulgur Salad, which Moosewood describes as basically a fancier version of tabouli. The base of the salad is obviously lentils and bulgur with onions, red peppers, parsley, garlic, seasonings, feta cheese, lemon juice, and olive oil. You can also chop up tomatoes to put on the salad right before serving. It takes a while to chill, but when it does, it's absolutely delicious. I may have added a bit too much red onion because it was kinda overpowering. But i still really enjoyed it. I think, like the regular tabouli, it will only get better as a leftover.

I didn't make anything else to go with the salad, but it was still pretty filling. Moosewood recommends warm pita wedges, which would've been delicious. Just another little something to change up the flavor, especially when you've used as much onion as I have. Moosewood also suggests   bringing this dish to a potluck type event, which I think would be great. Even though it definitely works as a main dish, it would be better as a complement to something else. But it's light and yummy, so I know I will enjoy eating it up for lunch for the rest of the week! One more week until Spring Break!

Yummus

      I would count myself as one of those people who is more than a little bit obsessed with hummus. It’s the absolute best. And, as a vegetarian, it is a godsend.

#mylife 

So in addition to Moosewood’s hummus, I made tabouli, a bulgur cold salad that is exceptionally simple but completely delicious. I also made white bean salad topped with pickled red onions. All together, this comprised of a meal called Mezza, which Moosewood describes as a Greek meal made up of a combination of smaller dishes (of which you can pick and choose).

            Now, the great part about all of these dishes is that they require zero actual cooking—except boiling water for the bulgur. But unfortunately, they all require chilling time, which is not great when you’re hungry and want to eat ASAP.

            Another major difficulty is not being able to open your jar of garlic (which is required in every single recipe). Seriously, it was impossible. After trying for literally 20 minutes to open this jar—hot water, rubber band, and duct tape were all to no avail—I went in search of some men in my building to help me out. It took three of them, and the one who finally got it open had to use his football gloves. All I can say is, I need to get me some football gloves.

            The hummus was really good; I added a couple sprinkles of cayenne to give it a little kick. My only critique is that it should be creamier. According to the Internet you have to peel the chickpeas, which is absolutely never gonna happen. It’s still really delicious anyway, and I wouldn’t describe it as gritty or coarse. It’s just not purely smooth. I’m wondering if boiling the chickpeas a bit before blending them would help. I did use canned peas, which were already cooked, but maybe blending them while tender would help accentuate the creaminess. I also added in some olive oil against Moosewood’s recipe because I thought it would help, which I think it did. It definitely helped the texture become smoother, but I didn’t want to add too much oil.

            Tabouli is quickly becoming one of my favorite things. It’s amazing how basic it is: bulgur, lemon juice, a few spices, chopped tomatoes, and green onions. But it’s so yummy!! And another vegetarian dream food. It also keeps well, which means I can keep on eating it all week!

            Obviously, I have been a bit neglectful of this project in the past couple weeks. I’m not too far behind schedule, but I have not been cooking nearly as much as I would like to; I’m sick of eating from the dining hall. But it’s just so comforting and easy to eat there instead of cook. I’ve done so many fewer dishes than usual this week! I am trying to get back to cooking more regularly as January turns to February. Tonight’s meal was a great way to knock out a bunch of recipes! Also, because of my schedule, I have a few days a week where I have to eat away from my apartment, which means brown bag meals or buying food. So I’m trying to find some things that I can transport easily and eat cold; another positive from tonight’s meal.

            The white bean salad and pickled onions is very similar to the recipe my sister made when we all had Spanakopita. It might actually be adapted from Moosewood but I’m not sure. It’s another simple recipe, which like revenge, is best served cold. The pickled onions make a really yummy topping on the salad, and the cider vinegar used gives a nice little tang to the whole dish.

            And addition to all these dishes, I complemented the Mezza with carrot sticks, slices of cucumber, and pita chips. It was a great dinner that I can’t wait to eat as leftovers for the rest of the week! 

Happy Thanksgiving!

As much as we may like to think this holiday is about giving thanks and being with family—which it is—it is mostly about food! As I said before, I have decided to contribute to our Thanksgiving dinner by making the aforementioned cheesecake and a salad (plus accessories). I’ll be coming back to this post throughout the day to edit and update. But as of now, we’re a few hours off from the dinner. I made croutons yesterday and just finished the two salad dressings. I’ll toss together the actual salad closer to dinner. I initially was going to make five recipes from Moosewood, but that didn’t happen. Details below.

            So the croutons were pretty simple. There are two possible ways to make them, according to Moosewood. I chose to do the sautéing and baking method. Basically, you fry some cubed pieces of bread in butter and garlic salt, and then bake them to make them crispy and crunchy. I would recommend pouring the garlic butter over the bread while it's already in the pan. I tried melting the butter first, in the pan, and then adding the bread. It worked pretty well, but some of the pieces were more saturated than others. I also didn’t bake them for very long (Moosewood doesn’t give a time, just until they’re crisp). But I tried one after I took them out of the oven, and it was pretty good! I mean, as good as garlicky, buttery, hard bread can be. We’ll see how they turn out on the salad later.

            I also made two salad dressings: ranch and balsamic vinaigrette. The ranch had the option of including mayonnaise, another Moosewood recipe, which I was planning to do. However, the fates were against me. The recipe calls for cider vinegar and ours was a little past it’s prime. You’d think vinegar couldn’t go bad, but apparently, it can. So I tried just using plain. Also, you’re supposed to mix it all up with a blender/food processor, but I’m lazy and figured I could just do it by hand. Not so much. Nothing really happened and it never turned into a mayonnaise like substance. The vinegar smell was quite over powering and very unappetizing. Again, my laziness shone through and I decided not to include it in the ranch. It’s optional anyway.

            The ranch without the mayonnaise seems fine. I haven’t tried it yet, obviously, so it’s kind of hard to judge. It doesn’t look quite like the correct consistency for ranch dressing, but maybe it’ll thicken up in the fridge. The vinaigrette was very easy! It’s basically just oil and balsamic vinegar, shaken together: hard to screw up. Though I shouldn’t speak so soon…

            I can tell my family is skeptical about my contributions to this dinner as they looked on warily at my mayonnaise making attempts. It’ll be a couple hours before I can either prove them wrong or hang my head in ashamed dismay.

            Okay so dinner and dishes have all been done now. And it was all a great success! Even the cheesecake went over well!

            The salad I made came from Moosewood’s guidelines—I wouldn’t really call it a recipe, but it’s listed as one—on constructing a green salad. According to that method, you’re supposed to start with a large bowl that will become “your special salad bowl”. We have one of these, but I did end up kind of having a hard time tossing everything together. I guess I need to get my own bowl so that it can “acquire more depth and soul with each use” and “enhance something nameless” in me. Step two is the leafy greens. I have never been a fan of lettuce, so I chose to use spinach. Next, you add the extras; I chose feta cheese, pomegranate seeds, cherry tomatoes, and walnuts. I kept the croutons I made earlier on the side. Though the pomegranate juice got EVERYWHERE, it was a quick and simple process to through all of that together. I only got yelled at once, because I forgot to wash the tomatoes (um, did the pilgrims wash their tomatoes? Yeah, didn’t think so.) but everyone shut up once the food was served. My croutons even got several compliments!

The vinaigrette dressing was great on the salad, and the ranch was sub par but still okay. We didn’t have onion flakes, which Moosewood called for, so I used minced pieces of real onion. It gave it a kind of interesting texture.

So my plan for five Moosewood Thanksgiving recipes almost worked! I made four successfully, three of which were actually pretty good! There are a ton of leftovers, so I’ve got my next several meals covered. And I get to cross off a few more recipes from my list! 22/241!