Recipe: Quinoa & Greens Pilaf

I was searching for a word for this dinner I made on Saturday night.
It turned out really well so I knew I wanted to share it, but in order to that, it needed a name!

Casserole? No, it’s not baked.
Stir fry? Not quite.
Pilaf? Yea, I think that’ll work.

Quinoa & Greens Pilaf

about 4 servings

Ingredients
1 cup uncooked quinoa
2 cups water (for quinoa)
3 leeks
1 bunch of rainbow chard
1 bunch of kale
1.5 tablespoons peanut oil
3 cloves of garlic, crushed
Sea salt and other spices to taste

1.) Wash and roughly chop kale and chard. Chop the hard stems of the chard into smaller pieces.
2.) Chop white and light green ends of the leeks, wash.
3.) Start cooking quinoa: Boil two cups of water, add quinoa. Let boil for a minute or two and then simmer until water is absorbed.
4.) While quinoa is cooking, heat peanut oil in a high-sided frying pan and stir fry garlic, leeks, and chard until they soften.
5.) Add in kale and chard, plus about 1/4 cup water along with whatever spices you want, mix, and cover. I didn’t use any soy sauce in this one.
6.) When kale and chard are wilted, add in quinoa, and stir everything to blend it together.

A Welcome Success – Penne with Greens

After my epic fail of a dinner on Sunday night (vegetable soup), I was ready to redeem myself with Monday’s dinner.

This is a really simple recipe with a great end product. It’s vegetarian, since we added some cheese, but can easily be modified to be vegan (no cheese) or even sounds good to me as neither with a little spicy sausage crumbles or bacon.

Penne with Greens

about 2 servings

Ingredients
4 ounces dried penne pasta
2 tablespoons olive oil
Greens of your choosing – I used two bunches of kale and three baby bok choy.

Optional seasonings: red pepper flakes, garlic… whatever you’d like. Personally, red pepper flakes are not optional.
Optional topping: freshly grated parmesan

1.) Cook pasta. While waiting for water to boil, wash/chop greens and let dry a bit.
2.) Don’t start to cook the greens until you have put the penne in the boiling water.
3.) If using fresh garlic, saute garlic in one tablespoon of olive oil until fragrant and then add in your greens.
4.) Stir fry greens in the olive oil and add a little bit of water. Once cooked to just before your liking, add in the other tablespoon of olive oil, red pepper flakes, and other dry seasonings. Stir fry until done.
5.) Serve over pasta with grated cheese, if desired.

Irish Lamb Stew – a picture recipe

In the beginning of last month, Tim and I went to an Irish cooking class at Hollander’s in Kerrytown. We already made a variation of the scones a few weeks ago and decided that we should make the lamb stew at some point as well.

The recipe is from Rita at The Sage Dish. If you have a the chance you should definitely take one of her classes – very good teacher and everything she makes is very delicious and not too complicated to make at home.

Irish Lamb Stew

makes about 8 servings

Ingredients: lamb, onion, potatoes, carrots, parsley, thyme, salt, pepper, water.

Start to layer! Sliced potatoes first…. (make sure to season with S&P!)

…then half of the lamb….

In goes half the onions and carrots…

another layer of lamb

one more layer with the rest of the onions and carrots

and finish up with chunks of potato!

It’ll go in the oven at 250F for ~3-4 hours, until the meat is very tender and potatoes and carrots are cooked through.

The Results…

Super good! The lamb didn’t quite fall apart like it did when we had it in class (perhaps she had a different cut of meat) but it pretty much tasted the same, especially the liquid. When we make it again I’ll let it cook for longer, we just didn’t have as much time as we had planned for on Sunday.

Two of our friends joined us for dinner and brought some brownies, ice cream, and hot fudge to assemble dessert

…and also brought a sweet board game to play after dinner! I lost

I really enjoy getting to cook dinner for people and actually hang out when I can. Usually we are too busy or our friends are too busy to do anything. I guess that’s what happened when you stop being in university, right?

Tofu Scramble with Veggies and Couscous

I have a tendency to just get to cooking and make up dinner as I go along. Not going to lie, it was semi-planned. I knew it would have tofu, carrots, and broccoli. But after that, it really is all up to chance.

makes 2 servings, with some couscous leftover

Ingredients
Half block of tofu, cut into cubes
3 carrots, peeled and sliced into rounds
Crown of broccoli, cut up
1/4 teaspoon cumin seeds
1/4 teaspoon brown mustard seeds
1 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon curry powder
1 cup dry couscous
2 cups water
2 tablespoons peanut oil

Note: You can use extra virgin olive oil if you like. I’m not sure which one is better for you, but I love the way that peanut oil smells.

1. Heat peanut oil in a pan over medium heat. Add in cumin seeds and mustard seeds, cover.
2. When they start popping, add in tofu. Stir fry tofu and break it down into small pieces and add in carrot and turmeric. Stir to incorporate. Add water as needed so nothing sticks or burns.
3. Once carrots have gotten softer, add some water, the broccoli, and cover to steam the broccoli.
4. Halfway through broccoli steaming, add in curry powder and stir well to incorporate. Steam until broccoli is at your desired crunchiness level.
5. When you start the broccoli steaming, get two cups of water to a boil in a small sauce pan. Once water boils, add couscous, cover, and take off heat. It is done in about five minutes.

I never understood how people could actually eat tofu as if it was scrambled eggs…. well now, I can totally understand. Maybe I’ll have to try out one of those ‘egg’ strata or quiche type dishes from the Veganomicon one of these days.

You should have about half the couscous you made as leftovers. It works out great substituted for rice in a stir fry or cold in a non-pasta pasta salad.