I've returned! And with delicious lentils!

Hello, everyone!  I know I haven't posted anything in awhile, and it's because I haven't had any amazing new recipes to share--UNTIL NOW. 
I decided to try a meatless meal one night a week for awhile for various reasons, and came upon this nice little vegan lentil burger recipe today that sounded promising, and of course when I was done the recipe looked kind of unrecognizable.  But hey, the method's there!
I'm counting this as sorta vegetarian because I didn't use any real meat, just chicken broth when I was cooking the lentils.  And spur-of-the-moment I decided to make a little sauce to accompany it, and oh man it made a difference.  Let me know what you think in the comments!  Glad to be back.

Lentil "burgers" with sour cream sauce
For the burgers:
1 cup uncooked lentils (I used green, use whatever you like)
1 cup uncooked brown rice
4 cups chicken stock
1 cup finely grated carrot
1 small onion, finely grated
1.5 cups uncooked oatmeal
2-3 tsp. turmeric
1 tsp. ground coriander
2 Tbsp olive oil (for four burgers)

For the sour cream sauce:
1/3 cup reduced fat sour cream
1 Tbsp dillweed

Bring the 4 cups of chicken stock to a boil in a medium-large saucepan; add lentils and brown rice.  Stir, reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer for around 45 minutes, until the liquid is absorbed.  Remove from heat, and cool to room temperature.
While your lentils and rice are cooling, grate the carrot and onion.  Once the cooked ingredients are cool enough, mix everything together.  Form patties with your hands (this should make around 8 very satisfying patties), and allow to rest for 5-10 minutes while you heat up your pan to fry them. Extra burgers freeze beautifully if left uncooked.
Add oil to your pan, and heat until oil is shimmery but not smoking over medium/medium-high heat.  Add the burgers, and brown on both sides (this should take about 3 minutes per side).  While they're cooking, mix up the sour cream and dill.  Once the burgers look crispy and reasonably done, plate them and serve with the sour cream sauce.

Peter and I really enjoyed these, and were both satisfied by one patty apiece.  We suggest you try them with some roasted tomatoes or other vegetable; just toss some veggies with a tablespoon of olive oil and a generous sprinkling of kosher salt, and bake at 325 until they look delicious.
Happy eating!

Beef stroganoff, awesome style

Guys, I totally rocked dinner last night.  Once in awhile I get the urge to prove to my fiance that "the kid's still got it," and make something that will make him REALLY happy.  And last night, I successfully accomplished this with beef stroganoff and a side dish of roasted green beans (method borrowed from my sister, who read about it in America's Test Kitchen cookbook).  YUM. Let's kick it.

Beef stroganoff
1 top round sirloin steak, 1/2-1 inch thick
3 tbsp unsalted butter, divided
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
salt & pepper to taste
3/4 large vidalia onion, thinly sliced
1 handful mini cremini mushrooms, bottoms removed & thinly sliced
2 cups beef broth
1 tsp low-sodium soy sauce
1/2 cup (a couple healthy dollops) light sour cream

1/2 lb thin spaghetti or other "long" pasta, cooked and drained

Thinly slice the steak against the grain into 1/4" thick strips, and halve the longer strips from the middle of the cut.  Heat two tablespoons of the butter in a large pan over medium-high heat.  Place the flour in a pie pan or bowl and season with salt and pepper; dredge the beef in this mixture.  Shaking off the excess flour, arrange the strips in the melted butter so it forms one layer.  Now LEAVE IT ALONE, flipping the strips once after 3-4 minutes.  Brown on the other side, and then place the steak strips in a bowl, reserving the liquid in the pan. 
Return pan to heat, and add the other tablespoon of butter, reducing heat to medium.  After the butter has melted, add the onions and season with pepper, tossing them to get them evenly coated.  Saute, stirring occasionally, until onions are transluscent, and then add the mushrooms.  When mushrooms start to release their liquid, add the beef broth and soy sauce, simmering this mixture until the mushrooms and onions are soft to the touch.  Uncover, and reduce the sauce by around 1/3. 
Add the beef strips back in; the flour on the strips will help thicken the sauce further.  Once the steak has heated throug, add sour cream, stirring to mix it in thoroughly.  Serve over pasta.

Roasted green beans
1 lb greenbeans
olive oil (seasoned if you have any)
salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 400.  Snap the ends off the green beans, and  arrange in a single layer on a cookie sheet sprayed with non-stick oven spray.  Sprinkle with olive oil, and season liberally with salt and pepper.  Toss to evenly coat the beans.  Once oven is preheated, roast the beans for 21 minutes, tossing the beans in the pan a couple of times in there.  Serve, and enjoy!

On Not Eating Out

            After a “spendy” May this year, Peter and I made a decision in June to tighten our belts financially.  Reviewing our bank statements and recollections/waistlines, we determined that regular eating out (for us, that means eating out on a weekly, sometimes two to three times a week, basis) was an area on which we focused too much of our income.  It made us heavier, we didn’t have as much money, and we missed the bonding and together time that cooking on a daily basis brought us.  Since we’re both, frankly, pretty good cooks who know each other’s tastes, we approach it from a team effort a lot of times.  Eating out, often with our friends, was taking away from the time we just wanted for just the two of us.  Hence, we endeavored to be better to ourselves physically, financially, and relationally.  We told our friends and family that we weren’t eating out for the month of June, and would be cooking all our meals (with the exception of Peter eating at the cafeteria in his workplace). 

            I’m not going to lie, this decision made June a hard month for us in a number of ways.  Due to the nature of Peter’s schedule and my inability to wait until 8pm most nights to eat dinner, a lot of the responsibility for cooking fell to me during the weekdays.   Since I’m a stay-at-home partner at this point, I feel a certain obligation to cook more and contribute more to the maintenance of our household since I don’t have means to give financially to our partnership at this point.  Don’t worry, this isn’t a “I’m a woman and hence ONLY I CAN COOK AND CLEAN” statement, and Peter has assured me that if he ever finds himself a stay-at-home partner, he’ll do the same (edit: he actually has done this, for the two months that we lived together when I was working a shift job at a grocery store and he was a graduate student).  It’s just a matter of logistics and wanting to feel productive in some fashion. 

So, in some ways, this made me feel more like I was a domestic partner, which helped me feel productive, but it also is hard to turn off the monologue in your head that you don’t WANT to be cooking supper five days a week; you have a master’s degree and should be raising money for non-profits!  It’s interesting how second-wave feminism has encouraged us to do it ALL: work, take care of a household and be a good partner.  But when one of those pieces is missing, there’s this sense of guilt that I, and a lot of stay-at-home partners I’ve read, feel.  We were told that we’re professionally competent and can contribute to the workforce and “ought to” do just that, but when the economy tanks and we find ourselves not able to fulfill that “ought to” voice in our heads, we struggle to find balance.  To find meaning without the three “pieces:” professional, homemaker, partner (and, down the line, I’m sure “mother” will enter the picture as well).  I know this isn’t a new point or even that unique of a story, it’s just something that I never expected to happen to me.  I thought I’d be an “armchair feminist,” if you will, defending women’s rights to do whatever the hell the wanted, whether that was being a cutthroat executive, stay-at-home mom, part-time professional, etc.  I expected to have to only really deal with the logistical challenges of finding a work-life balance when I added kids to the equation down the line.  I didn’t plan, in my years of higher education and initial career, to be tackling these issues as an unmarried twentysomething who moved to a brand-new city during one of the worst economic episodes in history. 

Clearly, my tangent above is not something that I only realized when we stopped eating out and I started cooking on an even more regular basis than before.  But it served as a catalyst for me to really sort out what I was thinking about all this, instead of feeling emotions and assigning some simplified reason for them, then telling Peter, “I need a pick-me-up, so let’s get some burgers and beer.”  It’s funny, actually, how we can fall into these patterns of not dealing with troubling patterns of thought and behavior by distracting ourselves with shopping, eating out, etc.  We escape home to break out of what we do in it.  Staying home for that month made me really face these contradictions in my own head, and sort out what I really think about myself and the situation in which Peter and I find ourselves.  Thankfully, at the end of the month, I found my head in a good place, and with some exciting professional developments to boot.  Therefore, we broke our ban on eating out at the very end of June, when I found out I had gotten a special events internship with a major agency in Chicago: Metropolitan Family Services.  Granted, it’s still unpaid, but I get my own space, professional dignity, and tasks that actually challenge me in ways that I can use down the road.  That meal, after a month of sacrifice and blogging and creativity, tasted and felt better than all the meals in May put together. 

Peter and I have now started eating out again, but not nearly as frequently.  We’re willing to take into consideration logistics and context for staying home versus just grabbing something if we’re at an airport or getting into town after a week traveling.  But we’ve resolved that instead of eating out 5+ times a month at pubs, bars and basic restaurants, we’d rather have one or two meals that are prepared by formidably talented people in an awesome atmosphere.  In other words, we’d rather spend $100 at one meal for two on a night that we’ve planned for than spend $200 on burgers and beer once or twice a week with whoever wants to meet up with us.  It’s working so far, and the freedom to stay in our own house with no shame about what I’m doing or not doing is the best part.  

So what do you all think?  Is this struggle to find balance in your work and the rest of your roles in life made easier or harder by having a paying job?  Why?  

Summery hot and sour soup

Hello, lovelies!
I took a break from posting on Friday since I didn't have many culinary ideas the last week or so.  But after my friend's wedding yesterday and having a (tasty) steak dinner at the reception, Peter and I were planning on a lighter meal tonight.  So, inspired by a cartoon we saw this morning, I endeavored to make a soup we've been experimenting with a bit recently.
Yes, it's hot, but it's a pretty light soup and incorporates some Asian tastes that we love.  It's basically a loose interpretation of hot-and-sour soup, with a lot more veggies than the versions typically served in restaurants.  Suggestions for changes to the recipe, as always, follow.

Chicken Hot and Sour Soup
2 skinless, boneless chicken breasts
1/2 medium vidalia onion, chopped
1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1.5 tsp ground ginger
1/2 Tbsp. ground cumin
Salt and pepper to taste

2 cups chicken stock
2 cups water
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
1 Tbsp soy sauce

1/2 cup carrots, chopped
1/2 cup red and green bell pepper, chopped
1 jalapeno or serrano pepper, chopped
1/3 cup mushrooms, sliced
1/4 cup frozen peas
2 oz. dry pasta such as angel hair or spaghetti

Chop the chicken into bite-size pieces, and dice the onion.  Heat olive oil in a 2-quart pot over medium-high heat, and add onion and chicken.  Season liberally with the ginger and cumin, and sprinkle evenly with salt and pepper (easy on the salt, though; we have chicken stock and soy sauce being added later on!).  Saute mixture over medium-high heat until chicken is browned and the bottom of the pan has a decent amount of fond (the brown stuff at the bottom of a pan after you've browned meat). 
At this point, add the chicken stock, water, vinegar and soy sauce.  Bring to a boil, scraping the bottom of the pan to deglaze it.  Add carrots and mushrooms, and lower heat to medium. 

After roughly 2-3 minutes, add the peas, peppers and pasta to the soup (Ha!  The 3 p's!).  I took a picture below of a handy way to measure 2 ounces of pasta: when you grip it in your hand, the diameter of the pasta bundle should be roughly that of a quarter.  The angle of this picture makes it look a bit larger, but it isn't, I assure you!

Simmer over medium heat until the pasta is done, serve, and enjoy!  Serves 3-4.

You'll notice in my actual execution of the soup that I added the peppers and peas before the pasta; don't do that.  It overcooks them, since they're in pretty small pieces and tend to cook rapidly anyway.
Also, this functionally comes out like a soup/noodle bowl, and we both found forks useful in eating this!

Possible variations:
Add whatever veggies you want, really.  I will advocate heavily for keeping carrots in there since it brings a lovely sweetness paired with the sour broth, and the mushrooms bring a rich flavor to the soup.  But, obviously, if you don't like mushrooms or don't like carrots, substitute as needed.
To take out some of the heat, remove the ribs and seeds of the jalapeno/serrano pepper before chopping.
Of course, chopped fresh ginger would always bring a nice depth of flavor to this versus powdered ginger; add it when you're sauteing the chicken and onion.  Water chestnuts and bamboo would also be welcome additions I'm sure. 

As always, I hope you enjoy this recipe as we have!  Take care!

Meatball stir-fry (with a picture!)

I promise, from now on we'll have pictures with the posts I write!  (More than this one, which is brought to you courtesy of Peter's sculpting skills and my remembering at the last minute that we need to take at least ONE picture of the food I make, not grasping that it would probably be useful to also show the finished product.  Whoops.)

After one month of not eating out AT ALL, Peter and I celebrated my getting a fantastic internship at a big non-profit in Chicago by going out for sushi last night.  As delightful and special as it was, we decided upon getting home that we really like just cooking at home on a regular basis and that blogging about what I cook is a big motivation for me to keep pushing myself in that area.  Yay for making adult decisions!
On that note, this week's recipe is something that I made up last Saturday, but is a variation on a stir-fry we usually make around once a week.

Meatball stir-fry with vinegary rice

For the rice:
2 cups water
1 cup white rice
1/4 cup either apple cider (my favorite) or rice (Peter's favorite) vinegar

For the meatballs:
1 lb. 96/4 lean hamburger meat (or 90/10, whatever you prefer)
1.5 tsp toasted or regular sesame seeds
1-2 tsp five spice powder
2 Tbsp soy sauce
2 Tbsp dried onion (or finely chopped fresh onion)
1 Tbsp chili paste such as sri racha,
1 egg

For the vegetable portion of the stir-fry
2/3 cup sliced button mushrooms
1/2 medium sized yellow onion, sliced into 1/4 inch strips
1/2 red bell pepper, halved widthwise and cut into 1/4 inch strips
1/2 cup broccoli florets
1 can sliced bamboo shoots
1 can sliced water chestnuts
2-3 Tbsp soy sauce
2 tsp garlic powder

Combine all the meatball ingredients in a bowl, and mix with your hands (sorry, but it's the most efficient way to do this).  Roll into 1-inch meatballs, and place in a 10-12 inch pan over medium heat.  Feel free to check them every couple of minutes and turn them as necessary to get them browned all over.  They're small, so they tend to cook rather quickly!
While those get going, start the rice.  Place the water in a medium-sized saucepan, cover, and bring to a boil over high heat.  Pour in the rice and vinegar, reduce heat to low, cover and simmer until the rice is done.
When the meatballs are browned all over and seem reasonably cooked through, remove them to a paper towel-lined plate. Don't get rid of the juices in the pan though!  Add the mushrooms, onion and bell pepper to the pan, and increase heat to medium-high.   Sprinkle the veggies with a little garlic powder and the soy sauce.  When the onion is transluscent and the mushrooms have released their juice, add the broccoli, bamboo and water chestnuts.  Cover and simmer for about 2-3 minutes, and then uncover and add the meatballs back into the stir-fry, stirring gently to not break up the meatballs.  Add more soy sauce and garlic to taste, and serve the stir-fry over the rice.  Serves 4.

We both hope you all have a wonderful fourth of July, and I'll see you next week!  Stay cool!

Lazy gazpacho

So this week, I was very lazy on the food front.  Maybe lazy isn't the best word for it so much as "summery."  Enter the cliche about no one wanting to spend time over a hot stove in the summer--now that domesticity is a routine and significant part of my life, I totally get that now!  I DON'T, in fact, want to always come home and just stuff something comforting and rich in my face after a long day.  I can put thought and planning into what P and I eat, which is lovely, although I pump him for ideas once in awhile.  So when I whined to him on Monday that I didn't know what to cook and it was too hot to cook anything (hoping he would relent on our pact to not eat out for the month of June, damn him and his discipline), my crafty fiance suggested gazpacho.  To which I instantly turned up my nose.
See, for being a foodie, I have a weird relationship with fresh tomatoes.  Cook them in any fashion, and I'm fine.  I even like the taste!  It's more that I can't stand the goopy, seedy stuff on the inside of the tomato.  But I've always had gazpacho that was basically squeezed tomatoes and seemed to have no other spicing besides salt and pepper.  Hence my reticence at making it.  BUT once I looked at a couple recipes and realized that if I make it then I can control how it tastes and its consistency, I made the tastiest gazpacho (for my tastes, anyway) I've ever had.  The recipe that follows is REALLY loose, and you should really feel free to play with it as you want.  But here goes.

Lazy girl gazpacho
1 1/2 cups tomatoes (I used grape)
1 cup cucumber, roughly chopped
1/2 red bell pepper, roughly chopped
1 clove garlic
1/8-1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 Tbsp cilantro
2 Tbsp lime juice
Salt and pepper to taste

Wash tomatoes, and place a small saucepan with 2 cups or so of water over high heat.   While water heats up, take a paring knife and lightly cut an x on the bottoms of the tomatoes; they don't have to be deep cuts, just through the skin.  Take a bowl, and fill it with ice and cold tap water. When the water reaches a boil, dump the tomatoes in for about 15-20 seconds.  Immediately take them out of the boiling water, and dump them into the ice bath until they're cool enough to handle; this should take 1-2 minutes.  Gently peel off the skins of the tomatoes, and pop them into your blender.  Add the other ingredients, and puree until smooth.  Taste, and adjust seasonings as needed.  Refrigerate until ready to serve, and enjoy!

Serves 2.

I really liked eating this with crusty bread and salad.  One possible variation is to peel the skin off the cucumber, it completely blends in but might give the soup a slightly different consistency.  Try it if you like, and let me know what you think.  Stay cool!

Tasty, tasty enchiladas

Yay I made something unusually tasty today! I was thinking of something semi-summery to make for dinner last night, and came up with chicken enchiladas. I realized, though, that I really didn't want to use canned enchilada sauce since it doesn't, um, have any flavor. So I made my own! And I had chicken on hand, and so made chicken enchiladas. Glory ensued.
The enchilada sauce is a recipe I (shamefully) took from Emeril Lagasse, damn him. Here we go:

Enchilada Sauce

3 Tbsp. vegetable (or olive, I used olive) oil
1 Tbsp. flour
1/4 cup chili powder
2 cups chicken stock
10 oz. tomato paste (or use 12 oz., and add a little extra stock)
1 tsp. dried oregano
1 tsp. ground cumin
1/2 tsp. salt

Heat oil in a medium saucepan, and add flour. Stir with a wooden spoon and cook for one minute, until there are no lumps of flour left. Then add the chili powder, and stir for 30 seconds. Add stock, paste, and the other spices; bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer, stirring occasionally, for around 15 minutes. The sauce will be velvety and smooth. Taste, and adjust seasonings to your preferences. Enjoy! It's SO much better than the canned kind.

Chicken enchiladas

1 Tbsp. olive oil
1 lb. boneless, skinless thin-sliced chicken breast, diced
1/2 medium or large green bell pepper, diced
1/2 large vidalia onion, diced
1 tsp. garlic powder
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cumin
1 cup frozen corn
1 Tbsp. cilantro
12 taco size corn tortillas
1 batch Enchilada sauce
1 cup shredded mild or sharp cheddar cheese
Nonstick cooking spray

Heat olive oil in a 12-inch pan over medium-high heat. Add chicken, onion and green pepper and add garlic, salt, and cumin. Saute until the chicken is cooked, then add the corn. Cook until corn is unfrozen and not watery anymore. Take off the heat, and stir in cilantro until thoroughly blended in mixture. Spray a 9x13in pan with cooking spray, and then ladle a cup of enchilada sauce into the bottom of the pan. Heat the 12 tortillas in the microwave for about 45 seconds, to make them more pliable. Turn on the broiler in your oven, and adjust the oven rack to second-highest position. To assemble the casserole, take one tortilla and fill with around 1/3 cup of filling. Roll up, and place, seam side down, in the pan. Repeat with the 11 other tortillas, filling the casserole as you go.
Top with the rest of the enchilada sauce, and spread evenly over the enchiladas. Top with cheese, and broil for 2-3 minutes, until cheese is melted and slightly browned. Enjoy!

Serves 4.

Enjoy! Peter and I loved this!

I worship my blender

About a month and a half ago, there was a crisis in the Kate-Peter kitchen. Our blender, a $5 purchase made many, many years ago by Peter, broke. Normally this would not bring things to a screeching halt, but I've been following the Abs Diet and making breakfast smoothies on a daily basis for months now. Without this tool, breakfast (i.e. a race to get food in my body as quickly as possible in the morning) became significantly more difficult. I was a cranky girl.
But there's redemption. For my birthday, Peter bought me a fancy blender. It's made of actual glass and metal (squee!) AND has a pretty decent food processor attachment. So, of course, I've been making smoothies on a very regular basis ever since. This week's recipe is adapted from the Abs Diet peanut butter and jelly smoothie, one of my favorites.

1 cup low-fat or fat-free milk
1 handful frozen whole strawberries
1/3 scoop vanilla protein powder
2 teaspoons natural peanut butter
6 ice cubes

Toss that all in the blender, and watch the magic happen. If your blender is like our old one, defrost the strawberries in the microwave first and crush the ice if possible. The end result is thinner, though, and you should really think about getting a kick-ass blender eventually. It'll make life so, so much easier.

Major life milestone!

Hello everyone,
Sorry I slacked off on this for awhile here. Part of the issue has been a major personal milestone for P and me--we're engaged! I proposed to him in mid-February, and we've been busy since then figuring out some preliminary arrangements for that. We have a venue, which is an old house in St. Paul (I'm going to keep a lot of the details under wraps until invitations go out in a few months), booked for late April 2013. It's so exciting! So that's part of why I haven't had a lot of spare time the last few weeks.
I've also recommitted myself to the job search, and to really focusing on my volunteer work lately. Which has been frustrating and rewarding all at once. I'm learning a whole, WHOLE lot about kids and enjoying the most motivated adult student I've had in my (very short) career so far.
So, a little background on the seeming sloth on this blog. But I came up with a meal last night that was pretty darn tasty, and simple to do! I took some inspiration from the name of "greek pork chops", but then ran with it and used the spices I like best.

Greek-style center cut pork chops with sauteed potatoes
2 center-cut pork chops, bone in
1 tbsp olive oil, divided
2 Tbsp lemon pepper seasoning
salt and pepper to taste
1 1/2 cup water
Dash dry white wine
6 baby-size yukon gold potatoes, sliced
1/2 lemon, cut into wedges

Add 2 tsp. olive oil to a medium-sized pan over medium heat. While oil is heating, sprinkle both sides of pork chops with lemon pepper and s&p combination; rub spices into the meat. When you can smell the olive oil, add the pork chops and saute for five minutes on each side. Add a cup of water, and the white wine. Cover, reduce heat to medium low, and simmer until the liquid has picked up the color from the pan drippings and reduced to a gravy-like consistency. Remove pork chops from the sauce, and add the potatoes to the mixture. Add a touch more salt and pepper to taste. Stir well to coat potatoes in sauce, add remaining 1/2 cup of water. Cover, and simmer until the liquid has been absorbed by the potatoes and they have a light char. Serve with green vegetable of choice and lemon wedges for the pork.

Comfort food for the weekend

Hello again!

For the first time ever as a blogger, I've actually been anticipating putting this post up for a couple of days. After lunch at a restaurant gave me an upset stomach (I think I ate too much raw red onion), I was really craving some mild, classic comfort food for myself and my cold-stricken boyfriend. However, the regular foods which fall into this category that feature hamburger (hamburger casserole, meatloaf and hamburger vegetable soup) either didn't sound good or I didn't have half of the necessary ingredients to execute. Since my boyfriend was making a big deal about how he bought me extra-lean ground beef, I felt obligated to use it to show my gratitude. Funny how that works in relationships, right? But that was my situation.

So I remembered this casserole my mom used to buy once in awhile from Schwann's: shepherd's pie. I remember it as a delicious, but incredibly salty dish with some of my all-time favorite foods: plenty of veggies, mashed potatoes, and a nice little faux gravy to mix the potatoes into. So I endeavored to make this again! And make it BETTER, since there's no point in doing anything without an element of competition, right? The end result was a meshing of a couple online recipes that I liked with a few personal cooking habits. I hope you like it too, and that it comforted you like it did me and Peter!

Shepherd's Pie
For the filling:
1 lb. extra-lean ground beef (96/4 or 90/10 will work equally well)
2 Tbsp. all-purpose flour
1 c. beef broth or stock
2 Tbsp. tomato juice
Salt and pepper to taste
4 c. mixed frozen veggies (I used a cup each of carrots, white corn, green beans and peas)
1 bay leaf
1 Tbsp. paprika or chili powder, whatever's on hand

For the potatoes:
1.25 lb Yukon gold potatoes, cut into chunks (about 4 medium potatoes)
3 cloves garlic, peeled
3/4 c. light sour cream (feel free to be generous, though)
Salt and pepper to taste
Chives

Preheat oven to 400.

Heat a large saucepan over medium heat. Add hamburger to the pan, breaking it up into chunks with a wooden spoon. Season with salt and pepper, and allow to brown until meat is no longer pink, stirring occasionally.

During this time, get the potatoes going. Throw the potatoes and peeled garlic into another saucepan, and add enough water to just cover the potatoes. Cover, set over medium-high heat, and bring to a boil. Boil for around 10-15 minutes, or until potatoes fall apart when a fork is inserted into them.

Drain the fat from the meat. Add the flour, mixing it well with the beef, and then the beef broth and tomato juice. Then add the frozen vegetables, bay leaf and paprika/chili powder. Cover, and simmer for around 10-15 minutes.

When potatoes test done, remove from heat and drain the water from the mixture. Return potatoes to pot, and add the sour cream, salt and pepper. Mash using whatever method you prefer (I like using a pastry cutter), until potatoes are relatively smooth and spreadable.

Spray an 8x8 baking dish with cooking spray. When filling has simmered enough to create a medium-thick gravy, pour into the bottom of the dish. Add mashed potatoes on top of the filling, smoothing them out with the back of a wooden spoon. Garnish with dried chives, or add fresh chives at the end of baking. Bake at 400 for 20-25 minutes, or until potatoes are nicely browned and filling has thickened. Allow to cool for 5 minutes, and enjoy! Serves 6.

Starting out

Hello!

I've tried starting blogs a couple of times now, and I've realized why they don't work. Mainly, I think the problem is that I don't like being so serious on the internet all the time. Maybe if I had a theme that I've always loved and actually feel like I can contribute to the world in this way, I would be more devoted to blogging. So this little project, basically a place for me to post recipes and my food obsessions, already seems more promising than talking about international development or global policy. I love doing that too, and if people are interested in that I can try to post about that kind of thing as well. But I think this will be a good introduction to actually blogging on a regular basis. And if you're reading this, hopefully you have some interest in hearing what I have to say about cooking!

As far as today's post goes, I'm going to just outline a really simple lunch that I love to eat after working out. It's really filling and healthy, and incorporates some of my favorite foods at the moment. So here we go!

Lazy black bean soup
2 tsp olive oil
Half of a baseball-sized yellow onion, chopped
1 large clove garlic, chopped finely
2 tsp. salsa
1 14.5 oz can plain black beans
Low sodium soy sauce, to taste
1 tsp. Better than Bouillon, beef flavor
1-2 teaspoons light sour cream
1 (realistically speaking, 2) whole wheat tortilla

Heat olive oil in a small saucepan over medium-high heat. Once you can smell the oil or get impatient, toss in the onion and garlic. Saute until the onion is starting to turn translucent, then add the salsa and stir that around until it looks well incorporated and the mixture looks juicy. Then add the can of beans, liquid and all, and a few good splashes of soy sauce (I like my food salty, it's a Midwestern thing I think) and the bouillon. Mix all of this together well, and simmer rapidly for about 5-10 minutes, or until impatience sets in again. Pour about half of the mixture into a bowl, and add about a teaspoon of sour cream to it, mixing that in. Eat voraciously, scooping some of it onto the tortilla, and then wipe the whole bowl clean at the end with your spoon/tortilla. Serves 2.

This also reheats really, really well, and is something you can toss together for work the night before and take in. I sometimes add in a little lunchmeat ham and omit the bouillon, or use half (or, if it's just for me, 1 whole) jalapeño pepper in place of the salsa. Play with it! Add what you like! The only really critical ingredients are the onions, garlic and black beans. Apple cider vinegar's also awesome in this, especially if you're not using salsa. What I love about this is that it's pretty healthy, and filling/satisfying enough that I really feel like it's an indulgence. Hope you enjoy, and let me know how it turns out!