Category Archives: Food

One dish kasha dinner

What’s kasha, you ask?  Well, it’s something that’s been sitting around in a jar in my pantry for far too long.

For a more illuminating answer, kasha is made from crushed, roasted buckwheat grains (AKA buckwheat groats).  I buy it in the bulk aisle at WF.  If you have plain buckwheat, you can essentially make your own kasha by toasting the grains in a dry skillet.

The upcoming move puts me in a “use it up or throw it out” mood, and I don’t like throwing away food, so I headed to the internet for some recipe ideas.  In the process, I learned a thing or two about buckwheat, and I’ll be keeping this food in my kitchen arsenal.

Did you know that you can eat kasha raw?  I crunched some grains while I was cooking and added a bit to my granola the next morning.

Searching for inspiration, I found many interesting breakfast-y recipes, but I needed something for dinner.  In the end, I used Meghan’s Buckwheat Sweet Potato Burgers as the inspiration for my creation.

Kasha, Lentil, & BUtternut Squash Bowl

Recipe by Melissa
Serves 6-8

Ingredients
1 1/2 c. kasha (roasted buckwheat groats)
1/2 t. salt
3/4 c. lentils
1 small butternut squash* or two medium sweet potatoes
3 T. good balsamic vinegar**
3 c. shredded or finely chopped cabbage
1 medium onion, diced
Olive oil, for sauteing
1/3 c. almond butter
2 T. soy sauce

Directions
Peel and dice squash or sweet potato and steam until just tender.  Place steamed squash in a large bowl and pour the balsamic vinegar over the warm squash.  Toss to coat.

In the same [now empty] pan you used for steaming the squash, cover the lentils with water (use enough water so there’s an inch above the dry lentils).  Bring to a boil, and then simmer for 20-30 minutes.  You want them tender with just a bit of bite, not mushy, so start checking after 20 minutes.

Drain the lentils, reserving the cooking liquid.  Add the lentils to the bowl with the squash, and sprinkle 1/4 t. salt over the lentils.

Add enough water to the reserved lentil cooking liquid for a total of three cups.  Bring this to a boil, add the kasha and 1/2 t. salt, cover, and simmer until the liquid is absorbed, 10-15 minutes.

While the lentils and/or kasha simmer, saute the onions in some olive oil.  After 10-15 minutes, add the cabbage to the onions with a bit more olive oil, and saute 5 minutes, or until the cabbage is just tender.

Mix 1/3 cup almond butter, 2 T. soy sauce, and 1/3-1/2 cup water to make a nice, thick sauce.

Once the kasha is cooked, combine the grain, lentils, squash, onions, and cabbage.  If either your original pan or bowl are large enough, use this and avoid another dirty dish!

Serve warm with a spoonful of the almond butter sauce on top.

*The last of our winter squash 2011 harvest.

**The balsamic was a last minute idea, and I wasn’t sure how it would work.  I used our favorite balsamic, which is quite sweet and has relatively low acidity.  I wouldn’t recommend just any balsamic here.


Dinner at Local Harvest and a winery trip

After some house and apartment hunting on Wednesday afternoon, our hungry crew (our little fam + Matthew’s mom and sister) needed a place for an early-bird dinner.  Enter Local Harvest Cafe.

Although I’ve been there many times, this was the first visit that necessitated a high chair.  In reply to my tweet asking if they had high chairs — they do (funny how you don’t notice these things when you don’t have kids), they also said they had wooden veggies for baby entertainment.

Sir enjoyed the real food far too much to need the wood version, and I don’t blame him.  We started with some wonderful vegan meatballs made from sweet potato and eggplant, served with a chimichurri sauce.  This was my favorite dish, but also the one thing we didn’t photograph.  Fortunately, the rest of the meal was well-documented.

Matthew and I split the house made gnocchi in cauliflower-pea soup (above), which was that evening’s green plate special, and the chard-wrapped tamales with mushroom filling, served with a side of purple slaw (below).  I love the colors on the tamale plate.

Pam and Rachel shared the wild mushroom stroganoff.  Matthew tried a bite, and proclaimed it the best stroganoff ever, with lots of mushroom flavor — we plan to return soon and order this dish ourselves.

Unfortunately, we didn’t get any photos of Sir enjoying the delicious offerings, but if you’re hoping for a cute baby picture, don’t despair!

We started the holiday weekend early with a trip to Montelle Winery on Friday afternoon.  Despite buying local wines almost exclusively since I’ve lived in St. Louis, I’ve never actually visited one of the wineries.

Gabriel checked things out from the floor while we tasted wines, and later enjoyed the scenic view from the large deck.

While at the winery, we were in the midst of negotiating a verbal offer on a FSBO house.  Between that and a fussy, refusing-to-nurse baby, it was pretty impossible to focus on the wine or relax and enjoy the beautiful scenery.

I’ll admit that I was longing for some baby-free time to really enjoy the wine and setting, but I guess we’ll just have to make another trip to wine country, sooner, rather than later, I hope!

All photos in the post courtesy of Gabriel’s Aunt Rachel.

Fennel pesto

In last week’s garden post, I mentioned Matthew’s biodiversity micro-grant award to grow celeriac and paw paws. However, he actually proposed growing three items, not two, with fennel being the third item.

Poor little fennel felt a bit left out after my omission, so today he’s getting his very own post.

If you’ve bought fennel at the grocery store, you probably got something that looked like this:

Fenouil
Fennel (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Mostly bulb, some stalk, and perhaps a spattering of feathery fronds.

Like a lot of supermarket produce, it looks rather different than the straight-from-the-garden version:

Our fennel (June 2011)

See all the featheriness on top?  The fronds do not keep nearly as well as the bulb, hence the missing top half on most grocery store fennel.

Though this year’s crop is nowhere near that size, we harvested a couple of bulbs for early eating (also making room for the remaining plants to grow larger).  After roasting the bulb, we were left with a lot of fronds, which, I’ll admit, sat in the fridge for quite a few days.

They were at the “use it or toss it to make room for other things” stage.  In Stacy’s recent post about CSA membership, the discussion turned to how to use everything that’s part of the weekly produce delivery.

I hate to waste food, so I chopped the fennel fronds and created a twist on the traditional basil pesto.   If you’re lucky enough to pick up a fresh, locally grown fennel bulb at the farmers’ market or receive one as part of a CSA box, you can make use of the flavorful fronds with this recipe.

Fennel pesto

Recipe by Melissa

Ingredients
1-2 c. chopped fennel fronds and stalks
3/4 c. olive oil
2-3 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
1/4 t. salt
1/4 c. pistachios (I used roasted & salted)
Opt. 1 T. lemon juice, or to taste*

Directions
Add all ingredients to blender or food processor and process until desired smoothness.

Serving Suggestions

  • Stir into a grain, protein, veggie dish.  I combined cooked couscous, rice, and lentils with chopped raw carrots, summer squash, and kohl rabbi.  Mix in the fennel pesto, adjust salt as needed, and you have a quick, easy meal.
  • Add extra lemon juice (and perhaps a bit of water) to create a tasty salad dressing.  If you still have the fennel bulb, make a salad with a bed of greens, roasted fennel and/or thin slices of raw fennel,
    pistachios, and olives.
  • Use any way that you would use basil pesto, e.g., on top of pasta, as a pizza sauce, etc.
  • Spread onto bread for a simple appetizer or as a sandwich ingredient.

*I didn’t add lemon juice in my original recipe, but  it would be a nice addition.

Related post: Monumental fennel (with recipe for roasted fennel)

Since today is Bike to Work Day, here’s my post from BtW Day last year, when I was 32 weeks pregnant: Finally Bike Somewhere Day.

Active transportation tastes better

Our housing hunt continues, and, the day after my birthday, we both took the day off and spent the morning running around (in a car unfortunately) with a realtor looking at houses.

We planned to wrap things up by late morning and follow the house tour whirlwind by treating ourselves to lunch.  Due to excellent efficiency (and a few houses that we weren’t able to see), we were finished before eleven — too early for lunch — so we headed home.  After being in and out of the car all morning, a separate car trip just for lunch was the last thing I wanted.

Bicycles were an option, of course, but I really wanted to WALK somewhere.  Unfortunately, we don’t have many options within walking distance (if you discount a few fast food joints, which are not even on our radar).  My criteria for a walkable non-fast food restaurant led us to La Tropicana, a restaurant we’ve been talking about trying for quite some time now.

After a bit of back and forth with the waiter and chef, we ordered some vegetized versions of a couple of their standard menu items.  While I enjoyed the meal, getting to and from the restaurant on my own two feet was truly my favorite part of the outing. It felt both novel and right at the same time, and reminded me of our time in Italy last year.

I’m a little bummed that we’ve lived here for four years and just now ventured into La Tropicana — within weeks of a move that will most likely take us to a different neighborhood.  We don’t eat out often, but having a good choice within walking distance is worth a lot.  I hope we’ll have some walk & dine options in our new neighborhood (location TBD), because walking to a meal is the best seasoning.

A tale of two cakes — Cake #2

The chocolate cake goodness, started in this post, continued to my birthday weekend.  When Matthew asked what kind of cake I wanted, I gave him a couple of options: 1) something with chocolate and peanut butter (a cake or a tart) or 2) a chocolate pudding cake.

There are various definitions of “pudding cake,” and for Matthew’s birthday a few weeks ago,, I made him a vanilla rum pudding cake that was definitely more pudding than cake.  We actually weren’t sure why the recipe included the word “cake.”

The inspiration for my request came from a blog post I saw back in January.  Yes, I’ve been dreaming of a chocolate cake with vanilla pudding poured over it for over three months!

Unfortunately, like my original inspiration, all of the pudding cake “recipes” I found in online searches involved boxes — boxed cake mix and boxed pudding.  Eh, no thanks.

Instead, Matthew whipped up a chocolate cake (in not much more time than it takes to make a cake from a box) and some delicious, creamy vanilla pudding, creating the cake of my dreams.

He started with the chocolate cake from this recipe, making it as a sheet cake in a 9×13 pan instead of a layer cake.  He made two other changes: 1) regular cocoa powder instead of Dutch-process (it’s the only kind we buy — more antioxidants!) and 2) hot water instead of the coffee.

chocolate pudding cake

Recipe by Matthew

Ingredients
One 9×13 chocolate cake (ingredient list and recipe here)
1/2 c. sugar
2 T. cornstarch
1/4 t. salt
3 large egg yolks
1/2 c. heavy cream
5 t. vanilla
2 scraped vanilla beans (optional but delicious)
2 1/2 c. whole milk
5 T. unsalted butter

Directions
Make the chocolate cake.  Once the cake is in the oven, start on the pudding.

Whisk the sugar, cornstarch, and salt in a medium pan.  Then add the egg yolks, cream, vanilla, and vanilla bean scrapings to the same pan and whisk thoroughly.  Whisk in the milk.

Heat over medium high heat, whisking constantly until the pudding has thickened and is fully bubbling.  Continue heating (and whisking) for an additional thirty seconds, then remove from heat.

Whisk in the butter.  Pour through fine mesh strainer (we skipped this step with no ill results).  Set pudding aside for a few minutes to cool and thicken slightly.

When the cake finishes baking and is still warm, poke holes in the cake at one-inch intervals, using a wooden spoon handle.  Make the holes about 2/3 the depth of the cake, NOT all the way to the bottom of the pan.

Pour the warm vanilla pudding over the warm chocolate cake.  Gently spread pudding and help guide it into the holes.  There will still be a thin layer of pudding covering the top of the cake.

Refrigerate for at least an hour, and then revel in the chocolately, vanilla-y, pudding-y goodness.

Note: If you don’t let it set up in the fridge, you’ll have a big, gooey mess.  However, the cake really does taste best at room temperature, or slightly warmer.  I recommend letting it set as directed, then serving cake and allowing to come to room temperature before eating.