Category Archives: Recipes

Chicken and ducklings

I have a certain in-law who, since childhood, has enjoyed eating “chicken and ducklings,” a dish perhaps better known as chicken and dumplings.  Being vegetarian, my version of this dish contains neither chicken nor ducklings, but it’s packed with tons of flavor, protein, and other goodness to warm you from the inside out.

As you’ll see, the recipe is just a starting point.  You could make the dumplings and add them to just about any broth-y vegetable soup, and it would be delicious.  Last night, Matthew made our Country Vegetable Soup using dumplings instead of pasta.

Chicken and duckling soup
Recipe by Melissa

Ingredients
1 c. orange lentils*
4-5 c. water
6c. veggie broth (can subs. water and extra spices)
bay leaf
thyme, marjoram, oregano, cumin (season to taste)
olive oil
1-2 c. onion and/or leeks
1 bulb garlic
2-4 stalks of celery
2 c. carrots or sweet potatoes or butternut squash
3-4 c. cabbage (it will cook down!)
optional other veggies — see directions for ideas
1 recipe Bean Flour Ducklings Dumplings (recipe below)

Directions
Place lentils and bay leaf in large pot and cover with water.  Bring to a boil and turn down to simmer.  You may need to check back and add more water or broth as they cook.

Chop your veggies.  The ingredient list is just a starting point.  You can add or subtract veggies as you wish.  Green beans, potatoes, frozen corn, and/or frozen peas work well here, too.

If you haven’t already made the dumpling batter, make it now.

Saute onion/leeks and celery in olive oil until tender, about 10 minutes.  Add garlic and saute for an additional minute.  Add herbs and spices to the mix.

Check on lentils.  When they are starting to fall apart, add the sauteed mix, along with the other chopped veggies**, and more water or stock to the lentil pot.  Bring back to a boil, and then lower to a simmer.  If using water or no-sodium broth, you will need to add salt.  Start with 1 t. and add more to taste.

Once all veggies are in the pot, drop in dumpling batter by the spoonful.  You will need enough extra broth in the pot for the dumplings.  If your pot is too full, you can cook the dumplings in a separate pot of broth.  Cover pot and cook dumplings for 15 minutes.

Serve, let cool a bit so you don’t burn your mouth, and enjoy!

*Split and hulled, these tiny lentils break down very quickly and will dissolve, creating a thick, rich base for the soup.
**For ideal veggie cookage, start by adding the veggies that take longer to cook, like potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, etc.  Let simmer for 10-15 minutes, then add tender veggies, like cabbage and green beans.  Many frozen veggies can be added right at the end of cooking, and they’ll help cool the soup for eating.

Pumpkin lasagna

Two months ago, I wrote about an amazing pumpkin lasagna that we Matthew made, wherein I promised a recipe “soon,” and left you hanging.  Soon has come and gone, but we recreated the lasagna for our New Year’s Eve meal, making [an almost] vegan version to accommodate my current dairy-free diet.

We originally made an only-slightly-adapted version, using some cashew butter, but retaining the cream and Parmesan cheese.  The recipe here is vegan, except for our homemade noodles, which contain eggs.  Once again, we benefited from having homegrown Swiss chard and squash prepped (from the deep freeze this time), as well as the noodles made up from a previous night.

Happy cooking and eating!

Pumpkin Lasagna
By Matthew
Adapted from Food & Wine

Ingredients (makes 8 very generous servings, or 12 smaller portions)
4 tablespoons olive oil
1 ½ cups onions, chopped
2 pounds Swiss chard, washed well and chopped
2 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 teaspoon fresh-ground black pepper
2 Tablespoons sage
1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
6 cups pumpkin (or any winter squash) puree (or two large cans)
9 amaretti cookies, crumbled
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
1  cup bread crumb topping (see recipe below)
1/2 cup cashew butter
3/4 cup warm water
1/2 cup soymilk
1 recipe homemade spelt pasta cut into angel ribbon lasagna (or 9 whole wheat no bake lasagna noodles)
 

Directions
In a large cast iron or nonstick frying pan, heat the oil over moderately low heat. Add the onions and cook, stirring occasionally, until translucent, about 5 minutes. Increase the heat to moderately high and add the chard, 1 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon pepper, 1 Tablespoon sage, and 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg. Cook, stirring, until the chard is wilted and no liquid remains in the pan, 5 to 10 minutes.

Combine the cashew butter and warm water to create a cashew sauce.

Heat the oven to 400°. In a medium bowl, mix together 6 cups of the pumpkin, amaretti cookie crumbles, cashew sauce (from previous step), and the remaining 1 1/2 teaspoons salt, 1 teaspoon, pepper, 1 Tablespoon sage, and 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg.

Pour the soymilk into a 9-by-13-inch baking dish. Top the soymilk with one
third of the noodles, then spread 1/3 of the pumpkin mixture over the noodles. Layer half the Swiss chard over the pumpkin and top with a second layer of noodles. Repeat with another layer of pumpkin, Swiss chard, and noodles.

Spread the remaining pumpkin mixture evenly over the top of the lasagne, and sprinkle with the bread crumb topping.  Cover with a cookie sheet on a higher oven rack and bake for 20 minutes. Uncover and bake until golden, about 15 minutes more. Let cool, to set up, for 10 minutes before cutting.

Bread crumb topping
I created this topping as a substitute for the Parmesan cheese in the original recipe.  It came out quite well.

Ingredients
2/3 c. whole wheat bread crumbs
1/3 c. wheat germ
1/3 c. nutritional yeast
1/2 t. garlic powder
1/3 c. vegan butter substitute, like Earth Balance

Directions
Combine dry ingredients in a bowl.  Use a pastry blender to cut in the Earth Balance, creating a crumbly mixture that you can sprinkle on top of the lasagna.


Wonder(ful) bread

We may, on occasion, take things to extremes here in the Green Life household.  On Sunday, I biked to church, and a fellow parishioner commented on my “extreme cycling.”  Perfectly dry pavement, no precipitation on the radar, and almost 32° F?  NOT extreme, especially not with the help of my trusty balaclava and super-warm mittens.  Sometimes one person’s extreme is another person’s normal.

So, bread.  We’ve been making our own bread for quite awhile now, but our neighbors inspired us to branch out a bit.  First, we borrowed their Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day cookbook.  Good concept, but lacking our beloved whole grains.  This led us to the follow-up Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day, which had a couple of recipes that seemed close, but not quite right, due to the presence of some white flour.  Surely we could make a great, basic whole wheat bread with 100% whole wheat!Continue reading “Wonder(ful) bread”

Eat your greens

We have lots of produce coming in from the garden right now, but in sheer bulk, greens, namely, Swiss chard and kale, take the day.

Dino kale (foreground) and White Russian kale

While I get stressed about refrigerator space every time Matthew returns from the garden with a huge bag or cooler-full of greens, they do make for some tasty, healthy eating.

What do I do with these greens?
This Garlicky Greens recipe from 101 Cookbooks is a great starting point for either kale or Swiss chard.  We cooked up a big batch and used it in multiple ways throughout the week — it makes a quick and easy side dish, or pile some cooked greens on top of a piece of toast or a bed of grain, then top with a fried egg for a main dish.

Soups are also a great way to use a bunch of greens.  We currently have a bunch of kale earmarked for this Kale and Black-Eyed Pea soup recipe.  And for something very easy (and tasty and nutritious), check out Emily’s One-Pot Quinoa and Greens.  (The coconut oil is key to this recipe.  Tomatoes also make a good addition to this dish.)

I also made a big batch of crispy kale/kale chips, this time using tips from the Steamy Kitchen for the best way to get a nice, crispy result.  Another hint: Putting too much kale on the tray will prevent the desired crispiness — for best results, do small batches.  Crispy kale is delicious simply salted, or with a drizzle of homemade catsup (okay, pretty much anything is delicious with our homemade catsup, but that’s another story).

Finally, when life gives you Swiss chard (and not spinach, which we’ve never had success growing in quantity), make Swiss Chard Spanakopita!  We followed the Swiss chard prep tips from this recipe*, and then just subbed the appropriate quantity of Swiss chard in our tried-and-true spanakopita recipe.

Swiss chard spanakopita -- mmm, mmm, good!

*Don’t discard the stems!  Unlike some greens (like kale), that do have rather inedible stems, Swiss chard stems are not only 100% edible, they are super delicious.  If the stems are large, you may want to chop them and prepare them separately to ensure adequate cooking.  For this recipe, we blanched the chopped stems for a bit longer than the leaves.

Groaning muffins

On the first night of our Naturally Prepared childbirth class, Samanda introduced us to Groaning Muffins.  Flavorful, hearty muffins with chocolate chips?  Yes, please.

Based on the name, I guess the idea is to make these when you’re IN labor, as a labor project, but I didn’t want to wait.  Also, most movement and activity requires some form of sound effect these days, whether it’s groaning, oofing, or grunting, so my timing was not entirely inappropriate.

She gave us the recipe, and I intended to make them for weeks, but first I had to procure the organic oranges, not something that I keep on hand in the kitchen.  As a rule, I avoid citrus at this time of year, as it is not at all in season in the U.S., but I made an exception for these muffins.

Groaning Muffins
In a food processor, blend the following wet ingredients together (For best results, process the oranges for a couple of minutes by themselves before adding the remaining wet ingredients.):

2 medium-sized *organic* oranges (organic, please, because you’re eating the
whole thing, peel included ! –chopped into pieces, seeds & green nubbin end
removed)
1 cup milk + 1 T white vinegar (soy milk works fine here)
2/3 cup coconut oil or other muffin-friendly equivalent (safflower,
sunflower oil); or 2/3 c. melted butter or Earth Balance
2 large eggs

Combine the following dry ingredients in the mixing bowl :

3 tsp. baking POWDER
2 tsp. baking SODA
½ tsp. salt (omit salt if using Earth Balance or salted butter)
1 cup (110 g) oat bran
2 ½ (330 g) cups whole wheat pastry flour
1 cup (180 g) lightly packed brown sugar

Slowly stir wet ingredients into the dry mix until just combined (do not
over mix), then add:

1 cup choc chips
1 cup chopped (baking) dates

Grease muffin tins before filling. Bake for 20-25 minutes at 350°F.
Makes 24 muffins.

I bought a bag of six oranges, which would have been enough for 3 recipes, but instead I decided to be clever and multiply the above recipe by 1.5, thus using 3 oranges.  This recipe increase almost exceeded the capacity of my food processor, so unless you have a particularly large food processor, stick to the recipe.  My 1.5x recipe yielded 30 muffins plus a mini loaf.

We enjoyed a few fresh and froze most of them for later.  I also chopped and froze the remaining 3 oranges so I can make another batch in a few weeks.

You can find the original Groaning Muffin recipe here.