Dinner Tonight

Meg

(Slightly Spicy) Black Bean Soup

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DSC_0452sm2013 was a busy year. The first eight months were dominated by my internship, followed by studying for and taking the Registered Dietitian exam (I passed! woo hoo!), and settling in to my role as a clinical dietitian at both the hospital and an eating disorder clinic. During the midst of all that, I somehow managed to plan a wedding and a honeymoon. David and I celebrated the start of our new lives together with a festive wedding filled with family and friends and a honeymoon through California’s wine country and San Francisco. It was a great year, but here’s hoping 2014 brings some stability, tranquility, and down time.

But in case 2014 turns out to be just as eventful as last year, we’ll keep making quick and easy dinners like this soup. I developed this recipe last summer, but it fits better as a mid-winter meal.

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Tofu Pan-Fried Rice

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DSC_0755-finalsmI’m not big on new year’s resolutions, but as we start the new year, I do have one goal that I’d like to work on during the coming months. I’d like to take the flavors of my sauces to a higher level. I hope to learn about new flavors and ingredients and experiment with ways to incorporate them into familiar dishes or some of my old favorites. And I want to start using flavors and ingredients that I’m familiar with in bolder, more confident ways.

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Caramelized Brussel Sprouts and Cabbage Pasta

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DSC_0022-1smWhat to make for dinner isn’t always an easy question to answer. As a dietitian, I think cooking at home is one of the best (and really, easiest) ways to help meet your nutrition goals. Whether you need to watch your intake of specific nutrients or ingredients, or you’re looking to improve your health or reach and maintain a healthy weight, it’s much easier to control what you put in your body if you make it yourself. But I also know there are many challenges to deal with between the thought “I want to cook something healthy for dinner” and getting it on the table.

This is a pasta dish I’ve been making recently. I like it for a number of reasons:

1. First, and most important, it tastes good and is a satisfying weeknight meal.
2. It’s just a two pot meal: one to cook the vegetables, one to cook the pasta. This definitely helps make cleanup easier.
3. The ingredients aren’t hard to prep (as I mention below, there are even pre-chopped vegetables that you can buy to save time)
4. The meal isn’t expensive to make. Cabbage and pasta, in particular, are on the inexpensive end of the spectrum. Brussels sprouts, when in season, are reasonable. Pancetta can be pricey, but you can also substitute bacon or omit the meat altogether.
5. It’s a one-and-done kind of meal: it’s a vegetable-packed pasta dish that is so appropriate smack in the middle of winter and the sluggish weeks leading up to spring. The vegetables are mixed right in to the pasta, so you don’t have to make a side dish or salad along with it. Feel free to add it if you want to, but the cabbage and Brussels sprouts combo go a long way all on there own towards making sure you get plenty of vegetables at dinner.

Enough reasons?

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Fig and Goat Cheese Salad

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DSC_0432smThis fig salad is a bridge between summer and fall: the weather is warm enough to warrant something light and easy for dinner, but seeing fresh figs for sale at the store signals the coming of chillier weather. For us here in Boston, a busy summer is melting into a busy fall.  I’m settling into my job as a dietitian at the hospital, and David and I are still humming along as newlyweds.

DSC_0438smWe’ve decorated the windowsills of our apartment with the potted plants that served as the centerpieces at our guests’ tables. We knew early on in the wedding-planning process that we didn’t want large (or expensive) floral arrangements towering over the food, but thinking of a suitable alternative took some time. We worked with a florist who played off the blue theme of the aquarium setting to come up with a display of various plants and herbs housed in blue glass pots.

octo_smDavid put together an assortment aquatic animals as our table numbers, which he based on old ink drawings of sea creatures.

Not that potted plants or aquarium animals have much to do with the fig salad, but it’s fun to share what other creative avenues we’ve gone down this fall, apart from the food we’ve served at our table.

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Greek Hummus Wrap

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VeggieHalves-1smIt was a pretty wild summer. I finished the last rotations of my internship, which involved some very early mornings and very late nights, and somehow David and I managed to plan the details of our wedding, which took place on August 24th. We focused a lot on spending quality time together throughout the summer months to help manage the stress, so there wasn’t a lot of time left for cooking; this simple wrap became a frequently repeated dinner option. So simple that it’s what I chose to serve to my bridesmaids and mom as we all got ready together the morning of the wedding.

greenway_smDavid and I planned a very Bostonian wedding. We’re both long-time residents of Boston’s North End, and we were so happy to have our venues highlight the best of our neighborhood. We got married in historic Old North Church (of “one if by land, two if by sea” fame) and snapped our portraits under the arbor at Christopher Columbus park, right along the harbor.

OldNorthsmAnd we invited our friends and family to join us for dinner and dancing at the New England Aquarium. It was a beautiful night.

fireworks_1smMy mom, my two sisters, two bridesmaids, and I got ready in the parish house right next door to the church. We took turns doing our make up and having our hair done up by the stylists. Because everyone tells you to make sure you eat something on your wedding day, we planned ahead for a picnic (of sorts) that would be festive, celebratory, but not heavy or messy. My sisters brought champagne and I made these wraps.

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Potato and Egg Breakfast Bake

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DSC_0025-1smTo be honest, David and I have become the team to beat at our local bar’s trivia night. A few weeks ago a question came up about the movie “Drop Dead Gorgeous,” a pretty campy movie starring some kinda (but maybe not really) big-name actresses (Kirsten Dunst, Denise Richards, Kirstie Alley, Amy Adams…) about a beauty pageant in small-town Minnesota. Having gone to high school in a fairly small town in Minnesota I got a kick out of that movie’s take on the Minnesotan accent, hunting, and small-town life. Looking back on my actual experience growing up in a small (Lutheran) community in Minnesota, though, I remember the egg bake casseroles brought to church potlucks. Fondly. I wonder how I’d react to them now, but as an 8th grader, I loved the cheesy, eggy squares stuffed full of sausage and glistening with grease. Seriously, I think back in the late ’90s, egg bakes were one of my favorite foods.

DSC_0018-1smBut times and taste buds have changed. As with grilled cheese sandwiches, I think one of the secrets to a really good egg dish is a more minimalist approach to cheese: restraint helps refine the dish. And my more adult take on the egg bake dials down the grease and replaces it with healthy simply roasted bell peppers, broccoli, and potatoes. As we enter the season of holidays where breakfast comes more into focus – Mother’s Day, Easter, or the kegs & eggs of St. Patrick’s day – this transformed version of a former childhood favorite brings the ease of a make-ahead meal with some of classic notes of the egg bake: a hearty just-cheesy-enough breakfast entree that isn’t a complete nutritional wash, either.

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Roasted Potato & Garlic Soup

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A few years ago, my dad gave me an immersion blender for Christmas. It was a fabulous gift, and if you’re doing last-minute Christmas shopping, I would recommend it. This soup is a classic, and I love the combination of the depth of the roasted garlic and the earthiness of the potatoes.

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I’m keeping this post short and sweet. I might come back and expand upon the story of my dad’s present, but I think a rich, luscious soup in the heart of December is a good way to start the Christmas season. As it is though, I finished my last academic semester of my program yesterday, slept three hours last night, and boarded a plane home to see my family at 6:00 a.m. this morning. I’m so thankful to be spending the holiday with my family. Merry Christmas!DSC_0048-1sm

Roasted Potato & Garlic Soup
Ingredients
1 head garlic
3 lbs russet potatoes, washed, skins still on
2 leeks, cleaned, white & light green parts only, thinly sliced
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1/4 cup white wine
5 cups low-sodium or homemade chicken broth
1/4 cup half & half
salt & pepper, to taste
garnish: chives

Steps
1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Stick the potatoes a few times with a fork, then roast the potatoes for 1 hour. After 3o minutes, smother the garlic bulb in olive oil (with the papery layer still intact) and add to the baking sheet. Pull both the garlic and potatoes out after another 30 minutes. Allow to cool, then skin the potatoes and squeeze the garlic bulbs out of their paper shells.

2. Heat the olive oil in a large sauce pan or dutch oven. Cook the leeks for about 10 minutes, until soft. Add the white wine and scrape off any brown bits from the bottom of the pan. Add the broth, potatoes, and garlic, and simmer together for 20 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

3. Using either an immersion blender or a stand blender, puree until smooth. Serve hot, garnishing with chopped chives.



Crisp Vegetables & Pasta Smothered with Satay Sauce

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Would it surprise anyone to know that my fall has been filled with quick, simple dinners that translate well into leftovers that I can tote to work or school the next day?  Life has been intensely busy with school, work at the clinic, and wedding planning. Most of it has been challenging and fun, but it hasn’t left a lot of time for the cooking projects I’d like to do. The transition from fall to winter is one of my favorite seasons in part because of all the produce and comfort foods that are great this time of year. It isn’t quite winter here yet in Boston, so hopefully I’ll get to showcase a few more of my ideas. And I only have two more weeks left in my Master’s program before my internship starts, so I can see the light at the end of the tunnel work-wise. 

But for now, I’m really focusing on simple, cheap, and delicious. Which, luckily, this satay pasta is. It’s got the crunch and brightness of fresh vegetables cooked to just tender, with a luscious peanut sauce on top. I’ve made the pasta + tofu + peanut sauce combination before, and I think it’s a great introduction to new flavors and ingredients (like tofu or bok choy).

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Sliced Tomato Salad

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September and August have been enveloped by two of the most expensive and time-consuming tasks I’ve ever taken on: wedding planning and graduate school. It’s been fun and challenging, and it’s so exciting to think about how different my life might be in a year from now, but it doesn’t leave a lot of time for cooking,  no matter how well-intentioned my weekends are.

Luckily, the fall lends itself to easily prepared lunches, snacks, and dinners. I’ve relied heavily on afternoon noshes of this simple tomato salad and multiple batches of homemade guacamole on the weekend. I’ve bought a bundle of tomatoes from the grocery store, slice them, de-seed them (if necessary), and drizzle them with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, basil, and salt. It’s so easy, there really isn’t an accompanying recipe. It’s just the clean, fresh flavors of the season, simply prepared, and eaten in the middle of a Saturday study session or in between researching vendors.

Happily, I’ve got the first exam of the semester under my belt, and we’ve squared away contracts with most of the key vendors involved in our wedding. It feels great to get so much accomplished, but at the same time, I can’t wait to get back into more cooking. Hearty, flavorful pasta dishes, warming soups, and roasted vegetables will all hopefully be on the table (and on this blog) in the progressively cooler months to come. Undoubtedly, I’ll focus on some make-ahead meals that I’ve been taking to lunch and some weeknight favorites that have been quick and inexpensive to make (as we’re now solidly in saving mode). But for now, I’ll leave you with the best of summer’s last produce, to enjoy while it lasts.

Simple Chopped Summer Salad

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On a Saturday morning back in July, my Recipe Redux post was supposed to go up along with other dietitians’ and healthy cooking bloggers’ recipes. Instead, I spent my weekend in New York City celebrating with my sister. We spent our afternoons noshing on sushi and Italian food (not at the same time), exploring her new neighborhood, and sipping red wine while watching Say Yes to the Dress and scoping out dresses online. And that was all just icing on the cake; the exciting news is that David and I got engaged! The past few weeks have been a fabulous whirlwind of excitement, so I’m confident the Reduxers will forgive my absence.

If I hadn’t been wrapped up in the all the excitement, and if I’d posted what I was supposed to be posting, it would have been this simple summer salad. The theme this time around was no-cook summer meals. I find it amusing that all through July I posted recipes that required cranking the oven in the middle of a summer heat wave, and when the Recipe Redux challenge rolled around I didn’t put together a no-cook meal for all of you. But this is actually a recipe that’s been popping up frequently in my summer rotation, especially for lunches and dinners when we get a late start or have nothing else immediately on hand. The last two weeks have been a constant string of meeting friends for after-work drinks and dining out, so I’ve been grateful for this dish as a healthy fall-back recipe to eat at work or later in the evening.

This recipe, which isn’t so much a recipe as it is a combination of my favorite simple ingredients at the moment, is very much in keeping with my Southwestern-flavored summer. I’ve been on a huge avocado kick lately, and topping this salad off with chunks of ripe avocado is what makes it one of my favorites. A blend of cherry tomatoes, red bell pepper, and avocado is mixed with chopped romaine hearts and arugula.  I finished it all finished off with a drizzle of a tangy, punchy, mustard vinaigrette. I sometimes think salads are hard to eat if all the individual ingredients are clumped in isolated piles rather than mixed in, so I think it’s a must that all the ingredients get chopped and thoroughly tossed together. It makes it so much more accessible. It is simple and satisfying. But I hesitated a bit before posting a salad as a no-cook meal. After all, the combination of ingredients isn’t exactly a new idea. But in the course of my day working at at diabetes clinic and speaking with a wide variety of people, I’ve found that it isn’t always an easy thing to just combine a bunch of ingredients in a bowl and have it turn out well. A lot of people need direction in taking salads from being mere “rabbit food” to a meal that’s worth making and worth eating. So I put this dish forward as a recipe I love and make over and over again. To keep it simple, I buy a bag of three romaine hearts and some arugula, a pint of cherry tomatoes, two red bell peppers, and two avocados, I use it all to make two salads, and it gets me through a whole week’s worth of lunches (with a tuna sandwich on the side). I make a big batch in our huge yellow bowl, toss everything together so all the ingredients are evenly incorporated throughout, and then parse the whole salad into four different plastic containers.
Simple Chopped Summer Salad

Salad Ingredients
2 romaine lettuce hearts
3 oz. arugula
1 pint cherry tomatoes
1 red bell pepper
1 avocado

Steps
1) Wash and dry both the romaine hearts and the arugula. Chop off the end of the romaine heart and cut the leaves into thin slices. Roughly chop the arugula, then combine the lettuce in a large bowl.
2) Wash the cherry tomatoes and the bell pepper. Halve or quarter the cherry tomatoes and toss into the large bowl along with the lettuce. Cut the red pepper open, remove the ribs and seeds, then chop into thin, short strips. Add to the salad and toss to combine.
3) Using a sharp knife, slice the avocado in half, working around the pit. Twist the two halves apart and remove the pit by firmly lodging the knife in the center and lifting out. Peel the rough outer skin off the avocado, then slice the flesh into chunks. Add to the salad bowl.

Vinaigrette
1 Tablespoon Dijon mustard
2 Tablespoons white wine vinegar
4 Tablespoons olive oil
salt & pepper, to taste

Combine all the ingredients in a small high-walled bowl. Whisk quickly to thoroughly combine. Drizzle over the salad and serve.