soup (beef? barley? vegetable? ginger? it doesn't have enough of any of those to be named for them, so just "soup")

Nothing fancy, but I was surprised at how much flavor this had, especially since I didn't add much salt and the stock (I used Imagine "beef flavored cooking stock," low sodium, organic - 99 cent bargain at Grocery Outlet) had only 6% of the RDA of sodium per serving.

Saute:
1 onion, sliced
2 stalks of celery, sliced
about 3 not-huge carrots, sliced
1 clove of garlic, sliced
some salt
some pepper

in oil for a while, maybe 10 minutes.

Add 1 quart of (low-sodium) beef stock, plus two more chopped cloves of garlic, plus about 3/4" cube of fresh ginger, grated, plus a handful or two of barley.

Simmer for half an hour or 45 minutes.

I added in some shredded cabbage toward the end of cooking once, and that was nice too. As was throwing in some chopped fresh tomatoes. It's all good. Mostly I'm just amazed at what beef stock does for a soup (I haven't had the same experience with boxed chicken stock.)

Crockpot/chickpea adventures.

In case you were wondering - or more likely, in case I am wondering, at some yet-unknown point in the future - 3.12 lbs of dried chickpeas is too much for a 5-quart slow cooker. It was overly ambitious of me to even try.  I think a bit over 2 lbs - maybe 2.5 - is about the limit.

In happier news, hey, I have *lots* of cooked chickpeas now.

mushroom quiche - again.

This recipe - from Moosewood - modified:

1 (9 inch) pie crust - deep dish, still frozen - and despite it being deep dish, I still had extra filling

1 1/2 cups grated cheese  - about two thirds swiss and the rest aged Havarti
1 medium onion, chopped
oil for frying
1/4 lb sliced mushrooms[I would have perhaps used more mushrooms and fewer onions]
salt and pepper
thyme


Egg Custard Ingredients

4 eggs  - i used three and a half jumbo - I doubled the recipe
1 cup milk, 1/2 cup half and half (or all half & half)
3 tablespoons flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon mustard powder

freshly grated nutmeg

Sautee onions for a bit, then add mushrooms and thyme and salt and pepper and sautee til soft. Meanwhile, make up custard mixture and grate cheese. Preheat oven to 375*

Dump veggies into crust. Mix cheese with custard mixture, stir, and then dump over veggies while cheese is still evenly dispersed. Bake forty to forty-five minutes.

This also totally works without a crust if you use a good amount of oil spray in the pan - it comes out fine and is solid enough to be sliced. 

Whole wheat pita chips WITHOUT OIL

Recipes for pita chips tell you to brush them with olive oil first.  While oil adds some taste/mouthfeel and is useful if you want salt or other seasonings to adhere to your pita chips, if you're just looking for a crispy version of pita to use as a simple base for some sort of spread, you can skip it. Spreading oil on bread evenly is kind of a pain because bread is porous, and if you're putting cheese or nut butter on your pita chips anyway, oil doesn't really seem worth the additional step.

I preheated the oven to 450 degrees, split a few whole-wheat pocket pitas so that they were single-layer, and cut into wedges. Put on a cookie sheet, bake for about 5 minutes - watching very carefully - and then take them out when they're crisp but not burnt. Let them cool on the sheet. Other recipes suggest longer baking times at cooler temperatures but this seemed fine.

They don't stick to the cookie sheet, and mine didn't need to be flipped halfway through or anything.