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.

cabbage soup

I am really only posting this so I'll think of it next time I'm looking for something simple to cook.  I've been having a really hard time finding things to cook that don't do weird things to my blood sugar or at least what I imagine is my blood sugar and this seems to be decent. In the past I haven't added anything for protein to cabbage soup and I think adding the sausage really helps.

In a 5 or 6 qt crock pot:

-about three quarters of a large head of cabbage, chopped (as much as will fit in the crock pot basically)
-one medium onion, chopped
-tomato stuff, chopped or food processed - about a  28 oz can worth
- 3 carrots
-3-4 cloves of garlic
-freshly ground pepper
-a few tbs of bouillon powder
-vegetarian sausage, sliced (I have been using the Tofurkey italian sausages, which are particularly cheap at Trader Joe's) Sometimes I add them at the end instead.
-water to cover - boiling water will speed everything up

Cook on high for a few hours, then for the last forty-five minutes or so, add
-a few handfuls of barley (optional)

Almond Bundt Cake III (I think, for this blog)

I used this recipe:
http://www.bubblews.com/news/914894-almond-bundt-cake-recipe

but I made my own almond paste, using this recipe:
http://candy.about.com/od/nutcandyrecipes/r/Easy-Almond-Paste.htm
(actually, I used 3/4 of that recipe - 12 oz out of a supposed 16). I used blanched slivered almonds from trader joes and I doubled the amount of almond extract it called for. It looks nice and smooth and not homemade at all. I let it process for a long long time.

For the cake itself - the recipe's unclear but I mixed the sugar with the almond paste first (I pretty much had to use my hands instead of hte mixer) and then added in the butter. It took some strength to get it done--I was glad for my heavy glass bowl, which stayed in place as I used to hands to corral the mixer. (Oh to have a KitchenAid!)

I was happy with how it turned out. Also this bundt cake was a little taller than some bundt cakes I've made (my pan has tall sides so cakes never fill it up entirely.  It says 10-15 cups on it.) 

not really a recipe at all - cost of black beans from scratch

I'm always curious how dried beans translate to cooked beans in quantity.

Last night I cooked 2 lbs of dried black beans (in the crockpot, which is the best way ever to do it because you don't have to watch it - also the texture is good) and came up with about 11 cups cooked. This included a little bit of liquid but it was mostly solid beans.

Canned black beans claim to be 3.5 servings of 1/2 cup each, which translates to 1 3/4 cups. So for $2.77 of dried beans, I got a bit over 6 cans' worth. So a bit less than 50 cents a "can." Not a huge bargain, probably, since you can generally find beans for $1 a can or maybe 89 cents, but:

a) doing this induces me to eat more beans because I have them around
b) my beans were organic, that's something
c) cans sometimes contain BPA; my beans do not
d) metal cans feel wasteful in general
e) you can probably find dried beans for less than the $1.39/lb that mine were.