Healthy Eating

Last week I went back to being a vegetarian. Except for Thursday, on Thursday I was a pescetarian....but when your eating with a big group of family members that you love, and fra diavalo is the request...well who am I to stand in its way? In any event, the holidays kicked my butt and I gained some weight, so I have been using my time away from here to get caught up on sleep, drink more water than ever before, and realign my eating habits...all very exciting stuff. Moving forward I'll be posting what we're eating, just as before.

But while the zeitgeist is all in favor of meat meat meat (google charcutepalooza...you'll see what im talking about) Im moving toward a veggie existence... Since the man loves veggies, and even eats tofu, the switch has been fairly easy, most of what you'll be seeing here will be...ahem, flexitarian...and will stay true to my desire to reduce the amount of processed food that we consume. I'm looking forward to our kitchen's fresh start! More...

Sweet Potato Gnocchi

Recently here in the kitchen we experienced what I'm (still) calling the Sweet Potato Glut. No we didn't grow our own, but yes, I may have gone a little wild at the market. I had every intention of making these oven fries, to accompany some slow cooker 'pulled pork' sandwiches but never found the gumption, once my guests had arrived. So there I stood facing five rather large sweet potatoes, totally unwilling to let them go to waste. I roasted two of them last weekend, and made muffins with one (I actually made another batch of these this past weekend) and I found a way to stretch the other into dinner. Gnocchi had been something I had been interested in for a long time, and with the help of the man (its alot of work for only one set of hands!) we made a really pleasant dinner, that was both filling and reasonably healthy, (whole wheat flour and sweet potatoes keep me thinking that a bowl of potatoes, dressed in butter and a little thyme make a fairly healthy dinner...as opposed to a bowl of traditional gnocchi anyway) Gnocchi itself isn't very hard, really and if you maintain an organized level of chaos, its not too bad on ones kitchen either.

Sweet Potato Gnocchi
Adapted from Double Delicious, by Jessica Seinfeld


1 3/4 cups ricotta cheese
1/2 cup sweet potato puree
1 large egg, and 1 egg white
1/4 cup grated Romano cheese
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup of all purpose flour

In a mixing bowl combine ricotta cheese, potato puree, eggs,cheese, baking powder, and salt. In a smaller mixing bowl, combine both flours, and mix into wet mix all at the same time. Mix until the flour is incorporated and the color of the dough is uniform (no streaky orange)
Separate the dough into eight sections. Flour your work surface (I used more whole wheat flour) and roll the dough into foot long, inch high logs. Cut the dough with a fork into 1 inch by 1 inch morsels, lightly rolling the fork over one side of the pieces, creating a grooved side. Continue until you have no more dough.

At this point I seperated half of the gnocchi, froze them on a parchment lined baking sheet and later, transfered them to a freezer bag.


Fill a large pot with water, salt it generously and bring it up to a boil. Add the gnocchi, stirring very gently and cook until it just floats sim them off the top with a small mesh strainer, continuing to stir gingerly until all the gnocchi have come up to the surface and been skimmed out. We served these dressed in a little butter and sprinkled with thyme. Perfect comfort food. More...

French Lentils

Every once and a while, the man goes out alone to see friends. Even more rarely, this coincides with having nothing planned for the evening myself. Its times like this that I like to treat myself to some quiet time. Enter the 'single girl for a night' dinner.
Admittedly, when I was a single girl, I consumed mostly a group of foods that come with a 'tm' after the name: Nerd Rope, Red Bull, and Miller Lite. Not exactly the most nutritious, but you'll find it quite slimming for whatever reason. I'm quite sure it had to do with hours of indigestion.
I imagine that if I were single today, I would manage something a bit more graceful than that. Something vegetarian, elegant, and yet satisfying. Comfort food that would at the same time be reasonably healthy and incredibly chic. I would eat it at a bistro set in my Parisian studio apartment, while I looked out over the city of lights. I'm giving myself too much credit here, I know. Instead, I come home, pour wine, wear yoga pants, and clean the pantry while I let little French lentils simmer away in a pot on the stove. I rinse spinach while humming along to the boom box, even though I have a movie on in the next room. (I know its terribly wasteful to run the TV when no one watches, but I come from a big family, when my house is empty I like background noise). I poach an egg, I stir mustard into lentils, dress spinach in acidic champagne vinaigrette, and top the little tower with a poached egg (soft boiled works lovely too). Grasp a hunk of leftover baguette from the fridge, refill your wine, and sit in front of that movie. May I suggest something French?

 

Single Girl French Lentils
Serves one, with a small amount of lentils leftover, for lunch maybe?

1 shallot chopped

1 carrot, chopped

1/2 bulb of fennel, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 tsp herbs de Provence

1 teaspoon ground mustard

1/2 cup French green lentils

1/2 cup white wine (I never use this)

1 1/2 cups vegetable stock

2 tablespoons Dijon mustard

2 tablespoons of olive oil



Add olive oil to a hot pan over medium flame, add onion, carrots and fennel; sweat the veggies until they are softened. Add garlic and spices, stir for another minute or two or until the garlic is fragrant. Taste and season with pepper, you may want to hold the salt, because you still have to add stock, mustard, and wine (if you are using it) which will add more flavor and salt. Add the lentils and stir to combine. If you are using the white wine, add it to the pan and cook off until almost totally reduced / absorbed. Add the broth to the lentils. You should have at least an inch of broth covering the lentil mixture, if not, add additional water.
Cook until all liquid is absorbed and your lentils yield (remember, they were dry, so they were rocks), It should take about about 30 minutes. When they are softened to your liking, stir in some Dijon mustard and season with pepper and salt.
 About 20 minutes into the lentil's simmer, prepare a poached egg, and dress some spinach with lemon and oil and vinegar. Sometimes I cheat and use some bottled champagne vinaigrette. Top the spinach with the hot lentils (this will wilt the spinach ever so slightly,) and then top the lentils with your poached egg. For the really decadent (in so far as dining alone) I like to pour some wine, grab a heel of bread, and maybe some small hunks of a hard cheese and cozy up to my plate.
More...