Lentil Bolognese

Still going through the archives and found this one hanging out on my bookcase in my room. This one I legimately made months ago (I think I got it almost a year ago, actually). I'm shocked that I haven't posted it before, honestly. It is a very hearty dish that is filled with flavor. I was a little bit suspicious with the lack of meat, but the lentils actually substitute very well.

As a plus, I got a bunch of extra rosemary, so I have a nice little jar of olive oil that is being infused with rosemary sitting on my countertop. I can't wait to use it again.

This dish uses the typical base for most common soups and dishes: carrots, celery, and onions. At one point, I was making so many of these dishes that I just bought a bunch of each, chopped them all up, and froze them in individual portion sizes. Unfortunately, my freezer door got left open when I went out of town a couple of weekends ago, so I lost most of the things in my freezer. So, I have to start from scratch again with my food stores. Sadness.

In other news, I'm in my last year of training (for now)! It's been a long road, with crazy long hours and lots of missed sleep and not nearly enough time for me to actually explore my interests. This year, I will be working much harder while I'm at work, but will overall be working less. I'm excited to have some of my weekends back.

Lentil Bolognese
Originally found at Blue Apron

1 bunch rosemary, leaves removed from stems and stems discarded
3/4 cup green lentils
3 cloves garlic, chopped
2 carrots, diced
2 stalks celery, diced
1 yellow onion, diced
2 Tbsp tomato paste
1/4 cup verjus rouge*
1 cup water
6 ounces fresh pasta*
Salt and pepper
Olive oil

In a medium pot, bring salted water to a boil. Add the lentils and cook 16-18 minutes, until al dente (slightly firm to the bite). Drain and set aside. Refill the pot with salted water and bring the water to boiling.

Heat 2 Tbsp olive oil in a large, high sided pan over medium-high heat until hot. Add the rosemary leaves, cook 30 seconds to 1 minute, until crispy and fragrant. Remove the rosemary using a slotted spoon or spatula to a paper-towel lined pan. Add garlic, carrots, celery and onion. Season with salt and pepper. Cook 4-6 minutes, stirring frequently, until softened and fragrant. Add tomato paste. Cook an additional 1-2 minutes, until dark red and fragrant. Add lentils, verjus, and water. Simmer 10-12 minutes, until thick and saucy.

While the sauce cooks, add pasta to the pot of boiling water, stirring to prevent the noodles from sticking together. Cook 9-11 minutes, until the pasta is al dente. Reserve 1/2 cup of the pasta water, and drain thoroughly. Add the pasta to the sauce, and add water as needed to thin the sauce enough to coat the pasta. Garnish with fried rosemary.

My Notes:
Verjus rouge is a juice made from unripe grapes. If you cannot easily find it, a good red wine or red wine vinegar can be substituted, but you'll need to adjust it to taste.

For the pasta, fettucini was the original recommendation for this recipe, but any long noodle should do fine. You could also use short noodles (macaroni, etc), as you would any meat sauce, but it will obviously not hold the sauce as well.

Quinoa and Black Bean Enchiladas

I am way behind on my recipes. I have a bunch of photos stored away and a bunch of recipe cards just waiting to be typed up. I'm working on it now that I have a little bit of time to breathe. This recipe I actually made months ago and enjoyed it, and I just found the recipe card while I was cleaning up my kitchen, so I figured it was time to type it up and post it. I'm sure I have a photo somewhere, but I'm not sure where at the moment, so you get a photoless entry for now.

I'm really fascinated with tomatillos now. Which is probably a good thing, since evidently, one of my co-workers has a giant tomatillo plant that is making so much fruit he isn't sure what to do with it all. This recipe calls for them to be roasted first. I had an interesting experience with trying to chop them afterwards, because they just burst apart. So while the recipe calls for them to be chopped, I more like mashed them. The end result was essentially the same, I think.

When I've made salsa verde in the past, it hasn't come out right, but I do think it complements this dish well and adds some to the flavor. I like a little extra spice (though nothing compared to my Asian and Indian friends), so I used a whole Poblano and didn't blink an eye about having some seeds in there. There was nice heat.

Quinoa and Black Bean Enchiladas
Originally found at Blue Apron

1/2 cup quinoa*
4 large tomatillos, husked
1 Poblano pepper
Olive oil
1 yellow onion, diced
2 Tbsp water
2 limes
1 1/4 cup cooked black beans (or 1 can), rinsed
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp chile powder*
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
1/2 tsp ground cumin
4-6 tortillas
1/2 cup shredded Monterey Jack Cheese

Preheat oven to 475F. Bring a pot of salted water to boil. Rinse the quinoa under cold water, then add to boiling water. Cook 16-18 minutes, until tender. Drain and transfer to a medium bowl. Place tomatillos and Poblano pepper on sheet pan. Drizzle with olive oil and roat 10-12 minutes, until browned and softened. When cool enough to handle, finely chop both the pepper and the tomatillos.

To prepare the salsa verde, heat 2 tsp olive oil in a medium pot over medium-high heat until hot. Add the onion, and cook 2-3 minutes until softened. Add water, the chopped tomatillos, and the chopped pepper (to taste). Cook 2-3 minutes, until thickened. Remove from heat and stir in the juice of 1/2 lime.

To the bowl of quinoa, add the beans, all spices, and the juice of 1 lime. Drizzle with olive oil and stir to combine. Spread about 1/2 cup of the filling into the bottom of a baking dish. Spoon 1/4-1/2 cup of filling into each tortilla, roll tightly, then place seam down into the baking dish in a single layer. Pour the salsa verde over the enchiladas and top with cheese. Bake 13-15 minutes, until the cheese is melted and lightly browned. Garnish with remaining lime.

My Notes:
*Red quinoa was initially used in this recipe, and it does add some nice color to the dish. But I imagine just about any quinoa would work in a pinch. For additional flavor, try Chipotle or Ancho chile powder.

This dish was a little on the dry side, but I'm not entirely sure what I can add to the filling to make it more moist. Maybe more cheese? I also had way too much filling for the 4 tortillas that were originally part of this recipe, which is why I increased the number of tortillas compared to the original recipe.

Green Shakshuka

Green Shakshuka
Originally found at Blue Apron

1/2 pound tomatillos, husked and chopped
1/2 poblano pepper, seeds removed
1 yukon gold potato, chopped
1 eight ball squash, chopped into bite sized pieces
4 cloves garlic
1 Tbsp Za'atar
1 cup water
1 lemon
4 eggs
Feta cheese
Olive oil

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. On a sheet pan covered in foil, lay out chopped tomatillos in a single layer and drizzle with a small amount of olive oil. Place the poblano pepper skin side up on the pan and drizzle with olive oil. Roast in oven for 10-12 minutes, until tender. Once cool enough to handle, chop pepper into small pieces.

Meanwhile, in a medium pan (oven-proof, if you have one), heat small amount of oil over medium-high heat. Add potatoes and cook until light brown and tender. Add chopped squash and cook until tender. Add garlic and Za'atar seasoning. Stir to coat potatoes and squash well, cook 1-2 minutes until fragrant. Add chopped tomatillos, chopped pepper, and water. Cook, stirring occasionally, 6-8 minutes until thickened and saucy. Add juice of 1/2 lemon.

Create four small wells in the sauce. Gently crack one egg into each well. Cover pan and either move to the oven, or cook over medium heat for 6-8 minutes, or until egg whites are set and the yolks are cooked to your desired degree of doneness.

Top with feta and serve, garnishing with remaining lemon.

My Notes:
The first time I made shakshuka, I transferred the sauce to an oven-proof dish and finished making it in the oven. It took forever and a day. The second time I made it, I decided to just keep cooking it on the stovetop. And it took while, but it worked, especially after I put the lid on the dish. Now, that's how I make it. If you have a cast iron skillet, it'd probably work best if you put in the oven, but otherwise, I just prefer to use a saucepan to do it.

The eggs you can keep cooking however well you like. I am not a huge fan of poached eggs with runny centers, so I opted to cook them to soft-boiled consistency. The yolk is nice and creamy and crumbles well to mix with the sauce.

I also added a poblano pepper to this dish because traditional shakshuka is made with red peppers, and I like a little heat to my dishes. I happened to have half of a roasted pepper leftover from a previous dish I made, and I chopped it up and added it to the dish. It added a small amount of heat to the dish, and added to the overall green color.

The dish is pareve if you don't add the feta cheese at the end, so that's the category I'm listing it under.

Brie and Strawberry Grilled Cheese

Grilled cheese is one of my favorite comfort foods, and I love trying new variations of it. We actually have a restaurant right around the corner from my apartment that specializes in grilled cheese, but they don't have much in the way of sweet and cheesy combinations. The classic grilled cheese with the American cheese is obviously great, and a variation with mozzarrella and pesto and tomato is also a good go-to, but when I saw this come up in my Blue Apron rotation, I had to try it.

It was so worth it.

Brie and Strawberry Grilled Cheese
Originally found at Blue Apron

4 slices bread
4 ounces brie cheese, thinly sliced
2 Tbsp butter
6 ounces strawberries, medium chopped
1 lemon, zested and juiced
2 Tbsp light brown sugar

In a small pot, combine strawberries, lemon zest, lemon juice, and brown sugar. Heat until boiling, then reduce and allow to simmer 10-12 minutes, until thickened and strawberries have softened. Remove from heat and allow to cool 2 minutes.

Butter one side of each slice of bread. On the non-buttered side of two slices, lay sliced brie. Top with cooled jam, followed by slice of bread with the buttered side up. In a pan over medium-high heat, cook one side of the grilled cheese until light brown and crispy. Flip and cook until other side is light brown and crispy and cheese has melted well.

My Notes:
I left the rind on my brie. You can take it off if you desire, it just gets harder to get the cheese out. This was a nice mix of salty and sweet, and the bread I used was nice and thick and chewy. I imagine this would be good with store-bought preserves as well, and I've definitely seen variations with pears instead of strawberries, but strawberries are in season right now.

General Tso's Chicken

Chinese food is one of my go-tos. Along with Mexican. I know it's bastardized by American culture, but it's just such a comfort food for me. I enjoy trying out new dishes at home, and saw this one in my rotation and was intrigued. Ketchup in a Chinese dish? Clearly, not very authentic, but it somehow works. And this is such a simple dish to throw together that it's definitely worth trying again.

General Tso's Chicken
Originally found at Blue Apron

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite-sized pieces
1/2 cup cornstarch
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 Tbsp soy glaze*
1 Tbsp Sambal Oelek, to taste
1 Tbsp Sesame oil
1/4 cup ketchup
2 scallions, chopped with green and white ends separated
Oil

Toss the chicken in cornstarch, shaking off excess. In a frying pan or wok, heat 2 Tbsp oil over medium-high heat until hot. Add chicken to the pan and cook until golden brown. Transfer to a paper-towel lined plate and set aside.

Heats sesame oil over medium high heat in same pan. Add garlic and white bottoms of scallions and cook until fragrant. Season with salt and pepper. Add soy glaze, sambal oelek, and ketchup. Stir to combine. Add chicken back to the pan and toss to coat. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Serve over rice and garnish with green tops of scallions.


My Notes:
*Soy glaze is a thicker, sweeter version of soy sauce. You can buy it directly, or make your own.

The original Blue Apron meal came with snow peas, which were much better than I expected them to be. Nice and crisp, and fresh tasting. Simple to make, simply cut off the ends, remove the fibrous strand that runs along the length of the pod, then cook in a small amount of oil until bright green.

See, I'm being good and adding veggies to my diet :)