Inspired by Quinoa 365: The Everyday Superfood and the 3 Bean Salad (edamame/kidney/garbanzo) by Jason’s Deli. At the risk of sounding snooty, I must say I was rather impressed by the latter. Jason’s Deli – you exceeded by expectations for quality and innovation. Quinoa in mainstream, fast food fare – didn’t see that coming.

Ingredients:

1 c. vegetable stock
1/2 c. red quinoa
1 can garbanzo beans (chickpeas), drained & rinsed (be sure to remove any shells)
1 can kidney beans, drained & rinsed
1 c. edamame beans, boiled & drained (I use ones from the freezer section)
1/2 green bell pepper, diced
1/2 red bell pepper, diced
1 hatch chile pepper, diced
1/2 red onion, diced
3 stalks celery, diced
1/4 c. cilantro, diced/torn into small pieces
1/2 c. apple cider vinegar
1/4 c. olive oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 tsp. dried Mexican oregano
1/2 tsp. freshly ground black pepper

Method:

In a medium saucepan, bring vegetable stock to a boil. Add quinoa, cover and boil gently for ~10 minutes. Remove from burner and set aside to cool.

Meanwhile in a large (large!) bowl mix freshly cut peppers, celery, onion, and cilantro.  Add edamame, kidney beans, garbanzo beans, and finally quinoa.  Mix well – gentle hands to just fine.

In a separate small bowl, whisk together apple cider vingar, olive oil, garlic, oregano, & black pepper.  Pour dressing evenly over beans & vegetables, and using a large spoon mix well.

Can be served immediately, or refrigerate until ready to serve.

Makes 10-12 servings.

A few weeks after Karen took this photo of me for her book, The Beauty of Different, she wrote back with another request: could a friend of hers use my photo in another project?

Why sure, no problem.

And here’s the result, created for the Texas Conference for Women, Massachusetts Conference for Women, and Pennsylvania Governor’s Conference for Women. (Great job Katherine!)

Look what happens when you say yes!

We live in a two story townhouse, and in lieu of a backyard we have a lovely atrium. Most of the windows for our house are built around the atrium and it’s the center point of our loves all year round. On nice days during the spring and fall, and after dark during the summer, I love nothing more than to share a glass of wine with friends in the atrium. We eat dinner out there quite a bit, too. And the kitty cats enjoy lounging on the warm bricks, rolling around and rubbing their bodies on the ground, and getting acquainted with whatever plants I’ve managed to keep alive.  It’s a great space.

When we moved into our place almost a year ago, my in-laws gave us their old patio furniture so we’d have something to sit on outside. Since the offer on the house had been accepted (and the inspection completed), I’d hunted around for patio furniture I liked, but to no avail. As we moved in, we decided the dollars we’d allocated to purchasing new furniture were better used refinishing the hardwood floors and painting the walls.* So we took up my in-law’s generous offer to have their well maintained and little used 20-year-old patio furniture. (They’ve got good taste.)  My mother-in-law offered to refinish it first, but we happened to have a truck for just one day and I hated the idea of making a senior citizen crawl around and paint something when I’m perfectly capable of doing it myself.

*The walls were “creatively” painted. Rather than move furniture, the painters simply painted around large pieces of furniture. Generally speaking, this isn’t a bad plan.  Certainly it saves time and back strain trying to move a huge armoir full of delicate china. Indeed, the only time it’s a problem is if you’re going to be moving out and there’s no furniture left to cover that giant pink spot on the otherwise white wall.  Then it’s a bit of an eyesore for ye new homeowners.

As you might imagine, the first summer in our new place was filled with a million things to do, and the patio furniture fell down the list in order of importance.  Toward the end of winter, I noticed small rusted areas becoming more noticeable. My in-laws generally stored the furniture in their garage; we used it so frequently that we hated to move it inside. Refinishing the patio furniture moved up in our list of priorities.

Then, I came up with an even more brilliant and oppressive plan. Ten days before Easter, I invited my in-laws over for each brunch on – you guessed it – their old patio furniture. I don’t think I mentioned that we’d be refinishing it first, I just blathered on about grand plans for a beautiful garden and edible food. But I knew we couldn’t let them see this:

And so our patio furniture refinishing project began on Saturday night – 7 days before Easter brunch – and continued with all hands on deck Sunday. We’re not done yet, but next I’ll share photos and details about the process – 2.5 times more expensive, 3 times more trips to Sherwin Williams than planned, and about twice as hard as I thought.

I think the results are going to be even better than expected.

I love the look of lentils, especially a mix of red (coral), yellow and brown lentils with beautiful green split peas.  The mixture reminds me of confetti.

See. I think you can even throw it at people like confetti without it hurting too much. Of course, then you can’t eat those lentils which is a definite drawback.

It’s cold again here in Houston; they’re forecasting another freeze with an outside possibility of sleet or snow.  What a long, cold winter.  In these days I can’t seem to get warm no matter what, I’ve taken to using warm beverages and soups to heat myself up from the inside.  Soup, in particular, is a great choice because it’s often nutritious, filling, and relatively low in calories. I can’t say enough good things about soup.

I also love lentils – they’re nutritional power houses with more protein than fish (26 g vs. fish’s 18-21g), a day’s worth of fiber (31g), and 60% of my daily iron.  I find that when I eat lentils for lunch, I’m not really hungry the rest of the day.  I’ve been nourished.

And the split peas give the soup that extra texture and that je ne sais quoi that transforms an okay dish to something with a little more zing.

The base for lentil & split pea is similar to a lot of soups – onions sauteed in olive oil. You can use celery too if you want.  These onions are finely chopped so they’re not bigger than our lentils. I’m also using sliced up baby carrots, but you can use finely diced regular carrots if that works better for you.

While that’s cooking, I get to play with my lentils a bit more.  Behold, lentil & split green pea porn:

(That’ll drive some site traffic!)

What’s different about this recipe than many others is the paprika and saffron, which gives the soup a nice Spanish flavor.  Having company? This is a great dish to make before your guests arrive. Your house will smell warm, inviting, and serene.

The world’s most expensive spice is saffron.  This is Kashmir Mogra saffron from Penzey’s Spices - the finest of the finest. (Everyone else must’ve heard about how awesome it is because it’s not available right now. I’m sure that their regular Spanish Superior saffron is very good.  Penzey’s is the best source for excellent quality spices.)

Wha? You think saffron’s too much of a splurge?  We’re having BEANS for dinner; the least we can do is punch them up with a little fine saffron. The whole meal’s still less than $4, and half of that is the vegetable broth that makes this really a soup.

Speaking of vegetable broth, even though my preferred broth (Central Market Vegetarian Vegetable Broth) uses 50% less sodium than other comparable vegetable broths, I find that my foods can still easily end up with too much sodium.  And we know what happens then: BLOATING like a camel the next day.  No thanks.  So, I work with the sodium inside the broth and don’t add additional salt. And it all turns out fine.

The only drawback to cooking with lentils is they aren’t as colorful and vibrant cooked as they are uncooked.  C’est la vie. Certainly they make up in taste for what they lose in beauty.

The whole meal is ready in under an hour.  Lentils are done in 20 minutes, but the split peas take a bit longer to cook.

The house smells heavenly.

Lentil & Split Pea Soup with Paprika & Saffron

(makes 4 servings)

Ingredients

2 Tablespoons Olive oil
1 small onion, finely diced
10 baby carrots, sliced into discs
4 cloves garlic, finely diced
2 teaspoons paprika
1 pinch saffron
4 cups vegetable broth
1 cup equal parts dried red, yellow, and brown lentils plus green split peas (~1/4 cup each)
freshly ground pepper, to taste
1 bay leaf

Method

1. On medium heat, saute onion and carrot for approximately 5 minutes or until onions are translucent.
2. Add garlic, paprika, and saffron, carefully mixing with the onion/carrot mixture.  Cook ~1 minute or until aroma begins to release.
3. Stir in vegetable broth, then add lentils & split peas and bay leaf to the mixture.  Mix well.
4. Bring ingredients to a boil, then reduce heat to a simmer.  Cover pot and simmer for ~40 minutes, checking periodically.  If needed, add additional vegetable broth. Cooked lentils are fragile so be careful not to over stir.

The dish is ready when the split green peas are soft.  A little soup goes a long way, so serve in small bowls.

Enjoy!

Last Saturday I headed over to the MFAH Sculpture Garden* to have my picture taken for a book project, The Beauty of Different, that Karen of Chookooloonks is putting together.  I love the idea of a book which celebrates those things that make each of us special and unique.  I think there’s a temptation to spend too much of our lives trying to be like other people – to get along, to fit in, or to not rock the boat. A consequence of this “un-difference” is that we may never come into our own selves or know who we, as individuals, have the potential to be. We’re ashamed of those things that make us different, and shame is a corrosive life force which serves no real purpose. When we’re different we’re ourselves at our best.

I have no idea if Karen agrees with this idea or if it’s included in the thesis of her book, but it’s why I participated. Your mileage may vary.

* If you’re ever in Houston on a nice day (generally October-April) and looking for a relaxing afternoon spot to read, take photos, or people watch, I highly recommend the MFAH Sculpture Garden.

—–

On to more practical matters: usually getting my picture taken makes me want to hurl. I worry about what the pictures will look like.  Will I look like a dork?  What if I’ve got a double chin and a huge zit?  What if my eyes squint all up and my teeth stick out like they did before I had braces? What if the anxiety coursing through my veins shows up on film (in pixels!) as a cold and rigid disposition? What if the dimple in my cheek catches shadows and makes my face look deformed like that time in my 10th grade pictures?  What if I look FAT?! (Quelle horreur!)

Why did I want to do this again?

Outtake of yours truly from The Beauty of Different photo shoot. Photo by Karen Waldrond.

As it turns out, I had little to be worried about.  Karen is a charming person – tall and statuesque with an easy smile. She takes great photos.  And, she has great boots!  See:

Photo by my former co-worker, Brian Garcia.

I spent most of the 10 minutes she took my picture nervously giggling and chatting with the group.  In our short time together, I discovered that Karen and I will both be speaking at the Mom 2.0 Summit in February, which I’m looking forward to.

As for the final photo and what makes me different, you’ll have to wait to find out what it is when the book comes out Fall 2010.  I will say that my picture turned out great and captures my personality well. My experience is one that fundamentally affected my life’s perspective and is one of the many things that makes me “different.”

Who knows if I’ll be in the book or not, but the entire experience was delightful – thanks, Karen.

(More outtakes from The Beauty of Different Photo Shoot are available over at Chookooloonks.  Karen says such sweet things about us all.)

I’ve been taking the new flash out quite a bit lately. (It’s the Nikon SB-600 Speedlight Flash for Nikon Digital SLR Cameras . Love it.) Kitty cats are excellent subjects.

Here’s our Oaf-apotomas.  Isn’t she a cutie?

Nice profile view.  Remember those black construction paper profiles your teacher did for you in the 3rd grade? She’s preparing for hers.

And finally, providing detailed instruction for what I can do with the new flash.

I love the detail the flash allows me to capture, as well as the color fidelity in low light.  I need more practice.

Last weekend my in-laws came over to have breakfast with us before helping out on some stuff for our respective companies.  (Graham may have been replaced by his mother as the best assistant ever. He’s understandingly disappointed, but he’s hoping for other C-level opportunities inside the same company. For her party, Marcia may be promoted.)

Not sure what to make, and not too keen to venture over to the grocery store, I made cinnamon rolls with ingredients I had on hand. I mixed dough together Friday night using 1.5 cups whole wheat pastry flour and 2 cups all purpose flour — a bold move considering I’d never eaten a whole wheat cinnamon roll and was going to be serving them to my in-laws.*  I really wasn’t sure how it would turn out.

* I should mention my sister-in-law is an award winning pastry chef and my mother-in-law an accomplished cook herself. I’m amateursville compared to these ladies.  AND YET, I make bold moves like whole wheat flour substitution, a move of distinct culinary chutzpah.

I let the dough rise overnight in the fridge; the next morning I got up early and rolled it out.

I’m a huge fan of Penzey’s Spices and they’ve got a huge collection of cinnamon varietals.  Have you ever compared cinnamon?  If not, you should. It’s a fun, enlightening activity (for kids and adults!) that’s really worthy of its own blog post. Anyway, I had Chinese Cassia, Ceylon, and Vietnamese cinnamon on hand.  Generally my favorite (hands down) is Vietnamese cinnamon, but I had a bottle of Chinese Cassia with a broken lid.  And since it’s recommended for cinnamon rolls anyway, that’s what I went with.

Had I to do it all over again, I’d double – maybe triple – the amount of cinnamon. Graham and I love tasting cinnamon rolls from everywhere we can, and one of our favorites is from – are you ready – IKEA.  Seriously.  It’s not the dough, which is somewhat bland and unmemorable; it’s not the icing, which is passable but not extraordinary.  It’s the liberal use of cinnamon that gives IKEA cinnamon rolls their real zing….. (And probably why they sell so many.  The siren call of cinnamon rolls cooking in IKEA while you shop. Brilliant!)

I had hazelnuts on hand from the holidays, so instead of Texas pecans or walnuts I added the leftover hazelnuts.  Not sure, I’d do that again because hazelnuts are so strong.  Paired with the whole wheat dough – itself a distinct flavor – the combination completely overpowers the already lacking cinnamon.

I also added golden raisins, mostly because that’s what we had.  (Must be economical!)  I didn’t notice a difference.

You can’t see it here, but it took me a bit to get the right thickness on cutting the cinnamon rolls. The recipe I followed directed me to cut the dough into 15 equal cuts, but I set aside a portion of the dough (there’s just so many cinnamon rolls 4 people should eat in the course of a week), so I wasn’t sure on the desired thickness. In the end, I was most pleased with a 1.5″ thickness.

Bake, bake, bake, bake – DING! The result:

We can’t forget the icing! I totally MADE UP my icing recipe using powdered sugar and leftover maple syrup – introducing yet a third distinct flavor to work with the whole wheat and hazelnuts. Maple’s probably great with whole wheat and cinnamon (for sure!), but again the hazelnuts hung us up here.  Also, because I free-formed the recipe, we could taste the powered sugar. I wonder if that’s why some recipes introduce vanilla and milk (sometimes even coffee!) into the icing recipe instead of just using powdered sugar and maple syrup.

Don’t my cinnamon rolls look yummy?!

There’s a lot of promise here.  The dough, first of all, is nice and flavorful.  My father-in-law’s first comment: “Marsh! They’re whole wheat!” I took that as a vote of confidence – no need to throw out the frozen portion of dough, though in future iterations I’ll have to come up with a way for it to be less “yeasty” as Graham put it.  The hazelnuts are a no-go.  Increase the cinnamon A LOT. Consider following a recipe for the maple icing.

Otherwise – hooray, cinnamon rolls!

In November, the Saturday before Thanksgiving, we flew into Chicago to visit friends and family up north for a week.  It had been an early day for us – I think we got up that morning at 4:30 am – and so by the time our flight arrived at ORD late morning I was starving. Airports being what they are, I wasn’t expecting much in the way of semi-healthy food I could eat at 10:45 in the morning as a snack between breakfast and lunch.

As it so happens, we found a wonderful little Mediterranean place just a few gates down from our arrival with an array of healthy options. Among them was a scrumptious Tuscan White Bean Salad with Rosemary and Garlic. The dish was served cold, and the rosemary and garlic formed the main flavors.

Ya’ll it was SO GOOD. I resolved to make my own version of the dish at home.

And so I did.  And my version sucked. BIG TIME.  (I followed Julia’s suggestion to “never apologize” and we ate it anyway.)

At least the pictures turned out well.

I’ll let you know how future iterations progress.  I’m determined to add this one to the repertoire. Perhaps one of the following will be more successful.

• Tuscan white bean salad (cuisine.com)
• Tuscan White Bean Salad (Elana’s Pantry)
• Rosemary Tuscan White Bean Dip (Wellsphere) – I wonder if I can make a version of this without beef stock and un-pureed.

I got a new flash for my camera for my birthday. Tonight I experimented with it while making homemade pizzas at night in the kitchen. I was pleased with the results; even more importantly, so was Graham.

For the pizza crust, I used Mark Bittman’s Pizza Dough recipe, making modifications so it was a whole wheat crust (per Bittman) and because I can’t seem to follow directions (which turned out nicely anyway).

Bittman recommends using your food processor for making the dough. Turns out, the food processor makes making dough about a billion times easier than it would be otherwise. Such a wise man that Mark Bittman.

The dough had to spend 1-2 hours rising for the first time. What was I to do?  I made homemade pizza sauce.

At the last minute, I added in some chipotle peppers thinking that the smoky flavor would bring out the nuttiness of the whole crust. Turned out I was right.

Pizza sauce simmering, I prepared the other toppings.  We used fresh mozzarella, but the pictures didn’t turn out so great.

I’m such a good pescatarian wife – look what I bought for my carnivore husband.

Humanely raised sopressata, untreated by antibiotics. (A trade off he doesn’t care much about, even if I do.) (By the way, don’t click that link unless you want to see salami being made.)

We live in Texas, where jalapenos are almost state law. We had to include them on the pizza.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Meanwhile, after the dough spent all that time rising, I divided it up and threw half in the freezer for future pizza nights.  Graham missed a large part of kindergarten, so he says he doesn’t know how to share. I made him his own little pizza so he didn’t have to learn.

Graham’s is on the left, mine is on the right.  What you can’t see here is that his is twice as big as mine.

We put ‘em in the oven, where they baked for ~11 minutes.  By this point, it was after 8 pm – we were starving, so we didn’t wait for the pizzas to cool.

When we were in Wisconsin in November, Graham’s Grandma Sis gave us a new pizza cutter. I think it looks a bit like PacMan, but damn it works well.

Even better? You can pull the white disc out of the blue case for super easy cleaning. Brilliant! Such good usability!

The verdict?

G: “It’s not a bad wheat crust. It’s not cardboard like most of them are.”

A: “Holy my god it takes a long time to make these.  But the results… They’re probably worth it. Thank goodness I froze more than half the dough so we don’t have to wait this long again.”

Whole Wheat Pizza Crust

Adapted from Mark Bittman’s “Whole Wheat Pizza Dough” in How to Cook Everything Vegetarian.

Ingredients:

• 1.5 cups bread flour
• 1.5 cups whole wheat flour, plus more for work surfaces
• 2 tsp. active yeast
• 2 tsp coarse sea salt
• 1.5 cups filtered water, at room temp.
• 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil, plus more for oiling the rising bowl

Method:

1. In a food processor fitted with the dough attachment, combine dry ingredients.  Add water and olive oil through the tube feeder.  Process until combined and slightly sticky. If the dough is too sticky, add a teaspoon of whole wheat flour until desired consistency.  If the dough is too dry, add a teaspoon of water until it reaches desired consistency.
2. Move dough to a floured work surface, knead by hand and form a ball.
3. Coat the inside of a metal bowl with olive oil. Place dough ball in bowl and cover with a towel or plastic wrap.  Let dough rise in dark location (I used a turned off, empty oven) for 1-2 hours. (I did 1.25 hrs. Ideally the dough should double in size.)
4. When the dough is ready, divide on a floured work surface.  Form balls, then gently flatten into desired shape by pressing from the center out.  The desired thickness is between .25″-.34″.
5. Again cover dough and let rise for ~20 minutes.  (There’s no need to move to another location.)
6. When the dough is ready, move to a pizza stone and add ingredients.  Bake in oven preheated to 500 degrees for 10-12 minutes.

Chipotle Pizza Sauce

Adapted from Mark Bittman’s “Fast Tomato Sauce” in How to Cook Everything Vegetarian.  The pizza sauce can be juicy; I recommend using a slotted spoon to drain juices before adding pizza sauce to crust.

Ingredients:

• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 1 med yellow onion, finely chopped
• 2 cans diced tomatoes
• 2 chipotle peppers, sliced in half with loose seeds removed
• large pinch sea salt
• freshly ground pepper to taste

?Method:

1. In a medium sauce plan, heat olive oil.  Add onion and saute until soft.
2. Add diced tomatoes and chipotle pepper.
3. Bring mixture to a simmer for 25 minutes, then remove chipotle pieces.  Salt and pepper to taste.