Wild Kitchen

Guacamole

We love avocados around here.  Usually I'll just split one in half, remove the pit, sprinkle it with salt and give the girls one half each, along with a tiny spoon.  When I could eat bread (*sigh*) I used to love toast with smashed avocado and salt on top for breakfast.  And, of course, I am passionate about guacamole. 

I picked up this little guacamole kit from Trader Joe's, and I have to say I ended up with the best homemade guacamole I've ever made.  (We'll pretend that my earliest attempts did NOT include mayo.  I know.  Shameful.)  The recipe is simple enough, and could certainly be modified, but it's nice to pick up all the ingredients in one little box -- and the three times I've bought the kit, the avocados have always been perfectly ripe. 

The kit has a shallot, garlic, jalepeno, tomato, lime, and two avocados.  We had more around so I added a third.  Check out the itty bitty avo that was in the bag with the others.  It's hard to tell in the picture just how little it is; smaller than an apricot. 

The kit directions call for dicing the avocado, but I like it mashed up.  I dice the shallot and garlic really fine, seed the pepper and tomato, squeeze every last bit out of the lime, and mix it all up.  Easy-peasy, and very, very good.

Homemade Hummus, sans garlic

Hummus and chips.  It's a meal for me on far too many days, because it's quick and safe to eat and actually pretty healthy.  But, you know, sometimes I just don't want to deal with the tremendous garlic breath it leaves me with.  Especially if I'm going to yoga later.  Garlic breath makes it impossible to fully enjoy the sighing exhales after 90 minutes of ujjayi breathing.  I want my sighing exhale, so I decided to make hummus without garlic.  I know it's intrinsically wrong, since the real ingredients are chick peas, tahini, lemon juice. olive oil and garlic.  Lots of garlic.  And then, more garlic.

The result was, um, bland, even though I used cumin for seasoning and garnish.  That was fine with me at first, but then I decided that I could dress it up some with things that wouldn't leave me with bad breath.  Why do the sugar-free mini altoids have to contain WHEAT?  WHY?  I took out a couple of small bowls and experimented a little.  The basil hummus was good, but the cayenne and paprika was wrong.  The cayenne was right, but the paprika was too deviled-eggy, if that makes sense.   I found myself wishing for some sundried tomatoes or roasted eggplant to add instead. 

If you've never made hummus before, try it out.  It's easy and good and a quick thing to bring to parties. 

• 2 cups canned (drained) chick peas
• 1/2 cup tahini
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• juice of 1 lemon
• as much or as little garlic as you like
• 1 tablespoon cumin (or to taste)
• s&p
• 1/3 cup water
• 1 tablespoon olive oil

Puree everything in a food processor, except for the water and the 1 tbsp of olive oil.  With the processor on, add enough water to get the right consistency.  Serve the hummus in a bowl, sprinkled with cumin and the rest of the olive oil and a huge bag of corn chips.

Skinny omelette from 101Cookbooks.com

I have discovered that it pays to complain bitterly to your friends about dietary restrictions, because then they help you scout out good food!  The lovely and wonderful Elkit has been sending tips and recipes my way, and I got to make one of them for lunch today. 

The Skinny Omelette Recipe from 101Cookbooks sounded really great to me, and even though mine wasn't perfect it was very, very good.  I used chopped organic roma tomato and diced avocado for the filling, and put basil in the egg.  My problem was the pan I used must've been too small -- my omelette wasn't thin enough.  It was wonderful, though, and next time (like, tomorrow morning) I'll use a bigger pan or not quite all the eggs.  Sophie loved it, too, though her favorite breakfast is scrambled eggs with cheese rolled in a flour tortilla  (I miss that -- this was just as good in its own way).

Cinnamon toast

*sigh*

I can't eat cinnamon toast, at least not with any of the bread in our house at the moment.  This morning two of the five kids here wanted me to make some, so I did it up right -- under the broiler.  Sometimes we make cheater's cinnamon toast, by toasting the bread in a regular toaster, adding butter, cinnamon, and sugar, and then (turn your head if you are a hard-core foodie) microwaving it for ten seconds to get the sugar melty. 

I know.   Evil personified. 

This time, though, just to torture myself, I turned the broiler on low, put the bread on an ungreased baking sheet, and slathered way too much butter on each piece.  Then I added the cinnamon (organic), the organic and less processed and therefore larger grained (crystalled?) sugar, and slipped it into the oven for a few minutes, keeping a close eye so it wouldn't burn. 

Good cinnamon toast is crunchy on top and soft on the bottom.  The kids loved it.  Excuse me while I go cry in the corner and complain about things being so unfair.

Potato leek soup / Pasta (or rice) with sauteed veggies

I got a bunch of organic leeks in this week's produce delivery, so I made potato leek soup.   I love this soup; it tastes great, it's easy to make, and unlike some non-dairy interpretations of classics, I don't miss the milk products.  I made the soup in the morning, while we were getting ready to go out for the day, and was able to quickly put together a salad and pasta dish to go with it when we came back. 

Ingredients:

• 3 or 4 leeks, white and palest green parts only, chopped and well washed (chop them first to make sure you wash all the dirt out)
• 6 medium potatoes, peeled and diced
• 1 or 2 tablespoons of non dairy (and non hydrogenated) butter substitute
• 4 to 6 cups of veggie broth
• optional sprig of rosemary or other herbs
• 1 to 2 cups soy milk
• sea salt & pepper

Saute the leeks in the buttery stuff over low heat until they are wilted and limp (maybe 8 to 10 minutes).  Add the potatoes, enough stock to cover, the optional herbs, and bring to a simmer.  Put a lid on it, and let it simmer until the potatoes are cooked, about a half hour to 45 minutes.  Remove from the heat, add soy milk.  At this point you can either remove and mash some or all of the potatoes, put some or all of the soup in the blender, or (my favorite way) use a hand blender to get the soup to the consistency you like.  Add s&p to taste. 

I also had some zucchini in the produce box, and red bell peppers in the fridge.  I cut up and diced those and sauted them in olive oil and garlic.  I added part of the saute to pasta, for the girls and John, and I microwaved some brown rice to add to the rest of it for me.  The hot pepper flakes were added after so it wouldn't be too hot for the girls.  They loved it, which I wasn't expecting. 

And that cube of garlic in the tiny glass bowl, is a genius product I buy at Trader Joe's.  They're little frozen cubes of garlic, basil, cilantro, and parsley.  I *love* them and use them all the time.

Birthday Watermelon

Sophie turned six last Sunday.  We had a party at ChuckECheese during the afternoon, and I cooked a supper that she likes for that night: rosemary, olive oil, and garlic roasted chicken, broccoli rabe (baby broccoli) sauteed in olive oil, baby yellow potatoes roasted with (you guessed it) olive oil, rosemary, and salt.  For the grownups, I also sauteed some fresh spinach with pine nuts and canellini beans.  In olive oil. 

Can you use olive oil too much?  No.  Especially when it's from Spain.  But that's just my opinion. 

Earlier in the day, before I made supper, but after she'd had ChuckECheese cake, Sophie requested a watermelon with candles instead of a cake, which made me insanely happy.  All I did was cut the watermelon in two, then slice off the bottom so it would sit evenly on the plate.  She put the candles in, the boys helped light them, and we sang.  It was a really great watermelon; we ate it all.  And, for once, I didn't have to say no thanks to birthday "cake."