Category Archives for Let’s Eat

11.05.10

Today’s school lunch bento:  turkey & cheese wrap, carrot and red pepper sticks, pita chips, yogurt, and apple wedges with caramel sauce.  Even in this frosty weather, with its first glimpse of sleet last night, I still have two barrels with lettuce growing – perfect for adding little leaves to the boy’s sandwiches.  We pull them into the garage at night; during the day they bask in the southern-exposed driveway.  I’m hoping to keep them around a wee bit longer…

To see more bento lunches – and some very cool lunches at that – head over to What’s For Lunch At Our House for her weekly What’s For Lunch Wednesday blog carnival!

  Bento Lunch

Fennel, Potato and Sausage Hash

One thing:  hash is one of my most favorite foods ever. Usually I think of hash as a breakfast item; it probably isn’t quite as common as a dinner entree.  I love breakfast food in general, and since we don’t have time usually for a big breakfast during the week, we will occasionally have breakfast food at dinnertime.  Occasionally we’ll have waffles or pancakes with bacon, but mostly now I like to make a savory breakfast dish for dinner.

Oh, and another thing: fennel is one of my favorite vegetables.  I was surprised to see two small fennel bulbs in my CSA box last week – the season for fennel has passed with the frost.  While browsing through an old issue of Bon Appetite, I found a recipe for fennel and potato hash that looked simple enough for a weeknight meal.  I made a few changes to the original recipe, adding onion (I have to have onion in hash), and sausage & eggs. 

Ingredients

  • 1/3 lb bulk pork breakfast sausage
  • 2 small fennel bulbs, cut into 1/2” pieces
  • 2 TBSP Olive Oil
  • 1 1/2 lbs potatoes (I used both fingerlings and small new potatoes)
  • 1 small onion, diced
  • 1 garlic clove, minced
  • Kosher salt and ground pepper to taste
  • 3 eggs

Form patties out of bulk sausage, and fry off in a cast iron pan over medium heat, turning once.  When browned and cooked through, remove the sausage onto paper towels and cover. Wipe most of the sausage grease from the pan and set pan aside.

Meanwhile, boil potatoes in salted water until close to fork tender.  Add fennel pieces to the water and blanch for about three minutes.  Drain potatoes and fennel, allow to cool slightly.  Peel off the skins of potatoes and dice into 3/4 inch chunks.  Set aside.

Heat 2 tablespoons oil in the reserved pan over medium heat.  Add onion and cook for 1 – 2 minutes, until the onion begins to soften.  Add garlic and cook for 30 seconds.  Add potatoes and fennel, stir, and allow to cook without disturbing until the potatoes begin to brown.  Turn potatoes with a spatula, continue to brown.  Break the reserved sausage into bite-sized chunks and add to the pan, turning the potatoes and sausage to combine and brown 1 more time.  Season with salt & pepper to taste.

Fry or cook eggs as desired (I like sunny-side up), add to the top of finished hash and serve.

Adapted from a recipe at epicurious.com.

The whole dish turned out very good.  The boy loves just about any dish we make that involves a fried egg on top, so he was pretty happy.  I love hash.

Butternut Squash Baked Risotto

A recipe in November’s issue of Everyday Food for Butternut Squash Baked Risotto caught my eye as an easy weeknight meal, with the added benefit of being vegetarian.  I’m really trying to make one vegetarian meal each week – those meals tend to be cheaper, and the less we rely on meat, the more sustainable our diet is.  

I love risotto.  I love the creaminess of the rice, the variety of ingredients that can be used to flavor the dish (mushroom risotto is my favorite), and the satisfying richness of the parmesan cheese added at the end.  The only problem with risotto is that it does require a lot of attention.  The creamy texture of the finished dish is achieved by drawing out the starch of the rice through slowing adding and reducing stock into the rice by constant stirring.  On busy school nights, that can be a bit much.

This recipe happens to call for butternut squash and kale, both of which I received in my CSA box last week.  I had to substitute chicken stock for the vegetable stock; thus my version wasn’t vegetarian, but I was out vegetable stock.  (If one of the goals of eating meatless is sustainability, I figured an extra trip to the store for vegetable stock was out of the question.)  The end result was tasty enough, but the rice seemed too tender and lacked the “tooth” that risotto should have.  Also, while the dish had a pleasant moisture, it wasn’t creamy.  The boy complained a bit about the squash – I think he didn’t care for the slight sweetness – but he ate his entire bowl nonetheless.  If I make this again, I will check the rice before 20 minutes for doneness.   

Ingredients

  • 2 TBSP Olive Oil
  • 2 shallots, diced small
  • 2 garlic cloves, minced
  • 1 tsp fresh thyme leaves
  • 1 1/2 cups Arborio rice
  • salt & pepper
  • 1/2 dry white wine
  • 1 medium butternut squash, peeled and diced medium
  • 4 cups vegetable stock
  • 1 bunch Tuscan kale, destemmed and cut into 1/2” strips
  • grated Parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  In a medium dutch oven, sautee shallots in oil over medium heat until softened.  Add garlic and thyme, cook for 1 minute.  Add rice and cook until opaque, 3 minutes, seasoning with salt & pepper.  Add wine and stir until the liquid is completely absorbed, about 2 minutes.  Add squash and broth, and bring to a boil.  Stir in kale.

Cover the pot, and transfer to oven.  Bake until the rice is tender and the liquid is absorbed, about 20 minutes.  Top with Parmesan cheese.

From Everyday Food Magazine, November 2010 Issue

10.28.10 – Another Halloween Lunch

Actually, I had visions of doing a fancier Halloween bento, but the universe is throwing me curve balls this week.  The boy is suffering a bit of a head & chest cold; thus, his appetite is off.  Also, my thumb is still sore from yesterday – I did a pretty good job slicing into the side of it.  Waaa…..

Anyhoo, today the boy has a tortilla stack sandwich with ham & cheese, decorated with a pumpkin face cut out of toasted seaweed.  Also, carrot sticks, grapes, a couple of cherry tomatoes, seaweed rice crackers, and a yogurt tube.  This bento box also has a bit of space under the lid – I packed the rest of the toasted seaweed there.  

Besides the head cold, it’s been difficult getting the boy up and at ‘em this week.  At 6:30 a.m., it’s pitch dark and today, it was quite cold.  We really need the time change, soon.  

10.27.10

Today’s school lunch bento:  ham & cheese wrap, carrot sticks, grapes, apple, and yogurt. Intending to dress it up for Halloween, I only got as far as carving a lame jack-o-lantern face in the apple and grabbing a pumpkin pic before I nearly amputated the tip of my thumb while slicing the carrots.  My husband had to finish putting everything in the box while I hopped around with an enormous wad of paper towels wrapped around my finger.  Good thing for that, too – otherwise lunch might have wound up being way too ghoulish.  Heh.  

Note to self:  using a completely inappropriate knife just because you’re in a hurry really isn’t going to save you any time.  Ouch.  

10.25.10

It’s Halloween week!  Today’s school bento is decorated for Halloween with cheese ghosts and a bat pick hovering over carrot sticks, and with a jack-o-lantern face carved into an apple wedge.  Also, the boy has an Asian noodle salad with shrimp & napa cabbage, and yogurt.  

Filet Mignon with Sauteed Mushrooms over Parsnip Puree

Yesterday called for a special dinner, seeing as it was my husband’s birthday.  The one thing I knew I wanted to incorporate was a terrific sounding parsnip puree that I found on the Lynfred Meals and Wine tumblr blog.  I had more parsnips than I needed for a planned parsnip-apple soup, and was looking for a way to put them to some kind of use.

Since I also had a bag of crimini mushrooms from the farmers market, I finally settled on steak – and splurged on a couple of nice filets from a local butcher.  While the parsnips and garlic were cooking, I started the mushrooms on a slow saute with butter, garlic and onion.  I stuck pretty much to the recipe with the puree, except that after draining the parsnips I pureed them while adding the milk and cream right in the same pan with an immersion blender (less clean-up involved).  I also added just a slight pinch of nutmeg at the end.

I cooked the steak very simply; seasoned with just salt & pepper and seared in a scorching pan for a couple of minutes on each side, and then finished in a 500 degree oven for about 5 minutes.

This was my husband’s plate.  For the boy, we sliced off a portion of my steak, cut it into pieces, and then placed the pieces over the puree along with the mushrooms.  He loves mushrooms, but I wasn’t sure how much he would like the puree.  Sometimes he has issues with food that is soft in consistency.  He finished the entire plate without coming up for air – we have a winner!  The puree was earthy, delicious, and tasted decidedly of autumn.

For the Birthday cake, the boy and I made a flourless chocolate cake after school.  This is not the most decadent flourless cake I’ve ever had, but it’s super easy and fast to make – especially with a little helper.  I finished it with a sprinkle of powdered sugar, some freshly whipped cream, and a few berries.