Balsamic Vinegar Roasted Red Beets (& Carrots)

Tags

Beets, Carrots, CSA, Food, Local, low-calorie, Recipe, Vegetables

One of the foods I definitely avoided when growing up in Germany were red beets. Messy and just not desirable to me. In Germany, we eat these mostly raw as they are, raw in salads, or as a cooked compote-type dish. Neither held much appeal to me, and I pretty much managed to forget about their existence once I moved out, with the sole exception of the traditional Weihnachtssalat.

My CSA has been giving me bucket loads of beets, however, so I had to figure out something to do with them:

Ingredients:
– red beets
– carrots
– balsamic vinegar
– sweetener

Steps:
1. Peel and cube beets & carrots into 1/2 inch cubes. If available, wear gloves (I bring them home from the lab), unlike me during my brilliant first effort (although it’s a nice match with my nail polish, no?):

2. Keep the two vegetables separate, and toss each with 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar mixed with 1/2 packet of sweetener.

3. Still separate, roast in a glass baking dish at 375F for 1 hour.

4. Mix the two and serve as a wonderfully sweet, earthy and vibrant side dish!

On a side note: I discovered Chioggia beets, a wonderful Italian variety that is a tad milder and sweeter than your average red beet, and looks psychedelic pretty to boot!

These also taste great prepared this way, and don’t even need the addition of carrots:

What are some childhood foods you abhorred and have now rediscovered in different ways?

What other good beet recipes should I try?

Apple Cider Vinegar Braised Leeks And Green Onions

Tags

Apple Cider Vinegar, CSA, Food, Green Onions, Leeks, Local, low-calorie, Vegetables

When my CSA share contained leeks and green onions, I knew I wanted to braise them. And what better for a cold weather side dish than apple cider vinegar? Intensely flavorful, warming, and almost too low in calories to count at all, this one of my new Winter favorites!

Recipe adapted from Greene on Greens by Bert Greene

Ingredients:
– 1 large leek
– 3 large green onions
– 2 cloves garlic
– 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
– 1 packet sweetener
– 1 pinch salt
– ground black pepper to taste

Steps:
1. Spray a pan, then finely dice or crush garlic and brown slightly in pan.

2. Slice leek and green onions and add to pan. Cook over medium heat for about 3 minutes.

3. Add apple cider vinegar, sweetener and salt, stir well, cover and cook for about 15 minutes, until leeks and onions become tender.

4. Add pepper to taste and adjust sweetness if desired. Cook a few more minutes until liquid is reduced. (This version yields a very flavorful dish, but if you prefer it less vinegar-y, reduce apple cider vinegar and add water or apple cider to obtain 1/2 cup liquid total).

5. Enjoy!

Do you ever braise? I feel like braising gets forgotten way too often!

Curried Vegetarian Cauliflower Stir Fry

Tags

Cauliflower, CSA, Curry, Food, Indian, Local, Vegetables

The last few weeks that my CSA was going always included a head of cauliflower, so I tried my hand at some variations of what I normally would do with this vegetable.

Curried cauliflower is wonderfully spicy, warming and substantial and can be a main or a side dish, depending on your mood.

Ingredients:
– 1 head cauliflower
– 4 to 6 oz soy crumbles
– 1 tbsp ginger
– 2 garlic cloves
– 1 tbsp Madras Curry powder
– hot pepper to taste

Steps:
1. Remove central stem of cauliflower head, careful not to break up the florets

2. Steam covered with a wet paper towel for 5 minutes in the microwave
3. Meanwhile dice garlic, pepper and ginger and toast them in a pan over medium high heat with a pinch of curry powder
4. Add soy crumbles

5. Add cauliflower florets and a shot of water, stir fry for 10 to 15 more minutes, stirring frequently until cauliflower is tender

6. Enjoy!

Curried anything is a comfort food for me in the colder seasons of the year, and this works great with cauliflower. Feels hearty, is very healthy and low calorie. And vegetarian to boot! If you’d prefer, simply swap in lean ground meat of your choice.

What do you like to do with cauliflower? Is it a necessary evil or the star of your meal? Do you like to experiment with different cuisines?

Mushroom And Cabbage Stir Fry

Tags

Cabbage, Chinese, CSA, Food, Local, Mushrooms, Recipe, Vegetables

One day late because yesterday was dedicated to cookie devouring!

I’d mentioned that lovely baby bok choy and mushrooms stir fry I had in Beijing last week, and here is the promised recipe attempting to re-create it.

Now, baby bok choy isn’t available easily everywhere, and my CSA share contained green cabbage as well as some cooking greens, so I used those instead. The result wasn’t quite as buttery in texture, but still plenty tasty.

Ingredients:
– 1 small head cabbage
– 1 bunch cooking greens
– 10 oz sliced mushrooms
– 4 cloves garlic
– 2 tbsp ginger root
– 1/2 onion
– 1 hot pepper
– 1/3 cup low-sodium soy sauce
– 1/3 cup dark rice vinegar or balsamic vinegar

Steps:
1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil.
2. Chop cabbage and cooking greens into bite size strips and boil for 10 minutes

3. Finely dice garlic, pepper, ginger root and onion

4. Brown in a large pan

5. Add mushrooms, soy sauce and vinegar and simmer for 10 minutes.

6. When mushrooms are tender, add drained cabbage/greens and toss in the sauce mixture to re-heat.
7. Enjoy as a side, or pack lunches for the week that you can easily microwave! Makes about five 2 cup servings.

Are you a cabbage lover, or is it not for you? I’ll take bok choy over green cabbage any day, but I suppose my German nature will take any cabbage more than gladly. What’s your favorite way to highlight/disguise cabbage in a dish?

Kohlrabi Curry

Tags

CSA, Curry, Food, Indian, Kohlrabi, Local, Recipe, Vegetables

Kohlrabi, a cabbage relative, is something I know well from growing up in Germany. The name translates as cabbage-turnip, and is one of those traditional vegetables many children try to avoid. You can actually eat them raw (after peeling), like an apple, or chop them into salads, but that never appealed to me.

When my CSA share contained kohlrabi, I swallowed and re-visited what I know about this vegetable foe of my childhood. It turns out that kohlrabi is one of the most popular vegetables in certain regions of India, and the local cuisine has cooked up many a tasty way to prepare it. So I ventured ahead and made a vegetarian kohlrabi curry inspired by this recipe with what I had at hand – I don’t claim this to be a traditional Indian recipe!

Ingredients:
– 3 kohlrabi with greens
– two roma tomatoes
– yellow curry powder
– 1/2 small onion
– 1 tsp minced ginger root
– 1/2 hot pepper
– 2 garlic cloves

Steps:
1. Cut the greens off the kohlrabi and reserve for later. Peel the bulb with a knife to reveal a white center.

2. Chop the kohlrabi bulb into 1/2 inch cubes and steam covered with a wet paper towel for 5 minutes in the microwave
3. Spray a pan, dice pepper, garlic, onion and ginger and brown in the pan.
4. Toast some yellow curry powder in the same pan

5. Add cubed kohlrabi to the pan
6. Finely dice the tomatoes and chop the kohlrabi greens, add to the pan
7. Simmer for about 10 to 20 minutes until chunks are tender, covered, over medium-high heat, stirring frequently.

Enjoy! Made from all fresh ingredients, very healthy, low calorie, and warming, flavorful and filling. Great dish!

Have you rediscovered staple ingredients in other cuisines and loved them? Or is there something you think nobody has managed to improve on, despite numerous attempts?

Stuffed Peppers With A Puerto Rican Twist

Tags

CSA, Food, Local, Meat, Puerto Rican, Recipe, Sofrito, Stuffed Peppers, Vegetables, Zucchini

So last week I posted about sofrito, the mother of all sauces in Puerto Rico. Now, let’s use this stuff in a less traditional way!

My CSA share included red bell peppers and zucchini, and so stuffed peppers were in order. But rather than do a typical version, I tried using sofrito to flavor the stuffing, and loved the end result. So here goes:

Ingredients:
– 2 red bell peppers
– 4 oz ground lean beef, turkey, or soy crumbles
– 1 medium roma tomato
– 2 slices cheddar or cheese substitute
– 1 medium zucchini
– 1/2 cup sofrito

Steps:
1. Carefully cut out tops of peppers and remove seeds

2. Blanch peppers in boiling water for 15 minutes, make sure peppers are covered. Also preheat oven to 375F

3. Meanwhile, spray a large pan, brown the meat and chop tomato and zucchini. Add zucchini, tomato and sofrito to the meat and cook at medium heat for 5 minutes

4. Place the boiled peppers in a sprayed, oven-safe dish and spoon stuffing mixture in

5. Top with cheese-slices and pop into the oven for 20 minutes.

6. Enjoy without burning your mouth!

Substituting in soy crumbles and cheese substitute, combined with the fresh vegetables makes this a very low calorie (and even vegan!) dish with an international twist.

What ways have you found to spice up traditional comfort foods or update old recipes to rekindle your enthusiasm?

MotorMouth Food Truck – Globally Inspired Gourmet Dishes On The Road

Tags

Cleveland, Fish & Seafood, Food, food truck, Local, Meat, MotorMouth, street food, United States, Vegetables

My love affair with Cleveland’s food trucks is intensifying, and so I bring you yet another gem on wheels: the MotorMouth Food Truck, another less-than-a-year-old truck serving (Greater) Cleveland. Their menu and location gets posted the night before or early in the morning on Facebook and Twitter.

This truck, owned by Chef Rusty James Phillips, serves globally inspired gourmet dishes, and when they say gourmet, they sure mean it. Just have a look at their menu when I visited!

I mean, come on? Roasted duck tacos? Butter-poached cod? Normally way above my price range for a casual under the week lunch. I was very, very torn on what to order, but finally settled on the butter-poached cod, served with tamarind-spiked black beans and yellow rice:

The cod was buttery, flakey, melting in your mouth, but what really made this dish was the contrasting side – Spanish style yellow rice with black beans, onions, red peppers and a very healthy kick of tamarind. Incredibly flavorful and spicy, I probably could have eaten 3 to 4 servings, easy. One of the best rice dishes I’ve had in a long, long time. Absolutely excellent.

Of course I couldn’t resist dessert. Enter their famous Mexican brownie:

This pretty much blew my mind. Not at all your typically intensely sweet brownie, it reminded me of chocolatey gingerbread, probably due to the spices. These treats were made by Becky’s Pantry with Abuelita chocolate (unsweetened Mexican chocolate, quite different from what we’re used to here) and smoked chilli powder and topped of with toasted slivered almonds. Very, very intriguing, and a huge serving to boot.

MotorMouth tries to buy as many of their ingredients from local farms, and always has a vegetarian option available.

Bottom line? Generous portion sizes, very fair prices, and out-of-the-ordinary gourmet foods with unusual ingredients prepared by a very nice team. 5/5 from me, with brownie (haha) points for enduring the rain to serve hungry mouths like mine. I hope I get a chance at those duck tacos soon!

Thanks to the MotorMouth Food Truck team for serving University Circle folks!

Which menu item would tempt you? What not so common dishes would you love to see at prices like these?

Winter Squash Cinnamon Soup – Squash Blog Hop!

Tags

CSA, Local, Recipe, Soup, Squash, Vegetables

It gets cold in Cleveland. Very, very cold. And since the last 4 or 5 CSA shares I received contained pie pumpkins and butternut, acorn and buttercup squashes, I got my soup-making apron on. Here’s a slightly sweet favorite of mine, winter squash cinnamon soup. And it’s my very first blog hop participation! 🙂

Ingredients:
– 4lb winter squash (here I used a 2.5lb butternut squash and a 1.5lb acorn squash, but mix and match as you’d like!)
– 1 bunch carrots
– 2 cloves garlic
– 1 quart chicken or vegetable broth, low-sodium
– 1/2 tbsp cinnamon

Steps:
1. Preheat oven to 350F
2. Cut the squash(es) in half, bisecting the hollow section, and scoop out seeds and fibers
3. Peel carrots and cut into 1-2 inch pieces
4. Line a cookie sheet, spray with PAM, and place all vegetables plus the garlic cloves (I live to place them in the hollowed out squash sections)

5. Roast for one hour, then let cool for 20 to 30 minutes
6. Place garlic and carrots in a food processor or blender (I love my Warrior Handheld Blender to death!) , scoop the softened squash flesh out of the skin and add to the processor along with a cup or two of the broth. Blend.

7. Transfer mixture to a large pot, stir in rest of broth and cinnamon and bring to a boil. Simmer for 20 minutes.

8. Enjoy topped with a dollop of fat-free greek yogurt or sour cream! Makes 8 generous cups of soup.

And there you go. I love soups on cold days, I love how healthy and low calorie this particular version is, but I also love how easily this freezes and provides dinner in a pinch.

What are some of your easy, comforting staples to fall back on when you’re stressed or pressed for time?

Find the blog hop hosted at Baker Street!

Baked Apple-Cinnamon Crêpes and Chocolate-Strawberry Crêpes

Tags

Apple-Picking, Food, Fruit, Local, low-calorie, Sweets

Part two of using all those gorgeous apples I got apple-picking brings me to a favorite of mine – crêpes. Crêpes are really popular back home in Germany, especially during the upcoming holiday season – we’ll have little wooden food shacks pop up all over town that prepare crêpes to go. Typical toppings on the sweet side (which is what you tend to get at these shacks; restaurants will also serve savory versions) are cinnamon-sugar, Nutella, banana-chocolate, strawberry-chocolate and Grand Manier.

I get cravings and homesickness attacks, but most of all, my wife fell in love with the crêpes in Germany. We had to find a way to make them without fancy crêpe plates and knives, and preferably find a way to make them low-calorie!

So here’s what we came up with, a wonderfully delicious, easy crêpe recipe that my wife (she’s the crêpe-maker in the household) makes at least once a week:

Ingredients:
for the crêpes:
– 1 cup skim milk or light plain soy milk
– 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
– 1/3 cup all-whites eggbeaters (or 3 large egg whites)
– 1/4 tsp salt
– 1/2 tsp nutmeg

for the toppings:
– 4 apples (I used Golden Delicious and Red Delicious)
– 16 oz strawberries
– cinnamon to taste
– 1/2 cup sugar-free syrup
– 4 tbsp sugar-free chocolate syrup
– Splenda or other sugar substitute to taste

Steps:
1. Combine all batter ingredients in a small mixing bowl and whisk until bubbly and no clumps remain

2. Let stand for 15 minutes and use that time to slice fruit and pre-heat a griddle or large non-stick pan
3. Spray the hot griddle with PAM (don’t be shy, otherwise the crêpes might bake to the griddle!), pour 1/4 cup of batter in, swirl to get a thin layer

4. Cook for 2 minutes, flip, cook for another 2 minutes

5. Meanwhile microwave the slices apples for 4-6 minutes until soft
6. Top 4 crêpes with strawberries, sprinkle on Splenda and top with 1 tbsp chocolate syrup per crêpe

7. Top 4 crêpes with hot apples, sprinkle on Splenda and cinnamon and pour on 1/8 cup syrup

Yields 8 crêpes (4 apple-cinnamon & 4 strawberry-chocolate). One untopped crêpe comes in at only 45 calories using milk, and even less using a light non-dairy substitute. So dig in! 🙂

(Notes: When you sprinkle on the cinnamon, make sure it’s cinnamon, not ground, roasted red pepper. Yeah. Also, we once used red curry powder instead of nutmeg in the batter. Let me tell you, either mix-up makes for surprising first mouthfuls. What are some of the worst kitchen accidents you’ve had?)

What are some of the things you crave during the fall from when you were growing up?

StrEAT Mobile Bistro – A Gourmet Food Truck Set On Feeding You!

Tags

Food, food truck, Local, Review, Soup, StrEAT Mobile Bistro

Have I recently mentioned that my wife’s work is awesome? Yes, well, it is even more so, now that a second weekly food truck visitor has been established: the StrEAT Mobile Bistro.

There are actually two food trucks run by a team (Manager Izzy Schachner, Chef Kelly McGlathery and Daniel Talty) that came together to launch this enterprise in early Spring 2011 and have been serving ravenous (Greater) Clevelanders faithfully come rain come shine. They offer a variety of dishes inspired by locally produced ingredients, which is always a plus!
So today I braved the rain as well and made the trek to meet for lunch.

We were welcomed by Dan and a most promising menu, which had been made available online one day in advance on Facebook and Twitter.

My wife zeroed in on the four cheese Mac-n-Cheese, a pretty tasty dish topped with breadcrumbs. Maybe our expectations were too high – it was a very solid, creamy Mac-n-Cheese dish, but not necessarily a revelation as to what all other Mac-n-Cheese should aspire to be.

I could not make up my mind between the two soups offered, and Dan immediately accommodated me and offered me a sample menu of both. And am I glad he did – because both dishes were absolutely delicious.
I started off with the harvest stew (winter squash, white beans, sweet potatoes, chickpeas, & Moroccan spices), a slightly sweet, hearty stew topped with golden couscous. It was wonderful! With the couscous stirred in, it had just the right amount of bite.

But I think my favorite dish of the day was the spicy, creamy, perfectly balanced tomato lentil soup. I could have consumed buckets and buckets! The only way to improve upon this dish would have been warm flat bread to dip into it. Oh wait! That was supplied as well. Literally one of the best things I’ve eaten since our China trip in May.

The dishes left me very sated and kept me warm and cozy all the way back to work through the rain. Perfect rainy Cleveland Fall weather food! And very portable as a “to go” meal.

Bottom line? Find them so they can feed you! Good to amazing food, fair prices, beautiful use of produce and an incredibly friendly and gracious crew. 4.5/5 from me.

Thank you so much again to Dan and Kelly for the treat and the eye-opening lentil soup! Man, I wish I even knew where to start on trying to make it myself…