Spaghetti Squash with Chickpeas

Well, it's Valentine's Day. I'm steeling myself against the sappy climate of the internet in general today, and trying to sink back into my (disjointed) art work groove.

The past few weeks have involved a lot of heavy foods (pizza and cookies on my worst days). I guess that's normal when you're strapped for time or going through big emotional changes, but I don't feel very good about it. So I've been wanting to prepare something lighter. I'm snowed in for the time being, but I thought ahead and got a spaghetti squash to experiment with a couple days before the storm.



Spaghetti Squash with Chickpeas

Ingredients:

• 4 cups cooked spaghetti squash
• 1/2 cup (dry) chickpeas
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1/2 tsp cumin
• a squeeze of fresh lemon juice (about 1/2 tsp)
• salt & pepper to taste
• lemon wedge (garnish)
• dash of oregano (garnish)

Preparation Part One:
I prepared my spaghetti squash in advance, and divided it into two 2-cup portions for later. You can make it using a microwave, but I did mine in the oven, since I was actually trying to kill time, and I wanted to simultaneously roast the seeds. To bake your squash, cut it in half lengthwise, scoop out the seeds and stringy bits, then place each half face down on a parchment-coated baking sheet. Bake for 45-60 minutes depending on the size of your squash. It's ready to be shredded into spaghetti-like strands when a knife can easily penetrate the outer skin. Here's the video I originally watched to learn how to roast my own.

I also cooked my chickpeas in advance. To cook from dried, soak the chickpeas for at least an hour (preferably overnight). Replace the soaking water with fresh water, and boil the chickpeas for about 45 minutes or until tender, and drain.

Preparation Part Two:
To your (reheated) spaghetti squash, add 1 tbsp olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Stir to combine.

To your cooked and drained chickpeas, squeeze in about 1/2 tsp fresh lemon juice, then stir in cumin and minced garlic. Top the spaghetti squash with your chickpeas and garnish with dried oregano and a lemon wedge.



It's a little bit like a chickpea salad with some familiar flavors borrowed from traditional hummus. The recipe listed above uses one whole squash, and makes about four servings. If you're preparing it for two on a date night, you can store the other half of the squash in the fridge for another night.

Red Lentil Spread for Toast

It's been a busy ten days since my last post. I spent all of last weekend working an Artist Alley table at a comics convention, started and completed a rush painting that had to be shipped overnight to Los Angeles this morning, filmed half of a new painting tutorial video, and worked on lots of other jobs and tasks. Sadly, food and sleep are the first two things that suffer when work gets crazy.

Even though I'm still catching up on work, I finally had a chance to get back into the kitchen today, and I wanted to make something on the healthier side. Brendan and I have been craving Ethiopian-style food for a while, so for my lunch today I created a sandwich spread loosely inspired by the traditional Ethiopian red lentil dish Mesir Wot.



Red Lentil Spread for Toast

Ingredients:

• 2 cups and 1/4 cup water
• 1 cup dried red lentils
• 1/2 onion, finely chopped
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tsp chopped basil
• 1/2 tsp ground paprika
• 1/2 tsp salt
• ground black pepper to taste

Preparation:
Add 2 cups of water to a metal saucepan (don't use a non-stick pan), and bring to a boil over medium heat. Add the red lentils and simmer for about 15 minutes, or until all the water is gone and the lentils are fully cooked.

Meanwhile, in a separate pan over medium-high heat, add 1 tbsp of olive oil and cook the finely-chopped onions until soft and golden brown, about 3 minutes. Remove the onions from the heat and set them aside.

When the red lentils are cooked, season them with salt and pepper, paprika, and basil. Stir well. The next part might go against all of your cooking intuition, but continue to cook the red lentil paste and let some of it stick to the bottom of the pan. It's ok if it starts to burn a little bit, too, just remove it from the heat if it starts to smoke or blacken. Scrape what's stuck to the pan back into the paste, and after about 5 minutes remove it from the heat. Add the cooked onions. Add 1 tbsp olive oil and 1/4 cup water and stir it all together to get a creamy consistency.



In the photo above I toasted some home-baked Spent Grain Bread in a hot frying pan, then cut it into triangles before adding a thick layer of the warm red lentil spread. Enjoy as a spread on sandwiches or wraps, or as a dip.

Medieval Cooking, pt. 6, Buttered Carrots and Parsnips

While we at House Sheppard have been preparing to host our own modest shindig, the authors of A Feast of Ice and Fire (the cookbook I've been using all month) have been putting together a Game of Thrones Party Planning EBook, which they announced yesterday on their website!

Medieval March is almost over, and this is the final recipe I've chosen to prepare for the month. It's the simplest thing on the menu so far, and takes very little time to prepare.

Buttered Carrots and Parsnips

Carrot, parsnip, butter, spring onion, salt and pepper. That's really it. Peel and slice the roots at an angle (about 1/8 inch thick), melt a generous amount of unsalted butter in a skillet on medium-high, cook the roots in the butter until fork tender and beginning to blacken around the edges. The book says cook for 15 minutes but on my stove it only took about 5 minutes. Use your judgement.



Season with salt and pepper, garnish with spring onion, and serve.

Medieval Cooking, pt. 2, Salad & Porridge

I had recipe experiments lined up for the last two days, but they didn't come out well enough to post, so I'm doubling up today.

These are the first two recipes I've made from A Feast of Ice and Fire, the Game of Thrones companion cookbook that I mentioned in my last post.



Salad at Castle Black
For the salad, I chose one of the simplest in the book, the Salad at Castle Black. Some of the recipes are posted on the authors' blog Inn at the Crossroads, but some are exclusive to the cookbook, so I can't share a link for this one. I'll just mention I swapped the turnip greens for arugula because that's what I had, but either would be delicious.



Pease Porridge
The pease porridge recipe is from the 14th century, made from yellow split-peas, pearl onions, herbs, and spices. A translation like the one in the GoT cookbook can be found on godecookery.com. One thing I didn't expect, never having used pearl onions before, was how long it takes to peel them before they're cooked. The first layer of flaky skin comes off well, but the second can be stubborn. I threw half of them in the pot with the second layer on, and found it was much easier to peel off that layer after cooking.

The authors were quite correct: this dish is totally about the herbs, the parboiled onions adding sweetness, and the peas being a canvas for the flavors. I went heavy on the sage, and also added marjoram, savory, and thyme. So good.

The Simplest Broccoli Soup (via Gordon Ramsay)

I bought the ingredients to make my buddy's dairy-free broccoli soup (as I mentioned in a previous post), but I have to let the avocados ripen first. So instead of doing that one tonight, I used half the broccoli I bought and tried out an extremely uncomplicated broccoli soup from this Gordon Ramsay video [watch to get the recipe].


Yes, it really is that green.

Being made out of only three ingredients (broccoli, water, and salt), I thought it seemed too simple to be good, but I stand corrected. Trust me, try it.

Herbed Roasted Brussels Sprouts

This dish vexed me for years before I got it right. I love roasted Brussels sprouts when they're done well, but it seemed like roasting them well was a sensitive and finicky operation, like selecting the proper temperature for orchids. Or maybe I was just using poor recipes. Who knows?


fig. A.) A sprout, mocking me.

Herbed Roasted Brussels Sprouts

Ingredients:
(makes 3-4 servings as a side dish)

• 24 brussels sprouts
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 sprigs of thyme
• 1 tsp chopped sage
• salt and black pepper to taste

Preparation:
Preheat oven to 400° F.

Remove the stems from the sprouts, and cut each one in half. In a bowl, stir the sprouts, oil, garlic, thyme, and sage until each piece is thoroughly coated in oil and spices. Spread the sprouts evenly spaced on a parchment-lined baking sheet and bake.

The trick is to bake them until they're crispy on the outside, but still tender in the middle, which for my oven was 27 minutes. Because no two ovens are alike, I would suggest experimenting baking them for between 25-30 minutes. You will notice the outer leaves are blackened but the center is still green when they're ready.

Remove the sprouts from the oven, add salt and pepper then serve immediately, with or without a creamy dipping sauce.


fig. B.) Delightful, crunchy sprouts.

Sun-Dried Tomato Hummus

This is a tart and tasty variation on the hummus recipe I posted earlier this month.

Homemade Sun-Dried Tomato Hummus
Use the Hummus I recipe and add the following:

• 1/2 small can (4 oz) of tomato paste
• 1/2 cup sun-dried tomato slices
• 1/2 tsp paprika

Preparation:
Prepare the plain hummus as directed, then stir in tomato paste, tomato slices, and paprika with a spoon until combined. Pulse lightly with a hand blender to break up the dried tomato slices a bit. Let sit for 1-2 hours in the refrigerator before serving.


I served this batch of sun-dried tomato hummus with a ring of olive oil and sprinkle of cayenne and cracked black pepper in the center.

I had the unfortunate experience of running out of hummus this week, and being so busy with art deadlines that I didn't have time to make more right away. Because of this, I realized just how much I rely on it as a flavor or binder in vegetable dishes. I have more chickpeas cooking on the stove now...

Raw Veggie Collard Wraps

"I don't like wraps. You always end up with too much wrap at the end." - Brendan Sheppard

Challenge accepted, husband.

Personally, I like tortilla wraps. They were one of the first ways I started adding veggies to my diet in my early 20's when I was still helplessly hooked on processed and sugary foods.



Somewhere on the internet about a year ago, I saw a photo of a collard leaf being used as a wrap. So it's not a new idea, but it stuck with me as a thing I might want to try someday, and with a mission to make a wrap less wrappy, it seemed like a nice solution to my husband's problem.



To get the leaves ready to roll, I soaked them in a baking dish full of water for an hour and shaved down the large central vein with a paring knife.

You can put just about anything into a wrap, and as usual I was just using what I had on hand, so this is one suggestion of many:

Raw Veggie Collard Wraps

Ingredients (for 1 wrap):

• a large collard leaf
• 1 carrot
• 1 celery stalk
• 3 generous spoonfuls of hummus
• 3 fresh basil leaves, chopped

Preparation:
Soak and shave the collard leaf as shown above. Peel the carrot and cut it into 4 lengthwise strips. Wash the celery stalk and cut it in half lengthwise.

You're going to want to roll it up starting at the base of the stem- think of the leaf's spine as a belt that will go around the center of the wrap when it's rolled up. On the underside of the leaf, lay out the hummus, carrots, and celery in a column perpendicular to the central stem:



Roll up the wrap and secure it with a toothpick in the center. Trim the ends and either a.) eat them, b.) compost them, or c.) set them aside for vegetable stock. For fun, I used a long carrot shaving as a garnish around the middle.


So crunchy. So good.

Apple Walnut Salad

I enjoy uncomplicated food. This is clearly evidenced by my approach to leafy salads- I typically start with the bed of greens, then add up to two flavors and a dressing that sync up well together. Anything more than that and the flavors become too competitive for my palate.



This lunch salad was simplicity itself, but it was also a product of compromise; My husband brought home a beautiful, perfectly ripe avocado last night, and I had to resist chopping it up and keeping it all to myself. Apples seemed like a good alternative.

Apple Walnut Salad

• greens (your choice)
• 1/2 apple, rinsed and cubed
• 1/4 cup walnuts

------------
Simple Honey Ginger Dressing (one serving)

• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• 2 tbsp warm honey
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger

Mix all of the dressing ingredients in a small bowl or measuring cup to combine, and stir well. Assemble the salad ingredients and pour the dressing on top. Eat. Enjoy.

Hummus I

Back to basics today. The first time I set out to make hummus, I bought a large bag of dried chickpeas from my local Indopak grocer. As I approached the register with my bag, the wife of the couple who runs the store looked me up and down, and asked with a mixture of disgust and fear, "just what are you going to do with those?"

Maybe I don't look like someone who knows her way around the kitchen (really, I don't on the outside), but I'm the type of person who takes others' lack of confidence as a challenge. I went home and immediately got to work on making what is now a staple in my fridge.

Hummus I

• 2 cups dried chickpeas, soaked and cooked
• 1/2 cup tahini
• 3/8 cup lemon juice
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 3 fresh garlic cloves, minced
• 1 1/2 tbsp cumin
• 1/2 tsp coriander
• 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
• Cracked black pepper to taste
• Sea salt to taste

Preparation:
[Pre-prep] Soak your chickpeas in a cooking pot about 12 hours in advance of when you plan to make the hummus.

Bring the soaked chickpeas to a boil, then simmer for about 45 minutes, or until tender. Drain the chickpeas, reserving the cooking liquid. Rinse the drained chickpeas in a strainer with cold water to stop the cooking, then add back to the cooking pot.

To the drained chickpeas, add the tahini, lemon juice, olive oil, and garlic. Blend together using an immersion blender (I don’t own one, but you can use a full-size food processor instead). Add the spices and continue blending.

Add the warm cooking liquid back into the mixture a little at a time, until the hummus becomes creamy. If you’re not sure, you can test the consistency by picking up a spoonful of hummus and then dropping it back in- if it just sits on the surface in a clump, add more liquid and keep mixing. If the surface slowly flattens out, that’s ideal.

Chill in the refrigerator and serve. We usually serve the hummus with crisp fresh celery and/or carrots, but you can dip just about anything into this hummus and it will taste great.



Notes:
-You may adjust the seasonings to your taste- it is very important that you taste it before, during, and after seasoning. For example, I wrote down a specific amount of cumin, but in my cookbook, I've since scratched that out and just written "a lot."

-If it doesn't seem garlicky enough at first, wait an hour and taste it again. I've found that the garlic flavor tends to get stronger as the hummus sits, so be careful not to add more than you want. For that reason, I like to make hummus at least a couple hours in advance of having guests over.

*TIP: If you have any remaining cooking liquid, you can save it for a day or two and add it to any recipe that calls for vegetable stock.