Lentil Stew for a crazy day

Today was a lentil stew cooked up in the crock pot.  I am so glad that I had a crock pot dish planned too.  It wasn't supposed to have been such a busy day, car troubles threw a wrench in everything.  I ended up having to give the husband a ride to work at the last moment and then take his car in for repairs, that took up most of the day, before hurrying on to my scheduled doctor's appointment.  Fortunately the crockpot was already started before everything went kapoot.
 We had lentil stew over brown rice with a side of fruit.  I had a pear.

Lentil Stew

1 lb bag of lentils
1 can diced tomatoes
2 carrots sliced
2 stalks of celery sliced
1 onion chopped
1 heaping spoonful of minced garlic
half a bell pepper chopped
enough water
salt and pepper
1 vegan Italian sausage sliced (added one hour before serving)
All ingredients except sausage was dumped in crock pot and cooked on low for the day.  Water was added as needed.

Served it over some brown rice I had leftover, because I could and it was one less thing to cook on busy day.  And the side was whatever each person grabbed to go with it.  I had a pear. 

Kale, Potatoes and Carrots

 Back to using Salad plates, since I didn't mind this food touching each other.  We had a very simple meal, as usual.  Steamed purple kale, rosemary roasted potatoes and carrots and bread.

I did not make home made bread this time, because I was feeling rather lazy and I treated myself to a day at the Dallas Museum of Art.  It was a wheat bread from the co-op that has been in the freezer for awhile and really needed to be eaten anyway.  The girl child was happy to have it unfrozen for a sandwich for lunch to go with the leftover potatoes and carrots, which she packed in a thermos.

So the Kale was steamed in the steam basket of my rice cooker.  I included a photo of it just before it was steamed.  To be honest, it is prettier before cooking.  I just washed it, cut it up and put it in the basket and then cut up a half onion on top of that and a stalk of celery and a heaping spoonful of minced garlic and some sea salt and steamed until it looked wilted.

The potatoes and carrots were peeled and cut, as well as the other half of the onion and another stalk of celery and drizzled with olive oil and I added salt and pepper and tossed until nicely coated and put in a baking dish and then layered 4 long stems of fresh rosemary.   I really don't like the rosemary leaves in my food, but I like the flavor, which is why I layer the whole stems and then remove after cooking.

I didn't make as much of the potato and carrot mix as I had of the roasted carrots last week and I was concerned that there would not be enough  for everyone.  But the husband's office is now putting out fruit baskets in order to encourage folks to eat healthier, probably in hopes of reducing their insurance costs and the husband partook of the bounty just before coming home.  So we actually had leftovers.  The girl getting the potatoes and carrots for her lunch and the husband getting the last of the kale.  I of course will get the last of the chard.    I will never make so much chard at one time again, I don't care if it is filling all of my vegetable drawer. 

Bean Burritos, Rice, and Leftover Chard

The chard did not get finished off, so was reheated and served again.  But I had made a lot of chard.
This was another collaborative meal, since it was girl scout meeting night.
I cooked the pintos with some onions in the small crock pot (which is a 1.5 qt crock) and started the rice in the rice cooker and made the guacamole (avocado, chopped onion, minced garlic, lemon juice, salt and diced tomato (some of the grape tomatoes we still had left from last week's co-op share))

While I was out playing cab service to the girl child the husband got home from work and made the burrito filling which he informs me was to saute some onion and garlic in oil, then add beans that had the liquid strained off and mash them as he went.

The rice was taken from the rice cooker and a bit of lime juice added as well as some chopped fresh parsley.  The husband really liked the rice, I wasn't real thrilled with it.  But then he ate his inside his burrito, and I prefer my rice eaten by itself.

The tortillas are whole wheat tortillas from Central Market.  I warmed them with a damp paper towel in the microwave, since I had been storing them in the refrigerator. And my burrito was filled with just the beans and some Pace medium chunky salsa.  And I dipped it in the guacamole.  Once I realized how good the guacamole was with it, I sort of wish I had put it in the burrito.  My husband had 2 burritos with everything in it.
 The girl child ate before her meeting with a frozen no cheese veggie pizza, which she then spoiled with adding pepperoni to.

Steamed Greens and the Small Kitchen Appliance

Tonight was a simple meal of steamed greens, sauteed squash and brown rice.  What made this really easy is the rice and greens cooked together.  Originally it was supposed to be steamed Kale, but I had a small amount of spinach and a small amount of baby broccoli left and I just added it to the steam basket too.

I cooked my rice in my rice cooker, because if I actually try and cook rice on the stove, I always manage to ruin it.  I am just not that attentive of a cook to handle something like that and I hate boxed instant rice.  A brown rice has a nice nutty flavor that makes it something interesting to eat instead of just filler fluff that instant white rice is.

In the steam basket on top of the rice cooker I had all the green stuff I mentioned coarsely chopped as well as a quarter of an onion diced and a couple spoonfuls of minced garlic (I would have just used a couple whole cloves if I had them) and some sea salt.  On the right is a photo of what my steam basket of greens looked like before it steamed.

Once again I had to be away from the home to pick my daughter up from an activity, so I had the squash and onion sliced for the squash and asked my husband to saute it when he got in.  He used coconut oil for the saute.

I guess with me showing me using my rice cooker, I should probably confess something.  I really like kitchen appliances.  My rice cooker, my crock pots (yes I have 2) and my Vitamix are the coolest toys ever.  My husband is just as bad with his waffle iron and bread maker (although I make most of the bread in the oven and it never sees the bread maker).  I also have a Kitchaid mixer we got when we married nearly 14 years ago, that is still going strong and it has been put through the wringer.  Especially in those early days when I was still making breads that needed to be kneaded and we didn't have a bread maker.
Not all of our appliance purchases were a great idea.  I hate the George Foreman Grill with the multiple plates.  We were killing blenders about every 9-12 months until we finally broke down and got a Vitamix.  Okay to be fair, we inherited our first Vitamix and managed to kill it in a year's time, but it was a 30 year old Vitamix.  And sometimes the old fashioned cooking tools are the best.  Our favorite skillet is an iron skillet that belonged to my great grandmother.

Spaghetti Night becomes Pizza Night

  Around here I make home made spaghetti sauce, mainly because is it easy and I don't see a need to buy the premade sauce with all the stuff in it that we might be allergic to or I can't pronounce.  Granted my sauce is different every time, because it is dependent on what is in the house.  It is made in my small crock pot, which helps with the easy part.
The base:
1 can organic tomato sauce
1 can organic tomato paste
1 can organic diced tomatoes (we like a chunky sauce)
half an onion chopped
1 heaping T minced garlic
1 T dried Italian seasoning
pinch of crushed red pepper

Options based on what we have
fresh basil
mushrooms
bell pepper or sweet peppers
Field Roast Italian Sausage
zuchini
nutritional yeast
egg plant

This week's is fairly simple because I have only a bit of bell pepper and basil for extras.

It is usually served with some garlic bread.  Which is whatever bread we have.  This week is obviously special because we have a baguette from the co-op.  I make a mix of garlic and olive oil and spread it on slices and toast it.  Before my no dairy days, we even added a bit of Parmesan.  Maybe I should start using some nutritional yeast, it has replaced the parmesan in all other recipes nicely.  And a side of salad or fruit.  This time it will be fruit, because there was no lettuce in our co-op shares and I don't actually like lettuce enough to buy it if it doesn't come in my shares.

Ah, but the Pizza you ask?  Well, I take the leftover spaghetti sauce and thin it with some more tomato sauce and it is now pizza sauce.  I make a basic bread dough from my Artisan Breads in 5 min a Day cookbook, for my pizza dough, and everyone gets to make their own personal pizzas.  I get some onion, bell pepper, sun dried tomatoes and spinach - no cheese.    And we each get to choose a side of fruit.

Usually the pizza rust would be whole wheat, but I couldn't find my sifter.  And I grind my own wheat in my Vitamix.  I will have to to talk with the girl child about putting things away in their proper place.  It does seem like a lot of bread in my diet.  I wonder if I need to do something about that.

Planning a meal around Avocado and Carrots

The Avocado from the co-op was very soft and really needed to be eaten now and there are just lots of the multicolored carrots to be eaten.  So that is what focused this meal plan.

Brown Rice
Black Beans and Corn
     (Crazy easy and involves 1 can of black beans rinsed, 1 can of corn drained, some salsa and warmed).
Homemade guacamole (both avocados, 10 of those grape tomatoes chopped, minced garlic, salt, juice of one lemon)
Mexican Carrot Slaw (shredded 3 carrots of different colors, juice from 2 key limes, 1/8t of cumin and 1/4t cholula sauce)  This wasn't our favorite it was more of a relish than a slaw, but when mixed with the guacamole was very yummy.
Served with a side of corn tortilla chips.
I had orange juice for a drink, because it is a rare treat to just have a juice.  Usually it is water for dinner and maybe a hot tea for an after dinner drink.

There is a bit of everything left over, so it will be featured in lunches the next day.  Although the girl child is having meat she brought home from her grandparents for her lunch and the husband is having red beans and rice that features sausage that he also brought home from his parents.

On the other hand, the husband ordered a copy of his results from his physical so he could fill out a survey for the health insurance.  I read it.  He is now getting strong encouragement to go vegetarian from me.  His overall cholesterol isn't too bad, but the bad cholesterol is high and the good cholesterol is low.   He already should be going dairy free from being lactose intolerant, but hasn't been very motivated despite living with 2 females that have dairy allergies.  Of course I wasn't very motivated and I had an outright allergy myself.

The Co-op

I have been involved with a veggie co-op off an on for years.  The first one was difficult to work with my schedule for various reasons.  But my new one is wonderful and we participate most weeks and even volunteer about half the time.

What is cool about the co-op is that I get a great deal of fresh produce for a real good price  and it forces me to try new things.  We also get to order other things besides produce, but what is offered changes from week to week.  We usually get bread from the co-op as they have a dairy free and soy free 9 grain that is yummy.

We have been introduced to things like purple carrots, oroblancos, fresh artichokes (yes I have eaten artichokes, but never actually cooked them until I joined the co-op).

What is interesting about having the co-op, is that I don't have to or get to decide what produce I am getting.  I get what I get and I have to figure out how to make meals around that.  One of my standbys for the end of the week, is to throw all the leftover veggies into a crock pot and cook it up into a random veggie soup.  It works better some weeks than others.

This week we ordered a basic share of produce, a juicing pack (although I plan on using it for just eating or smoothies) coconut oil and a bread mix, because I thought I should try something other than just the 9 nine grain bread for once.

Juicing Pack
beets (trades for some extra grape tomatoes for the girl child)
celery (also traded for extra tomatoes)
lemons
limes
oranges
apples
kale
spinach
carrots (my college age son took those with him, since he was visiting over the weekend as well as some apples and oranges)
ginger
cucumber

Basic Share
Strawberries
celery
apples
oranges
bananas
brussel sprouts
avocado
oroblancos
grape tomatoes
rainbow carrots (orange, white an purple ones)

The first thing I got to make with this was smoothies using an apple, a couple of oranges, a banana, strawberries, and spinach.  It was very yummy.

Now to figure out what to do with all those carrots, that doesn't involve popping them in the crock pot with a roast.