Category Archives: Beans and Other Legumes

French Lentil Cakes with Yogurt and Fresh Herbs

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As promised, we are using up leftover lentils today.  No leftover lentils?  Go start a pot of the little French ones now.  Cover a cup of them with water, toss in a bay leaf, they’ll be ready before your remaining ingredients are chopped.  Which brings us to the next point: this is a more time-consuming recipe than most that I post on this site.  You may not want to start cooking these at 6 p.m. on a weekday–but then again, you might.  Who am I to insist that you eat before 7?

If you’re looking for a “center of the plate” vegetarian main course, look no further.  One or two of these golden cakes, anointed with a dollop of herby yogurt sauce, makes an elegant entree.  At the same time, nobody could blame you for popping one of these into a hamburger bun and piling it with crunchy lettuce and tomatoes.  The perfect vegetarian burger is an elusive thing, but these fit the bill: flavorful, moist, and sturdy enough to pick up in your hand.

This recipe is adapted from the blog Coconut and Quinoa, so all the credit goes to Amy for the little touches that make this recipe work: mashed chickpeas and oat flour to bind the patties without egg, a sauteed grated zucchini for moisture, and piles of herbs, capers, and a spash of balsamic vinegar to brighten and enhance the flavor of the earthy lentils.

Continue reading French Lentil Cakes with Yogurt and Fresh Herbs (click for recipe)

How to Cook a Simple Pot of Lentils

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I like how one good thing becomes another. An easy quinoa dish becomes savory little herbed quinoa cakes.  Leftover risotto fills chard rolls.  A pot of black beans leads to chilaquiles and taco salads and all kinds of deliciousness.  What I’m saying is this: make more lentils than you plan to eat in one go.  We’ll be doing something good with the leftovers tomorrow.

This recipe will work for all the lentil varieties I can think of except for red lentils, which tend to cook into a mush rather than holding their shape.  You can eat them alone or with rice, use them in a lentil salad, or serve them as a side dish.  They’re great under or alongside a simple roasted piece of fish (or probably chicken, although I’m no authority on that point).

There are two secret ingredients at play here that make this lentil preparation so delicious: the lentils themselves, which have a sweet, earthy flavor, and salt.  A splash of vinegar at the end doesn’t hurt, either. If you have a carrot and a stalk or celery, great, toss them in.  If not, don’t fret, just go ahead without them.

Personally, my favorite lentils are the tiny green French Le Puy lentils or the equally-tiny black Beluga lentils.  This recipe works equally well with a run-of-the-mill supermarket brown or green lentil, however.  Whichever kind you choose, just be sure to keep an eye out for tiny rocks or dirt clods as you pour them into a colander, then rinse them well before cooking. Continue reading How to Cook a Simple Pot of Lentils (click for recipe)

Simple Lentil Soup

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I haven’t posted a lentil soup here in weeks.  Weeks!  Hopefully you’ve been managing to get by alright with that red lentil soup from last month.  And did I ever mention that you can and should make The Best Soup of 2011 with green lentils?

But what do you think I EAT around here, people?  Oh, right, that kale salad.  Every day.  But also: lentil soup.  And this week it’s this lentil soup.  It’s a recipe that’s been in my life for a long time, but I never get tired of it.  I try out a lot of recipes, as you might have noticed.  Some are duds (you’ll never hear about those, shhh).  Some are momentary infatuations.  Some I make season after season, year after year.  This soup falls into that last category.

And since it’s late April and I’m talking lentil soup, I guess it’s time to come clean about something: seasonality be damned, I make soup year-round.  Avert your eyes if you must, or haul your laptop over to right in front of your air conditioner to read about it.  I live in Seattle, after all, and feel that I am entitled to take advantage of the few meteorological perks available in this region.  So I will be making soup as the weather permits (i.e., all summer long).

This is one of those recipes that I got from a friend a long time ago and I don’t know where it came from before that.  So if you are the inventor of this precise combination of ingredients, thank you.  It’s perfect.  I haven’t changed a thing.  My friend says the Parmesan rind is what makes it so good, which may be true, but if you don’t have one handy I imagine that you could add the flavor by stirring in some finely-grated Parmesan cheese at the end.  And if you’re vegan I am pretty sure that you could get away with leaving the Parmesan rind out and adding one pinch more salt–but I haven’t tried that.  I don’t want to mess with perfection.

Finally, don’t forget that in the time it takes this soup to cook you can easily bake a homemade bread.  This week I’ve been baking this easy little oat bread, but a whole wheat soda bread or even a beer bread would be perfectly nice as well. Continue reading Simple Lentil Soup (click for recipe)

Southwestern Frittata with Peppers, Black Beans, and Cheddar

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Speaking of glorified scrambled eggs, a frittata is one of my favorite quick dinners.  (Although of course it would not be out of place at an elegant brunch. You know, should you have the occasion to host or attend an elegant brunch.  Around here on weekends it’s more of a race to see if I can just snag a pancake before the kids eat them all.)  A frittata has a significant advantage over scrambled eggs when it comes to dinner, in fact, because it can be made ahead and served at room temperature, or even cold.

Some of my favorite people went tootling around New Mexico recently, and knowing that they were in the land of chiles left me dreaming of the flavors of the Southwest.  They hadn’t yet come back to deliver my stash of frozen roasted Alcalde chiles, so I was stuck making this frittata with ingredients available to ordinary mortals.

But now those chiles are in my freezer.  What should I do with them?! They’re like gold. Or at least truffles.

Anyway.  Back to the I’m-not-in-Santa-Fe frittata.  I knew that I wanted to make a thick frittata, packed full of vegetables and a big scoop of drained pico de gallo salsa.  I was a little worried about getting my frittata to cook through, so I turned to the experts on nitpicky culinary concerns, Cook’s Illustrated.  And, as usual, they had good advice for me: cook the eggs as if you are scrambling them until they are nearly set, then finish them under the broiler.  Which I did. Continue Reading Southwestern Frittata with Peppers, Black Beans, and Cheddar (click for recipe)

Quinoa Chili with Red Peppers

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I ran into a neighbor the other day who was out walking with her three kids.  The youngest is a new baby, just about the same age that my new baby was when I decided that something had to give and we’d just have to eat scrambled eggs for the rest of time.  (I’d like to be able to say that I gave up on cleaning as well as cooking at that time, but, to be honest, cleaning was never really my thing.)

I offered to bring dinner by, of course.  I probably should have offered to come over and do eight loads of laundry instead, but I imagined that my casual acquaintance wouldn’t take me up on that offer.  (Or maybe I’m just telling myself that because I’d rather cook than do laundry any day.  If someone near and dear to you has a baby, though–especially a third baby–you should TOTALLY offer to do their laundry.  They need all the help they can get.)

I’m not necessarily recommending this chili as the ideal food for new parents.  It has everything some nursing moms try to avoid: spice, garlic, beans, onions.  Some might prefer a soothing lentil soup, or those quinoa cakes, or a tofu enchilada casserole.  But this chili is quick to cook and makes plenty to share.  And my neighbor was game.

It’s a recipe from the the “red” section of the Ripe cookbook (also the source of that Dal with Curried Red Onion Jam).  And when I read the headnote I knew that this recipe and I were meant to be.  Because it says that Ripe author Cheryl Sternman Rule adapted the recipe from one that she developed for Eating Well magazine way back when–and you know that she has GOT to be talking about my favorite wheat berry chili.  Except that quinoa cooks in 15 minutes instead of an hour and 15 minutes.  A brilliant idea for a busy mom on a busy day.  I kept my favorite elements of each recipe, of course, cooking the quinoa longer for more chew than crunch, happily piling in the red pepper, replacing red beans with homemade black beans, and squeezing in a few limes at the end. Continue reading Quinoa Chili with Red Peppers (click for recipe)

Baked Potato with Chili

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You know how I feel about my freezer.  I love all that good stuff in there that I made in double batches a while back so I could grab it on a busy night.  Here’s a way to give new life to that Winter Vegetarian Chili you stashed away (and stretch the frozen quart to feed a whole family).

Of course, a baked potato makes a mighty fine meal even if you don’t have chili handy (although that chili really is worth making).  And if you’re in a part of the world where the weather now makes eating chili & baked potatoes seem SO last season…well, feel free to gloat in the comments.

Continue reading Baked Potato with Chili (click for recipe)

Chickpea and Avocado Smash

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Do you find that sandwiches always taste better when someone else makes them for you?  I do.  If you make your own sandwiches and enjoy them, can you tell me your secrets?

Sure, I like a luscious grilled cheese sandwich made with leftover curried onion jam.  And I can always snuggle a cold slice of any of these frittatas between two pieces of whole wheat toast swiped with mayonnaise and harissa.  But a real, well-composed, flavorful vegetarian sandwich takes some work.  I usually leave it to the professionals.  Or, you know, anyone else who’s offering to make me a sandwich.

But a spread?  A spread I can do.  In fact, I learned, I can make this one with one hand while holding a clingy baby in the other arm.  (When I was preparing to welcome my first baby, why didn’t anyone tell me to practice feeding myself with one hand?  I’ve got some experience by now, but even if you’re a novice, you too can make this spread with one hand.)  It was inspired by this good-looking sandwich from the makes-me-want-to-eat-cookies blog Two Peas and Their Pod.  But you know how I feel about making my own sandwiches.

You also know how I feel about making my own beans, but on this occasion I used canned chickpeas.  No biggie.  They get a bit lost in the smash anyway, adding more texture and protein than flavor to the creamy, salty, mustardy spread.  And although this would be a perfectly acceptable dip for veggie spears (or chips, for that matter), I heaped it onto rounds of a seedy baguette.  Almost like a sandwich.

Continue reading Chickpea and Avocado Smash (click for recipe)

How to Cook White Beans

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Having already discussed the many reasons to cook your own dried beans (they’re tasty, healthy, and inexpensive) and how easy it is, I won’t go into that again here.  What I will say is this: although you can further embellish these beans or use them in other recipes, these basic white beans are so good that I also like to just serve them with a spoon.  They are gently aromatic, tender, wholesome, and delicious.

You can cook any white beans following this recipe. Cannellini beans, flageolets, Great Northerns, navy beans, even chickpeas.  Larger beans will take longer to cook, that’s all. Continue reading How to Cook White Beans (click for recipe)

Dal with Curried Red Onion Jam

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Like many enthusiastic cooks, I have a bit of a cookbook collection. Some books I use mostly for reference, some I keep only out of nostalgia (or, more embarrassingly, because hey-I-might-need-THAT-Sri-Lankan-recipe-someday!), and others are in heavy rotation.  Also, I just love books in general.  I always have a cookbook or two on my bedside table, which I occasionally read as bedtime stories.  But the cookbooks I like most are the ones that inspire me to branch out in my preparations of the humble vegetable.

I think I have mentioned before that Seattle is graced with five months of springtime, which means greens galore in the garden.  Arugula, chard, kale.  Radishes, turnips, peas.  Repeat.  Springtime all the way through until August, when we may (or may not) see a little flourish of zucchini and cherry tomatoes to end the growing season.  We belong to a couple of CSAs to fill in the gaps.  So I’m always looking for ideas to churn through the produce while keeping both the cooking and the eating enjoyable around here.

This year I am going to be brandishing a new cookbook in the kitchen.  I just got my copy of Ripe today and I’m smitten.  It’s an homage to fruits and vegetables as much as a cookbook, really.  It’s written by Cheryl Sternman Rule, the witty and eloquent voice behind the 5 second rule blog (she’s the one who brought that Quick Whole Wheat Spice Bread with Brown Sugar, Orange Zest, and Walnuts into our lives, bless her heart).  It’s gorgeously photographed (click here to see some of the pretty pictures).  Each fruit and vegetable gets a few pages: a glam shot, a few irresistible descriptive paragraphs, a featured recipe and a few “un-recipes”–my favorite part, of course–such as this one for carrot salad: “wide carrot ribbons + harissa + yogurt + green olives + parsley.”  Yes!

And if the first recipe I tried is any indication, the flavors pop as brightly as the colors in this book.  A simple gingery dal, a plain pot of brown rice, diced red onion jewels glinting at first in the wide pan, then melting into a sweet and tangy and black-pepper-spiced chutney that transported us to some mad place where we wished winter weren’t so close to over.  Oh, well, I’m looking forward to trying the radish recipes. Continue reading Dal with Curried Red Onion Jam (click for recipe)

Vegetarian Taco Salad

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I hear that some people get tired of leftovers.  I am not really one of those people.  To me, leftovers equal free time because the cooking is already done!  Nevertheless, your pots of Black Beans with Cilantro and Lime and Quinoa with Corn, Green Onions, and Feta are probably starting to dwindle, now that you made those Black Bean Tacos and snuck a scoop of the beans for your Huevos Rancheros.  This week’s leftovers have their last hurrah in this taco salad, which could be dinner on a busy night or could just as easily travel to work for lunch.

Of course, you can make make this salad with any cooked or canned beans and grains you have on hand.  Or substitute a good handful of broken tortilla chips for the quinoa–I won’t tell. Continue reading Vegetarian Taco Salad (click for recipe)