Saturday food haul

At the farmers' market (about $25)

1 quart button mushrooms

a bunch of collard greens

a bunch of kale

a bunch of winter salad greens (watercress, etc. mix)

1 head of green leaf lettuce

several bulbs of red shallots

10 red carrots

3 bagels

2 brownies

1 quart apple butter

At Mariposa co-op (about $35)

1.5 lbs rolled oats

1 lb penne pasta

1 lb asparagus

1 quart rice/soy milk

a bunch of dulce (sea vegetable)

dijon mustard

Tofurkey deli slices

4 bananas

lapsang souchong tea (bulk)

raspberry leaf tea (bulk)

valerian root powder (bulk)

nutritional yeast (bulk)

1 can of red beans for the food drive at my school

1 can of spicy refried beans for the food drive at my school

6 starter strawberry plants

I forgot to get beans for us (bulk red beans), and I forgot garlic. The winter greens mix and collard greens were the best deal of the day: $2.40 for both at the Pennypack Farms table. I'm into mushrooms for sandwiches again. They're filling and high in protein and they soak up whatever flavors you put on them. With springtime, I'm into sandwiches again, which just always seem like an appropriate food for warm weather. We've been getting hoagie rolls from Fu-Wah, and I bring sandwiches on them for lunch. Mark has been making me a delicious pasta and bean salad for lunch that I just don't get tired of. It saves my life on those long Wednesdays when I have to go out to Glenside for class after school.

Lapsang Souchong tea is now one of my favorite things. It is smoky and sexy. It's campfire tea. Valerian root is for relaxation, including relaxing your muscles, so I wanted to try it to help ease the tension in my neck and shoulders that doesn't let go at the end of the day. Raspberry leaf tea is especially for ladies. I just discovered that the co-op has bulk teas, which is great. I got a lot of the campfire tea for $4, which, a box of 16 Russian Caravan tea bags (another smoky tea) is over $4, and this is a lot more tea than that. I don't know how to use the Valerian root, so I have to look that up.

We've been running out of money pretty much every week as we catch up from winter heating bills, unemployment, and the general January-April money curse, so we've gotten creative with food a lot. Mark's payday was yesterday and not a moment too soon. Yesterday, I actually brought four slices of cheap white bread and a container of apple butter to spread on it for lunch. Thursday, I brought a bag of raisins and got a bag of pretzels and a very sad banana at the 7-11 near the school. Pitiful. Back on top of things now. I tried to be conscious about what would last the longest, with the exception of the Tofurkey slices, which were a splurge. The quart of button mushrooms, with greens, vinegar, mustard, and onions, will be great for sandwiches for lunch. I'm sure I can sweet talk Mark into making me another pasta salad. I still have lots of raisins, and the rolled oats are $1.02/lb, and a lot of bang for the buck, with high protein, calcium and iron, and very filling for breakfast (or dinner). Adding raisins sweetens the oatmeal and ups the calcium. Cheap pasta sauce from Fu-Wah, along with the cheap white bread for garlic bread makes for a good, cheap, filling pasta dinner. We also have plenty of whole wheat flour and black pepper for gravy, and Mark perfected a rice-and-gravy dish this past week that is ridiculous-tasty. I don't know what the hell I would do without Mark's mad cooking skills. My life would be sadder and less fulfilling. And then there's the love. That makes things better, too.

something to make a pot of on sunday and eat all week

I thought I had a picture of the Whole Grains and Beans Soup Mix from Bob's Red Mill, sitting on the shelf at the co-op, but it looks like I have a picture of the 13-bean one instead. Too bad. Anyway, the one we are having today is the beans & grains one. I once had a cookbook all about beans and grains. Back in Marlinton. It went the way of many of my possessions when I transferred myself from Marlinton to Charlottesville to Philadelphia.

The 13-bean soup was fine, but I prefer the Whole Grains and Beans mix because it has about a zillion different grains in it, and the texture is perfect for a stew, which you can flavor a la American cuisine with onions and garlic and herbs (which is how we're having it today), or I would think you could have it curried, with big chunks of potato, which is how I'll have it when I make it myself.

The Whole Grains and Beans Soup Mix contains:

small red beans, pinto beans, lentils, red lentils, whole oat groats, brown rice, triticale berries (wheat), rye berries, hard red wheat, pearled barley, kamut khorasan wheat, buckwheat groats and sesame seeds.

One serving has 19 grams of protein, 15 grams of dietary fiber, 2 grams of fat, and 30% of your recommended daily iron.

I like the words hard red wheat. They make me think of a field in winter that was the setting of a few scenes of a book I read as a kid, which I remember nothing else about. I like the words triticale berries. They remind me of Quest for the Faradawn by Richard Ford. Who doesn't like to say pearled barley? Buckwheat groats is growing on me.

Here's what's been happening in food.

Been living on snacks: figs, tomatoes, bean sprouts, carrots, sunflower seeds, dried red sea vegetable, nuts, grapes. What I can grab from my kitchen when I am not, by any reasonable definition, awake. I've actually taken for lunch what was left of a box of cherry tomatoes and what was left of a bag of mixed nuts from yesterday. I have a working lunch from 11:50 - 12:34.

And here's what else: Oversized baked sweets. Big, thick, pillowy chocolate chip cookies and peanut butter cookies with fork-criss-crosses on top, brownies, cinnamon rolls with icing, brownies with peanut-butter-fudge and chocolate coating on top. I have to stop. You get these things at coffee shops. They add up. I have to stop. But I'm not gonna. Cause I have a working lunch from 11:50 - 12:34. And I like to have sweets during that time period.

Bagels from the coffee shop on weekends.

Tonight, we ordered Chinese food from China Inn at 44th & Locust. It wasn't that good. Ordered through Eat24Hours.com which is good because they also have service for Desi Village and Tandoor India, and I will order from those places in the future.

Farmers' Market tomorrow? We'll see. Sleep first.

Ready for the week

Made this chili with canned ingredients tonight, for lunch tomorrow. Roasting some greens (fresh from the farmers' market) right now to go with them. Will also bring grapes from the farmers' market that taste like wild grapes. Very excellent trip to the store tonight.

Fu-Wah Mini-Market

Whole wheat flour
mineral water (2)
diced tomatoes (in a can)
black beans (can)
kidney beans (can)
Beirut Tahini Sesame Paste
brown rice cakes
chili powder
1 quart Almond Dream almond milk
baking soda

Total: $23.80

At the farmers' market on Thursday, I bought...

collard greens
mustard greens
okra
green beans
grapes
blackberries
yellow onions
carrots
tomatoes

I think that's it. I have maple syrup to mix with the tahini paste to put on the rice cakes. I can now make whole wheat pancakes. (I'm getting really good at pancakes.)

Tomorrow:

Breakfast - raw grain and walnut cereal with almond milk and blackberries
Noon Lunch - roasted greens, tahini w/maple syrup on rice cakes, and grapes
3 pm Lunch - 2-bean chili
When I get home from Arcadia - Whole wheat pancakes w/maple syrup

Tuesday

Breakfast: Half a grapefruit. Bowl of oat bran with coconut. Black coffee. The coconut is dried coconut from the lady who sells the beans and spices at the farmers' market. It adds fat to the oat bran. This is also good if you want to add a little cocoa powder and raw sugar but I'm not doing that this morning.

Lunch: Sandwich - portobello mushroom marinated in balsamic vinegar, onions, and lettuce, on multi-grain bread. Avocado.

Dinner: Open to suggestions.

Two Sandwiches

A couple of sandwich meals I've been having.

Here's a favorite:

White mushrooms soaked in balsamic vinegar, mixed greens, alfalfa sprouts, onions, and Vegenaise. (If you don't have Vegenaise, use olive oil mixed with your favorite spices - that's what I often do.) In this picture, it's on country white bread, because they were out of multi-grain, but multi-grain is my personal favorite for this sandwich. This sandwich keeps well, if you want to make it in the morning and wrap it up for lunch. Because the mushrooms soak up the vinegar, you can have a lot of flavor without the ingredients being too wet.

On the side: green beans lightly sauteed in olive oil with salt and pepper. Don't cook them long - leave them crunchy, and then coat them with crunchy sea salt. These are also a great movie snack. And of course, if you have a sour pickle to add on the side, all the better.


I don't think this next one photographed as well, but it's a good hoagie.

That's Tofurkey kielbasa cut into strips and heated in a skillet on the stovetop. Top that with raw onions, alfalfa sprouts, and a little bit of the sauerkraut you're going to have for your side dish. The roll is a standard hoagie roll from any Philadelphia corner store. (Or your favorite steak roll from wherever you live.)

Side dish: seared brussels sprouts and sauerkraut. Use a small amount of olive oil, salt and pepper for the brussels sprouts. Cook them over high heat. You want to leave them crunchy but blacken parts of them. Some of the outer leaves will fall off and those will get nice and crispy. Don't use too much oil because when you add the kraut, there will be a lot of moisture. Keep the heat high and add the kraut - this will blacken a little, too, and get smoky. Sprinkle the whole mess with pepper.

Good times.

No Food Today

OK, that title is a little dramatic. There is food.

But there is no Clark Park Farmers' Market today. For real, this time. It has been canceled, officially. And you can see why from the picture above. See, during the last blizzard, we assumed there was no market and didn't go down, and then it turned out there was a market, after all. So we were determined not to be fooled again, and we were looking forward to going to the market in a blizzard. But alas, it's really canceled. Maybe there wasn't enough turn-out last time to make it worthwhile.

I'm not complaining, I wouldn't be out there selling carrots in this weather, either. I hope all our wonderful vendors are snuggled up with hot chocolate somewhere.

The good news, is I never posted last Saturday's shopping list, because I've been so busy, so I can provide you with a post today.


Last Saturday's shopping list, if memory serves me

3 bunches of leaf lettuce - two purple and one green
5 or so yellow onions
a quart or so of white mushrooms and a Portobello cap
some sweet potatoes?
um.... (see, we ate everything already, so I'm having trouble here)
I remember we got some Spanish Saffron, because it was pretty
We already had the split peas
We already had lentils and beans
Maybe one or two kohlrabe roots
a loaf of cracked-wheat bread
another jar of apple syrup
a jar of raspberry jam
We already had a ton of carrots for juicing and soups
Hmm... Maybe some garlic, and that's all I remember
Oh, and a thing of homemade granola to put on hot oat bran


I remember that in all, including the bread from Milk & Honey (grocery store), and the bagels from there, and a few things from Fu-Wah, we spent about $35 last Saturday. We didn't get much at the farmers' market because we were pretty well stocked. The leaf lettuce is the main thing I remember because it's something you want to get each week. This will be a sad week without it.

OK, next topic. Packable Foods. Also called Bringable Foods. Foods you can pack and bring with you, if you're going to be out of the house all day.

For the past month, I've been leaving the house around 7 a.m. and returning home between 7:30 and 8 p.m. That schedule is over now, thank goodness, and my new place of work is an eight-minute walk from my home. However, because I will be extremely busy, I still have to think about packable, bringable foods.

Here's something that has been a habit for the past month. I would make a sandwich or two (or three) in the morning, wrap them up and bring them along. I would eat one mid-morning for breakfast, and one mid-afternoon for lunch. The sandwich has mushrooms soaked in balsamic vinegar, onions, and that rich purple and green leaf lettuce. Oh, and Vegenaise. I thought it might get soggy, but it doesn't. I think that's because the mushrooms absorb the vinegar like sponges so there's nothing really to make the bread soggy. Vegenaise actually does very well in this context. I don't put the sandwiches in a refrigerator, they do OK in my lunchbox in the classroom closet.

Then for my late-afternoon or early evening meal (while in class), I would bring a Thermos full of soup, which actually stayed warm until about 5 p.m. when I ate it. Even if it were cold, it would still be good. Another benefit of blended soups. This one is a yellow split-pea soup.

1/2 lb of yellow split peas (dried)
2 very large orange carrots
4-5 white mushrooms (I'm not sure what kind of mushrooms these are, actually - they're white and smallish - pictured above)
2 medium-sized white sweet potatoes
1 medium yellow onion
3 cloves of fresh garlic
fennel seeds (a pinch?)
salt and pepper to taste
garnish each serving with saffron

Bring water and split peas to a boil, reduce heat, simmer. Add sweet potatoes, carrots, onion, garlic, mushrooms, fennel. Cover and simmer until everything is soft. Blend.

I'm convinced this soup cures colds and boosts mental functioning. It just makes you feel good all the way through. It was a very comforting, filling meal while I was sitting in class trying to get my brain to keep working after a long day.

Other things I brought along for lunch and snacks: pecans, sunflower seeds, dried seaweed, apples, the occasional Cliff Bar, and lots and lots of raw carrots.

Of course, upon returning home, there's nothing like Breakfast For Dinner to unwind. Buckwheat pancakes with apple syrup have been a favorite dinner lately, and I don't see that changing anytime soon.

Speaking of syrup, here's a treat I just found on Foodista.com that looks ridiculously delicious, and comes with a built-in excuse to eat candy: It's candy, but it's also split peas. Sounds like the perfect thing for me. If I try this, I'll let you know how it goes.

Maple Yellow Split Pea Cake

BYO Lunch

And by lunch I mean things I'll be snacking on all day. I am bringing:

2 carrots
1 apple
a bag of pecans
a snack thing of dried, salted seaweed
a sandwich kit consisting of:

A small plastic bowl with a lid, containing sandwich greens, onion slices and chopped mushrooms soaked in balsamic vinegar and coated lightly in olive oil and pepper, along with two slices of cracked wheat bread in a sandwich bag. The sandwich components will be assembled at school.

and a Thermos full of soup containing beans, quinoa, and kale, among other things

I am going to be so full.

All of these things are prepared and waiting either in my bag already or in the door of the fridge. There's a note on the front door telling me not to leave without all my snacks.

Now, it's all about the sleep.

Saturday: The Bean and Spice Lady was back.

Saturday Shopping List

1 lb of red beans
1 lb of yellow split peas
a lot of orange carrots for $1.25/lb
an overpriced pre-mixed bag of salad greens (only greens they had left)
1/2 dozen Empire apples
1 Portobello cap (last one they had)
5 yellow onions
maybe 8 smallish blue potatoes
5 white sweet potatoes
3 Beauregard (red) sweet potatoes
12 oz jar of apple syrup
2 oz. of fennel seeds
1 oz. of celery seed (soup seasoning)
1 oz. of sweet Hungarian paprika
1 giant loaf of cracked-wheat bread
2 sesame-seed bagels

Total: $42.92


So happy the bean-and-spice lady was back! At least for today. It's almost 50 degrees out, so maybe that's why she was there. Split peas. I'mma make a good soup with split peas, sweet potatoes, onion, fennel, and paprika. Would that work? I think I'll try it. Mark's going to make a bean soup, so that's what I got the celery seed for. And the fennel allows me to have my mushroom scramble breakfasts. I got a lot of mushrooms last week, so I still had a Portobello left and some white mushrooms. If I run out, I can get Baby Bellas at Fu-Wah. I was almost out of fennel and getting antsy. I don't know where else to get it.


I've made a habit of having buckwheat pancakes with apple syrup for dinner when I get home from class. After "working" (observing, lesson-planning, teaching) from 8-3 and then having a meeting usually and then class from 4:30-7, I'm starving and pancakes are so quick, easy, and filling. Buckwheat pancakes, anyway, are filling. Especially because I use flaxseed, which gives them extra fat and protein.

Since I'm on the go so much, I've been eating what I call horse food. I bring raw carrots and apples as snacks, along with my travel-cereal-bowl for oat bran. I use water from the water fountain and heat the oat bran in the conference-room microwave. I also add flaxseed to that. I've made a bad habit of going to Subway before class in the evening for a veggie-max sub. I can't afford to be doing that every day, but I haven't been doing it every day, so it's OK, but I need to cut down. I tried bringing the Thai Kitchen instant noodles, but if you can't start with boiling water, or at least hot water, they're kind of high-maintenance. Starting with water from the water fountain, you have to heat them for like 8 minutes in the microwave, before they get soft enough to eat, and then they're too hot to eat, so you have to wait for them to cool, or blow on each bite until you're dizzy, or burn your tongue. All three options make me way too cranky to lesson-plan.


Good soup ingredients this week, though, so I can take my Thermos full of very filling soup (remember, we also have quinoa), and that should take care of my Subway problem. I might start treating myself to wasabi peas. That's something I can bring that will seem like a treat and will be filling. I need to get some nuts, too. They're kind of prohibitively expensive, but worth it if they keep me out of Subway. At least I wouldn't be nickel-and-diming myself.

It's a gorgeous Saturday, which is supposed to be followed by a warm, rainy Sunday, and then a gorgeous Martin Luther King Day. I'm going to spend some more time outside. I might even bring out the bike. I have some lesson plans to work on, a mock-up and rubric for a project I'm assigning my students, and somehow I have to procure 90 pieces of posterboard. I'm a canvasser. This can't be too hard. Lemme get to thinking now.

Indian Lentil Soup

I'm calling this Jen's Indian Lentil Soup, on account of I got the recipe in the first place from my friend Jen.

I'll be making this soup again today. It was delicious and warming, but somehow it made the weather cold. Warm weather was in the forecast, then I made this soup, which is perfect for cold weather, and then the weather turned cold. So I shouldn't make it again today, because the weather is beautiful and heading up to 70 degrees, but I'm not superstitious and I want my Indian Lentil Soup.

The original recipe I got from

Jen was for a big batch of soup, with one lb of lentils, two sweet potatoes, 8 cups of water, etc. I tried to cut the recipe in half, and I don't have measuring cups, so the recipe depicted here is for sort of half the original recipe and it's not exactly in proportion.

First, cut up sweet potatoes. I used two, one giant and one normal-sized. What you see here isn't all the sweet potatoes I used, the rest were already in the roasting pan. This is just to show you the size chunks I cut them into. Put them in a pan and pop them into the oven at 350 degrees. You're going to let them roast until you get everything else ready, which should be when they're done. I think I ended up leaving them in the oven for about 30-40 minutes. You want them to get very soft, like the filling for a sweet potato pie. It doesn't take long if they're cut like you see above.

The next thing you want to do is put on the water (I used about 6 cup-like-measures, which is not really half of 8 cups, but it seemed like the right amount.) Add red lentils. I used half a pound. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer.

Cut up 2 or 3 carrots (I used, again, one giant one and one medium one - I used maroon carrots). Cut up a medium sweet onion. And a red bell pepper. I used 3 small red peppers. Whatever you use, just be sure the peppers are red, so the soup's color will turn out nice (Thanks for that tip, Jen!). Sautee all these ingredients in olive oil on the stove, adding 1-3 cloves of crushed garlic (I used three, of course). Don't forget salt.

When the lentils are soft and the vegetables in the skillet are soft (but not too soft), add the skillet contents to the lentils. Take the sweet potatoes out of the oven, if they're done, which they should be. Add the sweet potatoes to the soup. Add curry powder and ginger. I have the ginger in powder form, too, but if you have fresh, I imagine that would be great. I don't know how to give you guidance on how much to use. I recommend adding them slowly and letting your taste guide you.

Remove from heat and allow to cool, if you're going to use a regular blender to blend it. If you're awesome and you have an immersion or "stick" blender, just use that. I let mine cool, blended in the blender, a few ladles full at a time, and then transferred it back to the pot to warm it back up before serving.

On a whim, I added a little cinnamon to mine while blending. It seemed to work. Don't tell anyone you put cinnamon in it (oops). They would think that made it a sweet dish. I assure you it doesn't. But they'll ask, "What's in this?" and you can tell them cinnamon if you want, and they'll be amazed. Or you can keep that as your secret.

When you dish up the soup, add a spritz of lemon juice or apple cider vinegar. I didn't have either of these, and that first serving was lacking. I couldn't place what was wrong with it, it just wasn't perfect. Then I got the apple cider vinegar and added a capful to my next bowl. That made it perfect. So don't skimp on this last step.

This is great with toast or bread. I can't wait to have it with the rustic white bread we just started getting at the Thursday farmers' markets. It's also great to bring in a thermos for lunch.

Enjoy!

Fuel

SEPTA is on strike, so I'm riding my bike to work. It's 40 degrees... real-feel: 38... real-feel on a moving bicycle: god damn cold. So I had a bowl of hot oat bran with molasses and flaxseed, for fuel.

I'll have a cold ride home in the dark to look forward to, so for lunch, I'm bringing a Thermos full of potato-leek soup (extra rosemary makes it seem warmer to me), with a side of red beans with lemon-pepper (the pepper is super-hot). And a couple slices of multi-grain bread for toast right about tea-time.

Here we go!

Sandwich Fail

It wasn't a complete fail. It did its job.

See, today is the first day of NaNoWriMo, and besides that, I have two major exams coming up in 13 days. So, those two situations conspired to cause me to put off eating until I was very very hungry.

As a result, when I went into the kitchen to fix a sandwich, I was compelled to put absolutely everything onto it.

Started with toasted multi-grain bread. Cut a small, maroon carrot into very thin slices and sauteed those with garlic, rosemary, curry, and salt. That's going to be the dressing.

So put that on first, and then on top of that, raw onions, raw portabella slivers. Then I was going to have some Brussels Sprout on the side. I only made one, because I figured the sandwich would be pretty filling, I just wanted a little Brussels snack. But it was so crispy after it was sauteed, I decided it would be good on the sandwich. Topped everything with green leaf lettuce. Rub the leaves in the container where you had your carrots and sauce, to get it all.

It wasn't so good. With the curry and the Brussels Sprout, it was all a bit much for a sandwich. The first half was good, because I was so hungry, but there was very little compelling me to finish the second half, other than the desire to not be hungry later. With an evening of writing and calculus coming up, that was enough motivation, and this mess did fill me up for a good while.

I'm at 2,492 words on NaNo. I wish I could quantify for you my progress on learning instructional design, or functions, for that matter. I'm just trying to hang in there at this point. Between the antioxidants in the carrots, the iron in the sprouts, the heat in the curry, and sheer will, I might live to see December. It's going to be a long month.

Falafel in the rain, with light activism

I found this 1923 Russian galoshes ad on Wikipedia's entry for galoshes. It says, Rainy rain, you cannot hurt me. I would not go out without galoshes. A good mantra.

Here in Philadelphia, we're having a bit of a Nor'easter... or two. Yesterday, the weather turned cold and rainy. Today it turned colder, continued raining, and turned windy.

In response, did I bring a nice hot bowl of soup for lunch, so that I can stay warm in my office building and eat my soup and look out the windows at rainy Philadelphia? Nope. That's what I did the first three days of this week, when it was nice out.

Yesterday, out of soup, out of fresh butter beans, and momentarily tired of okra, I decided to buy lunch. There is an Au Bon Pain in my building, so I could have gone there. But I wanted something hot, something filling, something delicious... and that was on 20th Street.

I went out in the rain to Mama's. Got a small falafel and eggplant and brought it back here under my hoodie. Ate the delicious, still-hot falafel in the breakroom while chatting with folks on Daily Kos about PETA and the merits of adopting cats and dogs.

A well-meaning diarist had posted a diary about the damaging effects of purchasing exotic pets, such as snakes, and then letting them go when you're tired of them. I recommended the diary and tipped the writer. But the diary also included that all-too-familiar disclaimer: I'm Not A Member Of PETA Or Anything.

Being "a member of PETA or anything" is the new gay, circa 1995, apparently. You can sympathize with animal-rights activists from time to time, but you need to acknowledge publicly that you are not affiliated.

I advised the diarist that it would actually be OK if he or she were a member of PETA. Someone else advised me that, no, it would not be OK for anyone ever to be a member of PETA.

Someone suggested that PETA thinks we should use human breast milk in Ben & Jerry's ice cream. I explained that, no, PETA was just using high-impact language to point out that there is breast milk in Ben & Jerry's ice cream. Then someone wanted me to provide a source for that information.

Did you get that? They wanted a source showing that ice cream has milk in it. (This is where you end up when you bring up PETA.) That's a little out-of-touch, is it not? To not realize immediately that ice cream has breast milk in it?

That's OK. Someday, it will become normal to say: I'm Not A Member Of PETA Or Anything... "Not that there's anything wrong with that." And we'll work from there, just like we have with gay rights and other civil liberties, until eventually members of PETA will be allowed to intermarry. Er... Did I confuse the issues? Ah, yes, I meant to say we'll become familiar enough with our food that we'll know right up front that there is breast milk in ice cream.

Anyhoo. I was talking, not eating, so I ran out of time and had to get back to work. I stashed the eggplant at my desk and ate it cold at 3:00. It was perfect.

Today, I'm going back. In the rain. In my rainboots. For falafel and eggplant.

A co-worker of mine is going to join me today. She's not vegan, but I can reassure her that if a non-vegan eats something vegan and enjoys it, it doesn't mean they're vegan, too.

[beat]

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Fall Lunch: Potato-Leek Soup

The handsome vegetables you see here are about to become part of an even handsomer potato-leek soup.

I originally tried this recipe, approximated some measurements, and here's what happened.

The two smaller leeks on the left in the picture are the ones we're going to use. Rinse them, trim off those stringy roots, and chop them into small slices, from the white ends up to the green tips.

You already have an entire chopped sweet onion simmering in oil on the stove. Let it simmer until you have finished chopping two medium-sized leeks.



Next, you're going to add the chopped leeks to the onions on the stove, stir the leeks and onions together and let them simmer. Crush at least three cloves of garlic and add to the mixture in the large pot. Sautee this mess for about 7 minutes or until you're done cutting up and rinsing the potatoes.

As you can see, I used huge Russet potatoes. Chop them and add them to the pot. To that, add the vegetable stock. The recipe says four cups of vegetable stock. I used four cups of our homemade vegetable stock plus three cups of water.

Our vegetable stock turned out very dark and gravy-colored and oily this time. Which is perfect for soup stock. It had huge amounts of broccoli stem. We had this questionable broccoli whose ends had gone yellow and sort of slimy. I cut off the ends and threw the heart of the broccoli tree into the stew pot. There were also four giant orange carrots that had been kicking around in the fridge for a while. We had a fair amount of kale, the greens and some stems from a cauliflower, lots of green bean ends, some onion skins, the tough outer layer of onions and the heart of an onion, and the last of the last round of leeks. I was concerned that the heady result would overwhelm my fresh leeks and potatoes, so I nearly matched the amount of stock I put in with water.


Bring your soup to a boil, reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer for about 25 minutes or until potatoes are tender.

Here comes the fun part. Blend the soup in a blender. I only have a smoothie-maker, so I did it in batches. I added a teensy bit of rosemary before blending.


Again, this soup made four servings. Four really big servings. I took a lot of it for lunch today. Bought two slices of rye bread for 70 cents from the store downstairs in the building where my office is and dipped them in the soup. The nutrient-dense vegetable stock makes the soup very hearty and fulfilling. Today was one of the first chilly days Philly has had this fall. This was the perfect lunch for the weather.

Two Seasons: Quinoa soup and Garden wraps

The colors at the farmers' market are getting brighter, richer, and more diverse as we move into fall. Root vegetables and ten different kinds of squash, purples and yellows and oranges and blues are everywhere. But today, the air in West Philly feels unseasonably warm, soft, and freshly-scrubbed. It feels like springtime outside.

So let's have a a look at a festive, summery food, and then I have a nice soup for you. First, and I know you may be getting tired of pastry wraps but I'm not out of them yet (told you, that $1.39 is stretchy) so, here' s one more thing you can do with them.

A garden wrap.

This one has green lettuce, tomatoes, portabella mushrooms, cauliflower, and onion, and it's seasoned with olive oil, salt, and lemon pepper. It would be great to have some spinach, kale, turnip greens, or other interesting greens.

You don't have to heat or cook the filling, just cut everything up like a salad, only finer. Spoon it onto the wraps, fold, and fry in olive oil. Here are some finished ones cooling while I'm prepping some more to go into the oil. What you see in the background on the plate are blue potatoes.

A closer look at the veggie mix that goes inside the pastries:


If I looked at the mix and didn't know what was in it, I would think I was seeing chicken or tofu or some "meat substitute," but what that actually is is the portabella mushrooms. We usually buy two giant caps at the market on Saturday, and they last us throughout the week, just slicing pieces off for stir-fries and things like this.

Now. Want something good for lunch, that will keep you full throughout the afternoon and rush hour? Something good and cozy for fall? Something to help you fight colds and the flu and the cold-weather blahs?

Quinoa soup.

Quinoa is incredibly rich in protein, fiber, and iron. Because of its high protein content, NASA thinks it would be a good choice for its Controlled Ecological Life Support Systems for long space flights. And that's kind of our situation here on Earth. We're here for a long time, and we don't have enough space to feed all of us the way some of us currently eat. Quinoa could help.

Now, Mark made this soup/stew (I'm not sure which it is), so it has a lot of ingredients. It contains: quinoa, carrots, cauliflower, corn, mushroom, black beans, Great Northern beans, and onion, and was made with our homemade vegetable stock and seasoned with garlic, salt, lemon pepper, and a Season All mix.

Two kinds of beans, plus quinoa, will fill you up. This soup is a nutrient-fest and tastes like it cures what ails you. I brought it for lunch two days this week. You don't need to bring much.

I like to have this soup with a slice of rye toast with strawberry jam. Any type of heavy food makes me feel like I need a nice piece of toast and jam to lighten it up. I'm a little childish about heavy foods. I feel like I've accomplished something when I eat something heavy, and I want a treat for that. Fortunately, the same woman who grows our spices also makes jellies and jams.

Happy fall, happy Friday, and I hope it's as lovely where you are as it is here.