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.

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

Thursday, Friday pizza, Saturday, and Bob's Red Mill

Saturday Shopping List

canteloupe!
1 lb. baby lima beans
5 tomatoes
3 yellow peaches
3 white peaches
1 pint blueberries
6 onions
10 carrots
3 ears of corn
1 pint shiitake mushrooms
12-oz jar of strawberry jam
and a 16-oz iced coffee

total: $28


Thursday Shopping List

1 bunch curly kale
1 bunch mustard greens
1 bunch Swiss chard
1 quart green beans
1 pint raspberries
1 pint blackberries
4 heirloom tomatoes
1 spaghetti squash
6 ears of corn
1 loaf country white bread

total: $36

Mark has made a soup with rice, red beans, corn, onion, carrots, and cayenne pepper. Overall, it has a sweet taste, from the corn, carrots, and cayenne, and of course a hot taste.

Ordered Papa John's last night, with onions, mushrooms and black olives. I tried putting Diaya's mozzerella cheese on it, but the cheese had been in the fridge and was too cold, so it didn't really work with the pizza, which wasn't quite hot enough. I only tried that on one slice. We got that cheese for a pasta last week, and it was amazing. They have it at Fu-Wah. Daiya cheese is not a soy product. The ingredients are: Filtered water, tapioca and/or arrowroot flours, non-GMO expeller pressed canola and /or non-GMO expeller pressed safflower oil, coconut oil, pea protein, salt, vegan natural flavours, inactive yeast, vegetable glycerin, xanthan gum, citric acid (for flavor).

I forgot to stop at the Slow Rise Bakery table today for more granola. I usually only stop there if I want sweets, so today I skipped it, completely forgetting that last week I bought a lb. of delicious maple granola there and meant to get more. May have to visit the store for some granola or cereal. On the topic of cereal, I have to recommend Bob's Red Mill products (grain products). Not only because they are good, but because the owner earlier this year transferred ownership of the company to the employees. I will vote for that company with my dollars every chance I get. The people who do the work should reap the rewards.

"Godspeed all the bakers at dawn...."

I made a playlist on my iPod this morning with nothing but "New Slang" by the Shins nineteen times. That was my farmers' market playlist. I turn it off while I'm shopping because you want to interact with the vendors, but I have a nice, 4 1/2 block walk each way to listen to music. It's a rainy day in Cedar Park and I didn't get out of bed until nearly 11 o'clock. Didn't leave the house until it started raining just before one. I was afraid the vendors would pack up early, but they didn't.

Bought the last bunch of mustard greens from the high school gardening program. Their turn-out is very impressive. There are always at least five kids there staffing the table; this morning, there were more like seven. That's better attendance than some of my classes. These kids were from U. City and Sayre, but sometimes there are West kids. They tried to sell me the entire rest of their salad greens for $26... well, they "tried." It was a joke. But you don't know unless you try. Go, kids.

I didn't bring any paper and pen to make a list, but I put $40 in my pocket and spent most of it, in two places.

Saturday Shopping List

-a big bag of hydroponic lettuce from the lady who sells beans and spices - this is her first hydro lettuce harvest and she was giving samples - it's very sharp and flavorful - will go well with mustard on a sandwich - $2
-two heads of baby lettuce - one purple and one green and curly - 75 cents ea.
-a bunch of mustard greens - $2
-half-dozen carrots
-two rhubarb stalks (ruined every recipe last time, going to try again)
-a pint of strawberries - from a different vendor this time - smaller, sweeter berries, i couldn't stop eating them on the way home
-a pint of crimini (brown) mushrooms
-a portobello cap
-a loaf of sourdough banana bread (ate half of it for breakfast with my strawberries)
-a bunch of asparagus
-a large parsnip to go in a soup (gives blended soups a creamy texture and fresh flavor)
-a quart of sweet onions
-a 23-oz. jar of apple sauce
-eight large tomatoes (some red and some green, to last all week)

I think that's it.

total: around $30

And at Milk and Honey: a loaf of cracked wheat bread, a few shallots, and a cup of coffee - around $8

rhubarb rhubarb

All I really know about rhubarb is that if a lot of people say it all at once, it can sound like the general muttering of a crowd of extras on a movie set.

But I've already found a recipe for cold rhubarb soup with mint (scroll to the 2nd recipe), and I'm going to get baking soda and concoct something with flour and sugar that you can bake in a cast iron skillet. Any suggestions?

Saturday Shopping List

3 stalks of rhubarb
a pint of strawberries
1 purple baby lettuce, 1 green curly-leaf lettuce
1 buttercrisp lettuce
8 tomatoes
10 potatoes (red and white)
4 sweet potatoes
2 bunches of asparagus
4 yellow sweet onions
6 orange carrots
1 giant parsnip
1 leek
2 portobellos

total at Clark Park Farmers' Market: $32, even

and @ Milk & Honey Market:

1 loaf of multi-grain bread
2 bagels
2 pears

total: $9.18

Grand Total: $41.18

On the menu or percolating in my brain right now:

-oatmeal with rhubarb & strawberries
-rhubarb scones or muffins
-potato-leek-parsnip soup
-cold rhubarb soup
-rhubarb crumble (dessert)
-pancakes with strawberries
-portobello sandwiches
-could I make a rhubarb salad dressing?
-roasted: potatoes, asparagus, onions, carrots
-roasted sweet potatoes
-roasted chickpeas

Cheating on Clark Park with Weaver's Way Co-Op

I was off work today, because my new job gets canceled if the buses can't run, so we decided to take the train out to Mt. Airy and check out Weaver's Way Co-Op. The thought of a week without green food was pretty sad, and it would take almost as long and be more annoying to go into Center City to Trader Joe's or something. Anyway, we had been wanting to check out Weaver's Way for a while now.

Worth it. Worth it. Oh, damn. Worth it. Better selection than the park, and we got more stuff than usual for the same price as usual.

Weaver's Way Shopping List

4 leeks
a lb. of salad greens
about a quart and a half of brussels sprouts!
about a quart of green beans!
3 bunches of broccoli
a 6 oz. thing of bean, lentil, and pea sprouts (aka pure energy)
a 4 oz. thing of dill and alfalfa sprouts
a yellow bell pepper
an orange bell pepper
about 2 quarts of white mushrooms
5 tomatoes

almost forgot, a 6-pack of frozen spring rolls

Total: $35

It looks like a short list, but those brussels sprouts will last forever, especially considering that we have other green things at the same time. In the summer, we had okra and green beans, then they went away and we had brussels sprouts, then they went away, and the broccoli is iffy, and we're left with basically kale for green food. To see this diversity of green foods made my heart pound. We were so excited we forgot to get asparagus. Which they also had.

So, the green beans will last a while, the brussels sprouts will, the broccoli will, the leeks will make four soups, the mushrooms will last well into next week, even the salad greens should last us a while. These bean sprouts aren't going to last long if I don't go make something to eat and stop munching on them. Oh, they're good, though.

And I can put alfalfa sprouts on my sandwiches! I am so excited. I'm hungry, but I don't even know what to make, because we have so much food. I also happen to have sauerkraut, so I can have my favorite - brussels sprouts and sauerkraut if I want. I want a sandwich right now, though. With greens and sprouts and mushrooms. And I'm going to saute some green beans with oil and salt to have on the side. Oh. Yes.

While we were there, we had soup for lunch. Two of the three soups available were vegan. I had tomato rice, and Mark had vegetable soup. With two feet of snow on the ground, we had lunch outside. The weather was just that gorgeous.

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.

Cookware, 23" of snow, and Potato Parsnip Soup

Well. Where should I begin?

We couldn't go to the farmers' market this weekend, on account of we had a blizzard. This is only an assumption, but I'm betting there was no Clark Park farmers' market this weekend. It was the second biggest snowstorm in Philadelphia's history. 23.2" of snow fell on the city starting around 1 a.m. Saturday and continuing through about 6 o'clock this morning.

Like all good citizens, we scurried out on Friday to gather in things we imagined we might need during the storm. Things like bread, potatoes, chocolate cookies, tofu, and wasabi peas.

We had a hunch there would be no farmers' market, but that was OK. We got potatoes, onions, and bread at a little store called Milk and Honey (ironic place for vegans to shop, but they do have good bread and limited fresh produce). At Fu-Wah, we got mushrooms and instant noodle soup. We still have good kale from last week. We still had some cauliflower and parsnips, and plenty of garlic.

One thing we forgot: Beer. So, we had to go out for that yesterday.

See what I mean? Probably no farmers' market.

Now, this is interesting. You know how, when I make blended soups (i.e. Indian Red Lentil or Potato-Leek), I always have to blend it in batches in my small blender (i.e. my smoothie maker)? And you know how I was saying I wanted to get an immersion blender?

So, on Friday, I went out onto the porch and there was a box addressed to me. It was a shipping box, like from Amazon, so no return address. I took it upstairs and opened it. It was a Cuisinart Immersion Blender. There was no name anywhere on it, on the packing slip or anything. I suspected my parents. Called my mom, she had no idea what I was talking about. Hmm. Must have been one of the sisters. So I was going to check, but I mentioned the gift on my other blog, and the sender claimed responsibility. Turns out to have been from a lovely friend named Jen, who knows the virtues of the immersion blender, because she also likes to make Indian Red Lentil Soup, and in fact, gave me a recipe for it a while back. (Remember?)

This blender is sweet. It comes with a chopper/mincer, and a whisk. This is it:



This is not the only recent addition to our kitchen.

*drumroll*

The old frying pan and saucepan are retired. After a long journey to Target on the 64 Bus on Wednesday, we are the very pleased owners of a cast iron skillet and a stainless steel saucepan with a glass lid (pictured above). I am thrilled with all of these new tools. Thrilled. Food tastes so much better cooked in cookware that doesn't interfere with it. This cast iron skillet is already the love of my life, and I expect us to get closer over the years.

OK, on to the soup. Using all of my new toys, I made the most delicious and filling soup this morning. It's a potato soup. I started with 12 small Yukon gold potatoes (very small, like golf balls). Cut them up and -- oh, also at Target we got two new, sharp knives, woohoo! -- put them in water in the stainless steel pan, to boil.

In the cast iron skillet, I poured a little olive oil and started heating the other ingredients for the soup: a yellow onion, two cloves of garlic, curly kale, cauliflower (about half of a smallish head), baby Portabella mushrooms (4-5), and the unexpected superstar of the soup... three parsnips. Parsnips taste like carrots, only stronger, with more bite. I had forgotten we had them, but I came across them and decided to add them, and I'm glad I did.

(kale, chopped, ready to add)

(everything together in the skillet - except the potatoes)

The potatoes had long since come to a boil and been turned down to simmer. When they were soft, I added the other ingredients, put the lid on it and let everything simmer together for a bit. For seasoning, I added salt, pepper, rosemary and parsley.

When I decided it was done... (I really don't know how long these things take... it's done when things seem soft enough and it tastes good... or however long it took me to feed the cats and make tea... if you need help timing it, you could call me and ask me to feed my cats and make tea, and I'll call you back when I'm done and you'll know it's time to take the soup off)... It was time to use my new toy. I didn't think to record this from the beginning, but here's how it works.

You want to be careful not to lift the blending part of the blender (the tip) above the surface (or even to the surface) of the soup. Submerge the tip of the blender and then turn it on, obviously. It's tricky because the blender pulls you more than you think it will. It seemed to keep suctioning to the bottom and I wasn't even supposed to really have it touching the bottom. Once, in trying to pull it up, I accidentally broke the surface, and the soup kind of exploded a little bit (no real damage done), and all the cats got interested and thought I was cooking something demonic on the stove. That's right, cats. That'll teach you.

I got the hang of immersion-blending after just a few moments, and it was super easy. After using the blender, you can remove the blending attachment (the other part is just the motor and you can attach the whisk or the chopper to it), and rinse it.



This soup was surprising and delicious. What made it surprising is that the strongest flavor was the parsnip. That's why I'm calling it potato parsnip soup. It gave the soup a crisp, fresh taste that perfectly offset the heavier, foodier, more wintry taste of potatoes.

We had it with slices of bread with Vegenaise, which we also stocked up on at Fu-Wah, in preparation for the blizzard.


The texture was airy and creamy and perfect. Much more inviting than a soup blended in a smoothie-maker. Because the soup contains kale and mushrooms, it's going to be a good source of protein and will fill you up. The kale and cauliflower and parsnips give you vitamin C, other vitamins, calcium, and other minerals.

Happy holidays, everyone!

If you have snow, enjoy it, and I hope something fun and useful turns up on your doorstep, too.

Autumn soup part II, and NaNoWriMo

I missed the farmers' market on Saturday because of the Praxis exams. Mark went and only spent about $30 again. (I know, right? How? It's shady, I'm telling you.) I don't have an exact list, but it was basically:

Saturday Shopping List

about 8 sweet potatoes

2 big red peppers

1 lb of red lentils

1 head of green leaf lettuce

a wonderful loaf of white bread

a purple cauliflower

a Roman cauliflower

a portabella cap

a bunch of maroon carrots

1 oz of Season All

...some other things. It's Wednesday now, and I wasn't there, anyway, so this is obviously not comprehensive. Plus, it's November, so all I know is I went to Fu-Wah and bought 8 packs of 3-minute noodle soup. It's Thai Kitchen. Only two varieties of that are vegan - Garlic Vegetable and Spring Onion - the rest have either shrimp essence or for some reason milk fat. Garlic Vegetable is my favorite and I saute garlic and onion to add to them. Quick dinner. I did take time to make a soup, because that saves tons of time later in the week. It's the Indian Lentil soup presented in the last post. I already blogged it, so I shouldn't blog it again, but anything to keep from writing, and also, I have brilliant new pictures and a legitimate piece of information: The soup was better the second time. Much better. And redder.

I added purple cauliflower to the mix. Used more sweet potato. Red onion instead of yellow. More red pepper. Now when you heat it up, you really smell the red pepper. And more lentils. Basically, I made a little bit bigger batch of soup and made it more dense.

Oh, and I found a white sweet potato. From the outside, it looked exactly like all the other sweet potatoes. I cut it open and it was snow white inside. I baked it and it tasted like cake. I swear to god, this sweet potato tasted like cake. It was unreal. I need more of them. I put this one in the soup (the half of it that I didn't eat straight out of the oven), but I need more of them just to eat. Look at this beautiful soup and its beautiful components.

In other food news, while I was at work yesterday, my baby rearranged the kitchen. In a good way. I leave you with this.