Chipotle Coleslaw

I've been experimenting a lot with coleslaw lately. Last night I made chipotle coleslaw to accompany barbecue sandwiches.

I will admit to not measuring a thing, but here's a ballpark recipe:

1 cup coleslaw mix (or shredded cabbage and carrots)
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1/2 tablespoon mayo
1/2 tablespoon yogurt
black pepper, to taste
celery salt, to taste
1/2 chopped canned chipotle pepper

Combine all ingredients (except coleslaw mix/cabbage) in a medium bowl. Add the slaw and enjoy with your favorite sandwich or as a spicy side dish.

Broccoli Pesto

I didn't take any pictures of this dish because I didn't decide to blog about it until today.

You see, I've been neglecting my blog responsibilities and that's not right. I'm giving a presentation about social networking and part of my presentation is about blogs. I intended to tell people that you should blog about things that you're passionate about, and feel like I should lead by example.

Without further ado, here is last night's dinner, taken from the most recent Vegetarian Times, but altered. It was almost the perfect light, spring meal but it was a little heavy on the garlic. I woke with a fierce garlic taste in my mouth despite a thorough brushing of my teeth last night.

Ingredients:
6 T hazelnuts
2 c broccoli
A lot of parsley (I always prefer not to measure herbs)
2 T olive oil (the original recipe called for 3 times as much!!)
1/4 c or so mint leaves
Zest of 1/2 a lemon
Juice of 1/2 a lemon
2 garlic cloves (I'm guessing. I originally used 5 and it was way too much)
12 oz farfalle (bow tie) pasta

Toast the hazelnuts for a few minutes over medium heat, being careful not to burn.

Boil broccoli in a large pot for 3 minutes. Remove with slotted spoon and reserve cooking water. Cook pasta according to directions in cooking water.

Put everything (except pasta) in a food processor or blender to pulverize until it is pesto consistency. You might have to cut the broccoli up a little first to ensure even processing.

Drain the pasta but reserve 1/4 cup of water. Mix reserved water, pasta, and pesto, serve and enjoy!

An Ode to Salsa

First, I want to apologize for abandoning this blog for a number of months. I'll try to better. I still love food (and eat it every day), so I'll try to share some thoughts with my loyal readers more often about the foods I love.

My newest obsession: salsa! Homemade or store bought, this stuff is just so damn versatile. I of course have salsa nearly every week with burritos but pretty much relegated it to that.

What changed my opinion about salsa? The opening of a Trader Joe's near my house.

First there was the 3 pepper salsa. The Jar and I love this salsa in a grilled cheese sandwich (with sprouts too if we have any on hand).

Now I've discovered the garlic chipotle salsa, a deliciously thin and flavorful concoction. As soon as I opened it last night I knew it would be delicious in so much more than burritos. I enjoyed a few spoonfuls today in some leftover three bean soup. Delicious!

How many other ways can I incorporate more salsa into my diet? (Probably not the healthiest goal.) Feel free to leave suggestions in the comments or tell me about any of your favorite salsas...

Quick lunch lentil salad

There's no picture today because I just engulfed the salad, but I will share this quick and easy recipe I threw together today for my lunch. I found myself with an excess amount of lentils after making the lentil and rice pilaf from this month's vegetarian times. Paired with some pre-shredded carrots and some parsley that the Jar was kind enough to cut for me this morning, this salad is a pretty quick and easy throw together for lunch.

Ingredients:
About a cup of lentils
Small handful of chopped parsley
1/4 cup or so shredded carrots
1-2 Tablespoons soft-ish cheese (I used blue because that's what we had but goat or feta would have been delicious)
Balsamic vinegar, olive oil, garlic powder and salt and pepper to taste.

Mix together salad ingredients in a lunch-ready container and whisk together vinegar, oil, and seasonings in separate bowl. Combine and enjoy!

Microwave Dinner

Tonight the Jar and I had these "Refried Bean Poblanos with Cheese" for dinner. We picked up some Poblano peppers at the farmer's market (Wegman's never has a good pepper selection and the ones at the farmers market looked and smelled soo good).

We made a few substitutions in the dish - I used regular white rice instead of boil in bag rice, at the end Jar put them in a pan to melt the cheese and to char the peppers a bit, and we served them with sliced avacado, sour cream, and hot sauce. They were quick, easy, and delicious. A delightful new way to enjoy poblanos.

Herbs

A few weeks ago I picked up a packet of chive seeds and a packet of basil seeds. I wasn't expecting much; we've tried unsuccessfully to grow herbs in our last few apartments. Luckily, our new place has much better light and outside space for the plants.

They've gotten quite impressive over the last few weeks (thanks to a lot of rain).



Special note to GarbageVan fans - the above pot was rescued from a nearby dumpster shortly after moving into our new place.

Pan Roasted Herbed Vegetables in a Tomato Basil Sauce over Penne (aka Weekly Spaghetti)

The Jar and I have two dishes that we eat every single week: burritos (as previously mentioned) and tomato based pasta (referred to as spaghetti). The reason why we started planning our meals week by week was actually that we found ourselves eating pasta far too often. It's delicious and requires little work (especially if using a canned sauce).

For this week's pasta we had fresh zucchini from the farmer's market, a red bell pepper, and sweet onion. I (inadvertently) cooked the veggies at a high heat for a few minutes and this resulted in a nice roasted texture. The veggies are seasoned with a generic Italian seasoning that we inherited when some family members moved away, but is essentially oregano, basil, and rosemary.
The veggies were then cooked with jar tomato sauce and served over penne.