Taking a healthy turn…
I decided to be healthy this week. Normally, I consider myself a fairly healthy person, more so maybe than the average person. But this week, I’m talking no alcohol, very little meat, and only very lean, unprocessed meat at that, low carbs, no sugars, no dairy….and lots of fruits and veggies. I just feel like my system needs a few days to detox and reboot.
Like, say, my lentil soup-covered computer. Yup, lentils…unusual for my repertoire, but nonetheless healthy, full of fiber and thus very filling. I’ll explain why they got on the computer later.
This morning after quite a long work-out, I walked to my favorite local market on Essex and Delancey. I stocked up on all kinds of vegetables and a few fruits, along with the lentils, some black beans and some garlic, ginger, fresh basil and thyme. When you’re not using as much butter, suger, meat, etc., you need something to make your dishes taste good!
After walking the dog and throwing together a quick salad for lunch, I looked for jobs, as usual, to no avail. Feeling the usual defeat coming on, I quickly put on some Bravo TV and flipped between that and the Food Network….which got me to pull out my laptop and start plotting a few recipes for all the fresh veggies stuffed into the large drawers in the bottom of my fridge. I happen to have a ton of cookbooks, but most days I turn to websites like Epicurious, Recipezaar and the Food Network to come up with dishes. To get into it briefly, I love being able to type in a few ingredients, like “tomato eggplant peppers” and have a plethora of recipes pop up that use all of those ingredients in different ways. I do love my cookbooks, and do turn to them at times, but…sometimes the internet is the easy way to go.
So, the two recipes I settled on (why two, I don’t know) were “Lemon Rice and Eggplant-Chickpea Curry” and “French Lentil Soup.” You can reference them here:
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/French-Lentil-Soup-236772
I changed them up a bit according to my tastes and what I had in the pantry and fridge, but mostly played by the rules. I have to be honest—I thought lentil soup without bacon or ham was going to be blah. NOPE! This soup is fantastic. I followed everything to a T, except for using chicken stock in lieu of vegetable stock…and I only used 4 cups. The recipe suggests that you puree the soup once it’s simmered for about 35 minutes, and…that’s where the computer got slimed. I did the pureeing in my blender, not a food processor, and the first time, only put in about two cups of soup, which came out just fine. The second time I filled the blender all the way up. Oopsa. I didn’t put the lid on perfectly and had my hand on top as always, but not pressing down firmly. Soup extravaganza. Luckily, no damage has been done, from what I can tell so far anyway. I put the pureed soup back into my Le Creuset pot and simmered on low while eating the other dish that I created while the soup was initially simmering for 45 minutes.
The lemon rice and eggplant-chickpea curry. Hmmm. It’s a Rachael Ray recipe, who I actually really like. I used to watch her talk show while I was at the gym on my study break while preparing for the bar. She makes me laugh, and she makes cooking seem really easy. And she’s big on pinches of this and handfuls of that, which I am a big proponent of as well. But when I think Rachael Ray, I think homestyle cooking, American or Italian cuisine. Not so much curry. But, what the heck, I gave it a try as I had everything I needed and felt like staying in the kitchen, and no other recipes were jumping out at me that didn’t involve dairy or fats or meats….yum….
I cut down on the amount of rice used and of course the accompanying liquid mostly because I was near the end of my chicken stock at this point, but also because I like a lot of sauce and veg and not as much rice. I also omitted the lemon zest because I don’t have a zester. I know—ridiculous. But my husband doesn’t seem to understand why I need all these funny tools and I just haven’t gotten around to picking one up when he’s not around. I followed the recipe fairly closely, and the curry actually developed some really nice flavor. I used green curry paste as no particular color was specified, though looking back red might have been better. I threw in a handful of hand-torn fresh basil at the end as I love basil in curries, and I thought it was a really nice complement to the flavors.
I served myself a plate of rice (sans scallions) and the curry, then threw in some chicken that I had cooked over the weekend for my husband’s serving. I let it heat up a bit, then we both sat down and enjoyed. It was good. Maybe a little too mushy, but very flavorful! I’d make this again, though I was really surprised that I liked the lentil soup more than the curry!
That’s about it for tonight. I’m about to watch the new episode of Gossip Girl, my guilty pleasure of mindless TV. Works almost as well as a glass of wine!
