Almost Vegetarian Lentil Stew

Since my nest is located in the upcoming path of the lovely Miss Irene, Mama Bird and I took a trip to our local grocery store at 10:30pm today. I expected the store to be completely crowded with nothing left on the shelves, and she thought I was being silly and that there'd still be plenty of everything and no one there.

It wasn't nearly as packed as I thought, but the almost complete lack of bottled water was not surprising. I don't think it's going to be as bad as we're preparing for, but owning another 32 bottles of water can't be a bad thing as long as we make sure to recycle! Mama Bird and I then spent a ridiculous amount of money on groceries. It wasn't because we were trying to stock up, it was because I had a long list of make-ahead meals I wanted to try. I intend to spend at least a few hours tomorrow making my own freezer burritos, and I want to try to recreate my own version of Amy's pizza pockets, which I was in love with all through high school and college. If I could make my own, I would be able to die happy. As long as I could eat them first. I also want to make my own granola in a slow cooker, because everything is better that way.

So tomorrow is going to be quite a day for cooking, hopefully. I must be stressed.



But today I'll be sharing a lentil stew that confuses me every time I eat it. It's delicious. It may be too spicy if you're me and just start tossing peppers in without thinking about it. But no matter what you do, if you don't eat this with bread or rice, then I just don't think it's very filling. Note the calorie count.

It's a very easily modifiable recipe. You don't want it to be spicy? Don't put in as many peppers- heck, don't put in any! You don't have celery, but wow you have a bunch of carrots? Not really an issue. It's a vegetable lentil soup. It won't judge you, you can do what you want.

And even better, if you want to make it vegetarian, just switch out the chicken broth. Instantly vegetarian! And the only thing you'll miss out on is that delicious chicken flavor.

Recipe modified from Red Chillies.
(Makes 6 servings, with 75 calories and $1.18 per serving)

1 cup brown lentils

1 stalk celery

4 garlic cloves

1/2 onion

1 potato

2 cups chicken broth

2 carrots

1 teaspoon black pepper

1 teaspoon ginger

1/2 teaspoon basil

2 bay leaves

1/2 cup spinach

1/2 teaspoon thyme

3 serrano peppers

1. Heat 3 cups of water in pot, and put lentils it.
   
2. Bring to boil, then simmer for 20 minutes.
   
3. Set aside, but do not drain.
   
4. Heat a little oil, and saute garlic and bay leaves.
   
5. Add onion and mix until lightly cooked.
   
6. Add ginger, celery, carrots, potato, and spinach.
   
7. Cook until slightly less firm.
   
8. Add broth, spices, and peppers.
   
9. Simmer for 40 minutes.
   

Today's lessons learned:

• Different peppers have different levels of spice!
  

Jalapeno Cheddar Cornbread.

I love cornbread. Love, love, love cornbread. I recently went to Boston Market with someone I'll dub Model Bird, and he commented that I must not like cornbread because I didn't touch the piece they gave me.

"No, I love cornbread," I replied modestly. "I just know that I can make much better cornbread than they can."

So I did. And if anyone thinks this isn't better than Boston Market cornbread... well, then they certainly aren't any friend of mine.



My mother was concerned about the jalapeno being in it. I was disappointed to realize that the jalapeno lost its bite once cooked. I should have known that, but I forget things sometimes. It still had a pleasant little kick.





This is definitely not healthy cornbread. I have a separate recipe I do for that. You could probably half the amount of cheese in the recipe and still be happy with it. But if you're gonna make unhealthy cornbread, you may as well go all the way...

Recipe from Food Network.
(Makes 16 squares, with 295 calories and $0.60 per squares.)

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup yellow cornmeal

1/4 cup sugar

2 tablespoons baking powder

2 teaspoons kosher salt

2 cups milk

3 eggs

1/2 pound unsalted, melted butter

8 ounces aged extra-sharp Cheddar

1/3 cup chopped scallions (3 scallions)

3 tablespoons fresh jalapeno peppers

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
   
2. Combine the flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, and salt.
   
3. Combine the milk, eggs, and butter in a separate bowl.
   
4. Mix wet and dry ingredients carefully, not over-stirring.
   
5. Mix in 2 cups of grated cheese, scallions, and jalapenos.
   
6. Let sit at room temperature for 20 minutes.
   
7. Pour batter into pan and sprinkle with remaining cheddar.
   
8. Bake 30 to 35 minutes.
   

Today's lessons learned:

• Jalapenos lose some of their kick when they're cooked.
  
• Bread gets moldy if you don't take care of it. It gets moldy faster if it's laced with cheese.
  

Time to turn the oven back on...

I haven't posted in a while, I know. Since when I went to Spain. A lot has happened since then, and I mean a LOT. I lost my job four days before I left for Madrid. When I got back, Boyfriend Bird and I decided to end our relationship, and for a while I just decided that I didn't want to be responsible for things. I went on a family vacation to North Carolina, then went to Indianapolis with some friends to go to GenCon.

I'm upset about some things. It's obviously devastating to lose a job, especially in an unstable economy. Boyfriend Bird and I dated for four and a half years, and it's hard to walk away from something like that. I'm going to call him Troll Bird here from now on. Which isn't meant to be a negative thing, as strange as that sounds. In fact, I think he'd possibly appreciate the nickname. But all that change so quickly... depressed me for a while. I didn't want to do anything, I just wanted to sort of mope.

Things are becoming more stable. I don't have a job yet, but I've been looking, and I have plenty of interviews lined up, as nervous as that makes me. And with my return to being an adult, I want to return to updating this blog. I won't make any promises about twice weekly posts, or even weekly posts. I have been cooking a lot still, I just haven't been sharing it. And even if I don't write long and witty posts, I at least want to be taking pictures and remembering what I've been doing.

I have plenty to share. A carrot cake, pancakes, cookies, muffins, not to mention everything I ate in Madrid.

But I think my primary focus is going to be finishing cooking by way through England.

More meat, more stuffed

This will be my only post for a while. As you are reading this, I am sitting in a plane, on my way to Madrid. Madrid! I don't speak Spanish at all well enough to be going to Madrid!

Once again, I'm sure I'm going to take pictures of every meal I eat, even though my faithful camera is now broken. For the time being, I'm borrowing one of Mama Bird's old cameras, but I'll probably have to buy a new one soon. I guess I'd mentioned doing it a few times already, so it's not too big of a deal.



But before I go, I'll leave you with one of the things I've been meaning to share for a few weeks now. I made these for friends months ago, and it's high time I shared them. I originally thought that they'd be light, that everyone would be able to eat two zucchini boats apiece and it'd be a nice healthy meal. I didn't realize how much meat that would have been for everyone. Next time I make these, I may half the meat, or at least drop it to 3/4 of a pound.

Recipe from The Homesteading Housewife
(Makes 8 servings, with 250 calories and $1.94 per serving)

4 zucchini

1 onion

1 green bell pepper

4 cloves garlic

1 pound ground beef (or 1/2 pound ground beef and 1/2 pound Italian sausage)

1/2 teaspoon oregano

2 eggs

1/2 cup parmesan cheese

1/2 cup bread crumbs

2 cups mozzarella cheese

1. Preheat oven to 375.
   
2. Wash zucchini, but do not chop stems.
   
3. Put in a pot of cold water, and bring to a boil.
   
4. Let boil 6-7 minutes or until tender, and remove and set aside to cool.
   
5. In a skillet, brown meat and add garlic, onion, oregano, and peppers.
   
6. Slice zucchini lengthwise, and scoop out seeds.
   
7. Chop extra zucchini 'meat' and add to meat mixture.
   
8. Mix bread crumbs, Parmesan, and eggs in with meat, and mix well.
   
9. Fill zucchini boats with meat, and top with mozzarella.
   
10. Bake until cheese is hot and bubbly.
    

Today's lessons learned:

• Stuffed anything is much more filling than you think.
  
• Sometimes, more meat is not the answer. But only sometimes.
  

Chocolate Peanut Butter Heart Attack

You wouldn't know it, but I've been baking a fair bit recently. And according to Sister Bird, making food she can't eat. Not because it's bad. Some of the food she has legitimate reasons for never wanting to eat. Like the habanero spiced potatoes. I was the only person in the family who could handle the amount of heat in them, but I didn't like them enough to write up a post about them. Making something I haven' liked enough to share has been happening a fair bit, aside from the incredible response the jam muffins got.

On an unrelated note, am I the only one who uses jam and jelly interchangeably? I know, one is chunky, one isn't, but really?

But as I was saying... I have an enormous backlog of things to post about. Two more muffin recipes, stuffed zucchini, jalapeno cheddar cornbread, chicken and cannelinni soup, hummus, sloppy joes.... I've stored up plenty of pictures and thoughts, but I'm just slow about typing them out. I liked all of those things, but I don't think any inspired me to immediately share them with the world.

This cake, on the other hand, needed someone to write a public service announcement about it.



I wanted to make it for Papa Bird for Father's Day, because I know he has a soft spot for chocolate and peanut butter, and I've currently got a soft spot for any cake that'd let me practice with my leveler. So when I looked in my crazy collection of recipes and saw Smitten Kitchen's chocolate peanut butter cake, with three glorious layers, I knew it was a match made in heaven.

After I did the nutrition information for it? It was still a great match. But it certainly wasn't made in heaven.



One of the great things about this cake is that it was a one bowl recipe. Obviously, the frosting and the ganache were done in separate bowls. But the cake batter itself was whipped up in one bowl. Which, by the way, I did without the aid of Mama Bird's Kitchen-Aid mixer. I've been slowly shifting away from using mixers, and back to beating things by hand. It's easier to fold things like delicate berries into batter without breaking them, and it's easier to ensure that every part of the ingredients have been mixed. Or maybe I'm too lazy to get the mixer out. That would be impressively lazy.



I still made the frosting in the mixer, though. Whipping butter isn't fun or easy.

The whole thing took me most of the day to make, but most of it was waiting. Make the batter, wait for the cakes to bake. Panic when the edges bake too quickly and look burnt. Fret that they're not done after half an hour, and wait even more impatiently. Pull them out and wait for them to cool. Get impatient and put them in the freezer. Level and frost the bottom layer, and shove it back in the freezer.

Go bother the neighbors because you clearly need a break from all this hard work.

Frost the other half, put it back in the freezer, make ganache. Forget to put it in a double boiler and sort of accidentally make fudge. Break the corn syrup bottle and have to make the glaze without any syrup. Then finally serve the cake.



I was so proud of it. It looked professional. Sort of. It tasted either professional or like it really wanted you to have diabetes. It was extremely rich, and just tasted like peanut butter chocolate love. Papa Bird loves those things. Home run for Father's Day, right?

Well, not exactly. He was... okay with it. He was tired and not really hungry. He complained it was too rich, too many calories, even with such a small piece. He was tired and dare I say, possibly even a bit grumpy. I was sad I was forcing him to eat a cake he didn't want. I ate an entire huge piece out of spite for everyone who complained.

But really, it is delicious. Fleur Bird loved it so much he had two pieces and asked me to make it for his wedding. Papa Bird told me last night that he loved it and was sorry to see it all gone. So if you know anyone who loves peanut butter and chocolate and want to see them struggle with an amazingly rich piece of cake.... here's your cake.

Recipe slightly modified from from Smitten Kitchen
(Makes 16 slices, with 695 calories and $0.86 per slice)
Cake

2 cups all-purpose flour

2.5 cups sugar

3/4 cup cocoa powder

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup canola oil

1 cup sour cream

1.5 cups water

2 tablespoons white vinegar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 eggs

1. Preheat oven to 350.
   
2. Mix together four, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt.
   
3. Add oil and sour cream and mix well.
   
4. Mix in water 1/2 cup at a time, beating well.
   
5. Add in vinegar and vanilla.
   
6. Add in eggs and mix very well.
   
7. Bake for 35-40 minutes.
   

Peanut Butter Frosting

10 ounces cream cheese

4 ounces butter

5 cups powdered sugar

2/3 cup peanut butter

1. Beat cream cheese and butter together until fluffy.
   
2. Add powdered sugar, one cup at a time, beating well each time.
   
3. Add peanut butter, and mix well, being sure to scrap all parts of the bowl.
   

Chocolate-Peanut Butter Glaze

8 ounces chocolate

3 tablespoons peanut butter

1/2 cup half & half

1. In a double boiler, melt chocolate and peanut butter.
   
2. Cool, being careful to not let set.
   
3. Mix in half & half.
   
4. Pour over cake as quickly as possible.
   

Today's lessons learned:

• Cake is not always a great present.
  

"These are the best muffins you've ever made."

I made these muffins a while ago, using apricot jam that I had leftover from making thumbprint cookies. I had a whole second jar of jam, so I brought it to my friend's house to use up more and to leave it with them.

I made the muffins while they were working on dinner, which was a delicious fish of swordfish steaks, crab cakes, and green beans with garlic and onion. The meal was fantastic, but I won't go into details about it because I did nothing to help prepare it, and it seems unfair to take their credit.

Around 4:30, I decided I was too hungry to wait for dinner. So was Kendo Bird. So I decided to make the muffins I had promised Darth Bird, while they worked on making the crab cakes and the swordfish.

They came out of the oven around 4:40.



Except for the second one that I spent a while resisting, they were all gone by 4:46.



Everyone ate two muffins, while they were still steaming from the oven. I had almost burned my hands getting them out as quickly as I could. And they were instantly destroyed.

They're also delicious in the mornings, microwaved to the point where the jam is once again hot and bubbly. They're light and, dare I say it, fluffy, with a slight hint of cinnamon in the dough. We've used six different jams now: apricot, black cherry, red plum, peaches, raspberry, and blackberry. I've only eaten the apricot and red plum. We played muffin roulette. Made two dozen muffin, with four of each, put them all on a giant plate, and spun it around. I got red plum, but my diet stopped me from taking two or three more, like I really wanted to.

These are certainly a new favorite. I can see making these for parties, although I'd love to find a way to make them look prettier...



I dunno, they look pretty good on their own.

Cinnamon Jam Roulette Muffins
(Makes 12 muffins, with 126 calories and $0.21 per muffins)

1.5 cups flour

1/2 cup sugar

2.5 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon salt

2/3 cup vanilla yogurt

1/4 cup butter

3 tablespoons milk

1 large egg

1/4 cup jam

1 tablespoon sugar

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1. Preheat oven to 375.
   
2. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, and salt. Mix well.
   
3. Combine yogurt, butter, milk, and egg in separate bowl.
   
4. Add wet ingredients to dry, just combining.
   
5. Spoon one tablespoon batter into each liner.
   
6. Top each with 1 teaspoon jam, and then top with remaining batter.
   
7. Combine extra tablespoon sugar with extra cinnamon, and sprinkle over batter.
   
8. Bake for 15 minutes.
   

Today's lessons learned:

• My friends really, really like muffins.
  
• Six varieties of jam, and no one can decide which was best....
  

Parsley smells delicious

I wish I could tell you that tonight's dinner was a well-planned out meal I had been intending on eating for the last few days, but it wasn't. I decided it was going to be my dinner at about... 7 o'clock. Mama Bird, Sister Bird, and I went to the grocery store at 7:30, and we sat down to dinner at 9:30. It was one of the worst meal planning days I've had in a few weeks.

But it was good enough I am writing a post about it only hours after eating it. So at least it was inspiring.



I've been stealing Mama Bird's camera for more and more pictures. I think she's going to notice soon.

Now, as for what this fish actually was... it was very, very easy to make. Perhaps that's why I picked it, because I didn't want to be in the kitchen all night. We had most of the ingredients: we still had fresh parsley from a salad I had made previously, we have an insane amount of lemon juice, and the rest is staples in our house. Except the fish. That we bought fresh.

And really, this is incredibly easy to make. You blend some parsley, lemon juice, garlic, and then marvel at home wonderful your kitchen smells. Maybe you even call your mother into the kitchen to make her smell it too. She'll agree, but be annoyed you aren't finishing cooking everything else.



With some green beans and pierogies, it's a a pretty quick meal. I doubled the amount of garlic in the original recipe, and didn't count the exact amount of parsley I used. Next time I would have used slightly less, because I thought there was a bit too much. Maybe that's just because I wanted to use the rest of the parsley mix as a sauce for my green beans.

And sadly, my family did not enjoy this meal as much as I did. Mama Bird and I liked it, but Sister Bird and Papa Bird didn't. Sister Bird doesn't like fish, and Papa Bird chowed it but said he'd rather eat some 'real meat.' Oh well, I guess not everything can please everyone.

Recipe from Budget Bytes
(Makes 4 servings, with 170 calories and $2.32 per serving)

4 tilapia fillets

1/2 bunch fresh parsley

3 tablespoons lemon juice

4 cloves garlic

2 tablespoons olive oil

1/8 teaspoon black pepper

1. Preheat oven to 450.
   
2. Rinse parsley and put in food processor with lemon juice, olive oil, pepper, and garlic.
   
3. Put fillets in baking dish and pour parsley mixture over them.
   
4. Bake for 12-15 minutes.
   

Today's lessons learned:

• Sister Bird and Papa Bird don't like fish. That is sad.