Erin's Chickpea Salad

I've been holding on to this recipe for awhile and I am so glad that Erin shared it with me. This is a fresh and very healthy side dish that could jazz up any number of simple entrées. And aside from a bit of chopping, it's incredibly easy to whip up.


[Cook: -- / Prep: 15-20min]

Ingredients

- 1 onion
- 1 cucumber
- 2 tomatoes
- 1/2 large red, orange or yellow bell pepper
- 1 can chickpeas (about 8-10oz)
- dash each of salt and pepper
- 1 Tbs olive oil


Steps

1. Rinse and drain the chickpeas.
2. Chop the onion, cucumber, tomatoes and bell pepper.
3. Mix all ingredients in a large bowl and stir until evenly mixed and coated with the olive oil.
4. Ready to eat!

[Serves 2]

Notes

• For this sort of dish, the proportions are completely up to you. Plus, with vegetables always varying in size, the proportions listed above are just a really rough guide.
• Similarly, you need not stop at these veggies alone. Especially for the vegetarians out there, you can expand this dish into a small meal with the addition of other classic Greek ingredients like feta cheese and olives.
• This recipe yields quite a bit of food, so I served it as both the meal's carbohydrate and veggie portion...and the whole amount disappeared.  

Suggested Entrées

• Grilled chicken with lemon juice and oregano yogurt sauce.
• Spicy or curried chicken, fish, lamb or mutton.
• Rani's Greek Chicken Kabobs

Green Pea Soup

This is not quite the easiest soup I could post, but OH MY GOSH is it good. Split pea soup is my absolute favorite Dutch food- even more than cheese and baked goods. There is something just so brilliant about the blend of peas and pork. Plus its nickname is 'Snert' and what could be better and more appealing than a green blob called Snert?

Dutch split pea soup-- its full Dutch name being Erwtensoep --is a slightly tricky little delicacy to make. It involves boiling split peas with various cuts of pork (namely a big piece of bone-in ham or pork shoulder), taking out the pork, putting in vegetables, possibly pureeing and then putting the meat back in again. Certainly worth it, but I've simplified the process a bit and was very, very happy with the results. Unfortunately, though, I've just ruined Snert out-of-a-can (quite decent as it is) for myself probably for life now.

Anyway, the biggest change I've made is substituting real peas for split peas. I've researched this quite intently and while dried split peas are by far the most popular way to make soup, there's really just a few simple pros and cons to each...and for me real peas seemed easiest.

The biggest advantage to dried split peas is texture. Apparently they don't have skins and are a bit more starchy, and so more easily cook down into the appealing consistency of the soup. However, split peas should be soaked for a few hours (not necessary, but helps) and give off a frothy 'scum' in the soup that needs to be skimmed off early on in the boiling process. I'm also uncertain as to their availability outside of Holland.

Canned/frozen peas are just a bit more speedy and I didn't see any scum that needed skimming. The biggest issue is their shells which don't break off or let the peas break down easily during cooking. There are a couple ways to combat this (which I'll discuss later), but mine tasted just fine lumpy, ugly shells and all.

[Prep: 20min / Cook: 1.5 - 2hrs]

Ingredients

- 15oz can of green peas (400 grams)

- 2 1/2 cups / 500mL water

- 1/4 lb (125 grams) thick-cut bacon

- 1 pork chop [optional]

- 1/4 of a celeriac (celery root)

- 1 leek

- 1/2 white onion

- 2-3 carrots

- 2 small/medium white or yellow potatoes

- smoked country sausage (kielbasa, rookworst, etc)

Steps

1. Briefly strain the peas and bring them to a boil in the water.
2. Meanwhile, chop up the bacon and pork chop and throw it in with the peas.
3. Chop up about 1/4 of a celery root. It'll be about a cup's worth once chopped. Slice the leek all the way down to the white base and slice half an onion. Add all to the soup.
4. Let the soup cook for about an hour, stirring fairly frequently (about every 10 min). Crush the peas a bit with the spoon if you'd like.
5. Slice the carrots, cube the potatoes and slice as much smoked sausage as you'd please. Add all to the pot and cook for about 30min - 1hr more, stirring every 10 min until the soup reaches your desired thickness/consistency.
6. Ready to eat!

[Serves 2 for dinner or 2 twice as a side]

Notes

Celeriac

• All the ingredients-- including dried split peas if I had been interested --are quite easy for me to find this time of year in Holland but may or may not be difficult elsewhere. If you can't find a celery root, you can use celery shoots, the flavor just won't be as strong. Make an effort to look for the root, though. Not only is it awesomely big, but it smells lovely.
• Traditional split pea soup gets its great flavor from ham/pork with the bone in. Using bacon instead really helps with the flavor, but its worth trying with a bone. Since it's a winter soup, keep an eye out for the big family ham around the Holidays and instead of letting anyone throw the bone away, package it up and freeze it. Later you can throw it in this soup and just discard the bone when you're read to eat!
• As mentioned, the biggest issue with using real peas and not dried split peas is that they don't break down as well in the soup. It tastes just fine but maybe doesn't look as appealing (b/c green goo looks appealing to begin with...). If you really want your real pea soup smoother, you can try one of these methods


• Puree the peas in a blender/food processor either before you start, or after that first hour of cooking, before you add in the veggies & sausage (the meats, celeriac and leek will have cooked down quite a bit). 
• OR you could pan-fry the peas and bacon first. Peas really squish down when you pan-fry them and it could actually cut down on your cooking time as well. Because the meat & pea flavors will have already melded, you can cut straight to the veggie & sausage hour after pan-frying.

• They say this soup tastes better after sitting overnight in the fridge. Apparently it thickens and the flavors meld more. I can't know for sure-- my entire batch seemed to miraculously disappear last night --but I'd believe the Dutch!

Veggie Soup à la Rani

In the first of what I hope are many submissions by friends and OntheFly readers, I'm happy to present my dear friend Rani's veggie soup. Rani is a far better cook than I am, so I am very grateful that he sent this recipe my way for soup month. He's also a bit of a 'closet chef', so if you like this recipe, do take a second to show your appreciation in the comments or on Facebook so that I may have more ammunition when encouraging him to go to culinary school.


And if you would like to send me easy, flying recipes of your own, I'm happy to announce that this week I've activated a new email account to receive your submissions: recipes@ontheflyrecipes.com


[Prep: 10-20min* / Cook: 15min-2hrs**]
*depends on your chopping skills
**all veggie, so edible when boiled, but flavors improve with prolonged cooking

- 4 cups (1L) beef broth

- 4 zucchinis

- 4 celery stalks

- 3 carrots

- 2 tomatoes
- 1 bell pepper
- 1 butternut squash
- 1/2 cup of bean sprouts

- 3 tsp each pepper, cumin, coriander, ginger root

- 2 tsp each salt, garlic powder, oregano,

- 1 tsp chili powder

- 3 Tbsp olive oil
- 1 yellow onion
- 2 Tbsp each cilantro and parsley
- 1 Tbsp sage
- 3 tsp basil


1.  Get the broth boiling (or dissolve a beef bouillon cube in water to make beef broth) and start chopping the veggies. Discard bell pepper seeds and thoroughly rinse the bean sprouts.  Set the onion aside.
2.  Dump the veggies into the top with all the beautiful spices.
3.  As that all gently boils, heat the olive oil in a frying pan and sauté the onions with the herbs from the second portion of the ingredients list until the onion turns clear. Dump in the pot with all the rest.
4.  Reduce heat to simmer and cook until veggies reach desired softness and broth is flavorful.
5.  Ready to eat!

[Serves 2, twice]

Variations

• This isn't quite vegetarian because of the use of beef broth, but if vegetarian is what you desire, you can- of course -swap out veggie broth for the beef.
• If you're like me- not a vegetarian and want your soup to be as much of a full meal as possible -I would add cubed beef tips (or any other decent stewing beef) in the beginning. Add some toast and you're meal is done!
• OR really make it a meal and add cubed potatoes, orzo or rice and have a hearty stew.

December Diet: Spinach Greens

Ready for Cooking originally uploaded by luckyjimmy

I don't know how many times someone has mentioned to me that the more colors you have in your meal the better it is for you.  Well, it's true- when the color comes from an array of fruits and vegetables, that is.  Different colors of fruits and veggies all bring different nutrients to the mix.  Reds have lycopene, an antioxidant good at fighting heart disease.  Orange and yellows have beta-carotene and Vitamin C.  Blues and purples have cancer-fighting phytochemicals and all sorts of good stuff like folic acids, fiber and potassium.  Whites (like onions, garlic and cauliflower) have allicin, indoles and sulfaforaphanes that help battle cholesterol, high blood pressure, infections and cancer.  And good old greens are full of antioxidants, folate vitamins, minerals and fiber.

This month, to celebrate the season and a healthy, colorful plate, all our recipes will be red and green, with an emphasis on leafy spinach greens.

Why Spinach?

Home Grown Spinach originally
uploaded by OakleyOriginals

Some time last year I read an article about all the antioxidant rich foods that you should incorporate into every meal.  Fresh spinach was the king of that list, so I set out to find a way to include spinach in 3-4 meals a week.  I haven't quite maintained that enthusiasm, but I still try to throw spinach into my meals whenever I can.  

Spinach is so rich in antioxidants and vitamins, the list is almost absurd.  In fact, here it is: vitamins A, C, E, K, B2 & B6, magnesium, manganese, folate, betaine, iron, calcium, potassium, folic acid, copper, protein, phosphorus, zinc, niacin, selenium and omega-3 fatty acids.  The best way to preserve the nutrients in spinach is to each it fresh, steamed or briefly boiled as prolonged boiling can reduce some of the nutrient content (although, really not enough to be too fussed about!).  

You can buy spinach fresh (and often conveniently bagged as just rinse they're ready-to-eat leaves) or in frozen bags.  Both forms take about the same amount of work and are just as good for you.  Since frozen veggies are usually frozen very fresh, they often pack just as many nutrients, if not more, than the fresh greens in the produce section.  I prefer to work with fresh spinach, but for most of the recipes this month, the frozen variety will do just as well.

Here are some great ways to start incorporating spinach into your meals and snacks:

Spinach Empanadas with Poblano Sauce 
originally uploaded by norwitchnuts

• Throw out the iceberg and make spinach your go-to salad green!  You can add a small, restaurant-style side salad to every meal by quickly plopping some spinach leaves, onions and cherry tomatoes on your plate nestled up next to your entree.  For larger salads, toss spinach in with green lettuce like romain or butterhead for a healthy, green mix.
• Spinach is a great addition to nearly every pasta.  Throw it in with chicken alfredo or beefy tomato or bolognese dishes.   Layer it into lasagne or bake it into your cannelloni or ravioli stuffing. 
• Mix it with a little cheese and roll it into a variety of pastries such as cresents or puff pastries. 
• Add spinach, cheese and ham/bacon to your eggs to make a hearty breakfast quiche, omelet or frittata.   
• Next time you make a casserole, mix in some spinach.  You might not even realize it's there!
• Add it to your pizza toppings. 
• Layer it into a sandwich- especially a hot/grilled one.  
• Don't forget to keep spinach dip on-hand for snacks and entertaining.

Happy Cooking!