I’ve been eating lots of crap lately. Lots of meat and lots of baked sweets. A couple of weeks ago,  bought lentils. I saw a recipe for lentil soup and quickly forgot all about it. This morning I decided that today was the day I was going to make the soup. I usually only make soups on the weekends because they take a while (well at least the ones I make) to cook. Not this. Somehow, I had all the ingredients needed so a stop at the store wasn’t even required!

When reading the recipe, I kept looking for the step where I’m supposed to soak the lentils for a period of time. When I realize that I didn’t have to, I was overjoyed. This soup was going to be easy to cook. I was right. All you do is dump a bunch of veggies in a pot with a bit of olive oil, brown them, add the chicken broth, tomatoes, and lentils and let it simmer. It can’t get any easier than that!

The end result is a flavorful, filling, and uber healthy soup. If you want to add meat, you can first boil some (already cooked) smoked turkey, sausage, ham, I usually use ham hocks (here’s a good recipe)….or even bacon! The picture, as usual, isn’t fancy but don’t let that deter you. The soup was delicious!

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French Lentil Soup
(Recipe from Epicurious)

Ingredients:

• 3 tablespoons extra–virgin olive oil
• 2 cups chopped onions
• 1 cup chopped celery stalks plus chopped celery leaves for garnish
• 1 cup chopped carrots
• 2 garlic cloves, chopped
• 4 cups (or more) vegetable broth
• 1 1/4 cups lentils, rinsed, drained
• 1 14 1/2–ounce can diced tomatoes in juice
• Balsamic vinegar (optional) (I didn’t add it)

Directions:

Heat oil in heavy large saucepan over medium–high heat. Add onions, celery, carrots, and garlic; sauté until vegetables begin to brown, about 15 minutes. Add 4 cups broth, lentils, and tomatoes with juice and bring to boil. Reduce heat to medium–low, cover, and simmer until lentils are tender, about 35 minutes.

Transfer 2 cups soup (mostly solids) to blender and puree until smooth. Return puree to soup in pan; thin soup with more broth by 1/4 cupfuls, if too thick. Season with salt, pepper, and a splash of vinegar, if desired. Ladle soup into bowls. Garnish with celery leaves.

New Year, New You. Right? Well, Andy and I vowed that we’re going to eat a lot more seafood at home. We used to eat salmon once or twice a month and then just sort of grew out of love. I was never crazy about cooked salmon, but I’m hoping to change that soon. My goal is to find lots of great recipes for different fish and seafood.

This recipe was a spur of the moment type of find. I have no idea how I even found. But I’m really glad I did. This recipe is really easy, has a small list of ingredients, quick to make, and extremely delicious.

Crunchy Wasabi Salmon with Lime
(recipe from epicurious)

Ingredients:

3/4 cup wasabi peas (about 3 ounces)
4 (8-ounce) salmon fillets with skin (each about 1 inch to 1 1/4 inches thick)
1 tablespoon finely grated lime peel
2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
6 cups thinly sliced red cabbage (about 1/2 large head)

1 (8-ounce) package trimmed sugar snap peas
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
Lime wedges

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400°F. Blend wasabi peas in processor until ground but with some coarsely crushed pieces. Lightly oil rimmed baking sheet. Arrange salmon fillets, skin side down, on prepared baking sheet. Sprinkle fish with salt. Press ground wasabi peas onto tops of salmon fillets to adhere, covering tops completely. Sprinkle grated lime peel over salmon; drizzle with 1 tablespoon oil. Roast salmon just until opaque in center, about 10 minutes. (I cooked my salmon for a 3 or so minutes longer).

Meanwhile, heat remaining 1 tablespoon oil in large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add cabbage and sugar snap peas; sauté until vegetables are crisp-tender, about 5 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Transfer 1 salmon fillet to each of 4 plates. Drizzle with lime juice. Mound cabbage-snap pea mixture alongside. Garnish with lime wedges and serve.

I was so busy at work that I didn’t even realize that I had to plan for dinner until about an hour before it was time to leave. I sent Andy an email with three options with quesadillas and the sides as one of the options (duh).

I have never cooked tomatillos and, honestly, I didn’t even realize that salsa verde (green salsa) was made with tomatillos. I just always assumed that it was made with green tomatoes. Boy, was I wrong! I recently started watching Rick Bayless’ “One Plate at a Time” and really like how simple and easy his cooking appears to be. So, when I was looking for a recipe for salsa verde, I went straight to the source.

In the end, I actually used two recipes (sorry Rick). The recipe below is for what I did, but I will also include the links to the two recipes I referenced.

Since I was going to attempt to make an authentic Mexican meal, I decided to make the quesadillas with Chihuahua cheese. Once again, this was a first for me. I actually emailed a couple of Mexican ladies (that I see everyday on the train) to ask for their opinion and advice.

Whenever we make guacamole, we have chips. Not store bought chips. Semi-Home made chips. It’s so incredibly easy, you don’t even know. They’re (nearly) fat free, crunchy, fresh, salty, and delicious. The recipe (if you can call that) is below.

Tomatillo Salsa Verde

Ingredients:
4 small/medium Tomatillos
1/2 of a small red onion
1 canned chipotle chiles in adobo, removed from the canning sauce, seeded and finely chopped
juice from 1/2 a (small) lime
some cilantro (to taste)
Salt to taste

Directions

Cut the tomatillos in 1/2 and and set, face down, on a non-stick skillet over medium heat. When they are browned, 3-4 minutes, flip and brown the other side. While the tomatillos are cooking, chop the onion and the chile. When the tomatillos are done, cut them in smaller pieces and combine the chiles, onion, and tomatillos in a food processor. Pulse until all the ingredients are finely chopped and mixed.  Season with salt and cool in the fridge. 

Rick Bayless’ Recipe
Simply Recipes’ Recipe

“Home-Made” Corn Chips

Ingredients:
Corn Tortillas (1 small tortilla makes 4 large chips)
Olive Oil Spray 
Coarse Salt

Directions
Preheat the oven to 450. While the oven is preheating, cut the tortillas into 4ths (for small tortillas). Spread the chips on a cookie sheet or baking pan. Spray the chips with olive oil spray and then sprinkle with lots of salt. Bake the chips for 10 minutes or so. Check the chips every few minutes because they can burn fairly quickly. That’s it! Simple, quick, and super tasty.

I really really didn’t plan tonight’s dinner. Andy offered to pick up food on his way home and, honestly, I felt so tempted to agree. I really didn’t have energy to cook or any idea of what I wanted to make. So I suggested the first thing that came to my mind – pasta. So pasta I made!

Once I got home, I looked through my fridge and kind of freaked out. I had no tomatoes, no sauce, no idea what to make with the pasta. I found some scallions that were close to being extremely gross and found a recipe for scallion sauce online. The only requirement was that the sauce had to be quick and easy. It was. I used angel hair pasta that cooked incredibly fast and the whole meal took less than 30 minutes to make. Lovely. I added some other veggies to the pasta and Andy added some sliced chicken sausage to his.

(forewarning – I barely followed the recipe and used it primarily as a guide)

Spaghetti with Scallion Sauce
(epicurious)

Ingredients:

• 1 lb pasta of your choice
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 4 cups chopped scallions (from 4 bunches)
• 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped*
• 1 teaspoon finely grated fresh lemon zest
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 oz finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano (1/2 cup)

*I found this a tiny bit bland. I recommend adding a lot more garlic and, maybe, some heat (?)

Directions:

Cook spaghetti in a 6- to 8-quart pot of boiling salted water until al dente.

While pasta cooks, heat 3 tablespoons olive oil in a 12-inch heavy skillet over moderate heat until hot but not smoking, then cook scallions and garlic, stirring occasionally, until scallions are softened and garlic begins to turn golden, about 5 minutes.

Transfer scallion mixture to a blender and add zest, salt, pepper, remaining olive oil, and 1/2 cup pasta-cooking water, then purée until smooth. (Use caution when blending hot liquids.)

Drain pasta in a colander and return to pot.

Toss pasta with scallion purée, cheese, and salt and pepper to taste over moderate heat until pasta is well coated.

For Thanksgiving, I made exactly 1 contribution – Cranberry Sauce. To my taste, it was amazing. The recipe is simple and it can be whipped up very quickly.

Ingredients:
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 cup water
1 (12-ounce) package fresh or frozen cranberries, rinsed, drained and sorted through, removing any stems or deflated ones (I used fresh, Ocean Spray cranberries)
Several strips of orange peel, or thick pieces of zest
A few squeezes of orange juice (I used the juice from a fresh orange)

Directions
Combine water and sugar in a medium saucepan. Bring to boil; add cranberries and zest, return to boil. Reduce heat and boil gently for 10-14 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add a few squeezes of fresh orange juice. Cover and cool completely at room temperature. Refrigerate until serving time.

Source (and other cranberry sauce recipes)