Cookbook of the Month – January 2018

Hi there! I frequent bookstores and libraries all over the state of Colorado, and right now I work at a bookstore part-time. It’s no wonder that my Cookbook of the Month for January is one that I picked up after my shift yesterday. I am cooking from Green Kitchen at Home by David Frenkiel and Luise Vindahl.

Green Kitchen at Home by David Frenkiel and Luise Vindahl

On the shelf, the cover intimidated me a little bit. (I don’t like cooking complicated food.) But the subtitle, “Quick and healthy vegetarian food for every day,” inspired me to pick it up. I am so glad I did. The more I paged through, the more I saw easy vegetarian food that I could make! Since, switching to a mostly vegetarian diet is something I am working on with my family, I am always on the lookout for enticing, easy, and delicious vegetarian food to place on our table for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Will this book deliver? Well, our first recipe was a slam dunk!

We got snowed in today, and I didn’t want to have to go to the grocery store. I saw the recipe for Double-sweater Minestrone with Rice and I realized that, with the exception of the fresh herbs, I had every ingredient in my kitchen to make this dish.

I started by making a loaf of beer bread. I definitely wanted fresh bread to go with our soup, and beer bread is so easy. About an hour before we wanted to eat, I got to work. When I got to work, my daughter and her boyfriend joined me in the kitchen while my husband cleaned up the dinner table and, before I knew it, preparing dinner was a full-on family affair! (This RARELY happens in my house. We all have crazy schedules, so it was great to have us all together for the cooking AND eating.)

Here’s what our version looked like:

2 Tbsp olive oil
1 yellow onion peeled and diced
2 celery stalks cleaned and diced
1 heaping Tbsp chopped garlic (packed in oil)
2 carrots peeled and diced
1 heaping Tbsp Penzeys Italian Herb Mix
1/4 tsp chile flakes (I used Penzeys Aleppo Pepper because I love that smoky flavor!)
1/4 tsp paprika
2 Tbsp tomato paste (I used tomato powder to thicken)
1 can (28 oz) diced tomatoes (or 2 14 oz cans if that is what you have)
6 cups vegetable stock
1/2 cup white rice uncooked and rinsed
1 can (14 oz) tri-blend beans (I use the Simple Truth Organic kind. I have cans of this in my pantry because I love to use it in lots of dishes)

Heat olive oil in a stock pot on medium. Add the onion, celery, garlic, and carrot. Get those nice an soft. The onions will be translucent. Stir frequently. Add the Italian herbs, chile flakes, and paprika. Continue to stir. Let that warm up for five to ten minutes.

Add the tomato paste, diced tomatoes, and vegetable stock. Crank the heat up to medium high and bring it to a simmer while stirring occasionally. Add the rice and beans. Simmer for 30 minutes. Be sure to scrape the thick stuff off the bottom when stirring so it doesn’t burn.

Remove the pot from the heat to serve. We served it with mozzarella pearls in the bowl and garnished it with a teensy amount of dried parsley (a little goes a long way with the dried herbs.) We ate it with the beer bread. This meal was a complete hit on such a cold winter day.

So much yum!

Holiday Cooking and Baking Overwhelm

Hello again! I have been busy, busy, busy! Where did December go? I can tell you that I have been spending a LOT of time in my kitchen, but didn’t have much time to take photos of, or share with my words, all the things I was doing. So, now I get to play catch up! First things first – In addition to my day job, I had an opportunity to work as a seasonal bookseller at a local bookstore, so I invested some of my earnings and employee discount in some new cookbooks. I will share those very soon. They asked me to stay on and cover some shifts through the end of January, and I said yes. I am not going to lie – I am exhausted, but the extra cash is very helpful.

Now that it is January, I can also share the gift I gave my hubby for Christmas! I enrolled him in the “Cookie of the Month Club!” I did this for him two years ago, and he loved it because he loves having cookies and milk for dessert. This is something I made up. Basically, I bake him a batch of cookies each month. I make a pretty (and simple) schedule of what he will get each month, put the schedule in a cute envelope and put it under the tree. He was very happy to get it again this year after being without it last year.

The logistics side of it meant that I printed a copy of the schedule for myself and copied all the recipes that I am using from their respective books, labeled each copy with the month, and put them in a folder so that I don’t have to hunt each recipe down every month. Easy peasy!

I will write again soon!