In a city full or rich eats, it's important to balance all that with healthy food so I've been cooking a lot. Trying to keep things fresh and earthy, I whipped up a good soup the other day, consisting of pretty basic ingredients one usually has in their pantry. It's easy to substitute certain ingredients like the barley with something else like quinoa or other kinds of pasta. What makes the soup unique are the spices, including cinnamon and coriander, which gives it almost a curry flavor.
Although this soup tastes great right after it's made, I think it's even better when it sits for a day and makes for tasty leftovers. I served it up with a rustic piece of bread that kept us satiated for the evening.
Tomato Soup with Barley (or Bulgur) and Warm Spices - recipe courtesy of Whole Foods Market.
Since I was recently inspired by Mombar's chicken and veggie tajines, I wanted to make my own version at home. My brother Peter and sister-in-law, Fiana were coming over so I thought it'd make for a good opportunity to create a stewy pot of goodness to see if it was passable. I'm happy to say that the verdict was really positive and Peter and Dan went back for seconds.
Originally stemming from a recipe for a veggie tajine, I decided to add some chicken breast cubes for good measure and to make it even more hearty of course. Since I was already going with meat, I could've used a chicken broth as its base, but I stuck with the veggie broth to give it more earthiness. The whole dish delivered and filled us up nicely, resting on a bed of whole wheat cous-cous with chopped dates, pistachios and fresh lemon zest. I'll definitely be making this comforting creation again.
Chicken and veggie tajine, recipe courtesy of Whole Foods. (just add chicken or beef to make it meaty!)
Lately, gaining a lot of inspiration from the Whole Foods iPad app when trying to construct my dinner, I stumbled upon this recipe for linguine with grilled shrimp and arugula parsley pesto. Immediately attracted to it because of the pesto, it seemed like a hearty dish without too much unnecessary decadence, so I took the plunge and went for it.
Unfortunately finding out at the market that there was no more arugula, I substituted with fresh spinach and it did the trick quite well. Appreciating the new twist on pesto, it was nice to also mix in fresh parsley, that gave it that fresh, lemony flavor.
Instead of grilling the shrimp, I baked it for about 7 minutes in a 425 degree oven. As you can tell from my photo, I also used fettuccine pasta instead of linguine, and actually thought this was more appropriate, as it had more surface area to absorb the pesto.
Overall, I love how this dish turned out - it was fresh, earthy and relatively healthy. Loving the fact that it tasted even better the next day, the flavors of the pesto had the chance to seep into the pasta, making this a really fabulous left-over. Hope you get to enjoy it at home.
Linguine with grilled shrimp and arugula parsley pesto recipe
As you can tell, I've been pretty into making soups lately and the rainy, chill weather has presented the perfect opportunity to consume them.
I wanted to share this simple recipe for a split pea, butternut squash soup with toasted pumpkin seeds that I got from my Whole Foods iPad app. Finding a lot of value in their recipes, I like how healthy they are and the nutritious ingredients they incorporate.
Making this soup was really enjoyable and a good learning experience, as it doesn't use any kind of oil or chicken or veggie stock. The flavors simply stew together for a long time and intermingle in the process, creating a flavorful concoction that's satisfying and also good for you. The toasted pepitas on top are the best part, as both Dan and I loved biting into something crunchy while enjoying this smooth, creamy soup (no cream included).
Whole Foods' recipe uses sweet potato, but I had butternut squash on hand and it worked great. Enjoy.
Split Pea Butternut Squash Soup Recipe.
Even though I'm not hosting Thanksgiving at our place (never have and will try to shirk it as long as possible) - I'm of course contributing to a fabulous feast that's about to take place at Dan's cousin's house. And since I've been on a truffle kick lately, I decided to have another go at it, creating these white chocolate, pumpkin truffles. Similarly to my first try at truffles, I see that I still need loads of practice, but the good news is that the end result still tastes yummy.
I made two types of truffles, as you can see here - one is coated in white chocolate and includes a pumpkin (butternut squash in my case), cream cheese, white chocolate, cookie crumbs, cinnamon, sugar and orange zest filling and is coated in the white chocolate. Like a proper truffle should look. The others are a bit more rustic, as I ended up mixing the remainder of the white chocolate with the above mentioned filling and then coating it with the cookie crumbs. Still yummy but just a different look. Hope you have the patience and appetite to try something like this - while the pumpkin (or the butternut squash lasts).
Happy Thanksgiving everyone, and I can't wait to hear about the yummies you cooked up.
White Chocolate Pumpkin Truffles Recipe (courtesy of Whole Foods)
As I mentioned yesterday, I recently made my own chocolate truffles for Queens Swap. Of course being that Queens Swap is an amalgamation of hard core foodies, I knew I had to bring it up a notch, and ended up infusing the chocolate with coconut milk and yerba mate tea. Something to keep things more interesting...
Overall a little intimidated by the truffle making process, I had to try it out a couple of times before they came out right. A key hint is to use very good quality chocolate and I used a trusty baked goods supplier, NY Cake on 22nd Street near 6th Avenue in the city to help me out.
I also experimented with a truffle mold that turned out to be a giant failure (I couldn't get the chocolate out), so in the end I molded each truffle with my own two you know what. It was very enjoyable, therapeutic and also ultra messy. But so worth it. I've already gotten nice feedback from my fellow swappers, so I hope to continue this experiment yet again for another occasion.
Coconut Yerba Mate Truffles Recipe (courtesy of Whole Foods)
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