No food in the fridge

I was faced with what seems to be recurring problem for me this week. After being away for a couple days- my refrigerator was nearly empty, this time it was special because my pantry was also sparse and my early morning attempt to make it to the Westchester Wednesday market appeared to be rained out. All in all, not a great start.

So after a little ingenuity and crossed fingers this is what I came up with:

Roasted red pepper chickpea pasta surprise (I always add the word surprise on any dish that is a little different, just because it’s fun). I found an onion, potato, pasta, dried chickpeas, and the surprise – roasted red pepper tapenade left from last weeks market. I ate it last week with crackers and this was my attempt to restructure the dip.

Ingredients

1 brown or sweet onion, chopped

1 ½ cup dried chickpeas or 2 cans

1 small potato (optional)

1 bay leaf

1 package of pasta

1 pinch of salt

1 pinch of cayenne ppepper

1 tbsp olive oil

4 tbsp roasted red pepper tapenade

Soak chickpeas (overnight is preferable but I went for two hours- just to soften a bit). Rinse chickpeas and cover with water in a small pot, add half of the potato and the bay leaf. Bring water to a boil and let simmer for about an hour and a half or until beans have softened. (You can always bypass these steps by using canned beans- I find them much faster, but dried beans are cheaper and don’t have any preservatives or added sodium to them).

Begin to boil salted water in large pot for cooking pasta. Finely dice onion into small pieces

Sauté onions in oil in a pan until they become browned and translucent.

Add chickpeas, cayenne pepper, salt, tapenade, and a ladle of pasta water. Simmer until pasta is ready.
Drain pasta and mix together. Surprise, it’s dinner!

Arugula Pesto

Pesto is really a delicious way to enjoy many herbs and greens. The traditional basil is always a show stoper, but I recently had a delicious spinach pesto pasta salad that was a knockout and gave me the idea to try it with arugula. Arugula seems to be at every stand at the markets right now- and sometimes I am at my wits end trying to find different ways to prepare it. The first go-around I treated it like a regular pesto and added lots of garlic, which in combination with the naturally peppery flavor of arugula made it an overkill of that sharp spicy flavor. Second time around it had just the right kick for me.

Ingredients

1- 2 cloves of garlic

1 bunch of arugula

¼ cup walnuts

extra virgin olive oil

a pinch of salt

a handful of grated good parmesan cheese

This recipe could not be simpler. Add all ingredients into a food processor and chop. Add oil along the way until you get the desired smooth texture of pesto. You may need extra salt to taste depending on how bitter the arugula you are using is.

We ate this pesto with pasta but also used it to spice up brunch by serving it on toast topped with an egg.
Tip: you can always make pesto when herbs are fresh and freeze it in individual serving sizes in ice cube trays in the freezer. It works great added to soups to give them a fresh taste, or as a marinade for meats and

"Lebanese-ish" Red Lentil Soup

Towards the end of each week I seem to be left with a strange variety of produce in the fridge. I find myself resorting to a dinner made entirely of things from my pantry because I’m not quite sure what to do with my Farmer’s Market Leftovers. I hate throwing any food out because it has gone bad, so I have made it my quest to start putting in the time to finding recipes that contain my random scraps or can be adjusted to what I’ve got around.

This week when I came down to the final produce selection this is what I had:

Several lemons with no rind (I had already used the zest for another meal)

Cilantro- 1 bunch

Brown Onions

Lots of options but not so much substance… I don’t think my hubby would be super satisfied eating pickled onions for dinner and not quite the hearty winter meal I was hoping for.

I ended up making a “Lebenese-ish” Red Lentil Soup that I adapted from allrecipes.com

Recipe:

6 cups stock (you can use chicken or veggie)

2 1/3cups dry red lentils

3 tbsp. olive oil

1 large onion, chopped

2-3 cloves of garlic

1tbsp. cumin

½ tsp cayenne pepper (you could also use red chili flake and I think it would be similar)

½ bunch chopped cilantro

¾ cup lemon juice

Salt and pepper to taste

Bring the lentils and stock to a boil and then cover and simmer for 20 minutes. In a separate frying pan sauté onions and garlic until clear and then add the onions mixture and cumin and cayenne to the simmering lentils. Simmer until the lentils are tender (~10-15 minutes).

At this stage you can puree the soup – but I prefer the more rustic version.

Stir in lemon juice right before serving and top with a hearty portion of cilantro. I found this really brightens up the flavor. Serve as a soup or make it a meal by adding some brown rice to amp up protein and hearty-ness.