Category: Makes Great Leftovers!

French Lentil Soup with Hot Turkey Sausage and Kale

P1050837

Here’s a tasty and healthy recipe – perfect for the wet Vancouver weeks we’ve been having, or the cold weather anywhere else. Apparently this is a typical French soup. Since I have only visited France in the summer, I have never had a chance to try this, but it’s delicious!

I found the recipe here, and only changed it a little. I used a few cups of chicken broth along with the water, and about half the amount of sausage. I used less olive oil than the original recipe called for, and I discarded the fat from the sausages instead of adding it to the soup. I think it’s leaner, but still really tasty.

What you need:

  • 1 & 1/2 cups French lentils
  • 300 grams hot Italian sausage (omit for a vegetarian soup)
  • 2-3 cups kale
  • 1 large leek, diced
  • 3 carrots, shredded
  • 3 stalks celery, diced
  • 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
  • 3 bay leaves
  • 1 Tbs Thyme
  • 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
  • 1 & 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 6-7 cups water (or 3 cups chicken broth, the rest water)
  • salt and pepper

What you do:

  1. Pick through the lentils to make sure there are no small stones hidden in them.
  2. Remove the stems from the kale and cut it into ribbons.
  3. Remove the casing from the sausage. Heat about 1/2 tablespoon of olive oil in a large pot and sear the sausage on both sides, then break it apart. Remove the sausage and discard most of the fat.
  4. Add the red pepper flakes to the little bit of sausage fat, and then add the kale. Season with salt and pepper, and sauté the kale for about 2 minutes. Add it to the removed sausage.
  5. Pour the remaining tablespoon of olive oil into the pot and add the vegetables.  Sauté them for about 10 minutes, or until the vegetables become soft and transparent.
  6. Add the thyme, bay leaves, lentils and 6 cups of water.  Season with salt and pepper, bring to a simmer and cook for 25 – 30 minutes, at which time the lentils should be done.
  7. Add the vinegar, kale, sausage, and any more water to achieve the thickness you want.  Cook for 5 more minutes to reheat the kale and sausage. Taste and adjust seasonings.
  8. You can serve it right away, but it also makes fantastic leftovers. The flavours are even more developed with next day!

Hummus Kawarma (Lamb) with Lemon Sauce

Hummus kawarma (lamb) with Lemon Sauce - trust in kim

Yotam Ottolenghi, thank you for this recipe! I have several of his cookbooks, and I think this is my favourite recipe out of all of them. It comes from Jerusalem, which is filled with awesome recipes along with beautiful photos of the food and culture.

There is so much flavour in this dish – the lamb is marinated in herbs, and then it is served on top of hummus and drizzled with a delicious lemon sauce. Completely addictive!

In the colder seasons I serve this with another favourite recipe, roasted cauliflower and butternut squash. In summer I would switch to a refreshing fattoush salad.

You can substitute the hand-chopped lamb with ground lamb, but the hand-chopped meat has a much nicer texture to it. And it’s really easy to chop the meat yourself.

This recipe serves 6 people for an appetizer or small meal. Pita bread is nice served with this.

What you need:

kawarma ingredients:

  • 300g neck fillet of lamb (which I couldn’t find, so I just used a piece of top round)
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
  • 1 teaspoon ground allspice
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
  • 1 teaspoon crushed dried za’atar or oregano leaves
  • 1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
  • 1 tablespoon chopped fresh mint
  • 1 tablespoon chopped flat-leaf parsley, plus extra to garnish
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 tablespoon unsalted butter or ghee
  • 1 teaspoon olive oil

lemon sauce ingredients:

  • 10 grams flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped (also delicious without parsley)
  • 1 green chile, chopped finely
  • 4 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
  • 2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
  • 2 cloves garlic, crushed
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt

optional toppings:

  • pine nuts
  • pomegranate seeds

What you do:

  1. Chop the lamb finely. Combine all the kawarma ingredients except the butter and oil. Mix well, cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
  2. Combine all the ingredients for the lemon sauce.
  3. Heat the butter and olive oil in a large frying pan. Add the lamb, in two or three batches, and stir as it fries. It only needs about 2 minutes to turn nicely light-pink inside.
  4. To serve, make a mound of hummus on the plate, and use a spoon to create a well in the middle. Spoon some of the lamb into the well, and top with a generous amount of the lemon sauce. Garnish with more parsley or other optional toppings.

Enjoy it while it’s warm!

Margherita Pizza

margherita pizza - trust in kim

 

A Margherita pizza is the true test of good ingredients and a great pizza crust recipe. It is so simple, but everything has to be just right to make it taste delicious. I like to use the A16 Restaurant dough, which requires planning ahead a day or two. It has a perfect chewiness, with a crispness on the edges that bubble up and blister. The tomato sauce is simple; just some canned San Marzano tomatoes, crushed by hand.

This pizza isn’t like one from a take-out place, with a crust thick enough to hold up a ton of soggy toppings and cheese. This one is light, with a crispy crust, and you can taste each ingredient. Delizioso!

What you need:

  • 1/4 teaspoon yeast
  • 1 & 1/2 cups warm water
  • 2 teaspoons olive oil
  • 2 teaspoons salt
  • 4 cups “oo” flour or all-purpose (I used all-purpose)
  • one 28-ounce can of tomatoes (San Marzano if you can find them)
  • 1-2 teaspoons salt
  • fresh mozzarella
  • freshly grated parmesan
  • fresh basil (optional)

What you do:

  1. Begin preparing the dough a day or two before you want to make the pizza. You can do this by hand, but it’s a bit more work than using a machine. Pour the warm (not hot – just body temperature) water into a mixer fitted with a dough hook, and then sprinkle the yeast on top.  Leave it for about 10 minutes and it should dissolve and become foamy – if it doesn’t your water was the wrong temperature, or the yeast is dead, so you need to try again with new yeast.
  2. Stir in the olive oil and salt.  Add most of the flour and mix on low for 2 minutes.  Knead on medium-low for about 10 minutes – it will pull away from the bowl and begin to look smoother.
  3. Cover the bowl with a damp towel and let it rest for 5 minutes. Knead once more on medium-low for 10 minutes – it will be smooth and quite soft.  If it seems much too sticky you can add a little more flour.  Coat a bowl with a little olive oil and then coat both sides of the dough with olive oil, placing the dough in the bowl.  Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and put it in the fridge over night (or two or three nights).
  4. In the morning remove the  dough from the fridge and punch it down.  Fold the sides of the dough under and put it back in the bowl.  Cover the bowl with a damp towel and let it sit in a warm (not hot) place until about 2 hours before you are going to use it.
  5. Punch the dough down and divide it into 4 pieces.  Form each piece into balls and cover them with a damp towel for about 2 hours.  By this time the dough should have doubled in volume.  If it starts to get a skin on it you can spray it with a little water.
  6. To prepare the sauce, just put the tomatoes and their juice into a bowl and squish them into little bits with your hands.  Add the salt.
  7. Preheat the oven to 500-550 F. I used a brick oven, which had to be lit a few hours before to heat it sufficiently. This makes the Best Pizza, but understandably, most people will be baking in a conventional oven.
  8. To form the crusts, shape the dough into a disk with your hands.  Push down in the centre with your palm and pull the dough out gently with your other hand, rotating slightly until you have a crust that is about 10-12 inches/25-30 cm in diameter with a slightly raised edge. Dust your baking pan generously with flour and place the crust on it.  I don’t have a proper pizza stone or pan, and the baking tray I used worked just fine.
  9. Spread some tomato sauce onto the crust, then add the mozzarella and a light sprinkling of parmesan. You want to go light on the toppings or the crust will become soggy.
  10. Bake for 6-7 minutes, until the crust is crisp, golden, with some dark blistering, and the top is bubbling.
  11. Add a little fresh basil to the top if you are using it.

Buon Appetito!

 

making pizza crust - trust in kim
forming the crust by hand

 

baking in a brick oven - trust in kim
My dad had the job of baking in the brick oven.

Super Creamy Hummus, Ottolenghi Style

hummus - trust in kim

This hummus recipe by Yotam Ottolenghi is so much better than anything you can buy. It is light and creamy, and I like that I can control what goes into it – a little more lemon, a little more tahini. This recipe doesn’t have contain any olive oil, unless you pour some on top before serving.  A lot of the store-bought varieties don’t use olive oil either, often using canola oil or other substitutions. I like to drizzle olive oil on the top to add flavour, make it richer, and make it seems more Mediterranean.

It’s really not that difficult to make an awesome hummus, and there are different lengths you can go to, like starting with dry chickpeas, and peeling the skins off them. For me it’s worth the extra effort to have such a great tasting and smooth hummus, when I have a little bit of time to do it.

When I made mine I did cheat a little and use canned chickpeas, so the recipe below shows how to work with dry or canned chickpeas. One day soon I will use the method in the cookbook, cooking my own chickpeas while quickening the process by adding baking soda. But for now, because I used the canned chickpeas I had to remove the skins – this is one of the things that makes this hummus so creamy, and it only took about ten minutes.

I like to serve hummus with homemade pita crackers, and some veggie sticks.

What you need:

  • 1 & ¼ cups dried chickpeas (or one 540mL can)
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 3/4 cup tahini 
  • 4 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
  • 2 cloves garlic, crushed
  •  Salt to taste
  • 6 & ½ tablespoons ice-cold water 

What you do:

  1. Place the chickpeas in a large pot and cover them with at least double their volume of cold water; let them soak overnight. If you are using canned chickpeas you will instead remove the skins. This is a bit of work. Here’s what I do. I drain them and put them in a large bowl with water. Then I rub some of them between my hands, and a lot of the skins come off that way. Then I go through them and pull off any skins that are remaining.
  2. If you are using dried chickpeas, drain them the next day and put them in a pot with the baking soda over high heat; cook for about 3 minutes, stirring constantly. This will help them cook faster. Add 6 & 1/2 cups of water to the pot and bring it to a boil. Lower the heat to simmer, skimming off any foam and skins. Cook for 20-40 minutes until they are tender; they should break easily when squeezed, but not be mushy.
  3. Drain the chickpeas and place in them a food processor or blender. Process until you have a thick paste. Add the tahini, lemon juice, garlic, and 1 & 1/2 teaspoons of salt; blend this. With the machine still running drizzle in most of the ice water and let it mix for about 5 minutes. You will get a very creamy paste. Add more water if you think it needs it, and taste to adjust seasonings.
  4. Put the hummus in a bowl and cover it. Let it rest for at least half an hour. Refrigerate if you are not using it right away, but remove from the fridge at least half an hour before you use it.

Enjoy!

 

Gazpacho

gazpacho - trust in kim

Oh summer, I love you for so many reasons! One of them is homegrown, flavourful tomatoes. Also the gazpacho that I can make with them.

This is the taste of summer. This is one of the recipes that makes me do a happy dance.

I fell in love with gazpacho on a trip to Spain a few years ago, and managed to eat it almost every day of my two-week stay there. It is refreshing and full of flavour. There are many different types; here are some: green gazpacho, watermelon gazpacho, and another tomato gazpacho that is very similar to this one. All are awesome, but this one is the easiest, I think.

This is so easy to make, and quite healthy too. I made a batch and kept it in the fridge for a few days. The amounts are estimates; do what seems right to you. It’s hard to go wrong. You can always add more of something if you need to.

What you need:

  • 1 small cucumber
  • 1 cup cherry tomatoes
  • 1/4 medium red onion
  • 1/2 clove garlic, minced
  • 1/2 large sweet red bell pepper
  • 1 tablespoon white balsamic vinegar (or white wine vinegar)
  • 2-3 tablespoons good quality extra-virgin olive oil
  • 1 slice of white bread (I used a whole wheat French bread)
  • salt to taste

What you do:

  1. Soak the bread in water for a few minutes, then squeeze the water out.
  2. Place all the ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth. Taste and add whatever you think you need.
  3. Refrigerate for at least and hour before serving.
  4. Serve topped with some chopped tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, or a drizzle of olive oil.

African-Inspired Chicken and Vegetable Stew

African Chicken Stew

This soup is one of the reasons I am glad we have real winters in Vancouver. (Sorry to the rest of Canada, I know we don’t have Real Winters like you do, but it seems cold enough to me.) I’m happy eat soup year round, but I know some people like to keep it to the colder months, so here’s one more for you, while we have this intermittent warm and cold Spring weather.

I know it might seem odd to add almond butter to soup, but trust me, it is awesome! It adds a creaminess in a way you cannot imagine until you eat it; it is creamy without any dairy. Plus there’s a little extra protein in it.

This recipe comes from this website. One thing I changed was adding 1/3 cup almond butter instead of 1/2 cup. I also changed the order of the cooking; I like to brown the chicken first, and the recipe called for adding it later with the broth and tomato.

Enjoy, because this is so good!

What you need:

  • 1-2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 4-6 skinless, bone-in chicken thighs
  • 1 large sweet onion, chopped
  • 4 cloves garlic, minced
  • 2 cups tomato purée
  • 2 & 1/2 cups chicken broth
  • 3 pounds sweet potatoes  peeled and cut into 2-3cm pieces
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon cumin
  • 1/2 teaspoon coriander
  • 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
  • one minced fresh chili or 1/2 tsp chili powder
  • 3 red bell peppers, chopped
  • 1/2 cup almond butter

What you do:

  1. Heat the oil in a large pot over medium-high heat. Add the chicken pieces and allow them to brown on each side.
  2. Turn the heat down to medium and add the onions, cooking for about 5 minutes, until softened. Now add the garlic and cook for another minute.
  3. Add the sweet potatoes, cumin, coriander, cinnamon and chill, then pour in the chicken stock and tomato purée. Cover the pot and bring it to a simmer; leaving it with the lid on for about 40 minutes, stirring from time to time.
  4. Add the red peppers; take the lid off and cook for about 10 more minutes.
  5. Remove the chicken pieces and take the meat off the bone. Use two forks pull the chicken apart, then put the chicken back into the soup.
  6. Just before serving, stir in the almond butter.
  7. Serve as is, or top it with a little cilantro.

I Love Lunch – New Category for Leftovers

lunchbag - trust in kim

One of my weekly routines takes place on Sundays in the afternoon or evening. I choose a recipe that I think will be great for leftovers, and I prepare it and store individual portions in my fridge. I’ve been doing this for years so that I can have healthy and delicious lunches, and not have to worry about preparing meals during a busy work week.

Today I went through all my previous recipe posts and created a category called ‘Makes Great Leftovers’ so you that you can easily find recipes that you can use for leftovers. There are a lot of soups, stews, salads and other one-dish meals. Quite a few are vegetarian or vegan, but there are also a lot of recipes with meat.

Hope it’s helpful!

Kim

Mushroom and Duck Risotto

mushroom and duck risotto - trust in kimAfter roasting a duck that came from this farm, I saved some meat and made a broth with the bones. The final product even tastier than the roast duck dinner. I used the duck broth, some of the meat, white wine, lots of wild mushrooms and some parmesan to give it loads of flavour. This would also be great without the duck, maybe using some chicken, or a vegetarian dish using vegetable broth instead.

Risotto isn’t difficult to make; it just takes some attention, as you need to stir it frequently and add the liquids slowly so it ends up with a nice creamy texture.

I found this recipe on the blog ‘Bossy Italian Wife.’ I changed the recipe a little by mixing some Parmesan into the risotto instead of just using it as a garnish. I also used wild mushrooms rather than button, but feel free to use what you can find or like. Also I didn’t have gravy to add to the risotto, but it was really good without it.

This makes two generous portions, or can be used as an appetizer for four people.

What you need:

  • a few teaspoons of duck fat
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 3 cups duck stock (kept warm on the stove)
  • 1 cup white wine
  • some leftover duck meat, pulled apart with a fork or your hands
  • 150 grams or more (5 ounces) mixed wild mushrooms, sliced
  • 1/2 cup arborio rice
  • 1/4 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese plus a little to garnish

What you do:

  1. Heat the duck fat at medium-high heat in a medium-sized pot.
  2. Add the garlic and mushrooms and cook until they begin to brown.
  3. Add the rice to the pot and stir it for about a minute, allowing it to brown. Turn the heat down to medium.
  4. Add the wine to the pot and stir until it is absorbed into the rice. Don’t rush this process. Some good music will allow you to enjoy the stirring, and you’ll end up with the best risotto.
  5. Add a ladle-full of stock to the rice, stirring until it is absorbed. Keep adding, stirring, allowing each portion of stock to be absorbed before adding more. It should take about 20-30 minutes to cook the rice completely. Towards the end of the cooking time, begin testing the rice by biting into a piece to see if it is done. If it is still crunchy, keep cooking.
  6. When the rice is done add the duck meat and Parmesan. Let the duck heat through, then serve immediately, topped with a little more Parmesan cheese.

 

 

Roasted Butternut Soup with Apples and Bacon

Roasted Butternut Soup - trust in kim

Roasting the squash with apples and just one slice of bacon brings so much flavour to this soup. Mark Bittman wrote this recipe as a chowder, in which you leave everything whole, but I was really in the mood for a puréed soup. And it was lovely and velvety this way. I plan to try it again one day using different vegetables.

The cookbook this one came from is called The Food Matters Cookbook. I changed the recipe by using only one slice of bacon for flavour instead of four, omitting the oil because the bacon gave it some fat, and then I puréed it instead of leaving pieces whole.

To make this a vegan recipe you can easily omit the bacon and just drizzle the vegetables with a little olive oil before roasting.

It makes about 4 servings.

What you need:

  • 1 butternut squash, about 1 & 1/2 pounds
  • 1 large onion, chopped
  • 2 large apples, peeled and cored
  • 1 slice bacon, chopped
  • 2 tablespoons minced garlic
  • salt and pepper
  • 1 tablespoon chopped fresh sage or 1 teaspoon dried
  • 1/2 cup white wine or water
  • 6 cups vegetable or chicken stock

What you do:

  1. Preheat the oven to 400F.
  2. Cut the squash in half lengthwise and remove the seeds. Peel it with a vegetable peeler and cut it into cubes. Place the cubes on a deep roasting pan along with the onion, apples and garlic. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, and put the bacon pieces over top of the vegetables. Roast, stirring a few times throughout the process, for about 45 minutes. At this time the apples should be tender and the bacon should be crisp.
  3. Take the roasting pan out of the oven and stir in the sage and wine, scraping the browned bits from the bottom of the pan. Transfer everything to a large pot, unless your roasting pan can be put on the stove top. If so, continue the next step in the roasting pan over medium heat.
  4. Add the stock and cook until the squash begins to break up a little, about 25 minutes.
  5. Let the soup cool slightly before putting it into a blender in batches. Purée until it is very smooth, then return to the pot to reheat. Taste and adjust seasonings before servings.

This one is really good for leftovers too, but you might need to thin it out by adding a little stock, wine or water when reheating.

 

Fresh from the Cupboard Salad

canned vegetable salad - trust in kim

This is my new favourite quick salad for bringing leftovers to work or a picnic (when we’re back in picnic season, that is). Everything you need can be found in the cupboard (if you stocked up ahead of time) except the spinach, which you can easily do without. Plus it is healthy and so tasty.

It’s really as easy as adding  a vinaigrette to cans of veggies and adding some greens. If you leave the spinach out it keeps great for leftovers, and you can just add the greens when you eat it.

I found the recipe in a terrific cookbook that has a lot of great information about which vegetables to eat for different needs, like improved energy, stronger bones, stress relief, cardiovascular care, and so much more. The recipe is called ‘Veggie Yard Dash Salad’ in the cookbook; I’m not sure my title is any better, but I wanted to call it something that would let people know that it didn’t have a lot of ingredients that you might not have on hand. The book is The Nutrition Twins’ Veggie Cure by Tammy Lakatos Shames and Lyssie Lakatos. The only thing I did differently from the original recipe, aside from adding the spinach as I served it instead of mixing it in, was to use home-roasted red peppers instead of jarred. I think they taste way better, and I make them ahead of time and keep them in the freezer. But jarred work well too!

Feel free to use more or less of whatever you like; I made my recipe a lot bigger so I’d have more leftovers, and I love red peppers and artichokes, so I used more of them. This recipe serves four people, more or less.

What you need:

  • 1/4 cup jarred or homemade roasted red pepper, cut into strips
  • 1/2 cup canned black beans, drained
  • 1 cup peaches and cream (or whatever kind you like) canned corn
  • 1 – 227mL can sliced water chestnuts, drained
  • 1/4 cup canned sliced artichokes, drained
  • 2 tablespoons raw sunflower seeds
  • 1/2 cup vinaigrette of your choice (herbed vinaigrette recipe below)
  • a bunch of baby spinach

What you do:

  1. Pour the canned goods into a bowl, chopping the artichokes up a bit if they aren’t already. I used the juice from the canned corn, but the original recipe says to drain it – up to you!
  2. Add the sunflower seeds.
  3. Add the vinaigrette and combine all the ingredients.
  4. Chop up some spinach and add it to the portion you will be serving, or add a whole bunch of you think you’ll eat the whole thing in one go.

Enjoy!

Here’s the vinaigrette recipe:

  • 1 garlic clove
  • 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
  • 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
  • 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
  • 1/8 teaspoon dried oregano
  • a bit of chopped fresh or frozen basil (recipe say dried but I think this is 100x better!)
  • 1/8 teaspoon salt

What you do:

  1. Crush the garlic and let it sit for 5 minutes, which is supposed to release more health-promoting properties.
  2. Combine the ingredients.

Voila, done!