Blue Cayenne

It is spring here.

Gardens are waking up and jobs around the house beckon. It’s time for an energy boost. 

Looking for more protein in your diet to power you through some of those jobs?

Lentils are a good choice. A cooked cup of red lentils contains 18 grams of protein. On top of that, there is 12 grams of protein in a cup of chickpeas. Both are featured prominently in this recipe. 

There are interesting textures in this “stew,” too, with the lentils and chickpeas. You can make this dish as chunky or as smooth as you want. Serve it as a side dish or a vegetarian main. 

This is a recipe from Nagi Maehashi’s Delicious Tonight cookbook.  You can order this book through your local bookstore or on Amazon here..

Here is the recipe as I prepared it in my kitchen. I had some beautiful beet greens from Sunday’s farmers’ market and added them to the dish. This is another of those recipes that tastes oh-s0-much-better on the days after it is prepared.

Another soup beauty!

This soup has a very unexpected ingredient—Jerusalem artichokes. 

What the heck are Jerusalem artichokes?

Are they even artichokes at all?

According to Harold McGee’s definitive book On Food and Cooking the Jerusalem artichoke is sometimes called a sunchoke or an earth apple.  It is a sweet and crunchy non-fibrous tuber of a North American sunflower. (Who knew?)  

And, no, the tuber is not related to the artichoke at all. You may notice from the photo below, that a Jerusalem artichoke is a dead ringer for fresh ginger. So…be careful to buy the right root if you make this soup! My local groceries often stock Jerusalem artichokes in the specialty section of the produce counter.

This recipe is from the cookbook Soup for Syria. You can order the book through your local bookstore or on Amazon here.

Here is the soup recipe as I prepared it in my kitchen. 

I was having an “off” cooking day yesterday. A recipe from one of my favorite cooks, Eric Kim, just wasn’t turning out for me. Hate that.

So, I had a Marie Antoinette moment. I let myself eat cake for comfort.

As it turned out, my new cake recipe was excellent and my mood lifted

Point of Digression: As a former high school history teacher, I’m feel obligated to tell you that Marie Antoinette probably didn’t say “Let them eat cake.” The regime of Louis XVI was strikingly unpopular. Marie Antoinette  was a foreigner with expensive tastes (reportedly indulging in 300 new gowns a year while people starved in the streets)  who was denounced broadly as “Madame Deficit.”  That famous  line worked for the opposition to rally the crowds against the regime. While the indictment of the government for corruption and malfeasance was warranted, the use of the quotation to inflame public sentiment  was fake news. End of history lesson.

.

Every Sunday (well, almost every Sunday) my friend and I shop the Long Beach Farmers Market. One of the vendors has a special line of  out-of-the ordinary produce. From brilliant orange-red carrots to a many-colored array of colorful radicchio (I’ve pictured one of the radicchio heads below.  How beautiful is that?)  to quirky cone-shaped cabbages, Joyce and I shop his stall with unbridled  enthusiasm. I used his brilliant-hued carrots to make this cake (and home-grown oranges from Joyce’s yard). 

This Carrot-Orange Olive Oil Cake recipe is from The New York Times’ superb cooking page. Here is the link: Carrot-Orange Olive Oil Cake.

Here is the recipe as I prepared it in my kitchen.