Hated the Biscuits; Loved the Bread Pudding

I made biscuits the other day. It sounded like a good idea but I ended up hating them. B-o-r-i-n-g. Even a generous pat of Kerrygold butter couldn’t bring them to life. OK. I’ll admit that it may have been me. I am in my…

Breads, Breakfast Dishes, Desserts, Vegetables, Vegetarian

January 12, 2019

Smooth As Butter: Roasted Butternut Squash With Lentils and Stilton

How do you feel about butternut squash? No, really. For those of you who might shy away from the squash, consider the following: It is a fruit; who doesn’t love fruit? It is a healthy food; who doesn’t want to eat healthy? It is inexpensive;…

lentils, Main Dishes, salad, Salads, Side Dishes, Vegetables, Vegetarian

December 31, 2018

Chickpea Soup With Orzo and Spinach

How about a hearty chickpea soup for New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day?

This recipe features all sorts of good vegetables to launch your new year–chickpeas, carrots, fennel, spinach and on and on. If you sprinkle some grated Parmesan over the soup at serving time and garnish it with a couple slices of jalapeno pepper, you will have a healthy feast to celebrate the first days of 2019.

There are many interesting New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day food traditions here in the United States and around the world. My mother, who was from Mississippi, always served black-eyed peas and greens on New Year’s Day, for example. There was a whole lot of symbolism going on in those meals. In the American South, black-eyed peas symbolized coins and the greens were served because they were the color of money. Cornbread, golden-colored like…well…gold, was also served. Mother was a strict taskmaster and it was clearly understood that if we ate these foods we had a shot at good luck and prosperity in the new year–something my blue-collar family desperately needed most years. I choked down a lot of collard greens and mustard greens during those family New Year’s Day dinners in the hope of better days in the new year.

Whatever you are eating to celebrate the new year, Juliet and I wish you a happy new year from here at Blue Cayenne. Our hope is that you find you much happiness in the new year and a whole lot of good cooking.

Chickpea Soup With Orzo And Spinach

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Ingredients

2-3 T. extra-virgin olive oil
2 medium carrots (peeled and chopped)
1 small fennel bub (or 2 celery stalks-chopped)
1 medium onion (chopped)
2 cloves garlic (minced)
Pinch crushed red pepper flakes
2 t. minced fresh rosemary (optional--you can use less to your taste)
2 C. vegetable broth
2 C. water
1 15-ounce can chickpeas (rinsed and drained)
3/4 C. roughly chopped cherry or grape tomatoes
1/2 C. orzo
1 quart loosely packed baby spinach (or mustard greens)
Salt and freshly-cracked black pepper
Sliced jalapeno peppers to garnish
Grated Parmesan to garnish

Instructions

Heat olive oil in a large soup pot. Add the carrots, fennel (or celery) and onion to the hot oil. Saute until the vegetables are tender. This will take about 5 to 7 minutes. Add the garlic, red pepper and rosemary if you are using it. Cook for 2 minutes. Add the vegetable broth plus two cups of water and bring the soup to a boil. Add the chickpeas, tomatoes and orzo to the boiling soup. Reduce heat of soup to a simmer, cover and cook for about 10 minutes. Check to be sure the orzo is tender. Uncover the soup and add the greens to the simmering soup. Cook until the greens are soft. This will take about 2 minutes.
Add more water (I added about 2 cups) to make the thick vegetable mixture more like a soup. Season with salt and pepper.
Garnish with grated cheese, sliced jalapeno, and a drizzle of olive oil. Serve.

Nutrition

Calories

164 cal

Fat

3 g

Carbs

27 g

Protein

8 g

Click Here For Full Nutrition, Exchanges, and My Plate Info

https://bluecayenne.com/chickpea-soup-with-orzo-and-spinach

Here is the link to the original recipe: Chickpea Soup with Orzo.

Soups, Vegetables, Vegetarian

December 30, 2018

Happy New Year! Make A Resolution To Eat Swedish Shortbread Cookies

Make a resolution to eat more cookies in 2019. These Swedish Shortbread Cookies would be a good place to start. They are crazy delicious. They are beautiful. They are easy to bake. And…they passed a stringent taste test by my friends (and cookie aficionados) Carole…

Cookbook Reviews, Cookies, Desserts, Vegetarian

December 24, 2018

Wishing you and yours….

a happy holiday, the best new year, and a little chocolate cake. Chocolate Macaroon Cake Save Recipe Print Recipe My Recipes My Lists My Calendar IngredientsFor the cake1 C. virgin coconut oil (melted, cooled– plus more for the pan)1/4 C. unsweetened cocoa…

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December 20, 2018

Spilling The Beans On Guinness Baked Beans

Truth be told, I love baked beans. There are few meals that I enjoy more than a big bowl of baked beans and a generous side of coleslaw. To my taste, the crunch of the coleslaw perfectly complements the sweet/savory flavor of the baked beans. Throw in a piece of my neighbor Sarah’s world-class cornbread and I’m over the moon. So, naturally, I’m always on the lookout for creative new ways to prepare baked beans and the creative twist in this recipe, the use of Ireland’s famous Guinness Stout as the cooking liquid for the beans, fascinated me. This recipe is adapted from one that appears in Julie Van Rosendaal’s and Sue Duncan’s cookbook Spilling The Beans. Their book offers ways to incorporate healthy beans into your recipes at every meal. Yes, even for breakfast! While our British cousins have long savoured breakfast beans (baked beans on toast and baked beans as a part of a full English fry-up, for example), we yankees never have seemed to warm to the idea of putting beans on our breakfast plates. Spilling The Beans may change that. Spilling The Beans also makes a convincing case for the health benefits of consuming beans. Beans, they remind us, are high in fiber, rich in protein, cheap and their cultivation is easy on Mother Earth. They also have a long, long shelf life, so you can keep them handy in your pantry, either canned or in dry form, for use anytime you are moved to cook with them. And, don’t be afraid of cooking with dried beans either. Now that Instant Pots are cheap and pretty much ubiquitous in kitchens across the country, there is no reason not to prepare your own beans from scratch. It’s a cinch. While this recipe is wonderful (and you can sip a Guinness while you cook), you might also want to consider some of the other baked bean recipes I’ve posted on Blue Cayenne over the last three years. Just type “baked beans” into the search box to the right of this post and you will find baked beans with chipotles, baked beans baked with whiskey and a killer baked bean recipe using dates as the sweetener. Now where did I put that coleslaw with caraway seeds recipe?

Guinness Baked Beans

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Ingredients

Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 onion (chopped)
1 onion (quartered)
3/4 C. ketchup, barbecue sauce, or tomato sauce mixed with 1/8 C. brown sugar
1/2 bottle Guinness beer--plus extra to add to beans as they are baking to keep them moist
1/8 C. apple cider vinegar
1/8 C. molasses
1/8 C. Dijon, yellow or grainy mustard
4 C. cooked small white beans
1 Granny Smith apple (peeled and chopped)
Salt and pepper to taste
Garnish with chopped parsley and/or a pretty radish

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
Using a large heavy bean pot (I used my old Le Creuset Dutch oven), heat the olive oil and saute the chopped onion until it is tender and beginning to brown. This will take about 5 minutes.
Add the tomato product you have chosen to use (I used ketchup), the Guinness, vinegar, molasses, mustard, beans and a generous amount of salt and pepper. Bring the mixture to a simmer. Stir in the quartered onion and the chopped apple. Cover the pan and put it in the oven to bake for at least one hour. I baked my beans for several hours, adding additional liquid to keep the beans moist. I used the extra Guinness, but you could also use apple juice.I turned down the oven heat to 300 degrees F. after the first hour of baking. You will want to bake your beans until the sauce on the beans is thick and bubbling.