Root Vegetable Borscht

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February has been all about the stews and soups.  I’ve gotten into a nice weekly routine of prepping some sort of crock pot meal on a Monday or Tuesday night, while I cook that night’s dinner, sticking it in the fridge, and then getting it started the next morning when I get up for work.

This borscht is actually a stovetop recipe, but simmered nicely in the background in the same way while I prepped about 4 different meals’ worth of food.  It’s from the same blog where I discovered last week’s tea eggs, and now that I’m glancing back at the recipe I’m astonished that I didn’t notice that it shared a post with her beef stroganoff, since that’s what Jesse got out of bed talking about on Sunday morning, and dutiful for his craving, made for dinner on Sunday night out of the Betty Crocker cookbook.

In any case, I like Mimi’s instruction to chop up all the vegetables ahead of time.  This is usually how I roll anyway, as it’s so satisfying to have the tedious work done and to be able to just dump, sweep, and add during the fun part of cooking time while cleaning up the detritus trail as I go.

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This is:

  • 1 onion
  • 1 shallot
  • 2 carrots
  • 1 rib celery
  • 1 rutabega
  • 1/2 small cabbage
  • 2 cloves garlic

All chopped up.  You start with your big soup pot, melt some butter in the bottom, and cook and onion and shallot first.  After a few minutes, add all the chopped veggies, plus a bay leaf, garlic, and 1 teaspoon crushed allspice.

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Once the veggies have cooked down a bit, add 1.5 cups of stock (I used beef stock), and simmer until all vegetables are soft.  I ate mine with a little bit of Greek yogurt as a garnish!

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The First Week

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Things are finally getting back on track here.  In one short week, my brand new kitchen has gone from this…

to this:

This is how we were doing Tuesday night, before about eight of my girlfriends came over for an impromptu ladies’ wine night while the boys played poker, doubling as a rough, rough draft of a housewarming party.  It was, however, the best way I could have ever hoped to ring in the first night in the house alone (after Jesse had, as promised, spent the full first week there together with me — immensely helpful and fun).

Oh yes, and I did in fact get the fridge of my dreams.


French door fridge access, bottom drawer freezer, automatic (crushed!) ice and water dispenser — stainless steel, and 78,000 cubic inches of pure refrigerated goodness.  Plus, I got it at a killer price, at the Standard TV and Appliance Outlet Store (who knew?!) for $1,000 less than its original list price!

Yup, I got me a fridge.  And a kitchen sink.

The first non-take-out meal in the new house??  Baked potatoes.  I’m not sure why I got an insane craving for baked potatoes earlier this week, when I probably haven’t eaten one in 4+ years, but I did, and then when I walked the FOUR BLOCKS around the corner to my newly-discovered Grocery Outlet (don’t worry, you’ll hear more about this.  It warrants an entirely separate blog post), I found they had 10-lb. bags of russets on sale, so that sealed the deal.

Plus, I’ve only found about 10% of my dishes and utensils so far, so a DIY potato bar seemed to be the way to go, adorned with some seitan that I scored for $0.99, and then fried up in the skillet with some jerk seasoning, and topped with various chopped veggies, shredded cheese, and the last little bowlful of Greek yogurt that actually did make the cut and came with me in the cooler from the old house.

With Portland’s version of a heat wave upon us, and a kitchen that’s finally not in a basement, I’m loving the easy-dinner lifestyle of making do with whatever’s in the fridge, and turning it into some sort of creative cold salad.  Last night, I swung by the GO on the way home and, though their produce section is not the most impressive part of the store, I did find a good looking eggplant and a bag of cole slaw for super cheap, and turned it into dinner.

First I roasted the eggplant in little spears, coated with olive oil, salt, pepper, and nutritional yeast.

I made a spicier version of my go-to pizza dough, adding some tandoori seasoning that gave it a nice saffron flavor.  But instead of baking it, I rolled it into a little patty disc and lightly fried it in the skillet, giving it a wonderful naan flatbread quality.

I found some leftover ranch dressing in the fridge that I used to dress the cole slaw, and layered this on the flatbread with the eggplant spears for an awesome main dish.  I had a handful of beets in my fridge that I had already roasted a few days earlier, when my friend Hollis (now a Portlander!!!) brought over a bunch from her garden to the Tuesday soiree.  I sliced these up and tossed them with some red onion, olive oil, balsamic, candied walnuts, and Bacos.  Fantastic.


All right.  I think I’m back on the wagon.


This Week’s Groceries

Fred Meyer 7/27

  • Cucumbers: $1.18
  • Green pepper: $0.59
  • Orange pepper: $1.50
  • Roma tomato: $0.64
  • Roasted chicken: $5.99

TOTAL: $9.90

REMAINING FOR THE MONTH: $146.75 (carried over $6.65 unused from last month)

 

Grocery Outlet 7/31

  • Cottage cheese: $2.39
  • Chocolate milk: $1.69
  • Pico de gallo: $2.99
  • Pepper jack cheese: $3.17
  • Cubed seitan: $0.99 
  • Green onion: $0.50
  • Red bell pepper: $0.59
  • Bag of russet potatoes: $2.99
  • Avocado: $0.99
  • Green grapes: $2.99

TOTAL: $19.29

REMAINING FOR THE MONTH: $127.46

 


Red Lentil Spread, Chickpea Salad, Marinated Beets

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Today was all about the cooking.  The main thing to keep in mind about this cleanse is that, while it’s not so hard to meet all the restrictions (no gluten, dairy, eggs, soy, corn, nightshades, alcohol, coffee, red meat, or sugar) when you’re by yourself, at home, on your day off, it pretty much restricts you from eating or drinking anything outside of the house…ever.
Which means that during the workweek, you really need to think ahead and have a whole spectrum of food ready-made to bring with you, because the only times when I find this cleanse to be tough is when I find myself at work, on a slow day, feeling snacky.  Or having to stay later than I planned, and starving.  
So my plan was to take advantage of the fact that I’m starting this cleanse on my “weekend” (Monday/Tuesday) and equip myself for the week.
First off, lentil spread.  This serves the purpose of humus in my mind — something to spread on rice cakes for an afternoon snack — proteiny, flavorful, and salty.  But since chickpeas are the protagonist in my salad this week, and because I hate cleaning out my blender more than I have to (smoothie onslaught, remember?), I went with red lentils, because they self-puree!


I took my smallest little pot and poured in a cup of red lentils, and about twice as much water, added some salt, and brought it to a boil, then lowered it to a healthy simmer.  To this I added a few threads of saffron, some fresh ground cumin, a clove of chopped garlic, and some grated ginger, and let simmer together for about 45 minutes, adding a little more water if too much evaporated.  

Once all the lentils had “popped” and it had a smooth consistency, I let it cool to room temperature, added a few squirts of lime juice, and refrigerated.

Meanwhile, I had wrapped up three little beets in tinfoil, and roasted them at 400 degrees for an hour.  I opened up this little nest, let the steam escape, and once they had cooled, slid the skin off with my fingers.
I chopped each one in half, sliced them thinly, and marinated them in olive oil and red wine vinegar, in a 3:1 ratio, sprinkling some lavender rosemary sea salt on top to finish them off.

And finally, a hearty salad for the week.  Any meal that begins with a cup of soaked-salted-and-cooked chickpeas is already off to a good start.


One of my favorite refreshing summer salads is crunchy cucumber-dill, so this is just a variation on that: I added to the bowl a healthy dose of olive oil and red wine vinegar, more than seems necessary for this amount of beans.

But once you add the rest of the ingredients — chopped carrots, red onion, cucumber wedges, parsley, cracked pepper (totally on the cleanse!  Only chiles, cayenne, and paprika are considered nightshades), and fresh dill — it turns out to be the perfect amount, gently coating each piece.  This salad is best eaten with a spoon.


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