My mind is officially blown

Cooking with dried beans is for me a little like cooking a souffle: it's fussy and easy to mess up. And when you mess up, it's not likely you'll be able to salvage it. I've had enough experiences with crunchy beans and bland beans to be a little wary.

So when I decided to try this recipe, I got more than a little nervous. Did it really say NOT to soak the beans? I read the recipe three times and even had James look it over to make sure I wasn't missing something. Doesn't the author know that soaking beans before cooking is a cardinal rule of bean cookery? How can he just disregard rule #1? But I have learned to follow recipes carefully the first time through, so I took the leap of faith (I did buy a second bag of beans just in case the first batch failed miserably--I'm trusting but not stupid).

I tried the recipe this morning, and it actually worked just like it said it would. The beans were soft after 1 1/2 hours, but I let them cook another half hour just to get a little creamier. I'm not sure I'm going to like the addition of sherry, but it does say the flavor is better after 8 hours, so we'll try them tomorrow before making a final judgment.

If cooking beans turns out to be this easy all the time, I may just have to make this a weekly habit. I'm not holding my breath, though. :)

A new favorite

I made this for dinner yesterday, and it was fantastic. I'm getting hungry again just looking at the picture. (I didn't take that picture, I borrowed it from gourmet.com). It's curried red-lentil stew with vegetables, served over basmati rice and with roasted cauliflower on the side. You can get the recipes here.

I didn't make the cumin/red pepper oil to drizzle on top, but I didn't miss it. The best part is it freezes really well before you add the green veggies, so it's two meals in one. Or more than two: even with just half the recipe, James and I both had seconds and still had some left over. Oh, and it really is better the next day. I purposely made the base a day early to let it mellow, and I could totally tell a difference.

I thought the curry was a little strong in just the stew, but once you put it over the rice it balances out nicely. And the roasted cauliflower was really good. I think roasting is my new way to cook veggies. I made roasted asparagus for Easter, and it was divine. I don't think I'll ever eat steamed cauliflower again.

If I ever have a daughter, I'm totally making this dress for her

You can buy it here.

Grapefruit? Really?

In addition to diet and exercise, I started taking prescription drugs about a week ago to help lower my cholesterol. But just a couple days ago I noticed a warning on the bottle I hadn't seen before: "Do not eat grapefruit or drink grapefruit juice at any time while taking this medication."

I laughed out loud. Grapefruit? What could be wrong with grapfruit? And wouldn't you know it, I'd just bought grapefruit a few days before.

So I looked it up online and apparently grapefruit interacts with the enzymes that break down the medication, which can lead to potentially toxic buildup of the drugs in your body. There's no evidence that any other citrus fruit has the same reaction.

So, um, anybody want a free grapefruit?

Food Storage Made Easy!

I subscribe to this website that sends out "baby step" checklists to help you set up your 3-month and 1-year food storage, and now they've created what looks like a very usable workbook to help people like me keep everything organized. (My organization tends to look like random stacks of paper.) The 100-page PDF will be available for purchase ($17) on Thursday, but they're giving away 10 copies to people who help spread the word. So here I am. :)

The image above links to info about the binder and giveaway, and the sidebar on the left outlines their plans and baby steps. Check it out sometime. :)

Who knew low-fat could taste this good??

So I'm following Dr. Dean Ornish's super-low-fat plan for a month to try to get my cholesterol in check, and I thought it would be much more painful than this. We've had some hits and misses, but the hits have been dang tasty. Like this red-pepper coulis:

2 small red peppers, cored, seeded, and diced
1 med. tomato, peeled, seeded, and diced (I used canned tomatoes with roasted garlic & onion)
1/2 large onion, diced
1 3/4 cups vegetable stock
1/4 c chopped basil (I used 2-3 tsp. dried)
Pinch of dried thyme

In a medium skillet, combine the red pepper, tomato, onion, and veg stock and cook until veggies are tender, about 10-15 minutes. Stir in the basil and thyme. Puree in a blender (I left it a little chunky) and pour back into a clean skillet. Reduce until about 1 1/2 cups remain.

I made this to go with some labor-intensive veggie cakes (not quite a hit, but close), and it was pretty good. But then I added plain nonfat yogurt to the leftovers, and it became FANTASTIC. The yogurt mellowed and blended all the flavors and elevated it to something I want to have in my fridge at all times. Seriously. I would have included a photo but I ate it all before I got around to taking a picture.

I put it on rice, on salad, in a veggie wrap, and it was fantastic in all of them. The only drawback is that veggie broth is ridiculously high in sodium, so maybe when I make it again I'll use reduced-sodium chicken broth and trade some of that sodium for a trace of fat.

If you make it, let me know what you think.

My excuse for not posting more often...

"Oh, I love technology..."