Lentil Burgers & Oven Fries

What better way to ease back into this whole blogging thing than with a meal that is similarly simple and straightforward? Today I was in the mood for a summery dinner because it has been GORGEOUS here, with highs in the 80's every day since the beginning of April. I spent the day with my windows open, listening to music and having solo dance parties and just generally pretending that I was a character in a Zoey Deschanel movie.

So anyway, what's more summery and low-key than burgers and fries? Of course I adapted that classic combination to be a little healthier and, of course, vegetarian. I adapted a Martha Stewart lentil burger recipe, and served crispy burgers on toasted whole wheat buns, topped with goat cheese, spinach, dijon mustard and sweet onion slices. Plus, I think I discovered the secret to perfect oven fries: just keep baking them. Before, I always got impatient and took the fries out before their outsides got sufficiently crispy--you just have to believe! And leave them in the oven for like an hour. I rounded out the meal with some realllly good strawberries. Good call on my part, I gotta say.

Lentil Burgers (adapted from this Martha Stewart Recipe)

Makes 3-4 burgers

1 Wheat Hamburger Bun

1 Can Lentils (16 oz) (rinsed and drained)

1 Egg (pasture-raised eggs are the most humane and the tastiest)

2 Scallions, chopped

1/2 c. Parsley, chopped

2 tbsp. olive oil

Buns, toppings & condiments of your choice

1. Tear the hamburger bun into large pieces and throw it in the food processor. Process into coarse bread crumbs. Add lentils, egg, scallions, and parsley, plus a healthy dose of salt and pepper. Process everything into a coarse paste.

2. Heat the olive oil in a cast-iron skillet over medium heat. For the lentil paste into 3-4 patties and carefully transfer to hot oil with a wooden turner. Cook 4 minutes or until well-browned and crisp, turn carefully. Cook another 4 minutes, then remove and drain on a plate lined with paper towel.

3. Toast up those buns, top your burger how you like it, and enjoy!

Oven Fries

Serves 4

3 large Russet Potatoes

2-3 tbsp. Olive Oil

Salt

1. Pre-heat oven to 425. Peel the potatoes if you want to. Cut potatoes into slices length-wise, then turn and slice again.

2. Arrange potatoes on a large rimmed baking sheet lined in parchment paper. Drizzle with oil, sprinkle liberally with salt, and toss to coat.

3. Stick the fries in the oven for about an our. Check them every 20 minutes or so to flip the potatoes and make sure they're evenly browned. Don't give up.

4. Remove from the oven, eat way too many dipped in organic ketchup.

Okay, GLEE IS ON!!! I'm so psyched it's back! Gotta go!

Birthday Pasta

So, Allison, I just turned 23 last Thursday, and to celebrate I fixed myself and some family members a lavish birthday dinner! There was peach pie, of course (you know I'm not much of a cake person).

But the thing that really took the cake (haha) was this awesome roasted tomato pasta. I love olives and briny flavors, and this mixture of savory tomatoes, kalamata olives, and capers was absolutely delicious. I used this recipe, from a long-ago issue of Bon Appetit, and it was just really, really good.

I can't wait to hear about your birthday celebrations, fellow Virgo! Do you have major and elaborate cake plans--I hope so! I can't wait to see.

Good food in Arkansas

This weekend I explored north-west Arkansas with my friend Jessa, and discovered a surprising amount of good food. First up was a trip to War Eagle Mill, a water-powered grist mill that grinds and sells organic grains. We got to see the mill in action:

Of course, I couldn't resist making a few purchases. I picked up some whole wheat flour, some spelt flour, some cornbread mix, some apple butter and apricot butter, and a copy of the Mill's cookbook. Okay, okay, but I'm helpless when surrounded by grain, especially grain packaged in vintage-y looking cloth bags! It made me feel like Laura Ingalls Wilder!

We ate lunch at the perplexingly named Bean Palace Restaurant, where I had a just-okay taco salad and some pretty darn good blackberry cobbler.

On our way back to Oklahoma we stopped in Fayetteville and had lunch at the Greenhouse Grill. Or, more accurately, we had brunch. Who knew Arkansas would have organic blue-corn pancakes with raspberries and walnuts in the batter, topped with a yogurt-honey swirl and fruit chutney? Arkansas, you are too good to me.

If you give a mouse a cookie...

I'm not sure who the mouse is in this scenario--probably me. I don't usually bake that much because I know if I have cookies, or cake, or pie at my disposal, I'm more likely to eat it all at once than savor it slowly like a logical person.

But anyway, I made some ginger cookies anyway! They came from the Barefoot Contessa at Home cookbook, and the recipe is available online here.

The "secret ingredient" was chopped crystallized ginger. If you like ginger (a lot) like I do, you will love these cookies. If you don't, well, they might be a little overwhelming. Also, they're kind of tricky (Beat ingredients for exactly five minutes! Bake for exactly thirteen minutes!), but if you have faith and follow the recipe, they will come out all right in the end, I promise!

They're crisp on the outside and moist and chewy on the inside! Much bigger and more luscious than the lowly ginger snap.

Is it gross to take close-up photos of food you've just bitten out of? Oh well! Anyway, these cookies were awesome and I suggest you make some forthwith.

Cupcakes!

Hey, I ate some cupcakes! With my friend Ruth! They came from Kupcakz which, wacky spelling aside, really does make insanely good cupcakes. Ruth hand a mint-chocolate one which, as you can see, she was pretty excited about. I had a dark chocolate with peanut butter buttercream and man oh man it was good. They kind of hollow out the cupcakes so extra frosting goes down into the middle. Mmmmmmm. I wish I had more cupcakes RIGHT NOW.

Summer Chopped Salad

So far this summer, I've had enough trouble just getting off the couch, let alone summoning the energy to cook a real meal. This chopped salad is a great solution--all you have to do is cut everything up and throw it together! Plus it's got a little bit of everything in it, so you don't need any side dishes.

I topped everything with the simple vinaigrette I've been making to go on everything. We don't even have any bottled salad dressing in our fridge any more, because this is so quick to whip up. There's no recipe per se, but the basic procedure is simple:

Honey Mustard Vinaigrette

Ingredients:

1 shallot, chopped (or garlic if you prefer)

1 tsp dijon mustard

1 tsp honey

1 tbsp red wine vinegar (or whatever you have on hand)

2-3 tbsp olive oil

salt & pepper to taste

Directions:

In a small bow, mix together shallot, mustard, honey, vinegar, and salt & pepper. With a fork or a whisk, gradually mix in olive oil. That's it!

The chopped salad itself is also difficult to write a recipe for. Basically, just cut everything into similar-sized pieces and layer in a salad bowl. Then toss with dressing and serve! If you want to keep leftovers in the fridge, I suggest adding croutons and cheese to individual plates, since the salad will keep better separate from those ingredients.

Summer Chopped Salad

Ingredients:

Romaine lettuce

Red cabbage

Spinach

Cucumber

Carrots

Celery

Cherry tomatoes, halved
Toasted almond slivers

Dried cranberries

Homemade Croutons (or store-bought, if you prefer)

Cubed gouda

Crumbled Feta

Directions:

Start with the lettuce, cabbage, and spinach--cut each into bite-sized slivers and layer into serving bowl. Next chop cucumber, carrots, celery and cherry tomatoes into bite-sized pieces and add to serving bowl. Finally, top with remaining ingredients, drizzle dressing over, and toss!

This salad is addictive, probably because of all the cheese! I'm not sure how good for you it actually is, given all the toppings, but I do know that it's fresh and tasty. And if you make a ton you can eat it for like a week without having to cook again.

Nectarines in Cedar Falls

Well, Allison, while you've been off cooking for teenagers this summer at your camp job I've been... pretty much doing nothing. So much nothing, in fact, that I felt the need to get out of town and do nothing somewhere else. So I visited our friend Amanda in Cedar Falls! I won't get all mushy and say that visiting Iowa was like coming home again, but I will say that the cool temperatures and actual clouds were a welcome respite from what has so far been a searingly hot summer in Oklahoma.

While I was in Cedar Falls, Amanda's family was way too generous in treating me to a ton of delicious food. There was Chinese, burritos, waffles, and more. The morning of the day I left, though, Amanda and I got a chance to do a cooking project of our own... well, as long as you use the term "cooking" loosely.

It all started when we were leafing through the Williams-Sonoma Kid's Cookbook, which was laying on Amanda's kitchen table. The peril of this book is that the recipes are all super-easy, and the photography is gorgeous, so it's easy to get drawn in. That's not necessarily a bad thing, though! Anyway, we saw a recipe for Apricot-Ginger parfaits which looked too good not to make. Plus, we were lucky enough to have a bona fide kid (Amanda's little brother) there to help us by licking the bowl that the cream was whipped in.

In the end, these are a little different than the recipe. We used nectarines instead of apricots, because that was what we could find, and we didn't garnish the parfaits with fresh mint, much to Amanda's dismay. We did, though, eat them on the front porch on a vintage table runner. And after breakfast we hiked into the nature reserve behind Amanda's house and went swinging in a playground and relaxed on quilts and read books until the heat of the sun became overwhelming. So I'd say they were basically a success.

Nectarine-Ginger Parfaits

Ingredients:

A bag of store-bought gingersnaps

4 or 5 nectarines

heavy cream

sugar

Directions:

This is basically self-explanatory. Slice the nectarines, and put the gingersnaps in a plastic bag and use a rolling pin to crush them. Sweeten and whip the cream (or if, like us, you forget to sweeten the cream, whip it and then add some powdered sugar). Layer everything in parfait glasses and enjoy! You're supposed to let them sit in the refrigerator for a couple of hours so the cookie crumbles become moist, but we were too impatient, and, after all, I think the crunch added a certain something to our gustatory experience.