Erwtensoep (split pea soup)

Oh, the ubiquitous split pea soup......when it's cold in Holland and people go ice skating on the lakes and the canals, the traditional picture is that a small shack "koek-en-zopie" sits next to the ice selling hot split pea soup and coffee with cookies for those tired and cold after such a wonderful day on the ice. I'll be darned, but each time I've gone skating I've never seen one of those shacks. May have something to do with the fact that I've only been skating once or twice in my life and the experience was so unpleasant that I may have blocked the memory of a soup shack. I fail miserably in the skating department, it is a very un-Dutch side of me.......

But I hopefully redeemed myself by making a very good split pea soup: it even passed the "wooden spoon" test! (i.e. the soup is so thick that a wooden spoon will stand up on its end and not fall over when stuck in the soup).  Hand over those bitterballen, I'm back!

Erwtensoep
2 cups of split peas
4 cups of water
1 carrot, peeled
2 ribs of celery
1/2 an onion, peeled
1 bay leaf
black pepper
pinch of salt

About 12 little smokies or half a kielbasa

Rinse the split peas and remove anything that doesn't belong (stones, sticks, dried up discolored peas...). Put the peas and the water in a Dutch oven. Mince the vegetables and add to the peas. Bring to a boil, add the bay leaf and simmer for about 40 minutes. When the peas are soft, either puree or just stir several times, the peas will dissolve and make a creamy soup. Stir in the smokies or the kielbasa (slice before adding), heat until warm and taste. Add pepper and salt if needed.

This is an easy, quick solution. I keep a pack of smokies in the freezer. Split peas do not have to be soaked in order to cook quickly so you can have this soup on the table in less than an hour.

Traditionally, this soup is served with dark rye bread and pancetta.

Brown beans with rice

I don't know if I should post this recipe on this blog, because nothing that I used came out of the freezer. I love beans and try to eat them at least once a week: they're healthy, affordable, quick and versatile and tasty to boot, but that was not what I set out to prepare.

I pulled a pound of hamburger out of the freezer on Monday to make Dutch sausage rolls but I ended up making Brat buns instead. So I thought I'd make spaghetti tonight, but by the time I walked in the door, it was too late to get that started (plus I wanted to make sure I could catch the 6:30 pm episode of "The Office") so.....I'm rummaging through the fridge to see what I can scrounge up and here is this sad little piece of salt pork, just sitting there, all by its lonesome self. And immediately brown beans and rice come to mind: it's quick, it's tasty and mighty comforting on a cold, windy night like this one.

Brown beans and rice, or as we say in Holland, bruine bonen met rijst, is a typical dish from Suriname, a former colony of the Netherlands. Here in America, I don't have easy access to the Dutch brown beans, so I use pinto beans instead.

Brown beans with Rice
1 small piece of salt pork
1 small onion, peeled and diced
1 garlic clove, minced
1 tomato, deseeded and chopped
2 cans of pinto beans, drained and rinsed
1 cup of water

1/4 cup of tomato sauce
1 teaspoon of ginger
1 teaspoon of black pepper
1/2 beef bouillon cube
1 bay leaf
1/4 cup of celery leaves
1 tablespoon of sugar

1 cup of instant rice
Water

Cut the salt pork in small dice, then fry in a Dutch oven until soft. Add the onion and the garlic. Stir until soft, then add the tomato. When the tomato has softened as well, add the beans, the water, the tomato sauce, ginger, pepper, the bouillon cube and bay leaf. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer for about twenty minutes. Taste and adjust (don't add any salt before tasting, the pork tends to be salty enough), add the sugar and the celery leaves, remove the bay leaf and stir everything together. Simmer for another five minutes while you prepare the rice.

Put the rice in a microwaveable bowl, add enough water so that the rice is covered, then microwave on high for two and a half minutes. Let it sit to dry for a minute or two, then stir.

Serve the beans on top of the rice. Nice with some crunchy slices of cucumber.

Yummmmm....that totally hit the spot. Now I have to think of what to do with that thawed hamburger meat....

Leftover dinner...............

Yummm.....I'm busy baking bread for tomorrow's Ladies Dinner so tonight I'm eating the leftovers from yesterday's pulled pork on tortilla chips with a dollop of sour cream and some refreshing salsa yummm! Wow, what a sentence......

Shredded Barbeque Pork with Black Beans

It's cold, it's dark and there is no sign of summer in any way, shape or form. The snow is still on the ground and, in my most pessimistic moments, I'd almost dare say I am sure the sun's left us for good. Global warming? Ha! Half of the globe is snowed in and iced over, and the other half is drowning in rain. Kinda sort of. But look at this....is this cold or is this cold??

I'm exaggerating a little bit but yesterday was one of those days where a healthy salad, a quick snack or a boring sandwich could not have managed to make the blues go away. Fortunately, I have just the food for that! The beautiful smell of barbeque wafting from your crockpot will put a smile on your face and make you feel a little warmer inside, and with the help of your faithful storage items, this dish is a cinch to make. Global warming? Huh. Cold outside? It's all good. Just pull up to the table, grab a plate and enjoy this gorgeous summery dish. If you don't like pork, it can easily be made with chicken or beef.

Barbeque Pulled Pork

1 pork roast (about 1lb for four)

1 medium size onion, peeled and sliced thin
1 small can of tomato sauce
1 small can of roasted green chiles
2 cups of your favorite barbeque sauce
1 teaspoon of ground cumin
1 teaspoon of chili powder
1/2 teaspoon of oregano
1 can of black beans, drained and rinsed

Salsa
Sour Cream
Tortillas

Fire up the crockpot and add the onions, tomato sauce, chiles, barbeque sauce and spices and stir. You can cut up the roast in chunks or put the whole thing in whole, whatever fits best but turn it over once or twice so it's covered in barbeque/tomato sauce.

Cook on high for 6 hours or until the meat is tender. Pull the pork out, shred it with two forks to pieces and stir it back into the sauce. Taste and adjust (you might like more cumin or chili). Stir in the can of black beans. Heat for another ten minutes or until the beans are hot.

Warm the tortillas, put one on a plate and put two heaping spoons of barbeque pork in the middle. Add a dab of sour cream and salsa, roll up and eat! For some crunch, you can top it with some shredded lettuce.

This meat is also good over a plate of tortilla chips nacho-style or served over rice.

White beans with sausage and spinach

Whoa! This morning was a slippery slide to run errands: the snow thawed yesterday but froze up again during the night. The outside steps and walkway were covered in a superthin sheet of ice. Perfect weather to run out and do what you gotta do, then come home and make a quick, comforting soup, which is just what I did.

I pulled a serving of spicy breakfast sausage out of the fridge, two handfuls of fresh spinach that was left over from earlier this week and half a carrot. The sausage came out of the freezer last week because I had planned to make biscuits and gravy this weekend but somehow never got around to it. Fortunately, it will be perfect for my quick lunch soup: I'm busy baking some raisin buns and don't want to spend too much time on preparing lunch.

Quick lunch soup

1 serving of breakfast sausage*
1/4 onion, peeled and diced
1/4 cup of carrot, peeled and diced
1 can of white beans, drained and rinsed
2 cups of fresh spinach
2 cups of warm water
1/4 of a bouillon cube

Brown the breakfast sausage in a Dutch oven and add the onion and the carrot. Saute until the onion is translucent, add the can of beans, the two cups of warm water and the 1/4 bouillon cube or stock. Stir, bring to a boil and simmer for ten minutes or until the carrot is soft and the beans are warm. Stir in the spinach, taste and adjust seasonings and simmer for five more minutes until the spinach is wilted.

And that's it. Easy as can be, and it's tasty, filling and affordable.

* You can use any kind of breakfast sausage for this: spicy, sweet...whatever you like. As for biscuits and gravy, I like a combination of sweet and spicy so I usually buy two 16 oz packages with breakfast sausage: one sweet, one spicy, and divide each one in three pieces. I place one of each in a ziploc, mark it and freeze them until I need them.

Comforting Lentils

I indulged in one of my favorite hobbies for lunch: "researching" a mom & pop burger place. I've wanted to visit this place for a long time but somehow never did. Today, however, provided a perfect opportunity so I pulled up to the drive-through, scanned the variety of menu items and placed my rather large order.

How they've been in business since 1953 is a mystery, if you ask me. The service was rude and the fries were cold (gasp!). The hotdog was roasted to a crisp, the burger bun was satured with sauce to the point of falling to pieces and the patty was dry. And most of all.............the cheese on the burger was that ubiquitous orange square that is otherwise known as American cheese. How one dare associate this fraudulent piece of plastic with cheese or with America for that matter is anybody's guess, but I'll say it's darn cheeky!

Needless to say, after today's lunchtime pigout I was not hungry enough to prepare a large dinner. It was late, I had several things I wanted to accomplish before going to bed and the idea of a quick and comforting bowl of something was very appealing.

Enter lentils. I love lentils. They require no soaking so they're quick to cook, they're packed with all kinds of wonderful nutrients and most of all, they are such an honest, down-to-earth kind of food. I find lentils somehow very comforting. And that is just what I needed after today's disappointment!

Comforting Lentils with Chorizo

1 tablespoon of olive oil

1/2 onion, peeled and diced  

1 rib of celery, diced

1 carrot, medium-sized, diced
2 cloves of garlic, whole
1 tomato, diced
3 cups of water
1 cup of lentils, rinsed
1 bay  leaf
1 slice of salted pork* (about 1 inch thick)
3 oz of Mexican pork chorizo

In your favorite Dutch oven or pan, heat the olive oil and sauté the onion, celery, carrot and garlic for a good three to four minutes on medium heat. Add the tomato and stir into the vegetables until heated. Add the water, the lentils, the pork and the bay leaf. Bring to a boil, cover and simmer for 20 minutes. Check water level to see if you need to add some more, you don't want it to be too dry but not too soupy either. Taste a lentil and see if they're cooked: they should be soft inside but still hold their shape. If they're ready to eat, find those two cloves of garlic and smash them, then stir them back into the pan. Remove the pork and the bay leaf. Stir in the chorizo, simmer for five more minutes so that the chorizo has time to dissolve and flavor the lentils. Taste and decide whether you need to adjust with salt: usually the pork and the chorizo provide enough salt and spicyness. Serves two.

*If you don't have salted pork, add a slice of smoked bacon. The smoky-ness will add extra flavor.

White Bean Chili

Beans are awfully good for you so I try to prepare them at least once or twice a week. Tonight, when I got home, it was too late to spend too much time in the kitchen. On those days my faithful food storage always comes to my rescue! In the next couple of days I'll talk some more about that, but for now I have a quick white bean chili recipe that was ready to eat in less than 30 minutes.

I ate the lemon garlic chicken's drumsticks, wings and part of the breast yesterday. This evening I cut the rest of the meat off the bones, diced it and set it aside for the chili, while the bones went into a pot with cold water with a peeled onion that was cut in half and two carrots and two ribs of celery, both cut in large chunks. A bayleaf, seven or eight black pepper corns and all this went on the backburner to simmer while we ate dinner and watched a movie. This will be my stock for tomorrow's chicken soup.

Beans and canned tomatoes tend to be fairly high in sodium so I refrained from adding any additional salt to the dish. Make sure you taste the chili before reaching for the salt shaker!

White Bean Chili

2 cups of cooked chicken, diced
1 can of chili ready tomatoes*
2 cans of white beans, rinsed
1 teaspoon of chili powder
1 teaspoon of ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon of dried oregano
2 cups of water

Optional: cilantro, shredded cheese, sour cream, can of green roasted chiles

*if your store does not sell chili-ready tomatoes, substitute for a can of diced tomatoes and 1/3 teaspoon of chili powder.

This is so easy that it's not even funny. If you blink you'll miss it. Empty one can of chili-ready tomatoes and two cans of rinsed white beans into a pan, stir, add the chili powder, cumin and oregano, stir again and taste. Hot enough? Then leave it at that. If not, you may want to add a small can of green roasted chiles or some fresh jalapeño, whatever tickles your fancy. Add one or two cups of water, depending on how thick or soupy you like your chili, stir in the chicken and warm up for about ten minutes over medium heat. Taste again and adjust. Serve hot with some cheese, sour cream and fresh cilantro if you wish, it's pretty good without it too :-)

Actually, it was so good that it was all gone before I could take a picture. Go figure.

Black Beans with Spicy Salsa and Sour Cream

"Beans, beans, the magical fruit......." my ex-husband used to sing when I told him we'd be eating beans for dinner. Not necessarily the romantic serenade one expects to hear on Valentine's Day but I'll take it! Beans offer protein without much saturated fat and with plenty of healthful fiber and micronutrients, and will offset nicely all the other junk we're eating today such as chocolates and cupcakes. Besides, our pantry shelves are stacked with bags of beans, lentils and split peas, and it's time to get those babies soaking.

This whole project started with wanting, or needing, to clean out the freezer and making some more space. I had so much food in my pantries, garages, shelves, kitchen cupboards and freezer that it was starting to look like the Grocery Outlet, or the Canned Food Morgue, as some people gently put it. I am a sucker for a good deal, so I've been hoarding food for years. Image the overwhelming amount of food I had!

The first thing I did was toss anything that was past the due date. A deal is a deal, but botulism is not part of it, so in the trash went many a can. What a waste of money, and how shameful to know that so many are hungry in this world while I am throwing out food. God calls us to be good stewards of our (his) money, and this was definitely not a good way to do it. I sorted the cans that were left and realized that the cat was going to have a ball: twentyfour cans of tuna alone were sitting on a shelf, and you might remember that I am not a big fish eater!

But this mindset also translated to other areas in the house: one of the things I noticed is that I always had so much laundry. Or do I have too many clothes? Slowly but surely I have started to sort my clothes, by what stays and what goes to the women's shelter or the thrift store. And what is with all the paper clutter? So out went the daily newspaper. I don't have time, or take the time, to read it every day and now that I only get the weekend issue, I don't feel so guilty and I save a bunch of money.

Anyway, back to the beans. A couple of weeks ago, the local Joe store had a great deal on legumes, so I bought several bags of black, red, white, pinto, lentils and split peas. They're cheap, they're full of good stuff and they're easy to prepare, what more does a hard working girl want? Today we're fixing Black Beans, topped with spicy salsa, sour cream and a handful of your favorite tortilla chips, a great meal for lunch or dinner.

Black Beans with Salsa and Sour Cream
1 cup of black beans, washed and drained

3 cups of water

1 bouillon cube (chicken w/ tomato is my favorite for this)

2 tablespoons of tomato paste

1 cup of frozen vegetables (mix of corn, peppers, broccoli, green beans, carrots: think color)

spicy salsa

sour cream

tortilla chips

Soak the beans overnight in water if you remember, or add them to a crockpot with three cups of water and the bouillon cube. Follow the cooking instructions on the bag, or set the crockpot on high and cook until tender. Stir in the tomato paste, a spoonful or two of your favorite salsa, salt and pepper to taste. In the microwave, heat up your veggies until hot. (You could also stir them in with the beans in the crockpot, but then they all go black and ugly. If you don't mind go for it, it will save you a dish or two to wash!)

Ladle the beans in a bowl, add the veggies, and top with salsa and sour cream. Grab a handful of your favorite tortilla chips and enjoy!

Breakfast Burritos

When I go out for Mexican dinner, very often I end up ordering fajitas, one of my favorite foods. But with this delicious order almost always comes a huge plate with rice and beans, and quite honestly, I hardly eat any of it. I'm too busy stuffing my face with hot steaming tortillas, filled with spicy beef strips and lots of grilled peppers and onions :-) My sense of practicality (or being downright cheap) has me taking home the beans and rice ever since I've found a great way of using them for a different dish. One of the things I love is something easy and simple to pop in the microwave for a quick pick-me-up, or when I feel like a snack. During the week I do not always have time to eat breakfast, and it's easy to have something hot to eat on my way to work. I use the refried beans and rice as a basis for Breakfast Burritos that are easy to make, easy to freeze and easy to reheat.

Unlike the guacamole and lettuce that often accompanies the fajita fare, refried beans and Mexican rice freeze well. And that is exactly what the three small ziploc bags contain that I thawed earlier (see yesterday's blog) today.

Depending on how much beans and rice you have, adjust the amount of tortillas and eggs. The tortillas I use are about 6 inches in diameter, and the amount of filling is approximately 2 full tablespoons of beans and eggs each.

Breakfast Burritos12 whole wheat tortillas

refried beans and rice

6 eggs

1 onion

1 red pepper

1 green pepper

salt and pepper

2 cups grated cheese

Thoroughly reheat the beans and rice, and mix them. If you have some hot sauce or salsa, you can add that to the mix. Beat the eggs in a bowl, add salt and pepper. In the meantime, dice the peppers, slice the onion. Put a little bit of olive oil in a skillet and sautee onions and peppers until they are soft, add the egg mix and scramble the eggs. Now heat one tortilla at a time (in my microwave 30 seconds is exactly right), and place it in front of you on a cutting board. (Heating the tortillas will make it easier to fold them.)

Place two tablespoons of the bean and rice mix in the middle of the tortilla in a rectangular fashion, place two tablespoons of the scrambled eggs on top of the beans and add a tablespoon of grated cheese. Now fold the sides of the tortilla with your index fingers over the filling, use your thumbs to flap the front of the tortilla over the top and roll the whole burrito forward on the cutting board on top of the rest of the tortilla, hiding the filling from view. In the beginning, it will take a little bit of practice to get the amount of filling right. Follow the same procedure with the rest of the tortillas, letting the burritos cool seam down on a second cutting board. When you are done, place them separately in ziploc bags, folding the remainder of the bag over and pushing out the air. Since the burritos have cooled down quite a bit, you will not have as much condensation in the bags, and they will freeze easier.

To reheat, just pop them in the microwave for a couple of minutes and breakfast is served.

Enjoy!