Cooking in College

Lentil patties

I’ve got a confession: I’ve been eating far too many latkes and lox recently, too many for my own good. I don’t generally watch what I eat as carefully as I should, but I know when too much is too much and too many fried potato patties can’t be good for me, can they?

Ok, you caught me. I just ran out of potatoes and it was too hot to go out and get some. So I put my problem-solving skills to good use, and decided to cook up some lentils I had around and experiment a bit. These lentil patties turned out to be super delicious, and I feel less guilty. Lentils are high in protein! Also, I remember going on a lentil soup diet one summer, and it proved to be quite effective. (I’m done trying to rationalize my love for these. They’re just plain good— I managed to make Joey eat them, and he doesn’t like lentils!)

You will need:

dried lentils (I get the Goya kind that come in a bag)
flour
bread crumbs
eggs
water
onion, chopped
salt and pepper
vegetable oil, for frying

Do it:

Cook the lentils in water at medium-high heat for about 30 minutes, or until they are tender. (The bag may do a better job at explaining this than I did, and I apologize!) Drain and rinse.

In a bowl, combine about a cup and a half of the cooked lentils and about a half onion, chopped. Toss in about half a cup of the bread crumbs and break an egg in there, and mix everything to combine. The batter will probably need some flour to help hold everything together (ah, the magic of gluten!), so scoop about 1/4 c. of flour and sprinkle some water on top. Mix again; the mixture should be sort of doughy and somewhat easily worked into the patties, so feel free to add more flour if it helps make it thicker. (The point of all the flour and water is to hold everything together, so eyeball it— but by all means try to have more lentils in there than flour!) Season the mixture with salt (be a little generous, you’ll probably need a lot of it) and pepper.

Form the mixture into small patties and fry in hot vegetable oil about 1” deep in a shallow pan until golden brown on both sides.

If you want a dip to go with it, take sour cream and mix some hot sauce and cilantro in it (pictured). Pretty tasty!

Cous cous salad

I’ve been trying new stuff, and I’d never had cous cous— can you believe it!? But now during the summer, salads are my thing (when I’m not eating junk food, that is) and this one is very filling because of the cous cous. Get to it!

You will need:

cous cous (this comes dry, usually out of a box)
heirloom tomatoes (or alternatively, regular tomatoes), chopped
red onions, diced
chopped cilantro
capers
PITTED oil-cured black olives (also try kalamata)
sun-dried tomatoes, chopped
lemons, zested and juiced
balsamic vinegar
extra virgin olive oil (the good stuff, please)
salt and pepper

Do it:

Cook the cous cous as per the instructions in the box. Rinse with cold water and stick in the fridge while you prep the rest.

Mix the olives, heirloom and sundried tomatoes, onions, cilantro, capers, and lemon zest, and pour the lemon juice, balsamic vinegar, and olive oil over it. (I used the juice of one large lemon, since you want it to be light, and just enough balsamic vinegar to flavor the salad. The olive oil is in the spotlight here!) Season with salt and pepper, and add in the cous cous. Toss and chill until serving.

I paired the salad with some cod and sauteed vegetables (as pictured above), and all I was missing was a nice glass of white wine. This makes a perfect lunch for a hot day!

(Excuse the bad iPhone photo; I didn’t have my camera on hand!)

The most delicious chicken salad you’ll ever have, hands down.

Here it goes:

Cut up some cooked chicken breast (I used a chicken I roasted like two days ago), and heat it up in a pan with a bit of butter. Cut up a small endive, and dice a small red onion and a Bosc pear. Chop up some basil while you’re at it, and zest and juice one lemon. Mix it all with the chicken in a bowl, and scoop about two heaping tablespoons of sour cream and one heaping tablespoon of dijon mustard (I use the country style). Season with salt, pepper, and paprika.

Good enough to eat on its own (this is my breakfast right now), but delicious in a sandwich.

A meal inspired by my recent trip to Iceland: Cod, roasted potatoes, and strawberry skyr

These roasted potatoes are the shit, people. I am not going back to fried potatoes for a while.

To make them: Cut small potatoes into wedges, and toss with olive oil, rosemary, paprika, salt and pepper. Bake at 400 for ~ 25 minutes.

Also, you need to run over to Whole Foods and try skyr. It’s technically a cheese product, but more yogurt-like in taste and texture. I was obsessed with Greek yogurt for a while, but it’s really fattening. Skyr is very similar in texture (creamy and thick), but it’s completely fat free. Mixed with fresh fruit, some sugar, and a bit of heavy cream, skyr is amazing.

Black bean, corn, and tomato salad

This one was a result of fresh produce about to go bad and some ingenuity. Good for a really hot day, I would serve this with a grilled chicken breast and some lemonade. Maybe some tortilla chips on the side too. And fresh mango with ice cream for dessert! I’m already drooling over my keyboard.

Ingredients:

(Adjust them according to your preferences)
Diced tomatoes
Rinsed and drained black beans (use Goya!)
A couple of ears of corn
chopped cilantro
olive oil
a couple of limes, juiced
salt and pepper

Directions:

Grill the corn. Separate the corn from the cob with a knife, running it from top to bottom. Combine the corn, beans, tomatoes, and cilantro. Dress with the olive oil, the lime juice, the salt and pepper.

If you want to add an extra kick, drizzle (pour?) some Tapatío over it!

Chipotle and bacon mac and cheese

Save this one for a rainy day. For when you’re having guy (or girl) issues. For when things aren’t quite going as you wanted them to. For when you’re feeling a bit under the weather.

Or, alternatively, if you’re feeling really good and want to feel even better. Whatever, this one is good for every occasion. Who doesn’t love mac and cheese?

I am over regular mac and cheese. I’ve been trying new ways to spice things up, shake it up just a little bit, and since Tapatío came into my life and I’ve started to develop a tolerance for hot foods, this chipotle mac and cheese sounded like a good idea. Add bacon to the mix, and its appeal goes up exponentially.

Ingredients:

1 box of gemelli pasta (use whatever shape you want, really)
1/2 pack of bacon (I prefer thick cut)
1 can of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce— dice as many as you think you can handle!
about 3 tbsp of butter
about 3 tbsp of flour, sifted
about half a quart of whole milk (none of that non-fat nonsense!)
one 8-oz. bag of shredded extra-sharp white cheddar
about 1 c. of bread crumbs
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 400 F.

Cook the pasta as per the box’s directions. Drain and set aside.

Fry the bacon on a skillet until crisp (I used my new cast-iron). Save the bacon grease. Chop up the bacon into small pieces.

For the sauce:

Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium-low heat. Add the flour, and combine. Cook until light brown. Then add the milk gradually while stirring. It is important that the sauce doesn’t boil at any point, so lower the heat if necessary. The consistence should be runny at first; keep on heating and stirring until it becomes thicker. Add the peppers, stir. Add the cheese gradually, making sure it doesn’t clump and that it combines evenly. Add the bacon, and season with the salt and pepper to taste.

For the topping, Mix the bread crumbs with the bacon grease. If the crumbs feel too greasy, then mix in more crumbs.

Mix the pasta and the sauce in the saucepan and coat evenly. Then spoon onto an oven-safe dish, and top with the crumbs. Bake for about 20 minutes, or until the crumbs turn a little golden brown. Your nose will let you know!

White bean salad and salmon

After a semester of not cooking, this summer has given me plenty of time to shop for ingredients and cook new things. I’ve been experimenting in the kitchen a lot, and this was my latest experiment. I had a craving for white bean salad, for some strange reason, and decided to pair it with a wild Alaskan salmon fillet I picked up two days ago.

This meal turned out to be filling, in spite of the small portion, but still light-tasting. Since forgetting to take out a T-Pass for the month of June and having to walk virtually anywhere (I can’t afford to pay $80+ for the T each month), my preference for meals switched from hearty, heavy food to something light enough to allow me to actually MOVE (as opposed to making me want to sleep) but still filling enough to carry me through the day.

(I apologize for the crappy iPhone photo; I left my camera cable thingie in Iceland!)

Ingredients:

For the salad:
1 can of Goya small white beans, rinsed and drained
1/2 red onion, chopped
about 7 or 8 sundried tomatoes, chopped small
1 small jar of marinated artichokes, cut into smaller pieces (leave them out if you don’t like artichokes)
3 green onions, chopped
3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 lemon (juice and zest)
about 1/2 c. of extra virgin olive oil
about 1/4 c. of balsamic vinegar
salt + pepper to taste

Directions:
Basically just mix everything together; no science to this! Start by combining everything but the olive oil, lemon juice, vinegar, and salt and pepper, and then add them in the end.

For the salmon, I picked out a piece about 3 inches wide with the skin still on. I seasoned it with salt and freshly ground pepper, and cooked it for about 2 minutes on each side at medium-high heat on a cast-iron skillet. Pretty simple!

To serve:

Scoop about 1/2 c. of the salad on the middle of a plate, then slide the salmon over it. Grate some parmesan cheese over it, and you’re done!

Chicken Salad Sandwich

I made this using the leftover roasted chicken. I pulled all the meat from the carcass and threw it away, since the chicken was occupying too much space in the fridge. So I cut up the chicken in tiny pieces, diced half an onion into it, scooped a bit of mayo (about 1 tbsp.), some dijon mustard (about 1.5 tbsp), some salt, pepper, and paprika, and torn up basil. Spread it on some bread and you’re done!

The good thing about this salad is that it’s not mayo-ey at all. So if you’re like me and hate mayo, you should still try this :-)

Roasted chicken with potatoes and watercress salad

I got a really bad craving for roasted chicken last week, and upon seeing they were on sale, I grabbed one and ran back to roast it.

For the chicken, it’s pretty easy: Preheat the oven to 350F. Rub the chicken with dried rosemary, oregano, and thyme, fresh garlic, salt and pepper, and olive oil. Cook for about 30 mins per pound.

The potatoes I just sliced thickly and fried up in a bit of olive oil, nothing fancy, then sprinkled them with salt.

And the watercress salad was just fresh watercress, olive oil, a bit of vinegar, and salt.