Migas, two ways

While visiting the Porters on the Cape (I promise I will eventually put up the pictures of our delicious meals there, as soon as I get them from Pete), we jotted down this recipe from Mark Bittman's Kitchen Express, which I love because it's organized seasonally, and is written sensibly, which is to say, with no real formal measurements in the recipes. The whole book is full of recipes like the ones I used to get from my mom over the phone, jotted down in a notebook that is now spattered with batter and oil.

The recipe we brought home to test run was nice & simple and combines two things we love: chickpeas and leafy greens. Our go-to quick & healthy dinner is sauteed chickpeas (with or without garlic, depending non our rush & what's on hand) seasoned liberally with turmeric and kale, chard, or spinach steamed on top and stirred in. It's filling, it's good for you, and it's really easy. Migas, a la Bittman are pretty much the same thing, but with fried bread chunks, no turmeric and a dash of cumin. Pete was worried that they would be bland, but he didn't need to. So yum. (I think it also helped that we cooked our own chickpeas with a clove of garlic & a bay leaf in the water, a la Kellie Porter.)

As if I needed another reason to love Mark Bittman.

While I was looking for the recipe online, to see if Bittman said anything else about it online, I came across a bunch of posts about the more traditional TexMex version of migas, made with eggs & torn up stale tortillas, and a bunch of cheese. Not vegan, but delicious, and we did have some stale corn tortillas in the fridge...so I winged it, subbing black beans for chickpeas, and corn tortillas for bread, and chard for kale and adding a couple of chopped chipotles in adobo (hot!) and a tomato.

These turned out to be equally delicious (Pete didn't like the smokiness of the adobo sauce, but I didn't mind it), and made a huge amount of bean-chard deliciousness, which I had in burritos for breakfast for the next few days. This one's easy, cheap, and yummy!

Also, congrats to Laura on going all-veg! I've been thinking about putting together a post of resources and tips for eating vegetarian on the cheap, and places to find good and simple recipes. Hopefully I'll get that down here in the next week or so!

Chickpea Fried Rice: Fast, Furious

We got home from a weekend of fresh, delicious food with the Porters at the Cape (about which more later) to a home devoid of fresh vegetables. And we were tired. And it was hot. The solution? A quick, cheap, easy and nutritious meal of fried rice with chickpeas. It's not ideal, but we had all the ingredients, and it was fast. Plus, it made enough that we don't have to worry about lunch for tomorrow!
How-to:
Start 1 & a half c. rice cooking in stock or broth. When it's about halfway done, start the chickpeas frying in the wok/pan. Add frozen corn & peas to the rice when it's nearly finished, stirring it all together. When the chickpeas are beginning to brown, and the rice is finished, mix it all together and stir fry in a wok or large pan.

I added a squirt of liquid aminos right at the end. A touch of soy or tamari sauce would also be good. I also topped this with hoisin sauce because I love that on everything, and we have a jar of it from our Pet Cemetary dinners/band practices.

third Sunday

We made the vegetable stew earlier in the week, and didn't document it, because it was mostly an experiment. It ended up saving my life when I got a cold on Monday. I came home and added some lemon and raw garlic and cayenne and eating it with toast. It was so good and cleared my sinuses for at least an hour. Thank you, hearty vegetable stew!

We made dinner so quick (I was starving!) that we didn't even remember to take photos! Because I'd picked some up at the Union Square greenmarket after stumping for Banned Books Week like a good librarian, we had roasted portabellas (a la V-con) and made the chickpeas dish with tatsoi (a relative of bok choi) instead of spinach, . Here's a photo of tatsoi, since I didn't take one, which is a shame because it was a really lovely specimen:



This is definitely one of my new favorite greens. It had a really good flavor and was kind of crunchy, even after cooking. If I can keep finding it at the greenmarket (and keep finding time to go there during the week), I will be having this again and again, though probably not as often as my true sweetheart, kale.

We cooked the portabellos after the chickpeas (it was a hectic hungry dinner cooking, which usually leads to a disorganized meal), and it was definitely a winner. We'll also be having these whenever I come across fresh portabellos.

Here's a very dim picture of Pete's, from when I suddenly rushed in and saying "We totally forgot to take photos of everything for the blog!!! ARGH!"

Note, if you can, the totally charming TV tray. We finally found a pair!