Meatless Meal, But It's Not Monday! Penne al Forno with Kale Salad

For those of you that may have noticed a missing Meatless Monday with Mindy post this week, let me just fill you in.  I actually created a Meatless Meal on Sunday. I knew my Monday was going to be packed full and IF I made it home at a decent hour to create a meal, get the pictures taken, processed and posted before midnight, it would be a very long, tiresome day. Plus, I've been wanting to start processing my Meatless posts on the weekend anyway, so that I can have them up for anyone who just may want to actually make a Meatless Monday meal on ....well, Monday.

Needless to say one thing led to another and Meatless Monday with Mindy didn't get posted Sunday night. Then, Monday was just as expected...very busy. I didn't get home until late. But I did eat that wonderful meatless meal as a left-over. Tuesday was a repeat of Monday, but busier.

So that leads me to today.  The only plan I had today was to have lunch with a friend at Mustard Seed and do a little shopping while there.  Our lunch outing lasted almost 4 hours!  (in our defense, it has been 3 months since we've seen each other).  So now, here it is, after the dinner hour and I'm just now getting around to working on this Meatless post.

This Meatless main dish inspiration came from Dr. Neal D Barnard's 21-Day Weight Loss Kick Start. (which, by the way, has ton's of great meatless recipes). I, as always, made this my own, but only due to the fact that I was missing some ingredients, otherwise I would have made it exactly as printed. The full recipe can be found online, but do yourself a favor and buy the book. You won't regret the purchase. (And no, I don't get any kick backs from saying that).

So, our Sunday meatless meal consisted of Shells al Forno (because I didn't have penne pasta)  and I served it with kale salad, garlic bread and some olives on the side.  I will share the salad a little later in this post.   I hope you enjoy this recipe. I know we did.    

Penne al Forno

8-10 fresh basil leaves, cut chiffonade 

2 carrots, sliced

2 stalks celery, sliced

2 zucchini, sliced

1/2 yellow onion, chopped

Water

16 oz brown rice penne pasta (I used shell, cuz that's all I had)

2 full cups of your favorite marinara

1 can of cannellini beans, drained and rinsed

Black olives, chopped , tomato, sliced and extra basil for garnish (all optional)

This dish in the book also gives you a recipe for red sauce that can be used, but I used my favorite marinara sauce. 1. because I like it and 2. I didn't want to take the time to make a sauce.  Now don't be gettin' all Iron Chef on me. Admit it, you take shortcuts too.

So, here we go!

Prep and chop all your veggies and set out all your ingredients first. This allows you to seriously whiz through making this meal once that's done. And for anyone who doesn't know what chiffonade is, just roll your leaves, in this case basil, tightly and slice them into ribbons.

Preheat your oven to 350°F

Bring a big pot of water to boil for the pasta.

Over medium heat, sauté the carrots, celery, zucchini and onion for about 3-5 minutes.

I add just a little water to my pan to sauté my veggies in.

First to go in.... Onion!  I love the smell of cooking onions.

Then I add the rest of my veggies. 

Sautéing the veggies will ensure they are soft enough by the time they are done baking and will help all the flavors to meld.

Now you want to grab your pasta.  Brown rice pasta is a good and nutritious alternative to regular white or wheat pasta and makes this dish gluten-free.

Here's a tip, cook your pasta after you are done preparing your veggies. This way your pasta doesn't sit too long and get mushy in water, or sticky if drained.

Add your pasta to boiling water and cook just until it's almost done.  You want this a little underdone as it will finish cooking in the oven. 

Once you drain your pasta, immediately add the veggies and the red sauce (marinara) to a bowl, along with the basil and mix all this up.  

Dump all these goodies into a deep baking dish, cover and bake at 350° for 10-12 minutes.

While the pasta is in the oven, make your kale salad.  Start with a bunch of kale and cut into ribbons, yep, chiffonade is the way to go with the kale too.  As it's a tougher leaf, the ribbons make eating this raw green much more enjoyable.

Make a balsamic dressing by whisking together:

1/4 cup balsamic vinegar

2 Tbs Dijon mustard

2 Tbs fresh lemon juice

1 clove garlic, minced

1 dash Worcestershire sauce ( there is vegan sauce too I've discovered!)

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

Drizzle just enough of this dressing over the shredded kale to be able to coat all the kale. Save the rest to be used again later with more kale, or try it on your favorite potato salad in place of the traditional mayonnaise laden dressing.

Toss the dressing together with the kale.

By now, your pasta should be ready to pull out of the oven.

Once this comes out of the oven, stir the cannellini beans into the pasta.

The heat from the pasta will heat the beans up, so no need to worry about cold beans.

Sprinkle some chopped black olives over the top, add sliced tomato and fresh basil for garnish. Then plate this up with your kale salad, a slice of your favorite garlic bread and some more olives on the side.  

Mangia!

I hope you enjoy this recipe. If you make it, I'd love to hear what you thought of this dish, or what you did to make it your own.  

Ciao!

Don't be shy, please leave a comment.

Meatless Monday with Mindy #20 Creamy Chickpea Soup

Welcome to Meatless Monday with Mindy!

This weekend was cooler than usual, but still very humid. We've had a LOT of rain this summer with spells of very hot temperatures which is unusual for Northeast Ohio.  I wanted something light to eat, but the cooler weather had me thinking soup.  I found a really good recipe for a smoothie that I adapted from a book I recently bought at Bed, Bath & Beyond called " The Smoothie Bible, The Second Addition" by Pat Crocker.   It hit the spot for light and soup at the same time.

What started out as a vegetable smoothie recipe ended up as an awesome light creamy soup perfect with croutons and/or chopped cashews for garnish accompanied by a side salad.  I hope you enjoy this quick and easy, yet very satisfying soup for a lunch or light dinner. 

Creamy Chickpea Soup

Serves 4

4 cups of vegetable broth

2 cups chopped potato

1 can ( 1 1/3 cup) cooked chickpeas

1/4 cup chopped onions

1 whole garlic clove, minced

1 spring of fresh parsley

1 cup non-dairy milk

Salt to taste ( or 1/4 tsp salt)

Directions: 

In a saucepan over high heat, bring broth and parsley sprig to a boil.     

Add potato, chickpeas, onion and garlic to broth and cook until potatoes are tender. Once the potatoes are tender and all those yummy flavors have fused together, remove the parsley sprig. 

With an immersion blender, blend the ingredients until smooth. (If not using an immersion blender, cool veggies and broth slightly and add to a food processor or blender in small batches until all is smooth).

Use your favorite milk or half and half. My choice in this recipe was a non-dairy milk, Silk brand unsweetened almond milk. 

With the blender or processor still running, add milk and blend just until milk is incorporated. You see this smooth liquid become slightly lighter in color.

Season with salt, garnish with croutons or chopped cashews and to make it look as special as you should feel, add a sprig of parsley on top for a little color. 

Serve hot (or cold) in a shallow bowl or an awesome teacup with a simple salad on the side.   Bon appetit! 

All photos taken by my sweetie. Staging by me. :)

 You can see more of what he loves to do at Photography Musings by Dave

I would love those of you who share meatless recipes to link up with me for Meatless Monday. Just click on the blue frog and add your link.

What did you eat for Meatless Monday???

Meatless Monday with Mindy #14 Vegetable Bean Stew

Welcome to the 14th installment of Meatless Monday with Mindy!

This weekend was Mothers Day and traditionally I've always taken this day to garden with my children, and now with my honey. Often times a trip to a local nursery would be the big highlight of the day, then we would come home and plant the treasures we acquired. Living in the Midwest since 1987, we could be certain that by Mothers Day we were safe to plant without the threat of frost.

Not so this weekend!

We had lots of cold wind during the day with over cast skies. And for the past 2 nights we've had to cover up my spring garden of lettuces, spinach, peas and the herbs and strawberries that have come back on their own to prevent frost from burning them. Brrrr! 

Because Monday was such a blustery cold day, I was in the mood for some good ole comfort food. At first I thought I would make a soup, but when I started browsing my books, stews kept catching my attention and sounding really good. One of the many cookbooks on our bookshelves we've had since we first got married ...over 30 years ago!  It's a Better Homes and Gardens book simply called "Soups & Stews".  It's one of those good ones I refer to over and over again that has stains on the yellowed pages and notes jotted, you know...one of those keepers.  I was on the hunt for a recipe that I could tweak to make meatless and found one called Basic Stew. It of course called for stew beef as well as beef broth, but most of the other ingredients were already vegetarian or easily convertible.  So, here is my vegetarian take on a basic stew.

Vegetable Bean Stew

1 clove garlic, minced

1 bay leaf

1 teaspoon of salt (optional)

1 teaspoon prepared horseradish or mustard (I used horseradish)

1/2 teaspoon of your favorite dried herb (I used basil)

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

16 oz of vegetable broth

5 cups fresh vegetables cut into 1-inch pieces ( I used potato, carrot, celery, turnip and onion)

1 15 oz can of kidney beans, drained and rinsed

1/4 cup cold water

2 Tablespoons flour ( I make a flour mix using whole wheat, buckwheat and white flours)

1 cup coarsely chopped spinach

Instructions

In a large saucepan pour in the vegetable broth. Add the garlic, bay leaf, prepared horseradish, salt if using, dried herb, and pepper.  

Stir this together and bring to a boil.  Add the chopped vegetables, cover and simmer for about 25 minutes or until the veggies are tender.

Stir in the kidney beans and continue cooking until the beans are heated through.

Blend the water and flour together then stir into the stew. Cook and stir until thickened and bubbly.  Remove the bay leaf and stir in the chopped spinach.

Serve this comfort food right away with a slice of bread and enjoy.

If you make this recipe, I'd love to hear back on how you liked it, or tweaked it to make it your own.

Got a blog?  How about linking up here and sharing what you're making meatless.

First time linking up?  Go here to find out how.

Meatless Monday with Mindy #8 Butternut Squash Baked Risotto

Welcome to the 8th installment of Meatless Monday with Mindy. 

The Meatless Monday movement is growing rapidly! It helps to have stars tweeting and sharing on their Facebook pages about this healthy idea of giving up meat one day a week.  

Celebrity chefs such as Curtis Stone and Mario Batali, to name just a few, are sharing awesome meatless recipes, while other celebrities such as  Oprah, trainer Bob Harper and even American Idol legend Simon Cowell stand behind and practice Meatless Monday. 
Forbes.com recently endorsed Meatless Monday with this quote from Michelle Maisto, a contributor to Forbes.com  “Social movements such as Meatless Mondays, motivated to improve the health of the planet and the nation, have raised awareness about the personal and widespread impacts that can result from more moderate meat consumption.” 

  Replacing meat just one day a week has huge health benefits, and more and more people are beginning to realize this and join the Meatless Monday movement.

Martha Stewart, known for her gourmet menus and unique presentations, has gradually made the shift to less meat and fish to a more plant based diet based on her research and observations surrounding meat and how it is prepared to be brought to the American table.  

I, like many Americans, shied away from Ms. Stewart after she popped her own perfection bubble many years ago in a scandal that took many of us by surprise. But in all her humanness,  one thing that has remained true about her is... the woman can cook!

I recently purchased her new cookbook called "meatless" and I'm so glad I did. I am just beginning to scratch the surface of trying out these wonderful looking recipes and cannot wait to try more.

My Meatless Monday recipe was adapted from the cookbook "meatless" with very few changes and the results made it dairy free as well.   Enjoy.... and get that book!!

Butternut Squash Baked Risotto

2 Tbs olive oil

1 small onion, finely chopped

2 garlic cloves, minced

1/2 tsp dry ground thyme

1/2 cups Botan rice (sticky rice)
Salt and pepper freshly ground, to taste
1/2 cup dry white wine

1 butternut squash, peeled and diced (about 4 cups)

4 cups vegetable broth

1 bunch curly kale, tough stems removed and cut into wide strips

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.   In a dutch oven or other heavy ovenproof pot (I used a cast iron skillet after realizing my first pan wasn't going to fit it all in), heat the pan then add your olive oil.  Broth could be used in place of the oil if you are trying to eliminate oils.

Once this is hot, add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally until soft, about 3 minutes.

Add garlic and thyme and cook for about 1 more minute.

Next add the rice and cook, stirring frequently, until the edges are translucent.  This takes about 3 minutes.  Then season with salt and pepper.

Add wine and cook, stirring until the wine is completely absorbed into the rice. This doesn't take long, about a minute or two. If you aren't a wine lover, cooking wine or even water would work here.

Next, add your cut up squash. Tip: a good peeler and knife takes the dread out of cutting squash!

Add your vegetable stock or broth and bring this mixture to a boil. 

Then add your kale, stirring as you go to make room for all of it.

And add more, and stir more..changing pots as the mixture grows.... I should'a known better.

Then I changed again, so I could put this in the oven.

But it finally all fit into my cast iron skillet...

Cover your pan with a lid, or your casserole dish with parchment, then foil and transfer this to the oven.  Bake about 20 minutes or until the rice is tender and has absorbed most of the liquid.  

Plate this wonderful comfort food and enjoy with a glass of wine that you have to have because... duh, you already opened a bottle of wine...