Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Chef Jeff - the first few weeks

One of Jeff's New Year's Resolutions was to try to learn more about cooking. So, he's decided to try a bunch of new recipes - which is totally fine with me! Here are some of his first creations:

Mayan Couscous: It has couscous (of course) with cumin, garlic, black beans, corn, and onion, peppers and cilantro - very tasty! And good for lunch the next day!

Malaysian Quinoa: This has quinoa mixed with soy chunks, peanut butter, coconut, chile, green onion, and cilantro - also very good!

Bisara: This is a North African dish. It's mostly made up of green split peas, and is flavored with garlic, parsley, red chile pepper, paprika, and cumin. It looks sort of like green mush, but it tastes really good.

Lentils and Spinach: Not hard to guess what goes into this one. In addition to the lentils and spinach, it has onions, garlic, and cumin.

Vegan Split Pea Soup: Jeff made this hearty soup on the weekend when it was chilly out and we stayed in all day - perfect winter dish! It has onions, garlic, split peas, barley, carrots, celery, potatoes, parsley, basil, and thyme.


Vietnamese Rice Noodle Salad: This was one of my favorite dishes so far. It's rice noodles topped with julienned carrots, chopped cucumber, chopped cabbage, chopped mint, unsalted peanuts, and a sauce made with lime juice, cilantro, fish sauce, and mint. Sooo good!

Vegetarian Bean Curry: This is what we had last night. It has lentils, arbanzo and kidney beans mixed with onion, garlic curry powder, ground cumin, crushed tomatoes, and raisins. I can't decide if I loved the raisins or didn't like them at all... but they were definitely an interesting addition.

Jeff's also been making pasta sauce from scratch (well, from canned tomatoes and other ingredients) - it's really tasty, and apparently much more healthy!

It's really fun to have lots of different, exciting dishes - left to my own devices, it's pretty much pasta or canned soup every day (though I do love those things!). Jeff's also really great at making sure everything is healthy - both in terms of having a good balance of vegetables and things and also being low in calories.

1 comment:

Dan Perelstein said...

Congrats congrats congrats! This is sooooo exciting, and so super wonderful.
Miss you both.
Dan