Carrot salad

This little side-dish of shredded carrots loaded with garlic and onion will give your immune system a boost, not to mention keep the vampires away! Scroll down to see a second recipe made with the leftovers of this salad.

In a large bowl, add 2 or 3 large garlic cloves and half a small onion, both minced. Add a generous teaspoon of salt and mix. Add 3 generous tablespoons or so of olive oil and stir. Peel and shred about 5 or 6 large carrots. Add to the dressing, stir to coat, and then add a few heaping teaspoons of hemp seed if you have any. Serve at room temperature with a slice of lemon.

Sautee a can of drained, rinsed chick peas in a tablespoon or so of olive oil until browned. Mince a large handful of fresh parsley. Stir the chick peas and parsley in a large bowl with about a cup and a half of leftover carrot salad described above. Serve a side dish. (For the curious out there, the dish behind this one in the picture is creamy rainbow chard, which is simply one chopped leek sauteed in olive oil with chopped chard to which I added salt and creme fresh when the chards were nicely wilted. It's very yummy, too.)

Garlicky croutons

There's nothing more simple than making your own croutons, and they are a lot less expensive and healthier for your than anything you can buy at the store. All you need is a little bread (the older, the better), some garlic, salt and a little time. It's worth the little work it takes to make!

Slice up a thick slab of old bread and then cut the slice into cubes, and then finely mince a clove or two of garlic. In a non-stick pan, melt a few tablespoons of butter. Sautee the garlic over low to medium heat for a few minutes and then add the cubes of bread and salt generously. Shake the pan occasionally to turn the pieces until all (or almost all) of the sides are nicely browned. Serve on a salad or straight out of the pan as a poor man's appetizer. They are delicious!

Ginger broth

My stomach was feeling a little queazy the other day, and since I didn't have any gingerale in the house, I thought I'd try making a little ginger broth to calm the system a bit. There's nothing more simple or economical than this: all you need are a few scraps from an onion, some garlic and ginger that you might be using for something else that you are cooking up. In the pot, you see that it doesn't take much to start, but the yield is pretty high.

Place the scraps into a pot about this size and fill about 3/4 full with cold water and a generous amount of salt, about what you see in my hand below. Bring to a boil than reduce to simmer for at least an hour, if not more. Strain, cool and drink or spoon up like any other soup. Enjoy!

Savory brown rice, take 2

Josh and I have been growing basil and rosemary in the house now for several weeks in preparation for transplanting it into our garden, but we've been reluctant to use these lovely, aromatic herbs, so we woke up this morning determined to do so. And since we had plenty of leftover brown rice from last night's meal, why not something savory for breakfast?

Here's what you need (for 2 servings):
about half a large sweet potato, diced very small
about 4 tbsp minced onion and 1 minced garlic clove
a bit of vegetable broth or water
about 6 fresh basil leaves and a sprig or so of fresh rosemary, chopped
salt and pepper to taste

In an iron pan, sautee the onion and garlic for a few minutes in olive oil then add the sweet potato, salt and pepper. Cook on very low heat until the sweet potato is soft, about 20 minutes.
Add the rice and a little bit of vegetable broth and stir well to heat through. Add the herbs and mix through.

Serve hot for breakfast with fresh grated parmesan or romano cheese (or without for wonderful vegan fare), or pack up and eat later for lunch.

Total prep and cook time: about 30 minutes

Total cost: approximately 2 or 3 dollars for two people

Cabbage in the corner

We've had several cabbage halves in the corner of our fridge for a few months now and tonight we're finally putting them to use for a hearty carrot, leek and garlic side dish. Cabbage is wonderfully cheap, nutritious and easy to cook, but I always associate it with miserable scenes of Irish poverty from Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes, in which a drunk father and dozens of kids sit down to a pitiful meal of cabbage soup prepared by a downtrodden mother. Adele thinks of the bouillé choux her mother used to make often throughout the summer, though while perfectly well-prepared, was one of the least exciting dishes that ever made its way on the table. Also, we both grew up in papermill towns that seemed to be infused with a rotten-egg, cabbage-like odor on overcast days. Thus our reluctance to embrace the cabbage.

But tonight we've decided to make amends. Or, to put it another way, we decided we had to eat this stuff soon or risk having it go to waste. And there could be nothing more straightforward than this side-dish: half a cabbage, sliced; three carrots, peeled, halved lengthwise and sliced thinly; a couple inches of a leek, sliced; 2 garlic cloves, minced; salt and pepper.


Sautee the leeks and garlic in some olive oil until soft. Add the cabbage and carrots, salt and pepper to taste, and cook, stirring occasionnally, for about ten minutes. (Cook more or less, depending on your taste for crisp vegetables or not.)

We ate this with some leftover brown rice seasoned with sauteed onion, currants, chopped hazelnuts, cumin, ginger, tumeric, salt, pepper and olive oil. In the end, we were pleasantly surprised by the combo of these two dishes, particulary with the taste of the cabbage side-dish, and we're happy to say that the compost pile didn't get to this thing before we did.

Total prep and cook time : about 30 minutes

Approximate cost : about 3$ for two people