Light Summery Lentil Vegetable Soup

Light Summery Lentil Vegetable Soup

Nutritionnix

I made this Light Summery Lentil Vegetable Soup on Sunday to break the fast of the 17th of Tammuz, but I've been enjoying the leftovers ever since. And my husband has had it for lunch with pasta added to make it more filling. It's labeled "light," because the orange lentils cook quickly and disintegrated, unlike peas, rice, barley or pasta.

Since I didn't measure the ingredients, I'll just list them. My cooking is very flexible. Measuring is very rare. 

• orange lentils
• onion 
• carrot
• squash
• pumpkin
• mushrooms
• a bit of vegetable oil, coarse salt and coarse pepper
• water, of course

Cooking was in two steps. First I poured boiling water over the lentils, covered and waited over an hour. Then I added the cut up vegetables and the oil. Once it was boiling, I added more boiling water, plus the salt and pepper. Once it's boiling nicely, lower the flame to simmer for 35 minutes to an hour depending on your pot.

You can add other vegetables or leave some out. Generally I add some dill or parsley-- dehydrated is fine, but since I was fasting my mind wasn't fully there.

This is a very easy to make soup. Enjoy.

Super Simple Halva-Chocolate Icing

Not long ago I shared with you my recipe for The World's Easiest Chocolate Icing, and now I came up with an equally easy to make Halva-Chocolate version of the icing. 

It contains all of three ingredients:

• a bar of bittersweet chocolate, 
• some store-bought halva and 
• a spoon of vegetable oil, whichever you use

Melt them in either a microwave-just melted not boiling hot, or pot on low heat or double boiler. Mix then spread/pour onto the cake.

Yes, it's hard to believe, but that's it. 

If you have ideas of other versions, please try it out and send me the reports in the comments here. Thanks.

"One Pot Meal," Dairy Vegetable Kugel

Notice that I used a different, for me, shaped pan, so the frozen kugel will be easy to recognize in the freezer, without having to uncover them.

Since my husband and I found ourselves eating alone on the Shavuot holiday, when it's traditional to eat dairy meals, I tried to come up with practical foods.

I used this Dairy Vegetable Kugel as a side dish, but with the addition of a fresh salad, it (certainly the leftovers) makes a perfect and tasty "One Pot Meal." An additional advantage is that you can make more than one at a time and freeze them.

Ingredients:
1 package broad noodles, (you may use any pasta)
1 package cottage cheese
6 eggs
3 fresh mushrooms
1 large onion
1 squash
2 tomatoes
seasonings to taste
You can vary/change the vegetables to your liking and what you have in stock.

Instructions:

1. boil the broad noodles
2. while they're cooking cut of the vegetables
3. Put the vegetables, cottage cheese, eggs and cooking/rinsed noodles and a large bowl and mix. Add whatever seasonings you wish.
4. Pour the mixture in baking pans. Optional to line with baking paper.
5. Bake in moderate oven 160c or 320f until firm and "bubbly" on sides. 
6. that's it
7. serve with salad if you wish

I used to make a sweet version of it, adding fruit, apples, raisins rather than vegetables, seasoned with cinnamon and sugar.

Using Up Leftover Bread, Stuffed Chicken

To keep my weight down, not that I'm all that slim, I have to stay away from bread. We end up with the thick ends of bread, which my husband doesn't like for his sandwiches. So last week, I took four thick pieces of "standard" Israeli sliced/packaged bread and stuffed a chicken with it.

 As you can see, all I added to the bread was some water to soften, plus diced carrots and onion. You can spice it up or add other vegetables that will hold up to long cooking and have a lot of flavor, like celery.

Mix the bread, broken into small pieces, plus water and vegetables into a "mush." Stuff it into the whole chicken. If there's too much, then surround the chicken.

I baked the stuffed chicken in a large, deep dish. As you can see, I sprinkled lots of pepper, paprika and garlic on it.

For the first 40 minutes or so, I had the chicken covered with foil. For the final half hour or more I baked it uncovered, heat from top on turbo 210 degrees Centigrade, which is 410 Fahrenheit.

This is a very simple and tasty way to use up bread.

Simple and Delicious Baked/Roasted Chicken

Usually I buy whole fresh chickens in Rami Levi (discount supermarket) every few weeks and put them in the freezer. I really find that they taste better than frozen ones sold locally. But when I went there to stock up on Monday morning, the whole chicken had a "last day to sell" for the same day I was there. I don't buy on "last day," since there's too much a chance that they just aren't fresh enough. The worker behind the counter refused to give me fresher ones from the back, so I checked out the chicken parts and discovered that the "bottoms," which are most popular in my family, were discounted, so that's what I bought. An additional advantage was that I didn't have to cut up the whole chicken into parts. I just separated/cut the leg/drumstick of the really large ones.

Now for my Simple and Delicious Baked/Roasted Chicken recipe:
 Seasonings:

lemon slices, ground pepper, sweet paprika, garlic and cuzbara (Coriander, also known as cilantro or Chinese parsley)

Chicken, best cut into serving-size pieces, though you can use the same seasonings on a whole chicken or one cut "butterfly" or spatchcocking aka in half.

Bake uncovered in the oven about 220 degrees Centigrade (220°C × 9/5) + 32 = 428°F) with turbo fan going until it begins to look cooked, then lower to about 190 for another 10-15 minutes. It takes longer if you don't have a turbo oven. Remember that every oven is different, and different sorts of baking pans also affect temperature and cooking time.

Yes, it's that simple, and I don't add salt or any oils. Since I prepare my chicken in advance, I store the cooked chicken in containers in the refrigerator and include all of the natural juices/fats in the pan along with the chicken. I heat the chicken with the natural juices/fats, which have a lot of the flavor and richness.

Enjoy!

PS you can certainly vary the seasonings and add fresh ones, like onion, too.

Easy and Healthy No Sugar Beef

If you check recipes in books and online for cooking beef, you'll see that so many require sugar, whether from jam, sweetened sauces, wines, juice or just plain sugar. You can cook a piece of inexpensive beef without any sweetener at all.

I buy an inexpensive cut of beef from the freezer section of the supermarket. I'm fussier about the price than the name of the cut. First, after thawing, I soak it in water to rid it of whatever salts and blood I can get out of it. Actually I use the pot for this, since health/hygiene experts say it's important to keep raw meat/fish/poultry off of eating and food prep surfaces.

Ingredients:
Beef, vegetable oil, onion, garlic, peppercorns, tomatoes or canned tomatoes preferably diced/chopped without added sugar or salt

Instructions:

• Cut up a large onion and some fresh garlic; store in a bowl on the side.  
• Cut about a pound of tomatoes or get a can/jar of diced or crushed tomatoes without added sugar; store in a bowl on the side.  
• Add a bit of oil in the cooking pot, (which should have a good cover)
• Turn on the heat and then add the beef. 
• Keep turning the beef so the outside looks cooked. 
• Add onions and garlic; continue turning for a few minutes.
• Then add the tomatoes and peppercorns, cover and lower the heat a bit.
• Let it cook for a couple of hours, checking periodically to make sure there's enough liquid. You may need to add some water.

That's it! Very no fuss and extremely healthy. No added sugar or salt is necessary. You can serve it with rice, pasta, vegetables, salad or whatever you like.

Super Easy Yummy Rice Pudding

The very first thing I did was to make a batch of rice. I must admit that it was plain white rice. I then decided to use some of it for Rice Pudding. When the rice was ready I added some brown sugar into a pot, and then milk, vanilla and cinnamon.

I heated the sweet, flavored milk. And then I added rice, covered it and lowered the flame. As soon as it reached a boil, I turned it off and left it covered.  The sweet flavored milk was quickly absorbed by the rice.

It got very good reviews from my husband. And it made the house smell so good!

Sorry, I can't give exact ingredients. I didn't measure.