Way back in May, I wrote about the trials and tribulations of making green salad with shrimp. My favorite version of this salad featured an improvised recipe for spicy pan-seared shrimp. What I didn’t realize was how convenient this method for preparing shrimp would be! This shrimp recipe is quick to prepare and requires little-to-no advance planning.

Why so convenient? I use frozen, peeled shrimp. Pop a handful in a colander and submerge them under running cool water. They’ll thaw in minutes. Insta-protein! And since shrimp are small, they take on the flavors of a marinade quickly and cook in minutes, perfect qualities for impatient cooks like me who are hungry and want to eat half an hour ago.

I love these shrimp in salads, but they would also be great mixed in with stir-fried veggies or served alongside some sesame noodles. And while I haven’t counted the calories, there isn’t a whole lot of added oil or sugar in this recipe, so they’re definitely on the healthy side.  (Full disclosure: They do have a fair bit of salt, which probably accounts for at least some of the tastiness.)

This method (quick marinade and pan-searing) also works great for scallops and cubed chicken.

This recipe has a pan-Asian spin on it, but I’m sure there are other marinades that could work. Maybe garlic, lime juice and jalapeno for a fresh Mex feel? Garlic, red pepper flakes and dry white wine? Are you sensing a theme? This preparation works because the marinade has strong flavors. If you have other marinade ideas, share them in the comments.

If you don’t have sriracha on hand, no matter. You can use your favorite hot sauce or sub in a shake or two of cayenne pepper. The corn starch is also optional, but it helps develop a crunchy crust on the shrimp.

Spicy pan-seared shrimp
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Ingredients:

• 12 large shrimp, peeled
• 1 teaspoon soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon sriracha or other hot sauce to taste
• 1/2 teaspoon cooking wine
• 1 teaspoon cornstarch
• a sprinkle of garlic powder (optional)
• canola or other vegetable oil

Directions:

• If your shrimp are frozen, thaw per directions.
• Prepare marinade by combining soy sauce, sriracha, cooking wine, cornstarch and garlic powder in a medium bowl and stirring well.
• Add thawed shrimp to marinade and stir to coat. Marinate for approximately 20 minutes.
• Heat heavy skillet over medium high heat. Add oil to coat bottom, so shrimp will not stick. Heat until oil begins to shimmer.
• When oil is hot, add shrimp to pan one at a time. Take care to avoid any spattering oil and do not crowd the pan. There should be space around each shrimp, and you should hear the shrimp sizzle as they cook. Do not add the remaining marinade to the pan.
• When the tails of the shrimp begin to look pink, turn the shrimp to brown the other side.  Cook until the second side is browned. This will only take a few minutes.
• Remove shrimp from heat as soon as you are finished cooking, so they don’t grow tough.

Sometimes, all it takes is a little inspiration. After months of moping around eating takeout, I finally found mine roaming the Union Square Greenmarket last Saturday with my dear sister. We didn’t know what we would find, but we knew it would be good. We weren’t disappointed.

Besides the blueberries and strawberries (both awesome, by the way), the main event at the Greenmarket this past weekend was greens. We saw all manner of lettuces, wild and domestic arugula, Swiss chard, purlsane. It was a salad-maker’s dream out there!

Our dinner plans morphed for about twenty minutes as we wandered the market and weighed the possibilities. Should we make a bracing arugula salad? I dallied by the rainbow of Swiss chard for a while, too, but we stopped deliberating when we encountered some enormous bunches of pristine dandelion greens.  I had never tried these before, but had always been curious. What fun!

Once we found our inspiration veggie, the rest of the meal fell into place. We’ve always been fans of beans and greens, so we decided to make pasta with dandelion greens and white beans. While we were wandering about, I bought a bunch of spring garlic on a whim.

Once home, we pulled out a bag of mayacoba beans from Rancho Gordo.  Since we hadn’t presoaked them, we cooked them for about 40 minutes in the pressure cooker because we wanted the beans to be quite soft and creamy.

While the beans were cooking, we washed up the dandelion greens (no small feat — they were quite sandy from all of the recent rain!) and chopped them coarsely. We also minced about half a head of the spring garlic, discarding the tough outer layers and started the pasta water.

Once we took the beans off the heat, the meal came together easily. We sauteed the spring garlic briefly with a teaspoon of dried rosemary in a generous dollop of olive oil over medium heat, then added the dandelion greens. We discarded the bottom third of the leaves for fear they would be too tough.  The greens wilted fairly quickly, but we weren’t shy about cooking them down aggressively, as the stems took quite some time to become tender. While the greens were wilting, we also started cooking a couple of handfuls of gemelli pasta.

When the pressure finished releasing naturally from pressure cooker, we spooned the beans and some of their liquid into the pan with the greens, so their flavors could begin to combine. When the pasta was nearly cooked, we flipped it into the pan to finish cooking with the greens and beans. On a whim, we chopped up a slice of prosciutto and stirred it in, because a little cured pork is always a good thing.  We finished the dish off with the juice of half a lemon and some salt and pepper to taste.

Eating this pasta made me wonder why I had waited so long to get back into the kitchen. So good! The mayacoba beans were creamy, rich, and almost meaty. They were a fantastic pairing for the strong flavored dandelion greens. I was glad that we kept everything else simple. The simple flavor combination of rosemary, garlic and lemon, it just … worked. The flavors were assertive enough to accent the strong flavors of the beans and dandelion greens, but did not compete with them. I thought the prosciutto was a nice addition, but the dish was plenty rich even before we added it, so it was definitely optional.

Lessons? Dandelion greens are tasty, and everyone should try them. And I should cook more often!

Even sadder: It’s finally spring and very nearly summer. There are greenmarkets full of fresh vegetables to eat, if only I were to exert the effort to find them. And wash them. And slice them and dice them. And clean my kitchen after I’m finished eating them.

And suddenly I remember why I’ve been eating takeout lately: Cooking takes effort! And I’m tired!

Now, I know when I started this column way back in January, I was all gung-ho about making quick, easy, healthy foods for myself. But lately, I’ve lost my inspiration. Part of it is force of habit, I’m sure. I typically work until 7 or 8 pm, and honestly, I’m hungry by 6 pm. So I eat in the office cafeteria or order out. On weekends, when I’m not sleeping in until 1, I spend a lot of time running around.  I may be working, traveling out of town, or going out to eat with friends, but I’m not doing much cooking.

As I sit here, my falafel dinner still a rock in my belly three hours later, I am convinced that something has got to give. I’m tired of SeamlessWeb. Tired of palak paneer from Baluchi’s, the Mediterranean salad from Cafe Metro, the tuna mac from that mac-and-cheese-only restaurant near work, the quasi-enchiladas from any “Mexican” restaurant in a 20-block radius from my office, the Cuban-style panini from the French bakery around the corner. I want nothing more to do with any of it!

Of course, when I think about it rationally, I know that I’ll be happier if I cook for myself more often. The food I make is so much healthier than restaurant food. I like the flavors better, and even when I go to my local over-priced grocery, it’s probably still cheaper. And frankly, takeout usually takes 20-30 minutes to arrive at my apartment anyways, so it’s not like I’m saving myself that much time.

Can you help me out, CliqueClackers? Have you any encouraging words? Bright ideas? Challenges? I’m at a loss! What do you do when you’re lacking inspiration in the culinary department?

This week’s inspiration was deliciously ripe mangoes at my local overpriced gourmet grocery. Those sneaky bastards strategically placed a little plate with cubes of yellow mango right in my line of sight, and when I took the bait and tried a bite, I was done for. For serious, these mangoes were perfect. So, of course I had to buy one. The baby mâche looked nice this week, as did those cute little Kirby cucumbers. And the radicchio. (Note to self:  I really need to stop shopping hungry.)

Fast forward to dinnertime. I decided that it might be nice to prepare a salad with an Asian twist. But this salad was harder to perfect than I originally anticipated. It took two tries to get it right.

Take one:  I prepared my greens (mâche, radicchio and pea shoots), diced my mango, and sliced up some other veggies (this time, cucumber, radish and sugar snap peas), then boiled some frozen edamame and shrimp for protein. I made a very simple dressing with seasoned rice vinegar, sesame oil, sriracha and a bit of soy sauce. Toss and serve. And to be frank? While filling and perfectly acceptable, this salad was totally meh. It didn’t have much punch or character and maybe was a little too sweet. The salad needed more contrast, more sharp flavors to counteract the sweetness of the mango and the mâche.

Take two:  This time, I marinated the shrimp in a mixture of soy sauce, sriracha and seasoned rice vinegar, with just a bit of garlic powder for about 15 minutes and then sauteed them in a hot non-stick pan until just browned on both sides, about 5-7 minutes. I also revised the dressing, using only a tiny bit of sesame oil for flavor and substituting toasted walnut oil. I also added a healthy spoonful of whole grain mustard. The other ingredients were the same.

And my, what a difference. The shrimp took center stage in this version of the salad. They were salty, spicy and crisp on the outside, providing necessary balance for the soft, sweet mango. Adding the mustard to the dressing gave it some bite, which played against the mild greens and the sweetness of the mango, cucumbers and sugar snap peas. The salad went from bland to flavorful and invigorating with only a couple of changes. I think it would be even better with some more bitter greens to the added to mix, like escarole or frisee. Yum!

I started writing this post two weeks ago, before a deal ate my life.  But I still remember this salad.  That’s good, right?

Between working a lot and traveling weekends these past few weeks, I have spent next to no time in my kitchen. (Though I’ll admit the enormous pile of dirty pots and pans in my kitchen didn’t help either!) When I discovered myself at home with some time on my hands this past weekend, I decided a spring celebration for one was in order.

Spring has finally sprung in NYC in a serious way. After months of incessant rainy, chilly weather, this weekend brought highs of nearly 90 degrees. Thanks for easing us into it, weather gods. Much obliged. With the weather so hot, I was craving a beautiful spring salad to eat on my balcony (read: fire escape) with a glass of white wine after my scheduled late afternoon bike ride.

My local overpriced gourmet grocery always has unfamiliar produce on hand, and this weekend was no exception. This time, a package of celery sprouts caught my eye. I also grabbed some frisee, radishes, baby carrots (the real thing, with stems still attached, not baby-cut carrots) and sugar snap peas, and some dill and green onions to make a proper dressing.

I prepared my ingredients in advance, so they would be ready and chilled when dinnertime rolled around. It took less than  an hour total to toast and boil some pearled barley, wash my greens, make a vinaigrette and slice up the other veggies. Time well spent, in the end, as I made two meals worth of the ingredients! (I also poached some fish to go with, but it wasn’t anything to write home about… so I won’t.)  When the weather finally cooled off to a relatively temperate 80-something degrees, I set out, knowing that I had the makings of a fine meal waiting for me when I returned home at dusk.

I ended up making this salad two ways. On Sunday, after my sweaty, dehydrating bike ride, I ate my salad well chilled with a glass of dry Muscadet. And it was as refreshing and spring-like as I had hoped it would be. The chewy toasted barley was a lovely foil to the sprightly frisee and radishes and the sweet carrots and peas. The celery sprouts were a nice addition — they tasted strongly of celery, oddly enough, so I was glad to have the sturdier frisee with which to pair them. I wouldn’t serve the celery sprouts and frisee together on their own, but they did serve as an elegant and sturdy foundation for my salad.

When I left work  the following Monday, the heat of the weekend had already dissolved into rainy, bone-chilling day.  This time, I decided to warm my salad gently and wilt the greens a little bit in a non-stick pan.  The barley was even more toasty, if that’s even possible, and the gentle heat mellowed whatever sharp corners the frisee and celery sprouts might have had. I added a thick shaving of romano cheese to finish it off, which added a welcome richness to the salad.

The coup de grace both days, though, was the dill vinaigrette. There was something about the dill — it’s aroma  bloomed when combined with a bit of green onions, white balsamic vinegar and olive oil and a little mustard to tie things together. The dill and green onion combination could stand up to the greens, but it wasn’t so strong that it overpowered any of the other salad components. Having a nice dressing really made this salad shine.

After a few days of client meetings, complete with hurried lunches over piles of documents and one too many conference room cookies, I wanted nothing more than to eat a home-cooked meal at my leisure over a glass of wine. Sometimes, enough is enough!

As I walked toward the subway, the damp early spring chill inspired me. A chunky pan tomato sauce with sausage, served over … polenta! And a pile of greens on the side. Warming, satisfying comfort food.

By a great stroke of luck, I pass by Grand Central Market on my way to the subway, a small market with a variety of food counters. Not the most frugal of grocery shopping, to be sure, but the quality’s better than most NYC supermarkets. First stop was Ceriello, where I picked up two broccoli rabe and fresh mozzarella sausage, the main attraction in my sauce. Next was Murray’s Cheese, where I picked up a wedge of pecorino romano and (inspired by Bob) some fresh mozzarella balls. On my way out the door, I grabbed a green pepper, some parsley and a bunch of broccolini from the vegetable stand.

Once I got home, this meal took about 40 minutes to put together, from the time I uncorked my bottle of red to the time I sat down to eat. The strong flavors in the sausage gave the otherwise simple tomato sauce some serious oomph, so be sure to choose a sausage you like! The polenta absorbed the flavors of the sauce quickly and was surprisingly filling. I liked the mozzarella balls in the the sauce, but it would have worked well without, too.

I served my polenta with a pile of broccolini sauteed in a bit of olive oil and garlic. Spinach, broccoli rabe or even broccoli would have been excellent, too. And while I’m sure that the meal probably would have been better with real polenta, the instant variety was perfectly acceptable, especially when served with a hearty sauce.

Polenta with sausage tomato sauce

Ingredients:

• 1/2 lb. sausage (I used broccoli rabe and fresh mozzarella sausage.)
• 28 oz. can diced tomatoes, partially drained
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 green pepper, sliced
• 1 small onion, diced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/4 cup parsley, chopped (divided)
• 1/8 lb. fresh mozzarella
• 1/4 c. polenta (I used instant)
• grated pecorino romano cheese

Directions:

• Parboil the sausages: Place sausages in a skillet and cover with water. Cover skillet and bring to a boil over high heat, then let simmer over medium heat for 10 minutes. Pierce the skin of the sausages with a knife to release some of the fat while they are simmering. Then drain the water from the skillet and slice the sausage into 1/2 inch slices.
• Prepare your vegetables for the sauce while the sausage is cooking.
• Prepare the sauce: Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat.  Add olive oil. When the olive oil starts to shimmer, add sliced sausage and cook until the sausage begins to brown, about five minutes.  Add the onions, garlic and green peppers and cook until the onions and peppers begin to soften, about five minutes more. Add the tomatoes and 1/2 of the parsley and lower heat to medium. Be sure to scrape the browned sausage from the bottom of the pan! Cook until the liquid has reduced to a thick sauce, about 10 to 15 minutes, stirring every few minutes.  Add salt and pepper to taste. Just before serving, add mozzarella balls and the remaining parsley.
• Cook the polenta:  Since I was feeling lazy, I cooked up some instant polenta. I toasted it in a drizzle of olive oil until fragrant, then added boiling water per the instructions on the box. The polenta was ready in less than five minutes.
• Serve:  Spoon a generous serving of sauce over your polenta and grate cheese over the top.  Serves two.

The weather was damp and chilly for much of this past weekend in New York, and I craved homey, comforting food all weekend. The clouds left me feeling particularly lazy, so I didn’t feel like putting in much effort, either. The sweet potatoes in my pantry caught my eye at lunchtime. Mashed sweet potatoes could certainly satisfy my yen for comfort food! And cooked in the microwave, they wouldn’t take more than five or ten minutes to prepare from start to finish. Perfect!

I’ll admit that sweet potatoes cooked whole in the microwave leave something to be desired by way of texture. Here, we use the microwave to steam the cubed sweet potato briefly — it’s really no different than steaming or boiling the sweet potato on the stove. The softened cubes mash easily with a fork without becoming gummy. The method is quick and convenient, and if you mash the sweet potatoes in the bowl, you safe yourself from dirtying a pot!

I dressed up my sweet potato with the zest of a Meyer lemon and a drizzle of maple syrup. The lemon zest brightens the flavors nicely, and the wee bit of maple syrup lends some sweetness without an overpowering maple flavor. A pat of butter adds richness and a smooth mouth feel.

These potatoes would be great with leftover chicken or pork, especially with a side of greens.

Easy Microwave Sweet Potatoes for One

Ingredients:

• 1 medium sweet potato
• 1 lemon
• 1/2 teaspoon butter
• 2 teaspoons maple syrup
• salt

Directions:

• Peel sweet potato and cut into 1/2 inch cubes.
• Place sweet potato in small bowl with 1 tablespoon water.
• Cover and microwave for 3-5 minutes, until sweet potato is fork-tender. Leave the water in the bowl.
• Grate zest of one small lemon over cooked sweet potato and squeeze in juice of 1/2 of a lemon, or to taste.  Add butter and a pinch of salt.
• Mash sweet potatoes roughly with a fork.
• Finish with a drizzle of maple syrup.

Debbie says that her gourmet mesclun salad is the world’s easiest. And don’t get me wrong, it looks quite easy. But my salad greens are even easier. I’d be shocked if it took five minutes to put them together, ten if you’re washing and tearing up the greens yourself.

But let me back up a second. Have I mentioned that I’m an unabashed salad dressing snob? ‘Cause I am. Given the choice between a bottle of salad dressing and nothing, I might well eat my lettuce plain. It seems such a shame to adulterate perfectly good greens with Xanthan gum, Disodium Guanlyate and Calcium Disodium EDTA.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. All you need is some lovely greens, some oil, vinegar, salt and pepper, and an oversized bowl. Tastiness is only a few tosses away. By now, I can guess what you’re thinking: “News flash, Molly, everyone knows you can have salad greens with vinegar and oil.” And it’s true. But I’m here to tell you that dressing your salad with oil and vinegar is just as easy and so much tastier than using bottled salad dressing, when you use the right ingredients.

Choose whatever fresh greens your grocer or farm stand has available, or whatever will go best with your meal. Your greens can be mild (like butter lettuce), crisp (think romaine), peppery (arugula comes to mind) or even a bit bitter (like escarole). Mix several types. Toss in some coarsely chopped herbs (like parsley, dill or even cilantro). The sky’s the limit. If you’ve bought a head of lettuce, now’s the time to tear it into bite-sized pieces, wash it and spin it dry.

Next, choose your oil. My personal favorites are an aromatic extra virgin olive oil or a cold-pressed walnut oil, but you could use a drizzle of sesame oil, almond oil, grapeseed oil or any other aromatic oil that strikes your fancy. Since this salad dressing doesn’t have a lot of ingredients, you can really taste the flavors in the oil.

Pick a nice vinegar, too. I recommend white balsamic: it has a sweet note and isn’t too acidic. Red or white wine vinegar, unfiltered cider vinegar and seasoned rice vinegar are also great. Sherry vinegar is a bit strong, but works if you don’t use too much. I wouldn’t suggest using typical balsamic vinegar. It’s too strong and tends to overwhelm the delicate flavor of the greens (and one’s tastebuds, for that matter).  I like to pair cider vinegar with walnut oil, rice vinegar with sesame oil and white balsamic vinegar with just about anything.

And that’s it. Find a big bowl, drizzle some oil and vinegar in the bottom (just a splash of each), add the greens, and then drizzle some more oil and vinegar over the top in a roughly 50-50 ratio.  (Start slow; you can always add more.)  Sprinkle a generous pinch of salt or two (I like coarse kosher salt here) and freshly ground pepper over the top of the greens and then gently toss them. Pull a leaf from the bowl and taste it–it should be lightly dressed but not soggy. If the salad is tart, add a bit more oil. If the oil is too prominent, add some more vinegar. If it’s too dry, add more of both!

There are more complicated homemade salad dressings out there. But this is easy (almost too easy!), and SO MUCH BETTER than the chemical nastiness you find at the grocery store. And it lends itself to fun experimentation, too. Do you have a favorite way to eat your salad greens?

Great Vegetarian Cooking Under Pressure piqued my interest in heirloom beans, in particular.  Not that there’s anything wrong with the bag of Goya black beans from the supermarket, of course. I just wanted to see what all of the fuss was about! So I sucked it up and ordered a couple of bags of beans from Rancho Gordo.

I’ll be honest. Beautiful as those beans were, they mocked me from my pantry for several weeks before I got around to trying them out. Dried beans may be inexpensive, healthy and delicious, but they do require advance planning. And advance planning is hard! But one Thursday night not too long ago, I decided it was time to try the beans out. So I grabbed a bag of white tepary beans from the cabinet, rinsed and sorted them (to look for any rocks or dirt) and set them to soak overnight in plenty of cold water. I soaked the whole bag. No messing around with a cup of dried beans for me, no sir. If I was going to go to the trouble of making soup, I was going to make a potful!

When dinnertime rolled around on Friday night, I didn’t exactly have a plan. But I did have a cabbage. And some potatoes. So I cruised the internet for ideas.  101 Cookbooks’ Rustic Cabbage Soup inspired, but I had two problems:  First, my beans were dried (though soaked), not canned, and second, I was hungry as all get-out. Solution? Pressure cooker!

I brought the beans to pressure (with several inches of water and a splash of olive oil) in my cooker, and then cooked them for 8 minutes, then removed them from the heat and let the pressure come down naturally for a while (which is supposed to preserve the beans’ skins). In the meantime, I sliced up half a cabbage and some carrots and onions, cubed my potatoes and diced some garlic. When my veggies were ready to go, I released the remaining pressure from the cooker, opened it up, and stirred in my pile of veggies, together with about a teaspoon of caraway seeds and a tablespoon of veggie better than bullion. Then I brought the pressure cooker up to pressure again for two minutes and released the pressure quickly under cold water in my sink.

And that was it! Well, maybe I added some salt and pepper to taste. Before serving, I stirred in about a teaspoon of cider vinegar to brighten up the flavors a bit, then drizzled on some olive oil and grated parmesan, served with a crusty roll from The Vinegar Factory. Total time to table, about 40 minutes.  (You could surely accomplish this without the pressure cooker — the beans would probably take around 60-90 minutes to cook, and you could add the veggies in for the last 10 minutes of cooking or so.)

This soup is mild and comforting, great for the last winter nights of March. The tepary beans are fantastic — creamy, soft and sweet and highly recommended. Any white bean would serve in this recipe, though dried beans will probably hold up better than canned.  It’s hard to argue with the age-old combo of cabbage and potatoes, either. But perhaps the best part is the three containers of soup I have hanging out in my freezer for the next time I come home from work tired and hungry. Doesn’t soup always taste better heated up the next time?

This oatmeal is almost decadent. The oats have such a creamy feel in your mouth, and the nutty, toasty flavor of the toasted oats and butter permeates the whole dish. While my overnight oats are puffy, these are much more toothsome. Very satisfying on a cold winter’s morning. I like to add a handful of raisins along with the milk and some walnuts and a generous sprinkling of cinnamon on top at the end, which makes for a hearty, healthy breakfast.

Toasty Steel Cut Oatmeal

Adapted from ajh, in turn adapted from Alton Brown.

Ingredients:

• 1 part steel cut or Scottish oats
• 3 parts water
• butter
• salt
• milk (soy/rice/almond milk would work fine, too)

Directions:

• Melt butter in saucepan over low heat. Add oats to pot and toast, stirring often and taking care not to burn the oats.
• Meanwhile, bring water to a boil.
• When oats are nutty brown and fragrant (~5 minutes), add water to pot. Be careful of spattering water.
• Reduce heat to low and cook, covered, ~10-15 minutes.  Do not stir.
• Uncover, add a splash of milk, and cook for ~5 more minutes, stirring occasionally, or until oats are tender.
• Serve.

For all of my crowing about the convenience of getting breakfast started the night before, these oats really aren’t that much more complicated or time consuming than my recipe. The toasting process at the beginning means they cook much faster. And since they cook essentially unattended for several minutes, I can use the time to make my coffee, empty the dishwasher or pack my bag for the day. I’ve used ajh’s recipe more than a few times since he sent it my way, and I’ve always been pleased with the result. I’m happy to have it in my repertoire!

I know what your thinking: “Honey, please. Dried legumes take forever to cook. Don’t tell me you thought to soak dried beans overnight the night before.” Would you kindly quit rolling your eyes and pay attention for a moment, please? Red lentils are so very tasty, and you can have them on your dinner table in under 30 minutes with no advance planning.

Red lentils cook very quickly because they are both split and hulled. Think of your basic brown lentil, split in half with its skin removed. Without their skins, these bad boys cook to tenderness in 10-15 minutes.

I’m no expert in Indian cuisine, but I do love me some dal. It’s soft and flavorful and so very satisfying served over basmati rice. Since I was looking for a quick meal, I used a spice blend called Chana Dal masala from MDH (caution — noisy link), which I picked up on my most recent visit to Kalustyan’s.  (It’s available at many Indian markets.) Though I substituted red lentils for chana dal (a small split chick pea), I otherwise followed the recipe on the back of the box of masala. The tomatoes from the recipe really play well together with the coriander and cumin from the spice blend, and the chili pepper makes things just spicy enough to be interesting.

I served my lentils with brown basmati rice that I baked in the oven – a fantastic trick (even if it does take an hour).  Delicious!

Red Lentil Dal

(adapted from MDH)

Ingredients:

• 1 cup red lentils
• 3 cups water
• 2 tablespoons cooking oil
• 1 small onion, diced
• 1 cup tomato, diced
• 1 1/2 tablespoons Chana Dal masala spice mix

Directions:

• Combine lentils and water in a medium saucepan and bring to a simmer.  Cook 10-15 minutes, until tender
• Meanwhile, heat large pan over medium high heat, add oil and heat until it shimmers.  Reduce heat to medium and add onions to pan, stirring infrequently, until onions are golden brown.
• Add tomatoes and Chana Dal masala to pan and stir over medium heat for 4-5 minutes.
• Add half of boiled dal to pan and mix with spice paste.
• Return dal to boiled dal and stir to combine.
• Adjust seasoning to taste and simmer for five minutes more, then serve over rice.

There are plenty of convenient breakfast foods to choose from, but a bowl of cereal or a muffin leaves me cold, particularly in wintertime. And if I eat a bowl of instant oatmeal, I’ll usually find myself hungry again in an hour. Not cool!

Steel cut oats, on the other hand, really stick to your ribs.  I ate mine at 8:30 this morning, and I’m still going strong three hours later. They feature plenty of soluble fiber. Their texture is much more interesting than instant, or even Quaker Old-Fashioned, oats. The only downside? They take around 40 minutes to cook. What’s a girl to do?

For a while, I tried cooking oats a week at a time and heating them up in the morning. That worked well enough, but I found that the oats were rather dry when I reheated them, and lost much of their bite. No, I want freshly cooked oats, and I don’t want to get up 30 minutes early to have them, either. What a dilemma!

The answer to this thorny question is pre-cooking the oats the night before.  Bring the oats and the cooking liquid to a boil the night before and set a cover on the pot, and the oats will be mostly cooked by morning. Then, they take but five minutes to warm up on the stove. If you’re conserving dishes, you can even eat them straight from the pot.

If I’m going to the trouble of cooking a hot meal for breakfast, I like to dress it up a bit. I usually cook my oats with soy milk and water for some added protein and a nice, creamy texture. I like to add fruit and freshly ground flax seeds (yay omega 3 fatty acids!), too. And maybe a few walnuts or almonds. But these oats are perfectly tasty on their own, too. And, to my mind, totally worth a few minutes of preparation the night before.

(Relatively) convenient steel cut oatmeal

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup steel-cut oats (toasted if desired)
• 1 cup water or milk
• optional additions:
  • salt to taste
  • sugar/honey/brown sugar to taste
  • cinnamon
  • 1/2 cup fruit (e.g., apples, fresh berries, thawed frozen fruit, dried fruit)
  • ground flax seeds
  • 2 tablespoons nuts (e.g., almonds, walnuts)

Directions:

• If desired, toast oats carefully over medium heat in a small saucepan until fragrant, about five minutes.
• Add 1 cup of water or milk to saucepan. Any combination of water, milk or soy (or other) milk will do. I use 1/2 cup soy milk + 1/2 cup water.
• Bring oats to a low boil over medium high heat. If using milk or soy milk, watch carefully, as the milk will foam and boil over.  Turn off burner.
• Cover saucepan and let sit overnight or for several hours.
• Reheat over medium heat, stirring occasionally, about five minutes.
• Serve plain, or with fruit and nuts.

If you’re going to have any chance in hell of putting together a decent meal when you come home from work tired, hungry and cranky, you had best stock your pantry wisely. I was inspired by this article by Mark Bittman at the New York Times last month to restock my woeful, bare cupboard, and man, what a difference! Instead of poking around the corners of my echoing refrigerator and shaking the last grains of couscous from a two-year-old box when I was inspired to cook, I now have the staples I need to feed myself, even when I don’t have time to shop.  More on setting up your pantry after the jump.

In some respects, the need for a pantry is obvious. If we had to go to the grocery store to buy every ingredient we need to cook a meal, cooking would be an all day affair. Having common nonperishables near at hand allows for creativity and spontaneity and frees the cook from the four corners of the recipe card.

Setting up your pantry is a very personal matter. Our own Isabelle wrote recently on setting up her kitchen, and I’m sure she’ll have new ideas as she develops her cooking style. 101cookbooks’ Heidi Swanson writes about her natural foods pantry. I’m sure you have your own go-to items that make cooking easier.

For me, a few must-haves come to mind:

• onions
• garlic
• carrots and celery
• canned tomatoes
• frozen veggies (particularly spinach, broccoli and edamame)
• quick cooking grains, like couscous, bulgur and quinoa
• pasta
• Better than Bullion, which is far tastier than most canned broths
• canned tuna
• canned garbanzo beans and black beans
• tofu in aseptic packaging
• dried lentils and split peas (which cook in a flash)
• oils (olive and canola)
• vinegars (sherry, white balsamic, cider, seasoned rice)
• bottled lemon juice (yes, fresh lemons are better, but when you only cook once a week, they spoil!)
• soy sauce
• Chinese cooking wine
• red and white wine
• tomato paste in a tube
• tasty dried herbs (oregano, rosemary, thyme and dill)
• favorite spices (for me, cumin, coriander, cinnamon, cloves and cayenne pepper)
• olives
• capers
• nuts (like almonds, walnuts and pine nuts)
• Parmesan cheese

This list is anything but exhaustive, but even these foods are versatile.  With just these items, I can throw together a pasta dish with spinach, tuna, capers and pine nuts, seasoned with lemon juice, olive oil and Parmesan cheese, make a tofu and broccoli stir fry to serve over bulgur or quinoa, or throw together a quick lentil soup, all without running out to the store. And my horizons widen exponentially if I stop at the market for fresh veggies and meat. Add some ground turkey and some bell peppers to your canned beans, tomatoes and spices, and you have the fixings for a quick chili. Buy some chicken thighs, peppers and squash, and you have what it takes to make a mean chicken cacciatore.

Given my lifestyle, my cupboards are heavy on “convenience” foods–unprocessed foods that cook relatively quickly but still taste like something. What staples are indispensible in your pantry?

I returned to work after a week’s vacation yesterday … and returned home at 11:20 p.m.  Neither the cafeteria’s pedestrian offerings (yawn!) nor the too-rich restaurant food on SeamlessWeb appealed when suppertime rolled around tonight.  So I had a snack and resolved to cook when I came home.

After a week of eating lots of too fried, too sweet, too starchy foods, I was craving something simple and light.  And easy.  My solution?  Edamame!

Edamame (or soy beans, for the uninitiated) are a fantastically convenient source of protein — we’re talking 8 grams of protein per 1/2 cup here, people.  The parboiled, frozen variety boils up in five minutes.  For serious.  They’re perfectly tasty on their own, boiled in salted water and seasoned with a little soy sauce, seasoned rice vinegar, sherry and sesame oil.

I decided to pair my edamame with some sticky rice and green veggies.  I started up a pot of rice in my trusty rice cooker with some veggie bullion base for extra flavor.  I boiled the veggies and edamame in water on the stove as the rice was finishing up.  The resulting rice bowl was just what I craved: a filling, nutritious meal, simple enough for late night eating and ready in 30 minutes.  If I had been lucky enough to have leftover rice, it would have taken 10.

Edamame and veggie rice bowl

Ingredients:

• 2/3 cups cooked short grain white rice (see directions below)
• Better than Bullion vegetable stock base (optional)
• 1/2 cup frozen, shelled edamame
• 1/2 cup frozen broccoli florets
• 1/2 cup frozen cut green beans
• 1 teaspoon soy sauce (approx.)
• 2 teaspoons seasoned rice vinegar (approx.)
• 1/2 teaspoon Shaoxing cooking wine (or sherry) (approx.)
• sesame oil
• salt

Directions:

Rice:

• Cook rice per instructions on container in a rice cooker or on stove.  I used 1.5 cups rice and 2 cups cold water for my Nishiki Sushi Rice.
• If desired, add 1 teaspoon bullion base (or 1 bullion cube) for every 2 cups of water.
• Cook enough rice for several days of leftovers, if you wish.
• Short grain white rice will take about 20 minutes to cook.

Veggies:

• Bring 2 cups of salted water to a boil in a small saucepan.
• Measure 1/2 cup each of frozen edamame, frozen broccoli florets and frozen cut green beans.
• When rice is nearly cooked, add edamame and vegetables to boiling water and cook for 3-5 minutes, until edamame are tender and vegetables are just cooked.
• Add cold water to saucepan to stop the cooking process and drain.

Assemble:

• Combine 2/3 cups cooked rice with drained edamame and vegetables in a single serving bowl.
• Add soy sauce, rice vinegar and cooking wine to taste.
• Drizzle sesame oil over rice bowl and serve.

Substitutions:

• Substitute pearled barley for half of the short grain white rice.
• Try other frozen vegetables, e.g., peas, spinach or cauliflower.  If vegetables have different cooking times, add to boiling water from longest cooking time to shortest.
• Use fresh vegetables, if you have them. These can be steamed in the microwave instead of boiled.

I love food. I love to cook. I love concocting never-before-seen meals inspired by gorgeous produce from the Greenmarket or my mother’s garden. I love serving dinner to friends and family. I love reading cookbooks and food blogs and recipe sites. I love the smell of bread baking in my oven and onions and garlic sauteing in olive oil. I love mixing vinaigrettes, stir frying veggies, even dicing onions. Spending time in a kitchen (even my back pocket of a NYC kitchen) makes me happy.

So, I am distressed: My cupboard is all but bare, and I rarely cook anymore, even when I ostensibly have the time to do so. These days, I eat most of my meals in my Big Law employer’s cafeteria. And on those rare days when I am home in time for dinner, you will often find me ordering out.

It was not always so. I grew up at my mother’s hip in the kitchen, learning to disregard recipes, taste frequently and cut towards my thumb. I would take my turns at the stove for family meals as a cranky teenager. I kept a sourdough starter in college. I managed to throw lively dinner parties during law school.

I have lacked both the opportunity and the motivation to cook for myself since I moved to New York. But fear not, gentle reader. Despite my absurd clients and my pervasive sloth, the take-out offerings near my Yorkville have started to taste, well, mediocre. So I am planning eating adventures and polishing my repertoire of convenient meals, all of which I hope to share with you. Like the ridiculously easy, nutritious bulgur recipe below, which is made entirely from nonperishable food items you can keep in your pantry.

Microwave Bulgur for One

Ingredients:

All measurements are approximate.

• 1/4 cup bulgur
• 1/2 teaspoon tomato paste
• 1/2 teaspoon chicken or vegetable “Better than Bullion” and 1/2 cup boiling water

- or -

1/2 boiling chicken or veggie broth

• 1 generous pinch cumin seeds (optional)
• ~ 6 oz. firm silken tofu, finely cubed (about 1/2 of the aseptic tofu packages from the refrigerator case. I like Mori-Nu.)
• 1/2 cup frozen chopped spinach (or other frozen veggies)
• 2 tablespoons pine nuts (optional)
• salt, pepper and lemon juice to taste

Directions:

• Boil water or broth.
• Measure bulgur, tomato paste, bullion and cumin seeds, if desired, into a soup bowl.
• Add boiling water or broth to bowl and stir until tomato paste and bullion are dissolved.
• Add cubed tofu and spinach and stir to combine.
• Cover bowl and cook on high in microwave for 5 minutes (or bring these ingredients to a boil in a small saucepan, then cover).
• Let stand, covered, for about 20 minutes, or until most of the liquid is absorbed and bulgur is tender.
• If bulgur is still chewy after 20 minutes, microwave for 2 minutes on high and let stand for 5 minutes longer.
• Add salt, pepper and lemon juice to taste, and pine nuts, if desired.