Hummus with Tomato and Kalamata Olive Garnish

The grey cottage had its share of decadent holiday food over the past week. It was a wonderful food fest, but yesterday and today SB and I have been stepping back from all the cookies, drinks, and rich leftovers. Yesterday afternoon, lunch was nothing more than hummus, pita chips or tortilla chips and a cold beer. Today, it was chicken and red lentil soup with oyster crackers and glasses of Vouvray. Simple and far more austere than the past week !

Simple Garlic Hummus

Ingredients:

1 -15 oz can chickpeas, drained and simmered for twenty minutes

1/4 c. lemon juice

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/4 c. water from hot pan of chickpeas

1/3 c. tahini

1/8 tsp. smoked paprika

1/2 tsp. ground cumin

a pinch cayenne pepper

2 tbsp. EVOO, plus a bit more for drizzling over the garnishes

Garnishes: chopped tomato, chopped Kalamata olives

Place the ingredients in the bowl of a food processor and whiz until smooth as butter ... scrape into a pretty plate or bowl. Serve with choice of dippers ( tortilla chips, pita chips, GF crackers or crudité). Pop a beer and enjoy.

Happy New Year, all ! Hope you, too, have some healthy snacks amongst all the heavy cheesy snacks and sweet desserts that come our way at this time of year !

Staten Island Style Cod

This is a beautiful and spicy platter of cod fillet ! Years ago, I picked up the South Beach Diet Cookbook and went through most of the recipes. This recipe, while written for Chilean Sea Bass, adapts really well to Atlantic Cod.  Silent Bob and I have been going meatless increasingly, as we age and as we read more and more how the agriculture of the meat industry is wrecking the environment and the quality of lives of  'the crop'. To boot, sea stocks are increasingly overfished and harmed by the increase in fish farming ... aargh! It seems we humans need to sit back on our heels and really think about what we eat, how we produce it, and how much we consume. That's a whole book of ranting, though.

I haven't bought fish in weeks and it is my birthday week. This platter of fish was my gift to myself. Easy, very spicy, but freshened up by the addition of chopped fresh herbs and lemon. This is how I did it.

Sue Moran's Buttermilk Doughnut Bundt

Baking a good cake is always such a pleasure! I knew from the moment I saw Sue Moran's latest Bundt cake over on her blog, The View From Great Island that I would be making it for my little church's Sunday fellowship hour. So, that's just what I did this past Saturday.

Summer Vegetable Quiche

The other day, I made this homage to late summer. This quiche has all the usual suspects from a late summer garden - zucchini, green pepper, onion, tomato, basil and oregano. Before long, we'll be looking back at the days of full counters and wishing for that squash and all those tomatoes! This particular quiche went with me to my book group luncheon and joined a bountiful counter top buffet of soup and rolls, chicken Caesar salad, fruit crisp, and cookies. We DO eat well when we gather to chat up our books!

Red Lentils and Peppers

Late summer here and I'm beginning to have a hankering for soups, stews, and slurries, but the reality of all the garden produce that is stacked up on counters and chilling in the fridge cannot be ignored. So this evening super chilled cucumber fast pickle cools the palate between bites of this simple lentil/pepper slurry on a bed of caraway rice.

Quinoa and Spinach Salad with Almonds and Sun-Dried Tomatoes

This very easy salad came together in the heat of that oppressive day we had this week ... the first really hot day of springtime here in New England. The recipe comes from a summer line-up of terrific side dishes posted at a food blog called COOKIE + kate.  You can follow Kate's recipe to the letter or do what I did. I used double the spinach, added lemon zest, and slivers of basil in my version.

It was a delicious way of using the first picking of our spinach greens and the basil that I topped out of my plants so that they'd fill out a bit and not bolt to blossoms and seeds. This salad was perfect sitting on the plate beside a pan-seared salmon filet. Add a glass of super chilled Sauvignon blanc and it was a super summery supper. Say THAT three times fast !

The recipe makes a large amount of quinoa mixture - enough for two hungry people to have the salad as a side dish and enough for bowls of the quinoa/tomato/almond mix the next day for easy lunch. An easy way to serve is to plate the amount of spinach you would like and add a serving of quinoa mix over top each serving. Save the rest of the fresh greens for leftover lunch or second servings.

An Easy Little Coffeecake and Comment on 'The Yankee Way'

Housekeeping - On Comments

Spamming bloggers is such a disrespectful tactic for attempting to get your message or advertisement, or scam attached to a blog address.  I have been inundated with 'Anonymous ' comments over the last year or so on The Spice Garden. I responded long ago by placing a policy statement that appears at the end of each post. It clearly says that I don't print comments made by folks who are unwilling to identify themselves.  This saves me from being the target of folks who want to sell, attach themselves to my followers, poke a virus into my posts, etc etc etc.

So, if you are one of my anonymous spammers, please re-think your tactics. And if you are someone poking around the food blogs and wish to make an honest point about something you've read in one of the posts, suck it up and enter your name and the required information in the comment form. I edit my 'comments awaiting moderation'. You stand a better chance of entering the conversation on the blog by identifying yourself. If you don't, your comments are relegated to the spam folder. Sorry, but that's my policy.

Now ... back to cooking and posting.

Cazuela Cauliflower with Tomatoes, Raisins, and Pinenuts

An easy vegetarian offering for dinner last evening - our Meatless Monday routine. I haven't used my cazuela in a good long time and when I thought about trying to get perfectly browned cauliflower slices, the large surface area of my cazuela came to mind. It's slow to heat up, but when it gets hot it holds the heat and browns anything perfectly without sticking. While the dish finished in the oven, I made steamed rice with lemon zest and parsley to have with ... easy and delish.

Chicken, Castelvetranos, and Capers

The week after Easter is always about the ham leftovers and the ham bone, and believe you me, SB and I have had our fair share of ham on Sunday and Monday. It's Tuesday now and we have need of a change on the plate! We departed the leftover menu and headed to Italy for a change of pace.

French Canadian Tourtière with Gravy

This weather in the Northeast has been a rollercoaster, to say the least! Between ultra low temps, blinding snow, and the latest cruel twist (a rapid melt off and torrential rains), we Yankees don't know whether to dig out the seed catalogues and get happy or roll ourselves up in our blankets and hibernate for the next two months !

Crisped Cauliflower Salad with Citrus and Aromatics

Happy New Year, folks ! More veggies and less meat is what I say for 2018! Here's my first platter of salad. A warm salad of crisped cauliflower slices, shallots, rosemary, garlic, red pepper flakes, orange zest, flat leaf parsley, toasted hazelnuts, and a drizzle of olive oil and orange juice over top to finish it.