Return of haricot-verte

Tangy, quick, healthy.

Ingredients -
1/2 stick of unsalted butter
1 tbsp of olive oil
1 medium sized lemon
12 oz haricot verte bag x 2
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Preparation -

Boiled water, salted it, added beans, let them boil for few minutes. Drained water, pot back on heat. Drained beans were run under cold water.

Skinned the lemon. Made slices and added them to butter and olive oil mixture. This makes the tangy syrup that will eventually coat the beans. Toss in the beans and make sure the syrup gets on each and every one of them. A pair of tongs with some serious twists of the wrists do it. Salt and very freshly ground pepper completed the dish.

To bring down its health index a notch or two, served the beans finally with roasted onions. This dish is here to stay.

Quick corn chowder

I have never cooked chowder in my lifetime. But my tastebuds yearned for a healthy homecooked version. The 4 corn cobs at the food mart were pleading to be cooked, pleading to be chosen over frozen brotheren of theirs.





Ingredients-

• 4 sweet white corn cobs
• 2 tbsp salted butter
• 1 large green bell pepper
• 3/4 cup regular milk

Spices and condiments-
Black pepper, Paprika and Salt





Preparations-

1. Add butter to a hot saucepan. I added 1 tbsp and some cut corn and then when the rest of the corn was ready to go in, I added the next tablesoon.











Cut corn looks like this. To cut corn, slice off its narrow end to give it a flat top. Then, rest it on its flat end and then run your knife along its sides. The corns fly out all sides, so mind you, there will be a mess.










2. Added corn and some cut bell peppers to the butter and sauted until the corn covers looked a little crispy. Added my spices - crushed black pepper and paprika. Add sugar if the corn isn't very sweet to begin with. Little less salt if the butter used is salted. I also added milk to this mixture and let it boil 3 times before I let it thicken uncovered while it simmered.

I divided up this soup in 2 large glasses. One glass' contents I consumed this afternoon for lunch with a side of raisin bread. I would suggest a ciabata slice instead. Letting the corns shallow fry in the butter let them retain their crunch. Using fresh corn instead of frozen corn also lent itself to a crunchier dish.

Invention IV- Asian Avtar of Potato Salad

Ingredients-

Baked potatoes

Raw but finely cut onions

Cilantro

Toasted Sesame seeds

Parsley

Fennel powder

Fresh lemon juice to taste

Salt and Sugar to taste

For the dressing - 

Plum sauce(found in 'ethnic food' aisle or Asian Markets)

Toasted Sesame seed oil

How to-

After potatoes are baked in microwave, peel, dice and add to a mixing bowl. Add all the dry ingredients except for the sesame seeds. Add in the dressing and mix the salad with bare hands in order to crush the potatoes and make the herbs stick to the potatoes evenly. Add sesame seeds last which keeps them crunchy at the time of serving. Serve hot or cold. I preferred it hot.

Onions can be dropped, but they lend a extra zing to this dish in the inventor's opinion.

Invention VI - Simplest pasta ever!

For the days when you won't make a sauce but yet want a tasty pasta.

Ingredients are the must have ingredients of any Italian dish-

• Any filled pasta, preferably veggie filled kind.
  
• Onions, julienned
  
• Basil paste/leaves/any other form to your liking
  
• Pepper
  
• Overwhelming amount of garlic cloves peeled and sliced.
  
• Walnuts for garnish
  
• Olive oil
  
• Salt
  

How to -

Set aside water for boiling the pasta. 

Saute onions in olive oil until translucent/pink, add garlic cloves, ground black pepper, saute slightly longer, add basil, salt. You can add a slew of herbs at this point to suit your nose and palate. Set aside.

When the water comes to a boil, add salt and then pasta. Remove pasta while it is still al dente. 

On the serving dish, add 4-5 ravioli pieces, add the sauted onions in herbs. Top with walnuts that have also been either toasted or roasted in olive oil.

It is amazing how such simple ingredients make for a lovely Sunday dinner. Goes well with a Viognier! I am having my glass even while I blog this.

Brussel sprouts and sausage soup.

My Sunday dinners are becoming very interesting thanks to the Sunset magazine. Posting recipes we tried more than once, made variations in it already and think we will like the recipe to stick in our repertoire.