Lima Bean-Thickened Cabbage Soup

This may not be my highest rated recipe post, but it sure is comforting on a winter day.

I semi-cheated on the Pantry Challenge and bought the cabbage in December.  Cabbages keep in the fridge for weeks, and they were on sale for 49¢ a pound.  I was originally going to use it in a tuna bowl, then decided to use up the kimchi with that and the cabbage on a soup.

Somehow, I missed a can of tomato paste running past its date, and used all of it in here instead of part tomato sauce.  A can of cream corn was getting close; that went in instead of evaporated or coconut milk.

Alton Brown recently did one of his Saturday YouTube shows on his soup theory.  I more or less agree with it, even though some is traditional French culinary practice, and I like to think I've evolved past that.  The reason I'm linking the video is because I'm stealing his use of ground sumac as a finishing touch.

*1 C dry lima beans
1 Tb olive oil
*1 onion (I used half a red and half a yellow), diced
1/2 tsp turmeric
1 small cabbage, about 2 lbs, cored and thinly sliced 
*1 15 oz can cream-style corn
* one 6oz can tomato paste
*3 C broth of choice
salt and pepper to taste
*1/2 tsp ground sumac

1.  The night before, or early in the day, sort and rinse the beans.  Soak in water to cover by two inches.  Drain and rinse.  These are getting mashed, so I spent about ten minutes taking off most of the skins.  They also rise to the top as the beans are cooked and can be skimmed off.  Or, you can leave them on and they will disappear in the finished soup.  Add soaked beans to a saucepan with fresh water to cover.  Bring to a low boil, then simmer until very tender, about 90 minutes.

2.  Drizzle oil into bottom of a soup pot.  Heat over medium and add the diced onion.  Cook until softened, stirring frequently, about 8 minutes.  Sprinkle in the turmeric so it can bloom.

3.  Add sliced cabbage and tomato paste to the pot.  I did it one quarter cabbage at a time, so it could wilt enough that the full cabbage fit in the 6 qt pot.  Cook until cabbage starts to wilt and tomato paste is caramelized.  Stir frequently to avoid scorching.

4.  Add broth to the pot.  It will only come up about halfway.  Bring to a low boil, reduce heat to a simmer, and cover.  Stir every ten minutes or so.  Cook until cabbage is fully wilted, about half an hour.  Stir in the creamed corn.

5.  Meanwhile, drain the beans and discard any stray skins if desired.  Mash with a fork or potato masher into a slurry.  Stir into the soup, where it will add to the creaminess.

6.  Taste soup and add salt and pepper to taste.  All broths are different, so I'm not giving amounts.  Sprinkle in the sumac as a finishing touch, and serve hot.

Serves 6-8

Difficulty rating  :)

Repurposing Leftovers

A big part of this year's Pantry Challenge is just getting through random stuff in the freezer.  It's usually because I didn't get quantities right when I was cooking the original meal.  Other times, I went a little overboard and knew it, but that's how much you end up with when there's an egg in the recipe.  That sort of thing.  

Half the zaalouk was still there after Chanukah dinner.  I was using it as a sauce alongside the chicken, so not a surprise.  There was also more of it than I had expected.  I stuck it in the freezer, to figure out a purpose in January.

What I decided to do with it was use it as a curry starter.  It would have made an equally good pasta sauce.  There was an extra potato I never made into latkes, so in it went.  I increased the spices a bit to compensate for the dulling effect of potato.  In went a can of chickpeas for protein, a cup of heavy cream because it needed to be used, and some basmati to serve it on.

I believe in not wasting food.  It's important to preserve excess or make something new out of it.  The most expensive item at the grocery store is the one that is never eaten.  Also, this was a delicious, quick meal that stayed in my Mediterranean diet.  I have three months to clean up my a1C before my next physical.  Definitely went overboard on sugar during the holidays.

Sausage & Mincemeat Pie

Tasting History did a beef mincemeat pie during December.  Max wasn't all that impressed, but admitted he wasn't a huge fan of mincemeat.  I was planning to make mince pies and had a small jar of store-bought, all fruit mincemeat.  His post encouraged me to make it with added meat.  Since the only ground meat I had at the start of the Pantry Challenge was breakfast sausage, this turned into a breakfast pie.

Yes, it's kind of cheating to have only three ingredients, all of them store-bought conveniences, but it isn't simply a dump and go recipe.  What you end up with feels a lot more homemade than it is.

*1 prebaked 9" pie crust
*1 lb sausage of choice
*1 C prepared mincemeat (or to taste)

1.  Pre-bake crust according to package directions, but leave it light and barely done.

2.  In a skillet or saucepan, cook the sausage over medium-high heat.  Break it up as you go, and pour off the excess fat about halfway through cooking.  You need some fat to hold the pie together.

3.  Preheat the oven to 350º.  Stir the cooked sausage and mincemeat together.  If desired, add a pinch of salt and/or a splash of brandy to the mix.

4.  Pour sausage into pie shell and spread evenly.  Bake until browned on top and the crust is golden, about 20 minutes.  Allow to cool before slicing.

Serves 6-8

Difficulty rating  π

Quinoa and Sweet Potato Fritters

Still not done with the sweet potato I canned at the end of 2024.  It's still safe, I just overestimated how much I would use.  We're giving it another shot at pairing with quinoa.  The tortillas were good, just hard on the system.  Doing something with less fiber in it this time.

It was during Chanukah, so I made fried cakes instead of baked.  Minimal oil, just enough to give that special crunch.  They weren't latkes.

These make a good vegetarian main dish, appetizer, or side.  With everyone vowing to eat better in the new year, these count as a Mediterranean diet recipe.

*1/2 C dry quinoa
*1 15 oz can sweet potatoes
1/2 tsp salt
pepper to taste
*2 green onions, finely chopped
*1/4 C chopped parsley
1/4 C flour
1 egg
Olive oil for frying

1.  Cook the quinoa according to package instructions.  This will generally involve pre-rinsing to remove the soapy film that can cause an upset stomach.  Drain and set aside to cool slightly.  This can be done ahead.

2.  Drain the sweet potatoes very well.  I chose to cook them for five minutes to boil off any remaining liquid.  Store-bought canned sweet potatoes don't have quite as high a moisture content.  If you're using roasted sweet potatoes instead of canned, they will be dry enough.

3.  Mash together the cooked quinoa and sweet potatoes.  Add salt, pepper, chopped onions, and chopped parsley and stir to combine.  Stir in the flour, then the egg.  You should have a thick batter, not quite a dough.

4.  Heat a skillet or frying pan over medium-high heat.  Add enough oil to coat the bottom.  When a drop of water dances, it's ready to go.

5.  Spoon the batter in 1/4 C mounds in the skillet.  Cook until the bottoms are crispy, about 5 minutes.  Flip and cook the other side.  If necessary, flatten with the spatula to make sure they cook all the way through.  Remove to a paper towel-lined plate, re-oil the skillet if necessary, and repeat with all the batter.

6.  Serve as is or with a sauce.  Any pasta sauce and most salad dressings will go with these.  I sprinkled them with additional salt and had them with a side salad.

Makes about 12

Difficulty rating  :)

Cannellini Beans with Garlic Spinach

We are starting off the pantry challenge with a flavorful and healthy recipe.  This Mediterranean-based dish makes a vegetarian main or a good side with grilled fish or chicken.  It comes together in half an hour largely with canned and frozen items.

I admit, not everyone keeps sun-dried tomatoes in oil in their pantry.  They're great to have for salads.  I don't think I've ever used a whole cup at once, but they are making up a great deal of the flavor.  Roasted red peppers would be a good substitute.  The point here is to used the flavored oil they're packed in as the cooking oil.

I did use a pinch of red pepper flakes in this to perk it up.  Very unusual for me.  I couldn't even taste the heat with the 1/4 teaspoon or so that I used.  It would take at least double that to make this spicy.

*1 8oz jar sun-dried tomatoes in oil
*1/2 onion, diced
*4 cloves garlic, minced
*1 8oz package frozen spinach, thawed and drained
1/2 tsp salt
black pepper and red pepper flakes to taste
1/2 tsp dried rosemary
*1 15 oz can Cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
*Parmesan cheese for garnish

1.  Strain off most of the oil from the tomatoes into a large skillet and heat over medium.  Add the dice onion and cook until soft, about 5 minutes.  Add the garlic and cook until fragrant.

2.  Add in the spinach, salt, rosemary, and drained beans.  As the mixture heats and the rest of the water from the spinach evaporates, season with pepper and red pepper flakes.

3.  Add in the tomatoes from the jar, heat, and taste again.  Adjust seasonings and serve hot, garnished with Parmesan.  I also tossed on the last of the delicata squash seeds I had roasted.

Difficulty rating  π

Pantry Challenge Game Plan

Tomorrow is 2026!  Wow, how did that happen?

I feel like I'm not going through my pantry in the proper amount of time, so I'm doing Pantry Challenge January.  It's a chance to use items before they go bad and challenge myself to come up with new uses.  It saves money when all the December bills come due by using what you've already bought.  You can evaluate why an ingredient is languishing while others seem to run out, and adjust what you stock accordingly.

The big rule is that you set your own rules.  The ultimate goal would be not setting foot in the grocery store for a month, but that is not necessary.  I have a list of items I'm permitting myself to buy, generally highly perishable ones.  Can't keep bananas fresh for 31 days.  Any recipe I make should have as few new purchases as possible.  If there's an exceptional deal on something I know I'll use, like toilet paper or coffee, I can stock those and not count them as current grocery purchases.

In particular, I need to do something about the kitchen freezer.  It's where I keep my vegetables and a few other items.  All the stray bits and leftovers are crowding out what I prefer to keep in there.  Also, I need to have room in it for the chest freezer defrost in March.  Because I'm already thinking about that.

The last time I tracked my spending during a pantry challenge, I stayed under $50 for the month.  That was 2022, so I'm not holding out for the same result.  At some point, I'm bound to celebrate the extra room in the freezer by filling it with ice cream.

What I'm focusing on isn't simply reducing the quantity of an item in the pantry or freezer.  I want to use the oldest items and anything "best by" the first half of 2026.  I want to reduce the condiments in the fridge.  The kimchi is almost a year old.  So are the cranberries in the freezer.  This is about rotating through ingredients and deciding whether I want to buy them again.  Maybe I'll remember I love something I've been passing over and incorporate it more.

The real trick is to continue coming up with new recipes.  Can't have peanut butter pasta every night, as tempting as that may be.  If I do this right, you'll never notice that I'm only using items on hand and from the garden.

Spatchcocked Chicken

Here's a new thing for me.  I rarely cook a whole bird, and this was the first time I did a spatchcock.  It almost didn't happen because the bird was still frozen solid the night before.  Seriously, three days to defrost a 5 lb chicken?  I finally gave up and ran it under cold water until it was workable.

So what is spatchcock, and why would you do it?  It's simply cutting out the backbone, then breaking the breastbone, so the bird lies flat.  This allows it to cook faster and more evenly.  I don't know why the process has a funny name, instead of calling it butterflying.

It's very easy to do, far easier than taking apart a chicken.  You still get to carve it afterwards, if that is something you like to do.  It works with any species of fowl.  You may need dedicated garden clippers and time at the gym to do a turkey, but the anatomy is the same

1.  Lay the bird spine-side up.  Going either through the neck or tail, cut the bones on either side of the spine.  Guess they would be ribs.  Remove the spine.  I put mine in a saucepan with the giblets and made broth.

2.  Flip the chicken over so the breast is up.  Spread out the legs a bit.  I'm short, so I stood on my kitchen step to get leverage.  Press down until the breastbone snaps and it's easy to spread out the chicken more or less flat.

3.  Either grill or roast.  I put mine on a rack (with a few extra thighs because one chicken wasn't enough for 7 people) and seasoned with salt, pepper, and tarragon.  Rubbing it all over with oil first will help to keep the meat moist.  Use any spice, herb, rub, or sauce you would use for a roasted whole chicken.  Cook to an internal temperature of 160, then let rest 10 minutes before carving.

Serves about 6, depending on size of chicken

Difficulty rating  π

Chanukah 2025

For once, Chanukah was not the same week as another holiday.  I hosted a dinner on the last night, which also happened to be the Winter Solstice.

I worked that morning, so I pre-cooked some of the menu and prepped other items.  I had four hours to do the same-day cooking, and didn't really need more than two.

Let's hear it for living in the moment, I didn't take any pictures aside from the upcoming post on how to spatchcock.  I didn't even photograph the bird after roasting.  No platter arrangement, not even the set table.  I thought I had.  The next day, I took one of all the dishes in the kitchen.  I didn't wash anything that night.  It took less than an hour to hand wash everything after I got home from work the day after the party.  It was a long 48 hours, but I was happy to see everyone.

What surprised me was that the kale salad was almost gone.  Pretty much everyone in attendance said they didn't like kale, and I assured them I wouldn't be offended if they passed on any of the dishes.  I didn't even fill the bowl, assuming it wouldn't be popular, but I needed another vegetable in case someone didn't like asparagus.  I massaged the leaves to make them easier to chew and tossed the salad in a Dijon dressing.  The asparagus and latkes were also gone, which I expected.  One guest brought baklava and date rolls, so there was plenty of dessert.  She didn't know I had a Mediterranean theme going on with the meal.  It definitely worked.

Roasted Spatchcock Chicken

Latkes with applesauce

Kale Salad with Dijon dressing

Asparagus with Garlic

Zaalouk

Hawaiian Rolls

Peanut Butter Cream Pie

Sheet Pan Sausage and Vegetables

I haven't done a sheet pan meal in a while, and I've never done one with meat.  Thought I'd go with a basic sausage and root vegetables.  I served it over a cabbage colcannon, as another version of root vegetable, or you could do rice or pasta.  For low carb, serve it over greens.

It's easy to see why sheet pan recipes are so popular.  You can prep them ahead of time, throw everything in the oven, and come back in half an hour to a flavorful meal.  I didn't make a sauce for this, opting to sprinkle the finished dish with dried parsley instead.  One of the nights, I drizzled a little barbecue sauce on it, and it was nice.  Barbecue sauce makes everything taste good.  Gravy would also go well, or even a vinaigrette.  Depends what flavor profile you want out of your meal.

1 lb sweet or mild Italian sausage
1 lb carrots
1 large turnip
1 red onion
2 Tb olive oil
1/2 tsp dried rosemary
1/4 tsp dried thyme
salt and pepper to taste

1.  Preheat oven to 400º.  Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper for easy cleanup.

2.  Slice the sausage into one- or two-bite pieces.  This will make everything on the sheet about the same size.  Distribute on the pan.

3.  Peel carrots and cut in coins about the same size as the sausage.  Peel and slice turnip.  Peel onion and quarter or cut in large French slices.  Put all the vegetables in a bowl and toss with the oil.  Add herbs, salt, and pepper and toss again to distribute.  Add to the baking sheet in a single layer.

4.  Roast for about 30 minutes, until sausages reach 165º and vegetables are tender.  All of the vegetables can be eaten raw, so you're only checking that the meat is done.

5.  Serve hot with potatoes, pasta, rice, cauliflower rice, or salad.  Garnish with herbs or any sauce you wish.

Difficulty rating  π

Pinto and Cabbage Soup with Rice

Once again, I found a YouTube video making pretty much what I had already half written as a recipe.  This time it was Spain on a Fork.  I'm giving him partial credit because he inspired me to add arborio to my version instead of having a side of chips for the starch.

When I use pintos, the recipe generally ends up Hispanic-themed.  I was sick, and had spent an hour watching videos of Indian food the day before, so this ended up closer to a curry.  It probably smelled very strong, but my nose was stuffed up.  Assuming it's twice as flavorful as what I tasted.

2 Tb olive oil
*1/2 tsp each brown mustard seed, cumin seed, and coriander seed
salt to taste
*1/2 tsp each turmeric powder and allspice
1 tsp paprika
1/2 yellow onion, diced, about 1 C
*2 cloves garlic, minced
*1 15 oz can diced tomatoes with their juice
*2 Tb tomato paste
1/2 small cabbage, cored and thinly sliced (about 1 lb)
1 C diced carrots (2-3)
*1/2 C arborio rice
*1 15 oz can pinto beans, drained and rinsed (about 3/4 C from dry)
*5 C vegetable or meat-based broth
1/2 bunch cilantro, chopped
*juice of 1 lemon

1.  If making the beans from dry, soak 8 hours, drain and rinse.  Bring to a simmer and cook 1-1/2 hours.  Drain.

2.  Heat the oil over medium in a soup pot.  Add the seeds and half a teaspoon of salt and cook until the seeds start to pop.  Add turmeric, allspice, and paprika and cook until fragrant.  Add onion and cook until softened, about 8 minutes.

3.  Add garlic, tomatoes, and tomato paste.  I actually used my last bag of frozen cherry tomatoes because the plant has rebounded and there will be more soon.  It was about a pint.  Cook until broken down and some of the juice has reduced.

4.  Add sliced cabbage and stir to coat in the aromatic mixture.  Cook for 5-10 minutes, until broken down.

5.  Add in carrots, rice, beans, and broth.  Bring to a low boil.  Reduce heat to simmer, cover, and cook 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.  If rice is not finished, simmer until tender.

6.  Stir in chopped cilantro and lemon juice.  Simmer 5 more minutes for flavors to meld.  Taste and adjust seasonings.  Serve hot.

Serves 4 as a main dish, 6-8 as an appetizer

Difficulty rating  :)