Beans, Broth, Cauliflower and Caramel

No, not altogether. That would be gross. Maybe.

I'm finally back in the kitchen and I need to cook. Cooking gives me a welcome break from life. And life is coming at me, also it's time to cook. And write. For all of my many followers. I know you all couldn't live with out my opinions.................

The garbanzo bean. The beige object in the standard Italian salad bar. That's where I first tried mine, many years ago. Drenched in dressing, it tasted, well, like nothing. That's good if you are a kid.

So after the kids and I went gluten-free, I noticed that garbanzo bean flour was in a lot of things. I bought a bag and set out to cook my own cookies, bread etc., based on seeing this flour everywhere. Boy was I ever disgusted. How could a little bean that tasted like nothing turn into a flour that tasted like, ugh. This year though, I changed my mind about that little flour after trying some comfort food called farinata from Italy. It was fabulous. But that's for another post........

Back to beans. My daughter loves hummus, and eats garbanzo beans out of a bowl like they were candy. I started her eating them at about 1 year old. As long as the hulls were off, she ate them up. So, tired of buying canned beans, I decided to brave a recipe in this book and make my own. I have read that there are many ways to soak beans, and I use the boil-for-two-minutes-and-soak-for-2-hours-method. So, after washing and sorting I stuck in my biggest stock pot and boiled them for two minutes. Soaked them for 2 plus hours, and changed the water before cooking. Turned the stove on and let them cook.

I LOVE these recipes.

So, 5 short hours later (they are notoriously hard to get tender) I added a little salt and finished them. OK, time to try them. I reached into the pot and tried a few beans. But wait, there was something else........a golden elixir just waiting for me, simmering gently.

OK, seriously?

Really.

I had never tasted a bean broth before that I liked. Until now. I just sat there and kept slurping. Too much information? Maybe. But I used up every bit of that wonderful broth in soup for the next 4 days. I even fashioned meatless menudo from it. Never had or heard of menudo? Well, that's another post. Even my daughter got on board and enjoyed the broth. It was fantastic. It had a slight taste, but not as strong as garbanzo beans themselves, or as strong as vegetable broth. What a wonderful base. There were beans too, and they tasted 100% better than any canned beans I had ever had. Fresh, fresh, fresh.

Oh yeah, and I baked a cauliflower too.........and made caramel. Wait, you don't want me to go on about the broth?

Fine, I baked a cauliflower. I know, it goes against all the cauliflower I have ever eaten that was thoughtlessly tossed in soup, or haphazardly put on a relish tray. Baked? Yes, a whole head of cauliflower, drizzled with olive oil and salt and pepper, baked. that's it. So very simple. So very tasty. It had a different texture than boiled cauliflower (duh Susi!) but it was nice to actually TASTE the vegetable instead of it soaking up whatever flavors were in the dish you put it into. It was more tough, and that's a good thing, than other methods of cooking. Drizzled with balsamic vinegar after cooking, it was divine to eat. It didn't last long. Hmmm.... if I put in the bean broth...............

And of course, I had to try making the carmel/caramel recipe. Which way is the correct spelling? Who cares, it's candy. This recipe was made without a candy thermometer, and with only 5 ingrediants. Butter, honey, sugar, 1/2 and 1/2, and whole milk. Put them in a pan and boil them until thick and golden brown. Drop a bit in some ice water, and if it makes a caramel consistency ball, then it's done.Pour into a pan and cool. Cool? No. I don't think so. I ate it off the spoon from the pan. Then I sprinkled chocolate chips on half the pan, and cooled it. The half with the chips formed the most amazing sugar crust on top. Like a creme brulee, but without the torch. I know, food dork. But I ate caramel for breakfast every morning, and even threw some of it in my hot coffee. Happy food dork. Very happy.

Next up, Garlic Carrots and a BBQ Farinata Tower.

Burgers are merely a canvas for toppings.....

Burgers were never my thing. Really. They tasted, bleh.

I remember my granny putting green bell peppers and onions in burgers. That did nothing for me. One of my friend's dad put that awful onion soup mix in them. And green bell peppers. That did something for me. It taught me never to eat at their house on burger night.

I ate plenty in high school, of course, because, well, it was high school. And Carl's Jr. was outstanding. Never had Carl's Jr? Think Hardees, only better.

But as I got older, burgers became more about all the great stuff I could pile on them than the meat itself. Fresh toppings, complicated condiments, slice after slice of gourmet cheese.....mmmm.....cheese.

So when meat didn't agree with me anymore, I thought - oh well. Until I craved BBQ sauce, and crispy lettuce, and all variety of mustard, and tomatos, and pickles, and onions. It was too much, I had to have some sort of meat product.

Now, I've tried veggie burgers before. They are not good. I can't even pronounce half of the ingredients in them most of the time. That doesn't make for a tasty burger. Or they have soy in them, which I can't stand. So, when my book offered about 10 different veggie burger options, I became slightly more interested. Soy, tofu, and gelatinous masses can all be left out, thank you very much.

I started with the BBQ sauce. Because after all, that is really the most important part. What you put on your burger sets the whole tone for eating. Tone, really?

Food geek, I know.

But seriously, when you look at a chopped steak burger topped with sauteed onions and mushrooms - you are getting a different experience than when you have sit down with a great BBQ'd chuck burger topped with yellow mustard and crunchy iceberg lettuce. Both are outstanding, but different.

I wanted to start easy, and simply. So I chose the first variation - a bean burger. Sounds yummy, right???? My favorite Le Puy lentils were in my pantry, so off we went. Why a special bean? Because they have this outstanding ability to hold their shape and not get mushy. This is really important when making a veggie burger. You want texture, not mush. So after cooking them, I realized I had enough for many burgers, or I could split my focus and have lentil salad too! I love to split my focus.

The recipe seemed simple enough, add cooked beans, egg, rolled oats, onion, BBQ sauce and seasonings. A little too easy. I know I say that about all the recipes in this book - but they are super easy, It's that simple.

My daughter was skeptical that anything that looked like that could be good.

It's funny, hamburgers most often turn out gray, and black. It's all about what you are used to eating - another gray food could be just as yummy, but you may not try it because you havn't thought about the colors of the foods you currently eat, you are just so used to eating them you don't think about it. That was a mouthful.

After a little chill in the frig to firm up, I made them into patties and fried them up in a little, ok a lot, of bacon grease. ( Hey, I don't eat meat, but bacon grease is outstanding to cook just about anything in!) They cooked quickly and smelled so good. Just a little crisp on the outside. Even my husband asked what smelled so good!

(Note: he didn't actually try one, no matter how good they smelled.)

No sooner were they plated then my daughter ambled over and asked if she could take a bite. This coming from the girl who just 30 minutes ago said they couldn't possible be good, and that she "passed".

She took a bite. Then she took the plate. Sigh. How do you take food from a child who is gleefully saying 'I got my hamburgers back!"

From what I remember, they were good. Very good. All kinds of toppings can go on these. And maybe when I get to eat one, they will.

More garbanzo fun!

See, doesn't that title just shout out "read me, read me" to you?

No, huh.

Well, toasted chickpeas shouted out at me this week.

And they could not be any easier to make.

Can of garbanzo beans, drained. Check.
Olive oil, garlic, salt and any seasoning I wanted. Check.
Ovenproof skillet. Check.

Done.

Seriously.

I had a few doubts that this could be tasty, but my daughter loves these beans and I wanted to make all her bean dreams come true.

I love my daughter, so I prepared myself for massive amounts of prep work. Anything for her. Heating the pan, putting in the oil, tossing the garlic in and seasonings and the drained beans. I was tired after, but soldiered on. After 5 whole minutes of sauteing, I lifted the enormously heavy pan into the preheated oven and let them cook for 20 minutes. I forced myself to shake them every 5 minutes or so, and finally, after what seemed like hours - they were done.

Warm and right out of the oven, we shook liberal amounts of salt and pepper on them and dug in. Oh man, were they good. And the kitchen smelled wonderful.

(Now, I have had toasted walnuts, pine nuts, etc. I have seen crispy green beans in Whole Foods. Wasabi peas - never tried them, but I hear they are good. Goji berries, acai, etc - seem to be very popular. But crunchy garbanzo beans? Surely you jest!)

Nope. They were delicious. And they were all gone. But for $1.29, I can make more. And more.....

They have a wonderfully crunchy seasoned shell on the outside, and are still slightly chewy on the outside. I drizzled mine with extra lemon juice, and they were phenomenal. Like the taste of hummus, but with texture. And filling - wow! Very filling snack. I can see these with chili powder, dill, sage, rosemary - oh, the places we'll go!!!! Prolly Disney.

(This picture is of the fried oatmeal from a few weeks ago - I knew my mom would want to see it. Fried oatmeal, sauteed bananas, pecans, coconut, raw sugar and chocolate chips with a drizzle of cream. Yum.)

Help! I can't stop eating this!

Doesn't that sound like a new reality show?

Some people who are addicted to food would be on the show as participants, with psychiatrists telling them why they are eating so much of "blank" and then get them to stop eating it and they all go on to lead fulfilled lives.

I never want to be on that show.

My friends, my daughter and I have discovered a food so good, so comforting, so magnificent - that we cannot stop eating it. Seriously.

What is this great food?

Farinata. Cinque e Cinque. Chickpea frittata. Whatever you want to call it, it is amazing.

I guess I'll call it Farinata here. I was strolling the aisles of Whole Foods looking for new gluten-free items. (Honestly, I stroll WFoods like someone strolls Rodeo Drive. Never been to Rodeo Drive? O.K., how about like a teenager shops at the mall - going into every store looking at everything. Just looking for that one item that will make their life compete. Maybe I do need that reality show...............) I went up the aisle that has all the rice and beans , and there was a new item tag with a sale tag under a Tuscan looking bag- I honestly started humming "....these are a few of my favorite things...."

There it was.

On sale.

New.

Gluten free.

With a coupon.

Well, that was it for me. I didn't even know if I would like it, but for $2.50, I was going to find out. Now, how to convince my daughter to try it? I'd figure on that later. I figured any food from Italy had to be good.

And it was.............

So how does this package of sunshine from Whole Foods have anything to do with cooking thru the book? Well, there is a recipe in the book for Farinata. I wanted to have a base concept for what I was going to try to make, with a foolproof model first.

So what is Farinata? Simply put, it is garbanzo bean flour and water. Sound delish yet? If you are like me, the only time I had garbanzo beans growing up was at pizza buffets in the antipasto salad. They were drenched in Italian dressing, and I really didn't pay much attention to them. I just ate them. When my daughter was ready to tackle toddler foods, I read that garbanzo beans were a good way to get kids started eating legumes. And since my doc had ok'd me limiting meat for her, I thought they were a good substitute. So did she. She has been known to eat many, many, many garbanzo beans. Then we discovered hummus. Yum! OK, so garbanzo beans were good. Not beany tasting, still firm and not mushy, and they took on seasoning well. And this is how we enjoyed them until we went gluten free.

When we had to change how we ate, I tried a million combinations of different flours to try to make the baked goods a reality for my kids. I read that garbanzo and fava bean flour was a great substitute, and indeed, it was a common ingredient on many premade gf baked goods. I bought a bag. Couldn't even smell it. It was terrible. Tasted worse. The reason GF food has so much sugar and spice in it is to disguise the taste (and smell) of all of these flours! I ws assured by all the gf cookbooks that the taste and smell would cook out. It did not. I guess if you are desperate for something to eat when you are GF, you will eat anything. I know. I have done it.

So, learily, I bought this mix. My daughter looked at the label, shrugged her shoulders and siad it looked interesting. The ingredients sounded benign enough. Garbanzo bean flour and rosemary. Rosemary is a pungent spice, that should cover up the smell. I couldn't believe the instructions - add water and olive oil and salt. That's it. This was a little too easy to be tasty.

So, I blasted the oven and put my cast iron skillet in. After the pan was preheated, I mixed up the ingredients. No smell so far. I was suspicious, so I added an egg. Why? Well, I just felt it should have something to bind it together. And garlic. It needed garlic. Doesn't everything? Obviously, I know more about cooking than the Italians.......anyhoo, I carefully opened the oven door and poured a little olive oil in the pan, then poured the batter in. It sizzled like a pancake should. Good. Now to let it bake.

In the meantime, I went on wikipedia, and did some research. Seems this delicacy is a pretty popular comfort food that started in Genoa, and has spread all over Italy. It is traditionally served plain, with no toppings, but in different regions it can be sliced and used as filling between slices of focaccia. Hmmm, a meat substutue that did not involve tofu of any kind. You have my interest. Millions of Italians can't be wrong. They are serious about their comfort food.

14 minutes later, I vented the oven door to let the steam out and smelled something wonderful! Not stinky like that old flour. But something good and warm-smelling. Comfort. Out it came, golden brown on top, crispy on the bottom. Looking like a cross between a pancake and a frittata.

Waiting for it to rest was agonizing! It smelled divine. Holding my daughter off with one hand while slicing it using a pizza cutter in the other, we served it up. Slowly, we each tried a bite. Then another. Then another. No big surprise here, we ate and ate. How to explain the taste. Mild, creamy, but with substance. Not doughy/bready like a pancake, because it was made from bean flour and baked with no leavening. Taking a bite was a little like the texture of a mozzarella, or soft gouda. But not like cheese. We decided to use it as a pizza crust in the future, because it really can hold the weight, but is light enough not to weigh you down. I really am at a loss for words to describe it.

I ate it cold in the moning. Then hot topped with fresh tomatos and swiss cheese on top. All of a sudden, toppings started swirling around in my head. Tomatos and onions, sage, parmesan, broccoli, asparagus - you could throw anything on top of it and bake it in.

So, something that I thought could not be anything but smelly and gooey turned out to be something we have been craving all week. We bought the plain garbanzo bean flour yesterday, and there was no unplesant smell. So, prepared to tackle this at home, we are going to dive in this weekend. I am thinking about adding sage, rosemary, onion and garlic. I miss sausage, I really do. So I'm thinking about all the spices that make sausage taste so good. The nose is more powerful than the mouth, and it can outsmart the brain - so I'm thinking I will float it past my tastebuds and my brain will think I am enjoying sausage.

Oh yeah, being on a garbanzo bean kick, we roasted them whole in the oven with spices. But that's for another post.

Attack of the killer tomatos!

Tomato soup comes from a can, doesn't it?

I love Campbell's Condensed Tomato Soup. Really. It comes out of the can a gelatinous mass, and turns into yummy satisfaction just by adding water and heat.

What's not to like? Throw some Goldfish, cheddar cheese or rice in the bowl and you have yourself a meal. But when Campbells started adding wheat and corn syrup to tomato soup, well - waiter, check please!

I had always read recipes for tomato soup that looked so stinkin' hard. Roast the tomatos, then puree, then simmer. Blanch and then sautee. Make stock from scratch and then blanch, sautee, roast and simmer. It sounded like a lot of work.

This book promised me it would not be that hard.

This book even let me use canned tomatos.

I LOVE this book.

I gathered a handful of ingredients. Garlic, onion, butter, salt, pepper, a carrot, tomato paste, canned diced fire-roasted tomatos (see, someone else did the hard work for me! Thank you Muir Glen.) and water. That was it.

Did I mention I was watching the royal wedding that day? I did not want to be disturbed by some needy soup demanding to be stirred and comforted all day whilst I basked in the fairy tale with my lovely daughter. I wanted mindless cooking. I was leary, but the book had made me a promise. So I said my "I do's" and committed to making the soup.

Melt the butter in the pot, add the minced garlic and onion and let them soften. Then toss everything else in and simmer. It took less than 10 minutes from cutting board to pot - thank goodness for TiVo and the pause button. So, I let it simmer, and cook, and cook, and cook.

Well, I had to watch the kiss!

Then when I thought it was ready, I poured it into a large bowl and used the immersion mixer on it. (Note: Isn't it lovely to have a recipe that lets you decide when it is done? Like lite soup? Cook 30 minutes. Like rich hearty soup, cook longer. Excellent.)

Voila! Tomato soup. It was that easy. And it was a million times better than Campbells. Not because I made it, but because of the ingredients.

This will be my go-to soup from now on. My daughter put chicken and rice in her first bowl. In the second bowl, which followed shortly after first bowl, she added broccoli. I opted for golden rose rice. I think just about anything would have worked in this soup. Really. It was slightly creamy, just thick enough, very flavorful and super-easy. Too bad I only had one bowl, my daughter commandeered my soup again.

I have to make something she won't like.......

Hockeypucks, Sweet Potatos and Pretentious French Soup......

I don't know how many ricecakes I tried in the 90's.

Oh, my friends raved about them. Everyone touted them as a new, low calorie food. I think the food part was a stretch.

I tried them plain, salted, popcorn flavor, carmel flavor, with toppings, with chocolate chips, hot, cold, almost every possible combination. They tasted like paper to me. I can only surmise that my friends preoccupation with them was a mind-over-matter matter.

I think the good people at Quaker and the other companies that made them had a lot of leftover stuff, that at one time came from rice, and they decided to smoosh it together and sell it. Wikipedia told me that dieters use rice cakes in place of bread, when making a sandwich. I hope Wikipedia is wrong, terribly wrong.

So, when I came across the Parmesan Rice Cakes recipe in the book - I stopped. Bleh. Savory pancakes made with rice? Really? I have never been a fan of sweet foods that are made savory. Pancakes should be sweet with syrup, lobster cheesecake should NEVER have been allowed to happen, don't even get me started on aspic.

But I had just bought a bag of Brown Rose rice, and was dying to use some. Brown Rose rice is rice that is slightly sticky (think sushi rice) and slightly like long grain rice. It is a nice blend with a hint of sweetness. And I'll cook with any ingredient that has the name rose in it. So, out came the rice steamer, and 1 hour later I was in business.

This was a pretty quick and straightforward recipe. Make a batter like pancakes, add rice and parmesan cheese and cook on a griddle. In went sorghum flour, lots of cooked rice, egg, shredded parmesan cheeese, milk, loads of fresh minced garlic and a splash cream. Fry them in melted butter. I love butter, and cream. They make everything taste so much richer. Hey, I never said I was vegan.......

So, I poured them into a hot skillet and hoped I wouldn't have to eat anything too disgusting. They smelled wondeful! And they cooked just like pancakes, bubbled up, browned and flipped with ease. The smell of melting parmesan and garlic filled my kitchen. I had to try them, couldn't even wait until the batch was done. And then I had another. And another. Wow, these were good. Moist, and they had body to them.

Oh, did I forget to mention I was roasting carrots and broccoli in the oven to top them with? Sorry. I was reliving the moment of trying the rice cakes for the first time.

The rice cakes by themselves were lovely. Because the rice still retains a little bit of "pop" in the mouth, they had a nice soft crunch to them. Kind of like steel cut oats. They had a slight pancake-y taste to them because after all, they did have milk and eggs in them. Topped with roasted vegetables, and more cheese they were a complete meal.

These definately made me change my mind about sweet/savory foods. Maybe not about lobster cheesecake, but you never know.

Onto dinner. Quinoa and Sweet potato Salad.

OK, here's another example of a sweet food that I used as savory. Good thing I had the rice cakes to open my mind about using sweet potatos. To me, sweet potatos are to be baked and topped with brown sugar and butter for lunch, or delightfully topped with a bazillion marshmallows at Thanksgiving. I already had the quinoa in the frig, so I boiled some diced sweet potato and threw it in with the quinoa. I dumped in liberal amounts of scallions, garlic and balsamic vinegar. Done. That was it.

Yuh-hum!

Didn't even wait for it to chill. Couldn't. Too yummy.

It had the flavor of my mom's potato salad - but with a little crunch. My mom makes the best potato salad. Honestly. It's not the least bit soupy - I can't stand soupy potato salad - but it takes a lot of work. This took almost no work or time. It had that familiar "pickle" aroma from the onions and vinegar, and at the risk of sounding snobby - it had a more mature taste. I let my daughter try it. She agreed. It was for mature audiences only.

She promptly rinsed her mouth out.

She has never cared for potato salad. Good, more for me. This morning it was even better when it was cold.

I decided today to combat this flu/cold thing that my daughter and I have by making some French Onion Soup. Not the cheese laden, Texas Toast topped soup that food places serve these days. Oh, I love that version too. Just not at home. French onion soup always puts people off as too hard. I think the French try to make food seem more complicated to cook than it really is, so you won't try to do it. Just leave it to professionals. I know, I have been trying to cook it since I was about 12. Always made it harder than it had to be.

So, not feeling well, I decided to just let it cook, and I would eat whatever came out. Now, this is a vegetarian version, so there was no beef. This could be great, or terrible.

Once again, I threw some butter in a really big stock pot and melted it until it was almost browned. Smelled good already. Added several thinly sliced sweet onions and let that simmer for 30 minutes. Easy so far - right? Then I threw in whole garlic cloves, a carton of vegetable stock, several cups of water, and left it there while I cleaned house. OK, I cleaned the playroom. Sort of.

My son asked me to get rid of that "smell" that was in the house. He does not like onions. At all.

Gradually the strong onion smell went away and it was replaced by that hearty aroma that onion soup produces when it is almost done. It thickened up nicely, and I let it cook wayyyyy longer than the recipe suggested. I like a dark onion soup.

Finally.

I threw some grated swiss cheese on top of my soupbowl and dug in. Just what the doctor ordered. It was everything I hoped it would be, and more. No fuss, no real work, just good soup.

It was a good food day, my friends.

Now onto planning my food for watching the royal wedding. If my daughter and I are going get up at 5 in the morning, I need to make it tasty........

Tangerine Dreams and Brussel Sprout Nightmeres

Tangerines and Brussel Sprouts?

And..........unsubscribe.

No, I didn't put them together. But maybe next time....

The tangerines were for my husband, I made him Tangerine Granita.

The brussel sprouts were for my daughter.

Which family member was the luckiest?

Depends on who you ask.

I wanted to try a dessert out of the book, but not a baked one. I wanted something new, something I hadn't tried before. I always like the idea of granita. Ice-y crystals, sugar, pure flavor. What's not to like? So, I picked tangerine/orange granita for my husband. He loves citrus, loves sorbet - so there you have it. I squeezed a few tangerines (they were so ripe they collapsed in my hands) and a few oranges together in a bowl. Then I cooked a sugar syrup.

Wait, you thought I didn't eat corn syrup?

Sugar syrup is nothing like corn syrup. It is very simply, sugar - dissolved in water, and heated until a smooth slightly thickened syrup. The taste is so wonderful! I even use it to moisten my layers of cake before I frost them. Anywhoo, it took about 10 minutes to juice the oranges and make the syrup. Then you put it in a glass pan and throw it in the freezer. Every 30 minutes or so you give it a stir to break the liquid up into ice crystals.

Hmmm....I must have missed a step, that was TOO easy.

That's it. Really.

A few hours later:

I was surprised by the taste - extremely fruity. Really, really, tangerine. Not orange juice concentrate-y - which I don't care for. Pure tangerine. Not too sweet either. Why isn't it orange? Because I use raw sugar, which is golden brown, so my syrup comes out brown. If I would have used refined sugar I would have gotten a nice color, but felt awful.

But the real test came when my husband tried it. Having been around me for a while, his first question was "what's in it?" Raising his eyebrow and looking at me suspiciously for a second longer, he agreed to try it. It passed his taste bud test. Luckily there was enough for seconds and another day or two of leftovers. Now I am imagining all kinds of flavors, and he is imagining I will just leave it alone and not change the recipe.

Onto bigger challenges, 'cause that one was not hard enough.

Brussel sprouts. I know, yum, right???

My first taste of brussel sprouts as a kid was Jolly Green Giant Brussel Sprouts with Cheese Sauce. If I remember right, Jolly Green Giant soaked everything in cheese sauce. It was a lovely time in our culinary history. 

Now, my daughter likes vegetables. But there are some vegees that other kids have told her they don't like and she hasn't believed them about it, but has not not believed them either. I know, was that a triple negative? Is that even grammatically possible? Sounds more like an algebra problem to me.

So, I bought a bag of frozen brussel sprouts. No cheese sauce. Sorry princess.

Now, I had the distinct advantage in the brussel sprout war, in that one of my daughters close friends like brussel sprouts. I could use that as ammunition too............

So brussel sprouts sauteed in garlic and baked was my choice.

Brussel sprouts are just little tiny cabbages! Seriously. I did not know that. No wonder I loved them, I love, love, love cabbage. Cooked, raw, doesn't matter. So after slicing these teeny tiny cabbages in half and not harming my myself, I heated up some olive oil and put them cut side down in the pan. Added in some sliced garlic - yum! The smell was all good. These were not the boiled brussel sprouts you grew up with as a kid that you were forced to eat, trust me.

As they lightly browned, I heated the oven and threw the skillet full of goodness in there.

10 minutes later, a sizzling pan came out of the oven and my daughter came into the kitchen. This was too easy.

Now, with a smoking hot pan full of food bits, you can do two things - you can put water in it to soak and scrub it out, or you can deglaze it. Deglazing is nothing more than adding liquid and scraping up the food bits to make a good glaze. Then you soak and scrape. This recipe called for adding a splash of balsamic vinegar before serving. But I like balsamic vinegar too much for just a splash. So in the pan it went. It thickened up nicely. So, here was the moment of truth....

She took a bite............. and slowly reached for the rest of the bowl and walked away. I managed to grab some and added more vinegar to them and dug in. They were so tasty. No yucky taste, no bitterness, just roasted goodness. And later that night, I threw them in my soup. I ususually end up throwing together some soup at the end of the week with my leftovers. That night's soup was vegetable broth, brown rice, cabbage, white beans, brussel sprouts and parmesan cheese. I also topped it off with some of the leftover bean biscuits for some body. It was divine. And the sprouts added such a  deep, good flavor that I may keep a bag in the freezer from now on. Without the cheese sauce.

Oh yeah, I also tried no-mayo coleslaw. Good, I could see it with some peanut sauce and a Thai chile thrown in for some extra zing. We both agreed that it was o.k., but nothing special. I guess you need just o.k foods every once in a while ;-)

BTW, this weeks total for my meals was $38. And I have plenty of leftover ingredients in my pantry and freezer still. I made my choices for the week, time to go shopping!!!