books

My Cookbook Collection

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In the process of reorganizing my kitchen, I took the time to go through all of my cookbooks and cooking magazines. I have quite a few but only found myself able to part with a handful. It seems I have a deep appreciation for the heart and soul that goes into a good cookbook (the magazines were easier).

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French Lentil and Arugula Salad

By Jessica

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This is a review of Food 52 Vegan.

Disclaimer: I was given a free copy of this book in exchange for this review through the Blogging for Books Program.

As we try to eat more vegetable based meals I find that I’m running out of steam. I’ve kind of been stuck in the same rotation of meals, which quite clearly has not helped our waste lines. That’s why both Chuck and I are trying a diet challenge for the month of January. These little challenges give me a chance to flex my creative muscles in the kitchen and cook a different style of food. I have found that in my attempt to make sure I’m still getting enough protein on a restricted diet, while also maintaining my part time vegetarian diet and not getting completely bored, vegan cooking seems to be the way to go.

I recently picked up Food52 Vegan Cookbook and immediately fell in love. Not only are the pictures amazing, and the recipes superb, but there is a lot of really amazing step by step instruction, and additional info to help the average person understand the foundations of vegan cooking and diets.

This salad has been one of my favorites of the book, and a great go to for week night meals and lunches. I have made it exactly as prescribed, but also added a few ingredients here and there to spice it up. Thing like roasted red peppers, leftover black beans, hummus, and peanut dressing all work wonderfully with this salad base.

French Lentil and Arugula Salad

Prep time: 20 mins

Cook time: 5 mins

Total time: 25 mins

Serves: Serves 4

Ingredients

1/3 cup olive oil
1 small shallot, minced
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 tablespoon champagne vinegar
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
2 ½ cups cooked lentils
2 cups firmly packed baby arugula leaves
1 cup thinly sliced radishes
1 cup chopped endive
1 cup sliced cucumber
¼ cup chopped fresh dill
1/3 cup toasted walnuts, chopped
Fresh cracked black pepper

Instructions

In a small bowl whisk together the olive oil, shallot, salt, lemon juice, vinegar and mustard until evenly blended. Set aside.
In a large bowl, stir together the lentils, arugula radishes, endive, cucumber, and dill. Drizzle evenly with the prepared dressing, then toss until the ingredients are evenly coated. Stir in the walnuts and season with black pepper to taste.
Serve immediately.

Garden Plans 2015

By Jessica

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March is the time of year every year that I get giddy for garden planning. Around here the snow is just starting to melt and the birds are barely coming home, but that is enough to get me going. I will start planting the moment that the ground is thawed enough to let me.I am always excited about learning more about gardening specifically vegetable gardens. I have a dream to one day never need to go to the
grocery store for produce. I realize that I have a long way to go however.

Recently I got The Postage Stamp Vegetable Garden

book to try to learn some more. It was packed with quite a bit of information. Starting with the basics of garden
planning to compost, companion gardening, and plant specific details there is a
lot there for the beginning gardener to learn from. For me I felt like a lot of
the material was a bit too beginner. While the book will make a good reference
for companion planting, and garden design, there wasn’t a lot of abundantly new
information for me. For someone who likes gardening it made a lovely weekend

read, and was successful in getting me amped up for another growing season.

I had huge plans this year for the garden, but the decision to start house hunting has me thinking that expanding may not be the best idea. Instead I plan to keep my two small boxes and expand into containers. This way I can take the majority of stuff with us when/if we move this year. I made up a quick sketch for this year’s plan that you
can see below. It’s actually more like the sixth or seventh sketch, but this one will be the last one I hope.

We are starting out by keeping many of the cold weather crops in the same section so that come fall I can cover them easily if it frosts and maybe get a few more weeks of growing time. Last year half of our cabbage was slow growing and therefore lost by the frost.

This year I plan to grow more tomatoes, in order to can them, and grow them in barrels with basil as a companion. I also plan to grow potatoes in a barrel, a concept I actually found on Pinterest, but will be an experiment all on its own. The peas will be grown along the porch rail again. Other than those few things everything will remain the same.

Now tell me do you guys like to garden? Do you have any plans for the season yet?Disclaimer: I was given a free copy of this book in exchange for this review through the Blogging for Books Program.

The Help

By Jessica

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Last week I finished reading The Help. I honestly never even heard of it until the movie came out, and with my reading list so large I’m just now getting to it. Any-who, I thought it was a fabulous book. While I was reading I couldn’t help but to think that it was strange how this was placed in the 1960’s that was only a little over 50 years ago. It seems so foreign to me that African Americans were viewed that way so recently. I mean I know when Martin Luther King was assassinated, and JFK, but that always seemed like the distant past to me. This when my grandparents were my age!

It makes me wonder what my grandparents were like then. What did they think? How did they treat those of different races? How did they treat women for that matter? Looking at my grandparents now I can’t imagine any of this, but I also can’t imagine the things I did and thought when I was 16, so 50 years later who knows how they feel about their former selves.

The book touches on several different messages or themes; a young woman coming of age during a time when women were just beginning to emerge as equals; the struggles of African Americans during a time of great change; and the idea that everyone has secrets. It is a dynamic, thought provoking and eloquently written novel, which I would recommend to anyone and everyone.

Food, as it should, seems to play a large part in the book so I decided to make Grilled Brown Sugar Pork Chops with Peach Barbeque sauce. While cooking this dish I can almost see the Phelan farm house, plopped in the middle of never-ending cotton fields. You can almost taste the love and care that is cooked into this recipe. One I will definately be making again before the summer is out.

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