Week Five: Beef Barley Soup, Rustic Genovese Basil Pesto Pasta, and Curried Chicken with Coconut Rice

Beef Barley Soup

This week, I was craving warm, comfort food. Thus, beef and barley soup. This recipe is pretty darn quick and easy. And it is the ultimate cozy, comfort-food inspired meal. The beef and barley combination is classic; the flavors and textures meld so perfectly together. I just love barley too; it's a really hearty grain.

Find the Whole Living recipe here: Beef Barley Soup.

I like to buy "stew beef" for recipes like this. It's already chunked into pieces. Since they are usually pretty hefty chunks, I tend to cut the pieces into halves or thirds. That way, you don't feel like you are gnawing through your meal as much.

This is a great weeknight recipe, and it made for a great lunch the next day.

Rustic Genovese Basil Pesto Pasta

This recipe came from Clean Eating magazine. Find the recipe here: Rustic Genovese Basil Pesto Pasta. What drew me to this recipe was the bright green, almost chunky pesto.

I love pesto. But I really don't like using store bought pesto unless I have to. I mean, it's kind of brown-looking and I can never remember how long it's been in the refrigerator. Seriously, let's think about this. Pestos are usually made from basil, and we all know how long fresh basil lasts. Usually, I've had it about two seconds before the leaves start browning and it starts smelling kind of rancid. I guess that's a good reason to have it growing fresh at home. However, I have read lately that if you're dealing with store bought fresh basil, it's good to trim the ends, place in a glass of water at room temperature, and trim the stems/change the water every day until used. Supposedly, it can last up to two weeks when stored this way (I have yet to see this happen).

Now, that I'm done (well, almost) with my basil and pesto rant, let's talk about this delicious recipe. Blanching and shocking the basil leaves and green beans keep them nice and bright green. What an incredible idea! (I think that's what the makers of store bought pesto are missing out on.) The pesto in this recipe, combined with whole-wheat pasta and roasted cherry tomatoes, is truly rustic as the recipe name implies. It was really good.

Word to the wise though. This pesto has garlic (of course). Which is great. But uh, it was pretty strong in this recipe. I don't know if I used too much or if it's flavor was heightened when added to the extra virgin olive oil for the pesto, but it was potent. Like Zack-and-I-were-still-tasting-it-the-next-day potent. Zack was so worried that his patients would notice his garlic breath that he passed on his lunch leftovers to his unsuspecting co-worker. (Who absolutely loved the pasta, by the way.) So, you have been warned. Delicious, but garlic-strong.

Curried Chicken with Coconut Rice

This curry recipe was a Pinterest find. What's new, right? Find the recipe here: Curried Chicken with Coconut Rice.

Zack loves curry. He could eat it everyday. And he loves Indian. So this recipe was a very good find. Other than the fact that I used brown rice instead of basmati, and the dish took a little longer to cook than indicated as a result, this was great. Oh and other than the fact that I was like crying from the time I started dicing the onion all the way until I was done eating this piping-hot (temperature-wise) and spicy meal. So good though.

The chicken was so tender and the spices are perfect. And as Zack says, the combination of the hot, spicy with the cool, fresh tomatoes is really good. Plus, it's a one-pot meal and you will have plenty of leftovers. 

Well, that's all for Week Five. This meal planning thing has been going really well. I enjoy searching for recipes/ideas at the beginning of each week. Goodness, I don't know what people did before the internet. Furthermore, because of the planning that this involves, Zack and I feel like we are eating healthier and we are more satisfied with what we are eating. It's a win-win. I don't plan on stopping now; see you back here soon! Cheers.

Foods of late summer's past...

Well, it's been awhile. Again. People seem to be asking me if I'm still cooking, and despite the inaction on the blog, I am! Really.

Summer was a bit crazy. Work of course (that's one thing that's different from when I was in school). Not working, but real work. Grown-up work. And then we had a sort of spur-of-the-moment move that ended up not being quite as quick and easy as we initially thought it would be. But the good news is we now have a new kitchen to play in! Packing all our kitchen equipment and utensils in is a bit of a puzzle, but it's working for us.

Above photo courtesy of Evelyn Kritler.

There were also some lovely trips down to Oregon and to the coast with my family for our annual trip to Arch Cape. We had fun cooking for the family again this year, but the food pictures are definitely lacking from that week of the summer, unfortunately. However, Zack had an incredible cooking endeavor...think homemade marshmallows. Uh yes. He had talked about it for awhile and I'll admit, I was kind of like, "whatever." Call me crazy, but I am not the hugest marshmallow fan. When we have s'mores at the coast, I'd rather just eat the graham crackers and maybe a couple pieces of chocolate. Ha. Well, let's just say...huge success. And Zack's cool factor increased even more so after that trip.

Pearl barley risotto with corn, parmesan, basil, and sliced turkey breast.

The photos you see here are just a scattering of some yummy things we made in August and September. My first risotto (with pearl barley), which consisted of a lot of standing in the kitchen whilst stirring. There was also some killer chicken salad, a recipe for which I need to re-find in a library book that has been returned. We had some really tasty grilled sandwiches; one had ham, thinly sliced granny smith apple, and swiss cheese. Lots of muffins..."French toast muffins" (which didn't really taste like French toast, but were very delicious), banana chocolate chip muffins (best banana muffin recipe I've found thus far), and blueberry cornmeal muffins (which was just a must taking my corn obsession into consideration).  Whole wheat penne with skinny asparagus and tomatoes. Salmon with a cilantro sauce and carrot quinoa to name another. I'm telling you, Costco has wild salmon fish fillets (packaged separately and frozen), and it's a good way to go. Pull out a few fillets at a time and it's always fresh. We just got some halibut, so you may see some creations with that coming soon.

Healthier chicken salad sandwiches.

Ham, swiss, and granny smith apple grilled sandwiches with succotash.

"French toast" muffins.

Banana chocolate chip muffins.

Blueberry cornmeal muffins.

Whole wheat penne with skinny asparagus, tomatoes, and basil.

Salmon with cilantro sauce and carrot quinoa.

Moving on. I'm on a new endeavor. Meal planning. Okay, I know this is making me sound ultra-organized and maybe slightly obsessive compulsive, and I was thinking the same thing until I read this Seattle Times article titled How to create a customized meal plan. And yes, this article is probably geared towards families or people with kids, but whatever, what they talk about is really helpful.

Now I'm not going crazy with this, but I have extracted a few great ideas from this article. It makes a lot of sense to create a sort of "weekly menu" and then save these menus (if they turn out to be good) to re-use in the future. I mean if you think about it, sifting through recipes and really planning for meals takes time. Especially if you are trying to eat healthily, and even more so if you shop at multiple places to save money and/or to buy fresh. So obviously this could get really boring if you just use your old menus and don't continue to search for new ways to cook and new ingredients to try. But I'm not too worried about that. Be back soon. Cheers.

Ground Turkey and Vegetable Soup with Split Peas and Barley

There's nothing like a hot bowl of soup during fall and winter; hence, we've been eating a lot of it. And sharing some too. So I decided to double the recipe this time and wowzers. We've got enough soup to last us a lifetime. But it's okay. Because this is good.

This soup is a variation of a recipe from Wholesome Kitchen, as is the Moroccan Harira that I have previously blogged about. Both have been huge hits and I'm excited to try more "delicious recipes with beans, lentils, grains, and other natural foods" from this cookbook.

This recipe calls for basically throwing all ingredients (dried split yellow peas, onion, celery, carrot, potato, pearl barley, ground turkey, fresh flat-leaf parsley, chicken or vegetable stock, sea salt, and freshly ground black pepper) into a pot, bringing to a boil, and reducing the heat to a simmer, cooking for 2 hours. However, for soups, I've realized that I really like to sweat the onions in a bit of extra-virgin olive oil and butter before adding the stock and remaining ingredients. Also, since I was using ground turkey as a meat substitution, I browned that in the same pot before adding the stock as well.

 
This soup is hearty and jam-packed with wholesome goodness. The barley and split peas add great texture. I tried extremely hard to keep the soup at a low simmer (didn't want it to bubble too much and fall apart), so it kept shape this time. The chunks of vegetables were cooked to perfection and the ground turkey dominated the flavor.

When making soup, I've found that I kind of have to amplify the flavor with additional spices like curry or ground cayenne red pepper, in addition to bay leaf among others. This necessity may mean one of a few things: it's time for homemade stock. I think this may be in our future. We'll see. Cheers.