meatless monday

You guys, I solved lunch.

I recently wrote about my occasional breakfast ruts. Truth is, I’ve been in a lunch rut for my entire life.

I hate lunch, always have. While I know I should choose something light and low on carbs in order to minimize the post-lunch stupor I experience, it’s much more fun, when you’re craving a burger or are invited out to the Indian buffet, to partake in a meal as hearty as dinner. I know some folks who skip lunch altogether, but my growling stomach makes it impossible for me to accomplish that. So I end up paralyzed and indecisive, a little bit hungry or way too full.

This kale salad solves lunch by creating a killer balance of rich ingredients with nutrient-rich greens. The egg, walnut, and avocado collaborate to deliver satisfaction. The kale is their foil, bringing each bite to your mouth without the help of a piece of bread, my original delivery method. Plus, kale beats out lettuce as a base for a brown bag salad: you can dress the greens with a honey-tinged vinaigrette in the morning, and they soften up by the time you dig in at lunch, as opposed to getting soggy like lettuce.

In New York, Jewish food has saturated our culture. Bagels and smoked salmon are important weekend brunch elements. Chicken soup is Penicillin for all. Mile End‘s comfort food is a phenomenon city-wide.

Last week, a friend of mine who teaches undergraduates told me a Nigerian student in his class had used the word schmaltzy-meaning excessively emotional or grandiose-perhaps not knowing that schmaltz is the Yiddish word for rendered animal fat. As in, “that’s rich,” muttered kind of sarcastically.

Speaking literally, schmaltz is the chicken fat that makes my mom’s matzoh balls rich yet light, and melt-in-your-mouth delicious. The process for making matzoh balls delights me too. The fat that collects at the top of cooled homemade chicken broth becomes an essential ingredient in the little dumplings served in the soup.

When I decided to develop a vegetarian recipe for Passover, I naturally had to nix the schmaltz altogether. Instead, using my favorite vegetable broth, I substituted oil for the chicken fat in the matzoh balls and added cups of classic soup vegetables to my pot. Lots of chopped dill rounds out the flavor and adds a springy touch.

By the way, I still don’t own a ladle. I mention this in the equipment section of In the Small Kitchen, and I still stand by the idea that a one-cup measure works just perfectly for serving soup.

If you’re not a vegetarian, start prepping my mom’s amazing brisket now.

In truth, I believe you can never eat too much pasta. Lately, though, I’ve been thinking about pasta as a side, the accompaniment rather than the main course. One easy way I do this is to think of “pasta with vegetables” as “vegetables with pasta,” changing the proportions so my final dish isn’t totally carb focused. I do this especially when the pasta will be my lunch and I don’t want to spend the afternoon in a food coma.

This dish, which is a cross between a couscous salad and, well, mac and cheese, is a perfect side for steak, chicken, or tofu.

Israeli couscous is made from wheat, like the teeny tiny couscous I’m used to eating. According to Claudia Roden, families in North Africa used to grind their wheat to their preferred coarseness, so there was a range of textures and appearances among couscous dishes.

Hi, Manhattan. I’ve been avoiding the borough since before Hurricane Sandy hit, but today I boarded the 3 train and rode right back in from Brooklyn.

On the surface, our city is back. Read between the lines and you’ll see that the recovery has not been equal. To be honest, what to do next is confusing. Go about normal life? Or plunge myself into the epicenter of disaster to help dig the whole city out?

When I’m confused, I make more complicated meals than usual. You should have seen the dishes that piled up in our sink during our 10 days of being at home and kind of confused! Alex and I alternated dish-washing duties. They were endless. One day, friends, we’ll have a dishwasher.

Don’t look now, but my last two recipes reveal a nostalgic bent. A month out from the wedding, I’m pining for childhood, from moping through violin lessons to squabbling with my sister. That’s not weird, right?

Today, I’m adding another post to this I-want-to-be-a-kid archive: Alphabet Soup.

I made this most childish of soups for the most mature of reasons, so that Alex and I would be able to feed ourselves nourishing meals even when we’ve got no time to cook. Busy evenings have become the norm, which fits right into your lifestyles, based on your responses to the Hello Fresh giveaway post. I wanted to share my own effort to cook a meal really quickly on the blog, too. Just so you know it’s not all no-knead bread and three-layer brownies around here.

To that end, I’m starting a series called Super Fast, which will be full of recipes that require little prepwork, minimal clean-up, and rapid satisfaction. (You can also navigate to the Recipe Index and browse posts under “For When You’re Low On: Time.”)

One of the easiest ways to save on time is to make a dish all in one pot. The chances that you’ll mess something up are minimal. The number of dishes to clean is…one. And as the soup simmers away for 10 minutes at the end, it leaves you with enough pause to wash your breakfast dishes, get out your mugs, take out some cheese and crackers to dip in the soup, and spell out

B-O-N A-P-P-E-T-I-T

with your pasta alphabet.

Until one weekend away with friends four years ago, I had no idea that dried Southwestern spices like cumin and coriander and chili powder had much use in raw things like salads and stuff. We always put cumin on chicken for tacos and chili powder in chili (obviously). But in salads, they were not my first choice of spice.

Was I wrong!

I remember a whole mismatched group in the kitchen that weekend, dangerously juggling knives and avocados and chips and meat for the barbecue. This guy, Mark, somehow got on guacamole duty. Being a backseat chef, I kept an eye on what Mark was doing, raising my eyebrows when he poured about a tablespoon of dried coriander into the guac. Treacherous, I thought, to use the dried version when fresh coriander-aka cilantro-made guacamole good.

A long time ago, my mother made grilled vegetable sandwiches and packed them for lunch when a group of friends and I went on a trip. They were rich vegetarian sandwiches, and time-consuming to make. There were eggplant and peppers and zucchini to roast, and pestos and tapenade to grind or buy. Fortunately, the sandwiches got better with time, so all the work was worth it, my friends and I thought as we unwrapped the sandwiches en route. Instead of growing soggy, the flavors melded and developed.

The original recipe came from Gourmet, I think, but that trip with friends was in 1997, and the print recipe is likely long gone. Still, I never got the taste of those vegetable sandwiches out of my mind.

Then these pressed sandwiches started showing up everywhere on Pinterest, and I thought about how well my mom’s vegetable sandwiches would adapt to that form-small, pressed sandwich squares made from focaccia. I knew they’d get better with time, so why not make them on a Sunday, cut them into portions, and have lunch all week?