Baby Steps on Road to Improvement

Cornmeal-coated tilapia with couscous, lemony carrots and green beans

I may not make New Year's resolutions, but that doesn't mean I think my self improvement is done. It's just that I'm constantly reflecting on myself and how I can continue to grow, learn new skills, make smarter decisions, treat people and the planet with respect and be a better person in general. Shouldn't those aspirations guide me every day and not just once a year?

Symbolically I understand the urge to make the annual resolution. New year, new start. And for some people, the grand resolution may inspire great resolve. As for me, it's more effective to think of each day as a clean slate. If one day doesn't work out so well, then the next day I can start over, like Bill Murray in "Groundhog Day." There won't be a dramatic transformation as in "Extreme Makeover." It'll be more like a recipe you're working on. Each time you test it, you tweak it and make little improvements. Eventually you end up with something to feel good about.

Among my ongoing improvements is putting more thought into where my food comes from and the impact on the environment. I know many people are way ahead of me on this, but better late than never, no? Of course, here in the frigid Midwest winter, buying in season and local is a little different than it would be in California, where you'd be able to get produce from within the state, even from a farmers market, at any time of year. My choices are more like apples from two states away or cherries from a continent away. I choose the apples.

At the fish counter, I tend to have a little more trouble. I know I should steer clear of orange roughy and Chilean sea bass (both of which were on ice last week at the supermarket), but is trout okay? Does it matter whether it is wild or farmed, as it does with salmon?

Canada-farmed rainbow trout pan fried with teriyaki sauce

I've consulted Monterey Bay Aquarium's online Seafood Watch guides, but there was so much information that I couldn't remember enough by the time I got to the store. Fortunately, after my husband and I got me an iPod Touch for Christmas (um, yeah, I helped with that present), I was finally able to use the aquarium's mobile app.

It turns out U.S.-farmed tilapia and farmed rainbow trout are good choices, according to the guide. But lake trout could be okay or not, depending on which lake it came from. And Central American-farmed tilapia is supposed to be a good alternative to U.S.-farmed, but Asia-farmed tilapia is not.

I ended up buying farmed rainbow trout from Canada and tilapia farmed in Central America. I didn't really have a recipe for either. I just fried the trout, adding teriyaki sauce toward the end of cooking. The tilapia I seasoned with salt and pepper, dusted with cornmeal and pan fried in a little butter and olive oil. I finished with a squeeze of lemon (I've done lime too) and served it with herbed Israeli couscous, green beans and pan roasted carrots dressed with a lemon vinaigrette (recipe below).

I'm not deluded. I realize that my individual decision to pass up the Chilean sea bass and fry up the trout is not going to save the planet. But as my knowledge grows, hopefully, my improved choices will add up, and I can also help educate friends and family, whose choices will add up, and so on. If I'm successful, we'll maybe help the Earth in our small way, or at least not contribute to messing it up.

Lemony Balsamic-Thyme Vinaigrette for Roasted Carrots
I really think the brightness of this dressing complements the naturally sweet vegetable better than a sugary or syrupy glaze. This makes enough for at least two pounds of carrots.

INGREDIENTS
1 Tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1 Tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon mustard
4 Tablespoons olive oil
1 tsp chopped fresh thyme
1 tsp grated fresh lemon zest
1/2 teaspoon salt (adjust according to preference)
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

DIRECTIONS
1. Whisk together balsamic vinegar, lemon juice and mustard, then gradually drizzle in the olive oil while constantly beating. Whisk in the thyme, lemon zest, salt and pepper.

2. Spoon about half the vinaigrette over two pounds of roasted carrots. Taste and add more dressing if desired. The dressing can be made ahead, but carrots taste best served right after being dressed.

This also is good for making a roasted carrot and potato salad.

Hope for 2011: Sense and Sensitivity

I have high hopes for every year, 2011 being no exception. If I didn't, then what would be the point of going on?

Of course, I won't hold my breath for some things. For example, I hope that more people learn to use some common sense, which is rather an oxymoron isn't it? Sense is very uncommon. I'm not talking about intelligence. Sure we could use more intelligence to go around. But the really rare commodity, even among pretty smart people, is good judgment.

I think about this when I see an attempt at using wit to catch someone's attention. I'm not talking about irreverence or even obnoxious humor in the right context. On the other hand, when you're addressing a general audience of millions of readers, is it really so clever to play off of a historical event with millions of victims, who probably wouldn't find much to pun about in the terror, torture and death they endured?

Friday morning I came across the newspaper headline "Cultural Resolutions" and was a little surprised that editors thought it would be fun or clever to make a pun with the Cultural Revolution. Sure, it takes a bit of wit or skill with language to create a pun. A bit.

But would those same editors give the green light to a headline such as "Retail Holocost: Big box company's low prices wipe out small stores"? (After all, it's just playing with the reference to the Holocaust and not even spelling it the same way. Would they be Shoah it would pass a good taste test? This ridiculousness is just to make a point, in case I haven't been clear.)

How about "The Shilling Fields: Sports event revenue grows with memorabilia sales." Was the Khmer Rouge so bad that we can't try to lighten things up a bit? In fact, wouldn't it be terribly clever for a cosmetics company to introduce a beautiful blood-red lipstick and name the shade C'mere Rouge?

I do think the news media should have the courage to offend someone -- if it serves a purpose. But if the only reason for giving a big fat middle finger to people who still bear the physical and psychological scars of a horrific event (not to mention the dead) is that a writer or editor can't think of something smarter, then I see failed judgment, or at least laziness. Isn't the motto of a journalist supposed to be "Comfort the Afflicted and Afflict the Comfortable," not "Afflict the Afflicted"?

Friday wasn't the first time I had seen a "witty" reference to the Cultural Revolution. At one of my local supermarkets last year I came across Cultural Revolution yogurt. Yes, I get it, yogurt is a cultured product, and the company described this one as "revolutionary in every way, including its appearance and texture." I was open minded enough to buy a cup of it just so I would know whether it was a great-tasting product in a tasteless package. Turns out, it was good, but not my favorite and not amazing enough for me to swallow my objection to the name.

But while I'm pragmatic enough not to hold my breath waiting for sense to prevail, I always have hope, and in this case it was justified. This past fall, the maker of Cultural Revolution yogurt rebranded its product Kalona SuperNatural.

If anyone still doesn't understand why I oppose frivolous puns that refer to the Cultural Revolution, then maybe a few recollections from survivors will at least offer insight into my point of view.

In a BBC report, one family member of a victim recalled, "My mother was also severely beaten because of my father. It was so bad there was blood in her urine."
Another survivor said, "Around that time people were dragged out and shot in large numbers in Shanghai - sometimes 50 people in one go."

One compelling account is in "Life and Death in Shanghai," by Nien Cheng, a memoir that details her years of solitary confinement and torture in prison during the Cultural Revolution. When she finally did get out, she learned that her only child, her daughter, had died at the hands of the Red Guard. If Cheng, who died a little more than a year ago, had lived to see the headline flippantly playing off the horror that she endured and that her daughter didn't survive, I can't imagine what she would have thought.

 A University of Chicago scholar who lived through that period, Youqin Wang, said during an interview that to some people "Chinese victims’ lives are cheaper than those of other nations." I hope that's not true.

When I see a newspaper headline, blog post, brand name or online comment that seems to lack judgment or taste, sometimes I wonder whether the author gave it any thought. When people turn something like the Cultural Revolution into nothing more than an easy pun, I wonder whether they know what the Cultural Revolution was, not to mention any other modern history. If so, did they weigh the pros and cons and make a conscious judgment that the negatives are worth it? And would a person with any class be able to look someone in the eye and say in person what they wrote anonymously?

Spinach Bacon Quiche

I love eggs in just about any form, so it's inevitable that they show up on my table at all times of day. It doesn't hurt that they are so easy to prepare, which is a nice break from some of the other cooking projects I've had during the holidays. Sometimes I make bacon, egg and cheese sandwiches. Sometimes I have soy sauce eggs with rice or noodles. And then sometimes I bake quiche.

The first time I tasted quiche was in my seventh grade French class. Our teacher, Mrs. D, wanted us to absorb some culture as well as conjugations. She perched a beret over her curly auburn hair (it was clichéd even back then, although adorable on Mrs. D), read French poetry, played French records (so help me, I'll slap anyone who asks me what records are), and brought in Evian water and Brie cheese (they were exotic at the time). She also fed us quiche.

Since then, quiches have become hip, then passe, and now ... I don't know what their current status is, and I don't care. Just let me have the eggy, custardy, cheesy filling in a buttery crust. Did I mention the bacon? I'll be quiet for the two minutes it takes to inhale my share.

Ham and cheese quiche with broccoflower gratin and braised leek

A pre-made crust makes a quiche quick and easy. But since when do I do things the easy way if the hard way tastes better? For a while I've tried to master pie crust. Not because homemade is cheaper. It's sort of an obsession, my Dulcinea — the right combination of tender and flaky, not too crumbly, but not tough or too hard. Besides, I like the taste of butter, and pre-made crusts are made with vegetable shortening. I don't like shortening. It tends to leave a thin film throughout my mouth that I find unpleasant.

I've made some pretty good crusts, but I'm still experimenting. A recipe that I've been tinkering with for several months replaces one-third of the butter with olive oil (see recipe below). The olive oil helps coat the flour for a more tender crust. It's also more healthful, not that I'm afraid of a little butter or cream, as you can see from the quiche ingredients.

The vodka adds moisture to the dough without helping the gluten form. Gluten, which forms when water mixes with wheat flour, means structure, but it can also contribute to toughness. The vodka wasn't my innovation. A few years ago, Cook's Illustrated published a vodka pie dough recipe that attracted a lot of attention. For me, that dough was a little too wet and sticky to work with. But the idea of using vodka was good, so I incorporated that into my own crust.

Spinach-Bacon Quiche Recipe
Serves 4 adults

INGREDIENTS
1 crust (recipe below)
1 cup shredded cheese (I like to use a combination of cheddar and swiss)
1 package (10 ounces) of frozen chopped spinach, drained*
4 to 5 slices of cooked bacon, crumbled (or 1/2 cup chopped ham)
6 large eggs**
1/2 cup heavy cream (or creme fraiche)
1 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Bake crust (recipe below).

2. While crust is baking, cook spinach, then squeeze out liquid. After removing crust from oven, immediately sprinkle half  to two-thirds of the shredded cheese all over the bottom of the crust and allow to cool on rack. Lower oven to 375 degrees F.
With fingers, break up the spinach and sprinkle it evenly all over the bottom of the crust. Drop bacon pieces evenly over the spinach, then the rest of the shredded cheese.

3. In a 4-cup measuring cup or in a mixing bowl, beat eggs. Add cream, milk, salt and pepper, and beat until combined. Pour mixture into the crust, taking care not to overfill. Depending on the size of the pie dish, you may have extra filling.

4. Place quiche on a baking sheet, then bake until center barely sets, about 40 to 50 minutes (adjust time depending on the oven). Serve with salad, soup or cooked vegetable. We recently had spinach-bacon quiche with leftover potato gratin and ham and cheese quiche with broccoflower gratin.

Use ham instead of bacon if that's what you have.

NOTES: *I've used cooked fresh spinach with good results. If you don't like spinach, omit the spinach and make a bacon and cheese quiche. Or you could do ham and swiss, smoked salmon and chopped fresh dill, or any other filling combination.

**Leave out a couple yolks to reduce the cholesterol.

Pie crust recipe for quiche
makes a 9-inch deep-dish bottom crust

INGREDIENTS
2 cups all purpose flour*** (275 grams, or a shade under 9 3/4 ounces)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 stick (1/2 cup, or 4 ounces) butter, very cold, cut into half-inch cubes
1/4 cup olive oil
5 to 7 Tablespoons ice water (5 Tablespoons worked for me)
1 Tablespoon vodka
1 teaspoon vinegar

DIRECTIONS
1. Put flour and salt in bowl of food processor and pulse to combine. Add half the butter and all the olive oil, and pulse until the butter pieces resemble sand. Scrape down sides of processor bowl if needed. Add remaining butter and process until the butter pieces are about the size of peas. (If you don't have a processor, use your fingers or a pastry cutter to work butter into the flour.)

2. Dump contents of processor into a large (4.5 quart or 5 quart) mixing bowl. Put 5 Tablespoons of the ice water together with the vodka and vinegar in a cup. Using a fork, stir the liquid into the dough until it clumps. Give it a squeeze with a clean hand. If dough crumbles instead of holding together, add water, half Tablespoon at a time. If it holds together, shape into a disk, wrap in plastic and refrigerate at least 30 minutes.

3. After dough has rested, roll out and fit into a 9-inch deep-dish pie plate or a 9- or 10-inch quiche dish. Avoid stretching the dough while placing it in the pie plate or it will be more susceptible to shrinkage. Trim dough about 1/4 inch outside the edge of the pie plate. (I usually have enough extra dough from the trimmings to make a toaster pastry.) Then crimp the edges. Poke bottom with a fork and place in freezer 30 minutes.

4. With the rack in lower third of the oven, preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Bake crust until it turns golden, about 25 minutes. You may have to cover the perimeter with a pie crust protector or foil while the bottom bakes through. If the bottom starts to balloon up, pierce with the tines of a fork and use the back of the fork to press the bottom back down. (I haven't had this problem lately, but it could be just luck. If you want, you can line the crust with buttered foil weighed down with pie weights or dried beans for about the first 15 minutes.)

5. Remove crust from oven and set on a rack.

NOTES: ***I use King Arthur unbleached all purpose flour, which is available at my supermarket. There are other good flours, but if the protein content is different, they may require different amounts of liquid. I recommend weighing ingredients for baking, although I know it isn't always possible or convenient. If using cups to measure flour, I fluff the flour then spoon it into the measuring cup before leveling it with a straight edge, such as a knife.

Pineapple Isn't Citrus (Not that there's anything wrong with that)

A pomelo and lemons.

Since when is pineapple considered citrus? At least since yesterday for The Wall Street Journal, which featured a story and "recipes that unleash the sweet power of citrus," including instructions for fritters in which pineapple is the only fruit.

The reporter wrote, "It's fitting that chefs looking to play around with produce turn their attention to fragrant citrus—tangerines, pineapples, grapefruits, Meyer lemons and especially sweet oranges—when the fruits are in their prime." Pineapples?

I turned to my husband watching TV on the couch next to me and said, "This has to be wrong. Pineapple isn't citrus." Half listening, he asked, "It isn't?" His response surprised me. I had thought the differences were obvious. Oranges, lemons and other citrus fruits grow on trees, are mostly full of little sacks of juice (vesicles) and have fragrant, dimpled skin that's pleasant to touch. Pineapples come from a herbaceous plant, have a hard, rough skin and are crowned with a mass of spiky leaves. I opened my copy of "On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen," by Harold McGee, and confirmed that pineapples are indeed unrelated to citrus fruit.
I also did some online checking and came across questions from multiple people asking whether pineapples are citrus fruit. Apparently, people get them confused.

Yes, pineapples are fruit, as are oranges, lemons, grapefruit, etc. They pleasingly blend tartness with sweetness. They thrive in warm climates. But citrus plants are members of the family Rutaceae, and pineapples are members of the Bromeliaceae family, which includes Spanish moss and several common houseplants.

So there. That's straightened out, and we can move on.

A nice way to use pineapple is in a banana pineapple cake from Bon Appétit. I skip the nuts and the frosting and add some extra drained pineapple to the batter. For me the recipe makes a dozen muffins and one 9-inch round cake. The cake is good served with a little whipped cream and sliced fresh bananas or strawberries. The muffins are good plain, served with a cup of coffee or tea.

For savory dishes, try pineapple in ham and pineapple fried rice or in sweet and sour pork chops.

A citrus recipe I like is for Tartelette's mini tarts filled with calamansi mousse and accented with candied kumquats. Kumquats regularly show up in a couple supermarkets in my area, and I found calamansi juice in the freezer section of my local Asian grocery store. If calamansi were unavailable, I'd experiment with Meyer lemons or Key limes.

Peanut Butter and Chocolate Financiers

Small squares of chocolate are hidden in the madeleine-shaped financiers.

Eggs are an important component of so many of my recipes, so when I found out about the salmonella outbreak in August and then the massive recall of eggs from two egg producers tied to the outbreak, I worried that the eggs I was feeding my kids were dangerous time bombs. I checked our refrigerator. Ours weren't part of the recall, but what if they were contaminated and got recalled later? I was also angry at the conditions FDA inspectors reported at Hillandale Farms of Iowa and at Wright County Egg, also in Iowa. I won't detail what the reports contain because you might lose your appetite, but you can see for yourself if you want to follow the links to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's reports.
I threw our eggs in the garbage and didn't buy more for about two weeks.

But it was too hard to stick to egg-free dishes. I paid extra for organic cage-free eggs, and after several weeks of no additional recalls, I relaxed a little.

Apparently I'm not alone.The Associated Press reported this week that egg sales are back up after dropping about 9 percent following the outbreak. On Nov. 30, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Wright County Egg, which recalled 380 million eggs after it was linked to the outbreak, could start shipping shell eggs to consumers again. Hillandale got the go ahead in October to start selling eggs again.

Still, for me it's hard to trust again, so I'll continue to avoid companies with a history of problems. (I also try to be more selective with meats and produce.) I know there are no guarantees (about a month ago, another company, Cal-Maine Foods, recalled eggs from a supplier in Ohio because of the potential for salmonella contamination), but I have dinners to make and desserts to bake, including the peanut butter financiers I found in "Rose's Heavenly Cakes," by Rose Levy Beranbaum.

Like eggs, peanut butter has a particular hold on me. I love it in cookies, cake, pie, chocolate truffles, milk shakes, sandwiches, soup, sauce for noodles — just about anything. So when I saw Beranbaum's recipe putting peanut butter into the little French cakes, I had to try them almost as soon as I bought her book.

I was not disappointed. Ground almonds and browned butter in the batter enhanced the peanut flavor and helped the financiers stay moist. Plus, I pushed pieces of chocolate into the center of each cake, just as I do for chocolate-surprise madeleines — not part of Beranbaum's recipe, but I don't think I need to explain why I did it.

If you like peanut butter, try this. The peanut flavor isn't overwhelming — it's not supposed to be candy, after all — but it's definitely there. And check out "Rose's Heavenly Cakes." The color photographs show such beautiful, and to me irresistible, cakes. You'll want to make them too if you're anything like me.

Peanut Butter and Chocolate Financiers Recipe
Adapted from "Rose's Heavenly Cakes"

INGREDIENTS
3/4 cup* (75 g.) sliced almonds (the recipe said preferably unblanched, but I had only some blanched slivered almonds and some unblanched whole almonds, so I used some of both)
10 Tablespoons (142 g.) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 1/3 cups (150 grams) powdered sugar that has been sifted and spooned into the cup and leveled (I didn't have this either so I used 150 grams of superfine sugar)
1/2 cup (57 g.) sifted, bleached all-purpose flour (I have only unbleached)
4 large (120 g.) egg whites at room temperature
1/2 teaspoon salt (because my peanut butter was unsalted)
3 Tablespoons (50 g.) creamy peanut butter (the book calls for Jif)
small pieces of chocolate that can be tucked into each financier

DIRECTIONS
1. Place rack in center of oven and preheat to 375 degrees F. To make sure my oven gets up to temperature and maintains it, I keep a baking stone on the lower rack and normally preheat about 30 minutes.
Prepare financier molds or tins (if not using nonstick, then brush with melted butter). I don't have financier molds, so I used madeleine tins, which yielded 24 cakes plus enough extra batter for three small tart shapes.

2. Toast the almonds on a baking sheet for several minutes. Watch them. You want the color to darken, but don't let them burn.

3. Melt and brown the butter in a small (about 1 1/2 quart) saucepan over low to medium-low flame. When the milk solids turn brown, remove from heat because they can burn and turn black quickly. Pour butter gently into a glass measuring cup (plastic would be a bad idea here) so that you leave behind the majority of the solids and end up with 1/2 cup of the melted butter. Put it in a warm spot to keep it melted.  (The book said to strain out the solids, but I have enough to clean without adding a strainer to the pile. When I'm competing on TV or writing a book, then I'll strain.)

4. Spin the almonds with the sugar in a food processor until finely ground. Blend in the flour and salt.

5. In a mixing bowl, beat the egg whites on medium speed until they look like the foam on a bubble bath (I used setting 3 on my 7-speed hand-held Cuisinart mixer, although I'd have used a nice stand mixer if I'd had it). Using low speed, beat in the ground almonds and flour. Beat in the melted butter using medium-low speed, then add the peanut butter and mix it in.

6. Fill molds about 2/3 full. I used a 1 Tablespoon rounded measuring spoon to put a 1 Tablespoon of batter into each madeleine depression. Then press a piece of chocolate into each madeleine, using the back of a spoon or your finger to smear a little batter over the chocolate to cover it. (You can skip this step if you don't want to hide the chocolate.) Normally I prefer dark chocolate, but in this particular recipe, I thought the milk chocolate pieces complemented the light peanut butter flavor better.

Bake until they turn golden. The original recipe, which used larger molds than mine, calls for a baking time of 15 to 18 minutes. Mine took 12 to 13 minutes.

7. Place the tins on a rack to cool for several minutes, then unmold the financiers onto the racks to finish cooling. (Unless you are using a silicone financier mold, in which case let them cool completely in the mold on a cooling rack.) Oh, and eat within a day or two. Beranbaum writes that they keep for three days at room temperature if you wrap them airtight in plastic wrap in an airtight container. I'm not sure in what universe they'd still be around after a couple days, so I don't bother.

 NOTE: *I changed several things in this recipe, including the type of almonds used, the type of sugar and the flour, so I weighed all the substitutions to make sure I was using the correct amounts. I think this was most important when using superfine sugar in place of the powdered sugar, because the amount (weight) obtained would have been significantly different for the same cup measurement (volume). That said, it's generally a good practice to weigh ingredients when baking even when making no substitutions at all, because on different occasions you can get different amounts of an ingredient, such as flour, even when using the same measuring cup. Weighing ingredients prevents that inconsistency.

Related: The Cornucopia Institute's Organic Egg Scorecard

Toaster Pastry Tussle

The pastry cools in peace, until my son and I go for it simultaneously.

It's been far too long, but at least I've been cooking and baking during my absence.

One of my favorite things was an impromptu Pop-Tart, er, I mean toaster pastry, that I made to use extra pie crust dough. I filled it with some pear butter sitting in the refrigerator.

I'm going to have to make a batch of dough just for these so that I have enough for everyone. My 7-year-old and I had a little tussle over this, and it wasn't pretty, the scene of a grown woman trying to sit on a little boy and wrestle away his treat. At the time it seemed fun. In hindsight, I'm not so proud of myself. But I let him keep at least half. I'm sure it was pretty close to half.

I'd post a recipe, but I used an olive oil-butter crust that I'm still developing. I'll get that posted as soon as I have that figured out a little better. But you don't need a recipe from me to make these. All you need is some dough, jam (or chocolate, or hazelnut spread, or cinnamon sugar), and an oven or toaster oven.

Cut the dough into squares or squarish rectangles, add a bit of filling, fold and seal. A little goes a long way. The pastry should look pretty flat. If you overfill it, it will ooze its filling. Not that that ruins it or anything. Poke the top with a fork to allow steam to escape, and bake at 350 F until golden. Just make sure to bake more than one.

Easy Peasy Split Pea Soup

Soups are a good way to use leftovers and prevent waste.

 Coincidentally, Tara Parker-Pope in The New York Times writes about wasting food just as I'm on a kick to use up leftovers instead of forgetting them.

Now that we have a preschool tuition to pay that we didn't last year, I've had to be much more conscious of our expenses, including groceries. It's easy to underestimate the cost of food, especially if you buy a little here and there throughout the week without keeping track. When you're paying attention, you realize how much the costs add up.

It isn't as though I suddenly realized wasting food was ... well, wasteful. I always peel and eat broccoli stalks, use celery leaves in a soup or stew, and cook beet greens and other veggie parts that some people throw away. I'm the only one in the house who'll eat toast made from the heel of a loaf, so I turn the ends into homemade breadcrumbs, which go into meatloaf that also incorporates leftover chopped spinach. Leftover sausage gets cut into small pieces and tossed with pasta, olive oil and broccoli rabe or beet greens. Even so, all too often I rediscover — too late — a forgotten container or a bunch of leeks in the vegetable drawer that have mushified. (Yes, I know it's not a real word, but it's a real problem.) It's easy to grab bunches of things that look amazing at the farmers market and then have no time that week to get to it all.

And that was usually my problem. I had no plan for many of my food purchases, and once they got stored at home — in the produce drawer, the pantry, etc. — it was "out of sight, out of mind." For the past couple weeks, I've been working harder on changing my habits, making sure to plan ahead what I'd prepare during the week and write my shopping list accordingly. If something I hadn't planned to buy was irresistible, I made sure to think what I'd make with it and when to do so. If something tempted me, but I couldn't think of what to make or when during the week I'd have time to get to it, then I resisted the urge to take it home.

Along those lines, I made a pea soup this past week, partly because the weather turned cold and partly because I had impulsively (old habits die hard) bought big bags of organic carrots and potatoes. Hey, they were on sale. I started out pretty well by prepping and roasting the potatoes and carrots the day I got them home. For me half the battle is not putting them in the bottom drawer of the refrigerator and losing track of them. That evening we had the veggies with roast chicken for dinner.

The next day we ate some of the leftover veggies. A couple days after that, I noticed the container of potatoes and carrots starting to migrate farther back into the fridge, getting ready to disappear behind a wall of yogurt containers.

Extra veggies can go into almost anything. I like to use them in pasta, omelets and quiches, and soups. A couple soups that take little effort and time are pumpkin-red lentil soup (to use up extra pureed pumpkin or other cooked squash) and split pea soup (to finish off potatoes, carrots and ham, if you eat meat).

Vegetarian Split Pea Soup
Serves 8

INGREDIENTS
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1 onion, chopped (about half to three-quarters of a cup)
2 small cloves or 1 large clove garlic, chopped (about a Tablespoon)
pinch of salt
1 bag dried split peas (1 pound, or about 2 cups)
2 quarts (8 cups) vegetable stock*
leftover cooked carrots (I had about a cup, but more or less doesn't matter)
leftover roasted potatoes (again, as much as you have or want)
salt

DIRECTIONS
1. In a medium (about 4 quart) pot over medium heat, stir together oil, onion, garlic and pinch of salt, and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onion turns translucent. Lower heat if it starts to brown or burn.

2. Inspect peas, discarding any stones or bad-looking peas. Put peas and broth into the pot of onion, bring to a simmer over high heat, then reduce heat and continue to simmer until peas break down and become soft, about 45 minutes.** Add carrots and potatoes, and heat about 5 minutes more. Taste and add salt and pepper if needed.***
 
NOTES:
* Normally I'd use water and simmer the soup with a ham hock or pieces of leftover ham, but when I don't have ham or just want a vegetarian version, I like to use vegetable stock or broth for the flavor. Use vegetable scraps to make broth and freeze ahead of time. I also keep on hand vegetable bouillon cubes. Chicken broth makes a good substitute if you aren't vegetarian or vegan.
** I think most recipes call for half or all the soup to be blended with an immersion (stick) blender or in a traditional blender. I like my soups to have some texture, so usually I don't blend.
*** Other seasonings you could use include a teaspoon of chopped fresh thyme leaves added with the carrots and potatoes, or a bay leaf added with the broth, or a teaspoon of curry powder added to the onions about a minute before the broth and peas are added. Experiment with what you like. My roasted carrots often are tossed with lemon zest and a lemon vinaigrette after coming out of the oven. If I were using plain carrots, I'd probably also add a little lemon to the soup.