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Chickpea Salad

It’s no secret that I enjoy chickpeas in many of my dishes.  Even in salads, I add chickpeas along with other items.  The recipe below is a stand alone dish the compliments grilled seafood or vegetables.  I hope you enjoy it. 

INGREDIENTS

2 cups canned chicken or vegetable broth
1 tablespoon vegetable or olive oil
1 large garlic clove, minced
1 green onion, minced
2 medium carrots, peeled and coarsely grated
1 (10 ounce) package plain couscous
1 (16 ounce) chickpeas, drained and rinsed
salt and pepper
chopped parsley 
 

DIRECTIONS

  1. Microwave broth over high heat in a 1-quart glass measuring cup until piping hot, 3 to 4 minutes.
  2. Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add onion and garlic; saute until softened, 2 to 3 minutes. Add carrots, couscous and chickpeas; stir to combine. Stir in stock, cover and turn off heat. Let stand until stock is completely absorbed, 4 to 5 minutes. Add salt, if necessary, and pepper to taste. Fluff with a fork, strew with the optional chopped parsley and serve with the grilled entree.
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Potluck Food Safety

Summer time offers individuals opportunities for individuals to socialize with friends and family.  With these events, potlucks are often scheduled and offer participants a variety of dining choices.  Potlucks can also make other sick, unless you follow some food safety guidelines that will halp keep you and your loved ones from becoming ill. 

Easy Tips

  • Handle food safely
  • Always wash hands before and after handling food.
  • Keep the kitchen, dishes and utensils clean.
  • Always serve food on clean plates.  This also includes storage bins and coolers for transporting the food.
  • Trust your nose before preparing.  Do any of the ingredients smell a little “off?”  If so, avoid using.
  • Covering the food prior to serving will also keep the flies and other pests out of it.  Target, ACE Hardware, Lowes, Walmart, etc. all carry mesh covers for food.
  • Be aware of how your food is being handled.  Bring you own clean utensils to avoid cross contamination.
  • When prepping the food, don’t mix your sources.  Raw vegetables should never mix with raw meat in the preparation stages.  This also can lead to cross contamination.

Cook thoroughly:
Heating to the proper temperature kills the bacteria, parasites and viruses that may be on meat and fish. Using a meat thermometer, be sure that: whole poultry reaches 180 degrees; chicken breasts 170 degrees; ground turkey and poultry 165 degrees; ground beef hamburgers 160 degrees; all cuts of pork 160 degrees; beef, veal, lamb steaks, roasts and chops 160 degrees; all other meat and fish 160 degrees.

Keep it hot or cold

  • Divide cooked foods among shallow containers to store in the refrigerator or freezer until serving. This encourages rapid, even cooling. Reheat hot foods to 165 degrees.
  • Hot foods should be held at 140 degrees or warmer. Use a chafing dish, slow cooker or warming trays.
  • Cold foods should be kept at 40 degrees or colder by nesting dishes in bowls of ice. Otherwise, use small serving trays and replace them, as needed, with cold foods.

Mind the time

  • Food should not sit at room temperature for more than two hours
  • Replace empty plates rather than reuse them for a fresh serving.

I hope these suggestions help.  In the meantime, enjoy your summer!

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Individual Shepherd/Cottage Pies

When I was younger and visited various renaissance festivals and rendezvous, I would always look forward to a few dishes.  One of which was cottage or shepherd pies.  This dish is great and with some creativity, can be utilized and adjusted for making leftovers a more tasty treat.

Cottage Pies
Ingredients:
1 tb extra virgin olive oil
1 cup carrots, julienned
1/2 cup onion, chopped
1/2 cup celery, chopped
1 tb garlic, minced
1 lb sirloin steak, chopped into small pieces (left over turkey or venison can be used instead)
3 cups of beef demi glace (3 cups of hot water blended with concentrated store bought demi glace)
2 tsp fresh rosemary, snipped
2 tsp fresh thyme, snipped
1/4 tsp kosher salt
1/4 tsp crushed peppercorns or fresh ground pepper
1 tb flour
1 lb of mashed potatoes
1 tb fresh Italian parsley, snipped
1 tb unsalted butter, melted 

In a large skillet, heat the olive oil over medium-low heat; stir in the carrots, onion, celery, and garlic.  Cook, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are softened (about 5 minutes).  Add the sirloin and increase the heat to medium and continue cooking, stirring occasionally, until beef is browned (about 5 minutes).  

Add the beef demi glace, rosemary, thyme, salt and pepper; reduce heat to low.  Demi glace can be purchased at higher-end and specialty grocery stores.    Simmer the pot with the beef, demi glace, and vegetables until the beef if cooked through (10 – 15 minutes); whisk in the flour until thickened.  

With the mashed potatoes, stir in the parsley and blend.  Pre-prepared boxed mashed potatoes do work for this recipe, but with anything that you cook, food made from scratch tastes significantly better.  Divide the beef and vegetable mixture into 4 portions in 1 cup ramekins.  Spread the mashed potatoes over the top and brush with the melted butter.  Bake in a preheated 400 degree oven until the potatoes are lightly browned (approx 20-25 minutes).

Serves 4

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Vegetable Pie

Many cooks will take shortcuts to make the cooking process easier.  Below was a surprisingly easy dish that is vegetarian. You can make it vegan very easily.  In the recipe, I utilize a soup (courtesy of Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods) and a premade pie crust (Marie Callendars makes a nice vegeraian one, but if no worries Pillsbury makes a pie crust that uses animal shortening).
The pie makes a nice side item or a main dish and is served traditionally as a thanksgiving or harvest festival feast dish.  I do have a roasted carrot soup recipe in my second cookbook.  If you are interested in my cookbooks, you can visit my recommended pages section and click on MacGregor Historical Games site, they sell my cookbook online. 

Ingredients
4 large carrots, julliened
4 cloved of garlic, minced
1 large sweet potato, peeled and julliened
2 leeks, diced
8 medium red potatoes, julliened
3 eggs, scrambled (or for vegans use 3 TB of corn starch or arrowroot)
1 can of garbanzo beans/chickpeas, drained and rinsed
4 TB oil
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger (optional)

Begin sauteing the vegetables (carrots, garlic, leeks, sweet potatoes, and potatoes in oil). When leeks are transparent, add chickpeas and soup and continue to simmer. When carrots are tender, add the eggs to thicken pie filling. If eggs are not desired, gradually add the corn starch to thicken.

Follow the directions on box to pre-bake the pie crust. When pre-baked, pull out and and let cool. Add pie mixture to crust and contiue to bake until pie crust is golden brown. 

I hope you enjoy this dish as much as I do!