Winter Vegetables

Life has been a bit busy around here. I am enjoying cooking with local organic winter ingredients, but somewhere between the cooking and bedtime, many meals that were meant for the blog have not made it through all the necessary steps.

Beautiful recipes who will never get their 15 minutes of internet fame...

In lieu of detailed recipes and blog posts, here is a recap of what I have been up to lately...

I have a bag of Bob's Redmill lentils (grown in Washington) that I have been playing around with. Local! Cheap! Protein and fiber! I made so-so soup one day and then a very good lentil dip the next day. The lentil puree dip recipe came from Gluten Free Girl's cookbook. Unfortunately, lentils are not very photogenic, but I asked her to show me her best side.

One of my favorite food-porn cookbooks is "Fresh" by Michele Cranston. Her recipes are simple but creative and the photos are gorgeous! This week, I have been using local organic apples and pears to play around with different versions of Michele's apple and nut crumble cake.

Winter delivery 

I also made vegetable-heavy meat pies using grated parsnip, potato and onion to flavor the Thundering Hooves ground beef and create a cohesive filling. You can find my Nigerian style meat pie recipe here. If you have never made hand-held pies before, you can greatly reduce the work involved by using a pre-made roll of pie dough from the grocery store. They made a very "handy" lunch on the go (I can't help myself.)

This parsnip loves me, he really really loves me. 

SOLE Notes: Thanks to Spud.com for the local and organic parsnips, beets, shallots, leeks, apples, pears, ground beef, lentils, onions, milk and butter. I love my weekly delivery!