The Queer Hipster Kitchen

This one is literally, actually the easiest soup we make.  It's a never-fail soup that could be hearty enough for lunches or make a fancy starter at some looming holiday meal. The Ingredients: 1 butternut squash, peeled and cubed 6 c. veggie stock 1-2 T spice of your choice: good options include cayenne, chipotle powder, ancho chile powder for the spicier crowd, or milder options like cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg for a sweeter approach 3 cloves garlic black pepper The Process: Put all of it in a crockpot and cook on low for 8 hours or until the squash has gone totally soft. Use an immersion blender to puree the soup.  Adjust both spice and stock to taste: that is, if you need more heat, add it; if it's too thick, add more stock and let simmer a bit. That's literally it.  6-8 servings, depending on how hungry you are. Pro Tips: If this is lunch for the week, we will use 2 squashes, double the stock, and make it in the Great Big Crockpot. You can also add...

School years and semesters are now well under way for folks whose work is most pressing on that September-to-June cycle.  And where have we been?  Well, getting said year under way, of course. Despite the fact that I'm on research leave, we are diligent about our meal planning and about using weekends to do some advance work for the week.  (This means that doing the prep has taken precedence over blogging about it over the past two busy weekends - sorry, friends.) If you've been around food blogs for any length of time, you've seen ten thousand people praising meal prep and telling you it's the secret to your new healthy lifestyle.  I wish this was the moment when I said "but they're wrong!" or "do it like this!" but... meal prep, especially lunch prep, is crucial to our family's ability to eat well and resist the siren calls of ordering a pizza or grabbing something processed. However.  Karen and I can manage most of the prep in about ...

Today is a bulk cooking day - we're a few weeks away from the start of new school years and semesters, which means it's time to start rebuilding our usual routines.  This involves setting back the alarm clock (which I hate already), getting our morning walk on, and, perhaps most importantly, picking up the batch cooking in earnest once more. One day of each weekend, our kitchen becomes an epic, delicious mess.  We take a couple of hours and do as much pre-preparing as we can stand.  This is a really crucial part of our ability to prepare healthy meals from minimally processed stuff during the week.  So today was the day to make rice ahead, pressure cook beans, whip up some hummus, make ice cream (a house staple!), and more.  It's a quiet weekend without too many other commitments, so it's also a good week to get our pasta and pizza dough on.  (Both freeze really well.) A few weeks ago, we bought carrots at the co-op that had really substantial greens ...

Have you ever been trying to use up some kitchen scraps and made something so fabulous that you write down everything you did, so you can do it again?  That was my day today. We were rolling egg rolls for our gathering with friends tonight.  The trouble was that we had sort of a lot of egg roll wrappers left - we made a beautiful dozen crispy baked rolls, as per the recipe I shared last week , but then were left scrambling to figure out what to do with the rest of the wrappers.  Once they're open, you really only have a day or two to use them. So I went digging in the fridge: what else can be made into an egg roll?  I found barbecue sauce, some more of our endless CSA cabbage, and an open can of jackfruit. Things weren't looking promising. However, I know that many people like jackfruit for its pulled-pork-like texture.  In fact, I have a can at present because I put some into our lentil sloppy joes for exactly that magical texture.  So, if jackfruit...

This is a house favorite for lunch time.  I had a recipe for it once, but now it's one of those recipes that you just make.  (And make.  And make.  Seriously, we could eat it every day of the week and not be sorry about it.) It would be very simple to make this vegan, but you'd be missing out because the feta makes it extra delicious.  It's also a recipe you can change up with whatever else you have around for veggies! Ingredients: 1 cup farro 2 heads broccoli 1 pint grape tomatoes 1 can chickpeas (or 2 cups cooked chickpeas for you fancy dry bean types) 6 oz (or so) feta cheese 1/4 cup red wine vinegar The procedure: Combine farro with 2 cups water in a saucepan.  Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for about 35 minutes or until farro is done.  (Pro Tip: just follow your package directions on this one.) While the farro cooks, chop your broccoli and slice grape tomatoes.  Drain and rinse chickpeas if you're using canned...