Hello my cuties,
Happiest of Sundays. We’re keeping it simple, flavourful and interchangeable today.
Let’s get right to it. I made a soup this week that blew my mind. I was even able to use it 3 different ways throughout the week - Monotony in meals is not my game! I like to switch it up and I want to inspire you to use your meals in more than one capacity. This kind of cooking is what will save you time and help with food waste in your home!
Meal juxtaposition is especially important during the recurring and ever dreaded tax season. Imagine having a fridge of food, prepped to mix and match! I hope I can introduce you to my favourite flavours: the grounding spices of the Middle East. Inspired by the book SIMPLE by one of my top culinary gods to follow: Yotam Ottolenghi.
The base of the 3 different meals we had this week are this Green Soup, spiced with cumin and za’atar. I promise, finding this spice blend will bring you to a new place. It is exceptional when paired with eggs, vegetables, poultry or fish. It’s a herbaceous spice blend that contains sesame seeds that is versatile and worth trying!
Green Soup
Ingredients
1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 onion
3 cloves of garlic
1 seeded jalapeño or 6-8 pickled jalapeño pieces
3 cups spinach
1 zucchini - hard seared
1 cup broccoli (optional)
1/2 cube beef stock
3L - 4L water - depending how thin you like it
1 cup dill
2 tsp cumin
2 tbsp za’atar (It can also be found at a North African/Middle Eastern regional specialty store or Superstore)
2 tsp paprika
2 tsp black pepper
Salt to taste
Instructions
Rough chop all your ingredients. In a large soup pot, heat the oil to medium-high and add the chopped zucchini. Without stirring, let them sear for 4 minutes. Next, add the onions, garlic, jalapeños and sautée for 7 minutes. Season with salt. Add the remaining ingredients and cook until the soup reaches a rolling boil. Turn off the heat and let stand until ready to blend. For a soup like this one, I prefer using the actual blender over the hand blender. It gives it a smoother consistency that will be best for adding it to your rice dishes later in the week. Blend with caution. Use a hand towel over your blender and let the soup cool slightly before blending. Season to taste. When reheating to serve, add a dollop of sour cream or ricotta and swirl it in. Absolute divine flavours, made in mere moments.
Tip: Make the Green Soup between Sunday and Tuesday. Here are the 3 ways I used it.
It makes a great green-packed lunch alongside a grilled cheese sandwich!
One Skillet Chicken, Green Rice and Vegetables
Instead of adding water or stock to your skillet chicken & rice, add the correct (2:1) ratio of homemade green soup! The how-to video for my one skillet meal can be found here. Located on my Instagram page highlights titled “Weeknight Meals”.
A Salad Bowl: Beef, Green Rice, Ranch-Raita with Tahini-Chili Oil. (Recipes Below)
Bonus: What we ate this week!
Meals in a Week - Episode 1
Monday: Pasta Bolognese (Bolognese is always stocked in my freezer) or Soup & Sandwich Dinner
Tuesday: Fast Fry Steak Tacos
Wednesday: One Skillet Chicken Thighs, Green Rice, Peppers & Beans
Thursday: Burgers, Fries & Cold Crudités
Friday: “No-cook”. For the nights where the plan is “no cooking”, I always have a quick freezer meal ready.
That means: pizza/takeout, frozen lasagna, chicken nuggets. We all need at least one night a week where we don’t have to cook at all. If you however insist on cooking, you can never go wrong with pork chops, mashed potato and corn. These could absolutely be made ahead and frozen if you don’t want to eat freezer, machine-made meals - I get that! No shame either way!
Saturday: Salad Bowl: Beef (or any protein), Green Rice Leftover, Homemade Ranch-Raita, Tahini-Chili Oil.
Sunday: Beef Roast - to be transformed into a cross between Beef Dip au jus and a Philly cheesesteak sandwich. This is what we’re eating this evening. If you aren’t yet - follow me on Instagram and see how they turn out!
Beef Patty, Green Rice & Ranch Raita Salad Bowls
Heat your protein and rice together in a bowl. Add fresh lettuce, ranch-raita, chili oil and any of your favourite toppings!
These are straight forward to make but why not take it to the next level and make your own ranch-raita style sauce. I promise it is excessively delicious. This raita is spiced like it was a ranch sauce as opposed to a traditional raita. Instead of using greek yogurt, I used sour cream. Either ingredient is perfect for this sauce.
Ranch Raita
Ingredients
2 heaping tbsp mayonnaise
4 heaping tbsp sour cream/plain greek yogurt
2 tsp onion powder
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp black pepper
1-2 tsp white sugar
Salt to taste
2 tbsp fresh dill
Fresh lemon juice from 1/2 a lemon
1 cup grated cucumber, salted, drained and rinsed (optional)
Combine, cover and let sit in the fridge until ready to serve.
Tahini-Chili Oil
3 tbsp aleppo pepper (or crushed red pepper)
2 tbsp crushed red pepper (5 tbsp total if not using Aleppo)
5 cloves chopped garlic
2 tbsp sambal oelek
Pinch of salt
Dash of rice vinegar
2 tsp thai basil (optional)
1 cup heated oil, poured on top of above ingredients.
Note: I added 1/4 cup of tahini to my spice blend - while it made the chili oil split, I’ve loved having ready-to-pour spicy tahini sauce on everything this week. 10/10 would do it again.
Thanks for reading this week my dears - Bonne bouffe!
- Véronique
Next Week: Squash/Sweet Potato GNOCCHI
