Thursday, January 17, 2008

Veggies for Weekend Cookbook Challenge

I made this great Quick Navy Bean Soup the other day...Okay I cheated a little - I used 1 cup of chicken broth instead of vegetable broth, but does that count if one's not a vegetarian? Anyway, my friend Sara of I Like to Cook created the fabulous Weekend Cookbook Challenge Event - it's one of my favorites even if I don't get to submit as often as I'd like.

This time the challenge is to find a cookbook and make something veggie. Naturally that means the Navy Bean Soup won't count. After all this isn't Weekend "make up your own recipe" Challenge. So I looked through some of my vegetarian cookbooks. It does surprise me as to how many I own given I'm such a committed carnivore!

I started writing this post 4 days ago...my dining room table has been littered with cookbooks tagged with recipes. Somehow most of them opened to pasta pages. Since I promised myself to make no more than one pasta dish a week for a while, I had to find something else. Many of the other dishes that caught my eye had lots of potatoes...another no-no on South Beach Diet. Sigh...and no wonder I'm not losing any weight yet!

I finally settled on a variation of the Lentil Spinach & Potato Ragout I found in a great cookbook someone gave me a couple of years ago put out by the American Medical Association - no groaning, please, and trust me the recipes are delicious. Family Health Cookbook focuses on great taste.

As you know, I have trouble making any recipe exactly as given. So I substituted sweet potatoes for regular and added some acorn squash (which did get a little mushy in the cooking but added wonderful flavor) plus a bay leaf & thyme sprig because.... well, just because!

Lentil, Spinach & Sweet Potato Ragout

The ragout was sweet, tangy and had a little kick from cayenne. Fantastic! I served it with some Chipotle Roasted Salmon (I used fresh dill instead of cilantro this time) so I left out the crumbled feta, but lunch today will definitely have some sprinkled on top.

Related Links:

5 comments:

Dev said...

This sounds very good! I'm always in the mood to try "new to me" recipes and will have to definitely give this a try.

As far as the pasta, have you ever tried the Shiratake Noodles? They're made out of tofu and are a great alternative.

Ruth Daniels said...

Speaking about "new to me"...I will definitely be on the lookout for shiratake noodles. Thanks for dropping by.

Anonymous said...

I just love your site, and all of your recipes look scrumptious. I also like a south-beach friendly diet, although not exclusively. But I like to eat healthfully, and that's what makes your site so appealing. Thanks!

Ruth Daniels said...

Gotnomilk - you make me blush! Thanks for the sweet words. Drop by anytime.

Sara said...

Yum! That ragout looks so wonderful. Thanks for joining me again for WCC Ruth, it's always great to have you.