Curried Lentil Soup with Grilled Chicken and Zucchini

Tonight's meal was a repeat of one of our absolute favorites: curried lentil soup. We've made this in the past alongside a roast chicken, but didn't want to spend as much time and effort for this meal. Instead, I rubbed an "Asian" spice mix over some trimmed chicken breasts and Brit cooked them in her cast-iron grill pan. Brit also diced up a leftover zucchini from the brown rice and black bean casserole we made last week and cooked it with a little salt and pepper and sliced garlic. She kept both dishes under a lid the entire time to keep them both moist and tender.


The only modification I made to the curried lentil soup was to add some leftover shallots from to the pot at the same time I sauteed the onion and carrots. Not surprisingly at all, everything turned out awesomely. The chicken breasts were sliced and served on top of the soup alongside the zucchini. There was lots of leftover chicken, so we'll use them in an upcoming Indian dish this week.

Brown Rice & Black Bean Casserole

Mike sent me the link to this recipe a few days ago. It looked pretty good so we decided to try it. The original recipe called for way too much time on the rice portion (simmer 1/3 cup of rice and 1 cup of broth for 45 minutes?! Not unless you want to burn the bottom of your pan...not to mention the rice), so I edited it a little bit. The finished product turned out really well!

Brown Rice & Black Bean Casserole

(Adapted from On My Menu's recipe )

1/3 cup brown rice

1 cup vegetable broth

1 tbsp olive oil

1 medium onion, diced

1 medium zucchini, chopped or thinly sliced

2 chicken breasts, cooked and diced (canned chicken would work, as well)

3/4 cup sliced mushrooms

1 tsp cumin

Salt, to taste

Cayenne Pepper, to taste

1 (15 oz.) can black beans, rinsed and drained

1 (4 oz.) can green chilies

1/3 cup carrots, chopped small

2 cups shredded swiss cheese (we used TJ's light Mexican cheese blend)

Mix the rice and chicken broth in pot on stovetop, bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low,

cover and simmer for 15-ish minutes, or until rice is tender. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a medium-sized casserole dish (we used 9x9) with cooking spray.

Heat the olive oil in a skillet over medium heat and cook the onion until tender. Mix in the zucchini, chicken, and mushrooms. Season with cumin, salt and cayenne pepper. Cook and stir until zucchini is lightly browned and chicken is heated through. In a large bowl, mix the rice, onion, zucchini, chicken, mushrooms, beans, chilies, carrots, and half of the cheese. Transfer to the baking dish and sprinkle remaining cheese on top. Cover casserole dish loosely with foil and bake for 30 minutes. Uncover and bake 10 more minutes, or until bubbly and lightly browned.

Veggie Pizza

Since my sister was visiting all weekend, I wanted to make sure she ate delicious vegetarian food every night she was here. Last night, we took her to Govinda's, an affordable and yummy vegetarian dine-in/take-out place in Philly. Tonight, I made a vegetarian pizza filled with veggies from the farmer's market on the corner of my street. It was way too easy - and thank god it was because we were exhausted from walking around Philadelphia all day.

Veggie Pizza
(inspired by my dad's delicious pizza ventures when I was a kid)

1 bag of fresh whole wheat pizza dough (thank you, Trader Joe's!)
1 cup of pre-made spaghetti sauce
1 bag of part skim mozzarella cheese
5-6 tbsp olive oil
1 large zucchini, halved and sliced
1 large yellow squash, halved and sliced
1 medium onion, halved and sliced
1 red bell pepper, diced
3-4 tbsp fresh chives, chopped
1 bag of baby spinach

Heat oven to 450 degrees. Grease a pizza pan. Using both hands, work the dough to soften it a little - just enough to make it pliable. Then, hold the dough out in front of you and gently stretch along the edges to round it out evenly. Set the dough on the pizza pan and spread it out by pressing it toward the edges of the pan.

Saute one half of the chopped onion in about 2 tbsp olive oil over medium heat until they start to soften, about 2 minutes. Add squash and zucchini; cook, stirring frequently, until the squash and zucchini become translucent, 6-7 minutes. Add the chives, stir to incorporate, and then turn off the burner to allow the mixture to cool. Salt and pepper to taste.

Meanwhile, in a large pan, saute the other half of the chopped onion in about 2 tbsp olive oil over medium heat until they start to soften, about 2 minutes (yes, it's redundant, but I believe all veggies benefit from the flavor of sauteed onion). Add bell pepper and cook, stirring often, until softened, about 5 minutes. Scrape pepper mixture into a bowl and set aside. Salt and pepper to taste.

Finally, add 1-2 tbsp olive oil to the pepper pan. When fully heated over medium-low heat (oil begins to shimmer), add the bag of spinach and cook, stirring often, until wilted, about 3 minutes. Salt and pepper to taste.

While the squash, spinach and bell pepper mixtures are cooling, pour the spaghetti sauce onto the pizza-shaped dough. Using a wooden spoon or rubber spatula, spread the sauce evenly over the dough. Sprinkle just a handful of cheese on top of the sauce.

Add the squash mixture to the pizza, making sure to spread it evenly over the pie (Cook's Note: If you have too much to put on the pizza, that's okay. Box it up and refrigerate it to add to another dish later - we are going to use our leftover squash mixture in the quesadillas we're going to make the Wednesday after this meal). Spread the bell pepper and spinach mixtures evenly over the pizza. Add at least 2 more handfuls of cheese (depends on how much you like on your pizza).

Bake, uncovered, until the dough is cooked and the cheese begins to brown (about 10-12 minutes, depending on how brown you want your cheese to be). Slice into 8 pieces (or 4 if you're lazy and you know everyone's going to eat 2 anyway) and serve with parmesan. NOMS!