MEATLESS MONDAY!

Meatless Monday is a campaign to reduce meat consumption one day per week. According to the website, "cutting out meat once a week, we can improve our health, reduce our carbon footprint and lead the world in the race to reduce climate change." Many top restaurants are also adopting the Meatless Monday campaign. I totally support this campaign and encourage you to as well. Here's a recipe to get you started.

I love Indian food. This is my twist on one of my favorite Indian dishes, Saag Aloo. The addition of the garbanzos give this dish a protein boost making it a complete meal.

1 pound frozen chopped spinach*

2 cloves garlic, chopped fine

1 tablespoon grated ginger

2 fresh green chilli (serrano or jalapeno), minced

1 small onion, diced

3 medium potatoes, peeled and cut into bite-sized chunks

1 tablespoon turmeric

1 tsp cumin powder

1 tsp coriander powder

1 tablespoon garam masala

2 teaspoons cayenne (optional)**

1 tablespoon oil (any flavourless)

1 cup water or stock

Salt to taste

1 tablespoon butter (optional)

Heat the oil in a large sauté pan over medium heat. Ad the garlic, onion, green chiles and the spices.

Stir until the onions are translucent, then add potatoes. Stir until they are coated with the spices, but be careful not to let the garlic brown. If it starts to get brown, lower heat. Add frozen spinach and water or stock to the pan. Lower the heat, cover and simmer for about 20-30 minutes or until potatoes are tender. Season with salt and pepper. Finish with a tablespoon of butter.

* I like frozen spinach in this dish because the texture is better, in this dish than fresh and much better than baby spinach.

** We like spicy, so I add the cayenne in addition to the chiles, if you don't like heat, omit the cayenne and use only one chile

DINNER FOR ONE

There is rarely a night when the husband and I don't have dinner together, but tonight was one of those very rare times. I decided to make one of my favorites, scallops. I used to hate them. It was a textural thing, but now I love them, although I don't have them as often as I would like. I served them with a bunch of sautéed kale, thinly sliced potatoes and pea puree. The whole dinner took about 15 minutes to put together.

I simply roasted some potato slices in a 400 degree oven. While the potatoes were cooking, I sautéed the kale with some olive oil, shallots and red pepper flakes and dropped some frozen peas into boiling water for a couple of minutes. When the peas were done, they were drained and pureed with a hand blender but you could use a regular blender or mini cuisinart. Using the same pan that I cooked the kale, I cooked the scallops, about 2 1/2 minutes per side. Easy.