Harvest Stew

Happy Halloween Everyone!!! I had a butternut squash hanging around for a week or so and I decided to cook something this morning. I looked back at a few of the squash soups we have made before and decided to try to merge a few into a new soup/stew. I have decided to call it Harvest Stew. I added red quinoa which made it a little grainy but you could choose another grain if you want. The spinach was a last minute addition because I had a package thawed in the fridge but this could be omitted.

Harvest Stew:
Ingredients-
-2 TB olive oil
-1-1 1/2 pound butternut squash, peeled and cubed
-3 cloves garlic, minced
-1 medium onion, chopped
-4 cups veggie broth
-3/4 cup red lentils
-1/2 cup red quinoa
-1/2 package thawed frozen spinach, squeezed
-spices: to taste-I used garam masala, curry powder, cumin, coriander, chili powder, turmeric, salt, black pepper, cinnamon, tiny bit of cardamom
- 1 can lite coconut milk
-Dash of Sriracha hot sauce

Directions:

1. Heat olive oil in large stock pot. Add onions and garlic. Cook until softened.
2. Add squash and cook on medium until softened (about 20 minutes).
3. Add broth and spices. Bring to a boil.
4. Add Quinoa and lentils. Lower heat to a simmer. Cover and simmer about 15-20 minutes until lentils and quinoa are cooked.
5. Add spinach and allow to warm.
6. Remove from heat. Pour in coconut milk and stir.
7. Adjust seasonings. Add Hot sauce to taste.
   

Sweet Potato Black Bean Chili

So I searched for a recipe for a chili that I made a while back and had trouble locating it. In my search I discovered this Sweet Potato & Black Bean Chili on EatingWell.com so I though I would try it. I added some frozen corn and prepared brown rice. I also did not have any cilantro but it was good anyway. Later that evening I found the recipe that started this search: Black Bean Sweet Potato Chili on Vegweb.com. Honestly, they are almost identical but the vegweb version has cocoa powder and green chiles which probably would have been good additions.

Zucchini Muffins, Halloween Cupcakes and Yoga Soup (Again!)

I may be lacking creativity lately but my daughter is not. She decided to make Vanilla cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World and she even planned to make her own vegan buttercream frosting. Sadly, the vegetable shortening had some sort of strange growth developing on it (I know...EW!!!) so we switch to store bought vanilla frosting and she added some colors to make it festive. Overall, I think she did a great job!

This morning I attended a book club and made the chocolate zucchini muffins from Happy Herbivore that Anu has mentioned a few times before. I thought it would be a nice tribute since she could not attend this meeting. I added some chocolate chips to the mix too. Seems to me that one type of the Ghirardelli chips does not contain any milk products so I have been buying them. Also halved the sugar and they were still sweet (13 year old ate without complaint....success to me!). I did not get a picture of these since I made them first thing in the morning and then had to rush to the brunch meeting. They did not have much of a banana flavor to me but I love bananas so I'm not sure I would mind.

Tonight for dinner we had Yoga Soup from Vegweb.com which I must have blogged about before. My daughter loves it and my husband tolerates it so I continue to make it. I added shredded carrots and cabbage (still have some from my cabbage fest last week!) and used a handful of stir fry rice noodles that were milling around in the cupboard. I like the steaming photo although when I see this pot here I realize I should have thrown it out years ago!

Hawaiian-style Chickpeas with Harvest Grain

Doesn't that name sound interesting. The original recipe from Happyherbivore was Hawaiian BBQ - I did not see the BBQ in the recipe, so I dropped it from mine. But, I loved the flavor of the dish. I made a variety of modifications to mine to match what I had in my kitchen and pantry.



Here is how I made this dish.

Chickpeas - 2 cups
Soyaki (from Trader Joe's) - 1/2 cup
Plum sauce - 1/2 cup
Salsa (Three pepper from Trader Joe's again!) - 1 cup
Pineapples, diced - 1 cup
Cilantro - to taste
Lemon juice - from 1/2 lemon (can use lime juice too).

I mixed all the above ingredients in a bowl on Sunday night and put it in the fridge. Yes, overnight. When I came home from work on Monday, I put everything in a wok and made the grains on the side for dinner. It was SO amazingly easy and tasty. We ate it for 2 meals and could not get enough.

Oh and the grains - that deserves another post in itself. Our nearest Trader Joe's is about an hour away. Last weekend, V ran a half marathon in Indy and I made the trip to spend the day there with a friend after the half marathon. Because we are so far away from the nearest Trader Joe's, when one of us goes to the store, we ask each other if we bring back anything. My friend Susan asked for 2-3 bags of 'harvest grains'. I did not know where to find it or what it was. It looked interesting and I bought a bag too. I wish I had 3 more bags!! I love it - it's Couscous, Quinoa, Orzo (multi-colored) and has some broken chickpeas too (they look like Indian Channa dal). What a wonderful combination of grains and protein too!!
I have SO many ideas of things to do with this mix and look forward to the next friend driving down to Indy!!

I have never tried this before - but, I am going to see if I am not too late for Blog Bites at Onehotstove.

Last 2 months

It's been over 2 months since my last blog post - mostly because of inertia and also because I was not sure anyone has been reading. More importantly, Em was away being a mommy to a little one and this was something that the two of us were doing (sort of for each other, mostly) - so, it did not seem imperative to write.
But, Em's back and so am I :)
The last couple of months have not really been inspiring - but, here are a few things that I made in this time...
- Vegetarian Times' fresh tomato pasta with meatballs for a complete dish (including protien)
- Other pasta recipes from the same magazine (I mixed the ones with lemon pepper and roasted peppers and made it vegan). Maybe one day I'll get to make it again and post the recipe.
- Chocolate zucchini muffins - made many times over. I added chocolate chips too!!

And my usual suspects; twists on our regular foods -
-Mexican
-Stir fry or Stir fry
-Quick Pastas
-Thai Curry
and Indian food. Of course, no two attempts of any of these taste the same!!

I also made a batch of the pumpkin cookies (from last year, this time) and enjoyed it!! Looking back at the recipes from last year - I want to make them all again!! But for tonight, it's good ol' eggplant with Dal (Indian food) and maybe the tortilla soup to eat later in the week!

Cabbage Recipes

I realize I have been off the radar for quite a bit but wanted to try to get back into the swing of things. Busy toddler is keeping me, well......busy. I am trying to make some South Beach Diet or low glycemic recipes since this seems to help me lose weight and have more energy. Found a great blog called Kalyn's Kitchen that has tons of great recipes and is extremely well organized.





Here are some cold salads I am going to try using cabbage. Cabbage seems like an under-utilized vegetable and it is so good for you so I am going to try to give it some attention this month. These two recipes share many of the same ingredients:
Spicy Cilantro Peanut Slaw
Spicy Mexican Slaw with Lime and Cilantro

I also really love stir fried cabbage with just soy sauce and some toasted sesame seeds. Still searching for some hot soups or other warm cabbage recipes if you have any.
Yum...looking forward to cooking tomorrow.


Update:
SO...the Spicy Cilantro Peanut Slaw was good and interesting. The peanuts were an odd addition and I think toasted Sesame seeds would have been better maybe. Raw cabbage involves so much chewing that it was easy to feel really full quickly! I actually ate the entire bowl of this myself throughout the week and the peanuts stayed crunchy enough.

The Spicy Mexican Slaw was sort of dull but I did not measure so the flavors may not have been strong enough. Didn't really have a "Mexican" feel at all to me. Maybe I will try a bowl along with a margarita?