Chili and Cornbread

On Sunday I was very busy so I decided to adapt a favorite chili recipe for my crock pot. It worked well with a few modifications. My husband noted that it would have only taken 40 minutes to cook on the stove yet I decided to let it cook for 5 hours instead. At least I did not have to babysit the chili and I was able to get my errands completed while it cooked. I found this chili recipe in one of the Hannaford's Fresh magazines that they give you free if you spend $25. I seem to find a lot of little gems in this little known publication-Thank you Hannaford's! Anyhow, I discovered in writing this blog today that they have the recipes on their website so I will no longer need to cut them out and save in my very messy Recipe Book.

Vegetarian Three-Bean Chipotle Chili is very yummy although I reduced the amount of chili powder and chipotle since last time I made it the family thought it was too hot. I disagree but I am not the only one eating it so I adjusted it this time and added my own Chipotle Tabasco to my portion. To cook in the Crockpot, you will need to reduce the broth to about 2 cups instead of three. I did not have enough bulgur which may have made the difference too. I added some cooked brown rice at the end to absorb the excess liquid. I bet you could simply add 1/2 cup or so of uncooked rice to the recipe instead of the bulgur which can be harder to find. This would also make it a gluten free recipe as far I can see.

I also made Grandma's Cornbread Made Vegan from Vegweb.com. I've made this several times and it always comes out great!

I am really enjoying writing this blog. Great Idea Anu!

I plan to make one last burger tonight if I have time. This is the one I am considering-Get Your Groove on Veggie Burgers

Black Bean Burgers and Cole Slaw

Ok, so it is not REALLY a cook-off but it makes me feel all domestic-like I should be wearing an apron or holding a giant grill spatula or something. Please don't lose any sleep over it! Tonight I made the Bush's Backyard Black Bean Burgers which just happen to be vegan. We cooked them in a pan but I think these may actually hold together on the grill. The recipe, as I made it, made 7 burgers and they were large in my opinion. Maybe you could even stretch 8 burgers out of the recipe. They were delicious as directed but I think I will stir in 1/4 cup of corn kernels, some chopped cilantro, and a tsp or two of chili powder next time to make them even better. The recipe says to refrigerate for 1-4 hours before cooking but we put them in the fridge for maybe 10 minutes while we started some fries in the oven and it worked just fine. M pan fried the burgers and I put a few into the over at 425 degrees for 15 minutes to see how that works. I did not eat the baked burgers yet, but they look great. I will try freezing and see how they fare also.

I also made some Vegan Cole Slaw. I guess the only differences from the traditional recipe were that I used Vegenaise instead of mayo and decided on Agave Nectar instead of table sugar.

Cole Slaw

Ingredients:

• 1/2 bag of pre-shredded cole slaw mix
• 1/2 cup shredded carrots (unless this is in your cole slaw mix, mine was just cabbage)
• 1/4 cup Vegenaise
• 1/4 cup cider vinegar (this was a little too much for us, adjust based on your tastes)
• 3 TB agave nectar
• 1 tsp celery seed

Directions:
Whisk together vinegar, agave, vegenaise, and celery seed. Pour over slaw mix and carrots and stir. Refrigerate for an hour (if possible, we ate it immediately).

I am very full now. I hope you like them too!

Burger Cook Off - Trying Emily's

What kind of 'cook off' is it if we make different burgers? That's the thought that kept me up all night. Okay, that's not true - I slept well and did not have an alarm clock wake me up. Although our cats jumping on and off the bed and purring did! I had to find a quick meal to make for dinner tonight, before we take the dogs for their first 'agility class' (I am a little nervous!).
And I had most of the ingredients in the recipe that Emily made.
My substitutions - pinto beans instead of the kidney beans (I cooked a batch of pinto beans and froze them), white rice for brown rice (again - precooked in the fridge). I also added pecans and cilantro.
V complained about the pecans in the recipe (he does not like nuts in his food - he does not understand the need for texture and crunch). But, we both really loved the burgers. Yummy!!
Here is a photo of my open-faced burger sandwich!!

Burger Cook-Off Episode 1

Well, it looks like I am having a cook off against myself since Anu is too busy (or too popular!) to cook this week. This burger competition may go on indefinitely as we try to find the best homemade vegan burgers. I have a few that I have wanted to try so this has given me the incentive. I assume that the ones I make will have a bit of a Southwestern flair since that is what we seem to enjoy. This weekend, I made Red Bean Chipotle Burgers from www.blog.fatfreevegan.com. This is a fabulous blog by the way-check it out! I have picked up quite a few tips from this blog. This time, I learned to toss the entire can of chipotles in adobo into the food processor and then just scoop out what you need for recipes or freeze the extra. I often chop up one chipotle and then forget about the rest of the can as it rots in my fridge.

(By the way, my husband is home now and taught me how to create a link rather than writing out the entire address for some of the recipes I have tried. I realize that it is pathetic that I am just learning these things at my age. I went back and tried to fix some of my older posts. Hopefully they work!)

The Red Bean Chipotle Burgers were great. They remind me of the Amy's burgers a bit in terms of the texture. I like my burgers to have some texture and not be too soft. These really fit the bill! I used regular red kidney bean since I don't think we have light red kidney beans around here unless I have just never noticed them. They use oatmeal as a binder which I thought would be odd but it was great. There is also some brown rice mixed in. I forgot to add the rice while processing so I just stirred it in after and I think I prefer it this way. I froze a few and threw them in the micromave for 1 minute today. They made a great lunch.




The picture really does not do them justice. I took it very quickly so I could eat my burger. We had them with a caesar salad (I used a vegan dressing made from tofu that was in this month's Clean Living Magazine. I had to doctor it a bit for our tastes, but it was good enough) and some roasted baby russet potatoes with a little sprinkle of rosemary, garlic powder and olive oil.

I give these a thumbs up and plan to make them again. M thought they were good but a little gritty.

On a different not, I realize I will need to get some more attractive plates if I am going to be taking so many pictures of food! My dull brown ones look so boring on here!)