Fiesta Salad

Mixed greens with cilantro, kale, jicama, mango, carrots, corn, avocado, clover sprouts, a green pea-adzuki-lentil sprout blend, and a spicy Liquid Gold nutritional yeast dressing (with hemp).

Rajmah, from Mr. Marcus

Kidney beans, onions, ginger, tomatoes, and a Rajmah spice mix (http://aroracreations.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=21&products_id=31).

Dal

With ginger, mustard seeds, cumin seeds, and coriander seeds.

Pressure Cooker, Salad Spinner, and Miser (or Yemisir) Wat w/ Couscous

 

Finally, today, I made two purchases that had been a long time coming:  a salad spinner and a pressure cooker.  I used to tell myself that I liked watered-down dressings, therefore, I didn’t need a spinner.  I also used to wait hours for legumes to cook.  My only regret:  using the automatic release knob for steam.  The stove is a complete mess!  I feel like I saved 5 min. by automatically releasing the pressure but gained an hour’s worth of cleanup time.

I did make some fresh vegetable broth for the couscous; however, what was pressure-cooked was the legumes for the miser wat.  I used merely 1 T. of coconut oil and 1 T. of roasted peanut oil to saute the onions, garlic, and ginger, then added my homemade berbere for the seasoning.  I wanted more peanut flavor but not a lot more oil, so I added 1 T. of roasted peanut oil to the couscous.  That’s at least four servings and less than 1 T. of oil per serving, much better than most Ethiopian restaurants as far as fat content.  Don’t get me wrong, I think some fat is healthy, just not 4 T. per meal.

The wat and the couscous were a great combination.  I love injera, but couscous just sounded delicious to me.  As the late comedian Mitch Hedberg would say with regard to rice, it’s great when you’re hungry and you want two thousand of something. 

Guest Star, Tunisian Chickpea Soup

Mediterranean Vegan Kitchen

Coming to you all the way from California….some hot chickpea soup to combat the freezing weather and subsequent snow that covers the www.vegan.com headquarters.  This is one of my favorite soups ever, with cumin, carmelized onions, and harissa.

Curried Rice Salad w/ Chickpeas

 

Foods That Don’t Bite Back

The recipe for this called for tempeh; I wasn’t inclined to use it.  Also, note I haven’t been to the grocery store in ages, yet I still found some fresh veggies!  You should have about 50 spices on your spice rack for fun, 1/5 of which will be used. 

All of this said, the price of Foods That Don’t Bite Back is worth it for the rice recipes alone, especially the lime (cilantro & jalapeno) rice and the above concoction.

I will be on my way up north tomorrow night, and I hope to get some food pictures from my seitan-loving friends so I can have a guest-star on the blog. 

The mention of lime reminds me of the coconut & lime panna cotta I made:

http://utopiankitchen.wordpress.com/2007/03/20/coconut-lime-panna-cotta/

This one deserves repeating!

Veganomicon - Beanballs!

Hearing others’ raves about the beanballs, I thought I’d give them a try as my next V-Con recipe.  They are easy to mix together, once you have your kidney beans mashed, and smell of garlic when baking (what could be better?).  I enjoyed the crispness on the outside contrasted with the creaminess on the inner part.  Good stuff.

White Bean & Sweet Potato Soup w/ Cranberry Coulis

 

1,001 Low-Fat Vegetarian Recipes

The recipes in this book that appeal to me are the ones that are more vegetable- and legume-based; I find that there are a lot of cheesy and uninspired recipes, but with so many to choose from, it’s hard to NOT find one that you want to try.

This soup has white beans, sweet potatoes, and a Granny Smith apple, all pureed and then topped with the swirl of cranberry sauce.  I’ll say this - it’s one of the most simple soups I’ve ever eaten, with no added fat, but it’s also one of the tastiest!  I really like it a lot.

Tamarind Lentils, Garlic-Saffron Rice, Cornmeal Roti

Veganomicon

What could beat garlicky rice with a touch of saffron?!  This was a really good, comforting meal.  I added some hot sauce to the lentils, as I wanted them a bit more spicy, but otherwise, everything as-is was perfect for me.  I even scaled it down a bit to make dinner for one! 

Chili w/ Tamale Dumplings

 

Chili - 150 Vegan Favorites

Tamale Dumplings - Lighten Up!

Anticipating this chili all day has been very burdensome to my stomach!  It’s been in the crockpot since 9:00 a.m.

The recipe called for merely kidney beans; I chose to use black beans, pinto beans, and kidney beans and also roasted the bell peppers prior to adding them.  This is a deeply-flavored chili, with little bits of tomatoes, celery, and onion.

I think the dumplings could more descriptively be called “masa harina dumplings”; I’d hate for someone to be excited about a surprise inside of the ball of dough, when really, it’s just a hunk of corn flour deliciousness.  As the name of the book suggests, these are low-fat dumplings!  And the chili is low in fat, too - these two guys were meant to bond.

The dumplings didn’t stay together perfectly, but the taste was phenomenal!  Picture shown with the chili garnished with green onions and sun-dried tomatoes.