Here’s hoping that I will follow through and do all of this!

From Cleveland's famous West Side Market

A couple of weeks ago The Fella got an email from his brother and sister-in-law asking for suggestions on how to incorporate more vegetarian choices into their diet.  You see, The Fella is vegetarian and has been for over 13 years.  Well, technically, he is a pescatarian, meaning he eats fish from time to time, but he doesn’t eat anything that breathes air.  I, on the other hand, am an omnivore.  I eat meat about once or twice per week.  I do all of the cooking at home and the vast majority of the meals I prepare are vegetarian.  So, naturally, The Fella passed the email along for me to answer.

I had a lot of fun writing my response and I thought it would be interesting to post it all here:

I really enjoy cooking and preparing vegetarian foods.  I’m a meat-eater who has fully embraced traditionally vegan and vegetarian ingredients.  The best way for me to share a lot of info would be to give you a few bullet points that make up the core of our vegetarian repertoire and include links to really good sources for vegetarian recipes and info. 

• Develop your own Vegetarian Chili method (not a recipe b/c I just don’t measure when I make chili, it’s different every time!)  This is the best place to start.  Make a giant vat of veg chili once a month all winter long.  It’s cheap and healthy and delicious and you can fix it up so many different ways. 
• Make friends with your Crock Pot!  Check out some veggie crock pot cook books from the library. 
• BEANS!  Canned or dry beans are really great in pasta dishes or rice dishes, soups, salads… Lentils are awesome b/c they cook super fast and cheap and you don’t have to soak them before cooking them. 
• Interesting grains: millet, amaranth, quinoa, brown rice, wild rice… Because you need grains with beans to make a complete protein.
• The Fella really loves the processed vegetarian fake meats.  They are not the most healthy or cheap but they are fun and some products are not bad for you.  One brand we have gotten into lately is called Quorn, it is made of myco-protein which comes from fungus.  I have found that fake sausages and fake chicken is pretty good but I don’t care for fake beef.  
• You need a lot of herbs and spices on hand to make food (without animal fat) more flavorful.  Don’t forget the Siracha!
• I use vegetarian bullion instead of chicken or beef stock in recipes
• Find a good natural foods store that sells items in bulk.  This is great for the grains, beans and also for stuff like TVP and Nutritional Yeast (see my old blog for some recipes using these), also you can get products made by the Fantastic foods company.  They have great mixes for falafel (so easy to make!) and the BEST vegan taco filling and vegan sloppy joes.  The Fella loves this stuff!
• Surf the web:

http://www.101cookbooks.com/  – my FAVORITE recipe blog! I have two of this woman’s cookbooks.  Very inspiring!
http://www.theppk.com/ – The Post Punk Kitchen
http://www.moosewoodcooks.com/
http://markbittman.com/ – I love this man!  Not everything he does is veggie but he wrote a good veg cookbook among other good cookbooks.  Bittman writes for the NYT food section and does short cooking videos on the NYT web site.  Very quick, simple and, bonus he’s charming, witty and funny. 

There are so many good veg cooking blogs.  You should do some searching and find ones that appeal to your tastes and interests.

Why am I even trying to get back into this? I really have no idea. But here goes.

Tonight I asked myself a question. What would happen if I pulled out my crockpot and filled it with: one turban squash, peeled and cut into rough chunks, about a cup of Lundberg Farms Wild Rice Blend, one can of Lite coconut milk, a tablespoon or so of Thai red curry paste, water, salt, pepper, a Not Chick’n Boulon cube, a couple of cubes of Dorot frozen ginger and a few cloves of smashed garlic?

Not too shabby, in fact, it’s delicious!  The whole thing only took about 3-4 hours on high.  My crockpot is pretty powerful and easily simmers on the high setting.  The consistency and texture remind me of a risotto.  As usual, I’ve made way too much but I imagine that this freezes well.

Winter Squash with Thai Red Curry and Rice

Too bad they all turn the same color when cooked!

Spicy Lentil Soup with Rainbow Chard

• 3 Tb olive oil
• 4-5 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1 medium yellow onion, finely chopped
• 1 bunch rainbow chard or swiss chard (chiffonade the greens and chop the ribs like celery)
• 4 carrots, chopped in small rounds
• 4 ribs celery, chopped in small pieces
• 2 1/2 c. lentils, rinsed (any kind of lentils will do)
• 1 gallon vegetable broth  (beef or chicken broth would work just fine)
• water if needed to fill up the pot
• dash red pepper flakes
• dash or two white pepper
• dash or two cumin
• dash each, dried oregano, basil, thyme
• juice of 1 lemon

Optional:  1 Tb green curry paste and/or 1 large can diced tomatoes to be added with the broth

Get it going with garlic and onions sauteing in a big soup pot on low-medium heat with olive oil.  Start chopping and adding to the pot in this order:  chard, carrots, celery.  Let this get nice and steamy for about 5 minutes or so to par-cook the veggies.  Add broth and lentils along with spices and seasoning.  Simmer on medium heat for 1/2 hour or until lentils are cooked through.  Add juice of one lemon just before serving.

The Fella wants to offer you a bowl of this good stuff.

Filed under: Uncategorized ]]> http://clevelandwhiteout.wordpress.com/2010/02/22/spicy-lentil-soup-with-rainbow-chard/feed/ 1 clevelandwhiteout Lentils Rainbow Chard Chiffonade Steamy veggies for lentil soup Lentil Soup with Rainbow Chard and Veggies http://clevelandwhiteout.wordpress.com/2010/01/08/shrimp-fra-diavalo-a-la-cooking-light/ http://clevelandwhiteout.wordpress.com/2010/01/08/shrimp-fra-diavalo-a-la-cooking-light/#comments Sat, 09 Jan 2010 01:33:54 +0000 clevelandwhiteout http://clevelandwhiteout.wordpress.com/?p=340 ]]> I made this tonight for dinner.  We were so eager to eat it that I just didn’t get a picture.  But you don’t need a picture of my dish to believe me when I tell you, this was sooooooooo yummy!  I mean it was really light and fresh.  Not to mention quick to make and pretty cheap.  I feel good about cooking dinner with only 2 tablespoons of olive oil after last night’s kugel.  I will say that one could substitute a splash of dry white wine for the lemon juice in this recipe.  I kept the juice and added the wine for good measure and I think it was tasty.  Also, I added a lot of extra garlic.  Maybe you’ve noticed, I always use extra garlic.

Savory Vegetable Kugel

• 5 small sweet potatoes (Usually, sweet potatoes are huge, in that case I’d use 2-3)
• 1 large yellow onion
• 3 cloves garlic (More, more, more would be fine with me)
• 3 carrots
• 1 large parsnip
• 1 zucchini
• 1 yellow squash
• 1 Tb sea salt
• 1 Tb white pepper
• several twists of freshly ground black pepper
• scant 1/2 c. olive oil
• 5 eggs

Preheat oven to 400F

Grate sweet potatoes, onions, garlic and all veggies.  (I do not have a grating attachment for my food processor so I did this part by hand using the torture device pictured below.  Save yourself and use the food processor!)  Try to remove as much liquid from the grated vegetables as you can.  I didn’t get much liquid out of mine.   But this step is mentioned in nearly every other potato/veggie kugel recipe I could find, including my Cousin’s.  So, I’m guessing it is pretty important.

Heat a small amount of oil in a 9X13 inch glass dish in the hot oven.  (I inadvertently skipped this part and I wish I hadn’t because the bottom was not as lovely and crispy as I had remembered.)  Combine all ingredients gently by hand.  You will need a huge bowl or divide the mixing into two big bowls as I did.  The volume of the sweet potato and veggie mixture will condense as the eggs and oil are incorporated.

Put everything into the hot pan and bake about 1 hour until brown and crispy.

This dish is great for freezing and reheating.  I actually didn’t use the 9X13 baking dish.  Instead, I used two smaller glass baking dishes.  This allowed me to slightly reduce the baking time.  I’ve even seen recipes for mini-kugels baked in muffin tins…Heaven!  I’ll let you know when I try it.

Everything Grandma made started out with a few glugs of olive oil, a few cloves of roughly minced garlic and 1/2 of a yellow onion diced, all sautéed together over medium heat with oregano, salt and pepper to taste.  Over the years I’ve replaced the oregano with a basic Italian seasoning blend because I prefer the flavor.  To make Pasta Fagioli (pronounced pasta fah-zool)  add a can of soft white beans (cannellini are best but I used butter beans this time around because I had them on hand) along with about half of the liquid from the can.  Here I also like to add a dash or two of red pepper flakes.  Let this simmer 2-5 min. over medium-low heat while onions soften and begin to dissolve and flavors begin to meld.  Next add an 8oz. can of tomato sauce or a cup of leftover marinara.

This makes a pale, reddish-orange sauce to toss with any small pasta.  I prefer whole wheat bow ties or penne.  Grandma liked elbow noodles.  Top it with freshly grated Parmesan if you like.  Grandma would have added a hunk of crusty bread with butter.

This is a super easy recipe and with all of the yummy spices, the flavor actually gets better a few days after baking.  This recipe yields 3 loaves so it is great for gift giving.  I love to eat this sliced, toasted and topped with either butter, cream cheese or all natural peanut butter.  Great for breakfast, brunch or even dessert.

Bourbon Pumpkin Bread

Wet ingredients

• 15 oz. can pumpkin puree (1  3/4 c.)
• 4 eggs
• 1/2 c. vegetable oil or 1 stick melted butter
• 1/2 c. apple sauce (I prefer to just add an additional 1/2 c. pumpkin puree)
• 2/3 c. bourbon (Teetotalers can substitute 2/3 c. water or apple cider, yum!)
• 2 c. agave nectar

Dry Ingredients

• 3 1/2 c. whole wheat pastry or spelt flour
• 2 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. fine grain sea salt
• 1 Tb. pumpkin pie spice (OR 1 tsp. cinnamon, t tsp. nutmeg, 1/2 tsp. ground clove, 1/4 tsp ground ginger)

Preheat oven to 350 F. Prepare three standard loaf pans (or 6-8 mini loaf pans) with non-stick spray and dust with flour.  You could line the loaf pans with parchment paper but I have not had any concerns with the loaf sticking to the pan.

Mix wet ingredients in a large bowl and set aside.  Combine dry ingredients and stir into wet mixture until just blended. Be careful not to over stir.

Bake for about 50 minutes (20-30 min for mini loaves) and check with a toothpick.

Pictured Above:
Mini Veggie Burgers on whole grain European rye
Thai Soy Ginger Carrots and Thai Prig Khing Green Beans (from Trader Joe’s)

Beer:
Another gem from the GL sampler – Elliott Ness Amber Lager

And more Blonde Bombshell from Indigo ImpCl