Barbecue Lentils

I spent way too much of my vegetarian life assuming that barbecue sauce wasn't for me.  I was wrong.  I've also recently discovered I like baked beans, although they aren't my favorite food at the barbecue.  However, my new obsession to bring to outdoor cookouts might very well be barbecued lentils, as they are easy, tasty, and I think the closest I've gotten to mimicking the texture of pulled pork.

Ingredients:
-1 onion, diced.
-several cloves garlic (between 4-6) chopped
-1 green pepper (or carrots/celery/crunchy vegetable) diced
-bottle of barbecue sauce at least half full
-2 cups (1/2 lb) dried lentils
-red pepper flakes and cayenne pepper if you like spice

Recipe:
1) Rinse lentils and put in a rice cooker. Pour boiling water over to cover, and with plenty of room to spare - I would say at least 4 cups.  Our electric kettle is metric so I can't be more specific.  Turn rice cooker on.  (This could also be done in a crockpot or on the stove, but I don't know how long the cooking time would be for that.)

2) Saute onion, then add garlic, and green pepper until mostly soft.  This should take about 15 minutes, and the lentils should start to look pretty soft and be splitting apart by this point.  If not, cook the lentils for longer. 

3) Drain lentils, add to pan with vegetables.  Add about half a bottle of barbecue sauce, and some cayenne pepper and red pepper flakes for heat if you would like.  

4) Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes. 

Enjoy!

Lentil Chili

I've been looking for a copycat recipe for the TastyBite Madras Lentils for a little while without any luck, but tonight I was craving some healthy chili goodness so I found this recipe on AllRecipes.  I wound up adapting it quite a bit, but I love the use of the bulgar wheat.  It creates a similar mouthfeel to the ground beef substitute that we put in chili sometimes, but isn't so many questionable chemicals, and it's cheap.  And we have it in the house.

I adapted the recipe quite a bit, so this is what I did:
Ingredients:
5-10 cloves garlic
1 cup lentils
1 cup bulgar wheat
1 onion chopped/1 tbsp dried onion
2 cans diced tomatoes
3 cups vegetable broth
2-4 tbsp chili powder
salt & pepper to taste
1 cup heavy cream (optional)

Process:
1.) Soak the lentils for an hour or so or boil them for a bit - maybe for about 10 minutes.
2.) Saute garlic and onion until clear.
3.) Add lentils and bulgar, then toss in tomatoes and juice, and vegetable broth.  Add chili powder and salt and pepper.
4.) Bring to a boil, and then simmer for 20-30 minutes, adding more water/broth if necessary.
5.) Once lentils are soft and delicious, serve up and add heavy cream to taste.  I find I need a bit of it to help offset the heat of the chili powder.

You could also do this in a crockpot by just tossing everything in and cooking for 4-6 hours on low.

Cookbook Project: Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Recipes for Two

So I have good news and bad news.  The good news is that Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Recipes for Two has an excellent recipe for how to make dried beans taste like beans, not rocks.  The bad news is that after some thought, I finally started to read the copyright pages in my cookbooks that state that no part of the cookbook can be reproduced.  There are several ways around this, and I'm thinking about them.  Not to mention that I do believe that my use of these recipes falls under the definition of fair use.  The copyright office recommends that I consult an attorney about this.  My inner-attorney is mulling it over, but my inner-blogger wanted to continue writing for the project.  So we'll keep going, and while I have rarely copied recipes verbatim, I will be instead giving a list of ingredients and a broad set of instructions, and tell you that unfortunately, although this recipe is excellent, the rest of this cookbook isn't a great purchase for a vegetarian, although carnivores might enjoy it more.

However, I love this recipe because I'm really bad at remembering to soak the beans overnight in the crockpot.  This recipe means that I can do it same day (especially days when I'm working from home), and still have dinner on the table at a reasonable time.

Ingredients:
Dried beans (any amount is fine - the book has a section on the yield of dried beans, so you can consult it for more details)
Boiling water (probably about three times as much water as beans, but enough to cover)
Salt (if you want it)

Procedure:
1) Rinse the dried beans.  Boil the water.
2) Put the beans in the crockpot.  Pour the boiling water over the beans.  Cover and cook on high for a few hours.  I actually find in our crockpot, it only takes about 2 hours for the beans to be edible.
3) Drain. Use as desired.

Cookbook Project: Ok, so now you're a vegetarian

Okay, So Now You're A Vegetarian 
Spiced vegetable dal p 166

This was my first vegetarian cookbook, and it's often a gift for newbie vegetarians. Since I only owned two cookbooks when I met my husband, and he wanted to try cooking meals with me, we made several out of this book. it's an excellent first cookbook, with clear, complete easy to read instructions.


I don't have a picture of the finished Dal, but I'm a big fan of getting all my ingredients together before cooking.  It helps avoid frantic moments of "OMG THE GINGER NEEDS TO BE CHOPPED AND SO DO THE TOMATOES!!!! AND EVERYTHING IS BURNING."

So the recipe:
Ingredients:

• 1 cup dry lentils
• 2 tbsp unsalted butter
• 1 tbsp vegetable oil
• 2 tsp peeled, minced, fresh ginger
• 1 tbsp minced garlic
• 1 large onion, diced
• 1 1/2 tsp ground cumin
• pinch of ground tumeric
• 1/8 tsp ground cloves
• 2 14.5 oz cans vegetable broth (I used 4 cups of water and bullion)
• 3 ripe plum tomatoes, seeded and diced
• 1/2 cup coarsely chopped fresh flat leaf parsley (skipped this - I'm too cheap to buy spices)
• salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
• 4 cups hot cooked white rice (I used brown and it was just as good.)  

Procedure:

1. Rinse the lentils and pick through them.  
2. Heat butter and oil in a heavy pot on medium heat; add ginger, garlic, onion, and saute for 10 minutes.  Add cumin, cloves, and tumeric; cook for another 2 minutes.  
3. Stir in the lentils and the broth, bring to a boil over high heat.  Reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, for 20 minutes.  
4. Add the tomatoes and parsley. Simmer for another 15-20 minutes, until lentils are soft.  (I actually simmered for longer, since the rice cooker was taking awhile.)
5. Place 1 cup rice on each place, spoon the dal over the rice and serve.  

Verdict: 

Yum!  I will definitely be making this again when we get tomatoes from our CSA.  It takes a little while, but it's largely unattended.  

Cous Cous & Chickpea Salad

Mr. Barefoot made this for me for dinner tonight and it was amazing.  It's adapted from the Big Green Cookbook, which is a good cookbook but it's a little meat heavy.  This recipe originally had chicken in it, but it's really good with just the chickpeas - and it's vegan.

Ingredients:
1 cup broth
3/4 cup whole-wheat couscous
1 can chickpeas, drained
1 cup cherry tomatoes, quartered
3 scallions, thinly sliced
1/8 cup balsamic vinegar

Procedure
1. Bring the broth to a boil
2. Add couscous & chickpeas
3. Cover with a lid and allow to sit for 10 minutes, then fluff.
4. Allow to cool slightly.  Then stir in the tomatoes, scallions, and vinegar.

Taco Casserole

Last night I made rice to go with dinner, but the fish was done before the rice.  We made couscous in a hurry and then ate that, and I decided to use the leftover rice to make boxed lunches for us, since there wasn't really any leftover fish.  I checked our pantry but we were out of, well, a lot of stuff.  So I plugged the ingredients into Allrecipes.com and found this recipe for Easy Mexican Rice.

You will need:
1 can kidney beans
1 can (large) tomato sauce
1 can diced tomatoes
1 1/2 cups brown rice, cooked [if using a slow cooker, use uncooked rice and 1 1/2 cups water as well)
Taco seasoning

Procedure:
1. Drain and rinse kidney beans; drain diced tomatoes.
2. Add beans, tomatoes, and tomato sauce to brown rice, stir.
3. Add taco seasoning.

You can heat everything together over a stove or in a crockpot if you would like, but if you are making boxed lunches, they'll all be microwaved together anyway.  Next time you make rice, just make an extra cup and a half and make some taco casserole to have in stock for healthy lunches.

Taco Trials

I just threw dinner in the crockpot for Mr. Barefoot, since I have a legislative briefing tonight. (But no job, so I'm still playing housewife.) Tonight's menu item was tacos, so I opened up the new jar of taco seasoning he got for Christmas and went to work.  I hope this turns out well - I'll let you know the verdict.  This was literally a "throw a bunch of sh*t in the crockpot and hope food comes out."
Ingredients:
1 can diced tomatoes, with juice
1 can black beans, drained
1 can kidney beans, drained
2/3ish cup frozen corn
1/2 cup frozen green and red peppers
4 cubes frozen cilantro from those freezer spice packs
1 cup dried parboiled rice
1 cup water
salt, pepper, dumps of taco seasoning

Procedure:
Dump into crockpot.  Stir.  It'll be cooking on low for about 6 hours.

I suspect I put in too much water, which will result in the rice being too fluffy, or the mix being too wet, but these are better than the rice being dry and crunchy.  I didn't put in jalapenos, but would have, but the plant is all the way upstairs and I didn't feel like harvesting or chopping.  It was really nice to just throw together a canned/frozen meal like this, and I'm excited to see how it comes out without my having to do any real prep work (you'll notice there are no minced onions or garlic, etc.).

On my own

Mr. Barefoot has been out of town for, essentially, the last month.  This kind of stinks, because he was doing all the cooking this semester and surprisingly, I liked it that way.  I got used to it.  So now, I'm living like I lived in college - I get home, stare at my kitchen, and make food that comes in a box.  I haven't had time to go grocery shopping, so I'm now down to my pantry and concerned about scurvy.
Tonight, I had my last law school class, and I threw something in the crockpot before I left so I didn't have to stand up and cook (I ran a half marathon over the weekend and the doctor no longer recommends standing.)  I've been using my small crockpot as a rice cooker lately and it's great.
Crockpot black beans and rice:
1.) Put 1 cup rice, 1 can black beans, and 1.5 cups water in a crockpot.
2.) Add salt, pepper, garlic powder, dried onion, oregano, cumin, and a little chilli powder.
3.) Plug in crockpot.  Cook on low for 2-2.5 hours.
4.) Eat (garnished with cheese, if you are high maintenance).  Marvel at how easy it is to cook a healthy, cheap meal for yourself while you are at tax class.

What are your favorite single person recipes?

Chili Cook Off

We had a chili cook off at school this week and I made seitan chili, which is delicious and almost won for best veggie chili. 

I had the following conversation with the event organizer:
"Doesn't seitan have peanuts in it?  Should we be concerned about allergies?"-Organizer
"If I had a serious food allergy, I probably wouldn't eat anything some stranger brought in a crockpot.  Also, Seitan is wheat-based...and it's just wheat and wheat germ, I think....I really don't think it has nuts." -Me
"I really thought it had nuts...wait, what is that stuff on a skewer called?" -Him
"Satay?" -Me
"Yes! That's what I'm thinking of." - Him
"That has nuts.  Also chicken.  So it's probably not vegan." -Me

How do you make veggie chili?  Really, you need a recipe?  Okay, here's the recipe.  Get some cans of beans, some tomato paste, some cans of diced tomatos, a whole lotta chili powder, some seitan, and some peppers.  Maybe some chipotles in adobo.  Some onions and garlic.  Saute those and the pepper, then throw everything in a crockpot and cook until delicious. 

Plantain & Black Bean Fritters

I tried these at a tasting for the wedding and decided I had to learn to make them myself. I tried this recipe from Sara Moulton and modified it a little.

Ingredients:

• 3 black plantains
• 1 cup bread crumbs
• 1 can of black beans, drained
• 1/4 cup diced onion
• minced garlic

1.) Start by mincing the garlic and sauteing it a bit, then add the black beans and cover with water.

2.) Add the plantains to a pot, cover with water, and bring to a boil.

3.) Eventually the plantains will start to split. Pull them out and mash them up. I would probably do this with a food processor next time. Add bread crumbs until dough is manageable. I used flour because I ran out of breadcrumbs, but I don't recommend it because it didn't cook entirely.

3.) Drain the black beans and onions. Put into a food processor and pulse into a paste.

4.) Mash into a kind of circle.

5.) Spoon black bean filling and shape into a fritter. Make more.

6.) Put oil in pan, fry fritters until delicious.

7.) Eat! Yummy!

(I think next time we might deep fry them. mmmmm.)

Butternut squash bean bake.

I'm on my own for a few days, as Mr. Barefoot is out of town. I'm eating up the rest of my Costco butternut squash and found this recipe. I've adapted it slightly and added beans, onions, and spices.

Ingredients:

1.5 lbs butternut squash, clean and cubed

1 small onion, minced

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 can cannelini beans

1/2 cup parmesean cheese, grated.

Italian spices

salt

pepper

Olive oil

Procedure

1) Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

2) Heat olive oil in a small pan, saute garlic and onions until soft/transparent.

3) Combine squash, spices, oil, beans, and onions and garlic in a bowl. Toss until coated.

4) Pour mixture into a bowl and cover with parmesean cheese.

5) Cook for 50 minutes.

Verdict:

This was good, but make sure to cube the squash a lot smaller. The stuff on the bottom was great, but the stuff on the top did not cook well. I also added about a half cup of half and half towards the end (last ten minutes), and that helped a lot. I also tossed on some mozzerella cheese. I would wait to add the parm until the last 10 minutes.

Pizza

I'm trying out a new pizza recipe today - and what I did that I think is pretty interesting is the sauce. I got sick of buying designated pizza sauce, so I started making my own - can of tomatoes, pot, and immersion blender - mix well, you've got sauce. But it's not very thick or interesting - so today, I tossed 2 cans of tomatoes, a can of white beans, and a whole lotta spices in the crockpot. I cooked it for about 8 hours on low, and when I got home I blended it all up. (I'm trying to use our immersion blender more so I can either convince myself that we should keep it, or convince Mark it's really not that great and we should get rid of it.)
The sauce looks good - creamy, red, thick, and tomato-smelling (it smelled like beans and tomatoes when I got in, but once I blended it, just tomatoes.)
It tasted a little too bean-y though - so next time, probably half a can of beans, and maybe some tomato paste. It's a good way to sneak in some protein though. (I might try silken tofu sometime.)
The pizza crust is good. Mark complains about my pizza crust, so I tried a new dough - from The New Best Recipe Cookbook. I'm not going to post it here because well, you should buy it.
It doesn't taste like restaurant pizza, but its less doughy than my usual pizza crust. I also cooked it at 525 and not 425 (I didn't know our oven went up to 525.) I didn't precook the crust and that was my only mistake. Always precook!
The dough makes 3 pizzas, so I'm gonna freeze it and do some kind of pesto pizza next week, and maybe a white pizza sometime soon. Or another brie pizza. Brie pizza is delicious. It's like heaven in a crust.

Goat Cheese and Black Bean Buritto

So I came home for lunch today and made myself a burrito, but since I splurged at Costco and bought goat cheese over the weekend, I knew I wanted to use it. (Goat cheese is $4 for like, 1lb. of it at Costco, so its really not a splurge.) I had a black bean and goat cheese burrito at Burrito Beach when we were in Chicago, and it was delicious, so I decided to channel that.
Ingredients:

• Goat cheese
• Black Beans (I used about a half a can, but that was for just me)
• Spinach leaves (fresh.)
• red onion (I happened to have some leftover, you could use regular onion as well, or no onion
• Salt, pepper, and garlic powder to taste (I was too lazy to mince garlic)
• Tortilla
  

Procedure:

1. Saute onions in olive oil.
2. Add black beans and warm through. Remove from heat. Season.
   
3. Add goat cheese and melt in with the black beans
4. Put tortilla in the microwave (I zap them for about 20 seconds so they are more malleable.
5. Spread a thin layer of goat cheese on the tortilla.
6. Add some spinach leaves.
7. Pile on the black beans.
   
8. Enjoy.

I estimate the total cost of this burrito to be less than $1.50. I think the one I got at Burrito Beach was like, $6. It did have veggies and rice though, but this has certainly perked up my Tuesday, all in about 10 minutes.

Minestrone

This is my favorite soup. Well, one of two. We used to make it a lot, back when we were in college. Sam really liked it too, and I think even Tom would eat it. It's especially good with some focaccia bread to dunk. It's perfect for today's chilly fall weather.
Ingredients

• 1 large onion
• 3 cloves garlic
• 2 carrots, diced
  
• 3 stalks celery, diced
• 1 large potato, diced
• 1 can diced tomatoes
• 1 can kidney beans
• 4 cups vegetable broth (I use bullion. It's cheaper and takes up less space in the cabinet.)
• 1 cup water.
• 1/2 cup pasta
• 1 tsp dried rosemary
  

Equipment

• 1 large pot
• Cutting board
• Vidalia Chop Wizard (its one of those as-seen-on-TV things, but it totally works and I swear by it).

Procedure

1. Saute onion and garlic until transparent
   
2. Add carrots and celery and saute for a few minutes
   
3. Add potato, continue to saute
4. Add tomatoes, beans, and broth
5. Bring to a boil for 10 minutes
6. Add pasta
7. Bring to a second boil for 15 minutes
8. Add rosemary
9. Let continue to simmer for another 10 minutes, or until carrots are soft.
   

Honey Rum Beans

So I tried to make my own honey-rum beans tonight.
Into the slow cooker went:
1 can Kidney Beans
Capt'n Morgan's Rum
Honey
Cinnamon
Brown Sugar
1 tsp Cornstarch

I sorta guessed at the amount. The beans, a couple splashes of rum, some squeezes of honey, a few shakes of cinnamon, tablespoon or so of brown sugar, and then the cornstarch all go into the slow cooker.

Haven't eaten the whole batch, but I sampled and then had to be pulled away from the slowcooker.

Sweet Potato Tacos

My boyfriend's ex-girlfriend gave him a slow-cooker cookbook (and Indiana Jones!!!) for his birthday.
This recipe is one of my favorites. Who would have thought that sweet potatoes are deliciously fantastic in tacos?
Ingredients:

• 2 tbsp chili powder
• 2 tsp dried oregano leaves
• 1 1/2 tsps ground cumin
• 1 large sweet pototo, peeled and diced
• 1 can black beans or pinto beans, drained and rinsed
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 medium onion, sliced
• 1 green bell pepper, chopped
• 1 cup frozen corn, thawed and drained
• Shredded monteray jack cheese
• Flour tortillas

Equipment

• 4-6 quart slow cooker
• Prep bowls

Procedure

1. Combine spices in a small bowl.
   
2. Layer ingredients in the slow cooker in the following order: sweet potato, beans, half of spice mix, garlic, onion, pepper, remaining spice mix, corn.
   
3. Cover and cook on Low for 5 hours or until delicious.
   
4. Pile into tacos, add cheese, eat.