Vegetarian Thanksgiving: Baked Potato Bar

I have been meaning to write this post for forever, but I didn't have the pictures. I still don't but I want to get it up anyway. We threw a baked-potato bar party over the summer, and at the end, I turned to Mr. Barefoot and said, "this would make a great thanksgiving!"

For a baked potato bar party, it's a super-simple concept that is really easy to make potluck and vegetarian or even vegan - we provided potatoes, greek yogurt, sour cream, butter, and spices, and everybody else brought toppings for both regular and sweet potatoes. We had black bean vegetarian chili, pulled pork, candied pecans, cheddar cheese, bacon bits, etc. For Thanksgiving, you could add roasted turkey, cranberry sauce, corn salsa or creamed corn, mac& cheese, green beans, and all manner of vegetables.

I love this as a vegetarian concept because nobody has to bring meat, and you end up with a holiday that doesn't revolve around meat. It's also novel enough that people won't complain as much about there not being a turkey. It's also great for people who are not very experienced cooks, because it's pretty hard to screw up baked potatoes. Just put a bunch on a cookie sheet and bake them for awhile. If you do eat meat, but don't cook very well, I personally would crockpot roast some drumsticks or something, and shred them to be a topping, but you could also provide roasted drumsticks as a side dish to avoid cooking a full bird. It also would be a great idea for a side dish if you do want to host a meal with a beautiful turkey, but don't want to put in the work to do multiple side dishes - a few potatoes go in the oven as soon as the turkey comes out, and while it rests, they bake, and everything is ready to go at once.

It also makes a great Thanksgiving leftovers brunch idea - because what leftovers aren't better on a roasted sweet potato? Minimal work, maximum fun - that's my kind of holiday!

What are you doing for a vegetarian (or carnivorous) thanksgiving?

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!

Tofu Cabbage Egg Rolls

Too. Much. Cabbage.

Tofu Cabbage Egg Rolls:
Ingredients:
-1/4 shredded head of cabbage (shredded in the food processor so it's super thin)
-1 block of firm tofu, drained and run through the food processor
-5 spice powder (or any spice mixture you like - 5 spice powder is surprisingly sweet)
-1 onion, sliced thin (I just ran it through the food processor after the cabbage)
-soy sauce (I used Trader Joe's soyaki) - probably about 2 tablespoons.
-egg roll wrappers - about 10
-Olive Oil

Oven at 400.

Process:
1. Heat olive oil in a pan on medium high heat, add in tofu and spice powder and a little soy sauce (1 tbsp) and scramble until browned.  Set aside, or push to the edge of the pan.
2. Saute onions until translucent, add cabbage and saute until soft (about 5 minutes.)  Add remaining soy sauce.
3.  Wrap filling into egg roll wrappers - if you buy the nasoya brand, they have a diagram. Basically, make an envelope, then wet the flap and close it down.  Put rolls flap side down on a greased baking sheet.  Spray the tops with olive oil
4. Bake for 15 minutes.  I flipped them at about 12 minutes to get both sides equally crispy.

Enjoy!

Frozen Burritos

When I started my new job, I knew I wanted to have easy to grab lunches in the fridge.  I went from working at 10am to 8:30am, so I no longer had time to make myself lunch in the morning if we had gone out the night before and didn't have leftovers, or just had burgers and fries for dinner.  I buy the CedarLane Vegetarian Burritos from Costco, but they don't always have them, and I was looking for an even cheaper way to make freezable lunches. 

So when I had an extra sweet potato one day, and had accidentally opened a can of Trader Joe's Refried Beans instead of black beans, I whipped up about 8 frozen burritos.  They are surprisingly delicious and store pretty easily.  I just let it thaw on my windowsill all morning, then heat it up in the microwave. 

Recipe:
1-2 sweet potatoes, mashed (add salt and pepper to taste)
1 can vegetarian refried beans
6-8 flour tortillas (I used white and I think that is part of why they held up so well - the white ones are just softer and heartier)
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Procedure:
1. Put a flour tortilla on a piece of saran-wrap. 
2. Spoon sweet potatoes and refried beans into center of tortilla until it is pretty full.
3. Add cheddar cheese to the top. 
4. Fold burrito over and in on itself.  If it is having trouble sticking, use a bit of sweet potato as additional glue.  Immediately wrap in Saran Wrap. 
5. If your sweet potatoes are still hot, place in the refrigerator until cool.  If they are not hot, place burrito directly in the freezer. 

I made these about 2 months ago and just had one for lunch and it was good. 

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.

Chard and Red Cabbage

We had chard and red cabbage to use tonight, so I made these:

Chard Risotto (really good - the chard doesn't taste bitter at all. I'm not sure how that happened.  I used less chard than this called for.)

Sauteed Red Cabbage (I liked this a lot, but my entire kitchen is now red.)  It had a sweet, crunchy taste to it.

Happy eating!

Sweet & Sour Stir Fry

This week in the CSA, we got radishes and bok choy.  Also, cabbage, kale, and arugula.  And another sweet potato.  I'm a little CSA-weary these days, but we haven't had time to go to the farmer's market since the beginning of August, so thank goodness my sister keeps showing up with fresh veggies on Tuesday.  This week, we are sort of overrun with leafy green things, and I am feeling the need to cook everything so nothing goes bad.  (Suggestions for things that freeze well are appreciated.)

Tonight, I finally used up some tofu that was on it's last legs, the radishes, the bok choy, and an onion to create a simple but delicious stir-fry.  If you are afraid of bok choy, don't be.  I was freaked out at first too, but it turns out it is easy and delicious.  Same goes for the radishes.  This was super easy and I'm really pleased with how everything tasted.

Ingredients:
Tofu (I used a 2-block pack from Costco, but you could probably just use one) cut up into 1/2 inch dice and drained
1/4 cup Sweet and sour sauce (I used about a half cup, but was using 2 blocks of tofu)
1/4 cup Soy Sauce (all liquid measurements are approximate, you want a mixture that is a little runny but still thick)
2-3 cloves Garlic
1 onion
1 bunch radishes, cleaned, trimmed and cut into quarters
1 bok choy, cleaned, separated from stalk and with leaves trimmed off and set aside (just cut them off and put the leaves separate from the white part)
More soy sauce
Olive oil
Brown rice or starch of your choice (I throw the rice in the rice cooker first, since it takes so long.)

Procedure:
1.) Heat olive oil in a pan on medium-high.  Add the tofu and allow to cook until edges are crispy (this took around ten minutes, during which I chopped everything else.)
2.) In a separate pan or wok, start the onions cooking over medium-high heat.
3.)  Once the onions have softened, add the radishes.  Allow them to cook for about 5 minutes with the onions.
4.) Mix the soy sauce and sweet and sour sauce together.  Add to tofu. Turn to medium-low heat.
5.) Add the bok choy to the  onions and radishes.  Add about 1/4 cup of soy sauce to the mix and allow to cook over medium-high heat for another 5-10 minutes.  Radishes should taste crunchy but fork easily.
6.) Once the radishes are edible, add the bok choy leaves and stir into the mixture.  Cook 1-2 minutes more, until leaves are just wilted.
7.) Serve tofu and veggies together over brown rice.

Garlic Eggplant and Rice Noodles

I'm trying to find recipes to use up the excess of eggplants in my life right now, and through the Cookbook Project, I knew that Vegetables on the Side had a plethora of recipes for different vegetables, so I flipped through the pages until I found a recipe for Garlicky Stir Fried Eggplant.  It was fantastic.  Since the book is out of print, I'm going to repost the recipe with my modifications here.

Ingredients:
3 tbsp vegetable oil
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 medium-sized eggplant, cut into 1-inch chunks (I actually cut mine smaller than 1-inch, since I like my eggplant smaller.)
1 bunch green onions, white and light green parts, cut into small pieces
Pinch crushed red pepper
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
2 tbsp sugar
1/4 cup white wine
3 tbsp soy sauce
Rice noodles

Procedure:
1.) Heat oil in pan over medium-high heat.
2.) Saute garlic in pan until golden
3.) Add eggplant and cook, stirring frequently, until softened, about 5-7 minutes.
4.) Add green onions and cook for another minute, then add crushed red pepper.
5.) Combine vinegar, sugar, wine, soy sauce, and stir with a whisk.  Add to pan, cover, and cook on low for 5 minutes.
6.) While sauce and eggplant cook. prepare rice noodles according to the directions on the package.  Add the prepared rice noodles to soak up the remaining soy sauce mixture.

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.