Cookbook Challenge: Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker

Yes, the project is still going on.  Today I tried a new chili recipe from Fresh From the Vegetarian Slow Cooker - Three Bean Chili with Chive-Flecked Cornmeal Dumplings.  I've adapted it slightly to accommodate the ingredients in my pantry and my personal taste.

Ingredients:
1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 large onion, diced
5 cloves garlic, diced
1 small red pepper, diced
3 tbsp tomato paste
1 tbsp chili powder
One 28 ounce can giant tomatoes
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 can light kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 can red kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 1/2 cups water
salt and pepper to taste

Dumplings:
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup cornmeal
2 tsp baking powder
salt
1/2 cup frozen corn
1/2 cup milk
2 tbsp olive oil

1. Saute onion, garlic, and red pepper over medium heat until soft.  Add tomato paste and chili powder.  Add to crockpot.
2. Add tomatoes, beans, salt, and pepper.
3. Cook on low for 6-8 hours.
4. Mix flour, cornmeal, baking powder, salt, frozen corn, and milk, together.
5. Drop spoonfuls of cornmeal mixture into crockpot.  Replace lid, and either cook on low for another hour, or cook on high for 30-45 minutes.

Cookbook Review: Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker was the first crock-pot cookbook we purchased when we got our crockpot, and it's always the one I recommend to friends who say, "uh, I got a crockpot...how do I, like, make food?"  All of the meals are balanced, substantial, and delicious.  I've made several recipes from this book and never had a flop.  The directions are straightforward and easy to read, any weird vegetables have instructions for how to clean them and what they taste like, and the book is well organized.  You should definitely buy it.  And then make some chili.

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.  

Cookbook Project: 350 Big Taste Recipes for the 1 1/2 Quart Mini Slow Cooker

There are almost no cookbooks out there for the mini crockpot, and I got tired of scaling the 4-6 crock recipes back, so I asked for this book for Christmas.

It's a terrible cookbook.  All the recipes in it are made for people who do not know how to cook, and are missing their tastebuds.  It's also poorly written.  For example, the recipe I made from it includes garlic on the ingredient list but does not say when to put it in.  A lot of the recipes are high in sodium, since they involve canned ingredients, but supposedly this book has an "emphasis on healthy cooking."

But last week we had extra shrimp, so I made this recipe.  We got rid of our 1.5 qt slow cooker when we got a rice cooker, and since this was a rice recipe, I used the rice cooker settings.

Ingredients:
1 lb medium shrimp
1 1/2, cups instant long grain rice (I used parboiled)
1 1/2 cups hot tap water
1 small onion, diced (1/2 cup)
1 can tiny spring peas (I used frozen peas)
1 tsp garlic, chopped
salt and pepper to taste

Process:
Oil the crockpot; add rice and onion.  I also added the garlic at this time.  Let cook for 2 hours (or cook on rice cooker setting.)

Fluff the rice, add the shrimp and cook for 45 minutes; add the peas and cook for 15 minutes more.  (I added the shrimp and the heat from the rice cooked them almost instantly, so I added the peas at that time.)

If you do make this, add some hoisin and soy sauce.  Once we did that, it came out pretty tasty.  I do feel like I cheated more than usual on this one by using the rice cooker, but there is nothing about this dish that being cooked more would have improved.

Cookbook Project: Secrets of Fat Free Baking

My mom, the one who is afraid of butter, bought some fat-free baking cookbooks awhile ago.  I don't know why, because Mama Barefoot Does Not Cook.  She occasionally bakes stuff, but that's usually slice-and-bake cookies.  So that she constantly buys cookbooks is really odd.  Fortunately, she has a daughter who likes to cook and "help clean out" the cookbook cabinet.  So I took this one in college, when we all still thought saturated fat was the Enemy.  Since it's not, I actually added butter to the recipe I used - partly because I didn't have the prune puree that the book recommends using, and partly because I don't think saturated fat is the enemy.  Since I made that substituton, I had to make another as well - the recipe was lacking in moisture, so I wound up dumping in a good chunk of apple butter as well.  I also threw in some white chocolate chips, and I will tell you, these cookies were amazing.

Cranberry Spice Cookies (p. 170 - Secrets of Fat Free Baking)
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour (just used whole wheat flour)
3/4 cup plus 2 tbsp unbleached flour
2/3 cup sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp nutmeg
1/4 plus 2 tbsp prune puree (or 1 stick of butter, plus apple butter until dough is workable)
1/4 cup honey
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup dried cranberries (I also added in about 1/4 cup white chocolate chips)
1 cup oat flakes or other ready-to-eat cereal flakes (I used oatmeal)

Process:
1. Preheat oven to 350.  Combine flours, sugar, baking soda, and spices, and stir to mix.  Add prune puree or butter, honey, and vanilla extract, and stir to mix well.  Stir in the cranberries or raisins and oatmeal.

2.  Grease a baking sheet, drop cookies onto the sheet.  Flatten them with a spoon (I didn't do this - it's advisable - these cookies do not spread.)

3. Bake for about 9 minutes (longer, if you didn't flatten your cookies.)  Transfer to racks and allow to cool.

Prune Puree (if you want to try it)
3 oz pitted prunes (1/2 cup)
1 cup water or fruit juice
2 tsp lecithin granules (or why I didn't make this recipe)

Put all ingredients in a food processor, blend until smooth.  Can refrigerate for up to 3 weeks.

Verdict:  I really liked these, and husband's office approved as well.  They tasted a bit of apple butter, but not really, and the cranberry/white chocolate chip combination made them really good.  They have a little more refined sugar than I would like, but often when we swap out one ingredient, like fat, we add a lot of sugar to make up for it.  I will be making them again this week for book club and trying to use a bit less sugar, since they get some from the white chocolate chips.

Cookbook Project: The Betty Crocker Cooky Book

I love this book.  This recipe is for Lemon Crinkles.  The book notes:
From Mrs. Alfred T. Neilson of Council Bluffs, Iowa, who prefers simple and easy recipes that leave her time for her hobby of making hats.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup shortening
1 cup brown sugar, packed
1 egg
1 tbsp grated lemon rind
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 tsp soda
1/2 tsp. cream of tarter
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp ginger 


Heat oven to 350.  Mix shortening, sugar, and eggs; blend in lemon rind.  Blend dry ingredients and add to sugar mixture.  Roll int 1" balls, dip tops in granulated sugar (I skipped this step.) Bake on an ungreased baking sheat for 10-12 minutes.  


Enjoy.  These were really good.  They taste more like regular sugar cookies, but they're really good.  

Cookbook Project: How to Cook Everything Vegetarian

It turns out that this whole "working wife" thing is no joke.  For APW book club, we read a book that said that most women, when they return to work, they continue keeping up the same load at home.  I have done that partly, because I work fewer hours than Mr. Barefoot.  I've also started a variety of obnoxious habits, like leaving work shoes and suit jackets everywhere and piling my pajamas in a heap on the stairwell (no, it doesn't make sense.)
Nonetheless, the Cookbook Project (suggested names welcome) has continued, and I've made two recipes, one last week, one this week.

A note about the Cookbook Project before I continue.  Firstly, a lot of you commented to say that you don't own cookbooks.  This isn't something I understand.  I love cookbooks.  I think they are wonderful, it is one of my favorite sections to browse at the store, and I would say that I do actually use 25% of our cookbooks on a regular basis (hence the project).  I use the internet a lot as well, but part of the impetus for this blog in the first place was that many of my favorite recipes were in cookbooks, and I didn't always have them with me.  So how many cookbooks do I have?  You tell me.

There are more in the living room, but that whole top shelf is cookbooks.  It is at least 30, but I think it is closer to 40.  

So I felt like I needed some ground rules.  The first is that I must follow the recipe as closely as possible and not add things.  Substitutions are acceptable as long as they are minor (regular garlic for elephant garlic, margarine for butter), or suggested in the book ("use broth or white wine").  But the point of this project is to try new recipes, and if I add things to recipes, they wind up tasting like something I already cook.  I can omit things that I do not have in the house, can't get, as long as they are for garnish.  I can remove things I don't eat, like meat, but otherwise, if I want to try the recipe, I have to keep the things I don't like.  

This week's recipe from The Stinking Rose cookbook was supposed to be last week, but life happened and I didn't have time to make an involved recipe.  So I had bought some radishes and I turned to Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian.  I love this book, and I'm really sad I had to "waste" it on a recipe as simple as braised radishes.

Ingredients:  

• 2 Tbsp butter/olive oil
• 1 lb radishes, trimmed
• 1/2 cup white wine (or you can use stock)
• Salt and ground pepper
• Chopped parsley for garnish (we didn't have any)  

Procedure:

1. Combine butter, radishes, and wine in a pot, add salt and pepper, and bring to a boil.  
2. Cover and lower heat so the mixture simmers, and cook until the radishes are tender, 15-20 minutes.  Add additional liquid if necessary.  
3. Uncover and raise the heat to boil off almost all the liquid, so that the vegetable becomes glazed in the butter/pan jices (5-10 minutes).  Taste and adjust seasoning, add lemon juice if you would like, garnish and serve.  

Verdict:
Easy and pretty good, although it would have been better with the lemon and chopped fresh parsley or another spice.  I've made something similar to this before, so like I said, I'm sad I "wasted" this book on something so easy.