Portobello Pepper Wraps

From this recipe on Epicurious, with some alterations.

Ingredients

• 2 T. olive oil
• 3 medium sized portbello mushrooms, washed, caps and stems sliced thinly
• 1 medium sized onion, minced
  
• 1 14 1/2-ounce can stewed tomatoes (originally called for "Mexican style", evidently this doesn't exist or doesn't exist at our supermarket.)
  
• 3-4 burrito-size flour tortillas (we used smaller whole wheat ones)
  
• about 2 oz. crumbled soft fresh goat cheese (we used Montchevre)
  
• 1 large green bell pepper, roughly chopped
  
• fresh spinach leaves, about 2 cups
  

Methodology

1. Heat olive oil in a large pan or wok over medium-high to high heat until it sizzles. Drop in the mushrooms and the onion and saute for about 10 min. until tender.
2. Open the stewed tomatoes and add them (see note below). Add the bell pepper and cook for about 10 more minutes, until some of the juice has cooked off. Season with salt and pepper.
   
3. Drain pinto beans and heat in a pan with cinnamon and other spices (we used Penzy's Turkish seasoning because it is awesome.)
   
4. Heat a tortilla in a pan until pliable, about 15 seconds per side. Put in some spinach and goat cheese, add beans and veg. Roll up. You may overfill them, we did.

Notes

• We didn't drain the tomatoes, but I would suggest draining out about 1/4 - 1/2 the juice.
• Because "Mexican style" was non-existent, we went with store-brand "stewed tomatoes". They were fine.
• Bryan seasoned his with pan-fried pepperoni. He said it added crunch and salt. I felt they were delicious without. But then I would say that.
• We had a definite problem with over-filling the burritos. You probably do want large size ones. But go with whole wheat.

Three-Bean Rainbow Chili

For all your chili needs. Based on this recipe from Epicurious.

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 2 carrots, peeled, thinly sliced
• 1 red bell pepper, seeded, chopped
• 1 yellow bell pepper, seeded and chopped
• 1 zucchini, sliced
  
• 3 large jalapeño chilies, seeded, diced
  
• 1 28-ounce can diced tomatoes
• 1 15-oz can diced tomatoes
  
• 5 cups water
• 1 26.5-ounce cans black beans, rinsed, drained
• 1 15-ounce cans dark red kidney beans, rinsed, drained
• 1 15-oz can light red kidney beans, rinsed and drained
• 1 15-oz can pinto beans, rinsed and drained
  
• 3/4 cup bulgur (cracked wheat), rinsed
  
• 8 garlic cloves, minced
• 4 tablespoons chili powder
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 2 teaspoons ground coriander
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 2 tsp. salt
  

Methodology

1. Cut up the vegetables or make some other people do that. Put the olive oil, carrots, onions, jalapeno and bell peppers, and zucchini in the pot and sauté over medium-high heat until tender, about 8-10 minutes.

2. Add the spices, then the rest of the ingredients. Stir, then cover and let it boil until the bulgar is cooked, about 20 minutes.

3. Serve with cheddar cheese and/or bread.

Notes

*The original recipe said that it made 6 servings, so to feed 6 people B and I decided to multiply it by 1.5. Now it makes about 27 15 10-12 servings. If you want to cut it back down, I'd suggest cutting the black and kidney beans to one can each and taking away the smaller can of tomatoes.

*Be careful when you serve it, since it will be quite hot. Try not to burn yourself or others, it is a little embarrassing to have your cooking experiments end in injury.

*The dish was well-received by all. 0/7 on the disaster index!

Random Vegetable Curry

Does that sound like kind of an apathetic title? Because this is kind of an apathetic recipe. Luckily it was delicious.

Ingredients

• 1/2 eggplant, chopped
• 1/2 sweet potato, chopped
• 1 large zucchini
• 1 1/4 blocks baked tofu, chopped
• 1 tin chickpeas
• 1 tin nuoc cot dua (coconut cream or coconut milk)
• 1 T. red Thai curry paste
• 1 T. brown sugar
• 1-2 T. soy sauce
• 1 handful spinach
  

Methodology

1. Put veg in pot with a little oil. Add coconut milk and let it simmer.

2. Add curry paste and brown sugar. After a while, add in the tofu and the chickpeas. Cover and let everything boil until the sweet potato is tender.

3. Add the soy sauce (to taste). Throw in a handful of spinach at the end and let it wilt.

4. That's it.

Notes

*This came out well. Good with toasted pita.

*About 250 calories if serving 6, if 8 about 192.

*Needs more curry paste.

Vegetable and White Bean Soup, or As You Like It

A typical sort of end-of-the-week soup.

Ingredients

• 1 head broccoli, chopped into florets, stem peeled and chopped
• 1 summer squash, halved and chopped
• 1/2 sweet potato, chopped
• a handful of baby carrots, chopped
  
• 1/4 green bell pepper, chopped
• 4 mushrooms (crimini), halved and sliced or quartered
• 1 15-oz. tin canellini beans, drained and rinsed
  
• 2.25 bouillon cubes
• ~4 c. water
• 1.5 tsp garam marsala
• about 1 tsp chopped garlic
  
• chili powder and cayenne pepper, salt and pepper
  

Methodology

1. Put water in a pot with bouillon and some garlic. Bring water to a boil and put in sweet potato, broccoli, and carrots. Let them boil until somewhat tender and add beans, mushrooms, bell pepper, and squash.

2. Add seasoning and taste. When sweet potatoes are cooked, the whole thing is pretty much done. Serve with toast.

Notes

*Eating this directly after a 6-mile run, I was so hungry I burned my tongue. The soup was good, but nothing fantastic - certainly not really anything to blog about. But today, eating the leftovers for lunch, I find that it has become a fantastic, spicy dish. The beans start to disintegrate and thicken the broth. So I recommend making this a day ahead. Also it uses a minimal number of pots and there's not much clean-up. Hurrah.

*Can probably be done with whatever veg you have lying around - I'd recommend bak choi, maybe some spinach. Tomatoes might be nice, too. I didn't have any.

*3/7 on the disaster scale.

Moroccan Stew

I found this on Runner's World's website. Since I had eggplant and zucchini to use up, it looked like a good bet. That said, I wouldn't call it an unqualified success; if you go look at the page I've linked to, you'll see that whoever wrote it has no idea how much stuff should actually go in - 3 cups of onion, 4 cups of zucchini? Serves 6? How much do these people eat?

On closer inspection, the photograph at the top of the article is obviously not the dish described. Maybe that should have been a warning sign, but what the hell - Runner's World is not exactly known as a source for gourmet recipes.

So I made some alterations, and then some more alterations. I'll write the ingredients list with the amount of stuff I cut up; see the notes section for more information.

Ingredients

• 1 biggish onion, chopped
  
• 2 T. garlic
  
• 1 tsp ground cumin
  
• 1 tsp turmeric
  
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
  
• 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
  
• 1/2 tsp paprika
• 9-10 baby carrots, chopped
  
• 1 large sweet potato, chopped
  
• 1 eggplant, chopped (I used 1/2 Japanese eggplant, 1/2 traditional aubergine)
  
• 3/4 zucchini, chopped
  
• 1 tin diced tomatoes
  
• 1 tin chickpeas
• 1/2 cup raisins (I used a "raisins and cherries" mix)
  

Methodology

1. Put about an inch of water in the bottom of a biggish pan and throw the onion in. Bring it to a boil, then add garlic and spices. Mix. Add the rest of the veggies, the tomatoes, and the chickpeas. Add the raisins.

2. Mix well and add about 1 c. water. Cover and let cook until veggies are tender, stirring occasionally, about 20 minutes. Serve with bread.

Notes

*Initially, this tasted like a big bowl of vegetables, and not a particularly inspiring one. There's no salt in the recipe, which makes it kind of bland. I would have said 5-6/7 on the disaster scale.

*After a couple of days in the fridge, however, this had somehow morphed and become a super delicious stew. With a pinch of salt on top and heated in the microwave, it made a great lunch at work, and probably it will be lunch today as well. 2/7.

*I have to admit that even my biggest pot wasn't big enough for the quantity of veggies I cut up. If I were doing it again, I'd use only 1/2 eggplant total, plus about 1 zucchini and a small onion. It might be worth using a smaller sweet potato, too. The spices were a good mix, but I'd add more salt earlier on. And less water; better just to keep an inch at the bottom and keep an eye on it so it doesn't burn.

*I'd almost recommend making this a day ahead of time.

Curried Kidney Beans (rajma)

Via the Veg Lounge. Because kidney beans are good for you.

Ingredients

• 1 tin red kidney beans, drained and washed
  
• about 1 medium onion, chopped
• 3 T. garlic, chopped
• 1/2 tin whole tomatoes, chopped
• salt, cayenne pepper, garam masala

Methodology

1. Put some oil in the bottom of a pan and add the onions and garlic. After they have cooked for a few minutes, add about 1 tsp. garam masala and a sprinkling of salt and cayenne pepper.

2. Add the tomatoes and about 1/4 c. water and cook for about 5 minutes. When it starts looking sauce-like, add the kidney beans and cook for about 5 more minutes, until it looks cohesive and not like an assemblage of ingredients. Add about 1 tsp. more of garam masala, 1/2 tsp. cayenne, 1 tsp. salt.

3. Eat. Goes well with bread or brown rice.

Notes

*Warm and tasty. Fairly low calorie, too - kidney beans are 100 calories per half cup.

*That's it. Really easy. It's a nice pretty purple/red colour, too.

Ribollita

I took the recipe from Dan and Claire and modified it.

Ingredients

• olive oil
  
• 1/2 onion, chopped
• 2 T. crushed garlic
• 1 15oz can diced tomatoes
  
• 1 10oz package frozen spinach (thaw in microwave)
  
• 1 15oz can cannellini beans
  
• 4c vegetable stock (bouillon)
  
• 1c water
  
• basil, oregano, paprika, salt, and pepper
  
• bread
• 2/3 c. orzo
  

Methodology

1. Chop onion. Put in pot along with olive oil and garlic. Add spices. When it turns translucent, add the tomatoes, the spinach, and the beans. Add the water and bouillon and bring to a boil.

2. Add the orzo and cook until tender.

3. Meanwhile, put bread in oven until it is stale. Drizzle with olive oil if you like.

4. Put a piece of bread in the bowl and pour soup over the top. Serve with Parmesan cheese (and, if you're me, Sri Racha sauce).

Notes

*I've been really into "one pot" meals this winter. Especially with my workout schedule, it's nice to be able to make something and then have leftovers to eat all weekend, preventing me from chewing off my arms or whatever in the time between practice and dinner. But here is the problem: when you put pasta in liquid, it absorbs the liquid.

*This is kind of obvious, because that's how pasta cooks. But as I've noted before, this doesn't stop when the cooking is done.

*So I made the soup on Monday, and then Tuesday after Karate I found that it was no longer soup but vegetable and bean stew with orzo.

*Still delicious though. Needed more spice.

*3/7 on the disaster index. Makes about 9 servings. I recommend it with focaccia, but any type of bread is probably good.

Polenta with Grilled Veggies and Canollini Bean Humus

Polenta recipe from Mario Batali, found here.

Ingredients

Polenta
4 c. water
2 T. salt
1 c. yellow corn meal

Grilled Veggies

3 zucchini, sliced
1 smallish eggplant, sliced
1.5 green peppers, sliced

Canollini Bean Humus

1 tin canollini beans, drained
2 T. olive oil
3-4 cloves garlic, chopped
salt, pepper, paprika


Methodology

1. Put water in a pot with salt. Bring to a boil. Stir in the corn meal. Keep stirring, lowering heat until corn meal is thick. Ladle into greased muffin tins, a little more than 1/4 c. polenta/tin. It makes 12 very full or probably more if you're not lazy. See note.

2. Put polenta tins in fridge. Wait. When cool, remove from fridge.

3. Slice veggies and put on grill. Brush lightly with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Put polenta cakes on grill also.

4. Put beans, oil, and garlic in food processor and hit go. Add spices.

5. Serve ensemble.

Notes

*On Polenta: This cooking methodology is problematic on two accounts. One is that I think 2 tablespoons of salt is too much - I would recommend maybe half or a quarter of that. The other is that "put corn meal in pot and mix with a spoon" doesn't really convey a) how lumpy the stupid corn meal is and b) how it's kind of scary when it boils and spits hot grits at you.

Cooking this might be much easier to deal with if you are not sick and your brain makes sense of complex inputs like the boiling of a pot and is capable of looking at a recipe and saying, "Two tablespoons seems like too much!", so feel free to disregard this advice. Warning. Thing.

*One polenta cake = ~40 calories, assuming you made them all the same and not, you know, some really huge and some quite small. I don't know. Maybe you don't understand the idea of dividing things equally. I'm not judging.

*This was really good, but it would have been better if the polenta hadn't been so salty. Seriously, don't make this recipe like this.

*5/7 on the disaster index.

Moroccan Chickpea Soup (Harira)

Based on this recipe from Epicurious.

Ingredients

2 15 oz tins chickpeas, drained
1 (28 oz) tin diced tomatoes
1 large onion, chopped
3 T. garlic oil
2 cloves garlic, minced or crushed or what have you
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon cumin, plus a bit
2/3 cup chopped fresh cilantro
4 cups vegetable broth or bouillon and water
1 cup lentils
1/2 c. orzo
1 lemon

Methodology

1. Chop onion and garlic and put in a pot with the oil. You can use butter or olive oil if you want, I've just been using garlic oil because it has fewer calories. Also it's delicious.

2. Add spices and stir, wait for a couple of minutes. Add tomatoes, cilantro, chickpeas, lentils, broth or bouillon/water. Cover and bring to a boil, then simmer until lentils are cooked (about 30 minutes).

3. When lentils are (almost) tender, add orzo and cook for another 10 minutes or so until everything is done. Serve with lemon and bread (we had rye/pumpernickel swirl, which was good).

Notes

*Wow, what awesome soup. Seriously. Daniel suggests adding raisins, which I could get behind. Alternatively, dates. Also, spinach is a possibility.

*Makes 6 (large) servings, about 270 calories a piece. Plus loads of protein, which is good for you.

Squash and Black Bean Chili

Based on a recipe from Epicurious. Dan has also blogged about this here, making this our first joint cooking project to also be a joint blogging project.

Ingredients

2.5 c. white onion, chopped
3-4 cloves garlic, minced
2 T olive oil
4 c. butternut squash, peeled and chopped
3 15 oz. tins black beans, drained and washed
1 14.5 oz tin diced tomatoes
spices: cumin, turmeric, Cayenne pepper, paprika, oregano
3 c. bai cai (Napa cabbage), chopped
approx. 2.5 c. water and vegetable bullion

Methodology


1. Heat the oil in a large pot and add the garlic and onion. Cook until the onion is golden. Add the squash and stir.

2. After about 2 minutes, season it with the spices (you can use chili powder if you have any; we didn't). Add the beans, the tomatoes, the bullion and the water. Cover and bring to a boil, then take the lid off and simmer until the squash is cooked, about 20 minutes.

3. Add the cabbage and cook a few more minutes until it is done. Season with salt and pepper to taste; also Sri Racha Sauce, plain yoghurt, cheddar cheese, etc.

Notes

*This made a ton. The original recipe said "serves 4", but I think it could easily have been dinner for 6.

*I haven't worked out the calories yet, but it's pretty good for you. I'll get on that soon though. Right. Okay, if you assume 10 servings, it's about 220 calories per serving (before the addition of yoghurt/sour cream/cheese/what have you). I'm going with about 1 cup = 1 serving. But that's a rough estimate.

*I would add a tin of Great Northern beans and maybe a tin of kidney beans instead of all black beans, just to make it more interesting. I'm not sure I would keep the cabbage in; unlike Daniel, I'm not convinced it added anything. Also I was really hungry when I was cooking this and didn't spice it enough, so we had to do that after. Oops. This would be really good with a piece of rye bread or maybe fresh Irish soda bread.

*Hey Dan, we should bake some Irish soda bread.

*2/7 on the disaster index.

Spinach and Chickpea Rice Pilaf

This is sort of a deconstructed spanakopita-type thing; Daniel and I tried hard to make it taste kind of Greek-by-way-of-the-Middle-East, and I think it worked. Anyway, it was delicious, and since I made up the recipe I get to blog it. (Dan can blog it too if he wants, I don't care. I'm making things up. Okay.)

ingredients

2 tin chickpeas (approx 32 oz)

1 onion

garlic

1.5 c. brown rice and 3 c. water or so

some veg bullion (we used one packet, really not worthwhile)

feta

2 boxes frozen spinach (20 oz or possibly grams, I forget)

1.5 T olive oil

lemon juice, cumin, fennel, dill, coriander, nutmeg, pepper, salt, thyme, basil, etc.

methodology

1. chop onion and saute in pan with garlic and olive oil plus cumin, fennel, dill, coriander, thyme, nutmeg, salt, pepper [&c...]. Put rice, bullion, and water in another pan and cook until it is done.

2. Melt spinach in microwave, squeeze out, and add to onion mixture (be careful, it will be quite hot; do not burn yourself). Add in chickpeas. When rice is done, mix it in and adjust the seasoning to taste. Squeeze half a lemon over it, sprinkle with feta, serve.

notes

*If you had dry (soaked) chickpeas you could stick them in the pan with the rice and cook it all together, but since ours were pre-cooked and we had limited pot space, we figured why bother.

*This was super awesome and approximately 250 calories per serving. Actually that's a very generous estimate.

*This makes a lot. Easily enough for five people. We were two people. I cannot scale recipes for love or money. Apparently.

*Scores a perfect 0/7 on the disaster scale.

*No more notes; I'm going to bed. Make sure you read the comic.