Mango Daal

Mango daal over rice. 

This is such a warming dish that's great for fending off those late fall/early winter chills. You know, that time of year where your body isn't quite used to the cold weather yet, but you've finally gotten used to wearing sweaters and winter jackets. Caution: this recipe is for internal use only.

I became interested in cooking Indian food when I took a Food and Culture class as an elective in college and my group picked India as our country of interest. There are so many different cuisines within this largely-populated country, as many curries and seasoning blends as there are families in India, and so many spices and ingredients utilized that it was (and still is) endlessly fascinating to me. Since that time, I generally have most spices needed to prepare an Indian dish in my spice drawer at all times. And the great thing is that many Indian dishes are plant-based and pack a lot of flavor.  

Display of color: garlic, red lentils, red pepper, mango, turmeric, and ginger.

Ingredients:

2 cups red lentils (rinsed thoroughly and drained)

1-2 T coconut oil

1 large onion (diced)

4 cloves garlic

1 T fresh ginger (approximately) 

1 T fresh turmeric (approximately; or powdered if you absolutely have no way of getting a hold of fresh)

1 t ground cumin

1 T ground coriander

salt (to taste)

mild to spicy red pepper (depending on your heat preference)

1 large or 2 small mangos (peeled and diced)

sprigs fresh cilantro

2 cups rice (any type; I used basmati this time), rinsed thoroughly and cooked

Rinse and drain lentils and add to a pot with about 4 cups water. Bring to a boil and simmer for about 15 minutes, adding more water if needed for desired consistency. Salt to taste. Note: red lentils don't keep their shape, at least for me, so I've stopped trying to come up with a way to keep them whole during the cooking process. In this recipe, they will cook down to a sort of thick sauce, perfect for spooning over rice.

Meanwhile, heat the coconut oil in a large pan then add onion and cook until softened. Add ground cumin and coriander at any time. Prep garlic, ginger, and turmeric then finely mince them altogether on a cutting board. Add to onion mixture and cook for 4-5 minutes. Finely chop red pepper (or if you have no access to fresh peppers, use dried chiles or cayenne powder) and add to mixture, cooking for about a minute. Stir in the lentils and combine thoroughly, then add diced mango. Taste for salt content; the right amount of salt will make the spices pop and give the dish amazing flavor. 

Prepare rice at any time. I have been cooking my rice like pasta lately. Boil about 3 times as much water as your desired (uncooked) rice amount, add salt, then add rinsed rice and cook uncovered for 10-30 minutes (depending on which type of rice you're using). Brown rice takes 30 minutes, and white basmati rice takes 10-15 minutes. Drain using a strainer then put it back in the pan, covering to lightly steam until ready to use. 

Spoon lentil/onion/spice mixture over rice and top with fresh cilantro. 

Basmati rice and mango daal.

Veggie and Bean Pot Pie

Did you know that purple carrots have more nutrients and antioxidants than regular orange carrots? You probably did, cuz you're smart.

Purple carrots from my garden! I was finally able to harvest some. 

Autumn is in full swing here in the PNW with spatterings of blustery days and my perpetual hot tea by my side. Gone are the summer days where a nice mix of fresh veggies with beans would fill me up for dinner; heartier meals are required. 

When I stopped eating meat, I discovered this Thyme and White Bean Pot Pie recipe from The Minimalist Baker and it was immediately added to my list of go-to recipes. With this last round of modifications to the recipe, I even found myself going through a split-second ingredient check in my head a couple times to make sure I was really supposed to be eating what I was eating.

Sidenote: Do any newer plant-based eaters/vegans still stop mid-bite in a slight panic because you think you might have eaten something that you're not supposed to be eating anymore? Kind of like you think you may have accidentally "relapsed" without being conscious of the act until you're on the second or third bite. I only do this rarely now, but when I do it's when I'm eating something phenomenally delicious...like this pot pie. 

Back to the recipe...so, here it is with my alterations and modifications.

Ingredients:

• Filling:

1 onion (diced)

1lb carrots (diced into small pieces that will cook rather quickly)

1 heaping cup green beans (chopped into pieces about 1/2 inch long)

1 cup fresh or frozen peas (optional)

1/4 cup flour

2 1/2 cups veggie broth

2 t fresh thyme

15oz canned or cooked beans (rinsed and drained; any kind of beans will do)

salt and pepper to taste (smoked salt if you have it)

• Crust:

1 1/2 cups flour

1/4 t salt

4oz vegan butter

4-7 T cold water

Carrots, onions, and beans sautéing. Beans are purple too; snagged those from Alvarez Farms. 

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Heat stock pot on medium heat and add onions and carrots. (You can add oil if you're worried about the veggies sticking to the pan, but I just add a little water if that starts to happen.) Cook until carrots are soft (5-7 minutes) and season with salt and pepper. Add green beans and peas in at the end and cook just until the peas are thawed (if frozen) or slightly cooked. (The peas are optional only because I was going to add them but forgot to buy them at the store. I love peas in pot pie, by the way.) Sprinkle flour in and stir thoroughly, then gradually add the veggie broth making sure to scrape the bottom. Add thyme and beans. Lower heat and let simmer for a few minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat and keep covered while preparing the crust.

Filling after the flour has been added.

For crust, stir flour and salt together in a bowl. (I use whole wheat flour and it turns out great, but you can also use regular flour.) Measure your vegan butter using a kitchen scale (or if your vegan butter has ounce markers on the package like real butter, use those). Add vegan butter to the flour mixture and cut in with a pastry cutter until you have a crumb-like mixture. Then add the water one tablespoon at a time and incorporate thoroughly until you have a nice dough that's not too sticky. Form the dough into a ball, transfer to a clean floured surface, and roll to about 1/8 inch thickness. (Here are some tips if you're not used to working with dough: It works best to roll the ball of dough out with the rolling pin a bit then flour the rolling pin so that the flour actually sticks, then roll the dough out some more. After that, flip your dough over and lightly flour the surface underneath. Continue rolling and lightly flouring as needed to keep dough from sticking and until you've reached the desired thickness.) 

Pre-oven.

Pour filling evenly into either a 12-inch round oven-proof dish or cast iron pan, or a 9x12 baking dish and gently lay your crust on the top. I sprinkled a bit of smoked salt on top (an idea that I stole from one of our favorite restaurants). Bake for 30-40 minutes or until the crust is slightly browned. And then eat the whole thing by yourself in 2 1/2 days.  

Pot pie perfection.

Tomato Soup

Tomato Soup

The oldest trick in the parent book is sneaking vegetables into foods and your kids being none-the-wiser. They love it, they ask for seconds, and you secretly give yourself a high-five on the way back to the kitchen. Some daring parents will even reveal the supposedly disliked/repulsive ingredients after their kid is on their third helping and it's already packed for their lunch for the next day. "Guess what you just ate...and liked!" (That would be me.) Sometimes it backfires, sometimes it does not, and sometimes it just gets them to eat the above-mentioned four portions (which I'll take!). 

This soup is one of those recipes that you can hide at least two other vegetables within. Technically, this is a tomato, red pepper, squash soup but I simply titled it Tomato Soup in case a child or husband sees the recipe pop up somewhere (you're welcome!). I prefer using squash for this soup (kabocha, butternut, or any other rich, sweet squash) but this time I used a pumpkin because we had leftover from a pumpkin stout my husband was making. 

Ingredients: 

2lbs tomatoes (fresh or canned)

1lb red sweet peppers 

2lbs (or roughly 2 cups after it's cooked) squash (kabocha or butternut are best)

10 fresh sage leaves (or basil or cilantro)

salt and pepper to taste

To bake squash: cut in half, deseed, add about 1/2 inch water to pan, and bake for about 1 hour or until cooked through. This time around I discovered a new way of cooking my cucurbitaceae. I deseeded it, cubed it, put it in our cast iron dutch oven, added about 1/2 inch water, put the lid on and baked it for 45 minutes to an hour. 

Deseed peppers and slice. Slice tomatoes. Combine tomatoes, peppers, squash (I left the peel on but you can determine how much effort you want to put forth), and sage in blender until desired consistency. You'll probably have to blend in batches. Pour blended mixture into a stockpot, simmer for about 20-30 minutes, and salt and pepper to taste. 

Sometimes soups can be less than filling for me, so I often fortify mine with any grains or beans I have around. Suggestions are rice, quinoa, buckwheat, black beans, or garbanzo beans. 

Tomato soup with quinoa added.

Pumpkin in the dutch oven.

Pimento peppers from Alvarez Farms. These are my favorite peppers!

Purple sage before it gets the blender.

Banana Granita with Plum Ginger Sauce

Banana Granita with Plum Ginger Sauce

There’s not really a recipe here; just broad guidelines for how to turn three ingredients into an amazing treat that is so rich and divine. I was tired of not being able to eat ice cream, so I just put this together and it hit the spot. But a little too late, because it’s October now. Whoops. 

So, why is it called Banana Nice Cream? Isn’t all ice cream nice? Maybe there’s just not a synonym for “healthy” that rhymes with “ice.”  I get it. Well, I just didn’t know whose original idea I would be promoting by calling it Nice Cream, so I called mine granita. 

If you’re a Banana Nice Cream expert, you can make it however they taught you in culinary school. Here’s how I did it: I blended up several ripe to overripe bananas in my blender, mixed them for about 5 minutes with the whisk attachment on my hand mixer, then poured it into a freezer-proof container, and let it freeze. When I scooped it out later, it kind of flaked off the spoon resembling more of a granita than ice cream.  

Then for the sauce, I pitted and sliced several plums and blended them with about a tablespoon fresh ginger. You can add a little water if you’re having trouble blending. Then I simmered the sauce in a small pan for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. You’ll want to cook it until it’s a nice thick consistency.  

Spoon some sauce on the granita. It’s very delicious. 

Plum Ginger Sauce

Vegan Pâté

Vegan Pâté

So, the other day I was recipe-searching online and discovered that there's such thing as vegan pâté (and, yes, I'm gonna spell it that way every time...in case you were wondering). Vegan pâté! Mind blown.

 I started looking for the perfect recipe and I was either missing ingredients, didn't like the combinations of ingredients, or didn't like the texture shown in the pictures. So I just started writing down ingredients that I liked and made my own conglomeration from about seven different recipes.

Ingredients:

2 cups walnuts (soaked for at least 2 hours)

1lb cremini mushrooms (common brown mushrooms)

1/2 large onion

1/4 cup ground flax seeds

3 T fresh parsley

1 T fresh thyme

2 T fresh rosemary

2 T white miso

1 T soy sauce 

2 T lemon juice or apple cider vinegar (whichever one you have on hand is fine)

1 T nutritional yeast

2 T dulse flakes (optional; I just like to throw these into everything)

2 garlic cloves (or 3 or 4 or 10...can you tell I love garlic?) 

salt (to taste)

veggie broth (to help blend)

Soak the walnuts at least 2 hours (I soaked mine overnight), drain, and rinse. Put all the ingredients into a blender. You may have to divide your batch, depending on the size of your blender; alternatively, you can use a food processor but make sure you use a spice grinder for grinding down the flax seeds. Add veggie broth as needed to bring it to the consistency you prefer and to help mix your ingredients, especially if you have a cheap, weak blender like I do. 

You can dip crackers in it or spread it on bread for snacks or breakfast. I got my crackers from Breadfarm at the Everett Farmers Market. I couldn't decide between the two kinds they had, so I did what any reasonable person would do: buy both. I still can't figure out which ones I like best. And, let's be honest, I'm pretty sure I made the pâté as a way to utilize the crackers instead of the other way around. 

Banana Cookies

Variation with buckwheat flour, coconut, and cacao nibs. 

Sugar is a nasty beast. I’ve cut it out for short periods of time only to be reeled in by it once more.  I’ve also tried to stave it off by making smoothies with fruits and greens in hopes that my body will get enough nutrition so as not to crave extraneous unhealthy foods. Sometimes it works. It's important to me to have foods around that replace the foods I would normally grab during a snack attack. These banana cookies do the trick for me. They’re also great for a quick breakfast. 

Most of the recipes I'll be posting are original creations, but this one I discovered from Five Heart Home. I use her recipe for Banana Breakfast Cookies and modify it a bit. My modifications vary almost every time I make them, just to keep things exciting. Here's my version, with more modifications below.

Ingredients:

2 cups oats

1/2 t ground spices (cinnamon, cardamom, allspice, nutmeg, ginger, grains of paradise; any kind or combination)

1/2 t baking powder

1/2 t baking soda

1/2 t salt

2 large bananas (ripe or slightly overripe), mashed (about 1 cup)

1/2 cup peanut butter (or any other nut or seed butter)

1 t vanilla

1/2 cup chopped nuts (almonds, walnuts, hazelnuts, any kind or combination)

Preheat oven to 350°F. Combine oats, ground spices, baking powder, baking soda, and salt into a large bowl and mix well. In a separate bowl combine mashed banana, nut butter, vanilla, and nuts; mix well. Then gradually stir the dry ingredients into the banana mixture. Make sure everything is mixed well. Line your baking sheet with parchment paper. Each cookie requires about 1/4 cup dough, so you can use either a spoon to scoop out the dough or use your hands to form and ball then pat it down slightly. Bake for about 15 minutes or until they're just browned on the bottom. The cookies will not spread, so their shape on the baking sheet is how it will look once it's baked.

[Modification Notification! Sometimes I omit 1/2 cup of the oatmeal and add 1/2 to 1 cup buckwheat flour. I almost always add 1/2 to 1 cup unsweetened coconut flakes and 1/2 cup cacao nibs to the dry ingredients. Sometimes I add 1/2 cup uncooked quinoa. One time I added 1/2 cup finely grated carrots and 1 T finely minced fresh ginger. Try some of your own fun variations!]