Carrot and Parsnip Bisque and Vegetarian Dishes in the Slow Cooker

Aw, the slow cooker, that ingenious invention that lets you cook dinner all day while you get everything else done.  I was l aways taught never to leave the oven on while you are away from the house, I think most of us were. In comes the slow cooker to the rescue, an appliance that can safely be plugged in while we're away or otherwise preoccupied.

Thing is, most people consider the slow cooker as a way to cook chucks of meat in various sauces, it is not commonly connected to vegetarian cooking.  That becomes even more obvious when you glance through most any of the slow cooker cookbooks at a bookstore.  They are meat centric to the core, you'll be lucky if you find maybe one or two vegetarian main dishes.  Those are usually lentil soups or some other bean dish.

Then I discovered Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker.  Since then I've adapted any number of the recipes in this cookbook.  I've made stocks, and soups and the list goes on.  I still have several recipes to try and several that spark my imagination for winging it.  If you like the convenience of a slow cooker but are vegetarian or would like to weave a few more vegetarian dishes into your meal plans I highly recommend picking this cookbook up.  My copy belongs to the library and keeps getting checked out over and over again - eventually I hope to find a used copy to keep.

The following recipe was adapted from Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker by Robin Robertson.
It was really delicious.  This was also the first time I had ever made a carrot based bisque before - and I was really impressed.  I think I'll be trying a lot of variations on that theme in the future.

Carrot and Parsnip Bisque

2 Tablespoons olive oil
1 large yellow onion
4-5 cups sliced carrots
3-4 cups peeled and sliced parsnips
2 small to medium potatoes, peeled and diced
1 large garlic clove, minced
5 cups water or light vegetable stock (I used water and it was very full flavored)
salt to taste
1 Tablespoon dried dill or 2-3 Tablespoons chopped fresh dill and more for garnish

Heat the oil over medium heat and add the onions, carrots, parsnips, potato, and garlic.  Cover the pan and cook until the vegetables have slightly softened, about 10 minutes.  When softened transfer them to the slow cooker (4-6 quart), add the water or broth and a little salt, cover and cook on low for about 7 to 7 1/2 hours.

After the 7 to 7 1/2 hours stir in the dill.  Then puree the soup in batches in a blender or food processor  until completely smooth.  Pour it all back into the slow cooker to keep it more before serving.

Serve with a little more dill sprinkled on top.

The Bottom of the Box

Tuesday night found me pulling out the final few items of last weeks CSA, the bottom of the box so to speak. I was down to spinach, sweet potatoes and an onion.  I added to this some garlic and a package of whole grain tempeh that I had in the freezer.  These would need to become dinner.

I knew the flavors were right.  I love both tempeh and sweet potato sandwiches with greens.  Why not all together, minus the sandwich part?  So I peeled and diced the sweet potatoes, diced and cried over the red onion, thawed the tempeh in hot water in the sink and rinsed the spinach a thousand times (well, it felt like it!). I trimmed the stem ends off the spinach and spun them in the salad spinner to get some of the water off, diced up the thawed tempeh, peeled the garlic, pulled out the garlic press and grabbed the olive oil.

First a good coating of olive oil went into the pan.  I heated that over medium heat and added the sweet potato.  I covered it and let it saute-steam, occasionally stirring.  Then the onion went in and was cooked till it was translucent.  I added the garlic, stirred it around a couple times and threw the spinach in, once again covering it to help it start to wilt.  I stirred it around and pulled it off the heat before the spinach was over-cooked, wilted but still solid.  I added about a tablespoon of soy sauce, stirred the whole mess to blend and called it done.

We served it up into our bowls and chowed down.  It was absolutely delicious!  I am certain that I will have to make sweet potato, tempeh and spinach sandwich now - this combination of ingredients is too good to ignore!  I also have a feeling some variation of this will be made fairly often in this house from now on.  I love it when great recipes are discovered this way, when you're to the dredges of the fridge and pantry and it's as if the ingredients have just been waiting to meet - like it was meant to be.

Vegetarian Stroganoff with Seitan

Stroganoff was a staple growing up. My mom never followed a recipe because she learned to make it alongside her mom and it was the same for me. Stroganoff is intuitive in my family. So when I started wondering what a vegetarian version of stroganoff might look like, I just winged it. At first I considered making it with lots of extra mushrooms to take the place of the beef in the traditional dish. But then I found a brand of seitan that didn't have additives that would make me sick. It was not organic, however, and that is unacceptable to me on a regular basis - so eventually I'll have to get around to making my own seitan for recipes like this.


1 package egg noodles (or egg free for a vegan version), cooked according to package directions

2 tablespoons oil
1 1/2 cups sliced onion
3-4 cups sliced mushrooms
1 clove garlic, minced
A couple splashes brown rice vinegar
1/2 cup water or broth
1 tablespoon Shoyu soy sauce
1 tablespoon vegan worstershire sauce
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 cup sour cream (or sour cream alternative to make it vegan)
8 ounces seitan, sliced to thin bite sized pieces

Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. Add the onions and sauté till they begin to brown. Add the mushrooms and sauté about 4-5 minutes longer. Add the minced garlic and sauté a minute longer. Add the vinegar and stir well scraping the bottom of the pan to deglaze. Add the water and mix well. Add the soy sauce, worstershire sauce and black pepper. Stir well, and turn the heat down to medium low. Add the seitan. Add the sour cream. Mix well, cover and let flavors blend over medium low heat, stirring occasionally, while the pasta boils.

Serve the pasta piled with yummy stroganoff and enjoy.

Mark and I both enjoyed this a lot. My husband had a euphoric expression on his face as he ate - so I think it passed the test. We both agreed that we wanted to try it with homemade seitan and that it would be just as delicious with extra mushrooms in place of the seitan as well - just not as high in protein.  Either way there was a request to make this again which I will honor - just not as often as it might be enjoyed by my husband, because unlike him I do not have two hollow legs that can be filled repeatedly without gaining an ounce!  This is a calorie-rich meal to be served up only on occasion unless everyone in your household has my husband's metabolism!