Walnut and White Bean Paté

Though this month hasn't lead itself to a lot of super creative cooking what with all the writing madly for NaNoWriMo, we did manage to have a pretty tasty and new to us recipe come up this week.  It was inspired by a recipe that was in the October Vegetarian Times Magazine.  We tweaked it for our own purposes and made some scrumptious sandwiches with thinly sliced cucumbers that I plan on making again and again - they were delicious!  I could see where this Paté could be used in quite a few ways including a variety of tea sandwiches, with crackers and thin sliced fruit for a sweeter bite or maybe olives or capers for a tangy savory taste.  You could switch out the rosemary for another fresh herb, add garlic or caramelized onions, maybe paprika or cayenne - the possibilities are endless!

Walnut and White Bean Paté


1 cup walnuts, toasted in the oven at 350 degrees for 7-10 minutes then let cool
1 1/2 cup cooked white beans (I used navy this time), rinsed and drained
2 Tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 tsp olive oil
fresh rosemary to taste (about a Tablespoon), very finely chopped
1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon alder smoked salt, ground fine with a mortar and pestle


Throw everything into a food processor until well blended and smooth.

Refrigerator Pickles and Other Late Summer Reflections

I'm having a new tea on this overcast Monday morning.  There's always several boxes of Numi Organic Tea in the house, but usually the same three.  I have to have the Gunpowder Green - Temple of Heaven and the Breakfast Blend - Morning Rise is our standard black tea these days.  Then there's always a box of the Ruby Chai -Spiced Rooibas on hand.  When I was at the store yesterday, and was stocking back up, the teas were on sale so I decided to get one of their variety boxes and try a few new ones.  Today it's the White Rose - Velvet Garden and it's a success.  I love rose in my tea and have several herbal blends that I mix up myself that have rose petals in them, both for the flavor and their medicinal and magical benefits.  The Numi White Rose Tea has a good amount of rose to it but the white tea still comes through as well.  Nicely balanced.  A winner on this grey late summer day.

As I look out the window I am seeing more and more color show up on the trees in the neighborhood.  One cluster of chloroplasts at a time, the green disappears and the yellows, golds, reds, oranges and browns begin to appear.  Soon leaves will be littering the ground and then my bookshelves and tables and counter tops and vases as I collect them and bring them into my home.  I can't resist a pretty leaf or three or thousand.  Already I've been tempted by the few that have been tossed to the ground early by recent winds.  I'm attempting to refrain until after the autumn equinox.  Let summer linger a little before I eagerly embrace fall.  Though, I have slipped a bit.  Three mums came home last week and now adorn my front porch, lighting it up with bright gold, deep rich orange and an even deeper richer red.  They stand out against the lime green of their companion Lime Cypress that came home as well.  A plant I've always admired but never had for my own until now.  Two of the mums and the cypress are planted in the ultimate treasure - a lovely large glazed pot that had a little wobble to it, so was marked down 40%!  I've been wanting a nice glazed pot for my front porch since we moved into this house last fall.  And I've wanted one off and on forever - whenever I had a spot for one, and sometimes when I didn't.  Tucked in between the mums and cypress are treasures for spring  - a few miniature daffodils awaiting the return of the sun to start them growing.  Just knowing they are there will help get me through the long wet winter that awaits.  But first there is fall.

The change in the season became more apparent to me while up at a mountain lake last weekend, when the temperatures dropped fairly low and there was an obvious crispness in the air that hasn't yet reached the lowlands. Our first backpacking trip in four years took us up to Janus Lake along the Pacific Crest Trail north of Hwy 2.  We found the perfect site right near the lake in the midst of a small cluster of trees.  A marshy meadow on one side and more trees and huckleberry bushes on the other.  Very few insects were still about, color was more apparent, though many of the huckleberries had more than just begun to set.  I can only hope for all the critters' sake that they get a chance before winter really sets in.  Autumn is short in the mountains.  The birds were in mixed flocks feeding along the trail and the lake's edges.  Chestnut-backed Chickadees, Golden-crowned Kinglets, Chipping Sparrows, Townsend Warblers, Brown Creepers, and both Red-breasted and White-breasted Nuthatches chattered and flitted among the trees and shrubs near our camp and along the trails.  Golden-mantled Ground Squirrels came to check out our camp, one being so bold to try and climb into my backpack shortly after arriving.  Pikas posed on rocks and called out.  One came to check me out up close while I sat having a snack along the trail near a large rock slide.  Its round eyes in its round head on its round body with cute little round ears - all focused on me, or rather the granola bar I was holding. Ravens were talkative with their loud "cronking" echoing between the mountainsides that the lake was settled between.  A White-tailed Ptarmigan, just starting to have more of its winter whites showing among the more mottled summer browns and grays, made its way through the meadow, stopping to gobble the leaves off certain lime colored meadow plants and then grabbing up an insect or two as well, popping its head up from time to time and cocking it just right to look at the lady watching it from among the trees.  A lady with a big grin on her face, always happy to have the rare treat of seeing a Ptarmigan.  A treat that had become rarer over the last few years as she - I - got to the high elevations less frequently.  That backpacking trip was a reminder to get out there more often again, a necessary thing for my wellbeing, for my soul to be refreshed by crisp mountain air far from a road and all the distractions and to-do lists that await back at home.

To-do lists that I've been slowly working my way through since returning home.  Many things on the list are things that can only be done this time of year.  All the preserving,  that comes at harvest time - each in its season.  Now all lined up on the shelves we set up in the basement - strawberry, raspberry and blackberry jams, peaches and apricots.  A little space left on the shelves for the applesauce yet to be made.  Maybe some green beans if I break down and deal with my pressure canner again.  Then there are the refrigerator pickles we line the back of our fridge with each year.  Twenty quarts of fresh picked pickling cucumbers sitting in a brine with plenty of garlic, hot red pepper flakes, dill and onion. Cucumbers and dill we picked from a farm not to far away near a little town called Snohomish.  The same farm I'll most likely visit again if I decide to do the home canned green beans I love so much but dread doing because of the more complicated processing they take and the pressure canner that for some reason I have to manually adjust the pressure on.  But I know they are worth it.  So I'll most likely be adding that to my to do list.  The to do list I had best get back to now, no more long blog posting to procrastinate all the baking that needs to be done and the house cleaning and the.... oy.

I'll end this post by sharing the Refrigerator Pickle recipe I use, in case any one else wants to line up the back of their fridge with the worlds most delicious pickles ever.

Refrigerator Pickles - this makes approximately nine quart jars

For the brine:

13 cups water
3 cups apple cider vinegar
1 cup sea or kosher salt

For the pickles:
Onions, cut into wedges, a wedge or two for each jar
Garlic, pealed, several for each jar
Red pepper flakes, 1/4 teaspoon per jar (heaping if you like them nice and spicy!)
Fresh dill heads, 2-3 per jar depending on the size
8 pounds pickling cucumbers, washed and cut into spears.

Wash your quart jars and then place the onions, garlic, red-pepper flakes, and dill in each jar.  Then pack the cucumbers into the jar nice and tight.

Heat the brine till it just starts to boil.  Remove from the heat and using a funnel to pour into the jars, completely cover the cucumbers.  Place fresh canning lids on each jar and screw down with canning rings.  Place the pickles into the back of the refrigerator and let sit for at least one month before starting to eat.   The longer they sit the better they get.

I make about twenty jars and they barely last till the next pickling season.  But then we do love us some pickles!

Tropical Salsa and Gourmet Fun

As I write this I'm munching on the last little bit of a tropical salsa I threw together recently for a friends birthday party.  It seemed pretty popular and there wasn't much left for the requisite food photo!

This salsa was simple compared to the effort that went into the central player of the party, home made piña coladas, and I mean home made from scratch, all the way!  Well, they didn't make the rum, but if they could they probably would!  The coconut cream that usually goes into piña coladas is full of all sorts of sickly ingredients and tastes and smells like cheap coconut scented tanning lotion.  This stuff, on the other hand had a natural coconut flavor with a toasty nuttiness to it that made drinking only a little very difficult!  I can't really share a recipe since there really never was a recipe followed.  There were mad scientists in the kitchen with power tools, yes power tools, and lots of pouring this and brewing that and tasting - lots of tasting.  The base was made from fresh mature coconuts, the meat scraped out chopped up then simmered in the coconut water and a mixture of half and half and cream.  It was cooled and then fresh pineapple was added along with a combination of different rums.  It was poured into our glasses and enjoyed by all!

And then there was the cake.  Power tools were once again put to use and coconut was shredded and shaved from the fresh coconuts to incorporated into a light layered sponge like cake and frosted with the silkiest smoothest frosting ever.  I heard it might be some southern thang.  The cake was cheered for upon entering the house and then again when we all had the lovely slices of goodness!

So, as you can see, my contribution really isn't all that impressive in comparison, but one thing it has going for it is that I can tell you how I made it!  It was inspired by two things - a recipe in The Tropical Vegan Kitchen and a salsa made by a local favorite restaurant called Agua Verde.  As usual I didn't follow any particular recipe, but combined the ideas of the two salsas and then added a little Maurie flare.

Maurie's Tropical Salsa

One small fresh ripe pineapple, outer parts cut off and finely diced
2 medium ripe mangoes, pealed, cut from the pit and finely diced
1 medium to large jicama, peeled and finely diced
2 jalapeño peppers, seeded and finely diced
1/2 cup cilantro, chopped fine
1 can black beans, rinsed well
3 Tablespoons freshly squeezed lime juice
1 Tablespoon red wine vinegar
1 teaspoon agave syrup
2 Tablespoons olive oil
1/4 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
pinch of salt

Toss the pineapple, mangoes, jicama, jalapeños, cilantro and black beans in a medium to large bowl.  Combine the lime juice, red wine vinegar, agave syrup and olive oil, blending well.  Pour over the other ingredients, sprinkle on the cayenne pepper and slat and mix to coat well.  Serve with corn chips and enjoy!


* After posting this and linking it on my Facebook page I had a few comments about if this could be made with peaches, which are at their peek here in the northwest right now.  I almost threw a peach into this salsa when I was making it, but greedily saved it for fresh eating later.  I think peaches would be an excellent local/seasonal substitute for the mangoes.  I think I would add a bit more lime juice a tablespoon or two, to keep the balance of flavors.  If you do happen to make it with peaches or any other variation, please let me know - I would love to hear how it turns out!

Photo Credit

Celebrating the Harvest

First Harvest, Lammas, Loaf Mass, Lughnasadh, Cornucopia, County Fair Time - whatever you call it, it's all about the celebration of the harvest.  This time each year over the centuries and around the northern hemisphere of planet earth, people have been finding ways to celebrate the harvest of fruits and grains, and their own hard labor.  Every culture approaches it a little differently, each with its own customs.  Bonfires, gatherings, offerings to the gods, giving formal thanks to the earth for its fruits and so much more goes into these celebrations.  Mark and I came up with our own way of celebrating, and today marked  our second annual blueberry picking "ritual", complete with picnic and other August time treats.  This year our gala event for two was held at the Mercer Slough U-pick Blueberry Farm in Bellevue - a beautiful setting filled with wildlife, blueberries and a good number of happy berry pickers.  There was even a surprise visit by a coyote. I learned today that coyotes howl over sirens just like dogs do!  It was howling and yipping just a few yards from us and was spotted by some fellow pickers!

This young robin was one of the fellow blueberry pickers present today.  I think he's giving me the territorial eye here, don't you think?  

Obviously there was enough for everyone, though.  We brought home over four pounds of blueberries.

Another berry delight was the handful of ripe blackberries we managed to find and quickly gobble down.  Only a sampling of what's to come from the wonderful month of August!

There were a few tomatoes ready for harvest today too!

And what better way to eat them than with a little fresh mozzarella and basil. Yum!

And what August outing wouldn't be complete without a little ice cream?

A large part of the Lammas/ Lughnasadh celebration is the focus on the grain harvest.  So to celebrate this aspect I baked a Rosemary Olive Oil Cake.  I had never combined rosemary with sweet before, but when I saw a recipe for this in the latest Yoga Journal Magazine, I was quite intrigued and decided to give it a try.  Boy, am I glad I did!  This recipe is a keeper!  I altered the original recipe to try and bring at least a little whole grain into it.  Here's my version:

Rosemary Olive Oil Cake

4 eggs

3/4 cup sugar

2/3 cup olive oil

2 heaping tablespoons finely chopped rosemary

1 1/4 cup unbleached white flour

1/4 cup white whole wheat flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

Oil a 10-inch loaf pan and preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

In a medium bowl beat the eggs with a mixer for 30 seconds on 

high speed.  Add the sugar and beat on high till very frothy and pale.

While the beaters are going, slowly drizzle the olive oil in.  

Gently fold the rosemary in.

In another bowl, blend the flours, baking powder and salt.

Gently fold the dry mixture into the egg mixture.

Pour the batter into the pan.

Bake for 45 to 50 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean.

Let cool in the pan for a few minutes, then tip the cake out

onto a rack to continue cooling.  

Happy Lammas/Lughnasadh/First Harvest!

Photo Source

 and

The Artist

CSA Shares and Simple Navy Bean Soup

I just finished a wonderful lunch of left over navy bean soup that was whipped up yesterday and I'm still nibbling on the sweet and juicy pear from our last CSA box from Full Circle Farm.

And I'm mentally jumping for joy to hear that my sister in-law and brother in-law are signing up for a share from Full Circle Farm as well!

All this thinking about CSAs has me eagerly awaiting tomorrow's box.  I've been dreaming up what I will do with all that delicious produce since I finalized my selections this weekend.  I'm especially excited about getting a double order of eggplant this week - completely out of season, but something I've been craving for a few weeks now.  I want to make the simple oven roasted eggplant with anchovy that I found in my mother in-law's Silver Spoon cookbook and I want to try my hands at a recipe I came across online for eggplant "bacon" that gets marinated and then put on the dehydrator for a while.  It sounds very intriguing.  If I'm lucky enough to have any eggplant left (doubtful) I might make up a batch of Baba Ganoush to go with the Chipotle Garlic Hummus recipe I'm planning on making.  I found that recipe in the Tassajara Cookbook I've got checked out from the library (I really want a copy of this one for my collections!).  That would give us some good picnic foods for the weekend.  Something to take along for our outing to the Seattle Tilth Spring Plant Sale that we are going to with some friends.

For tonight though I'm roasting up some parsnips and cabbage for a veggie St. Patrick's Day dinner.  Yum!

Here's the Simple Navy Bean Soup recipe:

In the morning:

2 cups dry small white navy beans
8 cups water
1 Bay or Myrtle Leaf

Put all of the above in a slow cooker and cook for 6 hours on low setting.

When it's getting closer to dinner time:

2 carrots, sliced
2 stalks celery, diced
1-2 tsp earth balance or butter or olive oil

Saute all of the above in a large stock pot till slightly softened.  Add the beans and their broth, discarding the bay leaf.  Add smoked sea salt to taste (that's my secret ingredient!).  Bring to a simmer to blend flavors.  Right before serving stir in a 1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley.

We served this with garlic bread  - the perfect thing to sop up the last of the bean broth in your bowl.  This soup tastes even better the next day!

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.

Peanut Butter Ball Improv

I needed a little something this afternoon (this is a common trait of mine, no?) to go with my cup of decaf cafe au lait.  So I got the food processor down and started pulling ingredients that sounded good.  No recipe, just improv for food.  The results are delicious!  Very peanut buttery with a base of oats and almond meal, a touch of chocolate -two ways- and coconut just because.

Here's what went into them:

1/2 cup oats, ground to a coarse meal in the food processor
1/2 cup peanut butter, crunchy
1 Tablespoon almond meal
1 Tablespoon unsweetened coconut
1 Tablespoon chocolate syrup
1 teaspoon cocoa powder
2 Tablespoons almond milk
1 teaspoon agave syrup

All the above blended up in the food processor and then molded into little balls. This made 14 Tablespoon size goodies.

Vegetarian Reubens and Romance

I met my husband in the woods.

You see, there was a backpacking trip where I knew a bunch of the people and he knew a bunch of the people and all those people met up at a trail head in Olympic National Park on October 20th, 2000.  I was pulling my gear out of a friends car when a big red truck pulls up with the famous (infamous?) SARboy.  That's short for Search And Rescue and that was his trail name at the time.

I was told that upon seeing me he said to his fellow passenger, "Man, she's cute - too bad she's taken."

That's me with the monster pack!

Yep, I was not single.  Was not looking.  So that this all happened was a bit of a shock.  What happened?  I'm getting to that.  We donned our enormous backpacks (Did I mention this was to be a gourmet backpacking trip?  Someday I'll have to share the menu and recipes.) and headed up the trail.

Switch back after switchback after switchback.  Eventually it was noticed that someone had fallen far behind, it was their first time on the trail since they had gotten out of the army and that was a couple decades earlier.  A bunch of folks decided to wait for them while myself and one other girl headed on to secure the campsite.  We had gotten about a half mile or so shy of the campsite when my companion went down.  She had slipped on a root that had made a step in the trail and had come down on her ankle at a wonky angle with her full weight and the 75 pounds or so she was carrying. (I told you, heavy packs!)  So we dropped her pack and I assisted her along at a hobble till we got to camp.  Eventually everyone else showed up along with the dropped pack and went about setting up camp while I and SARboy took a look at the injured girls ankle.  You see, we were the two with medical training on the trip and so were thrown together to care for (or torture if you asked her) the injured party.  First thing was to get that ankle into the icy cold creek and set up people to make sure it stayed there.  For some reason it kept popping back out of the water seemingly of its own accord.

It became obvious to me that there was a fracture along with the severe sprain so once it was thoroughly iced I slathered a bunch of herbal salve (a slimy green murky looking thing that works wonders) onto the ankle and we got it wrapped up nice and sturdy.

The injured party decided to stay for the remainder of the trip and just keep off the foot and keep it elevated and gripe at us when we insisted it go back into the icy water.  And so SARboy and Trail Artist (yep that was my trail name at the time, I had a way of making art out of random objects along the trail) were thrown together for better or for worse.

We worked well together with little or no effort and ended up falling hard.  (Yes, there is way more to this story - but this is a food blog so I will be moving along now -maybe I'll tell more on This Northwest Life at some point - like how Mark almost caused me to break my own ankle on the way out or how he had threatened I would have to marry him if I asked him to hold my coffee mug one more time.)

It took us a few weeks of talking online and on the phone to figure it all out.  Then came the very painful part, for me, of ending a 6+ year partnership with an awesome guy and one of my best friends.  Not fun, not easy.

Eventually Mark and I agreed to meet up again for a snowshoe backpack trip near Mount Hood.  We had a blast.

When we came off the trail we had our first meal out together at a local McMenamins.  We knew it was meant to be when we both ordered Reubens and Beer.  Reubens are one of my husband's favorite things and those two things put together were why I chose a form of Reuben as the special meal for my husband of 9+ years.  (Yes, we were married 3 months to the day after meeting.  Go figure.)

Now that we have a more vegetarian bent on our eating we didn't want regular old reubens and I had seen several references to Vegan and Vegetarian Reubens.  The ones that intrigued me most were those using tempeh.  None of the recipes seemed quite right, so we winged it, as usual and ended up with a delectable, rich and amazingly messy Tempeh Reuben.  It rocked!

Here's the recipe.  The marinade was adapted from an adapted  Vegetarian Times Recipe.

Vegetarian Reubens


8 oz package tempeh, I used multi-grain, sliced in half and then down the middle to make it thinner.

The marinade:

2 Tablespoons Soy Sauce
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1/3 cup water
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon caraway seed
1/2 teaspoon dill weed
1 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon paprika

Marinade the tempeh for several hours to overnight.

Bake at 350 for about 20 minutes.

Dressing:

3 Tablespoons mayo*
3 Tablespoons ketchup
3 Tablespoons chopped dill pickle

Combine the above and set aside.

To put the reubens together:

Slather the dressing on 2 slices of really good artisan bread - rye or a multi-grain, or a sourdough.  Layer slices of tempeh on two of the pieces of bread,spoon a little of the marinade sauce over it, top with a slice or two of swiss cheese* and a goodly pile of sauerkraut.  Put the other side of the bread on top of that.  Repeat for sandwich number two.

Heat a griddle or skillet lightly coated with oil over medium heat and grill the sandwiches on both sides till lightly browned.

Serve with a juicy dill pickle and big cloth napkins.

*This could easily be vegan by using veganaise in place of regular mayo and using a vegan swiss cheese or other vegan cheese option.

Chickpea and Sun-dried Tomato Stew

Another simple recipe to warm your bellies.  This one I copied from a friend several years back and have since altered it here and there.  It's one that after making it we often ask ourselves why we don't make it more often.

Chickpea and Sun-dried Tomato Stew

1 medium onion, diced

3 garlic cloves, minced

1 carrot, diced

1 Tablespoon oil

3 1/2 cups cooked chickpeas

1 1/2 cups diced tomatoes

6 sun-dried tomatoes, chopped into pieces

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon stone-ground mustard

dash cayenne

dash black pepper

3 cups vegetable stock

1 Tablespoon soy sauce

1 Tablespoon cider vinegar 

1 Tablespoon lemon juice

2 Tablespoons Tahini

1/4 cup fresh chopped parsley

Saute the onion, garlic and carrots in the oil over medium heat, till onion is soft.  Add the everything else except the tahini and parsley.  Bring to a boil, reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer 15-20 minutes.  Blend 1/2 the soup in a blender with the tahini until smooth.  Return to the pot and stir in the parsley.

Mostly Raw Almond and Coconut Macaroons

Inspired by all of Averie's delicious sounding raw cookie balls and made up on a whim when I was needing a little somethin'.

Mostly Raw Almond and Coconut Macaroons - Makes 1 Dozen

3/4 flaked oats
3/4 cup finely shredded unsweetened cococunt
1/4 cup agave
1 Tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 Tablespoons coconut oil
2 Tablespoons almond meal/flour
2 Tablespoons rice milk or other non-dairy milk
Splash of vanilla

Put the oats in a food processor and process for 15-20 seconds.  Add all the other ingredients and process till a dough comes together.  Gather the dough up in tablespoon portions and roll in your hands to make small balls.

So simple!

So yummy!

So Pretty!

Sweet Potato Tacos with Chipotle Cream

These are one our favorite quick week night dinners.  It's simple.  It's delicious.

1 large Sweet Potato or Yam, peeled and diced
oil to coat the above
1 avocado, peeled, pitted and diced
2 tablespoons sour cream or vegan alternative
1 tablespoon plain yogurt, dairy or vegan
1 heaping teaspoon chipotle puree*
1 teaspoon fresh lime juice
corn tortillas

Place the oil coated, diced sweet potato in a roasting pan and roast at 375 till tender - 20-25 minutes.

In the mean time blend the sour cream, yogurt, chipotle puree and lime juice in a small bowl.

When the sweet potatoes are done, warm the corn tortillas.  In each tortilla put a little of the sweet potato and avocado and drizzle the chipotle cream over the top.

Eat and Enjoy!

* Chipotle puree can be made by taking one can of chipotle chilies in adobo sauce and pureeing in a blender or food processor.  Place in a jar and store in the refrigerator to have on hand for all things chipotle.  It will keep for several months.

Garlic and Kale Soup and Intuitive Cooking

I mentioned last week that I was still working through many of the recipes from the current issue of Vegetarian Times and that one recipe I hoped to make was the Garlic and Kale Soup.  Well, I finally got around to it and switched it up a bit based on what I had on hand in the house.  This recipe proved versatile enough to stand up to my altering it and that is a good quality in a recipe in my book.

I didn't originally learn to cook from recipes, just like I didn't learn to sew from patterns.  My mom was both a master seamstress and a master innovator in the kitchen.  She had to be.  Sewing is what made the money to put the food on the table and the food was rarely purchased based on a recipe - that would have proved to prohibitive in cost.  Like many others who didn't have such luxuries she shopped according to what was lower priced that week with an occasional splurge for something special.  Even the few recipes she actually referred to were altered often to make due with what was on hand.  This wasn't to say she didn't have very many cookbooks.  Far from it.  If you had seen my mother's house and then mine shortly after she passed away you would see the irony in her being a woman who rarely followed a recipe. Cookbooks were a hobby of my mothers.  Some people collect stamps, art and trinkets.  My mother collected cookbooks.  One of her favorite past times was to stop by a local second hand store and peruse the new cookbooks that had come in, often coming home with half a dozen at a time.  New, old, obscure and occasionally popular cookbooks of the day.  She would sit at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee and read cookbooks like others read novels.  If you happened to be nearby she would share what she was reading when something caught her eye or her taste buds, rather.  I have picked up on this habit myself.  Just ask my husband and look around at the piles of cookbooks I've brought home from the library.

I, at times have had the luxury to cook from recipes and at other times struggled to eat organic and chemical free while relying primarily on a food bank.  What I learned from my mom was indespensible during those times and gave me the creativity to cook outside the box at others.  I learned to use my senses and my creativity to pull meals together inside my mind - testing flavors in my head while looking at ingredients in the pantry and refrigerator, while walking down the rows of stalls at a local farmers market, when seeing what came in a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) share or what was available from the local food bank.  It has become second nature for me to rarely follow a recipe precisely.  While talking to others I have found that this is a rare quality among the general population of the United States.  Most have barely learned to cook, having grown up on take out and boxed foods.  Intuitive cooking is a lost art for many of the people in the US today.  Thankfully there are food movements and food has been the "in thing" for a while, so I have hope that will change.

Of course among those writing food blogs it may not be rare at all.  There are a lot of creative cooks out there.  I only wish that could be said for the rest of America - that ability is one that would help many people eat healthier and have an all around better relationship with what fuels them.  I would love to see programs at local food banks and farmers markets that reach out to people and share those skills.  I would love to see chefs and home cooks and food lovers everywhere reach out to bring a good chunk of our society into a healthier relationship with food.  If there were free to inexpensive cooking classes that taught how to prepare meals based on what came in a particular CSA box, less people would be daunted by the thought of signing up for a local CSA.  More people would be supporting local farmers and the main course would be based on fresh vegetables instead of a slab of meat.  People would be healthier and hopefully happier.

All that said, I'll share the actual recipe for the Garlic and Kale Soup from Vegetarian Times and then share how I altered it and give a few other ideas how this recipe could be altered to accommodate more pantries, more budgets and thus more people.

Garlic and Kale Soup - Vegetarian Times


1/2 cup wheat berries
2 Tbs. olive oil
3.5 oz shitake mushrooms, stemmed and thinly sliced (1 cup)
10 cloves of garlic, sliced
1/4 cup brown rice vinegar
4 cups low-sodium vegetable broth
1 bunch kale (10 oz), stemmed and coarsely chopped

1.  Soak wheat berries in a large bowl of cold water overnight.
2.  Heat the oil in a 2-qt saucepan over medium heat.  Add mushrooms, and season with salt, if desired.  Saute mushrooms 10 minutes, or until beginning to brown.  Add garlic, and saute 2 minutes more.  Stir in vinegar; simmer until vinegar is almost evaporated, stirring to scrape up browned bits from the pan.
3.  Drain wheat berries, and add to mushroom mixture with vegetable broth and 1 cup water.  Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer 20 minutes.  Add Kale, cook 10-20 minutes more, or until kale is tender.  Season with salt and pepper, if desired.

• I used spelt berried in place of wheat berries.  Most kinds of whole grain would work.  Even precooked, left over grains could be added towards the end of the process to simply warm through.  Try barley, brown or wild rice, quinoa and so on.  Some would not need to be pre-soaked and you may need to adjust the cooking times.  You can find cooking times for grains online by doing a search or some basic cookbooks will have a reference chart in them.
• Fresh shitake mushrooms can be expensive, for instance the organic ones I purchased for this dish were close to $15 a pound.  It was my splurge that week.  But that would not always be possible.  You could use dried shitake, re-hydrated and the extra liquid squeezed out of them before sauteing or you could just skip sauteing the mushrooms and add them at the time of the broth.  If need be use less expensive regular mushrooms, the flavor will be different but the soup would still be good. 
• I didn't have any broth on hand, since I have had to make my own broth now to avoid some potential irritant ingredients in even the organic broths available.  Making home made broth was still on my list of things to get done.  So I used some barley miso paste at half strength to make a broth base.  I dissolved the miso in the water in a separate pan and then added the warm broth to the recipe when the time came.  So my soup became Miso, Garlic and Kale Soup and it was yummy.  Any kind of broth or low to no salt bullion would do.  If you used dried mushrooms, the broth from re-hydrating them would be perfect.  If none of those are possible use water, salt and an herb like parsley (fresh or dried) if you have it to give the broth flavor.  The garlic and mushrooms do a lot for the broth on their own.
• I happened to use kale for this soup, but ANY leafy green will work like chard, spinach or collards.  If you don't mind a slightly spicier flavor to the soup you could try mustard greens or arugula.

Obviously altering this recipe is pretty straight forward and not all recipes would be as simple.  But I hope this will inspire just a little creativity, just a little - it's a start, anyway.