Superbowl Champion Veggie Chili

This is not *my* veggie chili. But it bears a striking resemblance to it.

By this time, you have no doubt heard that the New Orleans Saints won the Superbowl (which, as my friend Nick points out, is like the Grey Cup, but with 4 downs and no “rouges”).  As a Louisiana native, I am extremely pleased with this development.  I vividly recall the days of bag-headed fans venturing into the Superdome to watch the “Aint’s,” and not getting to see home games on television because the failure to sell enough tickets meant a TV blackout within a 100 mile radius.  So, I really never expected this day to come, but I am pretty stoked that it finally did.

To celebrate the Saints’ competition in this, the most glorious of sporting events, I made Veggie Chili, which, as far as I’m concerned anyway, rose to the occasion.  The recipe is an adaptation of Emeril Lagasse’s Texas-style chili (which is definitely not vegetarian), and is both hearty and complex.  Here’s how it goes.

Begin by sauteing the following in a big pot with canola oil:

• 1 large vidalia onion, diced
• 1-2 jalapenos, chopped
• 1 chopped carrot
• 1 red or yellow bell pepper, diced
• 4 Tbsp. chili powder
• 3 cloves garlic, minced

After these have cooked for a couple of minutes, add:

• 1 Tbsp. cumin
• 2 tsp. oregano
• 2 tsp. salt
• black pepper
• 28 oz can of diced tomatoes

When this is fragrant, add:

• 1 bottle of dark beer (we used a dark Belgian that we had on hand, but I’ve also used Guinness with pretty good results)
• 4 chipotle chilis in adobo sauce, chopped
• 4 cups vegetable stock
• 2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce

Bring this to a boil, and taste it.  If your beer is on the bitter side, you may want to add about a tsp of sugar or honey.  Then, add 1.5 cups of dry, green lentils (make sure that you have washed and picked these over to get rid of any dirt or stones).  Boil for about 10 minutes, then reduce head to med-low and cook, covered, for 1 hour (or until the lentils are tender, but not mushy).  When the lentils have almost finished cooking, add a can of cooked kidney beans, and allow to simmer for another 15 minutes.

We served the chili with cheddar and chive scones, like these (made by Josh, of course),

plus a dollop of sour cream.  I don’t mind telling you that I think this chili is fantastic.  It’s satisfyingly spicy without being too much, and the flavor is big and bold without being one-note.  I also really, really like what the lentils do for the texture.  I’ve previously made this dish with TVP instead, and I think the ever-so-slight al dente character of the lentils is worlds better than the texture of TVP, which can get pretty mushy in soup.  It’s also a fun contrast with all of the other veggies, as well as the kidney beans.

By the end of the night, there were exactly zero servings of chili left–this recipe makes anywhere from 8-12, depending on how much other game-grub you have on hand–so I have a feeling that my chili-feelings here are deserved.    And, thankfully (finally!), so are my feelings for the Saints.

Vegetable Pot Pie

There are moments during the fall and winter months when I want comfort food, but all of my stand-by items like macaroni or soup sound either too heavy or too boring.  I was in just such a mood this week (having just returned from Louisiana, the fattening delicious food capital of the world), so it was with great excitement that I read this new recipe in Vegetarian Times.  It wasn’t quick, but it wasn’t particularly difficult either, which turned out to be fine for a cozy night at home.

I got started by boiling chopped potatoes and carrots in a pot of salty water, and sauteing cubed tofu in canola oil, soy sauce and Tony’s.  After these were done, I set them aside and sauteed the mushrooms, onion and garlic that Josh cut up, and then added some chopped broccoli as well.

When these started to get soft, I pushed them to the side of the giant pot and made a roux in the bottom with oil and flour.  After this came together, I stirred in the vegetables that were already in the pot, plus some veggie stock, soy and hoisin sauces, Worcestershire sauce, sage, thyme, and more Tony’s.  To that I added the tofu, potatoes and carrots I’d previously set aside, and let the whole thing simmer and thicken up a bit.

Meanwhile, Josh was making the crust, which involved cutting butter into flour, adding water, salt, thyme and rosemary (can you tell I don’t bake?).  There was likely something else that happened before he rolled it out, but I leave all bread-like items to him.*

We then put the cooked veggies and their gravy-like sauce into a big baking dish and topped it with the crust, cutting holes to vent it.  After 45 minutes in the oven at 375, it was amazingly tasty–as good as any Chicken Pot Pie I had in my former meat-eating life, I’d venture to say–and certainly worth all the effort.  And as an added bonus, it was definitely cheap to make (when tofu is the priciest single ingredient, I feel that I’m doing pretty well).  So, to sum up: cheap, satisfying, and full of veggies = an unmitigated success.

*If you want more details on this, feel free to pick up this month’s edition of Vegetarian Times; it’s a good one and includes an entire vegan Soul Food meal!

Vegetarian Pho

I promised when I started this blog that I’d let you know about the ups and downs of cooking at home, so here I am, telling you about a culinary adventure that wasn’t all I hoped it would be.  I got this recipe from an old issue of Vegetarian Times, which is typically pretty reliable–but sadly, while this soup looked great, it was a bit of a disappointment, taste-wise.

Pho is a traditional Vietnamese noodle soup, and authentic Pho is definitely not vegetarian.  It typically uses a beef broth base, and some kind of meat.  We made this one with vegetable stock and tofu–admittedly not the tastiest of ingredients, but there was enough prep that I thought it might turn into something delightful.  In fact, the broth itself was a pretty lab0r-intensive process.  I simmered for an hour in store-bought vegetable stock: a bunch of garlic, ginger, mushrooms, a cinnamon stick, fennel, basil and cilantro, soy sauce and a bit of sugar.  After this was done, I poured off the solids and reserved the liquid, which did smell pretty nice.  I then poured this broth over cooked rice noodles and the tofu (which Josh fried and sliced), and topped it all with green onions, basil, cilantro, and sugar snap peas.

The results were…well, bland.  I tried adding a bit more soy sauce to my bowl, but this (unsurprisingly) just made it saltier.  So, a disappointment.  I’m trying to figure out what would have made it better (other than beef stock, obviously)…more sugar?  More broth?  Fewer basil leaves on top (which have a really strong and slightly overwhelming taste on their own)?  What do you think?  And while we’re on the subject, do you have a favorite vegetarian version of a traditionally meaty dish?

The Garden (Mediocrity) Project: Marginal Success!

Well, I thought for sure our minimal efforts at gardening were all for naught last week when the ice began falling before we’d harvested anything.  BUT, it turns out that Collard Greens are some hardy little buggers, and Josh and I had a lovely harvest this weekend after all. 

Unfortunately, my camera ran out of batteries just before cooking, so we don’t have photos of the finished product (or, for that matter, an in-focus picture of the fresh greens).  Nevertheless, I wanted to let you know about our successful meal, in an effort to quell any ongoing suspense over the status of (what was previously known as) The Garden (Futility?) Project.

Josh was in charge of cooking the Collards, and he did a really wonderful job, using a recipe from Ina Garten.  We’ve found that hers are almost always delicious, even if they tend to get a little heavy on the butter.  This one was no different, cooking the greens in butter, onion, and garlic, with a bit of apple cider vinegar and vegetable stock.

To go with the greens, I made a mushroom and sun-dried tomato risotto, which I thought turned out really well (the photo at right isn’t of my risotto, but of one like it, since my camera was out of commission).  To make the risotto, I started by sauteing a bit of onion and garlic in a combination of butter and olive oil.  I then added a bunch of sliced crimini mushrooms and sun-dried tomatoes, which I had previously soaked in hot water.  To that I added the arborio rice, and, little by little, stirred in vegetable stock, wine, salt and pepper until the rice was just al dente.  The risotto was a great match for the Collards–though I’m sure we’re over the limit on butter for the week.  I’m calling it even, since we avoided the typical Collard Greens cooking medium: lots and lots of pork fat.

Falafel, Lentils and Rice

Well, it has certainly been a busy month here at the Philosophers’ house!  We’ve just returned from yet another trip back South of the Border (more on that next time), which was so full of excitement that I completely forgot to post on this tasty Mediterranean meal.

This attempt at falafel was one of the most successful ones Josh and I have managed to produce at home…and yet, it was still less than perfect.  We actually used a boxed falafel mix this time, which did bring a great punch of (garlicky!) flavor.  However, in an effort to cut some calories, we tried baking it–which did result in crunchiness, but with the side effect of making the little guys less moist than you might hope.  Lesson learned: street food goodness requires frying.

Still, when paired with some hummus, they were pretty tasty.  The rice and lentils, additionally, were great.  We cooked them with plenty of onion and garlic, lemon, parsley, salt and pepper, plus a bit of cumin, thyme and a pinch of cinnamon.  All good stuff.

What was funny about this meal was how salient it made for me the by-the-seat-of-my-pants style of my cooking: it was my night to do the dishes (no dishwasher in our house), so Josh put things together while I got soapy.  He likes to say that I’m the “brains” of our kitchen operation…but in this case, “semi-directed experimenter” seemed more accurate.  Most of the evening involved me offering vague directions like “now maybe add some garlic?…uh, I dunno, like 3 cloves,” or “oh, probably cumin too.  But not as much as the thyme.  Taste it and see what it needs.”  Towards the end, the poor guy took my spot finishing the pots and pans to avoid the interminable adjustment of seasonings.

Or in other words, my plan worked.   Just kidding.  At least the end result was worth it.

Pasta with White Wine Cream Sauce

Things have been busy at the Philosophers’ house of late, so we haven’t had much time to cook anything worth sharing with you.  Last night, however, after a day of hard work (and a little fun), we decided it was high time for something delicious–but only if it were also simple and quick.

It was thus that we happened upon this simple-looking pasta dish, which packs quite a bit of flavor.

Don’t be deceived by its everyday looks; this pasta is much tastier than you might imagine.  It’s filled with great veggies, of course–peppers, onions, garlic, and sun-dried tomatoes–but the real secret (as they say) is in the sauce.  It’s actually just a simple béchamel to start out–I whisk together equal amounts of melted butter and flour to form a roux, then gradually whisk in milk until it’s smooth and creamy.  This time, though, I substituted about a half a cup of Chardonnay for some of the milk, which gives the sauce a really nice hint of sweetness and acid, adding some complexity to what would otherwise just be a straightforwardly dairy taste.

I cooked the veggies in the sauce, and tossed the finished pasta in with it to coat.  I’m also a big fan of the combination of cream sauce and sun-dried tomatoes; the intensity of flavor adds a nice punch to the richness.  So in the end, this dish isn’t too complicated, but is definitely not your average meal.  And as a bonus–if you have things like wine and flour on hand, it only costs about $4 to make.

Tofu Tacos

I’ve mentioned before how much I love Mexican food.  I should add, with this post, that this love encompasses all foods even vaguely Mexican, including Tex-Mex, Fresh-Mex, and tofu-centric Mexican spin-offs.  This recipe is an adaptation of the Moosewood Restaurant’s tofu burritos, and it’s currently my favorite thing to make and eat (though I should note that such favorites are subject to my frequently unpredictable whims).  In fact, this is one of those cases in which I think my adaptation makes the recipe even better…which is difficult to accomplish, given my predilection for anything with even the slightest hint of cumin.

I started out by cubing a block of tofu, patting the cubes dry, and then browning them in a few tablespoons of canola oil and a good amount of Spanish-style grill seasoning.  If you’ve ever tried to brown tofu, you know that this process takes a bit of time (because of the significant moisture content), and this may be why the Moosewood recipe doesn’t call for it.  I, however, think that this process improves the taste of tofu by a factor of about eleventy-billion (who doesn’t like fried stuff, right?), so I never skip it.  In other applications, I’ve been known to bake the tofu instead of frying it, but the splurge here is worth it.  And when it comes down to brass tacks, you’re already eating tofu.  So get over yourself.

*Ahem*

Anyway, while the tofu was browning, I sauteed chopped red bell pepper, onion, garlic and jalapeno in a separate skillet.  When these started to get a bit of color, I added paprika, cumin, coriander, and oregano and let it all hang out for a bit.  I then added the browned (crunchy, delicious) tofu, chopped tomatoes, some soy sauce (look, I said it wasn’t exactly traditional), corn and chopped black olives.  When everything had a chance to combine and warm through, we were ready to eat.

I stuffed the tasty mixture into wheat tortillas–it makes up for the frying–and topped the whole thing with sliced avocado and my very own cilantro.  We had rice on the side, but I have to tell you that it wasn’t much to write home about.  I’m still looking for a good Mexican rice recipe that doesn’t involve chicken stock–let me know if you have one.  Rice aside, though, the tacos were amazing, and I can’t wait for lunch today: leftovers.

Lentil Pilaf / Dirty Rice

Sometimes you just don’t know what to cook.  There’s an odd combination of foods in the house, or you really just don’t feel like pasta again, or there’s something you could make, but it would just take too long…and in these cases, if you’re anything like me, you just start throwing things together and hope it turns out well.  Last night was one of those nights, and though I had a few ideas brewing, I had no idea how they’d come together.  Fortunately, what came of my confused kitchen was this:

My primary inspiration for this dish was the Lentils and Rice served at a place called Mediterranean Cuisine in Nashville, which are beyond delicious.  I wanted to cook the lentils and rice together in a garlicky, lemony broth, but this posed something of a challenge, given their different cooking times.  Making things slightly more complicated was the fact that Josh wanted to incorporate some TVP for extra protein, which immediately made me think of one of my old childhood-in-the-South favorites, Dirty Rice.  Fortunately, both Dirty Rice and Lebanese Lentils-and-Rice are variations on a pilaf, so I figured there would be some way to bring the two together.

After some seat-of-my-pants calculations about water content and cooking times, I sauteed some onion and carrots (which I’d chopped up before I decided what to make and included just for good measure, despite the fact that they’re not typically found in either South Louisianian or Lebanese cuisine)  in a bit of oil, along with a hefty amount of garlic.  I then added the lentils, a little cumin, a pinch of cinnamon and a good amount of salt, plus an equal ratio of water to lentils.  I let this boil on its own for about ten or fifteen minutes before adding a cup of rice, another two cups of water, and the juice of half a lemon.  While letting this do its covered simmering thing, I got going on the TVP.  After rehydrating it with an equal amount of water that had been boiled with a whole garlic clove, I added salt and more lemon juice, plus a bit of pepper.

While we waited for the rice to finish cooking, Josh made a quick flatbread using our pizza stone–and buttermilk!–which turned out really well.  Once the rice was done, I added the TVP to the lentil mixture and stirred until it became a Lebanese-Vegetarian-Dirty-Rice feast.  I was actually very pleased with the way it turned out: filling and garlicky without being too overwhelming.

That said, I was a little sad not to have any hummus.

Butternut Squash Soup

Today is a chilly, dreary day: perfect soup weather.  Plus, since it’s a Saturday, there was time enough to make a good one while doing some chores and watching the LSU game on the internet (no SEC football on my limited cable, unfortunately!).  I’d gotten a butternut squash on my last trip to the store for just such an occasion, and I have to admit that I was more than a little excited to use it.

Last summer, Josh and I actually grew (several!) butternut squash in our garden in Nashville, and we love using them in the fall.  They keep a really long time in the pantry, and since they’re also super-delicious and good for you, they’re a great garden item.  In case you’ve never had them, the flavor is somewhere between a sweet potato and a pumpkin.  So, between their tastiness, health benefits and general economy, I’d have to rank butternut squash as one of my absolute favorite fall vegetables (even though, technically, it’s not a vegetable at all).

Though I was looking forward to making a butternut squash soup, I actually wasn’t quite sure what I would do, recipe-wise.  I’ve recently fallen into watching a Canadian cooking show called “It’s Just Food,” which is great for getting basic ideas; their butternut squash soup used carrots, garlic, onion, green apples, and a dash of maple syrup, but I had no apples or syrup, and wasn’t quite sure that I wanted my soup to be sweet at all.  All too often I believe people make the mistake of thinking that if they’re using fall vegetables with fall-esque spices, everything needs to come out tasting like pumpkin pie, which becomes overwhelmingly cloying really quickly.  But enough of my soap-box.

I decided to do my own thing–inspired by, but not directly derivative of, the “It’s Just Food” recipe.  I did follow their tip of doing a preliminary browning of the chunks of squash and carrots and yellow onion (the carmelization brings out just enough sweetness for me), butI used potatoes instead of apples.  After these got a bit of color, I added several cups of vegetable stock and a few cloves of garlic.  Before letting this boil away, I went to town with the spices–which, by the way, is my favorite part of the cooking process.  This time, since I was really just winging it, I added quite a bit.  What ended up being most prominent, though were the following: ginger, coriander, cayenne and dried chipotles (as I mentioned earlier, these give the smokiness of bacon flavor to vegetarian foods), plus a pinch of cinnamon, nutmeg and sage.  After everything simmered together for about half an hour and the vegetables were all tender, I hit the whole thing with my immersion blender till it was pureed.  Things were pretty thick at that point, so I decided to finish the entire thing with a bit of milk, which toned down some of the heat and made the finished soup really rich and creamy.  In the end, I was super happy with how it turned out–warm, spicy and savory, with just a hint of sweetness–and maybe just a little too proud of myself for coming up with something so great on my own.  I’m hoping the LSU game turns out so well!

Balti Curry Vegetables

I am a huge fan of store-bought curry pastes.  They provide a really wonderful depth of flavor without requiring the significant labor that goes into putting together a great sauce from scratch.  At the same time, however, the fact that they aren’t finished in the way that a pre-made jar of sauce is makes them both more versatile and potentially more tasty.  My own experience with pre-made Indian simmer sauces, for example, is decent–but basically ‘meh.’  But with curry paste?  It’s a whole different story.

Here I used a Balti curry paste, which is a good bit less spicy than some Indian curry pastes on the market–but which can still get pretty hot if you use too much (I speak from experience!).  After sauteing diced carrots, sweet potatoes, and new potatoes in a little oil to get their cooking started, I added some onion and bell pepper, plus a few tablespoons of the curry paste.  When the veggies were basically cooked, I added a little water, some diced tomatoes and–my favorite addition to Indian curry–some plain yogurt.  I love the creaminess the yogurt gives, and I really love that it’s achieved without using a ton of fat, as Indian curries made with heavy cream or butter (or Thai curries made with coconut milk) do.  The resulting curry was spicy, tangy, sweet and savory, with a satisfying combination of classic Indian spices.  How often do simple vegetables get to be such a treat?