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.

“Sausage” ‘n Biscuits

Do you ever have one of those mornings when you wake up hungry, only to realize that there’s nothing to eat in the house?  I hate when this happens, primarily because I am not particularly fond of waiting to eat (grouchiness ensues!) and the prospect of going to the store pre-coffee is enough to send me over the edge.  Well, today was one of those mornings–but surprisingly, it ended up much, much better than I could have hoped, because we managed to turn “nothing to eat” into something fantastic.

We had no milk, yogurt, fruit (except a banana that is, to put it mildly, past its prime) or bread, so all the usual breakfast items were out.  However, Josh managed some quick thinking–a feat, as far as I’m concerned, given our pre-coffee status–and he whipped up some quick buttermilk biscuits, while I constructed some veggie sausage out of TVP, an egg, and flour.

Now, I know the meat-eaters amongst you may think this sounds a bit odd, but believe me when I tell you that it was really, really good.  TVP behaves a lot like ground beef after it’s been browned, so making sausage patties out of it makes perfect sense.  After re-hydrating the TVP with boiling water (it comes in a dry form), I seasoned it pretty aggressively with garlic salt, fennel, sage, cayenne and black pepper, and then combined it with the egg and flour to form a mixture that held together.  I then formed it into patties, which I browned on each side in a little bit of olive oil–et voila!  “Sausage”!  It was savory, spicy and satisfying, just like a good Southern breakfast should be.

(Those of you who are still skeptical are hereby warned that I may just substitute your pork sausage with TVP without your knowledge.)

Vegetarian Shepherd’s Pie

In case there are some of you out there who didn’t already know this–though, let’s be honest, I’ve already talked about tofu and TVP, so it should be obvious by now–I’m a non meat-eater.  Yes, I do eat fish and shellfish now and again, but the vast majority of my (and Josh’s) diet is plant based, and it never includes chicken, beef, pork or (as my mother so eloquently puts it) anything else that walks or flies.

But, as you hopefully have also noticed, this fact does not keep me from absolutely loving food, and it is my personal mission never to let my vegetarianism make eating boring.  So I do my best to come up with new and creative ways to make legumes exciting and delicious, and sometimes, to make vegetarian versions of traditionally meat-laden dishes that I miss.  Thus, it was with great excitement that I discovered my first vegetarian shepherd’s pie at The Family Wash in Nashville, which uses a lentil-mixture in place of meat. Josh and I have been experimenting with making our own version of this little beauty for the last year or so, and I do believe we’ve hit upon perfection.

I realize that it’s not much to look at, but this is perhaps unsurprising, given that even the traditional shepherd’s pie is just a bunch of stuff piled in a casserole and baked.  This one uses a combination of red lentils and TVP as the “meat” part of the filling, which are cooked with onion, garlic, carrots, celery and green peas, and seasoned with thyme and fennel seeds.  The potatoes are mashed with buttermilk, and the whole thing is topped with a sharp cheddar cheese (or “old cheddar” as they call it up here), which is then melted and browned under the broiler.  It’s old-style comfort food, and absolutely worth the extra cooking time (which, all told, comes in at less than an hour).

Given the deliciousness of this meat-free adaptation, I’m inspired to think up some new meat-free alternative versions of traditional meaty meals.  And, as should be evident in my gardening attempts, I welcome a challenge–so tell me, what food traditionally featuring meat should I next try to convert into a vegetarian delicacy?

The Ongoing Mexican Food Quest

I love Mexican food.  Love.  It.  So one of the great disappointments of my time thus far in Ontario has been the outright paucity of any decent food that could even be classified as Tex-Mex.  This extends from the unavailability of corn tortillas in any but the most obscure health food shops (and even then they’re not much to talk about) to the tragic state of Mexican restaurants here in Guelph.  Recently Josh and I decided to make a go of the one Mexican place we’d heard about in town…and, well, let’s just say that the name itself should have been a give-away.

Tragically, “Latino’s” was not what we hoped it would be…and in fact, the oddly-placed green salad with shredded carrots and dill ranch dressing that sat next to my enchiladas and cinnamon-spiced rice was strangely evocative of another bizarre “Mexican” experience from years ago.  Before I moved to Nashville, I spent a month of the summer in Citta di Castello, Italy.  It was a lovely experience, save the unexpected fact that 4 weeks of Italian food (for breakfast, lunch and dinner) was simply too much.  I wanted–truly longed for–beans, cumin and peppers.  So I dragged my friends to the one Mexican restaurant I’d seen on the edge of town, insisting that I’d pay, and that whatever happened, it couldn’t be as bad as facing another plate of pasta.  Well, the short version of the story is that I was wrong, but it resulted in this fabulous photo.

The "Gordita"

This is my friend Jeff, posing with what purports to be a “Gordita.”  If you look closely, you’ll notice that it is in fact two baked potatoes, which are sliced open and filled with something that appears to be chili mixed with ketchup, and finished with corn chips poked into their sides.  There were more ridiculous renditions of traditional Mexican menu items that night (which I can only assume were the result of an extremely creative cook who had heard the names of Mexican dishes, but never actually tasted any of them), but this is the only remaining photographic evidence.  I’ll simply report that Thousand Island salad dressing figured prominently, and leave it at that.

At any rate, this “Latino’s” experience–with its non sequitur of dill sauce–reminded me very much of our Italian fiasco, but without the pitcher of Sangria.  Needless to say, this was disappointing.

The day following, on a quest to make our own Mexican food, Josh and I stopped at a few stores looking for dried Ancho chiles.  To make this story somewhat less arduous, I’ll simply report that most people we spoke to seemed not to understand that more than one kind of dried chile existed in the world.  After we explained that, no, we weren’t looking for red pepper flakes, they pointed us to another place in town that supposedly sold Mexican food, the proprietor of which might be kind of enough to sell us some ingredients.  It was thus that we found ourselves at a place called the “Salsateria.”

Rebel foods, indeed.  I’ll simply relay the exact conversation:

Me: Hi, I heard you guys might sell Moles and stuff.  Is that true?

Worker: What?

Me: I heard you sell Moles.  Is that not the case any more?

Worker: Wait, you mean you want some Guacamole?

Alas, it was not to be.  Josh wanted to stay for a burrito, but, jaded, I declared that I would trust no Mexican restaurant whose workers had not heard of Mole.  As fortune would have it, though, immediately across the street was an Asian foods market, where we managed to find all manner of chiles (plus some curry-making items to be featured in later postings!).  Thus, finally, we were able to create our own Mexican food which, though not perfect, was really, really good.

We made vegetarian chorizo tacos with home-made corn tortillas, plus a quick rice.  The chorizo was actually a two-day process, since it had to marinate in the fridge (with cumin, oregano, cloves, the aforementioned chiles, vinegar, onions and garlic)…and it was absolutely worth the wait.  It’s actually made from TVP (Textured Vegetable Protein), which is incredibly cheap to buy in bulk and renders a much better flavor than frozen soy crumbles.  The end result of the veggie chorizo was rich and spicy, which paired nicely with the fresh cilantro and tortilla.  I would like to have had sliced avocado instead of cheese, and maybe a few black beans to give an additional textural variation.

Still tasty, though, and without even a hint of salad dressing.