Not-Chicken Noodle Soup

Whenever I get a cold, my mom helpfully remarks, “Well, I’d tell you to eat some chicken-noodle soup if I thought you would.”  And to this, I typically respond with something along the lines of “yes, yes that would be good advice if I were someone who ate chicken.”  Then she tells me to take a Zinc supplement and drink some juice, which I always agree to do.

It’s the little predictabilities, you know, that make family relationships so special.

At any rate, while I don’t eat chicken or chicken broth, this recipe is one that I love even more than the real thing.  It’s warm and rich and flavorful and comforting, and it great if you have a cold (as I did when I made it), or if you just want a bit of coziness in your life.  My method here is a vegetarian adaptation of Tyler Florence’s Ultimate Chicken Noodle Soup, so if you want more specific measurements, check his recipe out.  Because this one is an Erin special–meaning ‘short on details, long on making stuff up as you go along.’

To start, I sauteed the following in a big soup pot:

• 1 diced yellow onion
• 2 ribs of celery, diced
• 2 carrots, diced
• 2-3 cloves garlic, minced (add this a bit later to prevent burning)

In another saute pan, caramelize one diced onion, and preheat your oven to about 375.  You’ll see why later!

After the veggies get a bit softened, I added a bunch of vegetable stock (let’s say about 5 cups), and seasoned this.  My favorite things to season the stock:

• Creole seasoning
• salt
• cayenne
• thyme
• oregano
• fennel seed
• Worcestershire sauce

After this began to taste the way I wanted it (rich, peppery, herb-y), I got started on the not-chicken “meatballs.”  This sounds a bit crazy, but trust: it is delicious.  Tyler’s recipe is “ultimate” chicken-noodle soup because all of the elements are a bit more decadent than you’d expect.  So instead of plain chunks of chicken, he makes meatballs out of chicken-apple-sausage, and instead of flat noodles, he uses cheese tortellini.  I’ve done both the sausage and tortellini adaptations before, but for this round, we kept is simple with just the “sausage.”

To start, you need the caramelized onion from earlier (it should be just about ready now, if you’ve cooked it slowly enough).  You also need some fake chicken: in Canada, this one from PC is the best; in the States, I’d go with this one.  Once your fake chicken is thawed, put the following into a food processor:

• 2 not-chicken cutlets, chopped
• the caramelized onion
• 1 egg
• sage
• bread crumbs
• chopped parsley
• + applesauce, if you want to replicate the flavor of chicken-apple sausage

Pulse this until it’s broken down enough to form into balls.  Form the entire mixture into slightly-flattened balls about 1-2 Tbsp each, and place them all onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.  Bake these in the oven for about 10 minutes on each side.  (Alternatively, you could fry them in a little bit of oil on the stovetop.  This is tasty, but makes the soup a little greasier than I like it.

When you have 10 minutes left on your meatballs, taste the broth and re-season it if necessary.  Then, add whatever pasta you want.  This time, we used bowties, but tortellini is also great.  If you’ve timed things correctly, your pasta should be cooked at about the same time that your meatballs are done.  To serve, put a few meatballs in the bottom of each bowl, then ladle the noodle-soup on top of them.  Top the whole thing with some extra chopped parsley and serve with some crusty bread, and you’re in business.

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.

Stuffed Peppers and Hummus

Well, ever since we discovered the awesomeness that is the Lebanese Vegetarian Cookbook, we’ve been Lebanese-stuffed-vegetable-making-fiends.  Or something to that effect.  Josh actually did most of the work here; I was primarily responsible for the hummus–so, I’ll tell you a little bit about what I did there, and then simply relate the recipe for the peppers as it’s presented in the book.

I make hummus much the same way I make anything: putting stuff together and tasting it until it seems right.  So, less measuring than guessing…but you know how it is.  Fortunately, the whole thing is pretty simple: combine the following ingredients in a food processor until smooth:

• 1 can of cooked chick-peas
• 2 (ish) cloves of garlic
• tahini paste (I start with a little more than a tablespoon)
• lemon juice (probably about 1/4 cup)
• pinch of salt
• cayenne pepper (somewhere between 1/4 and 1/8 tsp)

I also usually add a little water in the beginning, which helps to get things moving.  Once these are combined, I taste it, and decide what it needs–I usually like a strong tahini flavor in my hummus, but you might like more lemon juice.  And the beauty of this, of course, is that you could add whatever flavors you liked (roasted garlic or roasted red pepper would be great).  Or you could bypass the whole thing and just buy your hummus in the store (and sometimes that does seem more viable, given the price of tahini)–but I’d encourage trying to make it at home because 1) frankly, it’s better than most of the stuff you’ll get in the store and 2) once you factor in the servings of hummus you can get out of a single jar of tahini and a few cans of chickpeas, it’s actually more cost-effective.

But enough of my preaching.

Here’s what we Josh did with the peppers: Cut the tops off of 4 green peppers (you could use red or yellow as well, of course, but green is cheaper), remove the seeds and rinse.  In a bowl, mix together the following:

• 1 cup uncooked white rice
• 1 large tomato, diced
• 1 small white or yellow onion, finely chopped
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/4 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp. allspice
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1/3 cup olive oil

When combined, divide the mixture into 4 servings, filling each pepper.  Place the 4 filled peppers into a large pot (in which they can stand up without being overcrowded).  Mix together 1 cup tomato sauce and 1/2 cup water, and pour over the peppers.  Cook for 35 minutes on medium low heat, adding a little water if necessary to keep some liquid in the pot.

When the rice is tender, the peppers are done.  To serve, we removed them (carefully!  use tongs, if you have them) from the pot and topped them with a bit of tzatziki (a lovely yogurt and cucumber sauce that’s great with lemony-garlicky stuff), plus the hummus and some pita bread on the side.  So, it was a garlic-fest–the best kind of fest, incidentally–full of flavor, with a great balance of acidity from the lemon and tomatoes, and creaminess from the tahini and tzatziki.

BONUS: This is super cheap to make, and makes a lot of food.

DOUBLE BONUS: If you want it to be vegan, just leave off the tzatziki.

TRIPLE BONUS: It’s delicious.  What more do you want?

Spicy Eggplant and Rotini with Ricotta

I first made a version of this dish with my old roommate, Carolyn, when we were living in Boston.  Carolyn learned Italian cooking from her mom and grandma, and this dish really represents the best of Italian cooking: really simple, clean, yet bold flavors perfectly balanced with one another.  This version is slightly different than the original (which is even simpler), but still really, really good.

We started by dicing a large globe eggplant, putting it in a colander with a bit of salt (to draw out the bitter juices) and weighting it down with a heavy plate, to squeeze out the extra moisture.  I then sauteed the eggplant in a bit of olive oil with thinly-sliced yellow onions, a couple cloves of garlic, and diced tomatoes.  I also added about 2/3 of a jar of roasted tomato marinara sauce, dry basil (I prefer fresh, but hey, we do what we can), and a couple of teaspoons of red pepper flakes.  I then let the whole thing simmer for 10-15 minutes, while the whole wheat rotini  cooked.  Finally, when the pasta was drained and tossed with a bit of olive oil, we topped it with the eggplant and tomato mixture, finishing the whole thing with a dollop of ricotta cheese.

My favorite thing about this dish is how well the spicy eggplant and tomato sauce compliments the ricotta cheese–ricotta is one of those things that I usually only think to mix into other fillings, but in this application, you get to enjoy the mild (yet delicious) flavor of ricotta itself, while still appreciating how nicely it pairs with other tastes.  And it also has the added bonus of being ridiculously simple to prepare–so, victories all around.

Cabbage Rolls

When Josh was a kid, his great-grandmother used to make traditional Lebanese food for family gatherings.  After she died, the old-style food was mostly replaced with new American fare, and so Josh never learned to replicate Lebanese cooking on his own–a fact which he has bemoaned as long as I’ve known him, especially with regard to his great-grandma’s famous cabbage rolls.  Now, this particular choice always seemed a bit odd to me: when I was a kid, the word “cabbage” itself was enough to send me running for the hills, so it was almost inconceivable to me that a child would not only have eaten cabbage rolls, but loved and remembered them clearly enough to want to replicate them as an adult.  But now, having finally tried them for myself…well, let’s just say that it makes a lot more sense.

Our cabbage roll breakthrough happened with (surprise, surprise) a new Lebanese Cookbook, which we also got for Christmas this year.  It turns out that making cabbage rolls is a pretty complicated and time-consuming process, so most of what I’ll recount for you here comes straight from the book.

The first thing to do is to make the filling, which is primarily a rice mixture.  In a bowl, we combined the following:

• 1 cup rice
• 2 cups chopped parsley
• 1/2 cup chopped mint
• 4 cloves minced garlic
• 1 medium white onion, finely chopped
• 1/2 cup lemon juice
• 2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp allspice
• 1/2 cup olive oil

While that was happening, we put a big pot of water on to boil, in order to commence the most difficult part of the process: unwrapping the head of cabbage with the leaves intact.  Basically, what this involves is blanching the whole head of cabbage in a giant pot of boiling water, taking it out, and removing the outermost leaves.  Once you get these off, you put the head of cabbage back into the boiling water (while trying not to burn yourself) in order to soften the next leaves.  It’s a huge pain in the butt, takes forever, and involves–at least, if you’re like us and have no idea what you’re doing–a bit of flesh-scorching.  If you know of an easier way, I’d love to hear about it.

Anyway, once we got individual leaves off the cabbage head, we sliced the leaves in half, taking out the ribs–to be used later.  Into each half-cabbage leaf, we rolled about 1-2 teaspoons of the filling.  And then it was time to put them all into the pot.

Into the bottom of the pot, we put all of the reserved cabbage ribs, to protect the rolls from direct heat.  We then arranged to stuffed, rolled leaves in layered rows on top, sprinkling sliced garlic between each layer (I never said this was light on garlic, people!).

After everything was neatly (and tightly) arranged, it was time to add the cooking liquid (the rice is uncooked, remember?).  Over the rolls, we poured:

• 1/2 cup tomato puree mixed with 1 cup water
• enough water to cover the rolls
• 1 tsp salt

Of course, to make sure that everything holds together in the water, we needed some way to keep the leaves compressed.  Since we’d not thought ahead enough to realize that we should have used a pot big enough to accommodate a heavy plate on top of the leaves, we used a round Pyrex baking dish that fit inside just enough to keep the leaves snug.  With the dish in place, we brought the whole thing to a boil and then reduced it to a simmer for 20 minutes.

Finally, we mixed together

• 1/2 cup lemon juice and
• 1 1/2 tsp mint

and poured this over the top before cooking for another 5 minutes.  After the cooking time was complete, we set the whole thing aside to cool for about half an hour.

Involved, right?  Clearly this is not a weeknight meal.  I think it’s technically a side dish, but when you’ve put so much effort into something, eating it on its own is pretty satisfying as well.  We ate ours with a bit of tzatziki and crusty bread…and seriously?  They were amazing.  A-mazing.  The combination of lemon and mint and garlic is incredibly satisfying: super flavorful without being overpowering, if you can believe it.  They’re quite similar to the stuffed grape leaves you might get at a Greek restaurant, but–in my opinion–with a better texture, both because of the use of cabbage (which isn’t as stringy or fibrous) and because of the sharp reduction in oil content, which tends to be the overwhelming characteristic of grape leaves, especially if you buy them in the store.  Additionally, this recipe makes so many cabbage rolls that you can have them for several days (they keep well if you stack them in a plastic container in the fridge), so it (sort of) makes up for all the time spent.

And truthfully, I’d make them again tomorrow if I (which is to say, Josh, since he was the one taking burns for the team) could figure out a better way to harvest the cabbage leaves.  If only we could ask Great-grandma M.  From the stories Josh tells, she wouldn’t suffer fools–or scalding cabbage water–gladly.

Vegetarian Soul Dinner

I mentioned in an earlier post that we got several new and exciting cookbooks for Christmas–this meal is one of the first we made using our favorite of the bunch, Bryant Terry’s Vegan Soul Kitchen.  It’s full of really wonderful recipes (complete with soul soundtrack suggestions), which we tend to adapt to make them vegetarian, rather than strictly vegan.  This is partially because we don’t tend to keep things like rice milk on hand, and partially because we’ve never really gotten over our love of butter.

This particular night, we made our own version of Terry’s cumin-cayenne mashed potatoes, greens with lemon-tahini dressing, and rosemary roasted tofu.

I’ll start with the tofu, since it was the simplest.  We cut a package of tofu into large-ish bite size pieces–though, if I were doing this again, I’d recommend going with something a bit larger, since they got pretty crunchy–and gently tossed them in a mixture of olive oil, salt, paprika and rosemary.  We then roasted the tofu in a 450 degree oven for about half an hour.  When they came out, they were golden brown (thanks, Paprika!), with a nice texture and flavor.  Simple, but really good.

We served the tofu over the potatoes, which have quickly become one of my favorite things to make.  While I’m boiling the potatoes (I like yellow or red ones for this), I caramelize an entire yellow or Vidalia onion in olive oil mixed with a bit of salt, a couple of tablespoons of cumin and a little cayenne pepper.  When the potatoes are done, I mash them together with the onion mixture, plus butter and milk (sorry, Bryant Terry and vegans!), and a bit of black pepper for good measure.  The results are seriously amazing.  Your potatoes shall be revolutionized.

The greens we made were a combination of kale and spinach, though the recipe called for Swiss chard.  We started by sauteeing a sliced shallot in butter, then added the greens (minus the stalks) and cooked them for a few minutes.  While this was happening, we made a dressing by mixing tahini with lemon juice, salt, water, minced garlic and balsamic vinegar.  We finished the whole thing by tossing the warm greens in the dressing.  And when we were done?  Well, I really can’t say enough about the virtues of these greens.  Look, I know what you’re thinking:

“That woman is crazy if she thinks I’m putting hummus ingredients on my greens.”

Look, I get it.  I was skeptical too.  In fact, my actual words were, “this is going to taste like we dunked our greens in hummus, and then threw vinegar on them.”  But let me tell you: this is not a bad thing.  I am not going to sit here and claim that the greens didn’t bear a striking taste resemblance to hummus.  Here’s what I will say, though–what if they did? Would that be so bad?  Free your mind, people.  Let your greens be whoever they want to be.  We’ve been letting them be pork-y for years, and lord knows collards don’t taste like fatback in the wild.  Imagine a world in which kale can taste like hummus, tofu can be crunchy and satisfying, and mashed potatoes are earthy, spicy and sweet all at once.

Bryant Terry has seen that world.  I have glimpsed it.  And it is good.

Greek-ish Filled Pasta

And finally, we’re back!  After a week or so of searching and overlooking, I managed to find the rogue camera cable and upload a whole backlog of food photos.  So, now there’s catch-up blogging to do.  I can sense your excitement.

After Josh and I returned from our travels (which, toward the end, got very icy and treacherous), we weren’t in much of a mood to do anything more involved than watching TV and boiling water for a few days–and thus, this simple pasta was born.  The pasta itself is store-bought, with a cheese and vegetable filling.  Bored of the usual marinara, I decided to liven it up with a quick lemon-garlic cream sauce.  I sauteed garlic in some butter, then added a little flour to make a light roux.  After that browned just a bit, I slowly added some milk, salt and pepper, thyme and lemon juice.   To finish the sauce, I tossed in some halved grape tomatoes and roughly chopped kalamata olives–and then tossed the whole thing gently with the cooked pasta.

If I were going to make it more authentically Greek, I’d probably skip the roux and milk, and just make a light sauce of olive oil, garlic, lemon and thyme–but there was something pretty satisfying about the texture of this one.  Plus, brightness of the lemon juice has a way of making the cream sauce taste a bit lighter than it actually is, which is a nice (or not-so-nice, depending on your point of view!) trick.  Either way, it was a tasty combination, and–more importantly at the time–simple.

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!

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.