Boy howdy, this soup couldn’t have come at a better time.  The temperature today never got much higher than about 34 degrees, and the rain set in first thing this morning and shows no sign of abating for at least another day.  (Speaking of: If it’s going to be this cold, it might as well be cold enough to snow!  Why does Ma Nature taunt us this way?)

So when LeeLee and I got home from work tonight, it was a thrill to smell the aroma of taco soup wafting through the living room from the kitchen.  And it was even more of a thrill to sit down to dinner straightaway – no lines, no waiting!

My friend Jessica sent me a version of this recipe a few years ago, and it’s become quite a year-round staple at our place.  LeeLee has declared it one of his very favorite meals, and I can’t say I disagree.  And it’s so simple to make, especially when you use the Crock-Pot.

What you’ll need:

1 package of vegetarian chik’n strips

1 can of chili beans

1 can of black beans

1 can of Rotel

1 can of corn

1 small can of tomato sauce

1 packet of taco seasoning

1 tsp. onion powder

2 cans of vegetable broth

And now here is where the recipe gets really, really complicated.  Pay close attention lest you do this out of order:

Add all of the above ingredients to the Crock-Pot, turn it on Low, and walk away for the workday.  Come back, inhale the great smells of a fully cooked soup, and eat.  Garnish with a little cheese or sour cream (we went with some cheddar shreds tonight) if you like, and add a drop or two (or 20, if you’re LeeLee) of hot sauce if the spirit moves you.

In that order.

And enjoy!

:)

Let’s get one thing out of the way right up front: Thanksgiving week is always a bit hectic, and you know it as well as I do.  This morning, as I scrambled to get ready for work (and my after-work volunteer commitment at the animal shelter), I glanced at the night’s menu plan and noticed, with a frown, that it called for the Crock-Pot.  As does every meal for the rest of the week except for Thanksgiving Day proper.

My backpack was already slung over my shoulder, Kindle under my arm, and bus pass in my right pocket.  There was just no way I was going to be able to throw together a Crock-Pot meal before work this morning!  Something will have to carry over till next week, which is OK too.

And so it came to pass that tonight was a Kashi frozen pizza night – not a bad tradeoff when you get right down to it.  Paired with a lush green salad, the mushroom-spinach pizza was a perfect dinner indeed.  And it sure beat eating out or ordering in!  I’ll take a $5, relatively healthy pizza over any of our nearby chains any day of the week.

As for tomorrow, I’ll be sure to set my alarm for a little earlier than usual in order to get that taco soup cooking first thing.  Live and learn – and take it easy, too.

:)

First of all, I apologize for my absence yesterday.  I’ve actually got a meal to share with you, but I came home from work with a sore throat and just didn’t feel like putting fingers to keyboard!  (Incidentally, I also didn’t feel like doing the dishes, and I had to pay the price tonight after work.  Who likes to do yesterday’s dishes a day later?  Not me.)

Tonight, I was craving pierogies, and I knew LeeLee wouldn’t mind one bit.  So when I got home and settled, I pulled out my trusty cast-iron skillet, added a touch of vegetable oil, and fired it on up.  Once the skillet was hot, I added a box of pierogies – I know, I know, they’re not homemade, but we do what we can in this world – and waited till one side was nicely browning before flipping them all over.  I tended to them every three to five minutes, flipping where appropriate, shifting them around the pan to ensure each pierogi cooked evenly and thoroughly.

Once both sides were golden and nearly finished heating, I pulled a bag of peas and carrots out of the freezer and steamed them in the microwave for about five minutes.  When they were ready, I put them in one of my favorite serving dishes – a large platter in the shape of a fish that we received for our wedding – and garnished the veggies with some salt and pepper.

Now, one thing this meal does not have is, sadly, sauerkraut.  Plainly and simply, I neglected to purchase any, and didn’t think a thing of it until dinner was ready, at which point it was a little too late to run to the store.  But we gamely continued on with our dining experience, and neither of us were any worse for wear even though one of our favorite components of this meal was missing.  These things happen, after all.

And in the end, the pierogies and vegetables turned out beautifully – a quick and easy meal that hit the spot.  And the ease of this meal paid dividends when we then turned our focus to a loaf of pound cake and a batch of cranberry sauce – but, then, we can talk about that in detail later.  :)

For now, just know we’re well-fed and ready to hop back in the kitchen.  Preparation for our weekend just won’t wait!

:)

Yes, this blog post does include an exclamation point in the title.  Because how often do we have grilled-cheese sandwiches for dinner?  Never, that’s how often.  Or, I suppose, now we’re up to never+1.

Today was somewhat of a rough day at work for us both – lots of (metaphorical) fires to fight for me, lots of deadlines piling up for LeeLee.  I’d fully intended to put on dinner in the Crock-Pot this morning before leaving for work, but this week is my first week back to exercising post-marathon and I confess I’m a bit rusty on my time-management skills as a result.  So the Crock-Pot remained dormant and we remained … dinnerless.

Until I remembered that we had all the fixins for grilled-cheese sandwiches – complete with tomato slices, a requirement to really send them over the top.

There’s just nothing more comforting than one of these sandwiches – just smelling it cooking in the pan put my mind at ease and helped my neck muscles unfurl a bit.  And knowing they were being cooked using my father’s techniques really sent them over the top.

Get yourself some slices of wheat bread and slather each slice with mayo (Duke’s if you have it – we did, and we slathered).  Then add two slices of cheddar cheese, one on each piece of bread.  Next, slice up a tomato and add several rings to the middle of the sandwich, and then close it on up.  Butter one side and place it, butter-side down, in the waiting pan, and set the heat to medium-low.  Go ahead and butter the remaining slice while you have a minute.

When one side of the sandwich is nicely golden-brown, flip ’er on over and let the other side have its day in the spotlight.  Then throw it on a plate, add some fruit salad to the side, and call it dinner!

With that, we brought lunchtime to the suppertime table, and I’m so glad we did.  Sometimes, a “regular” dinner can be such a hassle.  Nothing wrong with reaching into the lunchbox from time to time!

:)

Now, THIS was a success if I’ve ever seen one!

Awhile back, The Pioneer Woman featured French bread pizzas over at her place, and I was instantly reminded of the same style of pizza my family used to make when I was growing up.  When appetites are soaring and time is running short, there’s just nothing better than a good quick-bake pizza!

Back when I was a kid, we topped our pizzas with pepperoni.  Today, as a full-grown vegetarian, the star of the show was a couple of links of spicy vegetarian chorizo (we used LightLife tonight), sliced into thin coins.  Same principle, different protein – and an excellent result!

The weather was beautiful up here in Virginia today, so on my lunch break I ventured out to purchase some fresh French bread.  It rode in the car with me after work to snuggle with dogs at the animal shelter, and then it rode home after I picked up LeeLee.  When we got home, I pulled out a baking sheet and got to work.  First I sliced the bread crosswise, and then I cut each half straight down the middle lengthwise to create, in total, four slices of bread.  I laid them all face-up on the baking sheet (they barely fit!) and then topped each with pizza sauce.

Once the sauce had covered all the nooks and crannies, I added some cheese – a cheddar-mozzarella blend on two, a vegan mozzarella on the other two – and then topped each pizza slice with plenty of chorizo.  I dotted each half with some sliced black olives to finish them off, and then put the sheet into the oven at 450 for 15 minutes.  When the timer dinged, the cheese was nicely melted and the bread was pleasingly crusty.  And the kitchen was filled with a wonderful aroma of pizza – the best!

We paired our French bread pizzas with a simple tossed salad and feasted appropriately.  By “appropriately,” I mean we downed two of the four pizza slices and polished off most of the salad.  Which leaves us with two more pizzas to enjoy for lunch tomorrow!  I’m looking forward to it already.

:)

I know, I know.  It’s Sunday night, cookout night, and tater-tot hotdish is not exactly grill-friendly.  But this morning we awoke to a strange marine layer sort of day, where everything has just been perpetually damp despite no discernable rain.  And in my experience, these conditions aren’t conducive to smoking food.

By “my experience,” what I really mean is “my stubbornness.”  I can’t tell you the number of times it’s been misting, or drizzling, or flat-out raining, and I’ve confidently marched into the back yard, torches blazing, in an attempt to grill my beloved Buffalo tofu (or what-have-you).  I also can’t tell you the number of times said Buffalo tofu (or what-have-you) has become a soggy, damp, cold mess as a result, but I canconfirm that the percentage is 100%.

So it’s about time I learned from my hard-headedness.  Tater-tot hotdish it is.

I discovered this recipe a few years ago – and wrote about it earlier this year, among other times, on this very blog – and it’s one I like to pull out of the hat (not literally, I hope) every quarter or so.  Filling, tasty, and easy to make, it’s a great go-to when, say, Virginia’s new marine layer cancels your cookout!

To make it, I simply spread a bag of frozen mixed vegetables on the bottom of a lasagna pan and top the veggies with a layer of ground “beef.”  The recipe calls for onion, but I elected to leave it out and instead just sprinkle some onion powder atop the soy crumbles before continuing on.  The recipe also calls for me to brown the “beef” and onions, which I also didn’t do.  Just one of the joys of being vegetarian. ;)

Next, I combined two cans of cream of mushroom soup in a bowl, added a little water to thin the soup out, and poured the blend atop the crumbles.  Once that was spread out to my liking, I topped the whole dish with tater tots and put it in the oven at 375 for an hour.  By the time 60 minutes had elapsed, the pan was piping-hot and ready to eat!

And eat we did.  We’ve both been working all day today – LeeLee in the yard, and me, well, actually I wasn’t working at all but out for a hike, if you must know the truth – and we both brought our appetites to the table.  So while there are someleftovers, there aren’t nearly as many servings left as there “should” be.  There may in fact be only two servings left.  Or one very, very hearty one.

So it’s safe to say that tonight’s hotdish was a hit.  Now I’m trying to come up with other hotdish combinations to cook!  More to come on that – but in the meantime, all suggestions welcome!

:)

Another Saturday, another Florida State Seminoles football game!  And, if we’re being honest, another opportunity to whip up a little football fare for dinner.

Today’s game was a 3:30 p.m. appointment, which fit in just beautifully with our dinner plans.  And what better on a cool, clammy, rainy day than a Crock-Pot full of chili?  Last weekend, we enjoyed some BBQ chili to complement the game, so this weekend I decided to do a little something different – the Orange and Thyme-Scented White Bean and “Sausage” Chili that Robin Robertson features in her Vegan Planet cookbook.  It’s a perennial favorite and adds an air of class to an otherwise very down-home day!

Now, Robertson’s recipe is cooked in a stockpot, but I’ve found that almost any chili is easily adaptable to the Crock-Pot with minimal fuss!  So that’s what I did here – throwing onion, bell pepper, jalapeno, cannellini beans, Morningstar Farms “sausage,” diced tomatoes, salsa, and all my chili spices in the crockery, turning the dial to Low, and walking away, coming back 30 minutes before dinnertime to add some orange juice to the mix.  There’s nothing to it!  And it adds a wonderful aroma to Chez Recessionista as the chili cooks all day, making a very inexpensive potpourri! ;)

Roundabout halftime, as the Seminoles were up by about five touchdowns, we could take the tempting aroma no longer and prepared to dig in.  I set out some Fritos (I prefer mine as a base layer; LeeLee insists that using them as a topping is the way to go), a tub of sour cream, and some mozzarella cheese – plus several kinds of hot sauce, of course – and we had ourselves a full-scale chili bar!

And the final result was fantastic.  As usual, the chili was a great blend of sweet and savory, and the slow cooking always helps bring out all of the flavors in a way that stovetop simmering can’t.  Both LeeLee and I went back for seconds – and we’ve got plenty left for later, too!

And the best part?  The Seminoles won, 59-3!  I can’t think of a better dessert.

:)

Tonight, the temperature is slated to dip into the 20s for the first time this season – we may actually have some snowflakes overnight! – and as a result, I felt like we should feast on something piping-hot and comforting for dinner this evening.  Enter my beloved Crock-Pot and a new recipe courtesy of Christy Jordan over at Southern Plate!

Her new cookbook, Come Home to Supper, debuted a few weeks ago, and believe you-me, I had it preordered and delivered posthaste.  Now, Christy uses a lot more meat in her meals than I do (which is to say, she uses it at all, since our household is vegetarian!), but her recipes are so easily adaptable to us veggie-huggers that it’s not a problem in the slightest.  So I didn’t bat an eye when I came across her recipe for Ground Beef Stew a week or so ago and added it to my menu plan!

I won’t post the whole recipe here – Christy has a cookbook to sell, after all, and I’m not about to steal her thunder! – but I will say that it’s teeming with carrots, onions, diced tomatoes, potatoes, “beef,” and more, and when it was all said and done, my Crock-Pot nearly crumbled under the weight of it all!  (OK, it didn’t crumble.  But it wasfilled to within a half-inch of the brim!)  I flipped the pot to Low before I left for work this morning, and when I got home and discovered that a few of the diced potatoes were still a little firm, I turned it up to High for half an hour or so while LeeLee finished work.  By the time he arrived, everything was perfectly soft, and the flavors had mingled beautifully.  Paired with some Saltines, it made for a filling, yet also light, dinner!

We both loved the end result – each bite was filled with a great blend of vegetables, with plenty of Morningstar Farms “beef” to anchor the dish.  A surprise ingredient of tomato juice added an unexpected twist (I don’t typically care for tomato juice, not even if it’s served as a Bloody Mary!) and really brought out a wonderful richness to the stew that I hadn’t anticipated.  I’m already looking forward to leftovers – of which there will be plenty!

:)

Behold: The smoker’s maiden voyage for Fall 2013!

This day has been a long time coming; the season has been filled with false starts so far, Sundays when we’ve elected to grill instead, when we’ve been rained out, or when we’ve not been home!  But today, as the temperature dropped from a high of about 65 at noon to the mid-50s by tonight (dropping further to the 30s by bedtime!), the smoker’s time had come at last.  And so, armed with all new accessories – a freshly minted water bowl, charcoal bowl, and grill grates – I added 6.5 pounds of charcoal and fired it on up!

As the coals began to softly simmer, I got to work on food prep.  First, I washed and split open an acorn squash, scooping out the seeds and rubbing the flesh with olive oil before wrapping each half in aluminum foil.  When I smoke winter squash, I always poke some holes in the foil to allow the smokiness to permeate the flesh, which is sort of the point of using the smoker, don’t you think?

Once the coals were heated up and the lighter fluid had burned off, I put the squash cut-side down on the lowest grill grate and closed the lid.  After 30 minutes or so, I added the tofu slices, which had been marinating in a honey barbecue sauce since late morning, onto the higher grate.  A little extra water in the water bowl and everything was primed to cook for another 75 minutes or so.

When I had just a few minutes left in the cooking time, I steamed a bag of broccoli florets in the microwave and poured the piping-hot contents into a serving bowl, garnishing the veggies with some Cajun seasoning (and, once I spooned some onto my plate, nutritional yeast – I love that stuff).  Then it was time for the piece de resistance – the buns we had earmarked for tonight’s sandwiches!

Our friend Jen graced us with some delicious pretzel rolls yesterday, and all day I’ve been eyeing the leftovers, which were sitting innocently in a zip-top bag on our kitchen table.  We knew they’d be great as bookends for our tofu sandwiches, and let me tell you, they didn’t disappoint!  Light and airy but also sturdy and salty, they were perfect – both yesterday, all by themselves, and today, as the true star of the sandwich show.

With everything ready, LeeLee and I removed the tofu from the smoker and, soon after, the squash, unwrapping each squash half to let some of the steam escape.  The tofu was right at home atop the pretzel rolls, and the squash was perfectly tender – and almost dessert-like – garnished with a pat of butter, some sprinkled cinnamon, and a drizzle of honey.  Pair the dinner with a Christmas ale and you’ve got an autumn cookout that can’t be beat!

In recessionista fashion, we’ve got enough tofu leftovers (and one last lone pretzel roll) to be an excellent lunch tomorrow, plus I smoked some extra squash halves to pair with it.  Who will be the lucky recipient of such an excellent lunch?  We shall see!

:)