LeeLee and I hope you all have a wonderful holiday!
:)
Vegetarian Chik’n Posole.
Just in time for the solstice, here comes the winter weather!
It’s a good thing I was well-prepared with a pot of chik’n posole tonight. This is one of my favorite cold-weather meals – in fact, it’s one of my favorite year-round meals if we’re getting right down to brass tacks – and I knew it would soothe our souls and please our palates tonight.
Because it’s a holiday week, I’m feeling especially festive, so I brought out the good old Le Creuset French oven to cook the soup in. First I added a package of Gardein chik’n strips to the pot, then a can of Rotel (well, Safeway’s version of Rotel – it was cheaper!), then a can of hominy, then a generous amount of dried minced onion and garlic powder, then a carton of veggie broth, and then topped everything off with a heaping helping of ground black pepper. I brought the posole to a boil, then turned the temperature down to Low and let it simmer for the better part of half an hour.
As it simmered, I heated up two breadsticks for LeeLee and me to enjoy during the meal. As soon as the breadsticks were ready (I baked them for the last 10 minutes of the posole’s cooking time), we sat down to eat, ladling the golden-red broth into snowman-emblazoned bowls.
I have to admit, we each enjoyed three full bowls full (in fairness, these bowls are shallow). Rarely does the chik’n posole last for leftovers, and it certainly didn’t tonight! We mowed it down to the bottom of the pot – if we could’ve used a straw to suck up the last molecules, we likely would have!
So another successful evening of soup on another cold winter’s night! If this is what winter has in store, I’m all for it.
:)
New Recipe: Smoked Portobello and Eggplant Sandwiches With Steamed Veggies and Tater Tots.
After a couple of weeks apart, tonight my beloved smoker and I were reunited with much fanfare: a new recipe! The smoked portobello mushrooms are nothing new, but the eggplant (and red pepper) additions really made our sandwiches pop. Thus, a new recipe was born at tonight’s Sunday Cookout.
The weather couldn’t have been better for a smoker party tonight: Dry, but nice and chilly, the temperatures were just perfect for a night around the ol’ stainless-steel drum. Not that I spent a great deal of time babysitting the feast; that’s the beauty of the smoker, after all. Fix it and forget it! (But do check on it occasionally to ensure your back yard isn’t burning down.)
As the two-hour mark elapsed, I heated up some tater tots inside and steamed some mixed vegetables to round out our meal. Those eggplant slices take up a great deal of real estate on the grill grates! Once the mushrooms and eggplant was ready, we layered up our sandwiches with goat cheese, roasted red pepper, and all the trimmings, and we feasted like royalty. I can’t think of a better way to officially welcome in the winter season!
Recipe below. Give it a try and let me know what you think!
SMOKED PORTOBELLO AND EGGPLANT SANDWICHES
Serves four
What you’ll need:
For the marinade:
4 tbsp. olive oil (or more to taste)
4 tbsp. balsamic vinegar
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. pepper
1 tsp. dried minced onion
1 tsp. garlic powder
1 tsp. basil
1 tsp. oregano
For the rest of the meal:
4 Portobello mushroom caps, washed
1 eggplant, sliced
1 jar roasted red peppers
8 oz. goat cheese
1 head (or bag) of lettuce
1 tomato, sliced
4 hamburger buns
Condiments, to taste (we used Just Mayo)
First, marinate the mushrooms in a zip-top bag with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper, basil, oregano, minced dried onion, and garlic powder. Leave in the refrigerator for at least one hour, up to four.
Next, just prior to starting the smoker, slice the eggplant and top each slice with salt and chipotle seasoning (pepper also works). Let stand on a plate while the smoker heats up.
Fire up the charcoal smoker to medium heat. Once it has heated up for a few minutes, place the mushroom caps on the lower rack (nearer the heat) and the eggplant slices on the upper rack. Close the lid and smoke everything for two hours.
Once everything is cooked through, remove everything from the grill and prepare to create your sandwiches! First, top the hamburger buns with the condiments of your choice (we elected to use Just Mayo). Next, place one of the mushroom caps on the bottom slice of the bun, then top with 2 oz. of the goat cheese. Then top the mushroom with roasted red pepper slices, then a slice of eggplant, then the lettuce and tomato. Place the top of the bun on your creation, dig in, and enjoy!
:)
Red Beans and Rice With Vegan Cajun Shrimp.
As most of y’all know, LeeLee and I are from the Gulf Coast of Florida, where seafood is abundant and Cajun cuisine has a major influence. Well, we’ve been vegetarian for more than a decade, but our love for all things Cajun hasn’t died. So we were thrilled when businesses like Sophie’s Kitchen came out with a line of vegan seafood! Finally, we could get back to our Gulf Coast roots in all possible ways.
Tonight, I made my basic red beans and rice and decided to give a Cajun-inspired shrimp a try as well. Thankfully, it turned out really well!
Essentially, what I did was cook the rice in the rice cooker as usual, and heat the beans on the stove, also as usual. The change came in the final minutes of cooking the shrimp, when each piece was nice and hot and receptive to some spice. Then, all I did was dust the shrimp with our favorite Cajun seasoning, our beloved Tony Chachere, and toss each piece around in it before finishing the cooking time.
One word of warning I’ll pass along: Be sure to limit your use of the Chachere, or perhaps more appropriately be sure to apply it evenly! A few pieces of our vegan shrimp turned out too salty as a result of my occasional heavy-handedness. But blended in with the red beans and rice, a little saltiness was hardly noticeable.
We topped off the meal with some hot sauce and – in my case, as usual – nutritional yeast. Served with a side of bread, it was a force to be reckoned with!
Hooray for Cajun “seafood”!
:)
Vegetarian Bean Quesadillas.
I know I call our Cuban black beans and rice recipe Old Faithful, but if we’re being honest, this bean quesadilla recipe really is the true Old Faithful. I introduced you to this recipe back in February, and I confess that my love for it has not abated one bit – nor has it for the last 15-or-so years I’ve been making it.
It occurred to me tonight as I was cooking that this might be one of my longest-running recipes; it’s certainly one of the first ones I made reliably and comfortably while living on my own, aside from a few boxed-rice dishes that hardly count as “recipes” at all. Every time I make it – which isn’t nearly as much these days as it was back in say, 2001 – I’m instantly transported back to being 20 or 21, to having the carefree thrills of daily life that come with being a junior in college.
Oh, to be that carefree today! I suppose there’s no reason why I can’t be, really; I confess I have become a bit more serious as the years have carried on, and that’s not always served me well. But every time I make this dish, I lose track of time and feel just as I did when I was a dozen years younger. Food is funny like that; it evokes so many memories that have nothing to do with the food itself. Just one of the many things I love about cooking, to be honest with you.
Anyway, the meal couldn’t be simpler to make – sauté an onion with some diced roasted red pepper (or jalapeno, or what have you), add some garlic powder and ground cumin, then let the onion turn translucent before adding black and pinto beans (a can apiece), salt, pepper, diced tomato, and cilantro. Once everything has blended nicely, spoon a hearty amount onto tortillas, top with cheese, and then place a second tortilla on top of each one. Then spray the tops with cooking spray, cook at 450 for 10 minutes, and you’re done!
Another reason to love this recipe: It makes leftovers galore. We’ve got three more quesadillas waiting in the wings for lunch this week, plus a little extra bean mixture that we mowed down tonight but could have just as easily kept for a little side dish. I love a dinner that stretches into four!
:)
Happy Birthday, LeeLee!
Because we are still celebrating, this will be a short check-in tonight to lift a glass to LeeLee, who may have aged another year but still refuses to act it.
We’ve been celebrating all weekend, in fact, from enjoying a dinner party with friends on Friday night (non-birthday-related, but still good fun) to splurging a bit on a dinner out on Saturday to tonight, when I made one of the birthday boy’s favorite meals, spaghetti and vegetarian meatballs with a side of foccacia. Paired with champagne, of course, because why not?
Happy birthday, LeeLee, from the Wonder-Cat and me!
:)
Sunday Cookout: Vegan Jalapeno Popper Burgers With Peas and Couscous.
First of all, full disclosure: This was a Sunday cook-IN rather than a Sunday cookOUT. I had a little holiday gathering to attend around 4 p.m. – right in the middle of when I’d usually get the smoker going – so I decided to take our little grill-fest indoors for the week. This turned out to be a great idea, in fact, since as a result I was able to christen my new Le Creuset grill pan!
I’ve already talked about jalapeno popper burgers in these pages before. The long and the short of it: I love them. They’re so easy to veganize, as well, using Daiya cream cheese (or Tofutti, or what-have-you). And they worked out just great on an indoor setup – much better than they would have on a smoker or even a charcoal grill, to be honest.
As they grilled in the pan, sizzling and carrying on, I heated up a can of English peas seasoned with some ground black pepper and also put a pot of couscous on to cook. By the time the burgers were heated through, complete with attractive grill marks, the peas and couscous were also ready, so LeeLee and I sat down to eat.
As per usual, we both loved the burgers and were thrilled to enjoy tonight’s side dishes – a lighter alternative to our typical potatoes/fries/other starches on parade. And also per usual, the best part is that we’ve got two more burgers left over for lunches tomorrow! I can’t wait.
:)
Spaghetti With Kale and Lemon.
I don’t know why, but there’s just something about a simple pasta recipe that always tastes so … classy. These minimal-ingredient dishes are so timeless, so warm and comforting, that I sometimes don’t know why we go to the trouble of concocting multicourse and multi-pan recipes!
Tonight I gave this recipe from over at Bev Cooks a try (I stumbled upon it on Pinterest, naturally), and LeeLee and I were both thrilled with the results. Two pots, a handful of ingredients, and minimal prep time? Yes, please!
As the spaghetti boiled, I prepared the kale just as Bev requested – by first sautéing some garlic and red pepper flakes in olive oil, then wilting the kale with lemon zest and juice, adding sunflower seeds, salt, and pepper, and then I set the dish aside to wait on the spaghetti. Once the pasta was boiled properly, all I had to do was add the noodles to the pan (I used my beloved Le Creuset, because it looks pretty and why not), toss tem with some parmesan and leftover pasta water, and … voila! Arrivederchi! (No, that’s not right.)
We each added a little extra salt and pepper and parmesan to the top of our helpings after plating them, and then we dug right in. The lemon juice brought out the flavors of the kale, the garlic and red pepper fit right into the middle of the flavor profile, and the pasta soaked up the olive oil and the flavors just beautifully. I added a little nutritional yeast atop mine, because I always do, and the end result was certainly no worse for wear.
I don’t mind telling you we each enjoyed a second (smaller, to be fair) helping – and still have plenty for lunch tomorrow! I love a meal that can stretch into two or three. And even if this one couldn’t, I’d love it anyway, because its simple, classic flavor profile is one I’ll gravitate toward again and again.
:)
Vegetarian Mexican Chik’n Chowder.
This week, Crock-Pot Monday came on Tuesday instead (these things happen sometimes) – a welcome change of pace! Someone is having a Big Birthday in a few days – for the record, that someone’s name rhymes with GiGi – and as a result, we have already begun to kick off the festivities with style and flair. So last night, we enjoyed a quick bite of soup before dashing off to try out a new watering hole with a couple of friends.
This recipe came from one of my longest-tenured cookbooks, Better Homes and Gardens’ Crockery Cookbook (which my dear friend Stuart always calls the “Crockery Cookery”). I know I’ve mentioned this cookbook before, but I have to give it another plug now: It is by far one of my most-used and best-loved cookbooks, despite it not being an especially vegetarian-centric tome. If you’ve been around here for any length of time you know that it’s quite easy to veggie-cize nearly any recipe, and the meals within the Crockery Cookbook are no different!
As with most of the recipes in this cookbook, this couldn’t be easier to make. Simply add chik’n strips, a can of Mexicorn, a can of cream of potato soup, a can of diced green chilies, a packet of taco seasoning, and a carton of veggie broth to your slow cooker (the recipe also calls for fresh cilantro, but who has that this time of year?) and let it roll, cooking it all day long. When you’re nearly ready to eat, add about 8 ounces of sour cream along with about 8 ounces of pepper-jack cheese cubes (the recipe called for something more along the lines of Velveeta, but I elected to give it some extra pizzazz), stir everything together nicely, and heat through until the cheese has melted.
We served our helpings in our favorite wintertime snowman bowls with tortilla chips on the side for dipping. And after polishing off two bowls apiece, we still had plenty for LeeLee’s lunch today. A fantastic meal, indeed!
:)
Leftovers’ New Life: Chili-Tater Salad.
As I mentioned last week, my family visited LeeLee and me (and, most importantly, the Wonder-Cat) over the weekend. We had a great time catching up, watching Alexandria’s annual Scottish Walk on Saturday, crossing our fingers for another Florida State football win, and sharing many meals together. Some of them were at-home affairs – the black-bean soup I discussed last week, as well as a rendition of my baked penne recipe, just to name a couple of selections – but we also visited several of our favorite haunts around town for a change of scenery. From pizza to brunch to chili, we certainly made the rounds!
That last genre – chili – is where I’m focusing my time for the benefit of this blog post. It’s our family’s tradition that on the last night my parents are in town, we visit Hard Times Cafe, one of our very favorite chili cookeries right here in Old Town. There’s something for everyone: A meaty chili for my dad, vegetarian chili for LeeLee and me, and a chicken sandwich for my mom, who always dares to be different. :) So per tradition, that’s where we found ourselves last night, seated in one of their tight-knit booths, Johnny Cash and Elvis tunes playing in the background.
We never leave Hard Times hungry; the portions are huge! And often we leave with a little something to take home (my mother calls it a “kitty bag” on account of the Wonder-Cat). Such was the case last night, when I managed to bring home about half of my Chili Taters – chili, tater tots, and all the fixins, blended together into a tasty bowl full.
I didn’t have quite enough leftover to stand alone as a meal, but added to some vegetables? A perfectly filling dinner indeed!
So I heated the chili taters up and arranged a plate full of lettuce in the meantime. Then I spooned the chili atop the greens and topped it with cherry tomatoes, sliced olives, and nutritional yeast. Finally, I added some Thousand Island dressing to the lettuce leaves, grabbed a fork and napkin, and got down to business! (Where is LeeLee, you ask? Eating at an evening meeting tonight. The perfect time to enjoy leftovers for one!)
The outcome was glorious. Hard Times actually serves a chili salad in their restaurants, so this wasn’t too far off the mark from their existing menu item. (I don’t think they serve nutritional yeast atop theirs, however. Hee.) The chili – and tater tots – held up well overnight and were a perfect topping to the salad, blending just perfectly with the butter lettuce, tomatoes, and olives. And the dressing gave the meal a little extra burst of flavor just to keep things interesting.
These leftovers definitely got a new life today – I can’t wait to get back to Hard Times to bring home some more!
:)
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