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The Kitchen Recessionista

So, here we are, in a recession. Let's eat!

Pantry Cleanout: Vegan Five-Bean Soup.

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Pantry Cleanout week/month/year continued tonight with a taste of the holidays! We gave baskets of homemade preserves and soup mixes to relatives this year, and one of the soups I included was a five-bean rendition that was wonderfully easy to put together and required very little in the way of prep for the future would-be cook. I always save a couple of jars back for myself, and tonight was as good as any other to put the Christmas bounty to use!

As an aside, it may sound corny to you, but I really love giving handmade gifts to loved ones at the holidays. A jar of strawberry preserves, a container of soup mix, a bag of homemade candies, or even a set of hand-knit dishcloths show our family and friends just how much they mean to us. I’ve no idea whether these gifts are more or less appreciated than any others – maybe our loved ones just want cash and wish we wouldn’t go to all the trouble? – but I confess I love putting these gifts together and sending them off to new homes. I can only hope the recipients love them too.

Anyway, back to tonight’s soup. The recipe is wonderful in its simplicity: Pour everything from the jar into a large pot, add a can of diced tomatoes (I used Rotel tonight because that was what I happened to have on hand!), and then add six cups of water. Bring to a boil, then let simmer for an hour and a half or so. Done and done!

LeeLee got caught in traffic on his way home, and I myself spent the early evening convalescing after a dental appointment, so I was in no great hurry to get dinner on the table. But by the time LeeLee arrived home, I’d gotten my second wind, and we spooned out bowls full of piping-hot soup and sat down to eat. I topped mine with nutritional yeast (because I do that with everything); LeeLee added Sriracha to his. We both deemed these additions to be a success and will certainly use them again!

But additions or no, the soup itself was wonderful. The bouillon cube added a complex, herby flavor to the water-based broth, and the beans held their shape but yet softened up just perfectly. (I like a little bite to my beans, but I don’t want them to be bullets!) We liked it so much that I enjoyed a second scoop – and LeeLee polished off the rest of it! So no leftovers, but it was for a good cause.

This is definitely a gift that keeps on giving! Family and friends, hide your eyes: I’ll certainly make another set of jars for next Christmas, and I may even keep more than one for myself!

:)

Crock-Pot Thursday: Gherkin Soup.

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This, friends, is the long-awaited culinary experiment I teased to earlier this week, when our usual Crock-Pot Monday festivities were thwarted due to post-vacation re-entry! I came across a recipe for Dill Pickle Soup over at Tablespoon.com, and as soon as I saw it I knew our pickle-loving family just had to try it. (And, of course, I vegetarianized the ingredients.)

… Wait a minute, I can hear some of you say. I thought you called this recipe Gherkin Soup. Not Dill Pickle Soup. What gives?

Well, you see, while I was picking up the ingredients for this meal (and the rest of my grocery list) at the store on Sunday, I seemingly selected the wrong kind of baby pickle. I was supposed to purchase baby dills. Instead, I cheerfully added baby gherkins to the cart instead and went about my merry way. Not even when I snuck a taste of one this morning while dicing them did I consider my error! No, that happened mid-afternoon, when suddenly I saw the word “Gherkin” in my brain, as prominent as can be atop a green Mt. Olive label.

Gherkin. Not dill. Gherkin.

So. This is Gherkin Soup. Dill will have to wait for another day.

At any rate, the prep work was incredibly easy, from the creation of the roux to the dicing of the pickles and carrots. I cheated and used a can of sliced potatoes instead of dicing up fresh, because the last couple of times I’ve bought fresh at the grocery store, they’ve come home all green and somehow I’ve failed to notice pre-purchase. Then just add a few spices, some broth, and set it to Low for the day!

LeeLee and I both worked from home today given the region’s latest snow storm (and between you and me, this snow lover has had enough of the white stuff for a while), so I continued to peek in on it through the glass lid every time I walked through the kitchen. Finally, at around 6:30, I could take it no longer and we sat down for the moment of truth.

The synopsis: The flavors of this soup are … interesting. Having never had pickle soup before, either dill or gherkin, I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I’m not sure I anticipated the final result in our bowls. And I don’t mean “interesting” in a polite, non-committal way, either; I really mean that the flavors were ones I had never experienced before, and that fact did take my taste buds a few bites to work out for themselves. A blend of tart and mild, sweet and savory, spicy and neutral … pickle/gherkin soup is just flat-out interesting! But many of my closest friends are interesting. So I went with it, bite after bite.

In the final analysis, I enjoyed one full bowl, and LeeLee devoured two. Both of us appreciated Tablespoon’s suggestion of pita chips on the side; we both liked dipping them into the soup for yet another interesting flavor. At any rate, I really did like this meal and I think I will make it again (only with different pickles next time). And I’ll also take greater care to read labels more clearly.

Hooray for gherkins!

:)

Sunday Cook-In: Vegetarian Chik’n Posole.

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I know that Sundays are our usual cookout day, but I want you to take a look at the state of our grilling area:

smoker-snow

So. How about soup?

Tonight, we enjoyed a big, steamy bowl of chik’n posole, one of our very favorite soups on a cold winter’s night (or a hot summer’s day, for that matter). Light in calories but hearty in texture, made even more impressive when served in a pale blue Le Creuset French oven, it’s the perfect meal for any time of the year!

That said, with a spicy kick of Rotel and a near-boiling temperature, it’s just perfect for wintertime. And we hopped right into the posole spirit tonight, mowing down several bowls’ worth apiece, all the while convincing ourselves that it really doesn’t keep all that well and we should really just polish off the whole batch (spoiler alert: It actually does keep well). I heated up several slices of garlic bread to complement our meal, and we enjoyed dipping pieces of bread into the broth as we ate.

So though this wasn’t the cookout we were planning on, we had a delightful dinner nonetheless. If there’s a better wintertime soup out there, I’d love to know what it is!

And, with any luck, we’ll be back on our usual Sunday Cookout schedule next week. I have Big Plans!

:)

Crock-Pot Monday: Vegan Chik’n Noodle Soup.

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The snow is here! For the first time, really, all winter long, we’ve gotten ourselves a good and proper snowfall. As I write this at about 10:30 at night, there are about four inches’ worth on the ground and another three-or-so left to fall. It’s a wonderfully beautiful scene out there! We could stand a winter wonderland from time to time.

So it made sense, then, that this evening’s Crock-Pot Monday offering was a steamy bowl of soup. Who doesn’t love a brothy, slightly salty, spice-filled concoction teeming with vegan chik’n strips, shredded carrots, diced celery, onion, and parsley/basil/garlic powder/pepper/turmeric?

As today was Presidents Day, I didn’t get my slow-cooker act together until later in the day – around 1 p.m., to be precise. So instead of letting the broth cook (sans noodles) all day on Low, I flipped the switch to High and let ’er rip for five hours or so. When I was about 20 minutes away from dinnertime, I added some linguine, broken into halves, and placed the lid back on, stirring occasionally, every five minutes or so.

Now, this is a good time to admit that I may have been just a little bit heavy-handed on the ol’ linguine tonight. A little voice inside my soul told me to quit at about half a package worth, but a louder voice inside my ear told me to FILL IT UP! So I did. And friends, by the time our second helpings rolled around, my chik’n noodle soup had become chik’n and noodles instead. Personally, I don’t find this to be a bad thing. But if you’re looking for a pure soup, lay off the linguine a bit, eh?

I mentioned second helpings above. We both enjoyed a hearty second bowl full, indeed! For being so simple to make, this soup is amazingly flavorful, filling, and hearty. A perfect way to celebrate a snowfall if you ask me!

And judging by the amount of leftovers we’ve got in the fridge, we certainly won’t stop at second helpings. There’s at least enough for three lunches, maybe more! I’m definitely not complaining.

:)

Crock-Pot Monday: Louisiana Bayou Chili.

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Crock-Pot Monday came right on time this week, and with a quick turnaround time between work and my evening tai chi class, I was surely glad to have planned ahead! Dinner was piping-hot and ready to eat by the time I came wheeling in, and the house smelled just heavenly. Who doesn’t love a good Cajun flavor at the end of a day’s work?

This recipe came from – you guessed it – Robin Robertson’s One-Dish Vegan, which is quickly become a mainstay at our house. With Mardi Gras right around the corner, I knew we had to dig right in to a dish straight from the bayou! And this chili fit the bill.

It couldn’t be easier to make: Add a plethora of ingredients, such as bell pepper, onion, ground “beef” (Robertson’s recipe calls for TVP flakes, but vegan beef’s what I had on hand, so beef’s what I used), diced tomatoes, gumbo file, chili powder, garlic, and more. The hardest part was just cutting up all the veggies; after that, it was simply a matter of adding everything to the slow cooker, flipping the heat to Low, and going to work!

By the time I got home, everything was fully cooked and ready to eat. So we dug straight in, adding some Daiya mozzarella and Tabasco on top for extra kick. And as with the rest of the meals we’ve had out of One-Dish Vegan, we went back for seconds (and LeeLee even went back for thirds!). Even after all of that gluttony, we still have plenty left for lunch tomorrow – for both of us!

So another Crock-Pot Monday is successfully in the books. Rounded out with a leftover vegan Rice Krispie treat, it was a balanced meal indeed!

:)

Vegan Spicy Peanut Soup.

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vegan-spicy-peanut-soupBoy, this has been a soup week so far! Last night, we enjoyed Taco Soup – which I’ll feature later this week in the latest episode of our “Tiny Kitchen” series – and tonight I cracked open my quickly-becoming-invaluable copy of One-Dish Vegan, by Robin Robertson, to whip up a batch of her spicy peanut soup.

I’ve made Thai-style peanut soups and curries before, and I must admit that they’ve always fallen a little short on flavor. They haven’t been bad, mind you – just sort of bland. They’ve left me wanting more, craving the flavors of one of our favorite Thai restaurants here in Old Town Alexandria. But this peanut soup – this one, friends, is different. This soup is teeming with flavor, and what’s more, it couldn’t be simpler to make.

As is my usual policy with cookbooks that are currently still out in the marketplace, I won’t rehash the whole recipe here. But I will say that a confluence of ingredients, including but not limited to onion, bell pepper, jalapeno, coconut milk, peanut butter, ginger, and tofu came together tonight to make a magical meal here at Chez Recessonista. In keeping with the cookbook’s title, this dinner did indeed cook up in one pot, my trusty Le Creuset, and other than the slicing-and-dicing work, it was incredibly speedy to make. Half an hour of cook time overall, and dinner was ready!

I think the secret to the majesty that is this peanut soup is in the coconut milk. Admittedly, I didn’t skimp on this ingredient, and I found the result to be breathtakingly creamy. The milk mingled with peanut butter, broth, and diced tomatoes to create a wonderful base for the soup, and the tofu soaked it up like a sponge. What a beautiful blend of sweet and savory all in one bowl! With each bite, the complexity of the flavors burst forth even more. (Just for quality control’s sake, I found myself enjoying two bowls’ worth. I do this for you, you know.)

Once again, Robin Robertson has outdone herself. I can’t wait for my next adventure within the pages of her cookbook! Details to come in short order.

:)

Vegan Chili Java.

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If it’s the start of the week, it’s Crock-Pot Monday at Chez Recessionista!

I think I’ve mentioned before that my mother-in-law (hi, D-Ma!) surprised me at Christmastime with a copy of Robin Robertson’s cookbook One-Pot Vegan, and already I’ve put it to use several times. Like every other Robin Robertson cookbook I’ve ever used, these recipes are tried-and-true, and I know I can rely on them to pan out in the end! Love the ingredients, love the final product. It’s as easy as that.

This morning, I put the ingredients for her Chili Java in the good old Crock-Pot and let ’er rip on Low for about eight hours. I won’t get into all the details of the recipe – I’d encourage you to buy her book! – but I will say I made a couple of substitutions, the most meaningful being swapping TVP out in favor of chopped-up veggie burgers. I can’t say what this dish tastes like with TVP, but the burgers certainly didn’t hurt the recipe at all! We both loved the texture they brought to the dish, and I’ll import this substitution into some of my other chili recipes as a result!

But the burger substitution wasn’t the only thing we loved about this Chili Java. In fact, our favorite component of the recipe was the addition of fresh-brewed coffee to the mix! Spoiler alert: In the end, you don’t actually taste the coffee. What you do taste, however, is a dark, rich undertone that you can’t quite put your finger on. The coffee brings a wonderfully earthy, slightly acidic taste that really makes the flavors sing. Paired with some hot diced green chilies, it was the perfect unexpected addition to the dish.

Also, speaking of singing: My heart is absolutely operatic with the knowledge that we have enough Chili Java for lunch tomorrow! I do love a gift that keeps on giving.

:)

Vegan Chik’n Posole.

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There was more snow on the ground today – well, temporarily, anyway – and as a result I knew we were in deep need of a hearty soup to combat our deep freeze! As usual, chik’n posole fit the bill.

You’ve heard me wax poetic on the joys of the posole time and again, so I won’t write a lengthy blog post tonight focusing on the same ol’ thing. However, I will say that tonight I used a jumbo can of hominy, which stretched the soup out to the point where we have leftovers! This is unheard-of in the posole ranks, so let us mark the occasion with great fanfare!

Tonight I used Gardein’s chik’n strips as the protein in this soup, and the results were fantastic. We’ve really come to love Gardein – and haven’t found a product of theirs that we dislike, to be honest! They’re a great addition to the vegetarian realm of products. (And no, I’m not receiving any kickbacks. Just felt like expounding!)

That chik’n, combined with the aforementioned jumbo can of hominy, plus a can of Rotel, some dried minced onions, black pepper, and veggie broth, really made a great posole tonight. Maybe it was the afternoon run I enjoyed today, or maybe we were both just super-ready for dinner, but we each mowed down two heaping helpings – and have plenty left for tomorrow! It’s a wintertime miracle, indeed.

:)

Vegetarian Sausage-Corn Chowder.

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Welcome back to Crock-Pot Monday here at Chez Recessionista! Tonight, I trotted out an oldie-but-goodie for our dining pleasure, and per historical performance, we weren’t disappointed. Vegetarian sausage-corn chowder always gets right to the heart of the matter, and paired with a garlic breadstick, it made a perfect meal.

Now, tonight’s also the college football championship game. My beloved Seminoles fell to the mighty Ducks of Oregon on New Year’s Day, so I am sitting on the sidelines (so to speak) for this game, but we’ll certainly tune in. However, unlike last year’s extravaganza of food and beverage, tonight LeeLee and I are lifting a glass of wine and doing the dishes after our chowdery dinner for two. No lucky onion dip this time around; no heaping slow cooker of chili. I know March Madness is right around the corner and the College World Series thereafter, but for the moment, we are not in the proper frame of mind around these parts. Sigh.

But still we press on! And tonight’s chowder did a wonderful job in helping us recover from the shocking loss of Jan. 1 and get us into the right frame of mind for tonight’s game. We both went back for seconds – as usual with this meal – and there was still plenty left over for us to enjoy for lunch tomorrow. The only question is: Will we share with one another? Time will tell!

:)

Vegan Moroccan Chik’n Stew.

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Happy Snow Day, y’all!

In full disclosure, I did not actually spend said snow day at home. No, I decided that this morning would be a perfect one to traipse over hill and dale, carting shelter animals from one city to another before going to work. What usually takes 30 minutes stretched into a two-hour adventure, but I made it safely to my destinations in the end! With nary a peep from my puppy-and-kitten charges in the back seat, I might add. One of the hound puppies let out a little “Siiiiiigh” as we neared the first hour of our expedition, and all I could say in reply was, “Amen, brother.”

The drive home from work was much easier – with plowed roads, it was just a zip-zip-zip ride. This gave me plenty of time to whip up a batch of one of my favorite wintertime concoctions – vegan Moroccan chik’n stew!

I’ve already outlined the recipe itself in the post I linked to above, so I won’t dwell on that now. What I will say is that I think this may be the best Moroccan stew I’ve ever made in my life. Maybe we were just really hungry; maybe the cold had set so deeply into our bones that we were just craving a good stew. But whatever it was, something about the way the flavors mingled together coupled with the chewy texture of the Gardein chik’n strips and the tang of the stewed tomatoes really made this meal pop tonight! We each went back for seconds (and I must admit I had one last chik’n strip as I transported the leftovers into a container for the fridge).

In other wonderful news, we have a ton of stew left over for lunch tomorrow (and perhaps even Thursday)! And the house now has the wonderful fragrance of cinnamon, ginger, and curry powder. I can’t think of a more Recessionista potpourri than that!

:)