Chick pea/ Garbanzo Taco

Ingredients:

1 tbsp vegetable oil

2 15 oz. cans of garbanzos, drained & rinsed

1 tbsp chili powder

1/4 tsp garlic powder

1/4 tsp onion powder

1/4 tsp dried oregano

1/2 tsp paprika

1.5 tsp cumin

1 tsp salt

1 tsp black pepper

1 tbsp tamari

2 tsp lemon juice

1. In heated skillet, put 1 tbsp vegetable oil and garbazos.

2. Add seasoning. Cook for 10 minutes in medium heat, stirring continuously. Be careful they don't burn!

3. Add tamari and lemon juice. Cook for 1 minute.

I found this online but now the URL doesn't work. I made this recipe in advance and it was delicious luke warm. The original recipe called for mashing the garbanzo beans, but the texture of the whole ones was pretty nice.

Classy beige rice

In an effort to class up my usual rice selection, I tried this combination of foods myself.

ingredients:
rice cooker!
1 cup of white rice
1 cup of brown rice
2 cups of water
1/2 cup of blanched almond slivers
1 tsp of dried oregano

Add all and cook in the rice cooker. The almonds become soft and add a subtle flavor to the rice. I think next time, I'd use almond slivers that had the brown skin on the side to add some color to the rice. I think fresh oregano would have been much better, but it is winter.

Indian Sweet Potato Fries

3 sweet potatoes cut in medallions
2 tablespoons of EVOO
4 tsp of curry
1/2 tbsp of garlic chopped
salt and pepper

I cooked them at 325 for 45 minutes, but mostly because I had the oven set for something else. they turned out a little mushy this way.

I liked this shape, I think it did a good job of capturing some of the flavors. If I were to redo this, I'd add more Indian spice - perhaps tumeric? more curry?

The other thing that would have been interesting would have been to have made some indian dip or aioli to go with this. Perhaps a little tamarind or mango chutney?

Okay reader(s) - leave comments with ideas on how to up the flavor on this recipe!

(original recipe found here)

Marinated Bell Peppers

I needed an asian side dish and had bell peppers, so here's what I made

Ingredients:
1 red bell pepper
1 orange bell pepper
2 yellow bell peppers
1 tbspn of minced garlic
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
2 tbsp EVOO
2 tbsp fresh chopped parsley
salt and pepper to taste

1. Preheat oven to 450
2. Place peppers on rack directly to cook. roast for 15 minutes, turning every five minutes. Use some kitchen tongs to turn the peppers. Be careful at the ten minute mark as the peppers may be juicy and easily split.
3. Put them in a paperbag and allow the heat to steam the peppers while they cool. This process will take about 15 minutes. Trust me, don't short change this time because it is invaluable to the next step
4. Wash the peppers in cold water and remove the thin outer skin. Also remove the steam and clean out the seeds from the inside. Place in a colander to rinse as you are working on the other peppers.
5. Lightly pat dry the peppers afterwards. They'll be much tastier if there isn't a lot of water to detract from the ingredients.
6. While the peppers are drying, take out a medium bowl and mix up the other ingredients.
7. Add dry peppers to oil mixture in bowl.

For original recipes click here

Lemon Quinoa with Butternut Squash

So for dinner tonight, I made this quinoa dish. Apparently it's quinoa mania around my apartment! So a few things about this recipe

I bought the squash prechopped from Trader Joe's. I think I let them sit for too long, too.
Also, the step where you add lemon juice and lemon peel - I screwed that up badly. First my peel was big chunks of peel - not very appetizing looking when it came all done. Also, I forgot to add the juice and peel while the quinoa still had liquid; thus, I added it after the quinoa was all cooked. It ended up making the dish kind of mushy. I think I should have toasted the quinoa more, as well.

Also, I only had a few pine nuts and my chives were kinda gross. So basically, my products were lacking. Oh well.

In the end, it was sufficient. I'm not sure the depth of flavor as really there, though. I added a lot of shallots and garlic, too, so I'm shocked that was kind of flat.

Here's something else too consider, there wasn't a lot of texture to this dish. It lacked something crispy even if it had been less mushy.

So on the whole, I give this recipe a meh.

Pineapple Quinoa Cashew Stir Fry

Hello readers!

I got busy and well now, I'm not so vegan. BUT on the upside, I still cook lots of vegan things. So, I think I'm going to keep blogging my recipes.

Anyway, on to my next review. One of my favorite recipes is this quinoa stirfry out of Veganomicon. Here is my modified ingredient list for my version of this
1 cup of quinoa (cooked according to the box with in pineapple juice, water, fresh mint, + a soy sauce packet from an asian restaurant)
1 cup of whole raw cashews
3 tbsp of peanut oil
1 cup of scallions, sliced thin
4 garlic cloves minced
2 serrano pepper, sliced in small rounds
generous piece of ginger, finely chopped
1 red bell pepper
1 orange bell pepper
1/2 cup fresh basil leaves, sliced thin
2 tbsp fresh mint chopped
10 oz pineapple chunks
4 tbspn soy sauce
3 tbspn vegetable broth
lime wedges

1. In a wok on medium, add peanut oil, scallions + garlic. wait for it to sizzle
2. Add serrano pepper and ginger for 2 minutes
3. Add bell peppers, 3 minutes
4. add basil & mint, 1 minute
5. add quinoa + pineapples
6. mix in a cup - soy sauce + veg broth. then add to stir fry. 10 minutes

make sure you serve the lime over the quinoa - the acid is really important

couple of possible variations -
1. replace a tbsp of soy sauce with mirin - that's in the original recipe but I just didn't have any
2. add chicken - marinate it in pineapple juice, lime juice, soy sauce, and something with a kick - maybe a little cayenne.

modify other ingredients as you wish. I look to add lots of colors to make it more playful. The original recipe called for peas or edamame, but I think anything green would be delicious. Sugar snap peas in particular - yum!

leave comments of what vegetables you add in!

Uhoh Spaghettios!

Ingredients
8 oz Eden Vegetable Alphabet Pasta
2 Trader Joe's Sausage-less Sausage
2 Campbell's condensed tomato soup
boatloads of basil
half of a white onion chopped
3 cloves of garlic minced
EVOO
red pepper flakes
soymilk

I made the pasta. While the pasta drained, I put the EVOO and the onion in the pot to saute the onions. Then I added garlic and red pepper flakes. I was cautious but probably should have added more red pepper flakes. After that I added the tomato soup and basil. Now I basically did this recipe so I could try out my new immersion blender - but I'm not sure that the immersion blender did much! The original recipe suggests using soymilk at this point; I forgot and didn't add it until later. Instead, I added the sausage to the sauce in order to heat it a little, and then readded the pasta. At this point I realized there wasn't nearly enough sauce for all of the pasta, so I added soymilk. It was only a generous splash, but still I think it reduced the flavor down.
This much pasta means I'll be eating this for the week I fear.

It tastes good, but just not as deep of a flavor as I'd like.

Suggestions for next time:
If I had it to do again, I'd go with 4 oz of pasta and/or bigger more traditional pasta. The alphabet pasta grew a LOT
I'd also add a lot more basil. Now, to be clear, when I said a boatload I mean I chopped up probably 4 tbsp of basil. I think even more would awesome.
There was also some heat missing from this recipe. I would eager up the red pepper flakes or
maybe get spicy sausage.

The alphabet pasta would be great for soup, but it was so small that it made the consistency very mushy (squishy perhaps?).

This recipe is a modified version of this recipe

Spicy Sweet Potato wedges

Ingredients:

3 sweet potatoes (2 pounds), peeled, cut lengthwise into ¼-inch-thick spears

2 tablespoons EVOO

1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary

½ tablespoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon cayenne

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 425ºF. Place oven racks in the upper third and lower third of oven. Lightly oil 2 rimmed baking sheets.
2. Combine potato spears, oil, rosemary, cumin, salt, and cayenne in a large bowl; toss well to coat. Arrange potatoes in a single layer on baking sheets.
3. Roast potatoes, rotating pans and tossing potatoes every 10 minutes, until lightly golden and tender, about 30 minutes.

As a warning, I made this a second time but was not very careful about measuring the cumin & cayenne - it ended u p becoming a feat of strength to eat an entire potato wedge! Be very careful with measurements!

It's even low carb! (click for original atkins recipe)

Mexican Pasta

This dinner was really an excuse to use up leftovers and yet, somehow, it turned out super delicious! The best part is all of my ingredients were purchased at Trader Joe's which meant this was an incredible cheap meal. Next time, I'll keep track of prices to calculate the cost. But I think it was maybe $15 total and it made 4-6 healthy servings.

Vegetable rotini pasta
half of the soy chorizo
1/4 cup (or so) of plain pasta sauce.
corn tomato-less salsa
fresh cilantro

Basically I made the pasta. While the pasta drained, I put my leftover chorizo in the pasta pot, added the jar of salsa, and some pasta sauce to cover. I added the pasta back and stirred. Then I added chopped cilantro to taste.

The chorizo made this pretty spicy. This recipe might be better if I had used only 1/4th of the chorizo. Definitely a complete meal. If you're not vegan, I bet some queso freco crumbled on top would be great, too.

Vegan Corn Chowder

I love getting spark people recipes daily. Most of them aren't things I'd make, but some of them inspire me to modify recipes to make something very tasty.

I modified this original recipe to make it vegan and more interesting!

1 Tbsp EVOO
diced celery
diced onion
diced green & red peppers
10 oz frozen whole kernel corn
1 box of Trader Joe's harvest medley (chopped squash, yams, etc)
1 cup water
2 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
1/4 himalayan sea salt
black pepper to taste
1/4 tsp paprika
2 tbsp flour
2 cups soy milk

more fresh parsley to serve

For all the vegetables, I followed the Rachel Ray rule for soups that nothing should be too big to go on a spoon. I like my vegetables a bit coarser, though, so they were big chunks in my soup. Also, I doubled my entire recipe, although not too exactly, but I found this recipe pretty forgiving.

Directions:
1. In my big soup pan, I heated the oil. Then added the celery, onion & peppers to saute for a few minutes.
2. Then I added the corn, harvest medley, water, salt, pepper, and paprika. Once the water boiled, i brought the heat down to medium and let it cook (covered) for 10 minutes.
3. In a glass jar, I mixed the soy milk and flour. (add & shake the ingredients).
4. Add the flour mixture to the soup. Then add the rest of the soy milk.
5. Wait for the soup to boil and then remove.

Serving this with fresh parsley was very important. I think a little more layered heat - perhaps more paprika? maybe a little finely diced jalapeno when I'm sauteing the vegetables? - would add more depth to this soup.

Regardless, it was super hearty for a meal & tasted great for days.

Raw Mango Avocado salad

My modified version of this recipe (to make it totally raw) was
2 large mangos, chopped. (I peeled it one time, but I think the peel is delish, so I'd keep it the next time).
2 medium avocados, chopped
1 lime, juiced.
1/4 cup of cilantro finely chopped - or really to taste.

After that, just mix all the ingredients. The combination of flavors here is incredible. All fresh ingredients makes it wonderfully raw, too1

Original recipe

Orange Quinoa salad

"Mix cooked couscous or quinoa with orange zest and juice, olive oil, maybe honey, sliced oranges, raisins or dried cranberries, chopped red onion and chopped almonds. Serve over greens, or not."

This salad was not very exciting. I made it with quinoa, cranberries and no honey with friends; the large quantities of left overs may have turned me off in the end. It definitely got better with age.

I'm curious what it would be like with different oranges.

It's also from the New York Times article.

Chickpea Tabbouleh

"Roughly chop cooked or canned chickpeas (you can pulse them, carefully, in a food processor) and toss with olive oil, lemon juice, lots of chopped fresh parsley and mint, and a few chopped tomatoes. Call this chickpea tabbouleh."

I gotta say, laziness set in and so I did not chop or pulse the chickpeas. This recipe was okay, but I think it lacked some depth. If I made it again, I'd up the amount of parsley to make it almost absurd and eliminate the olive oil.

This recipe is also from that New York Times Article

Mustardy Cucumber Salad

A nice cucumber salad: Slice cucumbers thin (if they’re fat and old, peel and seed them first), toss with red onions and salt, then let sit for 20 to 60 minutes. Rinse, dry, dress with cider vinegar mixed with Dijon mustard; no oil necessary.

The quality of the mustard I think is more important than I give it credit for. It reminds me a lot of this Whole Food's Recipe. My mandoline slicer makes both of these recipes significantly easier.

Both of these salads are great as left overs the next day.

Also, for those raw foodists out there, I used Bragg's Apple Cider Vinegar and Himalayan Sea Salt. Of course, the mustard makes it not raw; I'm not really sure how to work around that.

To find the full list of summer salad's, check out the New York Times post here