Minestrone Soup

Good any time of year, minestrone soup is especially good on a cold winter's day. I love it because it's hearty and filling and most of all, delicious. So good I always go for a second bowl.

Minestrone Soup

There is always so much soup in the batch that it feeds us a good two or three days, and that's having it for lunch and dinner both. When we make minestrone soup we cook the pasta separately and add it just before heating it so it doesn't get mushy.

Minestrone Soup Recipe

Minestrone is a pretty versatile soup in that you can pretty much use whatever kind of bean and whatever kind of pasta you want. You can use whatever type of vegetables you fancy too, for that matter: carrots, onions, potatoes, green or yellow beans, peas, celery, corn or cauliflower.

Here's the recipe I used for this one:

Ingredients:
1 cup dried lima beans
2 cups cooked pasta (gluten-free if preferred)
1 large onion, chopped
4 carrots, diced
3 medium potatoes, diced
1 cup frozen green beans, chopped
1 cup frozen peas
1 can diced tomatoes
1.5 or 2 boxes vegetable broth
2 tbsp dried oregano
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp dried rosemary
1 tsp black pepper
2 tsp salt (or 2 tbsp tamari)

Cook the beans separately:
Rinse the lima beans under cold water, then bring to a boil in 3 or 4 cups of water in a medium saucepan. Turn down the heat, cover the beans and simmer them for about 45 minutes or until soft.

Healthy sauté onion and carrots in veggie broth until carrots begin to soften. Add potatoes and cook another 5 minutes. Add herbs, can of tomatoes and the rest of the vegetable broth and simmer until all the vegetables are cooked. Add cooked beans and pasta.

Bowl of minestrone soup

Lentil Curry on Rice

This is the most amazing thing I've eaten in awhile. I've had curries before but this one is the keeper, so I need to blog it before I forget it. lol

Lentil Curry on White Rice

Ingredients

3 small or 1 large onion, chopped
2 carrots (I wanted to put one in but I didn't have one, but next time I will and it will be even better, if that's even possible.
2 tbsp olive oil
4 cloves minced garlic
1 can diced tomatoes
1 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp turmeric
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground coriander
1/4 tsp dry ginger
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
1/4 tsp black pepper
1 tsp salt
3 cups veggie broth
1 1/2 cups water
1 cup brown lentils
1/2 cup coconut milk
1/2 cup green beans, 1/2" lengths
1 large package of fresh spinach

Directions

1. Cook onions and carrots in oil until soft, not brown. 
2. Add garlic and cook one minute. 
3. Drain the tomatoes then add to veggies and bring to a simmer then add all the spices. 
4. Take 2 cups of this mixture and puree it in a food processor or blender then add it back to the pan. 
5. Add the veggie broth, coconut milk, water and the cup of lentils. 
6. Cover and simmer on a low boil for 35 minutes until lentils are tender but still hold their form. 
7. Add the green beans and spinach and stir until it wilts. 

Serve over your favorite rice.

If you don't love this I don't even know what to tell you. I am looking forward to work tomorrow because I am having it for lunch. THAT'S how good it is. Seriously, make this.

How healthy is this?

First of all look at how healthy one cup of brown lentils is:
 molybdenum 330%
 folate 90%
 fiber 63%
 copper 56%
 phosphorus 51%
 manganese 49%
 iron 37%
 protein 36%
 vitamin B1 28%
 pantothenic acid 25%
 zinc 23%
 vitamin B6 21%
 potassium 21%

Secondly, look at the nutrition in one cup of cooked spinach:
 vitamin K 987%
 vitamin A 105%
 manganese 84%
 folate 66%
 magnesium 39%
 iron 36%
 copper 34%
 vitamin B2 32%
 vitamin B6 26%
 vitamin E 25%
 calcium 24%
 vitamin C 24%
 potassium 24%
 fiber 17%
 vitamin B1 14%
 phosphorus 14%
 zinc 12%
 protein 11%
 choline 8%
 omega-3 fats 7%
 vitamin B3 6%
pantothenic acid 5%

In fact, besides the oil and salt, everything in this recipe is beneficial in some way. I love that I am getting stuff my body needs in such a delicious meal. Not only that, but it came together quickly and was simple to make. You should try making it! :)

French Dips

Laura has made these twice now, and we've decided they're definitely a favorite.

French Dip Sub

Ingredients

about 2 tbsp. olive oil, divided
1 medium onion, sliced into half rings
2 garlic cloves, minced
3 portobello mushroom caps (about 20 oz. total), cleaned and sliced into thin strips
1 cup vegetable broth
1 tbsp. soy sauce
1 tbsp. vegan Worcestershire sauce
1/2 tsp. dried thyme
1/4 tsp. liquid smoke (optional, but highly recommended)
1/4 tsp. black pepper

For Serving

2-6 inch sandwich rolls or baguette sections, sliced open
horseradish mustard
Instructions

Directions

Coat the bottom of a large skillet with 1 tablespoon of oil and place over medium-low heat. Add onion and toss a few times to coat with oil. Allow to cook until caramelized, about 20 minutes, flipping occasionally. Add garlic and cook about 2 minutes more. Transfer onions and garlic to a plate.
Coat skillet with another tablespoon of oil and raise heat to medium. Add mushroom strips. Avoid overcrowding the skillet. A little overlapping is okay, but work in multiple batches if needed (I needed two), adding a bit of oil between batches if needed. Cook until lightly browned, about 5 minutes. Flip and cook 5 minutes more on opposite sides.
Return onions to skillet and add broth, soy sauce, Worchestershire sauce, thyme, liquid smoke and pepper. Bring to a simmer and allow to cook, stirring occasionally, until liquid is reduced by half, about 5 minutes.
Slather the insides of rolls with horseradish mustard. Use a slotted spoon to remove onions and mushrooms from skillet, pressing lightly to squeeze out any excess juice. Divide onions and mushrooms into rolls. Pour cooking liquid into a small bowl and serve with sandwiches, for dipping.

Smashed Potatoes

This has become our new favorite potato recipe. Well, not real new, we've been making them for several months, and I may even have blogged them in the vegetarian days. But, we've been talking them up and now we've promised to share the know-how with whomever hasn't tried them before - and if you haven't, you really should. I know it's more than 2 steps, but these potatoes really are very easy to make!

Smashed Potatoes and  Asian-style Peas & Carrots

How These Delights are Made

1. Wash 15 or 20 fingerling or small new potatoes. Sometimes they can be pretty dirty!

New Potatoes

2. Cover 2/3 with veg stock - the broth does not completely cover the potatoes - and simmer over low heat until potatoes are tender and broth has simmered away. I don't have a pic of this step but I wish I did. Booo.

3. Smash with a fork! Don't completely mash them, just flatten them down a bit - there should be hash marks from the fork in them.

Smashed & Hashed Potatoes

4. Add 1 tbsp vegan butter and generous amounts of Herbamare and fry until brown.

Browned Smashed Potatoes

Bean & Lentil Salad

I made this bean salad to take with me to Sheephouse Falls tomorrow and it's very good so I wanted to document the recipe so we can make it again. It was inspired by our homegrown green beans along with the fact that we already had the other ingredients on hand.

Bean & Lentil Salad

Bean Mixture

3 cups cooked lentils
1 1/2 cups cooked black turtle beans
1 1/2 cups cooked chickpeas
1 1/2 cups fresh green beans cut in 1" lengths, and cooked until tender
1/2  cup chopped scallions
1/3 cup white onion, chopped fine

Vinaigrette

10 sprigs of fresh parsley, stemmed and chopped
5 tbsp white vinegar
5 tbsp vegetable or olive oil
5 tsp white sugar
2 tsp lemon juice
1/8 tsp black pepper
1 tsp salt or to taste

Mix the vinaigrette in with the bean mixture until everything is coated. Refrigerate overnight.

Protein

You may notice I use lentils in a lot of our dishes. A lot of people ask us where we get our protein and honestly, I get a lot of mine from lentils. We throw them into everything; gravies, sauces, soups, roasted veggies, salads, burgers...pretty much anything. We also eat beans quite a bit, especially in our Mexican food, which we have quite often.

Here is a breakdown of the protein in this salad. Mind you, this in in the entire salad, but even a 1-cup serving would have a substantial amount of protein.

3 cups lentils 54 g
1 1/2 cups black turtle beans 58.5 g
1 1/2 cups chickpeas 58.5 g
1 1/2 cups green beans 3 g

8 cups of food containing 174 g of protein. That amounts to 21.75 g per cup.

How much protein is enough?
They say you should have 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight daily. That means that most adults would need between 70-100 g of protein per day. Getting 1/5 to 1/4 in just one cup of bean salad is a great start to meeting the requirement.

Stuffed Squash with Brown Butter Sage Sauce

Laura has been harvesting a lot of herbs from the garden so I couldn't resist using some of our yummy sage in a brown butter sage sauce. I particularly love it on squash, although I'm sure it's good on many other things.

Stuffed Squash

Squash Stuffers

I cut a buttercup squash in half and de-seeded and de-pulped it, leaving twin squash bowls, which I placed into the roast pan. I knew I was going to fill those bowls with something but didn't quite know what. I opened the pantry and surveyed our supplies; we keep a lot of grains on hand. I debated between lentils, barley and rice and finally settled on parboiled and wild rice. I cooked about a cup of rice with 2 cups of water uncovered until the water was absorbed, added some dried sage, then spooned it into the squash bowls, filling each about halfway. I then topped them up with water since it was still only half cooked. Finally, I added 4 cups of water to the roast pan and placed it into a 400 degree oven for about an hour. The rice came out perfectly cooked. But! I wasn't done flavoring this dish yet.

Brown Butter Sage Sauce

I added 1/4 cup of vegan butter to a small pot on the stove and cooked on medium until it began to foam. Then I added a couple pinches of dried sage, crumbling it between my fingers. The butter quickly deep-fries the sage until crisp and it only takes a minute. Drizzled over the squash and rice it is sooo amazing.

Rules Be Damned

We served the squash and rice with a couple other veggies, namely potatoes and green beans. I know, I know, so much starch. Who has rice and potatoes? Funny thing is, when you make a diet change as big as going vegan, you tend to throw old conventions out the window. Bye bye old conventions. And good riddance!! Because this was one of the most amazing meals ever.

Squash & Rice, Smashed Potatoes and Green Beans

Best Dinner Ever

Show-Stopping Taters

Oh, and the stuffed squash was probably only the second-most delicious thing on the plate. The green beans were ultra fresh and cooked to perfection, but the potatoes stole the show and deserve their very own blog post. Stay tuned for the Smashed Potatoes blog.

Cabbage Rolls

Since cabbage rolls have always been one of my favorite dishes, I am really happy to discover that I can still enjoy them despite having given up eating meat. My aunt Emeline used to made cabbage rolls; they were kind of her thing. She used to steam the cabbage leaves in the dishwasher! I boiled mine in a big pot of water and they were easy to work with.

Vegan Cabbage Rolls

Sub the Meat for Lentils

Obviously there is no ground beef in these cabbage rolls. They're made with lentils instead, and they're actually pretty amazing. I've eaten them for supper twice and for lunch twice and I clean my plate every time.

Recipe Tweaking

Original recipe here
I stayed true to the original recipe with the exception of leaving the raisins out of the sauce. I think I would have liked the raisins, but Laura wasn't feeling it, so we decided to skip them. If I made them again, I would use less black pepper and a tiny bit more allspice.

Other things you could do would be to use other types of spices, or your favorite marinara instead of the sauce in the recipe. You could also use any kind of rice or other grain you want for the filling, or even add some veggies, like chopped spinach or kale.

Cabbage Rolls in Roast Pan

Takes Foreffingever

I have two complaints about making cabbage rolls. The first is that they are friggy and time-consuming. I don't think these can be made in an hour. The cabbage has to be cored, boiled and cooled. The rice and lentils both need to be cooked for the filling. There is chopping for both the sauce and the filling. For this first time, everything was measured. Then there is the wrapping, which can be a bit of an exercise in trial and error, especially at first. Then, finally, there is the cooking, which I think was about 45 minutes to an hour. You can't just come home from work and say, "Let's have cabbage rolls for supper!" and expect to eat before 9:00 pm. Not happening. No, these are a Sunday afternoon endeavor. But, worth it.

Makes a Huge Mess

The very worst part (my second and loudest complaint) about making cabbage rolls is that it creates a lot of dirty dishes - definitely not a one-pot meal. I think I dirtied a mixing bowl, a pot for the rice, a pot for the lentils, a pot for the sauce, 2 baking dishes (because I don't have a large one and had to use the small roast pan and a covered casserole dish), the grater, all the measuring cups and spoons, a wine glass and a big pile of utensils. Besides that, there was sauce splattered all over the stove, and bits of filling all over my work space and torn and shredded pieces of cooked cabbage all over the counter. And dishes everywhere. Not my ideal work environment, since I'm a "clean as you go" kind of kitchen bitch, but that doesn't seem to be entirely possible with these since there are too many things on the go at once. Wish I'd gotten a picture of it.

But again, it's worth it. And makes about 18 rolls.