Chickpeas Stewed in African Peanut Sauce with Sweet Potatoes and Brown Rice

Becoming a vegetarian as a young adult greatly influenced my interest in cooking. When I first became a vegetarian I found it challenging to make the recipes I loved as a meat eater adapted to my new vegetarian diet. When I got married the challenge grew because I had someone else to cook for! Someone who wasn't a vegetarian, and who wasn't open to becoming a vegetarian.

In order to get my husband to eat vegetarian I have to entice him. I have to bait him with new flavors, interesting textures, and me proudly announcing that our families entire dinner only cost a few dollars! 

Recently I found a contest focused on frozen vegetarian foods from Cedarlane Foods, and was enticed to enter. Even though it was a voting contest and I've sworn them off my mind started racing with the kind of food and flavors I would want in a frozen vegetarian meal. The end result was me trying my hand at making several vegetarian entrees and freezing enough meals that my family will have dinner on busy nights during the holidays. Some of the meals were old standbys I had never though to freeze, and some of the meals featured new and interesting flavors. 

All of my recipes can be seen in the links below: 

Chickpeas in African Peanut Sauce with Sweet Potatoes Over Brown Rice

Caribbean Jerk Red Beans and Coconut Rice

Cuban Black Beans with Quinoa

Mushroom Stroganoff with Broccoli

Feel free to vote on one of these recipes, or all of them. My favorite is the African peanut sauce.

The best part of this recipe contest is that I ended up with so many cook ahead meal in my freezer! It will be great for the holiday season when things are so much busier, but I have a feeling we'll be adding these wonderful meals into our regular rotation year round. 

Chickpeas in African Peanut Sauce Over Rice with Sweet Potatoes and Red Peppers

Sweet potatoes:

1 Tbsp. Peanut Oil

2 Sweet Potatoes peeled and diced

Salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 375 degrees

Coat sweet potatoes in oil and roast in the oven for about 1 hour or until sweet potatoes are tender.

Peanut Sauce:

½ Tbsp. peanut oil

1 white onion diced

2 green peppers diced

2 cloves garlic

2 cups water

1 can of tomatoes

1 cup of low sugar natural peanut butter

Salt and pepper

¼ tsp red chili pepper flakes (optional)

2 cups of prepared and drained chickpeas (or 2 cans)

In a heavy skillet add oil and onions and cook until translucent. Add peppers, and garlic and cook until peppers just softened. Add water, tomatoes, peanut butter and season to taste. Add red chili pepper flakes and allow to simmer for about 15 minutes until flavors are combined. Add chickpeas and heat through.

Serve over long grain brown rice.

The greatest part of this dish is watching my husbands face as he tries it and proclaims it good. Knowing he will go to his office with left overs proudly, and that I replaced another hamburger in the course of his life with something much much better. 

It's Friday! How about a drink? Sloe Gin Fizz

I'm from Portland, Oregon so when the song Portland, Oregon came out by Loretta Lynn and Jack White I was naturally a fan, the lyrics start like this:

"Well, Portland Oregon and sloe gin fizz
If that ain't love, then tell me what is, uh huh, uh huh"

As a Portland girl this song grabbed my attention, after all I like my home, I like fizz, and I like gin... but what on earth is a sloe? (Sounds like slow) I decided to start a journey that required me to look for liquor in two shops before enjoying this Loretta Lynn inspired cocktail.

If you are wondering why you have never heard of a sloe gin but Loretta Lynn has, it's because it's a really old drink. It was popular before prohibition in America, and then received a resurgence in the 1950's. I was not alive during either of these periods.

To start out with let's talk about sloe. Sloe (Prunus spinosa) also known as a blackthorn bush is a bush that grows in the UK.

The berries themselves are astringent, but they make a tasty cordial. If you happen to have some sloe sitting around you can make your own sloe gin by following direction here: 
http://www.choosy-beggars.com/index.php/2011/01/27/what-to-drink-this-week-sloe-gin/

But I don't, so instead I bought this:

and this:

Made Simple Syrup- It was simple!
1/4 cup sugar 1/2 cup water. Cook until dissolved and chill for any time you want to get your drink on.
If you don't want to make that much, or way way more the recipe is simple. 1 to 2 ratio. 1 part sugar, 2 parts water.

And made this:
Sloe Gin Fizz
1 oz slow gin
1 oz gin
1/2 oz lemon juice
1/2 oz simple syrup
3-4oz soda water
Add everything but the soda water to a martini shaker and shake with a few ice cubes. Then pour into a glass and top with soda water. The idea is to pour the soda water in a way that it fizzes.

Let's be honest- I made a pitcher of this drink to share, and drank it on Tuesday. And Wednesday. And Friday.

What ugly pasta taught me about life!

Over the summer I was browsing garage sales when I came across a hand crank pasta maker roller with two cutter attachments.  It was older, but still in the box and gleaming metal. I was interested, but the $10 sticker made me recoil. I had talked myself out of it when someone from the porch yelled, “$5 and it’s yours!” I stopped right in my tracks, I had $5 in my wallet. It was sold. When I got home I found out it was an Atlas Marcato and it they cost a pretty penny.

I've always had a dream of making wonderfully fresh pasta from scratch, like a little Italian lady in my kitchen. In my mind it’s always so beautiful, and artistic. It’s like an old movie, with soft light filtering in through a window, I’m standing lovingly over a floured board. I’m wearing an apron and a dress from the 1940’s with my hair pinned up. In reality, my hair is in a sloppy bun, I’m in a promotional t-shirt from some brewpub I visited, and a pair of yoga pants with a flour hand print on my butt because I couldn't find a towel and someone knocked on the door.  As the pasta tears I yell “Come on! What’s wrong with you! Please don’t rip again!” and I hear my daughter mimicking me as she pleads with her pretend food to cooperate in the family room.

Some of the highlights of my pasta making adventure: 

#1 This recipe makes way more pasta then I thought it would.

2 cups of water

A pinch of salt

3 eggs

2 tablespoons of olive oil

Water if it needs to be thinned more.

In a mixer combine flour and salt. Sift together. Make a well in the middle and add eggs slowly with mixer on low. Alternate one egg, olive oil until the dough is smooth and elastic. Use water if the dough requires it.

#2 Pasta making is not the kind of thing where you wake up one day and you are amazing at it. Especially ravioli, it’s going to take a while before I master ravioli.

#3 When you make a copious amount of pasta, it’s important to find places to set it all down between rolling. I thought I was being cleaver and doubled the recipe because my husband loves pasta and his birthday is coming up. Not smart! I ended up only rolling out only half of the pasta and desperately looking for a place to set it all. I learned that coat hangers hung from cupboards a perfect pasta drying racks in a pinch.

(As a bonus check out my rad 1951 General Motors double oven!)

At the end of the day I ended up with the sloppiest, ugliest looking plate of walnut and goat cheese stuffed ravioli ever imaginable… that looked like a pile of mushy ashen flesh, served two hours after I was planning on having dinner ready. But with my eyes shut it was amazing! The point of is that every cook makes mistakes. Even good cooks make mistakes. Even great cooks make mistake. Even professional chefs make mistakes. It’s the mistakes that really challenge us and make us grow into something better. This is not just true in kitchen, but in every aspect in life. Time to dust the flour hand print off my ass and get back into the kitchen.