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. 

Sweet potatoes- Not just for Thanksgiving chili

When I came across this website http://www.ncsweetpotatoes.com/blogger-recipe-contest/ I thought it was a great idea because the sweet potato to me is really an unsung hero in the kitchen. They are sweet, nutritious and have a great texture and have a versatility that really allows them to be added to a wide verity of dishes. I often add sweet potatoes in vegetarian dishes when I need more depth of flavor and a nice meaty texture. This chili is my hand down favorite recipe to use sweet potato in. It’s vegetarian, but I promise meat eaters will be happy to eat it. It’s all in the way the potatoes are diced. One sweet potato is diced up very fine so it breaks down in the chili and melts into the sauce. The other sweet potato is left to shine as a meaty component of the dish.

2 sweet potatoes diced (read special directions on how to dice these)
1 cup cooked and drained pinto beans.
1 cup cooked and drained kidney beans 
2 cloves of garlic minced
1 white onion chopped
1 red pepper, diced
1 jalapeno diced
1 large can crushed tomatoes
1 can petite diced tomatoes
2 cups water
1 handful or 2 tablespoons of diced cilantro
1 tablespoon cumin
1 tablespoon smoked paprika
A large splash or about 2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
2 tablespoons butter
1 bay leaf
Salt and pepper to taste

For the garnish (We do this when we are serving chili at a party along with corn bread and corn chips)
1/2 red onion diced
1/2 red pepper diced
1 jalapeno diced

Special Directions:

Peel two sweet potatoes, dicing one into bite size pieces, the other sweet potato dice into very fine pieces. This is a very important step to this recipe and should not be skipped.

 Combine all ingredients into the crockpot and season with salt and pepper. Set on high and let cook for about 8 hours until everything is tender and the smaller sweet potatoes have become very soft.

I feel like there should be more directions to this recipe, but that’s it!  The labor of this recipe is really only in the chopping. It also tastes even better second day, and after freezing as it breaks down the sweet potatoes in the sauce a little bit more, so don’t be afraid to double this recipe!  

This is a great link for picking out the right sweet potato- http://www.ncsweetpotatoes.com/sweet-potatoes-101/sweet-potato-varieties/ I like O’Henry for this recipe.

Mushroom stroganoff- a broccoli adventure

I came across a recipe contest from www.gratitudegourmet.com in regards to a vegetarian or vegan recipe using broccoli. This really got me thinking about how I eat broccoli. I basically only eat it four ways.

1)      In a stir fry

2)      Roasted in the oven with olive oil

3)      In a baked potato.

4)      In soup

It made me realize it's reallytime to expand the ways I cook broccoli. I started thinking about what I think of when I think of broccoli, warm comforting soups on cold nights, steaming baked potatoes in the dead of winter. To me broccoli is a comfort food, so what better way to serve it then in mushroom stroganoff?

Serves 4 adults

4 servings of Egg noodles (or 1/2 small package

2 tablespoon Coconut oil or butter

2 tablespoon flour  

1/2 sweet white onion

2 cloves garlic

10-15 button mushrooms diced chopped into small chunks

2 cups vegetable stock

2 cups fresh broccoli florets broken into small pieces

1 tablespoon fresh parsley

1 cup Greek yogurt

Cook 4 servings of egg noodles in boiling water until nearly tender. Drain and set aside.

While noodles are cooking:

Add oil and flour to a heavy bottom skillet. Cook for about 3 minutes until flour is no longer raw.

Add onion, garlic and mushrooms and sauté for 5 minutes.

Add 2 cups of vegetable stock and season with salt and pepper.

 Allow pot to simmer for about 15 minutes until flavors come together. Stir in broccoli and allow to cook for about 3 minutes, or until broccoli just turns bright green.

Stir in egg noodles, parsley and Greek yogurt and serve warm.

This stroganoff turned out filling, hearty and full of flavor. The meat in this meal isn't really missed due to the hearty meaty flavor and texture of mushrooms.

Vegetarian Red Cabbage Borscht A.K.A Purple Soup!

We started a spending freeze today- where we don’t plan to bring out the debit cards, or cash in our wallets or anything not vital, pre-planned, or required for us to get to work for the rest of the month. Because of the spending freeze, it means making smart choices with the items that we have on hand to maximize flavor, and taste. I decided to start this freeze off with a beautiful hearty soup. Red cabbage borscht!  A flavorful tasty and warm soup perfect the last little bit of winter. This soup is made with pickled beets, shredded red cabbage, orange juice, potatoes and celeriac. It’s topped with two tablespoons of sour cream for a stick to your ribs feel and a little extra protein. My daughter liked it because it was purple, and purple is of course a princess color. I have to be honest, I like it because it's purple too!

In a large Dutch oven combine:

1/2 TBSP butter

1/2 TBSP coconut oil

1 small white onion diced

1 large carrot peeled and diced

1 celeriac peeled and diced

Cook until onion is translucent

Add 2 cloves garlic minced

1 small head of red cabbage shredded

2 small peeled potatoes

1 granny smith apple peeled, cored and diced

Add:

4 cups water

2 cups orange juice

1 can pickled beets diced and their juice

2 TBSP apple cider vinegar

1 TSP caraway seed

1 TBSP dried dill

1 bay leaf

Salt and pepper to taste

Allow this soup to simmer for about two hours until all the flavors are melded together and an amazing soup forms.

On a side note relative to the soup above, for soups like this I fell head over heels in love with my Staub La Cocotte Dutch oven. It allows me to simmer my soup on low, and keeps all of the heat and broth inside the pot. There are times I want a broth reduced to concentrate the flavor, but this is not one of those times. I put so many flavorful things in this soup that I wanted to keep as much flavor in the soup as I could. I’m not a champion of expensive cookware, or kitchen toys, but I believe every home cook should have a heavy enamel coated cast iron Dutch oven for soups and cooking beans. There are of course less expensive brands to start out with, such as Lodge that will do the trick. I promise once you go cast iron though you will not go back to a lightweight aluminum pan for simmering soups.

Potpie- And a little bit of courage

I enter cooking contests now and again- sometimes because there is an amazing prize like a Kitchen-Aid mixer, or a trip to California, but more often because it challenges me to make something that I’ve never made before, forces me to flex my cooking muscles a little bit, and challenges me to make something that has stumbled me in the past. One of those major stumbling blocks in my culinary world has always been pie crust! Chewy, heavy, dense pie crust has always been all I’ve managed to turn out, but it’s never really bothered me because honestly, I don’t really care for pie, with one exception. Potpie! Potpie is one of those amazing dreamy rich comfort foods that I love, but always top with mashed potatoes due to my crust fears. When the Today Show asked for our best potpie recipes I decided it was time to face my potpie dilemma head on and find a way around not only not being able to make a decent crust, but also not enjoying crust. The solution I came up with is this: Greek Pot pie! With puff pastry atop a savory Greek inspired filling I couldn’t be happier with my dish. Plus my daughter ate something chocked full of strange vegetables just because it had the word pie in it. Even though the Today Show didn't choose to feature my recipe, facing my potpie fears, and getting my daughter to eat more vegetables makes me a winner with this recipe anyway! And I will be adding this to our dinner rotation.

Greek Potpie:

2 TBSP olive oil

1 white onion

2 cloves garlic

1 eggplant diced small

1 yellow squash diced small

1 portabella mushroom diced small (or 1 cup baby portabella mushrooms)

1 cup frozen spinach

1 Tbsp. dried oregano

1 Tsp. fresh dill

1 Tbsp. fresh parsley chopped fine

1 can garbanzo beans drained

1 can petite diced tomatoes

1 1/2 - 2  cups vegetable stock

Juice of 1/2 lemon

Salt and pepper

Buerre manie of 1 Tbsp butter, 1 Tbsp wheat flour kneaded together

4 oz reduced fat feta cheese crumbled (or as much as you like!)

1 sheet puff pastry

Preheat oven to 375 degrees

In a large Dutch oven heat 2 tablespoon of olive oil. Add onion and cook until softened, add garlic and cook until fragrant. Add all other vegetables and herbs, season with salt and pepper and cook for about 10 minutes until the vegetables release their juices. Add canned beans and tomatoes. Add just enough stock to resemble a very chunky soup, and the juice of 1/2 lemon.

In a zip lock bag knead together 1 Tbsp butter and 1 Tbsp wheat flour. When well incorporated scoop out of bag into soup. Stir into soup and let simmer until stew is just thickened. Add crumbled feta cheese.

Place thawed puff pastry on lightly floured surface and roll out until it’s just a little larger than your pan

Scoop stew into a pie dish or tart pan and cover with puff pastry dough cutting away extra.

Bake in oven for about 15-20 minutes or until golden brown.