2015, a Recipe Odyssey: March Edition

So I mentioned in this post that I was going to try a monthly meal plan for March, sticking within my budget of $25/week for food. How did it go?

• Week 1: I spent $19.47 on groceries.
• Week 2: I spent $24.09 on groceries. Cutting it close! All necessites for my week’s plan.
• Week 3: I spent $20.30 on groceries. Roughly $10 0f that was absolute necessities for my planned menu, and I got some extra goodies! (okay, it was mostly bell peppers and avocados.) I ended up not doing all the planned meals because I had lots more leftovers than previous weeks, plus I was sick.
• Week 4: I spent $26.60 on groceries. This included what I needed for the little bit of overlap for the last couple days of March.
• But I did end up using the rest of my money buying a couple staple/pantry items that I’ll use next month too.

Keep in mind, we do have loads of bulk stuff stored in buckets from More Prosperous (or simply more reckless?) Times of the Past, and we have a separate line item for bulk food (and I spent all but pennies of that $50 this month aside from the above), so the above is strictly fresh veggies and staples like oil and sugar.

Speaking of oil and sugar, I bought a regular bottle of veggie oil and a 4lb bag of sugar for Week 1. As of the end of week 3, the oil had been long gone and another bottle half-used, and the sugar is all but gone. I find this disturbing.

Here’s what I made! Grouped by source.

From More Peas, Thank You:

1. Corn Chowda with Cornbread Croutons – GooGoo has been pestering me to make a potato soup for weeks now. I finally make one, and will she eat it? No. Sigh. She did like the cornbread croutons and the side of broccoli, though.

 From The Veg Feasting Cookbook:

2. Carrots in the Raw – This salad was very easy, requiring few ingredients, and went great with the burgers we had for lunch. I left out the raisins and just added some extra pumpkin seeds instead, because fruit in a vegetable salad is just weird to me. The following day we had the leftovers on top of lettuce. Yum.

3. Cumin Carrot Soup – This became steadily more disgusting the more of it that I ate. Mr Pine Nut thought it was good, but I heartily disagreed. I couldn’t taste cumin at all; even though I reduced the pepper it was way too peppery; worst of all the texture was just gross. Will never make again.

4. Turkish Lentil Soup – SO good. I was a little concerned, because the cinnamon smelled really strong while it was cooking, but as far as taste went, I didn’t even notice it. The flavours were all blended perfectly with nothing overpowering anything else. I was pleased, and would definitely make this again. Way better than the vomitous carrot sludge.

5. Spicy Yellow Dal – I didn’t have toor dal, but the book suggested subbing yellow split peas, so I used green split peas. It took a lot more than 2 cups of water to cook the peas, but this was overall quite a simple dish to assemble and it was very tasty. It was at the edge of my heat tolerance level, but very good. We ate it with rice and steamed broccoli.

6. Mexican Black Bean Salad – This was fairly simple to throw together, and it was a meal for Mr Pine Nut and I (with the addition of lettuce, and some bread on the side). It had a good flavour, but the recipe called for no salt. I added a tiny bit, but more wouldn’t have hurt. I’m not sure I’ll make it again, but it was fine.

7. Cabbage Curry – This was SO easy, and very tasty! I added the garbanzo beans to make it a meal, but the flavour was great and the heat level perfect (that is, not very hot. :-)) It’s a dry curry, and you could really use any veggie (or combination thereof) instead of the cabbage – cauliflower, broccoli, carrots, &c.

8. Cream of Veg Soup – This was just okay. Mr Pine Nut and Lou Who loved it; GooGoo wouldn’t touch it, and I didn’t finish mine. It was better than cumin-carrot soup, but I found it just too salty even though I’d diluted it considerably.

9. Chickpea Mash Stew – I really liked this, despite it being totally different from how I envisioned it would be. Lou Who loved it too!

10. Super Noodle Soup – Very basic. The special thing about it seemed to me just that all the veggies get cut up very tiny (1/8″ dice), and I had to add a lot of extra salt and some garlic powder because it just didn’t have much flavour without. It was good, but I don’t think I’ll rush to make it again.

11. Pulao Rice – This was pretty easy. I used brown rice so I changed the water proportion and cooking time, but it came out very nice and I liked it. I wasn’t super fond of the whole idea of having to pick out all the whole cloves, cardamom pods, and other such things though.

12. Chickpea Curry – I was prepping my ingredients for this and it calls for a 4-oz piece of ginger, thinly sliced. I only have (frozen) grated ginger, so I got it out and the frozen glob I had weighed exactly four ounces. The problem is that four ounces of grated ginger is like… a CUP’S worth. So I called out into the twitterverse and got confirmation that for the amount of curry, that seemed like an awful lot. So I decided to do 2 ounces instead. The end result was a curry with a good flavour… under an intense heat. I burned my entire digestive tract raw and had steam coming out my ears from eating it. So yeah, I doubt I’ll be making this again.

13. Saffron Rice – I made this to go with the abovementioned curry as per the book’s suggestion. It was okay. I wasn’t overly thrilled with it.

From the interwebs:

14. Parmesan Muffins – A friend made these and raved about them, so I decided to try them, because I need to get more savoury muffins into my culinary repertoire. They were excellent! I used flax instead of eggs (so 2T ground flax and 6T warm water), and I was too tired/lazy to make my favourite almond parmesan so I just used some Daiya mozzarella shreds I had in my freezer. And I left out the sugar.

15. Brownie Coco-Nut-Butter Cups – !!!!!!! YUM !!!!!! So, I made these for a potluck and forgot to take them with me. Oops. What a tragedy. 😉

From Vegan Simplicity:

16. Vegan Red Beans and Rice – This was good, but not great, which seems to be (so far) my reaction to most of Mark Anthony’s recipes. I bought this cookbook when he came and did a presentation/cooking class at our church and really haven’t used it much yet, so I definitely want to give it more of a chance before passing judgement. At any rate, this called for 3/4 cup of vegan margarine. O_O It also didn’t *look* super appetising.

17. Sri Lankan Style Mixed-Bean Soup – No picture; it looked sludgy and not super appealing, kind of pooplike, so like the red beans above the visual appeal was nil. But it tasted pretty good.

From Vegan Sandwiches Save the Day:

18. Green Monster Bread (made into bagels/rolls) – I used rye flour and caraway seeds in with this and like it a lot! It seems a tad on the sweet side, so I think I’d reduce the sugar next time, but aside from that this was a definite “something I’d make again”. Way to sneak some kale into my girls’ diets (and mine).

Ten Talents (1978 edition):

19. Carrot Salad – I thought the combo of carrot/pecan/cocoanut seemed a bit odd, but decided to try it anyway, and it was really good! Also very simple. I served it on a bed of lettuce/cabbage just to give it more variety but I would totally make it again.

Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar:

20. Cornmeal Poppyseed Biscotti – I hate lemon poppyseed bread. That being said, these were really good! I was surprised. I don’t know that they’ll be something I’ll make really often, but I brought some home from a potluck and know I’ll eat them. 🙂

21. Rocky Roads – I’ve had these before but haven’t made them before, and my suspicion that I’d like them better without the almond extract was completely correct. They are addictive, amazing, and I think the dough would be the perfect chocolate cookie base for a whole bunch of mix-ins. I’d like to try it plain too.

Everyday Vegan Eats:

22. Chickpeas and Dumplings – A bit too salty but it was really yummy anyway!

23. Black Bean Feijoada – Really, really good!

[ETA: 24. Macaroni Salad – I made this on a whim the last day of March, and it was GOOD]

Cookbooks [or other sources] represented in March: 8

Did I meet my goal? Barely! I was worried the last week or so that I wouldn’t hit 20, but I did.

See you next month, with April’s recipe report!

2015, a Recipe Odyssey: February Edition

Things that have happened this month:

• I broke my blender jar – again (SIGH)
• I ran out of regular sugar, which has forced me to be Creative with Liquid Sweeteners, because I have plenty of those, and also kept me from making cookies, which is good for my body and not good for my sugar-loving mouth
• We had our annual nonfire and it was fun
• I tried a bunch of new recipes!

Here’s what I made! Grouped by source.

From Veganomicon:

1 and 2. Chickpeas Romesco with Saffron-Garlic Rice – These were both fantastic and went together great, just as they suggested. Definitely would make again!

3. Chili Cornmeal Crusted Tofu – Failed to get a picture of this one. I liked this just okay. I think my cornmeal wasn’t quite fine enough and I didn’t have lime zest so it lacked that lime punch. The coating stuff was like twice as much as I actually needed though, so I froze the rest of it for later use.

4. Potato Leek Cassoulet – I wasn’t super duper impressed with this one; it seemed bland. I imagine that more salt would probably have been the answer, but while I can add salt to the stew, it’s hard to add salt to already-cooked biscuits. The leftovers I heated the next day I added some more salt to anyway and it did help a lot. So I may possibly make this again and just keep that in mind.

5. Beanballs – So I had some kidney beans in the freezer from a while ago and when I saw this called for kidney beans it was an immediate sell. They were really easy and tasty. Neither of my children were impressed, however.

6. Double Pea Soup with Roasted Red Peppers – I subbed frozen lima beans for well over half the peas called for because I thought I had more frozen peas than I did. Oops. Anyway, I was concerned I wouldn’t like this soup because of all the random seasonings in it that I would never ever use in pea soup. I didn’t really like the soup, but it was actually not to do with the seasonings, I just found it really blah somehow.

7. Spinach Noodle Kugel – I had such high hopes for this. I subbed kale and collards for the spinach because that’s what I have at the moment, and only about 1/3 the weight called for – and, guys, I just really don’t like collards and kale. There also seemed a tremendous imbalance between the greens and the pasta. I can’t imagine using 30 oz of frozen spinach in here, let alone that much kale.  I would like to try it again, with spinach.

8. Lemony Potato Wedge Things – (yeah I’m too lazy to go look up the actual recipe name) I had these going for probably about an hour, the last half of which I cranked the oven up to 400. They never really browned like they were supposed to. BUT, they really tasted good!

9. Soup With a Really Long Name – (see comment on previous recipe’s title) This was SO good! I subbed oregano for the thyme, because I ran out of thyme. Somehow that always happens when I go too crazy making Isa recipes! :-p Anyway, I would definitely make this again.

10. Rosemary Foccacia Bread – DE. LISH. US. My children adored it as well. We ate it with seasoned pinto beans.

From the interwebs:

11. Cranberry Paleo Muffins – Another recipe I found to try using my Christmas cocoanut flour in. These were the most disgusting things I have ever tasted in my life. Even my husband couldn’t eat them. If he can’t eat them, they really must be bad. Seriously, do paleo people actually EAT this stuff???? I took a tiny bite and gagged, as did both my children. Mr Pine Nut gamely picked out the cranberries from his, but declined to take a second one.

12. Cranberry Orange Upside-down Cake – I had exactly enough cocoanut flour from my Christmas bag left to make this. Of the three recipes I tried, this was easily the best, but it was still weird. I think I should have baked it a little longer, and arrowroot just has a weird texture. The flavour was good. It’s all about texture, which is kind of also a big deal. I won’t be in a rush to make it again, and I have no desire to run out and buy more cocoanut flour, because I’m simply not impressed.

13. Tofu – Mr Pine Nut made tofu once, a very long time ago (when we lived in the trailer). It came out soft, but good. I like, nay, LOVE tofu, and because of our finances right now I was thinking maybe I better learn to make it and save us some money. Well, the process went great until the cold water step at the end, when my blob of tofu decided “Hey, I’ll disentegrate into a bajillion bits!!” Not cool, tofu. Not cool. I’ll definitely try again, but preferably on a day when I’m not also doing a ton of other things like I was this day, and ask around for some input from tofu-making connoisseurs.

14. Okara Crab Cakes – I had plenty of perfectly good okara out of the lame tofu deal, though! So I tried this recipe. It was good. Not my favourite thing ever, but good.

15. Okara “Chicken” Nuggets – These were SO good! This is definitely going to be a go-to with future okara. I did the procedure a bit differently than outlined – I wrapped the mixture directly in foil and dumped it in a steamer basket in a covered pot. I did not do the breading and frying, which I’m sure would be good, but these were good just on their own too! We ate them with carrots and mac and cheese.

From Isa Does It:

16. Spicy Slurpy Spaghetti Sauce – Oh MAN this was hands down the best sauce EVER I will never make another sauce again! (Yes, crazy Pinterest peeps, I’m mocking you.) Seriously though, this was the best sauce I’ve ever made, and it was so easy. I subbed a combo of paprika/smoked paprika for the pepper flakes, since Mr Pine Nut is not a fan of heat, and I blended it in my food processor to hide the “stuff” (tomato chunks, onions) from GooGoo. GooGoo is not a fan of tomato anything, but she slurped this stuff right down with her linguine. Score!

17. Classic Baked Tofu – Loved the flavour; didn’t love the texture. I think next time I’ll cut thinner slices and skip the parchment paper; I like my baked tofu to have a bit more of a chewy crust than this one ended up with (even after being in the oven way longer than called for!) But I’ll definitely make it again. I had it with steamed broccoli and chicken rice. It was a super delicious meal.

18. Meaty Beany Chili – This was okay; I did not add the sweetener and I’m glad I didn’t; I like my savoury food to be savoury, and somehow the cloves made it seem sweet enough already. Not sure I’ll make this again.

19. Lentil-Quinoa Stew – I had only 3/4 cup of quinoa and I probably used only 1/2 pound of kale. Despite the kale (I am so not a fan) it was very good!

20. Dilly Stew with Rosemary Dumplings – This was amazing. I forgot to put the navy beans in (I don’t even know, guys) but it was still insanely delicious. When I heated the leftovers the next day I added in some of the navy beans with them. Either way it’s great.

21. Cheddary Broccoli Soup – Not a huge fan of this, although Lou Who snarfed down three bowls and had the rest tonight for her supper, cold, because she was in too much of a hurry to wait to warm it up! GooGoo was also not a fan. It tasted vaguely vomitlike to me when I first tasted it out of the pot, and when I reheated it for our Friday night supper it at least no longer tasted like vomit. It was, however, ridiculously noochy, and I’m really not a huge fan of nooch. It was worth a shot, but I don’t think I’ll make it again.

From Vegan Brunch:

22. Toasted Cocoanut Chocolate Chip Muffins – I loved the mango ones from last month, so I tried the chocolate chip variation. I had to do a lot of subbing because I’m out of, oh, sugar, and getting low on oil. So I used melted cocoanut oil and instead of the dry sugars used 1/4 cup agave. They turned out nicely and tasted great.

From Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World:

23. Carrot Cake Cupcakes – These were really good, despite the fact that I do not believe raisins belong in a carrot cake. I would leave them out next time, but I did very much like the overall flavour! I did a double batch in a 13×9 pan to take to a potluck.

Cookbooks [or other sources] represented in February: 5

Did I meet my goal? Yes, plus 3. Yay!

See you next month, with March’s recipe report!

Basic Brasilian Rice

I was going to take part in Vegan MoFo again this year. I signed up. My theme was going to be Music and Rice, and it was going to be super awesome.

But then I had a reality check. I’m preparing a concert with some friends that we’re intending to have ready by mid-September. I simply don’t have time to commit to MoFo with having to get that much music practise in!

So, I had to un-sign-up. Waaaaaaa. HOWEVER, I’m still planning to do my theme, just not all in one month. And I’m going to start now.

***

Among the various treasures preserved from my childhood is a cassette tape on which I’ve written in ballpoint pen: PIANO AND RICE.

Music and I go way back. This tape is a gem, created by my friend Edda and I, on which are some pieces she played from her piano lesson book and a fair number of brilliant original compositions such as “Mother and Me”, “Thunder and Lightning”, and “The Swan”, all of which were made up on the fly whilst our mothers, oblivious to the genius they had managed to gift the world, quietly had a garage sale out front.

Consider the lyrics to “The Swan:”

Gracefully she swims along
Down the Yahtzee river.
Along came a toad and ate her up,
Swimming down the river.
Along came a toad and ate her up,
Swimming down the river.
OH NO! Oh. No.

So, in honour of this ridiculous piece of nostalgia from my childhood, I have a dual, and perhaps wacky, theme this year involving two of my favourite things: music and rice. I will not limit this music to piano, because while I like piano, it’s not my favourite thing in the world any more.

So, to kick things off, here is some Bach, brilliantly executed on two harps, because Bach. And harps.

And why, you may ask, is the tape titled “Piano and Rice”? Well, the end of the tape is a recording I had running one evening when I was hungry for rice, and so it is a real-time chronicle of the making of a pot of rice for yours truly. I was probably 10 or 11. My dad sings a hit song called “Achy Breaky Rice” and one of the tracks is called “Atom Bombs and a Butt Imprint”.

Yes. I had an interesting childhood.

***

I already used this picture in another post, but hey, rice is rice, and kind of boring to look at on its own.

SO ANYWAY. RICE IS KIND OF AWESOME. I’m kicking things off with my go-to rice recipe. It is super simple – just a few extra steps from regular rice cooking – but tastes like a million bucks, and I can’t really go back to plain old rice anymore! GooGoo and Lou Who both love it, even though GooGoo claims, “I don’t like gar-wick.”

This recipe is adapted from Matthew Locricchio’s The 2nd International Cookbook for Kids (this is *not* a vegan cookbook, but worth it for this recipe alone in my opinion!). My changes: reduce the oil, change the water/rice proportions, and use brown rice. And I’ve tripled it – the original calls for 1 cup of rice, but we go through so much rice in our house that it would be just dumb to not cook enough to last a few days all at once.

In a heavy-bottomed pan, stir together:
3 cups brown rice (I use plain long grain brown, but jasmine and basmati work fine too)
3 T crushed garlic (3 large cloves)
1/4 c oil
2 1/4 tsp salt

Turn on heat and cook rice for about 5 minutes over medium heat, stirring constantly, to toast rice.

When the oil is beginning to absorb, add:
6 2/3 cups water

Stir together and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer, cover pot, and allow to simmer 30-45 minutes. Don’t lift the lid until it looks like the water is almost absorbed.

When the water is absorbed (you will know because there will be steam holes in the rice that are no longer bubbling), turn off the heat and leave covered for 10 minutes. Then fluff with a fork and serve.

Vegan Month of Food, Day 9: Cabbage Soup and Dumplings Casserole

So, I really, really, REALLY like Isa’s Chickpea Rice Soup with Cabbage. It’s one of my favourite soups. It’s warm, comforting, simple, and delicious.

I also really like the recipe for Savoury Seitan Pie that I did for last year’s MoFo.

So, this recipe is what happens when you combine the best of both Isa’s soup and my savoury pie. It’s like a potpie on steroids. So filling. So homey.

Spray a 13×9 pan and heat oven to 450.

In a soup pot, mix together:
1 c chopped red onion
3 cloves minced garlic
1/2 tsp dry thyme powder
1 tsp salt
1 c cooked rice
1 1/2 c sliced carrots
1/2 lb shredded cabbage (roughly)
3 c garbanzo beans, cooked or from a can
2 T fresh dill
1 1/4 c white sauce
1 T nutritional yeast

Leave on low heat, covered, to heat through while you prepare the biscuits.

This is the filling waiting for the biscuits to go on. Mmmm.

Biscuit topping:
2/3 c vegan margarine
2 c whole wheat flour
1 1/2 c white flour
2 T baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp dried dill
1/2 tsp dried thyme
2 c non-dairy milk, preferably unsweetened

Combine flours, baking powder, salt, and herbs. Cut in margarine until mixture resembles fine crumbs. Stir in milk just until soft dough forms. It will be sticky.

Pour warmed cabbage soup mixture into 13×9 pan, and then drop biscuit dough in blobs over the top, spreading to cover. It’s okay if it doesn’t completely cover the cabbage mixture.

Bake at 450 for 15-20 minutes.

Bonus picture of GooGoo raiding the bread bag while our lunch cools a bit on the table.

An Ode to White Beans, Cooked Carrots, and Rice

On Sunday I did a pressure-cooker load of white beans* and a large pot of brown rice.

On Monday I made stroganoff with blended white beans, the last of my moo-free seitan from “Vegan Sandwiches Save the Day”, and some other stuff, and we ate it over rice with some salad.

On Tuesday we had something. I don’t really remember now what, but I know it involved beans and rice.

On Wednesday I cooked vegetable stock. I also made a soup with rice and white beans and carrots and blended up the stock ingredients after they were done cooking and stirred that into the soup.

On Thursday we ate the rest of Wednesday’s soup and I did a crockpot seitan using some of the previous day’s veggie stock.

Today, Friday, we’re finishing the last of the beans and rice, cooked in the seitan cooking broth with some fresh carrots and frozen zucchini thrown in.

It makes my week so much easier when I do beans and rice on Sunday.

___

*Can someone PLEASE explain to me the difference between Great Northern and Navy beans? Is there a difference? THEY ALL LOOK THE SAME.

Virtual Vegan Potluck: Arroz sin leche

This is my first time participating in Virtual Vegan Potluck! I was stumped what to make for a while that would be easy but tasty. One of my friends on Facebook who is Peruvian suggested I do arroz con leche (rice pudding).

Since I’ve never made a rice pudding and a quick Google search showed me I had all the basic ingredients to make it, that’s what I’ve brought to the table for this virtual potluck. I added a few little twists of my own, such as cranberries instead of raisins, and, of course, without actual milk. 🙂

Autumnal Rice Pudding

In a saucepan, stir together the following:

3 c cooked brown rice
3 T sweetener (I just used plain sugar)
3 T vegan margarine
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp cloves
3/4 c non-dairy milk (I used soy, but any will do)
2 tsp vanilla
1/4 c dried cranberries (you could use other dried fruit)
Pinch salt

Heat to boiling and simmer, stirring occasionally, for about 10 minutes (more or less depending on the consistency you’re going for). Mine was thick enough to be moulded.

Serve with a dash of nutmeg, walnuts, and extra cranberries for garnish if desired.

Return to An Unrefined Vegan * On to Veggie V’s Vegan Adventure

Vegan Mofo #21: Savoury Rice Blend

Today it’s raining, sunny, cloudy, and windy. Not usually all at the same time, but with some definite overlap. Fall and its fickle weather is here for sure. We had fun this morning watching a squirrel who apparently has decided to winter underneath our unfinished house. He was stuffing his face with nuts and whatever else he could find and then darting up under our bay window (it’s not closed off yet) to get under the house. I anticipate Mr Pine Nut will be finding nut hoards galore when he goes under there to install our radiant floor heating.

This is a green onion. Not a leek. A green onion. Pretty much all my green onions are about this size or bigger.

At any rate, I decided to try this recipe. I’m getting a little burned out on the Betty Crocker MoFo project, quite honestly. Fortunately, I have made most all of the recipes that I originally planned to do; this one was one I chose after the fact because some of the ones I originally chose seemed blah. So, you may or may not see any further MoFo posts from me this month, now that I’ve done the minimum of 20 that is req’d.

So, the recipe. I was very much pleased with the earthy savouriness of this dish. It seems to whisper “Thanksgiving dinner side dish” to me. It tastes very much like a storebought Rice-a-Roni type deal, just minus all the extra junk or animal-derived ingredients they might throw in. This is definitely something I’m going to make again.

My only beef with the recipe was the length of time it took to cook, because Betty Crocker says to bake it for a total of close to 2 hours. Next time, I’m going to just cook it in a skillet until almost done (maybe 20-30 minutes?) and then pop it in the oven for 15 minutes rather than the other way around, just to add that extra baked dimension. I had it in the oven for at least 50 minutes after cooking it in the electric skillet for 15 minutes or so and it was still chewy: edible, but the wild rice especially was still not fully cooked. (Just by the way, I’ve rewritten the instructions below to reflect these changes that I’ll make next time.) Also, Mr Pine Nut and I demolished the entire pan; if you’re wanting to feed more than two double the recipe. This single recipe really didn’t make very much.

I served it with curried zucchini and freshly-made flatbread.

This recipe was originally found on page 228 of the 1978 Betty Crocker cookbook.

1/4 c uncooked wild rice
1/2 c chopped celery
1/4 c chopped onion
1 T olive oil
2 1/2 c chickenlike broth
1 T dried parsley flakes
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp Kitchen Bouquet
1/4 tsp ground sage
1/4 tsp dried basil leaves
3/4 c uncooked brown rice

Cook and stir wild rice, celery, and onion in oil in a pan (I used my electric skillet) until onion is tender. Add broth and heat to boiling. Stir in remaining ingredients and cook until liquid is almost completely absorbed, perhaps 20-30 minutes.

Transfer into ungreased 2-qt casserole and bake at 350 until liquid is completely absorbed and rice is tender, about 15 minutes.

Vegan MoFo #19: Stuffed Green Peppers

I’ve only made stuffed peppers once or maybe twice before, and it was early on in our marriage, and I honestly don’t remember much about them except that we weren’t really thrilled with them.

But, I thought I’d give it another whirl when I saw a recipe in my Betty Crocker cookbook for stuffed peppers. I was a little alarmed when I saw you were supposed to steam the peppers for x amount of minutes before baking them for an hour. Positive there would be absolutely nothing left of nutritive worth after that much cooking, I decided to eliminate the steaming part and only do the baking part.

The end result was a pepper that was still quite crunchy, which was nice from a nutrition standpoint but not so nice from an ease-of-eating standpoint. We had to pull out the vegan equivalent of steak knives – our nice, sharp paring knives – to cut up the pepper and eat it. Mr Pine Nut and I both agreed that it was okay, not out of this world, the filling was good, having to cut the pepper not so good.

I think peppers must have increased in size since 1978, too. I used 1 1/2 times the filling called for for the amount of peppers. (Granted, I did pick the biggest ones the store had, since they were charging per pepper, not per pound. *cough*)

Stuffed pepper in all its glory.

This recipe was originally found on page 38 of the 1978 Betty Crocker cookbook.

6 large green peppers
1 lb ground “beef” (about 2 c of non-taco bulgur beef)
2 T chopped onion
1 tsp salt
1/8 tsp garlic powder
1 c cooked rice
1 15-oz can tomato sauce
3/4 c mozzarella-type vegan cheese such as Daiya, or drizzle with a nut cheese sauce, or omit entirely

Cut thin slice from stem end of each pepper; remove seeds and membranes; rinse.

Stir together ground “beef” and onion in a skillet with a little oil until onion is tender. Stir in salt, garlic powder, rice, and 1 cup of the tomato sauce.

Stuff each pepper with the above mixture. Stand peppers upright in an 8×8″ baking dish. Pour remaining sauce over peppers. Cover with tinfoil and bake at 350 for 45 minutes. Uncover and cook 15 minutes more. Sprinkle or drizzle with vegan cheese of choice and serve.

InquisiCat+Pepper. Because the internet was about to implode if I didn’t give it another cat picture.

Vegan MoFo #16: Chickpea-Rice Casserole

Cat and casserole.

This recipe was originally Chicken-Rice Casserole, found on page 88 of the 1978 Betty Crocker cookbook.yyyyyyyyyyyt<—that was the cat.

1/4 c vegan margarine
1/3 c white flour
1 tsp salt
1 c chickenlike broth
1 1/2 c unsweetened nondairy milk (I used just water)
1 1/2 c cooked brown or wild rice (I used 1 c brown, 1/2 c white)
2 c or 1 can garbanzos
1/3 c chopped green pepper
2 T pimento
1/4 c sliced or slivered almonds

Melt margarine in 2-quart saucepan. Whisk in flour and salt. Remove from heat. Slowly stir in milk and broth a little at a time until smooth. Return to heat. Heat to boiling, stirring constantly. Boil and stir 1 minute.

Mix remaining ingredients in an ungreased 2-quart casserole or 8×8″ pan. Pour broth mixture on top and stir together. Cook uncovered at 350 until bubbly, 40-45 minutes. Garnish with parsley if desired.

GooGoo wanted me to take a picture of her casserole, on this stool, in her acorn bowl. She was very particular about these points. Here is the picture in all its glory.