Archive | vegetarian RSS feed for this section

Creamy Harissa Lentil Soup

14 Apr

creamy lentil harissa soup

I had a heck of a time finding Harissa, and now that I have, I am definitely in love. It has a tomato paste bitterness to it, with the brightness of red chilis, coriander, and cumin adding depth and a little squirt breathes life into so many foods. I first bought it to make Soup Addict’s Spinach Egg and Harissa Chopped Salad and now I feel like the old lady in the Frank’s Red Hot commercials – I wanna put that sh*t on everything!

I think it would be lovely in a vinaigrette for a salad with roasted cherry tomatoes, mint, and chickpeas. I also want to turn it into a marinade for chicken skewers and then wrap it up in some warm buttered naan. What about a Harissa baba ganoush dip? And I don’t even like eggplant! Speaking of complementary flavours, mint, feta, lemon, toasted fennel seeds are all complementary if you want to experiment with Harissa.

Infatuation like this doesn’t take much tempting – and it was up against Sumac, which I have been eager to bust into ever since I found it at MacLean’s in Nanaimo last month. The can of full fat coconut milk was calling my name from the back of the pantry and I knew Harissa, as a North African spice, was a safer bet for experimenting with a huuujass pot of stoup.

This recipe will work with whatever vegetables you need to use up, though onions, celery and carrots should all play some role for mirepoix affect. And if you’re in Victoria, check out the newly renovated and expanded Rootcellar on Blenkinsop and Mackenzie. They now carry pretty much every food that has ever crawled into my heart and never left, and the space is open and bright and evokes a much more peaceful, breathable shopping experience!

Also, please do not skimp on the coconut milk, ok? I know, I know. It is tempting to buy the reduced fat stuff, but the truth is I just use that light coconut milk to justify a cookie, extra piece of French toast, or glass of Dark Matter somewhere else in life, so what’s the difference? Besides, the lentils and veggies will absorb most of the broth during cooking, so when you add the coconut milk it will just melt into the pot like a dream and you won’t regret it. I promise!

Creamy Harissa Lentil Soup

Makes a huuujass pot – I never understand how people count out soup servings since I eat soup in all kinds of serving sizes, whenever it feels like a good idea!

Ingredients

1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon
1/2 – 1 teaspoon of smoked paprika (definitely more than the cinnamon but not as much as the Harissa)
2 generous squirts from the Harissa bottle (available in Victoria at Aubergine Foods and Chou Chou Charcuterie or Maclean’s in Nanaimo)
Cayenne pepper, salt, and black better to taste
Salt and pepper to taste
1 can of coconut milk (not the light stuff!)
1 900 ml carton of vegetable broth
1 1/2 cups of dried green lentils
1/2 a large sweet white onion
3 cloves of garlic, minced

5 carrots, thickly sliced
5 celery stalks, chopped
Handful of cremini mushrooms, thickly sliced
1 large bunch of kale, chopped finely

Sweat the onions, then add the mushrooms to brown them. Add all of the dried spices and Harissa paste, along with the garlic. Allow to toast and stir for about 1 minute, until it is fragrant and has absorbed the moisture from the onions and mushrooms and garlic. Add all the remaining vegetables, except the kale. Brown semi-covered for about five minutes to bring out the flavours in the spices and get them steamed into the vegetable mixture. Add the lentils and continue to brow semi-covered for another five minutes, stirring often.

Add the vegetable broth and raise the heat to medium-high until the stoup comes almost to a boil. Turn down to low and simmer covered for about 40 minutes. Add the kale, recover and cook for another 10 minutes. When the lentils are nice and tender, remove from the heat and add the can of coconut milk. Add salt, pepper, and cayenne to taste and serve with fresh lime and cilantro.

Tags: , , , ,

Recipes from a Peaceful Heart

13 Apr

This white-haired woman on the Kake territory of Alaska bends to rinse the fresh salmon eggs in a bucket of Alaskan sea, under the gaze of mountains. “It won’t turn out if you don’t have peace in your heart,” she said. I wasn’t fortunate enough to witness this act –we watched it unfold on Andrew Zimmern’s Bizarre Foods America. And at first, I rejected the whole statement. After all, there have been many nights I have turned out a unique and lively meal with anger, sadness and heaviness in my heart. Nothing burned, nothing separated, nothing seized. Except for me. My relaxed and meditative cooking became a multi-tasked, clock watching, batter splattered, grumbly little CF. And yet I kept doing it because it made me feel normal during a time of transition and uncertainty and all around stress. My time in the kitchen became what I never wanted it to be – a chore – and eating became a fast, silent and often depleted affair. In short, my cooking has been without passion and my consumption is often mindless.

We started this blog to document and appreciate our travels in food and drink and the people and places we share those experiences with. On a spiritual and philosophical level, I also want to share my appreciation for the diversity of nourishing, living things on this earth, and to practice being grateful and amazed by the many forms they can take and gifts they can bring to us. So I am working on finding satisfaction by cultivating wonder in my kitchen again – and I am re-learning what peace in the heart does to my food, my eating, and my outlook. And I have managed to make quite a few things with a peaceful and present heart.

coconut bread

Coconut Cardamom Banana Bread

With no added sugar or oil, based on The Sweet Beet recipe, with a few minor substitutions.

Ingredients

2 large eggs
1 1/2 cups mashed banana (about 2 large very ripe – mine were totally black)
1/2 cup apple sauce
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup of almond coconut milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup white flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup of unsweetened shredded coconut
About 1 teaspoon or a teaspoon and a half of cardamom pods, smashed with mortar and pestle

Preheat oven to 350. Grease loaf pan or use parchment paper.  In large bowl, beat the eggs with a beater until fluffy. Mash the ripe bananas and add to the eggs – I don’t bother to measure out the banana. I just added a bit more apple sauce one time when I sensed it wasn’t quite thin enough. Both times I have made it, it turned out fine without measuring! Add milk and vanilla and mix well.  In another bowl mix all dry ingredients and add dry to wet.  Pour into loaf pan. The recipe says to bake for 45 minutes but I am often closer to an hour, even on convection setting. Just watch closely and make use of that good ole raw spaghetti trick!

Coconut Glaze:

3 tablespoons almond coconut milk
1/2 teaspoon of pure vanilla
1 cup icing sugar
1/2 cup unsweetened shredded coconut

Whisk all the glaze ingredients together and pour overtop of the loaf while it is still a bit warm. This is a thin glaze that the loaf will absorb, so I would recommend trying to loosen the loaf from the pan when you take it out to cool, but to leave it in the loaf pan to cool and then pour the glaze overtop so it soaks it all up. As you can see from the picture, I poured mine overtop after the fact and lost a lot of goodness on the bottom!

Buffalo chicken chilli

Buffalo Chicken Chilli

Ingredients

3 tablespoons of vegetable oil
1 lb of ground chicken, 1 lb of ground turkey
3 large carrot, thickly sliced
1 large onion, chopped
3 stalks celery, chopped
5 cloves garlic, minced
5 tablespoons chili powder
2 tablespoons ground cumin
1 tablespoon ground paprika
1/2 cup buffalo wing sauce
1 – 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar (I add, to taste, near the end)
1 19 oz can of tomatoes
1 19 0z can of tomato sauce
1 can of white beans
1 can of black beans

Brown the chicken and turkey in the vegetable oil. Add the spices and the garlic and cook until fragrant and toasty, about 1 to 2 minutes.

Stir in the veggies and brown until the onions are soft and transluscent. Add salt and pepper just to season.

Stir in all the remaining ingredients, bring to a simmer, then turn down to low. Put a lid on it and go about the rest of your day. Add the apple cider vinegar, and more salt and pepper to taste when you are almost ready to serve.

We had ours with sliced fresh avocado, cilantro, and some good squeezes of lime juice!

 quinoa granola

Quinoa Granola

Inspired by this recipe from Savoury Simple, last week’s variation was goji berry and apricot, this week it’s blueberry almond vanilla.

Ingredients

  • 2 1/4 cups regular or gluten-free rolled oats
  • 1 cup quinoa, uncooked
  • 1 cup whole raw almonds (or other nuts of your choosing)
  • 1/2 cup sunflower seeds
  • 1/2 cup shredded unsweetened coconut
  • 1 cup of honey (or 1/2 cup honey and half cup applesauce)
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 2 teaspoons cinnamon
  • 2/3 cup dried fruits of your choice

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F.
In a large bowl, combine all the dry ingredients, except the dried fruit and mix well.
In a smaller bowl combine the vanilla and binder/sweetners together. Add the liquids into the dry ingredients and stir well to make sure everything is evenly coated.
Spread the mix in an even, thin layer on the baking sheet. Sprinkle the cinnamon evenly on top.
Bake for approximately one hour, turning the granola every 10-25 minutes. For the first half of the cooking time, I don’t check it as often, but as it gets closer to done you will want to check it to make sure it isn’t burning. I have burned granola in the past and it is very depressing.
Remove from the oven and allow to cool before storing in an airtight container.

NOTE: if you use the full cup of honey, I would recommend cooking at a lower temp (the original recipe I followed baked it at 225 and I ended up turning it up to 275 after an hour because it just wasn’t toasting darkly enough for me. But I imagine the lower cooking time is probably better for not burning your honey!). If you use the honey and apple sauce combination, you will get some sweetness but you won’t get those shattery little clusters – that only comes if you substitute with some shiny syrupy goodness like maple syrup or brown rice syrup.

May your own kitchen adventures bring you peace too.

Tags: , , , , , ,

Pumpkin, Beer, and Smoked Gouda Soup

21 Oct

I had planned to share some details of our noteworthy food and drink experiences in Vancouver, the Okanagan, and Squamish/Whistler/Pemberton from the summer, but the truth is that my heart belongs to fall and my brain is completely clouded over with infatuation for breezy gray days and root vegetables. And with the making of this soup, there is just no coming back – you’ve been warned.

Yesterday my mum dropped off a giant farm care package at my house, including a big ‘ole pie pumpkin and two pounds of bacon from the summer’s pigs. My first thought was to whip up some pumpkin pancetta pasta – but what to do with the rest?

We still have a bunch of pumpkin beers kicking around in the fridge (working on a ‘best of’ pumpkin beer post) and being that I am a cheese fiend, I started to think about beer cheese soup and how much more appealing it suddenly seemed with the velvety sweetness of fresh pumpkin……so I tabled my plans to make pear ginger coconut carrot soup and got down to business breaking down my pumpkin.

The small amount of curry powder and apple give just a bit of depth, but I deliberately stayed away from cinnamon and other Indian cross-over spices in order to retain the soup’s autumnal herb and cheese flavour.

The beer I chose, Howe Sound’s Pumpkin Strong Ale, has quite a powerful molasses note that worked exceptionally well here. You will probably still have great results with a nut brown or an amber, but the pungent taste of a strong ale is ideal.

Pumpkin, Beer, and Smoked Gouda Soup

  • 2 tablespoons butter
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • Half a large sweet white onion, diced small
  • 1 gala apple, diced large
  • 2 carrots, thickly sliced into coins
  • 1 tablespoon of mild curry powder
  • 1 clove of garlic
  • 1 big sprig of thyme
  • sage leaves
  • 4.5 – 5 cups of pumpkin, large dice (sweet pie pumpkin)
  • 4 cups vegetable stock
  • 1.5 cups strong ale
  • 1 – 1.5 cups grated smoked gouda
  • Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Melt the butter and olive oil over medium heat and add the onions. Sweat the onions for a few minutes until they start to get translucent and then add the apple. Sautee them together until the apple becomes fragrant and starts to soften.

Add the carrots and continue sautéing for another 5 minutes or so.

Add the lightly smashed clove of garlic and the curry powder. Stir and work into the vegetables until fragrant, about 1 minute.

Add the vegetable stock, beer, and diced pumpkin. Stir it all together then crank up the heat to medium-high.

When it starts to come to a boil, stir in a few sage leaves a big sprig of thyme.

Cover and simmer on medium-low heat for about 20 minutes or until the pumpkin and carrot are both very tender. I am always surprised at just how quickly pumpkin cooks!

Remove from the heat. Remove the big branch of thyme and a couple of the sage leaves. I left one sage leaf in the soup when I blended it all together with my hand blender.

Return the pot to the stove and stir in the cheese in small handfuls, over low heat. Smoked gouda is not a great melting cheese so there will be flecks of curd-like cheesy bits in your soup but it mostly melts, which I think is the best of both worlds. You could also use an aged white cheddar. I didn’t add any salt or pepper until the very end, which is the best way to go with anything cheese heavy because you’re going to get some salt/seasoning from the cheese itself.

I served this up for dinner sprinkled with spicy sweet roasted pumpkin seeds on top and kale chips for crunch.

This dish has inspired me to try going all the way with Indian spices and stewed pumpkin. Maybe also with kale stewed into it and some cubed paneer. Pumpkin Saag Paneer, anyone? I wish I had a hollow leg. And another pumpkin.

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Walking Contradiction

13 Oct

Broccoli is one of those veggies that makes a good sidekick, but it’s not much of a star. Sure, it holds up well in stir fry and I do love me some savory sweet broccoli slaw in the summer but even when it is blanched, I find the true essence of broccoli to be woody and just a bit ho hum. And I’m usually of the mind that if the only way I can enjoy a particular veggie is to douse it in cheese, heavy cream, eggs, or butter, then it’s probably not worth keeping in the dinner rotation. However, I’m also of the mind that eating well on a reasonable budget and being a resourceful home cook means working with what’s cheap, seasonal and plentiful. So, since broccoli was 99 cents a pound last week and I do love me some pesto, I decided to make Deb’s broccoli cream pesto pasta. Life’s just more fun when you embrace contradiction, anyway.

If you like broccoli cheese soup, pesto, or broccoli slaw, this pasta hits on all those cravings. The flavour is a little bland as written, but you can add more heat, acid or cheese to your tastes. I added extra garlic, red chilies and a bunch of lemon zest. I also roasted some prawns with lemon zest and red chillies and added those at the end. Next time, I’ll also add a splash of white white. If you object to the use of the term “pesto” without the presence of nuts, I could see toasted finely chopped almonds working well in this dish as well, to complement the woody flavour of the broccoli and add a bit more depth. And with so few components, I would recommend grana padano or parmigiano regianno. I used shredded light parm and it was a sad mistake. So, do as I say and not as a I do ;-) This pasta is creamy and cheesey and yet somehow still light, even for a pasta. As it turns out, contradiction is also delicious.

Tags: , , ,

When it’s guuuud

18 Sep

We have been to Guu twice this summer and both times we were delighted to find an exceptional variety of cheap and creative Japanese small plates to share. I happen to love dim sum but it is really not acceptable as a dinner option, so Guu is a great substitute when I want the bustling, shared, Asian food experience. Plus, just like dim sum, you can get your dining pals to be a bit more adventurous than usual given that many items are just $4-$6.

They also make their own Guud Ale, which has a mild caramel flavour and a smooth finish – plenty of personality but unlikely to conflict with the diversity of your order.

Some of the items we tried included: octopus balls with bonito flakes, duck salad with mushrooms, beef tendon soup, fried octopus with ancho mayo, and chilli sweetbreads.

Octopus balls with mustard and bonito flakes

Duck salad with roasted mushrooms

This beef tendon soup looks unappetizing, I know! But I promise you that it is melt in your mouth tender, and the broth has the purest beef flavour we have ever tasted. That big gob of yellow stuff is Japanese mustard, which you can add for a spicy kick as you see fit. It’s kind of like having miso soup as a starter – it’s only $2, give it a try!

Beef tendon soup

Octopus with ancho mayo

These sweetbreads are tasty, and they definitely convinced me to keep trying intestines, but I cannot tell a lie; after a few bites, I knew I was eating something that has a prior life involving poop.

In Spain and Portugal, plates of small whole fried fish are quite popular, and we ate a lot of them on our honeymoon so we wanted to try these fried silver fish. I would describe them as fish and chips in a single bite. Mr. ST said they reminded him of pork rinds. You know when you learn things about your partner’s life before you that just don’t fit with the person you know? Pork rinds are among the skeletons in Mr. ST’s closet.

Fried silver fish

We also tried a tofu and kimchi hot pot and the most incredible egg dish that was like a vegetarian scotch egg. Where the hard boiled egg would normally be surrounded by sausage meat, this one had mashed pumpkin, coated in panko bread crumbs. I was getting deliriously full by this point in the night, so unfortunately I have no photographic evidence.

Bring a date, or bring a crowd, and be ready to have fun with your food. Guu is noisy, casual and doesn’t take itself too seriously, something we could all stand to try once in a while!

← Older Entries

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 247 other followers

%d bloggers like this: