Menu Monday and recipe 18 (and last day of April!)

It's a little nuts to think that April has come to a close, but here we are.  Tomorrow is May 1st, which means the end of my "month of cooking," which didn't really happen quite as planned.  But, since I'm not actually intending to stop cooking, I think that's probably OK.  I'll do an overview of the month sometime this week, but for now, I think I can safely say that, despite the fact that I didn't cook every day, April was a success.  However, going forward, I'm going to stop numbering my recipes. :)

We put our CSA subscription on hold this week because we have a ton of stuff still to use up, so this week, the goal is to cook with the wide variety of random veggies in the fridge.  The tentative plan is as follows.

Monday: Black bean chili with TVP (textured vegetable protein)
Tuesday: Potato pancakes with green garlic, braised greens on the side
Wednesday: Roasted veggies (beets, sweet potatoes, and carrots)
Thursday: Probably nothing
Friday: Depends on amount of leftovers.  Maybe I'll try those black bean burgers I mentioned before but never did make.
Saturday: I want to make dessert of some kind!  Still have that sopapilla recipe to try, and Cindy also gave me a recipe for this delicious baked glutinous rice pudding.  So maybe one of those.
Sunday: Something mushroomy.  I'm thinking of trying a balsamic mushroom recipe with spaghetti squash, since we've got another one living in the fridge.

So, for whatever reason, I've been craving chili for the last week or so. It's really not chili weather here, what with the triple digit weather, but it's what I wanted.  We had dried black beans from the CSA from a while ago, and last week, we got another baggie of beans.  Given that it's only gonna get hotter over the next several months, I figured I may as well use the beans and make chili now. 

Black bean vegetarian chili with TVP
Ingredients
2 cups black beans (I used dry beans, so I'll include the long-soak method in the recipe)
1 cup TVP
6 cups veggie broth
3 medium onions
1 head garlic
2 cans (14.5 oz each) stewed tomatoes (Italian recipe is what I use)
1 can tomato paste
3-4 tablespoons olive oil
3ish tablespoons coriander seed
3-5 tablespoons cumin
3-5 tablespoons chili powder
salt to taste

The night before, wash and sort your beans, taking out any dirt, gravel, or shriveled or discolored beans.  Put the beans in a soup pot and cover with lots of water.  Leave overnight, 8-12 hours.  When you're ready to start cooking, drain the beans, return to soup pot, and cover with about 5 cups of the veggie broth.  Bring to a boil, allow to boil vigorously for about 10 minutes, then turn down the heat so they boil steadily but not vigorously.  Partially cover the pot (this is important, it prevents the liquid from evaporating!) and allow to cook for about 25 minutes.

In the meantime, bring the remaining cup of broth to a boil and in a separate bowl, soak the TVP in it for 5-10 minutes (it's OK to leave longer until you're ready for it).

While that's all happening, chop the onions.  Heat the olive oil over medium-high heat in a large pan and add the onions.  Cook for about 7-8 minutes.  Mince the garlic and add it, along with salt and about half the spices.  Cook for another 5-10 minutes, until the onions are soft.  Add the tomatoes with their juice, tomato paste, and TVP and simmer for 5-10 minutes.

When the beans are starting to be tender, uncover the pot.  Add the onion-tomato-TVP mixture and cook for about 10 minutes. Add the remainder of the spices (or more or less, as you wish) and cook until the beans are fully tender but not mushy, stirring occasionally.  Serve with cheese on top if you have it (we didn't) or whatever other garnish people like for chili.

Nice big bowl of chili!

Recipe summary
Time: Not counting pre-soaking the beans, it took about 1.5 hours, with about 45 minutes being mostly hands-off.
Serves: 8, easy.  It's quite filling.
Highlights/thoughts: I have to make sure to cook the beans for longer on their own, and to cover or partially cover the pot while doing so.  My beans turned out a little undercooked, and I think it's because too much of the liquid evaporated (and then I added tomato, which is acidic and stopped the cooking process).  They weren't so undercooked as to be unedible, and I'm glad they didn't turn out mushy instead, but still.  Oh, and I probably used about 1/3 of the beans I made and just froze the rest.  Also, the TVP isn't totally necessary, but it adds a nice meat-like texture and some extra protein.
Would I make this again?  Yes, though I'm not attached to using dried beans, or black beans.  The flavor was similar to my tortilla soup, which I make with garbanzo beans, so I might try that next time.
Nutrition Facts (per serving): I've just started using a cite recommended to me by Cindy's sister Emily, and it allows you to build custom recipes by entering ingredients from its database (or adding your own if you know the nutritional info).  I don't promise that I'll do this for every recipe, but I figure I'll include it when I bother to calculate it for myself.

Calories: 288.9

Total Fat 10.7g

  Saturated Fat 1.5g

Cholesterol 0mg

Sodium 799.5mg

Total Carb 38.2g

  Dietary Fiber 11.8g

  Sugars 12g

Protein 13.6g

Taking advantage of the last days of cold with a soup recipe

I know I said I'd have a soup recipe yesterday, but then there was the Tuesday Tip thing...and here we are. :)  But a day late is better than never, right?

So, to use up the aforementioned beet greens, as well as lots of other veggies, I decided to make a minestrone-style soup, adapted from a recipe in my Cooking Everything Vegetarian book.  I've made it several times now, and the thing I really love about this recipe is that it's designed to be flexible.  You use a few constant things (carrot, onion, tomatoes, veggie stock), some hard vegetables of your choosing, and some soft vegetables of your choosing.  The process is the same every time, but the flavors vary based on what you use, so it's never quite the same.  Hard vegetables are things like potatoes or turnips, and soft vegetables are things like zucchini or greens.  Minestrone typically includes beans, as well, but this recipe doesn't, and I don't like them enough to go out of my way to get them.  Also, the recipe calls for celery along with carrot and onion, but since I'm really not a fan of celery, I just leave it out. 

Minestrone-style soup
Ingredients
6-8 cups veggie stock
1 biggish onion
2-3 carrots
celery if you like it (I don't know how much)
1 can stewed tomatoes, with juice
1-2 cups hard vegetables, chopped
1-2 cups soft vegetables, chopped (or more if you'd like, I prefer this soup a little thick, for some reason)
small bunch of parsley (optional, I've also used dill)
parmesan (optional)
olive oil
salt and pepper

Directions
Coarsely chop the onion and carrot and saute over medium-high heat in the olive oil until soft, about 5 minutes.  One way to save time on this step is to saute a large batch of chopped onions and carrots all at once, then freeze them in recipe-sized portions.  Salt and pepper, then toss in the hard vegetables.  I used turnips this time, since that's what I had on hand.  Cook, stirring, for about 2 minutes.  Add stock and tomatoes, bring to a boil.  If you have some old parmesan around, chop up the rinds and add them at this point - they turn soft and chewy and delicious in the soup!  Turn the heat down and allow the whole thing to simmer for about 15 minutes, until the tomatoes have broken down and the hard vegetables are pretty soft.  Add the soft vegetables and the parsley if you're using it.  This time, I used the now-infamous beet greens, some turnip greens, and some mustard greens.  I also used dill instead of the parsley.  Adjust seasonings to taste and bring the whole thing back up to a simmer.  Cook, stirring occasionally, until everything is soft -- probably another 20 minutes.  If you're cooking other things at the same time, this can simmer for a while and it only gets better.  Serve with more parm, if you'd like. 

This ends up being a lot of soup -- we got about 8 servings.  It tastes even better after it's sat overnight, though!

Tip for the recipe:  Using pre-made onion-carrot mixture is a big time saver, and is a nice way to use up some CSA carrots!  When I make big batches of the stuff, I usually just the food processor to chop up the carrots and onions to save time. Generally, I use a ration of 2-3 medium carrots to 1 large onion.