I love to cook!

The weather is changing, perhaps we will have a winter yet! I am convinced the worst is yet to come, probably in early February. I might even break out a jacket this year. When the air turns chilly, I start looking for more soup, stew and chili recipes.  We love them all.  I do try alternating eating "regular" food with new recipes.  The familiar is always so comforting!

I love pilfering in the produce section at the grocery store. Just looking at fresh veggies makes me feel healthy! Creamy white cauliflower, brilliant green broccoli, smooth red tomatoes...well, you get the picture. I really like it when the little sprayers doused the veggies...it makes them look like the dew has just fallen and they are begging to be picked! After wandering through the aisles, I decided to make a regular veggie plate.  We had fresh green beans, corn on the cob, baby carrots with a side of southern potato salad. Yum!!

Today, the wind picked up and it was just cold.  I had a bag of dried lima beans; the big ones.  Originally, I thought I would just cook the beans like normal and have a side of fried potatoes.  I was curious about other herbs or spices to add to the beans (I  didn't want to use  ham bone), and saw a lot of people made lima bean soup.  Well, that sounded good.  I scanned a few recipes and decided to make one up.  You could do the same.....I just eyeballed everything.

I cooked the dried beans the quick method.  I covered them with water, brought them to a rolling boil for about three minutes, turned the heat off and let them sit for an hour.   Meanwhile, I  grabbed my soup pot and threw in a stick of butter. I chopped up equal amounts onions, celery and a yellow bell pepper and sauteed them for a few minutes and then added some fresh garlic. The smell was wonderful!!  I drained the beans and added them to the sauteed vegetables, along with some fresh sliced carrots and covered everything in vegetable broth (you could use chicken broth).  Now, for the seasonings.....salt/pepper, smoked paprika, oregano and cumin. I cooked the soup for a couple of hours. When the beans seemed to be getting close to being done, I added a can of diced tomatoes and some cubed potatoes.....simmered till the potatoes and beans were tender (but not mushy).  It was so good! 

Crackers didn't seem like a good match so I broke down and made something that I haven't made in forever - dropped Garlic, cheese biscuits!!!!   Add a glass of sweet tea and we were in hog heaven! Ah, what shall we try next?

What's normal anyway?

Yes, we do eat normal food! Looking back over some of the recipes that we've made, you may think we only eat "strange" foods; like bean patties, polenta and walnut meatballs.  Since we have changed to a primarily vegetarian lifestyle, "normal" foods that we used to eat all the time have become a thing of the past. Now, all things are becoming new.  Our food choices and recipes are creating a new normal!

 The other day I decided to throw together a quick and easy meal - what you would call normal. I cooked up some penne pasta, made homemade spaghetti sauce, sprinkled it with cheese and baked it. We also had a scrumptious salad on the side - Blue Salad.  Take your favorite greens, add some chopped green apple, red onion, blue cheese crumbles and bagel chips.  The dressing was apple cider vinegar, oil, sugar and poppy seeds. Both are quick and easy to make!

I have to tell you about the first time we had the Blue Salad.  Our second daughter, Jennifer, had been dating Dusty Sirmans for some time.  One night he invited us over to his house for dinner.  Of course, the whole point was to tell us he wanted to marry Jennifer.  He served the Blue Salad - we fell in love with it and with Dusty.  They have been married for 3 years.

Remember the bean patties I made the other day? (They were topped with salsa) Have you ever been to Moe's or Chiptole's? They are fun restaurants where the food is in an assembly line and you can design your own tortilla. So, for lunch we had our own assembly line. We heated a tortilla shell, broke up the left over bean patties, added some yellow rice (I threw in some cilantro when cooking it) made a corn and bean salsa, added sour cream and guacamole and  voila....we had some scrumptious burritos.

More to come...happy eating!

Seriously, chocolate?!

Yes, that is a chunk of chocolate!

Well, I came home early from work (WAFT) to cook lunch. I had this hankering to try the Black Bean Cakes with Mole Salsa that I was telling you about. It's a recipe from The Taste of Home site.  If you're like me, my first question was, "What in the world is mole salsa?" The best definition I found was...are you ready for this?......."the generic named used for a number of sauces in Mexican cuisine." Well, that answered it for me, how about you?! Ha, Ha!  The black bean patties were quick, easy to make, and held their shape.  The salsa was the surprise.  At first glance it seemed to be a basic pico de gallo recipe, until you looked closer.  It has HONEY, CHOCOLATE, and chipotle peppers in adobo sauce.  Now, that was an interesting recipe to make. I had no idea what to expect.  It was good!  Remember chipotle has a smokey flavor; it wasn't real hot and spicy.

So close: parsley and cilantro

Not cilantro...

I did get a little bummed.  When I was making the salsa it called for fresh cilantro.  I was so excited that we had some still hanging on in the garden.  I ran outside and snipped some off and starting chopping it.  Something did not seem right.  I looked at it again, smelled it and realized I had parsley. Sad times.  Fortunately, I had a tube of cilantro in the frig that I keep on hand for emergencies....such as today!

I had forgotten that we had bought some fresh squash when we were at the Farmer's Market the other day. I threw those in the pan and got them to cooking right off the bat.  I do it the southern way, just olive oil, onions, squash and salt/pepper.  I also like to cook mine down. Scrumptious!

Lunch was a black bean patty, salsa, fresh squash and cornbread. And of course, sweet tea

on the side!  Now I'll be honest....I think you could use this recipe for a veggie burger.  Grab a hamburger bun, add some regular toppings and a patty.  I think the salsa would add a nice twist, perhaps even some pepper jack cheese.

Just buzzed his head!

Bill liked the salsa the best.  He thought the bean patty looked too much like a hamburger patty.  I mean, it's not like I didn't tell him.  The taste was fine, it was just in his head that he should be biting into a regular hamburger.  I enjoyed it all.

Mile High!

Pizza for supper! It could be a staple in our house! We love it. Tonight we made what I dubbed a "mile high" veggie pizza.

Here's how we layered it:
homemade pizza crust drizzled with olive oil and Italian seasonings
homemade pizza sauce
fresh basil
feta cheese
sun dried tomatoes
sauteed squash, onions, bell pepper, and garlic
kalamata olives
black olives
jalapenos
sprinkle of cheese on top
crushed red peppers
SCRUMPTIOUS!

I need some menus for this week! So I've been going through some old recipes and looking for some new ones.   Here are a couple of NEW recipes I that I plan on trying from a Taste of Home site.   One is Vegetarian Stuffed Peppers; it received a lot of good reviews. The other is Black Bean Cakes with Mole Salsa.



We'll let you know how we like them! Eat well, eat healthy!

January 2013

Happy New Year! 

Did you have greens, black eyed peas and cornbread today? Our house was filled with so many wonderful smells from the traditional New Year's Day southern foods! The only thing I was missing was some jalapeno relish that my mother-in-law makes.  I'll have to break down and make some.  It is super good, sweet and hot at the same time.  Much better than chow chow!

 
How did you do eating during the holidays? We were able to stay on our vegetarian routine with only a few exceptions.  A few times dinner was fixed for us, so we graciously ate what was prepared. Otherwise, even our kids did well with our vegetarian diet.  We did have more sweets than normal - or that we needed, but isn't that what the holidays are for? Here is a fun recipe that is super easy to make - White chocolate haystacks.  Basically, I just melted a bag of white chocolate and stirred in cashews, craisins and pretzels and dropped them in clumps.
 
You will never believe this, but we started eating oatmeal for breakfast.  I don't know if my taste buds are changing or what...because I do not like oatmeal. Maybe it's because the weather is cooler? I just don't know, but it has certainly struck a chord with me. We didn't juice very much during the holidays, so I think we will move from juicing for breakfast to using it for a snack mid morning - at least while the oatmeal craze is on.

Time to conjure up some more recipes for the weeks ahead. I have used several from The Pioneer Woman.  If we continue eating vegetarian, I'll need to boost our protein input. Otherwise, we tend to eat too many carbs.

From our home to yours......may your New Year be filled with His grace and peace!

Christmas is coming!

The countdown is on and Christmas will soon be here! There are so many things we love about the holidays- kids/grandkids coming home, the lights, the music, special services at church, and of course all the traditions of the season.

One tradition that we have had as long as I can remember is our Christmas morning brunch.  We always have two different kinds of breakfast casseroles; overnight sausage breakfast casserole (recipe from Bill's mom) and the second casserole varies each year.  This year I'll probably make the hearty vegetarian recipe that we had at Noah's birthday party. (You can add additional veggies.) Along with the casseroles we have cheese grits, a fruit bowl, and a couple of different kinds muffins (one is always blueberry and the other varies).  We look forward to great food and noisy laughter at the table.

Are you ready for Christmas? Do you remember the painting disaster in our living room? Well, we finally got that room repainted and it looks great.  Last weekend I asked Bill what he thought about repainting our dining room.  It opens to the living room and hasn't been touched up since we moved in the house. Soooooo,  we just had that room painted a beautiful color, Rosemary Sprig. In the meantime, Christmas is all over the living room floor and every one comes in this weekend. This is the first time we have been so late getting things up - but it will get done. No worries!

How can you go wrong?

In the midst of the weather changing we have been having more soups.  We love all kinds. I was in the mood for a corn/potato chowder.  I found two recipes that I liked and merged them together. It was scrumptious. I used The Pioneer Woman and Paula Deen's recipes. They are really close with slight differences; I used them both! Bill added bacon to his, I kept mine vegetarian. Either way, you have a winner!

So good!

Merry Christmas!

Just make it up!

Christmas is coming and life is getting crazy. We are busy putting up Christmas and painting our dining room. We generally do a hundred things at one time. That's usually when we eat whatever...whenever. Meal planning is easy to get tossed out of the window - it's just one more thing to balance. But we are making more of an effort to have a plan and not just "blow it" over the holidays.  Also, I'm still cleaning out the freezer to use up all our left overs.

This week I made some green chili enchiladas. I found some left over Mexican rice (that I had cooked a while back) and tortillas in the freezer. I had a bottle of green chili enchilada sauce and a can of whole black beans in the pantry.  Ummmm..I figured I could put it all together and make up some enchiladas. I grilled the tortillas shells and stuffed them with  rice and  cheese.  Sprinkled them with the green chili sauce and cheese and threw them in the oven. On the back of the black beans can was a recipe that was quick and easy.  I originally made it to serve as a side, but later decided to mash them up for refried beans. To serve, I put some black beans on a plate, set an enchilada on them, added some fresh green chili sauce, a dollop of sour cream and sprinkled some green onions on top.  Not to shabby if I say so myself!  Be willing to experiment! 

Another night I fried up some polenta and put spaghetti sauce over it. I bought some pre-made at the grocery store. You can buy it plain or with added spices/herbs. Polenta is an Italian dish and often times called "Italian grits".  That's probably a good way to describe it. You can make it either as a porridge consistency or more cake like.  It's used as a side dish, and a substitute for pasta, rice or potatoes.  Since I used the pre-made tube, I simply sliced it up and fried it in a very small amount of olive oil until it was crispy, served with the sauce.  I added a salad on the side.  That made a quick and healthy supper.

Don't beat yourself up if your eating gets off.   Get up the next day and try and do better.  There will be lots of special foods, candy and desserts during the Christmas season. Have a little....not a lot!