Chickpea Melt Sandwich

Spooky sandwiches!

Chickpea salad sandwiches are one of my favorite quick, make-ahead lunches. We made them into “melts” by adding some cheddar and broiling for a minute. (I tried a new non-dairy, soy free cheese that I picked up on a whim at Kroger: Rice Vegan, cheddar flavor. It was good! Although it sort of just… puffed-up under the broiler. Need to experiment.)

chickpea melt sandwiches

Ingredients

1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 tablespoon dill relish
1 tablespoon spicy brown mustard
2 tablespoons veganaise or Earth Balance mindful mayo
2 green onions, chopped
2 sprigs’ worth of parsley, roughly chopped
Salt
Pepper

Sandwich:
2 slices of gluten-free bread
1 slice non-dairy cheese (optional)
Optional toppings: lettuce, tomato, sprouts, etc.

In a bowl, mash the rinsed chickpeas with a potato masher, meat tenderizer, fork, or your implement of choice. Add all other ingredients and mix well.

Toast your bread (for a melt, top one slice of bread with cheese and broil for a minute or two). Spread about 1/3 to 1/2 of the salad mix and top with your veggies, or leave it plain!

I love that mustard from TJ's. and kale.

 

Sundays are for (pumpkin buckwheat) Pancakes–and Oatmeal

I finally made something with pumpkin. I always buy canned pumpkin and then hesitate to use it because, inevitably, you only need about 1/3 of the can, and then the rest of it gets forgotten in the fridge. I had a plan this time, though: pumpkin pancakes for breakfast on Sunday morning, and baked pumpkin steel-cut oats for a few make-ahead breakfasts for the week.

yes, that is my Christmas mug.

I’ve been making my pancakes vegan and gluten-free lately, and I really prefer them over the traditional spongy American-style pancakes. They’re a bit thicker, creamier, and have an almost fudgy texture. Yum! My recipe is based loosely on Gwyneth Paltrow’s vegan pancake recipe, and a few buckwheat pancake recipes scattered around the Internet.

Pumpkin Buckwheat Pancakes

Ingredients

1 heaping cup buckwheat flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 Tablespoon date sugar or Sucanat (an organic sugar found in natural foods stores) (optional–the banana makes these naturally sweet)
1/8 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Dash of nutmeg and/or cloves
1 cup non-dairy milk (I used rice milk)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 medium banana, mashed (about 1/2 cup)

1 cup pumpkin puree
2 Tablespoons finely chopped walnuts (optional)

Combine or sift together dry ingredients, mixing well. In another bowl, mash the banana and add wet ingredients. Mix wet and dry ingredients together (the batter will be slightly thicker than conventional pancake batter). Preheat your cast iron skillet (or griddle), then add a dollop of Earth Balance. Once it foams up a little, spoon or pour batter onto your skillet. Sprinkle with walnuts, if desired (I topped mine with walnuts at the end). When bubbles appear and break, turn pancakes and cook until lightly browned. Serve with some Earth Balance and maple syrup, and roughly chopped walnuts.

Jeff wanted a really big pancake This recipe makes quite a few, enough to feed several grown men, I’d say. We got full real quick, so I put the remaining batter in a tupperware and put it in the freezer. Not sure how thawing and cooking it will go, but I’m interested to find out!

I used the leftover pumpkin on Monday night, when I made the Kitchn’s baked pumpkin oatmeal. A recent oatmeal convert (I used to abhor the texture), I thought this baked steel-cut version was awesome. So ridiculously creamy! A little nutty, a little chewy, and perfectly spiced. And without any cream or butter. The only difference I made was vegan-izing it–simply replace milk with non-dairy milk  and the butter with Earth Balance.

Baked Pumpkin Steel Cut Oatmeal

adapted from the Kitchn

Ingredients

2 tablespoons Earth Balance, divided
1 1/2 cups steel cut oats
1 cup pumpkin or squash puree
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ginger
1/2 teaspoon cloves
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
2 cups So Delicious coconut milk (or other non-dairy milk)
2 1/2 cups warm water
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt

Heat the oven to 375°F. In a 3-quart (or larger) saucepan or Dutch oven, heat 1 tablespoon of the Earth Balance over medium-high heat. When the butter foams up, stir in the oats and fry them, stirring frequently, for about 3 minutes or until they smell toasted.

Push the oats up against the side of the pan, and drop the second tablespoon of butter in the now clear center of the pan. Dump in the pumpkin puree. Fry it in the butter, only stirring after about a minute. Stir in the sugar and spices and continue frying the puree for another 3 to 4 minutes, or until the color darkens slightly and the raw smell disappears.

Pour in the coconut milk and whisk everything to combine. Whisk in the water, vanilla and salt. Put a lid on the pan and put it in the oven. Bake for 35 minutes. Take the pan out of the oven, stir. It will thicken as it cools.

(I make my own vanilla extract–it’s super easy!)

Breakfast & Dinner, Oats & Butternut Squash

I try to eat very lightly in the morning and gradually move on to denser foods throughout the day; maybe a piece of fruit once I get to work, or overnight oats. I threw some together last night (not the most beautiful of pics):

this batch is about a half cup rice milk, 1 ripe mashed banana, palmful of chia seeds, big handful of gluten-free oats, dash of vanilla, sprinkle of stevia, healthy dusting of cocoa powder. And topped with almond butter this morning. Chocolatey and filling!

I made another simple casserole-style dinner last night. Warm, butternut-squashy, creamy while still being vegan… great for a cool cold night.

Butternut Squash Mac

Ingredients

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large yellow onion, thinly sliced
1 butternut squash (about 2 pounds), peeled, seeded and cut into 1-inch pieces
1 (15-ounce) can coconut milk (I used light, and it still turned out very creamy. But use full-fat if you like)
Salt and pepper to taste
1 tablespoon chopped sage, or 2 teaspoons dried
¾ pound brown rice or quinoa elbow macaroni (or any noodle you like)
½ cup chopped toasted walnuts, optional
½ cup bread crumbs

Preheat oven to 350°F. Lightly oil a 9- x 13-inch casserole dish; set aside.Heat oil in a medium pot over medium heat. Add onions and cook, stirring often, until softened, 5 to 7 minutes. Add squash, coconut milk, salt and pepper and dried sage. Cover, reduce heat to medium low and simmer until squash is tender, about 20 minutes. Stir in fresh sage (if using) and simmer 1 minute more.

Meanwhile, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add noodles and cook until tender but still firm, about 8 minutes. Rinse in cold water, drain well and transfer to your baking dish. Pour squash mixture over your noodles. Add walnuts if using, salt and pepper and toss to combine. Top with bread crumbs. Bake until just golden brown and hot throughout, 25-30 minutes.

I peeled, deseeded, and chopped the squash when I got home from work, to save some time since I didn’t get back again until after 8 pm. It came together very quickly.  I didn’t have any bread crumbs, so we put 2-3 slices of bread in the oven while it preheated, then ripped the toast into pieces and pulsed a few times in the food processor. You could easily make this totally gluten-free by using GF bread crumbs.

The coconut milk makes this so, so creamy and good. Mac and cheese without the cheese!

We were a little distracted while making dinner by the arrival of this:

Commence squealing.

(There are three foster puppies at our house this week from the Huron Valley Humane Society.)

I may combine the oats and squash into this yummy-looking recipe from the Kitchn for breakfast this weekend:

Source: the Kitchn

Happy Friday! Can’t wait to go home and eat more butternut squash mac, and to do this tomorrow morning:

Courtesy of beautiful friend Kerri

Also maybe seeing Ides of March or Tower Heist. If you’re going to a movie, I recommend 50/50. It was really good! Any good weekend plans?

Cauliflower-topped Shepherd’s Pie (vegan, gluten-free)

I think all good recipes start with sauteed onions and garlic.  There is no better smell. I used to think I was a superhero, with the specific power of fearlessly cutting onions with nary a tear. However, I recently chopped one up without my contact lenses in, and I wept uncontrollably–so I think I found my kryptonite (does that even makes sense?).

As a kid, I loved when my mom made “hamburger corn and potato stuff”–aka shepherd’s pie.  However, as a more grown-up kid I wanted a lighter and less starchy version, with more veggies.  Whole Foods came to the rescue.

I made the millet ahead of time and let it cool on the stove while I went to yoga. You can also use any kind or combination of beans that you like.

Ingredients

3 tablespoons non-dairy butter, plus more to oil baking dish (or olive oil)
3/4 cup dried millet, rinsed and picked over
Salt and pepper to taste
5 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1/2 cup rice milk
1/2 head cauliflower, broken into small florets
1 small yellow onion, chopped
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1 (16-ounce) package frozen mixed vegetables (I used TJ’s “Foursome”)
1/4 cup chopped parsley, plus leaves for garnish
1/4 cup tomato paste
1 (15-ounce) can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
2 cups frozen corn kernels, thawed

Preheat oven to 450°F. Oil a 9-inch square baking dish with butter and set aside.

Bring 2 cups water to a boil in a medium pot. Add millet and 1 teaspoon salt. Cover, reduce heat and simmer 30 minutes. Heat 1 tablespoon of the butter in another medium pot on medium heat. Add half of the garlic and cook until light golden, 3 minutes. Add rice milk and cauliflower and bring to a simmer. Cover, reduce heat and cook until very tender, about 12 minutes. Add cooked millet to cauliflower and mash together with a potato masher until creamy. Season with salt and pepper and set aside.

Melt remaining 2 tablespoons butter or oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add onions, remaining garlic and thyme and cook, stirring frequently, until onions soften, about 4 minutes. Add mixed vegetables and chopped parsley and season with salt and pepper. Cook 6 minutes. Stir in tomato paste. Add kidney beans to the vegetable mixture along with 3/4 cup water, stirring to combine well.

Spread the vegetable-bean filling in the bottom of the baking dish. Sprinkle corn evenly over the mixture, then top with the cauliflower mash. Bake for about 25 minutes, until heated through. Cool for 5 minutes, then serve, garnished with parsley leaves.

The cauliflower-millet mash is really good! very satisfying, and doesn’t weigh you down like starchy mashed potatoes. Millet is also very good for you and is gluten-free.

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Quinoa-Stuffed Poblano Peppers

Happy day after Halloween, and the beginning of the Christmas season!

A gnome and Amy Winehouse

Jeff and I were Rose and Dorothy from the Golden Girls–I finally convinced him. He looked wonderful:

We had to trim his wig a little and dye it gray.  I haven’t gotten all the pictures from the night yet. Last night we made the first fire of the season (inside); it smelled wonderful.  I ate way too much candy and tried to convince Jeff to watch Halloween, but we ended up watching Hocus Pocus.  Still good.  After I got home from yoga there were only two trick-or-treaters.  One was an older kid in a weird mask who just mumbled something incoherent when I asked what he was; the other was a cute little vampire girl. She got more candy.

We had a healthy dinner to balance things out.  I bought  some poblanos at the farmers market last week.  I couldn’t resist at 3 for $1–he had some nice red pell peppers too that were a dollar each.

This is barely a recipe because you can really throw anything at a hollowed-out pepper, toss it in the oven, and it will come out tasty. Here’s our latest version.

Quinoa-Stuffed Poblanos

Ingredients

3-4 poblano peppers, halved lengthwise and de-seeded and de-ribbed
~2.5 cups cooked quinoa (to cook: rinse quinoa, soak for a few hours (optional), add about 1.5 cups dry quinoa to 3 cups of water in a pot, bring to a boil then let simmer about 20 minutes until the curly-cues come out and it’s nice and fluffy)
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 of a red onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
1 tablespoon cumin
dash of cayenne pepper
dash of chili powder
dash red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
1 15oz can of diced tomatoes with green chilies
Crumbled goat cheese, or a couple handfuls of shredded cheddar
Few sprigs of cilantro, to garnish

Preheat oven to 400. Grease a 9×13 baking dish and arrange halved peppers, skin side down. Roast in oven while you are preparing the filling.

Heat olive oil in a large skillet, then add diced red onion and minced garlic. Cook 5 minutes then add spices, salt, and pepper; adjust to your liking and spice level. The amounts here make a nicely spicy mix with some kick and heat, but it’s not too hot. Stir and cook over medium heat for about a minute, then add the canned tomatoes. Stir and turn heat up to medium-high to cook off some of the liquid.

Add cooked quinoa to the skillet and mix to combine. Add enough so that all the liquid is soaked up, but not so much that the mixture is overly dry. Save leftovers to add to your salad the next day!

Remove peppers from the oven. I flipped mine over and blasted the skins for a minute with a mini kitchen torch, but it was really just for fun. Fill the pepper halves with quinoa mixture and top with cheese, if you like. Bake at 400 for 15-20 minutes. You can also broil them at 500 for the last 5 minutes if you like, to make your cheese bubbly. Top with cilantro to serve.

This is a really basic recipe that you can add to easily. It’s excellent as is: the quinoa mixture is yummy on it’s own, but you could add black beans to it, tempeh, tofu, corn, salsa, guacamole, sour cream, etc. I opted for goat cheese instead of cow’s milk cheese to lessen my casein intake, and didn’t add black beans to avoid mixing proteins and starches (the simpler the combo, the easier it is to digest). You could also make a tomato sauce, however you like, and pour that over the stuffed peppers in the baking dish, making it enchilada-style. Go crazy. I think it would be good with a hummus-and-nutritional yeast cheezy topping, too.  Hmm, next time…

Done! I think Jeff's cheddar peppers look a little nicer...

Yum.  Next up for dinner: cauliflower-topped vegan shepherd’s pie!

 

Delicious Peanut Butter cookies (dairy free, gluten free) & moustaches

I love peanut butter. I love it so much that I usually have about 3 jars open at a time, depending on the kind of peanut butter mood I’m in.  Last night I used up the last of my Trader Joe’s creamy peanut butter, a little JIF natural [that stuff is really good but I hate that it's a "spread"--too much sugar ], and the remainder of some fresh, locally ground peanut butter. These cookies are incredible: gluten-free, dairy-free, take about 5 minutes or less to mix together and only 10 to bake. They’re also incredibly peanut buttery, if you’re into that sort of thing.

Best Peanut Butter Cookies Ever

makes 16-18 cookies
1 cup peanut butter, smooth or chunky
1/2 cup natural cane sugar (white is fine too)
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons agave nectar, maple syrup, or honey
1 egg
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
additional sugar for rolling
chocolate chips, optional

Preheat oven to 375 degrees°F.
Mix all the ingredients up in a bowl. Roll walnut-sized pieces into balls and roll balls in the additional sugar. Press some chocolate chips into tops of cookies if you like. Place on a parchment-lined baking sheet and flatten slightly with a fork in a crisscross pattern. Bake for 10 minutes. Remove and let cool before removing from baking sheet.

mmmmmmmmmmm!

Baking in your pajamas at night is one of life's great pleasures

I wanted to try some with chocolate chips, so I just pressed a few into some of the cookies (these I didn’t do the crisscross fork thing). They were delicious. I only had milk chocolate on hand; I think semi-sweet would be better. You could also melt some chocolate and dip half of a cookie into it and let set.  Actually I think I need to go do that now.

My $1 Target Silpat knock-offs rock!

Jeff and I meant to figure out Halloween costumes last night but we’re having trouble thinking of a good one.  I want him to be Dorothy Zbornak to my Rose Nylund but he’s not so into that idea. I love Halloween, and passing out candy, and the decorations, and the pumpkins…

our friends' awesome pumpkins

and seeing other people’s hilarious costumes, but thinking of a costume is always so hard! This was Jeff’s contribution to the brainstorm.

Wow.

After baking cookies, I got my rabbit food ready for lunch.  I always procrastinate making lunch, because it is always right when I want to crawl into bed, but otherwise I’d either be really late for work or I wouldn’t bring a lunch at all.  Kale salads are easy to make the night before because you can put the dressing right in with the salad–the kale kind of marinates in it and is ready to go for lunch. I put scallions and red bell pepper and dulse flakes in it, then added some Bragg’s and apple cider vinegar. My standard lunch.  I also have some leftover No Thai! from dinner last night (score).

Close-up of my knife, one of my  most prized possessions…

It’s this hollow-ground santoku by Shun, from the Kaji line. It was a birthday gift partly from myself and partly my home-cook-extraordinaire uncle. I’ve had it almost 2 years and I’ve only needed to sharpen it once–and I use it almost every day.  Although it could use a sharpening now; my litmus test is how easily it can slice a tomato. At first I had bought this one, and while it’s certainly a very nice knife, it just didn’t feel quite right in my hand.  The oval shape of the Kaji handle, along with the heft and feel of the pakka-wood, felt a lot better. Nice knives like these are indispensable all year-round, but especially in winter when you have to cut through hardy produce like thick-skinned squash and sweet potatoes. (and while we’re on Williams-Sonoma, ogle this gorgeous range)

Acorn Squash and Kale Pasta (gluten-free) and riding in the rain

I roasted my first acorn squash a while ago, and it was wonderful.  Nutty and sweet. There are so many ways to use them in recipes; I had some quinoa pasta to use up and I thought the two together would make a yummy hot dinner.

It looked prettier after I added the goat cheese, but I ate it too fast.

Acorn Squash and Kale Pasta

Ingredients
1 acorn squash
Earth balance, butter, coconut oil, olive oil, whatever you prefer
1 tablespoon brown sugar or maple syrup
1 box quinoa pasta (or whatever kind you like, but quinoa has lots of protein and is gluten-free)
3 big kale leaves
Sage, optional
Salt and pepper
Goat cheese, crumbled, for serving
Olive oil, for serving

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. With a sharp knife, cut the squash in half lengthwise. Scoop out the seeds and stringy stuff. Feel like it’s Halloween and you’re carving pumpkins. You can roast it like this, in 2 big halves, or cut into a few smaller chunks to make it go faster. Season with salt and pepper. Rub the squash pieces with a little butter/oil and sprinkle with brown sugar or maple syrup. Roast on a lined baking sheet until tender, about 1 hour. Let it cool enough to handle and then peel the skins off (they should come right off). Chop into big chunks.

Boil your water and cook the pasta according to the box. Drain, and reserve about a tablespoon of pasta water. Put drained pasta back into pot with the reserved water. Add squash chunks. Tear kale leaves and stir them into the pasta. Season with salt and lots of fresh ground black pepper, and a pinch of minced sage if you like. Serve in bowls and add crumbled goat cheese and a drizzle of olive oil.

This brown rice pasta would be tasty too (and I have a coupon code if you buy it there for $5 off–LIX715).

I wish I had had a nice camera when I was out riding yesterday–the fall colors were awesome and really popped in the misty rain and gray skies. It was a lovely ride but we did get a little soggy…

Apologies for the blurriness. It’s hard to take a good cell phone pic on a moving horse!