Day 138: Comfort Food - Pasta Primavera!

One of my favorite comfort food dishes before I went vegan was (I'm so ashamed to admit this) the Campbell's Soup version of Chicken Primavera, made with good ol' Cream of Mushroom. Campbell's is not the most natural product, to say the least. We always got the Healthy Request style soups, because they did not have MSG ... but they did have all kinds of additives to make up for less fat and salt.

So, when I was feeling under the weather last week, I really wanted some comfort food. I decided to adapt the Chickpea Divan recipe from Vegan Spoonful, because its vegan roux makes the base for a really nice creamy sauce.

The verdict: This recipe came together quickly, and I liked it a lot. But not as much as I would've liked it if it had a ton of Parmesan in it, like the original Campbell's recipe. Oh well. I don't really want to go down the road of soy cheese - I try to keep my processed-food intake limited to soy milk and tofu. Maybe next time I will try it with some nutritional yeast, though. Donal thought the sauce was too bland - I didn't agree, but he likes things really spicy or otherwise full of flavor. He added some Vietnamese hot sauce to it, and liked it that way. To each his own!

Be warned: this recipe makes a LOT! Feel free to cut it in half.

Pasta Primavera with Chickpeas

Ingredients:
3/4 c. whole wheat flour
1 t. garlic powder
2 t. salt
1 t. dry thyme
1/2 t. white pepper
1/2 c. vegan margarine
4 c. vegetable broth
1 bag frozen mixed veggies, whatever mixture you like
1 can chickpeas
1/3 c. white wine
1 c. unsweetened soy milk
1 box whole-wheat pasta (we only had couscous, but I would've preferred it on a large pasta like farfalle or penne)
chopped parsley to garnish

Directions:

1. Begin cooking pasta according to package directions.
   
2. Mix the flour, garlic powder, salt, thyme, and pepper.
3. Melt the margarine over medium heat. When melted, add the flour mixture. Stir well.
4. Add vegetable broth. Whisk until all lumps are gone.
5. Add frozen veggies and chickpeas. Cook, stirring frequently, until the sauce becomes bubbly and thick.
6. When thickened, remove sauce from heat and add white wine and soy milk. Season with black pepper and additional salt if needed, pour over pasta, garnish with parsley, and serve.
   

Day 31: Kalamata Olive Hummus

Wow, hard to believe it's the last day of the month. Will we continue our vegan(ish) experiment? I doubt that any of my readers are on the edges of their seats from the suspense . . . I think I've made it fairly clear that we're enjoying the food and its positive health effects. So, yes, we will continue. D has lost around 8 pounds (we finally bought a bathroom scale), my migraines are down to a fraction their previous frequency (only one in the past 10 days ... infinitely better than the 5 a week I was getting), and we feel better all-around.

There's only one drawback so far, and that's that it's harder for me to keep a healthy weight. I have to remember to eat often, because our regular meals have less fat and calories than animal-based meals. I did well the first few weeks of the month, but when Molly was sick this past week and D was in Ireland, I didn't sit down and eat as often as I should have. A few pounds I didn't need (or want) to lose melted off within just a few days, and I'm making a point to eat when I'm hungry, focusing on foods that have healthy fats (like beans and nuts).

I find I have an easier time keeping the weight on if I surround myself with healthy, easy snacks. So today I took some kalamata olives that had been sitting in the fridge for a week, and I made a super-easy hummus:


This took about 5 minutes, and D and I both loved it. I think Molly will like it too, but she is still getting over some of the, um, juicier digestive side-effects of her virus, so we're giving her bland food for now. If you want to make it yourself, assuming my mention of poor Molly's problems didn't spoil your appetite, here's the recipe:

Easy Olive Hummus

Ingredients:
1 15-oz. can chickpeas (garbanzo beans), drained (keep the liquid) or 2 c. cooked chickpeas*
1/3 c. sesame tahini
1 T. extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling
2-4 T. lemon juice
1/4 - 1/2 c. pitted kalamata olives (or black olives, if you aren't crazy about the brown ones)
1-2 T. juice from olive jar
fresh-ground black pepper

*To cook chickpeas: soak 1 c. dry chickpeas (with one strip kombu, optional) for at least 6 hours. Drain. Cover with water (at least 1 inch above the beans) keeping the kombu in the water if desired, and bring to a boil. Decrease heat and simmer, covered, for 1 - 1 1/2 hours, until tender. Remove kombu at the end, if you don't want specks of it in your hummus.

Directions:
Place chickpeas and tahini in a mixing bowl. Puree with a hand blender. Add olive oil and lemon juice; puree. Add olives and olive juice; puree. If you want the hummus to be creamier, add a little liquid from the beans or water. Add salt if desired (I didn't find it needed any, because the olives were salty). Drizzle olive oil on top - be liberal with it if you're trying to put on the weight like me! - and sprinkle with black pepper.

Eat with whole-wheat pita chips or fresh veggies, or use as a sandwich spread.

Day 13: Comfort Food and an Interview

First, tonight I made one of those casseroles that just screams, "Comfort Food!" A creamy, flavorful, gooey, messy dish ... with breadcrumbs on top, of course. It's another recipe from The Vegan Spoonful blog: Chickpea Divan. If you take a look at the recipe, note that I used unsweetened soy milk (not soy cream) and whole wheat panko breadcrumbs, left out the vegan mayo, added some mixed frozen veggies, and used white cooking wine from the cupboard.

Whether you are vegan or not, Try this recipe. Beth, this is one your carnivore hubby will love! And Chickie, if her tastes are anything like Molly's, will love it too.

The pic:

If you're wondering what that stuff under the chickpeas is, it's millet. This whole grain looks a lot like quinoa when you buy it, but it cooks up very fluffy - almost creamy, like mashed potatoes. Like quinoa, it cooks fast - 25 minutes - and requires no soaking. A nice thing to keep around.

So that's the comfort food. And now, the interview. Mary Murtz, who writes a wonderful blog that I enjoy and is a fellow vegan(ish) experimenter, posted her answers to an interview meme that's going around. Here's the rules:

• The blogger (in this case, me) answers five questions.
• If you, a fellow blogger, want five new questions to answer, reply to this post with the words, "Interview Me!" I got my questions by replying to Mary's post a couple of days ago.
• When you post your answers to the five questions I send you, you agree to interview your commenters if they ask for it, just as I am agreeing to interview you.
• One more thing: if you don't have a link to your email on your profile page, I'll just post the questions as a comment on your blog.
  

Hope that makes sense. So here are Mary's questions and my answers:

1. What one sentence advice would you give your daughter about growing up to be a strong woman? I would tell Molly to relish asking questions, to be comfortable with being unsure ... because being sure about life would mean she thinks she's got it all right, and that would mean she has no room for growth. Growth is what makes it all worth it.

2. What is the most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to you that you have NOT already talked about on your blog? Once I was at a bar, listening to a band I love. I looked at the clock and thought it was almost 1 AM (closing time). The band finished a song and I yelled out, "One more!" - hoping they'd play all the way up till the moment the place closed. The singer looked at me and said, "I hope we do about 10 more..." and I realized it was almost midnight, not almost one. I still turn red when I think of that.

3. If you could change anything about yourself (NOT PHYSICALLY) what would it be? I would be one of those incredible people who functions just fine on 4 hours of sleep per night, with no consequences. (I guess that's kind of physical, but whatever...)

4. Assuming all goes as you wish, what will you say at the end of the year when someone asks you what your proudest accomplishment was? I inspired and taught young people while still giving a more-than-fair amount of energy and time to my family and friends. (Managing to achieve my fantasy in the answer to Question #3 would help with this...)

5. What movie that other people loved did you absolutely NOT love, and why? I thought The English Patient was one of the most overrated movies ever. Same for Titanic.

So, if you want five new questions, created by me, that you can answer on your blog ... just reply, "Interview Me!"

P.S. Typing this small so as not to jinx the migraine gods... 2nd day in a row with no migraine today. First two-day break I have had since December 16-17 (my neurologist makes me chart my migraines.)

Day 3: So Far, So Good

Well, everything is not going according to planned ... but that's a good thing.

We started out as expected, with Chickpea Curry and Escarole Siciliano on Thursday night:

The escarole is a bit strong for Molly, but I think she would eat that curry every day if she could. I adapted the recipe quite a bit from the allrecipes site, so scroll down to the end of this post if you want to see how I made it. The escarole was made without recipe adaptations; click here if you want to try it. It is SO good, and a nice way to eat greens if you are afraid of the dreaded over-boiled lump of pre-frozen spinach that you grew up with.

That dinner brings up ...

Tip #1 For Easier Vegan(ish) Cooking:
When making rice, make LOTS extra. It keeps in the fridge for a
few days, and is great for fast lunches ... and even breakfasts!

I was planning on making marinated tempeh and miso soup for lunch the next day, but we have a 2-year-old with a cold who was not up to heading to the Asian store and Whole Foods on Thursday night. So Friday rolled around, and I was stuck: what to do for lunch? I'm sure we'll do our share of PB&J, but I was hoping to do more actual cooking for this long weekend before I'm back at work on Monday.

So I opened the fridge and saw leftover rice (see Tip #1, above), leftover canned kidney beans and petite peas (Molly's go-to meal when she doesn't like what we're having), corn tortillas, and a bag of onions. And I made...

10-Minute Bean-and-Rice Tacos

We ate these so fast that I had to take a picture of the leftovers in an ugly Gladware container, instead of on a slightly prettier plate. So it's an extreme close-up. The recipe is at the bottom of this post.

That didn't even use up all of my rice; I'd made so much extra on Thursday that I still had a good-sized serving left in the fridge. So this morning, I made a little breakfast rice - warm rice, soy milk, cinnamon, and chopped prunes (yes, I like prunes. You should try them sometime.) Rice for breakfast may sound weird (except to about 2 billion Asians), but it's really no different from eating other grains like oatmeal. It was tasty and filling. (Macrobiotic people aren't huge soy milk fans, because it is still processed food. However, I don't think I could do this transition without it. I bought Silk Unsweetened, and it turns out I like it better than the normal soy milk - which, to my surprise, has sugar added. Also, it's fortified with the vitamins and minerals you'd normally find in milk.)

By the way, I'm doing the tempeh tomorrow, and will post about it then. We still have leftover taco filling and curry to eat for lunch today. That's why it's a good thing that all is not going as planned - the leftovers are stretching further than expected.

And now, for the recipes! (If you aren't interested, scroll down anyway for a show-off pic of Molly on Christmas morning)

Chickpea Curry with Rice

Ingredients:
2 Tbsp. olive oil
1 chopped large onion (or two small)
2 tsp. chopped garlic (I use the jarred stuff, a welcome shortcut)
2-3 tsp. chopped, peeled ginger (or 1/2 - 1 tsp. ground ginger)

8 whole cloves
1-3 tsp. ground cinnamon (depending on how much you love it)
1 Tbsp. ground cumin (or less if you aren't as much of a cumin fanatic as me)
1 tsp. ground coriander
OR
halve all of the above ingredients and add 1 Tbsp. garam masala spice mix (available in the Indian aisle or from McCormick in the regular spice aisle - this adds SUCH a good flavor)

1 Tbsp. curry powder (optional)
salt to taste
1 pinch cayanne pepper (we leave this out so it's not too hot for Molly)
2 (15-oz.) cans garbanzo beans, UNDRAINED
frozen vegetables (broccoli, peas, carrots - whatever you have on hand)
chopped fresh cilantro (we didn't have any this time, and it was still good)

Directions:
Heat oil in a large skillet or saute pan. Add onions and cook until they are starting to turn brown and caramelized on the edges. Add spices, garlic, and ginger and cook for one minute, stirring constantly. Add garbanzo beans and frozen veggies. Bring to a boil, turn heat down, and simmer for up to 45 minutes - the longer, the better.

For a nice cold-weather variation, soften some chunks of carrots and parsnips in the microwave (just until starting to get soft) and add them instead of frozen veggies.

Serve over brown rice (we found some yummy brown basmati) with chopped cilantro on top.
Serves 6-8.

10-Minute Bean-and-Rice Tacos

Ingredients:
1 T. canola oil
1 small onion, chopped
2 c. leftover brown rice
1 c. kidney beans
1/2 c. petite peas or other veggies
2 t. cumin
1 t. chili powder
salt to taste

6-8 corn tortillas, softened (wrap in paper towel and microwave for 30 seconds; turn over and add 20 more seconds if necessary)
salsa (I like Trader Joe's salsa verde; D likes their habanero lime)
lettuce, spinach, or other raw greens; cilantro; sliced radishes; or whatever taco add-ons you prefer

Directions:
Fry onion in oil over medium heat. When softened, add other ingredients. Stir until well-mixed and heated through. Spoon a small amount of mixture onto the center of each tortilla, add salsa and garnishes, fold over, and eat!
Serves 3-4.

The Promised Show-Off Picture: