Black Bean and Yam Chili

For a time, I was prejudiced against yams and sweet potatoes, thanks to a not-so-good wrap I had at The Good Earth many years ago. I'm getting over it, thank goodness.

Lakewinds Natural Foods had a delightful chili at their deli last week - black bean and yam. I recreated it at home. And I just now saw that they have it posted on their website. The version I came up with is quite similar, except I added some ground ginger and used chili powder instead of jalapenos (another recipe I found uses canned chipotles...mmm!). It tasted a little bland until I dumped in a small can of V-8, which perked everything up immediately.

Verdict - 5 stars

Black Bean Tacos

When spring hits, I want fresh food, and these were the epitome of fresh. I cooked up some black beans (using the "Everyday Black Beans" recipe from The New Vegetarian Epicure, which is basically beans, onions, garlic, peppers, and cumin), and served these tacos on soft corn tortillas with fresh pico de gallo, avocado slices, and queso fresco. Matthew didn't care for the corn tortillas, but I thought everything was great, and the perfect, refreshing end to one of the perfect days we're having in Minnesota.

Verdict: 4 stars

An Indian Feast

I get a little enthusiastic when it comes to Sunday dinner. This week was an Indian-inspired feast (with very un-Indian carrot cake at the end). I inhaled a bunch of spices and stained all my cooking utensils (ah, tumeric!), but it was worth it.

From top, clockwise: basmati rice, naan (recipe in World Vegetarian, but others are all over the place - this version had yogurt and baking powder/soda instead of yeast), sweet curried carrots (I omitted the ground almonds), masoor dal, and matar paneer.

It was so much fun making paneer, and that dish was my favorite of the bunch, but everything was just delicious.

This time, instead of spending my last few hours of Sunday in the kitchen, I cooked earlier in the day and refrigerated everything. I was able to make most of the main dishes - the lentils and carrots were finished, but I just got through the sauce for the matar paneer. I made the naan dough and let it sit in the fridge until dinnertime. In the end, we just had to make naan, put together the matar paneer, cook the rice and heat up everything else.

I'd like to thank my friend Cathryn for her superior naan-baking skills, which allowed the last few minutes of cooking to go quickly and easily.

Verdict: Matar paneer - 5 stars; masoor dal - 4 stars; sweet curried carrots - 4 stars; naan - 4 stars

Unmeatball Sub

Matthew surprised me the other night with dinner. He's a capable cook, but his repetoire is far from extensive, moreso now that we're no longer cooking meat. I was very impressed with this clever dish, inspired by a recipe in a cookbook he got me recently, Great Main Dishes Without Meat. (Betty Crocker feels that chicken/beef stock is not "meat," but that's easily substituted and the dishes are interesitng, so we'll forgive that.)

Loosely, the recipe involves taking soy-based burger patties and crumbling them, mixing them with spices, and frying them into meatballs. Matthew used Morningstar Farms pizza-flavored patties, added still more spices (sort of unnecessary, but still intense in a nice way), and tried frying them. They fell apart - I haven't even been able to make MEATballs this way - so we baked them. Smothered with onions, peppers, sauce, and parmesan cheese, served on a hoagie roll (roasted red pepper and goat cheese Kettle Chips on the side), they were the perfect accompaniment to Olympic figure skating.

They were extremely good, actually, and even tasted like meat.

Verdict: 5 stars

Mu Shu Vegetables in Pancakes

When I was a teenager, I spent a lot of time making food out of a cookbook written by Martin Yan. One of the recipes I tried was mu shu pork in pancakes. Wow, was that good; restaurants don't quite make it the way a home cook can. I get periodic cravings for mu shu, so I was happy to run across a recipe in Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant

The recipe's pretty basic (I didn't follow Moosewood's exactly): stir fry together cabbage, carrots, onions, peppers, mushrooms, garlic, ginger - whatever your heart desires - and when it's good and cooked (I like it more done than your usual stir fry) add some hoisin sauce and soy sauce. Serve on Mandarin pancakes with more hoisin sauce. Mmm-good.

I love it when my lunches of leftovers are something to look forward to.

Verdict: 5 stars

Sushi

For some reason, the idea of making sushi took root in my head. It could have been that I've been craving it for awhile, or that I was eager to splurge on foodstuffs this week, or the sushi-making kit from Matthew's sister that's been sitting unused for over a year. In any event, it wasn't the best idea I've ever had.

It took awhile to find the ingredients. Whole Foods had nori, sushi rice, wasabi, pickled ginger, etc., but only one brand, and it was all expensive. Byerly's had wasabi and nori for a much better price, and every single kind of rice you can imagine except sushi rice. (Five kinds of arborio! Forbidden rice! Basmati and jasmine galore! But no sushi. Grr.) Cub Foods (aka discount supermarket where I do most of my shopping) had the best selection (they have the best ethnic aisle I've seen in a supermarket ever... except maybe ethnic supermarkets), although I had to buy 5 pounds of sushi rice.

Ah, the rice! It turned out awful. Gummy, yet undercooked. Matthew helped me roll the first roll, since he had just watched a demonstration in a class of his. I filled them with combinations of carrot, zucchini, cucumber, avocado, green onion, and Chinese spice tofu from Whole Foods (delicious fried). They looked pretty, but were pretty darn mediocre tasting.

I think I'll leave this to the experts.

Verdict: 2 stars

(Blurry) macaroni and cheese

I may be a foodie, but that doesn't mean I've made everything I should have by now. For instance, last week was the very first time I made macaroni and cheese from scratch.

Alton Brown's Baked Macaroni and Cheese was my guide. I forgot about the paprika and used a slightly different combination of cheese: about 6 ounces of sharp cheddar, plus a couple of ounces of monterey jack, and another ounce or so of goat cheese. My big mistake was thinking, "Hey, it doesn't sound right to have 8 ounces of macaroni and 12 of cheese. I can use less." While it was delicious and cheesy, it wasn't quite cheesy enough. It also needed a LOT of salt; since I never measure, 1 teaspoon (as suggested) may be right on the money.

For the ultimate in a comfort food meal, we ate this with green bean casserole. Hey, I never said we ate healthy vegetarian food!

Verdict: 4 stars (5 with more cheese and salt!)

Calzones

To my delight, I found frozen pizza dough at the grocery store last week. (Amazing - the store had 12 kinds of curry paste, but no frozen pizza dough!) To celebrate, I made calzones.

I thawed the dough according to package directions (i.e., overnight in the fridge). While it was resting outside of the fridge, I sauteed together onions, spinach, mushrooms, and red pepper. I flattened the dough and shoved that mixture in, along with black olives and mozarella and feta cheese. After pinching the edges and about 25 minutes in a 350 degree oven, they were perfectly cooked. I served them with some pizza sauce.

You can, of course, add whatever fillings you like. (I'd love to hear your combinations.)

Verdict: 5 stars

Vegetarian Hangover Cure

Inspired by this post and a raging hangover, I decided to go hog wild with breakfast.

I sauteed spinach, onions, red and green peppers, and mushrooms together, and added beaten eggs. After that was cooked, I topped it with black beans (the kind with a cumin sauce), chopped up vegetarian sausage, cheddar and monterey jack cheese, salsa, and sour cream. On the side I had an everything bagel with cream cheese.

Damn good stuff.

Verdict: 5 stars