| Stuffed Peppers |
[Jul. 5th, 2006|08:07 pm] |
Combine 1 1/2 cups cooked brown rice, 1 cup cooked black beans (don’t need to cook if using canned, I use dried beans), 1 cup frozen corn (or canned), 4 minced garlic cloves (or fewer, if you don’t like your food hella-garlic-y), a few squirts from a plastic lemon (or juice from a real, live lemon, if you have one) and as much cilantro, chili powder, salt, and pepper as you see fit to use.
Cut the tops off of 4 bell peppers in the color of your choice. (I cut the top off like I would a pumpkin I was carving.) Carefully remove the seeds. Stuff the peppers with the mixture above. Place the peppers in a casserole dish (or any baking dish, really). Drizzle olive oil over the top of them. Open a can of diced tomatoes (or dice real, live tomatoes) and pour over the top.
Bake it at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for an hour. Allow to cool considerably before enjoying!
Note: I made up the rice mixture a night ahead, which I believe enhances the flavors. :) |
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| Chunky Artichoke Salsa |
[May. 3rd, 2006|09:38 am] |
You may have already seen this in my personal LJ.
Chunky Artichoke Salsa
1 Jar (6.5 Ounces) marinated artichoke hearts
1/4 cup sliced black olives
1 red onion
3 Medium Plum Tomatoes
2 Garlic Cloves
2 Tablespoons fresh basil
Salt & Peppr to taste
Directions: Drain marinade from artichokes. Chop artichokes, red onion, and tomatoes. Press or mince garlic. Stir garlic, olives, and basil together with artichokes, onions, and tomatoes. Season with salt & pepper to taste. (For more heat, add tabasco or other hot sauce, I do!) |
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| Southwest Couscous Salad |
[May. 3rd, 2006|09:35 am] |
This recipe comes from ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) apis_mellifera. I haven't cooked it myself yet, but intend to very soon!
SOUTHWEST COUSCOUS SALAD
Preparation Time: 15 minutes
Cooking Time: 2 minutes to boil water
Servings: 6-8
2 cups water
1 3/4 cups uncooked couscous
1 15 ounce can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 15 ounce can small red beans, drained and rinsed
2 cups frozen corn kernels, thawed
1 green bell pepper, chopped
1 yellow or orange bell pepper, chopped
1 tomato, chopped
1/2 cup chopped cilantro (optional)
3/4 to 1 cup fresh salsa (she informed that next time, she'll probably use 1 1/4 cups of salsa)
Bring the water to a boil in a medium pan. Add the couscous, stir, turn off heat, cover and let rest for 10 minutes.
Meanwhile, chop the vegetables and combine them in a large bowl. Add the beans and corn. Add the soaked couscous and salsa. Toss to mix. Serve warm or cold. |
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| Tempeh Pasta Sauce |
[Jan. 25th, 2006|08:25 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  Stuffed! | ] |
Tonight was my first time.
My first time cooking or eating Tempeh.
I decided to incorporate it into a (from scratch) pasta sauce, loosely based on a recipe I came across on a vegetarian website.
To start, I heated some olive oil in a large frying pan, and sauted some minced onions and garlic. I added a block of tempeh (cubed into tiny pieces) and browned that up.
While that was browning, I threw 10 roma tomatoes, a red bell pepper, and a green bell pepper into my brand new food processor (!!). If you don’t have a food processor, (like me, before Saturday) you could just chop them up the old fashioned way. You could leave out the peppers if you wanted to or add other veggies if you wanted to.
I added a handful of sliced fresh mushrooms to the tempeh mixture frying on the stove. After they started to cook down, I added the tomato/pepper mixture, about 1/2 cup of water, a can of diced tomatoes, and my chosen spices. (I used salt, pepper, oregano, Italian seasoning, basil, and a little cayenne pepper.)
I stirred it all together and let it simmer, covered, stirring occasionally for about 25 minutes over medium heat. At that time, I reduced the heat to low, added another 1/4 cup of water to thin it out a little, and added some more spices. At that point, I started boiling the water for the whole wheat fettucine I served it over.
I was a little nervous about trying something new, but ( tempeh=yummeh. )
My hubby even liked it!
It made about 4 servings worth. I think it would be tasty in a pita pocket as well, or even on it’s own!! |
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| Veggie & Lentil Stew |
[Jan. 11th, 2006|08:23 pm] |
I had some veggies that I was afraid would start to go bad if I didn't use them up soon, so I decided to make up a batch of Veggie & Lentil Stew.
For Starters:
I put 2 cups of vegetable stock and 2 cups of water in a large pot and added about 1 cup of lentils (sorted and rinsed). I chopped up 5 baby red potatos and added those to the pot.
From there, you can pretty much chop up and add any veggies that your heart desires.
Here's what I chopped up and added:
1/2 an onion
4 celery stalks
A hearty handful of baby carrots
A handful of grape tomatoes (cherry or regular old tomatoes would be fine too, I just happened to have grape tomatoes that needed to be used up)
About 1 cup of frozen corn
3 cloves of garlic
For seasonings, I added:
4 bay leaves (to be removed before serving)
Oregano
Thyme
Parsley
Lowry's Seasoning Salt
Pepper
Edit: Oh yeah, duh, the cooking instructions!!
Bring it all to a boil, then reduce heat and let it simmer for about an hour. Enjoy! |
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| Tofu Strokin' Off |
[Jan. 1st, 2006|08:11 pm] |
I threw together something new tonight, and it turned out delicious!
I call it: Tofu Strokin' Off.
(It's my vegetarian interpretation of Beef Stroganoff.)
It was extremely simple. I just sauted some pressed, cubed tofu in olive oil with green peppers, onions, and garlic, (and a little bit of salt and pepper) and served it over whole wheat egg-style pasta with vegetarian gravy (You can buy it or make your own-I make my own using vegetable broth, a little cornstarch, and a little soy sauce and garlic.)
( Photographic Evidence of Tofu Strokin' Off )</lj-cut |
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| Cheesy-Broccoli-Corn-Fake Chicken-Brown Rice Delight |
[Jan. 1st, 2006|08:06 pm] |
1. I got out a casserole dish and dumped 1 1/2 cups (uncooked) "fast cooking" brown rice. (There's a Minute Rice Brown Rice that I love.)
2. I placed two frozen Quorn "Naked Cutlets" (meat free fake chicken breast type things) on top of the rice.
3. I dumped about 1 1/2 cups frozen broccoli and about 3/4 cup frozen corn over that.
4. I dumped a can of cream of mushroom soup over the whole thing and spread it to cover everything. (Then I sprinkled it with some salt and pepper.)
5. I poured about 1 3/4 cups of water over the whole thing (enough water to cover it all).
6. I put the cover on the casserole dish and popped it into the oven-preheated to 350 Degrees. (So I lied, step one was turning on the oven.)
7. After letting it bake for about 45 minutes, I took it out, removed the cover, and covered it with shredded cheddar cheese. I popped it back into the oven, un-covered for another 10 minutes.
It was DELICIOUS!! I expected that I'd like it, but it was even tastier than I anticipated.
Notes:
Next time I make it, I'll use 4 of the vegetarian cutlets, as there are easily 2 servings of the rice mixture left over.
Any meat replacement could be used as an alternate protien source, ranging from fake meat to tofu to any legume of your choice. Meat-eaters could use real live (well, dead) meat.
This could be easily made Vegan by using a vegan protien source and skipping the cheese. |
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| Vegetarian Casserole I |
[Jan. 1st, 2006|08:04 pm] |
I really don't use recipes when I cook, I just kind of throw stuff together and hope it works out, so I'll try to recall what I did.
I cooked about a cup and a half of whole wheat penne pasta.
While I cooked it, I got a casserole dish, and threw in a can of garbanzo beans (rinsed and drained), some frozen corn (about a cup, maybe?) a little jar of marinated artichoke hearts (chopped), half an onion (chopped), and 3/4 a jar of some Cabernet Marinara pasta sauce I had left over from something I had last week. I put some salt, pepper, garlic powder, and oregano in there too. When the pasta was done, I put that in there, and stirred it all together.
I baked it (covered) at 350 degrees farenheit for about half an hour. I threw some shredded cheese on top of it and baked it uncovered for another 10 minutes or so. It was mighty tasty. (It can be made without cheese if desired.) |
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| Salsa |
[Jan. 1st, 2006|07:57 pm] |
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The truth is, I don't use a recipe when I make salsa, but I'll tell you what I do. I use a few tomatoes (this time I used 4), some bell peppers (I used 1 green and 1 red), a few different varieties of chili peppers, some jalapeno peppers, an onion, and some garlic. I chop all those up into itty bitty pieces. I set about half of it aside, and throw the other half in the blender with a little bit of tomato paste (like, 1/3 a regular can size) some cilantro and some cumin, and a little bit of salt. I puree it, then mix the puree with the other half of the chopped up veggies. Its better after you refrigerate it for a couple of hours or overnight. It also freezes alright if there's something the matter with you and you don't eat it all up in a couple of days! |
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| Chocolate Chip Banana Bread |
[Jan. 1st, 2006|07:55 pm] |
Ingredients:
1 Stick of Butter (softened) or Margarine
1 Cup of Sugar
2 Eggs
3 TBSP Milk
4 very ripe bananas (the browner, the better!)
2 cups of flour (I use whole wheat flour, but you don't have to)
1 TSP baking soda
1 package of chocolate chips (I like to use milk chocolate chips. Oh, and if you use a whole package, it will be SUPER DUPER chocolatey. If you don't want it SUPER DUPER chocolatey, use less.)
Preheat your oven to 350 Degrees.
Mix the butter and sugar until creamy, then add the eggs and milk and mix some more. Mash the bananas and add them to the mixture. Add the flour and baking soda and mix until blended. The batter will be kind of lumpy. Stir in the chocolate chips. Pour it into a greased bread pan (or use a muffin tin with cupcake...um...cup thingies-what are those called?) 3/4 full. Bake it at 350 degrees for 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 hours. Check it with a toothpick. Enjoy the shit out of it!
(Can also be made as muffins-if making muffins, reduce baking to time to 20-30 mins.) |
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| Grillin' Potatos |
[Jan. 1st, 2006|07:55 pm] |
Today is your lucky day. I am going to share one of my famous recipes with you. (When I say "famous" I mean that I make it on a fairly regular basis, and that people generally make a big fuss over how delicious it tastes.)
All ingredients are optional. (Well, except the potatos. If you're not going to use potatos, then there's really no point.)
I don't do measurements. I eyeball amounts on everything, so you have to too.
Okay, here's what you do:
Cut up some potatos. I like to use the baby red potatos, but any ol' potato will do.
Cut up some onions. (Or an onion, or half an onion, or whatever.)
Cut up some peppers. Green, red, orange, purple, blue, whatever you fancy.
I don't, but you could probably throw some carrots in there too!
Mix up the veggies so they're sort of evenly mixed.
Get out some tin foil. Spray it with non-stick spray stuff. (Or lose the outside layer of your potatos to the burned on the foil shitty-ness.)
Put a layer of the potato/veggie mix in the middle of the foil. Keep in mind you'll be folding the foil around it all into a packet thingie, so plan accordingly. Use more than one piece of foil if you have a huge mound of potatos/veggies.
Randomly place little pats of butter on the layer. Season the hell out of it. (I like to use garlic, oregano, lemon pepper seasoning, lawry's seasoning salt, pleasoning, salt, and pepper.)
Put a layer of cheese on it. I use cheddar. If you must, you can use an insult to cheese such as velveeta.
Repeat these layers, buttering and seasoning each layer, ending with a potato layer on top. Fold the foil up into a packet around the pile of goodness. If you use the right amount of butter (and I hope you do) you may want to do two layers of foil, or a lot of the butter will drip out and you won't get to taste its buttery goodness.
Put the packet(s) on the grill, or over a fire, or if you're being lame, in the oven (Probably 350 degrees would be good).
Pour a glass of wine or open a beer and chill with someone you like for 20-30 minutes. Flip the packet. It should smell AWESOME by now. Drink and chill some more. 20-30 more minutes, and you're on your way to potato heaven.
In my more carnivorous days, I also added layers of raw chicken or steak, cut up into bite size pieces. The steam inside the packet cooks it to perfection. Seriously, some of the best meat I've ever tasted has been from one of these packets. |
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