East Meets West Veg

I am participating in Vegan MoFo (Month of Food) this month! Woohoo! I am so excited! It basically means trying to post as much as possible for the month. The smart folks at Vegan MoFo realize that it can be kind of hard to keep coming up with fresh ideas for posts every day so they have given us MoFo bloggers some great ideas to inspire our writing.

A lot of MoFoers are posting according to daily themes. Some of the daily themes resonate with me, others I will skip. Take Mac-and-Cheese Monday; as a lifetime hater of mac-and-cheese, I think that I really have nothing to offer here. TV Tuesday, however, is something I can? work with. Though I do not watch much TV as of late, I think this is still manageable. I will just *sigh* have to make myself watch TV and consider it to be something like homework or a job. (I grew up watching WAY too much TV and it is one of my guilty pleasures that I rarely feel I can justify doing nowadays.)

I absolutely love my mom and would not trade her for anything in the world. But I sometimes wish I had an extra mom, a vegan mom who has been vegetarian/vegan since the 1970's and knows all the typical 70's recipes by heart. I totally love all of my cookbooks, but I will admit that I scour thrift stores and amazon.com for the vintage vegetarian cookbooks because it seems like those recipes have already been printed and people just don't want to print them again. Maybe it's because I'm kind of obsessed with the 1960's and 70's? Maybe I'm just dreaming of a vegan mentor or something.

At any rate, when I caught an episode of Jazzy Vegetarian and host was making a vegan meatloaf, twice baked potatoes, broccoli, and a dreamy banana pie, I totally felt like my dream was coming true a little bit. So, for my first TV Tuesday I thought I'd recreate Jazzy Vegetarian's Dreamy Banana Pie.

I ran into a little snag though. I forgot that I had to be somewhere until the last minute and I knew there was not enough time to make my pie (even though it doesn't take that long), so I decided to use a non-dairy graham cracker pie crust I had on hand for emergencies (because yes, needing a pie stat can be an emergency sometimes). The graham cracker pie crust was not bad, but I really think that the crust in the recipe would have been much better tasting and healthier. Parts of the graham cracker crust got a little soggy. This did not stop me from having a second piece though and it definitely did not seem to bother my husband. The crust in the recipe is gluten free as long as you use gluten-free oats.

This recipe and all of the recipes from this episode:
http://www.jazzyvegetarian.com/products-group-121.html

Friday night while I was taking care of Buddy, my mom was entertaining guests. She was the only vegetarian among a generally health-conscious and open-minded crowd so she decided to make Lentil Soup and Middle Eastern Salad. She was planning on bringing the leftovers back to my husband and me, but everyone loved it so much that there was nothing left to bring to us! For a few days she's been hearing how good her soup was so we decided to share it with you! Here in Detroit, it is the perfect day for a big pot of soup and I'm sure there will be more days like this coming soon as fall draws near.

Just like Mom's Simple Pea Soup, this soup tastes great the next day so I love to make it on the weekend and divide it up for lunches and dinners during the week. Also like the pea soup, this is great alone or served over a baked potato, rice, quinoa or with bread or crackers.

Ingredients:
1 lb green lentils
8 cups water
3 stalks celery, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
1 large onion, chopped
3 - 4 cloves garlic, chopped
2 bay leaves
1/2 tsp celery salt, or to taste
1/2 tsp garlic powder, or to taste
1/2 tsp onion powder, or to taste
salt and pepper to taste
2 potatoes, diced

Method:
1. Rinse your lentils.
2. Bring lentils and water to a boil.
3. Skim off froth from the top. (This helps eliminate some possible gas)
4. Add everything else, except the potatoes.
5. Let it simmer for 1 1/2 hours.
6. Add potatoes and continue cooking for about 30 minutes.

Over the summer we always get a share from a local CSA and the produce is absolutely divine! In fact, the vegetables are usually so good that I don't want to cook them. I feel like they are absolute perfection on their own and that if I change the flavor at all, I will be missing out on the veggies' natural goodness. In addition to eating the veggies raw, I usually come up with some interesting salads as well. This is often just a way for me to incorporate beans or lentils into my summer diet when all I want to do is eat fresh fruit & veggies.

Many of the fabulous salads we devour all summer long are just not the same in winter because the vegetables (even organic) from the grocery stores here in Michigan are . . . shall I say, lacking that special something you get when they're vine-ripened and fresh picked by your local farmer. I do still enjoy a nice salad in the winter, even when the pickings are slim. This salad is a great one for winter because you only need a few ingredients which are easily accessible all year round.

They just put in a Trader Joe's by my house and I actually found tasty cucumbers and tomatoes there last week. In fact, they were so good that when I made this, I wanted to just keep eating it all day. I thought I should mix it up a little so I came up with two other versions. This would be a great way to pack three different light and healthy lunches for work. You could certainly add more veggies or herbs, but this is one of those things that I throw together when I'm really hungry and don't have a lot of time for washing & chopping. It's SO EASY! You can whip it up in a jiffy and the results are delicious and nutritious!

To find a CSA or Farmer's Market in the United States, go to: http://www.localharvest.org/

Here's the simplest version, your base recipe.
VERSION 1:

INGREDIENTS:
1 can chickpeas/garbanzo beans
1 beefsteak tomato (or 2 roma or 1 pack cherry or grape tomatoes)
1 cucumber
your favorite salad dressing (middle eastern or italian are great choices)
salt & pepper, to taste

DIRECTIONS:
1. Drain and rinse the chickpeas
2. Chop the tomato and cucumber
3. Put it all in a bowl, sprinkle on your favorite dressing, and mix!
4. Add salt & pepper to taste (optional)



VERSION 2:

Put some of the version 1 Chickpea Salad over your favorite greens. (It tastes great on romaine)
You may need to add more dressing.


VERSION 3:

Boil some quinoa and/or rice (or your favorite grain). You could also use a pre-cooked packet. My quinoa-loving, meat-eating cousin just told me that he eats quinoa and brown rice packets from Costco for his lunch at work.

After it cools, mix with some of the version 1 Chickpea Salad. You may need to add more dressing and/or salt & pepper.

A few years ago, my husband's cousin was left to spend her college's winter break all alone in Denver because her boyfriend went to India to see his family. Being the caring guy that he is, he decided to buy her a plane ticket to Detroit to spend the holidays with us! Hooray! Since we had a guest from out of town, my days of sitting at home watching the ball drop with Dick Clark were over (well, not so over, I did it again the next year)!

We didn't want to go to the annual New Year's Eve party with my relatives because they lived too far away and we wanted to enjoy food we actually liked and could eat instead of their usual ring bologna, stinky fish, and crackers and cheese. So we found that a local Vegetarian group was having a New Year's potluck and decided to take a risk - not knowing anyone who would be there! We had a fabulous time! Everyone was so welcoming and interesting - and the food! The food was out of this world - especially the chocolate pie. We thought we died and went to heaven as the chocolatey goodness melted in our mouths! We went back for seconds but there was none left. Word spreads fast!

After some investigation, we finally found the piemaker and told her how much we loved her creation. She laughed and told us that she is not a cook and that she'd have to tell her sister that people were complimenting something she made. She told us that the recipe was so easy that someone who doesn't cook can make it and we committed the recipe to memory on the spot. I have since made my ever so slight variation to the recipe. Don't worry, it's still simple and delicious!

I often make this when there is a potluck or party where I have to bring something and it's been a big hit. I have made the addition of the fresh fruit on top. It's certainly not necessary, but I find that strawberries or raspberries taste great with chocolate. People often ask for the recipe and I've searched for this recipe online so that I could send them a link, but I never found it exactly. The woman I met at the party did not know where it came from. It had been just passed around to her. So, I decided to put it up so that others could enjoy it and I can stop sending individual emails of the recipe! Enjoy!