Today's yummos

I usually do a bit of cooking on the weekends...  it is hard to find good vegetarian things that are fast and easy to make or convenient to have on hand!  There is no open a can of tuna, ya know?  Anyway, I get tired of frozen stuff, of which our grocery store has a sort of ok selection, so I cook.  And if only I could get someone to wash dishes and clean up after me.

So let me digress for a moment to Coco's of Washburn.  The Mad-English teacher and I frequently will split up orders of dal and falafel and enjoy 2 amazing dishes. While I love the falafel, I adore the masoor dal that they make.  It has warm Indian spices, a little pepper hotness and yet has a punch of ginger from a red cabbage component and a yogurt sauce that has cucumber and possibly dill. Anyway - I continue to try and replicate this dish, only because I can't get up to Washburn more than every 4-6 weeks or so.  

Dal with gingered cabbage and yogurt

I've made dal a couple times now- and I have that pretty well situated.  I used this "recipe", so to speak, and followed some of the recommendations, at least the things I had in my very well stocked spice rack.  But the red cabbage I wasn't sure at all about.

Gingered red cabbage

The dal I made last week I paired up with some fermented ginger carrots that I had in my frig.  THAT was really good!  Perfect complimentary foods, so I wanted to go the next step and work on that Coco's dish.

I found that most of the recipes are either  coleslaw or a sweet-sour recipe, but there were some that had a simple ginger based flavoring.  And this is what I went with- with a little adjustment.  I only put in one tablespoon of brown sugar and just a little balsamic vinegar.

I got the formula for dal from Food 52, a guideline for this simple dish.  I used yellow split peas, and threw a bit of turmeric and a piece of ginger in it, you cook it down for a while- up to an hour.

You saute the onion/garlic in oil and then heat up your spices  (I used cumin, coriander, pepper flakes and some good curry powder) to let them release their flavors, and pour that into the dal, then add in your veggies and in this case parsley.  Last week I used spinach for the greens.  

Then you cook that all down into this not quite soup, not really stew that is dal!  I combined a scoop of the cabbage and a scoop of yogurt that had a little za'atar on it, and then the dal.  I do not have access to naan or a lavash here, so flat bread it is! It was outstanding.  Not exactly what Coco's serves, but it is super good.  

It is so nice to come home and be able to have a quick and delicious supper after a LONG day at school.

Aaaaand, I had some bananas that I just didn't get a chance to eat this week.  So I made that amazing double chocolate banana bread recipe from last winter!  

Double chocolate banana bread

It is no wonder I am sleepy tonight!  I got a great walk in this morning, and I was only mildly bothered by ice chunks. ;)

Anyway, I am going to continue my evening and get ready to start a new week.... one that I hope is full of joy.

Baking and cooking and yummies for/from the bees

The weather has decided to become decidedly winter-in-Wisconsin-like this weekend, and I did manage to get outside for a while- that will be forthcoming.  Anyway, after spending an outrageous amount at the grocery store- I fired up the stove and the oven for the afternoon.  Really people, all I wanted to do was binge-watch Breaking Bad, but I opted to wait until evening to do that so I could manage to get something else done.  Because if I had less will-power than I do, I'd have finished that show sometime in the wee hours of the morning.

Anyway, my dear friend Jane had given me a little bowl of a yummy roasted carrot soup and the recipe to go with it, so that was what precipitated the whole cooking frenzy of the afternoon.  I was going to be roasting veggies anyway, so I decided to make a veggie soup as well.  

roasted carrots 

sauteed celery and onion

Finished, blended soup

Roasted  Butter Carrot Soup

Basically roast 2 lb of carrots that are peeled, cut up into chunks and tossed in 4 tablespoons of melted butter in a flat pan.  375-400 for about 25 min.

In a large pan saute 1/2 cup celery and 1/4 cup onion in oil until translucent.  Add in 2 cloves of minced garlic.  Toss in the carrots, add 4 cups veggie broth and cook until everything is soft.  Blend with an immersion blender and then add 1/2 cup of heavy cream and 2 tsp. dill.  Simmer for another 10 min, serve with a little swirl of honey.  It is so much better the next day!!

I discovered that roasting the vegetables is really the key to a good tasting soup.  And I totally made up the recipe as I went, so I will recount it the best that I can. And seriously- put some sweet potato in this if you have it- it really adds so much goodness.

Root vegetables roasting along side the baking pie

Finished soup without the added vegetarian meatballs that I added later

Roasted Vegetable Soup, with greens and other good stuff in it

In large pan roast assorted veggies that are cut up to the same size- I used carrots, onion, parsnips, sweet potatoes and regular potatoes.  I roasted them in oil with salt and pepper until they are partially caramelized.  I also wrapped up a few garlic cloves in foil and threw them in with the veg.

In large stock pot, saute some celery and mushrooms- of course all of this depends on what you have, or how much you bought at the grocery store..... then put in the roasted veggies, 4 cups of broth, a can of diced tomatoes,  a small can of tomato sauce,  a can of northern white beans- rinsed and drained, a tsp of basil, seasoned salt....  squeeze the garlic out of their skins, too.  Then when it has cooked a bit, I put in a half bag of a baby kale mix..... This was so tasty!!  I realized that I had a bag of vegetarian meatballs that I threw in after the photos were taken.  Good idea!!  I finish this off with a sprinkle of  parmesan.....  

As long as the oven was on, I made the MA a peach and blueberry pie.  So that was yummy!  It is a great idea to get those peaches and blueberries in July.  :)  

Meanwhile, because I apparently have no other life, I cooked up some sugar water into sugar candy for bees.  It is incredible how much sugar can dissolve into a mere 2 cups of water.  5 lbs is 10 cups! It is really easy to do this for the little dudes, so when the weather warms up again, they will be getting what is basically a giant sucker.

Boil this stuff until it gets up to 250* on the candy thermometer

Finished candy in their molds

Bee's candy (recipe from this site)

2 cups of water

5 lb of sugar (10 cups)

1 tablespoon lemon juice

Stir sugar and lemon juice  into simmering water in large pan, stirring constantly until all the sugar crystals are gone.  If they do not disappear, add a little water at a time in until they dissolve.  Turn up heat so it will boil and attach candy thermometer.  Boil until it reaches 250.  Pour sugar water into greased paper plates. let firm up before you unmold and feed to bees. :)  Actually if you do this, be sure it cools a bit so it doesn't hurt the bees. 

 I've had another thing buzzing around in my head (hehehe) and that is making some creamed honey.  I love creamed honey, it is really yummy and well..... creamy.  It turns out it is just crystallized honey with really small crystals.  Most recipes tell you to use creamed honey that you buy as "seed", but apparently you can also grind your own in the food processor or blender.  This I did today, not Saturday, but it goes well with this post!  :)

Putting the crystallized honey into the food processor

crystallized honey

whirl the honey in the food processor until pieces are small

Add a few tablespoons of the creamed honey to a jar of liquid

So this is a fairly simple process.  Use the food processor to break the crystals down to a very fine particle.  Stir a couple tablespoons into a jar of regular honey and let it sit for a week or so while the honey crystallized to the size of the "seed" crystals that you mixed into the liquid honey....   I will be interested to see how this goes!

Anyway, I have discovered it is difficult to quickly pound out a blog post when one is watching Breaking Bad, and I snickered more than once when I wrote the word cooked.  Lol.
Tomorrow is Monday and I am thrilled that I will have a nice lunch for the next several days.  And in a week I should have some honey that won't leak out of my peanut butter and honey bagel that I eat for breakfast every day at school.  Ahhh it is the little things, right?  They bring us so much joy.

Roasted tomato sauce

We have a school garden right outside of the art room, and it is a cool thing as far as I am concerned.  I have been watching it this September and spied some pretty nice tomatoes out there.  When no one had picked many of them right before that first heavy frost of the season, I decided to do something about it.  We were all over that- I wish I had a pic of little Greggy picking tomatoes with us.  But I don't, so you just have to use your imagination.

The Mad-Science teacher did some research and told me about this roasted tomato sauce.  It basically involves tomatoes, a few aromatics and some herbs/salt/pepper.

The process is simple: choose the size of pan according to the amount of tomatoes you have.  I really didn't have that many, so I used a cake pan....  Some of us were able to use a turkey roasting pan because we have so many tomatoes.....  That will be me next year.  Plans are being made.  Anywho,  after you core and maybe if you are feeling ambitious, cut up the tomatoes, add in a chopped onion, a handful of partially smushed and completely peeled garlics, a pour of olive oil and a bunch of fresh basil.

Spray Pam on the pan!!  

I used a combo of full size and cherry tomatoes- these tomatoes were so sweet that the sauce is pretty sweet too!  Bake the veggies for about 3 hours at 375.  Or until the water has pretty much cooked out and reduced to a thick sauce.  

Still needs some reducing- I put salt and pepper on  it at about this point

After it has cooked down, you can remove some of the skins.  I probably took out half of them, but you really don't notice.  You can also use a food processor or immersion blender and make the sauce smooth if you want, but that isn't what I care to do.  I like it less processed.  When you stir it up the garlic and onion sort of melts.  

This is the chilled and finished sauce

As I said above, the sauce was sweet, so I put a little chopped kalamata olive in it when I reheated it, which added a salty and tangy note to it.  This would probably be less sweet with more traditional tomatoes, but I used the heritage tomatoes that were in the garden.  A super dark paste type and a few very dark (maybe Cherokee purple??) larger tomatoes and a whole bunch of yellow sungold cherry tomatoes.  Goodness!  You could throw in some fresh thyme or oregano too- and maybe a little bit of cayenne???

Pasta, the sauce with olives and some parmesan

It has been discussed that we could saute a bunch of veggies (peppers, zucchini, carrots, broccoli) and throw those in there as well.....  could add lots of things.  ALSO, Laurie freezes hers in bags, so they stack flat.  This was truly one of the best things I have eaten all summer.  Well, all fall too I guess.  Oh summer, come back to me....  that will be for the next post, though.

This is some serious good!  And it gave me a whole lot of joy!

Greek Stewed Cauliflower

Greek flavors involve savory and more traditionally sweet cinnamon and orange zest.  And a dose of salty in the olives!

So I did almost no cooking this weekend-  yesterday I was busy doing a little 4 hour class at the tech school in Phillips and then I got outside and snowshoed twice.  This morning I went for a long walk, then hit the gym and then went snow shoeing.....  yikes.  So, I discovered a decided lack of food that I can use for lunch this week and had to rectify that.

I had seen a recipe on my Pinterest board, or rather I saw that someone had repinned this recipe and it gave me an aha moment.  And I had some quinoa left in the frig, so I had everything allllll ready for dinner.  Woo hoo!!

Oh yeah, I lied, btw.  I made blueberry muffins before lunch.   Sort of forgot about that.  That recipe is right here--  I made a slight adjustment, didn't have enough oatmeal, so I used oat bran to make up the rest of it.  AND for some insane reason there was no cinnamon in the recipe.  CRAZY TALK.  There was cinnamon in mine.  I had one today, and have another planned for tomorrow and have half in the freezer.   The MA on the other hand, has had more than one, which is why half of them are hidden in the freezer.  

Blueberry muffins!

Ok, so this went together super fast, just chop up what needs to be first then it is as simple as 1, 2, 3!

 Chop the cauliflower, onion, prepare the garlic for pressing and plan to slice the olives later.

Literally dump everything into a pan (after you quickly saute the onion and garlic)  except the olives and cook down for about 15 minutes.  Then simply add the olives, add salt and pepper to taste and serve over rice or quinoa or whatever you want!

Greek Stewed Cauliflower

1 tablespoon olive oil

3 cloves garlic, crushed

1 onion (chopped)

1 head cauliflower (chopped)

Zest ½ Orange

1 cinnamon stick

1  can crushed tomatoes or diced tomatoes

1 – 15 oz can tomato sauce

1 teaspoon oregano

½ teaspoon celery seed

⅛ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

1 cup kalamata olives (chopped)

Salt and Pepper (to taste)

Heat oil in large pan and saute the onion until soft.  Add the garlic and saute for about 30 seconds.  Add  cauliflower, zest of orange, cinnamon stick, tomatoes and tomato sauce, oregano, celery seed and red pepper flakes.  Cook down until cauliflower is tender.  Remove cinnamon stick and add olives and salt/pepper.  Serve hot over rice or other grain.  YUMMY!! 

Now that was a great way to end a busy day!  And pretty joyful, too!

And the arctic votex descends upon the Northwoods and the MadArt teacher cooks up a storm

OH my goodness, it is a tad chilly out there. I was fortunate enough to not have to venture out until late in the day, by virtue of the fact that I bribed the hubs with a hot breakfast, which resulted in him feeding the horse and me not having to go outside until the nighttime feeding!  I did tiptoe out a couple times, but those adventures did not last.

When I did go out, it was incredible how cold it was.  Even I, who ventures out with very little provocation, found an excuse to stay in.  The cold pierced right through my coat!  My hand that had held the feed bucket got so cold on the way to the mailbox I had to pull my fingers inside my glove.  Yikes. 

Oh well.  I didn't sleep very well last night, the house kept crackling and then I would wake up again, and I kept thinking that the furnace was going to quit or something.  Idk. I finally did get to sleep, but I slept in a bit today. My morning was unfocused- didn't know what to do with myself today. It took me a little while to get moving in a forward direction.  Shutterfly, the place where I get my calendars made, had a 101 free pix deal, so I took the time today to upload 101 pix mostly of family things.  I am thinking that I should get a few nice  big prints made of some of my pix, too.  Really Big ones.  The ones I had printed right after I got my camera are tragically over exposed.  Burn out.  I didn't know at the time what that was, but I do now and it bugs me.  So it's something I am thinking about.

We have another day off tomorrow, and I am looking forward to that as well. I will be getting to the gym though- no staying home all day.  

What I DID do today among other things is a lot of cooking!  It is relaxing and fun and now I have several things to have for lunch and/or dinner in the frig and freezer.  AND it also heats up the house very nicely to have the stove/oven/crockpot running all day.  

Here is round 1 of cooking:

Ruths's Refrigerator rolls

My aunt Ruth gave my mom the recipe for these things back in the day and they are fabulous and the cool thing- not that it directly affects me- is that they are milk free and so my sister Rose can make and enjoy these!  #ftw

2 cups of water

2 pkg yeast

Mix in large bowl  and add:

1/2 cup sugar

2 tsp salt 

3 cups flour (will be more flour to come)

I mix this with my Kitchenaid

Add :

1/3 cup shortening

1 egg

Mix well.  Add a little at a time-

3 - 3/12 cups flour 

 until dough forms a ball and it has mixed for a minute or two.  Or else dump it onto a floured counter and knead it for a 5 minutes to get the rest of the flour incorporated.

Cover  and refrigerate.  2 hours before needed, form rolls into balls and place on greased baking sheet.  Let rise and then bake 15 - 20 minutes in 375 degree oven.  Until they are nice and brown and sound hollow when thumped.  Remove from oven and brush tops with butter or margarine.

You can keep the extra dough for a few days, covered, in the refrigerator.

These are amazing and the extra dough will last a couple days in the frig so you can have fresh ones again!

Next up- Mushroom and Chickpea Ragout

This was so good I could hardly believe it.  It actually has some of the flavor components of a stroganoff with the worcestershire sauce and tomato paste.  It began life on Pinterest as Rosemary flavored, but I a. didn't have any and 2. don't care that much for rosemary.  So therefore my favorite herb- thyme- was pressed into service.

I got the original recipe here and it looked really great, but things were changed.....

1 tbsp olive oil
1 small onion, fine dice
1/2 tsp dry thyme leaves
10 ounces/heaped half pound mixed mushrooms, sliced (I used all baby portabellas)
splash of red wine vinegar
1 tsp tomato paste
1-2 tsp vegetarian worcestershire sauce
1 can of chickpeas
1 cup vegetable stock
big splash of unsweetened non-dairy milk, I used coconut milk that I had left over in the frig
1 tsp cornstarch
salt + pepper
2 thick slices of good bread

Heat olive oil and saute onion in pan- on low heat, watch for scorching.  Sprinkle on thyme leaves until you can smell them, and then dump in the mushrooms.  Let them cook a few minutes until they begin to soften.  Add in your tablespoon or so of vinegar, tomato paste and worcestershire sauce.  stir around for a few minutes and add your chick peas.  Again let it mix together for a few minutes (stir to keep from burning), then add in vegetable stock.  Cook down until about 1/3 of the liquid is gone.  Add the coconut milk or what ever you want to use.

When it is starting to look thicker, mix a couple tablespoons of water with the cornstarch.  Stir into the chickpeas and let cook until thickened. Taste it and add salt and pepper. Mean while, toast the bestest bread you have and put it on a plate.  This is not the prettiest but the flavors are sublime and rich.  I think a touch of sour cream would be good, too.  But not necessary!  AND there are left overs.

So this is vegetarian/vegan and yummy!!  I used Ezekial bread for toast.

 And so I was thinking that a nice dessert was in order, so I made a variation on homemade Lara bars- sort of a several recipe mashup!

Chocolate Protein Balls

1package of dates
about 1/2 cup of raw almonds
1/2 cup hulled hemp seed (if no hemp seed, add more almonds)
3 heaping Tablespoons raw cacao (can use cocoa too)
water if necessary
mini chocolate chips

In food processor- process dates until a paste. Add water if you need to. Remove to a different bowl.  Add almonds to bowl and pulverize to a good powder and then add in hemp and cacao and process until well blended.  Add to dates and mix, sprinkle in water if you need to make it stick better.  Mix in mini chips.  Roll into balls and then I rolled it into more cacao powder.  YUMMY!!

The hemp seeds add an extra boost of protein, and they are just tasty!

HA but I'm not done yet!!  On to the next post!!  

Isn't that a joy?  Two food posts in one night??

More veggie/vegan delights: some hits and a miss- maybe

Even though I am going to be gone this coming late week and into the weekend (HELLLLOOOO ELLA!!)

Did someone say GRAMMA DEBI  IS COMIN?????

 I did a bunch of cooking.  My intention as I went into this Saturday was to not make much at all, as I have a bunch of things in the freezer..... so I could have lunch and dinner quite happily for the next few days- well, week or two.  But, I did have this pile of squashes in the front room, and then I saw a pumpkin recipe this past week, and I had some broccoli that I needed to use up.....  yeah, so there was that.  PLUS I am feeling sort of cruddy- the germ laden children at school managed to pass their joy along to me, and Monday I seriously SUDDENLY lost my voice- just so fast it was astonishing.  I was talking to a colleague and suddenly I had to start clearing my throat and then within an hour it was sketchy, and then it has gone in and out- mostly out  - ever since Monday.  Boo.  HATE that.  Anyway,  earlier today, I had gone for a walk and was so exhausted I could hardly stand it, so Instead of cleaning out a room, which is what I should have done, I began by making this pumpkin chia pudding stuff.  Which was not that great when I tasted it, but it is in the frig and we shall see if a little time makes it better.  Well then I pressed the tofu and began cooking the squash and one thing led to another and soon I have put the oven through it's paces all afternoon.  It is freaking cold out, so that was just a nice thing to do. And I can rest myself in between things, so it worked out fine.

One thing that I really miss from my meat eating day is that ability to grab something like tuna or cold meat and make a sandwich or some such thing - filling and minimal fuss.  So I have been working on perfecting my tofu and tempeh techniques and recipes so I can make some to have in the frig or possibly with the tempeh figure out what to mix it with that is super fast and ready for what I want to do.  In that vein, I made some kick ass tofu today- pressed and marinated and baked.

Lime and cayenne tofu

I did a little looking around, and decided I did not have the energy to make one that was fried or marinated with a complicated sauce (anything more than 4 ingredients that involved a bowl is complicated today) so while reading I found simple directions and in the comment section people were talking about what they marinated with- one person had a GENIUS combination: lime, olive oil, Bragg's aminos (soy sauce) and cayenne.  PERFECT.
Basically I splashed some Bragg's onto some pressed tofu (I wrap the tofu in a tea towel, place it in a flat bowl and put my tequila bottle on top to press it!  :) ) (I need to get a tofu press) that was cut into 1 inch strips and then squeezed a half a lime, sprinkled about a tablespoon of olive oil on it and then sprinkled on cayenne.  Of course the tofu was in a baking dish- and then baked it for about a half hour. REALLY good.  The lime is awesome on it.

Baked Tofu

1 block extra firm tofu
1 - 2 Tablespoons Bragg's aminos, soy sauce or Tamari
1 - 2 Tablespoons fresh lime juice
1 - 2 Tablespoons olive oil
1/4 - 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

I froze the extra firm tofu first, thawed and then squeezed the extra water out of it. by pressing it with a tequila bottle set on top of it!  You could use a heavy fry pan, a brick, whatever.  Then cut it into 1 " strips and put into a shallow dish.  

Dump each ingredient over the tofu and roll it around to coat and let it sit for 15 - 30 min.  Preheat the oven to 450 (make sure the dish can go into a hot oven or else transfer to metal) and bake uncovered for about 30 - 40 min, flipping once.  So good.  This method could be used with any number of marinades- read the comment section here


So after a little rest period of searching the internet for combination of broccoli and butternut squash, I was tired just reading all of it, and decided to roast them separately.  You know, when you are looking for things like this, you just have to skip right past that first google page.  The boring things are there- like the all recipes and the "normal" websites- go past those and find the blogger's recipes.  So much more interesting.

So I precooked the butternut squash a bit in the microwave and then peeled and diced it and roasted it in a little oil with some onion--  that was baking next to the tofu.  Did I mention I made brownies for the M.A.?  And also a pot of chicken and roasted potatoes and carrots?  Yes, I make totally separate meals for him.  Whatevs.

Roasted Butternut squash

1 medium squash

1 - 2 onions

1 tablespoon olive oil

spike seasoning or other seasoned salt

Microwave the squash about 3 minutes to soften.  I let mine sit for about 45 minutes in the microwave because I was doing other stuff, so it was easy to handle. Then peel, cut, and dice into pieces.  Spread out on pan that has a tablespoon of oil in it, then add peeled and chunked up onion.  Sprinkle with seasoning of your choice. Roast about 30 - 45 minutes.

When the squash was almost done, I cleaned up some broccoli and garlic and tossed that with a touch of oil and Spike seasoning and roasted that too.  NOW, I was to say, though they sound like they might be a touch incongruous, the limey tofu, sweet squash and the savory broccoli was so good together!!

Roasted Broccoli

1 big bunch of broccoli

2 cloves garlic, peeled and cut into a few pieces

olive oil

salt and pepper

Cut broccoli up into pieces about the same size.  Spread into another flat pan or dish and add garlic pieces. (crushed garlic would burn) Toss with oil- roast about 10 minutes.

NOW for the pumpkin chia stuff.  In theory it sounds really good.  I am a pumpkin pie fan- love it and the cinnamon/nutmeg/clove/brown sugar goodness.  I have a recipe for a pumpkin pudding that is baked and is basically pumpkin pie without the crust, so that is what I was expecting.  So first problem, when you don't bake the liquid out of it, a lot of flavor is diluted.  Second of all, it is missing some depth, I think the brown sugar richness is missing, too.  This has maple syrup in it, I believe it is supposed to be vegan, but I am thinking honey might be better or else, for heavens sakes, I'll just put in some brown sugar.  I love chia seeds- they make me happy for some reason.  I enjoy their weird little gelatinous selves - in this case beside the nutritional boost, it also serves as an egg substitute.  This recipe will have to be fiddled with, but it has some potential.  I'd love to go taste it right now, but I am just too full.  THAT is so weird- I am almost never full.   I am going to try putting some on my pancakes in the morning, for kicks and giggles!

Pumpkin Pie Chia Pudding

Ingredients:

• 3/4-1 cup unsweetened almond milk
• 1 cup canned pumpkin, chilled if possible
• 2 tbsp chia seeds
• 2 tbsp GOOD tasting vanilla protein powder, optional
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon, or more to taste
• 1/4 tsp ground ginger
• pinch of nutmeg
• 1-2 tbsp maple syrup, to taste

1. In a medium-sized bowl, whisk together all ingredients until combined and no clumpy bits remain.

2. Place bowl in the fridge for 1-2 hours or overnight, to thicken and chill.

3. Serve with raisins, walnuts, or crushed ginger cookies if desired.

Approx nutritional info [per serving (serves 2) with protein powder and with 1 tbsp maple syrup]: 167 cals, 6 grams fat, 23 grams carbs, 10 grams sugar, 5 grams protein, 10 grams fiber.

Read more: http://ohsheglows.com/2011/10/14/pumpkin-pie-chia-pudding-parfait/#ixzz2iE47vjHq


So after 3 trips to the compost pile and 3  sink-fulls of dishes I have a few days of meals and I won't have to thaw anything in the freezer.  I am undecided on whether that is good or not- I should free up a little space.  Oh well, I won't be home to cook next weekend, so I will use it the following week!

Seriously hoping for a voice and a more normal feeling head and throat in the morning!

That will be awesome and could be somewhat joyful as well!

Roasted chickpeas-

 So I had talked about these chickpeas in an earlier post, and I actually had someone request this!  I am sorry it took me so long, my buddy Phil!

This is really easy and straight-forward AND you can adjust the seasonings as you wish!  Seasoned salt, chili powder, cayenne pepper, paprika, I am sure the possibilities are endless.  Parmesan cheese?  Cinnamon and sugar??  Oh my goodness.  Go get that can of chickpeas out of the cupboard and get roasting!!

Let the chickpeas (canned or home cooked) dry for a half hour  on the pan

Roast for 45 min. stirring every 10 min or so- the KEY is to start with a cold oven

When finished, toss with seasoning of your choice

Roasted Chickpeas

As seen on the website: theleangreenbean.com 

 1. Rinse the chickpeas and put them on a baking sheet. Pat them dry with a paper towel and then let them sit and dry some more for about half an hour.

2. Toss with olive oil and season with desired spices- I tried cayenne pepper and Spike Seasoning the first time.
3. Put the pan in the oven BEFORE you turn the oven on.
4. Turn the oven on to 425 degrees and roast them for 45 minutes, stirring every 10 min or so.
5. Shut the oven off and leave them in there for about an hour and a half*
6. Transfer to container and enjoy!  They are so nice and crispy!!

*If you leave to go somewhere they can stay in there longer than that because the oven will just keep getting colder.

Be somewhat generous with the seasonings- I found that mine started out pretty mild.

A nice handful equals ABOUT 120 calories...  and a nice kick of protein.

Something to be joyful for!  

Smoked Cauliflower and Couscous

I finally got a little time today to do some cooking- at least cooking that was my choice and not needing to be cooked elsewhere/transported or in anyway needing to please other people but me.  

As I have previously at least showed in pictures, I got a new cookbook for Christmas from me, to me! I was able to read a bunch of it while riding down to Jon's a few days ago, and I have lots of cooking to do!  I am not sure why I chose this particular recipe, but it sounded good, and I had picked up some whole wheat couscous, so I was ready.

I THINK I am going to try and do at least one idea from that book per week until school is done.  I do like to have some new things to eat around the house during the week!!

Anyway, I made this tonight and it is something that I will make again. If you are at all interested in vegetarian cooking, this book by Mark Bittman is totally worth the investment!!

It is really a simple and quick procedure that only requires that you do a little chopping and stirring.

Begin with all of your ingredients all together and pretty much prepared and it will go very smoothly!  Chop the onion, and the cauliflower, keeping them separate. 

Toast the almonds in a dry frying pan

After stirring them around for a while, remove them from the pan, add the oil and the onion

Have the cauliflower ready....

Add the cauliflower to the softened onions and stir up well- oil should be coating the cauliflower.  Saute until the veg starts to crackle

cook the cauliflower until it has slightly softened

add the couscous and toast it for another 5 minutes

Add the smoked paprika  and then the vegetable broth- cook undisturbed for 15 min.

Chop up the almonds as small as you can

Mix it into the couscous and then let it sit

Spoon out, garnish with grated cheese and enjoy!

WHOLE WHEAT COUSCOUS WITH CAULIFLOWERAND ALMONDS

From How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman

½ cup of whole almonds

3 tablespoon olive oil

1 large shallot or small onion

1 small cauliflower – chopped- about3 cups

salt and pepper

1 cup whole wheat couscous (or regular)

2 tsp. smoked paprika

1 ½ cups vegetable broth

½ cup parsley

grated cheese

In a dry skillet, pour almonds in andtoast in hot pan. Stir constantly- about 2 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside in a bowl to cool

In same pan, heat oil and add onion,cook about 2 minutes, stirring, until softened a bit and starting toturn color. Add cauliflower and salt and pepper. Stir well- Cookabout 5 – 10 minutes until veg. starts to pop and crackle.

Add couscous, stirring until coatedwith oil, then sautee about another 2- 3 minutes, couscous will startto toast.

Sprinkle with paprika, then addvegetable broth. Bring to boil then turn heat very low, cover andcook without stirring for 15 min. (5 min. for regular couscous). Chop almonds as fine as you can. Add them with the parsley (I didn'thave parsley) to dish, fluff with spoon, cover and let sit without heat for another 2 minutes. Can be eaten warm or cool!

About 400 calories per cup. That isthe count for it without cheese. TOTALLY worth every calorie

A definite joy in my week!