Ultimate Vegan Black Bean Soup

I threw this together after reading about a dozen different recipes; all of which sounded great but werent really what I was hankering for. A solid shout-out to Post Punk Kitchen for suggesting putting quinoa in this soup- such a good idea! A good soup is very flexible when it comes to ingredients, is hearty and nutritionally sound, and tastes like more. For me and my test audience of one redheaded boyfriend (and a very interested-and denied dog) it really hit the spot.

For the first time in about a year I got sick- a minor sinus cold that's left me feeling floppy and under the weather; it's going around up here in Canada. This soup will definitely clear your sinuses out!

YOU WILL NEED:

1 large pot
1 hand blender (or regular blender, but one of those hand stick blenders makes life easier)
1 food processor for to puree one of the cans of beans.
2 15oz cans of black beans, rinsed in cold water and strained (you can use two larger, 19oz cans of beans too, it just makes it beanier! Who can argue with more beans, amiright.)
1 L of vegetable broth
1 medium onion
3 cloves garlic
1 medium scotch bonnet pepper
1/2 cup of corn niblets
1 red pepper
2 diced roma tomatoes
1/4 cup raw quinoa
2T lime juice
1tsp liquid smoke
spices! I used 1 T chili flakes, 1 T ground cumin, 1tsp cinnamon, 1.5T oregano, a few twists of fresh ground black pepper, a pinch of sea salt and a bay leaf.
1 tsp of oil

Dice all your vegetables finely (about a cm cubed or less).  Mince the garlic and the scotch bonnet.

in the large pot, heat the oil and sauté the onion and the garlic with the salt and pepper until the onion is translucent. Add the scotch bonnet and a squeeze of lime. Be careful- you can gas yourself out with the fumes if you're not used to sautéing hot peppers!

add the red pepper, the tomatoes and the corn and continue sauteing for a couple minutes until the red pepper is just starting to cook.

add the rest of the herbs and stir well, making sure everything is well coated and cook for another two minutes.

Puree one of the cans of beans with a cup of the vegetable broth in a blender or food processor, and add it to the pot with the rest of the vegetable broth, the other can of solid beans and the liquid smoke.

Bring the soup to a boil and add the 1/4 cup of quinoa. Boil for another 15 minutes, stirring quite often to make sure the quinoa cooks well and nothing sticks to the bottom of the pot. Then, simmer with a slightly askew lid, stirring regularly, for about an hour (or until you can't take it any more and have to eat it!)

Before eating, immerse your hand held stick blender in the soup and carefully give it 5 or 6 solid bursts until the soup is much thicker, but not a homogenous mass- you should still see lots of pieces of vegetable and bean and quinoa, but it should be the consistency of a thin cake batter. If you don't have a hand blender, just carefully scoop out 2 cups of soup, blend it in a regular blender, and add it back to the soup and stir well- no big deal!

I served this garnished with diced spring onions, avocado slices and home made salsa on the side. Now, be warned- this is quite spicy, with the chili flakes and the scotch bonnet pepper. Feel free to substitute the scotch bonnet with a less spicy pepper such as a jalapeno or a smoked chipotle or even leave it out completely and just use chili flakes or a scoop of cayenne or whathaveyou. As I said at the beginning of our bean-y adventure- a good soup is flexible.

Cracking into Eggplant.

So, a very sweet friend of mine works in a place that received a large donation of fresh organic produce from a local farmer. After everyone had taken their respective oodles of vegetables, there was still quite a lot left over. Since it looked like it was going to go to waste, she very naturally thought of Your Humble Narrator (a filthy, free-veggie-loving hippy!) and gave me a call to see if I'd like any of the veggies- of course, I do. Pfft. True to her awesome self, she shows up at my work not an hour later with a huge black bag of peppers, parsip (one sad lonely parsnip- come home with me!) carrots, onions, celery...and eggplants. And not just any eggplants- long, tentacular, spectacular Chinese eggplants.

Enough eggplants that I hand to bundle them into a Gordian knot and double handedly stuff them into a crisper drawer in the fridge on Friday, where they filled the ENTIRE drawer with delicious purple promise.

So, tonight I pulled a few of those bad boys out and decided to whip up some home made vaguely Chinese-ish food.

I honestly like nothing better than getting a food idea and finding that I have everything I need for it just waiting in the fridge for me. It's so satisfying.

Now, one of my terrible comfort foods is take-out Chinese food crispy ginger eggplant. I mean, forget that eggplant is naturally super low calorie- once it's that saturated in sesame oil, it's like a french fry. It's super bad for you, but tastes Oh so good. I thought I'd try to reproduce that in spirit, without the 1/2  a cup of oil that often goes into such dishes (yes, 1/2 a cup. Seriously. The mind boggles).

Here's what I did.

Chop 2 long eggplants into 1/2 inch slices and steam with 1/2 cup water and 1T rice vinegar for 20 minutes until quite soft. This made about 3.5 cups of eggplant rings. I dont' imagine a bit more or less will matter.

While the eggplant is steaming:

dice: 2 red peppers and 2 scallions and set aside. I had some leftover green peas from Thanksgiving, so I just threw those guys in there too because I'm a rebel. It was about 1/4 cup or less.

mince:
1 scotch bonnet pepper, (WARNING: I LOVE SPICY FOOD)
3+ cloves of garlic (we all know how much I love garlic!)
a goodly chunk of ginger to taste (I had the last bit of a root, which worked out to about 1.5T. I would have normally doubled that).
1 scallion

add the minced items to a measuring cup with:
2/3 cup of water or veggie broth,
4 T Braggs (or soy sauce if you swing that way)
1 T brown sugar
1 T agave syrup
1 tsp sesame seeds
1 T crushed cashews.

this makes the sauce, you'll be using this first. It's nice to let it stand while the eggplant is steaming, to allow the flavours to mingle.

when the eggplant is ready to go, drain it.

Pour the sauce mixture into a deep sided frying pan and bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. Let boil for about 2 minutes, then turn it down a bit. (higher than medium, lower than boil).

Add the eggplant, peppers and scallions you've diced earlier. Stir very well to coat everything in the sauce. Don't worry that it's a little thin: I've got you covered. Wait for it. (hint: will involve cornstarch or arrowroot powder).

stirring fairly regularly, cook the eggplant the rest of the way, and the peppers lightly with the sauce. Keep it stirring, you don't want anything to stick and you want the flavours to really blend and have a good time in there.

When you're about ready to eat (you'll want to cook this for about 5 minutes, tops, or until the eggplant is creamy and dark and a little fally-aparty, and the peppers and peas are steamed but not floppy.) turn the heat back up so the sauce is at a light boil again. While the sauce is heating up, stir 2 tsp of cornstarch into a small bowl with 1 T of water or veggie broth, make a hole in the centre of the pan so you can see the sauce in the bottom, and pour the cornstarch into the sauce. Immediately mix very well, constantly turning the veggies and the sauce around on the high heat until the sauce thickens. Heat for another few minutes to cook the cornstarch and to allow the sauce's sweetness to bond with the veggies and then serve!

I garnished with shredded organic coconut, because it was there.

AND THE BEST PART? (sorry for shouting, I get excited). There's no oil. Nada. Zero. Zilch. OK, so the eggplant isn't "crispy" which is a result of being oil fried...but it's garlicky, and gingery, and eggplanty and spicy and creamy still.

This pan made two large servings with only 195 calories and 4 grams of fat, 9 grams of protein, 8 grams of iron and 7 grams of fibre per serving because food is awesome.

I suggest serving this over organic brown rice or quinoa for a super-hearty lasts-all-day lunch or dinner if you're super hungry.

I think I'm going to make baba ganouj with the remaining eggplants.

so many good things in one bowl. 

Low Fat Vegan Eggplant Parmesan: Triumph!

After last week's Tentatively Successful Casserole, I was a little afeared to get back on my cooking train. But, nothing ventured nothing gained. This morning walking my dog we took a jaunt to the local greengrocer- in between the mountains of oranges and apples and peaches, I wandered past the eggplants.

Now, I love eggplant. I love eggplant so much, we have six eggplants growing in our modest inaugural veggie patch in the back yard, all of which have been great producers this year. Not that I would know, of course, since the local bloody raccoons have tragically cut my little nightshade's lives short every single time- snapping their wee stems and half-heartedly munching their delicate aubergine corpses before discarding their half-chewed carcasses mockingly on my back yard table.

I kind of hate raccoons, the adorable little fuckers.

So, as a result of this, all summer I've been in eggplant withdrawal; stubbornly refusing to buy one when *any day now* I could be eating one from the back yard. With our roof being replaced and our eaves now no longer a Home for Wayward Raccoons, there are finally four good sized eggplant babies coming in unmolested. Fingers crossed.

So, coming across surprise eggplants in the green grocer rather undid me, I must confess and in a moment of weakness I took one of the shiny, dark purple beauties home. On a chilly moist October Sunday, this could mean only one thing.

Eggplant Parmesan.

I have been known to do a lazy EPP, coating the eggplant slices in sweet chili sauce and sprinkling them with vegan parm and breadcrumbs before drenching them in storebought sauce and throwing them in the oven for an hour...but today! Today I was resolved for a full on proper EPP, healthy vegan style.

Here's what I used.

1 large eggplant, sliced in to 8 pieces.

sauce:
2 portabello mushrooms
1 m white onion
2 cloves garlic
1 can Primo zesty sauce (embarrassing, sure, but the greengrocer has limited supplies. Mea culpa).
1 tsp cayenne
1 tsp paprika
2 tsp basil, oregano, marjoram, etc. Italian herbs to taste.
dash of liquid smoke

egpplant coating:
1/2 cup almond milk
1/4 cup GF flour (what I had on hand, I don't intentionally eat GF)
1 finely diced scallion
1 tsp black pepper

1 cup panko bread crumbs
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
pinch salt

vegan parmesan, often available at your local health food store.

Here's what you do:

Cut the eggplant into 8 pieces, lengthwise and then that in half and then those in half. OR, cut it into 1/2 inch thick rings. Lay these on a plate and rug a generous sprinkling of salt into them and set aside for 30 minutes to let those babies sweat. (grooossssss.)

While this is happening, get that sauce going. Sauté the diced onion and mushroom and garlic together in a splash of veggie broth or 1tsp of oil. When these are well cooked (about 7 minutes) add the pasta sauce and the herbs and bring to a boil. Add the splash of liquid smoke and stir well often, bring down to a simmer and let the flavours mingle! Taste often, just to be sure it's good. It's for science.

Whisk the liquids for the coating together and let sit; sift the breadcrumbs and the nutritional yeast together in a wide plate. 30 minutes before you want to eat, preheat the over to 450 for 10 minutes. While this is heating, coat each piece of eggplant with the milk and flour coating and then roll in the breadcrumb/nootch mixture and lay on a baking sheet covered in parchment paper.

Bake for 8 minutes a side, making sure that the crumbs are a nice and golden brown. Pull those babies out and lay them on a roasting pan. Put a generous dollop of the sauce on each one, and sprinkle about a tsp of vegan parmesan over each. Turn the oven down to 350 and let them bake for about 5 minutes.

remove and serve!

My awesome omnivorous boyfriend had seconds (and thirds). I say TRIUMPH.

EPP in the house, yo. 

Menu: Frustration Casserole, followed by Humble Pie.

OK, I love food. No surprise. And I've gotten used to thinking I'm pretty good at making food, too. So it's always a bit of a shocker to have an evening that's such a total and complete cascade of hilarious and frustrating events. Frustration is currently in the oven, probably burning.

Let me rewind for a minute. I get several cooking/foodie vegan newsletters sent to me...see prior comment about loving food. I like getting inspiration and new ideas, keeps me from getting stale and just going back to the same dozen dishes again and again (which I tend to do...I love me some foodie faves).

Cue the recipe for mushroom and broccoli casserole. Sounds good, right? OK, it has pasta...and I almost never eat pasta....but the mushrooms and garlic and nootch cheese sauce...but the pasta. Hmmm.

Fast forward to yesterday. Browsing the local health food store, I come across quinoa pastas! Brilliant! amazing! Protein! Tiny singing food angels!

Quinoa pasta, folks, is $10 a bag. Yes, I bought it. Shut up. This casserole was going to happen, and it was going to be gourmet, apparently. Gourmet Casserole. Now a thing.

This evening I foray into the kitchen...sashay, even, spatula in hand, to make said casserole. The oven is preheating. The music is playing. The ovaries are cramping.

what?

Now, it needs to be said again that I almost never eat pasta. So, everything I cook in large pots that gets boiled is lentils or beans- both of which you put into water, and bring to a boil. You know, if you put a very expensive bag of quinoa pasta absent-mindedly into a pot of water and plop it onto the stove to bring it to a boil what you get is gelatinous goo, burned to the bottom of the pot (possibly ruining a $80 pot, but let us not dwell on that yet.) that in no way resembles pasta.

Failure #1.

While this is happening, I'm merrily scrubbing mushrooms and broccoli and, to save time, I decide to throw them all in the food processor to chop them rather than do it by hand- along with the garlic and the onion. I then proceed to chop them too fine, so they're really tiny specks of food...one step away from paste. Now I have green and brown paste to mix with my pasta paste. Umm.

Failure #2.

Well, no worries...I have the Gelationous Goo draining in the hopes that it will somehow magically reassemble as fusilli, and I decide to cook Failure #2 as directed in the recipe, lightly. Done. OK. Success. As this is simmering, I get to the blender to make the cheeseish sauce to go into it.

cheeseish sauce calls for:
almond milk
nutritional yeast
cashews
smoked paprika
cornstarch
brown rice miso.

what I *actually have* looks more like this:

vanilla almond milk
vegan fake parmesan shaker cheese
macadamia nuts
smoked salt
corn flour
red miso paste.

Failure #3- goes into the blender! In for a penny, in for a pound at this point in time.

oh WAIT. And, where is my casserole dish? Gone, you say? Why yes. You would be correct. Gone...somewhere. Hiding, likely under a pile of missing socks in some alternate dimension. I do have this other casserole dish...which is just slightly too small for all the ingredients, causing over flow immediately and terrible mess.

Failure #4.

But we are almost ready to go! I just have to put my Panko breadcrumbs on top and I'm in the home stretch. I have a whole bag of them right...here. Here? Or...maybe there. Or, in fact, no where. Time to use the ancient scrapings of some no-name breadcrumbs from the back of the top shelf that aren't even mine. Perfect.

Failure #5.

Time to put this Frankenstein's Monster of a cascade failure into the preheated oven and...wait. The oven is barely warm. Of course. I check the temperature (350, yes). I'd been prepping for over 15 minutes, the oven should be perfectly heated...except, of course, it is not.

Failure #6,

well, let's just throw this in the oven and see what happens. It says cook for 20-25 minutes. I've cooked it for 40. At this point in time I've taken it out of the oven just because I'm pretty done with this whole charade and would like it to cool down before I have to throw it in the compost and make myself a PB&J.

Oh, wait. I'm out of jam. Bugger.

all natural healthy chocolate pudding!

GO TRY THIS.

Try what? Let me tell you what!

You know when you need that something sweet, around about that time of the month...

...

but you're trying to eat healthier? Yup, me too.

Into your trusty food processor put:

1 pint of blueberries
1 banana
1 Tablespoon raw cocoa powder
.5 of a Tablespoon raw coconut sugar.

blend on high until liquid, decant into a steel bowl and refrigerate for 30 minutes-1 hour. Drain off the small amount of liquid that will be pooling at the sides and bottom of the bowl.

You will have completely healthy, all natural pudding that's so thick you can stand a spoon upright in it.  Promise!!

If you make a crust out of pureed dates and walnuts, press it into a pie plate and refridgerate for a few hours before making this pudding, I'm guessing you could have yourself a raw vegan 'cheesecake' type dessert that you could have for breakfast, guilt free (if you're susceptible to food guilt).

What are you waiting for? Blueberries are on sale!

Vegan Moroccan Carrot Salad

This is one of my favourite summer staples as you can enjoy it alone, or add it as a topping to other salads, stir it into a bowl of hot quinoa or put a hearty scoop into a wrap for a burrito. Crazy versatile, and keeps in the fridge for over a week in a resealable container (we use those glass ones with the super clippy lids).

You'll want a food processor to make this, one that has a 'shred' setting or else (and trust me on this!) you'll be very, very sick of hand-shredding carrots by the end of this.

THE SALAD

• 1 lb of carrots, scrubbed and top/tailed. No need to peel if you use a firm bristled scrubbing brush, like I do. Peels are good for you! 
• 1 cup of fresh dill, minced. 
• 6 parnoosh dates, pitted and diced. 
• 1/4 cup sundried tomatoes, diced. 
• 1/4 cup raisins (you can also use dried cranberries, diced dried apriots...you get the picture!) 
• 1/4 cup slivered almonds

Shred all the carrots in the food processor and toss with the dried fruits and the dill. You'll want a very large bowl for this part. 

THE DRESSING

• 1T or more of cumin (see, I love cumin so I'll add a ton of it. I probably use closer to 2T but that's just my taste)
• 1/2 T red chili flakes
• 1tsp or so ground black pepper
• 1/4 cup of maple syrup
• 1/3 cup apple cider vinegar

combine all the ingredients and mix really well; you'll want to maybe let the dressing sit for an hour or so to combine the flavours well before mixing into the salad. 

Hardest part of making this? Not eating the rest of the packet of dates, thereby ensuring you're not hungry for dinner when you're done making the salad. Ooops...

Lemon Dill Roasted Mushrooms.

While the name says it all, it doesn't take into account the tangy savoury chewy awesomeness in a casserole dish that this engendered. This was a super successful experiment!

What I used:

a pound of whole cremini mushrooms, srubbed and quartered.
1 lemon, scrubbed very well and sliced into rings
2 T apple cider vinegar
2 T Braggs
2 T veggie broth
3T of dill
1T minced garlic
1T pine nuts
sprinkle of rosemary
ground black pepper (to taste)

combine and marinate overnight in a tightly sealed container.

Transfer to a 8" round casserole dish with a lid, add another 1/2 cup or so of veggie broth and bake at 350 for about 25 minutes. Serve over quinoa or brown rice to take advantage of the amazing sauce!