Miss Rachel

Curried cauliflower, chickpeas, onion, spinach and tomatoes over rice. In a large skillet, saute a coarsely diced onion in some oil (I used about 1 T of coconut oil) with a few cloves of garlic (crushed), 1 T of curry powder, 1/2 t of cayenne, and a little salt. Add 1 15 oz. can of diced tomatoes including their liquid. I also added about half a can of water. Bring everything to a boil and once it’s bubbling, add cauliflower florets (I used a 12 oz. bag). Cover and turn heat down a little so mixture is still bubbling somewhat. After about 5 minutes, add 1 15 oz. can of drained, rinsed chickpeas and let simmer for another 5 minutes. Then add spinach (I used a 6 oz. bag) on top of the mixture and let wilt for a couple minutes; then stir in the spinach and let cook for about three more minutes. Serve in bowls as is or over the grain of your choice. (I used brown basmati rice. I don’t have much white rice left.)

This dish would work with other types of beans and possibly other vegetables. Making it further enforced my belief that one should always keep cans of beans and tomatoes on hand for dinner creations.

Tuesday was Sweetie’s birthday, and since I knew I had to work that night I decided we should have a birthday-inspired dinner the night before. I cooked up some chickpeas with garlic, onions, tomatoes and a bunch of spices. It wasn’t quite Madhur Jaffrey’s recipe, but I did follow the spice combination in her Very Spicy, Delicious Chickpeas recipe and dinner was indeed delicious and spicy.

I served the chickpeas over basmati rice. I used up all our brown rice, and I’ve decided to try white rice for a change.

For dessert, there was no question of what we’d have: cupcakes. I took VCTOTW out of the library again, and made some birthday cupcakes. (I ran out of sprinkles by the time I got to the last few.)

I put some candles in one for Sweetie and snapped a pic before he blew them out.

I’m not one for getting up early and cooking. Most mornings, I’m a sip-coffee-for-an-hour+ before doing anything kind of person, but on Sunday I decided to make blueberry muffins. I followed this recipe from Madhuram’s Eggless Cooking: Vegan Blueberry Muffins (leaving out the lemon zest and lemon extract because I don’t want lemon flavor in my blueberry muffins).

I also poured the batter into only 9 muffins cups so I’d have nice muffin tops.

Sweetie and I enjoyed them with some Earth Balance vegan butter.

They were a bit fall-apart-y, but I can’t complain about homemade muffins, fresh and warm out of the oven. I had two.

I’m a big fan of lentil soup, and a coworker was looking at a magazine that featured lentil soup that included some ingredients I don’t generally use in mine: curry and red peppers. I didn’t follow the recipe nearly, but I decided to try using those ingredients the next time I made lentil soup. The recipe also called for sweet potatoes, and while I usually use carrots, I just happened to have some sweet potatoes on hand so I used them. I sauteed some garlic and onions in a little coconut oil and curry powder. Then I added mushrooms, a red bell pepper and sweet potatoes, then about 3 cups of red lentils and 8 cups of water. I simmered everything for about an hour and a half, and that was dinner. Here’s my bowl which I served salted to taste with some freshly ground black pepper on top.

Greens make a nice addition to lentil soup, and although I didn’t have any available at first serving, I did add some fresh spinach leaves on subsequent servings. I just put a handful of greens in the bowl, ladled some soup on top and heated it together in the microwave. Spinach cooks so quickly, it was done in short order, and it looked really pretty too.

Visually, the movie Detropia is beautiful and haunting. I sense the intent behind the movie was just to show viewers the place and let us make our own conclusions. However since Detropia presents Detroit as something of a post-apocalyptic desert, we’re definitely being guided to see it in this particular light. I found the movie frustrating for what it did not show. Although it showed the Detroit Opera House, it did not show the Detroit Institute of Arts, a museum which has a large and significant collection. Although it showed the vast, empty automobile factories, it did not show the major corporations that have moved into Detroit. Although it showed some young people were moving in, it did not show the Live Downtown project and the incentives its providing for businesses and people to move there. I don’t think anyone would deny that an American city whose major industry used to be automobile manufacturing has some big problems, but Michael Moore told us about that in Roger & Me in 1989. Detropia would have us believe that Detroit is continuing to devolve into a wasteland, but I’m not sure if that’s the case. I haven’t been to Detroit. I’m just someone who watched a movie and uses google, but I sense that Detropia may not be giving us the most balanced view of the place. I’d be glad to hear opinions from anyone else closer to the problem.

Last summer during farmers’ market season I discovered my favorite way to make pizza was with fresh, local tomatoes and zucchini. However, Joey blogged about a most delicious, winter-friendly pizza even though she said she didn’t like pizza (what?!). It featured caramelized onions, and I was intrigued.

While the onions were caramelizing on the stove, I made the crust and drained the tomatoes. After the crust had risen, I pressed it out and assembled the pizza: garlic, tomatoes, cheese (I used my latest vegan shreds discovery - Trader Joe’s - cheaper than Daiya and still good!), and I also added some sliced mushrooms I had hanging around. I put the pizza thus far into a 425 degree oven.

After 15 minutes I took the pizza out and added the onions and some marinated, sundried tomatoes. Then I baked it for another 6 minutes or so, and it was done.

I adore caramelized onions, and they work really well as a pizza topping so I can say that this pizza was an unqualified success. It will definitely be gracing my table again while I wait a few more months for local tomatoes and zucchini.

Most of the time I don’t follow published recipes, but there are some that I have tried that make such a good impression I return to them. One such recipe is Tatie Wawo-Runtu’s Spinach with Shallots from Madhur Jaffrey’s World-of-the-East Vegetarian Cooking, an excellent cookbook that I recommend you seek out. The recipe is very simple: it just requires spinach, shallots, a chili pepper and oil. It requires a LOT of spinach - 2 lbs - but as you know spinach cooks down a great deal.

I toasted and steamed some Israeli couscous and served the spinach over it. Delicious!