A Tale of Two Soups and My Opinion on Farts.

 Brrrr! It's cold outside! Time to warm up with soup. Today we have a tale of two soups. The one above is a tasty red lentil vegetable soup complete with a giant dumpling. The spice blend used is my new favorite: Mediterranean. For X-Mas, my kids got me this big container of the stuff and I've been using it for soups, vegetables, and veggie burgers! It's a mixture of cumin, coriander, oregano, rosemary, salt, and a pinch of cinnamon! The dumpling is the rug that ties the room together. For an elastic second, I forgot that it is just 7 degrees outside my door!

The second soup is a vegan ham n' bean soup that I found on VegWeb. My spouse wanted to try it, so we did. We used pintos instead of the recommended black eyed peas, and had fantastic results. When I was little, I was a bean with bacon soup junkie, and this reminded me of that commercial canned soup from so long ago! If you're craving a smoky, salty, bacon-y, and beany soup, this is for you. To answer the question, "Will this make me fart?" The answer is "Yes, duh." If you're gonna go vegan, expect some gas. After all, you're eating a lot of beans! I'd still take a room full of morally superior vegan farts any day over the stench of one omnivore fart.

OYMST Day #26: School is in session!

Back in the days of my early veganism, I made hummus with lima beans!

I started teaching a class on compassionate eating at church. Pretty cool, huh? That's the UU denomination for you. I'm pretty sure I'd be allowed to teach just about any subject so long as I could connect it to how the lesson brings people together. I was so psyched when my proposal was accepted! The class meets once per week for two hours for ten weeks. My angle was to teach and NOT preach my experience, strength, and hope eating a vegan diet. No expectations, just sharing good food and fun.

The weather was iffy, so I only had half the class in attendance. It was still a blast! We had introductions and part of the process was to finish the sentence, "When I hear the word vegan I think..." Here were the responses:

"Impossible."
"Fake Blood at PETA demonstrations."
"Underweight."
"Admirable."
"Cool."

What an array of responses! I talked to them about my vegan journey and why I do what I do. Then I launched into a discussion about hummus and schmears. You do NOT have to have the standard hummus as a dip. Live it up and try to make your own unique schmear! A good schmear or hummus is made from the following: a source of protein, fat, vegetable, salt, garlic, lemon juice (or some kind of acid), and spices. I regret not taking pictures of our awesome meal, but I'll let you know what was on the menu:

Black Bean Dip- 1 can of rinsed black beans, 1/2 cup of store bought salsa, 1/4 t cumin, 1/2 t ms. dash's Caribbean citrus, and some sea salt. Puree in a blender. Low fat! Serve with pita, fresh colored peppers, and avocado slices.

A heavily improvised muhamara- 1/2 c. bread crumbs, 1/2 c. olive oil, 1 garlic clove, 1 cap of AC vinegar, sea salt, 1/3 c. raw pumpkin seeds, red pepper flakes, black pepper, roasted yellow peppers and one roasted mirliton. Add contents to blender and add a little water. You want it to be the consistency of pate. Serve with cheesy quackers from 500 Vegan Recipes.

Buffalo Black Eye Pea Dip- Buffalo Dip from 500 Vegan Recipes + 1 can of rinsed black eye peas. Pulse in a food processor. You don't want this to be smooth--let it have some texture! Serve with cuke slices, celery sticks, or both. This was the belle of the ball.

Chocolate Pumpkin Pie Dip- My own creation! This was inspired by one of my readers, Sharine. I took 2 cups of canned pumpkin, 1/4 c. brown rice syrup, 3 chopped dates, 1/4 t vanilla, 2T soy or coconut coffee creamer, 3T water, 1/4 t nutmeg, 1/2 t cinnamon, and a shy T of cocoa powder. I served this with apple slices as a non-traditional dessert option. It went over so well!

Fig and Lentil Soup from 500 Vegan Recipes- If you can't already tell, this is my new favorite cookbook. Seriously people, this book doesn't get enough love. I own many vegan cookbooks, but not this one. I checked it out at the library and I'm now convinced this is the ONLY cookbook I need. Stay tuned for a full review-(and giveaway!) at a later date.

I brought in a few of my cookbooks, and I had a very informal Q&A session. I discussed where I get my protein, that milk can be made from anything-(that's next week's topic!), and that one could make an exciting dip from just about anything.

One student asked, "How can I make a dip low fat?"

Easy. Bypass the amount of oil. You want a little, but not the standard amount in recipes. You don't even really need the fat, but a little gives a big punch of flavor. Example: the "muhamara" had the most oil, and I cut 1/4 out of the recipe based on a bunch I reviewed. The buffalo dip used light mayo instead of full fat vegan mayo. The bean dip had zero oil added as well as the pumpkin pie dip. I explained one could roast or boil a vegetable-(their choice, try to go with one that is creamy when pureed) and cut it into the bean, lemon juice, garlic, and spice mixture to reduce the amount of oil or nut butter one would normally use. That approach enhances the texture, color, and flavor without a bunch of extra fat.

Their homework? Easy-invent your own creative bean schmear and tell me about it.

OYMST Days #8 and 9: Cheezy Quackers are PEOPLE!

I needed to take a day off blogging yesterday. Don't worry, you didn't miss anything.
I'm not as cranky today. I do notice that it is much easier for me to get out of bed in the morning and not as difficult to get started. I also think I'm developing a sensitive tooth because I tried sweetening my grits this morning and found them to be too sweet after 1t of agave and 1.5 t of brown rice syrup. Sweet grits? I know I just made a gaggle of you savory grit people groan in unison by typing that. So I like sweet grits. Sue me.

So what's up with the shitty photograph of the bowl of soup topped with little dudes? I made a batch of Celine Steen's cheezy quackers using tiny gingerbread cookie cutters. Why not? People eat animal crackers and goldfish crackers all the time. Why not gender neutral bald people? They made a great topping for some asparagus dill soup I made a while back.

A Chowder Fit for a Giant

Foodbuzz Tastemaker's Program does it again, and this time it is with Green Giant Vegetables. I made this In-a-Pinch Corn n' Broccoli Chowder. I added a little too much corn starch so it was really thick, but you don't have to do that. In fact, you shouldn't have to add it at all unless you were making a veggie pot pie--in that case, this soup would do the trick.

The beauty of this simple soup is that you'll have it done in less than 30 minutes--for real! Now you'll have plenty of time doing other things like working on that novel you've been neglecting or developing your campaign to run for city council.Whichever project you choose, just remember to make broccoli part of the action!

Thanks to Green Giant Steamers Veggies and Foodbuzz Tastemaker's Program for making this post happen!

You'll need:

• 1 can of regular corn
• 1 can of creamed corn-(check the label to verify veganness)
• 6 c. of Veggie broth-(I used an un-chicken broth)
• 1 pkg. Green Giant Veggie Steamers Broccoli
• 1/3 c. chopped leeks
• 1 giant golden beet, chopped OR 1 shredded carrot
• 2 cloves of garlic via garlic press
• 1/2 t black pepper
• 1 t onion powder
• 1/2 T of corn starch (optional)
• few drops of liquid smoke

Saute your garlic and leeks in a little earth balance or olive oil for a few minutes. Toss in your beet and cook for a few more moments, then add the broth, corn, creamed corn, broccoli, pepper, and onion powder. Cook on stove top setting 4 until bubbling, then set to low. Serve with a nice crusty bread. I paired this with a tofu egg less salad sandwich and it was divine.

I'm souper, thanks for asking.

I can't sit around and eat sandwiches all day, can I? Well, of course I can. I just need to leave some room for soup. One of the directors at work brought in a soup cookbook that had several vegan soup recipes. I really wish I had remembered the name of the book. Soup is in the title. Good luck finding it.

Anyway, this recipe tugged at my inner curious George because it had an odd combination of flavors: potatoes, arugula, apples, and it was all topped with some toasted walnuts. I've never had cooked arugula before, it always looks kind of gross.

This was a nice change of pace from the traditional Fall staple of squash soup or chili. Very comforting, the potatoes dance with the apples and they invite the arugula for a little swingin' if you know what I mean. Cooked arugula isn't as strong, and you've probably guessed it is one of my new favorite greens. I have a nice sized patch in my front yard and I've been harvesting from it for a month, with no signs of slowing down.

Does anyone have a good recipe for falafel that uses garbanzo flour instead of whole cooked beans?

Okay, okay, okay--there's more to life than sandwiches!

Southern Fried Tempeh with Gravy. You had me at fried!

After child #1-(2007-8) and during the pregnancy of child #2,-(2008-9) I did some testing for Bianca's upcoming Southern Vegan Cookbook. Whuuuut? Yes, there are more vegan cookbooks to buy. After looking at my food porn archives, I noticed I tested more than a few recipes of hers. She's been working on this for a while, and the hard work has paid off. These pics are my favorite recipes from the book. The release is slated for 2012. Sigh. I'm kind of broke, so every time one comes out I get all @)*%#$ me! Quit writing cookbooks, y'all! I can hardly keep up with the ones I have! My solution is asking the library to order it so everyone gets exposed to vegan love and my limited budget is a little happier.

Smart, ain't I?

And if you are a hardcore reader of my blog, you'll notice this entry is a rerun of sorts. That's not a bad thing because a) it's a gentle reminder to save up more $$ to buy another cookbook by an awesome vegan and b) I'm keeping up with blogging. My foodbuzz money to charity goal is about getting more traffic. Well, I'm not going to get more traffic if I don't blog. Duh.

Country Potato Soup-Easy on the wallet and really filling.

I couldn't make an entry without talking about this sandwich. I said it when I blogged about it way back then and I'll say it again: I nearly had to have my jaw surgically removed to eat this. It was a sandwich of hedonistic proportions.