Lentil Chili

I know, chili again, so soon? Well, yeah. And this one is even easier than the last one. I've never had chili made with lentils before I tried this recipe. I was a little skeptical at first. I thought it might end up tasting just like lentil soup or something. But no!

I know there are a lot of haters out there when it comes to omni food magazines. I, however, am not one of those people. I've been subscribing to Bon Appetit for over 10 years. Continuously almost, too. And you know what? I've been vegetarian or vegan for the entire time (and then some. ;) ). I've gotten some really great recipes and ideas for different ways to prepare foods that I might not have thought of on my own. I absolutely love food. I love to try some of the trendy flavor groupings and make some really "gourmet" feeling food sometimes. My brain just automatically skips over the stuff that I find gross or just substitutes tofu or seitan in the place of meat in recipes.

But I digress. Why am I yammering on about food magazines? Because that's where I found this lentil chili recipe, that's why! Specifically from Bon Appetit's Green Issue (February 2008). It was even already vegan, I didn't have to substitute a thing. And that's pretty darn cool. (Though I must say, I'm unsure why they felt the need to add the "with Cumin" part to the recipe name. That's kinda weird since most chili has that in the first place.)

Don't be fooled by the minimal ingredients. I almost added a few more things as I was cooking, but then I was glad I didn't. I think the simplicity of the ingredients is what makes the flavors really shine.

Lentil Chili with Cumin and Green Onions

2 tsp olive oil
1/2 cup chopped onion
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 Tbsp chili powder
1 Tbsp ground cumin
1 tsp dried oregano leaves
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper (add more to make it hotter)
4 cups (or more) water
1 cup dried brown lentils, rinsed (I used green ones)
1/2 cup tomato puree
1/3 cup plus 2 Tbsp chopped green onions

Heat oil in a soup pot over medium heat. Add the onion and saute for 2 minutes. Add the garlic and saute for another 30 seconds. Add chili powder, cumin, oregano leaves, and cayenne pepper; stir for 30 seconds. Add the 4 cups of water, lentils, and tomato puree. Increase the heat and bring to a boil, skimming off any foam from the surface. Reduce heat to medium and simmer until lentils are tender, adding more water by 1/4 cupfuls as needed if dry, about 30 minutes. Stir in 1/3 cup green onions. Season chili to taste with salt and pepper.

Divide the chili among 4 bowls. Sprinkle with remaining green onions and serve.

Apples - Two Ways!

I'm a huge fan of baked apple desserts. Sometimes I just cut up some apples, sprinkle them with cinnamon and stick them in the oven just like that. Sorta ghetto-style baked apples.

I have been loving the Apple Galettes from Veganomicon. I've made them bunches of times, though I didn't make them into hearts. Sorta little cracked-out ovals, actually. But they taste yummy! I tried using some different jam flavors one time even. The apricot is the best, plum jam is also pretty damn good. It adds a different bent to the flavor, which is nice if you want to make the same thing, but jazz it up a little bit. Did I mention they're really easy to make? Pretty quick, too.

Speaking of easy things that are yummy... I made a fantastic apple crisp last week. They had these huge local apples at the market, so I bought a ton of them for baking. Apple crisps are great because you don't have to deal with making any dough like pies and cobblers. The topping doesn't really get solidified until you bake it, so it's easy to spread it over the entire top of your apples. And - like you'd expect, the topping is crisp! It's a nice compliment to the softness of the apples.

Some things I want to mention about the apple part of the recipe in case you're wanting to substitute or just put naked apples under the topping: The flour has a cool purpose. I swear! I only just discovered this, so I wanted to make sure to share it. If you toss your fruit with flour before using it for a pie or cobbler or whatever, it'll start to mix with the fruit juices as it cooks. Suddenly you have a nice thick sauce hanging out. It's awesome - try it!

Apple Crisp of Awesomeness

1/2 cup flour
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup light brown sugar or demerra sugar
3/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp salt
6 Tbsp non-hydrogenated margarine, like Earth Balance
1/3 cup rolled oats (not the instant kind)
1/4 cup chopped pecans, optional
4 large granny smith apples, peeled and chopped
1 Tbsp flour
1 Tbsp lemon juice

Preheat your oven to 375 F.

Get a pie dish or one of those square baking dishes, lightly grease the bottom and sides. In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, sugars, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt. Cut in the margarine with a pastry blender or a fork until the mixture is clumpy and there are pea-sized lumps. Stir in the rolled oats and pecans. Set that aside while you deal with the apples.

In a large bowl, stir together the apples and 1 Tablespoon flour until all of the apples are lightly coated. Put the apples into the baking dish. Now drizzle the lemon juice over the apples. Pour on the topping, trying to get it evenly over all of the apples. Don't worry that it's still pretty loose, it's supposed to be like that.

Bake for 35 minutes. Make sure to let it cool for 5-10 minutes after it comes out of the oven. You want the sauce and topping to set a little and cool off a bit. Serve this with some Soyatoo or soy ice cream if you want. Enjoy!

I've Been Tagged!

I know, I know. I'm a bad blogger. Things have been a little crazy inside my head lately, but I should be able to get back to a normal cycle of posting two or three times a week now. I have a ton of pictures and recipes in my arsenal ready to post. Some of the stuff I've been waiting to talk about. I got 3 new cookbooks in the past few months and I really wanted to review each one. The problem is that I've found some recipes that either came out terribly or I just don't like the results. I really want to like these particular cookbooks and I don't want to say anything bad, so I'm going to try another recipe or two from each of them before any reviews. So then maybe it won't be so bad if there are 3 recipes I made and I liked 2 of them.

Now here is a picture of a blueberry muffin from last weekend. (Recipe from Yellow Rose Recipes.)

So, Vegan Mother tagged me. I've never been tagged before, I feel so special! Not that I really have anything all that exciting to say, but here we go:

Here's how it works...I tell you 5 things about myself, then tag 5 other people via their blog. Sounds fun, right?? Here goes:

1. I have a pretty cool job - I'm a texture and shading artist for 3D animated films.
2. I didn't start college until I was 23. (though I'm into the next decade now. ;) )
3. 3 cats have me. They're all rescues, though they continually rescue me every day.
4. I'm from the US, but I live in Canada right now.
5. I am the walrus. Koo koo ka choo

I am tagging....

Bazu - Where's the Revolution
Kittee - Cake Maker to the Stars
Lindy Loo - Yeah, That "Vegan" Shit
Melisser - The Urban Housewife
Dynise - The Urban Vegan


Rules:
Link to your tagger and post these rules.
Share 5 facts about yourself.
Tag 5 people at the end of your post and list their names (linking to them).
Let them know they've been tagged by leaving a comment at their blogs.

Chili!

Here's the part where I tell you all about the chili, then give you some variations, then some pictures followed by a recipe. So, yeah.

For Christmas this year, I gave my friend Roman a coupon book full of things like coupons for cupcakes, coffees, drinks out and stuff like that. I also included two coupons for cooking lessons. For one of them he wanted to learn how to make chili. So, I modified my favorite chili recipe a little bit and made it super easy to prepare. Roman isn't much of one for cooking, so even if you feel like boiling water is hard for you, you can totally do this. Though, really, most chilis are quite easy to make in the first place. The good thing about this chili is that it has a bunch of veggies in it. If you have kids or friends that think they don't like vegetables, I betcha they'll eat this and love it. And then you've shoved some much needed vitamins in their picky little faces. So there. Take that you annoying picky food people!

Now for some variations! Obviously you can add more stuff if you want. I suggest adding some chopped up jalapeno peppers. Another fun thing would be to add half black beans and half kidney beans instead of all kidney beans. Instead of adding red wine, add some beer! The dark beers are great in chili.

Personally, I prefer not to use the store-bought crumbles, but to make is easier, that's what this recipe has. Instead, why not try using some tvp or better yet - bulgur! If you use either of those, you'll want to change the way you're making the chili a little bit. Heat up some of the tomato juice until almost boiling and pour it over the tvp or bulgur. Stir, cover it and let it sit for around 10 minutes. At this point it should have soaked up most of the liquid and you'll probably have to add more. Go ahead and add this to the rest of the stuff and then you can judge better how much more liquid you'll want to add. When I make chili like this, I typically buy a large bottle of V8 and just keep adding it until it's about the consistency that I like.

Very Veggie Vegan Chili

2 Tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup chopped carrots
1 cup chopped celery
1 bell pepper, chopped (any color is fine, but I like to use green ones)
1 teaspoon basil, dried
1 Tablespoon chili powder
1 Tablespoon cumin
dash cayenne (add more if you like it hotter)
salt & pepper to taste
2 cans chopped tomatoes, fire roasted if you can find them (or around 3 cups fresh)
3 cups tomato juice (I like to use V8 or something similar for more veggie power!)
1 Tablespoon tomato paste
1/4 - 1/2 cup red wine, optional
2 cans kidney beans, rinsed and drained
1 package soy crumbles

In a large soup pot, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the onions and garlic and saute for about 3 minutes. Add the carrots and celery and saute for another 5 minutes or so. Add the bell pepper, spices and wine and saute for another 3 minutes.

Add the beans, tomatoes, tomato juice, tomato paste and crumbles. Stir, raise the heat a bit and bring just to a boil. Now turn the heat down to low and simmer for 20 minutes, covered and stirring occasionally. You might need to add more tomato juice to thin out the chili a little bit, that's totally fine. Add as much as you need to get the consistency that you like.

Top your chili off with some soy cheese, crackers, tortilla chips, cilantro - whatever! Just enjoy it. :D

Yay Soup!

I haven't made any chili yet. I got a ton of great recipe suggestions, though. I should have mentioned that I don't want to use any meat substitutes (so no crumbles!). Sometimes I don't mind using that stuff, but lately I've been trying to steer clear of that sort of thing. I don't mind seitan and tempeh, though. Also, I have a weird aversion to chili that has corn in it. For some reason a ton of people want to put corn in their chili. I don't quite get it. I don't mind having some cornbread with your chili, but no corn inside, thank you very much.

I did, however, make the French Lentil Soup with Tarragon and Thyme from Veganomicon. Yum! I love lentil soup and for some reason I've never tried to make it myself. I haven't a clue why. I had some fresh thyme hanging out in the fridge, so I used that instead of the dry. I couldn't find any fresh tarragon or I would have used that fresh as well. Otherwise, the only thing I changed was to use a can of diced tomatoes (drained) instead of fresh tomatoes. There aren't any good tomatoes this time of year so I wasn't even going to try. Plus, using the can was much faster and I didn't end up with little tomato peels swimming in my soup. If you can get those yummy fire-roasted ones, totally use those instead of the regular. The flavor they add is freaking incredible. Their awesomeness will take you by surprise. Or, well, maybe not because I just told you how awesome they are. But, still...

I did love this soup, it was perfect for what I was wanting at the time. And it was fast and easy to make. I do think it could have stood to simmer for another 15-20 minutes, though. My lentils weren't quite as soft as I was hoping they'd be at the end of things. They weren't unedible or anything, but I like my lentils to be soft like the canned ones are.

Samosas!

I've been trying not to neglect the recipes in cookbooks that aren't brand new. Veganomicon swooped in and took all of my attention. There are just so many awesome things to make! And even though I've made at least half (if not more) of the recipes in Vegan with a Vengeance, there are still some that I've been wanting to try. Recipes like these samosas! Potato-Edamame Samosas to be exact.

I didn't use edamame, though. I didn't have any and I did have some frozen peas just chilling out in the freezer. (Get it... chilling out? See, it's funny because...) I also had some mango chutney that I'd bought and needed to use so I didn't make my own. That's okay, though. I think I would have regretted it if I had. Not that I think it would have tasted bad or anything. Just these samosas were a hell of a lot of work. It took me like 3 hours to make them. I was exhausted by the time I put them in the oven.

I did find them utterly delicious. It's a nice alternative to fried samosas. And hey - they heat up rather nicely if you want to eat them for lunch the next day! Just beware of the nuclear potato heat in the center if you microwave them. Cut them in half first or something.

Make these when you have some time on the weekend, definitely not on a work night or when you're pressed for time. They're quite yummy, just time consuming.

Orange Pudding Cupcakes with Chocolate Ganache

Vegan cupcakes take over the world. Again.

I hadn't made any pudding filled cupcakes before, so I admit I was a little intimidated by that. I have no idea why. It's not like the pudding would leap out of the cupcake and start calling me a stupidhead or something if I was screwing things up. Though, that surely would have made the whole cupcake creation much more amusing if they started to berate me as I made them.

I love citrus flavored baked goods, so I have no idea why it took me so long to make these. The cupcakes themselves are so light and fresh tasting. Not too sweet, and not fakey fruity. Pretty awesome. I might even make the cupcakes mini-style for a yummy breakfast treat sometime, actually. They'd even be great for afternoon tea if you're into that sort of thing.

The pudding center is also not too sweet. It's actually just lightly sweetened, which is perfect for being the innerds of these cupcakes, but not really something you'd eat in a bowl on its own. You pretty much just stick your finger into the top of each cupcake to make a hole and then jam your pastry bag right about there, squeeze and bam!, your cupcake is full of pudding. Top them off with a light spreading of orange marmalade and then some chocolate ganache... perfect.

Nakies! This is right after I filled the cupcakes with pudding.

If you make these, don't skip the marmalade part. Trust me, it's part of what makes these awesome. If you're making these for a party or a gift, keep in mind that the ganache should be put on just before you serve them. It won't make it taste weird or anything if you let it sit for a while, but it won't be as pretty. And really, if you're going to all of the trouble to make these, you want them to be as adorable as possible before people start to shove them in their mouths.