Pumpkin Pandamonium

For Thanksgiving, my fiancée and I made a delicious pumpkin pie. I'm not going to go through how it was made, because it's baking and we just went through this recipe. It turned out beautiful though (and now we have a lifetime supply of cloves):

One result of the pie, however, was that I now had a surplus of pumpkin and wasn't quite sure what to do about it. After a bit of brainstorming, I realized I should go back to my roots - lentils and rice - but jazz it up with some pumpkin.


Lentils with Pumpkin Coulis

Oil
1 1/3 cups pumpkin
2/3 cups tomato sauce
1 tablespoon Sriracha sauce
1 teaspoon dried basil
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1/2 teaspoon cumin
salt

1/2 cups lentils
1/2 cups rice

Cover the lentils in boiling water and cook on high. Meanwhile, put the rice on.

Combine the other ingredients and cook on medium low, stirring occasionally. When the lentils are cooked, but still have some crunch, add them into the mix along with the rice.

Serves 2

The precision of the ingredients above is chimerical; as I just eyeballed everything. Still, I was very happy with how it turned out (and we had the leftover pumpkin pie for dessert).

Christmas Dinner

Christmas. The most wonderful time of the year. Especially this year, as Hanukkah was at the same time (so it's very ecumenical). To celebrate, we had an traditional Christmas feast - or as traditional as one can do when one is vegetarian.

The main protein was a Tofurky - slathered in a generous amount of coconut oil and slow-roasted. Not being stingy with the coconut oil is key, as this was the tenderest Tofurky ever (in our experiences - your results may vary).

My partner made delicious puff pastry tarts stuffed with vegan brie and cranberry sauce (you can see the leftover cranberry sauce on the table).

I made a salad with a sriracha vinaigrette, but what I was most proud of was the vegan mashed potatoes.

Vegan Mashed Potatoes

Oil
3 pounds Potatoes (a starchy type like Idaho or Russet)
1.5 cups white wine
Dash of hot mustard
Salt and pepper

Dump the potatoes (unpeeled!) into a pot and fill with water. Bring to a boil and add some salt. Cook for 15-30 minutes. Periodically stab the potatoes and when there's no resistance they're done. Drain in a colander.

If you want you can let dry for a bit and then wrap in tinfoil and store in the fridge. Or, you can start on part 2 right away.

Put some oil in the pot over medium-low heat for about a minute. Then, add the potatoes and start mashing away with a suitable instrument (something that looks like this). Add the wine, salt, pepper and mustard and keep on mashing until you get the right consistency.


Serves 6

The potatoes were really nice and fluffy and I didn't miss the milk/butter at all. Because there were plenty of leftovers, we got to have mashed potatoes in the days to come. I even tried some unsuccessful food experiments with them which will not be blogged (because unsuccessful).

Kimchi Fried Rice

Fried rice. It sounds unhealthy. And yet unlike other fried foods which evoke some seedy diner, fried rice is quick and wholesome. It's not particularly fried.

One of the nice things about fried rice is that it's a great use for leftover rice, rice that's had a chance to sit is an even better ingredient. While you can often just throw veggies that were in your fridge the below recipe relies on a hit of kimchi for a hit of extra flavour.

Kimchi Fried Rice

1 cup rice
1 head broccoli or cauliflower
1 block tofu
1 small bell pepper, diced
2 eggs

1.5 cups wine
1/4 cup soy sauce
pepper
4 cloves garlic
2 cups kimchi
Drizzle of sriracha

Put the rice on in the rice cooker or stove (despite what I said above about using leftover rice, I've given the amount for the dry rice). As the rice is on, cook the broccoli/cauliflower and pepper on low heat, stirring occasionally. Add the tofu a little afterwards.

During this time, you can make the sauce (just whisk the wine, soy sauce, pressed garlic and pepper together). Once the rice is done, add a little oil to another pan and sautee the rice in it on medium-high. After a minute or so, create a little "pocket" in the middle of the rice and crack the eggs into it. Then stir the eggs and rice together.

Next, add the tofu/veggies and the sauce to the rice and stir together. Finally, add the kimchi and cook together until the kimchi's warmed up.

Drizzle sriracha over it and serve.

Serves 5

The kimchi is Daebak brand Kimchi, which is vegan and - I assume - fair trade.

Try It Again: Non-chilly chili

Six years. Yeah, it's been a while since my last post. While the world's changed a lot in that time, people still have to eat. So I thought I'd restart this blog with - hopefully - better photography. We'll see.

2342 days ago I launched a feature called "Try It Again", where I'd redo one of my older recipes. So today, I'll refresh one of my classic recipes: non-chilly chili. The problem with my original recipe was unnecessary complexity: there were multiple steps. If any recipe cried out for just dumping all the ingredients in a pot it's this one.

Chili con tofu


Oil
1 Onion, diced
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 Chili pepper
1 tablespoon cumin
1-2 tablespoon(s) assorted chili powders
3 cans assorted assorted beans, drained and rinsed
1 can whole tomatoes with juice (28-ounce)
1/2 block frozen firm tofu, frozen for a few hours, thawed (takes about a day), pressed and crumbled

Sauté the onion in the oil for about 30 seconds to a minute. Add all other ingredients and simmer for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Serves 6

I like to have some black beans and chickpeas in the chili. The beauty of chili is its endless customizability. I put a half a cup of edamame this time and it worked out great. When I'm serving this at a dinner party I like to top it with some diced avocado.

Bonus Birthday Bean Blog Bonanza

As you have probably ascertained, this blog has fallen into a long sleep. More like a coma actually. There are several reasons for this, most of them boring and job-related, but the fact remains that this blog has basically shuffled off this mortal coil. However, it’s a reader and friend’s birthday today so I decided to post as a birthday present (a not particularly great present, granted).

So here’s a two-in-one blog post about the garden and a recipe. And what better way to harken back to days of yore than some absorption pasta with an ugly brown mess of beans on top of it?

Pasta with Fava Beans

1 cup pasta

2 cups water

shot of hot sauce

oil

1 cup fava beans

1 teaspoon soy sauce

1 teaspoon fermented black bean sauce

1 chili pepper, diced.

glass of nice Chianti (optional)

Cook the pasta using the absorption style method and add some hot sauce. Put the oil in a skillet on medium heat and add the beans, soy sauce, fermented black bean sauce. Mash the beans together with the flat end of a spatula. Cook for a few minutes and then add the diced chili. When the pasta has absorbed almost all the water, add the bean mixture and stir until it has a healthy consistency.

Serves 1.

The chili plant has grown even more robustly than it had in the last entry, even as my other plants have withered and died (the mother-in-law’s tongues are doing alright, natch).

Until very recently though, no chilies were produced. Then I did some research and found out that in order to produce chilies, chili plants need to pollinated by insects. To reproduce this effect (no pun intended) – I used a q-tip to move pollen from one flower to another. It knocked several of them off, but within a week I had several chilies – one of which has turned a beautiful orange.

And now, gentle reader(s?), I return the blog to its slumber.

Salsa Cruda Pasta

Perhaps my favourite line from Mark Bittman's book was from his recipe for linguine with raw tomato sauce (and basil). You could use good-quality canned tomatoes, he said, "it won't be the same, but it won't be bad (do not, however, use dried basil, here or anywhere else). And since I have some basil plants and my parents gave me a thing of cherry tomatoes from the market, I knew I should use his recipe as a base for a meal.

Pasta With Raw Tomatoes

1/2 cup chopped tomatoes

1/2 tbsp olive oil

1 clove garlic, minced

2 tbsp basil leaves, tightly packed

salt

pepper

1 cup pasta

2.25 cups water
Cook the pasta – I used my absorption style method. Meanwhile, combine the tomatoes, basil, oil, salt and pepper and mash with a fork. With a few minutes to go on the pasta toss in the garlic. When the pasta is done, top with the sauce and serve.

Serves 1.

I should probably give a note on the water/pasta ratio. Because I was using fusilli instead of a more tightly packed together pasta my cup overfloweth, as they say. As is I wont, I measure out pasta by filling a plate with the dried stuff. The ratio does not scale up, 2 cups of pasta for 4.5 cups of water would leave excess water (though again, that's not necessarily a problem).

Try It Again: Tofu with Basil and Chilies

Today, I launch a new feature "Try It Again". This involves me giving something that didn't quite work a second chance. On sunday, I vowed to vary up the Tofu with Basil and Chilies recipe and here is the exciting conclusion.

Tofu with Basil and Chilies, Again

Oil

3 cloves garlic, minced

4-6 [!] chili peppers, finely chopped

Salt

100 gm firm tofu, cubed

1/2 tbsp soy sauce

2 tbsp lemon

2 tbsp water

1 tsp sugar

pepper - 2 pinches

Large handful of basil leaves

Heat a wok or pan on high and then add the oil. Before the oil is smoking, add the chilies, garlic and salt. Stir-fry for about 15 seconds and then add the tofu. Mix the soy sauce, sugar, pepper, lemon and water together well, and add to the pan after the tofu has been stir-fried for a minute. After another minute, tear the basil leaves with your hands and add.

Serves 1

This was better but, honestly, still isn't worth it. Conventional basil really isn't doing any value-added here. If you're going to make this I'd suggest upping the soy sauce to 2 tsp or 1 tbsp and reducing the lemon down to 1 tbsp. There are plenty of better things to do with tofu and chiles though. While this is a bit of a downer start to the TIA series, I'm glad I gave it another go. From now on though, my basil is just going to go into pizza and pastas. Due to Canada Day plans, there will be no post next Sunday so this one subbing in for that.

Tofu with Basil and Chilies

I've been thinking about recreating that type of Cambodian tofu for a while. Now that I own some basil plants, I decided to try it out using this Thai tofu recipe as a base.

Tofu with Basil and Chilies

Oil

3 cloves garlic, minced

4-6 [!] chili peppers, finely chopped

Salt

100 gm firm tofu, cubed

2 tbsp soy sauce

1/4 cup stock or water

1 tsp sugar

pepper - 2 pinches

Large handful of basil leaves

Heat a wok or pan on high and then add the oil. Before the oil is smoking, add the chilies, garlic and salt. Stir-fry for about 15 seconds and then add the tofu. After a minute, add the soy sauce, sugar, pepper and water. After another minute, tear the basil leaves with your hands and add.

Serves 1

This recipe didn't work out that great for me. First, no kidding on the "large" part of the "large handful of basil". It wilts. A lot. Second, there was too much soy sauce for me and it overwhelmed the other flavours. Third, sweet basil is not really a substitute for thai basil. Fourth, the chili peppers I bought could have been hotter (the outsides almost tasted like conventional red peppers, though the innards and seeds still packed a punch). Fifth, the sugar didn't really mix as well as it could've, so there were some bites that were sweet and others not affected.

I could stop here, but I'm not going to.

That's because, I'm going to redo this dish and post how it goes! I know, I know: the suspense is killing me too.

Cheese Sandwich

I have had thousands of cheese sandwiches over the course of my life. A not insignificant percentage of those have followed the same basic template: marble cheese, lettuce and Hellmann's® Real Mayonnaise. There are, of course, variations. Sometimes I do some substitution: a different type of cheese or hummus instead of mayonnaise. I will not put in another type of mayonnaise because I hate them (though I do want to try crafting Bittman's homemade stuff). Occasionally I will augment the sandwich with tomatoes, or avocados, or an olive with a toothpick through it ('cause I'm classy).

Cheese Sandwich

The sandwich I had today fit the normal template, though I added arugula to the lettuce. I find arugula on its own to be too bitter, but it works great with others. One of my favourite things about my standard form sandwich is that you can hold it in one hand and it will stay self contained. The problem with a lot of sandwiches (and with my optionals of avocado and tomato) is that they go against the basic principle of sandwichdom. You bite into the sandwich and the filling shoots out in all directions. I've been in restaurants where the bread is such a small fraction of the overall sandwich that it doesn't even survive first contact. One can only imagine what the Earl of Sandwich would think!

Braised Tofu and Cauliflower in Curried Coconut Milk

I realized earlier today that I hadn't had anything new this week and would have nothing to blog about. So I turned to Mark Bittman's book and opened it at random. I wanted to have something a) good, b) new and c) something with cauliflower to use up the remnants from last week. The recipe I stumbled upon certainly seemed to fit the first two, and a bit of modifications made it fit the last as well.

Braised Tofu and Cauliflower in Curried Coconut Milk

3 large onions, cut into eighths

1 28-ounce can of tomatoes (with liquids)

5 cloves garlic

1 dried chili pepper

2 tbsp neutral oil

Salt and pepper

1 tbsp curry powder

1 tbsp garam masala

700-900 grams tofu, blotted dry and cubed

2 cups cauliflower florets

1.5 cups coconut milk

Combine the onion, tomatoes, garlic and chili in a blender or food processor. Purée. Add oil to a deep pot over medium heat. When the oil is hot, add the pureed mixture with the salt, pepper and spices. Cook, stirring occasionally, for about 10 minutes: until it becomes saucy. Meanwhile parboil the cauliflower (toss in boiling water for a few minutes) and add the cauliflower and tofu to the mixture. Cook for about about 5 minutes and stir in the coconut milk. Bring to a boil and cook for a little bit more. Serve over rice.

Serves 5?

I thought I'd made it too soupy, but once it was over the rice it turned out quite nicely: with a hearty and complex taste. I'm not quite sure how many it serves, my parents and I all had a meal out of it and there were plenty of leftovers.

Roasted Cauliflower Soup

I serendipitously stumbled across a vegan food blog via an unrelated post on the 'book. After reading through some of the posts I decided to make Call Me Cauliflowah Soup (itself adapted from the LCBO magazine).

Roasted Cauliflower Soup

1 medium head of cauliflower, divided into florets

1 medium onion (approximately 1 cup), chopped

4 tbsp olive oil

salt

3 cloves garlic, chopped

1 tbsp ginger, freshly chopped

1 tbsp hot curry paste

4 cups stock

1 tsp lemon juice

Preheat the oven to 450°. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Put the cauliflower florets into a large bowl, add 2 tbsp of oil and salt. Mix until all the cauliflower is coated. Place them on the baking sheet, and roast in the oven for about 30-40 minutes (occasionally shaking the baking sheet). Add the remaining oil to a big soup pot on medium heat. When the oil is hot sauté the onion for a minute while stirring frequently. Add the ginger, garlic and curry paste for a minute. Then, add the roasted cauliflower and pour in the stock. Once the soup is at a boil, reduce the heat to a simmer and add the lemon juice. Cover and simmer for 10-15 minutes. Use an immersion blender to puree the soup (or let it cool down and put it in a blender).

Serves 3

I liked the soup, though the curry paste I used overwhelmed the roasted cauliflower flavour. I probably would've preferred separating out of the core of the soup and just eating the roasted cauliflower while sipping on a zesty broth. I may have to try this soup again but maybe without roasting the cauliflower and seeing what happens. Still, it was a nice soup and would probably work very well as a starter.

The Bread of Affliction

Every year, I celebrate passover, where for one week I have to give up leavened bread. It has been particularly annoying as the week started off with my roommate making several dozen delicious cupcakes, which I foolishly did not think of until after the holiday had started. There has also been a veritable flood of free pizza... which was even harder to pass over (I'll be here all week folks, tip your waitress).

So what do I eat instead? Matzah, which tastes like cardboard without the flavour. I'll usually have it with peanut butter (there are some Jews who do not eat peanuts on passover, but that's not how I roll) or cheese, but there are some things you can do to make it taste really awesome. In specific, here is my Mom's recipe for Matzoh Crunch (which I will spell her way, as it is her recipe).

Matzoh Crunch

3 pieces matzoh

1/2 cup butter

1/2 brown sugar

1 cup chocolate chips

Line a cookie sheet with foil and place 3 matzohs on the sheet. Melt the butter and add the brown sugar. Boil for three minutes, stirring frequently. Pour over matzoh--fairly evenly but your don't have to spread it as it spreads while baking. (don't go right to the edges)

Bake for 10 minutes--should be bubbling--if not, give it another minute. Remove from oven, sprinkle with the chocolate chips. When they melt, spread them around. Takes a couple of hours to cool, put in fridge it you need it to cool faster.

The Story Continues... Kimchi Tofu Soup

My last post here was a bit of a cliffhanger because I didn't mention what dish I used the kimchi in (I realize I am using a very expansive definition of the word "cliffhanger"). Well, now all will be revealed (unless you read the title of this post)! As I used Mark Bittman's recipe for kimchi, I thought I'd troll through the index to find recipes that used kimchi.

Kimchi Tofu Soup

dark sesame oil

1 medium onion, diced

1 cup kimchi

1/2 block tofu, cubed (or crumbled if soft tofu)

2 teaspoons chili paste

4 cups water or stock

2 teaspoons rice vinegar

2 teaspoons soy sauce

1/3 cup white rice

Put the sesame oil in a medium saucepan over medium/high heat. Add the onions when it's hot and cook for a miute. Add the kimchi, tofu and chili paste for a few seconds then add the water, vinegar and soy sauce. Bring to a boil. Tone down the heat a bit till it's simmering, then add the rice and cook for 15-20 minutes.

The soup was a nice mix of sour and savoury but, like the kimchi, not spicy enough. I'm going to be making it again this week and I'm going to use soft tofu and more chili paste. Maybe even a couple of my pickled chilies, we'll see if they're still good after I accidentially put them into the freezer.

"Korean mothers doubtless could thank kimchi for preserving the virtue of many of their daughters..."

As we speak there is cabbage rotting in my kitchen. Which is, I guess, my way of saying that I decided to make kimchi with some of my cabbage surplus (almost gone, but still have a bunch more cabbage). Now, let me stipulate that many of the ingredients I wanted were not at my disposal. For example, this awesome looking raddish would've be great to put in the kimchi:

Alas, it was not to be. Still, I was able to – more or less – follow Mark Bittman's recipe.

Cabbage Kimchi

1/2 head cabbage (about 1 lb), seperated into leaves

1/4 cup of salt

1/2 tablespoon hot red pepper flakes

2 tablespoons soy sauce

2 tablespoons minced garlic

2 tablespoons sugar
Layer the cabbage leaves in a colander, putting salt in between each layer. Lit sit over a bolw for at least a few hours. When the cabbage is wilted, rinse and dry. Chop the cabbage and add it and all other ingredients to a jar. Let sit.

So my first problem was that my red pepper flakes were weaksauce. I ended up putting in a bunch of cayenne instead but it still wasn't hot enough. Maybe I should've chopped up some chili peppers. So how was the final version after it fermented for a few days. Well it was pretty pungent, a bit sour and complex but not spicy enough. I don't know if I even get to call it kimchi, maybe I should say pickled cabbage instead. My landlady was touring the place so I had to open a bunch of windows to get rid of the smell before the visitors came. Still, I'm glad I have it in a jar, so I can use it for other meals. In fact, I've already used it in another meal... that you'll hear about next time on The Frugal Veggie!

PS– The quote is from a book called Korea: The First War We Lost. I remembered the phrase dimly but couldn't remember where it was from or the exact wording. So I typed in virtue+kimchi+korean+war into Google Books and it popped up the result. What an era we live in!

Silky cabbage with quinoa

My parents are away in the Yukon so I took some vegetables out of their fridge so they wouldn't go bad. Now I have an abundance of cabbage. I was going to make dal with cabbage but then realized I wouldn't have anything to write for my three or four loyal readers. So I was flipping through Mark Bittman's book and stumbled across one of his subrecipes: Quinoa with silky cabbage. Quinoa (pronouced keen-wah) is a crunchy protein rich grain. More accurately it's psuedocereal as it's the seeds of a leafy plant rather than a grain. I'm not it's biggest fan, but I'm always eager to add more quinoa to my diet. I didn't stick much to the recipe, but it was a good basis.

Silky Cabbage with Quinoa

1/4 head Napa cabbage, slice into rings

pinch of cayenne

sesame and neutral oil

1/2 cup quinoa

1 teaspoon soy sauce

1 cup stock

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 teaspoon ginger, minced

2 chilies, minced

Put the cabbge in a large covered pot over medium heat. Cook, stirring infrequently, for about 15 minutes. Add the oil and cayenne and cook for a few more minutes. Turn the head up to medium-high and add the quinoa and soy sauce. After a few minutes add the stock and bring to a boil. Add the garlic, ginger and chilies stir a final time – cover – and turn the heat to low. Cook for 15 minutes. If the quinoa isn't quite done or if there's too much stock left, turn the heat up and cook for a few more minutes.

Serves 2.

Green Jade Soup

Green Jade Soup is one of my oldest, favourite dishes. I once referred to it as "the ambrosia of Earth" in a short story I wrote for Grade 8 English. The rest of the story involved my entire class being massacred by superintelligent wasps – so had I written it nowadays they'd probably have locked me up for it and then you'd never get the chance to read this blog. Unlike some other childhood favourites from the Moosewood cookbook, this one has stood the test of time.

Green Jade Soup is, however, so awesome it is probably the exact opposite of being killed by a superintelligent wasp. Plus, it's incredibly easy to make:

Green Jade Soup


4 dried shiitake mushrooms
1 cup boiling water
6 cups vegetable stock
1 1/2 tbsp grated ginger root
1 1/2 cups thinly sliced carrots
1 1/2 cups thnly sliced leeks or onions
2 cups chopped chinese cabbage, bok choy, or kale
4 cups firmly packed, rinsed, chopped fresh spinach
1 cake tofu cut into 1/2 inch cubes (3/4 pound)
salt to taste
several drops dark sesame oil

Place the shiitake mushrooms in a heatproof bowl, cover with the boiling water, set aside for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, heat the stock in a large soup pot. When it boils, add the ginger, carrot, onion and greens. Lower the heat and simmer for around 10 minutes. Drain the mushrooms, adding their liquid to the pot. Slice the mushrooms and add them to the soup along with the tofu and spinach. Cook for 5 minutes, add some salt and sesame oil.

Serves 4.

90 Minute Beans

The Paupered Chef's recipe for 90 minute no soak beans may change my life. Just as the name suggests, it's 90 minutes from taking the beans out of their containers to having them done. Now, despite my frugality, I still buy a lot of canned beans. That's because conventional bean-making techniques take a long time. If this proves to be a useful recipe though, I can switch permanently to dried beans and save literally tens of cents. The recipe calls for a "dutch oven", which caused much mirth among my friends when I tried to tell them in person about this recipe. Hopefully, my internet readers are more mature.

90 Minute, No Soak Beans

Dried Beans

Salt

Preheat the oven to 250°. Put the beans into a pot with a tightly fitting lid (I used foil to keep the top on, this makes a big difference. Top the beans with about 4 cm of water and sprinkle with salt.

Bring to a boil (about 15 minutes) and then put in the oven for 75 minutes.

Serve.

I've had mixed results with this recipe, sometimes the beans come out a little too tough. I think that can be traced back to having lids that don't fit well enough. When I can try this with proper pots I may be switching for good.

The chickpeas turned out quite nice tonight, I made a mashup recipe where I combined curried chickpeas and tofu with Mjudraa with some expired mixed greens I got from a friend today (expired for, like, only a day! And he was going to throw them out!)

Chickpea and Broccoli Scramble

So, I think that over the December break at least I'll probably be updating the blog more. That means that I'll probably abandon the "Frugal Sunday" format for this month. Tonight's recipe was improvised based on me seeing what food was around. I also made a small amount of stock for this recipe out of the peels and scraps from its ingredients. I also learned that my rice recipe doesn't scale as well as it could – there were remnants of water in the pot.

Chickpea and Broccoli Scramble

Oil

1 onion, diced

1 broccoli, chopped (what is the unit for broccoli?)

1 dried chili pepper, crumbled

1/2 cup stock

1 can chickpeas

1 red pepper, chopped

1 tablespoon ginger

1 tablespoon garlic

1 teaspoon soy sauce

1 teaspoon rice vinegar

1/4 small lemon

1 teaspoon cumin

Sauté the onion in the oil for a few minutes and then add the broccoli and chili. Add a bit of stock to the pan. After a few minutes, (when the broccoli are bright green) transfer them to a plate. Add the chickpeas, soy sauce, vinegar and remaining stock to the pot and cook for 5 minutes. Add the red pepper and continue cooking. Return the broccoli/onion mix to the pot and add the garlic, ginger, cumin and lemon. Serve over rice.

Serves 4.

Peaceful Lentils

Okay, this recipe is not actually called "Peaceful Lentils"; it has the more proasic name of "Lentil Barley Stew". I had made this recipe while I was a cook at Sci '44 Co-op and then there, on the board, the vegetarian option was listed as "Peaceful Lentils". It confused me for a second until I realized the cookbook it was from was called "The Peaceful Palate". I am, I think, the only one in the world who finds that story interesting. Yet I still tell it. Good times. Whatever you call it, Lentil Barley Stew is an old favourite from my childhood – its a simple hearty stew that is just as good leftover.

Lentil Barley Stew

2 cups lentils (about 1 pound)

3/4 cup pearl barley

8 cups stock

1 large onion, chopped

2 carrots, diced

2 stalks celery, diced

1/2 tsp oregano

1/2 tsp cumin

1/4 tsp red pepper flakes

1/4 tsp black pepper

salt to taste

Place all ingredients except salt in a large pot and bring to a simmer. Cover and simmer for one hour, stirring occasionally, until lentils and barley are tender. Add salt to taste.

serves 12 6.

The original recipe says it serves 12, but really half that. I guess they're talking about serves 12 as a course as a meal, but my number comes from it being the whole dinner. This is also a good exam-period meal, as once you've done the chopping it's very low maintenance and you can do other things (e.g. study). Plus, it produces lots of leftovers (and, as indicated above, it makes good leftovers).

Curried Chickpeas and Tofu

One of the classic "workhorses" of my diet has been this simple chickpea and tofu curry from the Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home. I don't eat as much of it now, but there was a time I'd have it at least once a week. In fact, my copy of the book is broken open at this recipe. It's a somewhat stripped down version from the cook book, mainly because it calls for a little bit of tomatoes and I don't usually have tomatoes in that particular amount.

Curried Chickpeas and Tofu

1 medium onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 chili pepper, minced

oil

2 teaspoons curry powder

2 teaspoons cumin

1/2 block tofu, cubed

1 cup cooked chickpeas

salt

Sauté the onion in the oil until translucent. Add the cumin, curry powder, garlic, chili and tofu a cook for a few minutes. Add the chickpeas and a 1/4 cup of their liquid if you cooked them from dried or water if you didn't. Simmer for 5-7 minutes or so and serve over rice.

Serves 2.

I have been experimenting with adding the chili later to maintain the heat, I probably should have added it even later (maybe with a few minutes to go?). Speaking of chili peppers, the one for this meal was the last from the garden. With its picking, my garden is now officially de– I mean taken to a nice farm where it will have lots of room to run around and such. Actually, the garlic is still there – I have to decide when to harvest it, and where to store it (maybe ask my landlords if I can use the garage?) Still its kinda sad, I guess I'll pull out the stakes supporting my dead tomato plant.