A while back, when we first got our copy of The Best Veggie Burgers on the Planet the first recipe we tried was for the Denver Omelet Burger. While we really the idea, the resulting texture was described as pasty and it felt like the peppers and onions overwhelmed the vegan bac’n bits. I’ve always wanted to return to this and try changing a couple of things to create something very inspired by Joni Marie’s original recipe, but with a bit more texture and less oil. The Great Vegan Gluten-Free Burger Experiment is the perfect time to revisit the recipe!

I actually removed all the oil called for in the recipe save some spray oil for sautéing the pepper, onion, and garlic as well as some for the cast-iron drop biscuit pan. Once again this pan is the perfect thing for baking vegan burgers!

Other changes: I used a single, large orange bell pepper and only half a medium onion, both diced quite small. I used a couple of cloves of chopped garlic too. This I sautéed in a cast iron skillet until the onions started to caramelize.

I pressed the heck out of the tofu, thinking this was part of the texture problem the first time we tried. Next, rather than blend the tofu with oil and spiced, I just crumbled it up fine in a bowl, added all the spices in with the tofu and mixed it up by hand.

To bind this all I stuck with the chickpea flour (besan), but reduced to 1/2 cup and added 1/2 cup of gluten-free, instant oats as well. I also decided to throw 1/4 cup of nutritional yeast in there for stickiness and saltiness. I left out the salt the original recipe called for, but I think it should stay in with the next try with this revamped recipe.

One little change I make with all recipes calling for liquid smoke; I use smoked paprika instead. Since the original recipe called for 1/4 teaspoon of paprika, I just increased to 1/2 teaspoon of sweet, smoked paprika.

The results, all squished together by hand, were promising and held together well, especially after letting the mixture stand for five minutes to let the oats hydrate.

The drop-biscuit pan came out of the oven, heated to 350. I made 6 good-sized breakfast burgers and put them into the oiled cups.

These baked for 10 minutes. I turned them and then baked for 10 additional minutes. They came out nicely browned. Next attempt I’ll use red bell pepper for a more striking look. The oat/besan mixture gets a nice color and these held together beautifully in a nice patty.

I served them alongside hashbrown squares from Trader Joe’s, a pile of steamed broccoli, and a little avocado on top.

There’s a couple of small changes I’m going to make, and I want to see how these pass the “freeze test”, but these may become a great breakfast to-go, particularly for long travel days.

File under effin’ EASY! If you happen to have all the ingredients prepped, this comes together in minutes and makes for a delicious dinner.

On Sunday I’d gone into a kind of Mise-en-Place Production Frenzy. Setting up the ingredients to make tofu salad, chickpea salad, split pea soup (for Christie and I), and a braised portobello sandwich (for Mom, who hates peas).

In addition to all the chopping we’d been cleaning up and doing errands, so I found I was pretty tired and put the ingredients for the chickpea and tofu salads in the fridge. I also put half the carrots int he fridge after deciding to use up a parsnip that had been lurking in the veggie drawer for a while in the soup. The next day Christie made up her awesome tofu salad, but the rest of the onions and celery went back into the fridge with the chickpeas.

Having all the ingredients prepped for this dish meant all I had to do was throw stuff in a pot, simmer for 25 minutes, chop up the tomato and kale, throw in the kale and tomato, simmer for another 15 minutes or so. I had some with a toasted English muffin for dinner and it made my whole lousy day better. Good soup can do that.

The Stuff

• 3 stalks celery, diced fine
• 1 medium to large sweet onion, diced fine
• 1 large carrot, chopped
• 2 t diced garlic
• 1 large tomato, diced small
• 1 bunch of kale, in thin ribbons
• 2 cups cooked chickpeas
• 2 cubes veggie bullion
• 1/4 nutritional yeast
• 1 T poultry seasoning
• 2 T champagne vinegar
• freshly ground black pepper
• 5 cups water

The Making

Heat a 6 qt. pot on medium-high heat and add a spray of canola oil. Add onions and saute 5-7 minutes before adding garlic. Saute together for another 5 minutes and add carrots, celery, and chickpeas. Mix together bullion cubes with water, add to pot along with the poultry seasoning.

Simmer on low for 25 minutes.

Add kale, tomatoes, nutritional yeast, vinegar, and pepper. Simmer for another 10-15 minutes until kale is tender.

Enjoy the chilly autumn evening!

This delicious and hearty stew is so easy to pull together and let cook in your slow-cooker while at work. It makes a great one-pot meal that we love so much that we often double the recipe so we have leftovers for lunches.

The yams give this stew a sweet flavor and the addition of peanut butter gives it a creamy, rich taste. You can use canned chickpeas, or homemade. Prep time is about 20 minutes, which is why we tag it as a “Quick Meal”.

This recipe is adapted from ‘African Peanut Stew’ in Becoming Vegetarian. We’ve modified it to include more chickpeas and greens, and to use quinoa instead of rice. The recipe would work well with cashew butter in place of peanut, and we’re curious to try it with other grains like amaranth or teff.

The Stuff

• 4 cups vegetable broth
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 2 cups peeled, diced yams
• 2 cups cooked chickpeas
• 1/2 cup uncooked quinoa, rinsed
• 1/4-1/3 cup smooth peanut butter
• 2 bunches of kale or collards, chopped
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• tarmari or braggs, to taste

The Making

Sauté onions on medium heat until they are translucent, about 5-7 minutes. Transfer onions to your slow-cooker pot.  Add chickpeas, yams, and veggie broth. Mix in peanut butter and add quinoa.

Cook on low for 6-8 hours, or on high for 4.

30-60 minutes prior to serving, add chopped greens, lemon juice and black pepper.

Season with tarmari or Braggs aminos, to taste, at the table. Also great with a little hot sauce added!

** This Recipe is Only a Test and is Still in Progress **

This recipe was inspired by a recipe we found in Kathy Hester’s book, The Vegan Slow Cooker. Her recipe calls for a slow cooked dal featuring a sweet potato, yellow split peas and chard. Check out this cookbook, by the bye, it is given us a lot of ideas for new ways to use our slow cooker.

During our first year of produce delivery we received enormous piles of it from Organics to You. We also had volunteers of it coming up all over the garden. We steamed it, braised it, baked it, put it in soups, stir-fried it…. and by the end of that season we had come to the rather embarrassing decision that we really don’t like chard. Beet greens too, for that matter. Mustard greens aren’t entirely a fave either, although I like them more than Christie.

So that was the first thing we wanted to change. No chard, but we did have collards on hand and decided to use those instead for our green.I thought this was a good choice since classical saags often feature mustard greens or spinach. Collards have such a great combination of that mustard note with a green sweetness, that they’d be perfect against the rich, earthy dal.

Two reasons we changed out the pulse used. Kathy Hester calls for yellow split peas, which are easy to find and tasty. We happened to be out of them, but I’d just picked up a bag of channa dal when we were at a Desi market shopping for spices. Channa dal are split black chickpeas (really just a very dark brown) and they have a wonderful texture. You could just use yellow split peas, but if you happened to have a pan-Asian or Desi market, it is totally worth the trip to use the more authentic channa dal. You can find all the spices I mentioned while you’re shopping for this particular dal.

We go out fairly often for Indian food at family restaurants. One of our favorite places features various Southern India specialties, which are usually far spicier. With this palate we found the mix of spices used in Kathy’s recipe to be far too mild and tame to bear much resemblance to the richly spiced dals we’re accustomed to. Christie asked me to change up the spices to something closer to our favorite restaurant dishes.

The resulting dal still owes inspiration to Kathy Hester’s, particularly with the inclusion of a large sweet potato that eventually melts into a thick gravy for the dal. Her cookbook has been inspiring us to find more slow cooker recipes, this dal being one of the first.

The Stuff

• 1 small onion, medium dice
• 1″ fresh ginger, peeled and minced
• 1 1/2 cup channa dal, picked over and washed
• 1 large sweet potato, diced
• 2 bunches of collard greens or kale, de-stemed, washed and sliced up small
• 4 cups water
• 2 t garam masala
• 1 t ground turmeric
• 1/2 t ground cumin
• 1/2 t hing
• 1/2 t amchur
• 1/2 t ground cayenne pepper
• 1/4 t cumin seeds
• 1/4 t panch poran
• 1/4 t brown mustard seeds
• salt, to taste

The Making

Heat a saute pan and spray a little canola oil, add onions and saute 5 minutes. Onions should be translucent. Add the seeds and saute for a minute. Sprinkle in the powdered spices, and stir everything to coat the onions, being careful to not burn any of the spices. Saute for a minute, stirring constantly and heat all the spices. You will have a very dry mixture at this point with the onions well coated. I recommend a cast iron skillet for the kind of dry frying of spices this step takes.

Add sauteed onions and spices to the slow cooker along with the remaining ingredients. Cook on high for 9 hours. After 8 hours of cooking add the washed, chopped greens and let them cook into the dal. Stir occasionally to help the greens cook in evenly.

If you want to make this with yellow split peas you will want to cook on low setting and for less time, 6-8 hours.

You could make this a lot spicier by throwing in some dried, red chili pods. A channa dal we’re served at the South Indian place has little hot chili pods floating in it and the flavor is pretty awesome. A green chile, chopped small, would also add a pleasant spice.

Serves 6-8

Chickpeas might very well be our favorite legume. We love them on salads, in soups, in “monk bowls”, as snacks, as hummus, roasted… well, you get the picture. A real lunchtime crowd-pleaser is my fabulous chickpea salad. This recipe has even had rave reviews from my step-father, who claims to hate chickpeas!

We’ve been more mindful of our diet lately, so I’ve been wanting to find a way to make this for us without all the extra fat and calories that are in the usual way I make it with Vegan mayo. Recently we’ve fallen in love with one of Susan Voisin’s recipes for a tahini dressing, made with chickpeas, and I found it works perfectly in place of the mayo!

Using Vegan mayo adds about 53 calories and 6 grams of fat to each serving. Using Susan’s dressing to replace the mayo makes this a far healthier dish at 112 calories and 2 grams of fat per serving.

The Stuff

• 2 c cooked chickpeas
• 1/2 c small diced onion (preferably sweet, about 1 small onion)
• 1/2 c small diced celery (about 2 medium ribs)
• 1/4 c either Vegan mayo OR Fat-Free Tahini Chickpea Dressing
• 2 T stone-ground mustard (very grainy)
• 1 T yellow mustard
• 2 t dry dill weed (or 4 T fresh — which is extra-tasty)
• 1/4 t dill seed
• 1/4 t celery seed
• freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• 5 sheets (or 1 packet), of snacking nori snipped up into very small bits (optional)
• 3 T dill pickle relish (optional, I recommend Bubbies)

The Making

Pulse chickpeas in a food processor until they are well broken up, but still coarse. Pulse for just 2-3 seconds at a time, stop, check the consistency before pulsing again. Watch carefully, the idea is to have crumbly chickpeas, NOT the start of hummus.

Put chickpeas in a bowl and add all of the remaining ingredients. Mix together well until all ingredients are well incorporated. You can serve immediately or let sit, which lets the dill flavor really come out more.

Serve between two slices of bread, on a bed of greens, or rolled up inside of a collard leaf! We’ve made sandwiches and collard wraps of this salad as food for long airplane trips, and it travels very well.

Makes 6 1/2 cup servings

Snacking nori adds a great salty “sea” flavor we find reminiscent of tuna salad from our pre-vegan days. We like it a lot just by itself for a snack, so I usually have some on hand and often add to the chickpea salad. I’m sure there are lots of taste and mineral benefits to other popular sea veggies in this salad, but I tend to use the snacking nori because it is on hand and ready to go.

Be sure to check ingredients as some snacking nori contains fish, in the form of Bonito extract (usually), or shrimp. When I use it, I snip the little snack sheets into 4-5 long strips, then snip the ends off of those into very small bits directly into the bowl.

This time of year there are more tomatoes than I know what to do with, zucchini everywhere, lovely peppers and kale. Chopping it all up and throwing it into a pot is clearly the way forward. This hearty stew, so thick it is more of a stove top casserole, highlights the best of the late summer harvest.

Summer’s Bounty Stew

The Stuff

• 2 cups cooked chickpeas
• 3 medium zucchini, chopped (about 4 cups)
• 6 cloves garlic, minced roughly
• 1 medium onion, sliced into thin petals
• 1 poblano pepper, diced fine
• 2 bunches of kale, stemmed and torn into small pieces
• 2 pounds of fresh tomatoes, chopped into pieces of varying size (a nice mix of large and rather small bits is perfect)
• 1 t dried oregano
• 1 t dried basil
• 1 t dried marjoram
• ½ t dried rosemary, rubbed together in your palm to break it up a little
• ⅓ c nutritional yeast
• 1 t sweet paprika
• freshly ground black pepper, to taste

The Making

Heat a 4 qt sauce pan or cast iron dutch oven on medium-high (if using cast iron, reduce to medium-low once the pot is hot).

Lightly spray the pot with canola oil. Saute onion until it begins to brown, about 5-7 minutes. Add garlic and continue to saute another 3-5 minutes; onions will begin to caramelize. Add poblano pepper and saute for another 5 minutes. Add in zucchini, chickpeas, and tomatoes.

Reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes, until zucchini is tender. Add kale and all the herbs and spices then simmer until kale has softened, another 5 minutes.

Serve with some crusty bread or with quinoa.

Makes 3+ quarts of very tasty stew.

Notes:

• Yes, fresh herbs would totally rock. I just didn’t have any on hand. Next year we’ll have an herb garden going. I’d use up to a tablespoon of each herb, fresh. Parsley would be a great addition.
• This recipe reminds me a lot of the Japanese-inspired winter stew I make, which uses canned tomatoes. They would work perfectly well in this recipe, however, my main goal was to use up some of the pounds and pounds of fresh tomatoes from our garden.
• I use a mix of heirloom tomatoes, because that’s what we grow in the garden. Don’t worry if these are far too expensive to consider — just use any fresh tomatoes or go ahead and used canned, diced tomatoes.
• You could replace the sweet paprika with smoked paprika and it would be delicious. I think I sometimes go a little crazy with the smoked paprika so I skipped it this time.
• Want a spicier stew? Replace the paprika with cayenne and add a ½ teaspoon dried chili flakes – this would be fantastic too!

Nasty Flash + Ugly Counters

By the bye — check out the much better picture I used at the top of this post! Christie gave me a light tent set for my birthday so I can start taking better pictures of my food and art work. I still have a lot to learn about this kind of photography, but even the first attempt with the light tent on the picture above is so much better! For proof take a look at the best possible picture I was able to take at night in my kitchen.

Although rich dishes are enjoyable once in a while, our favorites tend toward simple soups, stews, stir-fries, and “monk bowls”.  We were inspired to make these simple bowl meals from a dish once available at Blossoming Lotus. Really it was a bowl of whole grains topped with steamed kale, legumes, and a tasty sauce. Truly simplicity and just what we want some meals.

Tonight, after all the Thanksgiving inspired dishes, we had a monk bowl variation for dinner. Brown rice topped with chickpeas and some broccoli crowns that had been chopped up and sauteed with a clove of elephant garlic.

I made a variation of my Ginger Miso Dressing as the sauce to top, with a few slight variations. I added more nutritional yeast, some garlic pepper, and about 2 tablespoons of some leftover toasted walnuts. I didn’t use any other oils or the Bragg’s, but I did have more white miso. The little bit of toasted walnuts gave the sauce a faintly pink hue and a rich flavor.

Delcious Monk Bowl

We do not share a love of eggplant in our home. Christie prefers to avoid it and I really like it. In getting boxes of fresh produce I find that I often have more eggplant than I am sure of what to do with and have already thrown out one lovely one this summer. In our garden we found a Turkish variety that yields small, orange eggplant with a tomato shape.

I had seen a recipe on the NYTimes that referenced a staple of Middle Eastern cooking. Tonight I made a variation with the ingredients I had on hand and the result was very tasty. I’ll have to recreate at another time for exact measurements, but here’s a review.

2 cups cooked chickpeas were added dry to a pre-heated cast-iron skillet on medium heat. I very lightly spritzed them with Canola spray (Spectrum) as they browned. Once they were beginning to look toasty I added a small onion, thinly sliced. Sauteed 5 minutes or so, until the onion began to go translucent and then I added a generous amount of dried oregano, some dried marjoram, lemon pepper, granulated garlic, and a pinch of nutritional yeast. Tossed all of that around to coat the chickpeas & onions before adding 1/4 cup of chopped, fresh Italian parsley, the juice of half a lemon, and one diced medium green tomato.

While all of that chickpea stuff was going on I had sliced in half 4 small, Japanese eggplant. I pre-heated our cast-iron grill pan and then added the eggplant, sliced side down. I put the lid of my small casserole dish on top of them to press them into the grill. After grilling for a few minutes face-down I flipped them all over, skin-side down, replaced the lid to press them flat and grilled for a few more moments.

The oven had been pre-heating to 375. After the eggplant was done grilling and the chickpeas sauteed, I gathered my casserole dish and 2 cups of crushed tomatoes. 4 eggplant slices went into the baking dish, topped with half the chickpea mixture and followed by half the tomatoes. Repeat, cover with lid, pop into oven for 15 minutes.

Tasty all by itself. If there were guests or I was less hungry I’d have garnished with fresh parsley and a slice of lemon. This would also be great paired with some whole grains or stuffed into a baguette. I enjoyed it with a big salad.

Last summer we picked up a raw kale salad from the deli at a co-op in Davis, California, and enjoyed it a lot. This salad doesn’t really recreate it, but it was that salad that encouraged me to try using more raw kale in dishes. You can mix & match things like dressing, veggies used, etc., but this is generally what I stick with.

The Stuff

• 1 bunch of kale, any variety
• 2 medium carrots, shredded
• 1 bell pepper, diced small (I prefer a red just for contrast in colors)
• 1 medium sweet onion, diced small (you can use red or yellow, I’d just saute it first)
• 2 cups cooked chickpeas (or one 15 oz can, rinsed & drained)
• 1/2 cup pesto or balsamic salad dressing

Optional Stuff (tasty, pick a couple of these!)

• 1/4 cup sun dried tomato pieces, cut up small
• 1/3 cup green olives (oil cured, not canned, go to the olive bar if your market has one), sliced small
• 1/3 cup thin sliced basil
• 1/3 cup fresh dill, chopped up fine
• 1 cup cooked quinoa, brown rice, barley, or wheat/spelt berries **You’ll need more pesto or salad dressing (this option makes for a nicely hearty dish – great for picnics)
• Fresh tomatoes and cucumber (if this is going to be eaten right away), drained capers, raw cauliflower, beets and peas. Any additional veggies should be chopped up into small pieces.

The Making

Stem, wash and shred the kale into very small pieces and add to large bowl. Add in all other ingredients, pesto or salad dressing last. Toss well to evenly coat all of the kale and to keep the grated carrots from clumping together. Let stand at least 30 minutes before serving. Serves 8

This salad keeps very well and does very well being made a day ahead of serving. It travels great too.

This is not the recipe, I have to recreate this one. This post is just the food porn about how good this salad turned out! I wanted a nice salad, but something that would be very hearty for dinner. I’ve had some raw kale salads in the past and really wanted to give another go for one.

What I had was green curly kale, golden beets, carrots, chick peas, red quinoa, fresh basil, and a young Walla Walla onion. I shredded all the veggies up fine and put everything into a bowl to toss. I actually shredded up the kale very fine first and tossed it with apple cider vinegar while I worked on the other veggies.

In the dressing department I discovered we were out of tahini so I soaked about half a cup of raw cashews in hot water for several minutes. I put these into the food processor along with a bulb of raw garlic, balsamic vinegar, white wine vinegar, fine flake nutritional yeast, and some other dried herbs. Everything was processed until quite smooth and then poured over all the veggies, chick peas & quinoa.

Toss well, coating everything, serve and and bask in the appreciative compliments. This got even better the next day or two. Will be recreating this very soon with a full recipe!