This recipe is really an on-going quest for the best chickpea soup, with or without noodles. With my innate ability to make stews in big pots, this Provence inspired version is just what a wet, February night needs. This can easily be served over a grain or with pasta, but it is very nice all on it’s own.

I was inspired by two different recipes in coming up with this. The first being the Chickpea Noodle Soup in Veganomicon. The second being the Cabbage “Noodle” Soup from the Fat Free Vegan, Susan Voisin. This recipe falls somewhere in between the two and I add kale to thicken it into a hearty stew. It is absolutely packed with vitamins A, C and K!

The Stuff

• 1 large shallot, cut in quarters and sliced thin
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 3 medium carrots, diced small
• 4 medium stalks celery, diced small
• 3 leeks, white part, sliced into thin rounds
• 1/4 c mirin
• 3 cups cooked chickpeas (2 15oz. cans drained & rinsed)
• 2 small bay leaves
• 1/2 t thyme
• 2 bay leaves
• 2 t herbes du Provence
• 1 t poultry seasoning
• black pepper to taste
• 10 cups water
• 1/2 medium head white or savoy-style cabbage cut in half, cored and shredded
• 8 cups kale, stemmed and shredded
• 1/4 c nutritional yeast
• 1/4 c white miso
• 1/4 c fresh Italian parsley, chopped

The Making

Heat an 8-quart stock pot to medium high and lightly spray with high-heat Canola oil. Add in shallot and garlic, sauteing for 5 minutes, or until becoming translucent and just beginning to brown. Add in carrot and celery. Saute for 3-5 minutes, until carrots are glistening. Add in leeks and saute 5-7 minutes, until leeks begin to brown and rings come apart.

Reduce heat to medium-low and deglaze pan with mirin. Stir wine and sauteed veggies together for 30 seconds.

Add in chickpeas, water, and dried herbs. Bring just to a boil. Reduce heat to low. Cover and simmer for 20 minutes.

Add nutritional yeast, freshly ground black pepper,  cabbage and kale. Stir together and simmer for 10 minutes, until greens are softened.

Remove pot from heat and add fresh parsley. Remove a cup of the broth and in a bowl whisk miso into broth and add mixture into stew. Mix well and let stand 5 minutes, at least, before serving.

Makes 10 servings

Nutritional Info

Serving Size: 2 cups
Calories: 193
Total Fat: 3 g
Sodium: 385 mg
Carbohydrates: 36 g
Dietary Fiber: 9 g
Sugars: 8 g
Protein: 11 g

This winter it seems like we’ve always got a few yams on hand. So far they’ve inspired the Golden Provence Winter Stew, which has become a quick favorite, but I recently had several chilies on hand as well as a large quantity of black beans we’ve been trying to find more uses for. With these ingredients on hand I came up with this delicious, warm stew inspired by Cuban flavors.

The Stuff

• 2 medium yams, diced small
• 3 cups cooked black beans
• 1 large yellow onion, 1/4″ dice
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 medium green bell pepper, 1/4 dice
• 1 Ancho/Pasilla pepper, 1/4″ dice
• 1/2 t cumin seed
• 1 15oz can crushed tomatoes
• 1 15 oz. can diced tomatoes
• 2.5 T tomato paste
• 5 cups water
• 1 T ground cumin
• 1 T dried oregano
• 2 bay leaves
• 1/4 t cayenne
• 1/4 t ground coriander
• 1/2 t sweet smoked paprika
• 1 bunch collards, cut up small
• 1/3 cup fresh coriander leaves
• 1/3 cup fresh parsley leaves
• 1/2 cup fresh lime juice

The Making

Heat a 8-quart stock-pot to medium-high heat and then lightly spray with Canola oil. Add cumin seeds and toast until fragrant, about 2 minutes or less. Add onion into the pot, lightly spritz with oil and saute 5 minutes, until onions become translucent. Add garlic and saute with onions another 5 minutes before adding all of the diced chilies. Saute all together another 5 minutes.

Add tomatoes, yams, dried herbs & spices and water to the pot. Bring to boil, reduce heat, and simmer for 35 minutes, or until yams are tender. Add collards and tomato paste and stir in. Simmer for 15 minutes before adding in the fresh herbs and lime juice. Simmer for 5 more minutes before serving.

10 Servings

Nutritional Info

Serving Size: 2 cups
Calories: 191
Total Fat: 1 g
Sodium: 81 mg
Carbohydrates: 41g
Dietary Fiber: 8 g
Sugars: 3 g
Protein: 7 g

** 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

Yet another example of a stew/soup experiment that turned out so well, I had to put a recipe together!

This stew started out as a kind of “get out of my fridge” project after Thanksgiving. We get a big produce delivery every Monday and by Sunday I’m often trying to figure out a dish to use up as many veggies as possible. I also like to make a really big batch of something and we often have it as our lunches or a quick dinner during the week.

Aside from being just the kind of hearty, hot dish you want on a cold night, this stew is packed with vitamins and minerals and the French herbs pair beautifully with the veggies and navy beans. By the time the cooking is done the yams melt and the result is a thick, golden stew dotted with kale, parsley and carrots.

My favorite version is the one that is given, with lots of kale and fresh parsley. I’ve made a variation, pictured, with fresh thyme and white cabbage because that’s what I happened to have on hand that week. The cabbage & thyme variation is also really lovely, but I find it a bit sweeter.

The Stuff

• 3 cups dry navy beans
• 2 large leeks, whites only, sliced in quarter-inch rounds
• 2 medium red onions, half-inch dice
• 4 cloves garlic, diced small
• 3 large carrots, diced
• 4 large stalks celery, diced
• 4 small yams, diced
• 1 t Herbes de Provence
• 1 t dried thyme
• 2 large Bay leaves
• 8 cups water
• 1/3 c nutritional yeast
• 1 T champagne vinegar
• 1/2 c chopped, fresh parsley
• 1 large bunch of kale, stemmed and chopped up
• 2 T white miso
• freshly ground black pepper
• sea salt, to taste

The Making

Pressure Cooker Method:

Pre-cook navy beans in pressure cooker while you prep all the other ingredients. Plan to under cook the beans, only 14-15 minutes at full pressure. Let the pressure release normally. Drain and set aside.

While the beans cook prep all the vegetables.

After the pressure cooker is free, rinse out, dry and put back on stove on medium-high heat. When the pot is hot again, lightly spray bottom with canola oil and add the onions. Saute 5 minutes, until translucent, add garlic and saute another few minutes until the garlic becomes very fragrant.

Add the celery, carrots and leeks into the pot. Continue to saute in the pan for an additional five minutes. Add the yams, thyme, Herbes de Provence, and Bay leaves. Stir together well. Add in par-cooked beans and water, stir once more, and seal the pressure cooker.

Once cooker is at high heat set timer for 7 minutes. Use the release valve to reduce pressure and unlock the lid (it is also fine to just let it come down & unlock naturally).

Stir in the nutritional yeast, pepper, salt, vinegar, parsley and kale. Simmer on low heat for five minutes. Remove from heat and mix in the miso.

Stove-top Method:

The main difference is that you’ll soak the beans overnight and drain them. Once you add them back in, you’ll need to reduce the heat to low and simmer for 45 minutes, or until the beans are tender. Then follow the steps to add in the kale, fresh parsley, etc.

Serve in a big bowl and add some kind of grainy thing if you want. Rice, whole grain bread, crackers…

Makes 20 servings (freeze some, give some away!)

Nutrition Details

Serving Size: 1 cup
Calories: 188
Total Fat: 1.2g
Sodium: 146 mg
Carbohydrates: 36g
Dietary Fiber: 11g
Sugars: 3g
Protein: 11g

On our last stock-up trip out to Bob’s Red Mill we picked up some of their Whole Grains & Beans Soup Mix. It has been sitting awaiting inspiration in a Mason jar since, but tonight’s the night! This hearty, thick stew is what a chilly January night needs!

The Stuff

• 2 smallish celeriac, peeled
• 2 large stalks of celery
• 3 large carrots
• a bunch of spinach, long stems removed
• fresh parsley (about 1/2 cup, chopped)
• 4 medium/smallish red, waxy-type potatoes
• 3 large cloves of garlic
• a good-sized onion
• 3 cups of the Whole Grains & Beans Soup Mix from Bob’s Red Mill
• 1 tsp. dried marjoram
• 1/2 tsp dried dill
• 1/4 cup nutritional yeast
• 1/4 tsp sweet paprika
• 2 T champagne vinegar
• freshly ground pepper

The Making

All the veggies except the spinach and parsley get a rough dice. The garlic is roughly minced.

Heat up an 8qt. (or larger) pressure cooker on high. Into the hot pot add a thin layer of spray canola oil, then the diced onions. Once they started to go translucent, about 3 minutes, add the garlic and saute until the onions began to brown, about 6 more minutes.

Then add the celery, celeriac, carrots, and potatoes into the pot. Then pour in the Grains & Beans Soup Mix and 3 quarts of water.

On goes the lid. Up to high pressure and then turned down, with the timer set for 2o minutes. Remove from heat when the timer goes off and let the pressure come down naturally.

While the pressure cooker is going wash the spinach and parsley. Roughly chop the spinach and more finely chop the parsley.

Once the lid comes off return the pot to low and add the remaining ingredients. Stir and let simmer for 15-20 more minutes before serving.

*Notes:

• This intentionally does not have added salt. If you feel it needs some, sparingly add it at the table or just add more nutritional yeast.
• This is a pretty seriously thick stew. We kind of like them that way. If you don’t, add some more water.
• White wine would be tasty as would red in place of the vinegar. You could also use the juice of one lemon instead.
• Kale, collards, chard or other greens would be great. I happened to have spinach on hand.
• This would be awesome with summer veggies, the Grains & Beans mix from Bob’s would go well with all kinds of veggies and it would make an extra-hearty minestrone-style soup – yum!
• All fresh herbs would rock, but it is January and I only had fresh parsley around.
• I’d likely add a couple of Bay leaves to this at the beginning the next time around.
• Winter squash would be awesome in this too.
• I’m not sure how long this would take without a pressure cooker, but you can look at this recipe for an idea (warning, #NotVegan).

Organics to You has been bringing us fresh fava beans for a few weeks now and I’ve repeatedly put them into a green bag in the fridge until I figure out what to do with this new produce. Tonight I finally decided to cook up the pile of them as inspired by a recipe I found online for an Umbrian fava bean stew, Scafata. I didn’t have the ingredients exactly so I winged it quite a bit (so no exact recipe, just technique follows).

The result was very tasty! Here’s a rough outline of what I used and did:

Roughly 3 pounds of unshelled, fresh Favas were used in the dish. I combined them with a small onion, 3 cloves of garlic, a small bunch of green garlic spears, a bulb of fennel, and 2 large stalks of celery. The onion was sauteed in olive oil along with the bulb garlic, then the celery, fennel, green garlic and the shelled beans. Once they all got going nicely and the fennel was softened a little I layered the chopped kale on top then topped it with a lid.

Once the kale began to wilt a little I added some thinly sliced, fresh sage and basil. I tossed everything together carefully to get the kale and herbs down into the rest of the veggies, then covered again. I added a splash of Vinho Verde we had on hand since it seemed like a little more moisture would help and covered again.

After the kale had fully softened I added some dried dill and marjoram (didn’t have fresh, seems like thyme would be nice too) as well as salt and pepper. At this time I diced up 3 tomatoes and tossed them in. Given that the original recipe comes for Italy I decided to add some champagne vinegar as well as some balsamic & fig vinegar.

Simmer on low until the outside of the beans was tender – total cooking time was a little over an hour since it takes a while for the skins of the fresh favas to get tender. I served this with some garlic/pepper tempeh braised with balsamic vinegar.

Totally delicious and I’ll certainly make again!

Last week for dinner one evening we had and excellent dish of shallot, sauteed with mustard greens and tempeh. Served this over zucchini “pasta”, topped with marinara and finely sliced basil. This was a simple dish that came together quickly and was extremely tasty! This could be made to serve 3 if each person gets a little less zucchini or another one is used.

The Stuff

• 1 medium shallot, sliced fine
• 1 8 oz. package tempeh, crumbled
• 1 good sized bunch mustard greens, stemmed & shredded
• 3 small zucchini, julienne cut into small, thin ribbons
• 8 oz. marinara (we used some from Muir Glen)
• Leaves from one stem of fresh basil, chiffonade
• 1 T olive oil
• salt & pepper

The Making

Drizzle about 1 tablespoon of olive oil into a hot skillet. Saute shallot on medium-high heat until it begins to darken, add tempeh. Continue to saute until the tempeh begins to turn mostly golden. Salt & pepper to taste while tempeh is browning. Reduce heat to low, add mustard greens, and cover with lid. Continue to toss greens with tempeh and shallot every couple of minutes, returning lid between stirs, until greens are fully wilted.

While tempeh & greens are cooking bring a small saucepan of water to boil. When water is at full boil add julienne zucchini “pasta”. Blanch for 4 minutes, remove from heat, drain. Dish equally onto two plates.

Divide greens & tempeh mix up equally between both plates of zucchini and top the “pasta”. Add some heated marinara and top with finely sliced, fresh basil.

Saturday saw us out in Parkdale with friends to check out the heirloom apple/pear/Asian pear tasting day at Kiyokawa Family Orchards. A fave from last autumn, we wanted to take our friends to enjoy tasting the many varieties they grow there as well as pick a bunch to make applesauce. Turned out the apples had all been picked, but we still had a great time trying many varieties we’d never heard of before. 31 pounds of fruit later (that’s just us), we were loaded up and off to our next stop.

Rasmussen Farms saw us leave with several fun gourds, a couple of pounds each of fresh, local walnuts & hazelnuts, ornamental corn, and 2 smallish Hubbard squash. Yes, I know we have a bunch of these in the basement, but these are the blue type we didn’t grow. Oh yes, and pumpkins. There are 7 of them on our front steps. 6 of them Christie and I picked out. What can I say, we were having fun.

Into this collection of squash and apples arrived our first box from Organics to You. I offered to take it from the deliver guy, but he then offered to put inside for me because, “its heavy”.

I ripped off the tape and opened the box to see a lovely bunch of red kale, some baby bok choy, radishes, chioggia beets, chunky carrots, onions, garlic, a huge head of broccoli, a head of purple cabbage bigger than my head (seriously), 2 big leeks, a half pint of kiwi berries and more fruit. 4 more apples, 3 more Asian pears and 3 red Bartlett pears. Uh yeah.

One good sized box of produce and a fridge already filled to the brim with mostly apples…

Yep, time to make the apple sauce. I chopped up 8 quarts of mixed varieties of apples and a few pears that needed to be used. Cooked until we had a chunky sauce and added the zest & juice from a medium sized Meyer lemon. That’s it. Nothing else needed for that much deliciousness. I’m waiting on the water in the canner to boil, 20 minutes in the bath then we have lovely applesauce for the rest of the year and to go into the little gift baskets we’re planning to do this winter for people.

That helped some. While the apples were doing the cooking thing I threw some Great Northern beans into the pressure cooker. Drained them when done and cleaned out the cooker to make soup. Into the pot I sauteed a bunch of garlic and most of the leeks, celery & Russet potatoes were added. Water, salt, pepper, and a sprig of fresh rosemary in the covered cooker, on high pressure for 8 minutes. Release valve, add in half the red kale that was delivered today along with half the white beans. Simmer with salt, some nutritional yeast, and more pepper. Serve with croutons. Yum!

The other half of the beans, more garlic and the remaining leeks have been stewed together with a little rosemary sprig, olive oil, tarragon, and some diced celery. This gives a lot more flavor to the Great Northern beans, which are not Christie’s favorite. These have been set aside for later this week when I’m going to revisit the whole squash/polenta baked casserole, but with the white beans and some fresh basil pesto.

By this evening’s end there will be lots of applesauce in jars, soup in the fridge, and some progress made towards Wednesday or Saturday’s dinners. I’ve had some ideas about the cabbage and how to use up all the produce that’s coming along with what we had already here. Right now I’m really enjoying the challenge of making food for us primarily based on what is brought each week.

I was inspired by a radish greens & kale saag a friend of mine mentioned recently and wanted to give it a try. While at the co-op I was thrilled with some gorgeous beets with lush greens and brought them home to try out. I am going to be making this again and soon, so a picture of this beautiful dish will be up soon.

Leaves & stems of at least 4 beets are needed. You should end up with about a cup of chopped stems and around 4 cups of leaves. I’ve also made this with a mix of beet greens and chard. Kale would be great… pretty much any greens will do!

The Stuff!

• beet stems, chopped
• beet greens, large leaves torn a little
• half a medium, sweet onion, diced
• 2 inches ginger, peeled and minced
• 1 teaspoon garlic paste or 2-3 cloves minced (out of garlic, oops)
• 1 T mild oil
• 1/2 t Panch Poran (check out a Desi shop for this)
• salt & lemon juice to taste

Saute onion in oil until it begins to brown and caramelize. Add in garlic, ginger and then the Panch Poran, cooking until fragrant. Then add in beet stems, a little salt, and cover. You may want to add a tablespoon or so of water to help steam the stems. After the stems start to soften a little add the greens and cover until they begin to wilt. Toss greens with stems and onions below to blend all together. Continue to cook covered until stems are cooked (we still like them kinda firm). Toss with a little more salt and lemon juice before serving.

Yes, there is a recurring theme to my Sundays, especially in the chilly, wet months. Stews, soups and thick warming dishes. The mix of garbanzos, tomatoes, and squash is so popular that I tend to just do some variations on a those three ingredients.

Today’s stew is the best to date. Christie said to me while we enjoyed seconds that I had to write this one done. We tried to get a picture but discovered the camera had a dead battery.

2 cups cooked garbanzos (yes, canned is fine, just drain & rinse first)
1 smallish pie pumpkin peeled and diced (easily 4 cups)
2 large cloves garlic, minced
2 small sweet potatoes (I used the Japanese type)
1 medium red onion, diced
2 15oz cans diced tomatoes (I used Muir Glen’s fire roasted, no salt added type)
6 leaves of chard, stems diced and leafy parts in small ribbons
5 c water
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon dried dill
1/2 teaspoon sweet, smoked paprika
1/3 c nutritional yeast
1 packet vegetarian bullion (I used the liquid type from TJs)

You can use some olive oil to sauté the onion & garlic or, instead of sautéing in oil, you can use water, tamari or broth for an ultra low-fat dish. Once they start to soften add the rest of the ingredients except the chard and spices/nutritional yeast. Bring stew to a boil then reduce heat to low. Simmer until squash is cooked through, about 40 minutes. Add spices, yeast and the chard, simmer for another 10 minutes and serve.

We served this with some quinoa for an even more hearty dish. Added a little Sriracha and Bragg’s over the top at serving, yum!

This makes an enormous pot of soup (about 10 servings?) – more than enough to have leftovers for lunch during the week!

Notice, other than the bullion packet (which yields one cup broth) there was no salt added at all!