Vegetarian Chili

One of my old standby vegetarian recipes is taco soup, adapted from one of my mother's recipes to use fake meat instead of ground beef. I really like the recipe, but I make it all the time and my other pointed out that's a weird recipe, calling for noodles in the soup while also calling for it to be served with tortilla chips. She had suggested that I adapt the recipe to make it chili, and I did just that. It's not a terribly complex recipe:

2 Tbsp. canola oil
1 large onion, diced
2 poblano peppers, sliced
2 jalapeño peppers, sliced
2 pkgs. Lawry's taco seasoning
1 tsp. cumin powder
2 pkgs. Quorn grounds
1 can tomatoes and chilis
water to cover
1 tsp. dried oregano
1 tsp. dried marjoram
1 tsp. dried basil
1 tsp. dried thyme
1 Tbsp. chipotle chili powder
1 tsp. black pepper
1/2 Cup red wine vinegar
salt to taste

I sauteed the onions in the oil over medium heat until they were translucent and then added the peppers. I let all that cook for a while, and then added the taco seasoning, cumin and the grounds, stirring all in very well. I then added the tomatoes and chilis and water to cover and let all that cook for a while. About 15 minutes from the end, I added the herbs and spices, as well as the vinegar. I garnished with sour cream and cilantro and served it with Beanitos restaurant style white bean tortilla chips.

It turned out really well. Since I used two packages of the Quorn grounds, it made just a whole mess of chili. It had a nice smokiness and quite a bit of spiciness, and the red wine vinegar helped it be just the right amount of tangy. I'm definitely going to make this again, probably when it's cold out again.

Lentil Soup

I made this soup because my other seemed to be pretty excited about the prospect of having some lentil soup and, even though I've never made lentil soup before, it turned out great. I took a few liberties with the recipe she found online, because it seemed lightly boring, but I didn't deviate too much. Mostly, I just augmented the herb bill and added some of the tub stock I like to use so often:

1 onion, chopped
A couple of glugs of olive oil
1 carrot, sliced
2 stalks celery (with leaves), chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 t dried oregano
1 t dried marjoram
1 t dried thyme
1 t dried basil
2 bay leaves
2 C dried lentils
1 (14.5 oz) can crushed tomatoes
1 tub Knorr vegetable stock concentrate
8 C water
1 package whole-leaf baby spinach, wilted
2 T balsamic vinegar
salt, black pepper, long pepper to taste

I sauteed the onion over medium heat until it was translucent and added the carrots and celery. I then added the garlic, herbs, spices and lentils and stirred it all up, and then added the tomatoes, stock tub and water. I boiled the whole mess for about an hour, stirring in the vinegar when I added the spinach, about 15 minutes out. When we got ready to eat, we put some Parmagiano Reggianitto (it wasn't Reggiano and, no, I don't know what the difference is) on top and chowed down.

This turned out better than I could have expected. I've had lentil soup plenty of times, and I usually find it about as exciting as "Vegetarian Vegetable" or any number of other perfunctorily-prepared soups one can find in so many cans and at so many restaurants. Soups like that are often either just bland or, as is more often the case, bland with the addition of loads of salt. This was the sort of thing that I thought was decidedly good, and I'm probably going to make it a standard for when it's cold outside (or, I guess, when I just feel like having some hearty vegetable soup). I ate a full bowl of it and then went back for seconds, which is pretty uncommon these days.

Shallot Potato Soup

I made this soup on a night when I was away from my other and it was cold outside. Not being in a cold mood, I decided to make something to warm me up, and this soup was the answer. The metal bowl that it's pictured in is one that I bought from REI a while back, and it works fine for whipping up a single portion of something. The ingredient list for this soup was pretty small, though came together for magic:

2 small Red potatoes, cubed

1 medium Shallot, diced fine

1 T Butter

Water to cover

1 Vegetable bouillon cube

1/2 T Dried thyme (maybe, I just threw in a decent amount)

Salt and Pepper to taste

1/2 C Milk (again, loose estimate)

I sauteed the shallot in the butter until they were past translucent, added some vodka to deglaze, and then threw in the potatoes and covered with water. I added the bouillon cube and thyme once it was boiling, and let it boil for about 10 minutes before checking it. At that point, I added some salt and pepper until it tasted right, and added a few decent glugs of milk.

This is a lot like potatoes I ate as a kid, which were cooked much the same way, but the addition of thyme and vegetable bouillon really make this whole dish shine. I tossed some in some chives I've been growing on my balcony for good measure, though they didn't really do much one way or the other.

Update: The decent gap between the last post and this one was due to me being out of town, eating a lot of restaurant food and cooking things I've cooked before. For the sake of novelty, I'm not going to blog about any of those things.

Green vegetable soup

I purchased the ingredients for this soup anticipating that I would spend several days away from my other, and eat it each day as my evening meal in order to fulfill my dietary requirements adequately. I used Lightlife's ersatz beef tips (I can't find a link to the product on their site, though I purchased it through a local grocery store), and they performed satisfactorily in the task they were proscribed. I disliked using them, however, because they require separate pre-browning, as well as inclusion in the dish only in the last minute, which is a more intensive meat substitute than I prefer (contrast with Quorn's fake meat, which can be treated just like regular meat in most cases).

That said, the dish included extremely chosen-at-the-moment quantities of various vegetables:

1 bag Monterrey brown mushrooms
1 bag fresh brussels sprouts
1/2 bag frozen broccoli
4 cups chopped kale
1 large onion, sliced into moons
1 quart dashi (from Alton Brown's recipe)
4 cups water
1 tub Knorr vegetable stock concentrate
1 glug of rice vinegar
1 bag Lightlife "beef" tips
1 cup Barilla Veggie rotini
Thyme, black pepper, summer savory, long pepper, oregano, garlic powder, sel gris and fish sauce to taste

I started by sauteing the onion in grapeseed oil, adding the mushrooms and brussels sprouts once the onions were translucent. I let that all saute for a few minutes and then added the rest of the ingredients, excluding the "beef" tips, which I browned on the side in some grapeseed oil, and the noodles, which I added 7 minutes before turning off the heat.

The soup turned out great. I recommend adding some sort of wine vinegar to basically any savory soup like this one, because it adds a great tang to the finished product. When I reheated the soup for later, having eaten all of the "beef" tips out of it (assuming they wouldn't heat up well), I chopped up a block of tofu, which was arguably better than the fake meat.

Morningstar Grillers patties done up

I think it's safe to say that I like Morningstar Farms griller patties, as much as one can like purposefully generic microwave patties. Most of the reason I like them is that I dress them up sufficiently, giving them the chance to taste better than they do by default. The essence of my method is herbs and butter. I put some summer savory, thyme, basil, oregano, rosemary or marjoram on top with some black pepper and some sel gris, and cover the whole mess with some butter. Since I keep forgetting to pick up butter from the store, I've been using ghee instead; I prefer the butter. When it's done cooking, I usually serve the patties with some Heinz balsamic vinegar ketchup and a stack of 8 CM stone ground wheat crackers.

I only ever do this when I'm hanging out by myself and don't feel like going to any trouble, but it's a satisfying dinner.

Leftover Taco Filling Nachos (10/16)

Earlier this week, my other and I made vegetarian tacos. I like making them using Quorn grounds (a mycoprotein meat substitute that you can treat like meat), but since the pack is the equivalent of a pound of ground beef, it makes more than two people can eat by themselves. For the filling, I used the following recipe:

1 pkg. Quorn grounds
2 Poblano peppers, sliced thin
1 Med-large onion, sliced thin
1 pkg. Lawry's taco seasoning
1T Canola oil
1 can Ranch Style black beans
Some black pepper

The tacos were quite good, and we served them on toasted flour tortillas with melted sharp cheddar cheese. Since there was plenty left over, my other had the idea that we make nachos using the filling--it was a great idea. I started by lining the bottom of a 13"x9" baking dish with some pretty flat Tostitos tortilla chips and covered each with a generous spoon-full of filling. I covered the nachos with a decent blob of finely shredded cheddar cheese and a sprinklings of black pepper, coarse sel gris and chipotle chili powder, and baked it all at 300F for 15 minutes. They were pretty great, but we could have stood to have had a few more. If I had a large, flat, brimmed baking tray instead, I could have used less filling per nacho and extended the recipe a little.

Introductions and Pumpkin Bisque

I'm your documentarian. I'm mostly vegetarian, though I will and do occasionally eat fish. I like cooking for myself and my other, and I figured it would be helpful to document my various undertakings if for no other reason than to be able to revisit days of food past. I feel like I'm a decently creative cook for someone that does this as just a hobby, and I'm thinking it could be fun to document some of what I've done.

I'm going to try to include full product descriptions any time I talk about something prepackaged I cook with. Feel free to suggest better replacements or that I'm a worthless corporate lemming for using whatever Big Ag products I'm inevitably going to use (some in this post). Also feel free to congratulate or criticize my waffling commitment to my non-ethically substantiated predominant vegetarianism or my cooking skills, or whatever. I reserve the right to delete basically any posts I don't like or just see fit to remove, so say basically whatever you want.

Now that all of that has been said, I made a pumpkin bisque the other night using a recipe I changed to make it mostly vegetarian. The recipe didn't seem too terribly dependent on its meat ingredients, as you'll see down below.

Instead of bacon grease, I used 2 tablespoons of butter, assuming it would be an acceptable compromise. Also, I heated up 6 strips of Morningstar Farms vegetarian bacon to cut up into bits. While I don't think it's probably going to fare too well in a taste test against real bacon, especially good bacon, it's better than something like bac-os (than which everything is better, imho) and adds a good smokiness with a decent texture.

Instead of chicken stock I used 6 cups of water with two Knorr brand vegetable stock concentrate tubs dissolved into it, which is better than (some) other bouillon in my experience. I used the Knorr stock instead of another fancy tub of vegetable stock concentrate that I bought, made by some company that makes demi-glace concentrate and other similar concentrated stocks. When I looked at the ingredients after I got back to the kitchen to cook, I realized that the stock's first ingredient was wine. I like wine in stocks, especially for French and savory/soupish foods--and especially especially in a white wine onion soup I had in France years ago at some very family touristy casual gourmet restaurant in Strassbourg, one of a very few businesses open on New Year's Day--and I'm totally going to use it at some point, but the recipe for the pumpkin bisque didn't include wine in the chicken broth it called for.

Regarding the above stock-related parenthetical, I say "some" other bouillon because there are other bouillons and bases I like. For example, I very much so like the not-meat bouillons from Edward and Sons, which do a good job of approximating the essential characteristics of whatever meat it is that they're replacing, though the veggie bouillons are good, too. While I'm on it, and while it's not actually bouillon but premade broth, I don't like Swanson's vegetable broth, though, and nothing I've done to it has done anything to take it past tasting terrible to me.

Other than the noted substitutions, the preparation was identical. The picture above is actually the soup after being reheated. Since the original called for smoked Gouda which was all used in the original recipe, I added some smokehouse pepper and some decent shredded Parmesan. The soup was great when I first had it, and it was great reheated. Still having smoked Gouda in it, I don't think the parmesan really made much of a difference besides extra salt and maybe a little savory, though I loved the smokiness from the smokehouse pepper. I also added  some summer savory and chives on reheating, just for grins, and they were basically imperceptible. I'd like to try it with some extra summer savory, though, because I think it could be at least interesting.