Easy Bean Dip and Mashed Basil Garlic Cauliflower

I got home late because I stupidly stopped by the gym after work. Why is that stupid? Because it was gorgeous outside. Back to dinner, I wanted something easy.

The bean dip is easily the best thing I've made in awhile and perfect for a party. I blended together:

• 1 cup dark red kidney beans (I'd cooked some dry beans weeks ago and had extra, so I threw them in the freezer and they came out ok but a little mushy- perfect for a dip)
• 1 TB Better Than Cream Cheese
• .5 tsp chipotle powder (maybe a little more)
• .5 tsp chili powder
• Lime juice
• Cilantro

I ate it with 3 pieces of toast and would have eaten it off my floor.

The cauliflower was easy. I steamed a medium head of cauliflower and realized when it was almost done that I meant to roast some garlic. So I threw 3 cloves into the steamer for a few minutes. Then I removed the cauliflower but kept the garlic in while I chopped up some basil. I added the basil and 1TB Earth Balance margarine and mashed, then chopped the garlic and mashed in as well. Delicious!

Split Peas and Barley with Spicy Kidney Bean Cream Sauce

Uninspired. That's how I felt on the Metro ride home from work as I desperately tried to come up with a dinner idea. And that's how I continued to feel as I stared at my bare cabinets in search of something that caught my eye. Nothing. The problem is that I got all my veggies in at lunch with my Spring Vegetable Salad and needed grain and protein for dinner, limiting my choices severely. I really wanted some veggies, but evidently I didn't do such a good job grocery shopping and will barely have enough to last me to this weekend. So I went for my go-to dinner and made split peas and barley. Except I got a sudden flash of inspiration as I was walking the dog.

Ingredients

• .5 cup yellow split peas
• .5 cup barley
• 1 large red onion
• 2 TB Better Than Cream Cheese
• .5 TB chipotle in adobo sauce
• .5 cup cooked dark red kidney beans
• Fresh cilantro to taste
• Salt and pepper to taste

Combine split peas, barley, and onion in a pot and cover with water. Bring to a boil and simmer for 20-30 minutes or until tender, checking to make sure there's enough water. Remove from heat and add cilantro, salt, and pepper. Meanwhile, blend together the cream cheese, beans, and chipotle until smooth. It makes 2 medium/small 375 calories servings.



Experiment successful. It wasn't overwhelmingly spicy, but it had great flavor and was easy to make.

Easy Meals for the Lazy Chef

Coming back from a long Thanksgiving and then preparing for another one-night stand with a celebrity in LA (relax, it's just an overnight dash from the East coast over to the West coast to play with someone famous), I hoped to minimize my time in the kitchen. So lunch the next 2 days is a strange concoction that somehow tastes fabulous:



Creamy Tomato Green Bean Soup

Boil .5 cup brown rice in 1 can veggie broth for about 10 or 15 minutes. Add 3 cups fresh green beans (and more water/broth if necessary) and cook until green beans are done. Meanwhile, using your handy dandy immersion blender attachment (or a blender), blend .5 block of silken tofu (firm), 2 TB tomato paste, and some canned chipotle in adobo sauce. When the green beans are done or almost done, add the creamy mixture to the pot and add salt to season. Stir until thoroughly mixed. Enjoy the strangest but most delightful concotion you've had in awhile.



Chipotle Polenta with Lime Infused Spinach/Artichoke/Roasted Garlic

I'm fairly certain you can guess from the title what's in it. I boiled some polenta, salt, and chipotle powder (which I will use for chipotle brownies soon!) until creamy. At the same time I boiled one package of frozen spinach and one package of frozen artichokes, which I didn't know existed. I added some salt and roasted garlic and cooked until piping hot. I added the lime juice, stirred, then piled atop the chipotle polenta and added jennilicious' favorite plant- cilantro. Some of the bites were amazing...and some were just ok. I'm not sure how that can happen. Yes, that's my unsweetened homemade cranberry ginger ale.

Steamed Cauliflower atop a Bed of Tomato-Cumin Cilantro with Spicy Cool Tofu Sauce

A long title, a tasty dish. I'm a huge fan of all in one dishes (not necessarily casseroles...or is that the definition of the word?), and today I needed a little of each food group (except fruit).



So, I cooked some quinoa with tomatoes and cumin, steamed some cauliflower, and made a sauce with 1 package of silken tofu , a bunch of cilantro (that's PARSLEY to you, jennilicious!), chipotle pepper, and salt. When I first made the sauce, it was missing something, so I added more of everything. I retasted and it still wasn't perfect, and then I realized the key: garlic. So I added 3 cloves and it was amazing.




















Not only is it tasty, but it looks pretty. The picture doesn't do it justice- cauliflower seems to be camera-shy lately. But if I actually cared when I "plated" it, it could have looked so much better. What's that atop you ask? Green onion. It was dirt cheap so I've been cooking with it all week.




As far as changes/improvements, it could really, really use some lime. I'd probably put it in the quinoa and possibly the sauce as well. And perhaps the quinoa could have used some chili powder.

Chipotle Polenta

I've made polenta now the last 2 nights.

Thursday- I made polenta and added chipotle to the corneal. I then topped it with homemade salsa (chopped up one small on the vine tomato, half a red onion, 2 cloves of garlic, and some cilantro). And the best part- I added some chili powder/cumin to a few TB's of Better Than Cream Cheese. Now, in the past I feel I may have maligned this stuff. But, it's my crack cocaine (that and silken tofu). I love it. This dish was awesome, except I didn't cut the onion into small enough pieces so it was a little overpowering.

Friday- Same first sentence and last dollop. Instead of salsa, though, I cooked .25C of lentils with the other half of the red onion and another tomato. And a dash of salt. The lentils alone were amazing. On top of the polenta, though, was fantastic. Yum.

Hot Hot Hot!

Inexplicably, I decided I needed to, had to, use my cornmeal tonight in whatever I made. Perhaps it was my lengthy examination of Amy's products as I stood in the frozen food aisle at Whole Foods today trying to pick out something for lunch since I haven't gone to the grocery store in forever and don't have many ingredients to cook with. Amy's makes a tamale pie dish that has a cornmeal topping. Inspirational...

I wanted to use the ailing cauliflower in my fridge in a somewhat new way, even though "mashed" cauliflower is one of my favorite things. And I needed some nuts/beans/seeds so I went with my favorite standby- lentils. Back to the cornmeal. I was searching around the Fatfree Vegan Kitchen blog, one of my favorites, and stumbled upon a fun Tamale Bites recipe that looked intriguing despite knowing full well that I have no Twinkie pan or anything remotely MacGyverable. But I did have what I (mistakenly) remembered being a giant silicone muffin pan. My plan was to carve out the inside of a cornbread muffin and stuff with my strange concoction. It worked, I guess. But instead of the cornbread bowl I envisioned, it was like a thimble.

Simultaneously, I cooked 12 cornbread muffins with this recipe from Vegweb, except I used applesauce instead of the oil. I estimate the entire batch has 1200 calories. I also steamed a head of cauliflower and blended it with .25 cup water and about a TB of frozen chipotle pepper in adobo sauce. And, miraculous, I cooked .5 cup of lentils with 1 small onion until they were done but not mushy and added the last maybe TB of tomato paste I found cowering in my freezer, cumin, chili powder, and a little salt.

The cauliflower turned a nice shade of orange and was delicious on its own, but extrordinarily spicy (yum). I'm going to start eating lentils like this way more often- they were simply delicious. The cornbread didn't seem to burn and despite sticking my finger almost all the way through one of them to check for doneness (evidently premature on my part), the muffins came out fine. I'm not sure I'd ever serve just those because they were a little bland. I might add some corn and, yup, chipotle. But maybe powder instead of the actual pepper.

I somehow expertly carved out the insides of the muffins, scooped the tiniest scoop of cauliflower in it, and added a tad of the lentil mix atop. Originally I envisioned the cauliflower as more of a soup and the lentils as something that sits in the middle of the soup, both in a cornbread bowl.

The cornbread bowls came out cute, yet too small for me to eat soup out of. Now, I'd definitely hollow these out again and put something in them- maybe lentil dip or refried beans or something. Or maybe I'd get a bigger pan.

I'm really proud of this meal- it was really good and really fun.

What about the leftover cornbread muffins? I crumbled up 2 of them in a bowl with cinnamon and 8th Continent Light Vanilla Soy Milk for breakfast the next day. Better than my Cheerios.

Seasoned Sweet Potato Fries with Chipotle Mustard Dipping Sauce

I heart sweet potatoes. Duh.

I cut up 2 giant sweet potatoes and split them into 3 groups. I added a touch of olive oil to all 3 and then seasoned them differently. One group got just salt and pepper, one got "Mexican Style Chili Powder" (chili powder with cumin), and one got rosemary, greatest spice ever. I baked them for 30-40 minutes on 400, refusing to flip them since I was feeling defiant. And I went to great lengths to keep the flavors from mingling.




I scraped a few very small chunks out of the frozen chipotle peppers in my freezer (orginally canned chipotles in adobo), nuked them for 10 seconds, then added a tablespoon or two of regular mustard. Simple. I will not dip the rosemary fries in the mustard for no real reason.










They are amazing. Duh.

Since Mother Nature didn't get my memo that winter is over, it's yet another soup evening for me. I opted for split peas and cauliflower, which I often cook up with a little curry powder. This time I decided to be different.

I added .75cups green split peas and one large onion to some boiling water and cooked until the split peas softened up some. Meanwhile, in an effort to dirty every single dish in my kitchen (which I do often), I also cooked up .5cups quinoa and simultaneously blended 2 chipotles (canned in adobo sauce, my favorite...I freeze the leftovers), 2 TB Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese, and some of my mint from my freezer. This made a very, very tasty sauce.

When I was done with the sauce I put 3/4 of the split peas/onion in the blender until smooth. I then readded to the pan and put 1/2 large head of cauliflower in the pot with some salt and cumin. I thought about adding turmeric, but got scared and didn't. Now, I had this beautiful vision of a nice, green soup with pretty white cauliflower floating around and a deep red swirl, all on a bed of tasty quinoa. However, I can't seem to ever learn that when you mix red things (peppers, tomatoes, etc) with white things (cream cheese, milk, etc), it turns pink.

And I need to work on my swirling skills...

Overall, I was pleased with the minty taste- not over the top, but you could definitely taste it and it seemed to go well with the spicy chipotle. The cumin also helped town down the heat from the peppers. Next time I'll probably make it with brown basmati rice just for some better texture since the quinoa is a little soft. But I'll be making this one again.