A Truckload of Roasted Veggies

I've had a weird diet today.  I've been using up veggies from my CSA boxes.  For lunch, I had a spinach salad with diced zucchini, cucumber, kohlrabi, purple bell pepper, and a tomato.  It was a huge salad, so I saved half of it for tomorrow.  Tonight, I decided it was time to roast some veggies.

I cut up probably a dozen small gold beets, a head of cauliflower, a big sweet potato, and 2 medium sized white potatoes.  I tossed them in a mixture of 3 tbsp.extra virgin olive oil, 1 tsp. cumin, 1 tsp. hot curry powder, 1/2 tsp. Spike seasoning, and 1 tbsp. lemon juice.  I roasted them for 30 minutes at 400º.  They weren't done, which didn't surprise me because I had so many veggies in the pan.  I stirred them and put them in to roast for 20 more minutes.  They still weren't done to my liking, but they were drying out and sticking to the pan.  ACK!  I drizzled a little bit more olive oil on them and sprinkled them with red cayenne pepper and smoked paprika.  I gave them a good stir, turned the oven temp down to 350º and cooked them for 20 more minutes. 

Finally, the veggies were done to my satisfaction.  They have just a hint of a "kick."  These are very tasty.  I'm glad I got a significant portion of my veggies on hand either eaten, ready to eat, or roasted.  I will be eating these roasted veggies over the next day or two.  I think I'll have some of them in a wrap for my supper tomorrow for a little variety.

Sunday Cooking

I thought I'd show you the finished product for my Peach Butter.  It is excellent.  The blend of spices was perfect for the white peaches and made a lovely butter.  I've had it on bread and an English muffin so far.  It definitely is a repeat recipe.

My deck container garden is coming along nicely.  A ripe Hot Lemon Pepper is above, and below are a few of the Habanero Peppers, not quite ripe yet, but some are starting to turn a nice orange.

Below are my Big Boy tomatoes.  I wouldn't say I got the biggest crop off of the plant, but it is rewarding to eat something I've actually grown.

I've since harvested those tomatoes and have a few more growing.  It's not enough to even make 1 pint of tomatoes, but it's enough to add to a meal or salad.

I used the last of my garbanzo beans a couple of weeks ago.  Last week, I resorted to buying one can of garbanzo beans so I could have some in my salad.  Today, I cooked 3 cups of dry beans, making 6 to 7 cups of cooked beans.  As you can see, I spread them out in a single layer on a jelly roll pan and freeze them for 45 minutes before transferring them to a ziplock bag.  I love the flavor of freshly cooked garbanzo beans.  I use no seasonings in the pressure cooker when cooking them.  That gives me a lot of room for using them in different dishes.

Here is the last of Thursday's CSA box.  I still have to cook the gold beets, but that will be later in the week. I will fix the corn for tonight's supper. I found a recipe for Kohlrabi and Carrots fixed in a similar fashion to mashed potatoes.  I'm going to try that tonight as well.  And, I'll be making BBQ Tofu.  I found both recipes on VegWeb.com and they look very good.

I roasted a (huge) bag of cauliflower, broccoli, and carrots (it took 2 pans to roast it all).  I added a red onion and half dozen or so of garlic cloves.  I'm making a creamy roasted soup.  I've made the soup before with cauliflower and sweet potatoes.

I cut 4 or 5 sprigs of fresh thyme from the plant on my deck, added a bay leaf, a quart of organic mushroom broth, 1 no-chicken bouillon cube, 2 1/4 cup water, and 3/4 cup of sauvignon blanc wine.  I let it simmer for 20 minutes or so, then I used an immersion blender on it to make it smooth and added 1 cup of unsweetened almond milk (at a mere 40 calories per cup).

I did a taste test.  Nope, the soup wasn't doing it for me.  It was missing something.  It was savory, but not quite the right flavor. Sooooo ... I added about a teaspoon of mild curry powder, maybe a tad more.  VOILA!  That was the flavor I was looking for.  I'm a curry lover and this soup will now become one of my favorites.  The only thing missing is some big toasted croutons or a slice of crusty bread to dunk in it.

It's been a heavy cooking day.  I started the day by making my son pancakes for breakfast. :)  But, Sunday is a good day to cook and make a few things that I can eat during the week.

Jordan on the stairs looking for trouble out of the front door.

The weather is beautiful today.  The sun is out and it's a very comfortable 73º outside.  The windows are open and the entire family is enjoying the day.  Kobe begged me to stay outside in the backyard with her for a bit today.  So, I weeded around my flowers and hosta plants while Kobe chilled.

Kobe chilling in the back yard.

This is what Summer is all about.

Saturday Supper

My Uncle Dave, who was also my Godfather, passed away on Monday.  My Mom planned on going to the funeral with me, so she came up to Chicago on Thursday evening.  We split a bottle of red wine and sat at the kitchen table and talked.  Friday, we traveled to Galesburg, IL for the funeral service.  Saturday, we cooked.  My Mom and my sons are omnivores.  So, I fixed a roast for them.  While their main dish cooked, I made my own main dish.

My main dish for Saturday supper was BBQ Tempeh Burgers from the blog, Our Veggie Kitchen.  I've made burgers with TVP and wheat gluten, tofu, and chickpeas, but I haven't used tempeh for burgers.  These looked good and I had all of the ingredients in my kitchen.  That's always a plus! :::grin:::

Everything came together fairly easily.  Boiling the lentils and brown rice, and then the tempeh were no brainers.  I used the small dice blade for my Vidalia Onion Chopper to chop the onions and jalapeno.  I kneaded the mixture for about 3 minutes.  (It makes my hands tired. :)  Then, I used my 30 year old Tupperware hamburger press to form perfectly round burgers.

I baked them for 15 minutes.  The first one I removed stuck a little, but the rest were ok.  I rubbed a small amount of olive oil on each burger before flipping them so they wouldn't stick again.  The burgers turned out great.  My youngest son grabbed one, and my Mom took one home, to Springfield, IL today.  The rest went into my freezer for future eating enjoyment.  I'll make this burger again.  It was very easy to assemble and doesn't require steaming an hour.  While I love the burgers I steam, it's nice to have a quick alternative.

Meanwhile, Mom when to work on the veggies.  She made Roasted Cauliflower with Lemon, Curry, and Cumin from the blog Kalyn's Kitchen.  Kalyn's Kitchen is not a vegan blog, but I happened across the recipe for the roasted cauliflower a few months ago and really like it.

Mom didn't stop with just cauliflower, but also added some diced russet potatoes and baby carrots.  We also added a dash of smoked paprika.  After the cauliflower mixture had baked for about 20 minutes, we added some baby portabella mushrooms.  The veggies ROCKED!

I also made dessert, but I did not photograph it.  I put 1½ cups of soy yogurt, 1 sliced golden mango, 1/4 cup of rum, and 2 cups of a frozen mixture of pineapple, mango, peaches, and strawberries in my Vitamix and let it blend until smooth.  I refrigerated it until we were ready to eat it.  I think it would have been excellent if I had thrown it into the ice cream maker and made frozen yogurt.  I'll try that next time.

Of course, we had our cooking session and dinner with more wine and great conversation.  Although we were together for a sad reason, we had a very enjoyable visit.

My Week and Veggies

I begin with a picture of Kobe Bean who is proudly standing over the mess that she and Jordan have made on the deck.  They are always quite proud when they can tip over a pot of dirt or drag the kiddie pool off of the deck and fill it with a million little tooth puncture marks.  Yes, I will be getting a new pool for Kobe this summer.  :::smile:::

I continue with a picture of Jordan standing on the hot tub enjoying the morning out in the sun and fresh air.  Skittles, the Yorkie, is somewhere in the house snoozing. 

Next, I present a picture of my lemon tree.  I'm in the Chicago area.  Winter is NOT friendly to citrus trees.  I've had the lemon tree for almost (not quite) two years.  The first year, it had about a half dozen leaves.  Last summer, it had a growth spurt and was filled with new leaves and branches.  That is, of course, until I brought it in the house and left it in my kitchen for the winter.  The French doors in my kitchen face north, so there is no direct sunlight.

I don't really have a good window for the plant, so I was going to take it into my office and leave it there.  (I have a wall full of east windows that I thought would be great for it.)  However, that never happened.  I needed to top off the dirt and then it was absolutely freezing in Chicago, so I was afraid of shocking (and killing) the tree.  I have the fluorescent light bulbs in the kitchen, and they must have given the lemon tree more light than I imagined, as it didn't drop "ALL" of its leaves, just most of them.

So, I'm looking at the plant about a week ago and see tiny bumps that look like buds.  There are 5 of them.  I'm thinking, "Could these possibly be lemons?!?!?!"  I really doubted it as the tree has been in my kitchen dropping leaves all winter.  A week later, I am sure ... my lemon tree has 5 lemons growing on it.  This "tree" is pretty much just a branch and if it was on a Charlie Brown cartoon, it would be the summer equivalent of his Christmas tree.  We'll see how this goes.

As you can see, the lemon tree is a pitiful tree, but it is growing some fruit.  How amazing is that?!?  I'll post a few progress pictures as the lemons get bigger.

OK, so I actually did cook this week.  I roasted a head of cauliflower (that had frozen in my bottom produce drawer of my fridge) and a pound of Brussels sprouts.  I drizzled a couple of tablespoons of olive oil over them and sprinkled them with sea salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper, and smoked paprika.  I roasted them at 400º for about 40 minutes, stirring after 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, I made Brown Rice with Vegetables in my new multi-cooker.  It is a rice cooker (separate cycles for brown and white), slow cooker, and a steamer.  :)  I sauteed onion, celery, and mushrooms (baby bellas), and then added 3 cups of a brown rice blend (love mixing up those brown rices), water, and one no-chicken and one low sodium veggie bouillon cube.  After the rice was done cooking, I added about ¼ cup of finely chopped raw pecans and ½ cup of craisins.  This is a variation of one of the recipes that came with the multi-cooker.  I had to change some of the ingredients to vegan versions and I added baby bellas.

The cooking cycle for the brown rice is much longer than I anticipated.  Evidently, the multi-cooker cooks it at a lower temperature for a longer period of time.  The rice turned out absolutely wonderful.  Now that I know the cooking time is longer, I'll be able to adjust my cooking coordination so that everything is done at the same time.  Although I ate the dishes separately, they were both extremely tasty ... even as leftovers for lunch at work the next day.

Tandoori Vegetables

These didn't turn out quite like I was hoping, but they did turn out good.  This was my first experience using my Romertopf Clay Baker.  I wasn't quite sure how it would work.  Now that I've used it, I realize that I should not have put any liquid (canned fire-roasted tomatoes) in with the veggies and that a drizzle of olive oil and fresh tomatoes would have given me a dish closer to what I was trying to achieve.  Also, I used frozen veggies (a mix of cauliflower, carrots, red bell peppers, and beans), and I think fresh would have been better.  BUT, I am trying to use the food I have in my freezer, refrigerator, and pantry, so this was in line with that.

I used many different spices.  I used tandoori masala, garam masala, red cayenne pepper, red pepper flakes, chili powder, fresh dill, and some French sea salt.  For frozen veggies and canned tomatoes, it wasn't bad, but definitely I'll be using all fresh veggies and olive oil when cooking in the Romertopf again.

Curried Cauliflower and Sweet Potato Soup

I've been meaning to make Curried Cauliflower and Sweet Potato Soup for a couple of weeks now.  But, one thing led to another and I never got around to making it.  However, today is the day.  I thought I had everything I needed except cumin seeds.  So I thought I'd just use ground cumin instead.  Much to my surprise, I did not have a pepper to put in it (I used dried jalapeno), but I did have cumin seeds.  HA!  I forgot I had ordered some from MySpiceSage.com when I was ordering a few Indian spice blends.  I ordered those to make some roasted veggies, but that hasn't happened yet.  I have used some of the spices for other things. :)

The soup is fairly easy to put together.  It cooks in two stages.  After sauteing some onion, adding some spices and giving it another quick minute, I added diced sweet potato (I used a red garnet yam), some vegetable broth (low sodium), and some curry powder.  That simmers until the sweet potato is tender.

While that was cooking, I cut up my cauliflower into bite-sized pieces and rinsed it.  I grabbed a can of diced tomatoes in sauce from my pantry and a cup and a half of frozen garbanzo beans from the freezer (love that pressure cooker for cooking up the beans).  

I added the beans, cauliflower, and tomatoes with more curry, 1/2 teaspoon of cayenne pepper (I upped it from 1/4 teaspoon since I had no pepper earlier), and 1 1/2 tomato cans full of water.  (I thought I'd get all of the sauce out of the can.)  Then I simmered the soup covered for a few more minutes until the cauliflower is tender.  VOILA! The soup was ready to eat.

Overall, this is a good soup.  I am glad that I added the extra cayenne pepper.  The next time I make this, I'm going to play with the spices and use one of the blends that I have on hand in place of some of the curry.

Roasted Curried Cauliflower and Potatoes with Lemon and Cumin

I'm off for the Christmas holiday.  My boss closed our office at Noon today and the office is closed on both Thursday and Friday.  I was looking at recipes this morning and found a scrumptious looking recipe for Curried Cauliflower Sweet Potato Soup and thought it would be the perfect recipe to make this afternoon.  Then at the bottom of that blog entry, I saw a link for Roasted Curried Cauliflower with Lemon and Cumin and that was it.  I am a "roasted veggie ho" lately, so that had to be the recipe for this afternoon's cooking.  Oh, I will make the soup because it looks absolutely delicious, but I have been having a craving for roasted veggies and that's all there is to that.

I got a bit carried away when making this.  First, I pulled out my cauliflower.  Then, I grabbed 3 baking potatoes, and then I grabbed a red garnet yam.  I didn't double the olive oil mixture, but I did increase it to 4 tablespoons of olive oil and 4 teaspoons of lemon juice, and then I just increased the spices by a tad, too.  I threw it into a 400ºF oven for 30 minutes.  I ended up cooking it 20 minutes longer (50 minutes total) as the yams weren't quite done at 30 minutes.  I checked it at 30 minutes, 40 minutes, and then took it out at 50 minutes.

And no, I did not take a picture as soon as I took them out of the oven BECAUSE these veggies were smelling so DAMN good that I had to have a bowl of them without delay.  I thought briefly (VERY briefly) about using some to make a roasted veggie creamy soup.  But then I thought ... nah!  They taste too good and I've been craving them too long to make them into soup.  I'll make the next batch into soup. :)

Roasted Cauliflower and Sweet Potato Soup

I went out to dinner at a Thai restaurant with some friends last night.  It was a BYOB restaurant, so we all brought wine.  :::smile:::  While we were there, Jeannie told us about a Roasted Cauliflower Soup she had been making.  The recipe called for chicken broth and half and half, so I thought I'd veganize it.  I ended up making a completely different soup that has a slightly sweet taste while still retaining a savory flavor. 

I roasted cauliflower, sweet potatoes, sweet onions, and garlic in the oven for about 30 minutes.  I sprinkled the veggies with smoked paprika, cayenne pepper, black pepper, and kosher salt and tossed the veggies with a couple of tablespoons of olive oil before popping it into the oven.  I didn't measure the spices and just sprinkled them on the cut veggies in the pan.  I'm guessing I used 1/2 to 1 teaspoon of each spice.  I could have eaten the entire pan of roasted veggies when they were done.  They were very tasty.

I decided to use unsweetened almond milk for the half and half.  Considering that it only has 40 calories per cup, it's a very good choice.  I also used Imagine No-Chicken Broth for the chicken broth.  I think both were good choices.

I added a cubed baked potato, thyme, the No-Chicken broth, and some water.  I simmered this covered for about 20 minutes or so.  When done, I added a cup of the almond milk.  Next, I used an immersion blender to puree the vegetables.  I didn't leave many chunks, but next time, I will.  Although I like the smooth version, I like to have a little something in the soup.

I will definitely make this again and play around with the spice some more.  It's a hearty soup made for chilly fall and winter days.  Here's the recipe for this version.

Roasted Cauliflower and Sweet Potato Soup

1 head of cauliflower, cut into flowerettes

2 sweet potatoes, peeled and diced

1 large sweet yellow onion, sliced

3 to 4 cloves of garlic, cut in half

2 to 3 tablespoons of olive oil

1/2 to 1 teaspoon smoked paprika 

1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1 teaspoon black pepper

1/2 teaspoon salt

32 oz. of No-Chicken Broth or Vegetable Broth

1 cup water

1 baked potato, cubed

1 teaspoon fresh thyme (I used 1/2 teaspoon dried)

1 cup almond milk (or milk of your choice - can also use soy creamer)

Preheat oven to 400º F.  Place cauliflower, sweet potatoes, onion, and garlic into a roasting pan.  Sprinkle with smoked paprika, cayenne pepper, black pepper, and salt.  Roast for 15 minutes; remove pan and stir vegetables; return to oven for another 15 minutes.  (30 minutes total roasting time)

Place roasted veggies in large dutch oven (I used a 5 qt. pan).  Add cubed baked potato, broth, water, and thyme.  Cover and bring to a boil; reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes.  Use immersion blender to puree veggies (can use blender also).  Stir in milk.  Enjoy!