Fall Bucket List 19. try new soup recipes (ongoing) 21. learn to cook indian food (ongoing)

I notice a pattern for me. Step One- pick a goal Step Two- buy a lot of stuff for it Step Three- try it once or twice Step Four- pick a new goal So, I've been trying to cook indian food. I bought the book Indian Crockpot Cookbook and a fancy spice holder for all my indian spices. But it does have a few cute spoons but I don't know what measurements they are so I still end up getting out my plastic measuring spoons. So far none of the recipes are worth posting- mostly too spicy for me and if I try to tone it down they are too bland. My family is less than thrilled about all the lentils so my neighbors have been helping with leftovers and I still throw away about 50 percent of it. I think I need to switch gears and try some other recipes from the interwebs. Also, much smaller quantities until they are tried and true. As far as soup, at a thrift store I found a copy of Brother Vincent's Year of Monastary Soups. Most the recipes have been hits. However, I absolutely can not follow a recipe. I have good intentions but then I start throwing in extra stuff. Also, my foodie sister in law laughs at me because I substitute like crazy.. like I don't have an egg so I use applesauce. Or I don't have cream so I use milk. Last night. It was Tomato Florentine Soup from Brother Victor's book. I'm not going to post the original recipe because I made so many substitutions, but I thought the result was pretty surprisingly good. One out of Four kids ate it, so not a good family meal but it was low cal and vegan so that's all good. Emily's garden tomato soup I used the tomatoes I scored at the farmers market. First I threw them in a pot of boiling water for a minute and then took the peels off. Put them in a pot with a cut up onion, 2 bullion cubes and 4 cups of water. Added a bay leaf, a few cut up basil leaves,and a shake of thyme. Cook for 30-40 minutes. Remove bay leaf. Add greens (I used a few handfuls of frozen kale) and then I threw in some leftover rice. Cook 10 more minutes. (I'm not sure why all my posts are all one big paragraph.. that isn't how it looks when I type it out. Weird)

Vegan New Year Day 4 Potato/Black Bean Veggie Burgers

I made them for lunch and they were so good I made them again for dinner. Zac had 2 helpings. I'll post the original recipe first. It had some weird amounts (like it used 1 cup of corn which is 1/2 a can or 1/2 an onion. Then you have the other half to hang around)So just double the recipe to start with and you'll be all set! Also, they are very liquidy so I just squeezed it really good to get a lot of the moisture out. I got to use a new kitchen tool I have never used in my entire life- a potato masher! Hot cha!

They are a lot like fancy latkes. I ate them on a plate with a fork. Abby said she wished she had not added ketchup.

Potato Veggie Burgers (original recipe)
1 cup canned black beans
1 carrot, grated
1/2 onion, diced
3 potatoes, grated
4 scallions, chopped (I didn't have scallions, I left them out)
1 cup corn
salt and pepper to taste
oil for frying
Mash beans. Add remaining ingredients (except oil) and mix until well combined. Shape mixture into patties, cook about 3 min on each side

Potato Veggie Burgers (doubled and tweaked)
1 can canned black beans (mashed)
1 onion diced
6 potatoes grated
1-2 carrots (or not) grated
1 can corn
Mix and shape into patties. Fry 5 min on each side, sprinkle with garlic salt

Vegan New Year Day 3 Scrambled Tofu

This is from the book Vegan with a Vengeance by Isa Chandra Moskowitz. Surprisingly, I make it almost exactly as the recipe states (except I had no cumin). Serve on a baked potato with salsa. Yum! Abby likes this recipe and requested I make it

Scrambled Tofu
1T olive oil
1 med onion chopped
2 c mushrooms
2 cloves garlic
1 pound extra firm tofu, drained
1/4 c nutritional yeast
juice of 1/2 lemon
i carrot, grated (added at end for color)

spice blend:
2t cumin
1 t thyme
1 t paprika
1/2 t tumeric
1 t salt

Heat oil in skillet, saute onions 3 min; add mushrooms saute 5 min; add garlic saute 2 min. Add the spice blend, add 1/4 cup water, scrape the pan to get all spices.

Crumble in tofu and mix well. Don't crush tofu, just lift and mix around. Cook 15 min. Add water if necessary to keep from sticking. Add lemon juice. Add nutritional yeast and mix it up. Grate carrot into mixture and fold. Serve with guacamole and salsa and potatos and toast and tempeh bacon

Vegan New Year Day 2 Chilistrone Soup

Ok, I tried this soup I found on the interwebs by googling 'vegan' and 'crock pot'. Then I didn't end up using a crock pot. You had to cook everything ahead of time anyway so I didn't see the benefit of dirtying a different pan.

They called it 'chilistrone' but my way was not too spicy at all. Also the liquid all absorbed into the noodles so it was more like a pasta dish than a soup. I didn't have all the spices individually so added Italian Seasoning and Garam Masala and called it good. The older kids ate it with motzarella cheese added and said it was good. The little ones wouldn't touch it.

The original recipe can be found HERE

Chilistrone Soup
2 cups dry macaroni cooked and drained
saute the veg in olive oil
onion
carrot
potato
green beans
add 1 tsp Italian seasoning
add 1 tsp Garam Masala
add jar of spaghetti sauce
add 1/2 jar water
add kidney beans
add a can of corn because it is sitting on the counter right there anyway
add pasta
cook about 10 minutes or more if you want to simmer the liquid away

It makes TONS. That is good or bad depending how much your family likes it

Vegan New Year Day 1 Indian Dal

I will tell you that my vegan new year actually started on Jan 2. The first day of the year was spent with me sick with a sore throat and fever, mostly sleeping and wandering into the kitchen to see if anything grabbed me.

So, here is the first recipe I tried, which was vegan and also met the 'learn to cook Indian food' on my list

My ex-neighbor who is Indian kindly offered to teach me to cook 'Dal'. She called them lentils but the bag said "toor dal" and they look a lot like the yellow split peas I had bought awhile ago and didn't know what to do with. I'll post the recipe she showed me first and then my next day attempt to make it again.

Dal
cook 1/2 c yellow lentils about 40min, mush slightly with potato masher
in a pan on med heat in olive oil add:
mustard seeds & cumin seeds, cook until mustard 'pops'
curry leaves (4-5)
green chilis (2- one cut up and one visible for her picky kid to pick out, lol)
dice the following vegetables and saute for maybe 7 minutes:
onion, potato,green pepper,carrot,eggplant, green beans, tomato
add pinch of tumeric powder and 1/2tsp corriander powder (or garam masala)
add to dal, salt as needed
boil 5 minutes
add asian parsley (she called it corriander leaves or cilantro)

It was very good- I served it with rice and Zac and Abby liked it

So, the next day I tried it with my limited ingredients I had
cook yellow split peas 30 min
in pan saute onion, can of 'mixed veg' (inc green beans, carrots, peas) from food storage that is about to expire, also a can of potatos)
add garam masala
add to lentils
Pretty good, but it definitely needed SOMETHING- salt?