Two Weeks in the Appalachia Hills of NC

So I really do mean to do this on a more regular basis but life does not always slow down enough for me to show off my meals the way I want to.  So after two weeks of INCREDIBLE meals all you get is a quick report on the foods and only the scantest of clues on how to make it.  If I were not leaving tomorrow for another trip I would honestly try to be more detailed in my meal preparation and thought process.  

Two Weeks of Tasty Food

Kale Salad

Kale salad with an avocado lemon vinaigrette with fresh corn, grated beets and carrots.  The body is hefted up with a bit of shredded cabbage and topped with crushed walnuts and a few more slices of avocado

Buffalo Fries

It seemed abnormal to go to the south without having buffalo wings but the next best thing is buffalo fires with home made 'wing' sauce.  I used a lot of extra pepper and pinch of salt and so much garlic that I ahrdly tasted the spicy delicious wing sauce

 Buckwheat Pancakes
I was visiting a wheat free friend but that did not deter us from pancakes with maple syrup.  The amazing thing about the east coast is blueberries grow wild!  the bananas are still imported but a morning walk to harvest blueberries made these things so much more worth it!

Shredded salad and mushroom risotto 

One of the many amazing dinners consisted of carrot/beet/cabbage salad with almonds, raisins and, sesame seeds.  The salad was dressed in balsamic vinegar and olive oil.  The risotto was rich and delicious and could have used more mushrooms but was a nice compliment to the salad.

Indian Dinner
One lovely night we threw a dinner party with Red Dhal soup, turmeric rice (didnt have any saffron so did our best), pumpkin curry and a green salad.

more salad

massaged kale with romaine lettuce.  The tomatoes and peppers came from the small garden on site and the diced almonds came with me from Cali!

 Simple Dinner
Steamed carrots and purple cabbage topped with sauteed potatoes and bell peppers.

Hash brown Breakfast
shred potatoes, shred yams, garlic and onions!  I am always a fan of hash browns but for some reason these were extra good.  Top potatoes with avocado and Chihuly hot sauce and you are always on the right track.

potato stew

I was not thrilled with my first go at buckwheat biscuits but they added a nice body to the stew as they melted in.  The stew was a slow roast with potato carrot cabbage in a tomato base with a lot of garlic and some onion.  

Mexican Dinner
Turns out North Carolina does not offer a lot of Mexican food.  This was the last night as a going away treat to remind my friend what is waiting for her in California.  Salsa fresca Mexican spiced black beans with a side of Spanish rice. Fresh corn and guacamole to make tacos with corn tortillas was like heaven!

Salad once more

On the night I met Debra Frasier, Liz and I shared kale salads.  Shredded carrots, shredded beats, tomatoes from the garden, fresh corn, bell peppers and a lemon vinaigrette.  I ate it and wanted more and more and more!  I dont thing there is anything I like as much as a well made salad!  

I have no idea what I am going to eat for the next two weeks but once I am back we will all know! 

Chilli Con YUM!

Chilli does not inherently mean chilli con carne, I know most people jump to that conclusion and instantly ask me 'chilli how do you make that vegan?' but chilli actually refers to the plant! if you make a meat stew with tomatoes it is just a meat stew until you add the chilli.  So the question becomes what makes a good chilli?

Mostly it is this mass of stuff.

The 'sausage' on the right is a vegan soy and wheat based  medium for flavor and spices and usually I dont use products that most refer to as 'meat substitutes' (really they are nothing like meat and calling them a meat substitute generates a false conception of what you are eating) because I like to avoid processed foods but I got it as a gift and dense protein like that goes a good distance for bulking up a chilli.  

Chilli Con Vegetables:

     The key to the chilli I make is having a strong vegetable base, using vegetables that caramelize or release sugar at the same time the supply earthy undertones.  This of course means onions(1/2 diced) and garlic (5-500 cloves minced) but also includes potato (didn't use it this time), Corn(didnt use) carrot(3 average), zucchini(2 small) and beet(1 average).  I particularly like using red beets because it makes the color of the chilli POP and adds a sweetness that is balanced by the spicy.  Of course if you go too heavy on the beet you end up with something that looks other worldly in the vibrancy of its reds.  

The root vegetable base is shredded so it will cook down fall apart and turn into a sauce.  This means the chilli should be started early because it takes over an hour of simmering vegetables in oil to get them to start to fall apart.  I usually simmer the onions a bit before that and add the bell pepper and garlic a bit later, though the bell pepper does not fall apart quite the same way leaving a few chunks for diversity in texture. 

(side note:  while the vegetables simmer you can pressure cook the beans which also take about an hour)

 After the vegetables starts to brown and fall apart you can toss in the veggie sausage and break it into nice bit size pieces and let it all keep simmering until the vegetables really become mush.  

 The mush never looks that good but oh it smells mouthwatering and now it is time to turn the mush into sauce.  The main part of this is adding fresh tomatoes (or some tomato sauce) and to my luck the sun golds were ripe early this year so they made an awesome chilli! Wash them and cut them in half to facilitate the 'saucing' and add in some extra olive oil (2-4 Table spoons).

By now the beans are hopefully ready.  What beans you ask?  well as I do I usually use a base of pinto beans(2 C dry) add in some kidney beans (1 C dry) some black beans (.5C dry) and Garbanzo beans (.5C dry).  Keep in mind those amounts will make A LOT of chilli but if you make it right it will not last that long.  Pressure cook the beans with 10C water (reduce the amounts of beans if your pressure cooker is smaller).

Once the beans go in (they can be a bit under cooked since they are going to simmer) the chilli is essentially ready.  It is not really ready until it simmers for at least an hour. In all honesty it would be even better if it could simmer for three hours (and even better if you let it cool and sit over night before reheating and serving).

Zucchini Corn Bread:

     I pretty much made up this recipe on the spot combining my friends zucchini bread recipe (dont know where she got it) with my favorite corn bread recipe (came out of vegan with a vengeance or how it all vegan or from another friend but ti has been in my recipe box long enough that I dont know anymore) 

Mix the dry ingredients (white flour, corn flour, baking soda, cinnamon, sugar, salt), fold in the wet ingredients (oil, water, vanilla, zucchini) until it makes a nice heavy batter.  This stuff is dense so try not to over mix it, press it into a pan and bake it at 350 for 45 minutes (you can make it while the beans and vegetables are cooking) 

I served it with a Spanish rice, a strawberry smoothie and a few slices of melon.  

It is a great meal to celebrate 11 years of being vegan :)

Re-fried Beans and Spanish Rice

     When you have had a week like I just had you hardly want to get out of bed let alone cook a meal for your house.  It is times like these it is really handy to have a few 'boil' recipes, things where the main step is just boiling, not a lot of chopping or sauteing or mixing . . .just boil.  Of course it should still be tasty and well balanced but hey sometimes the best I can do is not as balanced as I would like.

    My 'go-to' boil recipe is re-fried beans and cheater Spanish rice.

Re-fried Beans

5 C dry pinto beans

2 Tbs garlic powder

2 Tbs spike (powdered vegetable stock)

1 Tbs salt

1 Tbs cumin

5 Tbs oil

You dont have to soak the beans before hand but it helps, a lot.  These beans soaked for close to 5 hrs before I started cooking them in a pressure cooker.  I know a lot of people are frightened of pressure cookers or were not at one point but then had one 'explode'.  I was worried the first time I used a pressure cooker because I heard the 'explode' stories and was like 'woah what do you mean?'  turns out you have to be pretty careless to have a pressure cooker get out of control and even when ti does it mostly sprays hot water around and is not dangerous unless you are in the way.  The point is a well monitored pressure cooker will never get out of hand.  The science behind a pressure cooker can be understood from the phase diagram of water. Arc AC is the boil line for water and the normal boiling point (nbp) occurs at 100 C.  By increasing the pressure above one atmosphere (using a tight lid) the water temperature follows along the curve and the water temperature increases above what is normally considered the  maximum temperature of water.  This decreases cooking time for beans and grains and all kinds of vegetables . .. really you can cook anything in a pressure cooker. . .but I like to poke at things so I typically only do beans.  

For re-fried beans we want to over cook them.  The soaked beans go into the pressure cooker with enough water to cover the beans (if you did not soak the beans make sure it is nearly double the water because beans soak up a lot of water).  clamp down the lid and put the heat on high!  When the pressure builds up the pressure cooker will start to whistle, that is a good thing.  We want the pressure cooker to be right at that pressure where it can barely push the valve open (not the safety valve the regulator valve which is usually just a weight on top).   Turn down the heat and just let the thing simmer along for an hour plus . . . remember we want the beans over cooked so dont watch the clock too closely, but do pay attention if your pot stops hissing turn the temp up just a bit.  

While the beans cook the rice gets started and gives about 45 minutes of down time in meal prep.  Usually this is where I would make something else but today I just hid under the blankets until it was time to check on the rice and beans.

More than half the time I open the pressure cooker early and have to heat things back up. . . since this is a problem I have I dont like to wait for the thing to cool down so I can open it (safety mechanism) so I put the whole pot in the sink and run cool water over it until I hear that hiss click of the drop in pressure releasing the lock.  This time I was lazy enough and the beans were all tender and mushy PERFECT! I dump off about half the water that is still in the pot (you could do all but then you need more oil).

When I first learned about making re-fried beans I was told 'use a lot of salt and a lot of oil . . .dont be scared of it just use it'  and it is true!  A high fat content in your re-fried beans will help create a smooth and creamy texture that is awesome but I dont enjoy an excess of oil so I use some water to get the consistency I like.  These days instead of going with salt only  I use powdered vegetable bouillon which adds a salty sensation and a nice flavor.  Toss in all the spices (I am sure you can use fresh garlic but again for the right texture I go with powders) the oil and with the water you saved just mash them!  You can use a mixer or any other device but my favorite is the hand masher.   I dont know maybe I am old fashioned or maybe I like to feel like I have to labor for my food but it is what I like.

Taste them, add more spices as you like (cayenne is a good one but feel free to get creative and play with flavors like cinnamon and chipotle).  Serve hot and with a tortilla and rice.  

Spanish Rice

3 C short grain brown rice

6 C water

1 Tbs garlic powder

2 Tbs paprika

2 tsp spike

1 tsp salt

2 Tbs hot sauce (tapatio) 

This is my lazy version of Spanish rice, normally i would use tomatoes and fresh peppers and sauteed onions  . ..nah not today.  We got the paprika for color the garlic and vegetable stock powder for flavor and the Tapatilo for a little kick.  

Toss everything in bring it to a boil.  Cover with a well fitting lid and reduce the heat to a simmer for 45 minutes.

Yeah that is it. . .though there is one catch.  I always find that tossing in the extra spices and hot sauce before the rice is cooked rather than using ti like a dressing after or treating the process more like a risotto leaves my cook time a little off.  We want to make sure all of the water naturally boils off leaving a red sauce behind without burning the dish or leaving the rice under cooked.  At the 45 min mark I check the rice and since it is tasty and soft on top I leave the lid off while the rest of the water steams off.

Using a wooden spoon I will carefully move rice at one edge aside to make sure all of the liquid is gone. . . you dont want to go just mixing the rice all around or you will get more starch into the water and your whole dish will come out more mushy and kinda soggy instead of light and almost fluffy with a sauce.    Once the water is gone then you can toss the rice and let the excess steam out, just remember be patient, dont go fluffing your rice before it is time or it will not fluff.  As long as you dont smell burning it can sit at a low temp slowly cooking out the water . . .but once it gets close to done keep an eye on it because even a little bit of burn will toss off the taste.  

To round out the meal we made a cabbage salad and served it all with a warm tortilla.  Considering I spent 45 minutes of my 2 hrs cooking under a blanket in the corner I am pretty pleased with the meal!