Vegetarian Bean & Rice casserole with sweet potatoes and peppers

So, how did I avoid plastic and trash today?  Today I ran a race.  I took a water bottle, left it in the car.  I skipped the water stations (10k, didn't need it).  No cups.  At the end, I eschewed the burrito bowls, burritos, and plates of tacos.  Instead, had a few slices of watermelon, no trash!

For our weekly Potluck in the Park, I made a fruit salad (the raspberries came in plastic), and I wanted to bring a main dish.  At Costco samples day yesterday, I tasted their stuffed peppers.  Delish.  Instead of buying, I thought "I can make these!"  But I never did like stuffed peppers as a kid.  I googled "unstuffed peppers".  First I found this recipe from Budget Bytes.  And they linked to this recipe.  And of course, I combined the two and edited, because I had "stuff" to use.  And I didn't have any beef or chorizo.  So mine were vegetarian.  I love one skillet meals, but I did pour mine into a 9x13 and bake with cheese on top - it's just easier to transport that way.  Served with guac...delish!

Also, have I mentioned I miss bread?  I tested the waters this weekend with a couple of slices of pizza on Friday and a small donut hole today.  It didn't go well.  Sigh.  I had to pass on the homemade pizza at the potluck.  And the brownies.  I've been pinning all sorts of gluten free brownies and bread recipes.  This weekend, in fact, I made oatmeal banana waffles.  They were pretty good.

So here's the combo recipe, thanks to Budget Bytes for the inspiration:

Bean & Rice & Veg casserole
Olive oil
1/2 onion, diced
1/2 to 1 cup bell peppers, diced (I had baby peppers)
1 jalapeno, diced (I keep touching my face, argh!)
1 lb (approx) sweet potatoes, peeled and diced into 1/2 inch cubes
3 cloves garlic, pressed
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp salt, or to taste
1 cube vegetable bouillon
1 cup salsa
1 cup uncooked white rice
2 cups black beans
1 3/4 cup water (or more)
shredded cheddar cheese

Saute onion, pepper, jalapeno, and sweet potatoes in a large nonstick skillet until the onions are nice and soft.  Add the garlic, cumin, oregano and saute for 1-2 minutes.

Add the salsa, black beans, vegetable bouillon cube, rice.  Stir until well mixed.  Slowly add the water and salt.  Stir well. Bring to simmer, reduce heat and cover.  Cook 30 minutes or until water is absorbed.  My lid doesn't match my pan, so I needed a bit more water - after 30 minutes, some of my rice was still not fully cooked.

Scoop into a 9x13 pan.  Cover with shredded cheddar, as much as you like.  I put mine in the fridge, and reheated later for 40 min at 395.  The cheese got a little too brown.  Next time, I will lower the oven to 350 (hard tho, our oven runs cool).

Serve with guac, yum!  The good thing about this recipe is that you can really just use whatever the heck you  have.  And now I'm wondering if I can make it in the Instant Pot.

Instant Pot Baked Beans

So...I got an Instant Pot.  I need another kitchen gadget like I need a hole in the head. But it's a rice cooker!  A slow cooker! A pressure cooker!  A yogurt maker! (Um, yeah I already have all of those two, including TWO pressure cookers).  But it was the Amazon Prime deal and I *had* been thinking about it before it was on sale half price.

So now it lives on my counter.  So far, it's been great. First weekend, I made:
Spanish rice (which I've done on the stove and in the rice cooker also).  It's much faster in the instant pot.  Word of warning, most recipes call for 1-to-1 liquid to rice.  I generally do closer to 2-to-1.  So in this case, I think I did 1.25 to 1.5 to 1.  And it was soupy.  Listen to the manual!!

Salsa chicken.  Frozen solid large chicken breast.  Water.  Salsa.  Done in 30 minutes.  (Well, 30 minutes at pressure, took a little longer total).  If I can get my shit together, it might be a mid-week game changer.

At some point in the last two weeks I was perusing one of my cookbooks from a vegetarian author, and saw a recipe for barbecued baked pinto beans.  What??  All baked beans recipes I see call for northern white beans.  But you see, the 10 lb bags of pinto are only $6.  So how do I use up the pintos, aside from refried beans and bean burgers!!  I've been searching for other recipes.

Sunday morning after my run I put on the beans to soak for 4 hours.  I still hadn't quite decided what to do with them.  I looked through the cookbook that I was SURE had the recipe.  No luck.  Then went through the next two candidates.  Nope.  By #4 I realized that I'm getting old, and maybe it was on the web?

So I googled.  I got nothing.  By then I gave up and decided to wing it.  I googled some more. Here's what I wanted:
1. Information about cooking pintos in the Instant Pot (how long)
2. How to make baked beans (what flavors to add)
3. Information about which spices you can add to the pot (will you get sticking, etc with the sugar?)

So I found this pressure cooker recipe for baked beans and this pressure cooker recipe for pinto beans and this recipe for sweet and spicy pintos on the stovetop.  And I combo'd.

Instant Pot Baked Beans
3 cups dried pinto beans (I only used 3 cups because I felt like it.  Most recipes call for 2)
Water

2 Tbsp olive oil
1 onion, diced
1 clove garlic, pressed
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp dry mustard
1/4 c ketchup (It was the last of the bottle and I didn't feel like opening another)
2 Tbsp molasses
1/4 c unpacked brown sugar
3.5 cup water
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp soy sauce
cider vinegar (I didn't measure!  Maybe 1/4 cup)

Soak the beans in enough water to cover by an inch, for about 4 hours.
Drain and rinse the beans

In the instant pot, turn to saute.  Add the oil.  Saute the onions until soft and beginning to brown.  Add the garlic and stir.  Cook until fragrant.  (This will only take about 30 seconds to a minute).

Add the 3.5 cups of water and stir.  Add in everything else (chili powder, mustard, molasses, brown sugar, ketchup, salt, soy sauce).  Add in the beans and stir.

Turn instant pot to off.  Put on the lid and lock.  Turn on cooker to "beans".  Set at 30 minutes.

Let it run.  After 30 minutes let it do natural pressure release.  I have no idea how long this takes.  The beauty of this thing is that you can walk away from it.  It was surely done by 45 minutes.

Check the beans.  Mine were cooked but were a little soupy.  So I turned it on to saute for about 10 minutes, stirring, because that stuff will boil like crazy.  Then I let it sit to thicken.  It was delicious and very easy.  We took the beans to our potluck in the park.

I was tempted to add some pork fat...because of course.  Pork fat and beans!  I have pork fat in the freezer.  But there's a lone vegetarian teenager at our pot luck and his mom doesn't really do pork.  So I left it out.

Superbowl Sunday

Well, I survived another week.  Thanks to Smowmaggeddon, my husband's trip to the frigid northeast was canceled last minute (well, postponed really, to an undecided date).  Yay!  The week ended up a social whirlwind.

I am a fairly social person for an engineer.  I have a lot of groups of friends and like to cultivate and embrace them.  But that's a lot of work.  On the Myers-Briggs surveys I tend to come in at ESTJ or INTJ.  I am weak in the E/I and S/N.  I find that when I was a supervisor of a group of six, I leaned more ESTJ.  But now that I'm more of an individual contributor, I lean more INTJ.  Interesting.

Anyway, this week sported:
Morning brunch potluck at the park (Sun) - standing weekly date
Elementary kid birthday party (tons of fun, lots of parents to talk to), it was at a ropes climbing course. (Sun)
PTA move-a-thon planning meeting (Mon)
Fundraiser for school at local pizza place (Tues) - are you tired yet?
Out for a glass of wine (and she brought cheese/ crackers, I took nuts) with a good friend (Weds)
Lunch out with a former boss and couple of others (Fri)
Lunch out with a good friend (Sat)

Well, it definitely hit all at once (that is 6 months worth of social engagements for me).  Also I had PMS so maybe my food choices weren't always the best (sometimes they were!)  I also had about 6 months worth of beer and wine (a total of 4 beers and 2 glasses of wine all week).

So for Superbowl Sunday?  There's our standing date for the potluck, then to the pool with the boys, then...nothing.  No plans, other than to occasionally check the score to see if I've won money in the pool (my numbers are 8 and 5, so...I'm not particularly hopeful).  And of course I wrote this yesterday, we all know I won no money.

Here's a snapshot of the CSA, the menu and cooking for the week:
Beets: roasted for salads, steamed the greens to go into a frittata for today's potluck
Lettuce and radishes: lunch salads
Butternut squash:  Roast
Cauliflower (from a coworker): Roast for tonight's dinner
Kale: chips (last night)
Parsley: I washed and spun 2 very large bunches and stuffed it into a small ziploc bag for the freezer.  No way I could have used it all up.

I also made refried beans in the crock pot (from 100 days of Real Food), but I must have put too much water in there.  They were like soup, so I had to cook them down for an hour after.  We used canned beans for last night's burritos.

Left to do today:
Make the frittata
Make granola
Figure out what to make for dinner.  There was an interesting chicken and lentil soup I saw on the kitchn this week.  So maybe that?  Or  maybe something else?  It's a bad sign that I haven't figured it out yet.
Wash the lettuce and radishes and some carrots for the week's lunches (mine and the 3rd grader's)

A few photos of the work - so much of the prep work is for lunches.

Here's an outside picture of my lunch (salad)

Here's my 3rd grader's lunch (that's homemade hummus!)

Here's some roasted carrots - my coworker gave me a bunch of HUGE free carrots, so I made them into "fries" and baked them.  And we'll probably not eat them until tomorrow.

Pasta casserole and homemade bread

Note: This was last weekend - I never finished the post.  This weekend we did the fundraiser for the school, so I did pretty much zero cooking.  But I did pick blueberries and make freezer jam!

Boy, busy day.  Started at 4:30 when I just woke up for no good reason.  I was about to fall asleep again at 5:50 when the boys woke up.  And, we've been going ever since!

I have big plans this weekend for cooking.  Tonight: pasta/ veggie/ meat casserole with marinara made with a #10 can of diced tomatoes (a #10 can of diced tomatoes is 102 ounces for about $3).  I also made a (somewhat failed) loaf of bread in the bread machine.  I did not put the paddle in right and it baked into the bread.  And the bread is small.  The last two weeks I also made bread from scratch and they didn't rise very well.  Sometimes, it's because my ratio of water to flour is off.  This time, I'm suspecting my 3 year old yeast.  I've been keeping it in the fridge, but at some point, it becomes ineffective.  I think I paid $3 for 2 lb at Costco 3 years ago.  Time to recycle the yeast.

This whole pasta bake thing is a lot of work though. I like to "use up" my CSA veggies. So I had to wash and chop  a huge bag of chard and kale, chop and onion, chop some frozen peppers from last year, puree the diced tomatoes.  Cook the pasta, stir it all together with meatballs from the freezer, then kinda chop the meat with the spoon.  At least I didn't have to shred the cheese - we had some in the freezer already.

There's a big thread on grocery costs this week on our local FB "swap" board.  We seem to have a range of folks who spend $150/week (for 4) to $500/week.  Big difference!  I think the difference comes down to three things, mostly:
1.  If you pay any attention to prices at all, or not
2.  If you buy mostly local/organic/free range.  It's a thing here - easy to do in our climate, but expensive
3.  If you count wine/ toilet paper/ diapers in your budget.

I used to track my grocery spending closely (you can look back in the history to see the year that I alternated months of $320 and $160 through September).  But we were tracking our expenses in Quicken.  We don't have the time to do that anymore (I would break out the grocery from the "personal" items like TP, for example).  We just started using mint.com now, and as far as they are concerned, Costco is groceries - so our $40/month diaper bill and our toilet paper, drugs, etc. get counted as groceries.  I'm going to run with it and just add those into our budget I guess.

Here's the breakdown on last night's meal:

Herb bread:
2 cups bread flour (0.60/ lb): 0.41
1.5 cups whole wheat flour (0.60/lb): 0.31
1.25 tsp yeast: 0.05
2 T oil: 0.09
1 tsp salt: 0.01
3T parsley: 0.30
2T caraway seeds: 0.30
2T sunflower seeds: 0.30

Total: $1.77 for one loaf, which tasted good even though the paddle ended up stuck in the bread.  We ate 1/3 the loaf.

Pasta Bake
1 box whole wheat rotini: 1.00
70 ounces of diced tomatoes from a #10 can: 2.02
1/2 can tomato paste: 0.25
3 cloves garlic: 0.15
1 onion: 0.20
1 bell pepper: 0.50
12 ounces frozen meatballs: 1.50
1 bag of chopped kale and chard: 1.00
oregano and basil: 0.40
10 ounces sliced mushrooms: 2.29
4 ounces shredded mozzarella: 1.00
2 ounces parmesan: 0.75.

Total: $11.06 for a VERY heavy 9x13 pan.  This will probably feed us 5 meals.

We also had leftover carrot soup from the freezer, probably $1.00 worth.

Total for last night's dinner:
0.59 (bread) + 0.30 (butter) + 2.21 (pasta) + 1.00 (soup) + 0.50 (crackers) = $4.60

And for tonight:

Roasted potatoes:
2 lb organic potatoes: 1.60
2T oil: 0.09

Fejoida:
1 lb black beans: 1.00
1 onion: 0.20
1 cup diced tomatoes: 0.23
hot peppers: 0.25
Total: $1.68 for enough fejoida for three meals.  We ate them as nachos the next two nights.

Grilled Pork Tenderloin

Saturday was grill night!  This week we experimented with pork tenderloin.  I used a dry rub from America's Test Kitchen Family favorites and followed their grilling instructions...success!

We got a boatload of parsley this week. As big as my  head.  So I looked up parsley recipes and settled on chimichurri.  I mixed a couple of recipes together...you know, I winged it.  I started here, but added cilantro instead of oregano and used less olive oil.  I used garlic from our CSA.  LOOK at the size of this clove. 

This is one clove.  It's the size of 10 regular cloves.  I chopped it into 9 pieces to put through the press and saved the extra in a container in the fridge.  It went into today's Indian Butter Chicken (crockpot).

I also did a repeat of the Moroccan Carrot Salad.  This time with baby carrots because I hit Trader Joe's during stock up hour and they were out of the regular carrots.

And I followed it up with this crockpot bean dish.  I got this recipe from a cooking class and I love it.  But...I think I ate too much of it.  Gave me some tummy issues later.  From now on: 1/2 cup of beans is fine.  A full cup is pushing it!

Bean and Sausage Creole

So, there was this recipe that I got from Light and Tasty years ago, that I really liked.  I made it once or twice.  It was called Shrimp Creole.  I think I even bought the annual cookbook so that I could have it. 

That cookbook is long gone.  I may have actually saved the recipe somewhere...not sure.  But luckily, there's this wonderful internet thing, and I was able to find it here, and here (apparently, it was from 2003).

Now, I love shrimp, and I actually have some.  But the family isn't really into shrimp.  I decided to use the lone chicken sausage link in the fridge and I went out and bought some kidney beans.  I need to eat more beans.  It's a regularity thing.

I edited the recipe a bit (of course), by using canned diced tomatoes instead of the tomato paste/ clam juice.  I quadrupled the recipe, because it's "for two", and who does that?  Maybe singles or people who don't like leftovers.  But I need leftovers.

My normal method of cooking when I had my first son was in fits and spurts.  Spend 15 mins early on chopping veggies.  Go back to it later to do more.  Then, I only spend about 15 mins at a time and I don't get overwhelmed.

Due to a 2 hour nap today on the couch with a baby asleep on my chest, that didn't happen.  So I cooked this all at once.  And I overdid it.  Your post-childbirth body tells you that very quickly.  I won't do that again.  Spouse will be doing a lot of the cooking in the next week.  That and Trader Joe's.

Bean and Sausage Creole:
2T canola oil: 0.10
6 chopped celery ribs: 0.60
1.5 onions, chopped:  0.60
1 green bell pepper, chopped: 0.50
1 red bell pepper, chopped: 1.30
4 cloves garlic, minced: 0.20
1 link chicken sausage, chopped: 0.70
little bit of white wine to deglaze pot: 0.30
2 14.5 oz cans diced tomatoes, pureed in food processor: 1.20
2 14 oz cans kidney beans, drained and rinsed: 2.50
1 Tbsp tomato paste: 0.15
2 tsp dried thyme: 0.10
2 Tbsp dried parsley (I didn't have fresh because it's not growing - a gopher got my last plant): 0.10
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper: 0.05
2 Tbsp chopped hot pepper (that I roasted last summer and froze): 0.20
1 tsp pepper
1 tsp salt

Total: $8.60 for about 8 servings, or $1.08 per serving.

In large pot, saute the onion, celery, peppers, garlic until soft.  Add the pureed tomatoes and drained beans and spices.  Bring to a boil.  Reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, until right consistency, about 20 mins.  Add tomato paste to thicken if desired.

Serve over brown rice.

Tex Mex Black Bean Dip

I originally got this recipe from Cooking Light in the early 90's, when I was in the Navy living in DC.  My friend Beth was having a party, and I said "I'll bring some appetizers!"  Even back then, I was the appetizer queen.  Or at least, they were my favorite thing to eat.  Truth be told, until I was in my early 30's, my trips into the kitchen were disastrous about 1/2 the time.  I burned or cut myself, or the food wasn't that great.

But this one month, there were many dip recipes, and I made 3 of them.  This is the one I liked so much (they were all good though) that I wrote it on a card and kept it.  And have made it from time to time.  I'm not sure how it hasn't made it into the blog before.

A couple of days ago, I cooked up a pound of black beans.  Lo and behold, about a pound of dried beans gets you enough beans for a triple batch of this dip.  Now, if you are going to go to a party and take the dip, by all means, use a can of beans and make a small batch.  However, if you like black beans, and bean burritos, and bean nachos...then make a triple batch and freeze some for later.  These are destined for bean burritos tonight, and some will end up in the freezer too.

The original recipe can be found here.  This is a pretty versatile recipe.  I generally leave out the cheese unless I am serving the dip at a party.  I've added peppers.  I've used jarred salsa and homemade salsa.  I've used canned or cooked from dried beans.  If I don't have cilantro, I leave it out.  I've used fresh or canned tomatoes. I like mine spicy but generally make it mild for the family. 

Tex Mex Black Bean Dip (adapted from Cooking Light).
1 pound dried black beans, rinsed, sorted, soaked, cooked: 1.69 (you get about 7 cups)
1 14-oz can diced tomatoes, chopped finely: 0.58
1 medium onion, diced: 0.50
some diced bell pepper if you have it: 0.20
5 cloves garlic: 0.25
1.5 tsp cumin: 0.10
1.5 tsp chili powder: 0.10
1 Tbsp canola oil: 0.04
1 cup salsa: 0.50 (I used home canned)
salt to taste (because of the dried beans)
juice of 1 lime: 0.25

Total: $4.21 for 10 cups of dip.  $0.42 per cup, $0.21 per half cup of pure deliciousness

Saute the onion (and pepper, if using, I had a teeny bit leftover) until soft.  Add the garlic and saute 1 more minute.  Add cumin, chili powder, diced tomatoes and their juice (because, why not, what else are you going to do with the juice?), salsa, and cook down until the tomato juice has mostly evaporated.

Meanwhile, drain and mash the beans until chunky.  Add the beans to the cooked down mixture.  It will likely be a bit runny, so I cooked it on low for 1/2 hour or so.  If you make a smaller batch with fresh tomatoes, it's done quite quickly. I used my dutch oven to make this.  Add salt to taste and mix in lime (and cilantro, if using), after removing from heat.

Falafel!

This is a favorite of mine, made over the weekend.  I did the dough, hubby did the frying.  You can bake them too, but it was hot, and frying tastes better. :)  We had it with salad, and I made a corn salsa using TJ's frozen roasted corn, red pepper, onion, garlic...

Also, here's our first garden produce of the season (remember we were low on vegetables?)

Grillin' and Patio Eatin' and organizing

Today was another banner cooking day...1/2 hour of cooking, 15 mins of sitting and folding laundry.  Repeat.  The day started out weirdly.  We went out for bagels for breakfast.  I thought it would be a great idea to take my car, then we could get groceries on the way home and put gas in my car.  Except it wouldn't start.  Dead battery.  Either there is something wrong with my interior light or I accidentally bump it when I get all of my stuff out of the passenger seat.  So, we took spouse's car.

The weekend was pretty busy with us nesting.  We headed to Ventura for a birthday party, and stopped by Target while we were there.  We are short on storage space for upcoming baby.  In general, we prefer to have my husband actually MAKE our furniture - it's much nicer and more functional, (and cheaper) than buying it.  We had a little argument about it this time when I said "but how long will it take you to FINISH it?"  Which was not meant to be an insult on his ability to "finish" things...it was meant as a "I know you can get it done in a weekend, but when am I going to be willing to give you a whole weekend to do it in the next 8 weeks?"

So we compromised and bought some cubbies for hallway storage and decided that he's still going to have to redo the hall closet with shelves, hooks, framing, and a real door.  Which will take several weekends.

That all meant that mother's day weekend wasn't very relaxing, what with putting together cubbies and attaching them to the wall so they are secure, plus doing some purging (the sheer amount of cheap plastic shit that my son comes home with is astounding).  Next weekend will have to be more organizing/ closet purging.  I tend to have a policy that when something new comes into the house, something has to leave.  A necessity with a small house.  Well, a family member recently made a comment about that when I said I needed to purge to make some room for the baby with "don't you already have a policy that you get rid of something when something new comes in?  Shouldn't you already have space?"  Well, yeah, but I'm getting a new person, so I'm not getting rid of the old kid to make room for the new kid.

In between all this work I made a black bean/corn/barley salad for a potluck at the school tomorrow (kindergarten teacher appreciation day).  I also made black bean soup.  I decided we should grill today, and my son thought it would be a great idea to eat outside (which we never do), so we did.

Grilled shrimp, salad, corn

Black bean soup

Banana chocolate chip cookies- GF and vegan, no added sugar (except the chips)

I enjoyed a little swim today but still my dogs are BARKING.  Time to enjoy a cookie and some milk, then read my kindle a bit before bed.  If you have a kindle, you have to go to this site.  Lots of free books!

Also, do you Pinterest?  I have to admit, I love this site.  I have been using it to bookmark crafts and recipes that I want to try or have tried...it's awesome!  I still print them out though, when I actually go to make them.

Chicken Enchiladas and Strawberry Season!

Sunday night was a bit of enchilada-making, mostly the spouse making them (I had a killer headache) with my help here and there.

We bought a couple of roasted chickens on Friday, didn't eat them.  So I made chicken sandwiches and chicken enchiladas, and chicken and rice casserole (stay tuned for that one).  The rest of the chicken went into the freezer.

The enchiladas were pretty basic.  The filling was:
onions
frozen mixed peppers
chicken
black beans
cream cheese (just a teeny bit)
chili powder

I used whole wheat tortillas.

I mixed some spicy enchilada sauce from the freezer with tomato sauce to cut the heat.  Didn't work.  Still too spicy for the kiddo.  Spread the sauce liberally and topped with cheese.  I had extra sauce leftover, which I tossed.  I've started to do that more, rather than try to work it in somewhere else.  Not frugal, but it beats leaving it in the fridge for 5 days and then tossing it.

Strawberry season is here!  Bought some at the farmer's market, and made a yummy salad with mixed greens, berries, and toasted walnuts.  Almonds would be better, but I had walnuts.

Black Bean Chili and Beer Bread and GREENS

Lots of greens this week from the farm.  And I had a head cold most of last week, so I wasn't feeling the green veggies.  So I'm playing catch up.  Salad for lunch with "spicy greens" - which my coworker said looked like lawn clippings.  Tasted a bit like it too. :)  Actually, there was probably a little dandelion in there.  I topped it with leftover tri-tip and some balsamic vinaigrette.  I keep some Trader Joe's dressing in my work fridge.

Broccoli and bok choy, with a cheese and tri-tip quesadilla

I've also been catching up on other greens.  Yesterday, it was kale chips (with the beer bread and black bean chili).  Today, it was stir-fried purple broccoli and bok choy (and leftover potato kale/cabbage soup).

Spicy greens, broccoli, kale, chard, red cabbage, bok choy.  I've been going nuts with the greens.

Kale chips and beer bread (with cheese and dill)

Black bean chili

For the Super Bowl, I decided to make two recipes that came via email from Farmgirl Fare. They looked perfect.  I'm not a huge football fan (unless we're talking the Steelers), and truth be told, we turned the game on around half time (I was cooking dinner and said "is that MADONNA? What decade is it?", and started watching somewhere in the 4th quarter.  Spouse isn't a football fan either.

These recipes were delicious.  The beer bread was tasty (and is the only way I'm gonna get beer for awhile), and the chili was awesome too.  I added some roasted poblano peppers, because I found them in the freezer.  I get a ton of them over the summer at the farm, and roast and freeze, then forget about them.  Some are really spicy and some are not, and I'm leery of adding too many to my food because of the kid factor.  Me, I love spice.

Falafel and Homemade French Fries

The falafel was my fave recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance, with a small adjustment - I didn't feel like going into the dark to see if I have fresh parsley still living, so I used dried.

And I sliced up potatoes and made homemade oven fries.

Vegan meal, at least until I dipped the fries in ranch.

There's a distinct lack of green on the plate, but I did have cole slaw for lunch and sugar snap peas for lunch also.  It was a really long day yesterday, culminating with my work computer getting a virus.  So I left with no email account and no computer.  I ended up going back in for 2 hours using someone else's computer, but I only had access to about 1/2 of the programs that I needed.

Chickpea Curry (Aarti Party) and...when you have energy - GO FOR IT

So, I taped an episode of Aarti Party this weekend and enjoyed watching her make Chickpea and Artichoke Masala.  I was inspired and bought artichokes and dried chickpeas to make on Sunday. Except I didn't have the energy on Sunday, and went to a friend's house for dinner.  So I postponed it to Monday.  It was very easy.  I love Indian food and was happy to see an Indian show on the Food Network.

The only things that I changed were: I used a can of tomatoes (it's not tomato season), used lemon juice instead of lime juice, and I omitted the yogurt (making it vegan).  Not because I wanted to make it vegan, but because I took my plain yogurt to work, and I didn't think that vanilla would taste right.  With the beans, tomatoes, and vegetables, it's a pretty frugal meal for sure. 

I did, however, take the time to cook up a pound of chickpeas on Sunday.  I used to be in the habit of cooking a pound of beans a week.  According to the USDA, they're good for you! (1/2 cup a day is recommended!) When I was doing the paleo/primal thing, I gave up beans.  I still try to avoid them at lunch (too many carbs), but I just love beans.  And chickpeas are versatile.  I used some in the masala, then I used some in falafel.  I froze the rest.  I probably should have saved the cooking water for some chickpea gravy ala Cook for Good or Wildly Affordable Organic (I can't remember where I read it, but I'm pretty sure it was from Linda Watson!), but I didn't.

I was also supposed to make Cole Slaw on Sunday for Monday's dinner, but didn't have the energy for that either.  So I made it last night (with much help from spouse) and we ate it tonight.  Plus lunch tomorrow.  And the next day.  I rounded out tonight's dinner with more potato and kale soup and some baked chicken fingers from TJ's.

After all that dinner tonight though, I had some energy.  So while my family was occupied with finding a camera for my son's photography class tomorrow (I know, he's 5.  Weird.  Maybe soon he'll be taking my food photos.  Nowhere to go but up!) - I got busy making the falafel in the food processor.  It will be nice and cold and ready to shape for dinner tomorrow.  And that's my lesson - when you've got the energy, go with it! 'Cuz you never know when you'll get home without even the desire to face the microwave, much less the food processor, knife, or stove.

We ate the last of the bagels today for breakfast, so here's to hoping my energy stays high enough to throw some bread into the bread machine.

Oh, and Friday night's dinner, I made nachos.

I made bagels!

And burritos.  The burrito filling:

Pinto beans (cooked from dried), onions, tomatoes, garlic, peppers, corn, rice, cumin, oregano, chili powder, S&P.  This was dinner on Thursday and Friday, lunch today, and probably lunch tomorrow.

The bagels came from this recipe using the bread machine.  I was inspired by my neighbor who made them for her hubby's birthday a couple of weeks ago.  They were pretty easy!  And only about 13 cents per bagel.  Can't wait to have one for breakfast.  I topped mine with sesame seeds and coarse sea salt.

Chicken and bean burritos

I have been ON FIRE this week.  After cooking up that chicken on Sunday (well, 2 chickens) I've been morphing those babies into many meals, including chicken burritos, chicken sandwiches, chicken and potatoes, chicken salad...

One night was chicken and bean burritos.  I made a pot of pintos last week and used some in a sausage and bean crockpot extravaganza.  The remaining pintos went into the freezer, destined for these burritos.

The filling contained:
1 chicken breast, cut up
3-4 cups pintos
1/3 bag frozen peppers and onion
some salsa
garlic powder
S&P

As usual for me, it's all about the toppings.  Now, you can't see the toppings here (they aren't on here yet), but I had shredded local cheddar, sour cream, salsa, and some fabulous guacamole (the avos are really good this year...so creamy).

We had broccoli on the side, but after the burritos, I wasn't hungry so I took it for lunch.

Pizza, Soup, and Hummus, Oh My! and Cupcake Wars

And cupcakes.  Let me explain first about the cupcakes.  Last weekend (the long holiday weekend), I vegged on the couch a bit and watched Food Network.  And I came upon Cupcake Wars.  Now, I do like my food TV and competitive shows.  I like Anthony Bourdain.  I faithfully tape Top Chef.  I enjoy a good episode of Chopped.  When I was on maternity leave 6 years ago (almost), I watched a lot of food TV while nursing my son (my husband ate like a king during those 3 months, and I watched so much that it was over a year before they showed an episode of Barefoot Contessa, Giada, or Rachael that I HADN'T seen.)

But these "challenges" and "wars" - not really into it so much.  Maybe it's because I'm not really into dessert.  But we caught the start of an episode, and lo and behold, one of the contestants was from Santa Barbara!  We have more than one cupcake shop in town, but Crushcakes Cupcakery is one we drive by weekly.  It's in downtown and on the way to the farmer's market on Saturdays. 

I enjoyed watching the show and so did my son (probably had something to do with it being cupcakes).  The editing on the show isn't that great.  I've seen 4 or 5 episodes so far, and it's pretty clear very early who is going to win. Thus far, it's always been the "pretty girl" (young and pretty, and I'm not exaggerating), and she gets a lot of air time.  So alas, our local girl came in 2nd (for the THIRD time). 

Yesterday, we (I) decided to stop at the shop after our grocery shopping.  Spouse picked vanilla (not lemon, who knew?)  Kiddo picked "peace" because he liked the frosting.  Mommy picked peanut butter cup.

We waited until after lunch and after a trip to the park to try out my son's new bike to eat them (and did that while watching another episode).  I am pretty amazed at the combinations of flavors they come up with and the decorations.  I'm pretty sure the contestants know the "theme" before the go (such as poker or surfing), so that they can take the decorations they need and design a final display.

The cupcakes were pretty good, but were $3 each, so they are a treat for sure.

On the home front yesterday, I decided to make hummus. I've had the ingredients forever, including an unopened jar of tahini, and have just been lazy and have been buying it.  I use the Cook's Illustrated method, which basically involves putting the water-based items in the food processor first (chickpeas, lemon, water, garlic, spices) and puree'ing them pretty fine, and drizzling in the olive oil/tahini mixture later.  Makes it really smooth.

How come the hardest part about making hummus is the 10 minutes that it takes to stir in the oil in the tahini jar??

Next up: Creamy cauliflower kale soup

I saw this recipe in my MIL's Martha Stewart Living magazine, and basically bought the magazine to try it out.  It is vegan, and tasted pretty good.  However, it uses water as a base.  So it could have used a little more seasoning.  Maybe extra salt, or some homemade stock.  I'll make it again, but with stock next time.  It's cauliflower, kale, garlic, onion, water, salt, pepper, and dill.  Pretty simple.  If you use the blender, it gets really creamy and frothy.  And we love soup in this house!

And finally: Pizza

You know me, I love pizza.  And I had some time, so I fired up the bread machine.  The bread machine makes it so easy.  To make the dough the way I like it, it still takes a couple of hours.  The bread machine only runs for 45 minutes, but there is a little bit of kneading, resting, shaping, resting, par-baking...much of this isn't necessary, but it's what works with my oven and pans.

This is our standard pie, with sauteed onions, pesto, cheese, olives, and sun-dried tomatoes.  Eaten with ranch and sriracha of course!

Viva La Fiesta!

Ah Fiesta time. That 5-day period where tourists descend on Santa Barbara. To enjoy the scenery, watch the traditional dancing, eat the amazing food, and get drunk off their asses.

I’m not really into fiesta. I’d like to be. It’s not like I’m AGAINST festivals. I like festivals! But, they can be expensive money sinks and the food is not that healthy. If the only festival in the area was fiesta, I would go and happily enjoy it. But. We’ve got the French Festival, the Greek Festival, the Lemon Festival, the Avocado festival, I Madonnari. Plus the Santa Barbara fair and expo, Earth Day. All with some sort of rides and carnival foods and opportunity to buy stuff.

I enjoy the lemon festival’s $5 (last-year’s) t-shirts. I also enjoy a lemon beer, or lemon ice cream. All of the festivals sell some pretty good lemonade. I got great vegan food at Earth Day. But it’s not cheap. My spouse and child enjoyed Fiesta on Friday. They bought a fried doughy treat and spent $30 on an all-day ride pass. Which can be worth it, as the rides are $2 to $5 each. My son is still too short for many of the rides. In the past, I have loved watching the dancing at the Mission or the Courthouse (free), sitting on a blanket and eating our snacks.

This year, I just wasn’t feeling it. I’ve been trying to lose some weight, and deep-fried Mexican food is not the way to get there. There are several options during fiesta –a few locations, various booths run by different school and community groups. The best food, my local friends tell me, is at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church. Which isn’t really part of the official fiesta festivities, it just happens to be well-timed to align with fiesta. I’ve been there before, and the food is indeed good. I met friends for lunch there Saturday. The lunch was late (1:45 pm) because of their son’s late nap. As I’d done my triathlon training in the morning (including getting my ass whomped by two 5 foot waves while trying to exit the ocean – yeah, that was effing scary), I was pretty much ravenous at noon. So, while I could have found healthy options, such as chicken soft tacos (tortillas, chicken, onion, cilantro, hot sauce), I had to pass. I’d already eaten lunch. I did enjoy a soda and a chat with my friends though.

Most of the fiesta food is fried and salty. There’s always room in a diet for a little bit of that. But I try to avoid it.  Especially since Saturday is only 2 days before my weigh in.  And we know what happens when I eat salty food.  Anyway:  Taquitos (fried). Tostadas (fried tortillas). Hard tacos (fried). Sopes with lots of heavy meats, sour cream, and cheese. Churros (fried and covered in sugar).  Ah…luckily for me I wasn’t hungry. I bought the soda, a churro to take home for the family, and a few fiesta eggs (might have to learn to make those myself).
Sunday, however, I decided to re-create a healthified tostada. I think the tostadas at the church were $3 or $4 each. Here are mine:

Tostadas: To make two

Fat free refried beans: pinto beans, garlic, onion, pureed in the food processor until desired consistency. Dried pintos are $0.79 a pound, and you get about 6 cups cooked per pound. Half a cup of cooked beans would be about 7 cents.  I microwaved some onion and garlic to go in there, but I needed to add more salt or spice.
Cooked chicken: I cooked a whole chicken or two from the farmer’s market. A whole chicken is $12. I get about 4 cups of cooked chicken for this. Half a cup of cooked chicken is then $1.50
Pico de gallo: tomatoes, onions, cilantro: $0.30 per half cup. Or less.
Avocado: $1 each, 1/3 of an avo for two tostadas.  There's no magic in the amount.  There are 3 of us in the family.
Lettuce: $0.10 a cup
Salsa: My favorite is $0.37 for 2 Tbsp. You don’t really need it with the pico.
Tortillas: Two small are $0.17. The key here is to spray with cooking spray and bake until crispy, so they are not fried. A little chili powder and cumin can spice them up.
Sour cream: 2 Tbsp of light comes out to $0.11
Cheese: I avoided this for me, but for the family, ½ ounce of cheddar is 6 cents.  But I didn't feel like shredding it, so we skipped it.

Total for two tostadas: $3.01, or half the price of buying them at Fiesta. Maybe less even. And certainly healthier. And at fiesta, you wouldn’t get the avocado.  Mine were not very authentic, I'm sure.  The beans could have been better - I did not fry them up in oil, which really deepens the flavor.  I was feeling lazy.  But I was happy with the result.


Fiesta eggs: These are eggs with a hole cut on the bottom. Egg removed, cleaned, dried, and painted. Then they are filled with confetti, and closed up with some tissue paper. You break one on someone’s head while saying “Viva La Fiesta!”, and they get confetti in their hair and on their clothes.  I guess you have to be there. You can buy them for 3 or 4 for $1.

Cole Slaw and Black Bean Soup

I made up some black bean soup a couple of weeks ago when my spouse was traveling.  We ate quite a bit of it while he was gone, but did not finish it.  Then, I got sick.  And well, after it comes back up, it kinda sours you on it for awhile.  Into the freezer it went.

It's still good though.  It's a crockpot recipe from 125 Best Vegetarian Slow Cooker Recipes.  These crockpot recipes aren't easy in the "dump everything in a pot" kind of way.  To get good flavor from vegetarian recipes, it helps to develop flavor by sauteing vegetables and "blooming" the spices.  Still, it only required chopping vegetables and sauteing them one night, and tossing everything in the pot the next day.  I used canned black beans (I am using a lot of shortcuts now that the spouse travels 2x a month).

I also made some cole slaw with leftover napa cabbage and carrots.  It needed more oomph than I gave it.  I added peanuts and a lime-rice vinegar dressing.  But I think fresh onion or garlic would have helped.  Or sesame.

Here's an estimate of the cost of the soup:  Since I followed the recipe to the letter, I won't be reproducing the amounts or instructions.

Black Bean Soup
canola oil: 0.05
onions: 0.50
celery: 0.10
carrots: 0.10
garlic: 0.10
thyme: 0.15
cumin seeds: 0.20
oregano: 0.15
salt
black pepper
cayenne: 0.05
vegetable bouillon: 0.76
black beans: 1.38
tomato paste: 0.08
water
Total: $3.62 for about 12 cups, or $0.30 per cup.

Green dinner

Salad with beets and goat cheese

Fava bean and sauteed zucchini spread with cilantro

On bread

With guacamole and snap peas (those 2 pics were fuzzy, so just picture them in your mind)s

Falafel and sauteed chard

I love greens. Particularly kale. I can tolerate collard greens if cooked long enough. But chard...I really want to like chard, but have had a hard time falling in love with it. Until this recipe. It was the first recipe that came up when I googled "chard recipes". Gotta leave it to allrecipes.com.

I did, of course, slightly healthify it, as I normally do. I cut the butter and oil in half (I mean...1/4 c. of fat? Really?) Maybe even cut it a little more. It was easy and delicious, and my son who yelled "I don't like it" ate it right up after he actually tasted it.