Easy Vegetarian Chili

This is a recipe I came up with a few years back, and is something I have made consistently each winter. This recipe makes a huge batch, probably about 6-8 servings worth of chili. But it freezes well and makes for the perfect meal after a cold winter day. Forgive me if the measurements of spices aren't just exact. I usually just throw spices in until it tastes good, and I would recommend you do the same.

Ingredients

2 cans of diced tomatoes

1 can of tomato paste

1 can of red kidney beans, drained and rinsed

1 can of white kidney beans, drained and rinsed

1 green pepper, seeded and chopped roughly

1 or 2 fresh tomatoes, roughly chopped

1/2 of a medium sized onion, roughly chopped

6-8 white button mushrooms, roughly chopped

1 tbsp of minced garlic (about 2-3 cloves)

A pinch of dried chili flakes

1 tsp cayenne pepper

1-2 tbsp chili powder (or more, depending on how spicy you like it)

salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1. In a large pot, add the diced tomatoes and tomato paste. Stir until blended.
2. Add the vegetables and garlic. Stir.
3. Add the cayenne pepper, chili flakes, chili powder, and salt and pepper. Stir until nicely blended.
4. Simmer over medium heat for at least an hour, until green peppers are soft and the chili is a deep red colour.
5. Serve!!

Also, you can always start low on the spice level, and add more spices as you go along. I like to taste the chili as it's simmering, and I add spices as needed.

To freeze, separate 1-serving portions into Tupperware containers. Put into fridge to cool and then transfer to freezer (this helps reduce freezer burn). To defrost frozen chili, either use the microwave or put into a pot and heat gradually. Whatever you prefer.

Enjoy!

Some food for thought

Here's an article that Rob wrote that was recently published in Wilfrid Laurier University's Blueprint magazine. It's a sort of guide to learning how to read (or not) into all those fancy words you see in grocery stores - "organic", "natural", etc... I found it interesting and hope you do too!

Read the article here.

Sweet Potato and Black Bean Salad

This is a recipe that Rob found on YouTube, and admittedly, Rob cooked it and not me.

Ingredients

3 or 4 sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed

1/2 red onion, roughly chopped

1 cup chopped cilantro *fresh*

1 red pepper, roughly chopped (optional)

1 can of black beans, rinsed and drained.

2 limes, juiced

3 tbsp olive oil

1 jalapeño pepper, seeded and chopped.

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

2. Toss chopped potatoes and onions with a bit of oil. Place on baking sheet and roast for 30 minutes (or until you can pierce the potatoes with a fork).

3. Meanwhile, put lime juice, olive oil, and jalapeños into a blender and blend until smooth.

4. When potatoes and onions are done, let the cool.

5. Add potatoes, onions, red peppers, beans cilantro, and the lime mixture to a bowl.

6. Season with salt and pepper and toss.

This salad tastes better after it has been refrigerated for a few hours, but it is very tasty!! If you are not a fan of cilantro (like me), you can use it sparingly until it meets your tastes.

Butternut Squash and Sage Soup

This is a variant on the Sage and Squash Pasta recipe I posted a while ago.

To make the pasta sauce, you heat up some sage in some oil or butter, add about 1.5 cups of mashed squash, and puree it. Then toss in your favourite pasta and voila!

Here's how you make the soup!

Ingredients

2 cups of squash (cooked and mashed)

2 tsp of sage (dried or fresh)

2 tbsp butter or oil

Some veggie broth

Directions

1. Heat up butter/oil in the pan and add sage.

2. Add squash to pot and stir.

3. Add a bit of broth.

4. Puree with a hand blender.

5. Add more broth until the soup is the desired texture.

This soup is the most delicious!! My favourite, especially in winter.

Borscht!

My family a few generations back was Ukrainian, and they moved to the Canadian Prairies in the early 1900s (where many Eastern Europeans settled!) Some of the culture has been passed on, and while unfortunately for me as a linguist none of that culture involved language, I am very thankful that most of that culture involved FOOD!

I've already posted my grandmother's recipe for pierogies, so here's a variation on her borscht (beet stew!!) Admittedly, Rob and I winged it without a recipe or without talking to Grandma Stella, so I was going on instinct alone... but it turned out well!

Ingredients

2 tbsp butter

1 large white onion, sliced and chopped (we made ours into half-rings)

1 stalk of celery, chopped

6 cups of broth (veggie, chicken, beef, whatever!)

4 medium potatoes, peeled and cubed

10 medium beets, peeled and cubed

1/2 can of kidney beans, rinsed and drained

1/4 head of cabbage, shredded

1 tbsp of dill, chopped

salt and pepper

Directions

1. In a large pot, heat butter on medium heat and add onions and celery. Season with salt and pepper, and cook on medium-low heat until onions are transparent.
2. Add in the broth, potatoes, beets, and beans. Season with salt and pepper. Bring to a boil.
3. Reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes or so.
4. Add in cabbage and dill.
5. Simmer for another 30-40 minutes. Just taste it along the way until you think the taste is right.
6. Serve with a dollop of sour cream.

I'm not sure I would change much about this recipe. Carrots might be a welcome addition, if sauteed with the onion and celery at the beginning. Other than that, I really enjoyed the recipe! And so did Rob. hahaha.

The Perfect Peanut Pad Thai

Rob went away for the weekend, so I spent my time entertaining myself... I knit 2 neck cowls, an iPod sleeve, and am halfway through a case for my laptop cords. I also made my own Chai tea syrup, and my most recent triumph is the perfect Pad Thai.

There's a restaurant in Waterloo called Rain Tree Cafe, and I am obsessed (trust me, it's the only appropriate word for my love of this dish) with their Peanut Pad Thai. The sauce is spicy, creamy, peanut-y, and has this magic way of getting more delicious the more you eat it. You really should try it. Check out their website: http://www.raintreecafe.ca/index.html .

Ever since the first day I tasted it, I have been on a quest to find a comparable dish. I've tried about 10 different recipes and ordered it in at least that many restaurants, but to no avail. Nothing could be done to replicate the perfect deliciousity (I know it's not a word, but I'm a linguist and we're pretty much trained to make up new words!) of Rain Tree Cafe's Stirfry Pad Thai.

Until now. (cue triumphant music)

I was trying to think of what to make for dinner. We had bok choy in the fridge that needed to be used up. What had bok choy in it? RAIN TREE'S PAD THAI, that's what! But to go with it, I needed to make the perfect simple peanut sauce with what we had in the fridge. So, I Googled "simple peanut sauce" and it took me to this website and voila! I had almost all of those ingredients.

Here's the recipe the way that I cooked it.

Ingredients

1/2 cup hot water

1/3 cup peanut butter

2 tbsp sugar

1 tbsp white wine vinegar

1/2 tsp salt (I didn't have any soya sauce, or else I would have used that, as per the recipe)

1 heaping tbsp diced garlic (from a jar)

1 heaping tbsp diced ginger (from a jar)

1/2 tsp of hot sauce

Directions

1. Mix all of the ingredients together.
2. Pour over stir-fried vegetables and/or noodles.
3. Prepare yourself to enjoy the simplest, most delicious sauce you have ever eaten.
4. Eat it.

I will need to do some tweaking - maybe more hot sauce, more ginger... Or maybe trying fresh ginger and fresh garlic. But this is pretty damn close to the deliciousness that they serve over at Rain Tree.

Try it out and let me know how you enjoy it!!

DIY Chai Tea Latte

So, for those of you who know me well, you can easily name my favourite coffee drink- Non-Fat Chai Latte. Starbucks sells a concentrated Chai syrup that you can buy, so that you can make your own Chai Lattes at home (just add equal parts Chai syrup and milk, warm, and serve!) I recently bought this syrup, and while I enjoyed having a delicious Chai Latte at home, I'm not totally thrilled about paying nearly $9 for a 1 litre carton.

So I thought about how I would make my own Chai syrup. Having made my own Chai tea before, I knew it couldn't be too hard. So I Googled it (and those who know me well also know that I Google often!), and sure enough, it just required one extra step!

So here's my recipe for a delicious Chai Tea, and how to make it into a latte!

Ingredients

3 cups cold water

4 black tea bags (pick your favourite - I use orange pekoe)

3 cinnamon sticks

1 tsp ground ginger

4 whole cloves

4 cardamom pods

2/3 cup sugar (brown or white, whatever you have!)

milk (to make the latte)

Directions

1. In a small pot, add water, tea bags, cinnamon, and ginger to the pot.
2. Put the cardamom and cloves into a tea ball, and add the tea ball to the pot. If you don't have a tea ball, you can drop the spices into the pot. The tea ball is a personal preference. It stops little bits of the cloves and cardamom pods from getting into the tea mixture.
3. Bring the water and spices to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer. If you're making tea, remove the pot from heat, strain tea bags and spices, and serve once tea reaches desired strength. If you're making the latte, simmer for 5 minutes.
4. Remove tea bags, spices, and tea ball. Stir in the sugar.
5. Add syrup to milk (1/3 syrup to 2/3 milk; or 1/2 and 1/2). Refrigerate remaining syrup in an airtight container for about a month.