Sweet Potato Lentil Chili

Tonight's dinner was Sweet Potato Lentil Chili from Eat, Drink and Be Vegan. This chili is awesome, definitely a new favorite of mine. Rob commented that it was so much better than regular chili......he's not a chili fan, and he really liked this one. I had to make just a few minor changes to the recipe. It calls for cumin, I was out, because I used it all in my Bombay Chickpeas from last night. It also calls for red pepper flakes, which I was also out of. So, I subbed about 1/2 tsp extra chili powder to give it the addtional heat and cumin flavor. Instead of using a can of regular crushed tomatoes, I used fire roasted, which I think just add such a unique and incredible flavor. I don't think I'd make it with plain tomatoes. I also used up the last of my kidney beans making Chipotle Lime Two Bean Hummus for Rob. So, instead, I subbed cannellini beans.

I topped the chili with some diced avocado. And, served some cornbread on the side. YUM!!

Bombay Spiced Chickpeas

Last night I made the Chickpeas and Spiced Potato Cakes from the Best Ever Curry Cookbook. The book says this is a dish served by street vendors in Bombay.......I've never been to India, so I couldn't tell you. The book isn't a vegetarian cookbook, but it has a lot of recipes that are adaptable by adding tofu, and there are a few, such as this one that need no adaptation at all. Hey, it was on the discount table at the bookstore and I got it for $3.99, couldn't pass it up, even if it was filled with meals for meat-eaters.

The chickpeas were delicious. Just boiled chickpeas combined with tumeric, coriander, cumin, ginger and green chilies. They were nicely spiced and the little bit of heat the chili added was perfect.

The potato cakes were really good as well. Just mashed potatoes, seasoned with cumin, cilantro, and diced chili. Mix it up, form it into cakes and shallow fry it. Like I said, really tasty, but I am not good at frying things at all, so mine were less than pretty.

I will definately make this again, although, I need to work on the frying thing.

Compassionate Cooks Podcast

Any of you who follow the cyber literature for vegetarian cooking and living will recognize this logo from the Compassionate Cooks website. I've recently subscribed to their podcast and have since listened to a few of their episodes. I encourage any of you who would like to become vegetarian or maintain vegetarianism, and need support, to check out this podcast, as it really helps solidify the choices that vegetarians and vegans make.

So, the main point of this post is based on the podcast I listened to last night, entitled "I only eat 'white meat'....in defense of chickens". Now, this episode kind of struck home with me for a few different reasons. My dear husband Rob, has in the last 8 months since we've become veg, decided that I was right, and that it is disgusting to eat meat. However, apparently, he doesn't think there's anything wrong with eating chickens (I guess bird somehow doesn't equal meat), but anyway. This podcast will sure put a stop to that way of thinking if I can get him to listen!!

The second thing that hit me about this podcast was that since Stella's allergy issues have arisen I've flirted with the idea of feeding her chicken so that her diet can vary from the massive quantities of beans she is currently eating. Well, let me just say, I will NOT be flirting with this idea anymore.

And, the 3rd thing that really got to me about this particular podcast was the quoted entry from the blog of Virgil Butler, noted activist against factory farming. It's unsettling what the people who work in this industry must endure both mentally and physically every time they go to work.

A Taste of the Middle East

One of the food blogs I follow on a regular basis is The Vegan Mother's Blog. Last week she posted about a Middle Eastern restaurant she likes and how she re-created their sample platter at home. It sounded so yummy, I had to try it.

I included the same dishes that Lizzy did; hummus, baba ganoush, and mujaddara. For the hummus, I don't use a recipe, I just add the ingredients to taste. In this hummus I used roasted garlic rather than raw, but admittedly, would have liked more of a garlic flavor, and wish I would have gone raw. For the baba ganoush I used a recipe from Vegan Cookbook, which I checked out of the library a few weeks ago, only instead of vegan yogurt I used cow's milk yogurt. And for the mujaddara, I used this recipe, only I added about 1 Tbs of cumin to the lentils and rice as they cooked. I also used brown basmati, which requires a much longer cooking time than indicated in the recipe. I knew it was going to take longer, but I got a little hasty and unfortunately didn't have the patience to let the rice cook completely, so it was sadly a little underdone.

This was a great meal, and incredibly filling. Rob loved the baba ganoush.....I was afraid that he's balk at it once he learned it's main ingredient is roasted eggplant!! None the less, he loved it. I'll definitely be making this middle eastern feast again. Although, I think I will steam the rice in the rice cooker before adding it to the lentils.