Curried Butternut Squash-Sweet Potato Soup

Hi to everyone still hanging around here!! It's been so long since I've updated I wouldn't blame you at all if you've given up on me!! I do have several things to post about, I'm just having trouble finding the time to actually sit down, transfer pictures from camera to computer, then transfer to blogger, and finally write something interesting about them.

I just made this soup last night, so I guess I'll start with this. It comes from a recipe my mother in law sent over from Ireland, but I did change it slightly, which I hope added to the yumminess. The original recipe did not call for roasting of the squash and potatoes, but I opted to take the extra time and roast them first to intensify their flavors. I just love the taste of roasted butternut squash.

This recipe makes a HUGE batch of soup, and is very filling, so there will be tons of left over soup to freeze. I froze several single serving containers for Rob to take to lunch, and a few double batches to have on hand for quick dinners. Unfortunately the girls weren't big fans and ended up eating Light Life Smart Deli "Ham" sandwiches.

Curried Butternut Squash-Sweet Potato Soup

1 Tbs spoon Olive Oil (plus more for drizzling squash before roasting)

1 butternut squash (weighing a little less than 1 pound)

2 large sweet potatoes (again, a little less than 1 lb)

1 medium onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, crushed

1 Tbs curry powder

4 cups quality vegetable stock

9 oz plain soy creamer

torn basil leaves for garnish

Preheat oven to 425. Peel and dice butternut squash, place on baking sheet and drizzle with olive oil, toss to coat and roast about 25 minutes, until tender. In the meantime, roast sweet potatoes in their skins on same baking sheet. Remove from oven and cool until you can handle the potatoes.

Heat remaining Tbs olive oil over medium heat, add onion and garlic and cook until soft. Add curry powder and cook for another minute, until fragrant. Add sweet potatoes, squash and stock. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer 10-15 minutes. Using a hand held blender or food processor, puree soup. Stir in soy cream and heat through. Ladle into serving bowls and top with basil leaves.

I served this soup with a big salad and some home made bread. I'm working on a good whole wheat sandwich bread, but I haven't quite perfected it yet. My girls eat a lot of bread and I hate to give them store bought bread. There are only a few brands that I can buy that haven't been processed on a line with peanuts, and some of those brands don't have the best ingredients in it. So, I've set out on a quest to make my own. I've gotten quite good at specialty breads (thanks to Vegan Dad), but my kids really like their sandwiches on that chewy, airy and not at all crumbly store bought stuff. As of now it's not completely whole wheat because I can't find any whole wheat bread flour. Right now we stand at about 2 parts whole wheat flour to one part unbleached bread flour, but as soon as I find some whole wheat bread flour I hope to have a recipe for 100% whole wheat sandwich bread.

Enchiladas

Tonight I made the enchiladas that I blogged about last week.....you remember, the one's that my pictures were so embarrassingly bad I couldn't even post them!! These were the Black Bean and Sweet Potato Enchiladas from Vegan Planet. Yes, you read that correctly, I said sweet potato. Seems that sweet potatoes have been popping up in all kinds of strange places lately, from chili to quesadillas, and now they appear in enchiladas.

This is the second time in two weeks that we've had this dish, these things are crazy good!! It's a filling of roasted sweet potato, black beans, diced tomatoes, and some sauteed garlic and onion. All that spiced up with some chili powder (and according to the recipe a diced jalapeno, which I've omitted both times, and they've had plenty of spice). You just wrap all that filling up in a tortilla, top it with some salsa (the recipe calls for homemade, but being February there's a lack of fresh produce around, so I just used some jarred salsa), and bake it for about 20 minutes. Did I mention that these are GOOOOD??

The sweet potato is such a unique flavor in a Mexican dish. It adds such a nice depth of flavor that I really can't describe. Until fairly recently I've always thought of sweet potatoes as a "sweet" dish, topped with brown sugar, cinnamon, etc. Over the past few months I've learned that sweet potato adds so much to savory dishes. I expect you'll see the tuber appearing frequently in the cold weather months around here.

Tonight we had our enchiladas served on top of some Spanish style rice I threw together, and topped with some avocado slices. We also had a side of steamed asparagus that had just a squeeze of fresh lemon juice on it. For the rice, I just cooked up some brown rice in the rice cooker. When the rice was almost finished I sauteed half a medium onion, and one large clove of garlic in some olive oil. To the veggies I added about 2 tsp chili powder and an equal amount of ground cumin, and heated it up until it was fragrant. Then, I added in the almost cooked rice and sauteed that a bit. Once the rice was starting to brown I added in the juice from the diced tomatoes I used in the enchiladas, about 1 cup of water, and about 1 Tbs of tomato paste. I stirred it all up real good, brought it to a boil, then reduced the heat, covered and simmered until the liquid had evaporated and the rice was tender. This was one of the most delicious Spanish style rice dishes I've had.

Sweet Potato and Spinach Quesadillas

Wow, it's been quite a while since I've posted a meal!! Rob's been out of town all this week and things have been CRAAAZZZYYY!! I did cook a few meals before he left. On Sunday we had the Bean and Corn Tortilla Lasagna from Eat, Drink and Be Vegan. Then, on Monday, we had Dreena's Monkey Minestrone, also from ED&BV (unfortunately I do not have any good pictures to share with you). Rob left Tuesday and that's pretty much where the cooking ended!! I did throw together a huge pot of No Chicken Noodle Soup made with alphabet pasta, and the girls and I ate it all week long.

We still have soup left, but I think it's going to have to go the freezer, because we just can't eat anymore soup!! I didn't have a lot in the house because it's been almost a week since I've shopped, and I didn't get much to begin with knowing Rob would be gone. So, I threw together some quesadillas (we always have tortillas on hand). I'm trying to transition to a vegan diet, so I really didn't want cheese on my quesadilla, although I did use cheese for the girls (as much as I would like to stop all animal product, Mairin's not quite ready to accept sweet potato on her quesadilla, so she had sweet potatoes on the side).

For the quesadillas I peeled, diced, and roasted one medium sweet potato. After the potato had roasted I sauted a bit of onion and garlic then added in a few handfuls of baby spinach to let it wilt. I mashed the sweet potato, spread it on one side of the tortilla, layered on the spinach saute, the sprinkled on a bit of cumin, chili powder and just a touch of allspice. I topped it with another tortilla and grilled it in the panini press until the tortilla was golden brown.

We ate our quesadillas with some guacamole and tortilla chips on the side. I had also planned to make some vanilla "rice" cream for dessert, but Stella's a bit under the weather today and I just didn't get time to make it and let it set up, so we'll be having that as a dessert later in the weekend. Instead, I thawed some frozen mango pieces and we ate those as dessert.

I got a new cookbook this week, so look for some new recipes coming soon!!

Agave Baked Lentils

Tonight we had my agave baked lentils with mashed sweet potatoes and Golden Crusted Brussels sprouts. You'll find the recipe for the lentils in my post from Nov. This time I used the same basic recipe, only I omitted the garlic, simply because I forgot. I also sauteed the vegetables before adding them to the baking dish. And lastly I used basic green lentils instead of the Puy lentils I like, because I have less than 1/2 cup of Puy's on hand. The flavor was just as delicious as last time, however the lentils didn't hold up as well, and some were a bit mushy.


Instead of baking the potatoes, this time I boiled them. When they were finished I added in a small amount of lactose free milk, a few spoonfuls of brown sugar, and a good bit of cinnamon. They were very good.

We also had Golden Crusted Brussels sprouts. I first saw the recipe in my book Super Natural Cooking, and then also came across it on Heidi's blog. My photo of the sprouts doesn't look quite as good as hers (in addition to being a cook, she's also a professional photographer), but I assure you they are outstanding brussels sprouts.


As it turns out, we weren't the only family eating agave baked lentils tonight......hop on over to Chez Mama, and check out what the Dalai Mama's family had for their Sunday dinner......I

think you'll find it quite humorous!!!!!

Curried Sweet Potato and Lentil Stew

Thankfully I redeemed myself tonight. After the seitan disaster of last night, I considered making a tried and true standby, but bravely went with what I had planned. For tonight I had planned Curried Sweet Potato and Lentil Stew from Easy, Everyday Vegetarian. I figured curry, sweet potatoes, and lentils, what could possibly go wrong?? Not a thing, that's what. And yes, we did have soup that involved lentils twice this week. It's winter, I love soup, I love lentils, what more can I say?? Expect to see a lot more lentil soup variations over the next few months!

The stew (which came out thinner than stew in my case, because I added more veggie stock than what was called for.......doesn't Rachel Ray call that a Stoup??), anyway, the stew/soup was very hearty. There was a hint of curry flavor in every bite, yet it didn't over power the taste of the individual veggies (which include carrots, green beans, onion, and well, sweet potatoes of course). Rob and I both loved this dish, the kids of course weren't crazy about it, but they did at least try it. I served the stew/soup with a side of steamed broccoli drizzled in toasted sesame oil, and some quartered Jonagold apples.

There won't be any cookin' in Carrie's kitchen this weekend (except maybe breakfast). We have a very busy weekend ahead of us, it'll be leftovers of whatever's still hanging out in the refrigerator for tomorrow. Sunday Mairin has a dance program for the holiday's and we've promised her pizza.

Sloppy Joe Gets a Vegetarian Make-Over

Wow, it's been a looooong time since I've been in the kitchen!! We were out of town this weekend, celebrating Diwali/Thanksgiving with some friends on Friday and visiting family Saturday and Sunday. Thursday really was the last time I cooked something. It was a nice break from the kitchen, but I was glad to be back today.

We got back last night and there was no food in the house. The girls ate Weetabix, and Rob and I ate chili that I had frozen a few weeks ago. So, needless to say, we made a trip to Whole Foods today. The menu for this week consists of some newcomers and some repeats.

Tonight's feature was a newcomer from Veganomicon. We had Sloppy Joe's vegetarian cousin Snobby Joe. Remember Manwich from when you were a kid??? Snobby Joe is about as close as you will ever get with a homemade, vegetarian version. These sammies (more Rachel Ray speak) really do take you back. Our girls have never had Sloppy Joe's before, so this was their first experience, and I think it was a good one. Mairin actually ate and liked hers, and Stella wolfed it down (although, she had to eat hers without a bun, because WFM had no buns that were not potentially contaminated with peanuts). I followed the recipe exactly, except I gave each sandwich a sprinkling of nutritional yeast just before serving. The recipe didn't specify what kind of lentils to use, so I used Puy's because I like them the best. Our Snobby Joe's were accompanied by some oven baked sweet potato fries and some steamed broccoli. It was delish.

Sweet Potato Fries:

4 sweet potatoes
2 Tbsp canola oil
sea salt
pepper

Heat oven to 450. Peel sweet potatoes and cut into fry shape. Combine fries with oil, salt and pepper in a large bowl. Spread fries on baking sheet in a single layer and bake at 450 for 30 minutes, turning once during cooking.

I also made some veggie stock tonight. My bag of scraps in the freezer was so full I'd already started a second, so I thought it was time to get the stock made. I didn't take a picture last time I made stock, and I regretted it in the end, so this time I took a picture.

I can't really give a recipe, as the stock is different each time I make it. It just depends on what particular scraps I've saved up since last time, and I don't measure the herbs and spices, I just throw them in. So, each batch is unique. But, always delicious.

There's something so rewarding about simmering your own stock all day, and then using it for your cooking. Homemade stock really lends a terrific flavor to all of your dishes, and it's so easy to make, you should try it sometime.

Sweet and Savory Lentils

I've read several times in the past few weeks both at Chez Mama and at Mothering.com about Honey Baked Lentils. Since I'm always looking for new ways to use lentils I thought I'd give it a try. While searching for recipes, I couldn't find one that was consistent, but there were many that sounded yummy. So, drawing elements from several recipes I decided to throw together my own version of honey baked lentils. I was running low on honey, but had plenty of agave nectar in the pantry, so I substituted agave (which, personally I like better than honey, for it's mild flavor). I served the lentils with a side of sweet potato mashed with a few tablespoons of Vanilla Silk, and about 1 tablespoon of brown sugar.

The lentils were delicious, it was just the right balance between sweet and savory. Rob was out of town last night, so in essence I cooked this for myself. Both girls are feeling a bit under the weather, and weren't exactly in the mood for eating last night. Fortunately, we have plenty left for lunch, because I am sure this is one dish that they will both love. When Mairin spoke to Rob on the phone last night and told him what we were having for dinner he apparently asked her to save some for him, because she promptly hung up and told me that daddy said dinner sounded yummy and that we have to be sure there is some left for him to try..............so, honey, there's plenty here for you when you get home tonight!!!

Agave Baked Lentils:

2 cups Puy Lentil (you could use any kind of lentils, but I prefer the french lentils, they seem to hold their shape and not become mushy)

4 cups water

1 Bay Leaf

1 vegetable bouillon cube

1 large carrot, diced

2 celery stalks, diced

1 small onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/4 cup agave nectar (or substitute honey if you like)

1 tsp nutmeg

2 Tbs extra virgin olive oil

salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 375. In sauce pot add 4 cups of water with 2 cups Puy lentils, vegetable bouillon cube, and bay leaf. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer for 30 minutes. After 30 minute remove lentils from heat and set aside. In a 9x12 baking dish combine carrots, celery, onions and garlic with agave, nutmeg, EVOO and salt and pepper. Stir to combine. Then, pour lentils with their cooking liquid into baking dish. Stir to incorporate vegetables. Cover with aluminum foil and bake for 1 hour. After 1 hour remove foil and bake about 10 more minutes to evaporate some of the liquid.

I baked the sweet potatoes at the same time the lentils were baking, when they were done I cut them in half, scooped out the flesh and mashed it with a few Tbs of soy milk and 1 Tbs of brown sugar.