Lentil soup in the slow cooker

A bag of lentils, a container of veggie stock, some potatoes, carrots, celery, bay leaves, a can of tomatoes – easy to put together tomorrow morning. Great beginning for dinner tomorrow

Hearty Vegan Slow-Cooker Chili Recipe – Allrecipes.com

Hearty Vegan Slow-Cooker Chili Recipe – Allrecipes.com.

Hearty Vegan Slow-Cooker Chili

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 green bell pepper, chopped
• 1 red bell pepper, chopped
• 1 yellow bell pepper, chopped
• 2 onions, chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 (10 ounce) package frozen chopped spinach, thawed and drained
• 1 cup frozen corn kernels, thawed
• 1 zucchini, chopped
• 1 yellow squash, chopped
• 6 tablespoons chili powder
• 1 tablespoon ground cumin
• 1 tablespoon dried oregano
• 1 tablespoon dried parsley
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 2 (14.5 ounce) cans diced tomatoes with juice
• 1 (15 ounce) can black beans, rinsed and drained
• 1 (15 ounce) can garbanzo beans, drained
• 1 (15 ounce) can kidney beans, rinsed and drained
• 2 (6 ounce) cans tomato paste
• 1 (8 ounce) can tomato sauce, or more if needed
• 1 cup vegetable broth, or more if needed

Directions

1. Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat, and cook the green, red, and yellow bell peppers, onions, and garlic until the onions start to brown, 8 to 10 minutes. Place the mixture into a slow cooker. Stir in spinach, corn, zucchini, yellow squash, chili powder, cumin, oregano, parsley, salt, black pepper, tomatoes, black beans, garbanzo beans, kidney beans, and tomato paste until thoroughly mixed. Pour the tomato sauce and vegetable broth over the ingredients.
2. Set the cooker on Low, and cook until all vegetables are tender, 4 to 5 hours. Check seasoning; if chili is too thick, add more tomato sauce and vegetable broth to desired thickness. Cook an additional 1 to 2 hours to blend the flavors.

Nutritional Information

Amount Per Serving  Calories: 134 | Total Fat: 2.4g | Cholesterol: 0mg

This recipe will be a favorite in 2012!  It’s great.  If you go to the AllRecipes site, there are many comments which share different veggie combinations, but you can probably think of a lot as well.  I think the different peppers add a lot, though, so I will always include them.

Humboldt Fog cheese from Cypress Grove Chevre

I’ve never been to northernmost Northern California, but I’m inspired to do some research on the area along with sampling Humboldt Fog chevre.  It’s a ripened goat cheese that incorporates a ribbon of vegetable ash – quite visible – through the middle of the wedge of cheese.  The goat milk comes from surrounding small dairies where the goats are milked by the people who take care of them every day.  Goats with names, presumably.

Cypress Grove produces other cheeses with great names:  Bermuda Triangle, Fog Lights, Truffle Tremor, Lamb Chopper, and Midnight Moon.  I look forward to trying as many as I can find on the East coast.  Whole Foods seems to carry several of them.

Update:  This cheese is awesome – very creamy with a mild chevre taste, but complex enough to move it to a class of its own.  Would definitely put this on a cheese platter for guests at a classy party.  The vegetable ash gives a very pretty look as it streaks down the middle of the wedge, and there’s a layer of very creamy cheese right below the rind that is to be savored.  Can’t wait to try all of the Cypress Grove Chevre varieties.

Here’s a recipe from the website that looks good, but we’ll try it as slivers first.

Warm Cabbage and Goat Cheese Salad

Credit

Laura Werlin

Ingredients

• ½ medium-size red cabbage (about 1 ½ pounds)
• ½ cup pecan halves, toasted
• 3 ½ ounces Humboldt Fog®, cut or pinched into small pieces (depending on softness of the cheese)
• ½ cup coarsely chopped pancetta, or 4 to 6 slices bacon, coarsely chopped
• ¼ cup olive oil
• ¼ cup balsamic vinegar
• Salt and freshly ground pepper

Directions

Slice the cabbage ¼-inch thick. Cut each slice in quarters and then separate the layers of cabbage. You’ll end up with individual strands of cabbage about 1 ½ to 2 inches long. In a large bowl, toss the cabbage with the pecans and cheese.

In a medium sauté pan, cook the pancetta [or bacon] over medium-high heat, until crispy and dark brown. Drain on a paper towel. Discard the pancetta fat, but do not wash the pan. Return the pan to the stove, and over medium heat, add the olive oil. Heat the oil until it’s very warm but not hot or smoking. Turn off the heat and add the vinegar. Mix well and immediately pour over the cabbage mixture. Add the pancetta, and salt and pepper to taste. Toss and Serve.

Serves 4.

http://www.cypressgrovechevre.com/recipes/

Interview with Mary Keehn, founder of Cypress Grove

Meadow Creek Grayson and Appalachian cheese

We really enjoyed both of these cheeses this past weekend. The Grayson is a washed rind semi-soft cheese with a richly developed pungeant taste. The Appalachian is a drier, milder cheese with a rich buttery feel. When I read about how carefully the cows are treated, and how the milk is carefully collected and chosen for the cheese, and then tasted the final product, I expected the best, and I think I got it.

Here’s a link to the Meadow Creek website – there are some print-out info pages on their cheeses.

We hiked into our place outside Front Royal, leaving our car in a neighbor’s driveway about 1/4 mile away. The snow was still up to our knees, and we ended our hike trudging up our steep driveway. We didn’t collapse on the stairs leading up to the deck, mostly because there were no people inside to rush out and rescue us. The Grayson cheese more than made up for the rigors of the snowy hike up the mountain.

Everything was emptying “Into White” – Cat Stevens

Veggie Stuffed Shells and The Servant Song

Veggie Stuffed Shells

Two kinds of cheese and plenty of vegetables fill jumbo pasta shells.

■1 16 oz. box of jumbo shells
■1 jar of your favorite spaghetti sauce
■1 small onion chopped fine
■3 cloves of chopped garlic
■1 thawed and drained box of frozen chopped spinach
■1/2 C. grated carrots
■1 zucchini diced into small pieces
■1 yellow squash diced into small pieces
■16 oz. or ricotta cheese
■1 C. shredded mozzarella cheese
■salt and pepper to taste
■basil leaves for garnish

Cook and drain shells according to directions. While the shells drain, sauté the onion and garlic in two tablespoons of olive oil for about 1 minute. Add all the vegetables and cook until the vegetables become slightly wilted, about 6 minutes. Turn off the flame under the vegetables and add the cheeses and the salt and pepper to the vegetables. Mix thoroughly. Using a tablespoon, stuff each shell with the vegetable and cheese mixture. Line a 9×13 glass baking dish with some spaghetti sauce and add the stuffed shells to cover the dish. Cover the shells with the remaining sauce. Add more grated or shredded cheese to the top of the shells if desired. Bake in a preheated oven at 375 degrees for about 20 minutes. Before serving, add fresh basil leaves for garnish.

I’m always looking for meatless meals that will work for Fridays or other days of the week.  I’m not a big fan of “Meatless Mondays”, but Henry and I do work several meatless days into every week.  Veggie based meals are too good on their own – and once you get hooked on several different types of veggies per meal, it’s not too difficult to transition to veggies alone.  So expect to see a number of meatless meals on this blog.

Our prayer group has always sung this together – and it’s a warm, fuzzy, experience – but the living of it is sometimes a lonely, thorny path.

The Servant Song

Brother, Sister let me serve you,
let me be as Christ to you.
Pray that I might have the grace,
to let you be my servant too.

We are pilgrims on a journey,
We are family on the road.
We are here to help each other,

I will hold the Christ-light for you,
in the night-time of your fear.
I will hold my hand out to you,
speak the peace you long to hear.

I will weep when you are weeping,
when you laugh I’ll laugh with you.
I will share your joy and sorrow,
till we’ve seen this journey through.

When we sing to God in heaven,
we shall find such harmony.
Born of all we’ve known together,
of Christ’s love and agony.

Veggie Stuffed Shells | ‘KITCHEN WISDOM’ | eons.com

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Roncal Cheese and shifting shadows from the harpsichord

Picking up a wedge of Roncal from our local Whole Foods, it looks like a dryish firm cheese with a reddish, mottled rind.  Hmm, made from sheep’s milk, ok, I’ll try it.  Somewhat chewy texture, fine with crackers.  From Artisanal Cheese

“Roncal comes from the rich sheep’s milk of the legendary Lacha and Aragonesa breeds of oveja sheep. Depending on the season, these herds graze in the high Pyrénées or the Bardena area of Navarra, the province that was the setting for Ernest Hemingway’s “The Sun Also Rises.” Roncal, made in one of seven villages in the Valle de Roncal, has nutty and piquant flavors with a firm, chewable texture. Somewhat similar to Pecorino Toscano and Manchego, Roncal has its own unique, mouth-watering character.”

We tried Manchego at a Tapas restaurant, and I think whichever we sampled had a more distinctive taste.  This Roncal from WW was much blander than “nutty and piquant”.  My father’s side of the family has roots in the Pyrenees region, so the cheese is intriguing to me.  Perhaps I need to find a less generic “Roncal”.

Francois Couperin’s Les Barricades Mysterieuses:  Somehow the magic of the shifting riffs has always captured those “sessions of sweet silent thought” in which we hope to discern a new insight and direction.  May it do the same for you —

first played on harpsichord

– now in a guitar transcription

I Know that My Redeemer Lives

Know That My Redeemer Lives, sung by Bob Bennett.  I don’t know too much about Bob Bennett, but I’d like to learn more.  This hymn is one of my favorites, and on one memorable occasion I sang it with 20 people a capella in a chapel with elaborate woodwork and wooden choirs.  Before the last phrase of “I Know that My Redeemer Lives” there was a long pause, as we all breathed in and experienced the communion of singing this song with others who know the Lord.

How do we know?  Through so many trials, illnesses, deaths of loved ones, and moments of grace and understanding, believers know Jesus lives, because He is right there with us. And we have some understanding of what others have gone through as they affirm Jesus Lives.

As the group sung the last line – we all knew in some way that we had all been through the fire and had emerged alive with Him.   I’ll never forget that prayer – and Bob Bennett’s rendition reminds me of how we sung it that day.

Daytona 500: It’s the Real Thing

I’ve been watching a lot of Speed TV during the snowmageddons, trying to figure out NASCAR, and getting to know the various drivers and their sponsoring teams. Following a lead, I found a youtube of  a commercial for Daytona: Coke pulled together a very cute update of their “Perfect Harmony” commercial featuring some NASCAR drivers singing the 70’s jingle while racing and “tradin’ paint”. This youtube gives a behind the scenes look at putting together the commercial, and then a snippet of the commercial.

Want to revisit the original?  This will pull you right back to the early 70’s – when the media decided the ’60’s were safe enough to mainstream and sell stuff – like “the real thing”.  Defintely had to be before Watergate. . .

Slow-Cooker Black Bean-Mushroom Chili

Discover eating well – with healthy recipes, healthy eating, healthy cooking, healthy diet recipes, weight loss recipes and healthy menus from EatingWell Magazine.

via Slow-Cooker Black Bean-Mushroom Chili.

Taleggio CA D’Ambros cheese

First in a series of our weekly cheese ventures at Whole Foods and other specialty stores. Our cheese tonight is smooth and creamy, but I certainly wouldn’t call it “stinky” – it’s mild, and I wouldn’t use it in polenta, I think the flavor would blend in and not be distinctive enough. It might be that this isn’t the best of the Taleggio’s available – but it is very nice with crackers. I would get it again.

Taleggio cheese – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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