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Meal Plan Monday, August 16, 2010

Posted in Meal Plan, tagged , , on August 16, 2010| 6 Comments »

This week’s Gluten Free Menu Swap theme is zucchini and summer squash and it is being hosted by Scrumptious of In My Box, a blog about how she uses up all the goodies that show up in her weekly CSA box. (CSA = community-supported agriculture. Check this out for more information.) Scrumptious and I would love to be neighbors since we’re always ooing and aahing over each others meal plans. We’d be eating at each others homes all the time. I think we could learn from each other too. Too bad we live 1100 miles apart. Perhaps some day when we have our ‘commune’, we’ll invite Scrumptious to come live with us as we seem to be kindred spirits. (Yes, we dream of our own little co-housing community of like-minded folks with chickens, bees, goats and alpacas. Weird, I know.)


Here at the Beyond Rice and Tofu household, we don’t care for zucchini or summer squash, so we won’t be participating in the theme. Although, we do have quite a few cucumbers to eat – they are in the curcubit family and gourd family, similar to squash, so does that count?

When we first moved to New Mexico we frequently found calabacitas on the menu, especially in New Mexican dishes. Since we didn’t want to look like a couple of Midwestern gringos, we didn’t ask. Well, it only took once to discover that we don’t like calabacitas – zucchini, squash and often corn together and frequently used as a filling for burritos or as a side dish. We just don’t care for the summer squashes. But we are beginning to enjoy winter squashes and luckily we have a few butternut growing in the garden this year. So, now that we have the issue of squash out of the way…

This week will be a short one for us as we are heading out of town to visit friends. So I did not go to the farmer’s market this weekend. Boo. And I am also trying to use up what is in the frig and not make too much so there aren’t too many leftovers. But if we get really desperate, there are more than 4 dozen tamales in the freezer for us (but I think we may be tamale’d out for a couple of weeks).

Spicy Tofu with Vegetables and Rice from The Complete Book of Thai Cooking by Linda Stephens – it’s becoming an old standby.

Spicy Cucumber Noodle Salad with Edamame – a new-to-us recipe that I had bookmarked a while back . I will use gf spaghetti instead of soba noodles as I have yet to find 100% buckwheat noodles. Most are made from a mixture of buckwheat and wheat. (BTW: Buckwheat is naturally gluten free, and is not wheat at all, unless it’s mixed with wheat of course.)

Veggie Burgers and Cucumber Salad with Spicy Thai Lime Vinaigrette – we had this salad a couple of weeks ago and it was fabulous!! A few minor changes for us, we omitted the carrots and instead of fish sauce I used GF soy sauce. Delish!

And if we need it – Red Beans and Rice with some added leftover vegetarian chorizo.

Well, that’s it for us this week! I hope to have some fun pictures and gluten free info from our travels this coming week. Over and out!

This meal plan is linked to OrgJunkie and the Gluten Free Menu Swap. Check out both for a ton of meal planning ideas!

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Sun Dried Tomato and Spinach Pesto

Posted in Chickpeas, Pasta, Quick, Spinach, tagged , , , , , , , on August 15, 2010| 8 Comments »

I love pesto. But my husband does not. So it is one of those things I make for myself, and I only make him eat it occasionally. This summer I have been keeping a small bowl of traditional basil pesto in the frig and I have been enjoying it smeared on toasted Udi’s or Canyon Bakehouse bread with a slice of fresh mozzarella and a slice or two of tomato. So delicious.

I had made some basil pesto earlier this week because my basil plants needed trimming and when I was digging around for something for lunch today, I found some leftover brown rice penne.  So I lightly heated up the pasta (add a bit of water and put a lid loosely on it – I’ve found that it helps to reheat leftover gluten free pasta slightly, even if eating it cold or room temperature) and stirred in a big spoonful of pesto. Then I sliced up some cherry tomatoes and added a few little chunks of fresh mozzarella, salt and fresh ground pepper. What a delicious lunch!

But I have also been known to make other types of pesto. A while back I made sun-dried tomato and spinach pesto. And when I saw Linda’s Pesto Challenge over at The Gluten Free Homemaker, I knew I needed to post this recipe since it has been languishing in my “future posts” folder for about six weeks now. I initially made this back when I was still harvesting a lot of spinach. No spinach growing right now, but it is almost time to plant spinach for a fall harvest.

Sun Dried Tomato and Spinach Pesto and Pasta

Inspired by all, but an original recipe by Renee

1 pound bag of brown rice penne *

3 cups fresh spinach, divided

4 oz sun-dried tomatoes in oil, drained

3 cloves garlic

1/4 tsp salt

1/8 tsp pepper

olive oil

1-15 oz. can garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed

1-15 oz. can artichoke hearts in water, drained and coarsely chopped *

4 oz goat cheese, crumbled

Cook pasta according to directions. If you are making gluten free pasta, be sure to use a lot of water, more than you would for regular pasta. And be sure to stir the pasta frequently when you begin cooking it as it can clump together easily. Drain pasta. (Drain pasta into a colander with the remaining spinach in it if you prefer your spinach to be wilted.)

In a food processor, combine 1 cup of spinach leaves, tomatoes, garlic, salt and pepper. Pulse it while slowly adding enough olive oil until it is of a pesto consistency. Taste and adjust according to your preference.

Stir pesto into warm pasta and remaining 2 cups of spinach leaves. Add chickpeas and artichoke hearts and top with crumbled goat cheese. Easy, delicious and nutritious!

Notes:

* My preferred gluten free pasta is Trader Joe’s brown rice pasta. For this dish I used the penne but you could use any shape. My other favorite pasta is Tinkyada, which may be the same as Trader Joe’s pasta, just under a different label.

* I prefer the artichoke hearts that are canned in water, not oil. I typically find them at Trader Joe’s. And depending on what I am making with them, I will buy the water or oil.

**This post is linked to The Gluten Free Homemaker’s Pesto Challenge on Gluten Free Wednesdays and Simply Sugar and Gluten Free’s Slightly Indulgent Tuesdays.** And be sure to check out past Gluten Free Wednesday pesto posts here.

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Meal Plan Monday, August 9, 2010

Posted in Meal Plan, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 9, 2010| 26 Comments »

Last week’s meal plan got derailed by a trip to the Farmer’s Market as well as time to finally make something we’d been wanting to make for a while now – tamales!!! About a year ago we bought the book, Tamales 101 by Alice Guadalupe Tapp. We have both read through it multiple times and drooled over the recipes. Last Christmas, we thought we might make them but I don’t have a stand mixer and the mixing of the masa by hand was a bit intimidating. But I knew that other people make them without, it was just an excuse for a mixer! But still I refrained from buying one and so we didn’t make them. Finally, when my in-laws were here a couple of weeks back we thought we might make them then since four pairs of hands seemed better than two. But we ran out of time.

So this weekend, my husband was determined. We made two kinds, Green Chile and Cheese (vegetarian) tamales and a dessert tamale, Raspberry Chocolate pecan. They were both wonderful!!! Both recipes were from Tamales 101. It’s a great book. And it isn’t really very hard, once you get the hang of it. My handy-dandy hand mixer also managed the challenge just fine. Here are some photos for your drooling pleasure.

A giant bowl of masa.

The mess of assembly.

Green Chile and Cheese tamales steaming in the pot.

Green Chile and Cheese on the left and the Raspberry Chocolate Pecan on the right.

Between that and  trying to take care of the things in the frig that needed to be eaten or ‘dealt’ with and impulse-buying at the farmer’s market, I really don’t need to buy much at the grocery tomorrow.

Also, this week, the Gluten Free Menu Swap is being hosted by Celiac Family and the theme is tomatoes! Who isn’t eating tomatoes right now? It’s prime time. Last week I made white bean gazpacho with some of my tomatoes. I wish I had more tomatoes coming on than I do but we have been struggling with pests this year and both of my big, beautiful San Marzano paste tomato plants are slowly dying. But our Black Russian and Stupice varieties are beginning to come on. So we’re still hoping for more tomatoes, I just wish it was the San Marzanos.

At the farmer’s market I picked up some more beets, some okra, oyster mushrooms, leeks, tomatillos, three different kinds of fingerling potatoes and some cute little Japanese shishito peppers.

So, for the meal plan:

Mushroom and Leek Pasta with Salad – we made this tonight and it was delicious. I used the oyster mushrooms and leeks I picked up at the farmer’s market. Thanks for a wonderful recipe, Jenn!

Cucumber and Avocado Soup, Sauteed Fingerling Potatoes, Oven Roasted Okra – the soup never got made last week as my avocados were not ripe. But I still have plenty of cucumbers! And thanks to Amy at Simply Sugar and Gluten Free for the idea of roasting the okra.

Our very own tamales with shishito peppers and tomatillo salsa – I will fry the peppers in very hot oil and sprinkle with salt. And we will roast the tomatillos with some garlic and onions and make a salsa out of them. Great for dipping the tamales in!

Sesame Maple Roasted Tofu with roasted beets and stir-fried sugar snap peas

And lots of leftovers!

As for desert this week, we still have homemade vanilla frozen yogurt, David Lebovitz’s cherries in red wine sauce, Shirley’s honey cinnamon ice cream and of course, the raspberry chocolate pecan tamales. So there is probably no need for additional ice cream this week.

If you are looking for any more meal ideas, be sure to check out OrgJunkie and all the ideas over there (most are not gluten free or vegetarian).

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Casa Vieja – Corrales, NM

Posted in Restaurant Review, tagged , , , , , , on August 4, 2010| 3 Comments »

For a couple of months now, one of our friends kept mentioning that we needed to go check out Casa Vieja in Corrales, NM since they indicate gluten free selections on their menu. We had never been there but our friends had and they enjoyed it. So we finally made a date of it with two other couples.

Of course we also had to stop by the Corrales Bistro Brewery for a barley apertif (beer, not gluten free) before our meal. They do not serve gluten free beer, but I enjoyed a nice glass of sangria while we discussed beer, hops, bonds and zombie movies – yes, an odd conversation, but considering the company… (kidding!). Unfortunately they did not have any of their own beers on tap that day but they were serving up other New Mexican brews. It was our first time there and the bar seemed like a local hang-out, but in a good way. They also had a nice deck out back but since the weather was still quite steamy, we stayed inside.

After the barley imbibing, we drove down the road a short distance to Casa Vieja. The restaurant is located in an old adobe building that was once a family home, originally built in the 1700’s. It has a nice patio fronting the main street and our reservations were for the patio. Luckily it was quite shady and the sun was starting to sink behind the restaurant and trees. The flies did get a bit bothersome at one point in the evening because there was no breeze but I don’t think they ate much! Unfortunately flies are part of the rural Rio Grande valley. Just drink some more wine and you won’t notice them!

We enjoyed some sparkling wine (1/2 off on bottles on Saturday nights!) and part of our group enjoyed appetizers, although I did not. The sangria and sparkling wine was enough of an appetizer! As usual, I notified our waiter of my need for a gluten free meal as soon as he took our drink order. Of course I had browsed through the menu online (click on ‘From The Kitchen’) already. (The gluten free items are notated online as well as on the menu they hand you at the restaurant.) I had a few items in mind and asked a few more questions about my two preferred entrees, either the Grilled Hangar Steak or the Cast Iron Seared Scallops. (Again, I eat meat when dining out although my husband does not.) The scallops came with potato croquettes that our waiter told me they would leave off the plate, since they were not gluten free. That left me with two sides of cauliflower ‘stuff’ and since I am not a huge fan of cauliflower, I decided to go with the steak. It came with a vegetable-stuffed, roasted poblano and a potato gratin. When I asked, the waiter did double-check that the gratin was indeed gluten free – no bread crumbs or flour in a roux. Our waiter answered all my questions and I felt confident with his answers. And my meal was wonderful!

We were all so stuffed that we did not partake in dessert although there were a couple that sounded wonderful, like the Red Chile Buttermilk Flan (without the funnel cake, of course) or the Black Cherry-Port Chocolate Souffle OR the always delicious Vanilla Creme Brulee. (Speaking of Creme Brulee, have you seen Shirley’s Creme Brulee ice cream? Bookmarked!) There are also some other menu items that I would like to try, like the Duck Confit Tamale appetizer, so we’ll have to go back some time soon. Maybe I’ll just order appetizers and dessert! Oh, and some wine too! Who’s in?

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The Real Deal

Posted in Meal Plan, tagged , , on August 3, 2010| 6 Comments »

Okay, here is my weekly meal plan. Better late than never, right?

It is cold soup week apparently…

Cucumber and Avocado Soup with corn-on-the-cob and veggie burgers – soup will be inspired by these two recipes; Cool as a Cucumber Soup by Veggie Venture and Cucumber-Avocado Soup by Not Derby Pie.

White Bean Gazpacho – although I can’t find my recipe right now….hmmm.

Spicy Tofu with Green Beans and Rice – from Complete Book of Thai Cooking by Linda Stephen – a family favorite.

Stovetop Marinara with Broccoli and Chickpeas – using Trader Joe’s Brown Rice Penne or Spaghetti and a salad on the side.

As for ice cream this week, I am thinking a vanilla frozen yogurt and perhaps this Honey Cinnamon Ice Cream from Shirley at Gluten Free Easily.

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Meal Plan Monday, August 2, 2010

Posted in General, Meal Plan, tagged , , , on August 2, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Tricked you. No meal plan as of yet. Sorry. It was a crazy day back on a regular schedule after vacation and life threw us some curve balls, so I am a little behind. One of the dogs woke us up at 3:30 am this morning scratching, scratching, scratching his ears. He gets lots of ear infections, but he normally doesn’t scratch like this. So my husband got to take him to the vet this evening. And I went out to get in my car to go to work this morning and it wouldn’t start. Grrr. We had to jump it twice today. Double grrr. So this evening I got my battery replaced. Luckily it was just the battery. But I think it knows that we are looking at getting a new car…

So, I need to get back on track this week. Our cucumbers are producing again, both regular and ‘lemon’ cucumbers, which we planted unknowingly. They were labeled as ‘slicing’ cucumbers and we weren’t quite sure what they were when they started producing. We haven’t tried any yet but they are beginning to come on strong so I had better figure out what to do with them! Any ideas?

I think one idea for the week is a chilled cucumber and avocado soup, with the regular English cucumbers. Other than that, I am feeling less than inspired this week after the day we had. I do know I want to make some more yummy ice cream in my new maker, but I need to decide what kind. So I will think about it tomorrow and save my shopping until Wednesday evening. It’s off to bed now since we didn’t get much sleep after 3:30am… (Sigh.)

See you around later this week.

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Back to Reality

Posted in General, tagged , , , , , , , , , on August 1, 2010| 2 Comments »

Hello, world! Sorry I have been away the past couple weeks, but we have had company – and we worked them like slaves!

No, really, we did.

Well, somewhat. You see, my husband’s parents came to town for their annual visit and we like to do home improvement projects with them while they are here. I should probably rephrase that… my husband and his father are really good at doing home improvement projects together! My mother in law and I are good at buying supplies and new home goods and supervising their work!

We’ve been in this house for about two and a half years now and there are a variety of cosmetic things we have wanted to do. But my husband and I prefer to work outside on the yard instead of inside and so we haven’t done much inside. My in-laws help to motivate us, especially since we have more helping hands to get things done! Last year they helped us figure out a good lighting solution for our kitchen, which had horrible, poorly located, contractor-grade lighting. And of course, while we were at it, we had to repaint the kitchen ceiling too, because for some reason, the previous owners liked to paint the ceilings the same color as the walls and the dark beige ceiling in the north-facing kitchen didn’t help the lack of proper light in the kitchen.

This past week we tackled a couple of projects. We, by which I mean they, my husband and father in law, hung cabinets in my tiny laundry room – now I can easily reach the detergent and rag towels – and I can hide all the dog paraphernalia in the cabinets – yeah! I love hiding things out of sight!

We also are preparing to get our concrete floors stained and sealed later this month and figured it was a good time to do a  couple of other things before that chaos begins. Like repaint the office/third bedroom. Once again, the ceiling had been painted, and this time it was dark blue. Along with one wall. I am not sure how I lived with it so long, actually. Probably only because I placed two giant bookcases on that wall which hid most of the blue. But nothing could hide that dark blue ceiling, except a couple of coats of paint! Now the office has four nice creamy walls, a white ceiling (I love white ceilings!), and fun, new curtains, which my mother-in-law and I shopped for while the boys were working on the cabinets.

We (they!) also hung a ceiling fan where there had previously been a horrid old light fixture. It looked like something that would be in your grandmother’s house that hasn’t changed in about 30 or 40 years. I am already loving the fan! This room doesn’t get the best circulation and we can’t leave the window open very far in here since the rain frequently beats this side of the house during monsoon season (now), so the fan feels wonderful here as I type.

Please don’t notice the messy, messy desk…I am a “piler” – I organize by piles. But I have 4 weeks to get this room organized and some stuff thrown out before we have to move our entire house into the garage so we can get our floors finished. Firm deadlines motivate me. But wish me luck. I am not good at organizing and throwing things away.

We also tackled another project that has been lingering for over a year now too. Once again, we had these horrible 1990’s-era brass and oak handles on our cabinets. They matched the cabinets fine, but they just looked so 90’s. (I guess the house was built in ’98.) But, they totally dated things. So over a year ago, I found some brushed nickel handles that looked really nice and changed all the cabinet handles in the kitchen, except for two. The two on the small, ‘fake’ cabinet fronts in front of the kitchen sink, the ones above the big doors below into the cabinet. You know which ones I mean? We could not find a tool small enough to get between the sink and the cabinet to be able to unscrew the handles. (Why the fake handles are there in the first place is a whole other question.) And we also had a sneaking suspicion that one of them was not screwed on, but glued on, for some reason. (Please, think before you do weird home improvements!! We often ask ourselves, why did they think that was a good idea?) So we decided to tackle removing the sink and replacing it, just to FINALLY change out those two stray, fake cabinet handles. Of course, my mother-in-law thought we might as well get a whole new sink and faucet while we were at it. So I let her twist my arm and we picked one out for the boys to install. Luckily it all went fairly smoothly and I now have a new, pretty, shiny, non-hard-water-stained sink and faucet to go with my final two cabinet handles! Yeah! Project finished after a year!

So after all that, we did take at least one day to do something fun. We drove up to Taos and visited the town and Pueblo, between summer thunderstorms. We also ate some yummy, gluten free food at Rellenos Cafe (more to come on that). My husband and I have visited Taos previously but we normally just headed for the hills for some hiking. This time we stopped at Taos Pueblo and took a look around. It was such a beautiful spot and I would recommend stopping and touring. It is one of the few Pueblos where you can take photographs (for a fee) and so I’ll leave you with a couple of my favorite photos from the day.

Tomorrow it is back to reality and back to the daily grind. And I will be posting more now that we’re back to a regular schedule. See you around!

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Meal Plan Monday, July 19, 2010

Posted in Meal Plan, tagged , , , on July 18, 2010| 16 Comments »

This week I am hosting the Gluten Free Menu Swap. I hope you’ll join us! Please check back later in the week too, to see what other folks have planned.

Each week there is a theme for the Gluten Free Menu Swap, but you can always participate, regardless of whether you follow the theme. Since my cucumbers are beginning to come on, I figured that I needed to hear some new ideas on what to do with cucumbers and so this week’s theme is Cucumbers! I looked around myself for some new ideas for cucumbers. I found a couple of recipes which are bookmarked for later – Bavarian Potato-Cucumber Salad, Cucumber Soup and Spicy Cucumber Noodle Salad with Edamame. And I also have a couple of cucumber recipes already posted here – Spicy Ginger Noodles and Spicy Tofu with Vegetables and Cucumber Salad.

As part of my typical meal planning process, I went looking in the garden, refrigerator, freezer and pantry to see what needs to be eaten. I found some homemade pizza sauce in the freezer. And in the refrigerator I found some fresh green beans, parsley, cilantro, a red bell pepper, a few green onions, lots of cucumbers and the end of our snow peas.

Of course, today I also went to the Farmer’s Market and picked up a couple of things. First off, fresh sweet corn! Woo-hoo! The first of the season for me. And the same gentlemen had fresh, in-the-shell, black-eyed peas. I also spied some fingerling potatoes and I grabbed a bunch of beets to try. And I have quite a bit of basil that needs to be harvested and processed into something, probably pesto, which I will then freeze.

I recently harvested my garlic for the summer, but today I bought a couple more heads of another variety with the intent of planting one of the head’s in the fall. (Yes, in case you didn’t know it, garlic is planted in the fall and harvested in early or mid-summer.) This year’s harvest was of Red Rezan, a hard-necked variety from Russia. We bought it last summer from Boxcar Farm at the Santa Fe Farmer’s Market. I am saving a couple heads of it for planting in the fall and the rest is stored in the pantry for the year. Today I bought a variety called Inchelium Red.

Below is this year’s harvest. Not bad! They were a little small, but it is garlic!

My in-laws are coming into town later this week and we aren’t quite sure what we will decide to do while they are here, so I am keeping it flexible. I do know my Texas-raised mother-in-law will appreciate the fresh black-eyed peas I found so I will wait until she is here to make them. Plus she can help me shell them! (Hi Martha!) I am sure we will be doing the last-minute clean-up before they get here too, so I need some quick and easy dinners so as to allow us to get all that stuff done this week.

So, for this week, here’s the plan:

Fresh Corn on the Cob, Green Beans and Fingerling Potatoes and Cucumber Salad – I am like my mother in that I could make an entire meal of corn-on-the cob but I figure I should probably eat something else with it!

English Muffin Pizzas with Salad (with cucumber) – I will use the Food For Life Gluten Free English Muffins and the thawed, homemade pizza sauce I found in the freezer. Maybe some pesto.

Italian Rice Salad – we didn’t get to this last week.

Honeyed Beet Quinoa Summer Salad or Balsamic Dressed Roasted Beets on Salad Greens – our first trial of beets, we’ll see which one sounds good.

Fresh Black Eyed Peas and Tomatoes – when I saw these at the farmer’s market today, I already knew what I would do with them, thanks to Amy at Simply Sugar and Gluten Free! Of course, we won’t be making it with the bacon, but I might sub in some of the Trader Joe’s soy chorizo instead or some smoked paprika or Liquid Smoke. And if it isn’t too hot, I might turn on the oven and make some cornbread with Talon de Gato Blue Corn Cornmeal.

Grilling – probably some tofu steaks, maybe some salmon or chicken for me and our guests, vegetables, maybe some pineapple again. Corn on the cob? We’ll see.

That’s it for me, and so for the other swappers:

Wendy at Celiacs in the House is rolling in fresh produce this week, from her own garden and the farmer’s market. I love the picture showing how to contain out-of-control squash! She too has plenty of cucumbers and they have been eating them in tzatziki on Greek turkey burgers. Maybe I need to make some Greek turkey burgers and tzatziki for my guests this week! Hmmm… She also discovered a cucumber and black-eyed pea recipe that I could use for my fresh peas. I think we were on the same wavelength this week with the cukes and black-eyed peas…

Over at I Love Nectarines, it’s Susan’s birthday and she has some yummy plans. She says she is taking it easy this week with some simpler recipes, mostly salads and leftovers, but she’s going to try making an angel food cake and a sour cream coffee cake to celebrate! We’ll be waiting to hear how it goes, Susan! The tiramisu from last year looks wonderful! I personally haven’t made an angel food cake in quite a few years, although I did make a sponge cake recently that was quite tasty and did involve whipping many egg whites. Not many cucumbers on her menu this week except in the salads, but she did suggest trying stir-fried cucumbers – and I just might!

Heather at Celiac Family is serving up Kalyn’s Tomato, Cucumber and Avocado Salad this week, among many other yummy items. She also has another cucumber suggestion – in spring rolls, which are a fun alternative to sandwich bread, especially as a cool summer treat. They are also having some fun this week with popcorn (and other stuff) for a light dinner one night! Sounds good to me!

That’s it for this week, but again, please check back later as I will be adding links to other Gluten Free Menus as they become available!

And be sure to check out the home of the Gluten Free Menu Swap for more information and let Cheryl know if you would like to host in the future.

This menu is also cross-posted over at Org Junkie and the hundreds of other menu plans. Check it out!

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Sweet Potato, Quinoa and Black Bean Burgers

Posted in Beans, Burgers, quinoa, tagged , , , , , , on July 14, 2010| 21 Comments »

I used to love the Gardenburger Black Bean Chipotle Burgers, before they changed the formula. They used to be labeled gluten free. No longer. Boo.

Now the only choices for gluten free veggie burgers are Sunshine Burgers,which are okay, and Amy’s Bistro Burgers, which are pretty good. Or you can make your own.

I have only made homemade veggie burgers once or twice before and I can’t remember the results being that great as they didn’t become part of our normal repertoire. But I have seen a lot of veggie burger recipes floating around the blogosphere these days.  And recently, over at Gluten Free Homemaker, Linda posted a round-up of burgers on Gluten Free Wednesdays, some of which were vegetarian. So it had me thinking and looking around for some inspiration.

This is what I came up with. And yes, this is a keeper.

Sweet Potato, Quinoa and Black Bean Burgers

Inspired by Cupcake Punk and Fat Free Vegan

Makes about 12 medium-sized burgers

1 – 15 oz can of black beans, drained and rinsed

4 cloves of garlic, minced

2 large sweet potatoes, about 2-1/2 cups, cooked and mashed *

1 -1/2 cups quinoa, cooked and cooled *

1/2 cup chopped onion

3/4 cup bread crumbs, gluten free

2 Tbsp ketchup

1 tsp chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, gluten free *

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 cup chopped cilantro

Mash up about half of the black beans in a bowl. Add the other ingredients and mix up well. Form into patties and pan-fry in some oil until browned on both sides. Serve on buns with all the fixings, if you desire. (Canyon Bakehouse now has gluten free hamburger buns and I hear they are pretty tasty! I haven’t tried them yet.)

We ate our burgers bun-less with some baby artichokes (yes, an unusual combination). Later that week I ate the leftovers bun-less with some barbecue sauce and pickles and that was great too. The barbecue sauce was a nice companion to the sweetness of the potato.

I also experimented with the cooking method. Half of the burgers I pan-fried in a little bit of oil. The other half I cooked on my little-used George Foreman grill. We preferred the pan-fried ones as they held together better and they browned slightly. It seemed like the grill didn’t cook them much at all. In the picture above, the burger on the right was done on the grill (you can still see the grill marks) and the burger on the left was pan-fried.

Notes:

* I microwaved two large sweet potatoes and then split them open and scooped out the inside and mashed it up.

* You could saute the onions and garlic if you desire but I liked the slight crunchiness of the raw onion in the burgers.

* I used leftover quinoa, so I measured 1-1/2 of that after cooking. I am not sure how much you would need to cook in order to end up with 1-1/2 cups of cooked quinoa.

* Chipotle peppers in adobo sauce are not always gluten free, some have flour added. Double-check. Open the can, dump it all the food processor and whirl it until it is evenly blended and the whole peppers are all blended. Then take out what you need and freeze the rest. I never use a full can all at once and typically just use a teaspoon or so here or there. I keep it in a freezer container and scoop out just what I need.

* I think I might add more chipotle next time.

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Mattar Paneer

Posted in Cheese, Indian, Rice, tagged , , , , , , , , on July 13, 2010| 6 Comments »

Mattar paneer, muttar paneer, mutter paneer, matar paneer…however you spell it, it is wonderful! Paneer is a fresh, ‘homemade’ cheese typically used in Indian cuisine. Cook it up with some tomatoes, spices and green peas and you have heaven.

Last month we took a trip to the international market and I bought a pound of frozen paneer. Then the search was on for just the right recipe in which to use it. When I came to the Matar Paneer recipe in one of our favorite cookbooks, Indian Vegetarian Cooking From An American Kitchen, I knew I had to make it. It was really quite a simple recipe. With absolutely delicious results!! My husband said this meal was ‘restaurant quality’ and that the flavor was right on. And then he asked where I found the recipe and when I told him, he asked “Why did we wait so long to make this?” We have had this cookbook for years but I had just never searched out the paneer. But now we know.

I also had a box of Dosa mix that I had picked up at a local Indian restaurant and so we served it with these. Dosas are essentially crepes made from rice and dal (lentils and beans). I like the flavor of dosas but this particular mix was heavy on the spice (I think it was fenugreek) and it was overpowering in contrast to the flavors of the paneer. Next time I would try a more neutral flavored bread like naan (if it was gluten free) or some idlis. Or if I made my own dosas (haha!) I could spice them however I desire. But I won’t. Fermenting the rice and dal seems like more work than I want to engage in. So the box mixes work for me.

Do you have a favorite vegetarian Indian meal? Please share!

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