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By sally, on January 22nd, 2012
I’m a big fan of curry and Indian food in general, and since there are so many great vegetarian Indian dishes, I would love to be able to make more of them at home. In the past I’ve tended to shy away from making homemade Indian food because I’ve heard lots of stories about difficult it can be to make. Recently though, I came across a relatively simple-looking curry recipe in one of my old cookbooks, and decided to give it a shot.
We were both impressed by the depth of flavor in this dish, and I’m now inspired to expand my cooking repertoire a little more to include additional curries. Hopefully I’ll make some more post-worthy Indian dishes soon. Stay tuned…
Mixed Vegetable Curry
Adapted from Perfect Vegetarian
This recipe made enough for us to have two meals. The first night I served it with some homemade tortillas leftover from this dish, and the second night I served it over brown rice. It was very good both ways. I also think the recipe would be good with a little paneer cheese.
- 10-15 (150 grams) baby carrots, cut into chunks
- 2 medium (300 grams) red potatoes, cut into chunks
- 1-2 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 1½ teaspoons cumin seeds
- 1½ teaspoons mustard seeds
- 1 large onion, diced
- 1 teaspoon ground turmeric
- 1 teaspoon ground coriander
- 1½ teaspoons chili powder
- 1 teaspoon cayenne chili powder (optional)
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 tablespoon grated ginger
- 2 large garlic cloves, minced
- 1 cup vegetable broth
- 1 can (14.5 oz) diced tomatoes
- 1 cup frozen peas
- 1 cup frozen spinach
Place carrots and potatoes in a steamer and steam until the vegetables are just tender (Here is a site that has some additional instructions on how to steam vegetables).
Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the cumin seeds and the mustard seeds, and fry until they start to sizzle. Add the diced onion and cook until the onions are soft and start to turn golden. Stir in the turmeric, coriander, chili powder, cayenne, bay leaf, ginger, and garlic. Cook for 1 minute and then add the broth, tomatoes, and the steamed carrots and potatoes. Cook for 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the peas and the spinach and cook for another 2-3 minutes.
Tasty Easy Healthy Green Recipe Ratings:
| Recipe Report Card |
Notes About Recipe Ratings |
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Tasty Rating
Four Chefs (Delicious!)
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Not quite as good as some of the amazing Indian dishes we’ve had at restaurants, but overall a pretty tasty dish. |
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Easy Rating
Four Easy Chairs (“ABC, Easy as 123…”)
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Don’t let the long list of ingredients intimidate you—all the spices should be available at a normal grocery store, and the dish does come together relatively quickly. |
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Healthy Rating
Five Apples (My Body is My Temple!)
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This dish is packed with vegetables, and when served over brown rice it makes for a very healthy meal. |
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Green Rating
Four Leaves (Mother Earth Approved)
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The vegetables and some of the spices were organic. I also found some frozen spinach and peas in biodegradable bags. They are still probably a little more resource intensive than fresh veggies, but I’m glad I can toss the bag in our compost instead of the landfill. |
By sally, on January 16th, 2012
And we’re back…I apologize for the lack of posts around here lately. I can rattle off a number of excuses (including travel, personal projects, etc.), but I’ll spare you the details and get right into today’s post…!
Today’s recipes were inspired by mainly two things: a cute new kitchen towel and a New Year’s Resolution. The towel was a Christmas gift from my mother and has a recipe for Tortillas de Harina (Flour Tortillas) printed on it. This colorful towel and its simple recipe would be enough to make me want to make batches and batches of yummy homemade tortillas, but making tortillas from scratch also fits nicely into a recently made resolution to reduce waste.
Overall Graham and I do a relatively good job of recycling and composting, but we still throw away a good amount of unrecyclable materials. We recently read an article about a family in California who is on a zero waste journey (you can check out their blog here). In one year, this family produces only enough trash to fill a 1-liter mason jar. While we don’t think we can whittle our waste down to just one mason jar (at least not immediately), we were inspired to try to significantly reduce what we throw away. This resolution means that we will not only have to reuse more materials, but when we make purchases, we will try to buy items with little or no packaging.
So how does this resolution tie into homemade tortillas and soft tacos? Well, reducing our waste is a long-term project, but one of the first things we are starting with is decreasing the packaging that comes with the food we buy. So, for example, instead of buying ready-made tortillas in a non-recyclable plastic bag, I bought several of the ingredients for the tortillas from the bulk bins at our local market and put them into reusable bags and jars to bring home. Hopefully this change will lead to less waste and better food! We’ll keep you updated on our little project…
We have a few more ideas for reducing our waste (including eliminating paper towels—a difficult one for me!), but we would love to hear about any ideas you may have, or things that you’ve done to reduce your waste.
Homemade Tortillas
Adapted from the Red and White Kitchen Company Tortilla Towel
To add a little more fiber to the tortillas, I replaced half of the all-purpose flour with spelt flour. Spelt flour may not be traditional, but it sure was tasty in these tortillas.
- 2 cups of all-purpose flour
- 2 cups of spelt flour
- 2 teaspoons of salt
- 6 tablespoon shortening or oil (I used oil)
- 1 to 1¼ cups lukewarm water
In a large bowl, mix the flours and salt. Add the oil or shortening and mix until well-combined. Stir in 1 cup of water and form the dough into a large ball. Add a little bit more water if the dough seems too dry and does not hold together.
Knead the dough a few times on a well-floured surface. Pinch off pieces of the dough and roll them into balls about the size of eggs. Let the balls sit for about 15 minutes.
Place a large skillet or griddle on the stove over medium heat. While the skillet heats up, roll out a ball of the dough with a rolling pin until it is the size of a small salad plate. Place the rolled dough into the hot skillet and cook for two minutes on one side and flip and cook an additional minute on the other side. Repeat with the remaining dough.
Black Bean Soft Tacos
- 1 cup dry black beans
- 1 tablespoon oil
- 1 small onion, diced
- 2 cloves of garlic, minced
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1 teaspoon chipotle chili powder
- 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
- Salt (1-2 teaspoons)
- Homemade tortillas (see recipe above)
- Shredded cheese
- Lettuce or spinach
- Sour cream
- Salsa or chipotle sauce
Pick through the dried beans and remove any dirt or sticks. Put beans into a large bowl and cover with several inches of water. Soak beans overnight.
Drain beans and put them into a large pot. Cover beans with several inches of fresh water. Bring the beans to a boil and reduce heat to a simmer. Cook until the beans are soft. Cooking time varies depending on the size of the beans, but could take between 30 to 90 minutes. Drain most of the water from beans, reserving a few tablespoons in the pot.
While the beans cook, heat the oil in a large skillet. Add the onions and cook until translucent. Add the garlic, cumin, and chipotle chili powder. Stir until well combined. Add the cooked black beans and vinegar to the pot. If beans seem a little dry, add a bit of water. Add salt to taste and stir until well combined. Using the back of a wooden spoon or a potato masher, mash roughly half of the black beans. Remove from heat.
To assemble tacos, place a few spoonfuls of black beans in the middle of a tortilla. Top with shredded cheese, lettuce, sour cream, and salsa.
Tasty Easy Healthy Green Recipe Ratings:
| Recipe Report Card |
Notes About Recipe Ratings |
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Tasty Rating
Four Chefs (Delicious!)
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We could eat the tortillas plain and we loved the smoky flavor of the beans. |
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Easy Rating
Three Easy Chairs (Average Difficulty)
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The tortillas were actually a lot easier to make than I thought they would be, but the whole meals does take some time. |
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Healthy Rating
Three Apples (Average Nutritional Quality)
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Black beans are low in fat and a good source of protein, and the tortillas are made of half whole-grain flour. Use the shredded cheese and sour cream sparingly, as the calories and fat from these items can quickly add up. |
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Green Rating
Four Leaves (Mother Earth Approved)
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Most of the ingredients were organic, and several came from the bulk bins, which helped us reduce our waste from this meal. |
By sally, on December 24th, 2011
Surprise! It’s another sweet potato dish! As I mentioned in our last post, we’re working through a huge basket of sweet potatoes from our CSA box. Luckily they last a while, so we haven’t been eating them for every meal (many of them though!).
If you are looking for a good last minute Christmas dish, this sweet potato casserole is a winner. We really liked the combination of coconut and sweet potato flavors and the dish is really easy to make. It is also not overly sweet like other sweet potato casserole dishes that we’ve had in the past. 
We wish you all an enjoyable and relaxing holiday season! We are looking forward to lots of good food with family and friends. We’re going to be taking a break for the holidays from posting, but will be back in full force in 2012!
Sweet Potato Coconut Casserole
This recipe yields a casserole that fills a 9-inch pie pan. If you are cooking for a crowd, I would recommend doubling it. This dish would also be good topped with pecans.
- 1½ to 2 cups baked mashed sweet potatoes*
- 1 egg
- ½ cup light coconut milk
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 tablespoons brown sugar
- ½ cup (approximately) shredded coconut (I used sweetened)
Preheat the oven to 350°. In a large bowl, mix together the mashed sweet potatoes, egg, coconut milk, and salt. When combined, spread mixture evenly into a 9-inch pie pan or equivalent sized pan. Sprinkle the top of the casserole with the brown sugar and coconut. Bake for 30 minutes.
*I think I used about 4-5 small sweet potatoes for this dish. To bake them, I pierced each one a few times with a fork and placed them on a baking sheet lined with foil. I baked them until they were tender, which took about 45 minutes. The baking time may vary, depending on the size of the sweet potatoes.
Tasty Easy Healthy Green Recipe Ratings:
| Recipe Report Card |
Notes About Recipe Ratings |
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Tasty Rating
Four Chefs (Delicious!)
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As I mentioned above, sweet potatoes and coconut is a winning combination. |
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Easy Rating
Four Easy Chairs (“ABC, Easy as 123…”!)
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Baking the sweet potatoes and the casserole takes some time, but the prep is very simple. |
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Healthy Rating
Four Apples (Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise)
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The coconut milk does add some fat and calories to the casserole, but using light coconut milk cuts some of that down. |
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Green Rating
Four Leaves (Mother Earth Approved)
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I’m not sure where the shredded coconut and coconut milk were from, but the rest of the ingredients were organic and the sweet potato and egg were local. |
By sally, on December 18th, 2011
We are definitely not hurting for sweet potatoes around here! Week after week they kept coming in our CSA box—and not just a few small ones, but big bags of them. Fortunately, we both enjoy sweet potatoes and for the most part I’ve been able to keep up with the steady influx by making a few pots of this soup, some of these empanadas, and several batches of these fries.
However, these last few weeks, due to several work and personal projects, our kitchen has not seen much cooking action. As a result the sweet potato basket is now overflowing with large orange tubers. In addition to resorting to my old stand by recipes (mentioned above), I’ve been trying to find some creative ways to use up our abundant supply.
Today’s recipe was my attempt to bake something sweet with our sweet potatoes. Unfortunately, I only ended up using one large sweet potato for the recipe though. I guess if I look on the bright side, we’ve got one less sweet potato and 30 tasty little sticky buns!
Mini Sweet Potato Pecan Sticky Buns
I adapted the recipe for the buns from Vegetarian Times and the pecan topping from the Pioneer Woman. I actually was quite frustrated with the dough for the buns and was about to toss it out when it wouldn’t rise the first time around. The recipe said that it should double in size in about an hour, but after several hours, mine was still the same size! I thought that maybe the yeast I used was too old, but decided to try putting it in a warmer place (on top of the stove after I had finished baking something in the oven), just to see what happened. Thankfully the dough got bigger and I was able to proceed with the recipe.
Buns
- 1 package (0.25oz) active dry yeast
- 1/3 cup warm water
- 2 1/3 cups all purpose flour, plus more for kneading the dough
- 1 cup spelt flour
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 1 ½ teaspoons salt
- 2/3 cup mashed cooked sweet potato
- 3 tablespoons vegetable oil, plus more for bowl and brushing
- ½ to ¾ cup of sugar
- 1-2 teaspoons cinnamon
Stir yeast into the warm water until it has dissolved. Let stand 10 minutes.
Combine flour, sugar, and salt in bowl of stand mixer with the dough hook.
Stir sweet potato and oil into the water and yeast mixture. Turn the stand mixer on to the slowest speed and slowly add the sweet potato mixture into the stand mixer bowl.
Continue to knead the dough in the stand mixture until smooth. If the dough is sticky, add small amounts of extra all-purpose flour to the dough until the dough feels tacky, but not sticky to the touch.
Place dough in oiled bowl and cover with a towel. Let rise 1 hour, or until doubled in size.
Once the dough has doubled in sized, roll it out into a long rectangular shape. Brush the dough with vegetable oil and sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon. Starting at long edge, roll up dough. Slice about an inch off each end and discard. Cut the roll crosswise into ½ inches slices with a knife or cut with a piece of dental floss. To cut with dental floss, take the floss and place it below the roll where you want to cut it and then bring the two ends of the dental floss together at the top of the roll, cross them and pull tight.
Preheat the oven to 375°. Spray a mini-muffin pan with a little cooking spray and add about ½ to 1 teaspoon of the pecan topping (see recipe below), into each of the mini-muffin tins. Place one of the pieces of the cut roll on top of the pecan mixture in each of the tins. Press them in a little, so that there is not a space between the roll and the topping. Bake for about 18 minutes or until golden brown.
Let the cooked buns cool for about 20 minutes and then remove them from the pan. If any of the topping falls off, spoon it out of the muffin tins and place on top of the buns.
Topping
- 5-6 tablespoons of butter
- 1 cup chopped pecans
- ½ cup of light corn syrup
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Melt the butter in a medium sized skillet. Stir in the pecans, corn syrup, and vanilla. Once combined, remove from heat.
Tasty Easy Healthy Green Recipe Ratings:
| Recipe Report Card |
Notes About Recipe Ratings |
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Tasty Rating
Four Chefs (Delicious!)
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The pecan topping is delicious and the flavor of the buns is great. The texture of the bun was a little on the dry side and not quite as tender as I would have liked, but the topping added some nice moisture to it. I might try experimenting with the dough a little more next time. |
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Easy Rating
Two Easy Chairs (A Long March…)
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This recipe does take sometime to pull together—even without the challenges that I had with the dough. |
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Healthy Rating
One Apple (This Might Take A Year Off Your Life!)
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Unfortunately adding sweet potatoes and a little bit of spelt flour does not make this recipe a healthy one. |
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Green Rating
Three Leaves (Average Environmental Friendliness)
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The sweet potato was local and organic and some of the other ingredients were organic. |
By sally, on December 4th, 2011
Do you ever look in the fridge and realize that there are a bunch of eggs in there that need to eaten, but you’re just not sure what to cook them with? When I buy eggs for a baking project, I’m often left with a good number of them that need a recipe. We are not big egg-eaters in the morning, so when I found a recipe for a “smokey frittata” in one of my favorite cookbooks (Plenty), I got pretty excited. Not only would it take care of our remaining eggs, it would make good use of the member of the Brassica genus that was also in our fridge and in need of eating. Can you guess what it was?
Cauliflower! A quick fun fact about cauliflower and other members of the brassica genus (like brussel sprouts, cabbage, and kale): eating lots of them (in particular broccoli and cauliflower) has been associated with lower risks of prostate cancer and other types of cancer.
Another benefit of this recipe is its use of smoked mozzarella cheese and smoked paprika – we love smokey flavors, so naturally we are big fans of both of these ingredients. So this recipe is pretty amazing because it combines some great tastes with some ingredients that often need a tasty home! While it packs a punch of cholesterol so you don’t want to have it too often, it’s a great and filling vegetarian entrée to serve any night of the week!
Smokey Frittata with Cauliflower
Adapted from Plenty
- 1 small cauliflower, cut into to small florets
- 6 eggs
- 3 tablespoons almond milk (or another kind of milk)
- 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
- 2 teaspoons smoked paprika
- 3 green onions, finely chopped
- 7 ounces smoked mozzarella, grated
- Salt and pepper
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
Boil cauliflower in a large pot of salted water for 4-5 minutes or until tender crisp. Drain and set aside.
Pre-heat oven to 370°. In a large bowl whisk together eggs, almond milk, mustard, and smoked paprika, making sure all is well-mixed. Stir in the green onions and ¾ of smoked mozzarella and season with salt and pepper.
Heat the olive oil in a large oven-proof frying pan. Add cauliflower and cook for five minutes or until it starts to turn golden-brown. Pour egg mixture evenly over the cauliflower. Cook on the stove for about five minutes. Sprinkle the remaining cheese on top of the egg and cauliflower mixture.
Transfer the pan into the oven, bake for 10-12 minutes or until the frittata is set. Remove from the oven and let rest for 2-3 minutes before serving
Serves 4-6.
Tasty Easy Healthy Green Recipe Ratings:
| Recipe Report Card |
Notes About Recipe Ratings |
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Tasty Rating
Four Chefs (Delicious!)
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Double the smokiness (with both smoked paprika and mozzarella), double the taste! |
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Easy Rating
Four Easy Chairs (“ABC, Easy as 123…”!)
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While it involves a couple of steps, they are pretty straightforward and don’t take a huge amount of time. |
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Healthy Rating
Three Apples (Average Nutritional Quality)
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As long as you don’t gorge on this tasty entrée and be sure combine it with some over vegetables, this can be a relatively healthy meal – you get protein from both the eggs and the cheese, and cauliflower benefits as well. |
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Green Rating
Three Leaves (Average Environmental Friendliness)
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The eggs were local and cage-free, the cauliflower was organic, while the other ingredients were less green. |
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