New Summer Tagine Recipe

(First off, let me admit I do not own a tagine. Nevertheless, this is delicious and easy to make.)

Driven by the usual summertime necessities (65% poverty, 35% laziness) I found and tweaked a wonderful Moroccan-inspired chickpea/chik'n recipe for dinner tonight:

1 12 oz. bag Quorn Chik'n Tenders

1 14 oz. can vegetable broth

1 14 oz. can whole tomatoes

1 14 oz. can garbanzo beans

1 med. yellow onion

2 cloves garlic

1 bell pepper, diced

2 Tb. olive oil

1 tsp. cumin

1 tsp. chili powder

In your tagine (or dutch oven or other large-ish heavy-bottomed pot) saute the onion and garlic in the olive oil for about 5 min. Then add the quorn tenders spices and saute for another 5 min. or so. Pour in broth, tomatoes (and juice from the can), garbanzos, and bell pepper. Cover and simmer for about 20 minutes until everything is nice and incorporated and the aroma of everything drives you insane. Salt and pepper to taste (but you probably won't need it at all).

While that's happening, bring to a boil 1 1/4c. vegetable broth, a little of the juice from the canned tomatoes, and a sprinkle of cumin, coriander, and chili powder. Stir in 1 c. of whole wheat couscous. Cover and turn off the heat immediately, and allow the couscous to absorb the liquid (5-8 min).

Serve the "tagine" mixture over the couscous, and don't be stingy with that sauce. Garnish with fresh cilantro.

Another good protein, low fat dinner that we didn't even have to leave the house for!

New Quinoa Recipe for the New Year

I'm so happy to have a little time to cook and try out new things. I have only a week before school starts again, so I'm going to try to get a lot in!

We got the latest issue of Vegetarian Times in the mail and it has recipes submitted by students, including an excellent quinoa salad. Which I made. And am eating as I sit here typing this. It has a lot of tabouleh/arabic salad components, which of course are Zipper's favorites. And it has the added bonus of quinoa's magical properties and toasted pine nuts for crunch.

Quinoa Salad (from Veg Times with Zipper modifications)

Boil about 6c. of salted water and add 1 1/2 c. quinoa. Reduce heat and simmer until quinoa is tender (about 15 min). Drain quinoa and rinse with cold water. Drain again.

Toast 1/2 c. pine nuts in a dry pan. Don't let them burn.

Finely dice

1 english or 2 regular cucumbers (peeled, seeded) (2 1/2 c.)

2 tomatoes (3/4 c.)

1/2 red onion (about 1/2 c.)

1 bunch parsley

Toss quinoa, pine nuts and veggies. Add zest and juice of 2 lemons, 1/4 c. olive oil.

Salt & black pepper to taste.

Makes a large batch (it's supposed to serve 12). It'll be great next time I have to bring something to a potluck!

Chickpea Croquette? Hummus Fritter? Whatever. Delicious.

We got our new Vegetarian Times today and coupled with some mild food-blahs and no plans for lunch, we decided to get creative and try something new. Armed with some dry garbanzo beans, we happened to have nearly everything we needed for their recipe for Chickpea Croquettes with Greek Salad Topping (with some Zipper modifications). Given the challenge of making chickpea flour (see below), I actually halved the recipe-- but it gave us plenty for lunch for two.

the Greek Salad topping is very similar to our Arabic Salad (sans mint). Veg Times uses cherry tomatoes and low-fat vegan feta, which we omitted, and no parsley, which we added. :

1 cucumber diced

2 tomatoes diced

1/4 c. parsley chopped

2 green onions chopped

juice of 1 lemon

1 Tb. olive oil

Toss everything together and season with a little salt and black pepper

The Croquettes

1/2 c. chickpea flour (see below)

1 tsp. ground cumin

1/2 tsp. chili powder

1/4 tsp. salt

Chickpea flour is basically made with dry chickpeas, your food processor, and a high tolerance for noisy grinding. It took me nearly 20 minutes to pulverize the beans and sift through a sieve what turns out to be about half a cup of very flour-like chickpeas, indeed. I had to work in small batches, and initially, the huge, hard beans made a TERRIBLE noise-- like gravel stuck in a blender. Just keep pulsing. Eventually it'll break down, and down some more, and if you're impatient like me, you'll take every opportunity to process, dump the crushed mixture out, sift it, dump it back into the processor and repeat. Once you have about 1/2 c., whisk or sift in the spices until well blended, then mix in about 1/3 c. hot water (to get the exact measurement, fill up a half cup measuring cup 3/4 of the way). Once you have a delightful smelling paste, add:

1/2 can of garbanzo beans

3 green onions chopped

1/4 c. tomato diced

1/4 c. parsley chopped

1 clove of garlic minced

juice of 1/2 lemon

1 Tb. olive oil

If it looks and smells like chunky hummus, you're on the right track! Spoon out 1/4 c. "croquettes" in a lightly oiled, heated non-stick pan,and lightly fry over medium heat 3-4 minutes on each side until golden.

BUT WAIT! There's More!

As we were prepping this, Zips started wondering what else might go with these-- so I whipped up a nice vegan tzatziki sauce with our homemade soy yogurt. We didn't have a ton of the right ingredients, but enough to figure something out. When I nail down this recipe, I'll be sure to feature it here, but this worked out just fine, and was a delicious addition:

Vegan Tzatziki Sauce

6 oz. plain soy yogurt

1 clove garlic minced

1/2 cucumber peeled and seeded

juice of 1/2 lemon

1/4 c. parsley

dash of salt

Whiz the garlic and the cucumber up in your food processor (If I had some, I would have added more cucumber, and maybe some fresh mint.). Strain the yogurt (I didn't and had a soupy, liquid sauce) and add it, along with everything else in your processor. You're done!

We ended up pouring the tzatziki sauce over the croquettes-- they were a great cool, creamy addition that prevented them from being too dry. Now I can't imagine eating them without the sauce.