Red Pen Mama

Hi! Remember when I used to post recipes? Now that I am finding it difficult to actually post at all, I figured I better get organized (again) or I will not be posting at all.

Of course, I didn’t even feel healthy until last Wednesday, so everything took a hit last week, not just blogging.

And, we met Eve, and she is the cutest Itty ever. Even if her mom feels compelled to occasionally call her Smeagol.

Today’s recipe (and I can’t believe I haven’t posted it yet):
RPM’s Vegetarian Chili

Olive oil
Garlic (3 or 4 cloves)
Soy crumbles, 1 package
2 Tbsp. chili powder
1 can diced tomatoes
1 can chili beans (I use medium sauce)
1 can garbanzoes or black beans, drained
1 can corn (optional)
Cheddar cheese for serving

1. Saute garlic in heavy-bottomed sauce pan.
2. Add crumbles and chili powder. Reduce heat to medium. Stir until crumbles are warmed through.
3. Added canned beans and vegetables. Stir everything together.
4. Let simmer lightly over medium heat for 20 to 30 minutes.

I serve this chili in a variety of ways. The stand-by has been sprinkled with cheddar or “Mexican” cheese with tortilla chips. Lately I’ve served it over pierogies, sprinked with cheese. Very good!

I love my friends, and my friends’ children.

But it is a bummer when social interactions leave you and your children with itchy noses and scratchy throats. Putting my children in daycare again is going to be a shock to their systems.

At least they are napping.

It’s also good to know I am not alone. I remember one time when Monkey had brought home a little bug from daycare (or maybe it was Bun, before she got kicked out), and DearDR and I both came down with it. As he was laying in bed — if I remember correctly, I had just brought him some hot tea — and I was asking him to help me out a little bit, he whined to me, “I just feel like I’m not allowed to be sick.”

I coulda smacked him. I’m the one not allowed to be sick. Scratchy throat and minor headache not withstanding, I just cleaned the kitchen and started some laundry.

Monkey is asleep on her little couch downstairs, one hand thrown over her head. She feels a little warm today, and she hasn’t had much to eat. Last night, she woke up crying at 1:15 a.m. I went in to her, and she cried, “Something is wrong with my nose!” Phoenetcially: “Dom-ting is wrog wit by dose!” She was so stuffed up, she couldn’t even sniff.

After checking that she hadn’t stuffed anything up her nostrils (it’s happened), I gave her a decongestant (FDA warning be damned; I read directions. I’m the daughter of two pharmacist’s for Pete’s sake!), and let her sleep in our room. She is definitely not her spunky self. Bun is running at the nose a little. I am filling all the humidifiers upstairs, and getting them running.

Here’s a quick one on the recipe front. Adapted from the back of the Biquick box.

Serves 6

1 Tsp. olive oil
2 cloves garlic
1/2 package soy crumbles*
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1/2 cup Bisquick
1 cup milk
2 eggs

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Spray nine-inch pie dish with cooking spray.
2. Saute garlic in oil over medium heat. Add soy crumbles and brown. Pour into pie dish.
3. Sprinkle cheese over crumbles.
4. Mix together remaining ingredients. Pour over cheese and crumbles in pie dish.
5. Bake for 25 minutes, or until knife inserted in center of pie comes out clean.

* If you are using Boca crumbles, use one pouch. If you are using Morningstar Farms crumbles use 1/2 a bag. I would estimate you want between 4 and 6 ounces of crumbles. An entire bag of the Morningstar Farms crumbles is too much. Trust me.

Here’s the original recipe from Bisquick. It uses real meat — and onions and salt. I don’t think this recipe needs salt.

I’m sorry; I couldn’t resist the alliteration.

I have two very easy (as per) black bean recipes.

Simple Seasoned Black Beans
Adapted from Vegetarian Times Complete Cookbook
(mine was published in 1995)

Olive Oil
1/2 medium onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic (or to taste)
4 cups cooked black beans (or two 16-ounce cans, rinsed)
1/2 cup bean cooking liquid, or vegetable broth, or liquid from canned beans
Juice of 1/2 lemon
Cumin, to taste
Salt & pepper, to taste

1. Heat oil in large saucepan; add onions and cook, stirring, over medium heat until onions are translucent, about 10 minutes. Add garlic; cook another 5 minutes, or until onions are golden.
2. Add beans and bean liquid and bring to a simmer. If you want to thicken the mixture, mash a quarter of the beans with the back of a wooden spoon.
3. Add lemon juice, cumin, salt and pepper; simmer over low heat for 15 minutes.

That’s it! Serve over cous cous, or brown or white rice. I also serve with soy sauce for DearDR and me.

RPM Tofu, Black Beans and Broccoli
I’ve been making this recipe so long (i.e. since I was single and living on the South Side) I don’t even know where I first got it. I suspect I adapted it from Vegetarian Times Magazine.

Olive Oil
3 cloves garlic
12-16 ounces extra firm (or firm) tofu, pressed and cut into 1-inch cubes
Cumin or curry, to taste
1 16-ounce can black beans, with liquid
One or two stalks of broccoli, cut into florets

1. Heat oil in large skillet; add garlic and cook for a minute or so.
2. Add cubed tofu and cumin (or curry). Cook, stirring, about 5 minutes.
3. Add black beans and broccoli. Stir, then cover and cook over medium-low heat for about 20 minutes, or until broccoli is tender.
4. Serve over brown or white rice; add soy sauce to taste.

I am almost ashamed to use this next recipe as a post. But frankly, the holidays are over, and I need to get back to simplicity and a schedule. This is all I got.

RPM Roasted Vegetables

Two sweet potatoes
One or two baking potatoes
Baby carrots (I used 1/2 a pound)
Any other root vegetable you like
Olive oil
Seasoning salt
Other herbs and seasoning to taste

1. Preheat oven to 400.
2. Peel potatoes (and other root veggies, if using), and cut into 1-inch pieces.
3. Throw vegetables into a bowl. Drizzle with a couple of tablespoons of oil; add seasonings. (I usually use seasoning salt, freshly ground black pepper, and some garlic salt with parsely.)
4. Toss vegetables to coat with oil and seasonings. Put everything on a cookie sheet; spread into a single layer.
5. Cook for 45 minutes to an hour, until veggies are fork tender.

Rather than root vegetables, you can use vegetables such as broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus, etc. These veggies will cook up more quickly, probably in 20 to 30 minutes. I wouldn’t mix them with the root veggies because of the different cooking times.

This is another dish that elicits praise from guests and DearDR. And it’s so easy! Saturday, I paired this with a pre-marinated pork tenderloin from the store (I didn’t have to touch it) and a salad (with Quorn “chicken” for us vegetarians). My parents and sister (the aforementioned SS) loved it, and I had no leftovers.

These two sauces have very few ingredients, but are incredibly versatile. The pesto is better during the summer, when we have fresh-from-the-herb-garden basil, but can be made any time of year.

RPM’s Marinara Sauce

Extra virgin olive oil
Five cloves garlic, diced
28 oz. can crushed tomatoes
28 oz. can tomato sauce
Handful of basil leaves, chopped
Optional herbs/spices: 1/2 tsp. oregano, 1/4-1/2 tsp. chili pepper flakes
Parmesan cheese for serving

1. Heat oil over medium heat. Add diced garlic. Cook for 1-2 minutes.
2. Add crushed tomatoes and tomato sauce, stirring.
3. Add herbs and spices.
4. Let simmer over low to medium low heat, stirring occasionally, for 20 to 30 minutes. Turn heat off, and let sit another 30 minutes to hour to meld flavors.

Serve over your favorite pasta, with cheese. Or use in recipes that call for marinara or tomato sauce, such as eggplant Parmesan, lasagna, “chicken” Parmesan, etc. The sauce also freezes very well.

RPM’s Pesto Sauce

Four to five cloves garlic
1/3 to 1/2 cup pine nuts
1/2 cup to 1 cup Parmesan cheese
1 cup loosely packed basil
Pinch of salt
Extra virgin olive oil

1. Combine garlic, pine nuts, cheese and basil in a mini-food processor.
2. Pulse ingredients, adding olive oil until sauce has a thick liquid-like consistancy. Try not to make it too runny.
3. Toss with your favorite pasta.

I’m sorry the amounts here aren’t very exact. This is definitely a “to taste” recipe. Here at Casa di RPM, we like it with lots of garlic and basil. Vary accordingly.

I also to like to use the pesto when I am entertaining. When fish eaters are guests, I put it over salmon — one of DearDR’s favorite dishes. It’s so easy: Just preheat your oven to 350 degrees; spoon 1/2 inch pesto over salmon filets; cover and cook (in greased Pyrex or casserole dish) for 30 minutes. I get rave reviews about this one everytime.

I know that if you look at the date on the post you will think I posted this Tuesday, but I tell you now: it is 8:45 p.m., Monday. So date be damned, it’s still Meatless Monday.

This is another favorite of mine; I actually haven’t made it for quite a while. I plan to bring cookies and hor d’oerves to my sister-in-law’s for Christmas (leftovers from the party — everything is frozen), but I may make and bring this dish, too. It’s incredibly easy.

Creamy Chickpea-Tahini Casserole

3 cups cooked brown rice
1 can chickpeas, drained
1 can diced tomatoes
2 cloves garlic, diced
1 medium onion, chopped
3 Tbsp. tahini
Dried basil (or other dried herbs) to taste
1 Tbsp. olive oil
Seasame seeds

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. (I’m sorry; I don’t know the metric conversion.)

2. In a greased (I use some Pam) casserole dish, mix together rice, chickpeas, tomatoes, onion, garlic, tahini and herbs. Cover, pop into oven and cook for 45 minutes.

3. Remove casserole and uncover. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with sesame seeds. Turn oven up to 400 degrees and cook another 10-15 minutes, uncovered.

Some notes: The original recipe called for 6 cups of rice, but I discovered that is WAY too much rice. Unless you really, really like rice. I don’t actually use onion in this recipe, because DearDR doesn’t like onions that much, but it was in the OR, and it makes sense. You can add other stuff like capers or chopped kalamata olives (mmm, olives) to vary the taste.

When DearDR and I started dating, he was quite the independent guy. He had his own place, he did his own laundry, cooked his own meals, etc. (I could point out that he lived in the top floor apartment in his uncle’s house, not very far from where he grew up, and that, in addition to allegedly working on his Ph.D., he worked in his family’s restaurant. But that is incidental to the point.)

He was not put off by the fact that I was a vegetarian; his sister had been one since she was a teenager, so it was a lifestyle with which he was familiar.

A few weeks into our relationship, we went with a bunch of my friends to Cook Forest. We all slept in the same cabin, and everyone brought food, and we sat around a campfire and drank a lot. (This annual tradition continues to this day; we missed last year because of Bun’s arrival.)

DearDR brought lentil soup. It was from a recipe he had written down on an index card. Could be something his sister gave to him; could have been copied out of a magazine or cookbook.

After our marriage, I adapted it. When DearDR tried it, he said, “You make my lentil soup better than me.” I’m pretty proud of that.

RPM’s Lentil Soup

Four cloves garlic, chopped
Four celery stalks, chopped
Four carrots, sliced
Olive oil
One bag (approximately three cups) of brown lentils
Four cups vegetable stock
Three cups water
Ground pepper

1. (You know the drill In a large soup pot, saute the garlic in oil. Add celery and carrots; cover and cook until soft, about 5 minutes.
2. Rinse and sort through lentils. Add to garlic, celery and carrots. Stir to coat in oil.
3. Add vegetable stock and water. Add pepper to taste.
4. Cook for four to five hours; if needed, add more liquid.

Serve with crusty bread and butter, and salad. Sprinkle soup with parmesean cheese. I don’t add salt because I don’t want it to be too salty for people; if someone wants salt, he or she can add it.

At some point in our marriage, DearDR mentioned a dish that his mother used to make that he really liked. He called it Beefy Cheesy Macaroni. From his description, it sounded a lot like a dish my mother used to make that we called goulash. (It was not true goulash, which I know is an Eastern European recipe. That’s just what we called it for some reason — we are not Eastern European in heritage, so I’m not really sure where we picked it up.) I asked if he would mind if I tried a vegetarian version of it. He said go ahead.

After a few tries, I got it down, and it is another favorite of the house. I’m probably going to make it this week, with the cold rainy weather settling in.

We now call it “Beefy” Cheesy Macaroni

1 pound elbow macaroni
3 cloves garlic, chopped
Olive oil
1 package soy crumbles (I use Morningstar Farms)
1 28 ounce can crushed tomatoes
Dried basil and oregano to taste
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

1. Prepare the elbow macaroni according to package directions.

2. While the macaroni is boiling, in a skillet saute the garlic in the olive oil. Add soy crumbles and saute until warmed through.

3. Add crushed tomatoes and herbs to taste. Let simmer on low for about 15-20 minutes.

4. Drain the macaroni and set aside, or put into serving bowl. Add cheddar cheese to “beefy” tomato sauce and cook another 5 minutes. Spoon the cheesy tomato sauce over the macaroni. Toss and serve hot!

This is definitely an under-30-minute recipe, which is another reason it’s a favorite of mine. If you want to try it with ground meat, I’m sure it will be just as tasty.

I got almost 13 hours of sleep last night, so I am a functional human being again. I have a ton to do in the next four hours, and Bella has the girls, so I better scoot!

I love this recipe because it takes what can be a time-consuming dish and converts it into a slow-cooker recipe. I did not adapt this one at all.

From Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker

Wild Mushroom Risotto

1/4 cup dried porcini mushrooms
1 cup boiling water
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 shallots, minced
1 large garlic clove, minced (okay, I usually use 2)
1 1/4 cup arborio rice
2 cups chopped cremini mushrooms
2 1/2 cups vegetable stock
1/4 cup white wine
2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme, or 1 teaspoon dried
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese (or soy cheese substitute)
1 tablespoon minced fresh parsely leaves
Freshly ground black pepper

1. Soak the dried porcini in the boiling water for 30 minutes. Drain, reserving 3/4 cup of the soaking liquid. Chop mushrooms and set aside.

2. In a medium-sized skillet, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the shallots and garlic and cook until fragrant and slightly softened, about 1 minute.

3. Transfer shallots and garlic to a 3 1/2-4-quart slow cooker. Add rice, stirring to coat with oil. Stir in all the mushrooms, the reserved soaking liquid, stock, wine, thyme and salt. Cover and cook on high for about 2 hours, until all liquid is absorbed.

4. About 5 minutes before the end of cooking time, stir in the cheese and parsely and season with pepper. To serve, spoon the risotto into shallow bowls and serve hot.

I will be making this as a side for Thanksgiving. We are heading to my parents’ house. My mom is gracious enough to get Tofurky for me and the girls, and most of her sides are vegetarian, too.

Someone at NaBloPoMo had a post about stress-free holidays or entertaining. If I can find the discussion, I’ll link to it. I think I am a fairly successful hostess, and here is what I try to do:

1. Keep it simple. I don’t put out a lot of different types of hor d’oevres if I’m making a full dinner. If I am cooking dinner, I make it a very straight-forward meal. For example, pesto-encrusted salmon, pasta with marinara, salad and bread (with another type of protein for the vegetarians). For my daughter’s birthday, I put out a big veggie tray with dip, and chips and salsa for people to munch on. The meal was soup (2 kinds. 1 veg and 2 meat), panini (4 types, 2 veg and 2 meat) and salad. Everyone had cake for dessert.

2. Delegate, delegate, delegate. My sister Earthmother helped me make the panini (she put them together, and I cooked ‘em, basically). My other sister-in-law played with the kids — she even took them for a walk at one point. My brother fed Bun (even though he is ethically opposed to tofu *smile*). My mother and my MIL each brought one of the soups. In other words, let people help. It’s too hard to do everything yourself. Even Martha Stewart has staff!

3. Plan ahead, but be flexible. Have a timeline that you want things to run on, and then let things roll. Try not to get too bent out of shape if, for example, present opening takes too long. You’re not trying to get the trains to run perfectly on time; you’re entertaining people.

4. If you can make things ahead, do it. The various panini had various sauces, and I either made them ahead or, in the case of pesto, bought it pre-made (I miss my fresh basil plant).

The holidays can be — should be, make that — fun and enjoyable times, not dreadful (i.e. full of dread). Just let yourself off the hook, know your limits, and your children’s limits, and bring back the joy. This season is about love, sharing and family, not spending too much, eating too much, and running around trying to please everyone! For me, also, the Christmas season especially, is about Christ, and I am trying to teach my girls that he is the centerpiece of the season, not Santa and big shiny gifts.

Good Luck. Happy Thanksgiving, no matter how you spend it!

Adapted from Great Recipes for Good Health (published by Reader’s Digest)

Hearty Lentil Stew
Serves 8 — with plenty left over to freeze

3 cloves garlic
Olive oil
1/2 yellow onion, chopped
2 large stalks celery, chopped
4 medium carrots, peeled and cut into 1-inch pieces
1 1/2 cups lentils
4 cups vegetable broth
2 cans diced tomatoes, with juice
1 tsp. rosemary, crumbled
Black pepper to taste
1/4 pound small mushrooms, halved
4 medium all-purpose potatoes (about 1 lb.), peeled and cut into cubed*

1. In a large pot or Dutch over, saute garlic and onions in olive oil. Add carrots and celery; saute for 15 minutes or until they begin to soften. Add lentils; stir to coat with oil.
2. Add broth, tomatoes, rosemary and pepper. Bring to a simmer. Cover and cook for 35 minutes.
3. Add mushrooms and potatoes after 35 minutes. Simmer another 20 to 25 minutes, or until potatoes and lentils are tender. Serve over white or brown rice.

* You can also use smaller potatoes, such as red potatoes. You don’t have to peel them if, like me, you don’t want to bother.

Another popular dish at my house. DearDR and the kids love lentils, and this makes enough for more than one meal. If you don’t want to use rice, you can serve it with a nice hearty loaf of bread. A green salad rounds out the meal.