I've Moved!

If you are reading this in Google Reader, I have moved my blog over to Word Press.  However I just realized that my feed is still on my old blog on Blogger.  I have no idea how to redirect my feed to my new site!  If anyone knows how to do this please let me know.

Until I get it figured out I will try to post links over here to my blog posts on Word Press.  Please click over and enjoy! 

I've been posting a lot the past 6 weeks so there may be a lot to catch up on.  Today's post is:

What is it Wednesday: Erythritol

Thanks!! Amy

It's Official - New Blog!

Okay so I couldn't wait any longer to redirect my blog.  Once I had the new blog all set up, I just didn't want to post over here anymore.  Sorry old blog!

I've copied all posts from 2010 over to the new blog, but I will leave anything older here for reference, and may link back to them from time to time.  But please visit my new site:

http://www.everythingishomemade.com/

Let me know what you think!

New Blog in the Works

I've been a little MIA these past few days and it's because I am redesigning my blog! I'm migrating a lot of my posts over to Word Press. Go check it out:

www.everythingishomemade.wordpress.com

Tell me what you think of the new design and see what I had for breakfast.

Eventually I will redirect this link to go straight over there. But I wanted to go ahead and share it with you now.

Have a great day!

Easy Pesto Pasta & Italian Sausage

I've had a cold this week. Ugh! I tried to rest more than usual and ate lots of oranges to help my body heal faster. Luckily it only lasted a few days and I'm feeling much better now. I had skipped my mid-week run in order to go to bed earlier so I moved my longer weekend run to tonight to get it out of the way. That meant I got home later so I wanted something super easy and fast for dinner. And this was it:

Pesto Pasta & Italian Sausage
Serves 2

8 oz penne pasta
2 Field Roast sausages, Italian style
1/4 cup pesto, from a jar or make your own (but read below)

Cook pasta according to package directions. While pasta is cooking, slice sausages into 1/2 inch rounds. Once pasta is cooked, drain and toss with pesto and sliced sausages. Easy!


I'm a big fan of pesto. It's soooo delicious and so versatile. I make my own from basil from my garden in the summer, and then freeze it to use all winter.


However, now it not a good time of year to make your own pesto. In the winter you are far better off just buying a prepared version in a jar. Classico makes a good brand. Basil is just too expensive right now and would have to travel a very long way to get to your kitchen. Summer is the best time to make pesto, when the basil plants are growing like crazy and there's more than enough growing nearby. Basil is easy to grow right in your backyard, or you can buy it at your local farmers' market.


This recipe also gave me a chance to try another variety of Field Roast sausages, the Italian version. I previously used the apple-sage sausages in Butternut Squash Pasta. I liked the Italian version a lot. It was very good in this dish and would also be good on pizza or in a veggie soup. I think there are a couple more versions I haven't had yet and I'm looking forward to trying them.

Regular Uses for White Vinegar

White vinegar is extremely versatile and valuable around the house. I've seen countless lists in magazines and on websites on all the uses of white vinegar. But how many people actually put those uses into action? There are two ways that I use white vinegar around the house regularly. In the laundry and in the dishwasher. I buy white vinegar in gallon jugs for a little over $2.


I keep the big jug in the laundry room and use 1/4 cup as fabric softener with each load of laundry. The clothes do not come out smelling like vinegar, I promise!


I use the big jug to fill up this smaller squeeze bottle to keep in the kitchen:


And I use the small squeeze bottle to fill up the rinse-aid compartment in the dishwasher:


I also use the small bottle in the kitchen whenever I need white vinegar for cooking.

And there you have it. Two very simple ways to use white vinegar around the house. And both ways will save you a bunch of money because white vinegar is way cheaper than fabric softener and rinse-aid. And white vinegar does not contain any chemicals which are bad for the environment.

Check out this website for more information on white vinegar. Read the section on how its made too. I had no idea white vinegar came from corn. There are also tons of tips on using white vinegar around the house.

Sweet Potato Corn Chowder

So I seem to have a bit of an obsession with orange vegetables lately. I feel like I've been posting a lot about pumpkin, butternut squash and sweet potatoes. Maybe it's just the season? Well here we go again. This recipe is from 365 Easy Vegetarian Recipes.

Sweet Potato Corn Chowder
Serves 4

1 big sweet potato
2 cups vegetable broth
1 cup frozen corn
1 cup soy milk
Salt and pepper to taste

Peel and dice the sweet potato. In a large pot, bring vegetable broth to a boil. Add sweet potatoes and simmer approximately 20 minutes or until tender. Add corn and soy milk. Simmer 6-8 minutes longer or until hot.

With an immersion blender, puree part of the soup in the pot (but not all). If you do not have an immersion blender, transfer a couple ladles of the soup to a food processor or blender and puree. Transfer puree back to soup pot. Stir to combine.

My take on it: I made this recipe exactly as written, except I added the puree part at the end. And honestly when I first picked it out, I wasn't expecting much. There's just not that much to it. But I was actually blown away by how good it was! It was so rich and creamy and velvety. Extremely delicious. I'm not sure if it was the sweet potato or the combination of ingredients or what.

Now I apologize for this crappy picture. My husband had left our camera at his office so I couldn't take a picture the night we made it. We had enough for lunch leftovers the next day so I asked him to take a picture at work:


The amount of soup leftover wasn't quite enough for two people to have lunch the next day. So we cooked up some barley to beef it up and added that to the rest of the soup. It was just as delicious with the barley. My husband said he even liked it better with the barley.

There is one thing I think I would change for next time. I will add half of the corn to the soup, then puree, then add the rest of the corn (or increase the amount of corn). It seemed like most of the corn was pulverized during the pureeing process, so there weren't many corn kernals left. You could still taste the corn but I think I would like a few more whole corn kernals in there.

Bottom Line: I will defintely make this again. It was quick, easy and delicious.

Lentil Chili

I found this recipe AGES ago over at Hillbilly Housewife, a fun website about low cost cooking from scratch. I've had it in my recipe book for a long time and finally got around to making it last week. Click here for the original recipe. Here's the way I made it, with a few modifications:

Lentil Chili
Serves 4

1 & 1/4 c dry lentils (half a pound)
4 c tap water
2 tbsp oil
2 tbsp dry onions
3 tsp vegetable Better Than Bouillon
1 quart diced tomatoes from my freezer (or a 15oz can of tomatoes)
2 tsp chili powder
Dash hot pepper flakes
1/4 tsp black pepper

Place the lentils and the water in a large pot and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to a gentle simmer. Cook for 30 minutes. If the lentils begin to get dry, or if their water boils away then add more water. You want the lentils to remain juicy while they cook. After 30 minutes, add all of the remaining ingredients. Simmer the chili for 15 to 20 more minutes.



My take on it: The only real change I made to this recipe was to swap veggie bouillon for beef bouillon. Other than that, I picked red pepper flakes over hot sauce and used diced tomatoes from my freezer (from the garden last summer) rather than canned.

Honestly this chili is not much to look at. But it's not to be looked at, it's to be eaten! And this chili was good. It doesn't taste like regular chili, at least to me, but it's still really good. And it was really easy. The best part about this recipe was NO CHOPPING. It was nice not chopping anything for a change.

It does take about an hour, so we made this on a Sunday night. The leftovers were excellent for lunch on Monday. The chili was super filling, super cheap and super good for you.

Next time I think I will add more chili powder, probably a full tablespoon or more. I will also add some ground cumin. Increasing the chili powder and adding cumin may give it more of that chili flavor that I felt it was lacking.

I served this with Vegan Cornbread from PPK, which I also enjoyed very much.



If you don't want to make vegan cornbread, you can make this cornbread. By the way, cornbread is so easy to make from scratch. Avoid the box! All you need is a container of cornmeal. You probably already have the rest of the ingredients. It does not take much longer to measure out flour and baking powder than it does to open a box. So if you have never made it from scratch please try it. You won't go back to the box.

Bottom Line: I will make lentil chili again.

Some Great Food Blogs

I've come across some great food blogs this week that I wanted to share:

Happy Herbivore
Vegan recipe site and blog with an emphasis on whole foods and low fat. I love her elephant logo! I'm dying to try this recipe: Baked Low Fat Whole Wheat Chocolate Glazed Vegan Donuts. Sounds to good to be true...

Vegan Dad
Great recipes and beautiful pictures. I'm looking forward to trying Homemade Bagels.

Superhero Vegan
A new blog about a vegan journey. I really like her first few posts so far. And she has a recipe book like me!

Post Punk Kitchen
I actually found PPK awhile ago and it has been a great recipe resource for me. I've already made Pumpkin French Toast (see my blog post as well). I've also made Vegan Cornbread. The author of the PPK blog has written several vegan cookbooks as well. Veganomicon in particular had my mouth watering in the bookstore.

Blog Well Done
A fellow Kansas City blogger. I found him when I was googling KC Restaurant Week. I am interesting to try this Match Chicken he's been blogging about all week.

I Eat Trees
Another new vegan food blog. I really like the design of the site and want to try Mild Oat Bread.

Enjoy browsing these sites. I know you'll find some fantastic recipes and great reading!

Pumpkin Oatmeal

I've been on an oatmeal kick lately. Maybe it's the cold weather that makes me want hot oatmeal for breakfast. Last week I blogged about Banana Berry Oatmeal and this week we are having Pumpkin Oatmeal. I love all things pumpkin but had never thought of putting it in oatmeal until now. Pumpkin is actually very good for you. It's a great source of Vitamin A.

Pumpkin Oatmeal
Serves 2

1 cup oats (not quick cooking)
1 3/4 cups water
1/4 cup ground flax
1 tsp cinnamon
Dash of salt
2 tbsp maple syrup
1/4 cup pumpkin

Bring water and oats to a boil. Reduce heat. Stir in in flax, salt, and cinnamon. Simmer for 5 minutes until oats are cooked. Remove from heat, stir in pumpkin and maple syrup.


This oatmeal turned out to have a great flavor. However at times it was a bit gritty. I'm not sure why that was. It wasn't enough to make me not want to make it again though.


This oatmeal would be a great way to use up a last bit of pumpkin from a can when you don't need an entire can for another recipe. I will be making this again. It's great in the winter.

Other Pumpkin Recipes:
Pumpkin French Toast
Pumpkin Cupcakes

Roasted Sweet Potatoes

For my birthday last fall my in-laws gave me a toaster oven. I had wanted one for awhile as a way to bake small things without heating up the entire oven. I think it will be particularly useful in the summer months when I want to bake but don't want to heat up the house with the oven.

The model I got is a Cuisinart Convection Toaster Oven.


It's really a neat little appliance. It does both convection and convention style baking as well as broiling and toasting. It's the perfect size for my family since there are only two of us.

Now the instruction book that came with the toaster oven had several recipes in it and one of them was Roasted Sweet Potatoes.

Roasted Sweet Potatoes
Serves 2-3

2 large sweet potatoes
2 tbsp Earth Balance
1/2 tsp sea salt
2 tbsp light brown sugar

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Cut sweet potatoes into 2-3 inch spears and place in a large bowl. Sprinkle brown sugar and salt over sweet potatoes. Melt butter and pour over sweet potatoes. Stir to coat. Spread sweet potatoes on a baking sheet covered with foil. Bake for approximately 30 minutes or until tender, stirring occasionally.


These potatoes were so delicious. And so easy! They made the perfect side dish. I really enjoyed them. We will definitely be making this again.

Butternut Squash and Sausage Pasta

I've really been enjoying exploring vegan cooking and one of the best parts is getting exposed to all sorts of new foods that I might not have ever tried otherwise. One of those foods is Field Roast Grain Meat.

Field Roast Grain Meat is actually a meat substitute made out of wheat gluten (sorry celiacs but this is definitely not for you). I had read about how great it was and really wanted to try it. I found it at Whole Foods near the dairy section by the tofu. I decided to use it to turn this recipe, Pasta with Roasted Butternut Squash and Sage, into a vegan dish.

Field Roast offers several flavors of its grain meats. I decided to go with the Smoked Apple Sage Sausages for the recipe:


At first I was a little wary. I mean it looks like meat but its not really meat. What exactly is it going to taste like? And more importantly what will the texture be like? I am very big on the texture of my food. There are certain foods I don't like because of the way it feels in my mouth. Shrimp, lobster, scallops, and ham to name a few (hmm...all meat).


Anyway I already bought the things so we had to go for it. Now on with the recipe!

Roasted Butternut Squash and Sausage Pasta
Serves 3-4ish

1 butternut squash
2 apple-sage Field Roast sausages,
Olive oil
White onion, chopped
2-3 cloves garlic, chopped or pressed
Penne pasta, about 8 oz

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Peel and chop butternut squash into 1 inch pieces (make sure to scoop out the seeds in the middle), and place in large bowl. Drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Stir to coat. Spread in glass pan or baking sheet and roast in oven for about 30 minutes or until fork tender.


Meanwhile cook pasta according to directions, drain and set aside. Slice sausages into 1/2 inch rounds. Heat oil in skillet and add onion. Cook for a few minutes then add garlic. Cook a couple more minutes. Add sausages and cook until browned. Add pasta and roasted squash. Stir to coat everything, adding a bit more olive oil if necessary.


Voila!

The result: I made my husband try the Field Roast first because he will eat anything. He loved it! And so did I! It is seriously the best non-meat "meat" that I have tried. The texture is really good and it had great flavor. My husband said he could seriously eat it all the time. He has already been asking when we can buy it again because he wants to try all the flavors. I thought the apple sage sausages worked really well in this recipe.


Next time I might make a few changes though. This pasta dish didn't really have a sauce, just some oil coated all over everything. The roasted squash and the sausages were really flavorful so it didn't necessarily need it though. However next time I might try some veggie broth mixed in at the last step. Or I might try a bit of soy cream or thick coconut milk as a substitute for the cream in the original recipe. I might also drizzle with balsalmic vinegar as the original recipe calls for that as well.

The Field Roast sausages cost about $5 for a 4 pack if I remember correctly. We only used two of them in this recipe so we had two left over for another dinner. That means the "meat" portion of our dinner cost $2.50, which is not really any more than you would spend on real meat (maybe even less!). Even if you aren't interested in a vegan lifestyle, consider trying this stuff. It's way healthier for you than meat and you might find that you like it better.

Can I also just throw in that another great thing about vegan cooking is that you never have to worry about contamination from raw meat? That is something my husband and I have thought of several times while cooking these past few weeks. You can cut everything on the same cutting board, you don't have to be meticulous about washing your hands and your knives and getting nasty meat juice on the counter. Nope! It's great!

All in all the recipe was a success and I'm looking forward to trying more of Field Roast's products.

More pasta recipes:

Chickpea Pasta

Garden 2009: Failures...

I wanted to write some posts to catch up on my garden from last year. A couple weeks ago I wrote about my garden successes in 2009. Today is the opposite - the plants that were complete failures in 2009.

Cucumbers. Cucumbers were a complete and total failure. I tried planting them twice and barely got any flowers, much less a cucumber. They would grow into these pitful looking plants and then die. I'm not sure what went wrong with them. Not enough water, bugs, the soil, who knows. It could've been anything. I'd like to try them again in 2010 though to see if we fare any better.

Corn. I tried planting corn in a three sisters garden in one of the beds along with pole beans and pumpkins. The three sisters garden is a method of companion planting where the pole beans use the corn for support and the pumpkins grow around the bottom of the corn and keep the weeds down. The pole beans also fix nitrogen in the soil for the corn. Well I ended up with some decent looking corn stalks, but very few actual ears of corn. And the ears we did get were not developed all the way. We may have been picking it too early. Also an animal of some sort got in the garden and ate some of the corn so that didn't help at all. We're going to try corn again but not in the three sisters format.

Pole Beans. I am totally done with pole beans from now on. They were the bane of my garden in 2008 and were also a pest in 2009. I planted them around the base of the corn in the three sisters garden (see corn above). They wound around the corn stalks for support and then kept right on growing until they pulled the corn stalks over. We did get more of a harvest off the pole beans in 2009 compared to 2008 but I thought the pods were a lot tougher than bush beans. Also the pole beans were home to the BIGGEST grasshoppers I have ever seen. They totally freaked me out.

Soybeans. I thought it would be great to plant soybeans in the garden because I love edamame. I had visions of my freezer stocked with edamame and I could snack on it all winter. So I planted an entire plot of soybeans. And they grew just fine. They even survived a deer attack. But when it came time to harvest them, oh boy. I think we let them stay on the plant too long so they were a little tough. And really, really hard to get off the plants. We sat out in the garden all afternoon one day pulling soybeans off the plants. We never did get them all. If we plant them again, it will only be a few plants and I will keep a careful eye on them.

Peas. Peas were one of the first vegetables I planted last spring. I planted two short rows of them by my onions and lettuce. They were supposed to be self-supporting plants so I did not use a trellis. They took forever to grow and did not produce very many pods at all. I probably got about a half-cup of peas total for the whole year.


Herbs - Cilantro, Parsley, Oregano. I planted all three of these herbs two or three times and they never grew. I direct sowed them into the garden and not one sprout came up. This year I will start seeds indoors so I can set the seedlings into the garden instead of direct sowing.

Beets. We tried two different plantings of beets, one in the summer and one in the fall. The plants never came up for the summer planting. For the fall planting, they did come up and get some decent leaves but they never got big enough to produce any fruit.

I think that's pretty much it on the crops I consider failures. There were also a bunch of crops that were in between. Not a wild success but not a complete failure either. I'll try to write up a separate post on that and also on a phenomenon in the 2009 garden - surprise plants!

Bite Bags

It has taken some time, but I have managed to transition to using reusable bags when shopping almost all the time. I have a stash of them that I keep in the car at all times and actually remember to bring them in the store about 90% of the time. Then when I get home and unload the groceries, I immediately put the bags back in the car. Yea for a good system.

It has always irked me though that even though I try to be good about using canvas shopping bags, I still used plastic produce bags. It doesn't seem right to put a plastic bag inside a reusable bag. The point is to keep plastic bags out of landfills right? That includes those little produce bags too.

Let me introduce you to Bite Bags. These are reusable produce bags!


I can't remember how I heard about these bags. Probably on a website or forum or something. Anyway as soon as I read about them, I went straight over to the website and ordered the "Rustic" 3 pack. I really wanted to order the cute pink ones but figured my husband wouldn't be too crazy about shopping with little bags with pink trim.

Total cost with shipping was around $18 for all three bags. They arrived in about a week. So far I LOVE them! They are perfect for grocery shopping. And what I didn't realize until I got them is that they are see-through. Here are two of mine in action with some potatoes:


I have used them at the grocery store several times now. Anything that I would put in a plastic produce bag I now put in these bags. I've also used them for dry beans from the bulk bins. The bags have a drawstring top with a cord lock that keeps the bag closed.

The problem now is that I only have three of them so I might be placing another order soon. I see that they also sell a little snack bag which would be great for my brown bag lunches during the week.

To purchase Bite Bags, go to www.sustainablebite.com

Surprise Harvest

Look what we found in the garden today:


Surprise! The carrots we planted last fall (and never picked) had survived the crazy snow. The snow has finally melted almost all the way so we were able to go check out the garden this afternoon. And we dug up these carrots. We already tried one and they are nice and crunchy. Maybe next year I'll plant carrots in late fall on purpose so I can harvest them in January.



I'm getting excited for the 2010 garden!

Banana Berry Oatmeal

I came across this recipe over at The Discerning Brute, a blog for guys that I happen to read sometimes (hey it's interesting!). It looked super delicious and very healthy so I knew I would try it. I made it for a late breakfast/early lunch last weekend after we got back from a morning at the gym and grocery store. Here's how I made it, with a few variations from The Discerning Brute's original recipe:

Hearty Banana Berry Flax Oatmeal
Serves 2

1 1/2 cups of oats (not instant)
1 cup of water
1 cup almond milk
1 Tbs Maple Syrup
1/4 cup flax meal (ground flax seeds)
Handful of almonds (or your favorite nut)
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 Large Banana, sliced
1/2 cup blueberries

Combine the water, milk and oats and bring to a boil over medium heat. Lower heat to a simmer and stir in the maple syrup, flax, almonds, cinnamon and vanilla. After 5 minutes the oats should be cooked so turn off the heat. Stir in the blueberries and banana.


My take on it: The original recipe called for equal parts oats and liquid (water + milk) which I completely disagree with. I've always made oatmeal with a 2:1 liquid to oats ratio. But I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, so I only reduced the amount of oats from 2 cups to 1 1/2. I should've reduced the amount all the way to one cup because I still had to add some more water during the cooking process. However it may also be a personal preference. I like my oatmeal more liquidy.

I also forgot to add the almonds in the middle of the cooking so I threw them on top and stirred them in at the end. And my banana wasn't quite ripe enough.

Despite all that, I really liked the flavor of this recipe. AND it is so healthy for you. Blueberries, oats, flax, cinnamon are all great things to add to your diet. If you've never used ground flax before, I encourage you to try it. I bought a bag of Bob's Red Mill ground flax a few months ago and I've been putting it in everything. Smoothies, yogurt, cereal, oatmeal and cornbread to name a few. You can also stir it into soups and sauces. It's a great source of Omega-3 fatty acids.


Doesn't it look yum? I think I would eat this every morning if I could get myself out of bed early enough. This is the type of breakfast that keeps you full all the way till lunch.

Bottom Line: Definitely making this again with more liquid or less oats next time.

Top 10 Reasons to Eat Oatmeal

KC Restaurant Week!

Today is the beginning of Restaurant Week in Kansas City. What is restaurant week? Well I got this neat card in the mail telling me all about it. Kansas City Restaurant Week is a city-wide event to raise money for Harvesters. A lot of restaurants will be offering a multi-course lunch and dinner menu for which 10% of the price of each will benefit Harvesters.

Check out the restaurant list to see if your favorite restaurant is participating and to check out the menus. Restaurant week runs from January 22-31, so if you were planning on going out to eat anyway, you might as well hit one of these places and help out a good cause.

I am trying to decide if I want to visit one of my favorite restaurants or try somewhere new. There are so many to choose from!

Naan

Yesterday I posted about the Chickpea Curry we made last last Sunday and today I'm posting about the Naan we made to go with it. I'm super excited to post this recipe because it was really fun to make and turned out really, really good! Naan is a type of flat bread. We've made it once before a looooong time ago and couldn't really remember how it went. So we found a recipe on All Recipes to try.

Naan
Makes a lot

1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast (or 2 1/4 tsp from a jar)
1 cup warm water
1/4 cup white sugar
3 tablespoons soy milk
1 egg, beaten
2 teaspoons salt
4 1/2 cups bread flour (may not need all of it)
2 cloves minced garlic
1/4 cup butter

In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Let stand about 10 minutes, until frothy. Stir in sugar, milk, egg, salt, and enough flour to make a soft dough. Knead for 6 to 8 minutes on a lightly floured surface, or until smooth. Place dough in a well oiled bowl, cover with a damp cloth, and set aside to rise. Let it rise 1 hour, until the dough has doubled in volume.

Punch down dough. Pinch off small handfuls of dough about the size of a golf ball. Roll into balls, and place on a tray. Cover with a towel, and allow to rise until doubled in size, about 30 minutes.


During the second rising, preheat grill to high heat. Melt butter in microwave and stir in garlic. At grill side, roll one ball of dough out into a thin circle.


Lightly oil grill. Place dough on grill, and cook for 2 to 3 minutes, or until puffy and lightly browned.


Brush uncooked side with butter, and turn over. Brush cooked side with butter, and cook until browned, another 2 to 4 minutes. Remove from grill, and continue the process until all the naan has been prepared.

Naan in various stages of completion. The one on the left is a bit overdone.


Perfect Naan!


My take on it: We made mostly as directly, substituting soy milk for regular milk and putting the garlic in the melted butter instead of kneading it into the dough.

The hard part of this recipe was rolling and grilling the dough. We used a two-man process. I rolled out the dough while my husband grilled it. I think rolling it out really thin helped them cook better. That was mentioned in the comments to the original recipe over at All Recipes. We used our grill pan to cook them on the stove top and it worked out perfectly. We could grill three naan (naans?) at a time. Even with three going at a time, it still took quite awhile to process them all. We ended up with 19 total!

The entire recipe from start to finish took about 2 1/2 to 3 hours. So definitely not a recipe for a week night. However it was totally worth the time and effort on a weekend.

The naan was sooooooo delicious. We gobbled them up. And there were so many of them that we enjoyed them all week long. I could definitely see making a whole bunch of these at once and freezing them individually so we can pull them out to have with dinner at any time.

Bottom line: Definitely making this again!

Chickpea Curry

So last Sunday we decided to make Indian food for dinner. We hadn't had Indian food in forever and it sounded really good. I found what looked like an easy recipe for Chickpea Curry on All Recipes.

Chickpea Curry
Serves 4

4 medium potatoes, cubed
2 tablespoons canola oil
1 medium yellow onion, diced
1 teaspoon minced garlic
2 teaspoons curry powder
2 teaspoons garam masala
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon salt
1 10.75 oz can condensed tomato soup
1/2 cup coconut milk
1 can chickpeas, rinsed and drained

Place potatoes in a saucepan, cover with water, and bring to a boil over high heat; simmer until the potatoes are tender. Drain, and set aside.

Warm oil in a skillet over medium heat. Stir in onion and garlic, and cook until the onions are soft and translucent. Stir in curry powder, garam masala, ginger, cumin, and salt. Cook for 1 or 2 minutes, stirring. Pour in soup, cream, and chickpeas. Stir in potatoes. Simmer 5 minutes.



My take on it: The original recipe called for milk and I substituted coconut milk instead based on some of the comments to the recipe. I used coconut milk from a can, not the kind in a carton by the regular milk. The can kind was super creamy and thick. Other than that I made the recipe as directed.

And boy was it delicious. And easy. I really liked this recipe. It was a nice mild curry. We ate it with brown rice and naan. Naan is a type of flatbread and I plan to post the recipe tomorrow.


There was a ton of everything leftover so I enjoyed leftovers for lunch for at least two days. Although I had to eat my food in the break room instead of at my desk because I didn't want to smell up the cubicle area! P.S. Our house smelled like curry for at least a day after this.

The only thing I didn't like about this recipe was the condensed tomato soup. We could not find a brand of condensed soup that did not have a whole bunch of crap listed in the ingredients. We ended up buying it anyway because I really wanted to make this recipe. Next time I will try making it with plain tomato puree or chopped tomatoes or my own tomato soup. Honestly I didn't notice the tomato flavor at all so I bet it would be easy to substitute something else.

Bottom Line: Will definitely make again and will seek out other curry recipes to try.

Kale & White Bean Soup

I came across this recipe in my January issue of Real Simple (which I am a little behind in reading). I was intrigued because of the kale. I didn't think I'd ever had kale before and wanted to try it out. Here's how we made it this past week for dinner.

Kale & White Bean Soup
Serves 8

2 tbsp olive oil
4 cloves garlic, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
1 1/2 tsp fine sea salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
2 cans cannellini beans, drained and rinsed (15.5 oz each)
1 cup whole wheat elbow pasta
1 bunch kale, thick stems discarded and leaves torn into 2-inch pieces
2 tsp dried rosemary
8 cups water
1 tbsp fresh lemon juice

Heat the oil in a large pot over medium-high heat. Add the garlic, celery, onion, salt and pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until tender, 4-6 minutes.

Add the beans, pasta, kale, rosemary, and 8 cups water. Cover and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until pasta and kale are tender, 4-5 minutes. Stir in the lemon juice before serving. Serve with warm bread.


The steam kept getting in the way of the picture!

My take on it: I didn't change much from the original recipe. I used whole wheat elbows instead of the pastas they suggested and also omitted the optional parmesan rind and cheese. I used dried rosemary instead of fresh. One other change I didn't notice until now is that the recipe called for Kosher salt and I used sea salt. Not sure how much of a difference that would make.

Overall the soup was easy to make. Once again the hardest part was washing and cutting the kale, which I successfully delegated to my husband. It was fairly quick to make as well and was a one-pot meal. It also made a lot of soup. Plenty for dinner and lots of leftovers.


The taste, however, was a bit sub-par. It was a little bland, which was surprising considering the amount of salt. It seemed like something was missing. We both thought it was odd that the recipe called for only water for the liquid instead of stock or broth. We did like the kale part. I expected it to wilt like spinach does in soup, but it held its shape and bite better. Kale has a different flavor than other greens and I could see myself using it in other recipes.

The next day I took some of the leftovers for lunch and afterwards I felt thirsty all afternoon. I think it was because of all the salt. I didn't notice it as much in the taste but I sure felt it later.

Bottom line: We said we would try this recipe again with some changes - using veggie broth or boullion instead of just water and maybe adding some carrots for color. However there are so many great soup recipes out there that I doubt we ever come back to it.

Not all was lost though. It was a great exposure to a new ingredient - kale! We might try growing it in the garden this year now.

Other soup recipes:
Tuscan Bean Soup
Roasted Eggplant Soup
Summer Stew

Homemade Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups

When I first saw this recipe in The Kind Diet, I thought "Hmm this looks good but I bet it's a pain in the rear to make" and skipped right on by. I came back to it later when it was time to do some Christmas baking and decided to take a stab at it. Turns out my first impression was totally wrong. These peanut butter cups were actually pretty easy to make!

Homemade Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups
Makes 12 (or a whole bunch of minis)

1/2 cup Earth Balance butter
3/4 cup crunchy peanut butter
3/4 cup graham cracker crumbs
1/4 cup maple sugar or white sugar
1 cup chocolate chips (vegan or carob)
1/4 cup soy, rice or nut milk
1/4 cup chopped pecans, almonds or peanuts

Line a 12 cup muffin pan with paper liners. Set aside.

Melt the butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Stir in the peanut butter, graham cracker crumbs and maple sugar and mix well. Remove the mixture from heat. Evenly divide the mixture, approximately 2 tablespoons per cup, among the muffin cups.

Combine the chocolate and milk in another pan. Stir over medium heat until the chocolate has melted. Spoon the chocolate evenly over the peanut butter mixture. Top with chopped nuts. Place in the refrigerator to set for at least 2 hours before serving.


My take on it: I made the recipe exactly as directed, except I used mini muffin cups instead of full size cups. I don't remember exactly how many minis I got out of the recipe but it was well over 2 dozen, probably closer to 3 dozen.

It was actually really easy. There's no baking, only melting and layering. The hardest part was getting the stuff into the tiny muffin cups. If I had made these in the regular size cups it would've been a snap. However I'm glad I didn't make the large ones because they are really rich. I don't think I could eat a regular size peanut butter cup.

So I took these to two family Christmas gatherings and they were a hit at both! They were absolutely delicious. We did not have any leftovers to bring home.



Bottom Line: I will definitely make these again, particularly to take to a party.