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Deborah Madison’s Potato and Chickpea Stew

06.26.2017 by J. Doe // 1 Comment

We were invited to spend Christmas with friends, and since we’d had loads of fun celebrating a very English style Christmas with them the year before, we accepted. There would be trivia games with questions we could not answer, and Christmas crackers, and silly paper crowns, and for dessert, traditional English mince pies. I would have two pies: The one I was served, and the one left behind by The Child after she ate the scoop of ice cream served alongside it, then discovered she was Too Full To Eat Another Bite.

I asked what I could contribute to the meal and was told: anything, as long as it’s either gluten-free or vegan, ideally both, but that’s not always possible, and really, anything is lovely.

I spent many hours searching my cookbooks and the internet, and arrived at a disheartening conclusion: There is very little food that is both vegan and gluten-free that I personally want to eat, much less make and serve to others. I consider bringing a platter of decoratively arranged vegetables – an actual recipe from a cookbook I bought on a layover in Iceland – but eventually settled on some simple baked apples, which turned out okay, which is about the most I can say for them.

I’ve made baked apples before, many times, with quite some success, so I pondered my failure at some length the next day. The problem, as I see it, is this: It is easy to find a good recipe when you are searching for something you want to enjoy. Oh! you think, This should be good, and you go off and make it and maybe make little adjustments to suit your taste or align with the contents of your pantry.

The process of choosing a recipe because it isn’t something is a different one. It begins with a firm statement: No. I looked at and rejected dozens of recipes because of some butter or some eggs or, god forbid, a pastry crust.  I know that some baked goods can be modified to be gluten free, but I’ve learned from the hard experience of heart-rendingly bad banana bread that the process is not simply a one-to-one substitution of gluten-free flour for plain. Rather more frustratingly, at the end of the process, an imperfect effort to be inclusive of someone else’s dietary choices will be greeted not with thanks, but with a large serving of disappointment followed by a chaser of regret.

Such was the fate of my baked apples, eaten without the enthusiasm that greets my usual dessert offerings (Oatmeal Pie, Sugar Cream Pie). To be fair, it was also the fate of this year’s mince pies, or more specifically, the subgroup of mince pies made with store-bought gluten-free crusts.

The mince pie baker and I were on the same team on the annual trivia contest, and we didn’t fare very well there, either. When we said goodbye, we vowed: Next year, we’ll do better.

With twelve months to plan, I began, but decided that rather than researching recipes that are primarily defined by what they lack, I would simply try to notice recipes that happen to be vegan or gluten-free in the usual course of looking at cookbooks for recipes that I might want to try, if the mood takes me. I theorized that, as with a Google search, phrasing a query slightly differently might produce very different results.

This is a long-winded way of explaining why I was excited to learn that vegetarian food writer Deborah Madison had published a new cookbook, In My Kitchen.  Even without an actual need for vegetarian recipes, I would have been excited, because I’ve appreciated Madison since the day I tried out her Smoky Brussels Sprouts on Toast, a dish that quickly found its way into the regular dinner rotation at my house, either with the cheese toasts when I wanted something substantial, or without them, when a diet banished carbohydrates from my menu. The cookbook from which I sourced that recipe – The New Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone – is, unfortunately, massive, in a way that doesn’t really lend itself to perusing before bed.

As luck would have it, I received a digital preview copy of In My Kitchen, which readily lends itself to reading whenever I have a few minutes and my iPad handy. The book offers a nice assortment of recipes that are all clearly marked vegan, or gluten free, or if they happen to be neither, suggest modifications that can be made to accommodate dietary restrictions. Perhaps as important – or perhaps more important – it includes quite a few recipes that sound delicious and don’t require any unusual ingredients. So one day, when I felt inspired to try something new, I chose her recipe for a vegetarian stew.

It was easy to make, and easy to modify, which I needed to do, since I didn’t have exactly the number of bell peppers called for, and apparently should have given my supply of saffron a decent burial several years ago. Although these are things that seem like they should be problems, they weren’t; it’s a forgiving recipe if you follow the broad outlines and taste as you go.

The real test of any recipe, of course, is whether it meets the approval of my toughest critic, The Child. She pronounced it a keeper, but rather more reassuringly, helped herself to seconds that evening, and took leftovers to school for her lunch the following day.

Not long after, I was delighted to discover Madison was giving an author talk and signing cookbooks at an event at the local cookbook store. I went with another vegan friend, and made a surprise discovery: Deborah Madison, foremost vegetarian cookbook writer, is not a vegetarian. She signed my cookbook and we chatted about the fact that it’s possible for steak-lovers to appreciate a good vegetable dish, too.

 


Deborah Madison's Potato and Chickpea Stew
 
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Author: adapted from Deborah Madison, In My Kitchen
Ingredients
  • 1 lb fingerling or other small potatoes
  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 large onion, finely diced
  • 1 large red pepper, diced
  • 1 large yellow pepper, diced
  • salt and pepper
  • 1 tsp (2 cloves) minced garlic
  • 1 tsp smoked paprika
  • 1 tsp hot paprika
  • 3 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
  • ½ cup dry sherry
  • 1 (14.5 ounce) can diced tomates, juices included
  • 1 (14.5 ounce) can chickpeas (garbanzos), drained and rinsed
  • 1 to 2 cups water (or vegetable broth)
  • 1 bunch spinach, rinsed, stems removed
Instructions
  1. Scrub potatoes and cut into pieces (halves or quarters depending on how big they are).
  2. Heat a Dutch oven or other large, deep pot, over medium-high heat, and when the pan is warm, add the olive oil. When the oil is hot, add the onion, red and yellow peppers, and potatoes. Lower the heat to medium and cook for about 20 minutes with the lid on the pan, stirring the vegetables every so often.
  3. When the potatoes are tender but still firm, season with 1 tsp of salt and some pepper, and add the garlic. After a few minutes, remove the lid, and add both paprikas, the parsley, and the sherry. Simmer until the liquids in the pan have reduced and are somewhat syrupy.
  4. Add the tomatoes and chickpeas, and enough water to just cover. Put the lid back on the pan and simmer until the potatoes are completely cooked through, another 10-20 minutes.
  5. While the stew is simmering, heat a saute pan. When the pan is hot, add a dash of olive oil and then the spinach leaves. Cook until the leaves are completely wilted, then transfer them to a colander and use a fork to press out all the excess liquid.
  6. When the potatoes are completely cooked through, stir the cooked spinach into the pot, and serve.
Notes
You can substitute vegetable broth for the water, if you prefer.
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Categories // The Joy of Cooking Tags // chickpeas, potato, vegan, vegetarian

Spicy Three-Bean and Corn Chili

01.07.2014 by J. Doe // Leave a Comment

I have a culinary crush on Thomas Keller, and in poking around on the website for Seattle’s cookbook store, I discover they have a signed copy of one of his cookbooks for sale. This seems like a good reason to leave the house during our Christmas vacation, so The Child and I abandon our new toys – briefly – and head in to the city.

 

It turns out the store doesn’t have the book I think they do – Ad Hoc at Home, in case you were wondering – but they have dozens of other signed cookbooks that they are happy to sell me. I immediately spy a signed copy of Alice Waters’ newest, which I leaf through and claim, since it has a number of vegetarian recipes, although, truthfully, I’m not sure how many of them I’d actually make. I keep looking.

 

There’s plenty to look at – all the big names are represented, many with signed copies – Ottolenghi! David Tanis! But it’s like being lost in paradise: Everything around me is wonderful, but I just want Home – the cookbook full of things I’d actually make and eat. Most of the books have one or two recipes like that, but that’s it, and those are the books I check out of the library.

 

The Child is bored. You found something, she says. Can we be done?

 

No, I tell her. Not until you find a cookbook full of recipes you would eat. Go find it.

 

She comes back five minutes later with her mission accomplished and a very pleased expression. Can we get it? It will be my first cookbook. Can I get it?

 

She’s found a tiny cookbook, beautifully and probably artisanally printed, with nothing but different recipes for strawberries. I can’t argue the point – she really would eat pretty much anything involving strawberries. I tell her it’s hers if she lets me find a cookbook too. I want something full of recipes we both want to eat.

 

She takes my Alice Waters and turns her nose up at it, and then does the same with Patricia Wells. I hand her a book full of Mac and Cheese recipes, but she pronounces them weird and points out that half of them involve meat. I finally pick up and start leafing through what I think is a baking book, Flour, Too, by Joanne Chang. I loved her first cookbook, which actually was a baking book, that I checked out of the library to try, and then made several superb recipes from (Classic Peanut Butter Cookies and Vanilla Bean Krispy Rice Treats). This new book, though, includes both sweet and savory dishes, and I sit down with it and start putting mental sticky notes on half the pages. Chili and soup and sandwiches that even The Child might eat. I hand it to her, and she doesn’t need to do more than look at the table of contents. Spiced Banana Pancakes? We’re getting it, she says.

 

The first recipe I tried was the first dinner recipe that The Child got really excited about – Three-Bean and Corn Chili. She misses chili, she tells me, and I kind of agree. It seems like an obvious thing to make for her, because she loves it and there are hundreds of recipes for vegetarian chili out there, probably thousands. Yet, I’ve never found one I liked, until now.

 

Chang’s recipe, like all her other recipes I’ve tried, isn’t complex. Although she gives directions for an overnight bean soak, she very graciously also gives directions for the rest of us –  the ones who didn’t plan our meal yesterday but really want chili right now. I made this with canned beans and it was just fine. I also didn’t use no-salt-added tomatoes, but took extra care at the end not to oversalt, tasting rather than measuring out salt. I cut all the pieces into a fairly small, even dice, and cooking was a breeze. It doesn’t have the issues that I’ve found with other vegetarian chili recipes that I’ve tried – too watery, not robust enough, not enough flavor. A lot of them feel more like soup to me than chili.

 

This chili is spicy, and those who don’t like things very spicy may wish to cut back on the amount of chili powder used (one blogger suggests cutting it by half). I thought it was fine, but The Child thought it needed to be less spicy. Still, she surprised me by proclaiming that she liked it,  and asking if I would make it again, just with a little less spice. I will definitely make it again, and play around with it until I get the spice mix just right for her – once I finish this batch. It makes a lot.

 

Spicy Three-Bean and Corn Chili

 

 

Spicy Three-Bean and Corn Chili
 
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Author: Joanne Chang
Serves: 6
Ingredients
  • One 15-oz. can of cannellini beans
  • One 15-oz. can of black beans
  • One 15-oz. can of chickpeas
  • 2 tbsp vegetable oil
  • 1 onion, cut into ½-inch pieces
  • 1 large carrot, peeled and cut into ½-inch pieces
  • 1 celery stalk, cut into ½-inch pieces
  • 1 medium sweet potato, peeled and cut into ½-inch pieces
  • 2 garlic cloves, smashed and minced
  • One 15-oz. can of corn kernels, drained and rinsed
  • One 4-oz. can of minced mild green chiles
  • Two 14½-oz. cans of "no-salt added" diced tomatoes, with juice
  • 1 tbsp sherry vinegar
  • 2 tbsp packed brown sugar
  • 1 tbsp plus 1 tsp chili powder
  • 1 tbsp smoked Spanish paprika
  • 2 tsp cocoa powder
  • ¼ tsp cayenne pepper
  • 1 tbsp plus 1 tsp kosher salt
  • ½ tsp freshly ground white pepper
Instructions
  1. Drain the beans in a colander, rinse under running water, and set aside.
  2. In a large stockpot, heat the vegetable oil over medium heat. Add the onion, carrot, celery, sweet potato, and garlic, and cook, stirring occasionally, over medium heat for 6 to 8 minutes, or until the vegetables start to soften, the onion starts to turn translucent, and you can smell the vegetables cooking. Add the drained beans, corn, green chiles, tomatoes, and 4 cups of water, and bring to a simmer over medium-high heat. Add the vinegar, brown sugar, chili powder, paprika, cocoa powder, cayenne, salt, and white pepper. Stir until well mixed and bring back to a simmer. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer for 20 to 30 minutes, or until the mixture thickens a bit.
  3. The chili can be ladled into bowls and served immediately, or it can be cooled, covered, and refrigerated overnight to develop flavor and texture. It can also be stored in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days or in the freezer for up 1 month.
Notes
Chang also gives instructions for using dried beans in her book. I used canned beans for convenience and the recipe worked very well. I also didn't use "no salt added tomatoes", but you should adjust the amount of salt you add at the end if you do this.
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Categories // The Joy of Cooking Tags // beans, corn, vegan, vegetarian

Sloppy Lentils

03.21.2013 by J. Doe // 2 Comments

Everything changes, it’s true, but in my world lately everything re-arranges.

It’s been only a few months since much of the furniture in the house was turned over to The Departed, and I began the process of making the house – finally – my own. I thought I would just go slowly: Paint a couple of rooms that only I see, then slowly work my way up to bigger projects.  I could never quite figure out how to arrange things anyway – nothing in this house ever seemed to look right.

But the ideas start coming – quickly, and often, impulsively. I look at the large wall unit that houses my TV one day, and realize that if I get rid of that one thing, I can completely re-arrange the room in a way that makes sense and is much more cozy. I mention this to The Child, who proceeds  to re-arrange all the furniture in that room after I go to sleep one night. And though I woke up the next morning and found myself completely disoriented – not to mention almost losing a cup of coffee tripping over an unexpected sofa – I also was sure I was on the right track.

It feels much less like a house, and much more like a home.

We give The Child’s outgrown trampoline to our new neighbors, who have two bouncy little boys. The new neighbors return the favor in the form of five rose bushes from their yard. We start having friendly visits, and chat about gardeners and handymen.

It feels much less like the street we live on, and much more like a neighborhood.

With all of the projects and re-arranging, everything is in chaos at the moment, and I frequently can’t find a kitchen counter or a clean dish when I need it. So, I find it’s easier to make a large vat of something that I can just heat up when I don’t have time to cook. One of my favorites is sloppy lentils, a recipe given to me by a vegetarian friend – whose child, unlike mine, will eat it – but originally from Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker.

The recipe is basically Sloppy Joes, which I used to love as a child. I didn’t have a recipe, I had cans of Manwich and I loved every artery-clogging bit of it. Instead of meat, though, lentils are used, turning an unhealthy indulgence into a guilt-free nutritious meal that oddly enough, doesn’t feel like a poor substitute for the original. After several hours in the slow cooker, the lentils and sauce meld together into a savory, almost-meaty, warm and filling sandwich. I love to eat it on squishy hamburger buns, just like a regular sloppy joe.

It makes enough to please a crowd, and also can be stored in the refrigerator and eaten slowly over a few days by just one person, as it reheats beautifully.

 IMG_9359

Sloppy Lentils
 
Print
Prep time
15 mins
Cook time
8 hours
Total time
8 hours 15 mins
 
Author: from Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker
Serves: 8
Ingredients
  • 1 T Olive Oil
  • 1 medium yellow onion, chopped
  • 1 small red or green bell pepper, seeded and chopped
  • 1 T Chili Powder
  • 1½ c dried brown lentils
  • One 14.5 oz can crushed tomatoes
  • 3 c. water
  • 2T tamari or soy sauce
  • 1 T prepared mustard
  • 1 T packed light brown sugar or natural sweetener
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • Fresh ground black pepper
Instructions
  1. Heat oil is skillet over medium heat. Add onions and peppers, cover and cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Add the chili powder, stirring to coat.
  2. Transfer onion mixture to a 3½ - 4 quart slow cooker. Add lentils, tomatoes, water, tamari, mustard, brown sugar, salt and pepper to taste and stir to combine. Cover and cook on low for 8 hours.
Notes
The original recipe calls for cooking onions and peppers first in a pan, then adding it to the slow cooker. I just toss it all in. If there's a difference, I can't tell.
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Categories // The Joy of Cooking Tags // lentils, recipes, vegan, vegetarian

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