Veggie Enchiladas

I love this style of enchilada, with a cream of mushroom base.  My step mom would make them from time to time and the family would devour them!  And you can easily substitute other veggies to stuff the enchiladas depending on the season.

Start by making a cream of mushroom soup

½ pound mushrooms, diced

1 small red onion, diced

3 cloves garlic, finely chopped

2 TBSP vegan butter

1 ½ CUP veggie broth

Sautee mushrooms, onion, garlic in vegan butter until onions are soft and translucent.

Add veggie broth, cover and simmer for 30 minutes

Add:

1 TBSP flour

1 CUP vegan sour cream

½ CUP almond / rice / soy milk

1 can diced green chiles (4 – 7 oz can depending on taste)

Salt, Pepper to taste

Simmer uncovered for 10 minutes

Set aside ¾ of the sauce, to remaining ¼ of sauce add:

½ zucchini, cut in strips

1 carrot, cut in strips

4 or 5 mushrooms cut in strips

1 CUP corn

1 Cup Beans

Continue simmering for another 5 minutes, then stir in chopped green onion and cilantro to taste

Stuff 10 tortillas with veggie mix

Add another ½ CUP milk to sauce that was set aside and pour over stuffed tortillas

Bake at 350° F for 30- 35 minutes, or until bubbly

Printable Recipe HERE

Drying Peppers

This year I grew a bunch of peppers I’d never grown before.   I usually just make hot sauces or use fresh peppers in my cooking.  For hot sauces I will freeze peppers as they ripen until I have enough for a decent amount of sauce.  But to fully utilize my Alma Paprika and Joe’s Long Cayenne Peppers I needed to dry them.  I learned that not all peppers dry the same, so I used two different methods. 

 

I also dried some of my Thai Hot Peppers, because they are small and perfect for throwing into soups, pastas, curries, etc.  So for the Thai Hot and Joe’s Long Cayenne Peppers, I simply strung the peppers through their stems on cording.  I used sewing thread for the small peppers and yarn/hemp for the larger peppers.  You can tie a bead or large knot on the bottom of the string to keep the peppers from sliding off as they shrivel up.

 

 

I let the smaller peppers touch each other, but for the cayenne peppers I tied a knot every 3 inches or so after each stem to keep them dry and separated. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hang the strung peppers in a sunny window.  I just put a couple nails at the top of my window sill and hung the peppers from there.  You can hang them outside, but if it rains and the peppers get moist they will rot or mold.  At first I put the nails on the outside of the window sill, but I kept forgetting to bring the peppers in now that it’s finally raining again!

 

 

 

I had trouble with my paprika peppers; my first harvest rotted when I tried to hang them.   I’ve been dehydrating the rest in my oven.  I slice the peppers and spread them onto a baking sheet.

 

 

 

 

 

Then bake them on the lowest setting for several hours until all the moisture cooks out. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I ground them up in a blender and made Paprika!  It smells and tastes amazing, I’m going to use it in a potato salad for this weekend.

 

I’m still waiting for the cayenne peppers to dry completely so I can grind them up too; I can’t wait because I love cayenne powder.  One of my favorites is to add it to Alfredo sauce for spicy Alfredo!  I throw a little cayenne in everything to add some spice!

BBQ Seitan Sandwich Recipe

 

This is one of my favorite things to make.  And it’s so easy!  The past few months I’ve been trying to get away from eating so many packaged foods.  As a vegetarian it’s easy to fall into the habit of just substituting meat for fake meat.   It’s amazing what they can create these days out of veggies!  While it’s fine once in a while, I found I was eating way too much soy.   So I’ve begun to experiment with seitan, which comes from wheat and is high in protein. 

I love BBQ sauce too!  I can eat it in spoonfuls.  And why should BBQ sauce be reserved for smothering over carcasses?!   These sandwiches are so good you can fool a meat eater!  And really when it comes to BBQ, it’s all about the sauce.  So pick something good and flavorful, or make your own.  This recipe makes 3-4 sandwiches depending on size.

8 oz. package of seitan strips, roughly chopped

2 or more cloves of garlic, finely chopped

Half an onion, diced

1 cup BBQ sauce

Dash of oil

 

Heat a frying pan up; add your onion, garlic, seitan and enough oil to coat.  Cook for a couple minutes, stirring occasionally, until the onions are translucent and the seitan is slightly browned.

 

 

 

 

 

Then add the BBQ sauce and let simmer about a half hour or so until the BBQ sauce has soaked into the seitan creating a thick, “meaty” spread.

 

Slice up some fresh bread, spread your BBQ seitan and serve.  It’s great with vegan mayo, tomato and lettuce; or just plain. 

 

Next step… make my own seitan from vital wheat gluten!

Chunky Ketchup Sauce

 

I’ve wanted to make ketchup for awhile now and we have so many cherry tomatoes!  We put them in everything; salads, pizzas, sandwiches, wraps, eggs, bread and we still can’t keep up with the garden!  So I went out and collected every ripe cherry tomato we had (mostly Peacevine Cherrys, which have been awesome!), plus all the Casady's Follys.  Also known as psychedelic tomatoes, and while they look beautiful; they just don’t have that juicy, flavorful bite that I love in tomatoes.  But I figured they would still be good in ketchup!

 

I used this recipe as my base, changing it slightly by adding more spices and sugar instead of agave since I didn’t have any.  This ketchup is amazing!  It’s not the super sugary, corn syrup filled ketchup we are used to in the US.  It reminds me of the ketchup in Europe, a more naturally sweet tomato sauce, only it’s chunky because you leave the skins on.  They soften up enough while cooking them, adding extra flavor, texture and nutrients!

 

I learned a good rule of thumb the other day for measuring produce.  1 pound equals 3 medium apples.  I figured I had a little over 2 pounds of tomatoes.  I pulled the stems off the tomatoes and sliced the bigger ones into chucks.  I threw them all in a pan, added enough olive oil to coat them and roasted them until they were tender.

 

I put them through a food processor, blending till smooth and returning the mixture back to the pan. I added:

1 tbsp white sugar

4 tbsp apple cider vinegar

1 tbsp brown sugar

5 cloves garlic chopped finely

1 tbsp or so dried basil

1 tbsp or so dried oregano

1 tbsp cayenne pepper powder

1 tbsp turmeric

1 tsp cinnamon

Sea salt and pepper

Then cook the sauce over medium heat for half an hour or so, stirring occasionally, until the sauce thickens up to the consistency you like.  Put it in a Mason jar and store in your refrigerator.  I assume you could process it too, just like you would pasta sauce, but I knew this batch wouldn’t last long enough to need that!

 

 

 

 

With all the work of making homemade ketchup I had to make some fries to go with it.  Making your own fries is so easy, it just takes a while.  I just slice up a couple potatoes into fry shape.  Throw them in a bowl and coat with oil.  Then add spices… I like to add sea salt, pepper, garlic powder, cayenne pepper.  My boyfriend is from Maryland, so he always adds Old Bay spices, and here in Cincinnati we add Grippos bbq spice… there are many ways to spice up fries. 

 

Toss your potatoes in the oil and spices, spread them on a baking tray and cook at 400° until they are crispy and golden brown, flipping them occasionally.  When I first went vegetarian I ate way too many fries!  But when you make them yourself with fresh ketchup from the garden, they’re not soo bad :)