Vegetarian Chili

This recipe is an enhancement of the "Country Chili" recipe on a package of "Bob's Red Mill" texturized vegetable protein (TVP). While this recipe was surprisingly good, the TVP tasting and feeling as good or better than chili recipes with beef and turkey, it didn't have enough vegetables. As it was, "Bob's" recipe would have served more than ten people which it claimed. The hardest part about this dish is that it tastes so good, you won't want to stop eating it. You might want to freeze some if there's any left after the first day or two.

Serves more than 10 people.

Preparation time: A bit under two hours.

Ingredients

• 2 cups boiling water (to reconstitute the TVP)
• 2 cups Texturized Vegetable Protein (TVP)
• 2 Tbsp. ketchup (optional and really not at all necessary)
• 2 Tbsp. oil (for frying vegetables and to include the taste of fat which a lot of Earthlings crave)
• 2 large onions, chopped (Bob called for one, but that wasn't enough)
• 3 green peppers, chopped coursely (one wasn't enough)
• 3 or 4 stalks of celery, chopped
• whatever other vegetables hanging around which might work. E.g., some people like corn when it's not GM, brussel sprouts, and/or asparagus
• 1 Jalapeño pepper, chopped (optional) (something from a jar is okay)
• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 2 Tbsp. chili powder (less, if you're using genuine Indian chili powder)
• 2 tsp. cumin, powdered
• 2 tsp. oregano, minced
• tsp. cayenne pepper (optional... I found it wasn't really needed)
• a few tablespoons of olive oil (for frying things)
• several dashes of dark soy sauce
• 2 28-oz. cans of whole stewed tomatoes, or just one can of that and one can the same size of tomato sauce
• 2 or 3 cups dried red kidney beans, cooked, probably in a pressure cooker. (You could substitute 2 16-oz. cans of them, but canned kidney beans are noticeably inferior.)

Cooking the kidney beans

If you're using canned kidney beans, then of course you can skip this step and jump down to While the kidneys are cooking.

First you'll want to start cooking the kidney beans in the pressure cooker. They'll need at least 3½ times their volume of water, better more than not enough. So 3 cups of kidney beans will need at least 10½ cups of water. Sprinkle in a bit of salt or soy sauce. Though in her Recipes for a Small Planet Frances Ewald Buchman says that twenty minutes is sufficient to cook kidney beans in a pressure cooker, I find they need at least 35 minutes of actual cooking time to get beyond chewy to soft. It will take about ten minutes for the cooker to come up to temperature and, after cooking for 35 minutes where the pressure cooker's top is levitated, hissing, and twirling, another half hour or so for the cooker to cool down. This 1¼ hours is about the time you'll need to wash and cut up and then sauté the vegetables and do a few other things in this recipe.

If you don't have a pressure cooker, then you'll need to soak the beans overnight. The next day cook them in a pot with a tight lid on for two hours.

While the kidneys are cooking

Wash and then dice the vegetables. This is vegetarian (actually vegan) chili, so I like to cut them into pieces larger than the kidney beans. The garlic, however, should be chopped quite fine.

When the kidneys beans are almost done and the pressure cooker ready to open, put the TVP in the largest bowl you have. Add in the ketchup, a few dashes of dark soy sauce, and the powdered spices (i.e., not the garlic). Boil two cups of water and pour it in and stir it around just to get everything wet and mixed together. Set it aside for ten minutes or so.

During that ten minutes sauté the vegetables in oil in a big frying pan on medium-low heat, sprinkling with salt and pepper and adding in garlic towards the end so it gets cooked a bit too. Vegetables should be cooked just enough to remove their hard crunch, but not so much that they become limp. Onion is best sautéd just to the point that it is translucent.

When the kidney beans are done

When the pressure cooker has lost its steam and it's okay to open it, take a look and taste inside. The beans should be soft and moist. If instead they're dry and chewy, cook them some more, adding water if the water level doesn't cover the beans. If the beans are still immersed in cooking water, that's fine. Even a couple cups of water is okay. The TVP will soak up a lot of water. If there's more than a couple cups of cooking water covering the beans, pour some off.

When the kidneys are cooked properly, add into the pressure cooker on top of them the vegetables and the TVP and spice mixture. (If you're not using a pressure cooker, then put the cooked, or canned, kidney beans into a large (6-quart minimum) stew pot. Then add in the stewed tomatoes and/or tomato sauce. If you're using tomato sauce, just pour it in. If you're using whole tomatoes, cut them into small chunks as you add them. Pour in the juice from the can too. Start up the heat again and stir everything around. This should look like chili now. You just need to heat it up and let it stew on low heat with the lid off for a half hour or so, stirring occasionally, to get it all piping hot through and through and let all those good flavors mingle.

Best served with cheese and crackers or some other Schmackrichtung of a blander variety.

Excellent Potato (and Spinach) Soup

This is now my favorite soup. It's easy and cheap to make, takes about an hour, and doesn't need exotic ingredients which would require extra shopping. Like just about all of my favorite recipes, it doesn't require many utensils, so clean-up isn't a big deal. As given, this is a vegetarian dish. Use this recipe as a base if you want, adding whatever's in the fridge that your creativity thinks would rock. Here's all you really need.

• 4 hefty potatoes
• 1 bodacious onion
• 1 can of condensed milk (12 fluid ounces = 354 ml)... regular whole milk will work also.
• (Optional, but worth it) handful of spinach per serving. Savoy spinach, the older kind with dark green, crinkly and curly leaves, is much preferred.
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 2 tablespoons minced garlic (or half this amount of minced fresh garlic)
• quarter teaspoon of finely minced fresh ginger
• sprinkle of oregano
• salt & pepper to taste
• 1 teaspoon finely crumbled feta (or other) cheese per serving (optional)

Peel and dice potatoes. Start them at boiling in a two-quart or larger saucepan with enough water to cover them. The potatoes will need to boil about twenty-five minutes. They'll get to boiling faster if you put a lid on the saucepan. While they're getting there, add salt, pepper, oregano, ginger, and garlic. When they start boiling, turn down the heat to a medium boil so crap doesn't spit all over the stove. When boiling starts, set your cooking timer for twenty-five minutes.

While waiting for the boil to start, dice that big onion. Add it to the potatoes. They probably aren't boiling yet. That's fine.

Stir and taste occasionally to adjust the salt and pepper and other spices. When the timer goes off, turn down the heat to a low simmer, add in the butter, and mash the potatoes by hand with a potato masher for minute or so. It's fine to leave them a little chunky. Add the can of condensed milk. Stir it in and jack up the heat so it comes to a medium boil again. Keep stirring so nothing burns on the bottom. Milk tends to do that. Get the soup back up to a boil and keep it there for a minute or two, constantly stirring the bottom. Toss in a big handful of spinach if you've got it, stir it in and let it boil for another half-minute— just until the spinach is overcooked and looking spooky. Turn off the heat. Ladle into bowls that aren't so large, unless this will be your entire meal. Sprinkle on just a little bit of feta or whatever fragrant cheese you might have. A couple croutons would be dandy.

Warms four to six bellies.

Hummus, a Food of Many Faces

Spell it "hummus", "humus", "hommos", "hoummos", or "humous", in several languages of the Middle East from which the word comes, it means "chick peas" or, another English term for the same legume, "garbanzo beans". Transliterating words of Middle Eastern origin into English is seldom a smooth or straightforward process. Despite these vexations of spelling, and after a mere few hundred years, hummus (pronounced WHO-muss) has become a popular dish in North America and Europe, especially among vegans and vegetarians.

The full Middle Eastern name of this dish, hummus bi tahina ("hummus with tahini"), reveals its second major ingredient. Tahini is a "butter"— in the same sense that peanut butter is a butter— made from sesame seeds. Tahini and garbanzo beans eaten together constitute a complete protein, so a fine substitute for meat. They are also believed to provide numerous other health benefits, including helping to prevent a variety of cancers, cardio-vascular diseases, and spina bifida in infants when consumed by their pregnant mothers. This is food that does what food should do.

Depending upon the amount of lemon and garlic it contains, hummus can be variably neutral, lending itself to use as a "background" around which the flavors of spices and other eatables can rally. Altering the ratio of hummus to tahini can vary its feel from airy and light to generous and full. Considering that this dish has been made and served by thousands of people for hundreds of years, it would be difficult to assert that there's only one, correct hummus recipe. The recipe below, then, is more a set of guidelines than a rigid and precise set of instructions. Feel free to sample during preparations and adjust to your diners' sensibilities.

Ingredients

• 3 cups dry, uncooked garbanzo beans (also known as chick peas) cooked to very tender in a pressure cooker with 9 or 10 cups of water and a few sprinkles of salt.
• 1 cup tahini (sometimes called sesame seed butter)
• ½ cup lemon juice (one juicy lemon), or to taste
• 3 to 5 cloves of garlic, or to taste
• ½ cup canola or olive oil

Directions

Cook garbanzo beans in three times their volume of water— so three cups garbanzos with nine cups of water— with a pinch or two of salt if you wish, in a large pressure cooker letting the top dance for about 50 minutes. After this fifty minutes and then letting the pot cool by itself, the garbanzos should be moist all the way through. I generally start up the pressure cooker the evening before and, after cooking time, leave it on the cold stove overnight to cool. Be sure to follow general directions that came with your pressure cooker.

If you don't have a pressure cooker, let the garbanzos soak overnight in the pot in cold water three or four times their volume. The next day boil them for four hours or until moist through to their centers.

After they've cooked and cooled, put the garbanzos and other ingredients (except for garnishes) in a food processor. Blend thoroughly until smooth. If too thick, gradually add small amounts of water until scouping it with a spoon (or a finger, if no one's looking) makes it mound but not break. Be aware that hummus may stiffen a bit after a time. For a sandwich spread, which hummus can also be, this is fine. If you'll be dipping with with vegetables, and more so with chips, you'll want a looser hummus, so mix in a small amount of water— preferably the leftover cooking water— for a less resistant consistency.

Due to its smaller capacity, if using a blender, cut this recipe in half, or else blend half the ingredients at a time and then pour the blended ingredients into a large bowl and stir together thoroughly by hand.

Let stand an hour or more if possible to allow flavors to permeate and penetrate.

Garnishes

• paprika or red chili pepper or cumin (optional)
• extra virgin olive oil to dribble on top
• raw salad style vegetables, chopped just small enough for spooning.

Suggested presentations

For a sit-down meal, serve in small bowls and lightly sprinkled with a colorful spice, then garnished with parsley and/or sliced or diced pieces of raw vegetables such as tomato, carrot, broccoli, onion, cucumber, green or red pepper... just about anything you'd put in a salad. Dribble a tablespoon or so of extra virgin olive oil over the top. Provide your diners pita or some other kind of bread for scooping.

As a main dish this recipe serves six. Smaller portions are fine snacks or side dishes and of course serve more people. The whole of the hummus in one bowl with garnishes or chips or sliced bread around or alongside brightens a buffet and perks up a party. Hummus of a thicker consistency makes a fine sandwich or wrap, especially when accompanied by fresh cucumbers, sliced or diced tomatoes, alfalfa sprouts, and perhaps a thin schmeer of cream cheese or Marmite™.

Hummus is one of those flexible foods, an actor that can play many roles. If you're a single, you can have it multiple times in a week, changing the garnishes and bread and other peripherals for variety. Charmed by the same sleight of cuisine, families and other groups can dine on it regularly without boring the palate. Hummus can be a main dish, side dish, sandwich, or snack. It's inexpensive, yet healthy, easy to make, and tasty all at the same time. There's not a whole lot more you can ask of food.

Amish Friendship Bread Recipe

This isn't a bread, per se, but much more like a moist, sweet cake. You certainly wouldn't make a sandwich from this "bread".

General Guidelines

Do not refrigerate your mix. Below room-temperatures will retard yeast growth, perhaps even kill the yeast.

If air gets into the bag, let it out. Some "air" which will inflate the bag (if the yeast is growing properly) is really carbon dioxide, a natural by-product of yeast growth (also known as "fermentation"). So this "air" is perfectly normal and, indeed, should accumulate. That is, you should see bubbles forming in the mixture if the yeast is growing properly. Let this carbon dioxide out of the bag as needed to prevent the bag from over-inflating. At the same time, keep the bag closed otherwise to prevent ambient air from the room from coming into contact with the yeast mixture.

Below, where the instructions say "mush the bag", this simply means that you should squeeze and massage the yeast mixture through the bag, in effect, to stir it up.

Instructions

• Day 1: This is the date on the bag. You don't need to do anything this day other than put the bag in a place of moderate (room) temperature and where you'll notice it tomorrow and succeeding days.
• Day 2: Mush the bag.
• Day 3: Mush the bag.
• Day 4: Mush the bag.
• Day 5: Mush the bag.
• Day 6: Add to the bag 1 cup flour, 1 cup sugar, 1 cup milk, then mush the bag.
• Day 7: Mush the bag.
• Day 8: Mush the bag.
• Day 9: Mush the bag.
• Day 10: Baking day. Follow the instructions below:
  • Pour the contents of the bag into a non-metal bowl.
  • Add 1½ cups flour, 1½ cups sugar, and 1½ milk.
  • Measure out 4 separate batters of 1 cup each into 4 1-gallon Ziploc™ bags. Keep a yeast starter for yourself (if you choose) and give the other 3 along with copies of this recipe to friends. Write today's date on each bag so your friends will know what to designate as Day 1.
  • Preheat the oven to 325°.
  • To the remaining yeast mixture in the bowl add the following:
    • 3 eggs
    • 1 cup oil
    • ½ cup milk
    • 1 cup sugar
    • 2 tsp. cinnamon
    • ½ tsp. vanilla
    • 1½ tsp. baking powder
    • ½ tsp. baking soda
    • ½ tsp. salt
    • 2 cups flour (sifted if you wish)
    • 1 large box of instant vanilla pudding
  • Grease or oil 2 large loaf pans.
  • Mix an additional ½ cup sugar and 1½ tsp. cinnamon. Dust the greased pan with half of this mixture.
  • Pour the batter evenly into 2 pans and sprinkle the remaining cinnamon-sugar mixture over the top.
  • Bake one hour.
  • Allow the loaves to cool (about 10 minutes) until they loosen easily from the pans. Turn onto a serving dish.

If you keep a starter for yourself, you will be baking every ten days. Only the Amish know how to create the starter yeast, so if you give all of yours away, you'll have to wait until someone gives one back to you. On the other hand, if you don't give any away, then you won't have anyone to go to if you lose yours. In any event, you can always find the bread recipe here.