Soups | vmac+cheese

A vegetarian chili that I (begrudgingly) love

Posted on January 5, 2011 by vmacandcheese

When I was in college, I watched Food Network all. the. time. My roommates can vouch for this. If there was a long enough break between classes, you can bet I was on the couch, drooling over what Giada was whipping up. Back then, I adored Everyday Italian, Good Eats, and Barefoot Contessa. I was even known to indulge in a little Paula’s Home Cooking, but mostly because I was so fascinated by the obscene amounts of butter and mayonnaise in every recipe!

However, one show (okay, and maybe personality) I could never get behind was Rachael Ray. The rest of the Internet has done a pretty good job of explaining why she’s often not a fave. Her…um…perky…disposition aside, for me it was bothersome that she promoted the use of shortcuts that I thought were frankly ridiculous, in that they allowed people to save mere seconds in the kitchen while not encouraging any kind of culinary skill development on their part.

Example? The one that always comes to my mind is telling her viewers to buy pre-chopped onions. Listen, I’m busy too, and I’m tired when I get home from work. But there is no universe in which I will ever be lazy enough to buy pre-chopped onion (at double or triple the cost, I’m sure) versus spending one minute (or less) to chop one. I think the moment she pulled pre-diced onion out of the fridge, packaged in styrofoam and saran wrap no less, was when I was done with Rachael.

But. BUT. During Christmas 2009, I needed a recipe for vegetarian chili to use over the holidays, and in a pinch, found Rachael’s recipe for “Veg Head Chili.” It looked easy enough, with a good supply of different beans and veggies.

Lo and behold, it was a hit. And yes, it did take less than 30 minutes to make (and that’s without any pre-chopped veggies!).

Since that holiday, I’ve come back to this recipe so many times. One bowl is extraordinarily filling, and the chili will keep for a week in the fridge, making it perfect to take to work for lunch. The recipe itself is also versatile — you can sub in different types of beans, and garnish the chili with whatever you have on hand.

30 Minute Meals is definitely NOT my favorite show, but I have to give credit where credit is due. Rach, you did good with this one.

Do you guys have any tried and true recipes that you go to for a quick weeknight meal or for lunch leftovers? Share a link to them in the comments!

Vegetarian Chili

Adapted from Rachael Ray’s Veg Head Three-Bean Chili

2 tablespoons olive or vegetable oil
1 medium yellow skinned onion, chopped
1/2 large red bell pepper, seeded and chopped
1/2 large green bell pepper, seeded and chopped
1 large jalapeno pepper, seeded and chopped (you can use only half if you’re sensitive to spice, or omit completely and add in a bit more green bell pepper)
4 cloves garlic, crushed and chopped
1 cup beer (Rachael recommends anything pale, but I’ve found I like to use an amber. If you don’t have or don’t want to use beer, you can also sub in any kind of stock — beef, chicken or veg. I’ve used all three with great results.)
1 (28- ounce) can crushed tomatoes
1 (14-ounce) can black beans
1 (14-ounce) can dark red kidney beans or pinto beans (whichever you prefer)
OPTIONAL (makes a chunkier chili): 1 (14-ounce) can garbanzo beans
1 tablespoon ground cumin
2 tablespoons chili powder
1 tablespoon Tabasco, several drops (omit if you’re sensitive to spice)
1 cup canned spicy or mild vegetarian refried beans
–kosher salt and freshly ground pepper to season and taste

Garnish ideas: Diced avocado, shredded cheese, chopped red onion or scallions, chopped cilantro, diced tomatoes, sour cream, fresh pico de gallo, tortilla chips….whatever you like!

Over moderate heat, add oil to a deep pot and combine onion, peppers, and garlic. Saute for 3 to 5 minutes to soften vegetables. Season with kosher salt and black pepper. Deglaze pan with beer or stock, let simmer for one minute, then add tomatoes, black beans, red kidney beans, the garbanzo beans (if using) and stir to combine. NOTE:

Season chili with cumin, chili powder, hot sauce, and salt. Let the chili come to a simmer, then taste and adjust the seasonings with more salt and pepper, if desired. Thicken chili by stirring in refried beans. Simmer over low heat about 10 minutes longer, then serve up bowls of chili and top with the garnishes of your choice.

NOTE: When adding the beans to this chili, you DO use all the liquid in the cans. Because of this, I’d look for canned beans that aren’t stored in a high fructose corn syrup type solution. Beans with no added salt are also a good bet, too.

Filed under: Food, Recipes, Soups | Tagged: beans, Chili, cooking, Food, recipe, vegetarian, Vegetarian Recipes | 3 Comments »

Recipe: Chicken and green chile stew

Posted on September 7, 2010 by vmacandcheese

I’m pleased to report that when it comes to bringing my lunch to work, I’ve been doing great these last few weeks. {Pat on the back}. It really does help you save a boatload of money, and you have the benefit of eating something that’s a lot more healthful than what you’d probably end up shoveling down at the local deli.

Tonight I made a big dish of tuna noodle casserole (this recipe from Gourmet (RIP) is so good!); last week it was this fabulously hearty chicken and green chile stew. Actually, it was less of a stew and more of a chili, but naming this Chicken and Green Chile Chili is just silly. Really.

Though this isn’t a difficult recipe, it’s probably a good one to do on a Sunday afternoon, as roasting the Hatch peppers isn’t something I’d want to do on a weeknight (read: a little bit of stove cleanup). If you’re vegetarian, you could also omit the meat, use vegetable stock, and supplement in a few other types of beans in addition to the cannellinis. The beauty in this stew-chili is that it also gets better the longer it sits. If you make it on Sunday, it’s still delicious come Tuesday or Wednesday. You can also garnish it with whatever colorful accoutrements you favor — little cherry tomatoes, a sprinkle of heady red onion, diced avocado, some freshly torn cilantro, a dash of Tabasco sauce. And of course, the cheese. It’s essential that you don’t forget the grated Cheddar with this one.

chicken chili

Here’s the recipe: (more…)

Filed under: Food, Mexican, Poultry, Recipes, Soups | Tagged: chicken chili, chicken stew, Chili, Recipes, soup, tailgate recipe | Leave a Comment »

I still remember the heat

Posted on September 29, 2009 by vmacandcheese

Though I grew up in Austin, my grandmother lived only a short drive away from us in the outskirts of Houston. So as a kid, my parents would often unload me let me spend long swaths of time at her house in the summer — sometimes three weeks or even a month. She would take me to Toys-R-Us and made sure to always have those green bottles of Coca-Cola stocked in her refrigerator. Sometimes, we’d make homemade ice cream out on her backyard patio; the patience required for our cool treat was made all the more unbearable by the thick Texas heat. I yearn for those days now.

Every morning, my grandmother and I would wake up early, and brew a pot of coffee. It’s funny that I’m not much of a coffee drinker as an adult, and I wasn’t really then either — I think I just loved the smell and the ritual of brewing it. She would pour me a very small teacup full, and I would dump in spoonfuls of sugar and a heaping of milk that turned it into a light caramel color. We would go outside in our pajamas, and sit on a small wooden bench next to her swimming pool. As we sipped the morning brew, we’d sing songs and repeat nursery rhymes to each other. “Zippity-Doo-Dah” was a daily must.

And during my summer visits, we’d often drive down to the coast, to Galveston, about an hour from her house. She had a gentleman friend who was in possession of a very fine double decker boat, which was a joy to take out on those muggy, humid summer days. My grandmother still has a picture of me on the boat one summer, a too-big bright orange life jacket strapped tightly across my chest — I must be about 6 or 7 in it.

galveston

On these trips to Galveston, we would always stop at a small restaurant right on the beach, whose name I can no longer remember. But, I do remember that it wasn’t much to look at from the outside, and that it was built right over the water on stilts, with a large deck area in the back — much like the picture above. It was sandwiched between two souvenir shops, replete with “I went to Galveston and all I got was this lousy t-shirt” type gifts. But I never held that against it.

I remember the restaurant mostly for its gumbo. We’d sit out on that back deck, ignoring the oppressive summer heat and relishing the salty air, inhaling bowls of seafood gumbo with saltines and washing it all down with big, sweating glasses of iced tea. No matter the time or place, a day spent near or on the ocean always makes one hungry.

The roux in the stew was black as night — a sign of true devotion to the dish, for creating a base that dark requires at least an hour of work, cooking time for the rest of the ingredients not included. I don’t know what got me thinking about the gumbo I used to eat there — Maybe it was the spicy zing of the gumbo that would burn the back of my throat and numb my lips for an hour after eating it? Or the rich, nutty flavor of the base? — but last weekend, I had a big hankering for it. Joe was game for whatever I wanted to make for dinner, so when I floated “gumbo,” and he didn’t pass, I couldn’t either. (more…)

Filed under: American South, Childhood, Food, Soups, Travels | 2 Comments »

Pho meets egg

Posted on August 31, 2009 by vmacandcheese

That buffalo roast from the last post? Here’s another use for it: a ridiculously delicious, super flavorful, surprisingly nutritious Sunday night soup. Observe:

1 016

Behold the power of my latest cleaning-out-the-fridge invention! Egg flower soup with a pho like twist: the addition of very rare, thinly shaved red meat, which is cooked to perfection in the hot broth.

Here’s how it went down: It was Sunday night. On hand, I had several quarts of frozen homemade chicken stock, a huge clamshell of spinach, a bunch of eggs, and a leftover nib of that buffalo roast. Since I had to run out anyway to get some snacks for a Monday morning work party (which is another story), I picked up a bunch of green onions, a nob of ginger, and some cremini mushrooms. With a little guidance from Martin Yan (I needed some ratios for the egg flower soup base), the makings of an epic soup were born.

To start, I gathered up my mise en place. I sliced the buffalo paper thin, grabbed two handfuls of spinach, lightly beat two eggs with a bit of soy sauce, and chopped three scallions. I pulled mirin and sesame oil out of the pantry (said it once, and it must be said again: if you have a well stocked pantry, you can cook almost anything), and mixed together a cornstarch slurry. I de-stemmed the mushrooms, then chopped the caps and soaked the stems in hot water. Ginger, peeled, cut into a 2″ nubbin.

1 010 Pretty simple, yeah? It gets better: (more…)

Filed under: Asian, Eggs, Food, Other meats, Recipes, Soups | Leave a Comment »

Not celery. Celery root.

Posted on May 7, 2009 by vmacandcheese

For as long as I can remember, I have disliked raw celery. When I was a little kid, celery sticks slathered with peanut butter were a common snack at my after school child care program; I’d usually lick up the peanut butter, then throw the celery away. Even sadder were the days when they’d serve celery sticks with Ranch dressing. I’d use the celery stick to spoon the dressing into my mouth, then–of course!–throw away the vegetable. It was always such a strange aversion–there were no other vegetables I disliked, so it wasn’t like I was one of those kids that hated anything green. And I could handle celery cooked, but eating it raw was a punishment worse than death.

“What’s wrong with you?” my grandmother used to say when I’d turn my nose up at it. “It doesn’t taste like anything! It’s like eating crunchy water.”

Oh, Gram. Celery does NOT taste like crunchy water, I’m afraid (that’s a little something called ice!). No, celery tastes like really, really underripe green bell pepper with an overwhelming astringent bitterness laced throughout the skin. It’s just awful.

So about 5 years ago, when I came to San Francisco to visit my uncle over a long weekend, I was a little hesitant when celeriac_main he took me to a small bistro in Healdsburg, and ordered us a prix fixe menu that included cream of celery root soup. Celery root, also called celeriac, is the huge, bulbous part of the celery plant, lodged firmly beneath the soil and out of sight. Not like it’d ever have a chance, even if it was above ground. As they grow, the celery stalks and leaves tend to get a bit…bushy (Have you ever tried to uproot a mature celery plant? Believe me, it’s tough work). Actually, if we’re going to be completely accurate, I just wiki-ed celeriac, and it turns out the botanical name for that particular part of celery anatomy is hypocotyl:

“a part of a germinating seedling of a seed plant. As the plant embryo grows at germination, it sends out a shoot called a radicle that becomes the primary root and penetrates down into the soil. After emergence of the radicle, the hypocotyl emerges and lifts the growing tip (usually including the seed coat) above the ground, bearing the embryonic leaves (called cotyledons) and the plumule that gives rise to the first true leaves. The hypocotyle is the primary organ of extension of the young plant and develops into the stem.”

In any case, I was very leery of this celery root soup in Healdsburg, at that point having never tasted or even seen a celery root in my life (You see, up until then, I’d avoided anything with the word “celery” in it). But then the soup arrived, piping hot, extraordinarily savory, and completely soul-satisfying. I was reminded of the soup and that revelatory meal when I saw Michael Ruhlman’s post on Cream of Celery Root Soup today on his blog. Hard core food porn in 3, 2, 1: (more…)

Filed under: Childhood, Food, Recipes, Root vegetables, Soups | Leave a Comment »

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