Chocolate Chili with Peppermint Pesto

I realized while writing this up that I could have called it "Chocolate Chickpea Chili with Peppermint Pepita Pesto" for even more alliteration, but enough is enough.  This was my first time adding chocolate to chili, and I enjoyed the complexity it added, as well as how it deepened the chili's color.  This makes enough to feed a crowd.

Chocolate Chili
The Ingredients:
1 onion
2 T olive oil
6 cloves garlic, crushed
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped
2-3 jalapeno peppers (seeded or not, depending on how much heat you like)
2 t chili powder
3/4 t salt
1/2 t cayenne
1/4 t cinnamon
1/8 t allspice
3/4 c TVP (textured vegetable protein)
1 28-oz can tomato puree (or tomato sauce, but reduce salt if using salted tomato sauce)
1 29-oz can diced tomatoes
3 15-oz cans garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
2 c vegetable broth
1/2 c strong brewed coffee
1/4 c + 1 t cocoa powder
1/3 c semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 batch peppermint pesto (recipe below)

The Process:

1. Heat olive oil in a large stockpot over medium-high heat.  Add onion and garlic and cook, stirring, until onion is softened, about 4-5 minutes.
2. Add bell peppers, jalapenos, chili powder, salt, cayenne, cinnamon, and allspice, and continue to cook, stirring, for 5 more minutes. 
3. Add TVP, tomato puree, diced tomatoes, garbanzos, broth, and coffee, and bring to a simmer.  Sprinkle on cocoa powder and stir to incorporate.  Cover and let simmer gently for 45 minutes to an hour, stirring a few times.
4. Add chocolate chips and stir until incorporated.
5. Serve with peppermint pesto (below).

Peppermint Pesto

Pulse together in a food processor until pulverized:

2 c loosely-packed peppermint leaves

1/2 c pepitas (roasted, salted pumpkin seeds)

1/4 c raw cashews

1/4 c olive oil

2 T lemon juice

1/4 t salt

Caramelized Onion and Garlic Soup with Miso and Kale

This soup takes awhile to cook because the onions caramelize slowly in the oven, but it doesn't require too much hands-on labor.

The Ingredients:
3 large yellow onions, halved lengthwise then thinly sliced (6-7 cups)
3 heads garlic, peeled and sliced (about 1 cup)
3 T olive oil
1 t salt
1 t sugar
1/2 cup hot water 
1/4 c miso
2 t cornstarch
3 loosely-packed cups sliced kale
3 c water
2 c low-sodium vegetable broth
1/2 c white wine

1 T nutritional yeast
1/8 t cayenne
a pinch black pepper

The Process:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees, with a dutch oven or heavy, lidded casserole dish in the oven.
2. When oven is hot, toss together onions, garlic, oil, sugar, and salt in the pre-heated dutch oven. Cover and bake for 2 hours, stirring every 15 minutes and adding a splash of water if the onions start to stick to the pan.
3. When the 2 hours are up, whisk miso and cornstarch with 1/2 cup hot water until dissolved.
4. Stir miso mixture and all remaining ingredients into the caramelized onion/garlic mixture. Cover, return to the oven, and bake 30-40 minutes.
5. Serve hot with a side of crusty bread.

Lentil Chili with Chorizo and Kale

This isn't elegant, but it is quick, tasty, and filling.

The Ingredients:
1 yellow onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
a dash olive oil
12 oz. soy chorizo
2 c. lentils
1/2c barley
6 c. water
2 c. vegetable broth
1 t chili powder
a pinch salt
4 c. sliced, loosely packed kale


The Process:

1. In a large stockpot over medium heat, saute onion and garlic in olive oil for about 3 minutes.
2. Add chorizo and cook, stirring, 3 more minutes.
3. Add lentils, barley, broth, water, chili powder, and salt. Raise heat and bring to a boil, then reduce heat, cover, and simmer 30 minutes.
4. Stir in kale and continue to cook, covered, for 10 more minutes.

Soup x 2

For my first time trying out recipes from Appetite for Reduction, I couldn't decide between the Butternut-Apple Soup and the Cauliflower Pesto Soup, so I made both.

While it was a little odd to have two different soups for dinner, the contrast between the green and the orange was nice.  Both soups were very simple and quick to make, and both tasted fine, but neither blew me away.  The butternut-apple soup wasn't as appley as I would have preferred; it basically tasted like every other butternut soup I've ever had, including the kind that comes in a box.  The cauliflower-pesto was more unique; the recipe involves simmering cauliflower in broth until it's soft, then removing it from the heat and blending in lots of basil.  I love the idea of blending basil into soup, but I thought it could have used more.  (Maybe I should just eat pesto as a soup?  Yum!)  Also, I prefer chunky soups so if I make this again I'll pulverize the basil before adding it to the soup, and leave the cauliflower florets in tact.  This soup did inspire me to try adding more herbs to soups, though, and I think I'll be making a potato-basil or potato-cilantro soup soon.

Garlic Soup

Thanks to the other Vegan MoFo writers for all the fantastic blogging this month.  Posting five days a week has been a challenge for me, but it has pushed me to try new things, spend more time cooking, and diversify my diet.  My goal now that MoFo is over is to continue posting twice a week, most likely one original recipe and one recipe review per week.  I'm excited to try out some of the many other MoFo posts I've starred in my Google Reader.  And without further ado: Garlic Soup.

This, folks, is my most coveted recipe.  Garlic soup sounds homely, and doesn't look like much.  It isn't polite food, and it will make you smell like garlic for at least a day after you eat it.  Furthermore, thinly slicing an entire cup of garlic is tedious tedious work.  It's worth it.

The ingredients
1 1/2 cups margarine
1 cup thinly-sliced garlic
2 cups finely chopped yellow onion
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour (which sounds like too much, but isn't a typo)
5 1/2 cups vegetable broth
5 garlic cloves, minced or pressed
1 cup Silk creamer (plain flavor)
2 Roma tomatoes, seeded and finely chopped
salt and cayenne pepper to taste

The process

1. Melt margarine over medium-low heat, then saute sliced garlic and onion in margarine for about 7 minutes, or until completely softened.
2. Stir in flour and cook, stirring constantly, for about 2 minutes.  
3. Whisk in 1 1/2 cups broth, then add remaining broth and cook over low heat 12-15 minutes, stirring a few times.  
4. Add minced or pressed garlic, and simmer 5 minutes.
5. Add creamer and return to a simmer.  Cook, stirring frequently, 10 minutes.  Season with salt and cayenne to taste (if using canned broth, you probably won't need to add salt).
6. Remove from heat, stir in tomatoes, and let stand 10 minutes.
7. Serve with bread for sopping up the broth.

Dirty Dumpling Soup

Usually when I think "dumpling soup," I envision the kind that contains asian-style dumplings, as in yesterday's post. However, reading MoFo posts lately, the other kind of dumpling soup has been catching my eye—the kind that contains dumplings consisting of simmered biscuit dough. I think I might have had this type of soup a time or two in my childhood, but since then it's been totally off my radar. It was therefore a delight not only to rediscover this tasty dish, but also to experience how wildly it exceeded my expectations.  The moist exterior and fluffy biscuit interior of the dumplings is the best texture contrast I can imagine. I call this soup dirty because it contains two things I'm ashamed to have in my pantry: Bisquick (which I only recently learned is vegan) and instant mashed potato flakes (which I mostly use as a thickener, but sometimes eat as mashed potatoes if I'm desperate and the blinds are closed).

The ingredients
Soup:
about 2 T olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, pressed
6 cups assorted chopped vegetables (I used green pepper, butternut squash, cabbage, carrots, and fava beans)
6 cups vegetable broth
2 cups water
2 cups mushrooms, sliced
1 cup kale, thinly sliced
1 1/2 cups seitan, chopped
1/2 cup instant mashed potato flakes

Biscuits:
2 cups Bisquick
2/3 cup milk alternative
1/2 t ground thyme
1 t ground sage
1/8-1/4 t black pepper

The process

1. In a stockpot over medium heat, saute the onion in olive oil until softened.  Add garlic and continue to cook another 1-2 minutes.  Add the assorted vegetables (but NOT kale or mushrooms) and continue to cook, stirring, about 5 minutes.
2. Add broth and water, raise heat to high, and bring to a boil.
3. Meanwhile, make biscuit dough: in a small bowl, stir together all biscuit ingredients just until combined.
4. Add mushrooms, seitan and potato flakes to broth, and return to boiling.  Drop biscuit dough into broth and gently boil, uncovered, 10 minutes.
5. Push the dumplings aside and slip the kale into the soup, then cover, reduce heat, and simmer for 10 minutes, or until dumplings are cooked through.

Vegetable Gyoza Soup

My "I'm too sick to cook but want something nourishing" food:
1 can vegetable broth
a few vegetable gyoza or dumplings
cubed tofu
edamame or peas

Heat and slurp, preferably while snuggled up under a blanket.

Sweet potato, peanut, and coconut milk soup

I didn’t feel like cooking this week, so I made a giant pot
of soup on the weekend that we can reheat all week for lunches and
dinners.  It’s a mildly-spicy sweet
potato and peanut soup, very creamy and delicious though not exactly healthy
with its peanut butter and coconut milk broth.

The ingredients (for a HUGE batch—I cook it in a canning
kettle.  A normal soup pot’s worth would
probably be a 1/3 batch.):

¼ c + 2 T olive oil
3 medium yellow onions, roughly chopped

10 cloves garlic, minced or pressed

3 red bell peppers, roughly chopped

6 lbs orange-fleshed sweet potatoes or yams, unpeeled, in a ½-inch to ¾-inch dice

3 carrots, sliced

9-12 hot chiles, minced

1-2 lbs green beans, trimmed and chopped in bite-size pieces

1 28-oz can diced tomatoes, or 3½ cups diced fresh tomatoes, with their juices

½-1 can coconut milk

9-11 cups vegetable broth (to desired viscosity)

1 generous cup peanut butter

2 T brown sugar

1½ t ground cumin

1½ t coriander

1½ t cinnamon

1 T salt

1½ t ground black pepper

1½ c roasted peanuts (if salted, reduce salt in recipe)

Sriracha, cayenne, chile paste, or chile powder, if you want it to burn your mouth more

The process: 

1. Heat oil in canning kettle or cauldron 
2.  Saute onions, garlic, bell peppers, sweet potatoes, carrots, and hot peppers in oil about 7 minutes, until just starting to soften. 
3.  Add everything else EXCEPT the peanuts.  Bring to a boil, covered, over high heat, then reduce heat and simmer, covered, about ½ hour or until sweet potatoes are very soft. 
4.  Add peanuts and adjust seasoning if you so desire.  
5.  EAT! 
6.  EAT AGAIN 
7.  AND EAT SOME MORE…

By the way: this is also quite delicious served as a curry over brown rice.