Bean Soup Recipe and Today's Lunch

Today's lunch is bean soup, carrots with hummus, leftover tuna quich again, and some pineapple.  I have included the recipe for the bean soup. 

Bean Soup:

4 cups water

3 cups veggie stock

  1.5 cups 15 bean mix (we got ours at the Asheville Farmer's Market, but you can pick up the mix at the grocery store)

1/2 stick butter

3 med. carrots chopped

5 wild onions chopped

4 cloves garlic chopped

4 celery stalks chopped

Salt and Pepper

Put the veggie stock, water, and butter in a pot along with all the beans and heat to a boil and then cover and simmer until the beans are almost completely soft.  When the beans are almost soft, put all of the rest of the ingredients in and simmer until veggies are soft.  Salt and Pepper to taste and you are done.  This makes a hardy, easy soup with a buttery, tasty broth.  Enjoy!!

Leftovers and Lentils - Today's Lunch

I'm excited today.  You see those two little squares of goodness in the bottom right of my box?  That is leftover tuna quiche!!  Yeah, and it is the stuff.  I've also got some carrots with hummus and refried black beans, green lentils, and a banana.  I would eat it right now, but then I wouldn't have lunch.  Stay tuned for some fabulous banana bread made witih teff flour - don't know what teff is?  Look it up and get ready to make some serious holiday banana bread.  Have a great day!!

Today's Lunch

Sprout, carrot, and homemade hummus sandwich on Rudi's gluten free bread, red lentils, refried black beans with a little sour cream, and pineapple!!  Gluten free, vegetarian lunch in the Bento Box - it doesn't get better than this. 

Fancy for Friends...a gluten free, vegetarian killer!!

When true friends come from out of town to visit, you have to pull out all the stops, am I right?  Well I've been working on gluten free, vegetarian calzones now for a little while and I finally perfected them enough to try out on some innocent bystanders. So when our friend Lisa came to visit from good ol' Tennessee I served them up.  You can stuff these guys with whatever you want, and you can save extra or leftover dough for another time.  However you fix them, this is sure to be a favorite, just make sure you stock up on the tunes and beverages because the prep on this one is one of those preps you save for special occasions such as this one. 

For these spinach, broccoli, artichoke, and mushroom calzones you will need the following:
For the dipping sauce:

3 cans crushed tomatoes
2 tsp garlic powder
3 tsp onion powder
3 tsp Italian seasoning
Salt and pepper to taste
For the filling:
1/2 large red onion chopped
2 cups broccoli chopped
1 package frozen chopped spinach
1/2 can mushrooms or 1 cup fresh
1/2 can artichoke hearts
3 cloves garlic minced
Olive oil and butter

1 egg beaten w/ a splash of milk
(you can do this right before the oven so wait)
Mozzarella cheese
Feta cheese
For the dough:
2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast
1 tsp salt
1 tsp honey
1 cup warm water (not hot!!)
3 cups Bob's Red Mill all purpose gluten free flour and a little extra for dusting
Must Have this!!! 6 tsp xanthan gum - Bob's Red Mill sells this, but this will not work without xanthan gum!!

First thing is first.  Take your warm water and add the salt, honey, and yeast to it, stir it a little bit and set it off to the side for 10-15 minutes.  While that is sitting, put your gf flour and xanthan gum in a bowl, and go ahead and get all of your other stuff out and ready to go, and by the time you get it all ready, you will be ready to pour your yeast mixture in to the flour and mix it up.  The yeast mixture should smell like beer and have a nice layer of foam on top. If it doesn't look and smell like this - (the picture is scratch and sniff so go ahead and scratch it) you may have something wrong.  Try again, but yeast is almost foolproof so you shouldn't have a problem unless it is ridiculous cold in your house.

 If the mix is too dry and doesn't form a nice sticky ball then add a little water, if it is too wet, add a little more flour.  Once you get it to a nice doughy consistency, knead the ball for at least ten minutes.  No crazy technique here, just mush it around and fold it up and mush it some more for ten minutes.  After the kneading, get a clean bowl that the whole ball will fit in to nicely, put about a tsp olive oil in it and then roll the dough ball around in the oil and then leave the ball in the bowl, cover and let it rise for about an hour.  That's right, an hour, so now you have time to complete the rest of the recipe, and drink some wine, talk to your friends, let your dog lick your face.....OK, set the bowl of dough to the side in a warm place for an hour and it should almost double in size, and after a while should make little popping noises - that's just carbon dioxide popping out of the dough from the yeast - no the yeast is not trying to tell you ANYTHING.  While this is going on let's complete the rest of the stuff.

Get all of your filling ingredients except for cheese and egg and milk and saute them in about 3 tbsp olive oil and a couple pats of butter.  While this stuff is getting soft, pour the crushed tomatoes in a sauce pot, turn it on low heat and add the seasonings.  When all of your filling ingredients get warm and soft, turn them on low heat, and just keep an eye on your dipping sauce.  You can take a little break now just keeping an eye on your filling and sauce from time to time.

After the hour is up, take your dough out and cut it in to quarters.  Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.  Roll one of the quarters out with a rolling pin on some flour so it doesn't stick.  Get it good and thin as you want it and then add some filling in the center along with some mozzarella and feta and roll one side over the filling and press it on to the other side.

 Take a pizza cutter and cut off the excess dough and roll the edges up and pinch them tight.  Move the calzone to a greased baking pan, and slice a small breathing hole right in the top.  Repeat these steps for however many more calzones you want.  This recipe usually makes 4 large ones, but you can make 8 small ones if you'd like.  After you get them all stuffed and folded, take that egg and milk mixture and brush the top of each one liberally.  Pop 'em in the oven and bake until golden brown.  Take them out, let cool for a little bit while you divide your dipping sauce in to some small saucers and it's time to eat.  I left some pics that should help with all of this stuff.

ENJOY!!!!

Early Merry Christmas to Me!!!

It's time to get mushy...I have the best wife in the world.  Go ahead and gag, but it's true.  If you read this blog you will benefit too though because Mandy got me a Bento lunchbox!!  This is the coolest thing ever, and it is microwave safe, BPA free, and it has an insulated sleeve to keep it in!!  Are you serious?  Oh yeah, how do you benefit?  Now I can show you all of my on the go lunches in style, so here is the first.

Is this not the coolest thing you've ever seen?  We've got a carrot and half an apple w/ peanut butter, (I dripped some lemon juice on my apple to keep those enzymes from browning up my apple)  a sprout sandwich with cheese and horseradish hummus on brown rice bread, and some teff flour banana nut bread.  I don't even think I'll be able to eat it all.  This thing even came with silverware and little tops for the containers, and a little condiment container!  So, if you're on the go but you want to ensure that you get a great homemade lunch then I would either get a Bento Box or go get the second best wife ever. (I have the first).

Homemade Hummus

For chips, for sandwiches, for veggies, and for just about anything - Hummus makes an all around spread that adds good flavor when you want to replace a fattening dip or condiment with a healthier and I think tastier alternative.  Here is how you can make it yourself to ensure that the only stuff in your hummus is the stuff you want in your hummus.  Feel free to add all sorts of different spices to yours and customize your hummus for you!!  In the blender combine:
1 12 oz can chick peas (garbanzo beans) along with about 1/4 of the juice in the can
1-2 cloves garlic
1 tsp salt
1tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp lemon juice
1-2 tsp cumin

Puree and you're finished - eat on this for several days, but my guess is it won't last one.

Today's work snack

And pasta of the year goes to....

Are you serious?  This one goes in to the hall of fame in the category of good stuff mixed up with some noodles.  This thing is creamy and roasted garlicky and olive oily with a splash of parmesan cheesy.  Not to mention all of the fine vegetables all up in the mix.  This one is a winner, so don't even think twice, just grab a pen and paper and plan on fixin' this for dinner like yesterday.  It is decently quick too, but you may want to grab a beer or a glass of wine and crank up the Christmas tunes anyway.  Start out with roasting up some garlic again by cutting the top off of a head, pour some olive oil in there, wrap it in foil and bake it at about 350 for about an hour or a little less.

For this recipe you will need the following:
One leek
1 can artichoke hearts
Half of a red onion (chopped but not too fine)
1/2 cup(dry) mung beans cooked in veggie stock
2.5 cups rough chopped broccoli (I used frozen)
5 cloves roasted garlic and 3 fresh cloves
The juice of about 1/2 lemon
2 cups collard greens (I used mine from the garden but frozen will do fine)
A couple pats of butter and some extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup milk or cream and about 1/4 cup shredded mozzarella and some parmesan cheese.

Saute your onions, a couple cloves of minced garlic, broccoli, sliced leeks (white portion), and collards all together in butter and olive oil while the mung beans are cooking.  Go ahead and salt the mixture a little and give it a few splashes of that fresh lemon juice.  As all the veggies start getting a little soft turn them to low heat and mix in your milk or cream along with a small pat of butter and incorporate together.  After the mung beans get soft, dump them along with their juices in to the veggie mixture along with the shredded mozzarella and stir it all up well.  Go ahead and get your noodles of choice going while the veggie mixture stays on low heat.  I used brown rice spaghetti noodles.

After the noodles get done, drain 'em and transfer 'em in to another bowl, and then take out the roasted garlic from the oven and squeeze some of that fine smellin' mess right over the veggie mix (about 5 cloves will do just fine).  Salt and pepper to taste and if you're like me you'll add about 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper and then add some fresh lemon juice and dump the whole mix over the pasta and mix it all together in to a big heapin' pile of I don't know what.  Grate some fresh parmesan over it before you serve it and dang - that's right on.  This one didn't even need a salad.

 
One last thing.  I took some of those mung beans and sprouted them as my first attempt at doing some sprouts here at home instead of buying them.  It worked pretty darn well, so I left a picture or two here for you to check them out.  It's not hard to do at all and I'm sure you can figure it out, but my advice is don't do mung bean sprouts unless you have accquired a taste for them.  I'll be honest, I can get used to alot of things, but mung bean sprouts just won't do.  I had to smother them in refried black beans just to get them past my tongue.  The pictures are cool anyway - stay tuned for broccoli sprouts!!