Tag Archives: Vegan

Food, health, pulses, Uncategorized, weight loss, weight loss, whole grain

Chick pea Marbella (etc)

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Chick peas Marbella, bulgar, zuchini

Chicken Marbella was a hot and happening dish in the very early 80’s, and swept the country as a company dish. It’s got a complex flavor with some odd seasoning choices that make you go what? when you cook it and mmmm when you eat it. And it is a pretty good company dish.
But when you want a meat free pulse based meal… well, turns out, this works with chick peas.
It’s what we had last night for dinner. And that one change made the meal vegan as well as high fiber.

To about 3 cups (2 cans) of chick peas (garbanzo, ceci, hummus) add

1/4 cup chopped prunes
2T capers
2T red vinegar
2T olive oil
2 T brown sugar
2 T white wine
12 sliced green olives
1/3- 1/2 head garlic chopped
1 crumbled bay leaf
2 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp salt AND pepper

Pour into a shallow pan and bake about 40 minutes.
I assume letting this sit overnight would make a good cold salad for a hot day, but right away, the chick peas were bland.

That’s literally it, for a dish my omnivore family prefers to the meat version.

Last night I also discovered that bulgar cooks on the range in minutes. I always prepped mine for tabouli, by pouring boiling water on it and letting it sit for hours, so I never thought of it as a ‘fast’ starch. But it is, faster than pasta, slower than couscous. Took less time than the zucchini took to prep and cook.
It was 1 cup of medium ground bulgar, 2 cups water, 2 T oil, pinch of salt in the pot together, covered, for about 10 -12 minutes. Then off heat, the last of the water was absorbed.
2 medium zucchini, 3 cloves garlic, 1T oil, salt and black pepper. Cooked with cover on, mostly.

Food, money saving, pulses, scratch cooking, sourdough, Uncategorized

Sausage and peppers, only vegan…

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completed meal
bread and beans- what life is made of

We have many vegan dishes in our recipe box, because vegan to us is simply another way to eat. These are not ‘sacrifice’ meals, but meals that really would not be made better with meat anyway. I like to bring this one to pot lucks, because it’s vegan and grain-free, which sometimes makes it one of the only things a guest can eat.
And it’s tasty. An omnivore friend has deemed it ‘sausage and peppers’ and we agree.

And, it’s simple. If you don’t have an instant pot, you can do it on the range or in the oven. If you do it in a slow cooker, start with beans that have been boiled first (not completely cooked through), though.

The first thing to do is soak the beans. My current way to do that is to put dry beans in the Instant Pot for a 4-minute cook, with water, a little salt, and a bay leaf. You can do a ‘quick soak’ with the same add-ins on the range (a 2-minute boil and a 1-hour soak) or do an overnight soak first in plain water. I like the way the bay and salt flavor the beans as a base for pretty much anything.

Navy beans soaking. Any white bean will do.

Then you want to cook a lot of onions (I used 3 large ones) in a lot of olive oil until they are translucent. That is the only cooking that will happen outside of your bean pot. You then toss the onions and everything else into your pot, and let it go until it’s cooked all the way.
It’s seriously that simple. Serve it with bread, or over pasta or rice, and it’s a great, tasty, cheap and healthy meal. Leftovers will be done with pasta tomorrow at our house.
Yes, you can cut the oil down, but there is no other fat in the meal, and olive oil is healthy. 😉 (Do NOT use ‘high quality’ olive oil for this. This is your cooking oil.)

Onions cooking… mmmmm

1# white beans soaked (As mentioned, a little salt (1/2 tsp) and a bay leaf if you are doing a quick soak adds nice flavor)


3 onions, sliced or chopped
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 tsp salt
Sautee these three until the onions are translucent.



3 large green bell peppers, sliced or chopped
1 hot pepper- optional. Add more or less, and any pepper you like. I add 1 sliced pepperoncini. This is not to make it hot (although you can) this is to add a little flavor. The pepperoncini is not really hot, but adds a bit of brine to the dish.
1 quart crushed tomatoes (standard can)
2-3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp dry oregano
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
2c water
add all of these to the pot and cook until done.

all ingredients except onions and water in IP
Cooked beans.
desserts, Uncategorized

Granita- Italian Ices

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The other day I was talking with a friend and she mentioned needing a machine to make Italian Ice (Granita).
You don’t.

You need nothing special to make a good, old fashioned Granita (which sounds so fancy and Sicilian). They were made by resourceful people with little work with. You can do it in your kitchen.

It’s hot here, and we’re still in quarantine, so I threw together a peach granita last night. I started it about 2:30, and it was ready by 7. You need a metal pan, and a fork.

I will walk you through the way I made this one, which is the way I make watermelon and kiwi granitas as well. I will also give recipes for lemon and coffee granitas, because who doesn’t want one of those? And a pro tip that will make them ‘better’.

So, I used an old metal loaf pan. A different sized pan would have different freezing times, otherwise, whatever you have works. And a metal fork.

For this one, I made peach. I drained a jar of home canned peaches and tossed them in the food processor. I was tempted to add some mint, but decided to skip it this time. I added some lemon juice, because it was a bit sweet to me. For this, I added no sugar, because they had been canned in syrup. I put it in the pan and put it in the freezer.

Pre freezing

Every 20 -30 minutes, take the fork and scrape around the edges, where ice is forming. You can see it on the sides here, at the ~40 minute mark.

Over the next few hours, I tried to scrape it down at least 2 times. if you forget and it turns solid, it’s completely salvageable- just re melt it.
The next few pictures show the progression from liquid, to slush to ice.

And that is literally it. Keep breaking it up so large ice crystals don’t form. Use any fruit you want for this. Taste it to make sure it’s what you want form the finished product, and cool off. 🙂
Note Bene: there are NO stabilizers in this. It will melt FAST.

Now, coffee (my mom’s favorite) and lemon (my favorite) are a little different, but no harder. Same technique, but with an actual ‘recipie’.

For coffee, take 2 cups of leftover coffee. (If it’s not strong, use 3 😉 ). Mix with 2 cups of water (or 1, depending on the coffee), and 3/4 cups of sugar. When the sugar is dissolved, pour it into your pan and stir every 20 minutes.

Lemon is 2 cups water, 1/2 cup lemon juice, 3/4 cups sugar. Exactly the same for the rest of it.

Making it ‘fancy’ (which will also reduce the speed it melts at) is simple. Whip 1 egg white (I use pasteurized dry egg whites, because I am paranoid. if you aren’t, you do you. ) with 3T sugar until stiff, and add it into the base when the base is almost but not quite frozen. That’s ‘Roman style’, and gets you the creamy, professional bakery-style I grew up with.

That’s it. It’s that simple. A few ingredients, a pan, a fork. And you can have authentic ices of any flavor you want all summer. I know I will.
There are a collection of Italian frozen desserts that don’t need special equipment. If you want more of them, just let me know. I doubt my family will mind testing them. 🙂