Roasted Red Pepper and Shallot Dressing/Sauce

I made this yesterday long before dinner time so that when the kids woke up from nap all I had to do was throw dinner together and throw it in the oven....big mistake...it was sooo good. I spread some on a slice of bread to make sure I got the flavors right, then I had another slice....and another...never adjusting the recipe one bit, just some good old fashioned stuffing my face with a savory sauce that was meant to be for dinner.

Now when my husband came home with a jar of roasted red peppers I had no idea what I was going to do with them, but when I saw portabella mushroom caps in the store I was inspired. I cleaned and degilled the mushroom caps then stuck them in a bag with a couple tablespoons of balsamic vinegar, a tablespoon of oil, a little salt, and one tsp of sugar. I let this mixture marinate until dinner. If I'd had, a clove of garlic I would have crushed and tossed that in there as well. When dinner time rolled around I put the mushroom caps in a baking dish and stuffed them with quinoa that I had cooked in veggie broth, and seasoned with salt and pepper. I baked this covered (to keep the quinoa from drying out) at 350 for about 45 minutes. Then I pulled them out and served them with the red pepper sauce over the top. I have a horrifically bad photo of this somewhere on my cell phone, I'll see if I can't get a better one when I make this again*. I'll follow with more serving suggestions after the recipe.

What you need

3 cloves shallots peeled and thinly sliced

oil for sauteing

dash of salt

2/3 cups roasted red pepper strips (don't drain, but try not to get a lot of liquid in the mix)

2 tsp balsamic vinegar

1/2 tsp brown sugar

2 tbs coconut milk...or more for a creamier sauce

Heat the oil in a pan over medium low heat, add the shallots and salt and cook until transparent. You could probably caramelize these with tasty results, however I did not this time around.

Put the shallots and the rest of the ingredients in your food processor and process until smooth. Adjust to suit tastes.

This recipe doesn't make a lot of sauce, it was enough to cover our mushrooms (ehem...and a little extra), but if you are thinking of using it on a larger scale...say over a pasta dish, you may have to double the recipe.

Serving suggestions

Try this on a sandwich (tomato and mozzarella maybe? Yum!)

On toasted bread (rubbed with garlic?)

Add more coconut milk to make it into a cream sauce and add to pasta

Over stuffed portabella mushrooms

On top of salad

As a dressing for pasta salad

A dip for raw veggies

Smeared onto puff pastry with some cream cheese and crushed garlic, then rolled up for a pesto pinwheel style appetizer

pour over grilled veggies

*I will be making this again

A Very Veggie Burrito

Burrito leftovers pictured in a bowl the next day for lunch. This was my lunch two days in a row. The burrito bowl, the lower cal, gluten free version of the ginormous burrito. Both have a proper time and place.

If you currently live in California this is not the post for you. Why don't you just wander on down to the corner taco truck and get yourself a big ol' burrito wrapped in tin foil and go eat it on the beach. Just don't tell me about it because I will more than likely have a mental breakdown. Really I'm jealous. I've done my fair share of complaining about the Mexican food I've eaten since moving here (instant mashed potatoes on a flour tortilla with some American cheese anyone?). This week I decided to quit my complaining and make my own dang burrito. So that's what I did. And now I'm here writing this post to encourage the other wandering Californians that I know are out there to go do the same. This was not quite the same as what I'd get at my favorite places back home, but it's a suitable replacement when the other option (eating out) happens to include frozen spinach and processed blocks of orange cheese (you all know what I'm talking about).

All the prep work (making the refried beans, Spanish rice, and grilling veggies) was done ahead of time. Thus I was able to throw this together in a jiffy. This burrito is vegan, and can easily be adapted to suit personal tastes, for instance........I like hot sauce, and onions............a lot. You may not........I believe we can still be friends.

First a layer of mashed up avocado, some fresh diced onion and some cilantro

grilled peppers and onions on top of that

Some homemade Spanish rice

Homemade refried black beans, I know...they look gross...that's ok though because they taste great. You can use some other sort of refried beans if you like, I just really like how flavorful these are.

A little hot sauce.

Wrap that baby up.

You may have to struggle a little to pick the burrito up......that's only natural. There is a reason these things come wrapped in foil, at home I like to eat them with a fork.

Garlic Ginger Grilled Zucchini Roll-ups

I would recommend this to a zucchini hater. I myself used to be a zucchini hater, but this recipe helped me change my mind. What I hated was the taste of raw zucchini, something about it totally grossed me out as a kid. Now that I have learned how zucchini caramelizes on the grill, and how well it works in veggie pancakes, I've been won over. If you are super zucchiniaphobic, you might want to start out by trying them in veggie pancakes and working your way up to these.

I made two types, one with feta for us adults, and one with cheddar for the kids. I'm not going to recommend the cheddar ones, the kids were ok with them.....but they don't know how wonderful feta is. However, because I didn't think to take pictures of the process until I had already rolled all of the feta ones, you will get pictures of the less tasty cheddar version. You can also add diced roma tomatoes, and chopped fresh herbs to the filling with very tasty results.

You will need one recipe garlic ginger butter , zucchini, and feta cheese. It's that simple!

Melt the garlic ginger butter.

Wash off the zucchini and chop off both ends. Slice it thinly lengthwise and brush it with the garlic ginger butter. Throw it on the grill until it has these little liney thingies, and is pliable...see picture below....
Line those babies up and sprinkle feta, diced tomatoes and whatnot over the top half of the zucchini.
Roll them up and serve immediately! Here's what the kids version looked like....
I served these along side manicotti. I found 1/2 of a box of manicotti noodles in my cupboard, and though I didn't have all the ingredients I normally use I improvised.....and it was a hit. My daughter raved that she loved "circle shaped spaghetti".....do you want to know what I did? I replaced the mozzarella with cheddar...not a huge leap, and I replaced the ricotta with.....beans....white beans.....and it was delicious. My husband said he liked it better than regular manicotti. All you do is drain and rinse one can of white beans, and throw it in the food processor. I added one clove of pressed garlic and seasoned it as I would ricotta (salt, pepper, oregano, and a dash of nutmeg). It was a little thinner than normal manicotti filling, but it was pretty tasty. I didn't get any good pictures (again I wasn't thinking) but I got a picture...which is about all you really expect from me by now isn't it? That's the game, set the bar low.;)

I made this dish out of mostly pantry and staples so I'm labeling it a pantry meal......because I can, because it's my blog. :)

Avocado Sandwich Spread or Dip

I am not going to call this an egg free substitute for mayonnaise, because you couldn't really use it to replace mayonnaise in recipes. It does make a very tasty sandwich spread though. So in our house we will be using it as an egg free, soy free mayo/ranch alternative. It also works great as a dip. This isn't so much of an actual recipe as a, "here is a vague outline of what I did, with some pictures and witty banter thrown in". So now go out there and adjust it to your own taste preferences and dietary restrictions.:)

The only downside to this is that avocado turns brown and I didn't add enough lemon juice to prevent it. If you make this, you have to use it quickly, or you have to get over that lovely shade of greenish brown (that always reminds me of Linda Blair) being on your sandwich or quesadilla.

All I did was throw 2 tbs of yogurt, two avocados (washed, peeled, pitted) and the juice of one lemon into the food processor. Then I added ranch dressing mix to taste. I've found packets of ranch dressing mix on the shelves that my met our dietary restrictions before, however....I did not love them. I wanted to...believe me, but it was just not meant to be. Try making your own, you can adjust the sodium, spices, and there are even dairy free recipes out there.

This made it's way into the kids muffin tin snacks the other day, check it out....

The theme was "A". A is for apple slices, avocado dip, and ants on a log. The kids gobbled this whole tray up in no time flat. I got the idea for serving it in a muffin tin over here, at Mama to 4 blessings, our homeschool blog.

Might I also suggest you try it on a veggie burger....good stuff!

Black Bean Chipotle Burgers with Pan Fried Sweet Potatoes and BBQ Sauce...

I was inspired by Debbie. I love her blog, even though she isn't a vegetarian she frequently posts meatless recipes, and she posts the caloric content. Fabulous! This recipe for sweet potatoes and black bean burritos reminded me that...well...I love sweet potatoes and black beans. I am still kind of worn out from the trip so in figuring out how to satisfy my craving without a trip to the store I came up with this.
It's simply one of my make ahead frozen black bean burgers (you could always use your own recipe, or buy them) which I thawed and cooked in a pan on the stove. I topped it with thinly sliced and pan fried sweet potatoes, organic BBQ sauce, and served it on a whole wheat bun. It went over well with the fam. If I had thought of it ahead of time I could have grilled the sweet potatoes and burgers side by side. Which is what I will do next time I make these.....and there will be a next time!

Marinated Portobello Mushrooms with Sun Dried Tomato Sauce

For as fancy as this sounds, the thought process that led me to it was rather simple. First I looked in my fridge to see what we had on hand, then I checked to see which measuring cups were clean. I could lie to you and say that I was trying to achieve a balance between the saltiness of the tomatoes and the sweet cherry notes of the pinot noir....but no, it was more like "Hey look Portobello mushrooms, I bet I have something in my fridge that will make those taste good....and look here, I have a tbs measure that isn't dirty, let's use that.

For the Marinade
2 tbs balsamic vinegar
4 tbs red wine
2 tbs olive oil
1 tbs prepared mustard
1 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp salt
3 cloves peeled and pressed garlic

Clean and degill* four mushrooms and place them in a baking dish. Whisk together the marinade ingredients and pour over the mushrooms. Cover and refrigerate for at least two hours turning once. I left mine in all day, yum!

For the sauce

1 package (3.5 oz) sun dried tomatoes
2 tbs olive oil
2 tbs red wine
2 cloves peeled garlic
1 15oz can of tomato sauce

Put the garlic, oil, wine, and tomatoes in your food processor. Process until smoothish and start adding sauce. Once all the ingredients are in there, and you are certain you don't have any large chunks of garlic left you are done.

Now let us put it all together.....

Grill the mushrooms until desired doneness.

Heat the sauce in a saucepan over medium low heat until cooked through. Stir occasionally.

Pour sauce over mushrooms and serve.

This was delish! I added smoked Gouda to the hubsters portion (pictured). I thought the sauce was a tad salty, hubster disagreed....but he likes food super salty. I would suggest using no salt added tomato sauce, and adding more salt as you see fit.




*I don't know if degill is a word, the wavy red lines of doom are indicating to me that no...it is in fact not. But what I mean by degill is take your paring knife and carefully scrape all of those black gilly type things out of the inside of the mushroom.

Smokey Chipotle Black Bean Burger

This is a OAMC recipe. I made these sort of assembly line style and it took a good bit of time, but it was worth it for us because now i have a ton of veggie burgers in my freezer that make quick and filling dinners. It only took a little bit of effort for each part of the process, but it can look a bit daunting when you put it all together.

I soaked the beans the night before, then first thing in the morning I drained and rinsed them. Then I set them to boil while I chopped up my onions, garlic, and measured out my spices in a bowl. I added the onion and bay leaf, and then I made breakfast for the kids. Thirty minutes later, when the timer went off I just dumped the garlic and bowl of spices in. Then I got the kids dressed and thirty minutes later when the timer went off again I tasted them, removed the bay leaves, and turned off the heat. I let the beans cool a bit then I pureed them up with the rest of the ingredients to make my veggie burger "dough". That went into the fridge until I was ready to turn it into patties.

You could probably cut this recipe in half and try it out before you commit to a freezer full of bean burgers.

For the beans
One pound beans rinsed sorted and soaked overnight...then rinsed again.
2 onions diced
2 bay leaves
5 cloves of garlic, peeled and diced
1/4 tsp salt
2 tbs chili powder
1 tbs ground cumin

In a large pot combine the beans, onion and salt. Add water just to cover, and toss in the bay leaves.

Bring to a boil over medium high heat. Boil for thirty minutes and add the spices and garlic. Set the timer for 15 minutes and check beans. Mine took about an hour total to cook.

Remove bay leaves. Let beans cool.

If there is excessive liquid skim it off...a tiny bit of liquid is ok. You don't want it pooling, or for the beans to be submerged. The more liquid you have the more breadcrumbs you will need though.


Now....to turn these babies into burgers....

The beans....hu-duh
1/2-2 chipotle chilis in adobo....start with 1/2 and you can always add more. And remember what I always say, you can never have too much spice....unless it's in your eyes, then pretty much any amount is too much.
2 baked potatoes skins removed
1/4 cup tomato sauce
Bread crumbs, the amount you need will vary depending on how much cooking liquid you had, how big your baked potatoes were...etc. I believe I may have used about 3 cups. What you are looking for is the texture of cookie dough so stop when you get there...
Salt to taste.
Liquid smoke to taste...trust me, this stuff is the bomb diggity! Get some! Use it, love it, thank me later...don't be discouraged from buying it just because I still use early nineties catch phrases like "the bomb diggity".



Process 3/4 of the beans, the potatoes, tomato sauce, and the chipotle in your food processor until smooth. Pour into a large bowl.

Stir in the rest of the beans, and the breadcrumbs until your mixture is very thick and holds it's shape well. Add salt, pepper and liquid smoke to taste, cover and refrigerate.

When you are ready to grill, just shape the dough into patties and grill, bake or fry them up. I served them on homemade bread with mozzarella and avocado! Yum! I froze the leftover burgers. They did well reheated.



More tips on veggie burger making.

Veggie Burger Tips

There are so many advantages to making your own veggie burgers, you control the sodium, flavorings, ingredients, and texture. Also, if you happen to be avoiding soy, making your own is the way to go!
I have had some pretty epic fails in cooking. Mostly in the area of baking, but veggie burgers have proven to be a formidable opponent. I have learned a few things through my failures and I would like to share them with you.

First of all, all of my great successes have involved a food processor. They enable me to puree the beans to actually act as a binder in my burgers. If you don't have a food processor you should go get one, or borrow one.


The dough or batter (or whatever) should have a dense, thick consistency, like cookie dough....mmmmm cookies...,dagnabbit now I want a cookie.
Be right back.......

Thirdly, chill your dough! I find it's best to make veggie burgers in big batches. I do it on a scheduled day that I don't have much else going on. I make the dough the night before and leave it in the fridge. It gives the flavors a chance to blend, and I have an easier time shaping the patties.

The dough should be easy to shape into patties. If it is falling apart in your hand it will fall apart on the grill.

After taking this picture I allowed myself a few minutes to snicker about how it looks like I'm holding a doodie. I will allow you the same....have I mentioned how mature I am? Are we all done then? Good.

Last but not least, you want your grill, or frying pan hot when you put the patties on.

I hope this helps some. Pictured in these photos are some smokey chipotle black bean burgers, I will hopefully be getting around to putting a recipe up sometime later this week. It's a OAMC recipe so if you are wary of veggie burgers I would suggest trying it (or another recipe) in small batches. See what you and your family like. Then if you have a couple of hours that you can set aside, make the whole recipe to keep in the freezer for quick meals.