Growing up, I ate a lot of leftovers. My parents both worked two jobs so it was much more efficient to make a few big meals and then eat leftovers on off nights–especially since I could heat them up myself. Since you can’t always eke out a full meal from a single leftover, you often have to combine things or eat separate dishes. My mom referred to this as “Grab ‘n’ Growl”, a term passed down through the generations in my family’s unique (read: very bizarre) lexicon, which posits a family as a bunch of Neanderthals scavenging the fridge for food, battling over the best bits. Closer to the truth, perhaps, than we’d like to admit.

With Amy in Budapest, it’s officially grab ‘n growl week. This is sort of weird, since it’s just me, but I feel less lonely if I growl. Since I tend to do most of the cooking, the swingin’ bachelor life doesn’t necessitate eating cold beans out of cans, scratching my crotch, and drinking whiskey straight from the bottle. I may prowl the house growling, but I can still drink whiskey from a glass. What the bachelor life does invoke, however, is my occasional need to purge the refrigerator of leftovers and about-to-go-bad food. On a small scale, this is best accomplished in a single meal. But with Amy gone–taking her need for delicious, inventive cuisine with her–I’m free to do a major purge, using up everything in strange and sometimes wonderful/sometimes not combinations.  In other words, this isn’t generally the kind of food I’d foist on other people.

But from the ashes doth arise the phoenix! Behold these Curried Potato Everything Cakes aka Poor Man’s Pakora:

These puppies used up mashed potatoes, mushrooms, Brussels sprouts, kale, and a scosh of raw sushi filling, as well as some leftover Chik’n Almond Bake and crushed crackers for the breading. For combining so many different–and somewhat disparate–ingredients, these were actually pretty awesome. The cracker/Chik’n Almond Bake combo was the key.

I enjoyed this with leftover Avocado Wasabi Salad ala Vegan Yum Yum:

Remember that Roasted Poblano Chili? The leftover beans (I still haven’t mastered the exact yield of dry beans when you cook them) were a perfect base (along with rice, obviously) for beans and rice.

On Saturday, I made a green Thai curry out of a small smattering of frozen veggies (ack! I know), tofu, and the leftover raw Siamese Dream Soup.

And finally, last night I made a version of Zuppa Toscana, using up the rest of the mashed potatoes; some dilapidated turnips that didn’t make it into the Potato, Turnip, & Rosemary Soup; and the unused tempeh (we get it in bulk) from the Smoky Tempeh Hummus Wraps.

That’s a lot of food! As I’ve chiseled away at out leftovers (and this post), it’s become clear to me that we both cook and shop for our palettes, not from our resources. Forgive me if I’m stretching here, but this, in a general sense, is one the key problems with the American food industry. You can get as much of anything, from anywhere, at any time, as you want.  The variety comes from the store, not from your kitchen and brain.

Equally problematic is the amount of time between trips to the grocery store. Like most Americans, we tend to go once a week, if that. We task ourselves with predicting what our future selves will want to eat–based on what? How can we know what we’ll want to eat 3 days from now? This means that as the week wears on, we become less satisfied with our choices and less likely to cook with what we bought. Scanning our half-full fridge, nothing looks good. So we either (a) settle on something merely “acceptable” or (b) give up completely and go out for dinner. I’m not against going out to eat, but I think it should be a deliberate choice–because you want to, not because you need to. But (a) is a bit of a crapshoot; on nights when I’m feeling creative, it’s a fun challenge and usually turns out pretty tasty. On off nights, it’s a burden and “edible” suffices.

One solution to this is to shop more frequently and buy less. This also helps ensure the freshness of your food. The other solution, I’m afraid to say, may be getting comfortable with “pretty good” some of the time. Maybe it’s been a good week for culinary creativity, but I feel like I’ve eaten pretty well with nary a thought of hitting up the grocery store (okay…that’s not entirely true…when I ran out of soy sauce, I felt a ripple of panic). This may owe, in part, to the very fact that I’ve used up almost everything in the fridge; my choices have dwindled as the week wore on. While some choice is certainly good, a lot of choice, it turns out, is actually rather bad (think about your occasional trip to an all-vegan restaurant–it’s almost paralyzing; you’re not accustomed to so many choices). The problem with too many choices is our tendency to weigh any single choice against the combined best parts of all the other choices. While this doesn’t actually change how good any single choice is, it does change how satisfied we feel.

So my final thought, in this lazy cognitive meandering, is that our enjoyment of our food is often based on our frame of reference. Given my limited options, what I came up with seemed really good–as soon as I’d eliminated the other possibilities. This is the fulcrum on which “leftovers” become “leftover surprise”.

Rrrrrooaawww!

Amy left last week for a return trip to Budapest to finish a video collaboration, make new work, and prepare for an opening there (if you’re in or around Budapest, be sure to check it out). She’s kicking so much ass it’s hard not to feel ineffectual!

Since she was flying at night, we had time for a nice dinner. Here main requests were “protein power and potatoes”. After rummaging around the intertubes for a while, we decided to kick it eclectic-style and settled on:

• mashed potatoes
• sauteed mushrooms
• Vegan Dad’s Crispy Cajun Chickpea Cakes
• steamed broccoli
• carrot, beet, and lettuce salad, tossed in a light vinaigrette

Chickpea Cake Mixins

Bright, crispy, and delicious

After making an Olive Garden-style minestrone, it seemed only natural to make the zuppa toscana as well. Since we had leftover breadsticks, it was another awesome replica. This soup is very much like the Spicy Potato & Kale Soup, but less spicy and much richer. I used a modified version of our tempeh soyrizo, and the leftover fakin crumblins from Tofu MarkMuffins. You’re always stuck with those crumblins, too thrifty to throw them out, but at a loss as to what to do with them. This soup is the answer!

Zuppa Toscana

• 1 large white onion, diced
• 1 package (1/2 lb) tempeh
• 4 tbsp fakin bits
• 3 medium-large potatoes, peeled and cubed
• 4 large stalks (half a bunch) of curly kale
• 6 large cloves garlic
• 2 tbsp oregano
• 1 tsp crushed red pepper
• 1/2 tsp ground cumin
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 4 cups veggie stock
• 4 cups water
• 1.5 cups soy creamer
• salt & pepper, to taste

Soysage

Tear the tempeh into pieces, leaving some larger chunks. In a small-medium-sized bowl, mix the soy sauce, oregano, cumin, 2 cloves of garlic, and crushed red pepper. Put the tempeh into a large bowl, then stir in the mixture, coating all of the tempeh evenly. Let this sit for for 15 minutes or more before using–it lets everything soak in.

In a large pot, saute fakin bits in oil, over medium heat. When they’ve browned and are starting to get crips, add in the onion, tempeh, and garlic. When the onions are soft, add in the potatoes, veggie stock, and water. Bring to a boil then reduce heat to simmer. When the potatoes are soft, add in the soy creamer and kale, salting and peppering to taste.

Serve with breadsticks!

If we were honest with ourselves, we’d call this this VeganSoups.org. Every non-soup recipe is really just a holdover until we can make another soup. At least in the 6 month Michigan winter. So here is yet another in a long line of vegan soups.

I saw this amazing-looking Potato Turnip soup on Vegan Eats & Treats a couple weeks ago and was intrigued. ‘What is this “turnip” you speak of’, thought I. I mean, I’ve heard of turnips. I’m even lead to believe they’re in my veggie stock. But ne’er have I cooked a turnip. Nary a one. (Much like the parsnip, which my good friend Jeremy turned me onto.)

As it turns out, a turnip is like a crispy potato with zang!.  This is perfectly complemented by lots of pepper and a healthy smattering of fresh rosemary. This soup can be seasonal for quite some time, too. We’re still getting local potatoes and turnips at the coop and our rosemary is happy as a clam (which is happy why?) indoors over the winter.

Potato, Turnip, & Rosemary Soup

• 1 large white onion, diced
• 4 large-ish russet potatoes, peeled and cubed
• 3 medium-sized turnips, peeled and cubed
• 6 cups veggie stock
• ~ 1 tbsp fresh rosemary (or 1 -2  tsp ground)
• 1/2 tsp ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp granulated garlic
• salt & pepper, to taste

This soup is insanely easy. Saute the onion in a large pot over medium heat in oil of your choice (your choice would be awesome if it were Safflower). Add the turnips once you’ve finished peeling and cubing them. Ditto on the potatoes (they’re a bit softer, so they take less time to cook down). Once the onions are soft, add the veggie stock. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer covered until the potatoes and turnips are soft. Blend! If you’ve heeded past warnings, portents, and/or implorations, then you’ll use your immersion blender. Otherwise, do it the hard way and enjoy the $25 you’ve saved. I like to leave a bit of the potato/turnip intact, but you might like it smooth, like Barry White. Add the herbs and spices and you’re all set. That’s it! Easy!

I’ve been salivating internally ever since I saw Lisa’s Chik’n Club Sammich during Vegan MoFo. Wait. That seems kind of gross. I wasn’t literally salivating nonstop for three months. I would need an IV to maintain that level of salivation. And you might too.

As you’ve probably learned by now, we’re not super into processed stuff, so I’d really been meaning to make a version using all fresh, homemade ingredients. We used our famous chik’n almond bake breaded tofu (thought this would have been superb with breaded seitan strips too). It was after 9pm when we started, so homemade bread wasn’t in the cards for this incarnation, but also would have been awesome (we just toasted some sandwhich bread). What’s worse, I totally forgot Lisa’s coup d’grace: fakin. Fakin’s a little labor intensive, so the fresh homemade route won’t yield a quick sammich in a pinch. We did, however, make homemade baked fries (we cut these into fry shapes and left out the cayenne) to round this out as one of those perfect healthy “unhealthy” meals that we often crave.

Chik’n Tofu Strip Club Sammich

• 1 lb of extra firm tofu, frozen then thawed
• bread
• lettuce
• purple onion
• tomato
• fakin (optional)
• chik’n almond bake
• safflower oil
• Earth Balance ™ or Vegenaise ™

You’ll want to freeze then thaw a pound of extra firm tofu. This makes it a little spongy and more firm–a better texture for chik’n and also nice in some stir fries. We try to keep tofu in both states on hand. It’ll keep for a very long time in the freezer.

Preheat the oven 425 degrees Fahrenheit. Thaw your tofu. When it’s thawed, squeeze all the water out and cut into strips–you’ll probably want them to be about 2″ x 1/2″ x 1/4″. The strip size is really a matter of preference though. Coat each strip in safflower oil then in the chik’n almond bake. Place on a baking sheet  and cook for about 15 minutes on one side, flip, then cook for about another 10 minutes–until brown and crispy, but not burnt. They will crisp up a scosh upon cooling.

Toast some bread (or pull some fresh bread from the oven). Slather the sammich spread of your choice on said bread. Place as many tofu strips as will cover a piece of bread on once piece. Then add the fakin (if using), lettuce, tomato, and onion, in that order. Cut in half if it strikes your fancy. Serve with fries. Or not. It’s your meal.

Having just delivered her most recent work for the Spring 2010 Collection show at The Gallery Project, Amy finally had a little time on her hands to cook it down in the kitchen. She’d been craving a potato soup for weeks, but doesn’t care for really thick soups, and devised this tasty li’l guy. It’s got the subtlety of a potato soup, with a hint of sharpness from the celery. And it demands croutons with an iron fist. Obey or perish.

Provençal Potato, Leek and Celery Soup

• Four large-ish potatoes with white flesh–such as russet, red, or purple–peeled, then diced
• One large white onion, diced
• Two or three large celery stalks, diced
• Two leeks, diced
• Safflower, or another high-heat oil to taste (for sauteing)
• Veggie bouillon (I used three cubes of Rapunzel brand, sans salt)
• 8 cups filtered water
• 1/4 cup unsweetened soy milk + more to desired consistency
• 1 tbsp. Earth Balance TM
• 1 tbsp. white all-purpose flour
• 1.5 tsp. herbs de provence
• salt and pepper to taste

Combine onion, leeks, and celery in a large soup pot.  Drizzle with high heat oil, add a dash of salt and a couple of cranks from a pepper mill, and saute on medium-high heat until onions are translucent and all veggies are soft.  Add potato pieces and cover mixture with 8 cups water.  Bring to a boil.  Once boiling, add veggie bouillon cubes.  (Note: in this recipe, I don’t want the veggie stock flavor to dominate, so I use one less cube than normally required for eight cups of water; I use three instead of four).

While soup is simmering, make your roux by melting Earth Balance ™ in a shallow saute pan.  Add flour and whisk in soy milk.  Allow to heat through and thicken, stirring sporadically.  Once thick, add roux to soup by stirring it in slowly.  Add more soy milk to desired creaminess.  I keep my soup on the brothy side, not caring too much for very thick cream soups, but adding more roux and soy creamer would thicken this soup right up.  Add herbs d’provence and more salt and pepper to taste.  Using an immersion blender, blend some of the veggies to thicken the broth, or ladle a portion of the soup into a regular blender, and blend until smooth.  Add back into soup and stir.

Serve with freshly baked croutons (mandatory).

We preceded this with an awesome salad, adapted from a recipe in one of Amy’s mom’s cooking magazines.

Salad Goodness with Oranges and Candied Almonds

Candied almonds:

• 1/4 cup almond slivers
• 1 pat Earth Balance TM
• 2 tsp. sugar
• salt and cayenne to taste

Toast almonds in Earth Balance over medium heat.  When lightly toasted, add sugar, salt and cayenne and stir until coated.  Allow to brown and transfer to a bowl to cool.

Dressing (we tripled these measurements to save some for later in a cruet.  I’m so glad we did- it’s my new favorite dressing!):

• 2 tbsp. red wine vinegar
• 1 tbsp. honey (you can substitute agave)
• 1/2 tsp. Dijon mustard
• splash of orange juice
• salt and pepper to taste
• 3 tbsp. olive oil

Stir all ingredients to a bowl minus the olive oil.  Quickly whisk while drizzling olive oil into the mixture.  Whisk until dressing is emulsified.

Salad:

• romaine lettuce, plus spinach, etc.
• 1/4 cup thinly sliced red onion
• 1 navel orange, peeled and sliced
• candied almonds

Toss all ingredients together, coating evenly with dressing.  Serve with extra dressing, unless you accidentally drank it because you couldn’t help yourself.

Here’s the whole meal:

For me, cooking is largely a creative endeavor, like making art–something steeped in inspiration and which doesn’t like being bossed around. For the first few weeks, the MoFo was just a great way to push myself a little harder, a context for creation. But in the last few days, it’s become harder–for better or worse. Maybe now is the most important time–when it’s no longer easy and I have to start making real decisions, instead of being blown by the winds of whimsy.

It was in this state that I approached last night’s meal: Seitan Bread Bake, Roasted Acorn Squash Soup, and Scalloped Potatoes. With the additional caveat: I must not produce any more leftovers that Amy won’t eat (it gets a little old eating pot pie for lunch every day for a week). So, I wanted to craft a meal that catered to all of Amy’s cravings.

(I’m feeling a bit loquacious today–feel free to skip to THE ACTION)

Mulling over how to put all of this together without creating a hodgepodge of crap, I took inspiration from this really attractive meal at The Airy Way. It reminded me of two things that I often really like in a meal: lots of different, small portions and a nice mix of complex recipes with simple ones.

We usually approach a soup as a meal, but every once in a while I get a wild hare to do an appetizer-type soup. We had a few acorn squash to use up, so this seemed like a perfect opportunity for Roasted Acorn (and Garlic!) Soup. Riding out the Autumn trend (which happened to be saddled to the Amy’s-Craving trend), it seemed like a good night to take another stab at Faux Gratin Potatoes. We’ve been a little nooched out of late, so we decided that a simpler, cleaner Scalloped Potato might be a nice change.

The surprise champeen of the dinner, to my surprise, was the Seitan Bread Bake. We had tomatoes and bread to use up and Amy mentioned this sort of tomato and bread bake that a friend’s dad used to make. My interest was piqued. Of course, we also nad seitan to use up (there’s a theme here). The original recipe used basil, but we have a mess of pesto in the freezer right now–this, I firmly believe, was the crucial element. I don’t have words for how awesome this stuff tastes. You could prepare it faster than I could describe it.

In any case, here’s THE ACTION:

Roasted Acorn Squash (and Garlic!) Soup

• 2 small acorn squash, cut in half and degutted
• 1 HEAD of garlic
• 1/2 medium-sized yellow onion, diced
• 3 cups veggie stock
• 1/2 tsp ground cumin
• salt and pepper, to taste

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit. Slice the acorn squash in half, remove the guts, then place on an oiled cooking sheet. Slice off the top of the head of garlic, place in foil, and douse with olive oil. Bake the squash for 45 minutes and the garlic for 30 minutes (i.e. just put garlic in 15 minutes after the squash).

Meanwhile, sautee the onion in oil or Earth Balance in a medium-sized pot over medium heat, untill soft. When the squash and garlic are done, remove them from the oven and give them at least 10 minutes to cool. Spoon and knife the squash and garlic, respectively, into the pot with the onion. Add in the stock, stir well, then blend with an immersion blender. If you’re using a standard blender, you can put all the ingredients directly in the blender, then transfer to the pot. Blend until very smooth. Add the cumin, then salt and pepper to taste.

Serve with a swirl of Rooster Sauce.

Scalloped Potatoes

• 4 medium – large potatoes, cut into thin disks (peel, if using brown taters)
• 1/2 medium-sized white onion, diced
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced or pressed
• 1/2 cup cooked white beans, drained
• 1/2 cup ground cashews
• 1/2 cup milk-like product
• tsp ground mustard seed
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• 2 tbsp Earth Balance
• salt and pepper, to taste
• bread crumbs (optional)

This is very much like the Al-Faux-Do sauce, but with white beans and a bit more lemon. It’s a bit thicker and, despite the lemon, a tinch less sharp (and even less so after baking).

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit. Prepare the potatoes. Sautee the onion and garlic in the Earth Balance over medium heat. Once they’re soft, add them to the blender along with the other ingredients (except the potatoes) and blend until smooth.

Put the potatoes in an oven-safe casserole dish and pour the the sauce over them, mixing very thoroughly. The more shallow you stack the potatoes, the faster they’ll and the more bread crumbs you can fit on top. Your call.

Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes. Uncover and add bread crumbs (if you’re using them). Bake for an additional 15 minutes. Check the potatoes with a fork–if they’re nice and soft, you’re done. Otherwise, cook for an additional 5 minutes and check again. Repeat as necessary.

Seitan Bread Bake

• 2 thick pieces of bread, cut into large cubes (we used our homemade bread; use 3 pieces if using sandwich bread)
• 1 large seitan cutlet (or two smaller ones), cut into large cubes
• 3 small tomatoes (or 1 large tomato–use your judgment), cut into pieces
• 3 cubes frozen pesto (~1/2 cup) OR fresh garlic and basil, minced
• olive oil

Preheat oven to 425. Place the bread, seitan, and tomatoes in an oiled oven-safe casserole dish or cooking sheet with a little depth (there will be a fair amount of oil and tomato juice–so you don’t want a totally flat sheet). Mix them up, so everything is fairly evenly distributed. Douse generously with olive oil, then spread pesto on top (if you’re thawing, you’ll probably need a little olive oil to the pest when warming). Cover with foil and bake for 15 minutes. Remove foil, stir everything thoroughly, and bake for another 15 minutes, until bread and seitan are somewhat firm. Prepare your tastebuds. Fantastic!

Wait. Fake chickens have fake fingers?

Amy was skeptical at first, but after she tried one, she had to admit they were pretty awesome. It was her genius idea, though, to gussy up what could have been a fairly plain meal with roasted cauliflower and smashed potatoes with a fancy roasted-garlic, wine, and carmelized-onion reduction.

We made the Chik’n Fingers from the seitan we made the other night from Jennifer’s version of Joanna’s recipe, cut into thin strips (about an inch wide), battered in Chik’n Almond Bake, and baked 15 minutes to a side at 425 degrees. Super simple and kind of a nice change of pace.

These would also work nicely on that amazing looking club sammich over at Lisa’s Thoughts, for those of you looking to avoid processed faux meats (just cook them at 10 minutes to a side instead).

We nabbed the roasted cauliflower recipe from our ol’ stalwart companion, VegWeb.

The smashed potatoes were the usual deal (well, almost…we used unpeeled purple potatoes). The reduction is as follows:

Fancy Garlic-Onion-Wine Reduction

• 1/2 large purple onion, diced
• 1 HEAD of garlic, roasted
• ~ 1/2 cup white wine (or sub red, for a something a bit heavier/richer)
  
• 3 tbsp (aka 1/4 cup) Earth Balance

In a carmelizing-able pan (nonstick pans usually won’t carmelize), begin carmelizing the onion in the Earth Balance over medium heat. After about 5 minutes, once the onions havae begun to soften, add in half the wine. When the onions have carmelized, remove the cloves of roasted garlic with a butter knife and add to the onions. With the mashing implement of your choice, mash the onions and garlic together thoroughly. Add in the remaining wine (or more, for desired consistency) and cook for another few minutes.

Serve as just a light drizzle; this is not a gravy! (some things, you have to learn the hard way…)

It seems like a lot of us MoFos are on the same page; winter’s setting in and it’s time for soups and taters. We made Chik’n Breaded Seitan Steaks, boiled potatoes (fresh from our garden!), and steamed and lightly sauteed brussel sprouts. ’twas a downhome meal that Jennifer would have been proud of.

We’ve already posted the Seitan Steaks, so I’ll just leave you with a few notes on the potatoes and brussel sprouts.

Boiling potatoes is awesome/easy. Larger potatoes take longer to cook, as do brown potatoes. So. Bring water to boiling and pop in the largest brown potatoes. Add the largest red potatoes shortly thereafter. The largest brown potatoes pictured above required about 15 minutes. The smallest, probably only 6 or 7.

Brussel sprouts are slightly less easy–but totally worth it. Cut off the hard base, like you would a mushroom. Remove any loose leaves. Anything an inch or larger, we usually cut in half–but it’s your call. You’re going to sautee these, so the more surface area, the more buttery deliciousness. Steam these for 5 -8 minutes (depends on how much you’re making), until they’re brighter green and easily pierced with a fork (but not mushy!). When they’re done, sautee them in ~2tbsp Earth Balance(tm) in a frying pan over medium heat. Add salt, pepper, and garlic to taste. Don’t overcook–you’re just adding a little flavor.

Because I derive such great joy from the bastardization of both the Indian language and cuisine–I present another in my series of madeup Indian dishes: Aloo Dal Makhani. It’s an attempt at a “standard” Dal (lentil) Makhani, but with Aloo (potatoes). It’s very rich and a little sweet.

I’m not sure what possessed me to base this on Vegan Dad’s Tofu Makhani recipe instead of something more authentic. Well, nix that. I am sure. I saw the picture on his site and almost gave myself a concussion from salivating too hard. I didn’t use tofu, because I don’t really like tofu in curries, and I wanted something a little more traditional. Like Vegan Dad, Indian food was my first love as a vegan, the first food that shocked me out of my usual Western palette.

This recipe did mark the first time I’ve used soy yogurt and cashew cream (my version, not Vegan Dad’s) in an Indian dish–and let me tell you, ’twas a revelation. This dish also doesn’t have any cumin! This is perhaps one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. I’d probably put cumin in beer. Or an open wound.

Aloo Dal Makhani

• 1 cup red lentils
• 1/2 cup black lentils
• 4 small-medium potatoes, peeled and cubed
• 2 medium-sized onions, diced
• 2 medium-sized tomatoes, diced finely
• 1 clove of garlic, minced or pressed
• 2/3 cup (or 1 single-serving) soy yogurt
• 1/3 cup Earth Balance ™
• 1/2 cup ground almonds*
• 2 tsp chili powder
• 1/2 tsp turmeric
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves
• 2 tsp garam masala
• 1 tsp ground cardamom
• 1.5 tsp ground ginger
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 2 bay leaves
• 1/4 cup chopped cilantro
• 1/2 cup cashew cream (you can substitute soy creamer or coconut milk, but it’s not as intensely awesome)
• 4 .5 cups of water
• salt, to taste

* we get almond meal at our local coop–it’s cheaper than buying whole almonds and less work

Melt the Earth Balance ™ in a large pot over medium heat. Toss in the onions and cook until they start to get soft. Add in the garlic, salt, all of the spices, the almonds, the yogurt, and finally 1/2 cup water. Stir it up! Mix in the tomatoes. Then add the lentils and potatoes, stirring well. Add in the remaining water, and bring to a boil. Once it’s boiling, cover it and cook over low-medium heat for about 30 minutes.

Once the potatoes and lentils are soft, add in half of the cilantro and the cashew cream. Simmer uncovered on low for another 10 – 15 minutes. Add in the remaining cilantro and serve over rice or couscous (we used couscous, cooked in veggie stock).

For some extra green action, we had this with savory green beans–which, strangely, complemented this perfectly.

Savory Green Beans

• green beans
• onion powder
• garlic powder
• Spike ™
• almond slivers
• rosemary olive oil (or regular, and a dash of ground rosemary)

Steam the green beans until they’re done the way you like them. Who am I to tell you how you like your beans? Toss in rosemary olive oil and add in the spices and almond slivers.