recipe: taco salad

I've started taking photos of everything I eat.

Bonus benefit of taking photos each day is it's EASY to post recipes now. I just type up what I ate, with a link. Photo was already taken and is already on my my blog. w00t.

Taco Salad

Ease: 1 very easy
Time: 2 quick
Ingredients: 2 easy
Source: Loosely based on Easy Taco Salad from Women Living Well.org, but veggified and substantially healthified

Ingredients: (amounts up to you, depending on your desired ratio and how many people you're feeding)

• veggie ground round (I used Yves)
• packet of taco seasoning (could be homemade but I used a package)
• romaine lettuce, chopped into bite-sized pieces, washed and dried (salad spinner ftw)
• cilantro, chopped coarsely
• tomatoes, diced
• bell peppers (sweet, green, whatever), diced
• avocado (not pictured, since I didn't have any)
• frozen corn, thawed (not pictured, since I just thought of it)
• lime juice
• hot sauce (optional)
• salsa
• cheddar cheese, grated
• tortilla chips (I used hint of lime Tostitos. The original recipe calls for Doritos), crumbled
• sour cream or yogurt (optional. Not pictured because we didn't have any)
 

Directions:

1. Mix ground round and taco seasoning in a small pot with some water. Let it simmer for a few minutes and then remove from heat and let it cool while you prepare the salad. It's OK if it's liquidy - the liquid will help substitute for dressing.
2. Let each person serve him/herself, to customize it. Below is my style.
3. Sprinkle tomatoes, red bell pepper and cilantro over a bowl of lettuce. (this is where you'd add the avocado and corn if you wanted)
4. Top generously with lime juice and hot sauce. (it's the 'dressing')
5. Add salsa, cheddar, tortilla chips, and faux meat mixture.  (and sour cream/yogurt if using)
6. Mix.
7. Enjoy.
8. Seriously, it was so easy. And really really tasty. I hope this becomes a regular meal in my rotation. 

Lazy Naan

In my Hot Chana recipe, I said I'd post a recipe for lazy naan. Well here it is.

Naan, in it's very literal sense, is a flatbread that's been cooked in a tandoor, or clay oven. It's delicious and doughy and stretchy and a little bit toasted on the outside. You basically rip pieces of it off the big piece and then use the bread to grab a bit of food (mainly Indian, for us) and then stuff the whole thing in your mouth. It's a bit messy but that's just the way it goes.

Now we don't own a tandoor, and sometimes we're too lazy to make puri or chickpea pancakes, flatbreads that don't require a tandoor. So instead, we've got a lazy flatbread that we call naan. We buy a bag of pitas (any kind of flatbread will do, basically, but we like those greek style pitas. the nice thick ones. we buy ones that actually are called 'naan'), and cover them in a butter/margarine mixture and then toast them in a frying pan. So easy. The following recipe is for 4 pitas.

Lazy Naan/Flatbread
Effort: very easy
Ingredients: pretty easy

Ingredients:

• 4 flatbreads of some kind
  
• ~1/2 - 1 tbsp margarine or butter (if butter, soften a bit)
  
• sprinkle of tumeric (less than 1/4 tsp)
  
• sprinkle of cumin (less than 1/4 tsp)
  
• sprinkle of garam masala (less than 1/4 tsp)
  
• sprinkle of cayenne pepper (less than /1/4 tsp)
  
• any other spices you think would go well

Directions:

1. Mix the margarine/butter with the spices until nice and uniform and soft
   
2. Spread the mixture on each side of the pitas
   
3. Fry each pita on medium to medium-high heat until slightly toasty and brown on both sides (flipping halfway through).

Mom's Caesar Salad Dressing

(Originally emailed June 2, 2008)

Kyle and I have been in a bit of a recipe rut lately. I've recently started going to the gym (yay step class!) and so we don't have as much time to cook in the evenings. We therefore haven't been all that adventurous with our meal choices. However, I have started taking pictures of some of the recipes I have sent (or plan to send) out, so you can look forward to some photos to go along with my recipes. I also plan on putting these recipes on a blog for easy reference, but I'll still email them all out.

Anyhoo, I love Caesar salad, and the one I love best is my mom's homemade Caesar salad. A few weeks ago I got the recipe from her so I'm sending it out to you. Also, if you're looking for it, there is such a thing as vegetarian worchestershire sauce. It's the store brand at A&P. I think that's Equality brand?

Photo: Caesar salad, mom-style, with simulated bacon bits

Mom's Caesar Salad Dressing
Effort: very easy
Ingredients: easy
Source: my mom

Ingredients:
1/3 c olive oil
1/3 c vegetable oil
1/3 cup white vinegar
1-2 cloves garlic
couple shakes of salt (add more if tastes flat)
1 (raw) egg
dash lemon juice
couple dashes worchestershire sauce

Blend for 5 minutes in a blender until homogenized and frothy. Pour over bite-size romaine lettuce pieces, and top with loads of Parmesan cheese (I like the Kraft dried stuff here, but fresh stuff could also be a good garnish on top). Mix together and serve. Of course you could always add extra ingredients, like croutons or simulated bacon bits (like photo) or slices of lemon, but I like to keep it simple. Add more or less garlic and lemon juice to your taste. I like serving this with pasta.

After emailing this recipe out, I received a tip: if you're looking for a healthy oil alternative... try grapeseed oil.. I bought some yesterday infused with garlic, and another one infused with lime... its incredible, healthy for you, and has a very high smoke point so it pretty much doesn't burn! great for salads.

Hot Chana and Puri

I'm playing around with blog formatting, especially since I'm turning emails into blogs. If you have any comments on preferred formats, please let me know

(originally emailed April 30, 2008)

Photo: Hot Chana with Moghlai Spinach, basmati rice, and storebought 'naan'

I thought that I might not send out a recipe this week because I haven't been particularly inspired lately. But then I ate dinner tonight, and it was delicious, so you're hearing about it.

Kyle and I bought a vegetarian indian cookbook a while ago but we've been intimidated by it because the recipes are written in a funny format. Once we started cooking from it, however, we found out that it's actually quite easy and the food is good. We picked a meal called "hot chana" (Chickpeas with very hot spices), because we both love ordering chana masala from indian food restaurants. However, we were supposed to make it last week and I just kept putting it off because we also decided to make a flatbread and for some reason I thought it would be a lot of effort. Well we had to make it today because it's the last meal on our "weekly schedule" of meals, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that not only did it take less than 1hr to prepare (including 1/2 hour sit time for the flatbread), but it was also delicious and tasted like actual Indian food (always exciting). And because I made use of one of my 2 new cilantro tricks, I'm going to share those with you too. I find that one bunch of cilantro is too much to use up before it goes rotten, so I've tried to find things to do with it to avoid wasting. (tricks to follow in a different post)

We had this meal with a Puri (fried, puffed whole wheat flat bread), which was a new one for us. I started cooking chickpea flour pancakes with our Indian meals, but chickpeas with chickpea flour pancakes? It's a bit much.

The hot chana meal + flatbreads was a good amount for 2 people, but we've already figured we're going to be hungry in a couple hours. It would have been nice to round it off with some sort of green veggie, and maybe a potato dish if we were feeling particularly ambitious. In the future I will probably share a spinach recipe (David showed us this one - it's GOOD), and a potato recipe from this veg indian cookbook.

Photo: Hot Channa with the lazy version of naan (recipe to be posted at a later date)

Hot Chana (chickpeas with spices)

Effort: easy

Ingredients: semi-easy. It calls for black mustard seeds which I can't find anywhere. And hing, which I also can't find. But I just use normal mustard seeds (bulk barn), and omit hing.

Cookbook: Indian vegetarian cooking in your home

1 Tbsp veg oil

1 tsp cumin seed/mustard seed/sesame see mix

1/4 cup onion, chopped

3 Indian bay leaves (I used regular bay leaves)

2 tbsp fresh cilantro, chopped (or 2 cilantro cubes, as I used)

1 clove garlic, minced

1/2 tsp cumin powder

1/2 tsp coriander powder

1 tsp salt

1/2-1 tsp hot red pepper flakes

1/2 tsp tumeric

1/2 tsp garam masala

1/8 cup veg broth

1. Put onion, bay leaves, cilantro and garlic in a bowl.

2. Put cumin, coriander, salt, red pepper, tumeric and garam masala in another bowl

3. Rinse chickpeas

4. Heat oil, cumin/mustard/sesamee seed mixture in a pan until seeds pop.

5. Add onion bowl and cook until onions transparent.

6. Add spice bowl, followed by chickpeas and veg broth.

7. Mix (simmer if desired), and serve.

The chana recipe recommended serving with puri (below), although rice and/or other breads could work. I tend to eat this along dish with another Indian meal, such as Shahi Paneer, Moghlai Spinach, or Potatoes.

Puri (whole wheat flat bread)

Effort: easy

Ingredients: easy if you're willing to substitute

cookbook: Indian Vegetarian Cooking at your house

1 cup (Indian) whole wheat flour (I used regular whole wheat flour and it was OK)

1/4 TBSP veg oil

dash salt

optional: dashes of cumin powder, coriander powder, hot pepper, tumeric

1/4 + a little bit extra warm water

1. Mix flour, oil and salt into a bowl. Slowly add water, just enough to form a firm dough, and knead until smooth. Cover and let rest at least 1/2 hour.

2. Knead dough briefly. Divide into small golf-ball sized balls. Roll out into 6" rounds on an oiled board. Heat veg oil in wok or frying pan. Add a little salt to oil to keep it from smoking.

3. Fry one puri at a time, holding them under oil on first side until they puff. Turn and fry until light brown, and drain on paper towels.

curried vegetables

My attention was drawn to this one because it looked so simple - it uses frozen vegetables! Most of the meals I cook take a long time to make because of all the chopping, so it was nice to have a shortcut. And I think frozen vegetables are healthier than canned ones. I don't normally like raisins, but they provide a nice sweet complement to the other flavours, so I'm actually quite pleased with how it turned out. Enjoy!
Nic

Curried Vegetables
Effort: very easy
Ingredients: common
Cookbook: favorite brand name Vegetarian cooking 1997

1 package of Rice a Roni herb & butter (I couldn't find this variety, so I used Uncle Ben's fast and fancy wild rice and herbs - it was good too.)
1/3 cup raisins (i might reduce this amount in the future)
2 tbsp margarine or butter
1 med. onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp all-purpose flour
2 tsp curry powder
1 package frozen carrot, broccoli and red pepper veg medley (I used "california mix" with broc. cauliflower and carrots, while adding fresh red pepper and a few sliced mushroom. I'm sure most variations and combinations would be OK)
1 cup water
1/2 tsp salt (optional)
1/4 cup slivered almonds, toasted (optional)

1. prepare rice-a-roni as package directs, adding raisins with contents of seasoning packet (or with Uncle Bens, I waited until the water was boiling before adding raisins)
2. Meanwhile, in 3-quart saucepan, melt margarine over med. heat. add onion and garlic; saute 3-4 min. add flour and curry powder; cook 30 sec, stirring frequently.
3. add frozen vegetables, water and salt (If using fresh veggies, consider adding them slightly before the frozen ones). cover; bring to a boil over high heat. reduce heat and continue cooking 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
4. Serve rice topped with vegetable mixture; sprinkle with almonds. (note: I bought slivered almonds from bulk barn and then toasted them in a frying pan on medium heat for a few minutes. yum)

You could serve this with some yogurt, if you were so inclined.
Also, it says it makes 4 servings, but I think that might be child-sized servings. If I made this again and wanted actual 4 servings, I might make an extra 1/2 cup of rice, plus add a few more veggies, to bulk it up.

fiesta burrito bake

On November 5th, 2007, I sent out an email to some friends and family stating that I was starting a recipe mailing list. The first two recipes I sent out were Fiesta Burrito Bake and Taco Salad.

Fiesta Burrito Bake
Effort: easy
Ingredients: common
Cookbook: favorite brand name Vegetarian cooking 1997

1/2 envelope Club House Marinades seasoning - Tex Mex flavour
1 can refried beans
1/2 cup sour cream
1/4 cup water
10 (6") flour tortillas (get whole wheat and it's healthier)
1 medium tomato, coarsely chopped (I usually omit the tomato)
1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese

- Preheat oven to 375 F
- in small bowl, combine seasoning powder, beans, sour cream and water. Spoon bean mixture onto tortillas, then roll.
- In a 13 x 9in. baking dish sprayed with nonstick cooking spray, arrange rolled tortillas; top with tomato then cheese.
- Bake covered for 15minutes. Remove cover and continue baking until cheese is melted and tortillas are heated through.
- serve, if desired, with shredded lettuce, sour cream and guacamole

Nic's comment: goes really well with "taco salad".