Maggie's Lentil Barley Soup

IT'S SOUP SEASON!!

Soup season is the best season because soups are the best. I don't think anyone who has spoken with me in cooler weather and/or visited this blog is surprised at that statement. 

This particular soup emerged because I'd been digging past all the lentils in our pantry when my hand landed on a jar of pearled barley. Obviously, the first thing I thought of was soup (I mean, I'd just been touching lentils!), but I felt *certain* I had a recipe for barley soup already on my blog. Turns out I do, but it uses quick barley, not pearled, and in looking at the recipe, it just wasn't the flavors I wanted. Plus, it's very clear that I love lentils in soup. After looking at a huge number of possible ideas on the internet, what emerged was a blend of the recipes I'd looked at and the flavors I was dreaming out. Healthy, hearty, and happy-making, this soup is going to be in regular rotation. 

Maggie's Instant Pot Lentil Sloppy Joes

The temperatures each day of the past week have been dropping, little by little. Tonight it's supposed to dip below 50 degrees and tomorrow I'll wear my first sweater of the season. I've had apple cider, gotten the first of the fall squashes in my CSA (delicata!), and purchased my first pie pumpkins at our local farmer's market. I don't care if fall doesn't officially start for a few more days; it's fall to me. 

This particular dish perfectly straddles this late summer/early fall time, including some summer produce and minimal heating up of the kitchen paired with savory, warm flavors and a hearty texture. 

All things fall make me happy. The colors of the trees = happy. The smell of the air = happy. The sweater-ready weather = happy. The food = happy. This particular recipe is certainly included! 

Maggie's Chickpea "Tuna" Salad

I talked about vegan potluck before and how much I love it. We haven't had our regular potluck since February and I miss the company, camaraderie, and cooking of our vegan potluck crew so much! As I kept thinking about our monthly gatherings, I'd remember a delicious dish from one month, a different dish from another month, and so on. But one dish kept popping up in my head. At the very first potluck she came to - years ago!, our friend Alissa brought a chickpea "tuna" salad. Everyone was amazed. As in, there was outright clamor for the recipe. Alissa gladly shared. 

About a month ago, as the temperatures kept rising, I wanted to make this chickpea tuna salad again but could not find the recipe. Alissa couldn't either! But she remembered better than I did. With her list of ingredients + rough amounts and my tinkering around, what emerged was this amazing, healthy, and summer-temp worthy "tuna" salad. 

Maggie's Self-Quarantine Lentil Soup

The world is a little anxiety-provoking at the moment, hmmm? A global pandemic, a weak and uncoordinated response from the US government, and unheard of rates of unemployment; any one of these would be enough to produce anxiety, so all three is a doozy.

Shana and I have both been self-quaratined since March 13. She has been sick enough that much of the time, us being at home didn't matter. She was sleeping 17 hours a day and even when awake she found the walls and ceiling entertainment enough. She's on the mend, but just at the time that we're running out of fresh veggies.

Given our general lack of fresh veggies and the need for comfort, dinner last night called for soup. On one hand, it's odd to be a creative cook during a pandemic. On the other hand, necessity is the mother of invention. The soup below is simple, using only ingredients that stay good for long periods. It's also healthy, with veggies and protein. If you have a frozen chunk of bread to thaw & warm, it's a great meal for trying times. Take care of yourselves. <3

Maggie's Asian Salad with Sesame Dressing

Last summer I kept looking for new ways to eat food that also involved the least amount of heating in my kitchen I could handle. For me, the obvious solution was meal-sized salads, but I had to do a bit of Shana convincing... When I got a begrudging approval for a salad as dinner, I knew it had to be a good one. Luckily, I found a winner with this salad, filled with beautiful colors, lots of texture, and Asian-inspired flavors.

The recent hot streak we experienced this summer was the perfect impetus to see if this salad was still a dinner time success. It still was! Mix and match ingredients to your own tastes, buy a pre-made salad dressing if you find one you like, or do whatever - this salad will still be delicious.

Amanda's Taco Soup

When we first moved to Richmond, we kept ending up at different grocery stores in town at the same time as another couple close to our age. In addition to them grocery shopping at the same stores and at the same time as us, we noticed that they never had meat, cheese, or eggs in their cart. At some point, we finally decided to introduce ourselves to them. In doing so, we found out that they are vegan, grew up around here, and are just plain awesome.

Since then, we've had great times with our "grocery store friends" (which is the name of our group text message). We have sporadic dinners, they come to vegan potluck, and Brent & Shana did carpentry school together.

When we eat together, we often ask Amanda to cook taco soup. It's seriously so good, on its own and with add-ins like faux cheese and avocado. I'd tried to replicate it, but mine was never as good. I finally asked for the recipe so that I can make it more often than our busy schedules align (plus, it feels rude to have her always making the four of us dinner!). With the string of cool summer weather we've been having in Indiana, this was a perfect meal for us to eat this week. It tastes like summer, doesn't heat up the kitchen (it's a crock pot recipe), and still warms your insides.

Winter Lentil Soup

It's soup season. I love soup season so much. Soup is versatile, filling, and (usually) healthy. More importantly, soup is warm in my tummy and my soul. Many folks, myself included, need warmth in both of those places right now. Sometimes life is stressful and hard, but good food can nourish in multiple ways.

Enter this lentil soup. This soup has such an amazing taste and blend of textures. It's rich and velvety and round. Plus, it's full of good-for-you lentils and veggies. After a big bowl of this soup (plus some crusty bread), I'm comforted.

Maggie's Vegan Enchilasagna

The weather has finally turned into a chilly fall here in Indiana. It was a stark change, with plenty of memes going around. For me, the chilly weather means I'm excited to have the oven on and want to eat all the warm, cozy foods I can imagine.

Tonight, we had some new friends over for dinner and I made this enchilasagna recipe. One of them asked how the recipe emerged, which made me realize that dish was actually due to a series of kitchen misadventures. A while ago, I decided to bring my enchilada recipe to vegan potluck. All set to cook, I when I get home that I'm out of the rice I need for the recipe. I had other rice, but not enough time to cook it. In a pinch, I figured I would use quinoa instead, as inside the enchilada, no one would really notice. I had also planned ahead and planned to swap corn tortillas for the flour tortillas in order to make the dish gluten-free. I fill my first corn tortilla, being to wrap it up, and it breaks - it doesn't roll at all. I figure I just need to be gentle for the next one and gingerly try to roll a second corn tortilla. It broke, too. Short on time if we were going to get to dinner on time, I figured I'd just try a layered dish and call it a vegan enchilasagna. It was a hit! I'm sure it will be a hit for you and yours, too!

Yup, melting faux cheese! Plus, a bit of enchilasaga deconstruction in the back. 

Richa's Peanut Lentil Sauce

As I do periodically, a few weeks ago I went digging through old recipes I'd saved or tagged or noted in some way or another. I came across one from a blog I've been following for a while, leaned over to show it to Shana, who responded with "why aren't we eating that right now?!" I got her subtle message and we had it later that week.

While we both loved it, I realized I needed to make it again to make sure that the notes I'd jotted down about adjustments while cooking were actually correct (more than one note was a I-think-that's-what-I-remember-doing note). I'm thrilled to say it's still amazing. In the time it takes to cook rice in the instant pot and lentils on the stove (aka, less than 30 minutes), you can make a hearty, beautiful, flavorful meal that tastes like it belongs at a fancy dinner party.

Red Lentil Curry in the Instant Pot

Most home cooks I know have stacks of recipes they've been meaning to try. I have a couple of tangible stacks, but I also have a couple of virtual "stacks" - emails with links and a category of posts in my feedly account. A while ago I was perusing one of my email collections and came across a recipe that I remembered our friends Max and Sara feeding us ages ago.

In looking over the recipe, I thought that I could make it in our Instant Pot. Plus, I've been really enjoying foods with flavors from the Middle East recently and this fits in very well.

After making slight adaptations to the original recipe, I ended up with something that Shana and I both absolutely LOVE! This easy, high-protein, high-fiber, low-fat meal has been on regular rotation.

Rainbow Quinoa Salad

At the beginning of this year, a high school aged friend of ours decided to go vegan. We invited her and her mom, whom we know from an organization in town, over for vegan dinner. Her mom was very supportive of her daughter's plan to be vegan, but didn't quite know what to cook for her when she was also cooking for her 11 year old son, 4 year old daughter, herself, and her husband. We figured that we could invite them over and answer vegan food questions while also providing an example of a delicious vegan meal.

In asking what they'd like to eat, they said they were pretty open to flavors, so we chose to serve one of Shana's favorites - broccoli, tofu, and garlic sauce. They asked what to bring and we suggested "something that goes with dinner?" In other words, we were super unhelpful. However, our friends rose the challenge and brought a delicious Asian quinoa salad! Overall, dinner was a giant success. We answered all sorts of vegan-related questions, laughed a ton, and ate amazing food.

Since our dinner, we've eaten this salad a few times. I tweaked the original recipe, found at Two Peas & Their Pod, to make it more our style - doubling some veggies, removing some ingredients, and adjusting the dressing. It's SO delicious! It's also great for the unseasonably hot temps we've been experiencing - when I just don't want to eat anything. This salad has tons of protein and fiber and is a feast for your eyes as well.

Smoky Quinoa and Vegetable Soup

Full of good-for-you and easy-to-find ingredients - such as sweet potato, quinoa, and peas - plus flavors that are out of this world delicious (smoked paprika for the win), this amazing soup has been on regular rotation at our house for a while. Plus, even though the calendar says it's late March, we've been dealing with below-normal temps and even snow days causing cancelled schools! With all of that, it's no wonder this soup has made regular occurrences in our meal plans. But let me explain how we even got to this recipe.

First, Shana figured out about a year ago that she looooooves quinoa. She wants to eat it all the time in any form she can. Second, we had a dinner a while ago with our friends the Thompsons. They cooked a version of this soup from America's Test Kitchen's vegetarian cookbook. You can even see a video of the original recipe here. It was their idea to use smoked paprika. Third, we had family stay with us a while ago on their drive from PA to WI. We figured this would be an easy dinner for everyone (minus the youngest, who doesn't really like dinners and had PB&J). It was at this meal that I subbed in the sweet potato, because when I went to grab the white potatoes I was *sure* we had, I found them curiously absent. But the sweet potatoes were a perfect substitution.

All of this adds up to a hearty and healthy deep red soup - due to the smoked paprika and tomato paste - filled with vibrant colors and textures. We've fed this soup to so many folks and everyone has loved it! In addition to everyone above, it's been a hit at our monthly vegan potluck and wowed our friend Max's parents when they were in town. It's a bowl of warming winter magic for your tired taste buds.

The red color is from both the smoked paprika and the tomato paste.

Creamy Black Lentil Soup

Sometimes I go to grocery stores and buy something I've never cooked with before because it looks interesting. I did that a while ago with some black lentils. Then, of course, they sat in my pantry for a long time because I didn't have a recipe that called for them.

Finally, I decided they had existed, unused, in my pantry long enough, so I started in on some creative googling. I don't remember exactly what search term or random list I found this recipe, but I flagged it as a good option. I loved the idea of a creamy soup with the toothsome chew of lentils. I loved the idea of a subtle influence of Indian flavors. I was intrigued at the addition of tahini.

More importantly, this soup had an ingredient that would make Shana want it, too. See, this beautiful creamy soup calls for eggplant.Shana loooooves eggplant. Me? I feel strongly middling about eggplant. It's fine. I never crave it and will always pick another option over it, but I don't hate it, either. But here, in this recipe, it looked like we would both have something to love. I was right.

Maggie's Vegan Zucchini Boats

This year, we doubled the size of the garden. With extra space, I was able to grow a greater variety of veggies and decided to grow zucchini. My zucchini is...prolific. Talk to many folks who grow zucchini and they'll tell you the same thing.

As it turns out, growing a ton of zucchini is a blessing and curse. I've made batches upon double-batches of zucchini bread. We've grilled more zucchini than any summer before. And as much as I love both of those options, we needed something else to do with zucchini. 

Given that zucchini grows well in most gardens, a google search for "things to do with zucchini" brings up list after list of options. A number of these lists included some kind of zucchini boat: a hollowed out zucchini stuffed with ingredients, baked to deliciousness. While I loved the idea, I didn't love any of the recipes I found. Most recipes were filled with cheese and/or meat, while some were nothing more than flavored rice - not what I wanted. 

Instead, I took the idea of zucchini boats and ran. Where I ended up is a delicious and healthy recipe, full of protein and garden-fresh summer flavors. Infinitely customizable, add or remove ingredients to make this into something you'll eat, if only to switch up how you're consuming zucchini. 

Maggie's Vegan Massaman Curry

I love Thai food. When Shana and I have something to celebrate, or have people in town visiting, or just a craving for an amazing dinner, we head to Thai 9 in Dayton. In the past two months, we've gone 3 times. Once when my family came to visit, once when Shana's family came to visit, and once to celebrate that I'd been awarded tenure!

While everything there is delicious (we think they must have a wall of avocados because they are always ripe), there's one dish they can't make vegan for me: massaman curry. Their recipe includes half & half and fish sauce. After feeling sad about missing out on massaman curry, I figured I would try to make my own.

In my explorations of possible recipes online, so many had ingredient lists full of things I knew I couldn't get in my town. I started feeling a bit hopeless. But then, one of the recipes I saw had an aside about a really good pre-made curry paste that was also vegan! I jumped on the chance to have massaman curry in my own kitchen and purchased two cans from Amazon. I didn't need to make this more than once; I ordered more the next day. Now I can have massaman curry whenever the mood strikes.

KMW's Vegan Honduran Black Bean Soup

It was this time two years ago that we were moving into our new house. We are so happy here and a lot of that has to with our neighbors. We have AWESOME neighbors.

One set of our across the street neighbors, Katie and Marc, work at one of the other colleges in town. Both of them are biological anthropologists. They do field work where they dig for bones or artifacts in carefully arranged grids. (And habits die hard; you should have seen them digging a very precise 3'x3' hole for a new tree they planted!) Although they do field work in a variety of places, one of their primary locations is Honduras.

A while back, they invited us over for dinner. They were a little worried about what vegan thing to cook, but then realized that a traditional meal they ate while doing field work in Honduras could easily be made vegan. Katie Neighbor* told me that two women, Rosa Hernandez and Elvia Martinez, in Copan, Honduras taught her the recipe. I'll never meet these women, but I am SO glad they shared with her. This black bean soup was so. freaking. good. Seriously good. The underlying flavor is layered and complex and round. Plus, each of us gets to personalize our own bowl with the via all sorts of add-ins. Finally, while I hate to tell anyone how to eat, whichever add-ins you choose, you simply must add the radishes! Yes, radishes.

Alphabentil Soup (veggie soup with pasta & lentils)

I'm not sure it's ever been two months in between blog posts. That's so sad for me (and for you, if you've been looking for new recipes).

A lot has happened since my last blog post. The end of last semester has come and gone, the holidays have passed, a new year has dawned, a new semester started, a new president has been inaugurated - after which protests against his actions have occurred, "alternative facts" became a thing (?), and I've presented research with one of my undergrads at a conference. Oh, and I submitted my tenure portfolio. (EEEK!!) On top of all of that, it's still January, so the weather is chilly.

Given all of that craziness, I've been seeking out comfort. Comfort from my wife, from friends and family, from rogue twitter accounts and Swear Trek (so good! but includes copious amounts of swearing). I've also been seeking out comfort in the food I've been making and eating, like this soup.

At it's heart, this is nothing more than an unremarkable vegetable soup. But that's part of what makes it so comforting. With the addition of green lentils, with their warm savoriness and toothsome chew, and whimsical alphabet-shaped pasta, this simple soup becomes both comforting and craving-worthy.

You can just see a little pasta "V" below the broccoli in the center. 

Summer Tortilla Pinwheels

A few months ago, some friends moved from our town and threw a big going away party. They are always very conscious of the myriad eating habits of all of their friends, so they made sure that some vegan-friendly food was available. One of those dishes were tortilla pinwheels that some vegan potluck friends brought and I've been dreaming about since. They were so simple, but so delicious!

I finally decided I needed to stop dreaming, so I contacted the friend who made them for the recipe. Her response sounded pretty much like what I say when Shana asks how I made something new and delicious: "Well, I added some of this, some of that, a little bit of that, and some of something else." To Shana, that response is infuriating, but to me, it leaves the door open to experimentation. My friend said she used my sun-dried tomato spread recipe, a "hummus" made with cannellini beans and cashews, and arugula, but wasn't sure exactly what proportions she used or what other ingredients were in the hummus. That was enough of a start for me, so I set to work to figure out my own version.

My own version in hand, Shana and I made our way to a Fourth of July party. I cut into the rolls, hoping they'd stay together (they did) and made sure to express to our hosts and other friends that the recipe was new and that I'd love feedback and wouldn't be offended if people didn't like them. As the wraps disappeared, the only feedback I heard was "mmmmmmmmmmm" and "these are delicious, Maggie!" We took just a few of them home with us, but Shana ate them the next day and has been asking for them since. Recipe success!

Eggplant Asian Stir Fry

School has been out for both of us for a few weeks. Most people assume that for teachers like us, summer time means days filled with lounging around and cocktails. That's hardly the case. Shana's picked up two summer-only part time jobs, I've been doing committee work and catching up, and we've both been busy with projects at our house. For example, I've been gardening, Shana's been clearing our old patio, and we've been discussing which projects come next. Shana's also been coaching a 3rd & 4th grade softball team, which has meant about 3 evening games per week.

All this activity has meant that we haven't actually seen each other as much as we would like. To remedy that, we decided to have a date day in Indianapolis. We had a great time! We met a friend for drinks, had a great dinner, and went to a game. We also did errands. I know what you're thinking: "Errands?! On a date??!!" Yes. Errands. But the errands totally worked out in Shana's favor, as I purchased an awesome magazine full of recipes. We've tried two recipes to great success already.

This particular recipe has Shana's name written all over it. It's full of Asian flavors and contains eggplant. Shana loves eggplant. I'm only...meh... about eggplant. Luckily, this recipe also includes green beans, which are my absolute favorite vegetable. Because both Shana and I were predisposed to like this recipe, I'm happy to say that we also had friends over who enjoyed it. This is a winner of a recipe all around!

Smoky Rotini Dinner

The semester is over, my grades are entered, and I'm looking at all the things I neglected over the past few months. Although this blog is one of those neglected items, it hasn't been far from my mind. I have loads of new recipes lined up to post.

Although the weather the past couple of days was quite warm, the week before had been rainy and cool and reminiscent of fall, which led to Shana and I seeking warmth and comfort. Given that it was also finals week for me, we also needed speed and ease. Luckily, we've been enjoying just the thing over the past couple of months: this smokey, savory, and speedy dinner that we adapted from Robin Robertson's More Quick-Fix Vegan cookbook. I've had this cookbook for a while, but we hadn't given it much of a chance. If this recipe is anything like the others in this cookbook, I have a feeling we'll be coming back to it over and over.

But back to the food! This dish has so many amazing flavors and textures in it! Even though the ingredients list looks long, you can find what you need in nearly any grocery store and you really only need to be able to boil water to make it. With all that going for it, the complexity of the flavors makes this meal something you can serve at a dinner party. Just make sure to double what I've listed below, as you and your guests will go back for more.

You can't see them, but there are chickpeas hiding in there, too!