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 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

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.

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 Cheesy Taco Mac

So... we went to a mac & cheese party this past weekend. No joke. Sounds like a weird place for a vegan to go. Nevertheless, go we did.

The mac & cheese party was hosted by Shana's former principal and her husband; it was their second annual mac & cheese party. They held their first event last year because getting tickets to the Indianapolis Return of the Mac festival was apparently really difficult. Our hosts planned very well! The party had 14 entries, which party goers tasted in small cups that rested perfectly in holes drilled into clipboards. This allowed you to take notes as you ate. After eating them all, you voted* (via google form) for your favorite entry in three categories: best overall, most innovative, and most gourmet.

After deciding to go, we debated just going for fun, but then Shana reminded me that she'd asked me to veganize a cheesy taco mac recipe she saw in one of those food videos. My first attempt to make this dish was a delicious success, but we hadn't had it in over a year! I was intrigued with the idea of adding a vegan entry to the mac & cheese party, but decided I needed to test it once more. A second successful result (with a few tweaks from the first) made me confident it would be okay as an entry.

As it turned out, we didn't win, but came in third in the best overall category and had the second most votes overall! Moreover, people didn't know it was vegan until Shana announced it after the votes were tallied. All in all, that makes this a winner in my book.

Filling a tasting cup to the brim (and then some)!

Chickpea Tart with Roasted Vegetables

Some very dear friends of ours got some wonderful news just about a week ago, which meant a celebratory dinner was in order! They have a 3 month old baby at home, so I offered to cook and bring over dinner for our celebration.

Since one of these friends is gluten-free, there's always a fun adventure figuring out what we can all eat. While talking about our celebratory dinner, Shana remembered this delicious chickpea flour tart that we first had at our vegan potluck. It's gluten-free and soy-free and sounds like something that should not be good. But it really is amazing. Since the first time we had it, I've deviated from the recipe a bit, but also decided that we needed something else to eat with the tart. The recipe below was born (and devoured).

Somewhere between a quiche and a custard, this tart and the veggies were just the celebration we needed. Well, this and the baked apples I made for dessert, but that's another post.

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. 

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!

J & L's West African Peanut Stew

There is a big vegan event occurring in our small mid-western town: I've started a monthly vegan potluck! September was our first and was a great success. Although I knew many of the people who came the first night, there were still some folks new to me, and many of the people who came didn't really know each other. Regardless, we all laughed, shared feelings about how amazing it was to be able to eat everything on the table, and joked that it was nice to be in a place where we didn't have to explain our food choices or be "jokingly" offered a bit of someone's steak/burger/bacon. Our second potluck went as well as the first and November's gathering is just around the corner! We're building a little community of vegans, which is just so awesome.

For me, one of the most fun parts of these monthly gatherings (aside from feeling less isolated) is the ability to try and share new recipes with other vegans. After every potluck, we've compiled our recipes and shared them with the others on the email list. I've eaten some amazing new things and even my food neophobic wife has tried (and enjoyed) everything. The recipe below arrived at our first vegan potluck from our new vegan friends J & L (I'm not sure if they would want me to post their names, so I'm refraining). This dish was SO good that Shana and I have made it twice since our first potluck, which is more than we've made anything - aside from soup, because soup - since then. This really is a winner of a dish - delicious, easy, and inexpensive! You may even have all of the ingredients in your pantry already, so what are you waiting for?!

Maggie's Vegan Kugel

It's funny how sometimes you just don't realize how impactful some element of your life actually is. For example, my wife didn't realize how much growing up in a predominantly Jewish community affected her world view, including the foods she eats. Although I've written about making foods that honor Shana's Jewish heritage, such as frisket and matzo ball soup, there was one food we lamented that I'd never be able to make: a sweet noodle kugel.

Shana used to love her Mommom's sweet kugel, which was built around egg noodles, cottage cheese, and apricot preserves. Not a lot there that is vegan-friendly. Although I've been thinking about kugel for years, I kept getting stuck on cottage cheese, as there's no vegan equivalent. But then, when looking around the internet for recipes for a Shabbot dinner we were invited to* with some of Earlham's Jewish students, I found a recipe for kugel that looked like it might work for my purposes! Using a combination of sour cream and mashed tofu, I was hoping for a cottage cheese like texture. After a couple of attempts, where every time Shana would get excited and nostalgic all at one, I finally stumbled upon a recipe that replicates Shana's Mommom's sweet kugel.

Vegan Stuffed Shells

This semester has started off at a run and I'm not sure I'm catching up. Thus, I haven't had a lot of time to make new meals. Well, that's not quite true. I've made two, both of which were delicious, I just haven't had time to post them. This particular dinner we ate weeks ago. And wow, was it good! The mellow flavor of the garlic is just wonderful and the texture of the tofu mixture is perfect. Shana also thought that flavor developed even more in leftovers.

I will say that this is not a meal you can make in a hurry. There are a lot of different parts that need to come together and you use a ton of dishes. But for a dinner party or something like that, this would a great option! It's something that non-vegans would find familiar, but not necessary miss the cheese due to the consistency of the tofu and the roundness of the flavors from garlic, miso, and nutritional yeast.

Vegan Coq au Vin

This semester I hope to cook a ton of new recipes. I'm pretty sure I say that every semester, but I am on a "pre-tenure leave" this semester, which means that I'm not teaching anything! Instead, my time will be spent working on writing up all the research I've been doing over the past years. I've got big goals (four manuscripts of the six I have waiting, plus seriously revising a class I will be teaching in the fall), but I have been told that I am also to take time to relax and rejuvenate. For me, that means cooking, singing, and reading books for fun. All of that sounds amazing.

To start off the semester of fun new foods, I decided to pick a recipe from an awesome cookbook that I've barely used: World Vegan Feast. Bryanna Clark Grogan is amazing. She has a number of awesome vegan cookbooks and an extensive vegan recipe blog. She also has an interesting background with family members from various parts of the world. Aside from her amazingness (not a word) as a cook, I also wanted this cookbook as a way to stretch my taste buds and culinary repertoire. This "coq" au vin does just that. The flavors are traditionally French for a taste of international cuisine when you don't have the money and time to actually go there!

Maggie's Vegan Chicken and Noodles

Last Sunday I woke up really early (just before 6) and couldn't get back to sleep. After tossing and turning for a while, I decided to get up and be productive. For the record, productive on Sunday morning means reading the paper while sipping a single cup of French pressed coffee. After I finished the paper, it still wasn't late enough to wake up Shana, so I decided to do some work. For some low-level background noise, I turned on the TV. I'm not sure how much Sunday morning TV you watch, but there is not a lot on that interests me. I decided on the Food Network.

At this point, I'm not even sure what show I was watching, but I assure you that it was not a vegan-friendly cooking show. Somehow or another, I came away with two new recipes I wanted to veganize. When I mentioned the idea of a vegan "chicken" and noodles dinner to Shana, she seemed cautiously interested. We put it on the meal plan for this week. As the week progressed, Shana got more and more excited and kept saying that she wanted something like the "just boil water" pasta sides of her college days (read: weekend late nights).

Veganized chicken and noodles was on the menu for tonight. I'd come home late after an outing with some colleagues and hadn't had enough time to look up a variety of recipes to get some ideas, which is my general plan when I'm making something new. Instead, I came home, grabbed ingredients, and got to work. The resulting dish ended up being a delicious (and less chemically-laden) version of a comfort food. Shana was in heaven.

Vegan Roasted Vegetable Shepherd's Pie

I've been absent from here for over a month. As I indicated, we visited my family over the holidays and shared in wonderful traditions. When we came back, the semester started up for me, which is always a busy time. Then my mother died. We were there with her when she died, peacefully and painlessly, for which I will be forever grateful.

Needless to say, the rest of my life was put on hold. Our wonderful colleagues covered for our duties at both our schools. Family and friends near and far made/sent meals to keep us going. Meanwhile, we planned a beautiful burial and memorial. Her burial was attended by 19 of her family members and her memorial was attended by 400+ of her family and friends, and streamed online by more than 50 others.

We've been back from Minnesota now for not quite a week; I am playing catch-up as best I can and we are living life as normally as possible. Most of the time it's very possible; some times it's not. One of my normal life events is cooking, so we've cooked every night since we've been back. I've even cooked a couple new things, including this roasted vegetable shepherd's pie.

This is comfort food to the core. It uses the oven, is soft and creamy, and has a subtle blend of savory flavors. It also uses a fun new product (though see Helpful Hints) called Soy Curls. Soy Curls are nothing more than whole soybeans, so they are a great protein source. Speaking of products, there are a lot of ingredients in this recipe, but nothing is particularly difficult. Finally, as a "casserole" dish, shepherd's pie is not the prettiest of all the foods I make, but the taste more than makes up for the appearance.

Savory Stuffed Acorn Squash

It's official - we are both on break! This was Shana's last week of school (whereas I was done with scheduled stuff last week). Given the schedule of events and school obligations she had, Shana opted to stay in Indy two nights this past week. Although that's sad for both of us, she can't do things like enter grades at home as easily as I can, so it made sense.

As I mentioned a few posts ago, Tuesdays were the nights I'd been attempting and failing at crockpot dinners. This past Tuesday, I didn't even plan a dinner, which is almost blasphemous in our meal-planning household. I'd purchased a few things I figured I could eat, but nothing that was truly a meal. I wasn't worried, because I know my pantry is well-stocked enough that I could simply throw something together, but instead, I got inspired and made something amazing enough to share.

One of the things I purchased was an acorn squash. I decided I would eat that as part of my dinner, then got inspired thinking about what else to make. The result - a simple, savory, and delicious (!) stuffing - perfectly offset the sweetness of the roasted acorn squash. In addition, the mix of textures (smooth, chewy, and crunchy) gives the whole dish a "fancy" feeling, even though the hardest part of the whole process is probably cutting the acorn squash. Finally (just in case I haven't yet won you over), this is healthy! There's a whole grain, some protein, three veggies, and very little fat. Eat up!

Vegan Viands #15: Candy Cane Chocolate Chunk Cookies

My grades are in, which means the semester is officially over for me! While I still have work I need to do (such a preparing for next semester, committee work, and paper revisions), having this unstructured time is lovely. I will get to all of the things I need to do, but I'll also intersperse fun things, like cooking up a storm, reading for pleasure, and holiday gatherings. Just last night we went to a lovely dinner with friends where we ate and laughed and trimmed a tree.

My food task for last night's gathering was to bring dessert. One of the hosts specifically requested my cinnamon cake (and apparently giggled with glee when I agreed to make it). I also decided to remake these candy cane chocolate chunk cookies that I'd made a few nights ago, because I wanted to experiment with ratios in the recipe. This attempt led to cookies that were exactly what I wanted them to be. When making them a few nights ago, the cookies were amazingly soft and delicious, but weren't quite right. They were flat and there was an unbalanced ratio of cookie additions to cookie dough. Shana reminded me that this was exactly how the cookies turned out every year (and that I responded in the same partially dissatisfied manner every year), but this year I was determined to make them into the cookies I envisioned. Success!

These cookies are perfect for holiday gatherings and for using up all those candy canes! The subtle mintiness in the soft dough, the toffee-like texture of the cooked candy canes, and the slight bitterness of the dark chocolate chunks are such an amazing combination. This recipe is originally one I found while perusing the recipes of the Vegan Chef. Although this recipe isn't listed on her website any longer, here it is.

Amazing Apple Spice Bread

I've just finished the last week of the semester at school; finals are next week. Due to some scheduling confusion with the finals schedule, I rearranged the last three days of my Psychology of Prejudice class, necessitating that we start class 30 minutes early on Thursday (my students were giving presentations on their semester-long research projects; research is awesome!). Because they are college students and I know full well that most of them roll out of bed to come to my class (and, let's be honest, because I love them), I told them I would make them treats since I was starting class earlier than usual.

Class was going to run from 10-12 on Thursday, so I needed mostly breakfast-y stuff for them to eat. I opted for a lot of fruit (pineapple, strawberries, kiwis, and blueberries), a pretzel/chocolate/pecan thing, as well as some baked items. Actually, lots of baked items. I made my grape nut bars, two sets of banana muffins (with nuts and without), and this amazing apple bread. While cooking on Wednesday night, I worried that I wasn't going to have enough food, so I started some creative googling. Eventually, I stumbled on a non-vegan recipe for a bread that looked good, made some adjustments, and ended up not even getting a piece to try while in class! I asked a couple of students about the bread after class (one student said she liked it so much she had two pieces - excellent!), and with the rave reviews, I figured I had to make it again. I am SO glad I did, because this bread is AMAZING! It's full of a subtle blend of apple/cinnamon/molasses flavors, it's sweet but not cloying, it's dense without being heavy, and it's moist with a wonderful mouth feel. For those of you who like my family recipe zucchini bread, make this bread! You'll love it!

Crockpot Almost Irish Stew

We had a line of autumn storms move through here a couple of days ago. In their wake, they left perfect cool, fall weather. If you've been reading this blog for a while, you should be unsurprised that this cool weather leads us to soups and stews. I mean, they really are the most perfect foods! This particular stew is one that I've been waiting to post for a while, as there was a bit of groundwork necessary. Specifically, I had to make sure that you all (lovely readers, you) were comfortable with me talking about seitan.

This crockpot dinner is a fabulous fall or winter dinner. The only veggies in it are ones that you can easily get year round and the flavor profile is hearty and full of earthy tastes. In addition, putting seitan in the crockpot with some liquid gives the seitan such a wonderful texture. Plus, if you don't like seitan, you can simply switch it out for some beans (see the Helpful Hints).

Two quick blog-related items. First, I'm very sorry for my resent absence. I've been working hard and traveling a lot this semester. Neither of those things seem to be changing for the near future, but I promise that I haven't forgotten about LesVegan. Second, I've made a new page for vegan substitutions and am working on switching the links within recipes over to the new page. Eventually, the old substitutions post will go away, so if you stumble upon a broken link, please pass a message my way.

Finally, on an unrelated note: after dinner tonight we went for a walk to enjoy 60 degree temperatures, the crunchy leaves, and lovely evening ambiance. On our way out the door, we stopped to admire the lovely work the neighborhood squirrels are doing to one of the pumpkins we put out front. Apparently it's a delicious pumpkin (but the other one isn't...?). Who knows. I'm not distressed about the pumpkin consumption, as it has been fun to watch

Crockpot Corn Chowder

As I mentioned a week ago, I'm using Tuesdays this semester to attempt new crockpot meals. This week got a little turned around with a dinner for a potential new faculty member on Tuesday night, but Wednesday night was parent-teacher conferences, so Shana stayed and I attempted a new crockpot dinner. I was trying to decide between two different meals in my crockpot book, and although I'm not sure what made me choose this dish, I am very glad that I did!

Perhaps I was predisposed to like this meal because of the ease of crockpot cooking. Perhaps it was just that I was really hungry when I first tried the chowder. But I don't think that I've ever had non-vegan corn chowder, so I might not be a fair judge (though I did share bites of it with two omnivores at school today and they both liked it). In reality, I think the recipe is just a delicious one! Plus, you can make this using fresh from the farm corn in the summer or frozen kernels in the winter. To be honest, I used frozen kernels even though it is summer because it's just easier.

Overall, this soup is full of corn flavor and fresh whole foods. By pureeing some of the cooked veggies and then adding the puree back into the soup, there's a slight bit of weight to each spoonful without an overpowering heaviness. The corn makes it a bit on the "sweet" side (think sweet corn, not cake), but maybe that's normal for corn chowder? Regardless, there is certainly a balance of other savory flavors. If nothing else, the chowder is a lovely shade of yellow!