Mole - eh?



The final product, YUM!



Once in awhile I come across a great cookbook.  Now, all of my cookbooks are great in their own rights.  I have my favourites and my most useful ones.  I think I have found a new book to make it to those ranks, and it only took one recipe, which happened to be an exceptional one.

One way we can help the worlds food supply, our health, and so many other things is to go meatless sometimes.  I don't mean we all have to be vegans and never so much as look at livestock again, but it is wise to consider a reduction in meat consumption.  It's a topic I would encourage people to read up on, and draw their own conclusions and actions.

Regardless, I like (LOVE) vegetarian cooking.  One thing I find though is it's not always easy to make a meal feel complete.  It often feels like there is complexity or texture...just something missing...so you might say "duh! meat!" but that's not always the case, I've had plenty of meat recipes that were bland and missing something.

In any case, This is not that bland meatless meal!



Adam got me a cookbook for my birthday called the New Vegetarian Kitchen.  It's a green colored cookbook out of the UK.  It took me a bit of time to get into it but once I did I had that bugger bookmarked to kingdom come, and the first on my list was this recipe below.  It was worth the effort and I would use this mole sauce for veggie or meat, again and again, it is that good! The chickpea pancakes were a departure for me, I've never used chickpea flour but you know what?  They were delicious.  An excellent accompaniment.



This recipe also has the potential to be gluten free and vegan with a couple of very minor ingredient tweaks (sour cream, chocolate, baking soda, etc).  WOW.  This is an ace for alternative and special diets!

BLACK BEAN MOLE (pron. moh-lay)
(adapted from the New vegetarian Kitchen, an excellent cookbook)

INGREDIENTS:
The mole:
3 1/2 C of diced butternut squash (recipe calls for acorn squash)
1 small onion pulverised (recipe called for 1 large onion diced)
2 large cloves of garlic, minced 2 TBSP of Chipoltle hot sauce (recipe called for 3 T of chipoltle paste)
1 thai green chile, fine dice (recipe called for 1 dried ancho chili)

Borscht!?!? YES!!

I've been browsing borscht recipes for awhile, not sure why.  I had savoy cabbage to eat and I was at home sick.  Nutritious soup was in order for lunch, but the preparation ended up tiring me right out.  At least it tasted great.  Or I think it did.  Not sure if I've even HAD this kind of soup before.  It's Ukranian apprearantly.  I can only assume if I like it it turned out right, traditional or not!  (It's a great way to use beets!)



A messy bowl, served with sour cream, YUM.

My main inspirations are these pages here:

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/ukrainian-red-borscht-soup/detail.aspx

http://mostlysoup.wordpress.com/2009/06/01/vegetarian-borscht/

I also did some stuff from here and there but honestly, I don't remember what recipes the ideas came from.

Sarah's Basic Borscht!

INGREDIENTS:
1 lb beets*
1/2 lb carrots (about 3 medium)
1 small onion slivered 2 garlic cloves minced
4 C of savoy cabbage shredded
1c canned chopped tomatoes drained**
3 medium new potatoes, scrubbed, peeled, and cubed into approx 1.5cm pieces
1t dried dill
1/4t caraway seeds
2t balsamic vinegar

1T of vegetable oil

900ml carton of beef broth (or equivalent homemade stock)
2+C of water (I say + because you may need a bit more than 2, depending on consistency)


salt and pepper to taste

Sour cream for serving

Special Tools:Food Processor

Pantry Pumpkin Pie!

Okay, so happy belated thanksgiving.  This will be handy next year :)

With a bit of whip cream, perfect
(actually, after I took the photo i covered
it in the stuff...)



I'm sick, I've had a terrible cold but also a terribly busy weekend, which may have exacerbated my symptoms...but dammit I was on dessert duty, and what is tradition without a little pumpkin pie?  I was going to buy the pie but doing an audit of my pantry, I had all of the ingredients here already, so why not?

So, I'll confess, this is about as shortcut-homemade as you can do it.  It's not from scratch (really).  I've done it before.  I've roasted, peeled, pitted, pureed, strained the pumpkin, ground my spices, got the homemade pastry going (which I kind of suck at btw) and whipped some heavy cream (no cans here!) but you know what?  It's great, but I would be inclined to argue not really worth the work.

PANTRY PUMPKIN PIE (makes 2 pies)



Inspired by the recipe from the ED Smith pumpkin can with a few tips from the joyofbaking.com website.  I call it that because most of the stuff came from my pantry. :)

RIBS! (again)!!!

SLOW COOKER RIBS. 
AKA the best ribs ever (photos coming soon)

So it was the end of summer, actually, autumn had already started when I made this...but it *was* an unusually warm week.  What better meal than ribs? Especially the ones that were on a super sale :)  I googled several places, but I think this recipe came mostly from Kraft Canada, I'll try and find a better reference shortly.

Meat:2 racks (3 lb) of pork back ribs, cut into 2-3 rib portions (back layer of connective tissue removed)
salt and pepper

Sauce:1 small carrot diced
1 small onion blitzed (in minichop or food processor, to a pasty consistency)
Dash of worcestershire sauce
2 cloves of garlic pressed
2/3 C ketchup
2/3 C chili sauce
1/3 C BBQ sauce
1/4 C of golden sugar

Method:Turn on your broiler
Remove layer of connective tissue from back of ribs and cut into portions as required.
Season ribs with salt and pepper
Place under a broiler about 5 minutes a side until golden

Meanwhile....
Combine all ingredients for sauce and stir well
Transfer ribs to large slow cooker, coat with sauce.
and cook on low for 7-8 hours or until tender.
Remove ribs from sauce, skim fat from sauce
Now you have a couple of options, either place the stoneware on high and reduce sauce for several minutes until thicker, pulverise any remaining carrots with immersion blender
-or-
Pour sauce into a medium pot, bring to boil and then simmer for a few minutes until sauce thickens, pulversise any remaining carrots with an immersion blender.
Serve the ribs with some extra sauce brushed on.

Cooks notes:  You only need about half the sauce, so take what I said there and reduce it.  Otherwise, best ribs I've ever made.