Vegetarian Chili

Here we are, nearing the final days of February and it occurs to me that I have not yet posted anything about Chili. With only a few weeks of winter remaining, I thought perhaps today was the day to do so. For myself, making a vegetarian friendly chili has never been much of an issue. Prior to becoming a vegetarian, it was already my preference to eat meatless chili. So, for those of you who have a favorite chili recipe, just go ahead and make it as before, but perhaps instead of the meat, add a can of black beans in its place.

If you are looking for a new or different chili recipe, the following recipe is on that I tried this winter - and loved. The recipe was given to me by my coworker, Jim. Thank you Jim for sharing this with me! It is much "lighter" than the thick, dark chili that my husband makes. Both are good, just different.

Perhaps, if we all make one final pot of chili for the winter, it will appease the Gods of Deep Packed Snow, and we can move on to Spring!

Here's the recipe. I hope you enjoy it.

Vegetarian Chili:

In a large pot or Dutch oven, saute the following until tender -

2 Tbsp. olive oil

1 1/2 cups chopped celery

1 1/2 cups chopped green pepper

1 cup chopped onion

3 cloves minced garlic

Then, add the following -

2 28 oz. cans tomatoes cut up

2 15.5 oz cans red kidney beans, drained

1 4 oz. can diced green chili peppers. drained

1/4 cup vinegar

1 Tbsp. chili powder

2-3 tsp. bottled hot pepper sauce

2 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp. dried basil, crushed

1 1/2 tsp. dried oregano, crushed

1 1/2 tsp. cumin

1/2 tsp. ground allspice

1/2 tsp. black pepper

1 bay leaf

Stir the above ingredients into the sauteed vegetables, bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer for 1 1/2 hours, covered.

Muffin Frittatas

Now here's a great idea for a Sunday brunch - Muffin Frittatas! It's time to pull out those old muffin pans, dust them off, and put them to good use.

The variations to this recipe are endless. You can saute the vegetables, you choose not to; you can choose what ever vegetables are to your liking; you can choose to use cheese - or not - or maybe a little; you can choose what kind of cheese. Like I said the possibilities are endless. I'll give you the basic recipe and you can take it from there. When I made these this morning, I used red and orange bell pepper, onion, and spinach. Because I was using spinach and wanted it wilted down, I decided to saute all of my vegetables. Again, the choice is up to you. One thing to keep in mind if you saute the veggies, is to make sure you drain the excess liquid before mixing the veggies in with the egg mixture. If you don't, you may end up with soggy muffins. Next time around, I think I'll do mushrooms, spinach, onions, and Feta cheese (if you use feta cheese, you may what to cut back on the salt in this recipe, as feta tends to be a bit on the saltier side). Yummy - I can hardly wait!

Muffin Frittatas:

Ingredients -

3 whole eggs

6 eggs whites

1/2 cup milk

1/4 tsp salt

1/8 tsp pepper

1/2 cup cheddar cheese (or what ever cheese is to your liking)

1 cup chopped vegetable of your choosing

1/2 small red onion (green onions would be lovely as well)

Directions:

Heat oven to 350 degrees F.

If you are sauteing your vegetables, I would do that first. Add 2 Tbsp oil to medium skillet and heat on medium high heat. Add your veggies and saute for 2-3 minutes. If you are using spinach, I would saute the other veggies first. After a couple of minutes, add the spinach and saute for 1-2 minutes more, until the spinach is wilted. Remove from heat to cool.

While the veggies are cooling, beat the eggs milk, salt and pepper in a medium bowl. Add the cheese and veggies; mix well.

Spoon the egg mixture into 12 greased muffin cups (about 1/4 cup each).

If you are wanting to decrease the overall cheese content, you could choose to simply sprinkle a little on top of each muffin before putting in the oven.

Bake at 350 degrees F about 20 minutes (just until set). Cool on a rack for about 5 minutes. Remove each cup and serve warm.

I figure about 3 muffins per person, which will give you four servings.

Serve with a side of whole wheat bread; maybe a little fruit, and you have a wonderful Sunday Brunch for your family.

Enjoy!

Spanakopita (Greek Spinach Pie)

Spanakopita - Greek Spinach Pie. Now this is one tasty dish. It is really quite an easy dish to make as well. When I was making this dish tonight, I did what the recipe called for, and used fresh spinach and chopped it up. If you have the time, then great, go ahead and do that. I find that the time I spend chopping veggies for my dishes can be some very nice quiet, relaxing, also meditative time in the kitchen. However, if you are short on time, or simply don't enjoy the fussiness of chopping the spinach, then by all means go ahead and use frozen chopped spinach.

Both of my guys really loved this dish, and Kyle, the teenage in the house, even asked for seconds!

I hope you enjoy this dish as much as we did.

Spanakopita:

Ingredients:

3 Tbsp olive oil

1 large onion, chopped

1 bunch of green onions, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 lbs. spinach rinsed and chopped

1/2 chopped fresh parsley

2 eggs, lightly beaten

1/2 cup ricotta cheese

1 cup crumbled feta cheese

8 sheets phyllo dough

1/4 cup olive oil

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly oil 9x9 baking pan.

Heat 3 Tbsp olive oil in large skillet over medium heat. Saute the onion, green onions, and garlic until soften and lightly browned. Then add in the chopped spinach and parsley and continue to saute until the spinach is limp - about another 2 minutes. If you are using frozen spinach you wouldn't need to add it to the onion mixture. I would throw in the parsley and let it saute with the onion mixture for just a minute. Remove from the heat and set aside to cool.

In a medium bowl, mix together the egg, ricotta cheese, and feta cheese. Stir in the spinach mixture.

Lay one sheet of phyllo dough in the prepared baking pan and brush lightly with olive oil. The sheet of phyllo dough will be slightly bigger than you pan, causing some to hang over, which is desirable.

Lay another sheet of phyllo dough on top and brush with olive oil. Continue this with 2 more sheets of phyllo dough.

Next, spread the spinach and cheese mixture into the pan and fold overhanging dough over the filling. Brush the dough with oil.

Then add 4 more sheets of phyllo dough in the same manner as above. When I did this, I laid the dough in alternating directions so that I would have overhang on all 4 side.

Tuck the overhanging dough in the pan to create a seal.

**When working with phyllo dough, it is very important that you do not unwrap it and expose it to the air until you are ready to use it. Phyllo dough is very, very thin so when it get exposed to the air, it will dry out very quickly, making it very difficult to work with.

Bake in preheated oven for 30 to 40 minutes until golden brown. Serve hot.

My mind has already started working on the many variations I could make on this recipe. You could try using different feta cheeses (like a tomato basil). You could use cottage cheese instead of ricotta to lower the fat content. You could saute some mushrooms with the onion mixture. The possibilities are endless!!!

I'd love to hear what you come up with.

Enjoy!

Vegetable Frittata

Todays lunch was an amazingly healthy vegetable frittata with a veggie salad. All that was missing was some homemade whole wheat bread. (Oh Honey, where's the homemade bread?) The recipe uses egg whites, instead of the whole egg, so it is heart healthy!

When it comes to eggs, free range is always the way to go. It's always important to purchase your eggs from somewhere where you know that the chickens who laid them for you, were treated with kindness.

Vegetable Frittata.

Ingredients:

2 tsp olive oil

2 cups of vegetables of your choice (red, yellow, orange peppers, mushrooms, asparagus, zucchini, onions)---diced

Eggs whites from 1 dozen eggs

1/2 tsp ground pepper

1/4 tsp sea salt

Directions:

Preheat the oven broiler.

In a 10" oven safe skillet, warm the olive oil. Add the vegetables and sautee for 3-4 minutes. Don't over cook the vegetables. You want them to be tender crisp.

Whisk together the egg whites, salt and pepper and pour over the vegetables and cook gently until the egg whites are set.

Transfer the pan to the broiler and brown until the top is nicely browned.

Take out of the oven and sprinkle with scallions.

Other options: just before you put the frittata in the oven, you could sprinkle it with some feta cheese for another layer of flavor.

Enjoy!

Honey Mustard Dressing

Tonight's supper meal was a spinach mushroom frittata, another new recipe that I was trying out. My guys enjoyed it, but I, on the other hand, did not find it to be quite what I consider "blog worthy." So, my search for a blog worthy frittata recipe continues.

As a side to the frittata, I prepared a mixed greens salad with lots of fresh veggies. To top it off, I chose this incredibly simple honey mustard dressing. Three ingredients - that's it. It doesn't get much easier than that.

There's also a little back story regarding my love for honey mustard dressing. Several years ago when my best friend Cindy and I would get together for a night out, we seemed to find ourselves at Perkins and we always seemed to order the shrimp bread bowl salad with honey mustard dressing. We would sit and visit, enjoy our salad, dip the torn off sides of our bread bowls into our extra dressing, and talk about how much we loved that dressing. I can still recall Cindy and I (and sometimes her husband Don) trying to get the name of the supplier of their dressing, ordering a container of dressing to go, and I trying one store bought honey mustard dressing after another, just so I could have this same tasty experience at home.

Well, finally, after all these years, I have finally recreated that infamous honey mustard dressing. And now I am sharing it with you. Mind you, I'm not eating the shrimp portion of the salad anymore, but my husband, Stephe, did make some homemade wheat bread this week which was quite a treat for dipping in the extra dressing.

And so tonight as I ate my salad with my family, my memories remind me of a cherished friendship, and a shared love of good food. My hope for you is that your mealtimes are a time in which you too connect and bond with those around you. A time to create lasting memories with the ones you cherish.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup mayo

1/4 cup honey

2 tablespoons dijon mustard

Mix together. It's really that simple.

Enjoy!

Corn Chowder

Tonight I came home from work, tired and hungry. To my surprise my husband had been busy in the kitchen preparing this very lovely corn chowder. The aroma as I walked in the front door was amazing!

I have to say it was pretty tasty. I do have another recipe for corn chowder that I've been meaning to make. Hopefully that will be coming soon so you'll have to options. You can't go wrong with corn chowder. Enjoy!

Corn Chowder

Ingredients

• 1 large onion, chopped
• 1/2 cup butter
• 2 1/2 cups water
• 2 (14.75 ounce) cans cream-style corn
• 4 medium potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch cubes
• 2 cups milk
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 3/4 teaspoon pepper
• Minced fresh parsley

Directions

1. In a Dutch oven, saute onion in butter until tender. Add the water, corn and potatoes; bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 16-20 minutes or until potatoes are tender. Reduce heat to low. Stir in the milk, salt and pepper. Cook for 5-10 minutes or until heated through, stirring occasionally. Sprinkle with parsley.