Tomato Orzo Soup

Tomatoes, garlic, veggie broth, pasta, and fresh rosemary.  So very good!  We ate this for dinner tonight along with fresh ciabatta bread.

Tonight I made a recipe that I found on avirtualvegan.com that came from Lani Muelrath's new book, The Plant-Based Journey. It is Portobello Pot Roast. It is soooo very yummy! My stomach and mouth are so happy now!

Carapulcra

I was in the mall a couple of years ago and found a Peruvian restaurant that was serving oil and meat-free carapulcra. I suspect that the meat was simply pulled out for my serving....but, I tried making it today. I am fortunate to be able to do my shopping in a fairly large city, Austin, and was able to find the ingredients at a grocery store called Fiesta. Here it is:

1 15oz package of papa seca (freeze-dried potato chunks)
5 cups vegetable broth
2 T. minced garlic
1 chopped onion
1 T. cocoa powder
1/2 t. cumin powder
2 T. Aji Panca
3 T. Aji Amarillo
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1 T. fat-free peanut butter powder

I soaked the papa seca in cold water for 2 hours. Then drained the potatoes, added everything else except for the peanut butter powder. I stirred it, heated until warm and bubbly, sprinkled the peanut butter powder on, and served with a side of steamed rice. The restaurant used white rice, I used brown. Many of the recipes I found online called for 1 cup of dry white wine, I left that out and increased the broth by 1 cup. The Aji Panca is a mild but very flavorful red chili paste. The Aji Amarillo is a medium and extremely flavorful yellow chili paste. The recipes I found were saying to blend the chilies with oil to make the paste, but the paste I ended up finding at Fiesta only has the chilies in it. I was prepared to buy the chili and make the paste myself. The yellow chili has a very unique flavor and I think it would be worth finding it when you make this. I looked online and it is very easy to find it at Amazon, among other places. The original recipes called for toasted finely chopped peanuts, but I didn't want the added fat, thus the peanut butter powder.

Paella

A few months ago, I bought the cookbook Happy Herbivore Abroad.  I bought the Kindle version at the link I put here; I do not get kickbacks, just wanted you to have the chance to look at this book.  This week I made the Paella recipe--fabulous!  I have been eating the cold leftovers for lunches at work this week.  This recipe uses fire-roasted tomatoes, which really adds a nice depth to the entire flavor.  The top picture shows the vegetables sauteing in water instead of oil. 

Healthy, Inexpensive Dinner

Nothing fancy here for dinner tonight, just HUGE russet potatoes, baked, and a pan full of asparagus and Brussels sprouts.  The veggies have not been roasted yet in the picture and they looked so good when they came out that we ate everything before I remembered to grab the camera.  It was so good!  I put them into a 400-degree F oven for about 30 minutes.  The asparagus was fresh and the sprouts were frozen, but everything was ready when I took it out.

The potatoes were served with brown gravy or green chile sauce, whichever a person wanted.

Cheeze Dip

Before blending.  You can see the pepper, water with lemon juice, and cashews.

Right after I turned the blender on.

After a minute or so.

After it has been blended and poured into a red dish.

I made cheeze dip for my family a little while ago and wanted to share the recipe with you.  I made a batch this size the night before last, but by last night it was all gone.  

I make this in my Vita Mix Blender. 

1 cup raw cashews

2 cups water

juice from 1/2 lemon

1 t pink Himalayan salt

1 T prepared mustard

1 T chopped garlic

1 t onion powder

2 vegetable bouillon cubes

1/2 roasted red pepper (a little charred is even better)

1 shake cayenne pepper (maybe 1/8 t)

3 rounded T corn starch

1/4-1/3 cup nutritional yeast

Put everything into blender and turn to high.  Leave on high until it is hot and thick.  You can stop blending when it still runs and use it as a dip for veggies and baked chips, or you can let it blend until it is so thick it will not move in the blender.  That is how thick I made this batch.  Once it has cooled down, it can be spread on bread for a grilled cheeze sandwich, we like it spread thinly on pizza crust with the sauce and other toppings on top of it, or use it on baked potatoes and in macaroni.

Enjoy!