Homemade Veggie Burgers!

At this time of year, both of our jobs get insane. Lots of late night meetings. Lots of school club events. Right now, we're in the thick of the school year with no end in sight. There's no real time to cook, which makes us very happy that we have our own version of "fast food" ready to go in our freezer. Lately, we've been partaking in the veggie burgers we made and froze over Winter Break (we quadrupled our batch and are so thankful we did!). We found the recipe in Vegetarian Times several years ago. We love experimenting by adding the various types of cheese we receive through our CSA cheese share and by whipping up tantalizing sauces!

Chicago Diner Burgers
3 stalks celery, diced (about 1 1/4 cups)

1 small onion, diced (about 1 cup)

1/4 cup low-sodium soy sauce

2 tsp. onion powder

2 tsp. garlic powder
1/2 tsp. ground black pepper
3 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
12 oz. mushrooms, finely chopped
1/2 cup whole-wheat flour

Directions (makes eight burgers)
1.Bring 4 cups water, celery, onion, soy sauce, onion powder, garlic powder and pepper to a boil in pot over high heat. Reduce heat to medium and simmer 5 minutes. Stir in oats, mushrooms and flour, and cook 5 minutes more. Transfer to bowl, and chill.

2.Preheat oven to 350F. Coat baking sheet with cooking spray. Shape mixture into patties, and bake on prepared baking sheet 15 minutes. Flip, and bake 10 minutes more. Cool.

3.Heat grill to medium-high. Place foil on grill, and coat with cooking spray. Grill burgers on foil 7 minutes per side.
 
Per SERVING:  Calories 175; Protein 9g; Fat 2g; Saturated Fat 0g; Carbs 32g; Choelsterol 0mg; Sodium 289mg; Fiber 5g; Sugar 3g

In this picture, the burger is served with Otter Creek and Harmony Valley Farm's beet-garlic cheese and our own homemade red aoili sauce. To make our red aoili sauce, we simply blended some of the roasted red peppers from our freezer with Canola Mayonnaise. Yum!

Garlic and Kale Soup

This Garlic and Kale Soup is fantastic! It's perfectly spiced, obnoxiously healthy, and super easy to make. Although this recipe isn't one of our own, we thought we'd share it with all of you. Most of the ingredients are moderately in season ~ meaning that most were either already in our fridge, freezer, or pantry.

According to Vegetarian Times, "Kale and garlic are good for the cardiovascular system; wheat berries are high in fiber; and shitake mushrooms contain eritadenine, and amino acid that speeds up processing of cholesterol in the liver."  Yay for healthy soups!

Garlic and Kale Soup
1/2 cup wheat berries
2 Tbs. olive oil
3.5 oz. shitake mushrooms, stemmed and thinly sliced (we bought these dry and rehydrated them)
10 cloves garlic, peeled and thinly sliced (we used 2 whole heads!)
1/4 cup brown rice vinegar
4 cups vegetable broth
1 bunch kale, stemmed and coarsely chopped.

1. Either soak wheat berries in a large bowl of water overnight, or cook in a pressure cooker if you're pressed for time.

2. Heat oil in 2-qt. saucepan over medium heat. Add mushrooms, and season with salt, if desired. Saute mushrooms 10 minutes, or until beginning to brown. Add garlic, and saute 2 minutes more. Stir in vinegar; simmer until vinegar is almost evaporated,  stirring to scrape up browned bits from pan.

3. Drain wheat berries, and add to mushroom mixture with vegetable broth and 1 cup water. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer 20 minutes. Add kale, and cook 10 to 20 minutes more, or until kale is tender. Season with salt and pepper, if desired.

Per 1-cup servings: 138 CAL; 4 G PROT; 5 G TOTAL FAT; 20 G CARB; 0 MG CHOL; 103 MG SOD; 3 G FIBER; 4 G SUGARS

A Sunday Morning Favorite: Pancakes

We've always been huge fans of Sunday morning pancakes and coffee. It's become somewhat routine in our household. For years, we've bought Bob's Red Mill's Pancake Mix. We've always had good intentions about creating our own "from scratch" pancake mix, but haven't ever gotten around to it. Last Sunday, we came closer than ever because of a recipe we found in our new cookbook, The Blue Plate Diner.

Using this recipe, you could make huge amounts of dry mix and store it. We made chocolate chip pancakes (because we felt indulgent, and that's what this recipe called for), but obviously you could make them with fruit or plain too!

Ingredients
3 large eggs
1 quart buttermilk (we used yogurt and hemp milk because we didn't have buttermilk in the fridge)
1 tsp. vanilla
2 oz melted butter
3 cups flour
1 tsp. salt
3 tbs. sugar
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 cup oats
1 tbs. butter
2 oz. miniature chocolate chips

Instructions:
Mix the eggs, buttermilk (or whatever you use), vanilla, melted butter until well blended. Separately, stir together the flour, salt, sugar, baking soda, baking  powder, and oats. Combine the dry and wet ingredients until they form a smooth batter. In a heated and buttered non-stick pan make 3-inch pancakes. Brown on both sides. Decorate with chocolate chips.

Mexican Lasagna, Freezer Style!

Over Winter Break, we took a day to freeze several meals for our undulating Wisconsin winter, including Mexican Lasagna from The Blue Plate Diner Cookbook (aka The Monty's Blue Plate Cookbook, for you Madisonians). 

We used corn from our freezer, onions and garlic from our cellar, and tomatoes and peppers from our pantry of canned goods. Our CSA is still providing us with plenty of cheese and carrots. We were fortunate enough to receive a Willy Street Co-op gift card to supply the rest of our ingredients for the double batch of this dish.

We froze both pans! Not eating it took every bit of willpower we had.

This recipe is for one batch:
Ingredients
2 tbs. olive oil
2 carrots, sliced thin
3 stalks celery, diced (you could use celeriac for a more seasonal approach)
1 tbs. crushed garlic
1 medium onion, diced
14 ounces corn (fresh, frozen, or canned)
14 ounces of black beans (prepared or canned)
14 ounces of diced tomatoes
2 or more jalapenos, finely diced (fresh or canned)
1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper (or more!)
2 tbs. cumin
1 tbs. chili powder
12 6-inch flour tortillas
2 cups shredded Cheddar Cheese

Instructions:
1. In a large frying pan, in olive oil, saute the carrots, celery, garlic and onion for 10 minutes over medium heat until tender.

2. Add the other vegetables and all seasonings.

3. Stir and cook on high heat for 30 minutes.

4. While the vegetables are cooking, line a 11X7 X 1.5 inch dish with a single layer of tortillas, each cut in half. Cover each with a layer of the vegetable filling, then a layer of cheese.

5. Continue making such layers - tortillas, vegetables, cheese - until the dish is filed or the ingredients are all used up.

6. Top with shredded cheese.

7. Bake in the oven for 30 minutes at 375 degrees.

Note: We put our unbaked lasagnas in smaller, aluminum pans. They were placed in freezer bags. We plan on using these smaller trays for quick dinners on busy work nights.

A Venture to the Urban Market

You know you're getting old when one of your most anticipated and wished-for present is a gift card to your favorite grocery store. In our case, that would be for the Willy Street Co-op in Madison. Two years ago, we included a Willy Street Co-op gift card on our Christmas lists, and for the last two years, Mr. and Mrs. Santa Clause have provided us with a nice, hefty amount!


This is so great for a number of reasons.
#1: We never feel like we can walk around the store and afford to pick up all the necessary basics for a pantry. With the annual gift card, we do.
#2: Between our yearlong preservation efforts and the bulk items purchased with this gift card, we are fully stocked for the winter. All we really need to visit the store for now is milk.
#3: I get so, so, so excited to wander around the bulk bin aisles with my Mason jars and tupperware. It's really one of the best days of my year. I feel like a video game junkie in an arcade.
#4: This shopping venture gives us an excuse and the means to do some winter preservation ~ this trip resulted in freezer food: Mexican lasagna, spinach lasagna, and homemade veggie burgers! 
#5: Food is a fantastic gift ~ it fills a basic human need, farmers are supported, little waste is created, and it will be used.


Here are some photos of our prizes from our shopping adventure in the "urban market":

The spread of it all!

grains, legumes, honey, etc.

Lovely, fabulous TEA (mouth is watering)!

local dairy products ~ Happier cows come from Wisco!

Christmas Dinner: A Traditional Thanksgiving Feast?

If you've read any of our recent holiday entries, you will have noticed that we partake in a traditional turkey dinner on Thanksgiving and then a vegetarian feast the day after. So, on Christmas Day, Andy doesn't miss the annual opportunity to make a sustainable Thanksgiving dinner. This year, we threw the cookbooks out, called family members to get recipes, and opened our refrigerator and cupboard in a vow to try to buy very little but the actual turkey itself.


After our "research," our menu consisted of the following:

Appetizers:

• Cheese from our CSA box and crackers
• Canned Pepper Jelly, cream cheese, and crackers
• Irish cream/mimosas/red wine
• 
  

Feast

• Turkey
• Mashed Roots
• Mushroom Gravy
• Stuffing
• Buttered Beets
  
• Cranberry Relish
• A bottle of a big hearty Zinfandel (or two!)
  

Dessert:

• Andy's dad's peanut clusters and coffee

Preparing this year's dinner made me truly thankful for our CSA. Having prepaid for our CSA box, we had to spend very little money other than for our turkey, crackers, some of the ingredients for drinks and the actual alcohol itself. We bought our turkey from a local farm, which helped the screaming, animal rights vegetarian within me to find a bit of peace with the soon-to-be cooking bird inside my home. Buying our food from local sources insures our money is going into the hands of the farmer and his workers. Plus the animals are allowed to walk and frolic for much of their lives as animals should, no matter what the end result. What a great holiday feeling for all involved!

Now for the recipes:

To make the turkey, Andy used the Poquette Thanksgiving turkey as a model. The night before, he soaked the turkey in the following brine:

2 cups salt
2 cups sugar
various herbs and spices (typically sage, thyme, oregano, pepper, etc.)
enough water to cover the bird

He submersed the bird in the brine inside of a cooler for 10 hours. The recommended time frame is 8-12 hours.

The next day, he stuffed our 12 lb. bird and put it in the oven for roughly 3.5 hours at 350 degrees. Obviously depending on the size of your bird, that might change. To check if the bird is done, either use a meat thermometer to be sure the coldest part of the turkey is at a minimum of 165 degrees and/or (Andy and my mom's favorite method) lift and twist a leg ~ if it pulls away from the bird with ease, it's done.

And now for everyone's favorite: the stuffing! Andy L.O.V.E.S. his dad's traditional stuffing, so there was no question as to where we'd get the recipe. Now this recipe might take some interpretation based on your culinary abilities, but who am I to alter the words of a family tradition? Here is the recipe, word-for-word as given to us, and I quote:

Simmer giblets in crock pot overnight with onion, celery, garlic, whatever-
Peel off neck meat. Put in processor with other giblet stuff and chop.
Sage and Onion
bread cubes
onion-chop
celery-slice
apple-slice beer
stock

Andy took the liberty of adding some leftover, stale cornbread, but other than that, pretty much followed the recipe "step-by-step." To make both vegetarian and regular stuffing, he simply combined all ingredients first and then added the turkey parts to just a portion, which later was stuffed into the turkey.

We didn't have any potatoes left in the house, so we decided to botch the myth that potatoes are necessary for a holiday feast and made mashed roots instead. They were so delicious!!!

Mashed Roots
cream cheese
butter
salt
milk
Any amount of any of the following roots will suffice:
rutabagas
turnips
celeriac

Peel and chop roots. Boil until tender. Drain water. Mash roots with cream cheese, milk, butter, and salt until desired consistency. We topped this off with gravy, but it was magnificently delicious on its own as well.


Buttered Beets
beets
butter
salt and pepper

Scrub beets clean. Boil beets until tender. Then slice off the ends and discard. Cut beets into bite-sized pieces. Serve with butter, salt and pepper. So simple, yet so very good!

Finally, the cranberry relish. My intention was to mimic the yummy raw cranberry salad from our Thanksgiving dinner at the Poquettes, but unfortunately, I didn't read Uncle Jim's recipe until Christmas Day... I was supposed to have made it the night before and refrigerated it. Oops! Next year, I guess. So, I threw together what I could. It turned out sweetly tart and tasty.

Cranberry Relish
1 pint cranberries
1 cup of orange juice
1.5 cups sugar
1 two-inch pieced of thinly sliced ginger
1 cup water
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cloves

Combine the water and sugar in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Add the orange juice and ginger. Reduce heat and simmer, uncovered for 20 minutes. Add the cranberries, cinnamon, and cloves and cook, uncovered, until thickened, about 15 minutes. Pour into a bowl and let cool. Serve.

What a feast!

Holiday Spirits

Each year, our contribution to the Christmas Eve dinner at the Poquettes is traditional Irish Cream. We usually double the recipe in order to have some left for our own Christmas Day feast with my parents, the Lapps.

The recipe for this creamy concoction was handed down to me from my mom. She used to bring it to the dreaded holiday party in Illinois! I remember soaking down a few glasses to take the "edge off" along with my dad way back when. Now, there's no need to "take the edge off" as both of our current family parties are enjoyable. Now, the drink is simply for added pleasure!


We buy the following ingredients as locally as we can. Obviously the milk and eggs are from local farmers. The rest is purchased from our co-op. Next year, we're hoping to provide our own eggs with the chickens we WILL get in 2010 (New Year's Resolution #276).

Ingredients:
3 eggs (from local, free-range chickens please!)
1 Tbs. chocolate syrup
1 tsp. instant coffee
1 tsp. coconut extract
1/2 pint whipping cream (from happy, small-farm Wisconsin cows!)
1.5 pints of milk (happy Wisco cows once again!)
14 ounces of sweetened condensed milk (organic versions of this exist)
2 cups (or to your liking) Irish whiskey

Instructions:
1. Mix eggs, chocolate syrup, instant coffee, and coconut extract together.
2. Stir in the rest of the ingredients.
3. Refrigerate and serve over ice.














Christmas Day wouldn't be complete without Mimosas. Luckily, our freezer is stocked with orange juice from oranges this past summer found in our CSA fruit box! Simply fill a glass three-quarters way with champagne or sparkling wine, and then fill up the flute with orange juice (or for fun, another juice of your liking!).