Wednesday, April 14, 2010

The Most Awesome Vegetarian Chili in the WORLD

I found this recipe in the cesspool of the internet dumpster. Despite the previous sentence, it's pretty delicious.

Ingredients:
2 tbs Canola Oil
1 red pepper
1 green pepper
1 1/2 cups chopped yellow onion
1 1/2 zucchini, diced
2 cups corn kernels
1 1/2 lbs portabella mushrooms, cubed
2 tbs chili powder
1 tbs cumin
1 1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cayenne
4 large tomatoes, peeled and chopped
3 cups cooked black & kidney beans (or canned & drained)
1 can tomato sauce (or paste)
1 jar of salsa, spiced depending on taste
1 cup veggie stock (or water if you don't want to spend $)

Optional:
Cilantro
Chili peppers
Avacado
Sour Cream
Thyme
Oregano
Green onion

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In a large pot...

  • heat oil over medium-high heat
  • add onions, bell peppers, garlic and stir until soft (about 3 minutes)
  • add zucchini, corn, mushrooms, stir until soft & veggies give off juices & start to brown (about six minutes)
  • add chili powder, cumin, salt & cayenne
  • add tomatoes, stir well
  • add beans, tomato sauce, salsa and veggie stock, stir well & boil.
  • reduce heat to medium-low, simmer, stirring occasionally, for about 20 minutes.
  • Remove from heat (this is where you would add any optional ingredient to taste)
I'm not sure exactly how many portions this makes, but it kept me and my roommate fed for about four days eating chili about twice a day (sometimes more). It was a lot of chili.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Strawberry Mochi Cake

This is the cake I made for Sunday Night Dinner the other day. I was looking for a way to use one of the five pounds of mochiko I have in my room, and I found a yummy looking recipe here (courtesy of Kirbie's Cravings). I wasn't sure how it would turn out, but it was a total success! The cake has a unique texture, sticky and chewy like mochi but light like a cake. The blog authoress has also used blueberries or cherries directly subsituted for the strawberries.

This recipe uses "sweet" or "glutinous" rice flour, which is sometimes also called "mochi-ko" after the Japanese. (Despite the name, it is actually gluten-free!) It can be found at Asian supermarkets or online, and possibly at whole food stores. It is very different from normal rice flour, so be careful!

Ingredients
  • 16 oz (1 pound) "glutinous" or "sweet" rice flour
  • 1 cup butter
  • 2 cups sugar
  • 1 (12 ounce) can (or 1 1/2 cups) evaporated milk
  • 4 eggs
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla
  • 2 cups fresh strawberries, cut into small cubes (I used frozen)
Directions
  1. Cream the butter with sugar. It helps to melt the butter a little first.
  2. Mix in the evaporated milk to the butter/sugar mixture.
  3. Mix eggs into the mixture.
  4. Mix in the rice flour, baking powder and vanilla.
  5. Stir in the strawberries.
  6. Pour mixture into a 9 x 13 pan. (I recommend using foil--this stuff is hard to scrub off)
  7. Bake for approximately 1 hour at 350 degrees.
  8. Let cake completely cool, allowing the mochi to set, before cutting and serving.