Red Lentil and Quinoa Stew

This was so good that when I tasted it to adjust the seasoning at the end, I uttered something that was both really profane and really, really obscene. For the sake of people's sensibilities, I won't repeat it here.

Once again, I am at the scraping the pantry stage of the grocery cycle where I challenge myself to create delicious dishes with just what I have on hand, forcing myself to make substitutions as needed. Since I am eating vegan again, this brings along an additional layer of complexity as I may try to veganize old recipes.

At the moment, I have very few vegetarian/vegan specialty items like tempeh or seitan, but one thing I do have in abundance is a whole mess of dried legumes. I am silly with them, in fact, from black-eyed peas, to black beans and great northern beans to a variety of split peas and lentils. I made my wonderfully spicy lentil soup yesterday with those earthy brown lentils, and today decided that I needed more spice and more lentils, so I adapted my take on red lentil dhal and created a red lentil and quinoa stew.

After I had devoured my bowl of the stew, my 7 year-old daughter came over and sniffed the bowl cautiously before asking me, "Is this some kind of soup, Mommy?" I told her that it was, and that it was yummy, and she asked for some, saying, "It looks like a carrot soup," "Yes," I said, "There is some carrot in there," and ladled out a bit for her to try.

"YUM!" She said, giving me a thumbs-up.

Sometimes Mommy just flat-out rocks the house and gets it right. ☺


Edit: The kid scarfed down two bowls of this stew. That's right, TWO.

Red Lentil and Quinoa Stew

Ingredients:

• 1 stalk celery, diced finely
• 1 medium onion, diced finely
• 1/2 red bell pepper, diced finely
• 1/2 cup of grated carrot
• 1 large clove garlic, chopped (about 2 T)
• 1/4 cup diced tomato
  
• 3/4 cup red lentils
• 1/2 cup quinoa
  
• 5 cups water or broth
  
• 1 T tomato paste
• onion powder
• garlic powder
• chili powder
• coriander
  
• cumin
• turmeric
  
• 1 bay leaf
• hot sauce
  

Directions:

1. Heat 2 T olive oil in a saucepan over medium-high heat.
   
2. Add the chopped onion and celery and saute for 2 minutes.
   
3. Add the bell pepper, carrots and garlic, stirring well.
   
4. After 5 minutes or so, when the vegetables have softened significantly, add the tomato and stir well.
   
5. Add the spices and let cook for a minute.
6. Add the red lentils and quinoa, turn the heat to high and add the water and the tomato paste.
   
7. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium-low, keep covered and let simmer for 30 minutes.
   
8. Taste and adjust seasoning. Here's where I add the hot sauce.
   
9. Simmer uncovered another 15 minutes until the lentils are no longer crunchy. Fish out the bay leaf.
   
10. Serve, adding more hot sauce as your palate dictates. Today, my palate commanded a heavy hand with the Cholula.
    

Notes:

• I used half red quinoa and half white quinoa (1/4 cup each), but it would be delicious with either one of those or black quinoa if you can find it.
  
• I could not find my coriander powder in the horror show that is my spice cabinet, but I did have a jar of coriander seeds, so I broke out my handy mortar and pestle and crushed them up.
  
  If you decide to do this, be sure to crush the seeds very thoroughly so you don't have to bite down on the sharp husks of the coriander seeds. Although I use whole coriander in some Indian dishes, those sauces tend to simmer for a very long time, softening the seeds. If this is too much work for you, then make sure that your coriander powder is easily accessible.
  
• I was purposely vague about the seasoning amounts today because, well, I didn't even measure anything out, I just "salted" everything, although I can tell you that I used about 1/2 teaspoon of coriander seeds and about the same amount of ground cumin, and only 1 bay leaf.
• Speaking of salt, as you can see, I used none in this recipe, though you are certainly free to S&P this dish to your liking.
  
• If you are itching to garnish this with something, I'd go with chopped cilantro. I realized way after the fact that I have a bunch of cilantro languishing in the crisper of my fridge. Sometimes I think that the crisper is where veggies go to die. Things get lost in there. Tsk.
  

• Hot sauce - After years of being a Frank's aficionado, lately I have been reaching for Cholula, but have been meaning to try some of the hot sauces made by the folks of our own Dinosaur BBQ right here in Syracuse.
  
  They have Devil's Duo Pepper Sauce and a Garlic Chipotle Pepper Sauce. If those sauces are near as good as their barbecue slathering sauces and rubs, I predict that they'll be out of this world.
  
  Click the picture to go to the site.
  

Day 46: Strong Hearts Cafe

Well, as I predicted yesterday, I could barely wait until 11 am to try out the vegan cafe in my city. I dragged the girls off with me for a vegan luncheon. I promised them pizza, only to discover that I had not read the menu very well. They serve pizza on Friday nights from 6pm until 2 am only. Oops. That elicited a bit of sulkiness from my Tween-in-training, but I snagged a few menus and pointed out to her that they served breakfast all day and emphasized the long list of milkshakes and she was ok.

In the end, Natalie had waffles topped with powdered sugar, fresh strawberries and real maple syrup and washed it down with a huge pumpkin milkshake. That milkshake tasted like a Thanksgiving pumpkin pie, oh my! Lucy opted for a BLT using the fak'n bacon stuff, vegan cheese (Teese), vegannaise, lettuce and tomato on grilled whole wheat bread, and to drink, had a thick, creamy blueberry milkshake. I had a TLT: a generous slab of marinated, baked tofu with tomato, lettuce, sprouts, pesto & vegannaise on grilled whole wheat bread. Although the milkshakes were tempting, I had a yerba mate after finding out that they'd sold out of my first choice Thai Iced Tea.


The verdict: Delicious. The girls loved their food too, and any mom, vegan or otherwise, can tell you, that's no mean feat.


The sandwiches came solo, unaccompanied by chips, fries or even a small salad, so the prices were a bit, well, pricey for simple sandwiches, but I'm ok with it, and let me tell you why. This place is 100% vegan, and it's rare that a restaurant offers any vegetarian items at all, let alone any vegan offerings. I'm more than happy to support them. Sure, I won't be eating there every week, but I don't eat out anywhere every week, but when I do go out, I will be going there instead of spending my money elsewhere.

I am happy to spread the love; in fact, I told my sister-in-law about the place today. She hadn't heard about it either. They've been open for a little over a year now, and are going strong. I hope that they continue to do well. We could use more places like this.

Day 45: Dining Out

I've only dined out twice since I've made this switch. The Thai restaurant had a whole vegetarian section filled with tofu and vegetables and when I asked if there were hidden animal products like broth, the waitress told me that it was all totally vegan. The Friendly's menu, on the other hand, was not terribly vegetarian-friendly, let alone vegan-safe. Nevertheless, they accommodated my request to un-cheese my veggie fajita quesadilla and it was pretty tasty. I rarely eat out, so it hadn't really occurred to me that this would be quite the ordeal.

I did a little bit of online searching and found the Vegan Eating Out Guide, which researches popular sit-down restaurants and fast food chains and details what, exactly, on their menus is vegan. Some restaurants, like Red Robin, Hooter's, Denny's and TGI Fridays, offer nothing. Nope, not even a fruit cup, a bowl of plain oatmeal or a green salad. I was stunned, really. I had figured that vegan dining out would be an exercise largely reduced to a plate of anemic-looking iceberg lettuce passing itself off as a "green salad" or picking and choosing from side dishes, but for some restaurants to have nothing free of animal products, like not even a baked potato, for God's sake, well, that's an eye-opener.

Panera and Au Bon Pain, on the other hand, had some soups and sandwiches which were either already vegan as-is or could be made so simply by omitting the cheese.


I was surprised and disappointed to discover that Ruby Tuesday's Veggie Burger was no longer listed. A few more searches on Google later, and I found that they had switched suppliers and their veggie burger mix had mayonnaise in it. So now, the only stand-alone vegan offering on their menu is their salad bar. I did not become a vegan so that I could be relegated to eating salads wherever I went. Is it really that difficult for a restaurant to add a grilled portobello mushroom sandwich to the menu? I'm not asking for fake meats or seitan, here.

I was perusing the Vegan Eating Guide's of fast food restaurants which serves 100% vegan foods and saw that there was one listed in New York. I clicked on it, wondering what in the world a fast food vegan restaurant could possibly be like and I nearly fell over.

The link took me to a place called Strong Hearts Cafe, the largest vegan cafe in New York state outside of New York city, and it's right here in Syracuse.

How the Hell did I not know this?!

Now I am so excited I can barely stand it. They have a full breakfast, lunch and PIZZA menu! I told the girls that we would go there soon for pizza. Hell, let's see if I can wait as long as 11 am.

They have milkshakes, soups, salads, sandwiches and.... did I mention the pizza?

You can expect my review as soon as I've gone there. Check out their menus here.