Tag Archives: beans

It Warms the Cockles of Your Heart

29 Oct

Has anyone else heard that phrase before? Does anyone else think the word “cockles” sounds gross? I had a friend in college tell me that about the chili she was eating once, and I was like wwwhhhhaaaatttt? Whatever a cockle is, I don’t want them, and I don’t want to warm them. But then I googled it and don’t worry you guys, it’s legit.

I know I’ve made chili here on the blog before, but I’m totally disowning that chili. I’m not even going to link to it. This stuff is the real deal.

I know what you’re thinking. Liz, that looks like real cheese and sour cream on your chili there. Aren’t you lactose intolerant? Both of those answers is YES. But you guys, when I have real cheese and sour cream in the fridge I can’t just not eat it.

I had these things in the fridge because this chili was for a chili contest I was participating in at work and we wanted to have fancy toppings. We got 4th place, out of 8, but I’m pretty proud. This was vegetarian chili, and I don’t know if you’ve ever been to central Indiana, but people don’t take kindly to vegetables here. One man wouldn’t try it because it had “too many vegetables in it” I was like, YOU’RE A 30 YEAR OLD MAN AND YOU’RE AFRAID TO EAT A SPOONFUL OF VEGETABLES?” If I didn’t have to be polite, I would have called him a coward.

Oh well. We did have people come over and say, “I hear you guys have a really good vegetarian chili.” I was like uuummm, no. We have a really good chili. period. Whatevs. There was one vegetarian girl there who kept coming back for more. She was excited.

So much chili you guys!

And thanks to my awesome boss, for not giving me crap about not putting meat in it. She sometimes gives me a hard time, but she’s really respectful of my foodie choices.

bubbling away

I ended up making 2 batches of this stuff. It could feed an army. Everyone also said that it would win the award for most colorful, prettiest, and healthiest. After all, we do eat with our eyes! Also, it had beer in it. What more could you ask for?? I was looking for a darker beer, but my local Krogers had this stuff, and I was like ohmygoshIhavetotrythatit’sglutenfreeyougys! I needed 2 for the chili, and drank the other 4. Out of all the things that are gluten free that I wish would taste like their gluteny counterparts, beer is not the first on the list. But this stuff tasted just like beer.

So since this is 4th place award winning (4th place is an award, after all) chili, I’m assuming you guys want the recipe. I got my inspiration for this from the many “vegetarian chili” recipes my boss printed out while we were supposed to be working. I took things from each one that I liked. I’ll give you the amounts for just one recipe, if you want to feed an army, just double it.

4th Place (but really, way better than that) Chili

3- 15oz cans diced tomatoes
1 can kidney beans
1 can black beans
2 cans pinto beans
7oz can diced green chilis
1-2 chilis in adobo sauce (Sooooo spicy!)
3 cloves garlic
2 onions
1 green pepper
1 yellow pepper
1 red pepper
1 orange pepper
1 T olive oil
1 bottle beer
2 cups vegetable stock
1 T chili powder
1 t salt
1 T oregano
1 T cumin

Optional: some grinds of Trader Joes everyday seasoning, and South African seasoning (I like the South African one because it’s smokey!!)

1. Chop the onions, and peppers. (You can use all green peppers if the other ones are crazy expensive, but they do make it so pretty and colorful!) pour the tablespoon of oil into a big ole pot and add the onions and peppers once it’s hot. Let them hang out for about 10 minutes. You don’t want to overcook the onions. Everyone is going to get to know each other in the pot. (Virtual high five if you can tell me what TV show that’s from!!!!) 

2. Chop the garlic, and chiles in adobo sauce, and add them to the pot with the green chiles, and tomatoes. Bring to a simmer.

3. Once the mixture is simmering, ad the spices, beer, and veggie stock. Simmer, uncovered, for about 30 minutes, stirring every once in a while.

Feel free to add some veggie meat crumbles to the recipe if that’s your thing! You can serve this with sour cream (real or soy) cheese (or cheeze!) green onions, and crushed tortilla chips. It is a little spicy, so if you want it to be less spicy, take out some of the green chilies, chiles in adobo sauce, or chili powder. If you like it super spicy, add more!

Have you ever entered any form of cooking or food contest? 

Also, please tell me someone knows the onion/chili reference I mentioned earlier?!

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Pizza!

20 Feb

Sometimes, I just get a craving for pizza. I won’t lie, sometimes that craving is for pizza covered in greasy cheese. I won’t like again when I tell you that sometimes I indulge in the greasy cheese pizza.

But most often, I don’t. Sometimes, It’s worth the stomach ache. Most of the time, it’s not.

I can still have my pizza though. Just not covered in cheese. And it’s still amazingly delicious.

Ccccheck it out: (sorry for the crappy photos… cell phones, love ‘em and hate ‘em at the same time)

This pizza was amazing! In all of it’s mushroomy garlicy spinachy goodness.

Want the recipe? Of course you do.

Spinach Mushroom Pizza
One pizza crust of your choice, pre baked. I used Trader Joe’s whole wheat pizza crust. It’s amazing.
12 oz. mushrooms, cleaned and sliced.
3 cups baby spinach
1 can cannellini beans
2 cloves garlic
1/4 cup water
2 T oil
1 t salt
1/2 t black pepper
2 green onions

Puree the beans, water, one clove of garlic, oil, salt, pepper, and onions together until smooth.

Sautee the mushrooms with the other clove of garlic in a little oil for 3-5 minutes, until they start to get soft. Put in a bowl, then sauté the spinach. You could just cook them together, but I’m super OCD and I like placing them on my pizza separately.

Spread the bean puree onto your crust, leaving about an inch around the edges. Spread the the mushrooms, garlic, and spinach on top.

Bake for about 15 minutes at 350 degrees. You really just need to warm it up because the crust is already cooked.

This pizza is definitly one of my favorites. It’s a fun change from the marinara sauce type pizzas, and the beans and spinach are a great source of protein! And I just love things that are super garlicy. I really like garlic. Beware vampires, lol.

On a completely unrelated note, has anyone tried these??

They are soooooooo good. Probably the best candy I’ve ever eaten. Ever. They make butterfingers crisps too, but the crunch ones are so much better. I can’t stop eating them.

What’s your favorite kind of candy? Do you ever get in a pizza mood? 

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One Year Blogaversary

23 Jan

Will all of this gallbladder drama and me being sick so much (Which is pretty odd for me, to be honest) I’ve completely forgotten that my blog is one year old!!

That’s right folks, A Tablespoon of Liz has reached it’s first birthday!

I remember when I first started, I had just a couple of readers and commenters, and now it’s grown so much, I really can’t thank all of you enough!

So, in proper blogaversary fashion, I’m going to share with you some of my favorite recipe posts from the past year.

Peanut Butter Banana Cupcakes 
These are really quite marvelous… Banana cupcakes with peanut butter cream cheese frosting… the frosting is really my favorite. It’s really dense and rich, but not overly sweet because I didn’t use as much sugar as normal frosting recipes. (Oh, and they’re vegan!)

 Hazelnut Burgers
These are so good… and so filling! The texture of these is amazing, they’re chewy, it’s like you almost need a knife to cut through the, which is awesome, because there’s not a lot of vegan food you need a steak knife for!

 Magic Vegan Brownies 
These, as I stated in the actual post, are better than the box. I remember being so excited when I finally tasted these, as it’s so hard to make things that taste better than the box mix these days. They’ve got those things down to a science, that’s for sure. But these brownies are rich, and fudgey, and decadent,  you won’t be buying the box mixes anymore!

Peanut Butter Banana Bites
These are the perfect snack. No joke. Just pop one, or eighteen in your mouth, and you’ll be all set. And never forget- there’s always money in the banana stand.

Corn Salsa
This is my aunt’s recipe, and even though she makes it better than I do, it’s still amazing. I love how chunky it is, and it’s got crazy amounts of flavor. with avocados, black beans, corn, lime juice, and everything else, this is the perfect dip. And it’s so colorful!

 Strawberry Shortcake Cookies
This is one of the most popular recipes on my blog, and I have to admit, these little cookies are very near and dear to my heart. They’re just so cute, and scream spring and tea party to me. If there was an award for most adorable cookie, I just can’t help but think that these ones would win. They’re vegan, and they taste just like strawberry shortcake, but you don’t have to bother with making all those different components and whipping up the cream.

So, there you go, a montage of some of my favorite recipes from the past year. Man, I can’t believe it’s been a year already, time really flies.

I really hope that I start feeling better soon (for good!) and that I can catch up on homework and work and everything so I can really focus on blogging. I’ve really come to love it, and it’s terrible, but I think the last time I baked something was right before Christmas. : ( I’ve still got Christmas cookies in the freezer that need to be decorated, so you can see how far behind I am. But I promise soon I’ll be back in action, just wait!

And thank you all once again for reading and leaving comments, it really means the world to me! 

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Snow and Pretty Vegetables

1 Dec

So I’ve been whining on twitter (I whine a lot…) how it hasn’t snowed yet down her in Indiana. BUT, yesterday, THIS happened:

And that quickly turned into this:

It turned into more, but it got dark out and it was impossible to take a photo. It snowed so hard the power even went out for like, 20 minutes. I love it when the power goes out. It makes things exciting.

On a completely different subject, I finally took a photo with my light box! It wasn’t the prettiest subject, but I thought the photo turned out pretty well! (And it was DELICIOUS).

A nanner with Sunbutter on it. (Sunbutter= amazing. Don’t know how I’ve lived without it for so long.) Review coming soon! I’ve got some awesome recipes planned for it as well!)

Also, this wasn’t taken using my light box, but I thought my lunch the other day was the prettiest thing I’ve ever eaten in my life. If I didn’t already take photos of my food, I definitly would have taken a photo of this.

Look at all the pretty colors! Tons of veggies, hummus, cashews, and some leftover baked tofu. (Baked tofu= even better leftover and cold.)

Another love of my life recently, spring rolls. I think I ate them all last week. For lunch, and dinner. I probably would have eaten them for breakfast too, but that’s too much work in the morning. Especially when I’m hungry.

I normally pack my spring rolls with beans, (odd choice, I know) sprouts, bell pepper, onion, broccoli slaw, and soy sauce. yum. Also pictured, celery with chocolate almond butter, veggies and hummus, and Chocolate covered PB pretzels.

Salad, Choco PB pretzel, and celery with hummus. Spring rolls, and some red pepper dressing for the salad/ spring roll dippage.

Inside shot!

I think I’m all spring rolled out at the moment though. Which is a good thing, because I used the last of my rice paper the other day. : ( oh wells. Back to copious amounts of hummus! (Which actually never stopped…)

Do you like snow? Is it snowy where you live? Do you like it when the power goes out? (Or am I just weird? lol)

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Southwestern Egg Rolls

5 Jul

Good Morning Lovelies! I hope you all enjoyed your holiday yesterday.

First up… Operation Learn To Run. Day one, a success I think. Of course, I think just getting out of the house even thinking about running would have been a success. I started with a 5 minute walk warm up, then ran one minute, walked 2, and did this 8 times. Then I ended with a 5 minute cool down. I missed one of the runs… it was just too much. But hopefully I’ll keep getting better! I think I might make a tab at the top of the blog for OLTR so I can keep track! Also, what made my run so fun was a adorable little sheltie dog ran with me all the way down my street to the park! Then on my way back from the park, he was there again! It’s fun to have a runing partner!

Now onto food….I’ve been meaning to post this (delicious) recipe for a few weeks now, but I haven’t gotten around to it. I’m terrible, I know. You should just be lucky you’re getting 2 posts in a row. (I’m not only terrible, I’m lazy too.)

Anywho, I stumbled across this recipe on Pinterest, someone pin-ed it and my eyes almost popped out of my head they looked so delicious.

So, Here is the recipe for Baked Southwestern Egg Rolls from Annie’s Eats. I of course, put my own little twist on it, but I kept the recipe mostly the same, as it didn’t need many changes!

Baked  Southwestern Egg Rolls

2 cups frozen corn (thawed)
15 oz. canned black beans
10 oz. frozen spinach
1 cup dayia shredded chedar cheese
4 oz. canned green chilies
1 tsp. cumin
1 T chili powder
salt and pepper to taste
1 pkg. egg roll wrappers

First, mix everything together except the egg roll wrappers. Obviously.

Then, spoon about 1/4 of a cup onto a wrapper.

Fold the two corners closest to the filling in so they’re almost touching each other.

Fold one of the remaining corners towards the center, and on the last corner not folded in, add a little bit of water with your finger. This will help keep the roll from unwrapping. Roll up the wrapper, trying to keep it tight. The first couple might be hard, but you’ve got about 24 chances, so you’ll get the hang of it sooner or later! It’s ok if a few of them aren’t wrapped perfectly tight, mine weren’t, and nothing bad happened, just a little cheese bubbled out.

Place them all on a lightly greased and parchmented (for easy clean up) pan, then spray the tops of them lightly with your favorite cooking spray as well.

Bake at 425 degrees F for about 15 minutes, or until lightly brown. You can dip these in anything you want, salsa, guacamole, or, if you’re like me and going through a Ranch phase, you can dip them in that as well!

Here’s a picture of them baked, sorry the photo just doesn’t do it justice, it was on my cell phone. Once again, I was too hungry to take the time to snap a good photo. : (

If you want to see a photo that does do them justice, check out Annie’s Blog!

These are amazingly tasty. There are so many good flavors with all the spices, and the cheese gives it that gooeyness I love.

Next time I make them (oh yes, there will be a next time!) I think I’m going to put maybe half of them in the freezer so I can pull one or two out and eat them whenever I want!

Oh, and since I’ve been shamelessly plugging my Pinterest , I thought I’d throw a line over to my Twitter as well… It’s so much fun connecting with other bloggers and readers on another level!

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FOOD!

16 Mar

hey ya’ll! Hope everyone is loving the beautiful weather! At least where I’m at it’s pretty nice… Of course, after the winter we’ve had 32 degrees is pretty warm…

oday I wanted to show you all some of the meals i’ve been eating lately, I know when other people post their meals on their blogs I like it, so I figured I’d do the same! Except my meals aren’t as pretty as theirs : / And most of my meals are slathered in honey mustard- no joke. I have a problem.

Salad, covered in honey mustard (see, I told you!) and falafel, with some soy sour cream to dip it in because it's so spicy!!

A spinach wrap with lettuce, onions, beans, and some yummy cooked vegetables (healthy color steamers I think they're called?) with some veganaise. DELICIOUS!

Quinoa, more healthy colors steamers, and a Bocca Chick'n burger.

a GINORMOUS slice of rye bread slathered with (too much) futter, and quinoa and sauteed celery, mushrooms, onions and white beans.

Salad, (with honey mustard, of course) and broiled tofu, with a side of honey mustard to dip it in. (I told you I have a problem!)

So ta-da! There are some of my meals. Surprisingly, most of the time I don’t really eat ‘meals’ per se, I tend to constantly eat smaller things throughout the day.

What is your favorite condiment? Mine is obviously… honey mustard.

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Carb-licious

22 Feb

This post is about my all time favorite food group. Carbs. Who doesn’t love them?? Sometimes I think people who deprive themselves of carbs are crazy. Crazy and have a lot of self control.

I’ll admit though, being newer to vegetarianism, It’s hard for me to make sure I’m getting enough of all the nutrients and food groups I need. I spend so much time focusing on protein, fruits and veggies, that sometimes I forget about my old friend carbohydrates. They’re needed in a diet, they give you calories, which in turn provide you with the energy you need to get through the day. And trust me, It takes a lot of things to help me get through the day. Caffeine, (In the form of tea, not usually coffee) is a good example of something it takes a lot of to give me that extra push.

Recently I purchased the one of the best vegan cook books out there, (at least in my opinion) Veganomicon. I’ve made a few recipes from it (which are amazing!) And I’ll talk about them more in later posts, but these recipes have made me realize how AMAZING carbs are and how I’ve been missing out on them recently.

Here are some photos of a couple things I’ve been chowing down lately:

uuhhhmazing spaghetti and beanballs

Cashew-cucumber dip with pita bread!

Another fun thing coming up in my future… A trip to Whole Foods! This may not seem like that big of a deal, but I had a Whole Foods near me in Providence when I went to college, and when I moved back home the closest one is in Minneapolis. Well, I’m taking a small trip up there (not only to go to Whole Foods, but hey, might as well stop by, right?) so I’m going to stock up!

The two main things on my list that I’m going to stock up on are Daiya Vegan Cheese, and Coconut Milk Yogurt. What are your favorite Whole Foods buys? Anything amazing I should add to my list?

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Chilly Chili

19 Feb

I know, I know, I need to come up with better post titles. I also need to start posting more often. I’m starting to make time on my (one!) day off a week to get together posts and schedule them, so this week will be full of posts!

I don’t know about where you all live, but here, it’s freezing. And all I want in these well below zero temperatures is something warm and hearty to eat.

So, I decided to vegetarianize my mom’s favorite chili recipe, and it was amazing! I didn’t miss the ground beef and sausage at all, the bulgar I added really bulked up the chili!

When It comes to beans, I have three favorites:


Cannelli beans, Black beans, and of course, chickpeas or garbanzo beans.  It doesn’t matter what brand, I just happened to have a different brand for each one in my cupboard!

Here are some of the supporting ingredients in my chili:


I know a lot of chili recipes have tons of spices in them, but I like to keep mine simple, and not add too much. I also don’t use a lot of fresh herbs, as at my grocery store you have to buy them in such large amounts, and I don’t use them all right away, and they go bad. : /

So, without further ado, here is my vegetarian chili recipe:

Chilly Chili

1 can cannelli beans

1 can black beans

1 can garbanzo beans

1 green pepper, seeded and diced

1 small white onion, diced

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 can diced tomatoes (15 oz.)

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons black pepper

2 teaspoons garlic powder

1 tablespoon chili powder

2 teaspoons oregano

2 teaspoons oregano

3 cups vegetable broth, (more or less, depending on how thick/thin you like your chili)

2 cups cooked bulgar wheat

This recipe is really easy, despite the long list of ingredients. Heat the olive oil in the bottom of a large sauce pot and saute the onion and green pepper until they start to get soft. But not too long. Everyone is going to get to know each other in the pot. (Office reference, anyone?)


Drain and rinse all of your beans. I like doing all three at the same time, they look so pretty.


Then, simply add all the other ingredients (except the bulgar, you wanna add the right at the end, so it doesn’t overcook too much, as it’s already cooked.)


Depending on what you fancy, you can either let this cook till everything is hot, or let it simmer on the stove for up to an hour to meld everything together.

It’s delicious! I promise you that. It also makes, a lot. So be prepared to eat chili. A lot. All week. For breakfast lunch and dinner. Or you could freeze some. It freezes well. I freeze single servings of it in tupperware containers or plastic bags and pop a few into the fridge when it’s getting chilly out.

What are ya’lls favorite foods to eat in winter to keep you warm? I need some suggestions if i’m going to make it through this cold season!

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