Mole soup

Mole soup.

I promised you mole soup and here it is.

It was earthy, rich and redolent of chocolate. Not in a sweet way, of course, but in a deep satisfying kind of way.

Oh, yeah, and it had espresso in it.

Yup, espresso.

I know, I am more interested at this point too!

No formal recipe here because I think this soup should be altered to your particular taste.

I will tell you the ingredients (a dish for 1):

- 1/4 cup of canned kidney beans, rinsed and drained
- 1/4 cup of black beans, rinsed and drained 
- 1/4 of a yellow onion, chopped
- 1 cup of chopped tomatoes with some of the juice
- 1 clove of garlic, minced


Oh, wait I should stop here and show you the star of the show:

- little less than 1/2 a cup of the mole paste
- 2 cups of chicken broth
- 1/2 a teaspoon of instant espresso

Put that all into a soup pot and let it get all friendly and comfortable (ie. let it simmer for a good 30 minutes). 

Ladle into your favorite bowl, top with some sour cream and cilantro and enjoy!

A hearty portion

Today I knew one thing - I wanted to have a meal that would fill me up. 

I have been eating pretty light lately and I really was wanting that feeling of fullness that a hearty meal brings.

This bowl is a bit like chili but also kinda not.

I wanted this chili to pack a punch flavor-wise so I started with some roasted eggplant and sliced, browned mushrooms.

Then I added in a bunch of ingredients into a soup pot (see recipe below) and let it simmer for a couple of hours.

And it turned out incredibly delicious! Check out these beauty shots of my bowl.

Topped with a sprinkle of shredded Gruyere cheese.

This bowl packed a lot of flavor and I did have one big hearty portion which I enjoyed thoroughly:-)

Almost chili stew

Serves 2 hearty portions

Ingredients:

1 14.5 oz. can of chopped tomatoes
1 onion, chopped
1 eggplant, roasted
3 button mushrooms, sliced and browned
1 carrot, diced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 3/4 cup of vegetable broth
2 Tbsp. of apple juice
1/2 cup of ground turkey (you can easily omit this if you want a vegetarian version)
1/2 cup of water
1/4 tsp. of cumin
1/4 tsp. of chili powder
1 Tbsp. of pizza sauce
1/2 can of kidney beans, rinsed and drained
1/4 tsp. of butter
1/4 tsp. of olive oil

Instructions:
 Slice and roast the eggplant (this is pretty straight forward and there are tons of instructions to be found on the web so I am leaving that part out). Slice and put the mushrooms in a pan on low heat with a little bit of butter (for flavor). Let them cook until they are nicely browned.

Put a soup pot on med-low heat and add in the onions and let them cook till translucent. Add in the garlic and the cumin and chili powder and cook until fragrant.

Then add in the rest of the ingredients and let simmer for 2 hours.

Ladle a hearty portion into a bowl and enjoy!

Turkey and bean taco salad

It is a beautiful day here and after lunch I think I will spend the rest of the day outside. 

For lunch I pulled a portion of frozen turkey and frozen kidney beans out of the freezer and tossed them into a skillet along with some taco seasoning blend.

While they cooked I shredded a carrot and chopped up 2 celery stalks and some fresh parsley.

Then I made a dressing of lemon juice, mirin, oregano, garlic powder, olive oil and cracked black pepper.

A few handfuls of baby greens went into the salad bowl and I tossed everything with the dressing. Then I sprinkled on about 1 Tbsp. of nutritional yeast.

 
By this time, the turkey and beans were done.

They went into the bowl along with dollops of Tofutti sour cream.

Along with a pear and some sparkling water - this was a great lunch!

I have been spending too much time typing lately. The top of my left shoulder blade is really sore - it is a spot that always starts to ache when I have spent too much time at the keyboard. For some reason I tend to hunch my left shoulder when I am typing.

It is time to start doing sun salutations in the morning so I can stretch out that muscle.

Time to head out for the rest of my day.

I hope everyone is having a good Saturday!

Buffalo chili

So, I went to the store and all I could think about was turkey chili.

But then I saw what amounts to seeing a Passenger pigeon in the middle of Safeway. Something you think is extinct and you will never see again.

Antibiotic free, hormone free ground bison.

And the plan got changed.


Bison chili it would be.


And it all started with a pot of beans.

Then queue the bit players.

I would include a recipe but you can find a billion recipes for chili on any internet search and they are all essentially the same and everyone tweaks them to their tastes.

And it is Friday and I am feeling lazy.


The whole batch simmered for an hour and was incredibly delicious.

A dollop of greek yogurt and fresh chopped cilantro.

I am very full and it is getting late. I think all I will have for dinner is some flavored popcorn with a movie on TV.

Happy Friday everyone! Night all!

It's all about the portions

It was another one of those early mornings.

Something tells me I shouldn't be up before the street lamps turn off...

But since I was awake I decided I might as well get busy.

I put the beans I had soaking overnight on the stove to simmer.

I pulled out this from the refrigerator:

It says it is a portion(s) and I was planning on having it for dinner but I knew it was way too big for one meal.

The dogs got the better end of this portion dilema.

The portion on the right is the one destined to be my dinner. The three on the left will be the dogs breakfast and mine as well.

I cooked up a mix of 1/2 quinoa and 1/2 basmati rice.

The halibut went into a saute pan on medium heat and got a quick sear.

I also had some pine nuts, olives and yogurt in the fridge so I created a sauce for the dog's breakfast.

I did soak the olives in water for a bit - otherwise they would have been too salty for the dogs.

The dog's breakfast pre-saucing:

And post-saucing:

This was my meal.

Quinoa and rice with seared Halibut plus seasoned nori strips, miso broth and some of the cooked kidney beans.

 Check out this post to see how I go about eating this.

I ended up eating all of the fish, most of the rice/quinoa, all of the miso broth and only a couple of bites of the beans.

The beans will be making an appearance later today :-)