Recipe: Savory chickpea stew

When I was a kid, my mom used to make stew with leftover chicken and gravy. This is my vegan version of it. I suppose you could use fake chicken strips if you want, but I use chickpeas because I tend to always have them in the pantry and I love them.

Savory Chickpea Stew

Ingredients:
1/2 cup olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
2 Tbsp Nutritional Yeast
4 Tbsp Bragg's Liquid Aminos (or soy sauce)
6 cups veggie broth or water
2 carrots, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
2 potatoes, chopped into 1-inch cubes
3 cups cooked chickpeas (or 2 cans, drained and rinsed)
1 tsp sage
1 cup frozen peas, thawed
salt and pepper to taste

1. Heat the oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic, and cook about 5 minutes.
2. Add the flour, nutritional yeast, and liquid aminos. It will form a thick paste.
3. Gradually add the broth, stirring to mix well.
4. Add the carrots, celery, potatoes, chickpeas and sage. Bring stew to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer until vegetables are cooked, about 30 minutes.
5. In the meantime, make some biscuits! Here's my favorite recipe: http://vegweb.com/index.php?topic=4745.0
6. Before serving, add the peas, salt and pepper. Serve with biscuits.

The BEST chickpea salad!

So I started on my journey with chickpea salad sandwiches here, and I've made it several times, but tonight I made the BEST batch I've ever made. Here's my recipe:

1/2 cup dry chickpeas
1 small handful fresh parsley
1 small handful grated carrots (can you tell I don't like to measure?)
1 green onion, chopped
2-3 tbsp. (approx., depending on how wet you want it to be) Vegenaise or other vegan mayo
Kelp granules to taste
Salt and pepper to taste

Soak the chickpeas (covered, in the fridge) at least 6 hours. Change out the water, bring them to a boil, and then simmer for 30-45 minutes, until they are soft but not mushy. Drain, and rinse well with cold water.

Put the chickpeas and parsley in the food processor, and PULSE until the chickpeas are broken into chunks. You need to use the pulse setting or else you will quickly end up with hummus, which is awesome, but not what we're going for here.

Transfer chickpeas and parsley to a bowl, add all other ingredients, stir it up, and make a sandwich!

I really think the fresh parsley and green onion make this the best. Also, the kelp granules, weird as they are, are a MUST!

Serves 2, if you like to eat a lot, like David and I :)

Recipe: RAW corn salad stuffed tomatoes

This is what I ended up making for the Raw Food Potluck last week. I'd never eaten raw corn before...it's delicious!

Ingredients:

10 medium-sized tomatoes
2 ears of corn
1 red bell pepper (mine was big, I think we used about 3/4 of it, and my sister Becca ate the rest while chopping)
2 green onions
1 handful fresh cilantro
1 avocado
2 cloves garlic
1 1/2 limes
approx. 1/4 cup olive oil (um...I didn't measure and sort of just dumped it in. Oops)

Preparation:

1. Slice tomatoes in half *vertically* and scoop out the insides with a spoon (I saved the inside goop and threw it in some chili a few days later.)

2. To prepare the dressing, juice the limes and add the avocado, garlic, and olive oil. Pulse in the food processor until creamy. Add more olive oil if it's too thick.

3. In a large bowl, slice the corn off the ears with a big fun knife. Dice the red pepper, green onions and cilantro. Add the avocado dressing and mix it all up. Fill the tomato halves with the corn salad.