Baked Rice and Lentils

from many months ago...written but never remember to hit publish...
 
Taking inspiration from the Mothering November/December issue's potluck article, I made baked rice. I mostly used the recipe provided there, but made a few changes, mostly to veganize it. :)

Ingredients
1 T extra virgin olive oil
1 medium red onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
3 stalks celery, chopped
1 large carrot, peeled and chopped
3/4 cup brown long-grain rice
3/4 cup dry French lentils
1 tsp ground cumin
2 cups vegetable broth
15 oz diced tomatoes with juices
1-2 cups frozen greens, defrosted and chopped
1/2 cup Daiya (mozzarella style)

What to do
Preheat the oven to 350.
Warm your Dutch oven over medium heat. While it is warming, chop the onion. When the pot is warm, add the olive oil. When the oil is warm, add the onion and saute for five minutes. Mince the garlic and chop the carrot and celery. Add them to the onion and saute for another five minutes. (Add a little water if everything starts to stick.)
Add the rice, lentils, and cumin and stir and cook for approximately one minute.
Add the broth and tomatoes with juice. Stir well.
Remove from heat and place in oven, uncovered. Bake for 1 1/2 hours.
Defrost and chop the greens (or use fresh).
Add the greens and Daiya to the casserole, stirring well to combine.
Place back in the oven and bake for another 20-30 minutes, uncovered.

Butternut Squash, Sweet Potato, and Spiral Casserole

I needed something yummy to make with my butternut squash. And I needed to use up some of my roasted veggies from last week.

Ingredients
olive oil
1 medium-large organic sweet yellow onion, small dice
1 organic butternut squash (~3 pounds), peeled, seeded, and cut into 1/2 inch pieces
3/4 cup pieces roasted sweet potatoes and orange squash
1 14-oz can organic coconut milk
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp fine sea salt
1/4 cup Red Star vegetarian support nutritional yeast
1 tsp dried sage
12-16 oz organic tri-color spiral pasta
1/2 cup pecans, chopped and toasted
spelt bread crumbs

What to do
Tear up four slices of going-stale spelt bread that we got a while back at the bakery up at the farmers' market. Make small pieces (very small) and spread out on cookie sheet. Heat oven for 2 minutes at 250, then turn it off and place the cookie sheet with bread crumbs inside.
Heat large LeCreuset. When warm, add olive oil. When the oil is warm, add the diced onion and cook, stirring often, until soft (5-7 minutes). Add the butternut squash, coconut milk, salt, and pepper and stir. Cook for ~20 minutes, until the squash is soft. Add in the nutritional yeast and sage (crumble the sage between your fingers before adding it). Add the roasted sweet potatoes and squash and combine well.
Meanwhile, cook the pasta according to the directions and drain it.
If you are like me and making this all late Sunday night for lunch on Monday, here's what to do next:
Transfer the coconut squash mixture to the casserole dish that you will use to bake. Once the pasta is cool, put it into containers that can go into the fridge. Put everything into the fridge for Monday morning.
Chop the pecans. Get some sleep.
Wake up Monday morning.
Transfer the spelt bread crumbs into a bowl with J's help and let her put the pecans on the cookie sheet. Heat the oven to 365 and put the cookie sheet with pecans in for 5 minutes.
Microwave the coconut squash for 3-5 minutes on power 5 (so that you can mix it together with the nuts and pasta.
Transfer everything to the big LeCrueset again, and mix the pecans, coconut squash, and pasta together. Then put it back in the casserole dish. Wipe the edge. Let J cover the top with the spelt breadcrumbs.
Leave for D to bake (365 for 30 minutes) for lunch. J ate is for lunch and liked it, according to D.

I ate it for dinner -- YUM! This dish was very yummy (yummier than my photo shows). The different squash and sweet potatoes were delish. The pasta soaked up most of the sauce. The sage added an unexpected flavor kick.

Cheezy Chili Casserole

Tonight I decided to try combining a few things into a casserole. I wanted a shells and cheeze dish, but I also wanted tomatoes and beans...so I combined them all into one.

I based the cheezy sauce on a recipe from Vegan Yum Yum.

Preheat oven to 400 F.

Sauce
Warm 1/3 cup Earth Balance in saucepan. As soon as it melts, add 1/4 King Arthur's organic all-purpose flour, and stir to make roux.
Then, with J's help, add 1/3 cup nutritional yeast (sprinkles) 1 T lemon juice, 1 T tahini, 1 T brown rice miso, 2 1/2 T Braggs, 1 1/4 cup soy milk. Whisk together, making sure to keep lumps out and not to boil.
Warm together, mixing, for a few minutes, then set aside.

Pasta Cook one box De Boles organic shells, drain, and set aside.

Rest of casserole
Place 3/4 cup tvp in bowl with enough water to cover. Set aside.
Drain 15-oz cans of organic kidney beans and organic corn. Open 28-oz can of organic diced tomatoes with basil.
In saucepan or casserole dish, add 1/2 cup water, 1 chopped red onion, 3 minced garlic cloves, 3 medium chopped carrots. Cook for seven minutes.
In casserole dish, add the beans, corn, pasta, tomatoes, water/onion/garlic/carrot mixture and mix well. Then add sauce. Add 1/2 tsp Mexican chili powder (probably too little, but I'm totally paranoid after my last chili dish with too much spice for J) and 1/2 tsp cumin; stir well.
Break up two slices of Vermont Bread soft multigrain and top the casserole with the bread.
Bake at 400 F for 20-25 minutes.
Serve and enjoy!

I think this makes more than eight servings...and it is *really* filling -- D only had one bowl and didn't need to go back for seconds or thirds. (At 8 servings, in each there's approximately 550 calories, 29 g protein, and and 87 g carbs.) J ate this up really quickly and didn't complain at all, try to avoid eating, or spit anything out. She said it's "tasty" -- her new thing for when she likes something -- score! (The peaches we had earlier were tasty. The tofu omelets I made this morning (not pretty) were tasty (yes, they were).)

So the only weird thing about this dinner was the odd smell of the sauce. I think it must have been the miso. I can't place the smell. D said it has a weird aftertaste; he can't place it either. It's not a bad smell or a bad aftertaste, but we can't place it. Vegan Yum Yum's recipe called for sweet miso, which I didn't have, so I used what I did have. I think that is the odd smell/taste, but even knowing that I still can't place it.