January 22, 2009
Allison and I Make Veggie Chili and Quiche
This week I've been really lucky. I've had dinner lessons with Allison twice already! (And we went out for dinner with our friends the night in-between--so thats three dinners in a row!)Lesson 5: Veggie Chili
Our first dinner was veggie-chili, it was Allison's idea and it was really delicious. You might be wondering, as I was, what replaces the meat in veggie chili? The chili I'm accustomed to is made up with approximately seventy-five percent meant I would guess. And I used to make something called “Huff-Man-Chili” which was almost all meat. But they sell this meat substitute stuff that has a consistency like hamburger, and really when it comes down to it, its all about the spices: cyan powder and/or chili powder.
Ingredients: 12 ounces or so of vegetarian hamburger meat substitute, 2 to 3 cans of peeled tomatoes (28oz each), one can each of beans of your choosing (I like kidney and black beans) (15oz each), chili spices, one onion,
Process: in a large pan heat a table spoon of cooking oil, once heated add vegetarian meat substitute and stir in spices then reduce heat to low and simmer for five minutes. Once the meat substitute is heated, mix together the cans of peeled tomatoes, cooked meat substitute, beans, and stir in spices. Bring to boil, then reduce heat to simmer for 45 minutes. Ummm, now you have a delicious and animal-free chili.
Lesson 6: Vegetarian Quiche
I don't have a lot of experience eating quiche. I just assumed that it was something fairly complicated. But as it turns out, it was quite simple, just like making a large omelet. And even easier if you forgo the crust as we did.
Ingredients: Any vegetables you want (I brought a whole bunch of veggies; tomato, squash, yellow pepper, spinach, cucumber, a pack of mushrooms), a dozen eggs, 8 ounces of cheddar cheese
Directions:
-Slice up whatever vegetables you want to include
-Add a table spoon of oil to a frying pan and cook the spinach on medium. The spinach will 'wilt' and shrink a lot from its raw size.
-While spinach is cooking add in sliced veggies (all except tomatoes which would dry out if you cooked them)
cook vegetables thoroughly, once cooked mix in sliced tomatoes
-while cooking vegetables, beat the dozen eggs in a large bowl; pour in two cups of milk, and slice up the 8oz of cheddar cheese and add to mixture
-pour cooked vegetables, tomatoes, and egg milk and cheese mixture into baking sheets/pie pans trying to get an inch thick layer.
-Now its time to bake: our recipe suggested baking for about 45 minutes at 350 degrees, but it ended up being only about 30 minutes for our quiche to be done, which might have been because our quiche was thin or because we left out the crust; so keep your eyes on the quiche while its cooking. When you can stick a toothpick in and it stays then its probably ready.
-thats it; enjoy your tasty quiche!
Labels: Allison teaches Jon how to cook
