Vegetarian Chili

Ah, beans. So important for beautiful skin and a healthy cardiovascular system. By helping the body produce nitric oxide, they cause the muscles around the blood vessels to relax and the blood vessels themselves to become larger, which increases blood flow to all the organs of the body. Vegetables and berries aid the body’s production of nitric oxide as well. Hence, today’s post, which is all beans and vegetables, in a delicious winter meal perfect for a day of shoveling snow.

To start with, I’ll help you cook your own beans. These days, dried beans don’t need to be soaked overnight before cooking, so you can start them off immediately after picking them over and rinsing.

Even though I haven’t done the math including the water and electricity used, cooking dried beans yourself instead of buying canned has to be a money-saver. At my Stop n Shop, a can of organic beans, which is about a quarter-pound’s worth of dried, is around $2. Yet, several pounds of dried beans only costs $3 - $4 which is a huge savings on the beans alone. That, and by cooking them with a piece of Kombu seaweed and freezing the unused portions immediately, you can dramatically reduce the possibility of suffering from painful flatulence after eating them.

Yes, seaweed is this miraculous substance that leeches impurities from the skin in face masks, helps gushing finger cuts to stop bleeding in minutes or even seconds, and happens to also cause beans to be safer to eat (when you need to be on your best behavior!).

Basic Recipe for Kidney Beans in the Slow Cooker

1 lb. dried beans, picked over and rinsed

1 large yellow or white onion, quartered

2 bay leaves

1 4”-long piece of Kombu seaweed

2 garlic cloves, crushed (optional)

Place all ingredients into a 5 to 6-quart crock pot and cover with filtered water by 2 inches. Cook on high for 8 hours, up to 12 hours if necessary. Freeze unused beans immediately. To freeze in one-can portion sizes, Fill a 2-cup measuring cup to 1½ cups of beans, and then add just enough of the cooking liquid to reach the top of the beans.

Vegetarian Chili

Adapted from The Frog/Commissary Cookbook

2 Jalapeno peppers

1/3 cup olive oil

1 cup chopped carrots

2 cups diced white onions

1 cup chopped green peppers

¾ cup chopped organic celery

1 tablespoon minced garlic

2 cups mushrooms, rinsed, dried and chopped

¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes

1 tablespoon ground cumin

¾ teaspoon dried basil

¾ teaspoon dried oregano

2 tablespoons chili powder

2 teaspoons salt

½ teaspoon pepper

1 ½ cup Pomi Strained Tomatoes

½ cup filtered water

2 14-oz. cans organic diced tomatoes with juice

2 cups undrained kidney beans (from 1 20-oz. can or homemade)

½ teaspoon Tabasco

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

3 tablespoons tomato paste

1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

¼ cup dry red or white wine

Optional: ½ cup quinoa (we omit this step and serve with cornbread muffins, the recipe follows below)

Roast jalapeno peppers over fire or under broiler until black, turning as necessary, until done. While the peppers are blackening, assemble all the rest of the ingredients.

When Jalapeno peppers are completely black, place in a paper bag and fold over top, or into a bowl sealed with plastic wrap. Leave peppers for 20 minutes as you continue to assemble the rest of the ingredients.

When all the ingredients are ready to go, scrape the blackened skins off of the Jalapenos. Slice them into quarters the long way, and then chop. Keep to the side.

In a 6- or 7-quart dutch oven, heat the olive oil. Over high heat, add the onions, celery, green peppers, carrots, garlic, mushrooms, spices, salt and pepper. Cook, stirring, for 2 minutes. Add the remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil, stirring. Reduce the heat and simmer for 20 minutes, uncovered. If too thick, the chili can be thinned with tomato juice.

If you don’t add quinoa to the pot, serve with corn chips or corn bread to make a complete protein with the kidney beans.

Corn Bread Muffins

From the Bon Appetit, Y’all cookbook

Makes one dozen muffins

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

2 cups fine corn flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon fine sea salt

2 cups buttermilk (or homemade plain yogurt)

1 large egg

Preheat oven to 425F. Grease muffin tin. Mix together cornmeal, baking soda and salt. Separately, whisk together the buttermilk and egg. Melt the butter as you mix together the wet ingredients into the dry. Add the melted butter and mix well. Spoon the batter into the tins, filling each 2/3 full. Bake 25 minutes, or until skewer comes out clean.

These are dense and flat-topped. To get a rounder muffin top, heat oven to 450F and turn down to 425F when you put the batter into the oven.

Either way, I recommend breaking them into pieces over the chili as you enjoy.

This meal is great with a salad. We make a creamy dressing using Penzey’s Creamy Peppercorn seasoning, using the recipe right on the jar.

Truly Decadent Red Velvet Black & White Cookies (Gluten-Free, Of Course!)

Aw, heck. I’m sucking it up and writing about Valentine’s Day, after the fact. Because this dessert is so good I can’t keep it in any longer.

Such a controversial holiday. But why? Why does a holiday have to be created by the church or government to be a “real” holiday? Why not one that’s just because we want to?

I know some people get upset that they “must” do something on Valentine’s Day. But see, when I was growing up, my dad loved to go out and get my mother sentimental cards and tell her how much he loved her, all while she told him it was a bullsh** holiday and – though she smiled – a waste of time and money.

It taught my impressionable little mind that in spite of having 14 kids who were hard to raise (to put it mildly) he still thought she was the ultimate woman, his dream woman. They were a united front in the world.

I decided that people who didn’t like Valentine’s Day maybe just didn’t feel the way he did about her.

I know, I KNOW it was built up by the greeting card companies, in sometimes uncomfortable ads like the one Hallmark ran this year. But isn’t it a good thing, that there are ads to counteract the animosity between the sexes created by auto and booze companies? Ones that bring us together to buy into something instead of creating tension between us?

There, I’ve said my peace, and will now divulge the most decadent Valentine’s Day dessert I know of, Red Velvet Black and Whites. No, these are not dry cookies with flavorless white and chocolate sugar coating, but the lightest, fluffiest soft cakes, with two helpings of frosting – rich chocolate and vanilla cream cheese.

The best part is that the secret to the cookie texture is that they are gluten free, so nothing in them to make them tough.

I make them this way because I always hated black & white cookies, the kind you get wrapped in plastic in New York delis, until I had the version at Lassen& Hennigs, a gourmet grocery and deli in Brooklyn Heights. The frosting is so decadent that they don’t wrap them in plastic but put them in their own containers, sinfully beckoning to one from the cash register. (They are wrong, wrong, wrong!)

This is one of the few recipes I recommend using a gluten-free mix. I’m someone who bakes mostly from scratch. The chocolate frosting here alone takes as long as the cookies themselves. And, I do make red velvet cupcakes from scratch. So you know I wouldn’t be recommending it here if it weren’t a good idea. In this case, the Better Batter all-purpose gluten-free flour really does make a fantastic whoopee pie cookie, with a harder top and soft inside. I just make their cupcake recipe and bake it in a whoopee-pie pan (or muffin-top pan, or to make them even smaller, the bottom of a muffin tin).

Decadent Red Velvet Black and Whites

Makes about a dozen large muffin-top sized cookies

Do make the chocolate frosting a day ahead and reheat in microwave or over a double boiler to frost.

The cookie and cream cheese frosting recipes are from Better Batter’s web site. The chocolate frosting is the Shiny Fudge Frosting from Carole Walter’s Great Cakes.

For the Cookies:

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened

2 cups sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup buttermilk

1 1oz bottle red food coloring

2 cups Better Batter Gluten Free Flour

1/3 cup cocoa

1 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1 tablespoon white vinegar

For the Cream Cheese Frosting:

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter

8 oz cream cheese

3 cups powdered sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the Chocolate Frosting:

½ cup sugar

¼ cup water

2 tablespoons light corn syrup

4 oz unsweetened chocolate, coarsely chopped

5 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

2 cups strained confectioner’s sugar (measured after straining)

2 tablespoons very hot water

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Make the chocolate frosting (a day ahead, if possible):

Assemble ingredients before proceeding. Put a kettle on to boil separately, for the hot water you will need later in the recipe.

Combine the sugar, water and corn syrup in a medium sized saucepan. Stir briefly, cover, and bring to a slow boil. Brush sides of saucepan occasionally if necessary with clear water to prevent crystals from forming. When sugar is completely dissolved, simmer syrup about 3 minutes.

Remove the sugar syrup from the heat and add the chocolate all at once, stirring continuously with a metal spoon until the chocolate is dissolved. Beat the butter into the chocolate mixture, then add the confectioner’s sugar alternately with the hot water, dividing the sugar into two parts and the water into two parts. Blend in the vanilla and beat again until smooth and shiny.

Keep chocolate frosting in an airtight container until ready to use. Reheat in microwave oven or over a double boiler but only just til soft, do not let it get excessively hot. This frosting must be kept warm to spread easily onto cookies.

Make the cookies:

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a muffin-top pan, or whoopee-pie pan. Beat butter or margarine in bowl, then add sugar, on medium speed, for about 4 minutes or until fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, and vanilla.

Meanwhile, stir together buttermilk and food coloring in a small bowl. In another bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa and salt. Turn mixer speed to low. Alternate between the buttermilk and flour mixture, about a third at a time, until just combined.

In a small cup, stir together vinegar and baking soda. Allow to fizz before adding to the batter.

Fill pan, just enough to make a cookie, in each hollowed out area. Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until tops lightly spring back when you touch them. Allow to cool on a rack.

Make the cream cheese frosting:

Cream butter and cream cheese together until smooth. Add vanilla extract and beat till very smooth. Add powdered sugar, and beat until frosting consistency.

When cookies are cooled, frost half with chocolate frosting and half with cream cheese frosting.