Lentil Artichoke Stew

As a Food for Life instructor, I get to teach people how to make a lot of delicious recipes, including this Lentil Artichoke Stew from the Cancer Project. This recipe is hearty and perfect for the cold winter ahead of us! If you want to learn how to make this stew in class, please sign up online for one of my classes.

This recipe is also found in The Cancer Survivor's Guide by Dr. Barnard and Jennifer Reilly, RD.

Lentil Artichoke Stew

Makes 6 servings

Ingredients:

1/4 cup vegetable broth

1 onion, chopped

2 large garlic cloves, minced

2 teaspoons ground cumin

1 teaspoon ground coriander

1 cup dry (uncooked) red lentils (3 cups cooked)

1 bay leaf

2 cups water

Juice of 1 lemon

2 24-oz can chopped tomatoes (preferably fire-roasted), undrained, or 6 cups freshly chopped tomatoes plus 1 cup tomato juice

1 1/2 cups quartered artichoke hearts (1 9-oz frozen package or 1 15-oz can, packed in water)

1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper (optional)

1/4 teaspoon salt, or to taste

1/4 teaspoon black pepper, or to taste

Directions:

1. Heat the broth in a large soup pot. Add the onion. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, for about 5 minutes, until translucent. 
2. Add the garlic, cumin, and coriander. Cook for 2 minutes, stirring frequently.
3. Add the water, lentils, and bay leaf. Bring to a boil.
4. Lower the heat and add the tomatoes and their liquid, artichoke hearts, lemon juice, and optional red pepper flakes. Simmer for about 20 minutes, or until the lentils are tender. Remove and discard the bay leaf. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
5. Stored in a covered container in the refrigerator, leftovers will keep for up to 3 days.

Note: If red lentils are unavailable, green lentils can be substituted. However, because green lentils will not cook properly in acidic foods, such as tomatoes and lemon juice, you will need to cook them in water or vegetable broth until tender prior to adding them to the stew.

Nutritional Info (per serving):

176 calories

1 g fat

0.1 g saturated fat

4.9% calories from fat

0 mg cholesterol

11.7 g protein

34.3 g carbohydrate

7.5 g sugar

10 g fiber

560 mg sodium

123 mg calcium

6.3 mg iron

28.6 mg vitamin C

238 mcg beta-carotene

1.8 mg vitamin E

Stuffed Poblano Chiles

We were shopping at our favorite store the other day (Mom's Organic Market) and were about finished when I realized I forgot something from the produce section. I left my fiancé in the frozen food aisle while I ran back to get it. When I returned to the frozen foods, he was enamored with a frozen meal of stuffed chiles. We investigated the package and decided there were waaaay too many ingredients listed for our comfort level, so we decided to make our own. I ran back to the produce and evaluated the big peppers available for stuffing... I found some delicious looking poblano peppers and thought they would work perfectly!

I decided to stuff the poblanos with vegan pepper jack cheese, corn, onions and cilantro. Then we made a tomato brown rice to accompany the peppers. The meal turned out so good that we can't wait to make it again!

Stuffed Poblanos

Serves: 2

Cooking Time: 30-40 minutes

Ingredients

1 cup of brown rice, soaked for at least 15 minutes and drained

1 can of diced tomatoes with chiles (or fresh tomatoes and chiles if they are in season)

4 poblano peppers, tops cut off and seeds removed

1 small onion, diced

3/4 cup cheese (we used vegan pepper jack)

1 cup of corn (frozen or fresh), thawed if using frozen

2 TB cilantro, chopped

Directions

1. Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees
2. Cook brown rice according to package directions or in a rice cooker. Once done, add can of tomatoes and stir to combine.
3. Put poblano peppers and tops on a small sheet pan and into the oven for about 15 minutes or until soft and beginning to brown. Remove from oven and let cool.
4. While rice is cooking and peppers are in the oven, sauté onion in small skillet over medium-high heat for about 15 minutes, or until slightly brown and translucent. If the onion starts to stick, add 1 TB of water at a time.
5. Combine cheese, corn and cilantro in a small bowl. Add cooked onions to the bowl and stir. This is your filling.
6. Once peppers are cool enough to handle, stuff each one with 1/4 of the filling. Carefully lay peppers back onto sheet pan and put back in the oven for about 15-20 minutes, or until filling is gooey and hot.
7. To serve: Put rice mixture onto plate and top with 2 stuffed poblanos. Enjoy!

Veggie Burgers

The weather was so beautiful today... it hit 63 at our house... that we thought we would break from the winter of crock-potting and make something to get us ready for spring and summer of cookouts.

What is great at cookouts? Veggie burgers! We decided to try a recipe from Yoga Journal that I pulled out years ago. I honestly don't know when it was published... When I read magazines, I rip pages out for recipes that I want to try or modify and put them in a big binder for later... I tried to look it up on their website to give you guys a link, but wasn't able to find it.

Anyway, the burger was basically black beans, cilantro, green onions, tomatoes, and spices mushed up. We added in zucchini too. Then we stirred in rolled oats. They cooked up well in the oven and held their shape nicely. I feel like these could be good contenders for going on the grill this summer.

To accompany the burger, we made sweet potato and  white potato fries, plus we made a spicy cajun roasted red pepper "catsup" courtesy of the Happy Herbivore. The catsup was roasted red peppers, onions, and seasonings ground up in the blender and then cooked down until it got pretty thick. To make fries, all you have to do is slice them thinly, toss with a little oil and desired seasoning, and bake in the oven until a desired level of doneness. To pump up the flavor a little, we tossed the potatoes in a little cajun seasoning to match the sauce. The final accompaniment was a hard cider from Angry Orchard. We are particularly found of the Apple Ginger and found it matched the burger nicely.

If you are wondering about our little skinny buns... we found these gluten free, vegan Amy's Sandwich Rounds a little while ago in the freezer section and they work well for burgers. In fact, it is really hard to find gluten free buns that are also vegan and these are the best tasting that I've found so far. They do require a little toasting, otherwise they get mushy pretty quick when they touch the toppings, but it is a small price to pay for a bun that tastes pretty decent and has all real ingredients.

Dinner was so good, that I'm looking forward to grilling out in the near future. Unfortunately, the forecast is calling for more wet and cold weather towards the end of this week, so I'll probably be back to using the old crockpot for one last winter hurrah!