Inspired African Lentil Stew and Clean Water

Marcus Samuelsson was declared the winner in this season's Top Chef Masters. Marcus is an intriguing story of an Ethiopian child, adopted by a Swedish family - ultimately rising to some serious fame in the USA and reknowned for his world cuisine.

He is bringing African cuisine to the plate, and this is a great thing given the spicy, hearty, rich, soulful and heartfelt dishes that eminate from such a vast continent.

I am new to African cuisine, but have loved any ventures I have taken there. A quick sweet potato soup, with vegetable stock, sweet potatoes, onion, garlic, cinnamon and cayenne, thickened with a bit of peanut butter and garnished with green onions and chopped peanuts instantly became a favourite in the house. (And as I write this, I am thinking "why don't I make that soup more often?").

Last month, a sweet potato and dried fruit sidedish at Jay and Melanie's met with serious approval from a table of 6. Again the prominent and simple flavours of peanut, coconut, garlic, sweet potato and cinnamon, with some apple juice, just transformed an ordinary sliced tuber.

Tonight, I got a bit bolder with the flavours of turmeric, cayenne, cinnamon, garlic and coconut powder, adding a 1:2 ratio of mixed lentils and water, some tiny 1/4 inch pieces of sweet potato and some leftover braised leeks with carrots and celery. My brazen application of turmeric had less to do with guts than it did with the top falling off, dumping a heaping tablespoon into the pot instead of the shakes I was intending. I have no peanut butter in the house, so I subbed in almond butter and some tahini (which is a ground up sesame paste)used in hummus.

Stirring the rich, yellow pot just screamed Africa - hot, alive, unusual and exciting. But I am in unfamiliar territory with how it should taste. SO I relied on the basics...striving for balance.

Salty - it's well salted
Spicy - it's BEAUTIFULLY seasoned
Sour - a nice dash of red hot adds a tangyness and an acidity that is delicious
Bitter - the lentils aren't sweeping me away, and offer just the right bit of pull back from the spice.

It is spicy enough. It's flavourful. It's got a nice acitity. Bill comes around the corner, right as a puzzled expression crosses my face, exclaiming "that smells really good" and then declaring the pot "great".

But it's not great yet. It's missing something.

SWEET.

Whenever I cook with a cuisine, my choice of spices, oils and additions should roughly correspond with the region I am cooking for. So a sweet, sticky agave syrup (from cactus) hits the pot, and mixes.

The next spoonful to my mouth actually prompts me to applaud out loud, and the song "Woom....there it is" rings out in my head.

This stew is spectacular. Creamy and rich, spicy and sweet, hearty and healthy. It was fast, inexpensive and simple to make. Harrison's only request while devouring the stew was "can I have a glass of water?".

I think of the children in Africa right now who will benefit from Marcus' victory on Top Chef - Unicef's clean water project, the new beneficiaries of $100 000.

I think of all the orphan children whose lives are being ravaged by starvation, and AIDS, and malaria. How many of them are the same age as Harrison? I think of the title of Marcus' book, which was sold out at the bookstore today, the Soul of a New Generation. The combination of flavours have soul and I can't wait to learn more about them.

I am intrigued, and inpired and impressed with these flavours. But I won't take my clean drinking water for granted tonight.

The King of Cheeses goes Vegan

Any good chef will tell you that the undisputed KING of cheese is Parmeggiano Reggiano. It's one of those things over which there is NO debate.

Like Frank Sinatra being the greatest singer who ever lived.

Wayne Gretzky.

Champagne.

Paris.

We all know of "the great ones".

When students used to want to say thank you for something nice, they would offer me chocolate. My friend Debbie would pipe up and say "Get her cheese".

So it is with great glee that I pass along the most delicious recipe my veganism has come across. More than cashew cream, vegan parmesan just blows me away.

The King of Vegan Parmesan Cheese
1/4 slivered almonds
1/2 tsp lemon zest
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 tbsp nutritional yeast.

Pulse in a magic bullet or spice grinder or blender, and ANDIAMO! Molto Delicioso.

Nutritional yeast is the shocker here, because when you buy it it smells like the bottom of a hamster cage. But mixed in applications requiring a strong cheese (hey! didn't I discover this when I made caesar salad for our 30 day celebration dinner??)it is heavenly. The little bites of nutty almond are reminiscent of those delicious crystallized bits in the parmesan.

Today I hit one of those mental blocks. What the heck is for dinner???

I bought some canneloni, and stuffed them with a white bean mixture, and baked them in the oven for 30 minutes. Had LOTS left over, so I made two more batches for family.

Canneloni Stuffed with White Beans

Prep pasta according to package directions
In a large pot, I turned the heat onto medium.

One diced onion
Two cloves of minced garlic
One diced stalk of celery
Two medium chopped carrots
Two cans of white navy beans
Italian spices to taste
One can of Bravo spaghetti sauce

In a lasagna pan, I added:

One ladle-full of crushed tomatoes
1-2 tbsp of white balsamic vinegar
1/8 cup of white wine (I keep cubes in the freezer for sauces)
Fresh cracked pepper and sea salt
1/2 cup of water

Stuff the canneloni with the bean mixture. Liquid should just cover the tips of the pasta shells. Bake at 350 for 10-15 minutes until the pasta swells. Top with vegan parmesan.

Also found myself with lots of French ingredients (quel surprise!) and made a white bean cassoulet, minus the limbs and things Julia suggests in Mastering.

All in all : a great day, save for the shocking reminder that I completely missed a friend's "we're having a baby" open house party yesterday. I feel terrible - but maybe bringing them a white bean cassoulet will make up for it?

Size-y Kids

A recently airing KFC commercial promotes it's meal deal as "very streetwise", featuring a mom bouncing a soccer ball in front of her kids, purportedly relishing all the time and cash she saved by picking up fried chicken on the way home.

Seriously?

Summer is upon us, and there are lots of school kids wearing their summer clothes. And the proliferation of 8 and 9 year old pot-bellied kids is really stunning to me. And it makes me quite sad.

I remember some of the stress I used to feel about body image as a kid. And I have a 5 8, slim body, with feminine curves where they should be! I remember stressing out about being cute and fit. Still do, occasionally, truth be told.

What must these young girls go through while eyeing the overflowing belly fat over their new summer shorts? How stressed must they be feeling as they are squeezing into a bathing suit for summer pool parties? How brutal is it to be buying dress sizes four or five "ages" older than you actually are?

Those sizes and numbers matter to kids - even if they are powerless to control what their parents are modelling, and eating as an example, and stocking in their fridges and cupboards.

While shopping in the US a couple months ago, I noticed a sign indicating that they had re-jigged all their children's sizes. Small would now be considered extra small. Medium would now be considered Small. L would now be M. XL = L and XXL now = XL.

Why? Cause' the kids are just too big now, and it's messing with their heads! They hate being LARGE at age 9. They hate being a SIZE 16 when they're 10. And who in their right mind can blame them?

I hate that so many people of every single age are abdicating their responsibility for their foods to massive companies, with staggering marketing budgets, and animal factories whose only job it is to sell you as much as they can. Moreover, if they can convince you that you are "doing it for your family" to "save time", so much the better.

Now...how did I get onto this soapbox again?

Manly Vegans

I did some research today on vegan male athletes. "Research "is my story, and I'm sticking to it.

Although many of our friends have taken quite an interest in our new eating habits, many of my female friends quickly exclaim that they could "NEVER" get their husbands to eat "like that".

Many of the female halves of these same couples rue the fact that their men are carrying around too much belly fat, costing them too much money at the grocery store, and that they don't have the time to cook every night.

So more money, weight loss and more time aren't a motivator?

I get quite frustrated that the prospect of savings, a hot summer frame and efficiencies in time aren't enough to motivate people to just give a vegan diet a try for a while. I suppose they prefer the pinnacle of convenience... a stressed-out, unhealthy husband needing a by-pass... because there's no stress there! OK - that's a bit extreme - but I am just warming up...

In any event, I was thinking about all of those "guy's guys" out there. You know - the kind that work out hard, have gorgeous lean muscles, play sports, and hang out with other guy's guys? How the heck is a woman supposed to feed a man like that?

Give Him Some Eye Candy: First, start out with the food being REALLY GOOD. If the food is bark-y, tasteless and boring, you'll probably not get anywhere. Think of pulling a dinner together for your guy the way you'd get dressed for a night out with him. Colour. Textures. Varying items of interest. Layers. Something tasty and intriguing. He might not even notice that there's no flesh around except yours!

Surprise Him With Your Savings: Secondly, and especially if you're part of a couple who cares where your money is going, treat yourselves to a ridiculously lower grocery bill every so often. The internet is full of creative ideas, and I promise you - NONE of them will cost as much as that barbequed rib-eye. If you absolutely must part with your money, why don't you get him a new tool for his toolbox for the price of what you would have spent on a steak?

Animal Behaviour. Just because you haven't eaten any animals, doesn't mean that there aren't certain instinctual behaviours which can't be borrowed from them.... While I like keeping the blog family friendly, let's just say that there are two other particular fringe benefits for vegan eating that transcend the kitchen, and I won't write about them here. If nothing else turned a manly guy eater into a vegan, I would venture a guess that these would if they only knew about them.... within about 4 minutes.

Bragging Rights. I am always blown away by male "locker room talk". What so many of my male friends have told me over a few beers about what they notice. Guys care about how they look naked as much as women do (maybe more?!). So if the last motivator for more frequent vegan eating is a leaner, stronger, meatier frame with less flab then the buck might just stop there.

Here are some snippets from guys posting what they actually eat as vegan weight lifters, football players, and hockey players. There are some easy, good ideas here, but none of them are mine...

One weight lifter eats this in a day:
Breakfast
3 tablespoons of Rice Protein Powder (nutribiotic brand) with 8oz of almond milk and 8oz of soy milk. I add ½ cup of frozen mango or strawberries to the mix and one tablespoon of coconut oil.

Mid afternoon snack
½ cup of almonds and ½ cup of raisins

Late afternoon snack
Two Veggie burgers with olive oil and some sprouted bread

Post Workout Shake
3 scoops of Rice Protein Powder with 8oz of oat or rice milk. Throw in
1 tablespoons of flaxseed oil and ½ cup of frozen fruit.

Dinner
Mixed Green Salad with 1 tablespoon of olive oil or one avocado.
One cup of lentils steamed with squash, carrots, tomatoes, mushrooms, and some tofu. One tablespoon of olive oil is added to the mix.
One cup of quinoa
A pear or apple
Some dark chocolate for dessert and some ginger cookies
Glass of red wine

Late Night snack
Peanut butter or almond butter sandwich and a cup of berries

Another guy had this on his web page:
Consume protein and good quality fat as part of each meal and snack.

*Tip: If you make bread, muffins, or any baked goods, leave out some of the flour and replace it with soy protein powder, hemp flour, or bean flour. Use hemp seed oil as a base for salad dressing or to mix with a soy drink to make it creamier. Use hemp seed oil on cereal and in baking.

Good quality protein sources:

Hemp seed nut and flour
tofu
beans (kidney, black, garbanzo, soy, adzuki)
legumes
soy protein powder
unsweetened soy drink

Good quality fat sources:

extra virgin olive oil
flax seed oil
hemp seed oil
avocado
non-roasted nuts and seeds

Breakfast: 1 cup Oatmeal 6
1 cup Soymilk 7
1 Bagel 9

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Lunch: 2 slices Whole Wheat Bread 5
1 cup Vegetarian Baked Beans 12

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Dinner: 5 oz firm Tofu 11
1 cup cooked Broccoli 4
1 cup cooked Brown Rice 5
2 Tbsp Almonds 4

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Snack: 2 Tbsp Peanut Butter 8
6 Crackers 2
TOTAL 73 grams

Finally, another guy posted this list of protein contents per serving, and it's a good list.

AMOUNT PROTEIN(gm)
Tempeh 1 cup / 41g
Seitan 3 ounces / 31 g
Soybeans, cooked 1 cup / 29g
Lentils, cooked 1 cup / 18 g
Black beans, cooked 1 cup / 15 g
Kidney beans, cooked 1 cup / 13 g
Veggie burger 1 patty / 13 g
Chickpeas, cooked 1 cup / 12 g
Veggie baked beans 1 cup / 12 g
Pinto beans, cooked 1 cup / 12 g
Black-eyed peas, cooked 1 cup / 11 g
Tofu, firm 4 ounces / 11 g
Lima beans, cooked 1 cup / 10 g
Quinoa, cooked 1 cup / 9g
Tofu, regular 4 ounces / 9 g
Bagel 1 med.(3 oz) / 9 g
Peas, cooked 1 cup / 9 g
Textured Vegetable Protein (TVP), cooked 1/2 cup / 8 g
Peanut butter 2 Tbsp / 8 g
Veggie dog 1 link / 8g
Spaghetti, cooked 1 cup / 8 g
Almonds 1/4 cup / 8 g
Soy milk, commercial, plain 1 cup / 7 g
Soy yogurt, plain 6 ounces / 6 g
Bulgur, cooked 1 cup /6g
Sunflower seeds 1/4 cup / 6 g
Whole wheat bread 2 slices / 5 g
Cashews 1/4 cup / 5 g
Almond butter 2 Tbsp / 5 g
Brown rice, cooked 1 cup / 5 g
Spinach, cooked 1 cup / 5g
Broccoli, cooked 1 cup / 4 g
Potato 1 med.(6 oz) / 4 g