Raw Walnut Meat, salsa, guacamole

I was working from home this week and was trying to decide what to make for lunch. A few blogs I follow had posted recently about raw walnut "meat", so I decided to try it with a salad.

Change up the spices to your tastes. This is a great recipe because it comes together quickly.



Serves 1 - 2

Ingredients
Walnut Meat
1/2 raw walnuts
2 - 3 sun-dried tomatoes, soaked in hot water for 10 minutes
soy sauce
sriracha
salt
pepper
chili powder
cumin powder (We are out of cumin powder, so I added cumin seeds)

Garden Salsa
Tomatoes (I used cherry and roma from the garden)
Onion
garlic chives
hungarian wax pepper
olive oil
salt
pepper
juice from 1/2 lime

Corn Guacamole
1 ear corn
1/2 avocado
salt
pepper
lime juice

Lettuce

Method
Walnut Meat
Place the walnuts and tomatoes in a food processor (I used the smaller bowl because I am using such small amounts). Pulse until it appears to have the texture of ground meat. Add the seasonings to taste.

Garden Salsa
This is just what I had ripe in my garden, feel free to use whatever you think would be good in salsa.

Roughly chop the tomatoes, onion, and chili. Place the tomatoes, onion, chili, and herbs in a food processor (again I used the smaller bowl) and pulse until still chunky, but mixed. Transfer to a bowl and season to taste.

Corn Guacamole
Shuck the corn. Place the ear of corn upright and using a knife, cut away the kernels into a bowl. Add the avocado and mix. Season to taste.


Wash and dry the lettuce. Chop into a bowl and add the meat, salsa, and guacamole.

Notes
This was really really good. The walnut meat has A LOT of flavour. I'm going to try it again with pecans because my husband is sensitive to walnuts. I'm happy that I was able to make the salsa completely from our garden. Garden vegetables taste waaay better than anything bought from the store.

I had a couple of tortillas in the fridge that needed to be used. I put them in the toaster oven until they were crispy and served it with the salad.

Tamale Pie

Another crockpot creation.

The cookbook calls this Cornbread-topped Southwestern Potpie. Quite a mouthful. When I was growing up, my parents would make a savory pie with cornmeal as the crust and meat/potatoes/veggies as the filling. This recipe reminded me of that.





Ingredients:
onion, chopped
carrot, chopped
garlic, minced
frozen corn
2 oz canned green chilies
cooked, drained pinto beans
Sriracha sauce

Place everything in a slow cooker and add just enough water/broth to barely cover the veggies. Cook on low for about 6 hours.

1/2 cup cornmeal
1 t baking powder
1/4 t baking soda
1 T oil
1 T maple syrup
1/4 cup non dairy milk

Mix all the topping ingredients together until a soft dough is formed. Spread over the top of the veggies in the slow cooker. Cover and cook on high for about 1 hour until the corn bread is cooked through.

This was incredibly tasty. The recipe called for it to be cooked for 5 hours and then add the cornbread topping. I was at school for about 8 hours and while the veggies were super duper soft, nothing was ruined. The slow cooker is pretty good like that.

Black Bean Chili

Oh my goodness, this chili was fantastic. My husband refused to call it a chili until it had actual chilies in it. In the evening on my way home, I picked up a habanero and some random green chili at the grocery store to make it a proper chili.





In the morning I put the following in my 1.5 qt slow cooker:
black beans
onions
carrots
chili powder
cumin
garlic powder
water, just to cover

Cook on low for 6-8 hours. I came back and it had reduced to a very thick chili.

While I was making corn bread, I added frozen corn, above mentioned chilies, and adjusted the seasoning. To serve, garnish with cilantro.

This had my husband sweating a bit from the heat of the chili, but I thought it was perfect. I love spicy foods.

Baked Potato

Here is another recipe from Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker.

I had wanted to make the "Savory Stuffed Wheat Meat Roast", but I didn't start early enough to get it done by dinner, so I was flipping through the book trying to find something else that I could make with the ingredients in my apartment. Baked Potatoes! Perfect, I have a whole bag of potatoes I just bought.

Ingredients:
Potatoes (I used yukon gold because they are my favorite)

Scrub the potatoes and remove any eyes or weird spots. Rub the potatoes with butter like substitute and sprinkle with salt. Take a fork and stab the potato all over to allow steam to vent. Wrap in foil and place in the slow cooker. Cook on low for 6 - 8 hours. Mine took just about 6 hours. They were tender and delicious.



Hmm, really roasted garlic


While perusing the Vegetarian Slow Cooker blog a few weeks ago I had found the post about roasted garlic in the slow cooker. When I decided on putting in the potatoes, I thought now would be the perfect time to try roasting garlic as well. I only had about 1/2 head of garlic, but it still came out roasty and fantastic. Next time, I am going to make two heads so that my husband and I can each have our own. I mushed the garlic into a paste and used it as a spread on the potatoes.

Next, came the chili. I didn't know quite what to put on top of the potatoes and I wanted to just use things in my pantry. I came up with this concoction.

1/2 cup TVP
1 15oz can pinto beans
1/4 cup tomato pasta sauce
1/2 cup water
chili powder
cumin
chipotle powder
habanero hot sauce
salt and pepper

I put everything into a small saucepan and simmered until about half of the liquid had evaporated. Not the best chili I have made, but it worked really well to get dinner to the table quick like.



Baked Potato with roasted garlic, chili, tofutti cream cheese, and green onions


We both gave this recipe two thumbs up. The potatoes were tender and everything else was fine. I am looking forward to making the potatoes more during the coming semester because they were crazy easy to do.

I made the seitan tonight for the Savory Stuffed Wheat Meat Roast and it is currently looking like a brain and marinating in my fridge.





I am really excited about this recipe. It is marinated seitan (I used the recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance) rolled into a rectangle, topped with stuffing, rolled up like a swiss roll and cooked in the slow cooker for 6 - 8 hours. I hope it will be good!