Wednesday, January 21, 2009

New Recipes: Sweet & Spicy Lentil Chili & Mostly Raw Chocolate Pudding

I made 2 new recipes tooday that I'd like to share with you.

The 1st is Sweet & Spicy Lentil Chili from the cookbook, Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker. This is 95% the same as what's in the cookbook, but of course I can't make a recipe as it's written :) Part of that is I didn't have all the correct ingredients!

Ingredients:
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
1 red bell pepper, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 1/2 cups brown lentils
1 can 28 oz crushed tomatoes
1/3 cup blackstrap molasses, unsulfured
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon salt
Cayenne pepper to taste
1 1/2 cup water
1 1/2 cup apple juice

You can either just put it all in the crockpot as is, or saute the onion, pepper & garlic in olive oil first. This time, I did actually go the saute route, something I rarely do.

This was awesome!

Then, I tried my hand at Green Smoothie Girl's Raw Chocolate Pudding. It's in chapter 11 of her e-book, linked above. Again, I didn't follow the recipe exactly. Here's what I did:

1 cup water
1/2 cup kale
2 cups baby Thai coconut meat (she has YouTube demos about these coconuts)
1 cup raw cashews
6 tablespoons raw chocolate
1/3 cup maple syrup
1/3 cup raw honey (or 1/4 cup raw agave for vegans)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1/4 xanthan gum (or guar guam, soy lecithin, or some other emulsifier)

She recommends pureeing the kale & water first, but I didn't find that to be necessary. Blend this until smooth. We ate it at room temperature, but I think it'd be better chilled.

Check back in the next few days for more on young Thai coconuts, as well as my other East Bay food adventures :)

5 comments:

Kat said...

YUM I'll be making that chili tomorrow! Though, I only have green and orange lentils. Would those work? The pudding sounds great too but I don't have an "emulsifier"...carob powder is raw, correct? I do have that bu no "raw chocolate". Thanks for sharing!!

Brenna Kate Simonds, Living Unveiled said...

I think I might have actually used green lentils. I wouldn't use orange/red because they tend to disintegrate.

You don't need the emulsifier, but I wanted my pudding to be less liquidy.

Unknown said...

Thanks for detail about those recipes... Will try these...

Linda said...

I have similar lentil recipe that I haven't made in a long time. Thanks for the reminder.

Thanks for joining What's for dinner Wednesday (gluten free). I hope you come back next week.

Brenna Kate Simonds, Living Unveiled said...

Linda, I was quite happy when a friend pointed out your blog to me. I am not gluten-free, but we eat wheat-free, dairy-free & soy-free, so almost everything is GF by default. It's even more relevant these days to have GF & casein-free recipes, as many aren't eating GFCF for Celiac's, but for help with autism, fibromyalgia, and other health issues.