Category Archives: vegetarian

green chile & cheddar grits

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hello and welcome to one of my favorite food groups in the whole world.  what?  grits aren’t a food group?  nonsense.  grits are so versatile- they can be sweetened up with a little brown sugar, buttered and cheesed until they’re delectably savory, or (my personal favorite) spiced with green chiles and white cheddar.  and that’s what i did here!  i let these be the base for roasted shrimp, zucchini, corn and brussel sprouts.

 

you’ll need:

1 cup 5-minute grits

2 cups water

2 cups veggie stock

1 tbs salt

3 tbs butter (sorry I’m not sorry)

1 cup shredded white cheddar

1 can hatch green chiles

Green chile tobasco, to taste

 

Ok, this one is easy.   Bring the water and veggie stock to a boil, add your salt, then add your grits and give it a stir.  Reduce your heat to medium-low and cover the pot.  Stir occasionally for 5-7 minutes.  Add  your butter, shredded white cheddar, and green chiles and stir until smooth.  Season with the green chile tobasco and let it simmer for a couple minutes to thicken.  When the grits are at your desired consistency, serve them up!

Here are mine with roasted Old Bay shrimp and balsamic veggies:

And the veggies:

 

happy eating!

xoxo,

hungrytexans

 

Twice-Baked Sweet Po-tay-toes!

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Rich orange autumnal color? Check. Complete protein? Check. Set-it-and-forget-it-esque weeknight dinner? Check.

Carlos planted the seed of this vegetarian delight in my mental recipe book last weekend, and I was quick to try my hand at recreating it! The only regret of this is I made waaaaaaay more than I could eat between cooking ’em on Tuesday & scooting away to the most Magical Place on Earth Thursday night. All you need is this short list of ingredients:

Sweet potatoes (I found itsy-bitsy baby potatoes at Capital Supermarket, and baked way too many)

1 container of nonfat greek yogurt

1 lime

2 cans of black beans (drained)

1 can of corn (drained)

your favorite mix of yummy spices! I did a to-taste mix of cumin, healthy amounts of salt, & pepper

queso fresco at whatever quantities you fancy!

avocado for garnish

Coat your potatoes with a nice olive oil rub, wrap them in aluminum foil, and pop ’em in the oven at 400. Take the hour they’ll take to bake and treat yo’self to some R&R (I did an embarrassing little circuit workout on a yoga mat in my living room). Once your potatoes are soft to a poke, pop ’em out of the oven, and brace your hands for a literal game of hot potato. This HungryTexan is neither patient enough to wait for said potatoes to cool or been cooking for as many years as many Southern grandmothers who can pickup a hot baked potato without flenching. I unwrapped my potatoes, sliced them in half (hot-dog-style), and proceeded to wince in pain from the extreme potato heat as I did my best to scoop each potato’s contents into a big bowl while doing my best not to completely mangle the delicate skins (note: some potato skins were harmed beyond repair in the making of this dish).

Once you’ve scooped all your taters into a big bowl, dump in the greek yogurt, and squeeze that lime (faux-sour cream: ‘das it, ‘das it). Mix it all together, add your spices to taste, and then dump in your drained black beans and corn to the mix. Here’s where I started nibbling (such a yummy flavor combo!).

Scoop your mix into each potato skin (don’t worry, your potato shouldn’t runneth over, so load ’em up high!). Sprinkle your desired amount of queso fresco. Pop ’em back in the oven (still at 400 — so convenient!) and bake ’em for another 15-20 minutes or until they seem sufficiently “twice-baked”.

Slice an avocado on top and badabing, there you have a full-protein, complex-carb meal. Also worth noting, since I admittedly made waaaaaay too many of these little guys for just one HungryTexan — I took them to work for lunch and they were good as new with a one minute zap. Also…spoiler alert and a preview of coming attractions: since I had so much potato mix leftover, I made some potato patties and popped ’em in the freezer. I’m going to try pan-frying some latke-esque sweet potato/southwestern pancakes next week!

Coconut & Lentil & SplitPea Soup

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Have you picked up on a theme yet? You’ll soon notice a defining characteristic of these HungryTexans is our genetic inability to handle the cold. That’s right, despite three years in the Indiana tundra and a collective 7-years in DC (that’s right…it’s North of the Mason-Dixon line, so we’re allowed our “brrrrrrrrs!”), we continue to wear flats when it’s snowing, layer tights under our jorts, and frequently end up with icicle-locks (whitegrlwethair-lifestyle!).

Despite our inability to live/dress/work in the cold, we do our best to cook for it. Inspired by Liz’s mushroom soup and a craving for something hearty and home cooked (I spent the weekend eating at some charming chains in KCMO), I remembered this Coconut/Lentil/SplitPea Soup I’d made once upon a Texas winter.

My biggest fear when prepping this relatively simple soup was that the entire house would smell like an Indian restaurant. This is what happened the last time I toasted curry, and my fam didn’t let me hear the end of it! Thankfully, my curry toasting this time yielded an oh, so fragrant smell that warmed the house. Throw in the scent of simmering coconut milk, get ovah’ it! Yumyumyum!

Another one borrowed from one of my favorite blogs, 101Cookbooks:

1 cup / 7 oz / 200g yellow split peas
1 cup 7 oz / 200g red split lentils (masoor dal)
7 cups / 1.6 liters water
1 medium carrot, cut into 1/2-inch dice
2 tablespoons fresh peeled and minced ginger
2 tablespoons curry powder
2 tablespoons butter or ghee
8 green onions (scallions), thinly sliced
1/3 cup / 1.5 oz / 45g golden raisins
1/3 / 80 ml cup tomato paste
1 14-ounce can coconut milk
2 teaspoons fine grain sea salt
one small handful cilantro, chopped

It’s pretty simple, so here are the cliff notes:

  1. Combine Split Peas/Lentils & 7 cups of water — bring to a boil!
  2. Add the carrot & 1/2 of your ginger (keep them simmering until they’re soft!) + start your salting.
  3. Toast your curry powder (be careful not to burn it!)
  4. Melt your butter in the pan and add all of the following goodness — curry powder, tomato paste, scallions, raisins & tomato paste
  5. Add your flavorful buttery mixture to the Split Peas & Lentils
  6. Pour in the coconut milk
  7. Let those flavors groove together for 10-15 minutes on low heat
  8. Serve sprinkled with cilantro and scallions

Mmmm, mmmm….good!

xo,

HungryTexans

creamy mushroom-thyme soup

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today was below 60° – in texas, we call this “winter.”  but no matter where you’re living, these chilly days are perfect soup weather.  i’ve been waiting for my new emulsion blender to ship, but i couldn’t put this mushroom soup off any longer!

it turned out to be oh-so-yummy and super simple.  mushrooms are one of my favorite ingredients- so unapologetically earthy and beautiful.  i made a little brie & arugula grilled cheese to dip.  grilled cheese & soup?  fugetaboutit.

recipe!

 

you’ll need:

1 1/2 pounds of mushrooms (I used white button, baby bella & shitake)

1 medium red onion

2 cloves garlic

3 tbs unsalted butter

2 sprigs thyme

pinch nutmeg

1/4 cup dry white wine or sherry

2 cups stock (veggie or chicken, whatever you have on hand.)

2 cups milk (or cream or half & half)

 

What you’ll do:

heat a large pan and add 1 tablespoon of butter.  add the sliced red onion and saute until they are soft, then add 2 tablespoons of butter and saute the sliced mushrooms until they are soft and happy.  season with the sprigs of thyme, a splash of dry white wine, and salt & pepper.  I also threw in a pinch of nutmeg. once the mixture tastes great (let your tastebuds decide!), transfer to a blender (or if your emulsion blender has arrived, use that guy).  pour in the milk and stock and blend until smooth.  i got the soup back on the stove so it was nice and hot when i was ready to eat.

serve this soup with a bit of olive oil drizzled on top, and a yummy dipper on the side.  i did a grilled brie & arugula sammy.

easy, delicious, & enough for lunch leftovers all week!

 

happy sunday 🙂

hungrytexans

poblano veggie enchiladas

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just hearing the words “presidential debates” makes our tummies rumble, so in an effort to feed eight debate viewers on wednesday night, we opted for veggie enchiladas- what’s more American than Tex-Mex, right?

we met at dc’s capitol supermarket for an admittedly improv-ed shopping trip.  1 basket of groceries and $25 later, we were ready to cook.

to recreate these cheesy veggie enchiladas, you’ll need:

 

20 corn tortillas

3 zucchini squash (we used a mexican variety, you can use whatever is in season!)

1 red onion

2 cups mushrooms

2 cups corn (we used frozen because the cobs looked sub-par)

1 poblano pepper

3 tbs cumin

s&p to taste

1 cup queso fresco

 

for the creamy poblano sauce:

2 cups milk

1 cup vegetable stock

2 cups sour cream

1 large poblano

1 tbs cumin

1/2 cup queso fresco

1/2 cup monterrey jack cheese

1 can chopped hatch green chiles

 

We needed poblanos for the filling and the sauce, so Julia fire-roasted the peppers while I diced the red onion, zucchini & mushrooms.  I added the corn to the diced veggie mixture, mixed in cumin, s & p, and spread it out onto a baking sheet.  The veggies roasted at 400 degrees for ~20 minutes, until they were caramelized.  We then mixed in on of the poblanos and the crumbled queso fresco and fed the mixture to each other with tortilla chips for approx. 3 minutes.

While the veggies were roasting, we got to work on the sauce.  We built it in the cuisinart- great idea!  Pulsed the fire-roasted poblano, can of green chiles, milk, sour cream, monterrey jack and queso fresco together until smooth.  We seasoned it with cumin and a bit of hot cayenne pepper.

Time to build the enchiladas!  We ladeled some of the sauce into the bottom of the baking dish to keep these babies tasty on all sides.  To get the corn tortillas soft enough to work with, we microwaved them for 30 seconds.  You really want these to be hot while you’re filling them, or else they’ll crumble.  We filled the tortillas, rolled them and squished them into the baking dish before covering the whole thing with tons of the creamy sauce.

These enchiladas baked at 375 degrees for about 30 minutes before we served them with delicious Cilantro-Lime Black Beans.

Happy Eating!

The Hungry Texans

cilantro-lime black beans

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beware: these little beans may be low-maintenance, but they will steal the spotlight if served with anything short of spectacular.

You’ll need:

2 cans black beans

1 cup cilantro

2 limes

S & P, to taste

Cumin, to taste

 

simmer two cans of black beans in a saucepan.  you could use fresh beans, but when your roommate disappears to Costco for an afternoon and returns with several pallets of legumes, you’ll want to take the easy route.

roughly chop a handful of cilantro and add to the pot.

quarter two juicy limes, squeeze them into the beans, and add a couple quarters to the pot.

season with salt, pepper & cumin.  and then forget about them.  five minutes before serving, if needed, i’ll add a cup of veggie stock to get them happy again.

perfectly simple, protein-rich, and happy on the back burner.  those are our kind of beans!

xoxo,

hungrytexans