Tortilla Soup

Tortilla soup (page 208)
garnished with crumbled blue corn tortilla chips, and chopped cilantro and jalapeno

Alright, so I made a few modifications to this recipe. I know my way around tortilla soup; I've made plenty a pot-ful in my lifetime. Admittedly, I have never before made Isa's recipe exactly as it is written, but I believe my modified version is probably, dare I say it... better than the original.

First of all, instead of using two jalapenos and one poblano or bell pepper, I used two poblanos in the soup, and saved the jalapenos for garnishing at the table. I wanted to keep the soup relatively mild for the kids, and let the adults add spice as desired to individual bowls.

Probably the most important modification I made, in terms of flavor, was to roast the peppers. I just set them on the burner grate over my gas flame, giving them a turn every now and then with tongs, until they got nice and blackened all over. Then, I scraped off the blackened skin (mostly - I left little bits here and there for flavor), chopped them up, and proceeded as usual. I added the peppers to the pot after the onion had cooked, since they were already somewhat cooked by the roasting process.

Finally, I used a few crumbled up stale corn tortillas to thicken up the soup, instead of crumbled tortilla chips.

I left the rest of the recipe pretty much intact with no other changes. The result: delicious and satisfying!

Classic Black Bean & Veggie Chili

Classic Black Bean & Veggie Chili, page 236

Another guest post from El Hombre, since he was in charge of getting food on the table tonight!

Tonight's dinner was very much true to the recipe. The Classic Black Bean & Veggie Chili is delicious and easy to fix. Thirty minutes is all you need to from start to finish. Basically, you chop up your onions, garlic and veggies add the broth and seasonings and you are set.

After things were nicely simmering, I reduced the heat and focused on fixing some yummy cornbread to go with dinner. I used the cornbread recipe from The Joy of Vegan Baking and baked the batter in a funky little cast iron corn stick pan that la Mujer (Julie) fancies as an awesome thrift store find.

As expected, the girls were less than enthusiastic, with SweetPotato saying it was a bit "spicy." I think it was my liberal use of chili powder that got to her.

I stuck with the recipe since it was my first time fixing it, but I feel really confident about adjusting seasonings and adding a variety of different veggies. Next time, I think I'll use eggplant along with the zucchini that was called for, and I would also enjoy adding mushrooms!

Overall, a great easy to fix dinner, and you can't beat that!

Spicy Blue (or Red) Potato & Corn Salad

Spicy Potato & Corn Salad, pg. 18
with mixed salad greens

First, the obvious. Those are not blue potatoes up there. I had no luck finding blue potatoes, so I went with baby reds, instead. The other minor substitution I made was shallots for red onions, because I used up all my red onion in last night's korma. Oh, and I took a lazy shortcut and used about a cup and a half of thawed, frozen sweet corn, instead of slicing the kernels from 3 ears of steamed corn on the cob.

Now, I don't want to seem disingenuous by gushing about practically every single recipe in this book, but seriously, again, this was super, duper good. The amount of chipotle called for gave immense flavor with just the right amount of heat. The pinto beans rounded everything out to make it a filling salad. When tasting the finished dish to determine if I wanted to add any more salt (no) or smoked paprika (yes), I found myself going back for more than one test bite. Maybe two, or three. Possibly four. Okay, maybe five. You know, to get it right.

For this recipe, Isa gives instructions to steam the potatoes, which I had never done before. I had always boiled potatoes before, when making a potato salad. The steaming technique turned out to be brilliant, however; the potatoes were tender while still firm, never mushy or falling apart.

This would be a great potluck dish; it's sure to impress folks.