Ginger Makes Mole

It's been a quite a few weeks since I wrote of cooking. February has not been kind in many ways, and one of those ways is just not a lot of time to cook. We ended up eating out way too much (our budget is not really allowing for such things) and I finally had to realize that it was important to be realistic when shopping. I picked up healthy but quick foods (frozen stir fry, more whole wheat pasta, etc) and found fast recipes. This means some simple eating: stir fry (this is H's area, he makes a damn good stir fry), pasta with beans and fresh vegetables (I just can't handle heavy sauces right now). Tonight we're having stir fried kale and potatoes with canned lentil soup. I KNOW! CANNED! In my defense, I was going to make a barley/vegetable Soup but I forgot to pick up some barley at our last visit to the Home E.

But I did cook a couple of neat dishes a couple of weeks ago.

The first was this wonderful chickpea noodle soup from the Veganonicom. It was perfect for some of the cold days we had. It was a nice blend of tyme and rosemary (I also added just a tiny bit of basil cause I love basil). The broth ended up being very creamy…not sure why I think it had to do with the chickpeas. I added shiitakes since they are the super mushroom for health. All in all it was a wonderful alternative to chicken noodle soup.

also made molé and no it wasn't totally authenic but it was good. It was the sauce base for a very good pie. The pie had a corn bread/biscuit crust which came out nice and fluffy. Usually these corn bread crust seem too dense but not this one. Inside was a creamy mixture of molé, pinto beans, zuchini, onions, and kale. It had a nice earthy taste, again perfect for chilly days.