Crock Pot Eggplant Chick Pea Curry

Thank you for the generous responses to my post about healthy convenience breakfasts. I hope that everyone enjoyed my list of ideas as well as all of your additions in the comment section. It was a true group effort!

A few days ago, Julie Ann over at The Reduction Project was blogging about a recipe from Appetite for Reduction called Eggplant-Chickpea Curry. Imagine my surprise when I read on to find out that she had experimented with turning this normally stove top recipe into a crock pot recipe because she was in a time crunch.

As most of you know, I am currently relying heavily on my crock pot due to our ongoing kitchen renovations. Combine these personal needs with my deep love of anything Indian and I was immediately intrigued by Julie Ann's post.

I would say that the texture I achieved in my crock pot is A+ but the flavor is a B. I'm left wondering how to get that amazing Indian food taste without the ghee (clarified butter). Maybe this is the best it can be without the fat!

But my husband loved it! When I got home from an event at my daughter's school, he was raving about dinner and telling me that he ate three bowls full. He thought the flavor was great.

Crock Pot Eggplant Chick Pea Curry
adapted from a recipe by Isa Chandra Moskowitz from Appetite for Reduction

2 cups diced onion
3 lbs. eggplant, diced
4 cloves garlic. minced
2 15 oz. cans fire roasted tomatoes
3 cups vegetable broth
1 Tbsp mild curry powder
1 1/2 tsp hot curry powder (optional)
1 Tbsp garam masala
2 tsp cumin
2 Tbsp fresh ginger, minced
2 tsp salt (optional)
dash of powdered stevia

2 15 ounce cans chick peas, rinsed and drained

Place all ingredients, except chick peas, into a crock pot on low heat (my lowest setting is 10 hours, 8 hours would be plenty). Let cook all day, stirring once throughout the day if possible, but not necessary. Thirty minutes before serving, add chick peas and stir. Once chick peas are warmed through, the dish is ready.

Serve over brown rice with chutney if you've got it (I really like the Trader Joe's chutneys).

Do you like to make no-added-fat  Indian Curries? Have you ever had a no-added-fat Indian Curry that was as good as Indian food from a restaurant? 

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Chickpea Zucchini Piccata

Thanks to my friend Liz, who has been an avid reader, commenter and general inspiration here on HGK since the beginning. Last week she mentioned to me that she and her husband were really enjoying the Chickpea Picatta recipe from Appetite for Reduction. So when it came time for me to focus (have you noticed how unfocused I have been lately? Three sick kids and a kitchen renovation project will sure take your mind off of cooking!) on testing a new recipe, it was the first thing that came to mind. I love lemons and capers, so thanks Liz, for another great suggestion! 

Served over arugula, as Ms. Moskowitz recommended, it was sooooo lemony and divine! For my 11 year old, I plated it up with some brown rice. Ms. Moskowitz also suggests mashed potatoes, but I didn't have the wherewith all for that tonight. The only thing I would do differently when I make this again is to add even more vegetables--perhaps an 8 ounce package of sliced mushrooms added at the same time that I add the chopped zucchini . . .

Chickpea Zucchini Piccata

serves 8

based on a recipe from Isa Moskowitz's Appetite for Reduction

Printable Recipe

2 cups thinly sliced Shallots

12 Garlic Cloves, diced
4 tbsp Bread Crumbs
4 cups Vegetable Broth (low Sodium)
2/3 cup Sherry Cooking Wine
Black Pepper
3 medium green zucchini, chopped medium
3 16 oz cans Garbanzo Beans-rinsed and drained
1/2 cup Capers
6 tbsp Lemon Juice, Freshly Squeezed
8 cups Arugula, Raw

Preheat a large heavy bottomed pan over medium. Pour in a few Tbsp of the veggie broth to just cover the bottom of the pan. As soon as the broth is bubbling, add the shallots and garlic. Saute the shallots and garlic for about 5 minutes, until golden, adding a bit more broth if the mixture gets too dry. Add the breadcrumbs and toast them by stirring constantly for about 2 minutes. They should turn a few shades darker.

Add the rest of the vegetable broth and wine, salt, black pepper and thyme. Turn up heat and bring to a rolling boil and let the sauce reduce by 1/2, it should take about 7 minutes.

Add chopped zucchini and cook until zucchini just starts to turn from white to translucent. Add the chickpeas and capers to heat through, about 3 minutes. Add the lemon and turn off the heat. Taste and add salt if desired.

If serving with mashed potatoes or cooked brown rice, place the arugula in a wide bowl. Place mashed potatoes on top, and ladle picatta over the potatoes. The arugula will wilt and it will be lovely. If you are serving solo, just pour right over the arugula.

What have you been busy with lately? I'm not kidding, I would love to hear about it!!!

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Mama Pea's Spicy African Peanut Stew and a Fabulous Dr. Fuhrman No Oil Salad Dressing

Today I want to talk about something really simple. Great food. I've got reviews of two delicious plant-strong recipes for you.

First up is a recipe by Sarah Matheny from her blog Peas and Thank You. There I was, chillaxin' on my couch this weekend, perusing the internet, when I stumbled upon this recipe. The planets all aligned and I saw that not only were the ingredients right up my flavor alley, but I had EVERY one of them in my pantry. How is that for awesome! You can get the recipe here for Spicy African Peanut Stew.

Here it is before undergoing crock pot magic. Red lentils, canned chickpeas, carrots, coconut milk, vegetable broth, peanut butter, diced tomatoes, Indian spices, garlic, ginger--of course I doubled the batch!

Try serving this stew over a big bed of fresh spinach leaves, some steaming hot brown rice, then topped with the stew. Incredible!

This morning I was itching to try a new salad dressing without oil and guess what showed up in my e-mail inbox? Today's recipe of the day from Dr. Fuhrman's member center just happened to be for a salad dressing and the ingredients seemed appealing to me. I was right, this one's a real keeper. But if you are not a fan of raw garlic, you might want to leave that out!

Leftover Spicy African Peanut Stew served with a salad dressed with Almond Balsamic Vinaigrette.

Dr. Fuhrman's Almond Balsamic Vinaigrette

Serves: 6

Printable Version

1/2 cup water
1/3 cup roasted garlic rice vinegar (I used plain rice vinegar)
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup raw almonds or 1/8 cup raw almond butter
1/4 cup raisins
4 cloves garlic, pressed (I used 3)
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon dried basil
1/2 teaspoon onion powder

Blend all ingredients in a food processor or high powered blender.

Did you catch Addicted to Food last night on OWN? What did you think?

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Coconut Curry Kale, Chick Pea and Sweet Potato Stoup



I have officially become my mother.

But don't get mad, Mom. That's not an insult.

I saw a totally healthy recipe here on Mama Pea's blog and I made it EVEN healthier. Mom would be so proud. And thank you to Mama Pea, as this is a pretty genius recipe! My husband said, "This is the best soup you have ever made, it's incredible, it's perfect, it's so delicious. Holy cow. This is sick. This is so good. This is the best soup ever. Holy Shit. How could you ever make anything this good again?"

Nuf said.

Coconut Curry Kale, Chick Pea and Sweet Potato Stoup
adapted from a recipe by Mama Pea over at Peas and Thank You

Printable Recipe
2 cups chopped onion
2 large stalks celery, rough chopped
1 medium head bok choy, rough chopped
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp sweet curry powder
1 tsp hot curry powder (optional if you like heat)
4 cups vegetable broth (1 standard box)
1 14 oz. can light coconut milk
1 14 oz. can diced organic fire-roasted tomatoes (i.e. Muir Glen, Trader Joe's, Hunts all now have this)
2 14 oz. cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 Tbsp arrowroot powder
1 large sweet potato, diced medium
1 head organic kale, de-stemmed and chopped into pieces
1/4 tsp salt and pepper to taste (or to taste)

Place all ingredients, onion through chick peas, into a crock pot set to 6 hours. At the 4 1/2 hour, add the sweet potato. At 5 hours, remove a ladle full of the broth and pour into a small bowl. Dissolve the 1 Tbsp of arrowroot powder into the broth and return broth to crock pot. Then add the kale. After 6 hours, season to taste with salt and pepper and serve.

P.S. It seems that more and more doctors are catching on to the plant-strong way of eating as a method of disease prevention. Read about two of them here.

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Go-to Moroccan Chickpea Stew

I was having a "deep" conversation today about go-to recipes and the appropriateness of serving vegan food to guests at your dinner table. "What are your vegan entertaining go-to recipes?" my friend Jill asked, who's husband is a newly inspired no-added-fat vegan and who's sister-in-law has been living the "diet" for quite some time.

It surely is a personality thing, but I have zero problem serving vegan food to my non-vegan guests and even crazier than that, I generally experiment on guests. Oh my gosh! I said it out loud.

My feeling is that if I experiment with enough different food at one dinner, there is bound to be something really good in the mix. And what I have found lately is that everything that I am making is beyond passable, it's downright amazing. And I take no credit for this, I'm just a tester and tweaker of other people's recipes. And maybe it's because I'm a food blogger, but I just can't get myself to make the same thing twice when there are a bizillion amazing recipes out there to try!

Like this recipe for Moroccan Chickpea Stew. I truly cannot remember how I stumbled upon Vegan Epicurian's blog, but I'm so glad I did. This recipe is certainly company worthy. It's also just great turned into a salad of sorts, served over a bed of fresh baby spinach on any regular night. If you are unfamiliar with the health benefits of garbanzo beans, check out what Whole Foods Market has to say about them.

Want the recipe?  Get it here. My only changes were that I substituted vegetable broth for the oil and I couldn't find preserved lemons at Whole Foods so I just put in one whole lemon, cut into large chunks and seeded. I started the recipe by cooking my chickpeas from scratch instead of using the canned version. It took quite a while, but was relatively pain free. If you'd like to do that too, get the instructions here.


When you are serving guests, do you stick to tried and true recipes or do you experiment on your company?

What is your favorite bean? Do you eat beans or lentils every day? If not, why not?

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Vegan Chana Masala (Indian Chickpea Stew)

I've got a group of friends that have been getting together for a decade and having pot luck dinners. This weekend  I'll be hosting one at my house that has been in the making for months. The theme? Vegan, of course!

So I decided to go crazy and make 5 vegan Indian dishes (have I told you that I was Indian in a past life?). I was inspired by a cookbook I just got called The Candle Cafe Cookbook, More than 150 Enlightened Recipes from New York's Renowned Vegan Restaurant.  This restaurant is beloved and I hope to get the chance sometime soon to visit.

Here's my first adventure, Chana Masala.  I am very impressed with the results. Quite addictive actually. 

Here's a photo of all of the ingredients prepped and ready to go before I started to cook anything. The french term for this is "mise en place" meaning "everything in it's place" and believe me when I tell you, this recipe moves along very quickly, so getting everything ready beforehand is a must.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mise_en_place

Vegan Chana Masala (Indian Chickpea Stew)

makes about 5 cups

1 tsp brown mustard seeds

1 tsp cumin seeds

1 Tbsp coconut butter or vegetable oil

1 large onion (about 2 cups), diced

2 Tbsp finely minced garlic

2 Tbsp grated (on a microplane) fresh ginger

1 cup vegetable broth (or water)

1 medium tomato (1 cup), diced

1 cup grape or cherry tomatoes, quartered

3 cans (15 oz. each) chick peas, drained and rinsed

1/2 tsp ground cloves

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground cardamom

1 tsp sea salt

Heat a large skillet over high heat.  Add the mustard and cumin seeds and cook, stirring often, until they begin to pop.  Lower heat to medium.  Add the coconut butter or oil and stir for about 1 minute.

Add the onion, garlic and ginger and cook for about 8 minutes, until softened.  Stir in the broth (or water), tomatoes, chickpeas, cloves, cinnamon and cardamom.

Reduce heat and cook, stirring occasionally, for 45 minutes.  Serve immediately or reheat gently before serving.

Yum!

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