Black Bean and Butternut Squash Burritos

This is good, and it makes a lot! It is another recipe I got from the "Oh She Glows" web site.
Get the recipe here:
Black Bean and Butternut Squash
I would suggest that you cook the squash on another night. You really don't need a whole squash, and if you cook it on another night you can have squash with ...perhaps your pork chops. Then you have one less step when you prepare the burritos.
This picture doesn't do it justice, but the smell of this in the kitchen was great!

I tried the recipe as it is and used the cayenne pepper. However, the next time I will use jalapenos or maybe an ancho chili pepper. Also, the recipe calls for brown rice. I didn't have any so I used a wild rice mix. It was a brown rice and wild rice mix. I would use that again.

A must is avocado served with it!

Vegan Mac and Cheese

Say what? When a coworker told me about her vegan mac and cheese, quite frankly I was very wary. Mac and cheese is a sacred dish, how can it go vegan? However, since I am looking for some healthy alternatives (after packing on 5 pounds eating tray after tray of peach cobbler this summer) I decided to give it a go. 

Link to:

"Oh She Glows" web site

I misunderstood the recipe (a matter of not reading the whole thing, but forging ahead) and actually mixed the bread with the "cheese sauce". Don't do this.

It, of course, absorbs too much of the sauce when you bake it. That being said, I have to say the "cheese sauce" was so good I was taking samples of it before it even made it to the oven. So good.

Also, I did not use the nutritional yeast as I just didn't want to buy too many ingredients at once. I will the next time. From what I hear it adds even more of a cheese delusion.

As for the left over almond milk? It is going in my breakfast smoothies. Very tasty.

Give it a try!

Spaghetti Sauce

As seen on the "What I Ate Wednesday" page!

This one is easy! The big difference to your sauce will be the kind of tomatoes you use.

Hand crush a can of San Marzano tomatoes in a sauce pan. Also add a small can of tomato sauce and a small can of tomato paste.

Finely chop half an onion – sauté this in a pan with olive oil (use good olive oil) and garlic and then add this to your sauce pan.

Add oregano to your pan as well as basil, salt, and pepper. 

simmer

Native American Chicken Soup - southwest

You can cook your own chicken, but why not buy one of the cooked ones at the store?
Stock: cut meat off of the chicken and set it aside
Cook the rest of the chicken until the meat falls off of the bones. Take out all bones and skin from the pan.
In the Cuisinart blend: fresh garlic, cilantro, 4-6 tomatios, a few jalapeños, half an onion, a little salt, and cumin.
Add this to your stock as well as returning the chicken meat. Add 2 cans of hominy. Cook for about an hour.
Served well with fry bread!

Pork Chops

I got this recipe idea from The Northern Exposure cookbook. This is what I did:
coat chops in flour with salt and pepper
brown chops in a fry pan (I used olive oil.)
In a bowl mix together:
a cup of orange juice
I added garlic to this recipe.
ginger (I scrapped off the outer layer with a paring knife, then used the paring knife to shred ginger into the bowl)
lemon zest (the original recipe used orange zest)
The cookbook tells you to then add the liquid and cook for about 30 minutes until the chops are tender. The next time I make it I will not do this, I think it made the chops tough. The next time I will remove the chops and make the sauce separately. The flour from the chops thickens the sauce, so be sure you have left those remnants in the pan.