Sweet Potato and Black Bean Burritos

Ingredients: serves 2
2 sweet potatoes

1/2 cup diced onions

2 garlic cloves, minced or pressed
1/2 minced fresh green chile
2 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. ground coriander
1 can black beans (15-oz., rinsed &drained)
1/4 C. lightly packed cilantro leaves - chopped - optional
1 T. lemon juice
4 six-inch flour tortillas
tomato salsa for topping

Preparation:

1. Pierce the sweet potatoes several times with a fork, then microwave on high for 6-8 minutes or until a fork goes in easily. Let them cool a bit.
2. Saute the diced onions and garlic in 1-2 tsp olive oil
3. scoop out the potato flesh into a bowl, add the beans and mash together.
4. Stir in the spices, lemon juice and cilantro if using
5. Warm the tortillas in the microwave (wrap in a towel and heat on high for 30-60 second)
6. place 1/4 cup or so of filling in tortilla and roll up.
7. Place filled tortillas in a casserole or baking dish, cover with a damp towel (paper or cotton), then plastic wrap (or the dish's cover if it has one) and microwave on 70-80% power for 5 minutes or until heated through/

I served these with cucumber and radish salad: peel cukes and slice thinly. Slice radishes thinly. Dress with plain non-fat Greek yogurt, dried dill, salt & pepper to taste.

Day 21: Vegetarian Chili - My Version

It probably would not win a chili cook-off, but this recipe is one of our family favorites. It is comfort food to us, a favorite cold weather dish. Some of us are sensitive to spicy things, so I usually keep a dish of hot peppers or salsa on the side to mix into my portion.

Karen's Vegetarian Chili

Olive oil - 2-3 tsp
1 onion - chopped
1 small or medium zuchinni  - chopped
1 bell pepper (any color) chopped
1/2 - 1 cup fresh, canned or frozen corn
1 can of tomatoes with jalapeno peppers or 1-2 cups chopped tomatoes and chopped jalapeno pepper
3 cans of beans, rinsed and drained (Kidney, Pinto - or a combination of both- or just black beans)
chili powder, cumin, coriander, salt & pepper to taste
Water - about 1 cup
optional additions: Cashews, or Morningstar Farms "crumbles" or crumbles sausage patties
Grated cheddar cheese for topping

Heat the oil. Add the onion and cook a few  minutes. Then add the zuchinni and cook 3-5 minutes more, then the peppers for another 3 minutes. Then, add everything else (except the grated cheese) to the pot, cover, bring to a boil, then lower the heat and cook over medium for 30-60 minutes (depending on how much time you have - the longer you cook it the more the flavors blend - but you can do a quick version in as little as 20 minutes). I serve this over brown rice, or cous cous, or crushed tortilla chips - or all by itself. It is even better the next day and leftovers can also top a baked potato or be made into another family all-time favorite - Chili-Mac (see below). On this particular day, I used chopped green pepper and corn from the freezer (from the CSA share - frozen in the summer), the rest of the leftover chopped tomatoes from the Thanksgiving soup, and a hot pepper (I have no idea what kind at this point) from the hot pepper in vinegar jar in the refrigerator (I learned about the hot peppers in vinegar at a food preservation class I took with Leda Meredith (http://ledameredith.net/wordpress/) and decided to try it out when my CSA share included 6-8 hot peppers of various varieties for two weeks in a row - we just don't eat that much spicy food around here and I hated to see them go to waste). The instructions were to cut the peppers up into quarters or slices, pack them in a jar and cover with white vinegar. I did that in August, the pepper jar is in the refrigerator (with the Verdurette) and I have been using them whenever I need to add a little zip to something. They are holding their color nicely.

To make Chili-Mac:
Mix the leftover chili with an equal amount of pasta sauce (your favorite) in a microwave-proof dish or sauce pan and heat until it is hot but not boiling. Cook some spiral pasta al dente and mix with the chili-sauce mixture, in an oven or microwave-proof dish. Use just enough pasta so thing look very saucy - about equal parts pasta and chili-sauce mix. Cover the top with a healthy layer of grated cheddar cheese. Then cook on 70% power in the microwave for 10  minutes - or in the oven at 350F or so for about 35 minutes. the pasta will soak up the sauce and get fat and soft and yummy,  tucked in between the tasty pasta will be beans and bits of vegetables, and the melted cheese sends it over the top. This has been one of our favorite quick suppers for about twenty years.

Day 11: Winter Vegetable Stew with Chick peas and Apple Slaw

We have received turnips in our CSA share for the last three or four weeks and they are all still in the refrigerator. I finally found a recipe that includes them, and some of the other winter vegetables that were part of the last few shares, and sounds tasty. We also have a surfeit of radishes, both red and purple, and no one will eat them, and we still have half a head of red cabbage (not to mention an entire head of green cabbage) and this weeks share was full of apples. So...

Chickpea and Winter Vegetable Stew

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/08/health/20101108_thanksgiving.html#51

I used 1 1/2 cans of chick peas, I couldn't find the harissa, so I left it out. I used Israeli cous cous. My husband said he would have liked bigger pieces of onion. It was very good.

and 

Apple Slaw

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/08/health/20101108_thanksgiving.html#3

I used less oil (4 teaspoons) + 2 tablespoons water. I didn't have any more honey, so I used maple syrup. I chopped the cabbage but grated the apples with the food processor. It was very tasty.