Black Chick Pea Salad

From Daniel: My measurements here are approximate and the recipe generally is intended to be a template rather than an exact guide.

This is the base of the salad

1 14 ounce Timeless Natural Food Black Kabuli ^TM Chick Peas
2 1/2 cups medium bulgar wheat
Lemon Juice
Extra virgin olive oil
Garlic, peeled and minced very fine
Salt
Pepper
1 cup well-chopped fresh mint leaves

Rinse and pick through the chick peas there might be the occasional bit of grit or even a pebble. Relax. Thats how you know they were grown someplace. Combine the chick peas in a pan large enough to hold them and 4 ½cups of water. Bring to a boil and then reduce the heat and simmer the beans for about 2 hours, or until tender, but not yet soft. Drain and cool in the refrigerator.

In a large bowl , combine the bulgar wheat with 4 -5 cups (depending upon how chewy you want it) of salty hot water. Set aside. The bulgar will absorb all the liquid in a fairly short time and it wont get at all pasty. Perfect for salad.

Once the bulgar has absorbed all the water, add the chick peas to the bowl.

Make a dressing with lemon juice, a goodbuttery olive oil (my current pick for this recipe would be Kouras), minced garlic to taste, salt & pepper to taste. The proportions I use for the dressing is about 1:1 juice/oil, but your tastes may very. If you want less oil but dont want a more intense lemon flavor you could add a little water to the dressing.

Add your dressing to the salad. Its okay if this makes our ingredients pretty wet. The bulgar will absorb any excess and will only be improved in this way. Adjust seasonings again. Add the mint leaves now.

Additions:

This is where the fun starts. You can add pretty much anything to this salad and it will be more fun. I added pitted calamata olives, sliced cucumber, diced sweet red pepper, chopped scallions and sliced yellow crookneck squash to my salad and it was lovely. Heres a list of suggested additions:

· Pitted olives
· Cucumber
· Peppers (sweet or hot, pickled or roasted)
· Yellow crookneck or zucchini squash
· Scallions
· Fresh figs
· Dried cranberries
· Crumbled Feta Cheese
· Fresh peas
· Pine nuts or almonds
· Persimmons
· Roughly cut spinach
· Pickled shallots
· Capers
· Cherry tomatoes
· Shaved Kefalotyri
· Grilled beets
· Grilled fennel
· Flat-leaf parsley
· Fresh oregano or basil leaves
· Dill weed

Dont let that be a limiting list. Use your imagination here. It would be hard to fail this salad.

Black Chick Pea Hummous

14 ounce package of Black Kabuli Chick Peas, from Timeless Natural Foods
1/2 to 1 ounce of raw, peeled garlic
1 tablespoon fresh lemon zest
2 – 3 teaspoons salt (to taste)
1 tablespoon Aleppo pepper
3/4 cup Moomtax Koura Extra Virgin Olive Oil
juice of two lemons, freshly squeezed
1 cup Al-Wadi tahina

Wash the chick peas thoroughly. Place them in a pan with at least 5 cups of water. Bring to a boil and then lower the flame. Simmer for at least 2 hours. We found that three and a half hours was about right for hummous. Drain the chick peas, reserving about a cup of the bean liquor (the water the beans were cooked in – just in case).

Cool the chick peas completely.

In the bowl of a food processor, using the metal blade, pulse the chick peas, the garlic, the lemon zest, the salt and the Aleppo pepper until they resemble the texture of coarse corn meal. With the food processor running, add the olive oil and the lemon juice. Then, with the food processor still running, add the tahina. At this point, if the hummous is too thick, you may add, tablespoon at a time, the bean liquor until the hummous acheives the desired consistency.

Serve at room temperature, garnished with olive oil and sliced cucumber, with warm pita bread, feta cheese and olives.

The yield is approximately 5 cups, depending upon how much liquid you add to acheive the consistency you desire.

Recipe by Daniel C. Mcglothlen

Hummous bi Tahini, PFI-style

From Daniel, PFI employee

1 15. 5 ounce can Goya Chick Peas
2/3 cup Al Wadi Ground Tahini
juice of 2-3 lemons
2 tablespoons Olive Oil (use a middle eastern oil, such as Alphonso’s, for this)
4 -5 cloves fresh garlic, crushed
salt

Combine all ingredients in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse until the desired consistency is reached. I prefer my hummous to be coarse, so this takes very little time in my kitchen.

Garnish with a little olive oil (enough to keep the hummous from forming a dark skin), smoked paprika and finely chopped flat-leaf parsley.

Red Beans and Rice – Vegan Style

Amount Measure Ingredient — Preparation Method
——– ———— ——————————–
1 pound red kidney beans — dry
1 large onion — chopped
1 each bell pepper — chopped
5 each rib celery — chopped
garlic — minced
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme — or more if needed
1 each bay leaf — or more if needed
tabasco sauce — to taste
Creole seasoning (See separate recipe) — to taste (start with a tablespoon)
salt — to taste
liquid Barbecue Smoke® — to taste (start with a teaspoon)

Soak the beans overnight, if possible. The next day, drain and put fresh water in the pot. Bring the beans to a rolling boil. Make sure the beans are always covered by water, or they will discolor and get hard. Boil the beans for about 45-60 minutes, until the beans are tender but not falling apart. Drain.

While the beans are boiling, saute the Trinity (onions, celery, bell pepper) until the onions turn translucent. Add the garlic and saute for 2 more minutes, stirring occasionally. After the beans are boiled and drained, add the sauteed vegetables to the beans, then add seasonings, and just enough water to cover. Add 2 tablespoons vegetable oil along with the seasonings. Add liquid smoke, to taste – start with about a teaspoon.

Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to a low simmer. Cook for 2 hours at least, preferably 3, until the whole thing gets nice and creamy. Adjust seasonings as you go along. Stir occasionally, making sure that it doesn’t burn and/or stick to the bottom of the pot. (If the beans are old — say, older than six months to a year — they won’t get creamy. Make sure the beans are reasonably fresh. If it’s still not getting creamy, take 1 or 2 cups of beans out and mash them, then return them to the pot and stir.

If you can… let the beans cool, stick them in the fridge, and reheat and serve for dinner the next day. They’ll taste a LOT better. When you do this, you’ll need to add a little water to get them to the right consistency.

Serve generous ladles-ful over hot white long-grain rice, pickled onions and good French bread. There are some great vegan sausages out there that you can serve as well – grilled, preferably, but you could fry or broil them as well.

Adapted by Daniel from a recipe by Chuck Tagart in the Gumbo Pages (www.gumbopages.com)

Cookies, Chocolate Chip Spelt

From Kelly, a PFI employee (The recipe came from Vegetarian Times, November/December 2006 issue. Kelly’s comments are in parentheses):

1 1/2 c. crunchy peanut butter
2 1/4 c. spelt flour
1 t. baking soda
1 t. salt
1 1/2 c. maple syrup (or use 3/4 c. maple syrup + 3/4 c. date syrup = less sweet cookie )
2 t. vanilla extract
1 1/2 c. chocolate chips or chunks (the recipe calls for vegan chips, but whatever…either semi sweet or bittersweet chocolate works well)

Preheat oven to 375. Coat baking sheets with cooking spray or line with parchment paper.

Combine peanut butter, maple syrup and vanilla in bowl. (If the peanut butter is stiff it can be warmed in a microwave for 30 to 45 seconds, but I’ve never had to do this. I use Adams or Trader Joe’s peanut butter and it’s soft enough already.)

Combine flour, baking soda and salt in large bowl. Stir in the peanut butter mixture until blended. Fold in chocolate chips.

Drop 2 tablespoons of dough for each cookie onto baking sheet. Bake 15 to 17 minutes or until golden brown. Cool 5 minutes and then transfer to wire rack to cool completely.

(Beware, these cookies are seriously addicting!)

Asado De Bodas, Vegan Version (Wedding Stew)

From Daniel (PFI Employee):

1 1/2 cups Vegetable broth
1/8 teaspoon cumin seed — crushed
1 ounce mexican drinking chocolate — broken
bay leaf
1/4 teaspoon oregano
1 each orange zest
Peanut oil — enough to saute
1/2 each medium onion — roughly chopped
4 each chiles anchos — slit open, seeded and veined
6 ounces tomatillo — washed and peeled
4 each garlic
1 each bread slice — dry
1/2 each tostada
2 pounds sweet potato
sea salt — to taste

Peel and dice sweet potatoes. Fluff with olive oil and roast in 500 degree oven until tender, but still firm. About 25 minutes. Place in refrigerator until cool.

Combine first 6 ingredients in a pot large enough to contain all the ingredients except the sweet potatoes. Bring to simmer.

In a large saute pan (or brazier) add enough peanut oil to cover bottom of pan by about an eighth of an inch.
Saute onions in oil. Remove and add to broth.

MAKE SURE THERE’S PLENTY OF VENTILATION. Saute anchos in oil. They turn a kind of tobacco brown inside when they’re done. It only takes a couple of seconds. Remove and add to broth.

Saute tomatillos and garlic in oil until golden brown. Remove and add to broth.

Saute bread and tostados in oil just until golden. Remove and add to broth. Let stand for 15 minutes.

Remove bay leaves from broth just before blending.

In the large blender, add the above mixture in less than half-jar batches at a time. Pulse/blend until pureed. Salt to taste. If you intend to use this right away, pour it into a sauce pan as you go. If you intend to refridgerate it, pour it into a shallow pan as you go and once you’re done place this into the refridgerator to cool. Then cover.

To heat and serve; place pureed sauce in a large pot with a bit more broth to make it all stirrable. Make sure sauce is hot before sweet potatoes are added. Add sweet potatoes. Heat mixture to 165 degrees on an instant read thermometer and serve with rice, beans and tortillas.

Copyright 2002, Daniel C. McGlothlen