Curried Broccoli Salad

Ingredients:

2 cups of broccoli, chopped into small pieces
2 cups of cooked Garbanzo beans (or 1 can)
1/2 cup of onion (yellow or red), chopped finely
1/4 cup of golden raisins
1/4 cup of mayonnaise
1 tsp chili flakes
2 tsp of good quality yellow curry powder
salt and pepper to taste
one hand full of fresh cilantro, chopped

In a small bowl, combine mayonnaise, chili flakes and curry powder together to create a creamy dressing. Add together in a larger bowl with broccoli, beans, onion and raisins. Add salt and pepper to taste. Throw cilantro and a few sprinkles of chili flakes on top.

This salad can be served right away, or for better flavor, you can cover it and place in the fridge for one hour or more to allow the vegetables to absorb the spices. This one actually tastes even better the next day!

This salad serves four as a side dish.

Veggie broth

This one is really easy. In a big stock pot, add one whole stock of celery, chopped into large chunks, one large onion chopped into large chunks, 2-3 bay leaves (depending on size), some fresh herbs (whatever you have, thyme, rosemary, etc.), and a pinch of sea salt. Fill the pot three quarters up with water. You can add 1-2 carrots too if you like.

Boil the heck out of it for 2-3 hours, continuing to add water as needed until you get a very rich golden broth.

You can store this in the fridge in mason jars and it will keep about a week. You can keep reboiling it each week with more water and more vegetables and pretty much keep it going forever. Homemade stock always on hand is a great thing to have around to add more taste to just about anything in the place of water.

Persian Rice with Butternut Squash and Black Beans

This one is an elaboration of a basic Persian rice recipe you can find in the old standby, the Joy of Cooking. This is a great and interesting way to make rice that is very tasty and unusual.

Ingredients:

2 cups of wild rice blend
6 cups (more or less) of veggie broth (I always do tomato-free because it agitates my migraines. See my recipe post on broth for simple instructions to make your own).
1 stick of cinnamon
3-4 whole cloves (or 1/4 tsp ground)
3-4 whole peppercorns
1/4 tsp cardamom seeds (remove from pods and crush slightly)

4 tbs butter
1 large white onion, chopped finely
1/2 cup of golden raisins
1/4 cup of pine nuts
pinch of salt (smoked if you have it)
pinch of saffron if you have it

1 butternut squash, sliced in half
pinch of crushed sea salt

2 cups of black beans, cooked (approx one can)
1 tsp of finely chopped fresh ginger
1 tsp of molasses
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp olive oil

Preheat oven to 350 Degrees F.

In a medium size pot, add rice, spices and veggie broth and simmer thoroughly, adding more stock as needed, until rice is no longer crunchy. This should take approximately 30 mins.

While your rice is cooking, in a heavy oven-safe skillet, melt 2 tbs of the butter and add the onions cooking gently on medium heat until they become browned. Add the pine nuts and raisins and other seasonings and turn heat down to low, stirring occasionally.

Once the rice is fully cooked, add it to the skillet and press down firmly with a spoon. Melt the remaining 2 tbs of butter and pour over the top. Cover skillet tightly with tin foil and place into oven at 350 degrees F for one hour.

While your rice is cooking, place squash halves onto a cookie sheet face down and cook at the same time until you can easily slide a fork into the flesh. This should take about 30-45 mins. Once squash is cooked, cut into cubes and sprinkle with sea salt.

While your rice and squash is in the oven, add sugar, molasses, oil and ginger into a small saucepan and cook on medium heat, stirring, until a sauce forms. Add beans and stir until they are coated with sauce. Cook on low heat, stirring frequently beans are fully heated through, adding a little water if needed to moisten.

Once rice is done, remove from oven and let sit for ten minutes. Invert onto a cookie sheet and cut into wedges.

Serve rice with squash on the side and the bean mixture poured over the top. To go with it, I would recommend some steamed greens and a dry white wine. Tasty!!

Veggie Jumbalaya

Here is a tasty recipe for a kind of vegetarian variation on jumbalaya. Some credit for this one goes to my friend and fellow veggie Linda Thompson who shared the idea of this sort of dish with me last year. Served with fresh avocado, cilantro and crisp crostinis this dish is a great standby that you will love.

Ingredients:
2 Tbs olive oil
3 stalks of celery, chopped
1 red onion, chopped (white will work just fine too)
2 links of vegetarian sausage, sliced (spicy kielbasa or chorizo style is very good)
4-5 cloves garlic, crushed

2 red, yellow or orange peppers, chopped (or 1 large one)
red chili flakes, to taste
1 cup of small dark greens (eg. broccolini leaves or collards chopped into little pieces)
2 cups (or 1 can) of red kidney beans (cooked)
1-2 cups of veggie broth

1 avocado,sliced
1/2 cup cilantro, in pieces

slices of stale bread (any kind of crusty loaf that is not sandwich bread will do, eg. sourdough baguette is a particularly good choice)
6 cloves garlic
olive oil

2 cups brown rice of your choice
approximately 4 cups of water or veggie broth

This one is really easy to make. For starters, get your rice cooking in whatever manner you prefer. I like to keep it simple and do roughly one part rice to two parts water/broth on the stove top-- get it boiling and then turn down and simmer until the rice is fully cooked, adding a little more moisture if needed. Once cooked, turn off heat and allow to sit with the lid on for 5 mins and then fluff with a fork.

Once the rice is cooking, heat the olive oil in a large heavy skillet and add the onions, celery, veg sausage and garlic. Stir to cook evenly, but not too much in order to let the onions and especially the sausages brown and carmelize a bit.

Once nicely browned, throw in the peppers and chili flakes and stir around some more for a minute or two. Then, add the beans, greens, and broth and mix thoroughly.

At this point, you can let it be for about 5-10 minutes until everything in the jumbalaya is fully cooked through. While this is cooking, you can get your crostini going.

Place your sliced bread onto a baking sheet (stoneware works best). Brush the slices with olive oil. Crush the garlic generously and spread a little on each slice. Put under a hot broiler until toasty brown, usually about 2-3 mins (careful not to burn!). To get it really toasty, flip the slices over to toast the other side.

Once everything is all done, throw some rice is a big bowl with a ladle full of jumbalaya, a few slices of avocado, some cilantro and a few crostini. Top it off with your favorite hot sauce and dig in.

This should make enough for two people to eat dinner and have some leftovers for lunch.

Enjoy!!

Back on the Blogging wagon-- The Red Pepper is Born!

Hello everyone! I am sure no one reads our blog these days, since we haven't made a post in over a year! The reason for this is that in September 2008 we moved back to Portland, Oregon, ending our international adventures for the time being. These days, I (alletta) am working for an immigration attorney and slaving away at applying to law schools, and Ryan is working once more in the bike industry, as a sales associate at the Bike Gallery.

The other day, it occurred to us that this blog has become a bit of wasted space and that we ought to do something useful with it. Also, it occurred to me, that I am always making up all kinds of crazy recipes that turn out absolutely delicious, but that I never write these things down, resulting in my forgetting what I even did a few months later.

And so, a new purpose for Cute+Fuzzy has been born!

From now on, I am going to blog my tasty culinary exploits, with pictures and all, for my own future reference, and also for the free benefit of anyone out there who might enjoying trying them out too. This is especially the case for those out there who like myself, suffer from severe migraine headaches, find that diet plays a key role in improving their symptoms, and notice that good recipes that exclude problem ingredients are hard to come by.

A good idea of what you can look forward to on my new incarnation of this blog includes-- healthy vegetarian dishes that are migraine friendly (that is, that steer clear of Tyramine, which has been shown to cause severe headaches in many people, including myself). You can also look forward to lots of delicious recipes that focus on whole foods, local and seasonal ingredients and that are made from scratch whenever possible. I will also be sharing my adventures in home cheese-making and fresh pasta-making, as well as some of my experiments with homemade breads. Although I love to spend a Saturday slowly working through the steps of a particularly complex project, I promise there will also be plenty of quick and easy dishes too, given that I do have a full-time job.

I look forward to sharing my adventures with you! Let me know what you think!

love alletta