Saviolo
Saviolo's JournalBlack Bean and Squash Soup Recipe (video)
A couple of weeks ago we made that amazing Three Sisters salad, but it left us with a bunch of leftover black beans and roasted squash. No worries! This week we're turning it into soup! No, we started these beans from dry and raw, soaked them, then boiled them ourselves. As you can see in this recipe, we also used the liquid from the beans. If you prefer to use canned beans, we recommend you rinse them when they come out of the can, and then you can replace the bean water (aquafaba) with some stock or water.
There are lots of variations we can use for this recipe. If you don't want to burr mix it and leave it chunky, you may want to use diced canned tomatoes instead of whole. Also, if you want it to be super smooth, you may need to push it through a strainer to get rid of little bits of bean skin. We loved the texture as it was, nice and smooth, but still with a little bit of texture. Also, this recipe is vegan, but we found that a little bit of crumbled feta on top was extremely delicious. Also, if you sweat the aromatics in something like bacon grease, of course it will cease to be vegan or even vegetarian!
Navajo Frybread Recipe
This week's recipe is descended from an Indigenous recipe that arose during The Long Walk. The Navajo people had to make use of what they could while they were short on supplies, so this recipe would have more traditionally been made with powdered milk and not fresh. This is a super simple and tender frybread that requires very little work. In fact, if should not be kneaded at all, and just formed once the ingredients come together.
As with all things fried, you need to make sure that your oil is hot enough. If your oil is not hot enough, it will soak into the dough and make the frybread greasy. The final result of this recipe is extremely tender, and doesn't really fold well, but it does make a delicious sort of taco with the Three Sisters salad from last week. For a bit of extra pop, add a little bit of crumbled feta on top!
Three Sisters Salad recipe - Vegan! (video)
The Three Sisters are three crops that were co-planted by Indigenous communities before Europeans came to North America. The three crops are beans, squash, and corn. They were frequently co-planted because they help each other grow in a symbiotic way. Most of the actual Indigenous recipes using the Three Sisters have been lost, but there are many ways to use them together that are delicious and extremely nutritious. We add pecans to this recipe as well, as they were more common amongst groups further south in North America.
This recipe is vegan, but we found that a little crumble of feta cheese on top really made it pop. Of course it's not extremely traditional once we get into adding olive oil and lemon juice, but the main ingredients, the squash, corn, and beans are very traditional. The squash was more likely to be something like a zucchini at the time, but any number of different squash would be a great add to this dish.
Homemade Falafel Recipe (video)
Not gonna lie, I was pretty surprised to find out how easy it is to make really excellent falafel at home. You definitely need a food processor or food mill, but the deep fryer is not required, you can fry these in oil in a dutch oven, as well. Hubby adapted this recipe from a few different ones he looked at, and then scaled it down. Most of the ones we found were for restaurant quantities (starting with 2lbs of dried chickpeas instead of one cup!) so we brought it down to home kitchen quantities.
You definitely want to start with dried chickpeas soaked overnight, and not canned. The texture of the canned ones will be a bit stodgy in your final product, so go the extra mile and soak those dried peas overnight. Also, change the water out a couple of times while they're soaking. You can also add a 1/2 tsp of baking soda to the water which will help soften the hulls and discourage microbial growth while they're softening.
Homemade Shrimp Boil Recipe (video)
This week we got back to some good ol' simple and hearty shrimp boil! Now, this recipe can be used for lots of different kinds of seafood, like shrimp, crab, or crawfish. All of the different elements cook at slightly different times, so you just need to be a little bit careful about when you add each of the individual parts of the recipe. The potatoes take the longest, followed by the sausage and the corn, and then the shrimp goes in at the end for the shortest time.
We served this by putting the whole pot onto the table and using tongs to pull out the potatoes, corn, sausage, and shrimp, but if you want to do it a little more rustic, you can strain the liquid out, cover your table with plastic and newspaper, and dump all the tasty stuff in the middle of the table, and just toss the shrimp shells onto the paper! Makes it easy to clean up afterwards, just wrap up everything in the paper and throw it away!
Profile Information
Gender: MaleHometown: Ottawa, Ontario
Home country: Canada
Current location: Toronto, Ontario
Member since: Wed Oct 29, 2008, 04:34 PM
Number of posts: 3,282
