Chicken-Vegetable-Roll with Coconut and Peanut Butter

I've made this recipe on a whim while talking on the phone with my parents. So I was distracted. I think I originally wanted to make something else and then some ideas got jumbled up.
The ideas were:

• I should make something with this left over filo dough to finally get rid of it and never buy it again
• I should use this coconut creamer that I bought last week.
• No one is eating that unsalted peanut butter that sits in the fridge, what could I do with it..?
• Chicken and coconut and peanut butter might be good together, I should look up some recipes
• ..that fish that I cooked in milk turned out quite yummy..
• Oh, half a butternut squash in the fridge!

The result was ok, if somewhat weird.

Ingredients
filo dough (or puff pastry)
chicken
coconut milk
peanut butter
butternut squash, cut in 1 inch cubes
zucchini, cut into half slices
carrot, cut into half slices
Cashews
Soy sauce
onion, cut into cubes
salt, pepper, turmeric, paprika
egg, beaten

Preparation
Preheat the oven to 425 F (220 C). Roast butternut squash in the oven.
Turn oven down to 375 F (390 C).
Mix coconut milk and peanut butter in a pot and cook chicken in it until tender.
Fry onion until translucent, add salt and spices, add zucchini, carrot and cashews and fry until almost done. Add some coconut milk and a splash of soy sauce and continue frying for a couple of minutes.
Mix chicken, butternut squash and vegetables from the pan together.
Place sheets of filo dough into an oven pan, brushing each sheet with oil or butter. Place chicken-vegetable-mix onto the filo dough sheets and place more on top to cover.
Brush with the beaten egg.
Bake until the top is golden brown.

Vegetarian Bulgur Burgers

We made flavorful and moist vegetarian/vegan burger at the community kitchen. It is adapted from The Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home cookbook.
These burger patties are faster to prepare than most vegetarian burgers and we ate them with home made preserved carrots (left overs from last months community kitchen preserved in vinegar!) and salad.

3 cups boiling water
2 garlic cloves
1 1/2 cups bulgur
2 tbsp canola oil
1/2 cup chopped scallions
1/2 cup grated carrots
1/2 cup chopped parsley
1/4 cup tahini
2 tbsp tomato paste
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp Dijon mustard
1 cup mashed pinto beans (e.g. from a can)
(optional) 1 egg
salt and pepper
Sauté garlic and bulgur in a pan for about 2 min. Add boiling water and simmer for 15-18 minutes until the bulgur is soft.
Stir in the remaining ingredients.
With wet hands, form 8 burger patties.
Either bake the patties for 20 min at 375F / 190C, or fry them for about 5 minutes from each side.
Serve on a bun with tomatoes, mayonnaise, mustard, cheese, pickled carrots or other additions.

Apple Cinnamon Muffin

Until I found this recipe I have mostly used my muffin pan to bake mini quiches, mini corn bread and other mini things that were not muffins.
Then I stumbled upon the following recipe in the book "BakeWise" by Shirley O. Corriher. It promised that the muffins would be deliciously moist and flavorful and I decided to finally make muffins with my muffin pan!
I mostly stuck to the recipe, although I used baking soda instead of baking powder and dried coconut instead of frozen coconut. And as always, I used coconut sugar instead of white sugar.

1 cup pecans
1 tbsp butter
salt
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking soda or 2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon
1 cup coconut sugar
3 eggs
1 cup canola oil
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cored and peeled apple, cut into chunks
2 carrots, peeled and shredded
1/2 cup golden raisins
1/2 cup coconut shreds
Roast pecans in the oven, add some butter and salt.
Mix flour and baking soda (make sure that the baking soda is well distributed), add cinnamon and coconut sugar.
In a second bowl mis eggs, canola oil and vanilla extract. Slowly pour the egg mixture into the flour mixture and combine well.
Add apples, carrots, raisins and coconut shreds.
Bake for 18 min at 400F / 200C, then cool an a cooling rack.

The muffins were indeed deliciously moist and very yummy! I made them a couple of times since the first try. Once, I ran out of coconut and made the muffins without it. Surprisingly that had a huge influence on the taste, they are much better with the coconut shreds!

Beef and Vegetable Stew

Soups and stews are easy to make and can be very tasty.

For this one I used home-made stock made from veggie scraps:

6-8 cups vegetable stock
1 onion, cut
3 carrots, cut in thin circles
1/2 lb ground beef
1 can black beans, drained
2 little yellow squash, cut in quarter circles
1/2 cup quinoa, washed
1 cup macaroni
salt, pepper, cumin, parsley

Heat some olive oil in a pan and fry half of the cut onion for a couple of minutes. Add spices and the cut carrots. Fry for another 5 minutes, then add the ground beef and fry until beef is done.
In a pot, bring the stock to a boil, add salt and spices, then reduce to a simmer. Add beans,  squash, quinoa and macaroni. Cook for about 10 minutes, then add the beef-carrot mix.

I first wasn't quite happy with the result because I had forgotten to salt the stock before putting the macaroni in so that they were kind of tasteless although the broth and vegetables had a good amount of spices in and on them. But on the second day the macaronis had sucked up the flavor and it was much better.
I also liked the colors of the dish :)

Chicken Stew with Vegetables and Grains

This is a recipe I wanted to try out after making a similar ready-made mix. I changed it up a little bit, adding vegetables and changing the cooking process. I imagine, it is also possible to make a vegetarian version of this stew.

2 cups mix of beans, rice and lentils
salt
garlic
rosemary *other spices
1 big onion, chopped
4 carrots, chopped
1 celery, chopped
1 - 2 pound chicken breast
10 cups vegetable or chicken stock

Wash the grains, set aside.
Heat up oil and add onions in a big pot. When onions are cooked add spices and chicken and cook for about 5 minutes. Add vegetables and cook for another 5 minutes. Add stock and grains and cook until grains are done.

Christmas Beans Salad

After we bought a bunch of dried Christmas beans (of the family of Lima Beans) for their fun name I started researching how to cook beens and found this wonderful article which consoled me with the idea of continuing to buy dried beans in the future: No need to soak them! Isn't that great?! No need to plan ahead what shall be cooked tomorrow and no need to postpone bean dishes because there isn't enough time for soaking!

Happy about this unexpected good news I fried up some garlic, onions, carrots and celery (later realizing that I didn't need to chop them up into such tiny pieces) and added the mix to a pot of well washed Christmas beans, filled it with water so that the beans were covered by what I judged to be one inch and then cooked them for about an hour or an hour and a half until they had the right consistency.


Then I chopped up some more onion, carrots and celery to make this bean salad.

For the vinaigrette I used:
lemon juice of half a lemon (I didn't have vinegar)
olive oil
a couple of tbsp of the water from beans
chives
dried basil
dried parsley
salt, pepper

The beans taste wonderfully nutty and satisfying. The fresh carrots and celery as well as the lemon juice in the vinaigrette are a fresh complement. Nom nom nom!