Well, my
goodness but the week does go by—especially during the holiday season. It’s
been so unseasonably warm down here in Dixie that’s ALMOST been hard to get in
that cozy, snuggly spirit. HOWSOMEVER, the joy of the season prevails, decorations
go up (sometimes REALLY EARLY), traffic gets really weird and families make
plans to unite. It can be a stressful time of year as well, bringing out the
Grinches in us all – what better way to deal with all that emotional upheaval
than TO EAT SOMETHING GOOD! Well, you’re in luck because our Expert (that would
be Susan Voisin and her FatFree Vegan Kitchen site) and The Elf (that would be
moi) teamed up this week for yet another superb rendition of one of her great
recipes. So, here we go!
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Our recipe
this week was Spaghetti Squash Santa Fe Casserole and boy, did we pick a
winner.
As we told
Susan, it did not come without some tense moments but, hey! What’s the Kinky Elfery
Kitchen without a tense moment or two? First we got our ‘mis en place’ with our
ingredients. The Elf wants to thank Chef Skye Michael Conroy for insisting via
his recipes that this concept be a staple practice in food preparation. When
The Elf fails to get the ‘mis en place’ in place, there is invariably and ‘elf-up’.
A quick word about the ingredients…the original recipe calls for the use of
black beans, a traditional bean in southwestern cooking. But, black beans and
Big Solid are NOT A GOOD MIX, so we substituted navy beans.
We sautéed our
peppers and onion, such a colorful sight. We were already happy.
And then, we
added the beans, spinach and ground chili pepper. We used HOT chili pepper and
tossed in a bit of Chipotle ground chili pepper as well
That was
followed by the squash that we’d pre-cooked in the microwave and already
scraped out. We must admit to slightly over-cooking the squash but the
microwave sure does cut the time it takes. Next time 8 minutes on high will be
sufficient instead of the 9 we actually did.
This is just a
closer view of the previous picture. We like to show the stuffs up close and
personal.
We made a
slightly larger amount of the cornbread topping just to be sure we covered the
casserole nicely and threw it in the oven.
The final
version from the oven…and this is where we got a little tense. The topping wasn’t
browning like The Elf thought it should so we left it in a bit longer. It did
crisp up around the edges but we were still worried it would not be done. Oh,
what fools we were. It turned out great…probably because we let it sit for just
a few minutes after taking from the oven. In any event, we loved it!! And we
highly recommend it. It is easy and excellent. So, thanks to the Expert for a
recipe well done.
Next week’s
recipe will be “Dreena’s No-Fu Love Loaf”…whew! That’s a mouthful! Looks like
comfort food to The Elf which means side dishes of cauliflower mashed potatoes
and other good stuffs!
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Tonight is our
Vegan Gals night at Gigi’s. We’ve been havin’ a LAST NIGHT there for the past
couple of months. Seems like Gigi and Kevin’s plans to move were put on hold
for a bit so we have ONE MORE time together. We have agreed that instead of
presents, we would all make donations to charities on behalf of each of us. So,
we’ll gather yet again and have a wonderful evening of great vegan food and
mellowship J. We are making recipes that
have been group favorites so tonight The Elf is making Ethiopian Cabbage.
Here’s a previous picture of the Ethiopian Cabbage
and
Oatmeal Crème cookies (aka Little Kiki’s).
These
are veganized versions of a crème filled oatmeal cookie…will try to post the
recipe soon.
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In the
meantime, breathe deep, laugh a lot, eat plants, love life and ‘DO EPIC’. And
speakin’ of “Doin’ EPIC”, does The Elf have a surprise for y’all soon!!
T. Elf
