NO SOUP FOR YOU!!!

Our latest offering to the vegetarian/vegan world is a trilogy of "Soup Nazi" episodes. The first is a mediterranean-inspired eggplant, tomato and garbanzo bean stew that is served over whole wheat Moroccan couscous. YUM! It's fantastic. If you're going to threaten to take away someone's soup, it's gotta be a tasty recipe like this. Really. You should try it. The recipe follows the pic:



You can watch the video here:

http://www.veoh.com/videos/v17314358NBKjJpe2

Mediterranean Eggplant and Garbanzo Bean Stew (Vegan)

1 medium eggplant*
1 large onion, diced
3-4 cloves garlic, diced
2 tbl safflower (or other high heat) oil
1/2 cup dry red wine (preferably sulfite free)
1 cube "Not Beef' bouillon (or 1 cup vegetable broth)
1 cup water (if not using vegetable broth)
1 can tomato sauce
1 can diced tomatoes
1 can garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
3-4 whole cloves
1 bay leaf
1 tsp cinammon
salt (for sweating eggplant)


peel and dice eggplant into cubes. lay flat on a cutting board and sprinkle with salt. let sit for 15-20 min to "sweat" it. rinse with water. in a large pot, add oil, onion and eggplant. turn to med high heat and brown for 5-7 min. while eggplant mixture is browning, dissolve "not beef" bouillon into 1 cup warm water. turn down heat to low, add garlic. let sautee for 2 min. add red wine, turn heat back up to medium and let alcohol cook out. add "not beef" and water (or veg broth) and rest of ingredients. let simmer on low for 30-45 min.

best served over whole wheat (ORGANIC!) couscous.

*unless otherwise noted, organic ingredients should always be used. be careful chopping those organic onions. they are MUCH stronger than conventional ones! :)

One down, two to go!

Help Shelter Animals

Well, this doesn't have to do with cooking, but it does have to do with helping animals. I read in People magazine that an 11- year old girl started a website that donates food to shelter animals. It is sponsored by Castor and Pollux (I already buy their organic dog treats). When you go to the site, you answer a trivia question, and right or wrong, when you click an answer, they donate dog food to shelters. I believe there are 11 shelters they currently give to. It's similar the The Animal Rescue Site that I'm sure you already know about. Anyway, it's free and and it only takes a minute:

www.freekibble.com

and there's one for cats too!

www.freekibblecat.com


Every click helps! :)

Change of plan. Since the videos are already on Myspace and Veoh, I'm thinking it would be a little redundant to post them here as well. But I will start putting the printed version of the recipes, since those are nowhere to be had. :)

In the meantime, I will share on of my more interesting pieces of organic gardening wisdom. (Since I have so many). Broccoli grows well in the cooler spring months. I bought some starter plants last March to see how they would fare in our North Texas backyard. The instructions said to, "cut stalks before small yellow blooms appear". I watched and waited for several months as the stalks grew thicker and little broccoli trees developed. I was so excited, but at the same time, I wondered where these little flowers would come into play. I couldn't see any place on the plant where they might come from.

I was out of town working for a couple of days, and had asked Anthony to water everything while I was away. He called and wanted to know what the little yellow flowers were about, and if that meant that the broccoli was ready to eat. WHAT??? I asked where they were, and he said, "all over". I came home to this:


So when you are eating broccoli, you are eating thousands of tiny flower buds. I think it's so much better for your soul to put the warmth of sunshine and renewal of rain in the form of flower buds into your body than the suffering and fear from dead animals. Don't you?

Welcome!

Welcome vegetarians, vegans, pescetarians, carnivores, omnivores and shopaholics. We've got some videos for your viewing pleasure that will be uploaded as soon as I figure out how. So maybe no breath-holding. :) We always appreciate feedback, so let us know whats in that little noggin of yours, k?

if you just can't wait, you can see all of the ones we've currently uploaded onto our myspace page, which is: www.myspace.com/vegouttv


namaste
jaime