Ginger and Garlic Cashew Stir-Fry

When I decided to make this stir-fry I had no idea it would end up with such flavor in the end. I was just trying to find a use for the rest of our green beans, cashews, and red pepper. The combination of fresh ginger, garlic, sesame oil, and scallions really brought an exciting flavor. Little did I know I would stumble upon something that I am actually craving again at the moment! 

Ingredients

2 carrots

3 scallions

1 small red pepper

1/2 cup of green beans

1/2 cup of cashews

2 teaspoons grated ginger

3 cloves of garlic

1 tablespoon canola oil

1 tablespoon sesame oil

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1 cup of short-grain brown rice

Directions

 Start cooking your rice before doing anything else since the rice is going to take the longest. While the rice is cooking you can prepare the stir-fry.

Chop up the carrots, green beans, red pepper, and scallions. You want to make sure the carrots are not too thick or else they might not cook all of the way through. Grate the ginger and press or mince the garlic. Heat up your pan on high with the canola oil. The next part is fairly easy. Throw in your green beans, carrots, scallions, red pepper, ginger, garlic, cashews, sesame oil, and soy sauce all at once! In other words, throw in everything! Keep stirring it all around for 10-15 minutes, or until your carrots are tender. Serve over your cooked rice and enjoy!

Vegetable Alphabet Soup

Soup is one of those things that I always thought would be difficult to make before I actually made it. It's great for a chilly day or when you're fighting off a cold. If my husband and I want to make a no fuss soup that doesn't require a food processor or different pots and pans we usually go for a vegetable soup. And the last couple of times we made it we decided to throw in alphabet pasta.  Because it's cool. And it works well in soup because the letters are small. There really isn't a recipe we follow but I kept track of everything we used this time for the sake of writing out a recipe. The vegetables and seasonings can all be changed to your liking but this is the gist:

Ingredients

3 medium potatoes 

3 carrots

2 stalks of celery

1 zucchini

1 shallot

3 cloves of garlic

1 tablespoon olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

1 tablespoon tomato paste

5-6 cups of vegetable stock

5 oz alphabet pasta (Again, this doesn't need to be exact but I just used half of a 10 oz box)

Directions

The first step is to chop up all of the vegetables. Cube the potatoes, carrots, celery, and zucchini. 

Mince the shallot and garlic. Heat the olive oil in a large pot. Throw in the potatoes, carrots, celery, zucchini, shallots, and garlic at once. 

Cook over medium high heat for about 10 minutes, stirring once in a while. Stir in the stock, tomato paste, salt, and pepper. If it looks like the stock is not covering your vegetables, just add more. 

Bring the soup to a boil. Once it is at a boil add the pasta and cook for 20 minutes. Stir frequently as the pasta tends to stick to the bottom. Enjoy with some warm bread. We like sourdough! 

Helpful Hints:

-The alphabet pasta we use has a cooking time of 20 minutes so if your pasta has a different cooking time adjust when you put the pasta in. 

-If you didn't add enough stock your soup probably looks like condensed soup at the end. Don't panic, this is easy to fix. Just add some more stock or water.

-Remember that this is just an approximate recipe and you can put in as many or as little vegetables as you want. You just need to adjust the amount of liquid you use.

Vegetarian Shepherd's Pie

After seeing the Skillet Gardener's Pie on Fat Free Vegan Kitchen I just couldn't resist trying it. My husband and I often make veggie pot pies so I figured this would be a nice break from the pie crust and a chance to make some mashed potatoes. The recipe was pretty straight forward and worked well. It is also a recipe that you can play around with a bit and still have a good result.

I wanted to stick close to the recipe since this was my first time making it. I did however leave out the mushrooms and added a zucchini. I also used lentils instead of the kidney beans. 

The recipe called for leaving the vegetable mixture in the skillet and placing the mashed potatoes on top of it. To make it easier to store (I knew we would have a lot of leftovers) I transferred the vegetable mixture to a different pan and then coated it with the mashed potatoes. I also broiled that for a few minutes to get the top of the potatoes a little crispy and brown.  The result was a hearty and filling dinner!