Thursday, August 18, 2011

Vegetarian Convenience Meals I

With school starting up again, I'm practicing cooking for an entire week in a single day. I'm rather tired of pasta, so I went exploring for new vegetarian web sites. So here's two new recipes and my commentary with them!

First up: Enchilada Rolls from The Vegan Stoner (A modified version)
Serves 3-4

Extremely delicious and bordering on junk food. Every once in a while, I want something that's not perfectly healthy. This definitely covers it, and is extremely tasty to boot. You may remember my dislike of buying fake meat. These enchilada rolls call for chick'n, so I substituted black beans.

1 can crescent rolls
3/4-1c canned black beans
1c cheddar cheese, shredded, crumbled, or cut into matchsticks (however you have it)
Salsa

Unroll and separate crescent rolls into triangles. Wash the black beans and shake them off to dry. If you leave the canned juice on, it's harder to prepare the rolls.

Press a layer of black beans into each triangle of dough. Sprinkle cheese on top. Roll them as the package directs, and bake at 350 for about ten minutes, or until golden and yummy. Serve with salsa on top.

Quick to make, yummy to eat, and the rolls can be easily refrigerated and reheated later. I wouldn't eat them every day because of the crescent rolls, but these would make a nice picnic meal.



Something a little more complicated:
Unfettered Vegetarian Frittata
modified from Clueless in the Kitchen by Evelyn Raab.

 Read this book if you've never done much cooking. This woman is a genius.

You'll need a cast iron or oven-safe skillet for this one.

1/4c vegetable oil
1/2 an onion, thinly sliced or diced.
1 can vegetables (whatever sounds yummy) or 1 1/2 c any cooked vegetables
     For this recipe, I used a can of green beans
6 eggs, beaten
1/4c cheese, preferable Parmesan.
1Tbsp butter
Spices, to taste (I used garlic and oregano; experiment at will)

Pour the oil into the skillet and add the onion. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the onion is soft (about 5 minutes). Drain the can of vegetables and add to the onion. Stir them a bit to let them get coated with any other oil.

Preheat your oven to 300 degrees.

Remove everything from the pan into a bowl with the eggs and the cheese and whatever spices you lio, and stir until well-mixed. Melt the butter in the pan and let it start to foam. When it does, add in the egg/vegetable mixture and drop the heat to as low as humanly possible. Cook the frittata for 15-20 minutes, then pop it into the oven for another fifteen or so, or until you can tilt the pan and no runny egg comes through the top crust.  Slice it into eights and serve. Yummy plain, with barbeque sauce, or ketchup.

Psst: it also freezes very well. Place slices on a cookie sheet until frozen, then dump into a bag. Easily reheated for lunch. 

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