Lenten Recipe Exchange

[Αριστοκλής]

As my wife is stressing me out to present our menu for the coming 8 weeks, I hope we can trade some recipes and expand our family fare.
The following is a twice a week (or more) Lenten staple in the Aristokles household (which features Demetri as resident chef):

Demetri's Lenten Lentil 'Soup' Supreme

In ample soup pot combine:
 
1 lb.- lentils (washed and culled)
1 gal.- distilled Water (tapped is fine if it's OK with you)
2 large carrots - quartered length-wise and then sliced
1 large onion - medium diced
2 stalks celery - halved length-wise, then sliced (optional)
1 cup - sliced frozen green beans (optional, but good)
2 cloves garlic - finely minced, not crushed
1 tbsp - leaf oregano (hey, I'm a Greek!)
3/4 Cup - rice (completes protein in lentils for human assimulation)
1 tsp - grd black pepper
2 ea - Bay leaves (remove before serving)
1/2 Whole Lemon* (unsqueezed)

Bring to boil, lower heat and simmer a couple of hours, covered, adding water as necessary or desired to maintain desired consistency.

To finish:
If allowed on given fast day:
1/4 cup favorite wine
"Some" Olive oil (yum)
Salt after cooking if desired.


* Lemon: courtesy Matushka Anne Lardas- it's the secret that makes this work! (Imagine me, a Greek, not knowing about a lemon in a recipe.)

Others to follow if someone will trade  

Demetri

[ania]

Staple in Ania's household...
Buy peanut butter, buy jam, buy bread, spread pb & jam on bread, eat.  Repeat 3x a day from Forgiveness Sunday to Good Friday.  

[Linus7]

Hey! I just stumbled upon this thread!

Thanks for the lentil soup recipe, Aristokles, but where are the stewed tomatoes? I like a tomatoey-tasting lentil soup, but I may try your recipe as is.

Here's something simple but pretty good.

1 can Cream of Mushroom soup

1 soup can of instant rice

1 soup can of milk (I prefer skim, but suit yourself)

Mix the soup and the milk together and bring to a boil. Add the can of instant rice. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and cook for about five minutes.

Let sit on the stove for a few minutes after cooking to allow the rice to further absorb the soup.

This is good stuff.

Adding a can of mushrooms to the mix would be a good idea, too.  

[Linus7]

Oops!

My Lenten fast is meatless but not dairy-less.

If you are fasting from dairy products you will have to use water or soy milk instead of milk.

Sorry.

[Ebor]

This is my black bean (deconstructed Black Bean Soup) salad recipe.
It has a small bit of olive oil and sherry but either it could be saved for oil/wine days or use salad oil and leave out the sherry.  As you can tell, for some recipes I'm a "Add enough and cook til done" person... but not with the baking.

2 cans black beans - put in a collander and rinse off the liquid then drain.
Put them in a bowl with: as much chopped/diced bean sized pieces of carrot as you like and the same of white onion.
Season with about 3 tablespoons or to taste of olive oil and the same of Sherry Vinegar, plus salt, pepper, the juice of a lime and a couple of tablespoons of *dry* sherry, not sweet dessert sherry!! Finish off by adding some chopped cilantro. Taste and adjust seasonings

Stir it all together and let it rest in the fridge for a couple of hours for the flavours to mellow.  Stir it occasionally.

Ebor

[David]

Here's a very simple recipe for japanese style fried rice.  Unlike the chinese style, no eggs are used.  This works well with stir fryed vegetables(I usually just buy a bag of frozen stir fry veggies at Walmart for ~$1.50).

1 cup rice, cooked (we use basmati for all our rice, but anykind is okay)
3 tbl soy sauce
2 tsp sesame seeds
1/2 lemon
2 tbl sesame oil(or another lenten oil)

Preheat range to medium-high, add oil.  Add rice, soy sauce, and sesame seeds.  Stir fry for a few minutes until rice reaches desired firmness.  After you remove from heat, squeeze the lemon over the rice and stir again.

At this point, you can remove the rice from your wok, add more oil, and put in your stir fry veggies, which will only take a couple of minutes.  Keep some terriyaki, duck, or other desired sauce on hand(I just use a bit of soy sauce).  If I have time, I will usually saute onions, garlic, and ginger in the oil before adding vegetables.

Easy, quick(~15min), and cheap(less than $5 for a family sized meal).  

BTW, we use a wok for 80% of our frying needs, it works so much better than most other pans.  The only thing I don't use the wok for are eggs.  Japanese, Thai, and Indian work really well with a wok.  Also, don't mistake a walmart wok for a real one.  We bought ours at a chinese market, but I later found the same one here when I was searching for accessories.

[Νεκτάριος]

My favorite fast recipe:

Ingrediants:
Bread
Peanutbutter
Jelly

Take two slices of bread and lay them side by side on a plate. Apply a layer of peanutbutter to one slice of bread then wipe off knife on the other slice of bread. Then add the desired amount of Jelly to the slice of bread with peanutbutter. Lastly take the slice of bread with nothing on it and place it on top the bread containing the peanutbutter and jelly.

[David]

Moong Dal

serves 4-6

1 cup split or whole moong dal(indian grocery store)
1 tsp ground tumeric
6 cups water
3 hot green peppers, halved (whatever peppers you want, adjust to taste)
4 cloves
1 tablespoon curry leaves(indian grocery store)
salt to taste
4 tbs butter(use whatever lenten sub. you prefer)
1/2 tsp whole cumin seeds
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbs fresh ginger, chopped

Bring the dal, tumeric, water, peppers, cloves, curry leaves, and salt to boil on high heat.  Lower heat to medium and cook until dal is tender.  This should take 20-30 minutes.

Heat the butter(substitute) in a small saucepan on high heat(we use a wok).  Add the cumin, garlic, and ginger; stir fry for 2 minutes.  Add to the dal; stir; and cook on medium high heat for two more minutes.

Serve hot over saffron rice.

Saffron rice

2 cups water
1 cup basmati rice
1/2 tsp ground tumeric
4 cloves
4 saffron "stalks"
1/4 tsp garlic powder
salt to taste
1 tbs oil
1 cube vegetable bouillon

Bring water to boil, add rice and other ingrediants.  Cook for 2-3 minutes on high, then reduce heat and let simmer for 20 minutes.

[PhosZoe]

I wish I saw this thread weeks ago! I LOVE to cook and I happen to be a vegetarian so if anyone needs creative vegan recipes or new and interesting things to make with soy products, I'm happy to help.  

For now, here's my hummus ba tahini  recipe.

1 15oz can of garbanzo beans liquid reserved
1T tahini (AKA sesame seed paste)
1-3 cloves of garlic crushed or pressed ( decide how dangerous you want to be before proceeding)
Juice of half a lemon
2t ground cumin
1t salt
Dash of cayenne pepper
Dash of paprika

Combine in blender or food processer: Garbanzo beans, tahani,crushed garlic lemon and a bit of the bean liquid. Process until smooth stop to scrape the canister with a spatuala. If the ingrediants seem dry or sticky add more bean liquid. Stir in the cumin, cayenne (optional) and salt.  Refridgerate overnight and let the flavors marry.

Great with pita wedges!
 
 

[Iconodule]

Bubur cha cha

This is a dessert recipe my mom brought from Malaysia. Even though it's a dessert, we usually wound up eating it for every meal whenever she made it.

It's very simple.

2 yams

2 sweet potatoes

3 ripe bananas (as in squishy-ripe)

1/3 cup big tapioca, pre-soaked

1/3 cup brown sugar

1 can coconut milk

6 cups of water

Just boil everything (except the coconut milk) together until the yams and sweet potatoes are soft, then add the coconut milk and it should be ready. You can serve it hot or cold. I said 1/3 brown sugar but you can add more or less. Some people make it without sugar and just let the individual eaters add sugar to their preference.

This should serve about 6 people. There are some other ingredients, like pandan leaves, which are often used, but they aren't easily available where I live and it's still good without them.

[Rosehip]

Stevia Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients (use vegan versions):

    1 cup flour (I use spelt or a mix of 3/4 spelt 1/4 amaranth)
    2 cups regular oats
    1  teaspoon stevia
    1 teaspoon baking soda
    1 cup hot water
    1/2 cup safflower oil
    1 teaspoon vanilla
    1 teaspoon cinnamon
    Unsweetened carob chips

Directions:

Preheat oven to 325, spray a cookie sheet.  Mix flour, stevia and cinnamon in small bowl.  Mix oats and baking soda in large bowl.  Pour hot water over the oat mixture and mix.  Add oil and vanilla to oat mixture, mix well.  Add flour mixture to oat mixture, mix well.  Add chocolate chips.  Place on cookie sheet, they do not flatten so push them down if you want them to be flat or leave as is.  Cook 13-15 minutes.

The texture of these cookies changes after a few days (they become soft, you might like this but I prefer them fresh out of the oven). I recommend cooking them in small batches.  I don't add all of the chocolate chips at once. I use as much cookie dough as I want and add chips to those and cook them. Refrigerate the dough and add chips as you make each batch. I find that refrigerating the chocolate chips in the dough and then baking them alters the taste.  It takes no time at all to have fresh baked cookies!

I found this recipe online and just made them last night for the first time. They are DELICIOUS (especially considering they contain no sugar and no eggs)! I used soy flour for the flour and substituted carob chips for chocolate chips and decided next time I will make them using only 1 tsp of stevia (the recipe called for 1 1/2 tsp stevia, and they were a bit too sweet).

This is also an excellent recipe for diabetics. Highly recommend!

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