Back to our regularly scheduled blog.

 So fast food.....wait, good food quickly is over and I need real food. Comfort food. Warming food.

If you don't know me, I am perpetually cold. It can be 75 degrees outside and I am cold. So warm food, both in flavor and temperature make me happy.

I decided to try another version of the veggie burger in the book. There are approxiamately 29 different veggie burgers in this book, so whatever my fancy is - it's got me covered. Today was black bean and broccoli burgers. Can of black beans, frozen broccoli, rolled thick-cut oats, chili powder, garlic powder, salt, pepper, done.

It's super easy to make a veggie burger, but a challenge to get it to hold together. Since I don't use eggs anymore, you need a binder. Eggs serve a wonderful purpose that way. They hold flour onto chicken, breadcrumbs onto anything, hold cookies and things like that together. So I was stuck.....what to use?

I didn't use anything. I did chill the burger patties before cooking them, and gave them a really long time in the frig to let the oats, well, whatever oats do. They suck up moisture.

I have learned that anything that doesn't make it's own grease (note, anything vegetarian then....) needs A LOT of oil in a pan. I cook in cast iron pans, so they need a lot of priming anyways. So after oiling the pan, I oiled the pan. Over a medium hot skillet I nestled my patties down and let them sizzle. If you don't add egg, you can remove them whenever you want. They won't be raw, cause there's no meat in them.

I like to let mine cook until slightly charred, it gives some more depth of flavor - like you were grilling them.

I topped mine with Daiya Pepperjack cheese, avocado mayo (thanks Pinterest!), BBQ sauce and punkin seeds. No bread needed. My daughter used bread and declared it so delicious she ate 3 more. So much for leftovers.

But.......when I do have leftover burgers, I chopped them up and added them as "meat" to my Chili Non Carne. Lovely.

Like I mentioned, I need warming food. I am sure our acupuncturist has a good explanation of why this is.

Enchiladas have been calling me lately and leaving voicemails.

Eventually I had to return their numerous calls.

The book has enchilada recipes that look so good. But they also have a stacked enchilada recipe that sounded very accessible. But I can't eat the canned enchilada sauce that I love so much. Stupid gluten.

So, I embarked on making my own sauce. I was so nervous that this was not going to live up to that smokey-flavored red elixir in a can. I was nervous that I would make it too spicy. Not spicy enough. Would it be thick enough? Enter the book.

One verrrrrrry easy enchilada sauce recipe coming up. Doubled. One very messy kitchen. But I digress.

The hardest part was soaking the chiles overnight. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Finally! They were softened! Into a pot to be cooked with diced canned tomatos, tomato paste, spices and onion. Stir and puree. Smelled divine. After I tasted it for what must have been twenty times, I just couldn't put my finger on what was missing. Something.

Yeast. It was yeast. Yeast is in the canned stuff. Why, I don't know.

So in went a large amount of nutritional yeast.

Nutritional yeast is what they put on Doritos and stuff to give them a cheesy taste. It's in cereals, chips, drinks, almost everything. I think it stretches the product additives further. But it also has a ton of , well, nutritional value. In our house, it is strictly for liberally covering celery chunks in. And now enchilada sauce. Bingo.

So, I decided to layer the corn tortillas and recreate the Enchilada Pie in the book. I used fresh tortillas, because there really is nothing like them. They aren't dry like the ones at the end of the Hispanic aisle. They are soft, moist and pliable. So, down went some sauce then a tortilla, then black beans, then corn, then sauce, then a tortilla, then black beans...well, 8 layers and two pies later they looked like a hot mess. I doused them with the remainder of the sauce, filling in all the nooks and crannies. Into the oven it went.

Patience. I am not good at waiting.

Out came that delicious smokey smell that I love! Presto!

Cutting them like a pie was easy. Topping them with cheese, kefir, leftover avocado mayo and pumpkin seeds made them just divine. I ate these for breakfast. I ate these for lunch. I ate them before bed.

I need to go to the store........

More food quickly.

Vegees.

Frozen. Sauteed. Salt. Pepper.Garlic.Done.

So easy.

So good.

I see no problem eating frozen vegees. It's better than eating no vegees. And it certainly is easy. And yes, I did eat the entire plate. It was my lunch. To me, a dream lunch.

I don't worry about calories for myself. I don't count to see if I have enough at every meal. I don't worry if there are days when I eat too many and other days when I eat too few. I eat fat. I eat what my body wants. And it is happy.

So when I needed to fix something easy, this was it.

                                                               Vegetarian chili nachos.

If you are from California. you are used to beans, meat and tomatos in your chili. Period. Or just beans and tomatos. And it's good. Heavily spiced. Heavily flavored.

My son has been on a beef chili kick for months now. Goes through it like it's water. 3 pounds of chili lasts 48 hours. And I always find myself tasting it to make sure the seasonings are correct. Then regret that bite later. But I do love the taste.

Enter canned beans and tomato paste. And generous splooshes of chili powder, garlic and salt.

Exit chili 15 minutes later. No waiting for the meat to cook or worrying that it didn't. Just luscious simmering and melding of flavors. I suppose it would have been easier to open a can of chili, if I had one. But I like flavoring it myself, and adding things. Or not. And the smell and the act of cooking is therapeutic.

Add chips, cheese and seeds. Perfect. Easy, quick and all in my pantry.

Except the cheese. That was in my frig.

                                                                         Just a plate.

                                                                           Leftovers.
                                                                            Canned.
                                                                             Frozen.

It was quick. And whole. And a mess of goodness.

Quinoa with lemon juice, broccoli and Swiss cheese. Lemon pepper and salt. It tasted so very clean!

Canned pinto beans with BBQ sauce, seeds and cheese. Flavor, and lots of it. Earthy.

So.....what do all these quick and easy things have to do with the book? Simple, they were all from there, I just short-cutted them even more than the recipe calls for. And the great thing about this book, it gives you options. If you can cook, you can improvise with the help of this book. Wait.....well, you get it.

It makes you look at your pantry and think.

Love to think. Do it all the time. My husband says the meter is always running in my head, and he's right.

And when I have food done right, quickly, it gives me more time to think. About my next meal.

Fast food. There I said it.

OK, so for my two followers, it's been a while. But this blog is back in business. Has to be. I keep cooking and have no one to share it with - and what is the use of cooking if you can't share your food with someone?

For those of you that know me, the last month has been all about convenience eating for me. Fast food quickly. And it had better be easy to fix because I have no brain cells left. So into the pantry and freezer I dove. You didn't think I was going to actually eat fast food, did you?

First up was vegan menudo.

If you have never heard of menudo, don't worry - you will never want it after reading this. It's basically tripe (cow's stomach lining) cut up and simmered in a chili pepper broth for about 12 hours. Makes your house smell extra good. Then throw in some hominy and onion and oregano and you have yourself one tasty breakfast. Hungry yet? OK, maybe not. But I grew up eating this stuff. And it was goooood. A true testament to the Old School Mexican ways that nothing should go to waste. Nothing. You should see the meat case at a Mexican grocery store. There's a homeschool lesson for you.....

But it was good. Not because of the tripe. I threw that out every time. But the flavor, the textures and the comfort of broth were very nice together. It was by accident that I stumbled on a way to make menudo vegetarian, and immediately I recognized the taste as something I have been missing. I had veg broth in the pantry, canned garbanzo beans, pumpkin seeds, purple cabbage and onion, and dried oregano. Well, 3 minutes later, there you have it. Fast food. Real food from real ingredients. Quickly. I lived on this for several days. Very clean eating, very earthy taste.

Comfort in a bowl. For me anyways. I told my mom to tell me dad, who was in the hospital, that I was eating veg menudo in his honor. He passed away about a day later. He had made some menudo in December, and I hope my mom got to enjoy it for the last time. Some traditions I will carry on, just in a different way.

Sometimes it's not the main ingredients that we miss, but all the sides and condiments that make a dish. Or the memories that make us eat something, crave something. And when we find it again, it tastes all the better.

Thanks for the smells dad.