Fall Flavors

Despite the consistently hot weather outside, I always start feeling like autumnal grub this time of year.  While I still slice watermelon every morning and sip fresh strawberry juice at work.  Yet, I've been feeling like cooking up heavier meals at the homestead - fattening up for a cold, bleak winter that will never arrive.  Here's a peek into our kitchen and some quick and easy options with minimal ingredients that anyone could replicate.

Unpolished brown rice briefly fried with stalks of broccoli and silken egg tofu.  Add cooked brown rice, steamed broccoli and cooked egg tofu to a pan with a bit of oil.  Cook, top with soy sauce, and serve.

Carrot lentil soup:  Heat some oil in a voluminous pot. Add minced garlic.  Let simmer.  Add a vegetarian bullion cube, two pealed and crushed tomatoes, cumin, and paprika.  Next add a fair amount of water and a cup of rinsed red lentils along with a cup or two of grated carrots.  Let it cook for about an hour or until the good gruel is creamy.  Stir often.  Garnish with chili pepper flakes and lemon.

Mole mash.  Rinse, peel and chop a few potatoes, carrots and cassavas to a uniform size.  Boil until soft.  Mash.  Cut off the stems of several heads of bok choy.  Saute the leaves in a bit of olive oil for a minute.  Add to the mash along with salsa (homemade or store-bought will do).  Mix together and serve with a dash of salt and pepper on top.

Burrito Bowl.  Saute two cloves of garlic in a bit of olive oil.  Add cooked rice, a can of rinsed black beans, and cook until heated through.  I like mine a bit crunchy.  Top with steamed broccoli, fresh tomatoes and salsa (props to my pal Sonya for Tucson's finest salsa).  Add cheese if feeling randy.

Sun-dried Tomato Spaghetti.  Cook spaghetti and steam broccoli.  Mix together with homemade sun-dried tomato paste.  Top with parmesan cheese.