Easy Vegan Chili and Pumpkin Spiced Cornbread Muffins

I'm SO excited, I have a guest blog post over at The Engine 2 Diet Blog right now! Please hop on over there and check out How Healthy Girl Makes a Salad and Makes Salad Making Easier.

And that's not the only thing I'm excited about! Did you see this article over at VegNews about the leaders of the Raw Food movement making a statement that oil and nuts are not good for you? Holy. Moly. That is a major shift in thinking for the entire raw food world. Here's the comment I left on the article:

"Oh. My. G... I am in shock. And actually, really relieved. I thankfully figured this same thing out after trying to go raw for a couple of months and gaining a ton of weight from the oils and the nuts and the raw desserts. I am so happy that this information is coming out now and that more people do not have to be lead down a ridiculous path of consuming coconut oil, olive oil, etc. and thinking that these things are health foods. Yes, eat raw vegetables! But don't shun incredibly healthy cooked food."

So on and on it goes. Trying to figure out what is best for humankind. It's never easy, but I think it's worth it.

I have a feeling that a lot of people are craving chili right now. With the cold weather and the dreary days, I know that chili is one of the easiest ways to warm myself up.

But you don't always have the time for a complicated or lengthy chili recipe. That's why this recipe is so outstanding. It's fast, easy and very, very tasty.

And what goes better with chili than cornbread? I have tried a number of Vegan cornbread recipes and this is by far the best one to date! The pureed canned pumpkin and Pumpkin Pie spice add an unusual twist to this classic.

Easy Vegan Chili
serves 8-10
Prep time: 20 min. Cook time: 70 min.


Printable Recipe

2 cups chopped onion

8 garlic cloves, pressed

2 28oz. cans diced tomatoes

1 4 oz. can green chilies

4 Tbsp chili powder

2 Tbsp dried oregano

2 Tbsp ground cumin

3 15 oz. cans black beans, drained

1 10 oz. bag of frozen corn

Saute onions in a large pot over medium high heat for about 10 minutes, stirring frequently. Add water if necessary to prevent sticking. Add garlic and saute 3 more minutes.

Add tomatoes with juice, chilies and dried seasoning. Mix and simmer for about 10 minutes.

Add beans and corn. Reduce heat to med. low and simmer for about 45 minutes.

Pumpkin Spiced Cornbread Muffins

24 small muffins or 18 medium sized

Printable Recipe

dry ingredients:
2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
2 Tbsp baking powder
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp salt
2 tsp Pumpkin Pie Spice
2 cups cornmeal (for a smoother finish, use corn flour)
wet ingredients:
1 15 ounce can pure pumpkin puree
1/2 cup maple syrup
2 Tbsp flaxmeal
2/3 cup unsweetened applesauce
2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 cup unsweetened almond or soy milk


Preheat oven to 350 degrees.


In a large bowl, stir together all dry ingredients.

In a medium bowl or a very big measuring cup stir together wet ingredients until well blended.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry mixture and mix until well blended.


Distribute batter evenly into greased muffin pans (either 18 or 24 holes). Bake for 20 minutes.

What foods are warming you up these days?

Tempeh Tamale Pie and Zesty Jicama Slaw

 

Why is this the third Tamale Casserole that I have made in the past two months? Perhaps I am on a quest for finding the perfect Tamale Casserole recipe? First, it was The Happy Herbivore's recipe. Next, I "Nutritarianed" it up with my own version of a Tamale Casserole. And this past week, after reading about Mama Pea's all-time favorite recipeas, and finding out that one of them to make the list was her Tempeh Tamale Pie, I was like a moth to a flame.

Except I added kale. Lots of kale. Six cups of finely chopped up kale, to be exact (I made a double recipe).

The addition of kale was awesome. Surprisingly, I couldn't taste the tempeh. But the winning change was the addition of the jicama slaw.

The recipe for "Zesty Jicama" comes from Terry Walter's Clean Start cookbook, and you can find it on the internet here. A crunchy, light, citrusy and complex slaw, you can bet I'll be making this one again. Ms. Walters is a culinary genius in my opinion (and a friend of a college roommate--what a small world this is!), and if you don't already own both of her cookbooks, you are really missing out.

Tamale Casserole, Revisited and The Beck Diet Solution, Day 9-Select an Exercise Plan

About a week ago I prepared Lindsay S. Nixon's Tamale Casserole from her book The Happy Herbivore. My husband and I definitely thought it was GOOD, but I knew that it could even be better with a boatload more veggies. So I went to town this past weekend and set about making a Tamale Casserole that even Dr. Fuhrman would love.

If you are expecting the cornbread topping to taste like cake, the way an old fashioned cornbread usually does, you will probably be disappointed. This cornbread is made with no fat, so it is a little bit dry, but on top of the moist vegetables, I think it's a great compliment.

HGK's Vegetized (is that a word?) Tamale Casserole

serves a crowd

Printable Recipe

approx. 1/2 cup low sodium vegetable broth

1 large chopped onion

6 garlic cloves, minced

10 ounces mushrooms, chopped

4 cups medium dice zucchini

4 cups chopped greens (kale, collard, beet, etc. or a mix)

1/2 cup of your favorite red salsa

1 1/2 Tbsp Mexican or Southwest spice blend

OR 1 Tbsp chili powder + 1 tsp dried oregano + 1 tsp ground cumin

1 can black beans, rinsed and drained

1 cup frozen corn (I prefer the Fire Roasted from Trader Joe's)

for the cornbread top:

1 1/2 cups cornmeal

1/2 cup whole wheat flour, either white whole wheat or whole wheat pastry flour

1 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup unsweetened almond or soy or rice milk

1/4 cup unsweetened apple sauce

1/4 cup maple syrup

1 tsp apple cider vinegar

1 cup frozen corn kernels

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Place a large saute pan or dutch oven over a medium high flame and coat the bottom of the pan with vegetable broth. As soon as the vegetable broth is bubbling, add the diced onion. Turn the heat down to medium and cook the onions, stirring frequently, for about 5 minutes. If onions get too dry, add a touch more vegetable broth as necessary to prevent burning. Add chopped garlic and stir. Cook for two more minutes.

Add mushrooms and stir. Cook until mushrooms begin to release their water.

Add zucchini and stir. Cook for approximately ten minutes.

Add chopped greens and stir. Cook for three minutes. Add salsa and stir.

Add either 1 1/2 Tbsp spice blend or chili powder, oregano and cumin. Stir well.

Add black beans and corn. Stir.

Take vegetable mix off of the heat. Now it's time to mix the cornbread.

Place all dry cornbread ingredients in a large bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together all of the wet cornbread ingredients (except for the corn kernels). Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir to combine. Fold in the corn kernels.

Now assemble the casserole. Pour the vegetable mix into a greased 9"x13" pan. Top with the cornbread mix and spread evenly over the vegetables. Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the cornbread topping at the center comes out clean. Serve immediately.

If you are serving Vegetized Tamale Casserole as a main course, I think it looks especially professional stacked in two layers.

And now for a Beck update! I am stuck here on Day 9, Select and Exercise Plan. Not because there is anything particularly difficult about this step, but just because my life has been busy as of late! The old me would have been a little agitated, thinking that I wasn't working through the steps fast enough. But now I realize that it is more important to really master the steps, slowly if you have to.

So in that vein, I have a confession to make: I'm not reading my Advantages Response Card twice a day like I am supposed to be doing! Every time my cell phone reminder goes off I think of how busy I am and that I don't have the time to do it. So I am going to reset the timer to go off at two totally different times a day--times where I know I am not going to be in the middle of a lot of other things.

As far as exercise goes, I believe that what Beck says is totally on point. Number 1, we have to schedule exercise like everything else in our lives and make it a major priority. And Number 2, we have to lead active lives and not just rely on the gym to take care of our exercise needs (like parking far away from an entrance to a building and taking stairs).

I know that I have been my most consistent with exercise ever since setting a schedule. In fact, I had a recent schedule change (really a temporary elimination of one form of exercise) and I thought I would make up for it by walking. Well, guess what? I have walked sometimes, but not nearly with the consistency as I would have worked out with a scheduled class. So I'm starting again with more scheduled classes a.s.a.p.!

It's all a learning process and I am a willing student.

How do you get in the most exercise possible? Do you schedule exercise like an appointment? 

What are you struggling with on The Beck Diet Solution? What day are you on right now?

What are you having success with on The Beck Diet Solution?