Never did I think my first foray back into food blogging (as opposed to walking blogging-- is that a thing?) would be a chili recipe.  I wouldn't have thought it would be a recipe at all, given that a lot of dinners here lately have taken the form of hummus-pita-carrot sticks or bread-cheese-bing cherries or here-is-a-plastic-tray-of-sushi.  On the other hand, life without recipes has meant the occasional creative masterpiece, which I have proceeded to never, ever tell you about.  The other day I had some stuff I wanted to use up-- actually, not much stuff, just more of the endless supply of green chili peppers I've got in my freezer and half a bag of carrots-- and so I bought a lot of cans of beans and tomatoes and some bulk cashews and made some vegetarian chili, which turned out to be the most delicious vegetarian chili I have ever made, even though most of it came from cans.  This is how it went:

Saute in about 2 T. oil:

• One big onion, chopped
• several fresh (or frozen!) chilis, minced

When onions are softening, add:

• a few carrots, diced

Saute for a few minutes, then add:

• a big 28 oz. can diced tomatoes
• small (15 oz.) cans of chickpeas, red chili beans, and black beans, or some other combination of beans (but the chickpeas are essential)
• salt
• really quite a lot of chili powder
• much more modest shakes of powdered ancho chili, white pepper, and red pepper flakes (or whatever similar items you have around to complicate the spice profile) 
• a tomato-can-full of water

Bring everything to a boil and cook for 15 minutes. Now add:

• about 10 oz. of firm tofu, diced small
• about 1 c. of whole raw cashews

Stir and adjust the salt and spices to taste.  Add:

• 1/4 c. molasses (yess)
• juice of half a lime

Simmer 10 minutes or so more, adjust any flavors to taste (especially salt), and serve with the most awesome easy cornbread (below).

This chili has a delightful sweetness due to the cooked carrots and onions, naturally sweet cashews, and molasses.  The molasses, as it turns out, also gives it an amazing, complex depth of flavor.  I also like the filling sturdiness of the multiple proteins: several kinds of bean, tofu and nuts all in one place.  And it was very easy and quick.

Now for delicious and quick matching cornbread:

​Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.  In a medium-sized bowl, mix:

• 1 c. all-purpose flour, or whatever
• 1 c. cornmeal
• 1 t. baking soda
• 1 t. baking powder
• generous 1/2 t. salt
• brown sugar to taste (I probably used about 1/4 c.)

Since you are using brown sugar, I recommend mixing the dry ingredients with your fingers to break up any lumps.  Then add:

• 1 1/2 c. milk

Mix.  It will seem too runny, don't worry about it.  Pour into buttered 8x8 dish and bake about 25 minutes, until toothpick comes out clean.  Let it cool some and then eat it with butter (and chili).

Brown sugar instead of white took this cornbread to a whole new level.  Both the bread and the chili were addictive.  I kept going back to the kitchen to take little bites.  So will you.  The whole thing took approximately 45 minutes.
​

All right, all right.  Who needs a recipe to make a smoothie?  Nobody, that's who.  By definition, a smoothie is just a bunch of stuff you throw in a blender.  Nevertheless, a year or so ago, I was staying with my parents; my mom was starting to go through chemo for a non-Hodgkins lymphoma (she's okay); and smoothies were recommended as a way for her to effortlessly take in some extra calories.  For my 80-something-year-old stepfather, for whom smoothies are not part of his daily experience, you would have thought the nurses had recommended he feed her on homemade Beef Wellington.  I gave demos.  My stepfather watched carefully, frowned.  They bought an immersion blender.  Still, it was rumored that , after I left, smoothies did not get made until my mom felt enough better to go back into the kitchen.

So maybe it IS rocket science, after all.  I will say: I work at a restaurant that sells a variety of fresh blended juices, fruit-and-yogurt drinks, and milkshakes.  Sometimes a customer comes in and asks for "a smoothie," and looks perturbed when asked to elaborate further.  What might they be looking for in their smoothie?  Do they just want fruit and ice and such?  Do they want yogurt and milk?  Do they want something with ice cream?  The weird part is, some of them don't know.  They are accustomed to ordering a "smoothie," and having not the faintest idea what they are putting into their mouths.

While smoothies can take an infinite variety of forms, the following basic formula is how I go about making a smoothie.  I generally make about 32 oz. of smoothie at once, which is enough for two tall glasses, one for me and one for my husband.  Also note that we treat these smoothies as a meal, not a beverage.  Therefore they have enough calories for a light meal, and always contain some fat and protein.  If you make a habit of drinking them as a beverage in addition to a meal, you will get fat.

Basic formula:

• 2 c. liquid, such as nut milk, soy milk, coconut water.  For a while I used juice, but my husband found that the sugar content was making him feel queasy.  Cow milk does not agree with us too well, so I rarely use that.
• About 2 t. protein powder.  I do not like the texture of protein powder, so I keep it minimal, but add a little for the nutritional boost.
• Fat.  This is necessary to make the smoothie filling.  An avocado, a couple tablespoons of nut butter, canned coconut milk,  or sour cream are all good candidates.
• Enough fruit and vegetables to fill the blender to the 4 c. mark.  The fruit can be anything you desire and/or want to use up: bananas, mangoes, berries, peaches, melon, kiwi, cherries, pineapple.  It is nice to use a little bit of frozen fruit, as it chills the smoothie.  A few leaves of leafy greens ( e.g., spinach, lettuce, kale) really give the smoothie depth of flavor as well as beneficial nutrients.  Remember to remove tough stems and ribs from leaves such as kale.
• Optional: yogurt, anything else you are looking to use up.

Here are some examples of smoothies that followed this basic formula, and ended up being exceptionally tasty:

Coconut-Lime smoothie:
1 3/4 cups coconut water
1/4 c.  limeade (or use all coconut water and a little lime juice if you want to cut the sugar)
1 whole avocado
1/4 c. plain Greek yogurt
2 t. protein powder
1/2 c. fresh blueberries
1 small mango, or 1/2 a large mango
about 3 leaves kale, large ribs removed
 
Fruity Pear smoothie:
2 c. pear juice
2 t. hemp protein powder
1 avocado
1/4 c. blueberries
1 banana
half dozen or so strawberries
a few leaves of red leaf lettuce
 
Classic Strawberry-Banana smoothie:
1/4 c. coconut water
1 3/4 c. cashew milk
1/2 c. vanilla yogurt
1 c. canned coconut milk
2 t. hemp protein powder
1 banana
half dozen strawberries
 
Peanut-butter-Banana smoothie
2 c. almond milk
2 t. hemp protein powder
3 T. peanut butter
1 banana
1 small mango (or 1/2 large mango)
1/4 c. blueberries
1/4 c. frozen peaches
a few small leaves of romaine lettuce, or 1-2 large leaves
 
 Super-Vanilla Fruit smoothie:
1 3/4 c.vanilla soy milk
1/4 c. vanilla almond milk
1/2 c. vanilla yogurt
2 T. peanut butter
1/2 large mango
1/2 c. frozen strawberries
1/2 c. blueberries
1/4. c. cantaloupe

Finally, a morning when I do not need to go to work.  Breakfast, however, remains the same: lemon water, black coffee (I just feel like it), smoothie made of coconut milk from a carton, plain yogurt, canned pumpkin, hemp protein powder, peanut butter, strawberries, banana and kale.  This was a top-notch smoothie and I would make it again.  For each 16 oz-ish smoothie:

• 1 cup coconut milk from a carton
• 2 T. plain yogurt
• 1 T. canned pumpkin (optional)
• 1 t. protein powder of your choice
• 2 T. natural peanut butter
• 1-3 strawberries, depending on size
• 1/2 banana
• about 2 medium-sized leaves kale

After breakfast and a shower, I have a cup of decaf coffee, this time with half and half, while I write.  At noon, I switch to regular coffee and also switch to reading (Martha Grimes' The Anodyne Necklace).  For lunch, I have Whole Foods tequila-lime tortilla chips (actually I had a few of these before lunch as well), with Whole Foods guacamole from last Friday that has become fairly discolored but is still good!, and the last of the pickled shallots; also a dish of sliced almonds.

At 3:00, after a trip to the store and a run, I have another cup of decaf with half and half, while beginning to plot out a backpacking trip my kid and I are planning to do at the end of this month.

Shopping (Co-op): mouthwash, pomegranate cranberry juice, canned papaya chunks, 3 avocados, frozen peaches, frozen strawberries, cherry lemonade, cocoa butter stick for skin care, Rudi's 7-grain bread, probiotics for husband.  $62 (mostly the probiotics).

Afterwards, I realize I meant to buy some kind of nice bakery bread, not sliced sandwich bread like Rudi's.  I give kid $12 and send them down the street to the bakery, instructing them to get a good loaf of bread (around $6-7) and keep the change as payment for the job, and/or buy themselves a bakery treat.  Kid comes home with something unusual (pesto-asiago bread, perhaps?) and eating a rosemary shortbread cookie.  I'd told kid to get any kind of bread they wanted.  But it did not occur to me that pesto-asiago was a possible outcome.

While kid gets the bread, I start the dried chickpeas cooking, in order to make Madhur Jaffrey's Spanish-Style Spinach with Chickpeas for dinner.  I also make the dough for Molly Yeh's cardamom-lingonberry hamantaschen, finally.   Then the chickpeas need to cook and the dough to chill for a good couple of hours.  Meanwhile, I wash dishes, prep the spinach and garlic, feed the cat, catch up on my food diary, look at stuff on Facebook.  Around 6:30, I check the chickpeas-- soft.  Get the spinach dish cooking while I roll out the dough for the hamantaschen.

About this time I realize there is no sugar in the hamantasch dough.  Really?  I check the recipe again.  Nope.  I guess pies don't have sugar in the crust.  Yeh says to use powdered sugar to "flour" the board when the dough is rolled out.  I've never heard of doing this, and the whole process ends up very sticky and not particularly efficient.  I end up patting out a lot of the circles with my hands instead of rolling.  Still, in the end I have 19 serviceable-looking hamantaschen.  I may have underbaked them a little.  They are softer and more tender than I expected, also less sweet.  But my husband, for whom I baked them as his "pie-of-the-month" (er, the month of March-- we're a bit behind), really likes them.  I certainly think they are okay too.

​But what I really liked was the Spinach with Chickpeas!  Apart from the fact that it takes forever to boil the dried chickpeas, this is a simple recipe.  And you could always go with canned.  Lots of pungent spices.  And I found that long boiling of the spinach with the lid off (having added some extra water), as the recipe instructs, results in much more pleasant results than spinach boiled with the lid on.  The texture is so much less mushy.  I may do this from now on.  We served the spinach and chickpea dish simply, in bowls with hunks of the pesto-asiago bread on the side.

For dessert, while watching The Great British Bake-off on YouTube, we ate two hamantaschen apiece.

Well, drat.  Maybe all that low-appetite and crappy feeling and exhaustion after work last night and so forth was because I was getting sick.  Not much doubt about it now.  Still hanging in there, though; it's not too serious as yet.

Breakfast: kid's leftover half-sandwich from last night (white bean pate, cheese, pea shoots, on rye).  Additional slice of rye toast with butter and jam.

Lunch: open-faced sandwich (because I only had one slice of bread left) of ham, melted gouda, and pickles; 2 mandarin oranges.

Shopping (Co-op, when I decide my headache is better and I feel well enough to walk over there; this was a mistake): pint of Fage whole milk Greek yogurt, half & half, raspberry & cream bulk granola, package of 6 challah rolls, 2 cans cat food, maple syrup, blackberries, strawberries, cage-free white eggs.  $46 (what? the challah rolls cost $8.69?).

Dinner: banana-peach muffins in the Amy Dacyczyn pattern, bowls of plain Greek yogurt with berries, maple syrup, and granola.  I have never really had Greek yogurt served this way before (my household is partial to the little flavored cups), and it is surprisingly delicious.  So much creamier, so much less tart than a low-fat plain yogurt.  It would probably even taste good without sweetening it with maple syrup.  A revelation.  Except, another revelation: I feel queasy after eating it.  Too much dairy again.  Better in small quantities.  Or maybe I am just sick.

Snacks: 3 cups of coffee, 2 regular, 1 decaf, with half and half.  Cup of Echinacea Plus tea mid-morning.  Cup of Pero with honey and half & half in late morning, and another one in the mid-afternoon.  I'm not exactly pushing fluids on purpose, but it is working out that way.  A mandarin orange while making dinner, because I was on the phone a long time with a friend and started dinner late and I am starving.