Making the Best of a Bad Situation

Remember last week when I said Mother Nature was in a bad mood and it was snowing - well this week she is PISSED.  Not sure why but we’ve got one hell of a storm heading our way with predictions of 12 inches of snow, ice, sleet - well you name it, it’s coming. 

So I guess the only thing to do is cook right? In anticipation of Snowmageddon I took a trip to the grocery store yesterday and got some groceries and this afternoon I cooked up a batch of vegetarian tortilla soup and vegan gluten free sweet potato flat bread - nom nom nom delicious. 

Before I get into recipes, what is it about bad weather that drives people to the grocery store - because honestly if you are like me you have enough food in your freezer/pantry to get you through weeks or the zombie apocalypse (which ever comes first). 

I was talking to my friend Irene (who lives in Texas) today and she said they were looking at tornados and bad storms, which she says always empties out the bread, milk and eggs out of the store - we both had a good laugh.  

So back to food and recipes :-) 

The tortilla soup was easy to prepare, chopping and dicing took about 15 minutes and the rest was crock pot magic. To be honest I broke my number one rule - saute onions in a pan before putting them into the crock pot - and at 5pm I was annoyed. I ended up pouring the soup into a stock pot, putting it on the stove and cooking it until it was done. Next time - do not skip the golden rule - saute onions first!

The sweet potato bread was an experiment - while we are not gluten free - the recipe looked interesting and it did not disappoint. While Dan likes his fluffy bread I love the dense texture and the flavor of the sweet potato and spices. I will definitely make this again.

Vegetarian Tortilla Soup

Ingredients:

2 cans pinto beans (if you are a purist you can make them from scratch in your nifty  instant pot)

1 onion - diced

3 - 4 cloves of garlic - thinly sliced

3 cups tomatoes - diced

1 -2 jalepeno peppers - thinly sliced

4 - 5 cups veggie broth 

1 T chili powder

1 tsp cumin

tortilla chips (optional)

avocados (optional)

Instructions:

Saute onion in a pan with 1 T of olive oil until translucent. Add onion and all ingredients into a crock pot and cook on high for 3 - 4 hours. Serve with tortilla chips and avocado

Sweet Potato Flatbread

First, thanks to The Healthy Apple for the recipe, you can find the full version with totally awesome photos here

Ingredients:

1 large sweet potato peeled and diced

1 Tbsp. ground flaxseeds

3 Tbsp. water

2 1/2 cups almond flour

1 tsp. dried thyme

1 tsp. fresh chopped rosemary

1/2 tsp. sea salt plus an extra pinch

2 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.Steam the sweet potato in a steamer basket in a pot on the stove top until tender, about 10 minutes over medium high heat.

Combine the flaxseeds and water in a small bowl and set aside for 10 minutes or until the mixture becomes gel-like then mix well.

In a large bowl, mash the cooked sweet potatoes. Add the remaining ingredients and mix well to form a 'dough'. Transfer the 'dough' to a parchment lined rimmed baking sheet and flatten with your hands into a ½ inch thickness.

Bake for 35 minutes or until the flatbread is golden brown and the edges turn golden brown. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool for 20 minutes.

Cut into rectangle pieces and serve.