We recently heard a radio program in which the announcer was asked to come
up with a recipe utilizing a few foods that people had in their refrigerator.
I would like to propose a variation on this - rather than the contents of your
refrigerator, would someone list 3-5 ingredients (that they actually have in
their kitchens) and other contestants can design a dish or a meal which
include these ingredients.  The proposer, after 5 entries or a week, whichever
comes sooner, picks the most appetizing solution, and the winner posts the
next 3-5 ingredients.  I will start by asking for a way to use:
cooked chickpeas, cooked brown rice, the upper leaves from brussels sprouts
(they taste a lot like collards), a lemon, and frozen tomato puree.
Please come up with either a single dish or a menu which include all these.
(I have already done so for tonight's supper, except for the tomatoes which
have not thawed yet).  And please keep this vegan (no meat eggs or dairy).

21 responses total.

Saute some garlic in olive oil, add the chick peas and the tomato
puree, serve over the rice, squeeze lemon on it to taste, throw
away the brussels sprouts.

[I should add you can substitute butter for the olive oil and onion
for the garlic.  Also, you probably ought to squeeze the lemon over
the rice before you ladle on the chick peas and tomato puree.  I have
to assume that every kitchen has olive oil, garlic and onions, whatever
else it might lack.  All good things, including world peace and an
end to poverty, start with onion or garlic sauteeing in butter or
olive oil.]

We do have those three listed ingredients, and since we steamed the greens
yesterday but did not use up the rice etc., we could try your recipe today,
but you will not win this particular game without finding a use for all of
the listed ingredients.  The greens were excellent, much sweeter than actual
brussels sprouts and much more tender.  SOunds like the same recipe I learned
in Italy for tomato sauce, from the director of a youth hostel with a kitchen
who looked horrified as I was about to dump a can of tomato puree over my
spaghetti and taught me to cook instead.
        Jim wants to make hummus, which is why we have a bag of lemons.

[grumble grumble] Okay, saute some chopped garlic in olive oil,
then throw in the greens, let them cook down, then throw in the
chick peas and let it all simmer for a few minutes.  Add the tomato
puree and reduce it to a nice consistancy.  Heat up the rice 
separately, flavor it with a little lemon juice, and serve the chick pea 
mixture over it.  Go easy on the lemon juice.  

Sounds good, maybe tomorrow.  Today Jim ordered potatoes.  (We do have the
brussels sprouts still, just not the leaves, maybe I would want to steam them
rather than trying to fry with garlic.)
Are there other suggestions?

How about:

Process chick peas in blender, adding lemon juice until smoothish.
Mix brown rice into chick pea puree.  Cut leaf greens to about 
4" X 4" squares and wrap up a few teaspoons (tablespoons, whatever) 
of the mixture in each square.  Secure with toothpicks.  Arrange in 
baking dish, cover with tomato puree, bake at 375 until tender.
Salt & pepper to taste.  

(Mary is left wondering why md hasn't been
 sharing his specific tips more often, as they
 sound wonderful!)

(Nobody ever asked.)  Thank you, Mary.  

We tried your first recipe yesterday (the modificatin with greens) but
substituted potatoes for rice and cabbage for brussels sprout greens, and had
to boil the cabbage for a while in the tomato puree to get it cooked.  The
stuffed greens recipe also sounds good as stuffed cabbage, had not thought
of combining rice with chickpeas that way.
        I am hoping for four more suggestions on how to use these ingredients,
of which we have an ample supply.  They don't all have to be combined in one
dish.

For breakfast we had chickpeas on mashed warmed-up potatoes with olive oil
and lemon juice and paprika.  Doesn't anyone besides Michael ever cook
chickpeas?  If nobody responds by tomorrow, his turn to list ingredients.

(Since you asked: I'm a *very* frequent chickpea eater.)

Garbanzos!  :}

So how do you prepare garbanzos?  We have several gallons of them, and lots
of rice and frozen tomato puree and lemons.  Today Jim brought lunch o
Kiwanis - boiled Michgan dinner, consisting of boiled potatoes, chickpeas,
and cabbage soaked in olive oil.  And a stale donut, we were busy.  

Michael, would you like to list a few ingredients?

Is it possible that people plan all their meals ahead instead of just cooking
whatever is on hand?  And by the way, what types of foods do people always
have on hand, what do they consider absolute basics?  About all that we always
have is cooking oil, and we usually have rice and oatmeal but can manage
without them, and usually have onions and garlic but not always.  Tonight I
made something yummy with potatoes (boiled) over which a sauce of friend
onions and garlic, frozen mustard greens (from market), tomato puree (from
friend's tomatoes), fried sunflower seeds and reconstituted shiitake
mushrooms, which we will make again often (with variations).

   most of my cooking is with whatever's lying around the kitchen, but
i'm an unrepentant non-vegan.  things i tend to always have on hand:
olive oil, garlic, onions, pasta, rice, cans of tomato sauce or stewed
tomatoes, other random veggies (depending on how recently i was at the
store), some kind of meat in the freezer, tuna, boxed macaroni and
cheese, milk, cheese, and bread.  i tend to eat a lot of sandwiches.
when i do cook, most of the time it's either soup or some sort of
throw-it-all-in-one-pot-and-see-how-it-comes-out thing (mostly because
i detest cooking for one).

Due to lack of interest in this conf, I asked the same question in agora, see
Staple Foods item.  Amazing how many people consider boxed macaroni and cheese
a staple food, and how nobody keeps canned soup on hand anymore, or jello.

Well, we could try using this item to discuss new ingredients.  I just bought
a bag of almond meal and wonder how it might be used.  I tried thickening some
watery vegetables with it, sort of like cream.  Raw meal, but cooked up nice.
How have other people used almonds in any form?

Re various long-ago responses:
Things to use garbanzos in: hummus, pasta sauce, Indian-like foods, curries,
dal, soups, etc.

There are probably over 100 items that we consider staples and always have
on-hand in the kitchen, from milk to oregano to noodles to cooking oil to
flour to oats, and on and on.  When we don't have a new baby in the house to
complicate things, once every week and a half or two weeks we plan a week's
worth of meals, make a shopping list, and then go to the co-op to buy the
ingredients we need.  After those ingredients run out we scavenge around the
kitchen or eat out or go to the co-op.

Re almonds: I've used them mostly as a garnish, or as an ingredient in the
"turkeyless tetrazini" recipe that I found in Vegetarian Times two or three
years ago, adored, and then misplaced.  :(

I can't recall the last time we actually wrote up a shopping list for food.
I did send Jim to get apples and onions at the market, but we plan around what
is in season, not what is in a recipe.  Currently we have a lot of root
vegetables and cabbage - any good ideas for kohlrabi, rutabaga, beets,
carrots, potatoes, red cabbage, pink or black winter radish?  I stir fried
onions, garlic and rutabage slivers and added cold rice and pickled radish
and microwaved frozen mustard greens and cold chickpeas, pretty good.

   re canned soup: homemade soup tends to be cheaper and taste better.

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