GREENS: Spinach, Potato & Chickpea 'Roti'; Collards with Rice; Collards With Potatoes and Mushrooms; Chard with Tortillas

SPINACH, POTATO & CHICKPEA 'ROTI'

One of my favourite things to eat when we're out is Chickpea and Potato Roti - Jamaican style. Well, I don't know anything about that (never having been there) but as you know I love hot and spicy food. So one lunchtime I scrambled together some spinach out of a frozen pack, added onions and garlic browned in a pan to go with it, and tossed in some pre-cooked chickpeas out of my freezer along with a sprinkling of this and that from my Indian spices. Well, so far we had a 'stew' (smelling wonderful, I admit) but nothing to set it off. Fishing in the freezer for some tortilla wraps (desperate, wasn't I?), I quickly steamed them up and used them as an impromptu 'roti' to enclose, more or less, the vegetables that were simmering in the pan.Needing some salad-type things, I sliced heirloom tomatoes and, for the sake of the greens, quartered a lemon. The result was delicious - and quick to prepare. I have made it, with various greens from the refrigerator, several times since :) Leftovers work well too!

The next dish, also inspired by the perceived need to Eat More Greens was simple:

COLLARDS WITH POTATOES AND MUSHROOMS



Rather than curried, this dish had the advantage of chilies and cumin to spice it up. The usual suspects - garlic and mushrooms - worked together with some lovely fresh collard greens from the market, and a lone 4 or 5 ounce potato was finely diced to cook with them in the same amount of time. Mushrooms, barely cooked at all, completed the picture. A little garnish, and the very simple meal was a delight.

COLLARDS WITH RICE



Similar to the dishes above, above is another dish with lots of lovely greens, cooked with the usual suspects and probably a few more:)

Well, someone put me onto the idea that not everyone is as lucky as we are and is able to tolerate gluten. (That's the stuff in many flours, folks, which plays riot with some systems.) We don't eat a lot of bread, but I was feeling rather smug about using the whole wheat tortilla wrap earlier (see above) and thought maybe I should get out of that. What to have instead? Well, I can't buy corn tortillas easily here (perhaps I shop in the wrong places), so I was going to have to make corn tortillas myself. I got a little yellow corn flour (that I _did_ find) and found recipes on the net.

Whoooooooo-ooooo! Are you all laughing now??????? Did I have any clue as to how difficult it was to make a corn tortilla? Nooooo, I did NOT! LOL So here, a very humbling admission, is my first attempt at tortillas.



Not a pretty sight, are they? ;) What didn't fall apart got stuck to the pan or got overcooked! However, I still have some corn flour left and I will - I definitely will - keep trying, because the taste was great all the same.

I put a couple of the more acceptable results to have as flatbread with my lunch of greens with whatever (can't recall just now). Not bad. Truly, not bad!



By these little acts of humility shall thee know them!

Cranberry Borscht, Cranberry Bread, Eggplant & Okra Stew, green salad

CRANBERRY BORSCHT

This recipe is such a hit here that we have made huge batches of it twice now and can see no way of improving it. It comes straight from Finlayson's 125 Best Vegetarian Slow Cooker Recipes - with the difference that, for some reason or other, we have always made it on top of the stove instead.

Here you see it, returned to a pan to reheat a portion for the two of us after being blended. So rich and creamy! And that colour!!!!!

What is different and nice about Finlayson's recipe is that instead of cabbage it uses the greens of the beets you use for the soup. No other vegetables, barring garlic, are added, but cranberries, orange and orange zest, etc., instead. Look it up - it's a winner!!!

Oh - I should add that once we didn't have the beet greens to go with the beets ;) so we used chard instead. It was also very good, and okay to remember in a pinch, but the use of beet greens is something I've not run across before (all my borscht recipes have used cabbage) and it's a real treat in this recipe. I haven't found a recipe in here that I haven't loved!

CRANBERRY BREAD



This bread comes from Sarah Kramer's excellent La Dolce Vegan! and is called there 'Jen's Raisin Soda Bread'. The use of cranberries instead of raisins and the addition of orange zest is a suggested variant. Otherwise, it is a standard soda bread (but the best recipe I have tried for it!) with caraway seeds. Absolutely delicious! We've made it twice now and it is absolutely no-fail.



EGGPLANT & OKRA STEW

Again this recipe started out to be another one entirely, but really I rarely follow a recipe (except for baking - and not always then) and I like to use what I have in the refrigerator and cupboards - unless of course it's for something special. I had a large eggplant and I had green bell pepper - and some frozen okra, a large can of tomatoes. Sounded like a stew to me, and so it was.

In a hurry as always, I cut the eggplant into smallish pieces and didn't bother with sweating and draining it first.

1 onion, chopped
1 large eggplant, chopped into 1-inch or less pieces
1-1/2 tsp minced garlic
1 tsp oregano
1 large can low-sodium tomatoes (28 ounces)
1 Tbsp Annie's vegan Worcestershire Sauce
1/2 tsp crushed dried red chilies
2 Tbsp red wine vinegar
freshly ground black pepper
1 pkg (10 ounces) frozen okra, thawed and trimmed and cut into 3/4-inch pieces
1 green bell pepper, diced

Cook onion in a little wataer until softened in a pot large enough to hold everything. Add all but the last two ingredients and bring back to the boil, reduce heat and cook until nearly done. Be careful not to overcook the eggplant - you don't want mush. Add the okra and bell pepper and cook until just done - these should still give a little resistance to the bite. Taste for seasoning and serve with your favourite grain, alone, or with a crusty bread.

And here's a quick photo of the salad we had too - my little bit of propaganda just in case it converts one more person to eating salads too! ;)