Touchdown! Plants Win!

It took just two hours to chop and mix all the dips and such for our Super Bowl snacks. In that time I also pre-baked the veggie burgers so all I had to do was heat them up. I made hummus, bean dip and guacamole. I sliced carrots and cut up cauliflower.

The big hit of the night was the chips. They were fabulous! Crispy, salty and very tasty. I don’t know if I’ve ever had better in any Mexican restaurant. Lee said it was my best cooking day ever and believes now we stick to this plant-based eating forever.

Amazing what a little chip and dip will do for a couple of chees-o-holics!

Hummus

Mix everything in a food processor

1 can chick peas with 3/4 liquid

juice of 1/2 lemon

handful of fresh parsley

1/4 sweet onion

1 clove garlic

3 Kalamato olives

2 slices sun-dried tomato

sprinkle of red pepper flakes

salt

pepper

Guacamole

mix all in food processor

3 avocados

1/4 sweet onion

handful fresh parsley

salt pepper

sprinkle of garlic powder

Bean Dip

Mix in food processor and serve warm

1 can refried beans

1/4 sweet onion

1 clove garlic

2 squirts hot sauce

sprinkle red pepper flakes

generous sprinkle chili powder

dash chipotle chili powder

salt

pepper

(very creamy!)

Veggie Burgers

Mix  in food processor

1/4 cup peanuts

1/2 cup oats

add to above and mix in food processor,

3/4 can black beans- drained and rinsed

1 can chick peas- drained, save liquid

1/4 sweet onion

1 clove garlic

2 grated carrots

salt

pepper

1/4 tsp chili powder

dash chipotle chili powder

Transfer to a bowl and add the remaining 1/4 can black beans, gently stirring in whole beans

Form into patties and bake on cookie sheet sprayed with cooking spray at 300 for 30 minutes, turning halfway through.

It made 11  4 1/2 inch round “sliders” which I reheated in dry frying pan just before serving. We ate them on Arnold Sandwich Thins Minis. These little buns have 1 gm of fat and 100 calories per two!

The highlight of the night, though was the chips.

Tortilla Chips

1 package corn tortillas. Check the package and make sure they have no added fat. All they need to be is corn and water.

I cut each one in 8 sections

I sprayed a cookie sheet with cooking spray

spread out the tortilla sections

I spritzed each panful of chips lightly with oil

Sprinkled all with salt

baked at 300 for about ten minutes, until crisp

The PERFECT CHIP!

I also learned a couple of things for future reference. One, I think I’ll add a little pinto bean to the hummus next time. The bean dip was as creamy as a custard, so maybe the pinto bean will add a bit of missing creaminess to the homemade hummus. The veggie burgers I’ve made in the past have had far more ingredients. I’m still not sure how these held together, but they did. They weren’t gooey inside either. I like them being the right color, too, the color a burger oughta be. I suppose that is the essence of my food preference. I don’t mind a little strangeness now and them. I love trying new things. Still, I want my food to look like “my” food.

Our Super Bowl Fare looked like our food. It tasted like our food. It just lacked a gazillion fat grams and all animal protein. We didn’t even miss the cheese. Yea us!

Along with our renewed commitment to plants, we are also walking. We live across from one of the most beautiful lakes in Georgia and can see water from the windows on three sides of our home. Less than 1/4 mile away are two parks, one in each direction. At one of these parks, a sandbar exposed by the drought of the last year, connects the land to a couple of islands that could only be gotten to by boat in rainier times. We’ve been driving to that park and walking across the sandbar to the island.

That island now connects to another island and then to another by drought exposed sand. I stop often and rest, sitting on rocks or fallen trees. We watch the sailboats while the water gently laps at the shore. We watch the sun rise and set and sometimes the moon. We visit with other walkers and meet other doggie friends for Sam. Summer’s crowds are absent and the sandy beaches of the piney isles are occupied by only the birds and the deer and the squirrels and a few grateful humans and canines humbly passing through. We catch ourselves whispering , as if we are in a church or even invading a space we aren’t really supposed to be. The sandbars and the season has allowed us access to an untouched place humans haven’t been allowed to deface or pollute. Our noise and our convenience haven’t “improved” these few dozen acres. We don’t take this gift lightly, but tread lightly there instead.

I have never loved the Winter so much. By now, I am usually counting the days until Spring. I don’t take the gift of this season lightly or the ability to walk it at all. I walked it yesterday between the chopping and the ballgame with one of our daughters and her boyfriend. She asked me how it felt to be able to walk again. “Triumphant.”