Month: September 2020

by

More Plant-Based Meal Ideas

This is Part II of my plant-based meal ideas to help you feed your family healthy, tasty meals without stressing about meat shortages in grocery stores–or to help you get started on a plant-based diet regardless of pandemic supply issues. For Part I, click here.

Hippie Power Bowl

Nothing brings out my inner hippie more than a simple, healthy, super-tasty dish. And this Hippie Bowl is just that. I recently dug out a clipping for the Hippie Bowl from a 2015 issue of Rodale’s Organic Life. Of course, I changed it up a little to fit what I had on hand— which goes to show you can be a little flexible with the ingredients. It takes a little preparation time, but it stores well in the refrigerator if you want to prepare it a day ahead.

I made this just for me and it made four tasty lunches. To prepare it as the main course for a family of four or so, you may want to double the recipe. If you’re lucky enough to have leftovers, store the extra in the refrigerator. A zap in the microwave is all you need for a quick lunch.

Ingredients:

1 cup cooked short-grain brown rice
1 cup broccoli florets
1 cup sliced mushrooms of your choice (I used baby portabellos)
1 large carrot
1/2 medium onion, sliced lengthwise
2 Tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
1/4 cup tahini
2 Tbsp lemon juice
2 tsp tamari, soy sauce, or teriyaki sauce
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 cup water

Directions:

Preheat oven to 425. In a large bowl, mix broccoli, mushrooms, carrot, and onion with olive oil and salt and pepper until vegetables are well-coated. Place on a parchment-lined baking tray and roast for 20-30 minutes until lightly browned.

While veggies are roasting, whisk remaining ingredients together until smooth.

Stir rice into vegetable mixture and mix in half the tahini sauce. (Reserve the rest to dress a salad or as a dip for raw vegetable sticks. It’s yummy!)

Serve with a few avocado slices or a green salad.

Slow Cooker Chili with Winter Squash

I found this fabulous recipe at the Real Simple website. It has become a real family favorite at our house—comfort food that’s healthy and a real treat on chilly winter nights. You can use sweet potatoes or any winter squash. Our favorite is butternut. Pumpkin is just as good. If you think the addition of cocoa and cinnamon is a little weird, give it a try anyway. They add piquancy without being identifiable.

It only takes twenty or so minutes to put this together. Then you can walk away and forget it. Yield: 4-6 servings.

Ingredients:

1 medium onion, chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped
4 garlic cloves, chopped
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 tablespoon ground cumin
2 teaspoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2(+) teaspoon ground cinnamon
kosher salt and black pepper
1 28-ounce can fire-roasted diced tomatoes or 1 qt home canned tomatoes
15.5-ounce can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 15.5-ounce can kidney beans, rinsed and drained
2 medium sweet potatoes or one butternut squash, peeled and cut into 1⁄2-inch pieces
sour cream, sliced scallions, sliced radishes, and tortilla chips, for serving

Directions:

In a 4- to 6-quart slow cooker, combine all ingredients. Add one cup water.
Cover and cook until the sweet potatoes are tender and the chili has thickened, on low for 6-7 hours or high for 3-4. (Check the last hour of cooking to see if you need to add more water—or tomato juice if you have it.)

Add your favorite toppings: grated cheese, sour cream, green onions and/or crushed tortilla chips.

Cream Curry Casserole

This oldie but goody is so old—it comes from our earliest hippie-ish days—I’ve forgotten its source. I think we may have found it in one of Frances Moore Lappé’s Small Planet books. It has always been a favorite. I’ll be the first to admit, though, that even though its flavor is mild, this one may not go over well with any unadventurous young eaters in your household. Yield: 6-8 servings.

(Note: If you have trouble finding dry milk powder, this ingredient can be omitted.)

Ingredients:

2 cups cooked brown rice
1 can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
2 T butter
1 T arrowroot powder or 2 T flour
2 c milk
¾ c non-fat dry milk powder
2-3 tsp curry powder

¼ c sesame seed
1 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 large carrots, diced
2 small to medium zucchini, diced
1 Tbsp lemon juice
1 Tbsp honey
olive oil for sautéing and oiling casserole dish

Directions:
Mix rice and beans together. Turn into oiled casserole dish.

Make cream sauce of butter, flour, and both milks. (To make cream sauce, melt butter over medium heat in a small saucepan. Whisk in the flour, until smooth—you may need to reduce or remove from heat to get it smooth, then return to heat, gradually whisking in milk. Bring to simmer; cook and stir for 2 minutes or until thickened.)

Sauté veggies and sesame seed until onion is transparent. Add zucchini at the end and cook for one more minute. Stir lemon juice, honey, curry into sauce, then stir into vegetable mixture. Pour over rice and beans.

To make this dish even simpler, mix all ingredients together into a large bowl, then pour the whole thing into baking dish. Bake at 350 for 20-30 minutes.

by

DAVID RAE SMITH, OPERATIC BARITONE

I had barely put the final touches on my last book Blackberries and Biscuits, the story of my mother’s life and times, last fall when a writer friend asked me what was next. I told her I needed to take a break from writing for a while.

Well, that plan lasted for about a minute. I plunged right into developing a book from previously written anecdotes of a number of my ancestors. Seemed like a pretty easy topic since I’d already done most of the work. But before I got my writing feet wet with that book, I got distracted by one particular story, that of my dad’s first cousin, David Rae Smith. Rae, as he was known in the family, had no descendants to tell his story. Nor did any of his immediate family have any descendants. I found myself a mission–and a new passion.

I’ve been hard at work researching Rae’s story ever since. I’m sad to say it’s still a long way from completion, having been interrupted by all sorts of personal, family, and world issues (can you say COVID-19?) But I’m still hard at work on it.

I think maybe it’s time to share what may become the book’s opening scene. Perhaps sharing will give me a little extra incentive to keep at it.

David Rae Smith, baritone, New York City Opera

“Look, Julius, I don’t care if he’s under contract with the Shreveport Civic Opera.. I want David Rae Smith!”

“All right, all right, Bev. I’ll make it happen.”

Of course, I don’t know if this was the exact conversation between New York City Opera Impresario Julius Rudel and his resident star mezzo soprano Beverly Sills, but it may well have gone something like that. As the March 29, 1978 issue of The Times of Shreveport, Louisiana, reported, “Smith was released from his contract at the request of Beverly Sills who wants Smith to join her in the cast of a New York City Opera production of The Merry Widow,” a show which would take place four days later.

Whether Rae needed that validation of of his talents or not, it must have felt good to the baritone to know how much the best-known diva of the era valued him. He had performed opposite Sills in San Diego the previous year, a production that was broadcast nationwide on PBS stations in late November and recorded for Angel Records. Sills must have appreciated the dynamic.

Newspapers all over the country publicized the 1977 event, usually beginning with words similar to those in New Mexico’s Deming Headlight: “Public television will present a new English-language production of Franz Lehar’s zesty operetta, The Merry Widow starring Beverly Sills Monday, November 28 on PBS as it was presented earlier this fall at the San Diego Civic Theater.

“Appearing with Miss Sills in this all-new San Diego Opera Company production will be Alan Titus, Nolan Van Way, Glenys Fowles, Ryan Allen and David Rae Smith.”

The company’s musical recording of Widow highlights was the 1978 (February 23) Grammy award winner for Best Opera Recording. (Other 1978 Grammy recipients included Luciano Pavarotti, Steve Martin, Donna Summer, Chick Corea, Al Jarreau, the BeeGees (“Saturday Night Fever”), Orson Welles, the Muppets, Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, George Benson, Ann Murray, Barry Manilow, Billy Joel and Earth, Wind and Fire.)

How did the son of an Asheville, North Carolina, letter carrier and a homemaker make his way to the Grammys and the opera and Broadway stages?

In truth, the multi-talented Rae had many career choices, and his path was the result of a multitude of happenstances—in addition, of course, to his great natural abilities.

Based on his early accomplishments, Rae could have been successful at almost any career: politics, acting, the law, concert pianist, vocalist, radio personality, scholar. It must have seemed as if the world was his pearl-studded oyster.

* * *

Rae as Professor Harold Hill in Brevard Music Center production of The Music Man, 1971, with co-stars. Photo courtesy of Brevard Music Center, Overture  magazine, 1972. Used with permission.